I am Discouraged, God is Peace | Joe Prosepio

I don't know if any of y'all ever seen Pastor Jake have to drag his own table.

Just kidding, I told him I'd do it.

I get to ask the dumbest question ever conceived from a church stage.

Have you ever been discouraged?

I see some nods.

Okay, that's fine.

I'll assume most of us in here have felt discouragement.

Because discouragement might look a little bit like, man, I really want a chicken sandwich, and you drive 20 minutes to Chick-fil-A, and then you're like, oh, it's Sunday.

No Chick-fil-A sandwich.

Or maybe you go to Crumble because they finally have your favorite cookie for like the six minutes before they change cookie recipes, and then you realize it's the new week and they have like nasty coffee walnut cookie, and you're like, ugh, maybe maybe maybe your favorite team placed on your birthday, and they just get completely demolished by the San Diego Padres.

Discouraged.

But worst is showing up on your birthday as a school principal in the sweetest, kindest, cutest little four-year-old girl walks up to you in the morning and goes, Good morning, Mr.

P.

Hi, good morning, sweetheart.

Happy birthday.

Oh, thank you, sweetheart.

That was super nice.

So what happened at the game last night?

Yeah.

Discouraged.

Discouraged means having lost confidence, hope, or enthusiasm because difficulties, criticism, or lack of progress.

Discouraged means having lost confidence, hope, or enthusiasm because of difficulties, criticism, and a lack of progress.

That's a pretty big range because it could be a chicken sandwich.

It could be your team loses.

It could be something that they're like, man, I'm just feeling really discouraged on Tuesday, but by Friday, you're not even really thinking about it, right?

Sometimes discouraged is not super cute.

Sometimes it's not very short.

Sometimes it's your car breaks down when you're trying to get to that fourth job interview.

Sometimes it's because your marriage is struggling.

Sometimes it's because you're fighting cancer for five years.

And yet we use the same word.

I'm feeling discouraged, a loss of hope.

Maybe your story is similar to what my family went through that began in March of 2016.

A phone call from my son Nathan's high school that he had gone unconscious in class and apparently had OD'd on some synthetic drug at that time.

A call that took our family down a really dark and terrible path.

Folks, today I don't really have enough time to pull punches.

I think we need to go right at it today.

Life is hard.

We live in a broken world.

There is evil, there is an enemy, and discouragement is real.

John 10 10 says, the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.

I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

Period.

But we also see something else in this verse.

Jesus saying something about himself.

I came so that you may have life.

That's God's direction.

Life to the fullest.

Restoration, hope.

But it doesn't mean there's not going to be deep waters or fire along the way.

But it's often hard to find that when we're in it, isn't it?

But it kind of starts with this your first slide, Philanth.

God never promised a life without hardship.

He promised I would never face it alone.

I remember I was getting baptized about 25, 26 years ago, and my pastor was excited, and he said, Man, I'm so excited you're getting baptized.

So now get ready for the hardest year of your life.

And I'm like, that's not very encouraging.

And he said, You've chosen a side publicly.

There's an enemy, and the enemy comes to steal and kill and destroy.

And now you're saying you've chosen a side.

But God said, You're not going to do it alone.

That's a very different promise.

Not that there'll be no fire, not that there'll be no deep waters, but you won't be alone in it.

Isaiah 43, 2 says, When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.

And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be burnt.

The flames will not set you ablaze.

Notice the word when.

And not only is God with us in it, he has felt it.

Jesus has felt fear and anxiety before the crucifixion.

He's felt the anguish and loss of losing friends.

And he's certainly felt discouragement of being denied and betrayed by people who said they loved him.

This leads the next fill-in.

The fire isn't evidence God has abandoned us.

God is watching us carefully in the fire.

Scripture teaches us that God can actually do something in us or for our world through the difficult seasons.

In James, he talks about trials producing perseverance.

In Romans, Paul talks about suffering eventually producing character and hope.

And as Christians, we are like, yes, Lord.

That's fantastic in theory on Sunday.

Then Tuesday shows up and the fire shows up.

And then we're like, whoa, hey.

I thought we were just kind of like singing.

I didn't know you really meant that.

Because we want a stronger faith.

We want perseverance.

We want character.

We want to become more like Jesus.

And we're going to even sing, I want to be tried by fire.

I'm not going to sing.

Yes, God, refine me.

Sunday, it's wonderful.

But then Tuesday shows up, and when the fire shows up, what do we ask?

Why are you doing this to me?

Where are you?

Everybody wants to be refined.

No one wants to be in the fire.

It's not a comfortable place to be.

Malachi 3.3 says, He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver.

There's this great old like story that goes along with this verse.

You may have seen it or heard it.

A group of ladies were in their Bible study, and this passage came up, Malachi 3.3.

And one woman was like, Man, I just don't understand anything about purifying silver.

So she made an appointment to go see a silversmith.

And she went in and she said, Hey, can you tell me a little bit about this?

And the silversmith took a little piece of fire and he dropped it right here in the hottest part of the fire.

And he explained that the heat burned off all the impurities out of the silver.

And she immediately thought, he will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver.

So she said, So do you have to sit here the whole time that the silver's in the fire?

He said, Yep.

Yeah, I have to sit here.

I have to remain here and I have to keep my eyes on it the entire time so that I could take it out right at the exact moment it is perfectly refined.

If the silver remains in the fire too long, it could be completely destroyed.

And if I leave it in there too short, it's not going to be pure enough and it could crack or break or not be formed correctly.

So she sat quietly for a second and then she said, one quinal question.

How do you know when the silver is then fully refined?

He smiled and he said, That's easy.

Because I will see my image reflected in it.

Man, I love that.

The refiner doesn't throw the silver into the fire and walk away and then come back and take it out when it's done.

He sits with it, he watches it, his eyes never leave it, and eventually his image will appear in it.

Again, I'm not saying that all these terrible things are sent by God or that God makes them happen.

Pain is not good.

Addiction is not good.

Cancer is not good.

Abuse isn't good.

These are the results of our broken world and the thief that's trying to steal and destroy it.

But I do believe God doesn't cause our pain, but He doesn't waste it either.

God can shape us through it, God can meet us in it.

And sometimes things are formed in the fire and refined that could not have been formed or refined anywhere else.

That's much easier for me to talk about today because there was a time I wasn't standing outside the fire, kind of looking at the fire.

There was a time when my family was straight in the flames.

When that call came in from my son's high school, he was a freshman, had been in band, he had played football.

Life wasn't perfect, but things were moving along.

We had absolutely no idea that phone call would begin roughly five years of what we are calling today discouragement.

And that's a pretty significant understatement.

Now I can't tell you the whole story today, mainly because you probably honestly just wouldn't believe it.

You'd be like, this is a terrible movie script.

None of us believe all of this stuff could have possibly happened to the same family within a five-year time frame.

Just don't have enough time.

But I'm going to give you a little bit of a glimpse.

And as I share what those years look like for my family, maybe you've had a season like this.

This isn't about comparison, but it's about connection.

Your details might look a little different than ours.

Maybe it's something with your child, maybe your marriage or your health.

Maybe it's something someone you loved went through.

But you should know what it feels like to be in it.

Most of us do.

So whatever it is, I'm just gonna say, like, can we just sit in that moment for a sec?

Let's just, I know, but it's a safe place.

We're in community.

Try to sit in that place in that moment where you are like, God, where are you in this?

For my family, it looked in no particular order, chronological or otherwise.

Multiple different high school changes, including a stint to try to stay home and do school at home, constantly searching our own home for drugs and drug paraphernalia, a few arrests, pickups at the police station, multiple court dates, two different stays in rehab, one as a juvenile, one as an adult.

Wondering if our home would ever feel like a safe place ever again.

Could I ever stop wondering who's in that car down at the end of the drive that's just sitting there running?

Why are they just sitting there?

35150 suicide cycleds, a police helicopter and a highway overpass, discovery of an illegal shotgun in my son's possession, our home being broken into more than one time, the impounding of one of our vehicles by the customs and border patrol because he was carrying illegal immigrants over the border to pay off a debt.

There were times we had to send our daughter out of the house to stay elsewhere because we weren't sure who might show up at the house or what might happen if they did, and the trauma that created in her.

Feeling discouraged does not mean you've lost your faith.

Sometimes faith looks strong, sometimes faith is worshiping, hand raised, walking in.

God, you got this.

Yes.

Sometimes faith is not impressive at all.

Sometimes faith is sitting on the edge of your bed at two o'clock in the morning with your head in your hand saying, God, help.

I don't know what else to do.

That's faith, too.

Psalm 34, 18 says, The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.

I love it.

It doesn't say God is super disappointed with the brokenhearted.

Hey, God's way over here waiting for you to get your stuff together.

I'm with you.

I'm close to the brokenhearted.

He's close.

You know, looking back today, I can see things I couldn't have seen then.

But I'll tell you what, when we were in it, if someone were to walk over to me and go, don't worry, Joe, God's just building character in you, probably would not have responded super spiritually.

Because to be honest, I didn't want to watch my wife and daughter being refined anymore.

I wanted to figure out how to drag them out of their fire.

And I couldn't.

I didn't want perseverance.

I wanted my phone to stop ringing.

And I sure as heck didn't want character.

I wanted my son back.

There are parts of our family today that were refined during those years.

And it's not something we would have chosen, but it's the way God works sometimes.

It developed a new hope that God would work through my wife and I's marriage and what we endured through all that, and that we could help other couples, a hope that my faith and the faith of my bride could be rebuilt.

It produced a healing relationship between my children and the hope that their future has now that's stronger than ever.

It changed how I offer hope when I see students and kids hurting.

It changed how my wife and I encourage parents whose kids are struggling and hurting.

It doesn't mean that what happened is good.

It means good can come into the broken world when we align with the hope of God.

It means my circumstances don't determine my hope.

God is my hope.

Now, some of you are thinking, we just had the pretty babies up here.

I brought grandma, and this is what she's got to hear.

She doesn't even come to this church.

Joe, couldn't you have said something?

Yeah, we're talking about hope.

That's exactly why we're talking about this during baby dedications.

Because I didn't hear Corey up here saying, Don't worry, families, we're praying, but everything's gonna be wonderful.

Don't even worry about it.

You're good.

You prayed here today, we're good, not the problem.

No, the parents prayed to lead their babies toward the hope in Jesus.

And they're gonna be going through it someday.

We prayed that we would be together with them in it, that we would be a community with them in it.

When it's good and great in graduations and birthdays, we're here for you.

But when they start asking questions and you don't have the answers, we're here for you.

We're praying for you.

We're carrying hope for you, is a community.

Lord knows my wife and I and our family would have never made it through without a community.

Someone to help and carry hope for us.

Here's some recent photos of my family.

It's my son Nathan, my bride.

She's sitting right there in a hat.

And she's gonna be really mad at me later.

You know, my family's not completely out of the fire.

Sorry, I should have said this up ahead.

Um mental health challenges are very real.

And I can say without reservation, an especially nasty weapon of the thief.

It was my birthday last week, and I want to make sure I'm clear about this because I question whether I should share it or not.

Um because this text is not about me.

It's about scraping and clawing and holding on to the hope in God.

My birthday was Wednesday.

This was the first thing I saw in the morning from my son.

Yesterday I was thinking about how blessed I am to have a father I can call on when I need guidance in my life.

It's unfortunately rare.

But by the grace of God, I somehow have that kind of family.

I don't know if he realizes how close about the grace of God he means.

I somehow have that kind of family.

As I've grown up a bit, I've realized how good men like you are kind of rare.

So, man to man, I want to say thank you for choosing to be a good man and a great role model.

You've changed and saved your son's life.

That's the hope in God.

And I know not everyone's story ends this way.

I I get it.

And this is just the result of crawling and scraping and clawing at any bit of a So Jake was reviewing this with me, Pastor Jake, and he said, Well, can't you just give them, like, you know, the three easy steps to get out of discouragement?

Sure, Jake, yeah, thanks.

Why don't you fly over to Ocean and tell me to tell everybody the three easy steps to clearing the discouragement in your life?

All right, I definitely don't have the three easy steps, but there are some very specific things that I did through those years.

And I think maybe I could share some of those with you and maybe they help.

Number one, find joy.

You have to somehow, someday walk through those days of your life and find something.

Maybe it's a sunset, maybe it's something.

Journal it, write it.

I found joy today.

I did something.

Take a picture.

Somehow find joy.

I know you're all staring over here.

I lost you already.

Because you're like, what in the world?

I I journaled on Facebook.

I decided that every day I was going to post hashtag 365 days finding joy.

This is the one that was in the middle of all that.

And it's a note my wife and I found in our kitchen.

Apparently, our son had come home, probably two in the morning at some point, at some point, someday.

And it says, Mom and Dad, thanks for the pizza rolls.

And that was in the darkest of moments where that kid was not thinking of anyone outside himself.

And I said, Not everyone's gonna get this or why it's my joy today, but that's okay.

It was the smiley face that brought the tears.

Or it could just be a dumb little text between you and your wife and your and your daughter, and the daughter says, I'm going off to work, and I'm like, Love you, baby.

Do you want dinner?

And then the wife says, Yes.

Like I wasn't even talking to you.

Or it could be that your cat is guarding an empty wine refrigerator.

I mean, that wine is safe and there's nothing even in there.

You guys remember the Monopoly Vaughn's Monopoly?

And you stood there like for like 18 hours ripping open the tiny little packets and finally like, I won five bucks.

I just made like a nickel an hour.

So maybe it's just something silly.

But boy, when you're in it, you need to train yourself to just pop.

Wow, look at that sunset.

I'm miserable, but like that that at least made me smile today.

Number two, deliberately connect.

Did I say that twice?

That's the first time I noticed that.

That's grammatical error.

Deliberately connect to the presence of God.

For me, it was in worship.

I can't sing a lick, I can't play music, but I can hit play on Spotify.

For me, it was worship.

For me, the songs Rattle, Reckless Love, and Oceans were just constant on my playlist.

I focused on the truths in the lyrics.

I focused when I could on like you call me out upon the waters.

Your grace abounds in deepest waters.

Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders.

Find a way to deliberately connect yourself with the words of God.

If it's reading for you, then read.

If it's small groups for you, then get in a small group and stay connected.

If it's just reading the Bible, then read the Bible.

But whatever it is, try deliberately to stay connected to that truth about God's hope.

And last, get help.

Get help.

You have a community.

Resist the urge to hide.

You want to hide.

You want to just be away.

You don't want anyone to see because the perfection isn't there.

Resist that urge and get help.

My wife and I needed professional help.

We got therapy, not because our marriage was in any kind of danger.

It's because we were dealing with some stuff.

Coming at it from two different experiences, coming at it with two different education, growing through it and seeing all that stuff different, trying to support our son, our daughter in two different ways.

We gotta get help.

Stay connected.

Find people to pray for you and get help.

Now, as a quick side note, I'm gonna invite the band can start coming up.

If you're not in the fire right now, I still suggest these.

Practice.

Because remember, it's if not when.

So maybe practice finding joy throughout your day so that when those fires come, you are ready to be like, ooh, at least I've trained my eyes how to find the joy.

Or I've practiced connecting deliberately to the hope in God.

Because the fire will come.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

And Jesus says, I've come that they may have life and have it to the full.

That is hope.

You know, during those dark years, I always took to calling Nathan my son.

In every text, every single note, every time I wrote a conversation or called him, I said, my son.

It was the clearest message of hope I got in those years.

Always remind him of his identity and he will return to it.

No matter what had happened, it wasn't, oh, he's just the problem.

He's just the disappointment.

He was our son.

Of course, there's consequences and boundaries.

There were times he couldn't live in our home.

There are times I shoved him out the front door in tears myself.

But none of those things changed his identity.

He was still my son.

And somewhere along the way, I started understanding God's love differently.

I can be discouraged.

I can fail.

I can wander and make a mess of everything.

I could sit in the fire and scream, God, where are you?

And you know what?

He still calls me his son.

I'm gonna take a quick moment to speak to just the men.

Sorry, ladies, but to the men.

Maybe you didn't have a father that called you his son.

But you have a father and you are his son.

You have an identity in God and you are his son, an heir to the kingdom of heaven.

Step into that identity today.

Maybe you're not where we are in our story.

Maybe you're not looking back.

Maybe you're still in the fire.

Maybe you're angry, exhausted.

Maybe you can't see what God's doing.

Maybe you're just discouraged.

I don't know how your story's gonna end.

I can remind you what God promised.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.

So we're gonna sing a couple of songs.

If you need to stand, stand.

If you need to sit or kneel, sit or kneel.

If you need to use the aisles, use the aisles.

If we shook something loose and you really just need prayer during these next songs, please come up.

We'll have people that'll just at least stand by you or pray over you during the songs.

And during these next two songs, I want you to do something super simple.

Not easy.

Very simple.

Be honest with God.

Be honest with yourself.

He knows anyway.

If you're in a good season, thank him for the good season.

If you've gotten through it, praise him for getting through it.

But if you're in it, if you're in the fire, tell him I'm in it, I'm in the fire right now.

If you're angry, tell him.

If you're scared, tell him.

If you're discouraged, tell him.

And if all you have today is God, I'm at least still here, that's faith.

And God can restore your hope.