Build One Another

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Apendroth. You can always write me as I say, mike at nocompromiseradio .com, Spotify, iTunes. If you're watching, you already know about the YouTube channel.

If you're just listening, we have a YouTube channel you can watch. I don't know if it helps you to watch or not. As you watch a 66-year-old man get older and older and older before your very eyes. I got some new glasses about eight months ago and somebody said, well, we like the style, but it makes you look old.

I'm not wearing these to make me look old. I'm wearing these to make me look cool. Come on, I got my cool black ring on. Come on, it's all about cool. That's what we're after here, No Compromise, Coolio.

Before I get into the show today, I think you've probably listened to my son-in-law, Dawson Driscoll and his testimony on how he won my daughter in real time. They haven't got married yet, but in NoCo time and YouTube time, they'll have already been married.

It was Labor Day weekend. And in front of me, I just have the ceremony, processional, welcome and prayer, giving of the bride, scripture reading, et cetera. And I am already bracing myself, dear viewer, dear listener, because while I officiated my oldest daughter's wedding and officiated my son's wedding, I have not officiated my youngest.

And when I do, I'm just going to lose it. I'm just already bracing myself. Lots of times I don't cry when I'm up in front of people because I have a job to do, and that is talk and preach and lead and officiate.

But I think it's going to be bad. So the way it's going to work, at least in theory, my son's going to be at the very front where the officiant spot would be. And I'm going to walk my daughter down the aisle and then he's going to welcome, pray, who gives this woman to be married to this man?

I do. Even though Kim did most of the work, it's not her mother and I, and it's not, it takes a village. I'm the leader biblically, I do. Then I'll hand her off to Dawson and then I'll take my iPad, this iPad, this NoCo iPad.

When I do the wedding, I'll be doing it like this for the advertisement. And then I'll lead the rest as my son goes to where the groomsman will. So at least what we're doing right now, there's one song you're going to sing and it's going to be, How Great Thou Art.

And so I'm just looking at the program right now and I'm just bracing myself. Then sings my soul, my savior, God of thee, how great thou art. Just to think that this is the man that has been planned out for my daughter.

Just think that God has saved this man, kept this man, two parents that are Christians, evangelicals, all these things. And you just think, wow, just watching. You know, you look at the providence of God and if you're trying to find providence looking forward, you become like a sign seeker.

Encouragement as a Christian Calling

But if you look at providence that way, backward in time and you're like, okay, how did they meet? What happened? Where did they go? Everything else, it's very, very encouraging. Speaking of which, today is the topic of encouragement.

Encouraging one another. I think this is a lost art. I think Christians don't do this enough. I think you ought to be a better encourager. I want to be a better encourager. By the way, doesn't that sound like I'm an antinomian?

Encourage more. Just listen to one of my sermons and you will not say that guy's an antinomian, but that's a different subject. Have you encouraged anybody lately? Have you met with people and said, by the way, my only purpose today is try to encourage you?

This is really on my mind encouragement because I would posit that Jesus is the best encourager. And when you study the life of Jesus, yes, he rebuked people. Yes, he drove out money changers, but at the right time, at the perfect time when Jesus needed to encourage his disciples, that's exactly what he did.

So today, here's the premise. Since Jesus, the ultimate man, the perfect man, the best man, the men of all men, encouraged people regularly and often, you should encourage people regularly and often. Right?

Third use of the law, encourage one another. We ought to be encouragers. I think I've told you the story many times that besides my mother, the biggest encouragement I had growing up, well, my grandma and grandpa and those relatives, but I had a fifth grade teacher named Dan Sanfilippo.

And it was at Master's Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska. It had nothing to do with Master's Seminary, the Master's Monarchs. Boy, we were tough. What kind of nickname is that? The Master's Monarchs.

And so I love Dan Sanfilippo and I could tell you stories about what happened in his class. I don't remember what happened in Mrs. Hubbard's class in fourth grade, sixth grade class, ninth grade class, 10th grade class.

Few teachers I even remember my name, but I remember Dan Sanfilippo. And so I thought, you know, I want to encourage him because he was such an encouraged to me. So probably five years ago, I got online, looked up a Dan Sanfilippo, like 82 years old, Omaha, Nebraska.

Thought I'd give it a chance, got the phone number, called him up. Is this Mr. Sanfilippo? Speaking. Dan Sanfilippo used to be a teacher in Omaha Public School District? Yes. I said, this is Mike Abendroth.

I could cry thinking about it. One of your students in the fifth grade. And you're my best teacher that I've ever had. And I just wanted to say, thank you. You meant a lot. And he said, why, thank you, Mike.

Don't you have a sister named Marcy and a brother named Pat? I mean, I was what, that was what, 1972? And he remembered that because I do have a sister named Marcy and a brother named Pat. Wow. And so then we began to talk and he was telling me about his life and I was working some evangelism in there and how I've written, over 10 books and speaker and blah, blah, blah.

Stuff that I wasn't trying to brag, but I was trying to say, Dan, you had a part in that. You were used by God to influence me in a very real way, in a direct way. I just want you to be encouraged. And he said, I'm just so glad you called.

Then I thought to myself, well, that was so fun. And I'm a hardheaded person a lot of times and it's hard for me to obey the scripture. But when it says encourage one another, First Thessalonians, all right, I'm on a roll.

So I looked up my favorite boss in corporate America. His name was Ben Trammell. And so I found Ben Trammell's phone number and called him up and said, Ben, I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

And out of all the bosses I've ever had in life, you are my favorite boss. And by the way, when my dad was dying of cancer and you said, you know what? We know you're a regional trainer and Omaha's not in part of your region, but you have to go there and train some people in Omaha so you can see your dad more.

And then I'd get to Omaha and he'd say, well, there's nobody there to train. That was you, Ben Trammell. And I just want to say thank you that you were my favorite boss. You encouraged me, you trained me and you helped me.

Thanks for everything. So all that to say, by the way, if I can encourage people, you can, but we want to encourage because Jesus was the ultimate encourager. So let me give you the law first and then let me give you the gospel.

The Biblical Command to Build One Another Up

Law meaning how to encourage people. 1 Thessalonians 5 .11. Or not how to, but just to. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. Dads, do you encourage your spouse?

Dads, do you encourage your children? You're just always on them. Drill sergeant, policeman. Or do you encourage? Okay, let me ask you this, dads. Do you like to be encouraged? When somebody encourages you, are you more motivated to do things?

Are you more motivated to stay the course than discouraging things or people just snapping rules at you? If you're motivated by encouragement, I know you are. I bet you Dan Sanfilippo was. I bet you Ben Trammell was.

I bet you I am when people say, pastor, we really are thankful for your ministry. You encourage us a lot. I get encouraged by that and it just wants me to make me to do it all the more. So dads, if you like to be encouraged, why don't you start encouraging?

You're like, well, I don't get encouraged. Well, you're the dad, so lead. Leaders lead. And you say, I'm just gonna start encouraging people at work, at home, my neighbors. This is a world of discouragement, by the way.

It's discouraging because we ourselves sin. Other people sin. The world's tainted by sin. Politics. I mean, you can't even watch sports now, right? Without kind of being discouraged. What's a woman? WNBA, all this.

I watch sports for a diversion. I can't go see a band because they're gonna go into all their political stuff. Everywhere you go, where's the encouragement? So we as Christians, we're gonna start encouraging.

I put a yellow post-it on my desk regularly and it says, encourage exclamation point. 1 Thessalonians 4, encourage one another with these words. What words? That Jesus is coming back with a trumpet. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, but encouraging one another, Hebrews 10.

That's what you do when you get together on a worship service on Sunday and the saints get together. We sing the praise of Jesus, Lord's Supper, preaching ordinary means. And when we're around other people, we encourage.

By the way, that's one of the reasons why you should sing. That's why if you're a man, you ought to sing. I get so tired of looking around. That's why I don't look around. But when I see people and they're not singing, Christians sing.

And if you don't sing, I basically think, I don't know how you call yourself a Christian. And if I can get over my lack of being, having a great voice and just sing, this is the voice God gave me. Sing like Ferguson said, that you're holding a hymnal with Jesus.

And I sing to God who gave me this voice. That'd be dumb if I didn't sing to Him. And I also sing Colossians 3, Ephesians 5, singing to one another. So when Mario's here and he's really struggling, but he looks over and he goes, you know what?

Mike's just got done with his cancer treatment. And there he is singing, how great thou art. Hey, that's encouraging me. That's encouraging me that if he can do it, I can do it. We're both just weak people.

And when you go and you're like, I'm just too discouraged to sing. And I've got so many trials, I can't sing. You hear other saints sing. I'll never forget the time, Omaha, Nebraska, Omaha Bible Church.

My mom's bald because of chemo. She's dying of lung cancer, non-smoking lung cancer. Same cancer my father died of. And she's got a wig on. I loved her hair. By the way, one time I did get in trouble, Mario.

My mom came home from the beauty parlor and she said, well, what do you think of my new hairdo? And I said, it looks like the Bride of Frankenstein. Cause it was back like that. If you look at the Bride of Frankenstein back in the 50s, back in the kind of like gray hair or something, man, she was mad at me.

She called up Dan Sanfilippo and said, adopt this kid. I don't know why I said it. I don't think I was in fifth grade. I must've been in second grade. This is Stuart's class. Anyway, mom had the wig on and she's singing victory in Jesus, my savior.

And I just think, you know what? How encouraging, she's dying. Oh, victory in Jesus, my savior forever. And I'm just like, wow, that's encouraging. So how do you encourage each other when you're in the local church service?

Besides your talk about the Lord before and after the service, but singing, being a part, paying attention. Ephesians 4, verse 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as good for building up that it may give grace to those who hear.

It doesn't say encourage, but it means that. Proverbs 16, gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. I'm really trying to work on being an encourager. My wife took me to the San Francisco airport last week because I needed to fly here for a couple of weeks between vacation and the wedding.

She's gonna stay there and help get everything ready for the wedding. And she dropped me off and we got out of the car at the airport. And I wasn't that sad because I knew I'd see her in a few weeks anyway.

And I just held her really tight. And I said, before we pray, I said, I just want you to know, there's so many things I admire about you. You're wonderful. Thanks for being my wife. I'm trying to encourage because I've been convicted that the perfect man, Jesus, was a great encourager.

It doesn't mean that's all we have to do. Of course, we prove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. That's true. Proverbs 12, anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.

I know even Mario going through some personal trials, sitting here, I've watched his face. He's encouraged. He's listening to this message because we're taping it, but he's hearing. And so how do you encourage people with words?

And you talk about the Lord Jesus and talk about hope. So what about Jesus? Let me give you in Luke chapter 13, an illustration of his encouragement so that you can say to yourself, if the most perfect man who ever lived encouraged, I want to keep encouraging and I want to start encouraging and I want to encourage more often.

Fault-Finding and the Need for Encouragement

To encourage. And by the way, it's not really our default. Maybe men and women, I don't know, but as a man, I don't know if it's my default. And by the way, speaking of faults, I'm a good fault finder.

Part of it is because theologically I need to do that. I'm to shepherd the flock, guard the flock. People are gonna come in and those men must be silenced. Titus chapter one. Hey, and there are cretins, there are liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

This testimony is true and people sneak in and they're gonna try to bring in doctrines into this church and I need to be on the lookout. That's true. I need to teach sound doctrine and refute those who contradict.

That's true. But even as NoCo started as a discernment ministry, had a lot more giving back in those days and a lot better ratings. And once you start talking about Jesus all the time and encouragement drops off, it is what it is.

Que sera, sera. Did you know Que Sera, Sera by Doris Day? It was originally in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Go figure that out. Random knowledge. I was on the plane the other day and I was doing trivia.

How much inane information do I know in my life? More than I would like to know. What am I talking about? Where am I? What was I talking about, Mario? Encouragement. But what about it? Jesus, the perfect encourager.

Oh, somehow NoCo or something like that. Oh, fault. Okay, there. See, we'll finally get there. Faults. So it's important to see theological error and to call it out, obviously, and to guard the flock and wolves are gonna try to come in.

Ephesians 20, Acts 20 at the church at Ephesus. I get all that. But fault finding can be too extreme. And Twitter sometimes probably doesn't help. Social media doesn't help. Fault finding in marriages.

By the way, don't you, Mario, know more of your wife's faults than anybody else? Doesn't she know more about yours? You know, your children's faults, people here at church. We know more of our faults here of other people at church than we do at other churches.

People, coworkers faults. So you can either decide to just magnify the faults, concentrate on the faults, or you could do what you wish would be done to you. That they would cover those faults, that they would accept who you are and you're not defined by the faults, how you're growing.

I talked to a young lady yesterday and I said, by the way, you're not the lady you're going to be in 10 years, in five years, in 20 years. Christians grow. And Christians learn how to say to temptation, no, with stronger impulse.

They say no to killing sin more often and we're growing and maturing. And so there's hope. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. I mean, if people are struggling in life, don't you think maybe one of the best things you could do is encourage them?

Say, yeah, I know about that problem. I have those problems too. Here's a good way to combat those problems. I know you can do it. Way to go and try to encourage. It's like, you know, the kid playing basketball and he looks over to see if his dad's there in the crowd, if his mom's there in the crowd and they just want him to know, are you there watching?

And then you look over and you see your dad clapping and you're like, okay, it's going to spur me on. So Jesus, the great encourager, let's not be fault finder. Jesus could find all kinds of faults in these disciples and he often brought them out, but he still encouraged them.

Jesus Encourages His Disciples Through the Kingdom Parables

Here's an illustration of Jesus encouraging the disciples. Luke chapter 13. Now, this whole chapter is about repentance. Unless you repent, you'll likewise perish. Chapter 13, verse three. Chapter 13, verse five.

Unless you repent, you'll likewise perish. Israel not repenting because he told the story of the fig tree, which had been planted and there's no fruit on it. Israel as a nation is not repenting. The Messiah is there.

Jesus is in a synagogue and a lady had a sickness caused by a spirit hunched over, double over. And Jesus heals that woman and everybody there, they might've said great, but there was a man there, the leader of the synagogue, the official.

And he said, in six days, there should be work done. So come during them and get healed and not on the Sabbath. What a coward, he didn't even say it to Jesus. He said it to everybody else in the lady.

What a person who has no repentance. So everything in this chapter is about repentance. Either you must or there isn't any to be found. So what do you think Jesus would tell his disciples in such a society where hardly anybody's believing, hardly anybody's repenting?

I ask you the question, what do you need to hear living in this world like you do where it seems like it's chaos, more unbelievers than believers? You evangelize and like, I don't wanna hear it. I talked to someone yesterday and she said, I can talk to my husband about God.

But once I talk to my husband, so lady that attends a church here, once I talk to my husband about Jesus, he gets mad. You can see his face and he's like, don't talk to me about Jesus. What do we do in that kind of role?

I mean, is God winning? I mean, it looks like we're losing to me if I walk by sight and not by faith. I mean, are the upper echelons of American government, are they ruled by Christians? Oh, some, there might be a few.

What about the world? So what Jesus does is he says in a world of unrepentance, hey boys, take heart, take hope. I'm still building the kingdom. And he does something with two parables, the mustard seed and leaven.

When you first read him, you're like, what does that have to do with encouragement? It has everything to do with it. What is the kingdom of God like Luke 13, 18? And to what shall I compare it? Two comparisons.

One, it's like a mustard seed, small seed back in those days and threw it into his own garden and it grew and became a tree, 10 foot, 12 foot tall, tiny little seed, think like sesame seed, but smaller to a big tree.

And it grew and became a tree and the birds of the air nested in its branches. So sturdy the birds could come in its branches. And again, he said, to what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.

And when I first read those, I thought, what does that have to do with anything? Small, large, little, pervasive. Those are, that's true. But he wanted to encourage the man in a world of no repentance.

I am building my kingdom and the gates of death will not stop it. I'm building my church, one person after another, after another, all the elect will make it. Kingdom is going to come victoriously. And don't you men worry, I'm building my kingdom.

And by the way, as he said earlier, don't forget, he didn't say it here, but don't forget, it's cross then crown, suffering then glory, but the crown and glory are going to happen. I'm building, no one's going to stop what I'm doing.

Matter of fact, I'm on my way to Jerusalem and nobody's going to stop that either. And by the way, I'm going to lay my own life down. Nobody's going to kill me. I lay my own life down. And so here, Jesus encourages the men.

I think if you read the gospels regularly and say to yourself, let me try to find spots where Jesus says something that edifies. Let me find a spot where Jesus is encouraging. Let me find a spot where Jesus is building up the men.

And if you get a pink magic marker, you're going to just have pink all over your Bible. You're going to say, do you know what? Everywhere I go, I see Jesus encouraging people, encouraging his disciples to spur them on.

And even if he chases them, chastens them, and even if he says, you should be doing this and stop doing that, then here comes the balm because for Jesus, he's not going to snap off a bruised reed or take a smoldering wick and just snuff it out.

That's not what the Lord does. B .B. Warfield, a great theologian, Princeton theologian, the lion of Princeton, they called him. Besides taking care of his invalid wife, I've been to his house in Princeton and seen that.

And I just realized, if you've got a wife that you can hardly be gone from and just go back home and take care of, I already respect you. And then his theology, of course, was wonderful. There's now a 10-volume set.

I think PNR has published it. There's an article that he did called The Emotional Life of Jesus. Now, we know God in his essence, Genesis 1, prior to Genesis 1, God doesn't have passions and emotions.

And the scriptures might use terms where we go, oh yeah, we see that, but he has no, he doesn't change. So how can he be mad, sad, and all that stuff? So we say God is impassable. But when you look at the life of Jesus and the Son of God took on flesh and dwelt among us, do humans, does a human nature have passions?

Does Jesus have emotions? And so you'd say, yes, he's angry, drives out the money changers with the whip. He's sad, he weeps for Lazarus. Actually, that was actually mad too, mad at sin. But if you look at all of the emotions of Jesus and you had to say, what's the most prominent emotion in all of Jesus's life?

The incarnate Son. Warfield would say, rightly, it's compassion. It's compassion. And even that, does that not undergird and strike you as something that's very encouraging? That the God-man would have compassion on sinners?

He'd see even unbelievers like sheep without a shepherd. He'd see his own men who needed correction and guidance and strength. They can't even stay up and pray with him and watch. And there he is, taking care of, molding, shaping, modeling, all those things, encouraging.

Practicing Encouragement in Everyday Life

You have to read the Bible. When you do read the Bible, you have to say Jesus is an encourager. He encourages the disciples. So on the radio show today, on the video today, on the video pod, what's on your pod feed?

I'm too old to call it a pod. Justin Perdue might call it a pod. I don't call it a pod. Those guys are too hip. I don't, I just, you know, I'm the grandpa. Grandpa Mike, I try to be nice. Back to the word encouragement.

Even now, think of a few people you could encourage today. Think of somebody that you could write a little note. By the way, here's something that I regularly do. I buy postcards, get like a hundred from TJ Maxx with all the different national parks, Glacier National Park.

And it's a postcard, cool looking. I go buy postcard stamps. I don't know what they cost now, 40 cents. And somebody at the church will do something. And I'll say, you know what? I notice you faithful in the chair ministry, way to go.

The Lord also sees, Pastor Mike. It takes me 30 seconds max. That's including pulling it out, writing it, putting a stamp on. It takes me more time to look up their address and put it in the mail. And then I go to those people's houses and I see it up on the refrigerator.

Here's a little encouragement because people are dying for encouragement. It's a parched land for encouragement. And I want you to know Jesus is encourager. So if he's the perfect man and encourages, why won't you encourage?

But you know, deep down, I know you and I know me. If I encourage too much, they might not do the right thing. They might take advantage of grace. This is the exact same reason why some preachers don't wanna give grace to the congregation because grace is gonna abound.

They're gonna take advantage of it. Romans 6, they know it's true. So give them a law versus gospel. And so may I say the law to you is encourage. The gospel is Jesus is an encourager. And when you encourage people, it's good news and it spurs them on for godly living.

It spurs them on to be a better worker, a better wife, a better husband, a better child. Because I am noticed, I am encouraged. I almost said validated. And then I realized I can't talk that way on the show.

So the law, encourage. The gospel, Jesus is a great encourager. My name's Mike Gabendorf, No Compromise Radio Ministry. You can write me, mike, at nocompromiseradio .com. If you wanna order some books, The Chosen about unconditional election, easy little book just to pass out.

You can get it on Amazon. King, How the Sovereignty of God Changes Everything and more. I try to write them at a lay level, just easy stuff, small, pickup, cheap, et cetera. Don't forget to like and subscribe.

Don't forget to make some comments. If you're on iTunes, you can pick how many stars, but I'm asking you, give me five stars. Come on, one star for Mike and four stars for Jesus. See you next time.