Spiritual Gift of Exhortation

ME

The Greek word translated "exhortation" literally means "to come alongside." I remember a time when my car had a dead battery, so I asked a friend to help jump-start it. He pulled his car alongside mine and used jumper cables to transfer power from his battery to mine. He connected the good battery in his car to my depleted battery.

The power flowed into my weak battery until it could function on its own. When we encourage one another, we are doing something similar to jump-starting a battery. We "come alongside" the person who has a weak spiritual battery, and when we speak encouraging words, the power flows into the person and builds up him or her. Speaking words of encouragement gives grace and strength to the one who hears them.

But in order to give spiritual power we need to have spiritual power ourselves. Our power all comes from the Holy Spirit, so we must be immersed into who He is.

We can’t give words of comfort if we haven’t spent time with the comforter.

We can’t speak the peace of God in someones life if we haven’t been with the prince of peace ourselves.

The gift of encouragement or edification is enabling someone to live with courage.

WE

Have you ever felt so discouraged and down. Like nothing was going right and was just depleted? Then have someone come a long side of you and said the right words at the right time. It could be a parent, grandparent, your own children, a sibling or a friend. No matter who it is they seem to find a way when no one else can to jump charge your spiritual meter and get you going? We have plenty of discouragers in the world. We need more people who will come along side of us and encourage us!

Encouragement is mentioned as a Spiritual Gift in Romans 12:8

“if it is to encourage, then give encouragement”

Now there was this guy named Joe. He was a great believer in people. Had a strong faith in God and everyone loved to be around him because he was always lifting people up. Who was Joe? He was Barnabas who was nicknamed in Acts 4:37 as the “Son of Encouragement”. You can see through his life that he had a gift of encouraging people.

People with the gift of exhortation have certain character traits about them that we should aspire to have also.

Such as...

Being generous with what you have(Acts 4:37)

Acts 4:36–37 (NIV)

36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

We see that Barnabas “Sold a field … and brought the money to the apostles.” He shared what he had. We too need to be generous with what we have. Our Time, talent, ideas, insights—whatever it is, share it freely.

We have a very generous church here. We support global missions and have had individuals donate things such as gravel for the parking lot, trailers, riding lawnmowers and those things aren’t cheap but from the prompting of the Holy Spirit these people have exercised generosity and encouragement to the rest of the body.

Believing the best of people (Acts 9:26-27)

Acts 9:26–27 (NIV)

26 When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.

Good things were happening in the church. In Antioch, people were coming to the Lord in large numbers. Those in Jerusalem wanted to give them encouragement. Who did they send? Barnabas, of course. He went and encouraged them “to stay true to the Lord” (verse 23).

People need to be encouraged. They need someone to recognize the good things they do. It doesn’t take much creativity to criticize, but it does take effort to find the positive.

I once heard it said that when people go mining for gold, they have to remove many tons of dirt to find just a little gold. However, they never go looking for dirt, only gold. Encouraging people is like looking for gold. Don’t get discouraged when you encounter dirt—keep digging.

Now I remember a building project we did at a previous church.

Dust was everywhere as we ripped up carpet, knocked out walls, tore down ceilings, and dismantled the platform. There were people of all shapes, sizes, and ages. It was a wonderful project for individuals like me because absolutely no skill was needed. It doesn’t take much training to destroy something.

When this phase was completed, the remodeling began. This was the part that required skilled and trained people—those who knew how to construct, build, and refurbish. Their task was much more difficult and it took much longer than the demolition.

Anybody can tear down, but not everyone can build up. It doesn’t take a genius to destroy something, but it does take some know-how to construct something of value. The unskilled can quickly take apart that which takes the skilled a lot of time to put together.

Do you build or demolish?

Invest yourself in others (Acts 11:25-30)

We all are different so we need to be encouraged in different ways

Scripture tells us that “both [Saul and Barnabas] stayed there with the church for a full year, teaching large crowds of people …” (verse 26). Barnabas invested himself in Saul. I believe that if it weren’t for Barnabas, Saul might not have become the great apostle Paul. Barnabas nurtured Paul, poured his life into him and helped him mature. The apostle Paul was the return on the investment that the son of encouragement Barnabas made in the persecutor Saul.

The Gift of Encouragement always pulls people toward Christ and not away from Him

" There is that tendency we have of putting off what we know we should be doing and letting it slide. And we need someone to come along and say, "Now look, get in and do it. Do it now!" These people with the gift of encouragement can say that to us. They have a gift for wooing us to do things and take action. Then you have those who don’t have the gift of encouragement. They come to us and tell us we should be doing this or we should be doing that and we wish that they would just go away and leave us alone.

The gift of exhortation is encouraging, woo-ing and influencing someone to go ahead and do what they really need to be doing.

In an article I read it shared about A college professor who had his sociology class go into the Baltimore slums to get case histories of 200 young boys. They were asked to write an evaluation of each boy’s future. In every case the students wrote, “He hasn’t got a chance.” Twenty-five years later another sociology professor came across the earlier study. He had his students follow up on the project to see what had happened to these boys. With the exception of 20 boys who had moved away or died, the students learned that 176 of the remaining 180 had achieved more than ordinary success as lawyers, doctors and businessmen. The professor was astounded and decided to pursue the matter further. Fortunately, all the men were in the area and he was able to ask each one, “How do you account for your success?” In each case the reply came with feeling, “There was a teacher.”

The teacher was still alive, so he sought her out and asked the old but still alert lady what magic formula she had used to pull these boys out of the 41 slums into successful achievement.

The teacher’s eyes sparkled and her lips broke into a gentle smile. “It’s really simple,” she said. “I loved those boys.

APPLICATION

What if we as a church became people who encouraged instead of discouraged one another.

What if we instilled confidence and courage instead of doubt and fear in one another?

I challenge you today to be a Barnabas. A son of encouragement to someone

Maybe you are here today and you are saying, I am the one discouraged today...

David encouraged himself in the Lord

1 Samuel 30:6 (NIV)

6 David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the Lord his God.

We have the accuser of the brethen who will remind us of our past and throw out accusation after accusation but we have a promise of a deliverer in Jesus Christ in which all our sins are covered under His blood.

We will face trials, circumstances and bad times but we can still trust in the goodness of God!

When all have abandoned us. When friends betray us, family deserts us, and the world beats on us we can still know that we have a heavenly father will will never leave us, a church family that cares for us and that this world is not our home for our citizenship is in the kingdom of God!