"When You Feel Like Giving Up" with Pastor Rick Warren

[Applause] happy juneteenth today so that's we now have a new holiday finally i want to say happy first day of summer and uh see happy juneteenth happy father's day happy first day so oh yeah and to my my babylicious wife happy 47th anniversary i never forget our anniversary because it's on the first day of summer so that means we got married on the longest day of the year and the shortest night why didn't i get married december 21st the longest night of the year and the shortest day i don't know i didn't think about that pull out your message notes everybody did you get your lemonade i got my lemonade your life is not a 50-yard dash the goal is not to get to the end as quickly as you can instead your life is a marathon the goal is to go through it pacing instead the goal should be to pace yourself and do the right things so that you make it all the way to the finish line standing now sadly a lot of people friends they shrivel up inside and they die before they die they never experience what it feels like to really be alive connected to god as i said they die before they die i don't want that to happen to you i love you too much and as your pastor who loves you it is my job to make sure that doesn't happen to you that in the marathon of life which is a long journey you make it to the finish line standing now if you've ever watched a marathon you know that the starting point is always very crowded there's a ton of people at the starting line but as the race progresses the crowd thins out and longer the race grows uh there's more space between the runners and many many people drop out and they don't make it to the finish line one of my goals as your pastor is to help you finish the race that god has called you to run and that you not just finish it but you finish well i want you to finish well i'm going to finish well god by god's grace in the race that god has called me now if you're going to make it all the way to the finish line in your life you're going to have to build some character qualities christ-like qualities such as endurance and resilience and balance and pacing you're going to have to learn these skills you know a lot of people start off great in life but even before they get to the halfway point in their life they've already really messed it up and they've given up which is worse than messing up here let me say it again giving up is always worse than messing up everybody messes up why do people give up in the marathon of their lives because they got discouraged now discouragement is a deadly disease it is a deadly disease discouragement will sap your energy it will blur your focus uh it will distort reality you don't see things clearly when you're discouraged you don't see things as they really are and it kills your motivation the problem with discouragement is it's also highly contagious you get around a group of discouraged people you'll get discouraged you get around a bunch of negative people you're listening to discouraging voices in the media all the time then you're going to be discouraged too about life and about the future that's why today i want to show you what god says in his word in this book of nehemiah that we're going through what to do when you feel like giving up what do you do when you feel like giving up i hope you don't need this right now you might you might be in the middle of something that's discouraging you right now but you're going to need this message someday so i highly encourage you to take notes when you feel like you're giving up in our series through the book of nehemiah we now come to the second part of chapter four and this story illustrates that we're gonna look at today both the four common causes four reasons people get discouraged and it also gives us the cure god's step god's steps for getting out of discouragement now let me read the passage and then we'll draw out the lessons for defeating discouragement okay now if you've been following this series you know the background of this story if you've been with us in the past weeks that the nation of israel was conquered by the babylonian empire and most of the people in israel were taken as prisoners of war to another country for 70 years they're held captive and finally when the persians beat the the babylonians and they take over king cyrus allows them the jews to go back to their homeland 70 years later when they get home to israel and they get on jerusalem to find everything's been destroyed uh their homes the city the temple the walls everything they're living among the ruins and rubble of a bombed out or destroyed city so this book nehemiah has written to discourage people they were very discouraged but then god puts a dream in the heart of a guy named nehemiah and he says nehemiah i want you to go back to jerusalem and i want you to rebuild the wall around the city for the protection of all the residents from the enemies because a lot of people didn't like the jews so they go back and as we've already seen so far they started rebuilding this wall and now today in this story we get to the point that they've built the wall up halfway to what its original height was but at the halfway point they get discouraged the initial enthusiasm wears off um the people start feeling tired and a bunch of stuff and they want to give up and we find that story in nehemiah chapter 4. look at the top of your outline or up here on the screen uh it says this so the people quickly rebuilt the first half of the wall around jerusalem until it reached half its height i want you to circle half its height we'll come back to that because they worked hard they worked hard with all their heart but then he's talking about our enemies heard how jerusalem's walls were being repaired and all the gaps were being closed and they became very angry and plotted to attack jerusalem together and create some confusion to stop the progress the progress of building the wall so we prayed to god for protection and posted 24-hour guards to protect the workers but then the people began to complain they said we're tired we're tired and we're worn out besides that there's so much rubble and trash to be removed we now realize we can't do this we can't finish this wall oh and by the way also our enemies are now threatening us they're saying before you know it or even see us we'll be among you to kill you and in the work then those who lived closest to our enemies kept reporting literally over 10 times they told us that our enemies kept saying we're going to attack you from every direction now this brief little story that i just read is packed just packed with powerful insights that you're going to need to finish your race the marathon of your life powerful insights that you need to finish well in life and this what i just read illustrates the four most common causes that would keep you from finishing well in your life four most common causes and they also models for us the four things god wants us to do that nehemiah did that help people get out of their discouragement and get the job done anytime you're hit with a bout of discouragement you're going to need to come back to this message that we're talking about today but first as i said i i hoped you circled that phrase um half its height notice that these people got discouraged halfway through the project that's typical discouragement always strikes at the midpoint of anything you're doing you you have enthusiasm at the start when you can see you know you're getting ready to start and you have enthusiasm at the end when you can see the finish line it's in that middle part where you can't see the beginning or the end that's that's discouraging that's true in life it's true in your career it's true in parenting it's true in marriage in any other when you're halfway up a mountain you go do i really want to go all the way to the top i'm tired already and then i got to come back down uh if if you're halfway through the school year as a teacher or a student uh if you're halfway through your marriage uh if you're in the middle of anything that's when you're most likely to get discouraged not at the beginning you got a lot of enthusiasm the first day of a diet okay okay there's no no more false hope than the first day of a diet okay and and you actually feel pretty good when you see the end i look i'm only five pounds away it's in the middle part that you get discouraged now if you're in the middle of anything right now it would not surprise me if you felt like given up you know they don't call it the midlife crisis for nothing not the beginnings not the end it's in the middle so let's look at the four things that typically discourage you and then see god's cures for your discouragement in nehemiah all right here we go number one the most common reason that you did it discouraged is this write it down fatigue fatigue the number one cause of discouragement is emotional or physical exhaustion you simply run out of energy notice verse 11 the people then the people of judah began to complain that the workers were becoming tired circle that word tired fatigue is the first cause of discouragement you don't think straight when you're tired when you haven't slept when you're worn out when you're weary when you're wasted rebuilding anything of course is is exhausting it's harder than building rebuilding is harder than building these wall builders had worked hard on the first half of the project but now they're they're weary and they're worn and they're worn out and they're worn down i love this this verse actually in the message paraphrase he translates the word they were pooped probably the first time pooped is in the bible there in that verse right there they were pooped now friends if you don't get anything else get this sometime the most spiritual thing you can do is get in bed and go to sleep you just need the rest you need the rest because fatigue will make you discouraged all right studies tell us that americans are the most sleet deprived people on the planet and that wouldn't surprise me if that's probably true for much of the developed world vince lombardi said fatigue makes cowards of all of us have you noticed how much better things look after you've had a good night's sleep your problems just don't seem as bad when you've had some sleep now look at look at these verses look at this next verse here it says in deuteronomy chapter 25 verse 18 never forget how the amalekites attacked you when you were read it with me exhausted and weary and they struck down those who began to lag behind okay this is a spiritual principle here you're attacked when you're exhausted and weary you get struck down when you start lagging behind why because you're tired you're worn out now i want everybody to write this down write this down expect attacks anytime i'm exhausted i'm just giving you some fatherly brotherly advice expect attacks anytime i'm exhausted that's what happened here the people got worn out now it may be attack of doubt when you're tired you are more vulnerable to temptation when you're tired it may be an attack of temptation it may be attack of anger you get more irritable when you're tired it may be attack of discouragement it may be attack of self-pity everybody hates me nobody loves me i'm gonna go eat worms pour me you have a pity party for me myself and i and you're the only person you invite to it what i'm saying is that you need to be aware that fatigue makes you vulnerable to discouragement okay second cause frustration frustration is the second major cause of discouragement and we see that in the next verse when you can't seem to get ahead when you when the project that you're working on uh is more complex than you thought it was going to be when the stakes are longer and and higher than you expected and it takes longer and when you have problems that you can't solve when you feel like you're always behind and you can never catch up have you ever felt like that yeah yeah anybody identifying with what this five or six things i just said yeah well when when you get that kind of frustration in your life you're going to be a sucker for discouragement fatigue and frustration have you ever tried to clean out your closet or your files and you you pull them all out and you gotta lay them on the floor and then there's so many decisions to make you get so discouraged you just throw them all back in the cabinet throw it all back in the closet and go i it's too much okay you you you get so frustrated just trying to decide do i keep it do i toss it okay you know years ago um the foundation of our home crack and we had to tear down literally much of our house one of our walls was actually coming loose from the roof and from the foundation and we had to tear down much of the house and rebuild it and it took a year to rebuild that now that was not frustrating to me just because it took that long but it was also frustrating to me because of all the piles of trash and junk that piled up everywhere during the rebuilding time there were broken bricks everywhere along with broken pipes everywhere and pieces of lumber everywhere and uh you know broken wires and things just lined up and a permanent porta potty proudly stationed by our mailbox for one year so every time you know you went out to the mailbox you got the miraloma aroma okay of cows in the field or whatever uh the fact is any you rebuild something friends you're going to have debris anytime you rebuild there's going to be rubble rubbish trash debris and debris in your life causes discouragement it happens in this story look at the next verse verse 10. it says in addition to the fact that everybody was tired it says in verse 10 the second part besides that there was so much rubble and trash to be removed so they're all discouraged by the pile of broken stuff laying around them rebel in your life will discourage you i'm just telling you right now so what's the rubble in my life write this down rubble is the broken stuff i keep tripping over rubble is the broken stuff in my life that i keep tripping over there's physical rubble bricks and trash and broken stuff but there's also emotional rubble relational rubble financial rubble bad rubble from decisions that were bad in my life rebel will always be a part of your life why because in a world where everything is broken and everything on this planet is broken you can't avoid rubble now this kind of stuff is what's what causes frustration you get too much rubble in your life you get frustrated unmanaged rubble wastes your time unmanaged rubble zaps your energy unmanaged rubble uh keeps you from moving forward unmanaged rubble in your life a causes conflict uh unmanaged rebel not only frustrates you the broken stuff in your life that you keep tripping over it not only frustrates you it frustrates everybody else too this was the second reason besides that there was so much rubble and trash to be removed remember they're living in ruins and they're going we're never going to get this place cleaned up we're never going to get it organized we're not even now what they don't realize is that god builds the wall from the rubble in our life they're literally taking the broken pieces and putting them back together and making the wall and the stuff that you trip over is often the stuff that god wants to build your life with so let me give you right now i know i didn't give my space on the outline let me give you three rules of rubble removal in your life here's the first one uh i must continually clean it out of my life i must continually be on vigilantly vigilantly be on a guard to clean out the broken stuff in my life that keeps tripping me up it's a never-ending task you will never clear out all the rubble in your life until you get to heaven but it's one of the things god wants you to do i have to continually be vigilantly cleaning out the broken things in my life or i'm going to trip all over them and i'm not going to make it to the finish line second rule of rubble removal is if i don't deal with it it'll take over my life your weaknesses are not just weaknesses they are the thing that will keep you from god's purpose in your life if you let them i don't know if you've noticed or not i'll give you a little secret i have discovered that trash multiplies when you're not watching have you noticed that where'd that pile come from you didn't even trash multiplies when when you're not looking what is rubble it rubble is a sign that you're neglecting something when the dishes pile up or the clothes pile up or anything else piles up magazines pile up it means you're neglecting something so i have to continue to clean it out of my life and if i don't deal with it it'll take over my life third thing ruled is that i can't this is important i can't always see my rubble but others do hello you can't always see the broken stuff in your life that keeps tripping you up but everybody else can see it that's why we need each other i have rubble in my life i don't even know that it's rubble i might think it's a trophy you know or valuable property no no so if if if i can't always see the rubble in my life but everybody else can it just means i need to be humble about the broken places in my life and so so do you so what do you do with this frustration you know we said fatigue makes you discouraged and rubble piled up in your life the stuff that that the trivia that takes up all your time and energy and effort and you know all your attention when you're frustrated by rubble pray this next verse psalm 25 16. it says this come lord and show me your mercy come lord and show me your mercy for i feel helpless overwhelmed and in deep distress that might be a verse you put on a card and memorize because you may not need it now but you will at some point help me show me your mercy for i feel helpless overwhelmed and in deep distress now there's a third common cause of discouragement and here it is fatigue frustration the third cause is feeling that i'm failing feeling that i am failing when you allow the feeling of failure to well up in your life you're gonna get discouraged this is the third thing that caused them to get discouraged in nehemiah's story it's the third thing that's gonna happen in your life what does it mean when i feel that i'm failing well it's that sensation that i bitten off more than i could chew that this project that i have accepted is going to take me down when you feel like you're failing you throw up your hands and you say maybe secretly i can't take this anymore i can't do this anymore that is a feeling that i'm failing now at the halfway point when they're building they're tired there's rubble and then the third thing it says in verse 10 the third part of the verse we now realize we now realize this is the workers that we cannot not will not cannot finish this wall what are they doing they're feeling like failures they're feeling incompetent they're feeling like we should have never even started this project they felt defeated in fact the new american bible says we'll never be able to finish it the person who says i can and the person i says i can't they're both right because if you say i can't do it guess what you can't but they're feeling defeated and they're probably feeling ashamed there's probably a little bit of shame mixed in here we we started this project so well to build the wall around jerusalem and now we got we're tired and we're worn out and there's so much junk around everywhere that it's just too crowded and too complex and there's no way we're going to get this thing done what happened they got the feeling of failure feeling like they're failing what happened well because this rebuilding the city wall was taking longer than they expected so what happened they lost their confidence and they doubted their competence they lost their confidence and they doubted their competence and i said who were we to think we could do this project who are we to even attempt this dream that's probably going to happen to you at some point in your life you got a great dream and at some point the devil's whispers in your who do you think you are attempting to do this wrong question you should build your life not on what you think you can do but what you think god can do you let the size of your god determine the size of your goal it's not about do you think i would have tried to do all things i've tried to do in life because i was depending on me not a chance in my flesh they're dwelleth no good thing i know that i can't do certain things jesus said apart from me you can do nothing so that's pretty clear now how do you react when your plans take longer than expected when what you thought was going to take be done real quickly when you have a project and you go man this is taking me a long time to get through school it's taken me a long time to get this thing built this is taking me what do you do you give in to self-pity do you start complaining you start blaming other people friends if at first you don't succeed you're normal you're normal okay nobody succeeds at first the only way you actually succeed in life is by failing a bunch and learning what doesn't work failure is the stepping stone to success nobody ever succeeds without having failures i don't care if you're steve jobs or anybody success here's the difference between successful and unsuccessful people successful people see failure as a temporary setback unsuccessful people see it as a mark on their character well i'm a failure no no nobody succeeds at everything nobody has an unbroken record of success so the feeling of failure will cause discouragement here's the fourth common discouragement cause fear fear so we've got fatigue we've got frustration we've got failure and now we've got fear now last week we learned in that message on uh criticism and ridicule uh that and insults we that there were people who were enemies who didn't want to rebuild the wall they didn't want it rebuilt and so the enemies of the rebuilding of the wall it says first they criticized them remember that they just criticized the plan and then they ridiculed the builders we looked at that last week how do you deal with ridicule and insults they ridiculed the builders now this week they've moved to threatening they're actually threatening bodily violence and that's verse 11. it's here's the fourth reason they got discouraged also our enemies are now threatening us and they're saying you know before you know it or even see us we'll be among you to kill you and end your work we're going to be stealth we're going to slip up behind you while you're working on the wall we're going to stab you in the back now that's a legitimate reason to be discouraged you might die if you keep up on this project okay but they didn't actually need to do this because they just scared them and the fear worked the fear caused them to stop the work he scared them fear always always discourages you now i want you to notice who got discouraged first look at the next verse verse 12. then those who lived closest to the enemies kept reporting over 10 times they kept telling they're gossiping this bad news reporting over 10 times that our enemies kept saying we're going to attack you from every direction now circle the phrase those who live closest they are the source of the fear if you hang out with negative people and you consistently listen to them uh like negative media all the time you're gonna become friend a fearful person some of you the best thing you can do is just turn off the media it's making you a fearful person a frightened person a negative person a scared person there's a lot of good in the world but you don't see it if all you're getting is negative negative negative negative negative all the time i wonder what secret fear is discouraging you right now so you probably have already figured out one or more of these have been a problem in your life fatigue frustration from rubble failure feeling of failure i can't do this i can't do it anymore and fear how do i defeat these common enemies that create discouragement in my life you do what nehemiah did and nehemiah did four things that i want you to start working on this week and for the rest of summer all right here they are let's get right into it the four the four things that you can do to start defeating discouragement and even being uh uh prescriptive preventative in discouragement that can come here's the first thing you do the antidote to fatigue is this rest my body rest my body as i said maybe the first thing you need to do is simply get some more sleep than you're getting get some more rest my body psalm 119 73 you made my body lord now give me sins to heed your laws do you realize that regular rest is so important god put it in the big ten the ten commandments rest is in the ten commandments it's right up there with don't murder anybody and don't commit adultery and don't lie and defraud people it says every six days you take a day off it's called the sabbath that's how important rest is our best deserves rest you can't be the woman or the man god wants you to be if you're not getting the proper rest look at these verses you made my body lord now give me sense to heed your laws and look at the next one psalm 170 27 verse 2 it is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night anxiously working for food to eat god gives rest to his loved ones god doesn't want you being a workaholic he doesn't want you working from early morning to late at night anxiously you weren't doing it out of worry he says god wants you to get your proper rest you know there's a story in first kings chapter 19 about this guy named elijah a prophet and he had just had this big god contest with pagan leaders and atheists and idolaters and stuff like that and he just spent all of his emotional energy and he hears that the queen is upset with him and he runs away and goes and hides in a cave and he's so down and he's so discouraged and he's so depressed and he is the classic case of burnout he's a classic case of burnout elijah in fact he's so discouraged that he asked god to kill him he's one of the three guys in the bible who actually prayed god just kill me i i want to go on to heaven and god's answer to elijah's depression and discouragement was he fed him some food and he let him go to sleep and then he woke him up and he fed him some more and he sent him back to sleep eat and sleep eat and sleep eat and sleep that might be a good model for some of you as i said sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is just go to bed get some rest rest my body number two second thing elijah i mean uh nehemiah did was i need to reinforce my weak areas i need to reinforce my weak areas what does that mean it means you honestly assess where you are most vulnerable discover what is the rubble in my life what is the weakness in my life what's the low point in my life where am i most vulnerable am i more vulnerable to anger am i more vulnerable to pride am i more vulnerable to lust am i more vulnerable to a compulsion you need to know what works what the devil uses to work on you what's your fundamental sin what's your fundamental temptation you need to reinforce your weak areas now the bible says this in nehemiah 4 13. here's what nehemiah did so he heard that they were going to be attacked and they were threatening violence so i stationed armed guards at the most vulnerable point circle vulnerable points i stationed armed guards at the most vulnerable points of the wall and and not just the vulnerable points at the most exposed places circle that i assigned people by families to protect each other with their swords and their spears and their bows now notice what he does here he he he checks out how does he know what are the low spaces what are the vulnerable spots he's been there he's done his homework he knows where the city's vulnerable he knows where the exposed parts are do you know what's most exposed in your life that satan can just ram you and he he wins every time because it's just an exposed area he wins and he gets you and he goes got her again got him again do you know where you're most vulnerable this is the thing you got to reinforce your weak areas before you can reinforce them you got to know where they are now notice here nehemiah doesn't give up on the goal it says he doesn't when everybody gets discouraged he doesn't say oh you're right guys we should have never even tried this let's just all go home and have a tv dinner and you know watch the late night talk shows no he goes to work he says we're just going to do it differently we're going to reorganize we're going to reorder we're going to do a new strategy listen when you have a goal you have a dream you have a desire and you're going after you are going to have opposition and you are going to have people who oppose you and you're going to have discouragement and doubt and difficulty and even dead ends you need to understand this discouragement doesn't mean that you're doing the wrong thing but it may mean you're doing it in the wrong way they were doing the right thing building the wall they were just doing it the wrong way and a lot of times when we get discouraged with it i'm doing the wrong thing no you're doing the right thing you should be doing this god gave you that dream but you may be doing it in the wrong way so don't give up on the dream god you gave you instead work on your weak areas reinforce your weak areas keep growing reorganize and reorder where you need uh to reorganize reorder and where you need to keep going are you deep in debt reorganize your budget are you out of shape reorder your lifestyle and your eating patterns are you overstressed reorganize your time you may need to eliminate some things in your life you may need to eliminate some things in your schedule you may need to clean out the rubble the clutter the trivial time wasters and simplify now notice here there's an important point i station armed guards at the most vulnerable points and then at the most exposed places i assign people by families okay listen very important if you're going to make it to the finish line in your life in the marathon of your life you're going to finish well you're going to need support i posted them by families you need support the easiest thing in the world for satan to do is to discourage a lone ranger christian who isn't connected to a small group if you're not in a small group or you've stopped going to your small group or you stop me you are more vulnerable than you vulnerable than you realize you need other people in your life you're not going to make it satan is too smart it's easy to pick off a single person it's difficult when you've got other people in a small group supporting you get back in your small group now we don't have to wear a mask if you're vaccinated get start meeting instantly here's a good next verse is a great post-covet verse hebrews 4 25 some people have gotten out of the habit of meeting with other believers well duh for a year and a half we couldn't do it some people have gotten out of the habit of meeting with other believers but we must not do that instead we should keep on encouraging circle that word each other what's the of discouragement encouragement where do you get encouragement in your small group the antidote to discouragement is encouragement where do you get encouragement in meeting with other believers so get back in the habit start it this week get your group or start a new group whatever now you may be discouraged because you're trying to handle everything by yourself when people come up to me and they start telling me their problem and they say you know i just feel all it's overwhelming my first question is always are you in a small group are you in a small god never meant for you to go through life on your own god never meant for you to run your marathon by yourself so i rest my body i reinforce my weak areas here's the third thing that nehemiah did refocus on god refocus on god and i love what nehemiah says in verse 14. because he knows that one of the problems one of the causes of their discouragement is fear and so in nehemiah 4 14 he says this i love this new jerusalem bible aware of their anxiety i stood up and said to the nobles and the officials and the rest of the people do not be afraid of the enemy instead he's saying remember the lord who is great and awe-inspiring now what is what is nehemiah doing here he's saying get your mind off whatever is discouraging you and remember what god is like refocus on god he says remember the lord what am i supposed to when i'm discouraged what am i supposed to remember about the lord well you could remember his faithfulness how he's always helped you through everything you can remember his goodness you can remember his power he's omnipotent he's all-powerful you can remember that he's with you right now that he's not distant that you you can remember that he sees everything that goes on in your life and he cares about you you can remember that he has all the power you need you don't need to worry about anything you could remember his promises to you this is the third key to overcoming discouragement change the channel of your mind stop focusing on what you don't want and start focusing on what god has promised to you when you're decr listen when you're discouraged it's because you are choosing to think discouraged thoughts that's your choice you are as discouraged as you want to be and you're as happy as you want to be nobody's holding the gun to your head nobody's saying you must be discouraged you're discouraged because you're choosing discouraged thoughts how to get rid of discouragement choose to change your thoughts choose to change the channel of your mind don't keep replaying all those discouraging images in your mind instead remember the lord choose to think about god and what he's faithfulness his love his mercy his compassion choose to think about god because your thoughts always determine your feelings do you want to stop being discouraged then stop thinking the way you've been thinking it's stinking thinking you've been thinking about all the problems stop you don't have to think about think about the lord switch the channel remember the lord one of my favorite verses when we went through the series on jonah jonah 2 verse 7. look at this verse up here on the screen it says this when i had lost all hope i turned my thoughts once more to the lord i turned my thoughts once more when i when you've lost all hope when you're discouraged you need you need to do a re-evaluation you need to change the channel of your thoughts that's what david did when david got discouraged psalm 119 the next verse he said i'm completely discouraged revive me by your word. stop watching as i said all the negative stuff and get back into this book you're spending more time listening to other people than you're listening to god god will always tell you the truth people won't rest my body reinforce my weak areas refocus on god when i'm feeling down when i'm feeling discouraged when i'm at the midpoint have a midlife crisis or this is the middle of 2021. we're right at the halfway point june halfway through the year have you gotten done everything you wanted to do have you noticed this year went faster than last year hello last year creeped this one zoomed by reinforce my weak areas refocus on god and finally here's the fourth thing nehemiah did resist resist the discouragement don't you dare friend give in without a fight fight back fight back against your discouragement fight back against the devil fight back against those who want to discourage you discouragement is a choice now in the second part of verse 14 nehemiah says i also told him this he said you must fight circle that you must fight that's resist the discouragement fight for your brothers and your sons and your daughters and your wives and your home you will never defeat discouragement by being passive you have to fight it now i don't need to say a whole lot about this but as believers we are engaged in a spiritual battle and where is that battle fought not out here in the air it's fought in your mind and satan's two favorite weapons in the battle for your mind are number one discouragement and number two distraction those are the two biggest things that he will use to get you off course to make you not finish your marathon to not finish well in the race of life he'll use discouragement and he'll use distraction d.l moody great pastor of the last century and actually the 18th century said i've never known god to use a discouraged person when you get discouraged you get set on the shelf and so you you discouragement distractions he's going to use both these try in your mind but you can choose to refuse jeremy you can choose to refuse the discouragement i give you permission to not believe every thought you have because some of the hot thoughts you have as i said they're stinking thinking they're wrong not everything you tell yourself is true not everything that satan puts in your mind is true so i'm giving you permission to not believe those discouraging thoughts this is the difference between ordinary people and great people great people never give up they never give up they keep on in the marathon of life even when they're fatigued even when they're frustrated even when they feel like failures and even when they're fearful you know in the second year of this church 1981 i went through an entire year of depression the entire year i was discouraged and depressed and i was having these brain problems that i've had all my life but they were really bad and and i was filled with frustration and fear and fatigue and a feeling of failure and and my goal was not god build a great church my god was my goal was god can i put one foot in front of the other and i would come and teach on sunday and go home and get in bed and basically sleep through monday i was a bat basket case i really wasn't a good leader and you know what kept me going during that year of depression and discouragement as i would finish the sermon i was going to preach on sunday sometime about saturday morning and every saturday afternoon for most of that year i would get in the car and drive myself down to laguna beach where those that bocce ball areas the cliffs are that the old folks play bocce ball and i would sit there and i would watch the waves for a couple hours and it would just calm me down and it allowed me to pray and to fight the fatigue and the frustration and the failure sense of failure and the fears and in that year sitting there watching the beach at laguna beach every saturday afternoon i learned something that the tide goes out but it always comes back in the tide goes out but it always comes back in when the tide is out the beach is ugly it reveals all kinds of junk and driftwood and stuff it doesn't look very good when the tide's out but it always comes back in right now the tide may be out in your life we've just been through a horrendous year and a half with covid and i'm sure right now that many of you listening to me are just barely holding on it's been a rough year and i want to tell you don't give up don't don't don't don't you dare give up hold on in my office there is a plaque on the wall that is written in hebrew so nobody knows what it says except the people who read hebrew and what it says is this too shall pass the tough stuff that you're going through it didn't come to stay it came to pass it's not going to last cove it's not going to last the problem's not going to last so don't give up on god don't give up on your marriage don't give up on your church don't give up on your dream don't give up you might need to change the way you're doing something you might be doing the right thing in the wrong way but don't give up psalm 142 there on your outline verse 3 says this when i'm ready to give up he knows what i should do don't give up look up look up jesus christ the son of god who created you who thought you up who loves you who has a purpose for your life who died on the cross for you who rose again and is coming back one day who's going to take you to heaven one day jesus christ is the secret of strength to make it to the end of your marathon and end well isaiah last verse on your outline 40 verse 29 31 god gives power to those who are tired and worn out he offers strength to the weak those who wait on the lord will find new strength so this week here's your homework rest your body recognize the vulnerable spots in your life the exposed areas start working on reinforcing them refocus on god stop listening to the negativity and resist the discouragement don't you give into it resist it fight it it's a choice you're discouraged because you're allowing yourself to be discouraged you cannot fight discouragement with passivity you have to fight it and who will give you the energy to fight it your lord and savior jesus christ so focus on him not on the problem let's bow our heads for prayer father this word is so clear and so convicting to each of us we all know that there are areas in our lives where we're tired and frustrated where we feel like failures and we're honestly we're afraid but we come to you right now so pray this in your heart say god i i give you my fatigue say it god i give you my fatigue god i give you my frustrations i give you the rubble in my life the broken things that i keep tripping over in my own life that frustrate me i don't want to be that way i give you the areas that i feel like a failure in where i feel like i i can't do it anymore and i give you all my fears lord i don't want to be one of those people who live closest to the enemy and then just spreads bad news to everybody else i want to gossip the gospel not the negativity all around us so father this week i'm going to ask you to help me help me you made my body lord now give me the sense to heed your laws help me to rest my body help me lord to reinforce my weak areas and lord i have gotten out of the habit of meeting together with other believers and i'm not getting the encouragement that i have had in the past i want to recommit to being in a small group i don't want to go through life as a lone ranger lord help me when i begin to think of all the things that get me down to change the channel of my mind help me to refocus on you help me to not be afraid of the enemies but to remember the lord who is great and awe-inspiring not like david i ask you to rewi rewire me and re revive me through your word and then lord help me to resist the discouragement help me to fight for what i know you want me to do with my life and lord when i'm ready to give up you know what i should do i'm asking you to give me the power when i'm weak and tired and worn out give strength to the weak lord in that sense i want to thank you for discouragement because it forces me to come to you help me to see that even discouragement can be good if i let it draw me to you and to trust in you instead of myself i commit myself completely to you if you've never said jesus christ i'm yours say it to them right now jesus christ i'm yours i'm all in in jesus name we pray amen

Channel: Pastor Rick

Views: 130,814

Rating: 4.8269572 out of 5

Keywords: Pastor Rick Warren, Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, Pastor Rick, Rick Warren sermon, Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, Saddleback, christianity, church, church sermon

Id: GpdqePSZW5c

Length: 56min 17sec (3377 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 22 2021