What do you do when someone sends you a kind note?  Write back?  Or maybe pay kindness forward by writing someone else?  No doubt you display the thoughtful card or note in some prominent place.  Perhaps, the refrigerator or your desk or the dining room table.   As days and weeks pass those notes continue their work of encouragement.   

But then what?  What do you do with those cards when something new needs their space? We feel guilty throwing them away.  Or putting them away in some forgotten box.  They are too precious, as are the kind souls who sent them, to simply discard.  But we can’t display them forever. 

A wise pastor-mentor offered a novel solution.  He instructed me to create a folder in my filing cabinet labeled, “Mr. Wonderful.”  And whenever a card needed a more permanent place to go, it would go into this file.  He noted that, “as a pastor you will receive plenty of criticism over this thing or that, but on those days when the criticism of ministry hangs heavy, you go to your file and remember the encouragement some kind soul offered you in response to your care for them.  Remember that there was a day when you were ‘Mr. Wonderful.’”   We all have days when we need to remember past encouragements and kindnesses.  Days when we were someone’s Mr. or Ms. Wonderful.

As believers we are called to be encouragers.  While some are gifted encouragers, the Biblical command to encourage others is not limited to just the eloquent or the sensitive.  And our encouragement is not just for those who are struggling.  Sometimes the faithful believer needs a word of encouragement to keep on keeping on.  Paul commanded the church at Thessalonica to  “encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”  Who are you encouraging?  Who are you building up?

The little letter of 3 John contains only 219 words.  By that count it is the shortest book in the New Testament.  It is also the only New Testament epistle addressed to one specific person.  Though, no doubt it was also intended to be shared with the church.  Despite its brevity it is full of encouragement for Gaius, a faithful earlier believer, of whom the New Testament tells us nothing else.  And while there are some particular concerns touched on in the letter regarding the church, the thrust of 3 John is its encouragement to Gaius.

From John’s shortest recorded letter, we glean important ways we can encourage one another.  Not to mention the exhortation for us to take seriously our duty to encourage faithful believers in their walk, their service, and their participation in the life of the church.

Join us as we examine 3 John 1:1-15 and consider John’s example of how we should encourage faithful believers. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

Our cars are listening for our instructions.  And our screens are spying on our preferences.  Our watches count our steps, our heartbeats and even our breaths as we sleep.  Then tell us how we could have done better.  We have other specialized devices that monitor our vitals and alert the world if we take a tumble.  We have doorbells that double as FBI surveillance collection devices.  And many who work at home must install systems that monitor their keystrokes to make sure they are really working.  

Everyone is watching us.  Monitoring us.  Assessing us.  From our online habits to our biometrics, to our movements from place to place the surveillance state is here.  Going ‘off grid’ or ‘under the radar’ is becoming less and less possible. 

But for all the eyes that are watching us, how careful are we to watch ourselves?  Are we watching the metrics that are most important? Are we taking our thoughts captive and making them obedient to Christ?  Are we seeking first the kingdom of God and letting everything else get added afterwards?  Are we exercising self-control in our desires?  Are we walking in the truth?

Both as individuals and as churches we are called to be watchful.  Paul warned the Corinthians and us, “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”  Peter cautions, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”  And John’s caution in 2 John 1:7-8 is every bit is needful today than it was in the first century.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.

In John’s first letter to the churches of Asia Minor he wrote to restore confidence and assurance of faith to believers whose assurance had been shaken by false teachers. These anti-Christs scoffed at the authority of the Word of God, rejected the incarnation of Jesus, denied the presence of sin and boasted that their own knowledge and experience was all that was needed to have fellowship with God. 

But beyond merely refuting the deceivers who have brought division to the churches, John writes a second letter to warn the churches to be on their guard to hold fast to God’s Word and to actively refuse aid or comfort or support to false teachers who seek to gain a hearing  among them. 

The short letter of 2 John is a pointed warning to churches to take seriously the call to ‘watch ourselves,’ that we are walking in the truth and rejecting those who reject the faith once for all delivered to the saints.   

Join us as we examine 2 John 1:1-13 and consider the warning that the church must be on guard against false teaching and false teachers. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

“Tell me about this one!”  It took me a while as a young father to learn to ask this question when my children proudly posted a drawing on the refrigerator.  And as a Hospice Chaplain when asking the dying patient about the pictures on their wall.  Recognizing our child’s picture and a dying patient’s place in the family album before sickness and pain made its mark can be difficult.  So, we never ask, “who is this?”  Or “what did you draw there?”  We say, “tell me about this one!”

Abstract ideas can be equally difficult to recognize. And even harder to define with precision.  What makes ‘love’ love?  How wise must wisdom be?  How good is good?  And how bad is bad?  And for Christians we often ask, “just what is faith?”  Is it the content of information about God and His ways?  Is it an inner feeling that the God of our expectations will cause things to work out?  Is it a quality or quantify of belief within us?  Or is it just a ritual we practice consistently? 

What is faith?  What does it look like and how can we know we have it?  These are questions all Christians ask.  And God knew we would ask them.   So, he provided answers in his Word, especially in the letter of 1 John.  Heretics, false teachers, and anti-Christs were supplying lies in answer to the question what is faith and do I have it?  So, the aging Son of Thunder, the Apostle John takes up the mighty pen, inspired by the Holy Spirit, to counter popular lies with the truth about the basics of faith and assurance that we possess it. 

John’s letter describes a series of tests that provide assurance.  John’s tests were theological, moral, and social.  The theological test was to trust in the Apostolic witness as the source of truth about the person and work of Christ.  The moral test was to live a transformed life in obedience to the commandments of Christ.  And the social test was to love our brothers, not just in words, but in deeds. 

John begins to close his letter after a thorough discussion of love and then opens his final chapter with a discussion of real faith – its nature and its knowledge.  Just what is faith?  And how do we know we have it?   Join us as we examine 1 John 5:1-12 and consider the nature and knowledge of our faith. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube. 

It is easy to confuse peace and relief.  They are similar yet quite different.  Relief is a temporary reprieve from a consequence or circumstance.  It may not, and usually does not, last. It is only present when turmoil is absent. Peace, however, is a quality of being that is present whether there is turmoil or not.  Peace rests not upon circumstance but upon the certainty of God’s unbreakable promises and presence. Real peace comes only from God who claims to be “The LORD Our Peace.” Join us as Rev. Bill Holiman preaches from Judges 6:11-24 and Ephesians 2:13-18 as we consider “The LORD Our Peace.”