Faith Fatigue | Dr. Hart Ramsey

future so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey what's going on ncc family i want to thank you guys so much for joining us we have a few announcements to share with you guys so here's what's happening at northview christian church ncc safe harbor and communion city our ncc online family is growing and we'd love for you to connect with us so if you'd like to become a part of our ncc online family simply text the word join to 334 539 freight or log on to nccfamily.org to learn about membership information on becoming an online member make plans to join us sunday september 12th as we celebrate the birthday of our very own apostle pastor heart ramsay so go ahead and mark your calendars let's get ready to celebrate and be a blessing to the very one who's been such a blessing to us ladies we're updating the woman refined database and we're looking forward to reconnecting with you so please email the rebondwomanncc gmail.com with your name and number we're in our planning stages and we'd love for you to be a part of all the exciting things that will be taking place very soon so don't forget to follow us on our facebook page you can find us by searching one more refine please remember for your safety it is our heart to continue to practice all social distancing protocols while worshiping together in the sanctuary so ncc safe harbor don't forget to register for all upcoming in-person services until further notice please help us keep you safe if you're watching us on youtube go ahead and do me a favor click that subscribe button and like this video and if you're watching us on facebook go ahead and hit that like love and share button or start a watch party thank you again for joining us please enjoy the rest of our service [Music] [Music] ncc family i'm excited to announce that the fall semester of connect groups is almost here so i need you to decide today that i am going to get plugged in no matter where you are at mark your calendars for sunday september 12th because we are starting with a bang if 2020 has taught us anything it taught us that we are not designed to do life alone so today i am making that decision that i am going to grow in the context of community so decide today to get plugged in father thank you for all the men and women of god who are viewing this session i declare in jesus name lord that they will speak directly to the issue of fatigue in our souls and bring us to a place of healing and strength and recovery in jesus name amen amen so what i want to do today is i want to kind of walk us through this topic of faith fatigue and if the topic is new to you then bear with me i will do my best to explain it uh fully uh in the book of hebrews chapter 11 and verse 1 or the bible says that faith is the confidence of reading from the new living translation faith is the confidence that what we hope for would actually happen the king james says faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen now notice now the bible says in several places that the just shall live by faith what that means is every person that has been justified to the finished work of jesus christ justification means that god has brought us into a relationship with him every person that's born again and is living for the lord from the pulpit to the parking lot the bible says that our faith it becomes the catalyst by which we live what that means is we exist in the visible realm but we trust god bring the resources and the strength and power and all the necessities from the invisible realm to us as we live this life watching us now we go we have nothing to go on but the word of god we've you've never seen jesus you've never seen god but we believe his word and that faith is built on a thing called hope hope is the foundation of our faith is the foundation of our faith understand that the enemy knows that that hope is you can't have faith without hope so with that being said i want to kind of break it down and give you a step by step to understand how your faith is structured and how it's built um the bible says in psalm 119 49 the psalmist says uh he's praying to god he said remember the word unto thy servant upon which thou has caused me to hope caused me to hope but what he says is basically god speaks a promise to me and what the promise does it creates a picture of vision of a future that god has in mind for me and when that happens it is called hope in the new testament this word hope is the greek word elpis which means an expectation of good a future i expect my future to be good i expect all things to work together for good because god promised it he said regardless he said may not feel good it may not look good but it but it's not finished till it becomes good you got it and so my faith my faith is built on that hope in in romans chapter 15 verse 4 and i'm reading quite a bit of these scriptures from the new living translation the scriptures read for our business king james though this is before whatever things were written a fourth time were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures may have hope and so the bible says this picture that i'm looking for remember what i hope is my expectation of good it's my vision of my future that god has for me it says here that um that what everything that's written in scripture every story in the old testament every every command every instruction every promise is to build my hope is to keep me hopeful looking forward matter of fact hope is so critical to the christian experience that the coming of the lord jesus christ whether he comes for us or by rapture or whether he calls for us in death it's called the blessed hope the blessed hope is the coming of the lord jesus christ the blessed hope our entire faith is built on hope and the enemy knows that in romans chapter 4 verses 18 through 20 the story is told of abraham and here's what it says it says even when there was no reason for hope abraham kept hoping believing that he would become the father of many nations now watch this this is an important scripture because god called abraham at the age of 75 years old and god promised him many things now he's 99 years old and the promise has not come to pass but the bible says instead of choosing to let go of his expectations and let go of the future that god had promised him abraham chose instead to believe it says even when there was no reason for hope abraham kept hoping believing that he would become the father of many nations for god had said to him that that's how many descendants you will have and abraham's faith did not weaken even though at about a hundred years of age he figured his body was as good as dead and so is sarah's womb so here it is a man who's old he can no longer be intimate with his wife his wife even if he could be intimate with her she's barren and so they have a double negative working in their lives but they refuse to let go of their hope they refuse to let go of this vision of the future that god gave to them regardless of what they were going through and the bible says in doing so abraham never wavered in believing god's promise in fact he grew stronger in faith and the end of that says in verse 20 and this brought glory by this rather he brought glory to god in this he brought glory to god in other words when we talk about the glory of god it revealed it's the word here doctor reveals who god really is it reveals god to people around us when we can trust god and hold on to our hope in spite of hardship it brings glory to god another scripture as um how hope works and and how the enemy cannot attack hope is in in acts chapter 27 the bible says that paul was on a ship headed to rome he wanted to go uh for he choked to go for a trial and the bible says that paul had told the captain of the ship uh not not to set sail he said i perceive danger his prophetic intuition uh was was a high alert and he said i perceive it as a danger for us but they ignored him the bible says as they as they were gone they encountered this storm and this storm was such a strong storm and it went on for days and this is what happens when your hope has been battered and bruised like ours our faith has been under attack for the last couple years and last year our 2020 was one of the most devastating years of our lifetimes and so the bible says that in in this story with paul is he they were in the storm for so long that it caused a shift in the expectation acts 27 verse 20 says the terrible storm raged for many days blotting out the sun and the stars until listen to this statement until at last all hope was gone when you remain in a prolonged storm for a long period of time disappointment after disappointment let down after let down trouble upon trouble sorrow upon sorrows when that happens you may not realize it but it takes a toll on your hope and many of us sometimes we get to a place where it becomes difficult to believe god we don't share with other people because we don't want people to look down on us but we get to a place where we say i just don't want to trust god i just don't want to be disappointed again that is what we call faith fatigue where you just tonight where where things could go wrong around you and it's not it's even difficult to pray because you're saying to yourself what's to use nothing's going to change the problem with that though is when we abandon our hope we've lost the ability to live in faith if the just gets his life through living by faith and faith is built on a foundation of hope if you lose your hope you lose your faith and when you lose your faith you lose your connection to god in in jeremiah chapter 17 verse 13 and 14 i want to read this to you the prophet is praying he said oh lord the hope of israel he calls god the hope of israel so i hope it's not in a promise as much as it is in person the lord jesus christ is our hope god is our hope he says oh lord the hope of israel all who turn away from you will be disgraced they will be buried in the dust of the earth for they have abandoned the lord the fountain of the source of living water and he says oh lord if you heal me i will truly be healed if you save me i will truly be saved my praises are for you alone and what this means is what's just now it means that the prophet had gotten to the place where he understood that when he had been through what he had gone through was having an effect on him on him and he was looking around at other people who just decided to abandon the lord he's just you know i'm done i can't do this anymore how many people have you seen who have shifted their posture and really don't have the same fire these are before it's before we judge him what we need to realize is this faith fatigue is real i've been through it i know many people have been through i've coached pastors out of it i'm walking with many people right now who are suffering from faith fatigue an absence of hope leads to at least three things number one when you lose your hope you lose your vision you lose your vision we lose you lose the energy to imagine we lose the power to think creatively we we lose the ability to think futuristically all we could see is right now a loss of hope remove all of the possibility of the future number two when i lose hope an absence of hope means i i now walk in a sense of despondency i'm always discouraged i'm feeling unhappy i'm pessimistic my attitude points down and not up i see the negative in every possibility every opportunity looks like a problem when i lose my hope there's a sense of despondency and number three when when i lose my hope despair sets in that means i focus on the situation more than i focus on the lord i can't see god for seeing so much of the situation i'm dismayed i'm cast down so today what my goal is is to diagnose this faith fatigue and to help you negotiate your way i'll get your way out of this thing and back onto the forefront and back into the game because god needs his people especially his leaders living by faith in proverbs chapter 13 verse 12 you know the scripture but i'm reading from the new living translation it says hope deferred makes the heart sick but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life and i want to explain this scripture in reverse order the tree of life analogy the metaphor of the tree of life um it speaks to something that continually gives life jesus is archery of life but the but the tree of life is only mentioned three times in the bible actually not three times but in three books it's mentioned in the book of genesis it's mentioned in the book of proverbs and it's mentioned in the book of revelation in the book of genesis the tree of life is mentioned as a lost as a lost possibility adam and eve failed through the tree of life that chose knowledge over life in the book of proverbs the book of the the tree of life is mentioned as as life-giving possibility he says when the dream is fulfilled um it gives you so much light when you when you dream a matter of fact when you succeed at one thing you want to try something else when you when you succeeded business you want to start another business or do more business but when you don't that's what the bible is talking about hope the third makes the heart sick this is not a metaphor it is a truth heart sickness is a very real melody it's an illness it must be addressed therapeutically so i want to talk to you just quickly about the word therapy the word therapy means a treatment that's intended to minister to and eventually heal a disorder therapy when we speak of something be addressed therapeutically we talk we talk about not just an event but we're talking about a process therapy is an ongoing process intended to gradually return us to full functional health to return us to full strength and so when it when we feel heart sickness that comes as a result of lost hope of deferred hope delayed hope when we when we seek to heal that what we must do is realize it cannot be healed in a moment it has to be healed with momentum in other words we need process we need to go through process there's some boxes we need to check and some things we need to do to keep our heart constantly in a place where we can revive hope hope and come back to us now i want to clarify something because it goes without saying that when i speak of biblical hope i'm not speaking about wishing um hope hoping and wishing are two different things two different topics um when i wish for something i say to myself it would be nice if that could happen wishing for something is just a desire hoping for something is trusting in the promise of god now um remember the scripture we read um remember your word unto your servant on on the word of you you've caused me to hope now this and this word you have caused me to hope because hope is something that god causes to happen hope is something that when i hear the word of god it paints a picture of a future that god has in store for me when i talk about hope i am talking about a visual a vision of what tomorrow could look like when you hear the word of god it inspires you it builds faith in you that picture that you see is hope faith the difference in faith and hope is hope sees it and faith literally adjusts its behavior to fit the future it sees so god spoke to noah and god told nor build an ark it's going to reign and the bible says by faith nor built an ark here's how it works when god told noah was going to reign it had never rained before a mist came up from the ground and watered the earth but when god says go to reign nor saw a picture he saw a vision of this future and what he does now is he begins to work based on what he saw and god called that faith faith is speaking and behaving or acting with nothing to go on but the word of god okay now i've had to clarify that so i want to speak to this issue of heart sickness because what happens to us as believers is this thing happens to us so often that we do not address it and we don't know how to minister to it in our people so i want to read isaiah chapter 19 verses 5 through 10 and i want to show you a dismal picture of of a people going through a repeated hardship and the reason i'm doing this is because i want you to see um at the end of it how how the prophet describes a situation that's so bleak that he's now speaks to the individual about the hope that's lost watches isaiah chapter 19 verses 5-10 he says the waters of the nile will fail arise and flood the fields the riverbed will be parched and dry the canals of the nile will dry up and the streams of egypt will stink he speaks a pain in this picture it will stink with rotting weeds and rushes all the greenery along the riverbank and all the crops along the river will dry up and blow away the fishermen will lament for lack of work those who cast hooks into the niles will groan and those who who use nets will lose heart listen he said they will lose heart there will be no flax for the harvesters no thread for the weavers and he said they will be in despair and all the workers will be sick this is the judgment that god is bringing on egypt and the description the bleak description but look at the end of it in verse 10 he says there will be all this will all the things that go wrong will cause them to be in despair what it means is all they see is what's wrong all they see is failure or they don't the sun or the clouds rather have blacked out vision of the future and he said as a result of this the workers will become sick at heart and what's happening to us today in america i've seen a lot of pastors go through us is that we are sick at heart heart sickness comes as a result of having to deal with unmet repeated unmet expectations the word expect means to it's all we borrowed it from the latin as the latin word spectery means to look to means um to look or uh or to spectate and the the prefix x means out so when you flip it the word around it means expect means to look out or have an outlook okay so when my expectation is on met it means the outlook that god painted in my heart through his word it fails i don't see it it doesn't come to pass and then we start questioning ourselves did i do something wrong is there something wrong is this god love me is god real we start asking questions we normally will not ask okay so i want to share a couple things with you before we go to the next part when we feel let down or confused by disappointed plans our hearts gradually begin to leak forward little by little we lose the ability to imagine or envision a world affected by our efforts little by little we we begin to um lose the ability to imagine that anything i do can make a difference the argument about damaged thinking is this in other words we begin to now argue with ourselves and the argument about damaged thinking is this what's the use why should i try my efforts aren't making any difference and i'm gonna tell you something if you don't think heart sickness that comes from hopelessness is a big deal then check me on this people only commit suicide for one reason there's no other reason that people commit suicide but for loss of hope when when the thought of all my tomorrows could feel like today many people become so sick in this psyche that they either take a pill put a gun to their do something because they want out of the pain heart sickness is a painful experience when a believer suffers faith fatigue it is a cold red situation it's a major situation because remember we get our life by faith that's built on hope and when hope is going it feels like everything is swept out from under us so i want to talk to you now about some contributing factors to our hopelessness i'll give you a couple scriptures that i want us to consider in genesis chapter 27 verse 46 the bible says then rebecca said to isaac i'm sick and tired of these local hittite women i would rather die than see jacob marry one of them now this is interesting because um they were living rebecca came from a one another part of the world she came to she actually came from where uh abraham has sent her back to his hometown to send or his servant rather back to the final wife of isaac he brings back rebecca and rebecca's living in this place among foreigners and she just could not stand the customs of the women how they carry themselves how whatever their situation was and and i could say a lot of things about this because it sounds like a racial issue we're not sure but what we do know is her she got herself in a situation where her heart became sick and damaged because of the hit women hit that women so i want to show you some contributing factors using this story to our hopelessness number one our failure to control our own emotional responses to aggravating others often coupled with an unfulfilled desire to control other people's decision will cause us to be hopeless i want to say it again i want to maybe make it clear clearer or plainer okay so our desire to be in control of a situation and to control people's actions and decisions if we're not careful um it will actually um uh damage our perception of the future if we we feel like if i can't control you then i can't control me but that is not true the answer to this dilemma is to control yourself first just employ yourself and let people live their lives in this situation rebecca was troubled because she couldn't control who who was son married and she could not change how the women were or whatever the situation was but in order to fix it um her thing was if you marry one of them i'll die no you're not gonna die you're just gonna lose more control and that's the issue many of us um when we're in a situation like we've been in for the last couple of years what happens to us is we feel so out of control but what we need to remember that when we're not in control god is in control and there are times in our journey where god will take control out of our hands so he can have control in his hands to lead us and stairs in the direction he wants us to go because he's fulfilling his prophetic calendar amen the answer is to control yourself and let people live their lives set boundaries so that their decisions don't affect you sit down with me so let them do it just just you say well this is i'm going this far no further let them let them go do what they want to if if if eyes if all if isaac wants to marry i'm sorry if uh if a son wants to marry one of these women let him do it but don't come to me with problems you got it you have to have some kind of boundaries and fences in place number two second contributing factor to hopelessness is in job chapter 7 verse 16. the bible reads job said i hate my life i don't want to go on living and he says to his friends oh leave me alone for for my few remaining days job got into the situation where where he was being um tested by god and he wasn't sure why he was being tested he just felt like he was being judged and so the second contributing factor that i've found to hopelessness is constant irritation and exasperation with the circumstances of our lives we allow our circumstances to drain us of hope not realizing that the circumstances are just there god allowed things to be the way they are just so they can test us and refine us and and to bring us to a place of of of development and maturity every tool in god's toolbox has a different purpose and sometimes god will use circumstances as a sandpaper but follows down or to smooth us out in this situation job's trial only lasted nine months but when you read the book of job it took 42 chapters to document nine months at the end of job's situation joe came out of it with more insight he came out of it he lost the whole family he lost his wealth but god gave him back w gave him twice as much as he had god blessed him but he had to get through the process and not lose hope in his circumstances so here's the answer the answer to this second contributing factor to hopelessness is to accept your circumstances as temporary disruptions are that will benefit you in the long run temporary disruptions that will benefit you in the long run things will work together for good eventually romans 8 28 says that but i've got i cannot let my circumstances change who i am or who i trust number three the third contributing factor for our hopelessness is in ecclesiastes chapter 2 verse 17. solomon writes so i came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling he said everything is meaningless like chasing the wind now watch this he was referring to change if you read the context of that he referred to change and so the third contributing factor to our hopelessness is a realization that change is constant and is it it is inevitable okay so right now one of the things that we're dealing with in this or pandemic and the things we're going through is that things are changing and not only are they changing they're changing drastically i've studied pandemics for years or um going back to the fourth or fifth century bc and every pandemic that came into the earth changed the earth so irrevocably that that things never went back to the way they were what people don't talk about is that when rome fell it fell within a pandemic um when you look at the that movie the 300 to talk about sparta sparta um came into power in a pandemic when you started looking at all the the governmental changes wars were fought major wars people talk about the waters fought but they didn't think they didn't talk about the pandemic that was going on at the same time this is not new so what you have to understand is like in job situation i'm sorry in solomon's situation he came to realization that change is kind things keep changing and he said what's the use of trying anything what's the use of looking forward with hope when things are constantly changing and here's the answer to that embrace change because you cannot avoid it it's unavoidable embrace change plan for it what about this use change to your advantage use it to your advantage how well how you do it is let me tell you what i'm doing so we realized that things will never go back to the way they were in ministry so we are planning a future what does the future look like we're putting on creativity we're not allowed and it's difficult i'm not going to say it's easy but we we refuse to allow ourselves to be bogged down with depression bogged down with hopelessness we refuse to get to that place we've decided that we're going to plan for the future we're going to push forward we're going to encourage people we're going to do what we can do and let god take care of the change one of the worst things that can happen is that the world changes without you and if you allow yourself to remain in a place of hopelessness the world will move forward it's gonna go forward whether you choose to go forward with it or not contributing factor number four to our hopelessness is in numbers chapter 11 verse 10. it begins action we'll read five verses it says moses heard all the families standing in the doorways of their tents whining and the lord came the lord became extremely angry moses was also aggravated the bible says and moses said to the lord why are you treating me your servant so hate so harshly have mercy on me he said what did i do to deserve the burden of all these people he said god is a curse and he said did i give birth to them did i bring them into the world why did you tell me to carry them in my arms like a mother carries a nursing baby how can i carry them to the land you swore to give them to give their ancestors where am i supposed to get meat for all these people they keep whining to me saying give us meat to eat i can't carry all these people by myself the lord is too heavy if this is how you intend to treat me here's what moses said just go ahead and kill me do me a favor and smith spare me the misery have you ever if you ever pass to people or be in a situation where the your ministry the thing that god gave you to do you just you love the lord but you hate his people so this number four uh contributing factor to our hopelessness is god's decision to feed his people with something that they don't understand now i want to kind of um break this one down this is a different one it's kind of longer so i want to show you um what's going on here so so god chooses to feed his people with matter and to them um it was a situation that that they weren't prepared for and it made life difficult for moses because the people can get to god so they blame moses this is a kingdom leader's worst nightmare um god will often cause us to bear the brunt of the people's frustrations their demands and their outbursts at him they're not mad at you they manage god they're questioning god their hearts are becoming sick towards god but it affects us because we're god's representative to them if we're not careful though the people's complaints their whinings their bickerings their outbursts their accusations can have a devastating effect on our outlook it can literally crush your hope especially when you're giving all you got especially when you serving the people of god everything your family is pouring out i mean and all they do is find fault the answer to this is to continually seek wisdom from god and how to lead his people during crisis ask him if any man left wisdom little asked of god who gives to all men liberally and uprising not he will not find fault with you in this game he will give you freely wisdom for you what to do and when to do it where to do it how to do it god has timing in his instruction for you he will tell you what you need to do now watch this the the next factor involved in this that you've got to understand is that it's important to remember that god allows seasons of the spirit in our lives to help us grow roots that reach down into him he's attempting to anchor us in our connection to him god allows us i want to read this part of second corinthians chapter one to you it's in verses 8 through 10 where paul is documenting or rehearsing the things that he went through for ministry remember god allows these seasons where we can't see where the lights are turned is he doing want to get us to trust him he's trying to get us to trying to get us to to let our roots sink into him and the relationship that we're supposed to have with him is supposed to come now the worst thing you could do in a situation like this that we're in is allow your hope to be drained then you find yourself drinking from toilet bowls and eating from garbage cans just trying to medicate the pain of hopelessness medicate the pin of hopelessness the enemy would tempt you with all kinds of substitutes illicit relationship pornography of retail therapy huge all these things you'll try to bring into your life to just you trying to just feel something besides pain my friend god allowed this this situation is happening all that's around us is so that our roots could go down where we could spread our roots in him and learn to depend on him again here's what paul said second queen this chapter in verse 8. he said we think we are that you ought to know dear brothers or sisters about the trouble we went through in the province of asia here's what he said he said we were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure he says we thought we would never live through it he said man this thing was overwhelming to us in verse 9 he says in fact listen to this statement in fact we expected to die paul says we thought we were going to die he said well watch this but as a result we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely on god who raises the dead and he did rescue us from mortal danger and he will rescue us again and that's what he says we have placed our confidence in him and he will continue to rescue us and he will continue to rescue us now this this is a i think it's a part of what the lord is doing for us despair is always the result when we focus on the problem more than we focus on god it's all it always results in despair but i want to show you this when god allows these things to happen i want to reiterate it's because he's inviting us to stop having self-confidence and start having god confidence let's start i eat as leaders we go to god you know many of us my ministry got into the place where it was automatic it was flowing function according to a program um that we put in place and everything was you know scheduled and organized but now we have to trust god from week to week to know what we're going to say what we're going to do god is speaking about changing assignments god is doing all kinds of things because he's bringing back bring us back to a place where we have to trust him where our confidence is not in our own abilities or we can't even keep ourselves alive to this he has to do i wanted to to bring us to close with this and i pray this has been a blessing to you so far but i want to i want to speak to two scriptures every preacher only every leader here every person on here has either preached taught or heard the story of the valley of dry bones dry bones actually is speaking to a form of hopelessness matter of fact it is specifically speaking to this faith fatigue hopelessness i'm going to show you in the scriptures i call it a spiritual dehydration by the time you feel thirst by the time you say man i'm thirsty your body is already dehydrated we're supposed to be drinking water constantly and in drinking water constantly the more water you drink the more you you feel thirst before you're dehydrated the less water you drink the less your body can tell that sometimes you think you're hungry when you're really thirsty that's that is true and the older we get the worse it gets you think you're hungry but you're thirsty now get this in ezekiel 37 verse 11 you know the story of god takes ezekiel in the spirit to the valley of dry bones and he looks over the landscape and he says i saw bones that were very dry and he's just talking about the condition he said they weren't just dry and now it represented the bible where there was like people slain on the battlefield their bodies were left and strewn across the battlefield and maybe the the vultures came and took an arm from here and a leg from there and you know how vultures are very selfish in the eating and he says i looked over this valley like the lord and then god asked can these bones live and he said i answered the lord said lord thou knowest you know because i don't know and he said in verse 11. then he said to me son of man here's what he said that he gave him directions on how to do that he said prophesied to them whatever but he says he said to me son of man these bones represent the people of israel here's what he said they are saying we have become old dry bones listen to this next statement all hope is gone all hope is gone our nation is finished that god said the vision that ezekiel saw was based on what the people were saying based on what they'd been through their hopelessness they said all hope is gone done and so here's what god says therefore here's what i want you to do prophesy to them and say this is what the sovereign lord says oh my people i will open your graves of exile remember the statement i'll open your graves of exile and cause you to rise again then i will bring you back to the land of israel when this happens all my people you will know that i am the lord i will put my spirit in you and you will live again and return home to your own land then you will know that i the lord have spoken it and have done what i said yes the lord has spoken remember this entire visual was israel in captivity saying they were just saying we're getting old you know this we just old dry bones i mean all i hope is gone we're finished is that what you've been saying is that what you've been thinking because if you've been saying it in your heart that god is hearing it and god is calling your situation faith fatigue or spiritual dehydration let me show you something i want to give you some pointers about this the remedy according to this scripture you should go back and study to bless you the remedy number one is god told ezekiel to prophesy so the remedy is to activate your prophetic voice what does that mean it means speak the answer speak the answer don't say what you see listen my question is are you going to say what you see or are you going to have what you say because you can't have it both ways are you gonna are you gonna say what you see anybody can describe description does nothing prescription on the other hand tells uh it predicts the future yeah here's the here's the answer prescription is the answer all description really is is a documentation of what's there it doesn't change anything the remedy number one is to activate your own prophetic voice speak the answer number two exposure to authentic prophetic ministry what you what what we all need is to not despise prophecy what is the lord saying let's ask the lord god send me a prophetic word or or if you ain't prophet and you're prophetic let the lord speak to you about you number three uh there has to be a willingness to trust god with your expectation again there has to be a willingness to trust god with your expectation you say pastor i've been trusting god and nothing been happening but you cannot give up because the moment you stop trusting god the moment you stop hoping in the lord it's over as long as you have hope as long as you look forward um barack obama wrote a book the audacity of hope jesse jackson used to say keep hope alive why and that's just not clever saying hope is a vision of of the future it's a dream that will come to pass when the dream is fulfilled it's a tree of life i hope the fur makes the heart sick and we're trying to get us recovered from this sickness of faith fatigue there are four things at least that we should expect and i want to read these for my notes and i've not been actually looking at i've been looking at the notes on the computer but i don't want to read these to you real quick number one expect him expect the lord to open the burial places where your hope died and was buried that's what we refer to in ezekiel 37 as graves of exile or expect the lord to open the burial places to open the graves where did you bury your hope what was it last seen what's the last thing you expect god to expect god to do and it didn't happen start there number two expect the lord to lift you out of your despair through deliberate acts of kindness and grace expect ask him god surprised me with favor show me your favor this is done watch this now the causing ministry of the holy spirit um will begin to operate in your life and the holy spirit now the holy spirit can be a coach and he could it could be a cause in other words he could cause things to happen okay here's what the law said i will cause he said tell them i'll cause you to rise again that's what the prophet said tell the people israel i will cause you to rise again god is gonna cause you to rise again god's going to cause you to come back into your own you said pastor i've lost everything so let me tell you something if you are called of god and i know you are and you lost members church whatever you lost it only means that god has something new for you do not put all your eggs in the basket of the past look forward to god doing something new in your future hope is a forward vision it's not a a rare vision it is full vision it's a windshield you got it i'm looking forward to something number three expect him to reinstall you to the place in him he called you to and to restore you or to restore to you rather what was lost here's what god says tell them i will then i will bring you back to the land of israel restoration guys i'll restore to you and i'll restore you to the place you're you're removed from i will reinstall you rather i'll restore to you whatever you lost because you lost something don't mean it's gone forever god i've seen god restore things to people in better form in greater form if god actually upgraded them for all you know god is taking something uh away from you to give you something better he's then number four expect him to direct his spirit to breathe on the frustrated fatigued and hopeless places in your heart and personal life expect god to breathe on you to breathe on all of the areas of frustration all the areas where you physically and mentally and emotionally fatigue all the places where you feel hopeless actually breathe on me breathe on me go back to praying those kind of prayers expect god to fulfill his promises concerning you and all that pertains to you stay tuned i expect you to keep your word because your god cannot love me and i want to leave you with this jeremiah has prophesied his entire life and god called him said god said to him before i formed you in the belly i knew you and now is his ministry um he's prophesied these things that will come to pass and now they've come to pass he flips to write a second book the book of lamentations in the book of lamentations he's documenting with a broken heart how peru has been sacked and devastated people have been carried off nebuchadnezzar has done what he's what the lord prophesied he would do and the prophet is broken he's called the weeping and i want to pick up in lamentations 318 because i want to show you that hope is a decision that you and i have to make we have to choose the hope you said i can't wait for my hope to come back no you have to say i will hope in the lord i hope it's a part of our stories that qualifies us to be recognized and remembered as heroes in the kingdom if i lose hope and refuse to take my hope back then all of the work i was called to do will go unfinished all the history of work i've done in the kingdom will be lost this will be my burial ground it's not the will of god for you to be buried here jeremiah in lamentations 3 18 says i cried my splendor is gone everything i had hoped for from the lord is lost this is jeremiah he's in verse 18 of lamentations three he says he says he said my splendor is gone all the things that made me who i was they gone he said everything i hope for from the lord is lost the thought of my suffering verse 19 and homelessness is bitter beyond words he said i will never forget this awful time as i grieve over my loss in verse 21 he says i will never forget i'm sorry yet i still dare to hope in verse 20 when he says yet i still dare to hope when i remember this that's what he said the faithful love of the lord never ends his mercies never cease great is his faith as a matter of fact it says great is his faithfulness his mercies begin afresh every morning and you know what and this is wonderful to read but this i have a affinity to the king james i want to read this again because i want you to hear this from the king james he said and i said my strength and my hope is perish from the lord verse 18 verse 19. remember my affliction and my misery the warm wood and the gall he said my soul had them still and remembers and is humbled within me that's what this time was that was to humble us he said this i recall to mind therefore i have hope he says my hope is tied to what i can recall to mind my memory remembering how the lord moved before the past he said my hope is tied to that he said um this i recall to mind therefore i have hope it is of the lord's mercies it is of the lord's mercies that were not consumed and because his compassion failed not but right now the lord is loving on us right now the lord is looking to he said don't lose hope in me his mercies we mercy is only you used or needed where there's guilt and you know if this were a judgment we deserved it but it's not i don't believe it's a judgment what i believe it is is this god um walking through the checkpoints of his prophetic timetable to wind this thing down we thought it would happen another time it's happened that it's happening within our lifetime i'm not saying the word is ending tomorrow i'm just saying it's beginning the progression he said it is of the lord's mercies that we're not consumed because of compassion fail not they are new every morning and he says great is thy faithfulness great is thy faithfulness once you say it to the lord right now say great is your faithfulness it's because of your mercy your mercy i'm not consumed it's because of your mercy your faithfulness is great i thought i was out of here but you kept me i don't know what's going on but i have you as a matter of fact the next verse says the lord is my portion save my soul the lord is my i don't i mean i don't have what i had before things may be different but i still got the lord i still got the lord the lord is my portion save my soul therefore therefore i will therefore i will hope in him that's a decision whenever you see the term i will or therefore will i hope in him it's a decision i make i made up my mind i choose to hope in him i will hope in him i will not listen i will not be cast down i will not be broken by this i will not give up on god he says he watches he said the lord is my portion as long as i got him i'm good he says therefore i will hope in him the lord is good unto them that wait for him to the soul that seeketh him it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the lord it's good that i could hope in the lord it's good i can win what does it mean it's a good thing it's beneficial to me when i can look forward and still see a future the whole world seems to be falling apart it's a good thing for me when i couldn't when i can wait for the lord that that word needs to express i trust you even in this even in this i trust you god even in this and i say to you today by the word of the lord this is not the end of you you're not finished put on your strength of zion for the glory of the lord has risen upon you and i'ma say to you today i'm saying to you today snap out of this thing come out of this hopelessness put that bottle down and get back to your post in the lord god has called us to be victorious in this season i believe that the lord will see us through father i pray for every man woman boy and girl everyone that ever would ever see this recording bless you revive our hope strengthen our faith give us to know you like we've never known you before let our roots sink deep down into you may we declare with our mouths prophetically where we're going now this will turn out i say of the lord you're my refuge in my field you fortress my god i will trust in you you're my portion forever and you will not disappoint praise your god in jesus name amen and they mean it's always so refreshing to connect together with our communion city family and the rest of our ncc family on this saturday morning in this worship and word experience well it's a perfect opportunity to give you know we deem it opportunity for increase so let's take advantage and put seed into good ground the apostle paul declares in second corinthians 9 7 that we don't give grudgingly or out of compulsion or reluctantly but god loves a cheerful giver so we pray that god is stirring our hearts to become cheerful and thankful as we give at ncc we make it easy there's five simple ways that you can give you can give online at our nc website entityfamily.org and then you can also give on our ncc family app and then you can text ncc family to 77977 and take advantage of our push pay method of giving and then you can come by the campus physically and dalton or montgomery and take advantage of our dropbox method of giving and then you can also mail your offering into the address and listed below but we just prayed that you would take advantage that you would sow seed and be a cheerful giver because there is a harvest attached to your seed let's pray together father we bless you today we honor you that you are the lord of the harvest so we give out of a cheerful heart god and we thank you in advance for the harvest that you are blessing our church and blessing our lives in jesus name we pray amen [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Pastor Hart Ramsey

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Id: QJp11gZI4jw

Length: 60min 56sec (3656 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 11 2021