Overcoming Disappointment

You know the Holy Spirit has given me a message for us tonight.

If you've got your Bible close by, why don't you pick up your Bible and we'll make a confession, like we normally do, just like you're here and Father.

We just thank you, lord, for Wednesday night church.

We're excited for Wednesday night live stream.

Lord, we just open up our hearts to you.

We're grateful for your word.

It's powerful, it's mighty, it's sharper than any two edges sword.

And Lord, we prepare our hearts to receive your word tonight.

And, lord, we know that we're open to change.

We're open for the Holy Spirit to come in and change anything you need us to change.

We're humble, we're teachable and we're ready to do your work and perform your will your way, in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, if you have your Bible, I ask you to turn with me to the book of John, and we're going to turn to John 16.

And I'm going to be reading out of the Amplified Classic tonight.

I think all of my scriptures are Amplified Classic.

I forgot to clue Lee in on that, but I know he's got the Bible back there.

I know he's got the Amplified Classic and John, chapter 16.

John 16 · chapter mention

And just before we get to my final foundational scripture.

Let's start in verse 13, where Jesus is encouraging his disciples.

You know he's about to leave them and be gone from them and he's encouraging them about the Holy Spirit, and that's not necessarily what I'm preaching tonight.

However, when you honor the Holy Spirit in your life and talk about the spirit of truth in your life, good things happen.

And so we're going to refer back to these verses as we're going through this tonight.

And John 16, 13,.

It says but when he, the spirit of truth, the truth giving spirit, comes, he will guide you into all the truth, the whole, full truth.

For he will not speak his own message on his own authority, but he will tell whatever he hears from the Father.

He will give the message that has been given to him and he will announce and declare it to you.

Everybody say that's me.

I know you're not here, but you can still say that out loud.

He will declare to you the things that are to come, that will happen in the future.

You know the Holy Spirit can reveal God's plan spirit to spirit, spirit to spirit.

When we care, when we put the Holy Spirit first, when we honor the Holy Spirit and put him first in our lives, he reveals to us things, spirit to spirit.

Anything about the future we can know ahead of time.

Amen, verse 14,.

He will honor and glorify me because he will take of and receive and draw upon what is mine and will reveal, declare, disclose, transmit it to you.

Hallelujah.

Everything, everybody say everything.

Everything that the Father has is mine.

That is what I meant when I said that the Spirit will take the things that are mine and will reveal it to you.

So everything that God has belongs to Jesus, and Jesus has given that.

And the Holy Spirit has drawn that out of Jesus.

And now the Holy Spirit is here.

We're not.

Jesus said he'd never leave us nor forsake us, and he's given us the tool of the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit Himself, to talk with us and lead us and guide us and direct us into all truth, the full truth, amen.

And so he transmits that to us.

His plan, his will, his way, his purpose, his destiny, all the Father's destiny, all of that comes through your relationship with and your honoring of the Spirit of Truth, and so that is a very powerful thing.

And so here let's just set the tone, because we're going to skip down to the last verse of the chapter, but I wanted to set the tone that this is Jesus talking and he's talking to his disciples and so in, and he's getting them ready.

And so in verse 33, if we skip all the way down, he's getting them ready to be without him for a short time and then the Holy Spirit comes right.

And so it says in verse 33, I have told you these things so that in me you may have perfect peace and confidence.

Everybody say confidence.

We have perfect peace and we have perfect confidence In the world.

You have tribulation and trials and distress distress, excuse me and frustration.

Everybody, anybody, get frustrated from time to time.

But be of good cheer, take courage, be confident.

Then there's that word confident again, certain, undaunted, for I have overcome the world, I have deprived it of power to harm you and I have conquered it for you, amen.

And so I just wanted to preach a message entitled overcoming discouragement or disappointment.

Overcoming disappointment and I'm laughing because I wrote in my notes that passages preached banishing discouragement back in March.

Those were really good messages, and I'm not afraid of preaching the same thing or preaching the message that my dad preached, or using the same verses.

Even I know that we just had Reverend Raphael Cruz here and he used some of this and talked a lot about this and both of his messages and some of it.

James and I were able to take him to breakfast on Monday morning and he just poured into James and I and it was such a really a big honor for me.

I just couldn't believe.

I was sitting at the table with Raphael Cruz and he's preaching to us, and so he got to preach on them.

The whole restaurant could have entered in if they wanted to, and so he's just so passionate and some of these things were what he said to us and honestly, a lot of that just rolls together for me.

But anyways, overcoming disappointment who gets disappointed every now and then?

We have to overcome disappointment and so we've got some steps in order that allows us to do that that I want to talk about.

But specifically, you know, here I was yesterday in the hospital with our pastor and you know they started them on that first medication and we were speaking to his heart and we were confessing what we know to confess and it didn't seem like in the natural that his heart was responding to that medication and it didn't seem like that it was responding to our faith.

But we don't go by circumstances.

But I begin to fight disappointment.

You know you're tempted to be disappointed.

How are we back in a similar situation?

What led us here?

You begin it kind of like engineering, like trying to figure out.

We're googling all kind of stuff about medications.

We're trying to help the doctor do his job I forgot to say that part.

His main cardiologist that he's been with for well over a decade was on vacation and it didn't.

When he went in Monday morning he was supposed to be gone all week and this morning we find out he's back.

He decided to come home.

He was missing home and so we thought it was just for us but he's.

Oh no, I was just missing home and I wanted to come back early.

And here we have favor.

And you know he didn't realize the real reason was the Holy Ghost and he's an integral part in my dad's care.

And boom, he's back where he needs to be because of the favor of the Lord.

So overcoming disappointment, and so that the word disappointment means disdeprived of and deprived of, in other words deprived of courage, and so discouraged.

So we don't.

We're not discouraged, we are not disappointed, but we're overcoming by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony and the word of God tells us to be strong and very courageous.

And so the devil in these last days has all kind of things to come against our mind, come against the way we think, come against our the time that we spend with the Holy Spirit, the time that we spend reading God's word and and interrupting the amount of information that the Holy Spirit can transmit into our spirit, and and also like filling our minds with squirrely thoughts that cause us to not listen to our own spirit.

And so I know that happens to me, you know, from time to time.

We have to take authority over every thought.

We have to take captive every thought that that disobeys the words of God, the words of Christ, amen.

And so here are three things to get you past disappointment.

And the first thing is really obvious, right, it's to recognize that disappointment and discouragement is an emotion that everyone has.

I've admitted it this week.

I've had it, you've had it about something I'm telling you We've all been disappointed at one time or another, and the all that is is the voice of your emotions, all that is anytime that you feel disappointed, anytime that you feel discouraged, anytime that you feel depressed or down or under a load.

It is the voice of your emotions trying to be louder than the voice of your faith.

And so how do we combat that?

By speaking louder Words of faith, amen.

So learn to release that adrenaline that comes in that frustration.

You know, back in John, chapter 16, it called it frustration.

John 16 · chapter mention

Where did that go In this world?

You have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration.

So frustration is a form of disappointment.

Frustration is an emotion that's part of being discouraged, and so we must learn to release that adrenaline that happens when we get.

We start to get frustrated.

Right, I know I'm not the only one.

I am preaching to myself, and I admit that, but I'm not the only one, right.

And so instead we're to turn to joy, right, turn to joy.

And so we're gonna read some scriptures about that.

But how many of you realize that Jesus gave us the power?

He overcame the world.

He gave us power to get over disappointment, to get over our emotions, to get through discouragement, to get past it.

And I'm telling you, you know a lot of us.

We just sit there and you know and magnify.

Whatever you magnify will be magnified, and so we tend, even on the way here I was changing lanes and another car behind us tried to change lanes into the same lane and he would have lost because it was like a little Prius or something.

But and so I was all talking about that and my wife, full of joy and compassion for my health, began to encourage me.

Not to.

You know who cares, he doesn't even mind.

He's back there now and I still wanted to talk about it.

But anyways, just whatever you magnify will be magnified, whether it's some little thing that happens on the road or it's all.

It really is all about the little things trying to steal your attention.

You know, here we were in the middle of a conversation about the anointing and what is gonna happen tonight and what God's placed in her heart and what God had placed in my heart, and we were in the middle of a really good conversation, trying to get on the same page spiritually, when I let this car come out of nowhere and and steal my joy for about hmm, that's that long.

So whatever you magnify will be magnified.

So don't allow disappointment and discouragement to be magnified, to be bigger than it is.

You know, because God, because Jesus overcame it, amen.

And so Psalm 34, you don't have to turn there.

I'm just gonna quote these.

You know I'm gonna read it backwards.

I'm start with verse 3.

Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together.

So we're to magnify the Lord.

We're to magnify what he's done for us.

We're to be thankful and full of joy for what the Lord has done for us.

Not magnifying the circumstances around us, not magnifying what the devil's doing that we can recognize in the last days.

Not magnifying what this man, biden, has to say on on TV, how he's gonna go door to door and and force people to be vaccinated.

No, he's not.

In Jesus name we say no.

But we're magnifying the Lord.

So, oh, magnify the Lord with me.

Right, we're doing it together, hallelujah.

And then verse one.

It says I will bless the Lord at all times.

His praise shall continually be in my mouth, continually.

All the time.

His praise needs to be on our lips, coming out of our mouths.

And so you never run at your giant with your mouth shut.

That's what Mark Hankins teaches us, right, talking about David and Goliath.

You know, david, he did not run at Goliath with his mouth shut, he was.

He was talking a good game too.

And you know, out of those words came victory, amen.

And so your words lead you into victory, into achieving that same victory that Jesus has, because we have the same spirit of faith that Jesus had.

Amen.

And so I would like to read out of 1 Peter 4, starting in verse 12.

Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test your quality, as though something strange or unusual and alien to you and your position will be falling you.

But insofar as you are sharing Christ's suffering, rejoice so that when His glory is revealed, you may also rejoice with triumph.

Amen.

So when Jesus comes back, we're rejoicing with triumph.

But until that day, man, we're rejoicing.

When we suffer for His name, for His namesake, when any trials or tribulations come near us, whenever we suffer for being man, when we're persecuted for using the name of Jesus and standing up for the name of Jesus, I'm telling you we do that with joy, we do that in rejoicing, and there's no part of discouragement, there's no part of disappointment in that amen.

And so we're full of faith, we're full of love and we're full of excitement for what God's doing in these last days, and we refuse to be disappointed, because disappointment unresolved will lead to resentment and bitterness, and so resentment and bitterness.

That reminds me of Hebrews 12, so I'm gonna read that real quick, just if you wanna go there.

You can.

It's a.

Again, I'm reading out of the Amplified Classic, starting at verse 14, hebrews 12, 14, strive to live in peace with everybody and pursue that consecration and holiness, without which no one will ever see the Lord.

So it's important for us to strive to live in peace with some people.

No, it says everybody, everybody Like, everybody, everybody Like, even like Sally down there in the last cubicle that's always complaining about everything, that makes herself a victim in every situation.

Yeah, everybody, and so sorry if your name's Sally.

Anyways, I tried to go back to like the 50s name, but you might be named Sally and for that I apologize For multiple reasons.

I'm just kidding.

Nobody's here to laugh.

This is weird.

Okay so, but you're there laughing online.

Strive to live in peace with everybody and pursue that consecration, that holiness, that level of dedication to the Lord, amen, without which no one will ever see the Lord.

It's impossible for us to ever see the Lord without this consecration, without this level of holiness that he's provided.

All we have to do is receive it.

Amen.

We've been made the righteousness of God in Christ.

Verse 15 is what I really wanted to get to Exercise foresight.

But before we read this, look at how many different ways we have to look.

Or to see in the amplified classic here in verse 15, says exercise foresight and be on the watch to look after what After one another, after ourselves first, obviously, but also be on the lookout for one another to see that no one falls back from and fails to secure God's grace, god's ability, god's unmerited favor and spiritual blessing.

But it really just means God's ability, god's ability to do anything In order that no root of resentment.

A root is way bigger than a seed.

A root can be a real big pain in the neck to get out right.

It grows.

Have you ever been pulling out a weed or something?

And you're pulling and pulling and you realize that thing's got a root all the way to China, you know, and you're pulling on it and pulling on it and it just takes all of your effort to pull it out.

That's what resentment can do.

That's what ranker and bitterness and hatred when it shoots forth and causes trouble and bitter torment and that many become contaminated and defiled by that, by it.

What is it?

It's the hatred, the bitterness, the resentment, and so that's what disappointment can lead to, that's what discouragement, when you wear it, when you don't recognize it for what it is, it can lead to being a root that's really hard to pull out, of resentment, of bitterness, of hatred, which can be a real stumbling block and cause what it says trouble.

But, man, if there's one thing that we've all seen in 26 years is people that are just stuck and bound by resentment, by bitterness, by hatred.

I thought of this random story.

It's not funny.

I'm laughing cause parts of it were funny.

But let me just get a quick drink of water.

Several years ago, maybe a decade ago, I'm not sure we had two long time members.

At the time, two ladies got in a fight in the lobby and you know you go to a good church.

When you got, like two spiritual ladies, all dressed for church with their Bibles, just go at it in the lobby and man, that was a shocking situation.

But seriously, I was trying to handle the aftermath and one of them I knew to be a really strong until that moment, a really strong person, a really strong person in the Lord that I knew she had a good prayer life and she'd believe God for things and we'd really gotten in with her and her husband to believe God and he was always really encouraging and very helpful.

I even one time I won't tell too many stories at once, but like real quick I had a flat tire on a boat trailer and I was in a bind.

I was on the Beltway and her husband was coming the other way on the Beltway at full speed and recognized me and went around and blocked traffic for me and helped me change that tire.

And that's just.

You know the type of family this was.

They were really for us.

But in this moment of trying to figure out how did we get to this issue?

How in the world, man, it just starts coming out that there was a root of bitterness, there was a root of hatred and everything I said, every word that I spoke, into the situation with both of them, with witnesses.

I brought witnesses and everything and tried to just find out what happened.

I would just ask questions.

I wasn't accusatory, I wasn't, but everything, every single thing that I said, to try to investigate this.

To get down to the root problem.

The root problem was bitterness, the root problem was hatred and all of my words were twisted.

And that's exactly when I know that really demonic, there's a demonic spirit behind that, when I cannot penetrate into a situation when everything, that's all the words of love, all the words of support that I'm saying, are all being twisted into.

You're out to get me and you hate me, and you, man, I know that the devil is working in this family's mind and in their thought life, but it came out of a root of bitterness that really had turned into victimhood, and you know they're no longer with us and we wish to them the best.

We hope that they go, that they believe in God still and go to a good church.

I have no idea, but my point is where their lives ended up?

Because of resentment, because of hatred, because they allowed themselves to get that far gone into bitterness, and so we're to watch out for that.

What leads to that discouragement and disappointment over and over and over?

I remember specifically, my mom would speak into those situations before that and help this family along, because they were discouraged, because they had had a whole lot of disappointment in their life, and I'm telling you that's what led to this root, and so we're to be on the lookout for that.

First of all, we're looking into our own life to make sure that we're not holding on to this disappointment, that we're not stuck where we can't keep moving forward.

You know, a couple of Sunday nights ago I preached a message entitled Moving Forward, and so we went through some things that hold us back, that hold us down and try to pull us back into being stuck, and so we can't be stuck in discouragement and disappointment.

We just can't.

We've got to use these tools.

We have to recognize it for what it is.

It's just an emotion and our faith is greater than any emotion and you don't have to take my word for it.

The Word of God teaches us that your emotions will follow your faith, and I've seen that work in my own life.

I've seen it work in my wife's life, in our marriage, in our kids but, most importantly, like in family after family in the church, just watching somebody come and start sitting under this ministry.

That's all emotional.

They don't know which way to turn, they don't know which direction is up, and they sit here and they get matured under the Word.

They begin to feed in this pasture of what God's provided for them through their pastor and they begin to mature in the Lord and they begin to speak words of faith and then their emotions begin to follow their faith.

It happens every time.

You don't have to take my word for it.

It's not my guarantee.

I was going to say I guarantee you it's not my guarantee, it's God's guarantee and that's how the law of the spirit of faith works.

That's how it operates.

We have to speak it, it has to come out of our mouths.

If we don't have faith-filled words coming out of our mouth, we lose by default every time.

Why?

Because it's a spiritual law that's more powerful than any natural law, like the law of lift or the law of gravity.

Right, you have the law of lift that overcomes the law of gravity.

By what?

By wings, by air coming over and under the wings and lifting of a bird or a plane, or Superman.

Anyways, let's move on.

Number two when, not if, but when those trials come, the, where did the?

The in?

Jesus said verse 33, john 16, 33, in the world you have tribulation.

So when those tribulations come, when those trials come, when that frustration shows up at your door, don't blame God.

God didn't send it, god didn't have anything to do with it.

You know.

You know, we were talking a lot this weekend with with Reverend Cruz about the whole God is in control and he's he very much agreed with us on that and he was like that's a cop out.

You know, when people say that, because there's like a huge movement of people that always are saying, well, god is in control, they'll get on my dad's Facebook page and do God is in control.

Well, god put us in control, he gave us free will and then he sent Jesus and through Jesus, he gave us all power and authority in heaven and on earth.

And so, like even our father, the our father prayer says thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We're.

It's through our prayers, it's through our actions, it's through our words.

And so when disappointment comes, don't blame God.

God, you allowed this, god, you sent this hurricane and it.

You know, my dad tells that story of a meeting this man witnessing to him, and he owned a carpet cleaning business and his van had burned to the ground.

So he no longer had a carpet cleaning business anymore because the van burned down, and so so he was complaining about it.

Well, god burned my van down and my dad was just a baby Christian at the time, but he knew enough to know that that wasn't right and he said God didn't burn that van down, the devil did.

And it was like he had slapped that guy in the face with reality, with the truth, this, the spirit of truth, right, and so we know that God doesn't send calamity, that it's a very simple God is good and the devil is bad.

But you know, through every situation, through everything that we face, god does use those situations.

God uses what you're going through for the good.

He turns it around for your good.

And so he didn't send that failure that you've experienced.

He didn't send that that what you feel like is the end of a dream.

That dream will never happen.

That you know, you, you, you, you think God placed this dream on the inside of your heart, but you're, you're so discouraged, you're so depressed because it hadn't come to pass.

He didn't send that failure.

You know sometimes, or even you know, people's intention they, they intended for one thing to happen, but instead this horrible, terrible other thing happened instead.

Well, god didn't cause that to happen.

And so release that, plead the blood of Jesus over those thoughts, get that out of your thinking and stop blaming God for something he didn't do, and and know that he can use every situation and begin to speak to that situation.

Lord, I thank you that you're turning that around for my good, in Jesus' name.

And so we're not to to look at the scene, but we're to look through the eyes of faith, to the unseen, amen.

And so change your perspective.

Don't lose sight of what God is doing.

Don't lose sight of what God, of how God is turning those things around for your good.

And so stop using the word devastated.

I'm so devastated, I was so taken back.

Get that out of your vocabulary and just begin to thank God for all the things that he's doing in your life.

I guarantee you he's working some things out for your good right now.

If you'll just recognize it and begin to thank Him for it, those things will begin to multiply in your life.

Amen, and that's what the Word of God teaches us.

And so where is your faith concerning that situation?

So, number three claim by faith the peace of God.

Clothe is Colossians 3, verse 15 and let the peace, the soul, harmony which comes from Christ rule, act as umpire continually in your hearts, deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds I didn't say squarely mine, but you know some, some, some of us have a whole bunch of questions why this and why that?

Colossians 3:15

And you know, let the peace of God rule and control your mind and answer be the answer to all of those questions.

You know, the peace of God, that that God provided through the sacrifice of Jesus.

Did you know that answers every question, that your squarely brain has Every single question right?

And uh, and it says it goes on the sea In that peaceful state to which, as members of Christ's one body, you are also called to live and be thankful or appreciative, giving praise to God always.

Amen.

So we're to claim by faith the peace of God or to allow the peace of God to rule as an umpire?

Just like man, we really used to love to watch baseball.

We got kind of away from that with the major league baseball decisions here over the last 12 months and, quite honestly, I hadn't hadn't watched a baseball game since A couple of college games.

But uh, it's kind of sad.

But uh, I love.

You know, what do you love about the game?

I love to watch a player grow in their ability to play and, uh, you know whether it be a pitcher and all of a sudden, or just you know, uh, verlander there, everybody thought he was washed up a few years back and he comes out and proves everybody wrong and then proves everybody right, anyways, but uh, you know, and so, uh, so, so I love to watch a player get better.

But then there's always that umpire, uh, calling the strikes and calling the balls.

And so we're to allow the peace of God to rule our hearts in the same way, and and and say you know what, I'm going to let that thought in yeah, that's a good one, or hey, that's not going to bring me peace, that's going to bring me a discouragement, that's going to bring me.

So I'm not going to think about that, I'm not going to allow that into my life.

So if you'll allow that peace to act as an umpire, to rule as an umpire continually in your hearts, you decide what gets down into your heart, what gets into your, uh, your hopes and your dreams and your desires before God and for God and for the kingdom of God and for your ministry.

You know, every believer has a ministry and we're maturing in that ministry by banishing discouragement and getting rid of and overcoming all disappointments and not being held back by that disappointment.

Whatever disappointment it is, if it's something from your childhood, if it's something that happened 20, 30 years ago, just release it right now, through these steps and by and through the blood of Jesus Christ, and be free of that disappointment, be free of that discouragement.

Amen.

I hope this bless you tonight.