Before I remain, listen, let it all flow, let the feet of the Lord say so.

Before I remain, listen, let it all flow, let the feet of the Lord say so.

Let the feet of the Lord say so. Let the feet of the Lord say so.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nothing, I think.

Thank you.

You

Hiuuue, Jesus Christ. You have worshipped up every week, and I desire God as hell in all, And God never shall ask for a person whose who is put on into this land... It is it all? Willл coordination, get it from God. I pray for you Dr. Hii-Keren, then I need a pact with you after that. How dare you trust you? Do it? Through strategy and try and promise you're going to versus one of us. Undering's faith is going to happen. Absolutely true. And can see you. It is even for me. Thank you.

You delight in showing mercy

And mercy triumphed with judgment

You delight in showing mercy

Mercy triumphed with judgment

Yes, you delight in showing mercy

And mercy triumphed with judgment

You delight in showing mercy

Mercy triumphed with judgment

You delight in showing mercy

And your mercy triumphed with judgment

Every time you delight in showing mercy

And your mercy triumphed with judgment

I'll awake and spend my days

Loving the one who has raised me up

From death to life, wrong to right

He's making all things beautiful

I'll awake and spend my days

Loving the one who has raised me up

From death to life, from wrong to right

You're making all things beautiful

I'll awake and spend my days

Loving the one who has raised me up

From death to life, from wrong to right

You're making all things beautiful

I'll awake and spend my days

Loving the one who has raised me up

From death to life, from wrong to right

You're making all things beautiful

So I'll awake and spend my days

Loving the one who has raised me up

From death to life, from wrong to right

You're making all things beautiful

I'll awake and spend my days

Loving the one who has raised me up

From death to life, from wrong to right

You're making all things beautiful

All things beautiful

All things beautiful

All things beautiful

You're making all things beautiful

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

You're making all things beautiful

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

You're making all things beautiful

It's all working out for my good

You're making all things beautiful

Oh, oh, oh, oh

Making all things beautiful

Making all things beautiful

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

It's all working out for my good

It's all working out for my good

It's all working out for my good

It's all working out for my good

It's all working out for my good

It's all working out for my good

I'm working out for my good

I'm working out for my good

All working out for my good

My good, my good

Cause you delight in showing mercy

Mercy triumphs over judgment

Yes, you delight in showing mercy

And your mercy triumphs over judgment

Yes, you delight in showing mercy

You're like starlight in the dark

And your smiles are more concerned

And your parents respire

You delight in showing mercy

And your parents respire

And your parents respire

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's see you You and I You and I

Cause you are

Oxygen

You breathe it in

Oh I breathe you in

You are God with us

You are here with us

Emmanuel

Emmanuel

You are infinite

Your glory has no end

Jesus

Jesus

Jesus

Jesus

Jesus

Jesus

Jesus

He sees you right now

And you are his favorite

So whatever thing you're holding on to right now

Just look at him

He's not far

I mean think about that

He's as close as the oxygen you breathe in

That means that he's not just outside of your body

But he is dwelling inside of you

He is moving in and out

And he's ministering to that vital need

Think about the meaning of being as close as oxygen

It's not just proximity but it's also dependence

It's also sheer life

The very thing that we have to have in order to live

That's Christ

That's Christ

Sing it again

Sing it again

Sing that again

He's not just outside of your body

Oh, you're not far

You're not far

You're not far

You're not far

You're not far

God, thank you that we are seen

Thank you that we are seen

We are seen

We are seen

We are seen

In a culture where sometimes

A lot of times we feel unseen

Maybe we're public people

And we still feel unseen

But we are seen by you

And that is what matters

God, we are yours

We are your favorite

We are the ones that you want to be with

You created us so that we can give you glory, God

You created us so that we can serve you, God

But you take joy in your children, God

God, let us meditate on that for a minute

The joy

That's not happiness

That's joy

That's so much deeper, God

It's something we can't fathom

That joy that you have

That you sing over us

That you lavish on us

That you love us beyond any love we can comprehend

God, let us drink that in

Let us breathe that in

God, thank you that your word is not changing

That your promise is still in place

That that is true

in our very breath And we want to thank you that your word is true So as we move into this next time of worship God, let us not forget In Jesus name

Good morning church

I want to go ahead and dismiss our children Pre-K through 5th grade

If you guys will follow Bryce and Miss Cynthia

Amen

Amen

I want to make notes I've had several people ask me Our media team does a really good job of putting our messages and everything on the websites

I think on the website and on YouTube You can look at and hear whatever last week's message on giving voice

There were several emails I received asking where they could They were out and wanted to listen to it

I guess it's on YouTube

Breathe on me

And that's just kind of You ever have those moments in time and you're just like

Lord, I just need you to breathe on me

I need I need you to breathe on me because I am just overwhelmed

I am over this I'm just over over it over it

And I just need some encouragement

And so

You know

There's a

One of the reasons I want to do this is because

Also

If you live life long enough you understand that life has a

Has a

The ability of knocking the wind out of your sails from time to time

You ever get sucker punched by life?

It's like out of nowhere

It's like

Where did that come from?

You know

I'm doing everything I think I'm supposed to be doing

Chuck I need to move this

Sorry

I can't see half the people here

And yet

Yet I seem like the wind gets knocked out of my sails a little bit

But

Before we get into that

This this morning

We're going to start off in Romans 15

You can kind of open your Bibles

And it's good

A few minutes to get there

But before we get there

I need to differentiate between three words

And we have a tendency

They're sort of

Interchangeable

But they're significantly different

Okay

And that's the words

Disappointment

Discouragement

And depression

Now they're all three in the same family

But they're all three distinctively different

We have a

We have a

Habit of kind of running them all together

If you will

And today we're going to get into

What I want

The meaning of encouragement

What encouragement means

And why do we need it

But disappointment is just a part of life

Disappointment doesn't mean that you are discouraged

It just means you're disappointed

You are disappointed

And the key word in disappointment

Is expectation

There was an expectation that wasn't met

I'm disappointed just about every day

There was something I was expecting

It didn't happen

I disappoint people all the time

They had expectations that just were not met at all

And so discouragement is a little bit different

The key word there is courage

Courage has been removed

And discouragement

A little bit of the wind has been knocked out of your sails

It's one of those things where

You come up trying

And you're trying

Now I'm tired of trying

I'm tired of trying

I'm tired of trying

And I feel like the wind's been knocked out of my sails

You are now at the point of discouragement

Okay

Depression however is different

Depression speaks of the loss of hope

The loss of hope

And you can be discouraged

But not depressed

Sometimes we lump these things in there

I'm getting somewhere with all of this this morning

But you know

Although it may be close

It may seem close

You're not hopeless

Okay

If you're discouraged

Okay

You're not necessarily hopeless

But you are

You are just down about something

You know

But you have to be

And you get down on yourself I'm not talking about that today But although I do want to say Discouragement Not dealt with Will lead to depression Will lead to depression People need encouragement Like plants need water We need You know We need encouragement I listen to Caitlin She's a second year school teacher She talks about how Someone on her team Someone on her staff Encouraged her today Man that just puts That just fills your tank a little bit When somebody just speaks A little bit of encouragement

Encouraged Somebody noticed Somebody noticed Somebody noticed Somebody noticed Somebody noticed Somebody noticed Somebody noticed That I am trying to do something here We all need encouragement And we have to stop all this Macho or machoette stuff Whatever the female derivative is For that You know And stop pretending And posturing And profiling all the time And pretending Like we're stronger Than we really are We have this thing And somehow we thought That we have to put out this lie

And we have to project This image Of total competency All the time It's a lie It's a lie You know We go through all these dances To do this Who are we kidding We're not really that Our lives are not Our lives are not that perfect Right And not everything Goes your way You know And listen There is no There is not a Vacancy in the trinity Alright You're not going to have A perfect life You're not Everything you're not going to do Is just going to be perfect But sometimes

Sometimes we get to the point Where we get to the point Where we just need The Lord To breathe on us That's a reality That's a reality Encouragement means To inspire with courage It means to stimulate someone To spur someone on And encouragement Does not mean The denial of pain This is important Okay The denial of problems The denial of suffering Or the denial of just I have an avalanche Of disappointment In my life

You know Anyone who tries Anyone who tries Anyone who tries To encourage you By denying What you're going through Do not listen to them Don't listen to them You know What encouragement does do Is looking at those things That are going on Encouragement inspires hope It inspires hope In the right direction This is key for us And I'll talk about that In a few minutes But encouragement Is the act of giving someone support Giving someone confidence Giving someone confidence

Hope Hope And I'll unpack that And I'll unpack that In the next few weeks And I'll unpack that In the next few weeks But I want to say One of the things That you ought to make The number one ambition In your life When you are around people When you're dealing with people Is you need to invest in them More than you take from them That should be a number one priority For you in your life You need to invest in others More than you take That should be your passion in life You know I want people to leave my presence With joy

Joy in their souls I want them To feel like I want them To feel like there's a I am a source of comfort For them A source of joy I know this is not always practical Because sometimes it's my turn Right? I get that Sometimes it's my turn And I need to humble myself And receive the comfort That God wants to give me Through another person But generally speaking Life is just too short Life is too messed up It's unpredictable For you to always be running around here Beating up people

And over every little issue And over every little issue And every time You walk into a room You suck the air out of the room We'll get to the encouragement part In a minute So why do we need encouragement? Why? I'm going to give you Just some specific reasons But then I want to give you Four biblical reasons That I see as biblical reasons Why we need Just some general reasons First reason we need encouragement Is Man, life is unpredictable Life is absolutely unpredictable

Unpredictable You know You might You'd be the best planner In the world But guess what? Life is unpredictable It just happens It just happens Another reason Why we need encouragement Is because at times We lose perspective Don't we? We lose perspective And it's so true with me A lot of times It's amazing how you can go through Seasons of your life Where you can put up With a lot of disappointment And if your mind is clear And you've got You've got plenty of good rest

And you've got some good Spiritual rhythm

You've got plenty of good rest And you've got plenty of good rest

You've got plenty of good rest

And you need some encouragement And you need some encouragement For me I know that I've lost perspective When I stop responding And I start reacting I just start reacting I snap And my wife goes Whoa What the heck happened When did you become possessed You know I'm like I'm not I'm just telling you the way it is This is the way it's going to be You know You know I've gotten too low in the tank And I can't see things In the proper perspective Another reason That we get discouraged

Is because we're out of relationship With one another Out of relationship Out of relationship Let me put it this way We were made for relationship Absolutely We need others to stay strong There's not a person Born in this world Who can make it through this world Without the sense of community We were born for community The scriptures are very plain on that And I mean And you're looking at one right here Even those of us Who are a little bit on the introvert side You know Some of you think You know You're not introverted You stand up and talk

I don't like talking In front of people I don't I don't like talking In front of people It's just one of But when God says say this I say this So every week You need to know Every Sunday This is a struggle for me Because that's my wife I am introverted We can go to a party We can go to a gathering Or something I'm happy with finding Bobby in the corner And standing with Bobby in the corner And talking to Bobby All the evening My wife will know everyone's name And where they come from And what their kids names are Okay

And we get back in the car She's like Why did you not have a good time I had a good time I stood over here Me and Bobby Yeah we talked it up Go Gators Yeah we had all those conversations Okay But what happens Those of us who are on the introverted side We have to be careful Because we have a bent Toward isolation You know And that's not healthy And when you're hurting You don't need to be by yourself And we get discouraged And we pull back from community We pull back from relationships

You know And I've hinted at this before You know And I've hinted at this before But I believe another This is one of the reasons Why we get discouraged And it's because We have seasons We have seasons Of disappointment And suffering That's another reason Why we need encouragement There are just seasons That you have Disappointment And suffering And sometimes Those seasons How do I want to say this You have those seasons

And when life And when life is It's just hard And when life is It's just hard It's just hard You know There's nothing wrong with you There's nothing wrong with your dream There's nothing wrong with God Okay There are just some seasons That are just difficult in life And so we need encouragement And parenthetically You know also You have to allow for spiritual warfare As well in there okay Because Satan is not going to sit by As you just happily go down the trail

Of following God And what do you think God And what do you think God wants you to do in your life He's just going to leave you alone No No You've got to factor some of that in there as well too You know But I'll say this later on But out of struggle Will come your strength Because oddly enough The very difficult hard times in your life Will turn out to be later on Your source of profound encouragement And I hope you have discovered that In your life

And I think the fifth reason Why we get discouraged Is the environment In which we live This is big I don't want to get on a soapbox here But I don't I don't know that I've ever seen In my lifetime In my lifetime An environment that is more polarized That is filled with shrill reaction And negative stuff And I think interestingly enough

It's all Most of it It's all Most of it 90% of it Is spurred on by social media Social media There is this pull Toward despair All around us You know And I'm old enough to remember To be around before the internet Before Al Gore Invented the internet Okay Before we had computers Before we had smartphones And all this stuff And you had continual 24 hour news feed All this stuff And all this negative stuff That was happening in the world

Was negative stuff Was happening in the world And yes there was But you could at least breathe It seemed like You know You could at least get a breath

You know You could at least get a breath

Is usually negative Okay That's another reason Why we need encouragement You know And I'm not going to go all the way down this road But what disturbs me even more Is that Christians are getting sucked into a lot of the nonsense My personal My personal Policy Is I try my best My very best Not to post I'm not even on Facebook for that reason Because I know myself And I'd end up being so stinking mad every day I'd be so mad I'm not built for it Okay I'd be so so mad But I do have a Twitter account

So I can say I'm part of the 21st century Okay But I try not to post anything That's negative I try not to post any criticism Or anything on my social media And the reason why Is because I think there's enough out there already Alright But also I think that God's called me to be a blessing And He's called me to speak a blessing And I try to do my best Once in a while I will comment on a social issue And I try to do it in a way that's very objective

But let me just give you some free advice Okay If you feel If you feel like you are called to be that social media prophet You're called to be that prophet You're called to go out there And listen Free advice is worth its price So take that for what it is Alright I understand that But you feel like you're that person That's got to articulate about Everything that's going on in the world Everything that's going on in the country And you call yourself to be a prophet

You had better be a hundred percent right About what you put out there A hundred And don't you dare attach Jesus to your opinion You can attach it to facts But not to your opinion Okay I see that happen all the time Okay so there's And we got all this going on

And everyone's addicted to their little devices No wonder we have mental illness Exploding all over the place People don't feel good about themselves People feel so I can't do anything right Look at this profile I can never live up to that person Wow So we need encouragement And I'm really going to date myself here Okay I'm going to date myself this morning There was an artist When I was growing up My mom and dad There was some variety show I remember seeing her on this variety show She was a singer from Canada

And she had a really popular song out Years and years ago And when I read the lyrics to you You're going to say Wow that's a really old song You'll know Because you'll get the feel of it But I think it bears witness today as well too Her name was Ann Murray I think she And so maybe some of you And she had a song that said We really could use A little good news today Does anybody ever remember that song? I remember being a little guy And yeah So I'm dating myself Okay Some of you are like Ann Murray Okay Ask your grandpa when you get home Okay

But But the lyrics go like this I rolled out this morning Kids had the morning news show on Brian Gumbel was talking Well that shows you how old it is right there Brian Gumbel was talking About the fighting in Lebanon Some senator was squawking About the bad economy It's going to get worse you see We need a change in policy There's a local newspaper Rolled up in a rubber band One more sad story Is one more than I can stand

Just once I'd like to see The headlines say Not much to print today Can't find nothing bad to say

Because Nobody robbed a liquor store On the lower part of town Nobody OD'd Nobody burned a single building down Nobody fired a shot in anger Nobody had to die in vain We sure could use A little good news today I'll come home this evening And I'll bet the news will be the same Somebody takes a hostage Somebody steals a plane How I want to hear an anchor man Talk about the county fair How we cleaned up the air How everybody learned to care

Tell me Nobody was assassinated Nobody was assassinated Nobody was assassinated Nobody was assassinated In the whole third world today And in the streets of Ireland All the children had to do was play And everybody loves everybody In the good old USA We sure could use A little good news today We sure could use A little good news today You know The reason why so many of us struggle With depression Is that we have been tainted With darkness

We have been contaminated With negative And we don't even Realize it In fact It's drained us From our ability To even have compassion And it's drained us From our ability To be hope filled And to be positive Because we are being Bombarded by all this nonsense And this cloud of negative stuff So we need encouragement For these things

Verse 4 I'm going to give you Several scriptures this morning You don't have to tell them all But maybe write them down And get back to them But Romans 15 4 Paul writes this He says For whatever was written In former days Was written for our instruction That through endurance And through the encouragement Of scriptures We might have hope Through endurance And through the encouragement Of scripture We might have hope You know I've said this many times But hope Biblically Does not mean speculation

Okay? Hope here Okay? Hope here means a confidence Okay? So where do we get our confidence? That rock solid assurance? Does it come from the outcomes That we anticipate? Does it come from our plans? Does it come from our hopes? Our dreams? Our goals? No, not really Our ultimate rock solid confidence Is a product of endurance And the encouragement of scripture Endurance

That's really quite remarkable Endurance That's really quite remarkable Endure Where we get our hope Where we get our hope Where we get our hope Is really a byproduct Of endurance And the hope of the scriptures That's laid out I shared this with our family On Wednesday night As we met in here A prayer service One of the cool things Is that The Lord knew That we were going to need Encouragement The Lord knew That we were going to need This encouragement To have this endurance Okay? He knew That we would want to be Encouraged

So what he does So what he does When the writer of Hebrews So what he does When the writer of Hebrews He comes along And in chapter 11 He gives us the great Hall of fame Faith All these people That have all this great faith He lists all these people All these people Who had just Terrible pasts And terrible choices And all this other stuff But he holds them up As the Bible holds them up As heroes in faith And the Bible is saying I want you to look at these people And be encouraged Because they got through They would persevere They were able to get through They had hardships And yet they are seen as

Men and women of men of men of great faith Right? So he gets through that All the way through Chapter 11 And then he becomes The throne of God Considered him Who endured from sinners Such hostility against himself So that you may not grow weary Or faint hearted Bam! The encouragement of scripture That gives us the endurance That gives us the endurance That gives us the endurance He spells it out You know We need encouragement And in this text In Romans 15 4 It's interesting

Because the expression Because the expression That he uses Right here That we might have hope In the Greek grammar It's in present tense That we might have hope And it's important Because the meaning here is It's emphatic And not that we will eventually have hope But no We have hope right now We have hope right now We have hope right now Meaning that we have We always have hope You know Why do we always have hope? Because of endurance And the encouragement of scripture

And maybe you think like me You look at this This is maybe a weird grammatical construct And you think Well wait a minute Endurance is a process And it's not a source And so why are you presenting Endurance as a source And not a process I get the whole encouragement of the scripture But as I think about it It is a source It is a source What you have endured

Becomes the encouragement Becomes the encouragement Becomes the encouragement To continue to endure Doesn't it? Doesn't it? I mean When you have been through something You can reflect back And say God did that God did that God did that He saw me through God saw me through And I have the encouragement of scripture He saw me through And so you see God allows us to go through Go through discouragement So that he can

He can drive us To drive us To the right source He can drive us To the right source He can drive us To the right source The source of your encouragement Is not more ideas Okay You know The ultimate source of your encouragement Is not just some Empty words of good advice Of some Of a friend of yours Who went through a similar experience Okay That's not you The real source of your encouragement When you are down Okay Listen It's to shut Everything else out Shut everything

Everything else out You going through something Shut everything out

That's where our encouragement comes from And in that we will draw the endurance Put your heart and your eyes on the pages And let the promises of God wash over you There is something powerful in this And Paul by the way Seems to advocate that the whole purpose of Scripture Is to encourage us To inspire us to continue So this hope is fueled This hope that we have Is fueled by endurance And the encouragement

The encouragement of Scripture Are you with me Alright The second reason Why we need encouragement Is because We need to be strengthened In our faith We need to be strengthened In our faith Now I know this doesn't sound pleasant But I've lived long enough To see how Tragedies Become our source of strength There is a reality in there Tragedies become our strength You know How bitter disappointment In my own life I can see

Has led to be food A food source For me Has led to be food A food source for me God wants our faith To be strengthened Okay But in order to strengthen Our faith He's not going to Remove every opposition In order to strengthen Our faith He's not going to Take it all away He's not going to Shield us From some of the pain That we're going to experience Because he wants To strengthen Our faith First Thessalonians 5 11 Says this Therefore encourage One another

And build up one another And build up One another Just as you are doing Encourage Build Encourage Build Encourage Build Encourage Build Okay Help them be strong In the faith And the implication In the text Is that We're all going to We're all going to Need on We all need ongoing Encouragement All of us in our lives In order to develop A strong faith Faith is not the denial Of your problems

Faith is not the denial Of hard times Faith is not the denial Of hard times Stay away from anyone Who tells you that Or teaches you that That's worse than Poor theology Okay Stay away In your Bible You will never find That God tells us To deny The pain that we feel He never tells us that Faith does not deny The opposition It defies the opposition

That's what faith That's what faith That's what faith does Faith sees God As any As greater than anything That we're facing That's what faith does Oh you come up against me You don't know my God You don't know my God You don't know my God You think this is going to Get me down You don't know my Jesus That's what faith does And we What we need When we're discouraged Is to have our faith strengthened And I hate to say this But you will never have

Have strong faith Until you have strong faith Until you have been disappointed Until you have been disappointed Until your soul Has been threatened You don't develop You don't develop Strong faith By watching videos Of other people work out And that's what we do Well I watch this podcast And I watch that podcast And I listen to that knucklehead Up here on stage here talk I take good notes All you're doing Is you're watching other people work out

And you're expecting In order to work out And you're expecting In order to build up faith At times He will allow those things Not to work out for you So that we will build up Our faith Faith affirms God's ability And God's power As it stands on the promises Of God's word That's what faith does And it's another reason Why we need to be encouraged Because our faith Needs to be strong We gotta have strong faith In this time and age Amen

Amen Come on Come on Man And listen And God is more concerned About Christ-like characteristics Than He is about Our temporary comfort He is more concerned About your Christ-like Well I need Than your To be concerned With your temporary comfort That is American theology

Oh you want Screaming Yes Yeah Listen He wants Christ-like Characteristics He wants

Elijah this is always a warning to me always a warning to me you see Elijah he wasn't a novice when it comes to a believing God and seeing God work in supernatural ways but there this is the reason why I don't care if you've been a believer for six months or you've been a believer for 60 years none of us none of us are immune to giving in to discouragement none of us are immune to that you need another listen Elijah just has this big supernatural thing happened in chapter 18 800

150 gods of Baal and Asher they're coming against him and he ends up calling fire down from heaven right big ordeal Jezebel all these people you know I ain't standing for it no no no you know I'm the only one of God's people blah blah he God sends down the fire they kill all the prophets they do all this mess this wasn't his first rodeo and seeing God doing amazing things in and through him but by chapter 19 he's worn out chapter 19 he's exhausted

and he loses perspective and he loses perspective and he hears that Jezebel's after me she wants to kill me oh and so he's he you know two chapters earlier earlier he'd be saying bring it on bring it on I'm a man of God God ain't done with me yet you can threaten me all you want but Elijah is discouraged he has fallen beneath the hope line and what he does in chapter 19 is he refuses to let

let God encourage him read the text he refuses to let God encourage that's how that's that's how discouraged he is can anybody bear witness with that when you're going through something and somebody's trying to speak about trying to speak encouragement even through the word my wife is just doing that to me the other day she's she's giving me the word to be encouraged by this that and the other and I'm not receiving it

no you don't know no you don't know you don't know what I don't know oh woes to me woes to me you just don't know girl

you got it made you married to me I didn't say that I didn't say that

but Elijah refuses to allow God to encourage him but you see you can get used to self-pity

and it becomes permanent

and you walk around that self-pity

and without encouragement the challenges of life and the hardships of life

it just all becomes meaningless and you lose the motivation to go on

and our faith is

is what it's drained right out of us

absolutely and that's what happened to him

another biblical reason why we need encouragement though

is we need to have pure

open responsive hearts

God has called us to have pure

open responsive hearts

um

back in Hebrews again

I think it's chapter 3

I should have written it down

chapter 3

verse 13

is that what I have

I only got one working

okay

but exhort one another every day

as long as it's called today

that none of you

may be hardened

by the deceitfulness of sin

and notice the urgency

while it's still called today

there's a sense of urgency

and then he gives the reason

and you might think

well it's strange

I thought this was a message about encouragement

why do you want to talk about sin

well you have to understand

that the purpose of all life

the purpose of all the events of my life

of my life

is to produce holiness

in and through me

that's the purpose

to produce holiness

holiness

in and through me

and

to produce

the glory

of God

that's why we're here

that's why we're here

you know

I'll say this in a minute

and I'll tip my hand in just a second

but you need to remember

life is not all about you

it's just not

and some of you

you're going to have to give up your crown

when you leave here today

because you're going to finally realize

that we're here

it's just not a Christmas

you you you need to be pure and you need to have an open and responsive heart be pure and have an open and responsive heart gosh I cannot tell you that the the nights I would stand over Caitlin's bed when she was a little girl and I would pray over that God that you would keep her heart make her heart tender for you tender for you give her an open and responsive heart I pray over Caroline

every day God every day God please give her an open and responsive heart a tender heart for you and that's what God saying Curtis Curtis you respond to God David you respond to God Fred I need you to respond to God respond to that purity that needs to be in your heart Curtis don't shrink back from that don't you know exhort people encourage them don't shrink back into your sinful things grow develop get victory

grow develop and get victory and and that's what this journey is all about and and and in reality he's talking about I need to use this microphone here this is Jill's microphone if you turn it turn it on a second here he's talking about that we do this as as we as we do this this happens in community it happens in community that this is a call to to guard against the sinful

unbelieving unbelieving heart but it's underscored by the mutual and loving care for what one another one another one another it says it right there one another Lonnie will you Connie come up here real quickly one another you can't do community alone the scriptures are filled with the one another's one of the things that we do here in the life of our church that we really believe in is the fact that our home groups offer operate I'm sorry

as a source to do one another life one another you're going to hear you're going to hear in the next several weeks myself and Brandon talking a lot about our home and the value of being connected to one another you can't do all you you don't encourage yourself all by yourself you might but it don't last in the mirror you're gorgeous

there's there's no one like you I need someone else to tell me that right yeah we need the one another I asked them to share real briefly about their experience and they're doing one another's and and I don't want to say too much because I feel like I'm taking words out of your mouth but you only got 30 seconds so go ahead yeah okay I wasn't discouraged I wasn't disappointed and I wasn't depressed

during the first worship song during the first worship song this morning but I was concerned when I looked over there and saw John and Janet Perks were not in church and later realized that they were not in their assigned seats I care about them you hit the button how about it now okay I care about them because I've learned to love them they've become my family through home group

um at home group we talk about heart issues we talk about our struggles issues about family life that are not shared in casual conversation or in casual acquaintances we learn about these things through learning who each other are forgive me for my nervousness I know the Perks kids I know their names I know the struggles that they're going through

I know John and Pauline while they're raising Peyton I know where Angel came from I know why she is who she is today we've walked with Fred and Amanda through their year-long struggle of trying to get a business started all these things we learned about them through home group um home group has become a very integral part of our lives

mine and Connie's mine and Connie's it's about fellowship more than Bible study we stand in the kitchen and we learn more about people's likes and dislikes while eating a donut

to open up more about what hurts us or what helps us.

Home group presses us to study, to pray and seek God,

to be able to lead or participate when we're in our Bible studies.

It promotes a desire to become more involved.

I'm happy to say that all of our home group typically are in the Wednesday night prayer service,

every one of them.

That's a blessing to me to be able to say that.

And number four and final is community involvement.

We have bowled together.

I don't know if any of you have ever watched Angel bowl, but that is a treat.

She dances up to the, and then does this little hopping thing.

It's wonderful.

We had a great night of bowling,

and others saw that we were able to love one another,

share with one another out in public just like we do in private.

We pray for Kansas, support her ministry.

Every week we bring Kansas before our group in prayer.

We've served food to the homeless through his ministries as a home group.

Church maintenance, it has been a blessing.

John Perks has done a lot of the maintenance that has been done on this church.

John Watkins chipped in here.

Bobby chipped in when we were working on the stage.

All these are members of home group that are serving and giving.

These things encourage us on a daily basis.

Okay, you said a lot of what I was going to say about each person.

To me, home group is family.

We never in our marriage were geographically close to our family.

And my biggest regret about home group is that we didn't get involved in one earlier.

I think it would have been a great asset for us raising our girls

because we learned so much from each other just sharing.

When I hear what Angel did as a young single mom raising those four kids

and things she said that she did with them,

I was like, oh, my gosh, if I would have known that back then.

And, you know, I just encourage the younger folks to grab onto a home group

because it will be an extended family.

Because it's a different kind of family, too, because we're all of one mind.

How many of you in your children, siblings, parents are all in one mind?

It doesn't happen, but it is in this home.

And that has been a great blessing.

We share our burdens, like Lonnie said.

We always have time for praise at the beginning,

just the littlest things that we praise God for.

And we share recipes because we do eat when we get there.

One of the experiences we had is in April was my grandson's birthday.

And I don't remember if it was a planned night off for our home group

because we don't take many nights off.

Or if we just said we weren't going to be there because it was his birthday.

Well, we turned around and at Pizza Inn, most of the home group came.

And that was such a great experience to just feel that family in a real way.

And also it spoke volumes to the rest of my family that saw that these people really love us

and love our children.

And just yesterday I was, it really laid on my heart how close I do feel to our group

because I had an amazing experience when I was getting a pedicure yesterday.

And all I could think of afterwards is I can't wait to share this with home group.

So be ready Thursday.

Because it was a blessing, and I know it's going to encourage them.

I know it totally encourages me every time I think of it.

And we just love it.

It's made our life very rich.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you for sharing about how we do one another.

We do one another with community.

And it's a source of encouragement.

enough to where they can say, I need to be in your business about this. You know, if we have sinful habits that we're pursuing or something, you know, listen, hear me on this. No one, if we are believers, none of us, no one ever sins privately. If we are believers. You don't sin privately. Our personal sin has public repercussions. It absolutely does. And if we are going to relate to one another and love each other,

one another so much and be encouragement to be the best that we can be. Now, there's an interesting downside to this. Let me just say this real quickly. You know, I'm not trying to blame the victim here, but sometimes we are discouraged because our discouragement is self-imposed. All right? Meaning this, the source of our discouragement happens to be our sinfulness.

And we want to ignore it. And we want to ignore it. And yet we want God to bless us. I'm going to ignore it. And I still want God to bless me. You know, um, I had someone share with me, uh, quite some time ago, um, uh, about their adult children, having adult, adult, uh, children, their sons and adults, adult lives out and loves the Lord Jesus.

And, uh, born again, all the, all the good stuff. And, uh, his girlfriend, uh, loves the Lord Jesus. Uh, she, she loves the Lord Jesus born again. And they're living together. Okay. They're living together and, uh, not in separate rooms in the house, but they're living together. Just making that, making that clear. Okay.

But he, the, the, the boy's very discouraged. You know, he's very discouraged. You know, I don't understand the reasons why I'm discouraged. He's, he's, you know, he's wondering, you know, why aren't things working out for me? Why is this always going sideways? I mean, I love Jesus. I love Jesus. And, you know, everything in my life feels like it's falling apart. Time out, time out. You know, we go, we got this thing going on, you know, now you're, there are, there are people who are living right. That suffer too. I get that. But Hey, making these sinful decisions and choices,

and you're expecting God to bless you. You want to be encouraged. And yet you don't want to respond to God in this area of your life. And what you're doing is you're trying to manipulate God. You're trying to manipulate God and to use God. And God is standing back and saying, I ain't going to happen. I'm, it's not going to happen. I'm going to allow this to take place until you cry uncle. Are they not a born again? But yeah, they can be a born again believer and walking so

disobedient into the Lord. Okay. But your discouragement is a product of your disobedience that needs to be said. Um, I know it's an unpopular thing to say, but you know, I've, I've been around long enough and pastored long enough that some of our pain, some of the pain in our lives comes from the bad choices that we have made. And we don't want to make, we choose, we don't want to make things right. Listen, repentance, repentance.

Repentance removes the darkness and discouragement that hovers over our souls. There is freedom in true repentance. The word calls us for that. But this is the reason why Paul, the apostle says that we need to have, have pure responsive hearts so that we can enjoy this pure encouragement that comes from our great God.

Now the final reason, and we'll wrap it up this morning that, uh, it's kind of a general catch all as to why I say that we, we need encouragement is we are called to reflect the honor and the glory of God.

We, we, we are called to reflect the honor and glory of God. First Thessalonians chapter two, verse 12 says this. We, we exhorted each other, each, I'm sorry. We exhorted each one of you and encourage you and charge you to walk in a manner worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

Listen, God has called every one of us to reflect the honor and glory of God. That's what he's called. You know, um, I, I don't know about you, but there's a lot of stuff still in my life that does not reflect the honor and the glory of God.

And God is working on me in this. And he wants me to be aggressive and making sure that my life does that. That's the whole reason why human beings are here in this world.

history the statement that i make in my life is god's contribution through my life during my

moment of history god's contribution in through my life in my little moment of history so to be

created in the image of god we talked about that last week the imago day that we talked about the

image of god is more than than intellect emotion and will and having all these creative tendencies

that god has given man that's just a fingernail of it it's just an absolute fingernail the image

of god has to do with the stewardship of the glory of god the glory of god you see before there was

ever original sin you read in the song before we were crowned with the glory of god that's how god

desired for you and so that's what we are we are going through the sanctification process as we live

our lives here out on this earth so that the glory of god wells up inside of us the glory of god shines

through as we love one another as christ loved us as we love our brother and sister as we follow the

lord jesus it is the glory of god that comes out in us less of me and more of thee was the old hymn that

cried out in this thing so it has to do with the stewardship of the glory of god i mean we need to

be encouraged in that and and and yeah we are to have plans and all these things but write them in

pencil write your plans in pencil because we have to believe that everything about my life needs to

bring glory to god that's a question you can ask yourself and joy is found in glorifying him

true joy is found in glorifying him and not the accomplishment of my plan i didn't say you don't

have them yeah have plans and dreams absolutely because some of those plans and dreams are of the

lord but the thing about it is is you don't hold that up as the end game that's what it's getting

the end game is the glory of god that's the reason paul says in philippians just before he's killed

for me to live is christ but to die is gain and he says if he chooses for me to stay here a little bit

longer i hope it's for your benefit but ultimately for the glory of god paul got it

and that's really the objective of our encouragement i know this stuff doesn't sound practical i get it

you know but this is the essence of what it's all about these are the immovable biblical pillars if you

will and so it's not it's not getting what i want that makes me rejoice it's getting what he wants

and being what he wants that's really what brings joy to our souls that's really what what does it

and chances are there's someone here that's discouraged this morning that walked in here

discouraged this morning and you know if you're discouraged and you've been wrestling with it and

you know i want to encourage you to sit down and find out why you're so discouraged

sit down and think about why why it is that you are discouraged i have to do this in my life a lot

of times it brings me back to the root you know i think it's this reason but when i really sit down

and i think about it i've allowed these other things to really snowball in my life and that's what i that

un that thing that's undealt with in my life that's what i need to deal with and that's why i'm i'm

walking in discouragement right now i have to do this and the second thing i would say is you need to

ask yourself and ask the worship team to come on but ask yourself in the midst of this funk that you're

going through in the midst of this dark place that you're that you're in right now as you're going

through all this discouragement ask yourself this this question who and what am i really focusing on

i find myself a lot of times that my my biggest problem is that my focus is on me you know i have

a lot of people that will come into the office you know from time to time and they'll say you know

the curse i just feel so far from the lord right now i feel like the lord is so is so far in my away

from me in my life my first

of you and put it on jesus he loves you he cares for you he's going to help you in these situations he's not going to ignore you if you focus on him that's not that's not biblical but if you will set your eyes upon jesus i promise you he will lift you out of your discouragement he will lift you out of your despair he will lift you out of your depression

he hasn't created you to live in that he hasn't created you to sit in that you were crowned with glory and honor

you were a creation of the king of kings and when you accepted jesus christ you became a child of the king

if you were the child of the king guess what your daddy owns it all he owns it all

and i always think back you know jesus says which of you fathers whose son asked for a gift would give him

stones or snakes

and if you being a man know how to give good gifts to the children that you love

how much more would your heavenly father who loves you immensely would give to you

a lot of times as well and i promise i'll shut up right here

problem is

we sell god short we sell him short

and we forget

how sovereign he is we forget how holy he is we forget the grandness of his love

we forget from whence we have come and what he has saved us from and where he has brought us from

we forget those times in our lives when he's answered those prayers we get on the other side

of it we're a little bit removed from it and it doesn't strike a chord in our heart to us anymore

like it did that one time when we were in that had that life-threatening injury when we had that disease

when we had that loved one that was down and out when we had this that thing going on and we cried out to god

and god answered it

we forget

let's stand

father i pray today that if there's someone that needs

a touch from you to be encouraged

that father

as always every every sunday i altars of prayer the prayer room is open john and pauline will be back in the prayer room if you'd like to go back and pray after the worship service

we have prayer warriors brothers sisters elders would love to pray with and for you

if there's something that you're struggling with today let today be the day that you lay it down and walk in the freedom that god has called you to

let the lord let the holy spirit encourage you as only he can

as only he can

and find endurance

endurance in those things in the ways that god has has has led you and brought you

and find strength encouragement within the scriptures

for your word is true

your word never passes away lord god

it is living and active lord

and we love you jesus

we love you

as we close with this song this morning lord i just pray that

we would be sensitive to the hearts around us lord

give us eyes to see

the one another's in here

that need an encouragement as well too

and not be so self-focused that we miss out on the opportunities that you're giving us

to be an encouragement to someone else

we ask this in jesus

thank you

so

thank you

are you hurting and broken feeling

Overwhelm by all the need of sin

Jesus is gone

Have you come to the end of the cell?

Do you thirst for your dreams?

Well, Jesus is gone

Oh, come to the altar

Father's arms are open wide

Forgiveness was born near

The precious blood of Jesus Christ

Leave behind your regrets and mistakes

Come to the dead, there's no reason to wait

Jesus is gone

Bring me sorrows and dream and dawn

From the ashes of your life is born

Jesus is gone

Oh, come to the altar

The Father's arms are open wide

Forgiveness was born near

The precious blood of Jesus Christ

Oh, come to the altar

The Father's arms are open wide

Forgiveness was born near

The precious blood of Jesus Christ

Oh, come to the altar

Oh, come to the altar

Oh, come to the altar

Christ is risen

Oh, come to the altar

Oh, come to the altar

Oh, come to the altar

Oh, come to the altar

Oh, come to the altar

Christ is his end

God will be for him

For he is Lord of all

For God is through him

Christ is his end

Oh come to the altar

The Father's altar

Father we just thank you for

Lord The reminders To encourage once in one another How something so simple It goes so far Lord I just I pray that you put people in front of our paths this week That we can encourage People that we love, people that we see every day

and people that we don't know.

Lord, because that's what we're called to do.

That's our community.

This is our church.

Lord, I ask favor for our pastor and his family

and our elders

as we go through the week as they get challenged.

Lord, I pray for our congregation as well.

Keep us safe in your care.

Keep us safe in your care.

Keep us safe in your care.

Keep us safe in your care.

Keep us safe in your care.

Sometimes it's hard to breathe.

Oh, he starts to shout at me.

Try to bring me to my knees.

And it's overwhelming.

Darkness echoes all around.

Feels like everything is crashing down.

Still I know when my hope is...

I can see the clouds rolling.

I can feel the wind.

If they try to shake me.

I will not be moved.

My feet are on the rock.

When I feel my hope about to break.

I will cling to your unchanging grace.

Let the waters come and the earth give way.

I'll be dancing in the rain.

My feet are on the rock.

My feet are on the rock.

I will cling to your unchanging grace.

I will cling to your unchanging grace.

Let the waters come and the earth give way.

I'll be dancing in the rain.

I'll be dancing in the rain.

My feet are on the rock. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All of the ground is sinking sand. So stomp your feet and clap your hands. Our feet are on the rock. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All of the ground is sinking sand. So stomp your feet and clap your hands. Our feet are on the rock. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All of the ground is sinking sand. So stomp your feet and clap your hands. Our feet are on the rock. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All of the ground is sinking sand. So stomp your feet and clap your hands. Our feet are on the rock. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All of the ground is sinking sand. So stomp your feet and clap your hands. Our feet are on the rock. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All of the ground is sinking sand. So stomp your feet and clap your hands. Our feet are on the rock.

All of the ground is sinking sand, so stomp your feet and clap your hands, our feet are on the rock.

On Christ the solid rock I stand, all of the ground is sinking sand, so stomp your feet and clap your hands, our feet are on the rock.

When I feel my hope about to break, I will cling to your unchanging grace.

Let the waters come and the earth give way, I'll be dancing in the rain.

When I feel my hope about to break, I will cling to your unchanging grace.

Let the waters come and the earth give way, I'll be dancing in the rain.

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

My feet are on the rock

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.