Our passage today is about encouragement, what that really means and how we can have biblically empowered encouragement. Life is good, but life is hard, and we need encouragement. We need to be stirred up. We need our souls knit together. Paul talks about this idea of being knit together throughout his letter to the Colossians. Paul prayer in Colossians 2:19 is that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding, and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. The thrust of his message is this: if you want to resist false teaching, if you want to resist heresy, destructive, deceitful ideas coming into the church, knit yourselves together, encourage one another. Paul then gives some practical ways that we can encourage each other. Number one, companionship. Number two, specificity. And number three, personal touch. He doesn't just offer words of encouragement to the Colossians, he sends his companion Tychicus, so "that you may know how we are, and that he may encourage your hearts." Sometimes when we think of encouragement, we think of a nice pat on the back. But that that's not the type of encouragement that knits our hearts together. The Greek word translated encourage here is parakaleō, which can be illustrated by a father teaching his son how to walk. The father encourages the son, comes alongside him, stands by him, then steps back and pleads for the son to come forward. If you want to really encourage someone where your hearts are knit together, consider the situation they're in, then tell them how you are doing in the same fight that they are engaged in. Secondly, Paul encourages us to get specific. In verse 17 he directly addresses Archippus with a specific encouragement: "see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord." Thirdly, we need personal touch. Notice what Paul says in the last verse. "I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you." The people reading the letter would see that it's Paul's handwriting, but maybe it was a little more jagged than usual. And then they read that phrase, remember my chains, and think, oh, he's got chains on his wrist. Every Thursday morning, a brother in the Lord named Jack and I would get together and he'd teach me about hermeneutics, about how to study the Bible techniques. At the end of that time he got me this thick systematic theology textbook. I still use it every single week, and every time I do, I think about Jack, because when I open the front cover I see a handwritten note written just to me. A year and a half ago, Jack passed away. But every time I open that book it feels as if all the angels and all the saints of old are cheering me on. Exhorting me to read, encouraging me to pray. Calling me forth into truth. All the right information in the world can't do that. But the personal touch brings to life. When Paul talks about knitting of our souls together through encouragement, he's saying that as we encourage one another and as our souls are knit together in Christ, we inch closer and closer to glory. Father God of all comfort. Comfort us. Knit our souls together. Oh, Lord, we thank you that you reached out to us with personal touch to knit our souls back to you. God, what a marvelous mystery. God, you're with us now. You're in us by the spirit. You're in us by faith. You encourage us. You strengthen us. Help us to do that with our brothers and sisters.