GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – GIFT OF EXHORTATION
DR. JIM DIXON
SEPTEMBER 15, 1985
2 PETER 1:1-19
It’s called Coca Cola. The most popular soft drink in the world today. Everyday people in 155 nations down 250 million bottles and cans of Coke. Most of them don’t have the slightest idea what they’re drinking. Ninety nine percent of the ingredients in Coca Cola are known. The drink consists of sugar, carbonated water, caramel, phosphoric acid, caffeine and spent coca leaves and cola nuts. But Coca Cola also has some mystery ingredients called Merchandise 7X. The contents of Merchandise 7X are known to only ten people in the world today. It’s hard to believe in this day of sophisticated chemical analysis, but for 80 years chemists have tried to isolate the ingredients for Merchandise 7X and they have failed. The formula for Merchandise 7X is stored in a vault in the Trust Company of Georgia and that vault cannot be opened except by the permission of the board of Directors of the Coca Cola Company. This formula is protected by the United States Food and Drug Administration exemptions and it’s all part of the mystique of a multibillion-dollar soft drink industry, and it all began for Coca Cola in the year 1886 when a man named Dr. John Pemberton created the original Coca Cola formula. The formula remains essentially the same today with the exception of the fact that today’s Coke no longer contains cocaine.
In the early days in the in the early years, Coca Cola was promoted, advertised, as being able to provide two benefits to consumers. First of all, it was said Coca Cola can soothe headaches and secondly, it was said Coca Cola can lift spirits. The Coca Cola Company no longer claims these two benefits today, and it’s doubtful that Coke ever provided these things, but the Bible tells us that there is something which does provide these two benefits, these two blessings, and that is something is called the Gift of Exhortation.
I have two teachings this morning. The first teaching is this. The Gift of Exhortation is able to soothe your headaches. The Greek word for exhortation is the word paraclean. The noun form is the word paraclete. It’s not always an easy word to translate but it’s sometimes referred to a counselor, one who is able to comfort, one who is able to console, one who is able to bring comfort to somebody who is suffering or hurting. We live in a world where many people are hurting. Many people need comforting, and as Christians, we’re not immune from problems. Christians experience depression and Christian’s experience fear and anxiety and suffering and tragedy and sorrow. We need people to comfort us and that’s why God has given this very special gift.
Most people would consider Martin Luther to be perhaps one of the greatest Christians in all of history. He was not a perfect man. He drank more than he should have. His language was not always exemplary. He had a love for Christ that ran deep and a commitment to the work of the Kingdom of Christ in this world. He had courage to stand against the Roman Papacy and against the rulers and magistrates of Europe. When he nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Whittenburg, he risked his very life and he knew that. He had tremendous faith in the protective power of Jesus Christ, and he expressed that faith in that great hymn of the church, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” one of my favorite hymns.
When we think of Martin. Luther, we think of a man who was strong, but he was also a tender man with a tender heart. Sometimes many Christians don’t realize that it was Martin Luther who wrote the Christmas hymn, “Away in A Manger.” His letters to his children were among the classics of reformation literature. Martin Luther had a great love for children., and the same spirit that enabled him to stand before kings was broken when his daughter, Magdalena died. Before Magdalena became sick, Martin Luther had said that no bishop in a thousand years had ever received a gift so wonderful as he had received in her. When she became ill, he prayed day and night that the Lord might deliver her from death. As she became increasingly ill, and it became evident that she was not going to make it he relinquished her into the hands of the Lord saying, “not my will but thy will be done.” He went into Magdalena’s bedroom, and he told her that she might soon be in Heaven, and his daughter said that she did not want to go to Heaven, she wanted to remain on earth and be with him. Martin Luther reminded her that she had a greater Father and that soon He might call her home, and she said, “however God wills.” When she died, Martin Luther wept bitterly for days and for weeks and for months. In fact, he once said that it was hard to imagine that a Christian could be so confident that a loved one was safely in the hands of Christ and at the same time be so riddled with sorrow.
But that’s what life is sometimes like in this world. All of us experience the death of loved ones. we live long enough; we experience the death of our mom and dad or a brother and sister, perhaps even a child and certainly a friend. We need people to comfort us in this life and most of us need comforted every week, simply because life in this world is not easy and there are stresses and strains and failures and rejections. Sometimes life is frustrating.
Last week I was watching the Bronco game. Barb’s mom and the dad were watching the game with me, and they were rooting for Los Angeles Rams. After the game, Barb’s mom and dad had to go and they took off, to a dinner with another couple here in town, and Barb had been gone throughout the game – she was running some errands—she wasn’t there, and when the game was over, I took out a book and I began to read it but I wasn’t really reading it because I was so frustrated, I was just turning pages. Barb came in the house, came home, and she looked over at me and she said, “How’s it going?” and I just vented everything! I didn’t mention the Broncos, but I just started complaining about bills and work load, about the problems here at the church. I brought everything in. There wasn’t anything left out – I think I covered the depletion of the ozone layer! Finally, when I had said everything, Barb looked over at me and she smiled. She said, “How bad did the Broncos lose?” because Barbara knows that about a half hour after a Bronco loss, I am beyond comfort.
It’s not always easy to comfort people. Barb and I have committed our lives to each other, and part of that commitment is that when one of us is feeling down or frustrated or hurt, the other one seeks to comfort and console, and the Bible tells us that all of us as Christians are brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ and we’re called to have this commitment to one another.
You may not all have the Gift of Consolation, which the Gift of Exhortation is sometimes called. You might not have the special endowments of the spirit to comfort and to console, but you are called to seek to comfort people when they are hurting.
You know, when Heather was 5 years old, she had a little pink blanket. We had given her that blanket when she was young. I don’t know how old. I remember she was in the crib and she had that blanket. She would hold that blanket. It was a source of security to her, I think, and she’d sometimes suck on corners of it, and when she began to crawl, she’d drag the blanket with her on the carpet. She would put the blanket in her suitcase when she went to visit a friend and she’d hold the blanket in the back seat of the car when we were traveling. This was a special blanket, and she didn’t want to give it up to just anybody. She held it as a source of security and comfort. When she was five and Drew was about three, Drew fell outside the house as he was playing with some friends, and he was trying to do something and wasn’t able to do it and he came in. His knee was scraped. I think his ego was a little damaged too. He was crying and we cleaned the wound out and put some hydrogen peroxide on it and a band aid and Drew then went up to his room. He was still feeling kind of down and crying a little bit and we saw Heather to and look in the door. She went in and sat by Drew and began to pat him on the back and say, “it’s okay.” It didn’t seem to comfort Drew a whole lot though, but Heather continued and then her eyes grew big and you could tell something big had just occurred to her. She went past us and into her bedroom and got her little pink blanket and she came back into Drew’s bedroom and gave Drew the little pink blanket. I don’t think that blanket meant a whole lot to Drew, but Barb and I were really pleased that Heather had this desire, this heart, to want to comfort and console, and that’s really all that God expects of us – that we would seek to comfort and console people when they are hurting – that every day we would look for people who are wounded and we would seek to heal the brokenhearted.
You know no one comforts like Jesus Christ. It’s Jesus Christ who gives the Holy Spirit and He is called the paraclete. He is called the Comforter. It’s Jesus Christ who says just the words we need to hear. It’s Jesus Christ who said, “Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. When I come again, I will receive you unto Myself that where I am, there you may be also.” It’s Jesus Christ who said, “Peace, I leave with you. My peace I give unto you not as the world gives give I unto you.” “Let not your heart be troubled and neither let it be afraid,” It was Jesus Christ who said, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the close of the age.” It was Jesus Christ who said, “Why are you anxious about your life, saying what shall I eat, what shall I drink, what shall I wear? Consider the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them all and are you not of much more value than they? Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to your span of life? Do not be anxious saying what shall I eat, what shall I drink, what shall I wear. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin; and yet I tell you that Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these and if God so clothed the lilies of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you oh ye of little faith,” Words of comfort. We who believe in Jesus Christ, we who have committed our lives to Him as Lord and Savior are now called to share in His ministry and if we would share in His ministry, we must seek to be a comfort, a consolation to other people.
There’s a small little verse, a little passage in the book of II Corinthians in the first chapter where the Apostle Paul says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all mercies, the God of all comfort who comforts us and all our afflictions in order that we might comfort those who are afflicted with the same comfort with which we have been comforted by God.” We’ve been blessed to be a blessing. We’ve been comforted in order that we might comfort others. Some have a special gift, but all are called to comfort, to console, to counsel.
Now secondly and finally, this Gift of Exhortation can refer to a person’ ability to lift the drooping spirits of other people. It refers not always to comforting and consoling but to exhorting, to motivating, to rallying of people for a cause. Some people have a special gift in this area. The word paraclete can mean to exhort, to encourage and to motivate. This world knows that people need to be motivated and that’s why schools have cheerleaders. That’s why coaches give half-time talks. That’s why in 1928 Knute Rockne gave his “Win One for the Gipper” talk, though George Gipp had died 8 years earlier, but because of that talk, the Notre Dame football team went out on the field in the second half and defeated a previously unbeaten squad 12 to 6.
If the world needs to be motivated for the task that is ahead of them, how much more do we as Christians need to be motivated for the task that God has given us? And so he has given this Gift called Exhortation, a gift that is not only able to comfort, but to motivate and encourage.
Most of you have never heard of a man named. Stanley Riemer. He was a chemist with a large company in Southern California. Tragically, in the year 1981, Stanley had a massive heart attack and for 22 minutes his heart did not beat. That meant that, for a considerable period of time, he had no oxygen to the brain. miraculously the doctors a hospital in the intensive care room, got his heart to beat again but he remained in a death-like coma. His eyes had a glassy wide-open stare. His body did not move. He was still. His wife, Billie, was with him and she was crying by his bedside. Stanley Riemer was a good friend of Robert Schuller of Garden Grove Community Church, and when Bob Schuller heard that Stan had a heart attack, Bob. Schuller got in his car and drove to the hospital. The whole time he was praying, and he was saying to himself, “What am I going to say, Lord? What am I going to say to Billie?” He felt that the Lord gave him some words to share, some special ministry that he was to partake in, and he went to the hospital, and he sat beside Billie and he put his arm around her. He prayed with her. Then he knelt by Stanley Riemer’s bed, and he said “Stanley, I know you can’t move your eyes and I know you can’t respond, but I believe that deep down within you there’s some part of you that hears me even now. Stanley, this is your friend, Bob, and I’ve just come from church where everybody’s praying for you and I feel led of Christ to share a special message with you. You’re going to live. It’s going to be a hard journey, but you’re going to make it. You’re going to recover. You need to prepare yourself for a long, hard battle, but Stanley, you’re going to be okay.” And the next moment, an incredible thing happened. A tear came from Stanley’s left eye. He didn’t blink an eye. He didn’t say a word. Just a tear. But the doctor knew what they meant. They were stunned. They knew what Bob Schuller knew—that somehow Stanley Riemer had heard those words he’d understood.
People have different Attitudes toward Robert Schuller, and I don’t always agree with everything he says, but I do believe he has a Gift of Exhortation, and by the power of the Holy Spirit he’s been able to comfort many, encourage many, and to motivate many for the task ahead. Today Stanley Riemer is an elder at Garden Grove Community Church in California. His speech is not perfect, but it almost is. He’s being healed by the power of God. Into his darkness, there came a ray of light, as God gave a word of exhortation through Bob Schuller in that moment. A word that was comforting and also challenging with a promise, a great promise of reward but a challenge to fight.
We all have times of darkness in our life—economic failure, relational failure, perhaps sin in our life. We don’t just need words of comfort. We need to be exhorted. We need to be challenged for the task ahead. We’ve all been called to ministry in this world. That’s why Jesus said, “Go into all the world and make disciples,” but sometimes we don’t feel like ministering, and we need someone who can exhort us and motivate us to serve the great Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps you have heard of Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, the President of Campus Crusade for Christ as well. It’s the largest para-church organization in the world. Through its many ministries, thousands of Christians are employed, and it is said that millions of people have come to believe in Jesus Christ through Bill Bright and through the ministry of Campus Crusade.
I’m sure that many of you have heard of Louis Evans, Jr., Pastor of the National Presbyterians Church in Washington, D.C., the mother church of all Presbyterianism in the United States, pastor to senators and congressmen, the author of many books.
I’m sure many of you have heard of Dick Halverson, one-time pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., a great historic church of the faith, now Chaplain to the United States Senate, one of the most respected Christians in this country.
Perhaps some of you have heard of Ted Nissan, Pastor at Colonial Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, the church that Bob and our youth minister, Doug Nuenke, came out of, though Ted Nissan doesn’t want to always admit that.
Perhaps some of you have heard of Don Moomaw, three-time all-American linebacker at UCLA, who coached the Olympic weightlifting team in this past Olympics in Los Angeles and who is Pastor at Bellaire Presbyterian Church. He’s the Presbyterian pastor, the pastor to President Ronald Regan.
Perhaps some of you have heard of Bob Munger, one-time Pastor of University Pres in Seattle, one-time Pastor of First Pres, Berkeley, two of the greatest Presbyterian churches on the West Coast, and the author of that little pamphlet, My Heart Cries Home, a little pamphlet that has led thousands of people to a personl faith in Christ. He is a one-time Professor of Evangelism and Discipleship at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, and the mentor, my mentor, in my doctoral program.
Perhaps some of you have heard of Dean Wolf, who served at Silver Lake Presbyterian Church in California and then came to Faith Presbyterian Church in Aurora when it had 600 members, and by the power of God in him, that church grew to 4200 people.
These seven men all have one thing in common. They all had an incredible fire for ministry, an incredible zeal, and in the case of all seven of them, that fire for ministry was kindled long ago by a very special person in Hollywood, California who gave them a special anointed word of exhortation, and that woman’s name was Miss Henrietta Mears. When these men grew tired and they felt the flame flickering, waning, they’d go back and they would talk to her and by the power of God in her, the fire would be rekindled again. An incredible gift. Not until eternity will we ever know the lives that have been touched through the life of Henrietta Mears who died in the year 1963.
Not all of us can be Henrietta Mears. Not all of us have the Gift of Exhortation. We’re not all able to comfort. We’re not all able to motivate, not to the extent that she was able to, but we’re all called by God’s grace to try. The Bible says, “Take care, Brethern, lest there be found in any of you an evil unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the Living God but exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin but we share in Christ if we hold our first confidence firm to the end.” The Bible says, “Let us hold fast our confession of hope without wavering for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth, and he said, “Encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing.” The Gift of Exhortation, able to comfort, to motivate. It’s not a gift we all have, but it’s a calling we all have It the will of God in Christ Jesus for us. Let’s pray.