Wind in my Sails

i love you i love you all you try to be close to me [Music] good evening everyone it's good to see you through the rain you know getting here through the storm so it's good to see everyone we're going to get started with worship tonight so uh would you pray with me as we get the night started father we thank you so much for tonight and even with the weather and the rain i thank you that we can meet here together and worship you father and hear from your word i just pray that you would be in the service and bless it in every way father let us hear from your word and let us be encouraged by one another and just help us to grow in christ likeness today and in our love for you so we pray this in jesus name amen so if you'd all stand together as we start and worship so [Music] galaxies [Music] noise is [Music] by your beauty [Music] i'm [Music] [Music] forgiven and free forever [Music] is [Music] [Music] i'm overwhelmed you are beautiful you are beautiful oh god there is beautiful oh [Music] you are [Music] god you are the most glorious [Music] i'm [Music] oh [Music] i'm overwhelmed [Applause] do [Music] everyone needs compassion [Music] he can move he is [Music] jesus conquered [Music] so take me as you find me [Music] is [Music] is [Music] my god [Music] forever [Music] jesus christ [Music] we're singing for the glory [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] can move the mountains my god is mighty to save he is [Music] [Applause] [Music] salvation [Music] jesus [Music] jesus [Music] amen praise the lord may be seated uh listen listen to these words from the book of proverbs if you will proverbs past chapter 3 my son do not forget my teaching but keep my commands in your heart for they will prolong your life many years and they will bring you peace and prosperity let love and faithfulness never leave you bind them around your neck write them on the tablet of your heart then you will win favor in a good name in the sight of both god and man so trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight before we go to the lord in prayer i just want to remind you of some big things that are happening in our world right now and just to remember them throughout this week pray for them bring them up before the lord when you remember there's a lot of things that are happening personally and i don't want to minimize that but when you think of what's happening over there in afghanistan we have brothers and sisters in christ who are over there that are going through the chaos and so on and let's let's pray for them let's lift them up before the lord we have the disaster the earthquake that took place down in haiti there and we can pray for our brothers and sisters especially the pastors who try to provide hope and a very hopeless situation for a lot of people and so we can pray for them and then just pray for continue to pray for the whole situation with a pandemic here this morning i talked to a lady right here and she has a friend who is going on a ventilator and pastor loritz mentioned yesterday that he has a friend who is coming off a ventilator possibly for for the wrong reasons and um so there's there's that that's on our minds and so let's bring these things up before the lord during this week as we come before him and pray but join me right now as we pray our heavenly father we've been singing these great songs of worship to you this morning that you are truly a beautiful savior you are a glorious savior we've been singing about the salvation that you give us and lord we want to thank you for that salvation thank you lord for the forgiveness of sins that you offer us thank you lord for the relationship that you give us those of us who were separated from you thank you for your holy spirit who now indwells us what an amazing truth god himself indwells us thank you lord for your word that enables us and gives us strength on a daily basis lord thank you that you have blessed us with every spiritual blessing there's nothing that we lack in terms of our relationship with you and our growth and so we just want to thank you lord for the way that you have blessed us in so so many ways and we want to praise you and worship you this this evening for that and i pray lord that you would continue to teach us what it means to trust you more lord you are so much wiser you are so much stronger you are so much more patient than we are and we confess that often we kind of fumble through life depending on our own strength and our own wisdom when you can supply so much more for us so teach us lord what it means to trust you more as we read in your scripture this evening and then i pray our heavenly father that you would teach us what it means to rest in your sovereignty when we look at everything that's happening around this world here the only place that we can go to for hope and for security the place that we can find strength is to rest in your sovereignty and so i pray our heavenly father that you would teach us to do that as well lord we commit this service to you we pray our heavenly father that you would be pleased with our worship i pray our heavenly father that your holy spirit would speak through pastor lyrics to us to each of our hearts and our minds in jesus name amen this next song says who the son sets free is free indeed and if we have believed in christ we have that freedom to live for christ to not be in bondage to in slavery to sins let's live in such a way and let's sing tonight and just be free to proclaim his goodness let's all stand together who am i that the highest king would welcome me [Music] i was lost but he brought me in all his love for me oh his love for me who the sun sets free is free [Music] i'm a child of god yes i am free last he has ransomed me his grace runs deep while i was a slave to sin jesus died for me yes he died for me who the sun sets free i'm a child of god yes i am in my father's house there's a place for me i'm a child of god yes i am i am chosen not forsaken i am who you say i am you are for me not against me [Music] [Music] i am who you say i am you are for me not against me i am who you say i am oh i am who you say i am [Music] yes i [Music] there's a place for me i'm a child of god yes i am and my father's in my father's house there's a place for me i'm a child of god yes i am [Music] let's sing i'm chosen i am chosen not forsaken i am who you say i am you are for me not against me i am who you say i am i am chosen not forsaken i am we say i am you are for me not against me i am who you say i am i am chosen not forsaken i am who you say i am you are for me not against me i am who you say i am oh i am who you say i am yes i am [Music] i am [Music] [Music] there's a place for me i'm a child of god yes i [Music] am amen praise the lord come on can we clap to the lord one more time amen you may be seated i'm so glad you're here and this rain thank you so much for venturing back out to be with us in the service if this if you were here this morning or if you this is your first time you're so grateful that you've come what we want to do first is just make a couple of announcements uh first one being as we look forward to a new week and as we go towards the end of the month heading into the fall we have needs uh we first of all we do have the connector cars so if this is your first time here you can feel free to you know write down your name and just give us some information we'd love to follow with you but we have needs we have needs in our children's ministry we need volunteers so if you're interested in that you can you can see sandy lynn also we have our weekly prayer meetings on wednesday night on campus every single wednesday at seven o'clock in the chapel you feel free to check that out we have worship community choir rehearsals they're going to begin on wednesday september the 8th so you can again see the bulletin for more information also we want to just take a moment to dismiss club 208 if you have any children you like to dismiss them we can do that right now before we pray for the offering and before we get to our speaker so all the children can be dismissed praise the lord so we want to do is let's pray for the offering you can give we don't pass the baskets you can give online you can give there's a basket in the back in the foyer as you leave you can feel free to drop in an offering we thank you for all of the support that you provide so that the needs of the church can be met but let's just take a moment to pray for the offering heavenly father we do thank you and praise you for our time together thank you lord for all that you've done in our lives god you have been so faithful and as we come here before you we ask god that you will continue to meet our needs we pray over every single household god that you would bless that you would provide that you would meet every single need that your people would know your provision in every single way lord so we thank you for that and we thank you for this offering we thank you god for all the tithes and offerings that can be brought into your house that there might be food that there might be nourishment as we continue to feast on the words of life so we commit this to you in jesus name amen well praise god it is my distinct pleasure to announce our special guest dr crawford laritz has been with us since yesterday and we've been working him very hard he ministered at a leisure conference leaders summit yesterday morning and then he's been here all day my wife and i had a privilege of fellowshipping with he and his wife this afternoon and we had a wonderful time but dr crawford lyrics he grew up in new jersey as a teenager he trusted christ as his savior he attended and graduated from plainfield high school in plainfield new jersey so he's a new jerseyan he attended and graduated from uh cairns university in 1972 with a bachelor of science in a degree in bible he and his wife karen uh met and he'll talk more about his bride they met way back in 1971 and they've been married a long time and he's traveled the world or throughout the united states and much of the world speaking in churches evangelistic outreaches conferences colleges and seminaries he serves on several boards including crew family life and chick-fil-a uh he and his wife have four adult children and 11 grandchildren and let's just welcome as he comes up let's just welcome dr crawford lyrics thank you my brother appreciate it well i'm impressed that you all swam here this evening and this this is amazing but hey thank you for coming thank you for coming it's uh i don't usually uh i don't take a lot of naps as such i've got to be really tired but i i i laid down just a little bit this afternoon and the next thing i know i woke up we got to hurt him get back to church here and so but um it took a little something to get here and uh i would have almost called in and said someone else speak for me i'm sleepy but uh but i said yesterday morning um and i'll share this with you that if you are sleepy i i want to encourage you please go to sleep i've slept on the best of them so if it goes around comes around and you just do whatever you need to do and uh that that will be that will be fine we've appreciated the warm hospitality the fellowship great time over lunch today with our brother and his dear bride and and this has just been a a sweet time you know heaven is going to be great isn't it where we will meet people enjoy people and enjoy our savior forever what a great god we serve i am i want to share something that's on my heart i did a series of messages at our church uh entitled wind in my sails there's really a series of messages on encouragement and uh and i think if there ever was a time in which we needed to grab a hold of some encouragement it's right now amen it's all the stuff that we've all been through but before i get there let's just bow our heads for a word of prayer father thank you so much for your goodness thank you for what you've done in our hearts and lives you have been so good to us and father i pray tonight that you would indeed put wind in our sails the truth of the matter is we we control absolutely nothing and uh we're all just one phone call away one text message away one email away from disaster so lord jesus i pray that you'll help us to receive what you have in store for us and give us what we need we pray in jesus name amen well it goes almost without saying the last couple years in this country and our culture has been really amazing i mean it's been almost one series of bad news after another uh and not just bad news catastrophic events i don't know that anybody i don't know in my lifetime i've not experienced the the amount of uh divisiveness and uncertainty and unsettling uh that we've all gone through in these last couple of years and everywhere we turn people need some encouragement the wind has been knocked out of us so you have these issues beyond our control you know political uh divisiveness racial unrest the pandemic that you have to deal with and the ancillary satellite stuff that sort of morphs from that kind of stuff and you know the shrapnel that hits all of us and people with various ideas and opinions and views and this kind of thing and then the garden variety of the disappointments of life that we all go through you know uh it just knocks the wind out of us so the question is what do we do what do we do when the wind is knocked out of us what do we do when discouragement comes trespassing our domain visiting us what do you do when you open that email you go oh boy oh boy you get that text message you said are you serious what what what what what do we do now before i before i i get into that more deeply i want to go up about 10 15 000 feet and i want to distinguish between three words that sometimes we use interchangeably but they're really very different words and different meanings disappointment discouragement and depression they're three different words and sometimes we use those words interchangeably but they mean three different things first disappointment disappointment doesn't necessarily mean that you're discouraged we get disappointed all the time you know it just means that an expectation wasn't met i mean the dude didn't show up on time or you know i mean they didn't return my phone call or this kind of thing i mean i i i i didn't do what i needed to do so you get disappointed it doesn't mean that you're discouraged or that you're depressed it just means that you're disappointed and every single day we're disappointed i mean we got disappointed today by something so disappointment just simply means that an expectation has not been met now let me jump over discouragement to depression depression uh i'm not a clinical psychologist i don't have training in this area so this is a little bit above my pay grade but let me just say this depression is is severe in the sense that depression the signature depression whether it's clinical depression or circumstantial depression the signature of depression is that you you've been thrust beneath the hope line you've lost hope and there's this downward spiral the what if and this and this and this and this and this and it you you you you don't have hope and let me just say this to any of us here if we're struggling with depression you you got to force yourself to do what you don't want to do you got to you got to be counterintuitive the thing about depression is that it sucks you in and you want to want to continue to isolate but you got to force yourself to reach out and get help to get perspective so depression has to do with being thrust beneath the hope line you you've lost hope but then there's the middle word discouragement discouragement means what the word suggests i mean the the courage has been knocked out of you you've taken a gut punch you're not necessarily depressed but you're dragging anchor you know what i mean it's like the wind is knocked out of you and you're kind of stumbling forward now discouragement can lead to depression don't get me wrong but it doesn't necessarily mean you're there yet so we have to understand we have to know how to handle our handle depression or discouragement when it hits us so what what do we do what do we do when discouragement comes knocking on our door and the truth of the matter if we're all going to be discouraged what do we do what do we do how do we not be branded by discouragement we've all seen those people haven't we there's this there's this haze over them there's this cloud over them permanently and they there there's a tendency to be consistently negative why because they don't want to be disappointed anymore they slash their expectations and they live within a little tight controlled bubble because they they've been hurt they've been discouraged they've been bruised and we don't want to go through that again but that's no way to live that's really nobody in fact that negative perspective is really infectious and so what how do you what do you do you don't want to be dishonest so how do you handle how do you handle things how do you not how do you not be branded by discouragement i have discovered now i'm going someplace with this i've discovered that uh it is my my conviction that wholesome healthy christianity is lived at the will level what do i mean by that your will the decisions and choices that you make will determine what you look like it is it is your mind your emotions and your will it's the decisions in other words the decisions that i make and i made i talked about that this morning it's the decisions that i make when i'm discouraged that will determine whether or not i will be branded by the discouragement or i'll learn how to handle and speak and deal with discouragement in a healthy way it's the choices and decisions that that i make and in my life i've uh you know you got preachers like myself you have to be careful of us we we we give you lists of stuff and like you know you hear preachers say well the seven significant insights into a healthy family well there's probably more than seven and or the three you know this kind of thing i want to suggest to you i do have five things that we need to do um you may need to do more but these are the five things that i come back to when the wind has been knocked out of me these are five choices five choices and i've learned to ask myself when i get a gut punch okay okay lord what do i need to do and these five things i keep coming back to them they're they're anchored into scriptures the very first thing we need to do when discouragement comes knocking on our door trespassing our domain uh we open up that letter see that text message or that email or whatever it might be we get that information and or somebody says something they shouldn't have said we go oh boy what do i need to do well the first decision the first choice that i need to make is that i need to choose number one i need to choose choose truth choose truth now by choosing truth i mean at least these two things number one choosing truth i mean choosing truth about the situation obviously i've discovered that in my life when something bad happens or not or i react to something i get some information usually it it's helpful for me to back up just a little bit just back up i'll give it some space maybe maybe overnight and about 75 to 80 percent of the time when i get a little bit of perspective it's not as bad as i thought it was every once in a while it's worse than i thought it was but typically it's not as bad as you thought it was so you choose truth you choose the truth about the situation but more than that secondly i mean you know this is this is the premium place to be we got to choose the truth of god's word what does god's word say when the wind has been knocked out of me i've got to go back to the book i've got to go back to the scriptures and choose the truth of god's word god's word is filled with hope psalm 119 verse 50 says this is my comfort in my affliction that your promises give me life the word of god really speaks to every issue in our hearts and lives the trouble and the anguish that we have the word of god is alive psalm 50 psalm psalm 1 verse 2 says that the word of god should be our delight that in your law i delight i meditate and i delight in it day and night psalm 119 verse 143 says trouble and anguish have found me out but your commandments are my delight the point i want to make is this that the follow of christ the bible has to become our identity and not just our point of reference it has to become the context of our lives and not something that we just scurry back to all of life is unanticipated all of life is filled with ups and downs we control as i said yesterday morning in our leadership deal we control absolutely categorically nothing none of us do and there's going to be tragic twists and turns that take place in all of our lives there's going to be awful information that we get and so we've got to have a north star in the scriptures there the north star so the very first thing i do when i hear something that is awful and knocks the wind out of me i kind of say father what what have you said about this what does your word say so i choose to go vertical and i choose truth the second decision i think a choice that we need to make when worry comes knocking on our door and you know and discouragement knocks the wind out of us trespasses are our way of life i choose number one truth but number two i choose now do you think i've lost my mind when i say this one i choose joy i choose joy and i'm looking at some of you now you're going what are you talking about joe's an involuntary response what do you mean i choose joy i choose joy well joy is a command in scriptures in philippians chapter 4. now i want you to notice where paul writes this he's in jail when he's writing this right he's extracted from his ministry right he's in prison and he says in verse 4 of philippians 4 4 he says rejoice in the lord always and again i will say rejoice it's almost as if he says rejoice in the lord always and and and he's almost as if he's reading his audience and he says you know these people think i'm nuts no i meant what i said again i say rejoice choose joy choose joy you see our joy and rejoicing have to be independent of our circumstances see joy joy in the bible means that which cannot be affected by our circumstances joy in the bible is it means it's lodged to that which is permanent a great illustration of this is you know in acts chapter 16 and i i'm wondering if paul had this in the back of his mind when he wrote this the church at philippi was established on this missionary journey that paul and silas went on they respond and they go and you know silas is thinking uh man this would be a nice little summer missionary trip you know we'll go throughout macedonia and we'll you know we'll just kind of have a good time and and we'll share the gospel a little bit and maybe visit some of the local restaurants or whatever and we'll have us a good time well they're preaching the gospel and all of a sudden they get arrested the text says that they get beaten now we're talking being shoved around and roughed up a little bit we're talking about contusions lacerations they're beaten and they're thrown in jail now if i'm silenced i'm looking at paul i'm saying hey hey man i didn't sign up for this are you serious i didn't sign up for this well why are we in jail this is you know i mean i why we didn't do anything wrong we're sharing the gospel why should we why should this happen to us you know what they're doing in jail you know what they're doing they're over in the corner singing and praying now this wasn't disingenuous this wasn't they they were filled with the understanding that yes their circumstances are awful and they're singing and praying i don't know if eyes are swollen or lips are swollen the blood dripping down from the side from the beating but they're singing and praying because they understood that the joy is not erratic it's not tied to circumstances it's tied to that which could never be affected this is typical pauline theology isn't it the last paragraph of romans chapter 8 says who or what shall separate us from the love of god you kidding me and so when discouragement comes you need to quickly say what do i have that cannot be affected by circumstances your eternal life christ who lives inside of you his love for you the fact that you're going to be with him forever so when discouragement comes knocking on your door and it certainly will you got a decision to make either you can go horizontal and that ain't going to work for you by the way that means more trouble or you go vertical you choose truth what does god have to say about this secondly you choose joy you choose joy no you're not detached from reality you're not avoiding the reality of what you're going through you're just focused on that which is enduring the third thing that your decision that we have to make is that we have to number three choose faith choose faith faith is confidence that's hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 says now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen you know i wrote a book here several years ago actually it was a series of messages they gave at our church the title of the book is unshaken it's it's it's about it's on faith and uh um it is my observation it's amazing you know the bible does not necessarily define faith he said well you just quoted a definition from hebrews 11 1 is that a definition or is that a description i think it's more description the best i've come up with and i talk about this in the book is that i really believe that the composite picture of faith in the bible as you study faith and the way in which is exhibited the faith is god confidence it's god confidence it's a realization that he is in control it is lodged in his character and so you have these great biographical snapshots in hebrews chapter 11 of great men and women of god who believed god and chose to believe god faith in the bible faith in the bible is never denial it is never denial um i get a little concerned and i i i personally have a personal conviction i don't i don't rail against uh other preachers or this kind of thing from any platform or whatever because i think that's a cheap shot and what um i'll go to them personally if i've got an issue if i can't however i will i will venture to say this you need to be careful of these dudes who are on tv and this kind of thing who tell us to name and then claim things away and uh you know they say silly stupid stuff like uh well don't claim you have a fever well yo dude your temperature says it's 140 you know and you you just puked all over the house i mean what what's what you're not sick faith never that's not biblical faith faith never never ever ever in the bible does faith deny the reality of heart stuff it doesn't it never denies it faith defies it it looks through it to see god as greater than that's biblical faith that's biblical faith faith in the bible is also desperation but there are words that they're theological biblical terms and concepts that that uh doesn't make sense sometimes from a secular perspective because faith in the bible is not despair but it's desperation faith in the bible is a sense it's an urgent thrust to get to jesus the get to the primary source classic illustration of this is a woman with the issue of blood right uh you read the the story over luke chapter 8 verses 42 through 48 this woman 12 years she's hemorrhaged for 12 years blackie is sidetracked with this this story is so rich with implications she spent everything she had and if my chronology is correct that this this event probably takes place in the first year and a half two years of our lord's earthly ministry well great crowds are still going with them the groupies are still there jesus is doing miracles and his fame is spread he prepared jesus do something more for me this lady says if i can just touch the fringe or the hem of his garment i believe interestingly enough this woman is a jew and because she was bleeding according to the levitical cold she was she was unclean and so she knew she couldn't come in contact with him and yet she knew that jesus was the only one that could meet her at a point of need so what is she doing the disciples no doubt are doing crowd control all these people are around and they're bumping up against jesus and and the disciples and this lady is down and she's she doesn't want to be seen she's trying to be inconspicuous and and she touches the friends of his garment and jesus says who touched me now my demented sense of humor i think this is one of the funniest encounters in the entire bible because peter is there and all these people have been bumping up against jesus and this kind of thing and jesus goes um i mean peter goes um there's a lot of people touching you and in so many words jesus said no no no no no no they handled me somebody touched me it's a touch of desperation when bad things happen to us they're intended to make us desperate for the presence of our savior how desperate are you for his presence and that's what faith does crawford crawford this has happened to you you've gotten this bad information you've gotten this bad news but it's god's call for you to come into his presence to get to him to let him meet you at your point of need and you've got to choose faith choose faith that yes this is an issue i don't have the solution right now i don't like what is taking place but god is greater than what is in front of me and i've got to get to him you choose faith so what do you do when discouragement comes knocking on your door trespassing your domain you didn't plan for all of this you got this information you got this report from the doctor go oops man this is a gut punch well i gotta choose truth i've got to choose joy i've got to choose faith but the fourth one i listen to this i have to choose community community in the bible particularly in the new testament the one and others in the new testament they tend to fall into two broad categories uh about community one is the the importance of companionship and then secondly the importance of identification with one another god has not called us to fly solo now i'm gonna share something here it's probably too much information but uh i'm around a lot of crowds of people an awful lot okay uh our church is uh just retired from the church but church is fairly sizable and i'm with groups of people i speak at and events and all this stuff people mistakenly think that i am an extrovert i'm not an extrovert i'm i'm a little weird and some would say a lot weird i'm a little weird i'm an introvert that loves people i mean i'm not i i sincerely love people but in the purest sense in terms of where i get my energy from i don't get my energy from being around a lot of people i when i travel and this kind of thing uh thing my my assistant jimmy he tells folks and they they want to take me on tours and things like that he said you know crawford's pretty low maintenance man i don't need to have the key to the city i don't need you to hold my hand i don't need to do this i don't need to constantly be with people you know just give me a hotel room that doesn't have too many roaches in it and uh you know i'm cool i mean i'm fine but for those of us who are introverts we have to be very careful typically when something happens that we don't like or we get bad information we tend to keep our own counsel a little bit too much and one of the things we have to understand is that isolation always breeds distortion isolation always breeds distortion you begin to think of that oh yeah this oh yeah this oh yeah this oh yeah this god has never called any of us to fly solo one of the reasons why we're we're in the body of christ is that he wants us to experience the love of the lord jesus through our brothers and sisters we're members of one another and when we're hurting we need to we don't fly solo go go get with one another get with your brothers and sisters galatians 6 2 says bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of christ come alongside you know one of the things used to frustrate me as a pastor and i bet you i i guarantee you your pastors here will say the same thing one of these used to frustrate me to no end as a pastor is that folks in the church they would be struggling with stuff and struggling with stuff but because of pride not wanting like one wanting people to know things and in our churches in the fairly affluent area you know and all this image management stuff they're hurting and then by the time you hear it it's almost too late you say why didn't you say something we love you we need one another and often are our trials they're given to us to develop authentic humility in us there's no such thing as an independent christian the church of the lord jesus christ is not not a coalition of independent contractors we're members of one another we need each other sometimes i felt like telling people especially the dude stop with the macho nonsense we need to identify with one another romans 12 9-16 that great that great section of scripture and i'll summarize summarize that we need to allow others to empathize with us weep with those who weep rejoice with those who rejoice share with one another who was it the late chuck coulson that that famously said a person cannot have god as their father without having the church as their mother there is no authentic sanctification of growth in the christian life apart from community and that's the reason why we're placed together and so when discouragement comes knocking on your door and you get something that's over your head understand it could be god's call to say hey look yeah i've given you an answer for this but i've given it through your brother crawford your brother in christ so what you need to do mr mega resourceful is to close your computer and your contact list on your telephone and pick up the phone and call your buddy charles and say buffington man i'm really hurting here this is what just happened choose choose community and the fifth and final decision that we need to make whenever discouragement comes knocking on our door knocking the wind out of us you choose truth you choose joy you choose faith you choose community well there's a fifth one and this may sound strange to you there are those times in our lives when [Music] you can't pull back you can't get away life goes on and something overwhelming has happened to you but it's just a stretch in your life where you just have to keep moving forward so what do you do well you choose service who told you to quit who told you to quit um without going into details here i'll share something our oldest daughter went through a horrible experience uh some years back and uh wasn't her fault and uh but it was it was just horrible and uh and because of the nature of what she had experienced at the time it was unwise for me to share with others what was going on it wasn't a pride piece or anything like it just it was just unwise at that point and i'm a fixer i'm a fixer as a dad but i couldn't fix this i couldn't fix it and i remember during that stretch a number of sundays pulling up to our church from multiple services just like here and i would be in the parking lot and the tears would be coming down my cheeks because i didn't feel like preaching what do you do you say lord jesus come by your spirit one more time help me and there's just those seasons where you just have to trust the lord to help you to take the next step trust him to help you to take the next step there is this poetic compelling piece of literature in psalm 126 verses 4 through 6. i love this passage the psalmist writes verse 4 restore our fortunes o lord like streams in the negev any of you have ever been to israel know that he's referring to the southern part of of uh of the land there that's arid and dry he says restore our fortunes oh lord like streams in the negev and then listen to these sweet words those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy he who goes out weeping bearing the seed for sowing shall come home with shouts of joy bringing his sheaves with him don't you see his point here he's alluding to the fact that your tears when you're you're doing the right thing and you're under pressure and there's this burden there's a sorrow this weight that you're carrying but you're moving forward and you're sowing your tears are dripping to the ground while you're sowing and those tears become holy fertilizer that will produce a bumper crop and maybe somebody needs to hear that tonight maybe you're in a situation where it's unwise for you to share what's going on just yet but things have got to move forward you can't give up you can't crawl into your bed in a fetal position this stuff that needs to be done so what are you going to do you're going to take one step at a time and you're going to trust god and those tears are going to flow but then god by his grace is going to redeem all of that and there will be a bumper crop who told you to stop and discouragement is a pathway to experience the sufficiency of our great god and the power of our great god god uses disappointment and all of these things in life to underscore his sovereignty you've got to keep moving so what do we do when discouragement comes knocking on our door well you got to make some decisions you got to make some choices if you're just passive you will be branded by and swept away by your discouragement so i have to i have to speak to my emotions you see your emotions they're great passengers but they're horrible drivers horrible drivers yet speak to your emotions you're saying to them no no you get over here we're going to get in a wreck if you keep leading this thing you got to make some choices i choose truth i choose joy i choose faith right i choose community and need be i choose service that's what i'm going to do lord thank you for yourself thank you that you've never failed us god help us there's not one of us in here that has not done this the wrong way i'm exhibit a with that but lord jesus would you continue to pour out mercy and clarity over us as we live this life show us lord jesus how to handle the things that we don't like that we disagree with that that knock the wind out of us and may we experience the sufficiency of our savior in the context of a broken broken fallen unpredictable world thank you for what you will do in jesus name amen amen why don't we all stand in response and uh sing one last song [Music] i'm accepted you were condemned i'm alive and well your spirit is within me because you died in roses [Music] i'm accepted [Music] is [Music] how can it be my king would die for me amazing love i know it's true it's my joy to honor you amazing love how can it my be would die for me [Music] it's my joy to honor you in all i do where i honor you sing i'm forgiven [Music] is [Music] love how can it be that you my king would die for me [Music] i know it's true [Music] love how can it be that you my king would die for me [Music] love i know it's true it's my joy to honor you in all i do [Music] king jesus you are my king jesus you are my [Music] amazing [Music] it be that you my king would die for me [Music] it's [Music] can true be you my king would die for me amazing love i know it's true [Music] thank you so much for our time tonight god i thank you for encouraging us through the word today thank you for just using dr crawford to help us to know what to do when we do have the wind knocked out of our sails i pray that we are encouraged just to choose truth choose joy choose community choose just all the different choices god he was talking through and so i pray that you would remind us of these things this week pray that you would help us when we're discouraged to not let our emotions just be what controls us but just like in the psalm it says why my soul are you discouraged why are you downcast within me put your hope in god i pray that you would help all of us to first and foremost to put our hope in you and to let that be what drives our lives so god i thank you again for this time and i pray all this in your name amen thanks everyone have a great week all right you

Channel: Hawthorne Gospel Church

Views: 345

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: TB3Bpxldm4A

Length: 69min 40sec (4180 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021