Pastor Hector Boucet

It is so easy to open your mouth and discourage someone — and so easy to open your mouth and lift someone up. Which one will you choose the next time you have the chance?

Last week, Pastor Hector Boucet’s teaching centered on unity. This week, he turned to what keeps that unity strong: encouragement. It is easy, he said, to open your mouth and discourage someone — a careless word, a jealous glance at someone else’s success, an old grudge that never got forgiven. Every believer at The Gathering Church has felt that pull toward an eye for an eye. But GOD calls HIS people to something different.

Pastor Boucet pointed the congregation back to the example of JESUS on the cross — spit on, cursed, punished, and still forgiving those who put HIM there. If CHRIST could forgive that, he asked, what excuse do we have for holding onto bitterness toward one another? The answer, he said, starts with intention.

“Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.”

Hebrews 10:24-25

Pastor Boucet used the picture of praying for strangers at the mall to make his point: nothing happens without intention. You can walk past the same people thirty-five times and never pray for one of them if you never decided to. “Nothing is going to happen unless you say, I’m going to do it,” he said. The same is true for encouragement. It does not happen by accident — it happens on purpose, the moment you decide to open your heart toward someone else.

He pointed the church to Galatians 6:2, which calls believers to carry one another’s burdens as a fulfillment of the law of CHRIST. That kind of care does not wait for a convenient moment. It looks for one.

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

Galatians 6:2

“Encouragement doesn’t happen by accident. It happens on purpose.”

— Pastor Hector Boucet

Pastor Boucet reminded the congregation how much weight a single sentence can carry. A word of encouragement, even something as simple as “thank you for coming,” can change the trajectory of someone’s whole day. But words spoken carelessly, in anger or judgment, can do the opposite — and we rarely see the full weight of what those words cost the person who hears them.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

Ephesians 4:29

It is never too late to start, Pastor Boucet said. No matter how mean or rude someone used to be, today is a new opportunity to change — one step at a time, not overnight, but faithfully. The LORD is still working, even when the change feels slow. Encouraging one another, building each other up is a daily choice, not a one-time decision.

Pastor Boucet closed by tying encouragement to faithfulness in gathering together. “When we show up, we strengthen each other. When we disappear, the body feels it,” he said, pointing back to Hebrews 10:25’s charge not to forsake the assembling of believers. He described the fellowship after service — small groups lingering an hour or two, sharing words that carry someone home transformed — as evidence of a church that is not just united, but actively encouraging.

He grounded the whole message in 1 Thessalonians 5:11, which does not simply command encouragement — it acknowledges the church is already doing it, and calls them to keep growing in it.

“A strong church is not just united. It is encouraging.”

Pastor Hector Boucet

Whatever happened in the past — whoever turned their back on you, whatever words wounded you — the LORD calls HIS people to leave revenge in HIS hands and extend a hand to lift someone else instead. That is what it means to be encouraging one another, building each other up: not waiting for it to feel easy, but choosing it on purpose, every single day.

Watch the Full Sermon

Hear Pastor Hector Boucet preach Encouraging One Another, Building Each Other Up — Part 2 live at The Gathering Church — July 28, 2026.

Reflect & Respond

Whose burden could you help carry this week — and what word of encouragement is the LORD asking you to speak over them on purpose?