Rick Warren - When You Feel Like Giving Up - Part Two

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry

of Pastor Rick Warren. Today we continue with a series

called How God Turns Setbacks into Comebacks. We're so glad

that you've joined us today. Now, if you know someone

who needs some encouragement right now, be sure to invite

them with a text or a phone call to listen

along with you. Now, in just a few minutes, we're

going to tell you how you can get a very

special set of Bible scripture cards hands selected by Pastor

Rick to bolster your sense of gratitude and increase your happiness.

You can find out more by going to Pastorick dot

com while you listen to today's message. If you want,

you can just text the word hope to eight hundred

six hundred five thousand and four for more information. That's

the word hope to eight hundred six hundred five thousand

and four. Right now, here's Rick with part two of

a message called when you feel like giving Up.

I remember a couple of years ago we remodeled our house,

and I was amazed at how much trash and junk

they had to carry off, you know, just in remodeling,

broken bricks and dirt and dried mortar and rocks, and

that permanent porta potty and that wonderful smell that it

had all the stuff that had to be carried off

just when we were trying to build something. You know,

here's the point. Anytime you try to build anything, a career,

a plan, a project, a life, a hobby, a family,

a marriage, ain't trying. And you try to build anything,

you're going to have some debris. And that is frustrating

because things take longer than you expect, and things are

more complicated than you expect, and that causes discouragement. And

that's the second back, a setback that the people faced

in Jerusalem. It was not only taken too long building

this this wall was too complicated, and it was too

much junk and trash laying around. The second part of

Neamiah four, verse ten says this second complaint said, we're tired.

But second I said, there's so much rubble and trash

to be removed, so much rubble and trash to be removed.

Now follow me on this. They get discouraged because there's junk,

the walls have been torn down, and there's piles of garbage, rubble, plaster, junk, trash,

rocks layd all around and they can't even move. There's

so much rubble in their lives. You may not realize it,

but you've got rubble in your life. Could be emotional rubble,

it could be relational rubble. Too many relationships, it could

be you know, a material rubble. You've got too many

things in your life. You need to simplify. So let me,

on this day give you ris rules of rubble. This

isn't in your notes, but how I'm gonna give it

to you anyway. Ricks Rules of rubble all right here

They are. Number one, Rubble is a part of life.

In other words, you can't avoid it. You're gonna have

piles of trash in your life. You're gonna have stuff

that piles up in your life that you haven't dealt with.

And the bigger the pile gets, the more frustrated you

get by it. You're fatigued by the work, but you're

frustrated by the complexity of all you've got to do.

So rubble piles up. Ris Rule number two. You have

to clean it out of your life periodically. You have

to take out the trash emotionally, you take out the

trash by confession to God number three. If you don't

deal with it, it'll eventually take over. Let me let

you in on a little secret. You probably already figured

this out. Trash multiplies when you weren't watching. Have you

noticed that it's just kind of mold? You know? Where'd

all it come from? How do the dishes pile up

so quickly in the kitchen? How to close pile up

so quickly in the bedroom? And so many that multiplies

while you aren't watching. Let me give you a fourth

rule of rubble. You don't always recognize what's rubble in

your life, but other people do. Other people can see

stuff in your life that you've allowed to stay there

that's really holding you back, that's hindering you, And maybe

you don't even see it because you're so used to

living with it that you don't even realize it's rubble.

There's some stuff you need to clean out and clear

out in your life. Some activities, some relationships, some things,

some events, some bad attitudes, some wrong thoughts, some misconceptions, mental, physical, emotional,

spiritual rubble in your life that you need to clear out.

You know, and a lot of people don't see it.

We don't see in our own lives, but other people

see it. In fact, sometimes it takes an expert to

point it out. By the way, that's why all those

clean out shows on TV you're so popular, where somebody

comes in and helps them organize and say, man, you've

got trash all over here. Let's get let's get your

house cleaned out and cleaned up. Question, what's the rubble

in your life? This was the second cause of discouragement

in the in the in the Jews of Jerusalem. What's

the rubble in your eye? It's the stuff that keeps

tripping you up. You might write that down. The rubble

is the stuff that keeps tripping me up in life.

It may be a misconception, an attitude, it may be

a habit. It's the stuff that keeps tripping you up.

Rubble can be the trivia that waste your time, that

waste your energy, that keeps you from accomplishing what's most important.

They had a job to finish finish the wall. So

we can't do it because there's so much trash laying around.

We can't even get to rebuild the wall. What do

you need to do? You need to just tell God

about the rubble in your life and ask for help.

Psalm twenty five eighteen says, Come Lord and show me mercy,

for I feel helpless and overwhelmed and in deep distress.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope rip will be

back in just a moment with the rest of today's lesson.

You can sign up for Pastor Rick's free email devotional

at pastorick dot com. That's pastorick dot com.

Do you want to be happier, healthier, and more resistant

to stress, then you need to develop an attitude of gratitude.

In fact, the Bible says we're to rejoice, always, pray continually,

and give thanks in all circumstances. But it can often

be difficult to feel grateful. So to help you, Pastor

Rick hand selected fifty two verses to bolster your sense

of gratitude and increase your happiness. This set of beautifully

designed cards will help you memorize scripture so you can

recall God's word when you need it the most. You

can also use them to minister to others. Give one

to a friend and write a personalized note of encouragement

on the back. If a scripture really speaks to you,

frame it, put them in places where you can read

them during the day for encouragement. And today, when you

give a gift to help daily Hope take the hope

of Jesus to a world in need, we'll send you

the gratitude scripture card set to say thanks. Go to

Pastorick dot com right now to get your copy, or

you can call eight hundred at six hundred five zero

zero four. That's Pastororick dot com. Or call eight hundred

six hundred at five zero zero four. Thank you so

much for your support, and don't forget to let us

know which radio station you heard to soun.

Now let's get back to today's lesson. Here on Pastor

Rick's Daily Hope.

So I'm twenty five eighteen says come Lord and show

me mercy, for I feel helpless and overwhelmed and in

deep distress. If you're feeling helpless and overwhelmed and in

deep distress in your life right now because of something

that's holding you back, that's rubble and you need to

deal with it. We're gonna look at the costs of

cure in just a second. But here's another setback. Here's

a third setback that will cause you to be discouraged.

And it happened in Neamyah and day, and it's gonna

happen to you. It's when I start to doubt my

own ability. When I start to doubt my own ability,

then this causes a sense of failure. Now when you

add that to fatigue, you got fatigue, and you got

frustrated fatigue it's taken too long, frustration, it's too complicated,

and then you start having a sense of failure. Well,

now it's getting serious. I'm going to get discouraged. That's

the third part of Nemiah four, verse ten. The people said,

look at this. The people said, we now realize that

we cannot, not will not, we cannot finish this wall. WHOA,

what just happened? The New American Bible says, we will

never be able to finish this wall. What happened? They've

already built half of it. Why all of a sudden

they decided that they can't finish it. I mean, I said,

they've already built half of it. But now they've lost

their confidence. You know, now they felt they're filled with

self doubt. Now they're questioning why they even started. Now

they said, you know, you know, I was foolish to

even think about doing this. You ever felt that way?

Why did I take this job? Why did I get married?

Why did I make this move? You start second guessing yourself,

You start doubting yourself. You start filling yourself with feelings

of failure and like I can't do this. You lose

your confidence, You start feeling like your failure because of

the frustration and fatigue, and they feel the failure. They

are unable to finish the task as quickly as they

originally planned. And the result is their confidence goes in

the toilet, It goes down the drain. They lose their heart,

they lose their enthusiasm. Now, let me ask, as a

pastor who loves you, a real important question. How do

you handle failure? How do you react when your plans collapse?

How do you react when it's taken longer than you thought?

It's more complicated your thought? And you start doubting do

I even have the ability to do this? What do

you do?

Do?

You give into self pity and you have a pity party.

Poor me, everybody hates me, nobody loves me. I'm gonna

go eat worms. You have a pity party and you

invite you me and myself and I, or you start

complaining and he starts saying it's impossible. Are you start

having the feeling about the time I make ends meet

somebody moves the ends, or do you start blaming other

people and say, well, they let me down or they

didn't tell me how hard it was gonna be. When listen,

If at first you don't succeed, you're normal. You're normal.

Nobody succeeds at first. Successful people simply see failure as

a temporary setback. This whole series is on learning the

spiritual quality of resilience of trusting God for a comeback.

There is no comeback without first a setback. And that

setback maybe this third one, where you just start doubting

your own ability to go. I don't think I'm even

up for the task. I don't think I can do this.

I don't think I can finish what I've started. Now,

finally there's a fourth setback, and we see this in

this next verse, and it is this you start to

give up. You feel like giving up when the opposition

grows stronger. Now, when you start a progress a project,

probably nobody even cares, they don't even notice, and so

you don't have any opposition. Usually it starts, but as

you start growing, you start being effective. The opposition people

aren't going to like the changes you make in you,

the changes you make in your marriage and your family

and your job, the things you're trying to do for

the Lord, and the opposition starts coming against you the

more visible you become. And guess what, the moment you

put your shingle out and say I'm open for business,

somebody is going to start throwing rocks at it. And

that causes fear. So now we've got a combination of fatigue, frustration, failure,

and fear. That's enough to discourage anybody. Now let me

give you the background of this. There were enemies in

and around Jerusalem who had moved in when the Jews

had been taken captive and moved to Babylon for seventy years.

And when the Jews were allowed to come back to

their homeland, they did not want the Jews moving back.

And two, they did not want the wall built around

the city because it couldn't be attacked, it couldn't be

taken advantage of, they couldn't victimize the people. And so

the enemy tribes around Jerusalem had a number of tactics

they used, and if you go read the Book of Neemiah,

here's what they did. First, they just created the builders,

and they said, what are you guys doing? You can't

do this. Do you like to be criticized? No, nobody does,

So they criticized the builders. And then the second thing

they did in the book of the Demiah is they

ridicule them. They actually made fun of them. Do you

like being ridiculed? No, you do not. Nobody likes to

be the brunt of somebody else's sarcasm or the joke

or the butt of a joke. So they criticized their ridiculed.

The third thing the enemy tribes did is they threatened them,

and they actually said, we're going to kill you. They

threatened them with their lives. In verse eleven them chapter four,

it says this, meanwhile, in spite of all these other

three facts, it's taking too long, it's too complicated, and

we don't know what we're doing, and we don't doubt it,

we doubt our ability. It says, meanwhile, our enemies are

threatening to kill us in order to stop this work. Now,

this is a legitimate reason to be discouraged. Might die

if we finished this project. Now, it's not just frustration

and fear and fatigue. It is literally a legitimate reason

that we might die. But I want you to notice

in this next verse, verse twelve, who got discouraged first?

It was those who were listening to the enemy, those

who were listening to the wrong people. They weren't listening

to God. They were listening to the non believers. They

were listening to the world, not to the word Neamiah four.

Verse twelve tells us why they had got discouraged. Then

those of us who lived closest to our enemies. Underline

that those of us who lived closest to our enemies

kept reporting over and over ten times. This is the

power of repetition that our enemies kept saying over and over.

It doesn't matter where you go, we will attack you. Now,

I want you to listen very closely. If you're discouraged,

If you keep hanging out with negative people, and you

keep constantly listening to negative talk radio and watching negative

talk news, and listening to negative talk chatter on social media,

guess what it's going to infect you with fear. Some

of you need to go on a diet of negativity.

Stop filling your mind with negative words from television, radio, news, internet,

social media, says, those who live closest to the enemy.

If you're listening to everything that's bad and all the

news today is bad news about our economy, about our world,

about everything about the government, everything, you're going to get discouraged.

You're going to become fearful, and fear is going to grow.

Let me ask you personal question. What secret fear is

causing you to be discouraged. Fear of criticism, you know,

A fear of embarrassment so you hesitate to take a

big step of faith. A fear that you're not capable

of the task before you. A fear that you have

to be perfect, that you have to be flawless. A

fear that nobody will love you if they knew the

real you. A fear that you can't handle the pressure.

You've got some hidden fears. I'm sure of that, because

we all do. Comes as a result of sin in

the broken world. Now, how do you know when it's

fear that is discouraging? Oh, it's real simple. You have

an intense desire to run, to escape, let me out

of here, And they said, let's just get out of here.

Let's run away from a situation. So we've got fear,

and we've got frustration, and we've got fatigue, and we've

got a sense of failure, and we've got fear. Those

four things line up to cause discouragement in your life.

What is God's cure when you feel like giving up?

When you're at the halfway point in a project in

your life, in your ministry, in your marriage, or whatever.

Where do you find the strength and the motivation to

finish whatever you've started, what God has started in you?

The Bible says, being confident of this, that He who

began a good work in you will bring it to

the day of completion. In Jesus Christ, how do I

keep on going when I feel like giving up? Well,

I'm glad you're thinking that question, because you do the

three things that Nehemiah did when he led the people

to finish the wall. And here the three things that

he did, and you need to do these same three

things to turn the setbacks from fear, for frustration, fatigue,

or failure into a comeback. Number one first thing Niamiah did.

First thing you need to do reorganize whatever's not working,

maybe something in your life, maybe something in your family.

Maybe something in your business and your job. You may

be doing the right thing, but in the wrong way.

A lot of times when we get discouraged at what

we're doing, we think, well, why must be doing the

wrong thing. No, you may be doing the right thing,

you're just doing it in the wrong way. And God says,

I want you to do it differently. Keep doing what

you're doing, just do it differently. Neiamiah four p. Thirteen

says this, So I stationed armed guards. This is Niamiah

narrating in I stationed arm guards at the most vulnerable

places of the wall, and I assigned people by families

with their swords and lances and their bows. Now, let

me explain what's going on here. Neamia says, Okay, guys,

we've got enemies who want to attack us. So here's

what we're going to do. Half of you are going

to do the work working on the wall, and the

other half of you're going to stand guard. And then

we're going to switch and the other half will do

work on the wall and the other half will guard.

What's you doing. He's just coming up with a new plan.

They did not give up on the goal. They just

devised a new strategy. Here's the point. Whatever you're discouraged

at right now doesn't necessarily mean you need to stop

doing it. Doesn't mean you're doing the wrong thing. It

may be mean you're doing it in the wrong way.

Nea Mayah said, we got to change the way we're

doing this, And maybe you need to change the way

you're doing your schedule, change the way you're doing your diet,

change the way you're doing the way you're relating to people.

Should the natural temptations to give up on the dream? No, no, no,

no no. So let's just get personal. You got a

problem right now, well, don't give up, just change your

way to it. You deeply in debt, well, then you're

going to need to reorganize your budget. Are you out

of shape? You're going to need to reorganize your lifestyle.

You're eating patterns? Are you over committed in your schedule?

You're gonna need to reorganize your time. Where do you

need to do what Neomi did? Reorganize whatever's not working.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We are so

happy that you've chosen to study along with us today.

If you'd like to receive hope and encouragement every day

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Rick will be back to close out our time today.

But first, experts have discovered that an attitude of gratitude

bolster your health and happiness. That's why Pastor Rick created

a special set of fifty two scripture cards to help

bolster your sense of gratitude so you can experience the

life God meant for you to live. Here's Rick to

tell you more.

Friends, one of the most powerful ways you can transform

your spiritual life is to memorize scripture. God tells us

in Proverbs seven, verse two, guard my words as your

most precious possession, write them down, and also keep them

deep within your heart. Now you may not think you've

got a good memory, but the truth is we all

remember what's important to us. For instance, you remember phone

numbers and dates that you care about. I've heard people

say they can't memorize anything, yet they can quote a

song lyrics from their childhood, or they can rattle off

a statistic for their favorite baseball player. You see, memory

is a skill that you can learn, and it's also

a muscle that you can strengthen. In fact, study after

study is shown that memorizing scripture will cause your brain

to have a stronger memory in other areas too, So

when you memorize scripture, you're actually benefiting a lot of

other areas in your life. Now here's how I want

to help you memorize God's Word. We've put together a

new packet, a new set of cards with verses from

the Bible for you to memorize. And these are good,

easily memorizable versus. And you can put these cards around

your house, or you can put them on your refrigerator,

or tape them to the mirror where you brush your teeth,

or you can put them by your bed, or in

your car and the visor. It doesn't really matter. But

they're very beautiful and they will keep these Bible verses

God's Word before you every day, helping you to memorize

the Word of God. I hope you'll take advantage of

this new resource.

This set of beautifully designed cards will help you memorize

scripture so you can recall God's word when you need

it the most. You can also use them to minister

to others. Give one to a friend and write a

personalized note of encouragement on the back. If a scripture

really speaks to you, frame it, put them in places

where you can read them during the day for encouragement.

And today, when you give a gift to help Daily

Hope take the hope of Jesus to a world in need,

we'll send you the gratitude scripture card set to say thanks.

Go to Pastorick dot com right now to get your copy,

or you can just call eight hundred six hundred five

thousand and four. That's Pastorick dot com. Or call eight

hundred six hundred five thousand and four. Thanks so much

for your support, and don't forget to let us know

which radio station you hurt us on. Be sure to

join us next time as we look into God's word

for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor

Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.