Growing Through the Desert
Notes
Transcript
Handout
As we prepare for Easter, I want to kick off a short series on growing in our relationship with Jesus.
What is the largest desert in the World?
What is the largest desert in the World?
Sahara, Mojave? Some who have been there would say Iraq...
What is the largest desert in the world? Antartica
What is the largest desert in the world? Antartica
Before you think that I’ve lost my mind, a desert is not measured by heat, it’s measured by precipitation. How much rainfall an area has. Any place that gets 10 inches or less per year is a desert.
Antartica gets 2 inches of rain per year. When you see snow blowing around in a blizzard there, it’s snow that’s already there… it never melts. 2 inches per year.
Another way to measure a desert is by evaporation. a desert has more evaporation that precipitation.
A desert can be a hot dry place
A desert can be a hot dry place
In our lives, a desert can be a hot dry place…
A desert can be a cold place
A desert can be a cold place
a very cold place…
A desert can be a time when you are giving out more than you take in
A desert can be a time when you are giving out more than you take in
or a place or time when you are giving out more than you are taking in.
Has anyone ever been in one of those deserts before? Most of us.
Today we will learn how we can grow during the desert seasons in our lives. How can we meet the Lord in the desert?
Before you think that the desert is all bad, the Bible shows us that a lot of people met god in the desert.
Abraham… Jacob… Moses … he spoke to them in their desert of deserts...
He spoke to Elijah in the desert. He spoke to Jesus in the desert.
He spoke to David a lot in the desert.
1 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. 8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
David said he earnestly sought God in a dry and weary place. Have you ever found yourself in a place where you felt spiritually dry and weary? … Where it just seems fruitless? And you are dying for just a taste of the water God has for you.
Some of you are in, or will be in, a desert season right now. You may be in a desert where the heat is turned up and everything is parched. Maybe the heart is turned up at work. Maybe you have a financial crisis in your life. Maybe you are in a family crisis. Maybe you are being treated unfairly in a relationship. Everything you have worked for is withering away in this desert season. You look for comfort and you want to hear from God but you read your Bible and NOTHING… it’s like chewing sawdust. You find yourself living in past encounters with God… wishing the good ole days would come back.
Perhaps your desert is where your soul is cold and hardened. Maybe you’ve burned out. You have become angry with God for something that He did or did not do. So your heart is growing cold and you are losing your passion for life and for God. Your prayers feel like they go as far as the ceiling. It seems like God is either not listening to you or that he is not paying attention to you.
Maybe your desert is on where you have been giving out but not taking anything in. You have too many commitments… to many places to be at one time. You are getting to a place where you say, I don’t have anything left to give. I’m empty.
If you are in one of these deserts today, I have good news. You can and will meet God in a fresh way there. Listen, we will all go into one of these deserts at one time or another. If you haven’t yet, you will.
We all go through these deserts… as a matter of fact, you will spend a great deal of time in these deserts. When it happens, we usually ask several questions.
How in the world did IO get here? How did this happen? Why is it going on?
What am I supposed to do in this desert?
How am I ever going to get out of here? When will this end?
The answer to the last one is this… You will get out in due time.
We want to rush through the desert, but God wants to teach us about life in the desert. God brought you into the desert to teach you something, so don’t be in a hurry because if you are, you may miss what he is doing in your life. You don’t want to take any longer than you need to, but you don’t want to hurry.
ILL - I can remember, and I’ll bet you can to, that during some of my deserts, I began to rely on God so much… because I was desperate… that I almost missed Him when I came through the crisis.
When you are in the desert, it’s important to
Keep doing the right things
Keep doing the right things
9 And let us not get tired of doing what is right, for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t get discouraged and give up.
Look at this…
If we keep doing the right things, we will reap the harvest if we don’t give up. That’s a promise. The problem is too many people give up. Don’t let that be you.
However, the question remains, How did I get here? why is this happening to me? is God mad at me? Has God forgotten me?
Most likely, if you are a Christian and you are in a desert,
You are in the desert because God brought you there
You are in the desert because God brought you there
Just like he led Elijah and Jesus into the desert, he has brought you into the desert because there is something he wants to say to you, and you would not hear him unless you are where you are right now.
14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. 15 There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. 16 “In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ 17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. 18 In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety. 19 I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. 20 I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord. 21 “In that day I will respond,” declares the Lord— “I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth; 22 and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and the olive oil, and they will respond to Jezreel. 23 I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ ”
There is a promise of restoration and fruitfulness that will take place in the desert… Not after the desert, but in the desert. God is not on the other side of your troubles waiting for you to figure it out… He is right there with you restoring you in the desert and making you fruitful again. You may feel like you are fruitless, but God says he will make you fruitful again. God is about to do something in your life in the desert.
God is about to do something in your life in this desert
God is about to do something in your life in this desert
He is on his way to meet you in your crisis.
He says he will turn the valley on Achor into a door of hope.
Valley of Achor - It the place where Israel defeated Jericho… it was a great physical and spiritual victory because God defeated their gods.
Later they are facing another enemy… Ai. It’s a small city and hsould have been no problem. So they go against Ai and lose big…
So you see Joshua, laying on the ground asking the same questions we ask, “god, how could this have happened? Where were you? why?
Here is what happened. when they went into Jericho, God sasid to destroy everything, but Achan took some idols and buried them in his tent. Because of that, they lose the war to Ai. God tells him to get up because there are idols in the camp.
All of this happened in the valley of Achor. It means trouble. It’s the valley of trouble. God tells them that he will turn their valley of trouble into a door of hope.
A door is a passageway. It’s the way you go from one place to another. That passageway often goes through the desert… through the valley of trouble. But he promises to bring you through it and out of it. In the desert he promises to restore your vineyards. God says that while you are in the desert, i will restore your hope… your fruitfulness… your joy… your peace…
Your desert is NOT a place of barrenness, it’s a place where God is preparing you to become fruitful.
So,
What are we supposed to do while we wait on God to do this?
What are we supposed to do while we wait on God to do this?
Hosea showed us how we got into the desert and what God will do, Isaiah shows us what to do in the desert while we wait on God.
3 A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
What are you supposed to do in the desert? Make way for the Lord because he is coming to meet you there. He is on his way to your situation.
How do we prepare to meet the Lord in the desert?
How do we prepare to meet the Lord in the desert?
1. Expect to meet Jesus there
1. Expect to meet Jesus there
Everything we do for God has to be done in faith. Expect to meet him in your desert. Believe that God is who he says he is and that he will do what he has promised.
3 In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.
When we pray, expect that he will answer. Expect him to show up.
Pray - pray in the morning… First 15. Pray continually through the day. You have to communicate with God.
Build your faith by coming to every service you can. Wednesdays is a powerful prayer time in the altar time.
Start planting seeds now
Start planting seeds now
If you want God to make you fruitful again, you have to plant seeds. No seeds no fruit. Plant seeds now because there will be no fruit without the planting of seeds.
This means you have to get into the WOG. The bible teaches the WOG is like a seed planted in our hearts
6 I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. 7 It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work.
Let the WOG take root in your life. Read it… study it… meditate on it. So expect to meet God in your desert and plant the seeds of the word right now while you’re going through it.
Eliminate distractions
Eliminate distractions
When you are in a crisis, all sorts of things will pop up to distract you and get in the way of you experiencing God. If you are supposed to be making a way for the Lord… the be looking for the Lord, you have to get things out of the way that block your vision of the the Lord.
These distractions are not necessarily bad, they just are not necessary. Clutter in your life keeps you from focusing on what you need to focus on. It keeps you from focusing on what you need to do next.
Noise can be a distraction. If you are always listening to the radio… iTunes… TV … you may not hear what God is saying. don’t be afraid of the silence. God will never tell you anything to harm you.
Distractions could just be too much going on in your life.... work… kids activities… you going out… You only have so much you can do and to hear from God in the desert, you may have to say no to some things so you can listen.
Learn to prioritize. If it’s important, do it. If it’s not so important, don’t do it. Spend the rest of your time look for what God is doing and wanting to do in and through you.
The 4th thing is just like Israel in the valley achor…
Get rid of idols
Get rid of idols
17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked.
Get the idols out of your life. An idol is anything that gets between you and your relationship with God.
8 “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
Idols will cause you to miss what God wants to do on your life. They will cause you to become useless to the Lord.
15 They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their fathers and the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the Lord had ordered them, “Do not do as they do,” and they did the things the Lord had forbidden them to do.
You have to eliminate any and all idols in your life. God will not tolerate us worshipping someone or something in his place.
Is there something that I’m still holding on to that is causing me to forfeit the fullness of God’s grace in my life? Is there something or some things that I need to let go of?
If your hands are full of the wrong things, you will not be able to receive the things God has for you. They come between you and God. Unfortunately, they are often the things we turn to first before we turn to the Lord. They are what we look to for our worth and security instead of the Lord.
Listen to me. What are you sacrificing your life to? decency for entertainment? purity for an immoral relationship? family for career? ethics for money? Are you sacrificing God’s abundant life for you for old lifestyles?
Idols can be something someone said about you… something from your past. Idols become a filter we see our lives through… It’s most likely that the idol is a lie that the enemy of your soul has gotten you to believe. You may have spent most of your life trying to prove what someone said about you - wrong.
An idol can also be an intentional act of disobedience towards God. You stop doing something he told you to do and it becomes an idol.
An idol can also be unforgiveness. Your focus becomes the person you are holding a grudge towards. Listen when your hands are around someones throat, they are not open to what God wants to give you.
8 “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
How do we get out of this? How do we let go of these idols?
You do that by starving your desire… your passion for it.
We worship the idols because at one point we had or have a passion for them. We sin because we have a passion for that sin…
4. You get rid of and old passion by getting a new passion
4. You get rid of and old passion by getting a new passion
When you feed the new passion, you starve the old passion.
ILL - You can only go right or left… up or down… forward or backwards. You cannot do both at the same time.
Starve the old passion by feeding the new passion.
ILL -
Materialism - start tithing. Tithing reminds you that everything is Gods. If you take all the resources God gives you and spend it on yourself, that’s an idol. But if you begin to give to the Lords work you become free of materialism. God gives to you because he wants to give through you.
When you’re in the desert, expect to meet God because he’s on his way. Plant the seed of the word in your heart. Eliminate the distractions. Get rid of the idols in your life.
5. Sing to the Lord
5. Sing to the Lord
3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
15 I will give her her vineyards from there, And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; She shall sing there, As in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.
Keep a song in your heart. There is something about singing to the Lord. It’s an important spiritual dynamic because it’s keeps us focused on the Lord.
The Bible says to pray without ceasing… it’s hard but a song in our heart keeps us in an attitude of worship and prayer.
Jesus told the Samaritan Woman that the Father was looking for worshippers. So if you are out in the desert and you can’t seem to find God, stop what you are doing and worship him and He will come and find you. He will hear your voice and like the Good shepherd he is, he will come and find you.
I know he will do this for you because he has done it for me so many times. he will restore your vineyard, he will restore your joy… your peace… your passion.
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5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
IOW Everyone will notice. Something happened and everyone will notice.
Then he said, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken,,, And what the mouth of God speaks, the hand of God will accomplish.