Sunday Mornings | The Power Of Encouragement

Thank you for listening to the Kelowna Christian Center Podcast.

Our desire is that today's message will be fresh and encouraging to you.

For more information on KTC and how to connect, visit us at KTC.net.

I tell you it was sunny in in uh in uh Oaxaca, where we have a number of church plants, uh, but it was also rocking.

How many of you heard about all of the uh the earthquakes that hit through Pinotempa?

Pinotempa is the center uh of the earthquake zone there, and there were eight earthquakes in 12 days while I was there.

And one measured at 7.4 on the Richter scale, and so there was a lot of buildings that were collapsed, and of course, we went to encourage our churches, and the churches uh uh everyone that is in our circle of churches that we planted, right from Oaxaca through Puerto Escondido and Zicotella and San Pedro, Pinotempa, all of them were rocked by by the earthquakes.

And even even in my arrival back home here, I've been sort of holding on to things because I kind of feel that things are still kind of moving.

You go down the highway and you see the bridge, the line where the the center line on the pavement, and then the bridge, and the center line's moved over two feet, you know something's transpired, right?

So we're very, very grateful.

Um just want to give you just a few comments here this morning about the the trip, and then I want to take you into the message that the Lord has put in my heart for you.

If we can, we have an organization called Mexican, it's a combination of Mexico, the Lord, He, and Canada all working together.

And uh I thought that was kind of unique, wouldn't that?

And uh that's now a religious association whereby all of our churches are connected in Mexico.

First one here is from uh Zicatella.

Um you'll see they've uh got their their sign up there, and the church has been built and it was full on Sunday.

We're so grateful.

You'll see here uh Salvador and Teresa, who are the pastor and his wife.

Eight months ago, uh Teresa was uh uh contacted uh cervical uh dystopia, which has uh contorted her with muscles uh that have been moved for the eight last eight months.

She comes to church in great pain where her body is is contorted like that and prays for the church.

Blesses and prays for the church.

And of course, we've been praying and uh upholding her uh before the Lord that there'd be a solution.

And God opened a sovereign door to see someone in Oaxaca City in the day that I was there.

They they flew in and they did some treatment on her shoulder.

You can see her neck uh and the the challenge that has been there.

You can see her sitting the very next day after the treatment.

Uh the Lord uh worked with medical science as well as uh, I believe the prayers of God's people and shifted that.

So we just give him thanks and glory because we've been we've been praying and we've been singing that song over the last you know month or two.

Uh he's a miracle-working God.

Uh we're we're looking for miracles, uh, so praise the Lord.

Second one here has to do with uh Pinot Tempo, which was the site of the earthquakes.

This is Pastor's home, by the way.

Uh Pastor Bismarck and his wife are to the left.

Their home was uh um damaged very severely.

And the problem in that environment is if they the homes sustain a 7.4 uh level earthquake, uh then people feel that they're safe to go back into their homes.

The problem is the 7.4 basically destabilizes the home, and then the tremors come of a lesser magnitude, and then they collapse.

And so people were going back into their homes to get uh their contents out, and buildings were collapsing with the tremors.

In eight days, I think we had 1,000 uh aftershocks, and so it was a pretty pretty significant thing.

I I want to say we ministered there.

That's our church in the uh facility.

Uh it was full on Sunday morning, God's doing wonderful things, even in the midst of all of the the tremors that were happening in the midst of that church that morning, people had come to church.

Come on.

I said it didn't keep them away from church.

They got up and they got out and they came to church, and I'm so very grateful.

Uh there were thieves that, of course, take advantage of earthquakes and they broke into the church in the destabilized situation and took off with stuff.

So, Pastor, you know, he lost his house with a roof that went right through, uh, and uh the church was robbed.

I go into Oaxaca uh in ministry there, and they said, Listen, uh Pastor, uh the Lord has put it in our hearts.

We've got some money that came from the United States uh for to take care of the earthquake in uh November of last year in Oaxaca.

We have money remaining, and so their entire roof is being fixed, and the church's facility is being uh replaced and restored, and so God turns some discouragement into some encouragement, amen?

As the body of Christ helps one another.

So I'm very, very grateful.

The next uh has to do just with a picture of the church in uh in San Pedro.

You would not believe San Pedro, it was absolutely jammed to the max.

Uh, 175 adults, about 75 to 1,000 million children, um, and they were just out having a blast.

What a fiesta we had together.

God is just doing a supernatural thing.

Pastor who was there was diagnosed with uh with prostate cancer, and the church has been praying.

Um, they went in, we helped them go into Oaxaca to have another uh test.

He came back totally clean, the prostate cancer.

And so we're grateful to the Lord for what he's doing.

He's just breaking out on so many different levels.

The next church has to do with a new work that is established in Oaxaca City.

And uh one of the pastors there, Pastor Jeremy Trevor, is a graduate of our hot our our school here and our ministry training center, and uh they've joined together in ministry.

Uh, this is a very interesting story because in November, when the earthquake hit Oaxaca, uh many, many, many of the villages surrounding Oaxaca were decimated completely.

Um and he felt in his heart, Daniel, who was there uh uh translating for me, uh, Daniel felt in his heart, he said, we need to take some food and supplies into these uh these regions.

And he got a number of trucks together with supplies, and uh he was stopped from going in.

They said, the banditos are on the road, they're killing people, taking their vehicles, taking their stuff, and then reselling it on the black market, and uh uh you can't go in.

He went a little further, and there was a captain, uh, of a Navy captain that was in the road with with a number of his troops, and he said, I will go in with you.

They need the food.

So the very first place that they went into, everything was down.

The entire town was decimated.

They had one open square where there was they could stand together, and a priest was there who had been resistant to the gospel.

A lot of those small communities are very strong Catholic and were resistant to the gospel.

They were there at that moment, gathered all the people of the village together, hundreds of them, to pray for food and water.

And along comes Jeremy and Daniel with truckloads of food.

Hello.

And uh and as they were praying, they saw that the priest said to Daniel, he said, Why don't you preach?

So he began to preach.

Over a hundred people gave their life to Christ, and that was the situation.

Not only did a hundred people give their life to Christ, but but the Navy captain gave his life to Christ and a number of his team, and they said, We're going everywhere you're going.

We're not leaving you, we're gonna go as many places as we can go, and they kept on taking the food in.

And uh, as a result of that, the Lord brought favor, and those areas that were resistant to the gospel became open to the gospel, and churches are being formed.

And uh Jeremy and Daniel have established a church in January in Oaxaca that is gonna be identified with us as at KCC.

They're already now going into two services, and so the Lord uh is uh is really blessing, and so we're we're grateful, and that's the work that is helping the churches in uh Pinotempa and the restoration of the of the damage from earthquake uh uh in terms of earthquake relief.

So it's wonderful.

Amen?

Good things, and uh, you know, I've heard the good reports of what the Lord has been doing here, and we continue to pray for those we know need a touch from heaven.

We know that God's hand is not short, God's hand can continue to reach down and touch our lives and make us well.

Strengthen us with might in the inner man.

Amen.

Enable us to do what we're called to do.

Yesterday I had a I had a call just two days before when I was in the United States uh in Mexico to come up here.

Um I had a call from some Chinese leaders who Brody and I had met with a couple weeks ago about the property outside, and uh it looked like they were more interested in education, and then yesterday an entire tour bus came in uh with people, uh Chinese businessmen uh men and women who are interested in investing in a kingdom project to make it happen.

So we had a time of prayer and ministry out here in the front, believing that God is got his way to do what we need to have done.

Amen?

Amen.

Do you believe that?

So we're just taking it step by step, but the Lord's in control.

Amen?

Now you still don't feel any shaking?

Well, let's see if we can shake some stuff up this morning.

Amen?

Hallelujah.

Let's read the text from Psalm 46, 1 to 3, if you would, with me today.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth gives way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.

Message translation says it this way: God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.

And we stand fearless at the cliff edge of doom, courageous in sea storm and earthquake, before the rush and roar of the oceans, and even the tremors that shift the mountains.

Thank you, Lord.

Would you say this with me?

God is my refuge and strength.

And he's my ever-present help in time of trouble.

Hallelujah.

Do you believe that?

That's really important.

David also wrote in Psalm 16, verse 8, he said, I will keep my eyes always on the Lord, and with him at my side I will not be shaken.

Psalms 16:8

Hallelujah.

Isaiah wrote, he says, When the Lord created you, he says, Now don't be afraid, for I have ransomed you, I've called you by name, you're mine.

And when you go through deep waters in great trouble, I will be there.

And when you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.

And when you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned.

That's the that is the promise of God.

I want to talk to you about the power of encouragement this morning.

I'm going to go about it a little bit of a different way, and but we're going to get there, okay?

I I remember as a kid, I don't know if you ever had your superhero when you were a kid growing up, did you?

Mine was the Lone Ranger.

And I remember wanting to have a white hat, white stuff, and I was ready to go off and save the world, right?

Justice.

Some we see, you know, some of the kids the other day I was looking, and a guy had Superman, right?

And just to be politically correct, we have Wonder Woman.

We do have some superheroes on different levels, right?

Well, you know, when we think about uh that, I think there's that innate heart within every single one of us to be a solution and an answer.

We wish we had those superpowers, right?

To be able to speak into someone's life and to minister and touch and bring healing and deliverance and free them from this and provide financial resources and in supernatural ways.

All of us, I think, we just wish we had that capability.

If we could only be God for a day, right?

But you know, the most powerful person in the world is not Superman, not the Hulk.

Okay?

It's the person who knows how to pray.

The most powerful person on the planet is the individual who absolutely knows God and knows how to pray.

Here's what the Bible says in James chapter 5, verse 16.

James 5:16

It says, the heartfelt and persistent prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much when put into action and made effective by God.

It is dynamic and powerful in its impact.

I believe that.

Do you believe that?

Uh Ephesians 3.20 says, now to him who's able to do superabundantly above all that we dare ask or think, infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams, according to this power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

God's saying that he's releasing to us a powerful gift, the ability to pray and to see God go beyond what we expect him to do.

To go beyond our wildest expectations in terms of what constitutes an answer for the prayer that we get.

I am grateful to God for that incredible authority and power.

And uh, we have some testimonies that are happening here in the house.

I mean, I remember a year ago with Carlene's uh broken back injury and how God healed her in worship time.

I see what God's doing in Dylan's life, I see it in Sean's life, and we're continuing to pray for others in the body that need the supernatural touch of God.

And and I I know, uh, you know, I've been a Christian ever since I was five years of old of age.

Uh my mom told me I gave my life to Christ listening to a radio station.

Somebody was preaching, and uh I began to cry, and she asked me what was happening, and I I wound up giving my life to Jesus right there.

I knew, I knew that I knew that it was the right thing to do.

I've been a pastor over 45 years, and I've seen many miracles.

I've seen God break through on our behalf in supernatural ways, but I've also, you know, buried some of my friends.

And I have some questions.

How many of you know I got a bucket list, not of things I want to do, but a bucket list of things I want to talk to Jesus about one day and say, what happened here?

Right?

I don't quite understand.

And I know that there's uh, you know, there are basic contradictions that affect the body of Christ on a global level.

What we're experiencing here, don't think that you're alone in experiencing it.

Everywhere you go, and I have the opportunity to travel globally, I see it happening everywhere.

You are not a unique uh sector of the body of Christ.

What happens to one happens to all.

Okay?

And so I see this sort of mixed, uh mixing uh contradiction, kingdoms rising against kingdoms, Christian communities under great attack in the Middle East and China, even in Vietnam, where we have ministry.

We also see conflicting signs of his presence, where you have a river of joy mixed with a river of tears happening at the same time.

You have repentance mixed with an ugly exposure of the depth of human depravity.

You have the prosperity of spirit in people mixed with a poverty of soul.

And my do I see the poverty of soul in North America.

A poorness, a leanness of soul.

When we should be so rich.

I see kingdom advancement, but also kingdom conflict.

I see signs in the heavens like we see in Moran leading thousands of Iranians to Jesus Christ, and yet we also see signs in the earth that are causing many people to turn away from Christ.

So these are conflicts.

And it seems like the church at times is caught between the promises of God and the possession of those promises.

And I think we've all can fit into that.

There are things that we've had dreams of in our heart, of what we want to see happen.

And yet we're not there.

We're not quite there.

It's almost like we've been put into the wilderness like Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted, to be tested.

Uh how many of you know he came out of that wilderness, though, in the power of the Spirit.

And so my heart, my heart as a believer is, Lord, if you're gonna take me through some stuff, okay, take me through some stuff.

But the promise that I'm holding on to is I'm gonna come out of it stronger.

I'm gonna come out of it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Uh one man asked this question one day, he says, What do you do when you're going through hell?

And the other man said, and it's a good answer.

He says, keep on going.

Don't stop.

Amen?

Because what?

Heaven's on the other side, right?

There's there's there's light at the end of the tunnel.

The Bible says storms come to us all.

The rains fall, the winds blow, the ground shakes on the good man's house and the evil man's house, the righteous and the unrighteous.

The promise of Scripture is that if we will constantly keep our ear to doing what God tells us to do, no matter what, we will come through.

And what was shaken will not be able to be shaken apart.

And what has been going through a river to be overflowed and flooded will not be overflowed and flooded.

The fires that we go through, we will not be burned.

That is the testimony of Scripture.

Now, there's once a man who loved and feared the Lord and continually turned away from evil.

Do you remember that, Nan?

His name was Job.

And God said, and it's great when you have God bragging on you, right?

How many of you want God to brag on you?

It'd be great to have God brag on me.

God bragged on Job and said, There isn't a man like him on the face of the earth, a perfect and upright man.

So we're in real trouble when we declare that there was something wrong with Job when he was going through the mess.

Because God's testimony of us, of him, was there was nothing wrong with him.

He was a good man.

Blessed on every level.

Favor of the Lord was upon him.

And Job wrote this.

He says, Oh, that I were in months past, as in the days when God preserved me, when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness, which is why that song this morning is so important.

We want to talk about something that can pierce the darkness here and move us into a different level.

He said, The friendship of God was over my tent.

You remember those days?

Could it be that this man who was so loved by God and favored was the same man later who called out and said, Am I lauted months of vanity and nights of trouble?

And when I lie down, I wonder whether I'll get up again.

But the night continues and I'm continually tossing until morning.

Anyone ever felt that?

We don't know any specific way in which Job sinned against God, and throughout the centuries, many theologians have questioned whether or not the book should actually even be in the Bible.

But what kept it there, and I think the fact that Jesus spoke about Job affirmed its credibility.

But Job has brought some real questions to the light.

How can God permit righteous people who love him, who have been called out of darkness, into the light, to go through seasons of darkness and pain?

That's a challenging one.

And the one thing we do know is this, though, in the book of Job, Job saw something in the midst of his darkness, in the valley of the shadow of death, that he probably was not able to see anywhere else.

At the end of the book, we read him saying, I've heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes actually see you.

How many of you know there's a big difference between knowing about God and knowing him?

There's a big difference between seeing the acts of God and knowing the ways of God.

And so Job has an encounter.

He says, I've experienced you.

Job experienced God in the dark in a way he had never experienced God in the light.

And his latter days were blessed more than the beginning of his days.

And God wants to teach us how to walk in the dark.

And when we read the book of Job, I think some of us have an unspoken request.

I know I had, Lord, I don't want this ever to happen to me.

It's great to read the story, right?

It's great.

Job made it, right?

But I'm not so sure I want to go through what I see Job go through.

Our theology of life doesn't fit the pattern.

Because we think it always happens to ungodly and unethical or unrighteous people.

But we need to constantly bring to remembrance what Jeremiah said.

He said, I know the thoughts and the plans that I have for you.

Thoughts of peace and not of evil.

I'm going to give you an expected end, I'm going to give you hope, and I'm going to give you a future.

That's God's promise to us.

Paul made a similar promise in Romans chapter 8 when he said, and we know, not we guess, but we know that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Those things are like stability points in my own personal walk with Jesus.

I don't understand all of the things.

I have my bucket list, but God is going to have to provide an answer at one day for my life.

We've all been there, or we all are there, and we're all going through those things together.

Jesus went through it.

The Bible says it's a succor for us.

Remember when he said on the cross, Father, why have you abandoned me?

Why have you forsaken me?

He felt what it meant to have that darkness, that abandonment, that sense of rejection from heaven, that silence where nothing made sense.

But Jesus went through it for you and I.

Jesus went through it for you and I.

I remember sharing something like this just a few days ago in Oaxaca, and a young lady who had lost her husband came to me, and her daughter was with her, and they've been having a very, very difficult time trying to understand why a good, godly man passed away.

And I remember at one time how the Lord spoke to my heart and said, Jesus died at what, 33 years of age?

And at the end of his life, he said, it's finished.

In our generation, in our culture, we tend to worship longevity of life.

We want to live forever.

Well, how many of you know you're going to?

Come on.

You have eternal life in you.

If you've accepted Jesus Christ in your life, eternal life is in you.

You're not going to die.

You're going to have eternity with him.

So the issue is not the length of life for us as believers here, it's the quality or the depth of life.

And I remember, I remember sharing into her heart, I said, listen, you miss him today because he was a good man.

He did wonderful things in the life of your family, so it's valid to miss and it's valid to grieve.

But, you know, did he live a long life or did he live a deep life?

And I've seen people live a long life that's been very superficial and very shallow.

I've seen others who have lived a short life and their life has had profound effect because of the depth of their influence.

What do you want?

What do you want?

I want to be able to say at the end of life, I finished.

Amen?

I finished.

Like Paul said, I fought a good fight and I've kept the faith and I finished the course and now is laid up for me.

I want that for my life.

Do you want that?

But sometimes we don't understand.

We feel the darkness.

We sense the abandonment and the fear that we talked about in the song this morning, too, that we've lost his love or his approval, the anxiety when we try to trust him, and the overwhelming disappointment at times when we have a desire to give up.

Trying to figure out what's God up to.

And maybe analyzing is not your thing, but it's mine.

I tend to do that a lot.

I need to understand the mysteries of God.

But I don't know about you, but many other times in my life when darkness came and a sense of foreboding filled my soul, I came out fighting.

There were only three what I perceived to be biblical responses to very, very difficult times that I was going through.

The first one was I'd repent.

Lord, is there something in my life that is out of whack?

Because if this is happening because of sin, I just want that cleaned up.

How many of you know the Holy Spirit is faithful?

That's his ministry.

He will expose constantly and faithfully sin in our life.

And you won't have to wait forever to hear it.

Don't be waiting and praying about it for months.

You can pray about it immediately, and the Holy Spirit will be faithful to convict you of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.

That's his ministry.

He's not going to leave you in a position where you can enter into condemnation.

So don't spend forever trying to figure out this, whether or not what you're going through is a result of sin.

If you ask him, he'll tell you.

If he doesn't tell you, go on.

Second thing that I would do is I would stand up and I would resist the devil.

Because if it's not sin that's operating in my life, then I would resist the devil.

I would come against him in Jesus' name.

How many of you know that at times when you do that, uh, the battle is won?

And things are broken, and things that are are in the way of your development and growth is is is taken out of the way by the name of Jesus.

Hallelujah.

And so at times I would do that and I'd move into it.

Um but you know, sometimes rebuking the devil never did anything.

Uh it just seemed like I was in a fight for my life.

Anybody?

Okay?

So the third thing I'd do, the Bible, and I'm I'm doing it at ours because that's what a pastor does and a preacher, he does it in things that you can remember.

Repent or resist or rejoice, right?

So I'd stick my hands up to heaven and begin to rejoice in the midst of my mess.

How many of you know that God can turn a mess around and give you a message in the midst of the mess by just rejoicing?

And like I said to you, like Paul said, if I live or die, praise the Lord, I'm gonna be known as a man who lived worshiping.

Hallelujah.

I'm gonna give thanks in everything.

I'm gonna lift up my hands to heaven.

And he should, if he should reach down and take a hold of my hands and take me where he is, that's fine.

Come on.

I know where I belong, I know my destination, I know what graduation looks like.

I win.

Come on, I made it to my destination.

Oh, you guys okay this morning?

I came back with a tan.

All right, so that's what I would do.

I would go through my three things, you know, repent or or resist the devil or or rejoice.

And sometimes none of them dealt with the issues, didn't change it.

There's a fourth one.

And I began to learn that over the last little bit, and it's called relent.

Yield.

But yield.

Hey God, I'm putting this one in the bucket list.

I don't understand this at all.

Why would you allow my wife to almost lose her life, break her shoulder in three places, her back in three places, to have her in a women's meeting where you healed her in a moment?

What's with that?

Right?

We could have just gone back and saved you a whole lot of trouble by not having it happen.

Come on.

That's my anal my analysis, okay?

Still love me, okay?

So I try to figure out that stuff, and yet the the the saints of scripture and the saints of the early church and the the middle-aged church and the modern church today try to figure that out in their own lives.

Uh, I remember reading about Corey Temboom, who was in a in a concentration camp, and all of the women were being uh were being raped, and she had lice just covered her body, and she would be scratching and itching herself all the time and praying, oh God, please get rid of the lice.

Get rid of the lice.

And then the Lord awakened her spirit and spoke into her heart and said, Have you been raped yet?

Have you been raped yet, Corey?

No, I haven't been raped.

You know who's saving you from being raped?

Lice.

I sent the lice.

And her heart turned from one of trying to figure out God's inequity and injustice to one of rifting up her hands in the middle of it and thanking God for lice.

Come on.

Hello, are you out there this morning?

All right, but this is an important message for the church right now.

And you need to listen to this because if you're not going through it, you're gonna go through it.

And you need to have some, you need to be forearmed by being forewarned.

So, repent, resist, rejoice.

And at times you need to relent, you need to yield to what God is doing in your life.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

And you what?

Prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.

Like our enemies are gonna see the way God rescues and redeems his people.

And I don't like the valley of the shadow, I don't like anything that has to do with shadows.

I like to walk in the light, but sometimes the light that I have is not strong enough to pierce the darkness.

And God leads me into darkness to give me a light that I never had in the daytime.

And it's like the cry of Micah to heaven as a result of that, and he stands before God and says, Enemy, don't you dare rejoice over the situation I'm in right now, because though I sit in darkness, the Lord is going to become a light unto me.

And we cannot be afraid of darkness because God is in the dark.

The same God who is in the day is in the night.

There's a song that I want you to sing at the end of the meeting today, and we can pray for people, but the same God of the good day times is the God of the bad times.

The God on the mountain is the God of the valley.

And we need to understand that God shows up on all of those levels for the life of his people.

Our faith is precious to him.

The Bible says, greatly rejoice.

Though now you, for a little while, you may have to suffer.

These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine, and may result in praise and glory and honor to Jesus.

And though you've not seen him, you love him, and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your soul, if you're going to allow your faith to be challenged.

Remember, we have an appointment with God, not a disappointment with God.

God will come to our aid and show up suddenly.

One day is a lot to us, but it's not much to God.

We can't allow ourselves to stagger at the promises of God through unbelief.

Abraham was strong in faith, and he kept on giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that what he promised he was able to do.

So listen, it's a good fight of faith that we're in right now.

Real faith believes that God will perform his word and his will in his way in his time.

Real faith is allowing God to be God during apparent times or seasons of contradiction.

People say, well, Christianity is a contradicting faith.

Well, I must admit that's probably true.

The lower you get, the higher you are with God.

It's kind of a weird thing.

If you humble yourself, it'll exalt you.

If you give, it'll be returned to you.

That's weird.

But it's kingdom thinking.

It's the way heaven operates.

We operate by giving away, and God gives back.

Pressed down, shaken together, running over.

Right?

Luke 6, 38.

But real faith believes in the midst of those apparent contradictions that God's gonna show up.

And I'm not gonna let go of God.

Real faith is not seeing, not understanding, not feeling, not knowing, but still trusting.

Can I say that to you again?

Love you.

Can I say this to you again?

You gotta hear this deep in your soul this morning, okay?

Real faith is not seeing, not understanding, not feeling, not knowing, but still trusting.

Many of God's uh kids have faced what theologians call the dark seasons of the soul, where you're trying to figure stuff out.

And Chuck Misler made the statement, he said, those dark seasons of the soul are not ordinary trials, but they're specific transition times when God moves us from us away from depending upon ourselves to depending totally upon Him.

They are seasons when He strengthens our faith and teaches us to walk by the Spirit.

They are God-designed seasons.

There's no apparent disobedience.

Isaiah said, Who is it among you that fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant and yet walks in darkness?

And for them there's no light.

Many of God's people go through those times.

We try to figure life out.

Those night seasons are unique in that heaven seems silent.

And we call and call and knock and knock, and there doesn't seem to be an answer.

They're also unique in that God deprives us of our natural light, of how we've actually lived our lives up to this point.

We go, it's always worked living my life this way, and all of a sudden God takes us into a totally different paradigm.

And we go, whoa, I've never been here before.

I've never walked this walk before.

But it's in those times that God levels the mountains and God fills the valleys and God makes the crooked straight.

That's in those times.

There's something solid that begins to shift our lives.

And so we say thank you, Lord, for those difficult seasons.

Thank you, Lord, for those difficult seasons.

But I'm also convinced, and this brings me to my last point here with you this morning, that discouragement is the greatest weapon that the enemy can have on the table.

Take every other weapon off the table and leave one weapon.

And he will always choose discouragement.

Take your heart and try to break it.

Take your faith and try to try to reshape it.

It just never feels good to feel down.

And there are times that we go through times where we just don't feel we have the courage to go forward.

We're discouraged, disheartened, dispirited.

It speaks of a loss of the will to go on or to keep on putting one foot in front of the other.

And many of you can attest to the difficulty of getting up when your get up and go is gone.

To go on when everything inside you tells you to quit, to stay down for the eight count.

But that's not how God has actually given us DNA.

The genetic design of God in us is though I fall seven times I will.

Why?

Because we have resurrection power in us.

Did you know that?

You have resurrection power in you?

Do you know that?

Do you actually know that?

You experienced crucifixion power.

You were crucified with Christ.

You died.

Stuff happened.

Things were changed.

The past is gone.

Amen.

You saw crucifixion power.

Do you understand resurrection power?

Where God takes your life in the midst when everything's dead, when it feels like nothing.

Can these bones live?

Can these bones live?

And you know, the modern 21st century church goes, I don't know.

But that's not the ekklesia.

That's not the Church of Jesus Christ that says if God's in the picture, these bones can live.

And all we have to do is speak some life to those things that look dead and see them come alive by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

So the Bible says this in the Greek word is the word parakelia, which means to call to one's side, to comfort, to console, or strengthen.

And that's what we have the paraclete, the Holy Spirit, who comes alongside and encourages us when we need encouragement.

So are there times for you to pray to the God of encouragement, the Paraclete?

So by name you go Paraclete, Holy Spirit, comforter, encourager, the one who comes alongside me and lifts me up and helps me when I feel like I can't go on, who carries me when I can't walk.

Paraclete, come and be my encouragement.

And the God of all comfort comes.

The God of all encouragement comes.

And he encourages you on the depth of the inside of you and enables you to stand when you wanted to fall.

Who needs encouragement?

Your leaders need encouragement.

Your leaders need encouragement.

There's a scripture in uh in Deuteronomy.

Did I tell you I was going to be finished?

Shortly.

Deuteronomy 138.

Moses instructs the people and says, encourage and strengthen Joshua, for he shall cause Israel to inherit the land.

It's really important that you encourage your leaders.

I spoke a word about encouragement down there, and immediately encouragement began to manifest as they began to just think about ways that they could encourage their leaders.

The second is we need to encourage one another.

We need to encourage one another.

Don't discourage one another, don't put each other down, don't criticize, don't judge, don't don't add to the burden that people are carrying.

Lift, come under them and lift them up with a where with a word.

When I was going through some pretty challenging times with my with my cough, and I did not know what was going on.

She said, she wrote this word to me.

I'm trying to figure it out is a long word.

I won't go into it all.

But I I got this long text from her, and she said, Mighty man of God, the Lord shall be your rearguard.

Don't be afraid, for he is with you.

You shall not be overcome by this.

His name shall remain mighty in you, his wonders to perform.

Look up and see the mighty hand of God will come and protect you against all of the intent of the enemy.

Sword of the Spirit will break in pieces every evil strategy of the enemy, and I speak a creative miracle over those lungs now in the mighty name of Jesus.

It just went on and on and on, right?

I still have it here.

I didn't delete that one.

I I read that, right?

I needed that encouragement to face what was happening in my body.

You need encouragement.

And as much as we see the day of the Lord coming, we need to encourage one another.

So I would encourage you over the next month of your life.

Say, I'm going to make it a discipline of my life to encourage everyone that I have a chance to meet.

Amen?

And you might you know what the Bible says?

If you sow that kind of encouragement, you know what's going to happen?

It's coming back on you.

And you know what's going to come back on you?

When you absolutely need it to come back on you.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

And everyone said, Amen.

God bless you.

Thank you so much this morning.