Okay. Okay.
Well, we are thankful to be together again this morning, and we are going to continue from what we shared a few weeks ago out of Thessalonians about excelling still more. I am very creative in my titles, so this is Excelling Still More, Part Two.
Lord, we rejoice in the great salvation You have brought us into. Thank You for those words that Paul penned to the church in Ephesus, which speak as loudly today as they did a couple of thousand years ago.
Lord, we are thankful that the work You did at Calvary is still just as effective. It has not lost any of its power, but continues to cleanse us of our sins. It allows us to be in Your presence, and You have also given us that precious Holy Spirit—Your life within.
So we come, starting today as we would every day, in a place of utter dependence upon You. We look to You, Lord, to open Your Word to us and speak to our hearts. In Your wonderful name, amen.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that we shared some verses out of Thessalonians and Hebrews, and how they were connected. I have always heard Jim Bog remind us that a good teacher always reviews. So I will try to review. I am not sure about the good part, but I can get the review part down.
1 Thessalonians 5:8-11 reminds us:
But since we are of the day, let us be sober,
having put on the breastplate of faith and love,
and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.
Paul is reminding these dear ones in Thessalonica that they are of the day. They are not of the night, but of the day. There is a newness of life that they are in, and they are to walk in that light—not sleeping, but being sober and watching.
He continues, reminding them:
For God has not destined us for wrath,
but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep,
we will live together with Him.
As we were reminded this morning, these dear ones in Thessalonica had a concern when they heard about the coming of the Lord: What about the ones who had passed away? What about the dead? Paul reassures them that whether we are dead or alive, when He returns, we will be raised.
Therefore, in verse 11:
Encourage one another and build up one another,
just as you also are doing.
He is reminding them not only of their relationship with the Lord, but also of their relationship with one another—the responsibility they have in loving one another, encouraging each other, and building one another up. Praise God, He reminds them, “This is what you are doing.” He is not trying to get them to do it.
They were living a corporate life together, expressing Him as a testimony not only within Thessalonica, but throughout all of Macedonia.
Then we looked at verses in Hebrews.
Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another;
and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Again, the encouragement is to care for one another and love one another, especially as that day draws near. The point we made in looking at these verses was that, as Paul encourages these dear ones to live daily in the light of His return, it is not a teaching just for older believers. It is a teaching for young believers and older believers, no matter how long we have been walking with the Lord.
There is a truth related to His return that we need to be aware of: He is coming back. The Thessalonians were very young believers, while those addressed in Hebrews had had a walk and some experience with the Lord. Yet they received that same encouragement.
That is what the Lord continues to encourage us in today. It does not matter whether we are new Christians or have been around a while. This basic truth is the same for every one of us. The truths within God’s Word are for all of us. They were not written to select ones, but every one of us has been given this precious Word for Him to encourage us and speak to us.
He reminds us also that His return is about Him, not us. His return is about His bride being made ready. He is coming back for that precious vessel. His Father is very jealous for His Son to have that eternal companion, that corporate expression of His life. This is what He is so jealous for.
We are thankful as we hear some of these things, but does it ever become too familiar? To use a word that Josh used in the opening, has it become too familiar to us?
Even as we get ready to go to a conference in a couple of weeks, we are going to hear things. Really, at the conference there is not going to be anything new shared. The truths will be truths that we have heard before, brought forth perhaps by different vessels and from different perspectives or angles. But the underlying truth is there.
One of the challenges we have going into this conference is not to allow familiarity with the verses that will be shared, or familiarity with the concept of heavenly vision and things like that, to hinder us from allowing the Holy Spirit to speak in a fresh, reviving, and even humbling way to each of our hearts.
Paul was encouraging these dear ones in Thessalonica, and he commends them. It is a wonderful testimony they had, known throughout the region: their work of faith, labor of love, and steadfastness of hope.
They did not merely have a concept, but they were living this. Their faith was working, their love was laboring and laying itself down for one another, and they were steadfast, persevering in the hope they had.
Much of what Paul shared with them was so effective and impactful within their lives because of who Paul was and how Paul proved himself to them. He did not just teach them. As he says in 1 Thessalonians 2:8:
Having so fond an affection for you,
we were well-pleased to impart to you
not only the gospel of God
but also our own lives,
because you had become very dear to us.
Paul preached marvelous things to them, but he also gave them his life. He laid that life down. He showed them how a mother would care for a tender child, and how a father would come in at times with exhortation and correction.
They saw this in a living way in Paul and his companions’ lives. They saw that the ones sharing were not merely giving theological discourses. What they were sharing was coming out of their lives, and it validated their message. Through that, Paul established relationships with them.
To further encourage them, Paul gives them two exhortations in this letter. As we have mentioned before, exhortations are both encouragements and warnings. They encourage us in one direction, but also say, “Be aware of this.”
These two exhortations are related, first, to their individual walk with the Lord—that they would be well-pleasing to Him. We could call that the vertical relationship with the Lord. Second, they concern their relationships with one another.
Last time, we shared on the first exhortation. In 1 Thessalonians 4:1, Paul says:
Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus,
that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God
(just as you actually do walk),
that you excel still more.
Praise God, they were doing it. But he wants them to excel still more. Do not settle down. Do not become content. Do not stop because you feel that you have come far enough.
When someone says to us, “Excel still more,” what do we think? Actually, within the Christian kingdom, the encouragement to excel still more is to die more—experientially, dying daily. Excelling still more is not us increasing; it is us decreasing and Him increasing. It is the testimony of John the Baptist.
Paul is not trying to pump them up and get them all fired up so that they will go out and do more and more. “We need service.” “Okay, I’ll serve, I’ll serve, I’ll serve.” No. He is saying, “I want you to allow the life of Christ to capture you in a way that you have not experienced before.”
He could see the life of Christ manifested through them, and he praised them for that. But do not settle down. There is so much more of the riches of Christ, of the grace that has been lavished upon us. Come on, guys, excel still more. Allow Him to increase, and you to decrease.
We have to kind of reprogram our minds when we think about excelling still more. It is His life within us excelling still more. May the Lord really help us there.
As we come to this second exhortation, this relates more to our relationship with one another. It is found in that same chapter, 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10:
Now as to the love of the brethren,
you have no need for anyone to write to you,
for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;
for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren
who are in all Macedonia.
But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more.
This is the key issue. There is love not only for Him, but because of Him there is love for the brethren. It is all this great call of loving one another that we hear so much through the Apostle John.
Praise God, they are commended again. They are loving one another, and they practice it toward all the brethren in Macedonia. What a wonderful testimony they had.
Imagine getting a letter from someone you really respect, and he says, “I am so thankful for how you love one another, for all you are doing, for how you show your love for one another.” How would that make us feel? Probably, for most of us, it would make us feel pretty good for a little while.
That is encouragement, and praise God for it. We need that encouragement when our love for one another is being manifested. But then he says, “We urge you to excel still more.” This is the exhortation part—the warning.
Allow Christ’s life to come out in your relationships more and more. This is what he is calling for. We can become so content. We hear something of the heavenly vision and say, “Oh, I have got the heavenly vision now.”
Praise God that we have been exposed to it, but within the heavenly vision there is so much more He wants to show us. There is a fullness there, and I am not sure we will ever fully see the fullness of the heavenly vision until that day of glory.
We will be touched by it. It will motivate us and encourage us. But there is still so much more of Christ that He wants us to enter into—excelling still more in knowing Him.
The second exhortation relates more to our relationship with one another. Now, we have to be clear: the relationship we have with one another is based in the Lord. It is in Christ. We are not talking about natural relationships.
Even though I use the word horizontal, actually my relationship with Ryan does not go this way. My relationship with Ryan goes up and down. It goes up to Christ and then down. So do not get confused if I talk about a horizontal relationship. It is through Christ.
It is so easy for us to have relationships based on our temperaments, the school we attended, sports teams, or food. I will show my age: there was a word that was not around when I was growing up, but now there is a whole industry around it—foodies.
There is a whole section of the internet related to foodies. They have great fellowship, sharing with one another. They recommend this restaurant or that restaurant, and people will travel to destination places for food.
We were in Indianapolis the other weekend, waiting for a plane that was delayed four hours. Two guys next to us said that they and their friends were coming down from Boston to Richmond to camp out. I said, “You are coming from Boston to Richmond to camp out?” They said, “Why? It is such a food destination.”
They were coming from Boston to Richmond to go here and there. That was the basis of their fellowship. Those kinds of relationships are okay, but they are secondary. Primarily, it is Christ, because He is the One who unifies us.
The blessed thing about our relationship with the Lord is that our relationship to one another is a visible testimony on this earth of our relationship to the Head. This is what people see.
As people see believers throughout the world—such diverse ones—they try to figure out what we have in common. What is going on here? One of the prayers as we go down to Way of Mary is that, as we show the love of Christ to one another and to others, people will say, “Who is this group? What is going on here?” There is something different. Would there be a fragrance of Him coming forth?
That was actually the testimony in the Roman Empire as they tried to persecute believers. Some of them were baffled: “Look how they love one another.” There was a genuine love. They were laying down their lives for one another.
Their property would be stolen and taken away, and they would be persecuted, but there was still love going forth among them. That relationship we have with one another is based on Him.
There is a great challenge not to become content or overconfident with what we have. That is a lot of the warning in Paul’s writings. In Philippians, he uses the phrase press on instead of excel still more.
The Lord even tells us, “Beware, in the last days the love of many will grow cold.” He is talking about the love among the brethren. The love we have for one another will grow cold. Things are going to come in.
One of the things the enemy loves to do—probably one of his prime targets—is to divide brethren. If he can come in and bring division, cause an offense, cause misunderstanding, or cause there to be no forgiveness when an actual offense has occurred, he counts that as a victory.
Sadly, as we look around today, there is so much division within the body of Christ. We studied 1 Samuel 11 Friday night in Bible study. Nahash the Ammonite was coming in to attack Jabesh-gilead, and he wanted to do that in order to defile all of Israel.
When the enemy comes in and attacks any of the brethren, or when we have division or people give in to the enemy’s power, it puts a stain on the testimony of Jesus. It puts a stain on Christianity.
If you talk to unbelievers who are a little resistant, what is one of the first things they say? “Well, look at you Christians. What about this guy? He left his wife and went off with another man. What about this church? They divided over money that someone stole.” They have all this stuff.
The work of the enemy can be very effective in dividing brethren, and we need to be aware of that. It is only going to intensify in these days. We experienced it in this assembly some years ago. It is a terrifying thing, but we need to be aware and awake so that we are not caught off guard.
As love grows cold, we see it manifested throughout Scripture. In Malachi, the Lord says He loves them, and they say, “How have You loved us?” They were so disconnected from His love that they did not even realize it.
Laodicea had become lukewarm. It was neither hot nor cold, but they thought everything was great. In Ephesus, they had this beautiful letter written to them. Paul poured out to them the love of Christ, the love for the church, and the glorious vision. Then they left that first love. Outwardly, everything was going along.
We thank the Lord that He gives us these wonderful examples of things that we can learn from. In this relationship, one of the vital things that keeps us in relationship is vision.
I know people get tired of that word, but if we see what God’s heart and purpose are, if we see that His return is not about us but about Him, if we see that He wants a bride, and if we see how jealous God is for His Son to have a bride, then the little things that divide us become so trivial.
They need to get settled, but in the big picture of things, it is normally little, trivial things that divide brethren. They are not willing to humble themselves. They wait for the other person to apologize: “As soon as they forgive me, I will forgive them.”
Thank the Lord that He did not wait on us. He took the initiative and went to that cross. This is how much the heavenly vision—God’s heart and purpose—becomes very practical in our relationship with one another.
We are also a visible testimony of Christ in the church. May the Lord continue to open our eyes to see the privilege we have been brought into. It is a tremendous privilege to be brought into the house of God, to be part of the family of God, to be part of His church, and to be part of this testimony.
Would that never become too familiar to us. As we go along in relationship together, may we all gain a fuller and greater revelation of God’s heart and purpose. As we go through things together, we can say, “Wow, this is what it is about.”
One thing this revelation does is impact our lives. Genuine revelation impacts your life. Genuine, true revelation brings about a reformation within you.
When we really see God’s heart and purpose, again, we decrease. But if we simply have knowledge about it, it puffs us up, and we increase and strut around: “Oh, you want to know about God’s eternal purpose? Let me tell you all about it. I have written thirty-two books on it.”
It is easy to write about it or read about it, but has it become real? When it touches us, there is a humbling that goes on within our lives.
We can see this beautiful example of Christ increasing and Paul decreasing as we look at Paul’s life. The more he went on, the more he saw the fullness of God’s heavenly vision—the vision to which he said he was not disobedient.
When he saw the Lord on the road to Damascus, it was like an outline. He saw it, but all the parts were not filled in. As he walked along and went through suffering, greater revelation came.
Most people divide Paul’s life into three sections: his earlier letters, the prison letters, and the latter letters right before he was martyred. In the early letters, in Corinthians, Paul describes himself as the least of the apostles.
That sounds pretty good to us. We might say, “Okay, Paul, that is humble. You are not greater than Peter or John.” But then, as he goes on and sees Christ more and more—His heart and purpose—as Christ increases, Paul decreases.
Then he says, “I am the very least of all the saints.” Paul was not merely making poetic phrases for us to remember. This was reality. When he saw the Lord and saw who the Lord was, it put him in the proper perspective of who he was.
He was the very least of all the saints. Later, before his martyrdom, he says in Timothy that he is the chief of sinners. Paul is not just trying to be humble. He genuinely sees that the more he sees of Christ, the more he sees what a sinner he was.
Sometimes we do not know what sinners we were because we do not see enough of Christ. The more glory we see of Him, the more we see that we are the chief of sinners. But praise God, He died for us. This is not something to condemn us; it is simply putting things in proper perspective.
I remember a brother defining worship as putting God in His proper place and us in our proper place. That was worship.
As Paul’s vision of all that was upon God’s heart grew, he continued to decrease more and more. Throughout Scripture, when people really saw the Lord, it impacted them.
As David was getting ready to build the temple and all the riches were coming in, what did David say? “Who am I?” David was the king. He had won all these victories, but he said, “Who am I?” He had God in His proper place and himself in his proper place. Solomon said the same thing.
Isaiah saw the Lord. Isaiah was a prophet and had been serving for years. But he saw the Lord and said, “I am a man of unclean lips, among a people of unclean lips.” He was, but God lifted him up.
He does not leave us there. The focus is not us; it is Him. It is His testimony, the grace of God that has been lavished upon us, that we who were down here as chief of sinners can serve the King of kings and Lord of lords. Only He qualifies us to enter into the fullness of this. How thankful we are.
Because the conference is so close, it is on my heart and mind. As we go to this family conference, and as I mentioned, the teaching has been shared before, why are we going?
I have been to a lot of conferences, and you can have a lot of motives. Sometimes you go because you want to be exhilarated: “Wow, I am so happy to be there.” That is okay, but it cannot be our main motive.
Perhaps we go because we like a certain person’s teaching. That is good too. But do we go with a heart prepared to receive from Him? A heart prepared, in one way, to be slain in the Spirit?
Not to be increasing, but with a heart that would flatten us out—removing pride from our lives and bringing us down so that we could be at His feet. Then we would see Him; He would be so exalted. We would sit there and say, “Oh, I am the chief of sinners.”
That releases the fullness of the power of Christ and the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit to work among His people.
We talk about being caught and kept. I was thinking that describes a prisoner. Is that not what Paul said he was? He was a prisoner of Christ.
What catches you and keeps you? Love has kept me fifty-three years. Praise God.
The love of Christ is what captures us. What really captures us is seeing what is upon God’s heart for that bride—a bride, a relationship, a marriage, a bride and a groom. It speaks of love.
In Ephesians, agape is used more than in any other letter Paul writes, because love is so intertwined with God’s purpose and God’s heart. This is that love that captures us, and we cannot let go.
In the Old Testament, there is a term called bondslave. What was a bondslave? A bondslave was a love slave. That gets misused in today’s society, so we have to be careful how we say that.
But it was the love of the master that had caught this one, so that when they were set free, they said, “No, I do not want to go. I love my master and his house. I want to stay. I have been captured by the love of my master. I want to be kept by him.”
That one submitted himself to that master for his whole life, not in a demanding, legalistic way, but out of a heart of love. Are we motivated by that love as we go forth in this day?
We can have many mountaintop experiences. Somebody prayed Wednesday night that, as we go to the conference, different ones would have a mountaintop experience. That is great.
But where does the reality of the mountaintop experience get worked out? It gets worked out in the valleys—along those crooked paths being made straight, the valleys being filled up, and barriers being overcome.
That is when what we hear starts to become reality. It goes from our minds into our hearts, and we see more of Christ in every situation. Praise God for it.
The living reality of a relationship with Him changes our whole perspective of fellowship. It impacts the choices we make. It impacts our love and care for one another.
Fellowship is the sharing of His life. That is what we have. It is a sharing of His life.
We are somewhat familiar with Acts 2. Thousands were saved, and they spontaneously came together in fellowship, prayer, the breaking of bread, and the teaching of the apostles. They continued day by day, going from house to house, and people were being added to their midst.
What do you see in Acts 2? What is the thing that pops out to you? We see a life expressed. We see Christ’s life expressed in these new believers.
They did not have a book of church order. What we saw was fellowship. Fellowship is, as we mentioned, often misunderstood or misused. But fellowship is a very active thing.
If you look in the Scriptures, fellowship is more of a verb. It gets used as a noun occasionally, but it is predominantly a verb. Even when it is used as a noun, it is a very active thing. I do not know whether you can have active nouns—I am not an English major—but that is the way I like to look at it.
We can unconsciously think, “Well, I went to fellowship today,” or, “There is the fellowship in New Jersey.” But what is this word we use so familiarly? It is the sharing of His life. It is life together.
I looked through Darby, King James, and New American Standard—out of respect for all the different versions, the main versions of the better translations. There was one word I could not find in the New Testament related to the church: the word meetings.
It is always gathering or assembling together. Now, do not anybody take that wrong. I love the meetings. I love to be here and all. But there is something about meeting that can sound formal, whereas gathering and assembling together has more heart to it.
Maybe I am just playing with words to make a point. I do not know. But what God is trying to convey to us in Acts 2 and throughout Scripture is that there is far more going on in our life together than just the meetings.
The meetings are very precious, and we should try to be at every one of them as we can. But there is so much more of Christ to be expressed.
One thing I love about the way we operate is the groups. I love workday. We call it workday, but what is getting worked out? Our relationship to one another—the reality of us being one.
All of a sudden, we have the reality of loving and being kind to somebody who just said something so stupid, or being forgiving to somebody who did not like anything you said. That is where, in interaction with one another and in praying for one another, reality is established.
I know some brothers get together for breakfast. That is precious—what goes on at that time. They are on the north side and west end, so maybe you guys on the south side could start a breakfast. It is a real blessing.
There is so much more than what we sometimes categorize as meetings. We want to keep pressing on so that any time two or three can be together in the Lord, it is a wonderful time.
When we had some folks from Brazil in, saints came over and we had time together—rich fellowship and rich sharing—redeeming the time we have and making the most of these opportunities.
This reality impacts our perspective of fellowship, but it also impacts the choices we make. When we see God’s heart and the relationship He wants us to have in Christ, it starts to affect our choices.
The choices we make reflect what is important to us. It does not matter what you talk about, share about, or preach about. If your life does not reflect it, it is vanity of vanities. There has to be reality, because choices show what is really important to us.
The choices we make show forth the desires we have. As we travel at times, we stay in different homes. Often, when you travel, you end up staying in the kids’ room. You all are probably used to getting kicked out of your rooms when guests come, so we are one of those people who kick you out.
It is interesting: you can look in a room and know what is important. You can see what they put on the wall. You can see whether they are Dodgers or Red Sox fans, basketball fans, or whether they like certain types of music. Those are the choices they make.
You hang around Tim, and you know he likes cars and trains. That is our Tim guy. Those are choices he makes because he loves those things. The choices we make send a message.
Are our choices coming from hearts and lives that are captured by what God is really after? One brother said something that seemed hard at first, but the more I think about it, the more I see how it reflects much in our lives:
To follow all the teaching, methods, et cetera, about the house of God without His presence is to substitute an empty shell for living reality.
Sadly, throughout much of Christianity today, there are a lot of empty shells—not only corporately, but individually too. We need to stand jealous for His presence to be with us, because if His presence is not with us, there is no use in going ahead.
There are a couple of questions related to the choices we make that we need to ask ourselves.
Will the choices I make help me or hinder me from excelling still more in our life together?
What choices do I make? Will they help or hinder me from excelling still more in our life together—His life together, the expression of His life on earth?
This includes the jobs we are looking for. There is a young brother here, Vinny, who is looking for a job. Praise God, he wants to stay, and one of his priorities is to be here.
There are different ones who are captured by the Lord in such a way that even the house they buy, where they live, and the major choices they make are directed by a desire to enter more fully into relationship with the brethren and into the life together. They are not simply thinking about themselves.
Another question is this: How will the choices I make impact or influence my beloved brethren, especially the younger ones?
The choices I make—where I go, what I do, and what occupies my life—how are they going to impact my brethren? Do we ever stop and think? If I do this openly, where people will see and know, how is that going to impact the brothers and sisters, particularly the younger ones?
We influence one another from generation to generation, whether we are cognizant of it or not. We send a message with every choice we make: “Look at that choice they made. Look how important that is.”
Consider a young person choosing a university. Perhaps one school appears academically better than another, but they know there is an assembly in the city where the other university is located. They choose to go there in order to stay in fellowship. That is a young person with vision, making a choice.
This reality impacts our perspective of fellowship and the choices we make, but it also impacts our love and care for one another. When we see what we have been brought into, it affects our care and love for one another in everything.
We used the verses from Hebrews earlier:
Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some,
but encouraging one another;
and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
As that day draws near, what was happening in Hebrews? By chapter 10, they had gone through suffering and persecution. Some of them were shrinking back into Judaism.
Even though they had suffered much and experienced the faithfulness of the Lord, there came a point where they started to shrink back. As Paul encouraged them, he said, in effect, “Wake up. Remember what He has done for you.”
Later in that chapter, he says, “The just shall live by faith.” Press on. Do not bring your sail in; put your sail on. Sail on, and go into the fullness of all He has for you.
In these verses and in the ones we read in Thessalonians, there is a responsibility we have to the Lord. There is also a responsibility within the body of Christ—to care for one another, to love one another, and to encourage one another by His grace and His life within us.
If we see how much we have received from Him, then grace, having been lavished upon us, does not just stay in us. It goes out. It is like a sieve: it pours in and then goes out everywhere. That is the lavishing of grace.
It is a superabundant grace. It impacts us, yes, praise God, but it impacts others. That is the fruit of His life coming forth.
There are many “one another” passages we could look at, but let us use this one: “Consider how to stimulate one another.”
The word consider means to take careful note, to observe fully, or to discover. Each one of us is different. Each one of us is unique. Each one of us is valuable and precious. Christ died for each and every one of us.
There is great diversity within the body of Christ. There is also great unity within the body of Christ. Sometimes diversity can cause us trouble. Introverted people can look at extroverted people and think they are all in the flesh. Extroverted people can look at introverts and think they are too mental and just sit there.
But no, God made us all fearfully and wonderfully. I do not want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but in the state we were born in, none of us were made perfect.
John has a favorite saying—was it J. Vernon McGee? “Why are you celebrating a new child being born? That is just another sinner coming into the world.”
That was John Blanchard for the recording. Okay.
No, but it is true. Praise God, we have another sinner. But we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, and He has a great plan for each and every one of us.
This is where the word consider has to come in. Think about parents: every child you have is very unique.
You have the first child, and that one goes along pretty well. Then you have the second child, and that goes along pretty well. You think, “Oh, we have got this down pat.” Then number three comes along, and it is like a ball out of left field. Everything changes, and all your parenting skills are for naught because they do not work on this one.
They are so different. Even when children look alike, they can be totally different. They can look exactly like Joe and Josh, but they are totally different. If you want to motivate Josh one way, you do this. If you want to motivate Joe another way, you do that. And Sally just slaps them both upside the head.
Each one is different. Parenting skill is really learning to consider, getting to know, and seeing what motivates this child.
Some children, if a parent just gives them the eye—and all parents know what the eye is—they straighten right up. Others say, “Huh,” and keep going. You have to extend the right hand of fellowship to those at times to straighten them out a little bit.
Different things motivate different ones. It is not only true in parenting, but with the best coaches and teachers. Jim cannot use the same teaching technique on every child. Certain things motivate one, and certain things motivate another.
For example, in the news this week, one of the greatest coaches, players, and administrators in basketball history passed away: Jerry West.
I actually remember seeing Jerry West play, which shows you how old I am. Some of you will not even know this building. When he played for West Virginia, they were part of the Southern Conference, and they would play at the Arena back in the 1960s. If you remember the Arena, you are an old Richmonder.
After Jerry West had a great playing career, he got into coaching. One of the greatest things he could do was watch people play. He knew everybody was different.
Even though other people could not see the potential, he saw things within people. One day he saw a high school kid playing basketball. He called him in for a tryout. Everybody else was laughing and saying, “Why are you wasting time with this guy?”
But he saw something in him. He was considering that one—really seeing. He brought him in to play in the pros, and he ended up being Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest players ever to play.
Hardly anyone else paid attention to Kobe Bryant. Jerry West saw a jewel there.
As we look around at our brothers and sisters, I am not talking about introverting here or trying to examine everyone. But would we learn how to stimulate one another?
We talk about serving: “Everybody serve in the house of God.” Okay, what really motivates someone to step forward and be willing to serve within the house of God? Would that we had that insight.
This is not just for older ones. It is for everyone. Even for the younger ones here: the one sitting next to you—what does it take to stimulate them a little more to press on in the Lord and to know the Lord in a greater way?
One of the people in church history that I like most is Isaac Watts, called the father of hymnology.
Isaac Watts’s father was a pastor, and Isaac had been studying to be a pastor himself. When he was about eighteen, he moved back home and, for a couple of years, lived with his parents while attending his father’s church.
It was outside the Church of England and was persecuted at times. They would sing what they called the metrical psalms. They tried to take all the psalms, put them to music, and make them rhyme. They did a horrible job. It sounded horrible.
At the age of twenty, Watts told his father one Sunday afternoon after the morning service that the songs were ugly, horrible, and terrible. He said you could not even sing them; it was like gargling in your mouth, and nobody understood any of them.
At first, his father was offended. He was a deacon in the church and took it personally: “You are attacking my church. What are you doing?” But then his son shared his heart.
His father said, “Okay, why do you not see what you can do better?” Isaac Watts went to his room. He had already been writing poems, and he put together his first hymn.
At the next service—some biographies say it was Sunday night and some say the next Sunday morning; we will not get into when—they agreed to sing his hymn.
His first hymn, written at the age of twenty, was “Behold the Glories of the Lamb.” It is not in Christ in Song, and it is not in the Chinese hymnbook either.
Listen—this is a twenty-year-old writing this:
Behold the glories of the Lamb
Amidst His Father’s throne;
Prepare new honors for His name,
And songs before unknown.Eternal Father, who shall look
Into Thy secret will?
Who but the Son should take that book
And open every seal?
There is real preciousness there. Everybody loved it so much that they said, “Okay, we want you to write one hymn a week that we can sing, and we will learn it.”
He wrote a new hymn for 222 straight weeks—a little over four years, for you mathematicians.
We sit here with Isaac Watts hymns in our hymnbooks, and they are sung everywhere, all because his father considered how to stimulate him to love and good deeds.
His father saw beyond the outside. He did not see a rebel. He saw something within his son that was causing discomfort with the old songs they were singing. Praise God, he kept pressing on.
That is the call the Lord has on us: that we could really, in Christ, consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.
It is not simply saying, “Okay, you are going to serve here, you are going to serve there.” At conferences, when we speak with some young people, one thing that bothers them most is that they never had a choice in where they served.
It can be, “Okay, you guys are the baggage crew. You are doing this. You guys are doing that.” It can take the heart out of freewill serving.
But thank the Lord, we can offer ourselves to Him, and He will put us where He wants us.
We are thankful for the relationships we have. We are thankful for how He is building us together. But we want to excel still more. We want more of Him. We want more of Christ.
We want His life formed in one another, that we could really show love, care, and encouragement. There are so many “one another” passages. It is good to do a word study on one another.
You will find that it even tells Christians to be kind to one another, which is so apropos, really. It sounds strange: Why do you have to tell Christians to love one another? Why do you have to tell Christians to be kind to one another? Because the Lord knows us. He knows our inner being.
That is where we see how He can really work within us.
As I start to close, this was not just Paul’s message—to excel still more or to press on. Peter addresses this too.
In 1 Peter 1:22, he says:
Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls
for a sincere love of the brethren,
fervently love one another from the heart.
That word fervently means straining, stretching, and continuing with intensity. It means, “Keep going on.” Thank the Lord for the sincere love of the brethren, but fervently continue on.
In the original language, it speaks of a strain that actually stretches you. I think we know what that means, because to love some people does stretch us. It stretches us beyond ourselves. It is only by the grace of God and Christ in us that we can love the unlovely.
I am thankful there are no unlovelies in here. But we can see how this is the encouragement. It is the same message. John writes about loving one another, continuing faithfully all the way to the end, and letting that love continue.
As I was looking at 1 Peter 1:22, one translation I like to look at when I am studying various Scriptures is the Wuest translation. If you have a Wuest Bible, look at 1 Peter 1:22.
He takes this little verse, which in my normal Bible is about this long, and expands it considerably. I was not going to copy the whole verse down, but I wanted to share the part about fervently loving one another.
This one line, “fervently loving one another,” Wuest puts in five lines. But look at the power of the insight:
From the heart, love each other with an intense reciprocal love that springs from your hearts because of your estimation of the preciousness of the brethren, and which is divinely self-sacrificial in its essence.
Wow. I will read that again. I get thrilled every time I read it. I could sit here and read it over and over.
From the heart, love each other with an intense reciprocal love that springs from your hearts because of your estimation of the preciousness of the brethren, and which is divinely self-sacrificial in its essence.
Praise God—the preciousness of the brethren. What a beautiful picture and description of loving one another, getting to the heart of it. Would we come into that by excelling still more?
As we excel still more, we have been considering our personal relationship with the Lord and our relationship with one another. May we become more aware of the vital necessity of our relationship with Him in these days.
May we also become more aware of being in the body of Christ—the impact and responsibility we have to one another within the body of Christ.
Would we become more aware of what we are to be? We are to be a joint of supply, according to the proper working of each individual part, which causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
This is the call He has upon us. May we yield to Him and allow Him to prepare us to be the testimony He has called us to be.
He is returning soon. While we have today—and praise God, it is still called today—let us redeem the time.
Let us really allow Him to have greater control of our lives, allowing Him to increase within us. Would Christ excel within us in such a way that we would be decreasing, waiting for that wonderful testimony: “The bride has made herself ready.”
May we excel still more and more, and press on to the fullness that He has for us. Let us pray.
Lord, we do thank You for Your mercies and Your goodness to us. Lord, as we touch this matter of excelling still more, we feel we have only touched the surface.
There is so much more of Christ that You want us to see and behold. Lord, we offer ourselves to You as a living sacrifice, that we would not be content in this life.
As You have lavished us with Your grace, create within us that desire for You to increase and for us to decrease.
The reason for that is that You would receive all the glory and honor, and that the bride would be made ready. May the Father’s heart and purpose come about to fulfillment in these days ahead.
Lord, we do pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.” We know it is on Your heart to come. Lord, we want to be those cooperating with You, that we could be hastening Your return as Your life works in us.
In Thy name we pray. Amen.