Encourage One Another

Excerpt from Encouraging Each Other at the End of the Age by John Piper

"I want to try in this message to awaken in you a deep, joyful, confident sense that being in a small group of Christians for prayer and ministry to each other would be one of the best things you could do for your own soul and for the good of those around you and for the glory of Christ. Hundreds of you know this already. So just enjoy being affirmed in the path you have chosen. But others of you have perhaps grown up in homes or in churches where this simply was not part of what it meant to be a Christian—to meet regularly with a small group of believers to pray for each other and strengthen each other and help each other grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. So my aim for you is to introduce you to this normal Christian practice and awaken a deep, joyful, confident sense that this would be a really good and helpful thing to do. ...

Verse 24-25 [Hebrews 10], “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.”

1) We Encourage One Another

Notice four things in verses 24-25. First, God calls us to encourage one another. Verse 24b: “encouraging one another.” God’s plan for our good is that much of our encouragement come from other Christians speaking the word of God into our lives and praying for us.

2) We Stir Up One Another to Love and Good Works

Second, God’s purpose is that this mutual encouragement functions to stir us up to love and good works. Verse 24: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” In other words, the aim of the mutual encouragement is not just for the good of the members of the group but for the world. And that too is good for us, because Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). It’s like the widow’s jar of flour and jug of oil in the story of Elijah: The more she gave, the more God gave. They never ran out (1 Kings 17:16). So we encourage each other, and we stir each other up to love.

3) We Gather

And third, we gather to do this encouraging and this stirring up to love and good works. Verse 25: “. . . not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some.” This meeting together is not merely the big gathering for corporate worship, as we do on Sunday mornings; it is the kind of gathering where the pattern of ministry is each person ministering to the others. Notice how verse 25 continues: “. . . not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.” The meeting, in this case, is the kind of meeting that necessarily implies encouraging one another. So God is telling us that it is good for us to gather in smaller groups and minister to each other. This is his way of caring for us. He calls elders to oversee this, but it is the smaller, one-another ministry of all the members that completes the shepherding work.

4) Especially as the End Approaches

Fourth, notice that this kind of gathering in smaller groups to encourage each other is increasingly urgent as the end of the times draws near. Verse 25 once more: “. . . 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.” Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:1, “In the last days there will come times of difficulty.” Times of stress and tremendous pressure and hardship and darkness and evil. It will not get easier to be a Christian. And God is telling us what we will need to do to hold fast to our confession of hope (v. 23): Meet. Meet. Meet. And encourage one another. And stir each other up to love. Lone-ranger Christians will drop like flies in those days. ... "