(February 20, 2024) Wayne Swift calls it as it is – and challenges…

We live in increasingly difficult times. Let me qualify that…

I’m saying that it is different today than it was 20, 40 or 60 years ago. The economy is different, in some ways our standard of living is better, our expectations are higher, people are generally wealthier, even the poor are better off than those from 50 years ago.

Why then am I saying we live in difficult times? Several factors –

Troubling Complications Today
• Stress
The stress people live with is significantly higher.
• Pressures
The pressures that people feel today contribute to greater mental health issues.
• ‘Keeping up with the Jones’
This used to be a neighbourhood idea. Now we compare ourselves with the world through social media and this is destructive. Think about people in developing countries and the envy, jealousy and anger that is generated by the Western world’s opulence.
• Family life
This used to be a bedrock of society! There have always been breakdowns or hidden problems but now it’s fragmented, questioned and no longer the safe place it was.
• Media exposure
Our exposure to media has many people burdened by the world’s issues in unprecedented ways. The news highlights all sorts of things and we accrue concerns at times without even recognising the weight and burden it creates.
• Hope
Sadly hope is dwindling! Surveys indicate that younger people have less hope than in any previous generation. Again the media paint a picture that’s grim and for many of us our long-term resilience and rationale balances that out.
• Absent resilience
Many young people don’t have that internal experience and resilience that was built through previous struggles.

Encouragement Desperately Needed
Dictionaries explain encouragement as words or behaviour that give someone confidence to do something, make something more likely to happen.

So let me make it very clear what we – Christian churches – should be about in these troubled time, what we are trying to achieve with messages on encouragement…

1. Inspiring atmosphere sensed
An atmosphere and culture of encouragement prevailing among the people gathered.
2. Overcoming courage rationalised
Those gathered deriving encouragement to endure or overcome the challenges they face.
3. Faith highly boosted
A lift in faith as a direct result of our mutual efforts to build one another up.
4. Hope strongly strengthened
Those who are finding things very difficult gaining new hope as a result of their visit here.
5. Faltering courage revitalised
Encouragement that is most needed when courage is lost, or hope is waning.

We’re all very human… we can lose courage, forsake hope, get tired. Our primary source of encouragement must come from God because all other sources may fail us.

David’s Experience
David came under a dark cloud one time and all seemed lost! Let’s look at the circumstances (see 1Samuel 30:1-31NLT for the full incident. Here I’m concentrating on verses 1-6)…

‘Three days later, when David and his men arrived home at their town of Ziklag, they found that the Amalekites had made a raid into the Negev and Ziklag; they had crushed Ziklag and burned it to the ground. They had carried off the women and children and everyone else …

‘When David and his men saw the ruins and realised what had happened to their families, they wept until they could weep no more…

‘David was now in great danger because all his men were very bitter … and they began to talk of stoning him. But David found strength in the Lord his God…’

Note how verse 6 reads in the MKJV regarding the distressed David – he ‘encouraged himself in Jehovah his God.’ Encouraged is châzaq – fasten on, seize. David did just that! And what did he fasten on to so tightly so that he (and his men) would regain everything that had been lost?

Verse 8NLT is very specific – ‘Then David asked the Lord, “Should I chase after this band of raiders? Will I catch them?” And the Lord told him, “Yes, go after them. You will surely recover everything that was taken from you!”’ What great encouragement from the Lord!

Some Key Points
• David’s men were weary from many battles.
• Their enemy had broken into their town and burned it to the ground.
• Those Amalekites had taken their women and children, including David’s.
• They all cried until they could cry no more!
• And now those embittered men – David’s closest friends – took it out on their leader.

With his closest friends wanting to kill him, David definitely needed courage… and he found it primarily in the Lord!

Now no doubt David reminded himself about –

• How faithful and powerful his God is.
• What He’d had done for him in the past.
• The lion, the bear, Goliath, and other enemies conquered to date.
• Promises as yet unfulfilled.
• God’s call on his life.

But most importantly David sought his God’s advice (1Samuel 30:8) and heard Him encouraging – ‘Yes, go after them.’

The encouraged David immediately rallied the men by his belief in God. Although 200 of them were totally exhausted, he rallied 400 and went after the Amalekites and defeated them getting back everything they had had taken (1 Samuel 30:16-18)! 

• Verse 19NLT says that ‘Nothing was missing: small or great, son or daughter, nor anything else that had been taken. David brought everything back.’ 
• Although the  next verse says that his encouraged men declared, ‘This plunder belongs to David!’ he thought of the exhausted 200 men he had left behind and joyfully shared with them on returning.
• Then he arranged to share part of the plunder with the elders of Judah.
• 1 Samuel 30:24 tells that David declared, ‘We share and share alike – those who go to battle and those who guard the equipment.’
• And he made this a regulation (v25).

Encouragement From God – And Others

We all need encouragement from God – and we should share encouragements with others! Our churches should be places where attenders receive good encouragement from God… both from the preacher and from other Christians. And not just in church only but in connections outside of church, in daily life itself.

It’s great to receive encouragement from God (and His word) via –
(i) Primarily reading God’s word ourselves (2Timothy 2:15ESV).
(ii) God’s taught word – preached by reliable, trusted preachers (1Timothy 1:3a-4).
(iii) The enlightening Holy Spirit, our friend within us (John 14:26NKJV).

Also… do note this important fact – encouragement can come through what certain ‘others’ say (Proverbs 27:9NLT). Here too we have examples from David’s life experiences…

When King Saul in his jealousy of David sought to kill him, Saul’s son Jonathan remained David’s closest friend. 1Samuel 23:16-17NLT  tells that ‘Jonathan went to find David and encouraged him to stay strong in his faith in God. “Don’t be afraid,” Jonathan reassured him.’

And… in 1Samuel 19NLT, we read of David’s loving wife Michal encouraging him to escape the wrath of her father, Saul: ‘”If you don’t escape tonight, you will be dead by morning.” So she helped him climb out through a window, and he fled and escaped.’ 

Be 2024 encouragers!
May David’s 1Samuel 30:24 encouragement be ours… ‘We share and share alike!’ In other words, if you’ve been encouraged by God, then be an encourager to others!

• Paul, the great encourager, highlighted this in Romans 1:11-12: ‘… I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you – that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine’. 
• And in 2Thessalonians 2:16-17 said, ‘May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.’ 
• Paul also encouraged, ‘… in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others’ (Philippians 2:3-4ESV).

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Wayne and Ruth Swift pastor Resound Church, Scoresby, Victoria. Link: Web resound.church
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