Desperate and Disappointed

And I've noticed that when people get desperate, they start

doing things they wouldn't normally do. Have you noticed this

about yourself, that when you get desperate, you get edgy,

you get touchy, and sometimes you're lashing out at people.

And it's not about the people.

Like I had to explain to the kids about my

road rage, it's not really about the driving. It has

nothing to do with the driving. It's just that Dad

finds this a convenient place to be shielded and an anonymous

where I can let some stuff lie that's been building up.

God don't want a real preacher, JJ you preached next week.

Thank them out.

It's a whole thing because they came together to quarrel.

And what they didn't, no couldn't know, is that they

were on the border of Canaan, the land that God

had promised them was just a few short months away.

But in a time when they should have been preparing

to conquer, the enemy had them in a state of conflict.

Don't you understand that the reason that you've been fighting

like you've been fighting, and even the reasons sometimes that

the devil will get you focused on fighting against people,

is because God is trying to bring you into what

He spoke over your life and the promise of his

inheritance and the saints. And now the closer you get

to that promise, the greater the conflict is going to be.

I think one of the reasons.

That our church gets so divided is because the enemy

knows that if we would ever stop fighting and focus

on the mission that we were given by our captain

and the Savior of our souls, we would be dangerous

to the kingdom of darkness. But we can't come together

because we quarrel too much. It never stops, we never

quit finding new things to fight about. It's not only

that Christians fight against other religions. We can subdivide on

a multiplicity of different levels of Christianity, and we can

get into little groups that we no longer come together

to lift up the name of the Lord and to

take this message to the ends of the earth. But

now we're fighting over a translation of the Bible, or

we're fighting over what you wear to worship, or we're

fighting over what specific nuance you believe about the Holy Spirit.

But I didn't come to quarrel, so I don't need

to fight with you. I came to conquer and I

need you in my corner, and I don't have the

energy to spend fighting against the people God called me.

To fight with. So if you're black, fight with me.

If you're a Hispanic, fight with me. If you're a woman,

fight with me. If you're young, fight with me.

Let's get together, old heads, young people, Let's fight this

fight together.

And there's no water in the wilderness.

And when there is no water, when there is a death,

you start reacting.

Instead of responding.

I'm apprecia this message, Hollie. I feel it happening right now,

because what I want to say is, forget about the

budget deficit. We got a whole lot more than a

budget deficit in our nation today, and it's a different

deficit than they faced.

It's not a lack of water.

I feel like in our world today we are severely

lacking in our ability to empathize with others because we've

got a surplus of opinions and a deficit of empathy.

Let me try another one. They didn't like that very much.

We have a surplus of information and a deficit of wisdom,

because if we don't have insight into information, we will

get caught up in highlights and headlines and highlights and

headlines and highlights and headlines and highlights and headlines. And

I've been noticing about myself. Maybe this is why I

wanted to preach the series that I'm having a hard

time focusing because you know, the Devil's devices.

I think it's I think I'm no neurologist, but I.

Think when it's getting hard for me to read three

sentences in a book and now I'm trying to swipe paper.

When I reached up to swipe a book the other.

Day, I thought, I got to take my mind back.

It's a deficit, a deficit where we have more ways

to communicate and we're connecting less than ever. I think

that's what the skyrocketing porn rates are about. That's what

the skyrocketing sleep deprivation rates are about. We are desperate

to connect, and we call ourselves connected and nothing could

be further from the truth.

And it's too much.

Costa called it too much to live with, too little

to live for. It's a deficit, a deficit of meaning,

a deficit of insight.

And when a.

Deficit is left unaddressed, you know what happens next. Disappointment

sets in because I'm looking at how the Israelites are

talking to Moses, right, and I get it. I get

it because when you don't have what you need to live,

you start doing things that you would not normally do,

and it's not even you, and you almost want to

explain to people. Sometimes I don't even know who that was.

I'm so sorry. Can we take back the last five minutes?

And sometimes you can't. Sometimes you can undo it. And

what the Israelite said to Moses here apparently hit that button. Now,

everybody has a button. All of you who are calm,

we just haven't found yours yet. Really, everybody has a

boiling point. Everybody has something that if you hit that,

you will see a different version of them, and you

will completely change their Enneagram number. If you hit the

right button, they go from a seven to a two,

a peacemaker to a shooter.

And it can happen so quick.

Moses, the man of God, is violently striking a rock

when God is trying.

To show his people grace. But the reason he did it.

And this is why I can't figure out sometimes in

my own life where it comes from, because I find

things coming out of me and I'm confused about where

it came from. Because I know I'm not mad about

what I'm mad about, because it's not a big enough

deal to make me as mad as I am about

what I'm mad about. Please help me preach to your.

And this together.

And they just got done telling him they wanted to die.

And it's his fault.

Because anytime you are facing a deficit in your own life,

you start looking for someone to blame. Anytime you are

confronted with your own barrenness or brokenness, you want to

find somebody else or something else whose fault it can be.

And the first thing we do when we run out

of resource is to look for someone else.

To take responsibility.

If only we had died when our brothers fell dead

before the Lord. Why did you bring the Lord's community?

Why didn't my mom? Why wasn't my dad around? All

These are reasonable things to say, but they don't really

help the situation. They only make it worse. Why did

you bring us out here into this wilderness that we

should die here? They weren't actually about to die. God

wasn't gonna lie let them die. They were on the

edge of destiny, about to take the land that God

had promised for generations and they want to die at the.

Edge of destiny.

Why'd you bring us up out of Egypt to this

terrible place? There we had figs. There we had grapevines.

There we had pomegranates. There we had grain. I forget

to mention the whips. They forget to mention the mud

and the straw, and they begin to glamorize a past

that really didn't even.

Exist, well, the good old days.

I get it, man, it's tempting to go back there

in your mind.

Just as long as you know is.

Your version of the past is just as imaginary as

your version of the future.

Back in Egypt, the place that you were praying God

to get you out of.

Oh, I'll never forget this. One time a lady came

to me. She said, you need to change some things

in the church, very.

Early in the church. And I was woo, I was cocky.

I was twenty eight.

So what I said, next to homiere responsible there's statute

of limitations. She listed everything she wanted me to change

in the church, change this, and change that, and change

this and change that. And either the Lord or the

devil prompted me to say what follows.

I said, so you.

Want me to recreate the church that you left to

come to this one. I didn't mean it how it

came out. I meant to say, I'll pray about it.

I am, but a servant and a vessel just cushed

out came out frustration. So you understand that frustration operates

when your experience is different than your expectation. So when

you are frustrated, it is not your life that you're

frustrated with. It's your life compared to your expectation.

Of your life. That's what makes you frustrated.

It's that it normally takes me thirteen minutes to get there,

and today it took.

Me thirty and I didn't plan for that. And so

since I was already at a.

Time deficit and a sleep deficit and I didn't put

margin on this trip, now I find myself frustrated. I'm

not really frustrated at how long it's taking. I'm frustrated

about how long it's taken compared to how long I thought.

It was going to take.

And one of the best things we can do for

our peace of mind is to crucify our expectations of others.

I mean, really, just put it up there on the

cross and get to the place where we no longer

have an expectation of people to meet our needs, because

we understand that our water flows from a different rock,

that our joy flows from a different place. Come on, Epham,

shout at the phone that I don't depend on people

to provide for me.

What God has promised. Hey, thanks for watching.

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