Take Courage - Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Remember, we are his ambassadors. We are his plan.

If it works, it has to work in us. For many of us, we're like the vacuum cleaner door-to-door salesman who forgot to bring the vacuum cleaner. But we tell people how great the vacuum cleaner is.

Then they come over and visit us and our house is filthy. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Sometimes when you change the priorities of your life, it's followed by a moment or a period of discouragement. Sometimes when you recommit to your marriage and try to put your marriage back together, it's followed by a period of discouragement. Sometimes when you rededicate yourself to the disciplines of the Christian life, getting into the Word of God, getting in prayer, being around other believers, worshipping God, it's followed by a period of discouragement.

I really believe that that's all part of the strategy. The idea is that that's a time to drag you back down. I can remember myself that the one period of my life I can remember really being discouraged at the end of the second year at Dallas Seminary. And at the end of the second year, I was discouraged enough to really contemplate not finishing, just moving back to western Pennsylvania. I was really, I had had, well, let's say this, I had had enough of Hebrew and Hebrew had had enough of me. OK. I mean, it was just that way.

And by the way, when you're sitting beside in class Old Testament majors, you know, people who really for recreational reading read Hebrew and Eucharitic. You just feel like the buffoon in that class. But I can just remember thinking, I just think it's time to pack it up. I just think it's time.

I've just had so I'm so tired of it. I remember talking to Paul Meyer, the Christian psychiatrist and professor, one of my classes, and his whole view was that's good. That means you're right on the right track because the enemy is real. Discouragement is being hung out in front of you. See if you'll quit. Don't quit. And I remember making it through. And I could see that that was a point in life where Satan, after two years, finally figured he might be doing something constructive.

Who knows? So let's try to take him out before he does. That happens all the time. I get couples in my office, especially marriage counseling, going through a lot of difficulties. And then they get where there's a breakthrough where they recommit. They really want to try to put together their marriage.

And they've had a lot of a lot of issues and a lot of pain being distributed back and forth. Inevitably, I know that that first Sunday after the counseling, I'll see them. They'll be in the lobby.

They'll be actually holding hands. You know, they're sort of giddy happy at that time. But I know within a month or so, they'll be back and they'll say they're always discouraged. Something came up. Something happened. The other shoe fell.

Something big. And it's always part of the strategy to destroy your commitment. It's always part of the strategy to make you discouraged. And so the timing of discouragement is so often after you've had spiritual breakthroughs in your life. And so if you're at a spiritual high point in your life, be leery at that particular time. Satan would love nothing more than to stop your enthusiasm for Jesus Christ. So the reason for discouragement is comparison and the timing for the discouragement is right after a spiritual high.

And the solution was right there as I read it in verse four. The solution to discouragement. Take courage.

He says there's a rubable. Take courage, Joshua. And then to the people, he says, take courage.

Isn't that amazing? How what is the solution to discourage? Drop the dish. Just drop the dish. And you're left with courage.

That's what he's telling them. Take courage. That Hebrew word. I do remember some Hebrew, by the way, that Hebrew word. Means inner tenacity. It means persevere. Means endure.

That's what it says. Be tenacious. Take courage.

See, that's right at the heart of it. The solution to courage, to discouragement is courage. But the element of what courage is, is courage is doing things.

Persevering through things, enduring things, even when you don't feel like it. Hold your place and turn with me to Hebrews Chapter 10. Hebrews Chapter 10.

Verse 32. The writer of Hebrews says, But remember the former days when, after being enlightened, notice after they had the spiritual high, after being enlightened, you endured. A great conflict of sufferings. Partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations. And partly become insurers with those who were so treated.

For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have yourselves a better possession and an abiding one. Discouragement was right there for the Hebrew believers. They actually had their property being seized by Hebrew Jewish authorities. And because they were believers in Jesus Christ, they were losing their way of living. Easy to be discouraged. He says to them, though, after you enlighten, you endured. Verse 35. Therefore, he says, Do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward for you have need of endurance. So that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. In other words, you need to endure you endurance.

You need the courage of endurance. In Chapter 11, then of Hebrews, the whole chapter, which we call the Hall of Fame of Faith, is really the Hall of Fame of endurance. And as he writes on and on, he tells you what they endured and the beatings they took.

Some of them were killed, some lived in caves. He goes on and on and on. But notice over in Chapter 12, then at the end of that Hall of Fame, the examples he had of faith. He says, Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin is so easily entangles us and let us run with. Endurance.

The race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him did what? Endured. That's kind of what courage does. By the way, and that's what faith does. Faith, F-A-I-T-H, forsaking all I trust him. Faith.

Forsaking all I trust him. I'll endure whatever it takes that comes out to look like courage. But it's endurance. But we need it. We need it in our lives not to be discouraged, but to have courage. You need it for everything. You'll need it by the end. Betty Davis said old age isn't for cowards.

You know, she's right. You know, we read this and we see the Hall of Fame of faith and we keep thinking, these are the people that had it so wonderful. Because these are the champions of the Christian faith. They were stoned, they were sawn in two. They were tempted, they were put to death with a sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted and ill treated. There's the champions of our faith. Of what they endured.

See, that's what Christianity is a little bit like. It's sort of like the ad that was in the paper, lost dog. Three legs. Blind and left eye. Missing right ear. Tail broken. Accidentally neutered.

Answers to the name of Lucky. That's what Christians are. Life is wounded. It's painful. What makes it so exceptional is not the fact that we don't have it ever happen to us. It's that we can endure and have courage as we go through it. Now back to Haggai. Take courage, take courage, take courage.

And then it declares the Lord and work. There it is. Be courageous.

Drop the diss. Now get back to work. That's what he says. Just going back to what you were doing, which is pretty mundane compared to what Solomon had done. Pretty much normal everyday life.

He said that's what it takes. Courage is absolutely operating in the normal world in the midst of fear. Fear of anything. Comparison, failure, whatever it is. But courage operates.

That's what it does. Mark Twain said, courage is the mastery of fear, not the absence of it. You know, that's really what it takes. And so even though they were discouraged by comparison, feeling that they weren't accomplishing anything, God's answer to it was just get busy. Take courage.

Persevere indoor and start building again. That's the solution to discouragement. Now, the question is, though, how do you do that? I mean, that's the question. We know and want to do is one thing, but how to do it.

That's something else. That's what he gives us in the rest of the chapter. He's going to say the head guy is going to say three things to us. That when you're discouraged, you drop the disk, get busy. And you can do it by first one, by remembering what God is doing. You see at the end of verse four, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts.

How can I take courage? He says, well, because I'm with you, says the Lord of hosts. But think of the things that bother you. What are you comparing that makes you discouraged in your life?

You see, what is it that causes you to despair or fear in your life? And he says, don't worry about that. Get busy, for I am with you. It's interesting to me that this idea that I am with you is just simply trying to tell you, look, you don't face this alone. And I think that's so often what we end up doing when we get despairing or discouraged.

We actually believe we're facing something alone, but you never are. He says, I am with you. He enlightens me. He strengthens me. That's what he does. There are no limitations to what God can do if God's working in your life.

No limitations. I mean, that's an amazing thing. Paul said to the Ephesians in Ephesians, Chapter one, that he prayed that he wished that they would know the power, the power that they had at their disposal. And then he goes on and explains that that power is resurrection power. He said, that's one of my prayers for you would understand the power that you have.

Paul understood it. And the Philippians, he said, I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me. Do you understand what you really have a resource if you know Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God indwells you? Do you understand the resources that you have? The resources to give you contentment in circumstances are difficult, give you contentment in the midst of ill health, to give you the perseverance to work out the problems in the situations you are in at work or in your marriage.

Do you have any idea what's at your disposal? Paul says, the only way I can tell you what's at your disposal is you have a sense of the kind of power that you have is the same kind of power that raised Christ in the dead. Think about that. That what you think about when something discourages you? You and God are a majority.

I mean, that's really what it takes. You and God are a majority. No matter how fearful it may seem, how discouraged you are, you can persevere through that. I remember reading the account once of Rosa Parks, who sat on that bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

It really changed the United States forever and for the good. And when she sat on that bus and she was not in a real assertive person, she said, I knew I was not sitting there alone. I knew I sat there with the Lord and I was willing to take whatever came my way because I knew I could because he was with me. That's courage. I am with you, says the Lord. By remembering what God is doing in the present. Notice next, though, by remembering what God has done in the past, what he has promised. As for the promise which I made you when you came out of Egypt, my spirit is abiding in your midst.

Do not fear. Go back to Exodus twenty nine. Hold your place and go back to Exodus twenty nine right at the end when they come out of Egypt. They're building the tabernacle at that time in Exodus twenty nine.

And the last two verses of Exodus twenty nine. God tells the nation Israel in verses forty five and forty six of Exodus twenty nine that I would dwell among the sons of Israel and I will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord, their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them.

I am the Lord, their God. He wants to let them know when they're leaving out of 400 years of slavery. He said, I want you to know that when I'm not just going to deliver you out of Egypt. But I'm delivering you out of Egypt so that I can have a relationship with you in the promised land.

Back to Haggai. That is exactly what happens to us. See, one of the beauties of the Christian life is that it's not that just when you die, you get to go to heaven. But when you trust Jesus Christ as Lord and your savior, heaven comes to you. That's one of the great things about Christianity. It's not just that I'm going to go one day and be with God. But the day I trusted Christ, God came to be with me. And he says, it's not just that I want to give you the promised land and deliver you from the land of Egypt or the world.

But what I want to have is a relationship with you. He said, that's what I want to have. By remembering what God has promised in the New Testament, he says things like, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

I don't know about you, but that's not a discouraging thought, is it? That should encourage me. He says things like he who began a good work in you, he is faithful to complete it. He said, that's what I do. All things work together for the good. I mean, he tells me over and over again, through his promises, what can happen in my life by remembering what God has promised in my life.

By remembering what God is doing, present and past, but he doesn't stop there. Notice now in verse six, for thus says the Lord of hosts, once more and a little while, I'm going to shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and also the dry land. I will shake all the nations and they will come with wealth of all the nations. And I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of the house will be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place, I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts. He wanted to say Lord of hosts there quite a few times, you notice that?

Because he wanted to let you know who was really in charge. You see, it's not only by remembering what God is doing in the present, but what God has promised and also by what God has promised in the past. But also, we cannot be discouraged by remembering what God will do in the future. No matter how dismal your present is, do you have any idea how bright your future is?

Have any idea? You see, what he's doing there is he knew that they were discouraged by comparison. They were comparing to Solomon's temple. God says, don't even think about it. Wait till you see the temple that fills that spot at the end. Wait till you see the temple I put there when all the nations will come here. Wait till you see what it's like when I reign from a thousand years here.

Wait till you see what happens. He says, don't you get it? He says, don't you get it?

The silver is mine, the gold is mine. God says, I don't need more stuff. You see, all the cattle and all the hills belong to who?

According to the Psalmist, they belong to God. God says, I don't need more stuff. Do you ever think about this for a minute? When can you give God that he needs? You need to think about that. You see, even when we give, even when we support, even when we give of our time or give of our resources, when we give of our resources to God, we write a check out and we say, we're giving it to God. And God goes, oh, I'm rich. He doesn't think of that. Does he need your money? No.

That's what he's trying to tell them. I don't need the effect. What I need is the effort. That's what I want. You see, what I want from you is your heart.

What I want from you is a motivated life for my glory. What I want for you in Israel, what I want for you is to build a temple. I don't care if it looks like Solomon. Solomon's will be nothing compared to what it'll be like in the end.

He said all the silver's mine and all the gold's mine anyway. You see, that's one of the things that should really keep us from getting discouraged, is the fact that if we understand the future, what's in life for us, the future is great. The future is wonderful. No more sorrow, no more tears, no more comparisons. No one in heaven will be better looking than you are.

You understand that? No one. No one in heaven will have more stuff than you got.

No one. It'll all be the same. You see, when you think of it ultimately in the future, no one in heaven will be healthier than you. No one in heaven will have better sight than you, better hearing. No one in heaven will be any different than you are.

That's your future. He said that should encourage you as a believer. Even in Hebrews chapter 11, that should encourage me to be able to endure so many of the difficulties of life. You see, I'm afraid that so often the things that should discourage us don't.

And the things that should not do. Jesus Austin, one of the great church fathers, Greek believer, was arrested by the Roman emperor. And when he was arrested by the Roman emperor, he was taken in front of the emperor and the emperor asked one of his advisors. He said, so I put him in a dungeon. And one of his counselors said, no, for he'll be glad to go. He longs for the quietness wherein he can delight in the mercies of his God. The emperor stopped for a moment and thought, he said, well, then he'll be, we'll execute him.

The counselor said, no, that won't bother him. He said, he'll also be glad to die. He declares that in the event of his death, he will be in the presence of the Lord he loves and serves.

The emperor bewildered, he said, well, what do we do with him then? One counselor said, there's only one thing that will give Christastom pain, to cause Christastom to suffer. Make him sin. He's afraid of nothing but sin. What discouraged Christastom?

When he sinned. Did anything else discourage him? We'll put him in prison. Won't discourage him.

We'll kill him. Won't discourage him. Now, they didn't cause him to sin.

They weren't successful in that. But the point of it is, what a perspective. Just think if that was how people saw you. The only thing that can discourage those people, the only thing that could discourage them is when they sin in their life.

Is that how people know you? You see, I'm afraid we're discouraged by almost everything else. Most of us should be billboards for discouragement. Then we wonder why people really don't want to come to Christ.

Don't you want to have all the joy I have? I mean, how do we do that? You see, when we do that, remember, we are his ambassadors. We are his plan.

If it works, it has to work in us. Many of us were like the vacuum cleaner door-to-door salesman who forgot to bring the vacuum cleaner. But we tell people how great the vacuum cleaner is.

Then they come over and visit us and our house is filthy. We should not be discouraged about anything but sin. We should be the kind of people that with Chrysostom's idea, you cannot discourage this person.

They're downsizing the office. That won't bother him. That won't bother her. They say they'll trust their God.

He has to go for a checkup. I don't care what they say. It won't bother them.

They don't get discouraged about things like that. You see, and whenever that kind of discouragement comes, what Haggai is telling us, look, when that kind of discourage comes, drop the disc. Take up courage. Get to work.

Remembering. Just remembering what God is doing in your life right now, what God has promised in your life and his word, and what God's going to do with your life in the end. If you do that, he says, you won't be discouraged. You'll be an encouragement.

There's a proverb that says, don't be a mouse because the cattle eat you. And for us as Christians, we have to be so careful with that. We should not be people that are discouraged.

We have the everything we need not to be. The source of courage is God. The focus of courage is his word, his promises. And the motivation for courage should be your prayers. Hey, when you're facing something, it's discouraging to you, take it to the Lord. Pray about it.

Give it to him. You'll be amazed what he wants to do in your life. Discouragement should not be fatal to any of us. We should be the billboards of encouragement. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. .