Worship Gathering In House and Online at 11:00 AM

Grace and Peace in the Name of the Lord Jesus:

Today, Pastor Betty will begin a new sermon series entitled, “From Discouragement to Encouragement.” Today’s message is, “Rise above Discouragement” from the prophetic book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah writes in chapter 20:1-13 the following words:

1 When the priest Pashhur son of Immer, the official in charge of the temple of the Lord, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things, ² he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the Upper Gate of Benjaminat the Lord’s temple. ³ The next day, when Pashhur released him from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The Lord’s namefor you is not Pashhur, but Terror on Every Side. ⁴ For this is what the Lord says: ‘I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends; with your own eyes you will see them fall by the sword of their enemies. I will give all Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon, who will carry them away to Babylon or put them to the sword. ⁵ I will deliver all the wealth of this city into the hands of their enemies—all its products, all its valuables and all the treasures of the kings of Judah. They will take it away as plunder and carry it off to Babylon. ⁶ And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house will go into exile to Babylon. There you will die and be buried, you and all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.’”

⁷ You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;  everyone mocks me. ⁸ Whenever I speak, I cry out
 proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me  insult and reproach all day long. ⁹ But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in;
 indeed, I cannot. ¹⁰ I hear many whispering,  “Terror on every side!  Denounce him! Let’s denounce him!” All my friends  are waiting for me to slip, saying, “Perhaps he will be deceived;
 then we will prevail over him  and take our revenge on him.”

¹¹ But the Lord is with me like a mighty warrior;  so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will fail and be thoroughly disgraced; their dishonor will never be forgotten.
¹² Lord Almighty, you who examine the righteous  and probe the heart and mind,
let me see your vengeance on them, for to you I have committed my cause. ¹³ Sing to the Lord!
Give praise to the Lord! He rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked. (NIV)

Someone once said, “Discouragement is part of life. Discouragement comes most often when you do right things but experience poor results. You work hard, but you don’t make progress. You show up to practice every day, giving it your all, but you lose every game. You spend time with your child – going out of your way to parent the best you know how – but she rebells. Discouragement eats a hole in our hearts. It makes us want to quit, saying things we shouldn’t say, shaking our fists at God.”

Have you ever felt the weight of discouragement upon you? Jeremiah the prophet sure did and he let God and the community know about it by issuing his complaint. Consequently, Jeremiah got arrested and beaten by Pashhur for his words. If Jeremiah wasn’t already feeling down he surely feels it now. As someone noted, “Here was a man in deep distress. He endured physical, emotional, spiritual, and professional anguish. He walked into deep despair, all for doing God’s will.” All for doing God’s will!

Jeremiah never wavered from his call as a prophet and continued to be obedient even though he face discouragement, ridicule, rejection, and even ended up in prison. It seems that he face one episode of discouragement after another. Yet he also demonstrated that in the midst of those setbacks that God gave him the strength to rise above his discouragement.

A. W. Tozer writes:

“The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God, and the church is famishing for want of his presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and that God is in us. This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged. This would burn away the impurities from our lives as the bugs and fungi were burned away by the fire that dwelt in the bush.”

Let God lift you above your discouragement!

Let us pray:

Almighty God, increase my confidence in your power within me rather than relying on my own. Forgive me when discouragement is rooted in over-dependance on my strength versus yours. Remind me that without you I can do nothing. Thank you that the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead lives in me! Let bold faith arise to accomplish the works you’ve assigned for today. Teach me to rest in effort mixed with surrender, working in confident trust that you bring results. Thank you for taking my feeble efforts and multiplying fruitfulness beyond my capabilities. In Jesus’ name, Amen. (https://www.divinedisclosures.com)