What You Looking At? Series

Hey, What Are You Looking At?

GOOD MORNING MGCC

Stuff from worship songs…

OKAY – last week we wrapped up a 4 week series called,

The last 4 weeks have been awesome as we have talked about…

• Reversing Anxiety (C.A.L.M.S.)

• Moving Beyond Insecurity (R.U.N.)

• Getting Over Our Hurt (B.R.AV.E.)

• Making Fear A Friend (F.R.I.E.N.D.)

I have had many people tell me that this conversations have been valuable to them and said I should keep it going, but I was like really firm on it being just 4 weeks.

THEN – on Tuesday morning I woke up at 4 am and could not get back to sleep…

AND SO – I got up… and for some reason, and I really could not nail down the source, I was feeling pretty discouraged and depressed… and I was like ‘Okay dude, you need to overcome this…

AND – I thought maybe overcoming discouragement is a conversation worth having…

WHICH – lead me to extending this series until Palm Sunday…

SO TODAY – we will talk about overcoming discouragement in a conversation I am calling… “Hey, What Are You Looking At.”

3/17 What You Looking At? (Overcoming Discouragement)

3/24 A Grace Disguised (Overcoming Loss)

3/31 I’m Not Tapping Out (Overcoming Temptation)

4/7 Getting Over Yourself (Overcoming Yourself)

OKAY – so let’s do this…

What You Looking At… overcoming discouragement

2000 years from a prison cell Paul wrote the following words…

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. – Philippians 4:12,13

CIRCLE – those 2 words… “I can”

Prayer…

QUESTION…

HAS - anyone in this room besides me, ever battled discouragement and disappointment?

IS – anyone battling it at this very moment?

DOES – anyone in this room believe there is a high probability that the waves of discouragement will crash against their lives sometime in the foreseeable future?

UNDERSTAND – every Jesus-follower has a calling. And the noise and lies of the enemy are designed to – interrupt, steal, de-rail, kill and destroy that calling.

OH – you don’t believe that you really have a calling?

He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

- 2 Timothy 1:9

In Christ you have a calling, a holy calling!!!

NOT – because of who you are, but because of grace.

NOT - a calling that is all about and for you, but that is all about and for His very own purposes.

AND LISTEN – the truth is…

IF - we ever are going to become who God created us to be… IF – we are ever going to accomplish the things that God planned in advance and called us to do… we will have to figure out how to overcome the onslaughts of discouragement.

OKAY…

Here is my definition of discouragement…

Discouragement - is the gap between what we expect and what we actually experience.

BOTTOM LINE – discouragement is this expectation gap…

AND LISTEN – discouragement can show up in countless ways…

• We want something, but we can’t seem to be able to get it

• OR we wanted something and we got it (a job, a relationship, an opportunity), but it did not turn out the way we thought or hoped it would.

• Discouragement can set in because of what other people say or don’t say. What they do or don’t do or because we tried something and failed

• It can be set off by something big or something small.

• Or by something big to you, but small to others.

AND LISTEN…

• Discouragement can hit as hard when we’re winning as when we’re losing…

• Sometimes discouragement comes upon us like a flood and other times it is just this incessant drip of unmet expectations that never seem to go away.

BUT UNDERSTAND – regardless of how it arrives (and it will arrive. I mean, unmet expectations are inevitable in this fallen and broken world)…

Regardless of how it arrives – discouragement always displaces hope and leaves us feeling like this…

It’s not working, so what’s the point?

I MEAN – it is one thing to put in the blood, sweat and tears and see results… BUT – going through all of that…

WHEN - there seems to be no purpose or progress…

WHEN - nothing seems to have changed.

MGCC THIS – is the kind of environment where discouragement is both born and thrives.