Discouragement can come in because not only I
believe we can beat ourselves up, but the
enemy can plant thoughts of doubt and discouragement.
And the reason, the purpose for discouragement, I've
said before but bears repeating, is God wants
us to walk this direction.
Discouragement comes in and causes us to do
what?
I'll head for that door.
Not that door, I'm discouraged.
This door is the easy route.
And discouragement knocks us off track.
So Barnabas came and he encouraged the people,
what?
With purpose of heart.
Purpose of heart that they should continue with
the Lord.
One of the best principles of the Christian
faith that you will ever learn is to
continue with the Lord regardless of circumstances.
Regardless of setbacks, regardless of how your life
is going, you continue regardless.
And often God will allow us to be
tested in this area.
Because isn't it easy?
You just got promoted at work.
You got thousands back on your taxes.
Everything's going great.
No cars are breaking down.
The house is going good.
The children have the house clean and they're
dressed.
They're ready for church.
You're filled with the Spirit of God.
Things are going great.
It's not too hard to stay on that
track.
But when the opposite occurs and the thoughts
of doubt and discouragement come in, that's when
it's hard to stay on track.
But Barnabas encouraged them and then the Bible
said something very interesting.
This would be a great Father's Day message
if it was Father's Day.
For he was a good man full of
the Holy Spirit and faith.
And men you will never be a good
man.
I will never be a good man unless
we are filled with the Spirit.
Because here's how it works.
We're filled with the Spirit or we're filled
with the world.
Or we're in between fighting.
I like this side but I know I
need this side.
And this side, actually when you're in the
middle you're miserable.
A double minded man is unstable in all
his ways.
So a good man is a man full
of the Holy Spirit and as much as
I would like to talk about that, I
have for the last few months.
So go back and listen to those messages.
Full of the Holy Spirit and of faith,
he was a good man.
So we have this image of Barnabas.
He's an encourager.
He's encouraging people.
And a great many people were added to
the Lord.
Anytime you get somebody filled with the Holy
Spirit, you will see the church being built
up.
People coming to know the Lord, filled with
the Holy Spirit.
When they're not filled with the Holy Spirit,
you rarely see things happening for the Kingdom
of God.
That's just truth.
It's frustrating but it happens when we're not
filled with the Holy Spirit.
Here's why.
Shane's got his agenda, right?
I'm going shopping to get groceries.
I've got to be here.
My phone's not working.
I've got to go to Verizon.
I've got my agenda.
God, don't get in the way.
Nothing happens.
But when you wake up and start the
day with prayer and say, God, how can
you use me on my job?
How can you use me at the Verizon
store?
At the restaurant?
Or at how can you use me?
Lord, what do you want to do?
I want to be full of your Spirit.
Because we think Sunday's the Super Bowl.
Really, Sunday is just so we come together
and we get encouraged and we go back
out and we do the work of God.
The work of God happens out there.
Think about that.
That's where it happens.
Are you just me, but do you see
all those tents now out in the desert
from the freeway?
You think anybody should be reaching out and
inviting to church or giving them a ride?
Or Shane, they all are alcoholics or they
all deserve it.
Not everybody.
Be careful.
Because that heart of compassion and empathy can
turn into a hard, cold, callous heart.
And I also know that we don't want
to enable.
But I want to develop that heart of
compassion.
I don't know about you, but that's hard
to come by as well.
So the three cautions.
The first one here reminds us that we
need to stay encouraged.
Stay encouraged.
Encouraged means a persuasion to do something or
to continue in something.
That's actually why we are here.
So the first caution is the Bible will
tell you to stay encouraged in the Lord.
Stay.
Plant your feet and do things that build
up your encouragement.
Anytime you see somebody fall away from the
Lord, or marriage that's on the rocks, or
adultery, or you name it, guess what happened
to their encouragement?
It went bye-bye.
It was gone because they were no longer
encouraged.
And in our discouragement, that's when we sin.
Oh, forget it then.
I'm so discouraged.
Fights at home, hard, difficult things put an
addict back into their addictions often.
You ever heard the word relapse?
You think that happens when everything's going good?
I'm so encouraged.
I'm moving forward with God.
He's doing so many things in my life.
Then comes the discouragement.
Then they go back and they relapse.
And they fall back into that discouragement, back
into that shame and guilt.
And the enemy wants to keep us in
that pattern of shame and guilt.
Shame and guilt, discouraged.
Let me encourage you briefly here, not in
my sermon notes, but I think we need
to hear this, is a lot of that
can change this morning.
One of the wonderful things I love about
God, you hear me say it often, is
He is a God of not the second
chances.
Sometimes they say, God, you are the God
of second chances.
Second chances?
Can you add a few thousand up there?
It's till the day you breathe your last
breath, God is saying, come back, reposition, get
encouraged again.
Come back to me.
Seek me and you will find me.
Draw near to me and I will draw
near to you right now.
Reposition your life.
Get reorganized.
Get re-emphasized.
Emphasize me in prayer and fasting and humility
and worship.
Get back on track, get back on track,
so it can end that quickly.
Now the discouragement sometimes doesn't end and I'm
full of encouragement.
Sometimes it's a step by step process.
But God never lets us down.
God never says, you know what Shane, I'm
so discouraged, I'll listen to your prayers, maybe
around June or July.
You get your life straight.
You stop doing that.
You stop doing that and I'll listen to
you in a month or two.
Think about how powerful, just think about this
for a minute.
We get caught in the shame and the
guilt and the discouragement.
God says, come back.
No.
We beat ourselves up.
We want to somehow stay in this cesspool,
really, of shame and guilt.
Well here's a few ways I want to
help encourage you.
It helps me a lot.
When you look at a situation, ask this
question, what does God say about it?
What does God say about my situation?
Whatever you're discouraged in right now, marriage, things
at work, children, whatever it is.
What does God say, not what do people
say?
Raising your kids, you ever get discouraged?
Huh?
I mean we could get in a big
debate right now, homeschool, private school, public school.
I mean that's right up there talking about
vaccines.
But Lord, I'm so discouraged, what do I
do?
What does God say?
Not the world.
What does God say?
Well I don't know what he says.
That's what this is for.
That's why I say you should spend a
lot, learn this.
Genesis to Revelation and then what Shane?
And then you start again.
And then what?
You start again.
And you have the whole counsel of God.
What does God say?
I mean it's, you'll amount to nothing.
You can't do that.
You've given up your whole career.
That's a stupid choice.
Yes it is according to the world.
That's why most of Hollywood is depressed and
on Xanax and Vicodin and Oxy.
And they might buy something to snort and
then drink something.
Why?
It's not fulfilling.
The world is never fulfilling.
It promises everything but delivers nothing.
So to be encouraged, look at what God
says.
So when I get discouraged, I just turn
to Psalms.
Just grab the Psalm and just stay there,
camp out.
Oh my goodness.
After 30 minutes you are encouraged.
Sometimes you have to fight those struggles in
your mind.
Sometimes it doesn't happen and I don't feel
like reading and I don't feel like praying.
I'll just make a confession out there.
I love when a confession starts here, right?
It hopefully flows down.
But guess who didn't want to go to
prayer this morning?
Phil, Jack, I just hate to tell you
guys this.
I walked in there like, oh man.
I'm rushed.
I got up an hour and a half
late.
I even went through my sermon.
My phone's not working.
Verizon later today.
Yes, that's what that means.
I can't even pray, Lord.
But by the time we left, oh, let
me tell you, by the time we left,
God, the Spirit of God is right.
I'm so encouraged.
I'm driving home thinking, I don't even need
a phone.
Who needs a phone?
I don't care.
And you have to encourage yourself.
I mean, they are overrated, are they not?
They control us.
Get back to the flip time, the kind
you have to text like this four times
to make one letter?
You'll never text again.
I disconnected Facebook and my email alerts on
my phone.
It's been the most relaxing two weeks I've
had.
And I'm not joking.
Don't feel offended, right?
It's not you.
I mean, it's because it controls us.
Beep, encourage yourself.
Get into prayer.
Every morning, Sunday morning at 7.30 and
Tuesday nights at 7, you will not feel
like it.
Every excuse in the book will come up.
Have you ever, I'm hungry.
I've got stuff to do.
I'm tired.
I don't feel like it.
And this one, you got to drag your
feelings with you and be here for prayer.
Yes, I'm promoting it.
I make no apologies.
But I think when we get the church
praying, the church encourages herself.
Also, this is huge.
I would have to say it's right up
there with wisdom.
To stay encouraged.
If you want to stay encouraged and if
something is discouraging you, right, that's the opposite
of encouragement, what do spirit-filled believers say?
And the reason I say spirit-filled believers,
Bible-believing, because you can have, you can
have Bible-believing, you can know Bible-believing
people and you don't want to go for
them to advice.
They're just as rigid and mean as the
junkyard dog, right?
Remember that song?
It's just so mean and I don't want
to, you don't want to go to them.
You want to go to spirit-filled believers
who love the Lord, who will speak into
your life and what you want to do
is this.
Listen, listen, because they see things from different
angles that we don't see.
And sometimes we don't want to go to
them because we don't want to know what
they want to hear, right?
I'm doing my thing.
So one way God uses people, spirit-filled
people, is to encourage us.
Then the final thing I already talked about,
a way to encourage yourself is prayer.
Prayer encourages and strengthens.
Here's what happens in prayer.
It happened this morning.
You see the light at the end of
the tunnel.
You see the light breaking forth.
And I don't know how it works, but
the mind, I believe, is the most powerful
thing on the planet without anything.
Because before you do this and sin or
walk in sin, it's here.
The battle's here.
It's the most powerful thing ever developed, ever
created by God.
So what prayer does is it actually changes
your thoughts.
You're not conformed anymore into the world's image.
You're bringing your thoughts back into captive.
You're taking your thoughts captive.
And I should remind us, this is a
good time to remind us that Jesus said,
my house will be called a house of
prayer.
My house will be called a house of
prayer.
And I might step on toes here, but
that's okay.
Even preaching must bow to prayer.
Even worship must bow to prayer.
Even ministry, involved in ministry, it must bow
to prayer.
What I mean by that is prayer is
focal point.
Prayer is the foundation.
Prayer is everything.
Prayer is actually here, and everything else is
built upon it.
Everything, everything must bow to prayer as being
the primary thing.
Here's why.
I've seen a lot of churches.
Boy, they can worship, but they got drunk
last night.
Oh, you want me to keep going?
You can come up here and preach.
And a person hasn't prayed.
And it's just clanging cymbals or noise.
People, that's why they fall asleep in many
churches.
If you get a pastor on fire with
God, filled with the Spirit of God, it's
rising up in him.
He's a man of prayer, and he has
to say something.
People cannot fall asleep.
They are changed.
They are challenged in everything.
And if you go out and start a
ministry without prayer, I guarantee that ministry won't
last more than a few months.
You might get six months.
You are barely seeing this thing through because
it's not bathed in clothed in prayer.
I found this out.
When I get something burdened on my heart,
and God has some things burdened on my
heart right now, I'm praying for, I can't
tell you right now.
And it's such a burden that it begins
to change even how I think, and how
I act, how I treat others.
And I'm encouraged by what God is putting
on my heart.
For though we walk in the flesh, we
do not war according to the flesh.
As tempted as I am, I know not
everybody's ready for this, but I'd rather, I'd
just turn a service sometimes into a prayer
and worship service.
Because that's our warfare.
The weapons of our warfare.
We walk in the flesh, we do not
war according to the flesh.
Here's what happens.
Pulling down strongholds.
A stronghold is when something gets in our
lives, and it's in many of our lives,
it comes in, it's a stronghold.
Why can't I get rid of this?
It's got such a stronghold on me.
I bring it to the cross every week,
and I can't seem to stop this.
It's got a stronghold.
That's not just gonna come out with a
quick little prayer.
And choosing Deadpool over Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John.
It's not.
It's a stronghold.
If you don't know what that is, that's
good.
Don't worry.
It's a deplorable movie that many Christians watch,
and they wonder why they're not filled with
the Spirit of God.
That's what it does.
Casting down arguments.
You know what an argument, here's what prayer
does.
The excuse maker's right here.
But when I'm praying, not five minutes, ten,
when I'm praying, that excuse maker has to
go hide.
Casting down arguments.
And every high thing that exalts itself against
the knowledge of God, everything that's coming into
my mind that's exalting itself against God, that's
making excuses in a stronghold, they all have
to flee.
When true prayer, true prayer enters your heart,
you will be encouraged.
Now, I do need to throw this out
there, but encouragement doesn't mean tell me what
I want to hear.
Because most people think, well Shane, you're not
very encouraging.
You haven't heard that before?
Shane, you're not very encouraging.
Oh, if you mean I'm not encouraging you
in your sin, you're absolutely right.
Because that's not encouragement.
So encouragement, now it does, so it means
encouraging those who have fallen.
My wife will tell you, we laugh at
this all the time.
People go, oh Shane, he's not.
Watch how he talks to an individual.
He's too sappy sometimes.
You know, come on, come on, give him
a hard.
No, but on an individual conversations, building them
up, encouraging them, getting out of that addiction
and that lifestyle and encouraging them.
But when it comes to preaching, it's a
lot different because there's more people watching out
there than in here sometimes.
And God wants to speak to people in
different ways and it's not always encouraging.
I couldn't even get out of 2 Chronicles
15, 16, 17, 18 this week.
I just kept turning back to it.
So many things came out from that.
But one of the things was, Jehoshaphat was
a good king.
You had Saul, you had David, you had
Solomon, and then the kingdoms broke up.
Northern kingdom and then the southern kingdom of
Judah.
Jehoshaphat was a good king.
He made some mistakes.
He trusted in God and then God delivered
him from the Egyptians.
But then he had trusted in an army
and God said, why have you trusted in
them and not me?
And the Syrians judged him.
And he's an interesting character.
He reminds me of me, right?
I'll trust in God, but in this situation,
I'll trust in myself.
And Jehoshaphat, he comes and King Ahab, he
married into Ahab's lineage, I think through Jehoshaphat's
wife, related to Ahab.
And Ahab said, I need you.
And if you don't know who Ahab is,
just think of Jezebel.
Ahab was a very wicked king in northern
Israel, Jehoshaphat in southern Judah.
And Ahab said, would you align with me?
Would you align with me?
We're going into battle.
And Jehoshaphat said, well, what do the prophets
say?
What do the seers say?
The seer, S-E-E-R, is what
the Old Testament used for a prophet who
could see what God is going to do
and they would go back and instruct the
king if they were truly seeking God.
So it's interesting.
Jehoshaphat and Ahab were sitting before the prophets
and all these prophets were saying, go into
battle, king.
You're going to win.
You're the man.
You're going to take down Syria.
You're the man, Ahab.
Just cheering him up and encouraging and encouraging
this wicked king.
They were encouraging him.
And Jehoshaphat said, isn't there not one other
prophet?
And Ahab goes, yeah, but this guy, Micaiah,
he always speaks evil about me.
I don't like this guy.
He hates me.
And Ahab's people, I guess you could say
his entourage, went and found Micaiah and they
said, listen, the king wants you to speak
to him, but please, just be an encouragement
like all the other prophets.
Please, would you just encourage him?
Can you imagine this picture?
Please, please, come on.
And here's what he said.
And whatever my God says, that I will
speak.
And it was not encouraging.
He told the king, because you're wicked, you've
not repented of your sin, you will die
when you go to battle.
And he said, lock this man up.
I'll deal with him when I get back.
And he said, if you come back, then
the Lord has not spoken to me.
Tell me encouraging things.
But we also have to remember that encouragement
is found in obedience.
I have a big dry erase board that
I've got prayer requests on and encouraging.
I need encouraging verses just like anybody else.
And this one I just kept turning back
to every morning.
But God's speaking here.
He says, but you, and this could be
applied to us, but you be strong and
do not let your hands be weak, for
your work shall be rewarded.
Isn't that encouraging?
See, when I'm discouraged and I feel like
I'm not going in the right direction, God
just says this, be strong.
Do not let your hands be weak.
What does that mean?
You have something.
You're holding it.
Don't do this.
I'm giving up.
Don't let your hands be weak.
You will be rewarded.
We think, Shane, is that selfish?
No, it doesn't mean like I got bling,
bling, rewarded.
It means rewarded.
God's going to see the prayer through.
He's going to guard your children, guard your
marriage.
He's going to take away that depression, that
anxiety, all these things, and He's going to
rebuild your life.
But it requires obedience.
I've never seen a person very encouraged in
the Lord who was disobedient.
Have you?
Talk to me afterwards.
I'd love to meet this person.
They are so disobedient, but they are encouraged
in the Lord.
It doesn't work that way.
Actually, the most miserable people you will ever
meet is those who are doing something they
know they shouldn't be doing.
They're very discouraged.
So what steps can you take today to
stay encouraged?
Everything I just talked about the last 15
minutes, what can you apply this morning to
stay encouraged?
You know, I just, I want to throw
this out there too.
I don't know, some of you I don't
recognize.
I don't know who's, we've got a lot
of people watching online now, on live stream,
and maybe you've been very discouraged.
Maybe you don't have answers in life, and
it could be that you don't have a
relationship with God.
You don't know who Jesus Christ is.
The Bible is very clear.
It just says, repent of your sin and
believe that He is who God said He
is.
He's the Son of God.
Repent and believe, and times of refreshing will
come from the presence of the Lord, Acts
3.19. Just repent and believe, and times
of refreshing.
That word refreshing is a Greek word.
It's about revival.
God reviving, refreshing.
Have you ever seen a dead plant or
dead grass and after some water?
It's alive and refreshed and revived.
That's how you get encouraged again, is repentance
and renewal.