The Power of a Little Hope | Pastor Jentezen Franklin

[Music] come on let's give him a mighty praise this morning praise him this morning praise him this morning wonderful jesus we love you lord we love you lord we love you lord you have surrounded us with your goodness you have surrounded us lord you are our protection you're our shield you're our hope you're our strength and we praise you lord how many of you how many of you if you were to be honest how many of you if you were to be honest thank you guys how many of you would say i have been i have been in circumstances in the last five to six months that i felt like were just going to overwhelm me and i didn't know how to get out of it but he surrounded me in that time and here i stand today i want you to praise him not because everybody's doing it but because it's your story it's your story it's your story that generates your praise give him one more praise of thanksgiving this is powerful this is powerful praise the lord you may be seated thank you so much i love you all cherise is here somewhere i see her over in the corner with my grandbabies and my daughter courtney and tyler and the whole team over there and we just love you guys so much and my heart is so moved today to see this beautiful representation and to all of you who are joining us online live we just want to say thank you for being a part do you know that we have gained during covet over 2 000 members to this church they joined our online campus who literally went through church membership next steps and 2 000 members have joined the church when the devil thought he had shut us down we had shut down nothing we're reaching more than we've ever reached before and that's for the glory of god and because of amazing people that i'm looking at right now that love god love his kingdom and love this church i'm not going to preach long because i'm scared the sun is going to come back out but isn't that cool too that the lord's got us covered at least momentarily and if your faith is strong it'll stay there but we'll see i'm good hallelujah i want to talk to you for a few minutes this morning as you were given a little uh card you can pull it out and there's an ink pen and i thought this would help you instead of looking at the birds and the trees that if i got you focused on my sermon i could hold you a little bit better so i want you to get that little outline card because it might bless you and you're going to leave here with something that you didn't have when you came not the card but what's in my heart i want to share something that i feel like the lord gave me in just a moment but i want to say something that we got a phone call this morning and we are tremendously blessed there's a there's a program called farmers the families and what happened was the farmers were had food rotting in the fields literally and so uh these farmers have partnered with uh with uh the feed feeding programs in our government and then they said we want to distribute it through churches and we've been doing this we've had truckload after truckload of food that we've distributed this one's important because we just got a call this morning and they said this is an emergency call tomorrow at 10 30 a.m we have over 1 000 boxes of food which is about 60 000 pounds of food now we're going to have forklift out here but these boxes of food are fresh produce and all kinds of amazing it's not like some throwaway stuff it's delicious food boxes of food and we need volunteers to help us tomorrow we'll use social distancing and all of that our teams already know how to do it but if you know someone who needs food if you know someone if you are someone who could use some help in this tough season that we're in it would be a joy for us all you'll have to do is pull up in your car pop the trunk it'll be placed in there and wave by and uh we'll we'll distribute those thousands and thousands of boxes of food that will hold 30 pounds of food for those who need it and that'll be tomorrow is that right at 10 30 10 30 in the morning right here in the campus and so if you know someone who needs food if you want to get a box of food and give it to someone because normally we take you can't hear me they said they can't hear over here uh okay can you hear me now all right well they'll get that worked out can you all hear me well that's good and that'll be tomorrow morning so don't miss it and september the 13th we'll be back in the sanctuary so social distancing and uh we will be as cautious as we can be and we're just going to believe that we're just going to grow stronger and stronger let me preach for about 20 minutes i want to share today a message that god has laid on my heart i don't have time to go into it and read it but in first samuel 30 there's this story i preached on it many times it's the story of david at ziglag what happened at ziglag was a fire that burned down his house and everything that he had the amalekites kidnapped his family it was the lowest point in david's life his men spoke of stoning him they had followed him all their life david i believe at that moment was suffering from post-traumatic stress seriously let me just give you a lead up to it when he was a teenager his own father didn't believe in him his father had eight sons and when the prophet came and said one of your boys is going to be king of israel he called for all the boys to be considered and looked at except for david he left david in the field because the father didn't even believe in his son named david jesse the father didn't believe in his son named david he said he's not he made up his mind that he was not king material these other boys are talented and gifted but that one will never amount to anything not only that but when he finally made it to the palace as a musician to play for king saul he suffered tremendous workplace harassment when spears started coming at him because the king became jealous david thought to himself i know how i'll fix this i'll marry the king's daughter because marriage fixes everything only to complicate his already complicated family dynamic of a father-in-law who hated him now he married the daughter of that king and the bible said that she despised him and she criticized him continually every day of his life mocking him and criticizing him doing it publicly i don't mind if charisse tells me private things but when she does it in public it embarrasses me and i'm sure i embarrass her a lot but do you understand what i'm saying what is going on and then on top of that the bible tells us that they had a son or a daughter and the daughter was molested by a family member post-traumatic stress the power the pain of when a family goes through something like that if that's not enough they had a son and the son rose in a takeover attempt of the of of the kingdom and was killed in the process family fighting family family attacking family in the middle of all of this trouble if that were not enough after family fights family and all of this stuff david in post-traumatic stress after losing everything in his house burning down problem after problem setback after setback i think on a bad day the enemy called him at a amazing weak time and david commits adultery david kills the has killed the husband of the woman that he committed adultery with and got pregnant he hits the lowest point in his life and it's in that moment there at zig lag when he's finally at the zenith of of of all the crisis one after another setback after setback after setback and now he's at the lowest day when the when the ashes are there his family has been kidnapped his home is burned to the ground his men are speaking of stoning him the bible said that david encouraged himself in the lord his god he encouraged himself isn't it amazing that that he was going through the same thing the mighty men were going through that talked about stoning him and they stopped blaming themself at some point and they turned and started blaming him but the reaction was totally different instead of turning on one another they turned to god he turned to god and began to encourage himself in the middle of discouraging circumstances now here's where i want to go i want to talk to you for just a few minutes left about the power of a little bit of hope the power of a little bit of hope there's a doctor and you can research it who who who studied people who had been through tremendous setbacks in life divorces or abuses or rapes or or bankruptcy or losing everything and he did this this study and here's how he did the study this he came up with a term called learned helplessness learned helplessness this is a psychological term now listen to this what they did is they noticed how that people in india trained elephants they get them when they're little they they they take a chain and put it on their leg and it's chained to a post the cement in the ground and that little baby elephant will go as far as the chain will let it and then it can't go any further and at some point it tries over and over and over until it can't go anymore and and it finally stops trying as the elephant gets bigger and larger and larger amazingly they put them in a traveling zoo or something and all it takes is a little steak a wood stake driven into the ground with a piece of rope on its ankle this massive elephant half the size of the stage that i'm on he will walk and when he feels the tug of that rope he will stop because mentally he's learned what they call learned helplessness i give up i'm not even going to try even though he's mighty enough to just fling his leg and he could go anywhere he wanted to go but they have learned helplessness they said in the same study that they took they took rats and they put rats in water now listen to this and those rats were swimming and they swam for 10 minutes and then they drowned he got some more rats i don't know where he got him anybody got him from new york i'm not sure where he got him but but but he got rats and he put them in water again and this time at about nine and a half minutes those rats were just really holding themselves and you could see the panic you could see that they knew they were about to go under the water and at nine and a half minutes he reaches in and pulls them out and dries them off and feeds them and gets them comfortable and they stay there for about an hour or so listen he put them back in the water and this time they didn't swim 10 minutes they swim 18 minutes and then they started getting that panicky look and so he pulls them out and he puts them gets them warm and takes care of them and puts them back in the same tank of water and they swam 30 minutes he keeps doing this and literally those rats swam 37 hours and this psychologist said if you can learn helplessness you can learn optimism and hope and the rats have come to preach to you this morning that if you can get a little bit of hope you can keep on swimming you can keep on believing you can stay in faith but sometimes you just need a little bit of hope because faith is the substance of things hoped for the the smallest level of faith first blank you need to fill in is hope the smallest level of faith is hope faith is not mountain moving faith at first it just starts with you're hoping for something you're hoping to see your kid get off drugs you're hoping that your marriage is gonna get better you're hoping that a door is gonna open you're hoping that you're gonna meet somebody that'll love god as much as you you're hoping that you're gonna get a job in this economy faith in its smallest embryo stage begins with hope you cannot lose hope it's the power of a little bit of hope the thing i believe those little rats got to thinking at nine and a half minutes the second time you know what we're just gonna keep on swimming because i know from experience there's a hand that's gonna reach in and when i can't take it anymore it's gonna take me out it's gonna provide for me it's gonna comfort me and every time they would get to the point of the voice saying give up they made a decision i'm not going to lay down the helplessness i know there's a hand that's going to lift me up again if he saved you before he'll save you again if he's provided for you before he'll provide for you again take a praise break and give god a shout of praise now watch this i'm sorry if i'm screaming especially to those of you at the front but you'll be all right you okay all right so then the military took this man's study and they spent 145 million dollars developing a program for soldiers who had been through tremendous dramatic experiences maybe losing limbs or or all kinds of battle situations or addictions and they spent 145 million dollars to come up with this program uh a university in south carolina and west west point uh science they all came up with this thing called perma and you've got the outline and let me give it to you and i promise i can do it in seven minutes let's see i've got five points i can do it in seven minutes are you ready say i'm gonna get something out of this say i'm glad i'm in church right now all right are you ready for this now now what got me is it took them 145 million dollars and i'm not putting it down it's amazing but everything that they came up with is right out of the scripture and it's called perma it's an acronym p-e-r-m-a it's the program is called perma you can look this up and it represents five things that has to happen look at me everybody for somebody who's had a setback to have a comeback america has had a setback every family under the sound of my voice has had a setback probably we've been living in hell for six months ladies and gentlemen how many of you have had setback after setback well here's how you come back from a setback it's called perma and the p represents positive emotions they talked about how that if a person is going to come out of the depression and out of the trauma and out of the pain and out of just talking about it all the time and what happened and how bad it was they've got to get in their life in the midst of trauma and crisis positive emotions and they don't call it this but i want to tell you what positive emotions are it's called the joy of the lord nehemiah chapter 8. he said in psalm 16 he shows me the path of life and at his right hand in his presence his fullness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore he said in jeremiah chapter 15 that his word was sent to me and it was a rejoicing in my heart for i am called by his name the way that you get positive emotions is you begin to focus and this is what they said in the study that blew my mind they said you must you must it helps to find a hero character much like in greek mythology this is what the study says of someone who went into hades went through hell came out and shows you how to live and i'm sitting there reading that and i'm thinking my god i know somebody who went to hell and came out of hell and shows me how to live and they said in doing that you can find a new identity well i've come to preach today that there is one who is able to give you joy in john the 17th chapter or the 16th chapter jesus said the joy that i give you shall remain in yourself he said may it remain in he prayed to the father and said father let the joy that i give them remain inside of them you can have joy all by yourself listen to me this morning i refuse to let any of you precious people leave here with those negative defeated beat up emotions it's time for some positive emotions called the joy of the lord is my strength how many of you would love now now i'm going to tell you the next point is how you get into it how many of you would like to have positive emotions again get up with a smile again instead of growling at each other say hello good morning positive emotions the second thing is called engagement they actually said that and they used this word they said they said if you're going to overcome you cannot keep isolated at some point you've got to engage at some point you got to come off of the bench and get in the game of life again at some point you've got to quit soaking in your sorrows and licking your wounds and you've got to get up and engage and then they they actually say this in that study perma they the guy on the part of engagement uses these words you got to get back in the flow and i thought well that's the flow of worship we've got to engage the presence of god again we can't let these singers this morning do all the praising we've got to engage the presence of god and when i engage in praise when i engage his presence i engage my hope i engage my faith i engage my will to keep going and to believe i'm saying to somebody that you're closer than you think you are to your breakthrough and you almost felt like giving up and you probably still are questioning in your mind it's been so long it's never going to change but the lord sent me to tell you about the rats this morning that they kept on swimming because they knew there was a fateful hand that had always provided and it's not going to fail you now it will deliver your children your family your home your business god is on the throne but we've got to engage him in worship so here's how we do that this is how i fight my battles that's why you have to turn people off and you just lift those hands and when they sing it in another moment we're going to sing it and we're going to engage the presence of god the third thing that the r stands for is relationships god says at some point or this psychologist says it but the bible backs it up he didn't know he was preaching a good sermon outline that if you're going to come back from your setback you've got to get to a place that you develop relationships with people again get your relationships strong we need each other one can put a thousand to flight two ten thousand if any two of you will agree i need you i need you you need me the devil's always done isn't he dividing us isn't he tearing us to pieces i don't care where you come from or what you like or you don't like i need you turn to somebody and mumble through your mask i need you i need this relationships the r p e r relationships the m stands for mission if you're going to overcome your setback and have a come back you got to have a little bit of hope like the rat but at some point you need a mission you need something bigger than yourself there it is the church the kingdom the cross if you're gonna get past that divorce and the hurt if you're gonna get past that that failure if you're gonna get past that addiction you need a mission and he said i know the plans that i have for you plans of good and not evil to give you hope and to give you a future you've got a mission young people you've got a mission teenagers god has not changed his mind about your calling and your purpose just because covet has hit you're still going to do everything god called you to do don't you lose hope don't you say well the world's all messed up and everything's messed up and college is messed up and school was messed up i promise you god's gonna fix it just keep on swimming little rhett almost done but the last one the a stands for accomplishments got to have some wins you need a fresh victory when you just get hit and hit and hit and kicked and beat up and beat down and you go to work and all hell breaks loose you come home and all hell breaks loose you get an irs letter you get this you get that and it's like good god you just need a little accomplishment i just need one little sign that you're with me the lord said we are more than conquerors you know what a conqueror is let me give you a hypothetical a conqueror is somebody who let's say you lived in the poorest neighborhood in a pitiful house drugs violence immorality maybe didn't have anybody in your whole family that made it out but you became a conqueror you went to school you stayed in school you graduated went to college fought your way through kicked learned optimism instead of helplessness got a little bit of hope and kept on swimming and got all the way out now you got a big old house and you're blessed beautiful family that's a conqueror but can i tell you what is more than a conqueror a conqueror is when you get out more than a conqueror is when you go back in and you say i'm going right back to the hell hole that i came out of i'm gonna buy that old drug house and i'm gonna turn it into a rehab and i'm gonna grab all these people who say they can't get out and i'm gonna pluck them out and pull them out because i'm more than a conqueror i'm not just coming out i'm going back in and pulling somebody out come on and shout right there you missed a good chance [Music] how many of you were former alcoholics let me see your hand [Music] how many of you were former drug addicts you couldn't you couldn't shake it your mama and everybody thought there's no way you'll ever change but you know what god's gonna do you're gonna be a conqueror but he's not gonna stop there you're gonna be more than a conqueror and you're going to see accomplishments like you never dream clap your hands and praise god if you believe some of you who were raised in absolute poverty god has blessed you for a purpose and you're going to go right back and tell your story and you're going to say because god did it for me if you'll get a hold of a little hope and this hope is jesus you can make it you can make it you can make it so i gotta close with these two verses here they are you're not gonna believe this verse zechariah chapter nine says this because of the blood of my covenant i will set your prisoners free return to the stronghold verse 12 you prisoners of hope prisoners of hope for today i declare that i will restore double unto you he said listen to that phrase if you will become in the hardest times of life a prisoner of hope now usually what people do is they become prisoners of fear prisoners of wounds prison the prisoner means you're chained to it it goes with you everywhere fear worry anxiety you're a prisoner but he said i'm going to have a people who when they get in a crisis they become prisoners of hope everywhere i go i'm dragging hope you mean you believe your family's gonna live for god yes i'm a prisoner of hope and he's promised me that you mean you believe that by his stripes you are healed yes yes yes i do because i'm a prisoner of hope you're either gonna be a prisoner of worry and fear or a prisoner of hope and then this last verse how many parents have a god out there let me see your hand how many of you have burdens for your children let me see your hand keep the hand right there now put it down and watch this boy you getting a word from the lord right here watch this in jeremiah in jeremiah chapter 31 he says this for your work shall be rewarded says the lord your work of praying with them bring it on the church and they shall return from the land of the enemy speaking of your children there is hope for your future says the lord verse 17 that your children will come back from the land of the enemy there is hope in your future for your children will come back from the land of the enemy stand up on your feet i want you now to do something i want you to turn the people off around you for just about five more minutes and would you raise your hands high to heaven and would you engage the presence of god engage positive emotions there is a flow of optimism and hope swim a little longer swim a little longer this is how i fight this is how i fight come on let's see let's sing it let's declare [Music] i'm engaging the presence of god [Music] if [Music] [Music] if if you've been discouraged the positive emotion of joy will flow this is present [Music] [Music] something in me says i'll rise again something in me says i'm an overcomer more than a comforter [Music] [Music] pokey [Music] [Music] praise the lord praise the lord praise the lord every headbound every eye closed [Music] if you're here this morning you're here because god wanted to hear you to hear this message if you're watching me right now online god wanted you and we know you're there by the tens of thousands hundreds of thousands amazing every week wherever you are around the world if you just feel like all hope is gone that's really what i felt today i felt when i got up this morning somebody's burden somebody's hopelessness somebody who's facing such dark times that you can't you can't seem to get out of it there's nothing you have that that can get you out of it i'm telling you there's a hand coming yeah you're a prisoner of hope now power of a little bit of hope is going to keep you swimming until your deliverance comes and it is coming but if you're sinking in a pit of addiction and maybe during the covic you've just turned back to things that god set you free from you feel so empty this morning you need that that positive emotion of joy and identity in christ you need a mission something bigger than yourself you need just a little comp i need a breakthrough i need a win it starts with making jesus lord of your life pastor i don't know that he's lord this morning but i want him to be lord of my life would you pray for me i want to embarrass you i'll pray for you right where you're standing but he only comes where he's invited and when you raise your hand it's your invite into it to him into your situation so pastor pray for me you're preaching to me i need that hope i need that forgiveness i need that change in my life if that's you boldly raise your hand i want to see it all across this yard amazing amazing oh praise god oh that's beautiful just keep your hand raised just high right where you're standing god sees every one of those precious hands and all of you watching on the line or by television this morning you can dial the number or you can click on there and send us where you are in your prayer request and we'll pray with you you can text amen 313131 for salvation and we're going to pray with you we're going to meet with you let's pray this prayer all over this grounds this morning everybody say lord jesus you're the hope of the world we're prisoners of hope because we believe messiah is coming again jesus is coming again we believe the hope of the world is christ in us the hope of glory so today we're going to keep on swimming we're going to keep on praising we're going to keep on standing in faith come on we're going to keep on claiming our families we're going to keep on believing the bible because we're prisoners of hope we will not lay down the helplessness we're more than conquerors and i receive forgiveness and i receive salvation in jesus name and everybody said amen and amen if you prayed that prayer two things were going to be dismissed in 30 seconds you've been so good and you're getting beautiful suntans now listen to this if you prayed that prayer there's a tent somewhere back there they're all back there and if you prayed that prayer and you meant it go to that tent we've got a free bible we got all kinds of stuff we want to give you secondly how many of you are thankful for the amazing volunteers and workers that made all the music team all these people amazing i want to say thank you for your support we're not going to pass buckets but there are giving stations is that what we're doing where are they at they're back here and if you want to give this morning of course give online thank you for being so faithful to god but if you believe in just bringing your gift there's all kinds of giving stations i don't know where they are and that's not good but they're all in the back so i hope they're purple red orange and yellow so that they can really be seen well but thank you for supporting the ministry we're going to continue to reach souls and we'll see you september the 13th i love you all so much are you encouraged this morning we love you so much thank you for worshiping with us put your mask on put your mask on it'd be smart to put it on right now and walk you know social distance and once you get out there with your family or people that you're comfortable you take that mask off and talk if you keep a long distance between you that's all cool but be smart be careful let's do this right we don't want and lord keep everybody safe and now may the lord bless you and keep you make his face shine on you be gracious unto you lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace they're going to sing the blessing as you leave receive this as you leave god bless you [Music] you

Channel: Free Chapel

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Keywords: Free Chapel, Jentezen Franklin, Church Online, The Power Of A Little Hope, Hope

Id: DAec3uJRO4w

Length: 39min 20sec (2360 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020