Encourage One Another

For those of you that have your Bible with you, you're gonna take us through the book of Hebrews starting at chapter three, verses 12 through 14. That's Hebrews chapter 3, verses 12 through 14. Take care, brothers, lest there be 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. For we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

We're now going to go to Hebrews chapter 10, verses 24 and 25. And let us consider how to stir up one another 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. Now I'll ask you to go to Hebrews chapter 13, starting at verse 17 through 25. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Pray for us, for we assure you that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honourably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner. Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I appeal to you, brothers.

Bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send greetings. Grace be with you all.

The sermon's long enough. I don't need more notes up here. If you've been attending regularly, you'll probably identify where in a series of sermons we'd simply call them "one another". And what we're endeavouring to do is go through some of the "one another" statements in the New Testament. This morning we're looking at the statement as it comes to us from the book of Hebrews, and it's the word "encourage".

Encourage one another. Clearly, the writer to the Hebrews thought that the audience he was writing to needed encouragement. Our Hebrews was written to a group of people who were doing it especially tough. They were beaten down, knocked around. They're feeling weary, somewhat persecuted.

Their lives, we could just say, are filled with difficulties and problems. And even as the letter is being written, many of them are in danger of losing faith, of giving up the confidence they had in the faith when they first believed. In short, these people were ready to toss it all in, to give up. Give up not just on their faith, but also on their church as well. What do you do when you have to deal with the brutal realities of life?

And life is tough. It sucks. It really hurts. For all I know, your life may be falling apart, and that affects your marriage, affects your family, affects your small group, affects the communities that you mix with day in and day out, and eventually it affects your church as well. And they all come crashing down.

What do you do? Well, it's not till you get to chapter 13 in the book of Hebrews, that is right at the end of his letter, that the writer comes up with the grand finale, you like, the great conclusion. And what he leaves with them, he wants for anyone who's doing it tough to know is true for them as well, for any one of us. What he's saying to us this morning is you've got to have shepherds in your life. If you're going to survive and thrive as a Christian, you've got to have shepherding happening in your life.

You might find that odd for me to be saying that this morning, officially speaking ecclesiastically. We are a church without shepherds, without elders to minister to us, without a full time pastor to act as a shepherd over us. Do you think for a moment we can do without shepherds in your own life, in your married life, or your single life for that matter, in the life of your family? Do you think you can do without shepherds in your church life? It's been two weeks now since our pastor resigned, and it's been even longer since our elders resigned and walked out on us.

What difference has that really made in your life? I asked myself the same question. What difference does it make in my life and in the life of our congregation? This morning, I hope to convince you that we need shepherding. And we're gonna notice what the text tells us.

One, about our insulting need for shepherding. An insulting need for shepherding. Two, the surprising identity of who the shepherds are. And three, you guessed it, the third point. There are three points in a good preformed sermon. The power of these shepherds.

The power that these shepherds have. Let's look at the first point this morning: our need, our insulting need for shepherds. At the very end of the book, Jesus Christ is called the great shepherd of the sheep. Now He hasn't been called a shepherd in any other place throughout the entire book. He's been called a whole lot of other things, but not this, not the great shepherd.

And I put it to you, this is not an afterthought or something the writer of Hebrews throws in there as he's getting ready to sign off on this letter. Oh, by the way, I thought I should tell you Jesus Christ is the great shepherd. No. This is a kind of a crescendo, if you like, or the grand finale to everything that he's been telling us in this book. Remember that the people have issues.

They're lacking confidence. They're ready to forsake their faith. This last chapter in chapter 13 is essentially about living in community, including church community. And there's order and there's structure to it. Notice verse 17: Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.

They keep watch over you. That's a shepherding action. They have authority. They keep watch over you. And so suddenly, in this last chapter, we're confronted with the fact that you and I are sheep.

That Jesus is the great shepherd of the sheep, and we are His flock. Have you ever reflected on what the Bible is actually saying when it tells us that we are sheep? Most of us are from the city. We don't get much exposure to life on the farm. The last time I saw a sheep, it was stuffed.

It was part of a nativity scene, and it was there in the shopping centre at Ravina. But I have a grandchild who's with me in church today, and it wasn't that long ago that I read a children's story to Scarlet. And I read the story of David looking after his father's sheep. This was before he was to do battle with Goliath, when David was still just a boy. Here's a picture of what the story writer wants us to imagine the scene was like.

And you can be thinking of green hills, streams running with fresh water, and there are little cute white fluffy sheep, beautiful little lambs standing close by their mothers, all grazing on lush green grass. And if you're familiar with Psalm 23, you might be thinking of David the shepherd boy sitting on a rock, keeping watch, playing his harp, making up nice songs about the great shepherd of the sheep and the people who are His flock. Now in 2010, more than a decade ago, Regina and I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. We went on a tour that was run by Christians from America. It was in Jordan that we met modern day Bedouin, and the Bedouin have been grazing sheep and goats the same way for generations, the same way they did in biblical times.

And their livestock are scrawny looking creatures. By our standards, they're undernourished. They're the kind of sheep they cared for. Many wild goats exist. They do much worse.

They're feral and have to survive in the wilderness. And while you're looking at the picture of that scrawny looking sheep, there's another picture to show as well, and it clearly shows the paths that the Bedouin would use to navigate, to get their sheep to green looking pastures to find fertile ground from which to feed. The flock would quickly die without a shepherd, and without the right path, which was the job of the shepherd, they would certainly be lost. Sheep left on their own without a shepherd will die. That's the stark reality.

Of all God's creatures, sheep neither fend for themselves nor defend themselves. They're dirty. They're subject to nasty pests. And in reality, they need to be dipped in strong chemicals. They're extremely unintelligent and somewhat obstinate.

Now I hesitate to describe the people of God that way. Flea bitten, disease ridden, quite apart from any intellectual deficiencies. But I want to suggest to you this morning that's the force of the biblical image when the Bible identifies us as sheep. Sheep without a shepherd are lost. You take dogs or horses, for example, take them out into the wild, set them free, and they will find a way back home.

But sheep can't do that. They're too helpless to fend for themselves or defend themselves. In the wild, they are nothing more than delicious lamb chops for dingoes or foxes, and they'll die without a shepherd. They'll die without a shepherd. And if you are honest with yourself this morning, you will know there'll be times, spiritually speaking, when you lose your way, when you are neither able to fend for yourself or defend yourself.

And you'll never make it home. You'll never come back to where you were unless there are some people around you whom you have authorised to share some kind of control of your life, to whom you should be accountable, to whom you must be accountable. Because without them, you'll never get home. You're lost. And you can identify these people as your shepherd or shepherds.

These people are in a position to tell you the kind of course you should be taking to get home safely. They might say to you, we're going to get you to the destination you want to go. The true you. Not the you you are when you're living in a mess. Do you have anyone like that in your life?

If you don't, let me put it to you. At some stage, you're gonna go rogue. You don't have to be a wild child either or be feral. You could be a mixed up teenager in church this morning, even up in the loft next to Arnold. Or you could be an elderly citizen seated in church this morning, somewhat lacking capacity.

Or you could just simply be an adult person who's lost their way. Any one of us can be a lost sheep. When the Bible calls us sheep, it means well. But actually, it's a huge insult. I mean, really, is it that bad?

But there it is, for what it's worth. It means well, a huge insult, but it's critical to our faith. So, let me ask the question: who are the shepherds that we need? And before we jump into the text and see what it says about this, let's consider something. There are two equal and opposite mistakes you can make about shepherding.

You could be thinking, I'm my own shepherd. Self shepherding. Have you heard of it before? It's an oxymoron, really. I choose to live my life not being accountable to anybody.

I'm not going to let anyone into my life. Not giving anyone the right to tell me how I should live. When a person thinks like that, we can call them being self guided, self shepherding. It's a disaster spiritually speaking. It may work out as far as the world is concerned, but spiritually speaking it won't work.

Now on the other hand, there's over shepherding. That is looking for people to be my shepherds in unhealthy ways. Having a codependency on a shepherd. Notice verse 17: Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. Now that's interesting.

What does it mean? It means that we need someone in our lives with authority. Contrary to popular opinion, authority isn't necessarily a bad thing. But authoritarianism is bad. And instead of self shepherding, we can call this over shepherding.

Today, we might even refer to it as coercive behaviour or manipulation. Did you know that the Queensland Parliament only last week legislated that coercive behaviour in the context of a family home is a crime under the criminal code? It's an attempt to curb the rising incidence of domestic violence in our society. And sad to say, it's true that in the church, in the history of the church, this same kind of coercive manipulative behaviour has gone unchecked and not challenged. There's been many examples, haven't there, of church leaders who've abused their positions of trust and authority.

There have been leaders who, in the name of Christianity, have abused children, little children, innocent children. Some of these people were much loved by the communities in which they were called to serve. They were looked up to as leaders, but they've left a terrible mess of misery in their wake of destructive sin. As a result, there are many people today who have renounced the faith, walked away from Christianity entirely, and others who want nothing to do with leaders in the church, much less obey them or give them any authority in their lives. So they go to the other extreme and they justify their position by saying, I'm into self shepherding.

I don't trust the church or its leaders, and I want nothing to do with authority in the church today. But the command still stands. It's there in the book of Hebrews chapter 13. Obey your leaders. They keep watch over you.

So who should be the shepherds in your life? And before we actually talk about leaders in the church today, let me tell you about two other shepherds that we can all have whose identities might be quite surprising. First and foremost, we could identify your peers. That is to say your friends, your church friends maybe, but men and women, young people who in grace identify Jesus as their Saviour and as the great shepherd. These kinds of people are who have experienced the grace of God in their lives and are smarter than you.

They're no more mature than you. They're really no better than you. They are your peers. And these people can be your shepherds and you can be theirs. Right at the beginning of the letter, the writer gives us one of these "one another" statements that we're looking at in the Bible.

It's the very first passage that Brian read from this morning. Hebrews 3:13, but encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. Now it's a much more significant saying than it really looks. If you go down to chapter 10, verse 25, getting towards the end of the book, notice something. The writer has just written this enormous theological treatise.

It's extremely sophisticated. It's a very deep book. It identifies Jesus right throughout the Old Testament, and it is an excellent way to interpret the Old Testament. But here he goes on in chapter 10 near the end of the book, and he uses the same word that he began with in chapter three. In chapter 10, he says, let's not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching.

The Greek word here for encourage is parakalesis. In essence, it's a shepherding term. It means to give direction, to guide people, to coach people, to counsel people. In John chapter 14, Jesus uses the same root word to refer to the Comforter, the Parakletos, the work of the Holy Spirit. And He's the one Jesus said will come in His absence, the promised Holy Spirit.

But guess what? Though you can't tell it in the English translations, it's the very same word that the writer uses in chapter 3:13 to describe what we're supposed to be doing for one another. The NIV translates this word both times in Hebrews 3 and 10 as the word encourage, and indeed it is the same Greek word. But the ESV, the translation we read from this morning, uses two different words. It uses the word exhort in 3:13 and then the word encourage in 10:25, but the word is the same.

It's the same word. Parakalelo, one another. Remember, the writer has been at pains to try and encourage the people that are receiving his letter. He's concerned that they're shrinking back from the faith, that they're lacking the confidence they once had when they first believed. But under this kind of trial and difficult time they're going through, even though their lives are a mess, He wants them to know they are sheep and they have access to shepherding.

And the writer doesn't say, hey, look at me. I am the great shepherd. I am the great authority. I'm the great theologian. I'm the great pastor.

Let me guide you. No. He doesn't say anything like that. What does he say? Well, on two occasions at least that we've identified this morning, he says we should be shepherding one another.

Encourage one another. Exhort one another, lest you be taken by sin's deceitfulness. That means there'll be some people in your life and in my life, most probably your peers. These are people who've experienced the grace of God, other people that we're prepared to let into our lives in a fairly deep and a fairly significant way. Encourage one another daily.

Notice the word daily. Not just on Sundays, not just when we're having coffee or having a cup of tea outside under the patio. No. Daily. Let these people have the ability to look in your life so deeply that they can actually identify sins that you and I can't see, that we're blind to, that we're unaware of.

Because the very nature of sin is deceitful. Some sins in our lives actually hide themselves. We're not aware of them. And who knows, you might just find a peer, a friend, a friend in grace in this church or even a member in your own small group and you might be prepared to meet with them regularly for prayer, for Bible reading. And then this is what you do under the conviction of the Word.

You actually say to them, my private life is your business. I'm going to tell you everything there is to know about me, and I want for you to know what my weaknesses are, what my sins are, what my temptations are. These are the things that I struggle with day in and day out. In fact, I want you to know me so well that you'll come to me about those things and I give you permission. I give you the green light to go ahead and call me out for my sin, even those sins that I can't see myself.

Help me to live the way Jesus wants me to live. But I can hear some of you thinking this morning and push back on this. Shepherd one another? Do you mean I have to open up my life to others who are not professional counsellors? I've got Google.

Thank you very much. Or, I'm not gonna open my life to an ordained elder or a minister. Why? Why should I? I've been a member of this church for donkey's years.

I've never had any contact with an elder or a minister quite like that. What's going on? What qualifications have my peers got anyway to help me to live the way that I should? What qualifications do they have really? The answer is, are you ready for it?

They're not you. That's their qualification. They're just not you. They're someone who is another. That's their main qualification.

They're not you. You see, there are all kinds of sins that another person can see that you will not see. That is if you spend enough time with them. It's the very nature of sin to deceive. We can be so easily hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

Remember our first parents, Adam and Eve? They were deceived when they were created good, very good. Do you think for a moment you're gonna do any better than them? Encourage one another by asking questions. Ask the hard questions.

Ask questions raised in the Bible about money, about your love life, about your leisure time. But isn't that authoritarianism about control, coercive behaviour? Well, remember this. One another. One another means you get to ask the same questions back of the other person.

It's a reciprocal statement, a command from the Bible. It's mutual shepherding. It takes two people to work. Shepherding one another. Parakalelo one another.

So who are your shepherds? Well in the first instance, we shepherd one another. Second, who are your shepherds? And here it's true to say we can't go past that great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the church. In chapter 13, right at the end of the book, the finale is surely this.

Jesus is the great shepherd of the sheep. He's the ultimate shepherd, and this is so important for us to know. He says, as you shepherd one another, look to me, the great shepherd of the sheep. Do one another shepherding as I shepherd you. Remember, compared to all other shepherds in your life, I am the great shepherd.

The apostle Peter calls Jesus the chief shepherd. Jesus calls Himself the good shepherd. And the pattern or the model for shepherding one another is Jesus Christ Himself, the good shepherd. And here the voice of the good shepherd speaking when He says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay my life down for the sheep. What kind of a heart does such a shepherd have? It's the servant heart. The servant heart that Jesus had, has.

The servant heart of our Father, the sacrificial heart of a shepherd. Now this kind of shepherding leads us to the third kind of shepherding. We're not going to avoid it this morning. It's there in the book of Hebrews. And it really only works if these two kinds of shepherding are in place.

That is if you have Jesus as the great shepherd and you have one another shepherding happening as well. And then it's safe to do what verse 17 says. Obey your leaders. Submit to their authority. They keep watch over you.

And I don't know of any other way to do that, to make that happen, than to join, to become a member of the church where you are being spiritually fed. And unless you join the church and come under the authority of its leaders, I cannot see how you can obey chapter 13, verse 7. Have you ever thought of that? We have regular attenders in church. People who've been coming for a long time.

I won't say how long. And they've avoided making a commitment. They've resisted the idea of obedience and submission to those who are charged with their spiritual oversight. Sure we deal pastorally with such people, but we can't engage with them to the same extent we can with those who are prepared to accept this kind of shepherding, leader shepherding. When a person in our church steps up on the platform, beside me and publicly professes their faith.

They use that platform to answer several questions, and they answer with the words, by the grace of God, with all my heart, I do. I do what? I do. I willingly come under the kind of shepherding that God gives in and through the ministry of the church, through its leaders. Now this may seem rather odd to hear me talking about this from the pulpit this morning at this particular season in the life of Open House Christian Reformed Church.

Because we don't have those among us who are charged with our spiritual oversight. Officially, we don't have elders. We don't have a pastor. Or do we? We come under the supervision of another group of elders, a session, a church council operating in Brisbane from the Redlands Christian Reformed Church.

And in a way that helps, but how do they help? How can they keep watch over us when they would hardly know us? But then again, we have Christian men in our church who at one time were elders. They were the session or the church council of the church. They were leaders in the church, and I stand before you as one of them.

These days, I've been referred to as a resting elder. I don't really like that term. It's like rest in peace. But how can we rest when there's such a great need to provide shepherding today? And like other men among us, resting elders in the church feel the pain, the burden of shepherding.

At one time, I was appointed to serve as an elder here among you, not just for a term, but for life. That is to be a preaching elder in the church. Let me take you back to 1986. Some of you may not even have been born then. But it was then on the April 6 at the Christian Reformed Church at Mount Evelyn in Melbourne that I took vows, that I answered questions.

I can't remember the exact words, but I probably said by the grace of God with all my heart, I do. And that was to serve the church as a pastor, as a preaching elder. Since that time I've served terms in office and more recently here as an elder from 2019 to 2022. But just because I've completed a term in office does not mean that I'm free. Free from the responsibility of acting as a shepherd in the church.

This calling is for life. And from time to time, men among us are installed into office and charged by the congregation to shepherd as an elder, in most cases for a time of three years. But when a person's ordained, that is typically the first time they step up to the office of elder, they're installed for life. To do what? To shepherd.

To shepherd the whole church. I have to tell you that in many respects I feel the calling of office more acutely perhaps than I ever have before since we are without active elders or a pastor. The point is these elders, resting or active, they are the leaders in the church and we're called to obey them. And obviously you have to trust them to obey them. You have to identify them as Jesus' under shepherds, representatives of the great shepherd.

And you have to be part of that kind of a flock. And that's what profession of faith vows are all about. It's what membership of Open House entitles you to. It's a privilege to have a group of leaders to serve you, even call you to account to live your life as a Christian, to stay on the course even if sometimes I might lose my mind. I'm a sheep and I need the human face of the great shepherd to call me back, to give me the confidence of the faith that I first had when I first believed.

Speaking from experience now, I find it hard to know of any sheep who are in danger of losing their way, who are at risk of going rogue or being feral if they continue to obey their leaders, who have joined the church, who become part of the family of faith. So I hope in so many ways this morning you've seen the surprising identity of your shepherds. You have your peers in grace. We have the great shepherd of the sheep and we have Christian leaders in the church. That's not to say that we're not active in remedying the situation and getting and finding men to serve in the office of elder and a pastor to serve us.

But lastly and fairly quickly, I want to identify the unique power of Christian shepherding. How it is that shepherding has a power that goes beyond any resource, any talent, any form of giftedness that the world might want to offer in terms of coaching or counselling. What is the power of Christian shepherding? Well, what does a shepherd do? And you see it in chapter 13, verses 20 and 21.

The great shepherd of the sheep equips you for doing everything good, says the text. He works in us whatever is pleasing to Him. That's what shepherds do. They guide you. They may shoo you.

They may frighten you, but they will get you to where you want to go, where you need to be. Sheep don't have a good sense of direction, and it's the job of the shepherd to say there, that way, this is how you should go. This is how you should live. Remember sheep can't fend for themselves nor defend themselves. But the shepherd says, I'll find you green pastures.

I'll take you to streams of water, and I'll even fight off ferocious wolves or dingoes. You just follow me. That's the great thing about the Christian faith. At every level, one another shepherding, leader shepherding, we have the great shepherd working His power through us. To Him belongs the power to heal the sick, even to raise the dead.

He Himself was brought back from the dead when He died and was slaughtered as a sheep even though He is the shepherd, the great shepherd. Does this power really work? Will you believe it? How many times haven't we heard some individual get up on this platform and give a testimony about the power of the great shepherd? About how their lives have been turned around, about how it is they've been able to walk away from adultery or alcohol or whatever it was that afflicted them in their life only because they found comfort, solace, real peace at knowing who the good shepherd is.

The good shepherd who became a sheep so that we could repent, so we could say sorry, and have an offering before God in our place. That's how I know that shepherding actually works. That's what energises me to keep going quite frankly. It's one of the reasons why I believe in the great shepherd today. But if you're really going to believe it, if you and I really want to own your own faith, then just don't see it working from the people who are prepared to stand up before you on the platform and give a testimony.

No. Be prepared to see that power at work in your own life. Do that by finding a peer in grace. Get involved in some one another shepherding and know about the power of the great shepherd and obey your leaders. Amen.

Let's pray. Lord God, You've given us every resource that we need to equip us for living the Christian life no matter how adverse our circumstance. We thank You that You've invested in resources that include people around us, in the church community, church leaders, even resting leaders. We thank You that You've blessed us with the very presence of the great shepherd. Lord in all our cares and throughout all our concerns, may we hear His voice.

May we hear the voice of the good shepherd leading us, taking us by the hand, showing us how to live. Lord, when we pause even for a moment and think of the challenges ahead for us this week, they seem really daunting. They threaten to overwhelm us. We may be tempted to use our own devices and our own technique to try and cope simply to keep our head above water. Lord forgive us for that.

Instead help us to rest firmly in the kind of shepherding You give when we encourage one another, when we identify the great shepherd, and as we obey our leaders. Thank You for the ability to do it through Jesus and in His name.