BANISH DISCOURAGEMENT

Psalms 77:2 “When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted.”

Discouragement is the common cold of emotions. Eventually it affects us all. Elijah, God’s iron man of the Old Testament became so discouraged that he sat down under a juniper tree and prayed to die. According to Mark 8:12, even Jesus himself often “sighed” deep within his spirit. Paul had so many difficult experiences in Asia that according to 2 Corinthians 1:8 he, “despaired even of life.” The word, “despaired” means, “to be at an utter loss.” In other words, Paul’s situation seemed so hopeless that he saw no way out but death.

Many of the world’s and the church’s greatest leaders have been given to despair. Winston Churchill confessed that he was often, “hounded by the black dog of despair.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the greatest preacher since the Apostle Paul fought continually bouts of depression as a result of gout that finally killed him at age 58.

If you are singing the blues in your life it may help to know that the Psalmist understood and wrote about it in Psalm77. The man we meet in this Psalm bore all the marks that would today be diagnosed as depression. He was looking at life through dark colored glasses. He felt forgotten and forsaken by God. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t articulate his thoughts because of emotional exhaustion. He was tired all the time. He lived in the past longing for a day that had passed by. He remembered when he was happy and had a song in his heart, but no more, and he couldn’t seem to get back there no matter how hard he tried.

He became so depressed that he even began to question God (7-9). “Has God rejected his people?” “Does God no longer care?” “Has God lost his compassion?” These are sharp piercing questions, but they were the questions that came from the Psalmist as he wallowed in despair.

He hadn’t reached such a place over night. There is always progression in such emotional experiences. Despair begins with a disappointment that is not handled constructively. The pattern is this: disappointment leads to doubt; doubt leads to depression; and depression leads to despair. Simple disappointment is the father of despair.

Some of you may be like the psalmist and questioning whether God has left you without help in your time of trouble. But he made a startling insight that saved him from his despair. We see it in verse 10, “This is my infirmity,” he says. He recognized that the problem was with himself and not with God.

He saw that his doubts were due to his own weakness, not God’s negligence. It was at this point that he determined to do something about his problem. Four times in verses 10 and 11 he says, “I will ….”

That is significant. We are not helpless victims of our emotions. We do not have to be hijacked by our attitudes. We can take action. Our thoughts govern our moods; therefore if we think right we will feel right. Most depression arises from faulty thinking and we do have within our power to change or control our thoughts. To deal with these harmful emotions we must be mentally tough. If you don’t handle your emotions they will handle you. You must make up your mind that you are not going to allow your circumstances defeat you.

Many times God is at work in our lives when we can’t see his footprints, but he is nonetheless at work. He will never leave us nor forsake us.

INVISIBLE, BUT NOT ABSENT

Esther 2:15 “Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her.”

Esther is the story of how God used one woman to change the fate of an entire nation. As I read through the book, I discovered that the book of Esther is the only book out the 66 books of the bible where God is never named. In fact, a lot of people over the years didn’t think it should even be included as one of the books of the bible for that reason.

But I disagree. Because even if you can’t exactly find God’s name, you can find his fingerprints on every page. In the book of Esther, we find God working through the lives of 5 people to carry out his will. Even though he’s invisible… he isn’t absent. In fact, that’s really the theme of the entire book. “God’s invisible… but he isn’t absent.” And if you could just remember that, it would help you make it through life a lot easier. Even though we can’t see him, God’s working in our lives to carry out his will. Guiding us. Directing us. Leading us, most of the time without us even knowing it.

From my puny perspective, I can only see today and yesterday (even then I have trouble). But God can see tomorrow. Our hindsight is almost 20/20, so we’re great at history, but we stink at prophecy. I have no clue what’s going to happen in the next minute, let alone the next week. But God doesn’t have any problem seeing what’s coming. Augustine put it this way, “Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love and the future to God’s providence”.

The word “providence” actually comes from 2 Latin words, "Pro" which means "before;" and "Video" which means "to see." So, providence means "to see before." In other words, God sees beforehand and plans accordingly. When we talk about the providence of God, we’re talking about God’s ability to see what’s going to happen, before it happens and adjust his plans to deal with it.

God’s never caught by surprise. He never says, “Whoa! I didn’t see that one coming!” While we have no idea what’s going to happen next, our invisible God is continually, constantly, confidently working behind the scenes to work his plans. We’re down here going crazy, screaming at God, and asking “What do you think you’re doing?” Why’d you allow that to happen? But he knows exactly what he’s doing. He blesses us and we praise him for his incredible timing, but when he tests us, we squirm and question his intelligence.

Like back-seat drivers, we’re crying out…“God! Watch out for that oncoming truck! Whoa! Here comes a stop sign. While he’s got his hand on the wheel, he’s perfectly calm weaving through traffic with the greatest of ease. In the midst of all the chaos of our lives, he knows what he’s doing. We’re tempted to take the steering wheel, but the minute we do, we crash.

God placed Esther in the right place at the right time to carry out his will and his plan for the salvation of his people. Mordecai knew that, and Esther learned it. The same holds true for us. God has us in the right place at the right time to serve him and bring about the fulfillment of his will. It’s not coincidental that you work where you do. It’s not fate that you live in the neighborhood you live in. Your life, your relationships, your job, your friends, your “everything” is not just dumb-luck. It’s providence.

THANKSGIVING

Psalms 100:4 “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.”

What do you think of when you think of Thanksgiving? Eating, football, long weekend, shopping, history, or family? Thanksgiving is much more than any of this. True thanksgiving is not just a day for food, football, and family. It’s not just a holiday every fourth Thursday in November. For God’s people, everyday ought to be Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving Day is a distinctive holiday. It doesn’t commemorate a battle or anyone’s birthday. It is simply a day set aside to express our thanks to God. Did you know that in 1789, George Washington made a public proclamation saying that, “it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor?” He recommended and assigned Thursday, the 26th day of November 1789 to be a day of Thanksgiving.

Of course most of know the story of the pilgrims and how they and the Indians of the area had a Thanksgiving feast in 1621 – long before Washington’s proclamation. Even earlier than 1621 – we find people offering up thanks to God. In the Old Testament we find a Song of Thanksgiving. It is Psalm 100. It is subtitled “A Psalm of Thanksgiving”. It is an invitation to join together to acknowledge the great things that God has done. Not only does Psalm 100 call us to praise the Lord with thankfulness – but it also describes to us the nature of thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is what flows out of a thankful heart. In Luke chapter seventeen there is a very interesting story. Jesus enters a village and upon entering He finds ten men who were lepers. They stood a long way off and yelled out to Jesus, "Jesus, have mercy on us!" When Jesus saw them, He said to them, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." Did you know that they had not been cleansed yet? They left before they were cured – because the Bible says, “that as they went along, they were cleansed.” Do you know what happened then? One of them – only one of them – when he saw that he was healed, turned around and went back to see Jesus. The Bible says he fell down on his face at the feet of Jesus, glorified God and thanked Jesus for what He had done. Only one out of ten thanked Jesus. Do you remember what Jesus asked him? "Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?

Thankfulness will come only from a grateful spirit. We should be challenged to consider all of God’s goodness. Upon true, deep consideration of all he has done for us, our hearts should be turned towards thanksgiving. Let us never take for granted who God is to us. Let us never forget just how much he loves us.

This Thanksgiving – with all the preparations, events and excitement – my prayer – is that God is thanked – with joy and gladness – with thankfulness and gratitude – and with a heart dependent on him.

A GOD WHO KNOWS NO LIMIT

Jeremiah 23:23 “Am I only a God nearby, declares the Lord, and not a God far away?”

God has no limits. That’s hard for us to even imagine, because most of our frustrations in life are a direct result of limitations. We’re limited by space because we can only be in one place at one time. We’re also limited in our knowledge. The old adage is true, "The more you learn, the more you know how much you don’t know". Living in an information based society like we do, we realize that we’ll never know even a fraction of what we could know. We encounter more information in one issue of The New York Times than a person in 18th century England encountered in his or her entire life. We’re constantly facing circumstances where we don’t know what to do, trying to answer questions we don’t know the answers to.

We also face limitations in our resources. As much as we like to pretend that we’re invincible, all of us have a breaking point; all of us reach the point of being physically exhausted, mentally spent, spiritually empty, and financially busted. We’re overwhelmed with the needs around us, whether it’s the transient at the gas station or a co-worker who can’t meet his rent, yet we look at our own resource and realize how limited they are. Because we’re so accustomed to these kinds of limitations it’s hard for us to conceive of a God who isn’t bothered by limitations.

As Christians we sometimes forget that God is already present. We tend to think of God’s presence is being like a NASA spy satellite. The satellite is roaming around the atmosphere, present one day, gone the next. You never know when it’s here and when it’s not. Sometimes our worship songs reflect a misunderstanding of God’s presence. When we ask God to "come" and "fill this place" we’re not asking God to be more present now then he was yesterday or last week. God is as present today as he ever has been and ever will be. When we sing these words we’re not asking God to be present, we’re asking God to make his presence known, to draw us into an awareness of his presence, to help us experience his presence as we worship.

We don’t have to beg and plead with God to show up, we don’t have to worry a Sunday might come when he doesn’t show up in our worship. Since God isn’t limited by space, we can draw near to him at any time, in any place. God is as present today in the local restaurant as he is in our worship service. God is as present today in the adult bookstores as he is on the seminary campus, as present in the bedroom as he is in the chapel, as present on the battlefield as he is at the peace negotiation table.

We can be absolutely confident of this reality, that God is always present with us wherever we are. We may not always feel his presence, we may even feel alone, but we can be confident that he’s here.

God is working to bring about his will, to fulfill his purposes, and he has all the resources he needs to accomplish his will. Because of this, we can anticipate God working in our lives, often in surprising ways. We can anticipate God bringing about amazing circumstances in our lives. We can expect to even see God intervene miraculously in our lives.

GOD IS IN CONTROL

Haggai 2:21-23 “"Tell Zerubbabel governor of Judah that I will shake the heavens and the earth. I will overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother. " 'On that day,' declares the Lord Almighty, 'I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,' declares the Lord, 'and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you,' declares the Lord Almighty."

How much of your life do you control? You can eat right and exercise daily, but you don’t control the number of your days. You can live a healthy lifestyle and see your doctor regularly, but when an illness comes you can’t prevent it. How many people, who by the power of their own will kept cancer away or prevented some sickness? We cling to our jobs as though they provide us security, but anyone who has ever lost a job can tell you the loss of control that is felt in that moment. There is much of life you cannot and will not control, but you can be sure that God is in absolute control of everything, including your life.

Six times in our passage God tells us that he is in control. He says,

• “I will shake the heavens and the earth;”
• “I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms,”
• “I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms…”
• “I will overthrow the chariots and those that ride in them…”
• “I will take thee…”
• “I will make thee a signet…”

These are not foolish statements given by a braggart, but promises made by the Sovereign God of the universe. “I will,” without a doubt, you can take it to the bank, write it down and date it – I will do this and that. I am in control.”

Why did Zerubbabel need to hear that? Because when things got so bleak in the nation of Israel there may have been some cause for the faint of heart and weak of faith to doubt God’s control over their physical circumstances. God in essence says to these people, “You know it was bad yesterday, and you see it is bad today, and you have grown to believe that things are never going to get any better, but I want to remind you that I’m in charge around here!”

The people could not control whether or not it rained. They could not control how much their crops and vineyards and orchards produced. They could not control many things about their lives, but they could control the one thing that mattered most in all of that – they could control their responses.

Sometimes bad things happen because we invite them. Sometimes we simply live recklessly with our relationships, our possessions, with our time and talents and we bring them home with us. Other times bad things just happen. Regardless of why we go through trying circumstances that are beyond our ability to control, the one thing we do control is our response to God in the midst of those circumstances.

God is in control. That is the response I absolutely must give when things in my life are falling apart. Do you remember the old westerns where we’d see an enclosed buggy being pulled along by a team of horses? There would be passengers inside the buggy being led along by the driver on his seat perched atop the buggy. Imagine if the ride got pretty bumpy and the riders inside the buggy insisted that the driver hand them the reigns. Can you imagine the outcome if some one thought that he could effectively drive that coach from inside with such limited vision and sense of direction? Well isn’t that exactly what we are doing when we try to take the reigns from God? From where God sits he can see everything. He knows exactly where we’re headed and knows the way that is best for us – but too often when the ride gets bumpy we, with our limited vision and sense of direction, try to take over and drive ourselves.

No matter how down and discouraged you get; no matter how much you want to quit and give up; don’t ever forget that God is in control. When the people of Israel got down, they got way down. They had hit bottom, and they were right where God wanted them to be. The good news is that that’s not where God wanted them to stay. After considering their ways God wanted them to consider his ways. He is in control. He keeps his promises, and he is on our side.

GOD IS GOOD

Job 34:10 “So listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do evil, from the Almighty to do wrong.”

How many of you say grace at meals? As children grow older, they want to have a little fun with the prayer itself. So you sometimes get prayers like this: "Good bread, good meat, good Lord, let’s eat." Or this: "Thank you, Lord, for this meal; we know you are the giver. But thank you, Lord, most of all, that we ain’t havin’ liver." Now, you will have to decide for your own household whether these prayers will be tolerated as expressions of youthful wit, or suppressed as sacrilegious. At our house, we take a firm stand. Those kinds of prayers are not allowed, unless they’re really funny.

When I was growing up, I learned this prayer: "God is great, God is good, and we thank him for this food: By his hand we all are fed, give us, Lord, our daily bread." Any of you use that? Short, simple, good theology. And when you’re done, the potatoes are still warm. Do you believe that God is good?

It’s easy to just reflexively answer, "Yes." We know that’s what we’re supposed to say. And of course, it’s easy to say "God is good" when things are going well. But when we’re suffering, when we’re going through a time of pain, or difficulty, or trial, then it becomes more of an open question, doesn’t it? Our response at those times to the question of whether God is good doesn’t come so quickly and automatically. We wonder, "If God is good, then why this?" Why this illness, why this painful relationship, why this financial problem, why this loss, why this disappointment? And so, even if we keep saying to ourselves and others that God is good, there’s a nagging voice in the back of our head that says, "Really?" "Is God really good?"

The Bible teaches that God is good. He is morally upright and pure. He is just and righteous. There is not the slightest hint of evil, or sin, or wrongdoing in his nature. He is absolutely perfect and holy. God always does what is right. Period. God will never treat us unfairly. He will never break his promises. He will never punish anyone unjustly. Now, sometimes we have a problem with this idea, because we have a very high opinion of what we deserve. We believe that we deserve good health. And so when the biopsy comes back positive we conclude that God is treating us unfairly. We have a "right" to financial security and prosperity. So when we get handed a pink slip, we think God has slipped up somehow. We deserve a trouble-free life. So when the storms of life blow through, we grumble against God and his oversight of our lives.

But the Bible says that God always does what is right. So if there’s a discrepancy between my expectations and the reality, then the problem isn’t with the quality of God’s justice. The problem is with my expectations, my inflated idea of what God owes me. God is good all the time.

God is good to us. I could quote literally dozens of verses to make the same point. Most of us could think of examples in our lives of how God has been good to us. God is good to his people. But if that’s true, then why do we doubt? Why do we wonder whether God is really good? Because we lack God’s perspective. We lack his wisdom and knowledge and understanding. Sometimes the work God is doing in our lives doesn’t seem good at all. It just seems painful and destructive. We look at what’s happening and say, "How could this possibly be anything but bad?" We don’t understand, and so we resist and rebel. But here’s the key: God loves us so much that he is willing to do what is necessary in our lives to bless us, even if we can’t understand or appreciate it. He is willing to do what is in our long-term interest; He is willing to seek our eternal good, even at the cost of short-term pain. God loves us enough not to stop when we complain or protest, but to continue working in our lives even when we resist and complain.

God doesn’t ask us to understand. He only asks us to believe that he is good, and to trust, and follow, and obey. He asks us to believe that the end result is worth the pain and struggle, to believe that he knows what he’s doing, to be willing to place our confidence in him rather than in ourselves or our own understanding. Will you do that today?

TRUSTING VS. TRYING

Galatians 3:14 “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."

In our scripture we come to the heart of the matter that Paul has been referring to up to this point in his letter to the Galatians: The conflict between two alternate roads to righteousness: trusting and trying. How does one please God? What makes a person truly a Christian-- trying to act in a way that seems pure and Godly or trusting in a Savior who paid the price for sin?

Paul Points out that there is a vast difference between these two roads to righteousness. So what’s the difference between trusting and trying and more importantly which is the right road? It’s a leading question that Paul is asking, because he knows that they received the Spirit when they believed the good news that Jesus died for their sins--he was there when it happened. These other teachers who claimed that they must follow the external requirements of the law--what to eat, what to wear, how to look--they came along later with their new prescription. Paul asks which prescription, faith or the law led to your receiving the Spirit and salvation? The law isn’t able to work salvation, nor to change human hearts, all that it is able to do is show the need for salvation.

The law is like a dentist’s little mirror, which he sticks into the patient’s mouth. With the mirror he can detect any cavities. But he doesn’t drill with it or use it to pull teeth. It can show him the decayed area or other abnormality, but it can’t provide the solution. So the prescription of the Law leaves us sick, but the prescription of faith leads to salvation.

A story is told about Fiorello LaGuardia, who was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of WWII. One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. "It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor," the man told the mayor. "She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson."

LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said "I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions—ten dollars or ten days in jail." But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying: "Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. ’Mr. Baliff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.’"

So the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals and New York City policemen chipped in the rest.

Just like that lady we have each been caught red-handed, with nothing to say for ourselves. A just God knew that the penalty had to be paid, and he gave his most precious treasure, his beloved son, Jesus Christ to pay the penalty of our sin. But he didn’t just redeem us from the curse; he also showered us with blessing, giving us life more abundantly, life in the Spirit, which beats $47.50 any day.