Untitled Sermon

Hearing and Hope

Week 5

Theme: Overcoming Disillusionment—Finding my identity—Following Gods leading

Open: Encounters have the power to change our lives forever for the worse or for the better. Moments that change our lives forever.

Disillusionment- a feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be.

Worse: My first car accident ‘67

1. Have you ever been at point in your life and had the thought “it has to be better than this?” or “Is this what my life has come to?"

Better: First Time I saw my wife / Held my child

a. Maybe recently or when you were younger you applied for a school that you hoped would help you reach your goals but got rejected.

Theme: Encounters will change you. Each of us need fresh encounters with Jesus to transform us.

b. Or you followed your heart and nothing ended up like you planned or wished.

Acts chapter 9- Saul’s conversion was pretty abnormal.

c. Maybe you felt stuck. Not knowing how to grow or progress as a leader, parent or friend.

Transition: Paul was responsible for 2/3 of the New Testament. Most of what we read today is a result of Paul’s journey.

d. Or the “friends” you thought you had weren’t truly friends at all.

1. We are all on a spiritual journey

e. Maybe you were praying for healing for a loved one and they still passed away and you are left asking God how or why.

a. where are you at? Occasionally we need to stop and take a spiritual location finder.

This DISILLUSIONMENT STORY may help:

Illus. GPS every app wants to use your location to determine the best way to get there.

At Sunday school they were teaching how God created everything, including human beings. Little Johnny, a child in the kindergarten class, seemed especially intent when they told him how Eve was created out of one of Adam’s ribs. Later in the week his mother noticed him lying down as though he were ill, and said, “Johnny, what’s the matter?”

b. “If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.”

Johnny said, “I don’t feel well, I think I’m having a wife.”

c. There are still steps for each of us to continue to grow…there is more.

I think little Johnny is about to experience some disillusions!

Transition: Paul had a massive change in direction.

Lets turn in our bibles to 1 Kings Chapter 18 as we talk on hope today.

2. Saul (Paul) encountered Jesus

PRAY

a. “Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So, he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them—both men and women—back to Jerusalem in chains.” Acts 9:1–2, NLT

Heres the thing:

b. Paul was sincere, but sincerely wrong

Disillusionment and disappointment causes us to think in absolutes. When absolutes of hopelessness form we enter a place of despair.

c. “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4, NLT

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Illus. STRONGHOLD “I used to believe that I ought to do everything I could to oppose the very name of Jesus the Nazarene.” Acts 26:9 NLT

2. As of last year 40 million people in the US suffer from depression or an anxiety disorder.

d. “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5, ESV)

a. We describe feeling like that to express two kinds of situations.

3. The Encounter

1. One where you are just a little gloomy

a. “As he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?” “Who are you, lord?” Saul asked. And the voice replied, “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting! Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” The men with Saul stood speechless, for they heard the sound of someone’s voice but saw no one! (information not revelation) Saul picked himself up off the ground, but when he opened his eyes he was blind. So, his companions led him by the hand to Damascus. He remained there blind for three days and did not eat or drink.” (Acts 9:3–9, NLT)

2. And the other where you feel like you are in a deep pit with no way to get out.

b. physical blindness for spiritual awakening

b. When we find ourselves at that place we often say that we have, “lost hope” as if hope were something you could lose like your car keys or the television remote.

Illus. process of wrecking ball vs. dynamite the building.

But—The reality is that you don’t “lose hope”. You misplace it.

c. The Way – could it be the way these people responded to persecution that begin to soften Paul’s heart? (pray for enemies)

3. What happens is that you place your hope in things that do not guard and protect your hope:

d. There are sometimes you have to do the word of God in order to understand it.

a. People, circumstances, past mistakes may abuse your hope, mistreat it, or neglect it.

Conclusion: Encounters are still for today. You need a revelation a fresh encounter with the Holy Spirit.

b. When it comes time to take your hope back you find that it doesn’t look like how you left it.

Salvation: You need to encounter this person Jesus, not just with information, but revelation.

You may even say, “surely this is not the hope I once had”.

c. It’s not that you don’t know where hope is. It’s that you have put your hope somewhereGod never intended it to be

d. Misplaced hope is never working out and eating bad everyday—and then expecting to lose weight and look great in a bathing suit.

4. When you place your hope in people or things or circumstances and those things let you down, you become wounded. It may be due to neglect, or abandonment, or from physical or verbal abuse.

a. In the middle of the pain you may have made an inner promise. You may have said to yourself:

1. “I will not feel anger or pain”—Because of the hurt you may have turned off your feelings in order to survive.

5. This is natural and healthy thing God has programmed in us to help us survive trauma or harmful situations

a. The problem arises when we are still operating in this mode of “safety” long after the trauma has passed.

b. We are “surviving” in a time where God desires us to be thriving

1. THRIVING: Flourishing, Prosperous, Growing, Healthy, Successful, Booming, Going from strength to strength

2. SURVIVING: Remain alive, Pull through, Exist, Sustain oneself, Just Make it

3. There are times where survival is essential. Then there is the time to start thriving in our lives, relationships, families or friendships.

c. You may have said, “I’m no good” or you’ve believed other people when they’ve said that you are not good—That you have no worth.

d. You may have said to yourself, “It will never change. It will never get better.”

6. Listen—it’s important for you to understand that feeling this way is not a sign that you lack faith or that God is not near to you, or that when you asked for forgiveness and committed your life to God that you “didn’t really mean it”.

a. It simply means that you have misplaced your hope.

b. When hope is placed in God we find the strength we need to move on, to press through, to believe that He is working on our behalf despite all evidence to the contrary.

says, I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hopethrough the power of the Holy Spirit.

You may say, but I placed my hope in God. But the reality is that you placed your hope in God until… (You placed your hope in God until…)

a. Until that death

b. Until that trauma

c. Until that prayer request goes unanswered

Almost everyone is going to face their faith challenging mountain in the life. It has already happened or is on its way.

Here is something you need to hear. You can be a strong and mature believer and still experience deep moments of despair.

It is how you respond to it that is crucial. The enemy will use your pain to make you think you are weak. And that is a lie from the pit of hell!

Let’s look 1 Kings Chapter 18

7. tells us of the prophet Elijah’s great success story. Some of you know this story—Here is the cliff notes:

a. He had confronted an entire nation of pagans in a contest between Baal and God. Two altars, two bulls, and the question of who would consume the sacrifice.

b. 450 prophets of Baal were frustrated and humiliated

c. Baal could not, but the God of Israel consumed the sacrifice.

d. So the prophets of Baal were executed

e. An even though short lived, the whole nation turned back to God.

8. You would think after an incredible victory like this that the prophet would be on cloud-9.

a. But as we look at the next chapter you see how the voices around Elijah started impacted the victories done through him.

Read

1 When Ahab got home, he told Jezebel everything Elijah had done, including the way he had killed all the prophets of Baal.

2 So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah: “May the gods strike me and even kill me if by this time tomorrow I have not killed you— just as you killed them.”

Often after you experience your greatest victory is when you will encounter the most intense moments of spiritual warfare.—Expound this idea

3 Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beer-sheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there.

4 Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life…”

9. Here Elijah has this incredible victory and now the only thing that is on his mind is ending it all—And it wasn’t just a thought in his mind, he took real actions

a. Leaving his servant behind meant he had no plan to ever return. He wanted to die at that place he was running to.

b. This often becomes a struggle because we can't silence the outside voices that tell us we’re not good enough or tell us we’ve messed up

c. Or we can’t silence the voices within our own mind.

d. Those around us may even be telling us everything is ok and we will make it—but we are believing the story we are telling ourselves.

e. We are running from where God has destined us.

You’re not alone when you feel like you’re alone. God did not intend that we live our lives as the slaves of our emotions, but as the master of them.

You’ve got to understand that you are NOT defined by your worst moments. (You are NOT defined by your worst moments)

10. You’ve got to be patient with yourself. Freedom, hope and healing all include a process.

a. A spiritual or emotional wound that has taken years to form is not always healed in a moment.

b. Your story, even one riddled with pain or mistakes or abuse is still YOUR story and it is those very things that Jesus can redeem, forgive and even use as THE VERY stepping stones to YOUR freedom. (Your story can be the stepping stone to your freedom)

11. I promise you—that as you let God heal you of all the things that are stealing your hope, he will turn those events into a testimony that one day will give someone going through exactly what you did the ability to have hope again.

a. For them to see that it is possible to survive, thrive and even hear the voice of God leading you once again.

Summarize the story from

12. So in Chapter 19:

a. Elijah ran 40+ days to Mount Sinai

b. As far as he could go to get away from everything

c. But the distance would not matter

d. He was still worn out from despair and depression

Hopelessness will often take your strength, but God has the ability to bring relief, healing and restoration.

Look back at Elijah and what God spoke directly to the prophet:

1 Kings Chapter 19:9-10

9 There he came to a cave, where he spent the night. But the Lord said to him “What are you doing here?”

10 Elijah replied, “I have zealously served the LORD God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.”

This response was something he had rehearsed—He would answer God exactly this same way 2 times.

12. Have you ever found yourself rehearsing your responses to God instead of listening for his voice?

a. When we get stuck reminding ourselves of the hell we are in or the good things from our past—we can often miss the leading of God for our future.

1. All of the things Elijah responded to God with were reality. But those things wasn’t what God wanted Elijah to be focused on. But he couldn’t take his focus off those things and put his focus on God!

b. I believe there are people whose prayers for freedom have been answered but they haven’t or can’t let it go

c. They are choosing—consciously or not to hold onto the very thing or pain they have prayed for God to take

d. God just might be looking down on us saying:

1. Son or daughter I have answered that prayer—when you are going to let go of it and walk in freedom from it?

2. When are you going to stop focusing on all of this around you and put your trust and focus in—on Me?

13. Hopelessness will often take you to places that God never intended you to go. Physically or even just mentally!

a. To people God didn’t want a part of your life

b. To coping mechanisms that may literally be killing you

c. To a secret place of despair that maybe even the closest to you don’t know you are battling with.

Maybe you have lost hope in God himself, maybe you have been through a season of not feeling the presence of God like you used to.

14. If you are sitting here today and only get one single truth then let it be this:

a. We serve a God that doesn’t give up in walking with us through the process of our healing

b. There is nothing you can do, distance you can run or depths you can fall to that will prevent God from finding you, drawing you close and speaking to you.

God asked Elijah not once “What are you doing here?” but twice. God will always pursue us.

15. Are you here today and know that you are looking for God in all the wrong places?

a. That doesn’t always mean just bad things—some good things may need to shift in order for you to receive what God whats to do in you. In order for you to let him lead you once again.

16. If someone were to ask you to think of the things in your life or your past that grieves Gods heart—what comes to your mind? PAUSE FOR THEM TO THINK ABOUT THE QUESTION. Ask it again.

Is it:

a. Your mistakes?

b. Your sins?

c. Your anger?

d. Maybe it’s Your wife? NO MEN! Your wife doesn’t cause God to grieve!

17. Someone asked me that question last year. And as i paused to think—in that silence Taylor thought of all those things too.

a. But you know what God showed me? PAUSE…

b. The thing that grieved God's heart was the time all those years ago at the age 16 when I lost my good friend Gabe. He was only 19 and he was gone in an instant.

c. It was the things in my life that caused me to hurt, the pain, the trauma that broke my heart were the very things God looked to first—The incidents that grieved him as he saw his child grieving.

d. He showed me that as I wept over the times of hell all around me, He wept with me. He wept with you!

You see—when we place our hope in things other than God or when we look for God or relief in the wrong places—we will miss Him every time.

The beautiful thing about it though—is even if right now in your life you aren’t finding him in the places your are looking—He is patient to wait for right time to whisper exactly what you need to hear.

To meet you wherever it is you have run to.

Look up here at me:

I don't know all of you. I don't know your stories, what you have endured. The battles won or lost.

The people come and gone, some of you never had to chance to ask forgiveness from, or give forgiveness to— and they may be gone now.

But God knows it all. He has been right there with you through everything.

Grieving with you, loving you, desiring you to seek him. To ask him to speak to you, to show you the areas to work on. So you can have hope again!

Sometimes we think if it's truly God—it has to be loud, or big or ground shaking, a BOOMING VOICE from Heaven.

But I have often found that the greatest things I have heard from God are in the moments of silence. The moments where I tune everything else out—make space—and just stop and listen…

Stop my rehearsed complaining or responses and wait for Him to speak.

Lets take a moment and do just that as we watch how even Elijah—this great prophet—searched for God in all of the wrong place—before finally finding Him in an unexpected place

CLOSING OF BIBLE initiates starting of VIDEO**production team note

ELIJAH VIDEO

CLOSING:

No matter your age or stage God isn’t done working through you to impact those around you and our church. To set aside time to listen to him speak in a greater way than you already have.

If you don’t believe me then you are living with an uncertainty of how God truly sees you.

And Right now, right here God wants you to start seeing yourself how God sees you. His beautiful child. His son or daughter

Because When you are unsure of your identity, you will have no hope in your destiny.

Ask everyone to close their eyes

With everyone’s eyes closed. Take a moment and in your own words ask God to speak—say to him speak Lord, because your son or daughter is listening.

PAUSE

Invite the Holy Spirit to reveal to you anything that is causing you to lose hope. Pray that He will show you any lies that you are believing or have believed. Pray for truth about how God sees you, not how you may see yourself.

PRAY—Father, reveal to them everything in their life that is a wall between them and you and a wall between them and hope. Help those right now who have lost hope to see as they place their hope in you they can find it again! Amen

Maybe you are sitting here today and you have just come back to God or the faith. Or maybe you are far from him because of actions or sin. Know that it can all change today. You can walk out of here a new person, ready to engage in the process of healing and health.

If that is you—then give me an opportunity to pray with you and raise your hand—I am not going to ask you to stand or come forward—I will give you that opportunity in a moment but right now before God and man lift your hand and that statement agree that today it will change. If you want that change in any area of your life then lift your hand now.

Can we all pray this prayer together and encourage anyone here today that we too need that beautiful grace and love that only God can give.

Salvation Prayer

Worship, Ministry Time, Dismiss