Rick Warren - When You Feel Like Giving Up

Happy Juneteenth today. So we now have a new holiday, finally.

I want to say happy first day of summer. And see,

happy Juneteenth, happy Father's Day, happy first day of summer. Oh, yeah.

And to my babalicious wife, happy 47th anniversary. I never

forget our anniversary because it's on the first day of summer.

So that means we got married on the longest day

of the year and the shortest night. Why didn't I

get married December 21st, the longest night of the year

and the shortest day? I don't know. I didn't think

about that. Pull out your message notes, everybody. Did you

get your lemonade? I got my lemonade. Your life is

not a 50-yard dash. The goal is not to get

to the end as quickly as you can. Instead, your

life is a marathon. The goal is to go through

it pacing. Instead, the goal should be to pace yourself

and do the right things so that you make it

all the way to the finish line, standing. Now, sadly,

a lot of people, friends, they shrivel up inside and

they die before they die. They never experience what it

feels like to really be alive. Connected to God. As

I said, they die before they die. I don't want

that to happen to you. I love you too much.

And as your pastor who loves you, it is my

job to make sure that doesn't happen to you. That

in the marathon of life, which is a long journey,

you make it to the finish line standing. Now, if

you've ever watched a marathon, you know that the starting

point is always very crowded, right? There's a ton of

people at the starting line. But as the race progresses,

the crowd thins out. And longer the race grows, there's

more space between the runners, and many, many people drop out,

and they don't make it to the finish line. One

of my goals as your pastor is to help you

finish the race that God has called you to run...

and that you not just finish it, but you finish well.

I want you to finish well. I'm gonna finish well

by God's grace in the race that God has called me. Now,

if you're gonna make it all the way to the

finish line in your life, you're gonna have to build

some character qualities, Christ-like qualities, such as endurance and resilience

and balance and pacing You're going to have to learn

these skills. You know, a lot of people start off

great in life, but even before they get to the

halfway point in their life, they've already really messed it

up and they've given up, which is worse than messing up.

Let me say it again. Giving up is always worse

than messing up. Everybody messes up. Why do people give

up in the marathon of their lives? Because they got discouraged. Now,

discouragement is a deadly disease. It is a deadly disease.

Discouragement will sap your energy. It will blur your focus.

It will distort reality. You don't see things clearly when

you're discouraged. You don't see things as they really are.

And it kills your motivation. The problem with discouragement is

it's also highly contagious, right? You get around a group

of discouraged people, you'll get discouraged. You get around a

bunch of negative people, you're listening to discouraging voices in

the media all the time, then you're going to be

discouraged too about life and about the future. That's why

today I want to show you what God says in

his word, in this book of Nehemiah that we're going through,

what to do when you feel like giving up. What

do you do when you feel like giving up? I

hope you don't need this right now. You might. You

might be in the middle of something that's discouraging you

right now. But you're going to need this message someday.

So I highly encourage you to take notes. When you

feel like you're giving up, in our series through the

book of Nehemiah, we now come to the second part

of chapter 4. And this story illustrates that we're going

to look at today both the four common causes, four

reasons people get discouraged. and it also gives us the cure,

God's step, God's steps for getting out of discouragement. Now

let me read the passage, and then we'll draw out

the lessons for defeating discouragement, okay? Now, if you've been

following this series, you know the background of this story,

if you've been with us in the past weeks, that

the nation of Israel was conquered by the Babylonian Empire,

and most of the people in Israel were taken as

prisoners of war to another country. For 70 years, they're

held captive. And finally, when the Persians beat the Babylonians

and they take over, King Cyrus allows them, the Jews,

to go back to their homeland 70 years later. When

they get home to Israel and they get home to

Jerusalem to find everything's been destroyed. Their homes, the city,

the temple, the walls, everything. And they're living among the

ruins and rubble of a bombed out or destroyed city.

So this book, Nehemiah, is written to discourage people. They

were very discouraged. But then God puts a dream in

the heart of a guy named Nehemiah. And he says, Nehemiah,

I want you to go back to Jerusalem and I

want you to rebuild the wall around the city for

the protection of of all the residents from the enemies,

because a lot of people didn't like the Jews. So

they go back, and as we've already seen so far,

they started rebuilding this wall. And now, today in this story,

we get to the point that they've built the wall

up halfway to what its original height was. But at

the halfway point, they get discouraged. They get discouraged. The

initial enthusiasm wears off. The people start feeling tired and

a bunch of stuff, and they want to give up.

And we find that story in Nehemiah chapter four. Look

at the top of your outline or up here on

the screen. It says this. So the people quickly rebuilt

the first half of the wall around Jerusalem until it

reached half its height. Now I want you to circle

half its height. We'll come back to that. Because they

worked hard, They worked hard with all their heart. But then,

he's talking about our enemies, heard how Jerusalem's walls were

being repaired and all the gaps were being closed, and

they became very angry and plotted to attack Jerusalem together

and create some confusion to stop the progress, the progress

of building the wall. So we prayed to God for

protection and posted 24-hour guards to protect the workers. But

then the people began to complain. They said... We're tired.

We're tired and we're worn out. Besides that, there's so

much rubble and trash to be removed. We now realize

we can't do this. We can't finish this wall. Oh,

and by the way, also our enemies are now threatening us.

They're saying, before you know it, or even see us,

we'll be among you to kill you and end the work. Then,

Those who lived closest to our enemies kept reporting, literally

over 10 times they told us, that our enemies kept saying,

we're going to attack you from every direction. Now this

brief little story that I just read is packed, just

packed with powerful insights that you're going to need to

finish your race, the marathon of your life. Powerful insights

that you need to finish well in life. And this,

what I just read, illustrates the four most common causes

that would keep you from finishing well in your life.

Four most common causes. And they all model for us

the four things God wants us to do that Nehemiah

did that helped people get out of their discouragement and

get the job done. Anytime you're hit with a bout

of discouragement, you're going to need to come back to

this message that we're talking about today. But first, as

I said, I hope you circle that phrase half its height.

Notice that these people got discouraged halfway through the project.

That's typical. Discouragement always strikes at the midpoint of anything

you're doing. You have enthusiasm at the start. when you

can see you're getting ready to start, and you have

enthusiasm at the end when you can see the finish line.

It's in that middle part where you can't see the

beginning or the end. That's discouraging. That's true in life.

It's true in your career. It's true in parenting. It's

true in marriage and any other. When you're halfway up

a mountain, you go, do I really want to go

all the way to the top? I'm tired already, and

then I've got to come back down. If you're halfway

through the school year, as a teacher or a student.

if you're halfway through your marriage if you're in the

middle of anything that's when you're most likely to get

discouraged not at the beginning you got a lot of

enthusiasm the first day of a diet okay okay there's

no no more false hope than the first day of

a diet Okay, and you actually feel pretty good when

you can see the end. Look, I'm only five pounds away.

It's in the middle part that you get discouraged. Now,

if you're in the middle of anything right now, it

would not surprise me if you felt like giving up.

You know, they don't call it the midlife crisis for nothing.

Not the beginnings, not the end. It's in the middle.

So let's look at the four things that typically discourage

you and then see God's cures for your discouragement in Nehemiah.

All right, here we go. Number one, the most common

reason that you get discouraged is this, write it down, fatigue. Fatigue.

The number one cause of discouragement is emotional or physical exhaustion.

You simply run out of energy. Notice verse 11. Then

the people of Judah began to complain that the workers

were becoming Tired. Circle that word, tired. Fatigue is the

first cause of discouragement. You don't think straight when you're tired,

when you haven't slept, when you're worn out, when you're weary,

when you're wasted. Rebuilding anything, of course, is exhausting. It's

harder than building. Rebuilding is harder than building. These wall

builders had worked hard on the first half of the project,

but now they're weary and they're worn out. and they're

worn out and they're worn down. I love this. This

verse actually in the message paraphrase, he translates the word

they were pooped. Probably the first time pooped is in

the Bible there in that verse right there. They were pooped. Now, friends,

if you don't get anything else, get this. Sometime the

most spiritual thing you can do is get in bed

and go to sleep. You just need the rest. You

need the rest because fatigue will make you discouraged. All right?

Studies tell us that Americans are the most sleep-deprived people

on the planet. And that wouldn't surprise me if that's

probably true for much of the developed world. Vince Lombardi said,

fatigue makes cowards of all of us. Have you noticed

how much better things look after you've had a good

night's sleep? Your problems just don't seem as bad when

you've had some sleep. Now, look at these verses. Look

at this next verse here. It says in Deuteronomy 25,

Deuteronomy 25:18

verse 18, never forget how the Amalekites attacked you when

you were, read it with me, exhausted and weary. And

they struck down those who began to lag behind. Okay?

This is a spiritual principle here. You're attacked when you're

exhausted and weary. You get struck down when you start

lagging behind. Why? Because you're tired. You're worn out. Now,

I want everybody to write this down. Write this down.

Expect attacks anytime I'm exhausted. I'm just giving you some fatherly,

brotherly advice. Expect attacks anytime Anytime I'm exhausted. That's what

happened here. The people got worn out. Now, it may

be attack of doubt when you're tired. You are more

vulnerable to temptation when you're tired. It may be an

attack of temptation. It may be attack of anger. You

get more irritable when you're tired. It may be attack

of discouragement. It may be attack of self-pity. Everybody hates me.

Nobody loves me. I'm gonna go eat worms. Poor me.

You have a pity party for me, myself, and I,

and you're the only person you invite to it. What

I'm saying is that you need to be aware that

fatigue makes you vulnerable to discouragement. Okay, second cause, frustration.

Frustration is the second major cause of discouragement, and we

see that in the next verse. When you can't seem

to get ahead, when the project that you're working on

is more complex than you thought it was going to be.

When the stakes are longer and higher than you expected,

and it takes longer. And when you have problems that

you can't solve, when you feel like you're always behind

and you can never catch up. Have you ever felt

like that? Yeah? Yeah. Anybody identifying with this five or

six things I just said? Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you

get that kind of frustration in your life, you're gonna

be a sucker for discouragement, fatigue, and frustration. Have you

ever tried to clean out your closet or your files,

and you pull them all out, and you gotta lay

them on the floor, and then there's so many decisions

to make, you get so discouraged, you just throw them

all back in the cabinet. Throw it all back in

the closet. You go, it's too much, okay. You get

so frustrated just trying to decide Do I keep it?

Do I toss it? Okay, you know years ago um

The foundation of our home cracked And we had to

tear down literally much of our house One of our

walls was actually coming loose from the roof and from

the foundation And we had to tear down much of

the house and rebuild it and it took a year

to rebuild that um Now, that was not frustrating to

me just because it took that long, but it was

also frustrating to me because of all the piles of

trash and junk. that piled up everywhere during the rebuilding time.

There were broken bricks everywhere, along with broken pipes everywhere,

and pieces of lumber everywhere, and broken wires and things,

just lined up, and a permanent porta potty, proudly stationed

by our mailbox for one year. So every time you

went out to the mailbox, you got the Mira Loma aroma, okay?

cows in the field or whatever the fact is anytime

you rebuild something friends you're going to have debris anytime

you rebuild there's going to be rubble rubbish trash debris

and debris in your life causes discouragement it happens in

this story look at the next verse verse 10 It says,

in addition to the fact that everybody was tired, it

says in verse 10, the second part, besides that, there

was so much rubble and trash to be removed. So

they're all discouraged by the pile of broken stuff laying

around them. Rubble in your life will discourage you. I'm

just telling you right now. So what's the rubble in

my life? Write this down. Rubble is the broken stuff

I keep tripping over. Rubble is the broken stuff in

my life that I keep tripping over. There's physical rubble,

bricks and trash and broken stuff, but there's also emotional rubble,

relational rubble, financial rubble, bad rubble from decisions that were

bad in my life. Rubble will always be a part

of your life. Why? Why? Because in a world where

everything is broken, and everything on this planet is broken,

you can't avoid rubble. Now, this kind of stuff is

what causes frustration. You get too much rubble in your life,

you get frustrated. Unmanaged rubble wastes your time. Unmanaged rubble

zaps your energy. Unmanaged rubble keeps you from moving forward.

Unmanaged rubble in your life causes conflict. Unmanaged rubble not

only frustrates you, the broken stuff in your life that

you keep tripping over, it not only frustrates you, it

frustrates everybody else too. This was the second reason. Besides that,

there was so much rubble and trash to be removed. Remember,

they're living in ruins. And they're going, we're never gonna

get this place cleaned up. We're never gonna get it organized.

We're not even gonna, now what they don't realize is

that God builds the wall from the rubble in our life.

They're literally taking the broken pieces and putting them back

together and making the wall. And the stuff that you

trip over is often the stuff that God wants to

build your life with. So let me give you right now,

I know I didn't get much space on the outline.

Let me give you three rules of rubble removal in

your life. Here's the first one. I must continually clean

it out of my life. I must continually be on vigilantly,

vigilantly be on guard to clean out the broken stuff

in my life that keeps tripping me up. It's a

never ending task. You will never clear out all the

rubble in your life until you get to heaven. But

it's one of the things God wants you to do.

I have to continually be vigilant cleaning out the broken

things in my life, or I'm going to trip all

over them, and I'm not going to make it to

the finish line. Second rule of rubble removal is, if

I don't deal with it, it'll take over my life.

Your weaknesses... are not just weaknesses. They are the thing

that will keep you from God's purpose in your life

if you let them. I don't know if you've noticed

this or not, but I'll give you a little secret.

I have discovered that trash multiplies when you're not watching.

Have you noticed that? Where'd that pile come from? Trash

multiplies when you're not looking. What is rubble? Rubble is

a sign that you're neglecting something. When the dishes pile

up or the clothes pile up or anything else piles up,

magazines pile up, it means you're neglecting something. So I

have to continue to clean it out of my life,

and if I don't deal with it, it'll take over

my life. The third thing, rule, is that I can't,

this is important, I can't always see my rubble, but

others do. Hello. Hello. You can't always see the broken

stuff in your life that keeps tripping you up. But

everybody else can see it. That's why we need each other.

I have rubble in my life. I don't even know

that it's rubble. I might think it's a trophy. Or

valuable property. No, no. So if I can't always see

the rubble in my life, but everybody else can, it

just means I need to be humble. about the broken

places in my life, and so do you. So what

do you do with this frustration? You know, we said

fatigue makes you discouraged, and rubble piled up in your life,

the stuff that, the trivia that takes up all your

time and energy and effort and, you know, all your attention.

When you're frustrated by rubble, pray this next verse, Psalm 25,

Psalms 25:16

verse 16. It says this,' Come, Lord, and show me

your mercy.' Come, Lord, and show me your mercy, for

I feel helpless, overwhelmed, and in deep distress. That might

be a verse you put on a card and memorize,

because you may not need it now, but you will

at some point. Help me, show me your mercy, for

I feel helpless, overwhelmed, and in deep distress. Now, there's

a third common cause of discouragement, and here it is. Fatigue, frustration,

the third cause is distress. Feeling that I'm failing. Feeling

that I am failing. When you allow the feeling of

failure to well up in your life, you're going to

get discouraged. This is the third thing that caused them

to get discouraged in Nehemiah's story. It's the third thing

that's going to happen in your life. What does it

mean when I feel that I'm failing? Well, it's that

sensation that I've bitten off more than I could chew.

That this project that I have accepted is gonna take

me down. When you feel like you're failing, you throw

up your hands and you say, maybe secretly, I can't

take this anymore. I can't do this anymore. That is

a feeling that I'm failing. Now, at the halfway point,

when they're building, they're tired, there's rubble, and then the

third thing, it says in verse 10, the third part

of the verse, We now realize, we now realize, this

is the workers, that we cannot, not will not, cannot

finish this wall. What are they doing? They're feeling like failures.

They're feeling incompetent. They're feeling like we should have never

even started this project. They felt defeated. In fact, the

New American Bible says we'll never be able to finish it.

The person who says I can and the person who

says I can't, they're both right. Because if you say

I can't do it, guess what? You can't. But they're

feeling defeated and they're probably feeling ashamed. There's probably a

little bit of shame mixed in here. We started this

project so well to build the wall around Jerusalem and

now we're tired and we're worn out and there's so

much junk around everywhere. It's just too crowded and too complex.

There's no way we're going to get this thing done

What happened? They got the feeling of failure. Feeling like

they're failing. What happened? Well, because rebuilding the city wall

was taking longer than they expected. So what happened? They

lost their confidence and they doubted their competence. They lost

their confidence and they doubted their competence. And they said,

who were we to think we could do this project?

Who were we to even attempt This dream that's probably

going to happen to you at some point in your

life You got a great dream and at some point

the devil's whispers in your who do you think you are?

Attempting to do this wrong question You should build your

life Not on what you think you can do but

what you think god can do You let the size

of your god determine the size of your goal It's

not about, do you think I would have tried to

do all things I've tried to do in life because

I was depending on me? Not a chance. In my

flesh there dwelleth no good thing. I know that I

can't do certain things. Jesus said, apart from me, you

can do nothing. So that's pretty clear. Now, how do

you react when your plans take longer than expected? When

what you thought was going to be done real quickly

is When you have a project and you go, man,

this has taken me a long time to get through school.

This has taken me a long time to get this

thing built. This has taken me, what do you do?

Do you give in to self-pity? Do you start complaining?

You start blaming other people? Friends, if at first you

don't succeed, you're normal. You're normal, okay? Okay. Nobody succeeds

at first. The only way you actually succeed in life

is by failing a bunch and learning what doesn't work.

Failure is the stepping stone to success. Nobody ever succeeds

without having failures. I don't care if you're Steve Jobs

or anybody. Here's the difference between successful and unsuccessful people.

Successful people see failure as a temporary setback. unsuccessful people

see it as a mark on their character. Well, I'm

a failure. No, nobody succeeds at everything. Nobody has an

unbroken record of success. So the feeling of failure will

cause discouragement. Here's the fourth common discouragement cause, fear. Fear.

So we've got fatigue, we've got frustration, we've got failure,

and now we've got fear. Fear. Now last week we

learned in that message on criticism and ridicule and insults

that there were people who were enemies who didn't want

to rebuild the wall. They didn't want it rebuilt. And

so the enemies of the rebuilding of the wall, it

says first they criticized them. Remember that? They just criticized

the plan. And then they ridiculed the builders. We looked

at that last week. How do you deal with ridicule

and insults? They ridiculed the builders. Now, this week, they've

moved to threatening. They're actually threatening bodily violence. And that's

verse 11. Here's the fourth reason they got discouraged. Also,

our enemies are now threatening us. And they're saying, you know,

before you know it or even see us, we'll be

among you to kill you. And end your work. We're

going to be stealth. We're going to slip up behind

you while you're working on the wall. We're going to

stab you in the back. Now, that's a legitimate reason

to be discouraged. You might die if you keep up

on this project. Okay? But they didn't actually need to

do this because they just scared them and the fear worked.

The fear caused them to stop the work. He scared them.

Fear always, always discourages you. Now I want you to

notice who got discouraged first. Look at the next verse,

verse 12. Then those who lived closest to the enemies

kept reporting over 10 times. They're gossiping this bad news.

Reporting over 10 times that our enemies kept saying, we're

gonna attack you from every direction. Now circle the phrase,

those who lived closest. They are the source of the fear.

If you hang out with negative people and you consistently

listen to them, like negative media all the time, you're

going to become, friend, a fearful person. Some of you,

the best thing you can do is just turn off

the media. It's making you a fearful person. person, a

frightened person, a negative person, a scared person. There's a

lot of good in the world, but you don't see

it if all you're getting is negative, negative, negative, negative,

negative all the time. I wonder what secret fear is

discouraging you right now. So you probably have already figured

out one or more of these have been a problem

in your life. Fatigue, frustration from rubble, failure, feeling of failure,

I can't do this, I can't do it anymore, and fear.

How do I defeat these common enemies that create discouragement

in my life? You do what Nehemiah did. And Nehemiah

did four things that I want you to start working

on this week and for the rest of summer. All right?

Here they are. Let's get right into it. The four

things that you can do to start defeating discouragement and

even being prescriptive, preventative in discouragement that can come. Here's

the first thing you do. The antidote to fatigue is this.

Rest my body. Rest my body. As I said, maybe

the first thing you need to do is simply get

some more sleep than you're getting. Get some more sleep,

rest my body. Psalm 119, 73, you made my body, Lord,

now give me sense to heed your laws. Do you

realize that regular rest is so important? God put it

in the big 10, the 10 commandments. Rest is in

the 10 commandments. It's right up there with don't murder

anybody and don't commit adultery and don't lie and defraud people.

It says every six days you take a day off.

It's called the Sabbath. That's how important rest is. Our

best deserves rest. You can't be the woman or the

man God wants you to be if you're not getting

the proper rest. Look at these verses. You made my body, Lord,

now give me sense to heed your laws. And look

at the next one, Psalm 170, 27, verse 2. It

is useless for you to work so hard from early

morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat.

God gives rest to his loved ones. God doesn't want

you being a workaholic. He doesn't want you working from

early morning to late at night, anxiously. You're doing it

out of worry. He says, God wants you to get

your proper rest. You know, there's a story in 1

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

Kings chapter 19 about this guy named Elijah, a prophet.

And he had just had this big God contest with

pagan leaders and atheists and idolaters and stuff like that.

And he just spent all of his emotional energy. And

he hears that the queen is upset with him and

he runs away and goes and hides in a cave.

And he's so down and he's so discouraged and he's

so depressed and he is the classic case of burnout.

He's a classic case of burnout, Elijah. In fact, he's

so discouraged that he asked God to kill him. He's

one of the three guys in the Bible who actually prayed, God,

just kill me. I want to go on to heaven.

And God's answer to Elijah's depression and discouragement was he

fed him some food and he let him go to sleep.

And then he woke him up, and he fed him

some more, and he sent him back to sleep. Eat

and sleep, eat and sleep, eat and sleep. That might

be a good model for some of you. As I said,

sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is just

go to bed and get some rest. Rest my body.

Number two, second thing Nehemiah did was I need to

reinforce my weak areas. I need to reinforce my weak areas.

What does that mean? It means you honestly assess where

you are most vulnerable. Discover what is the rubble in

my life? What is the weakness in my life? What's

the low point in my life? Where am I most vulnerable?

Am I more vulnerable to anger? Am I more vulnerable

to pride? Am I more vulnerable to lust? Am I

more vulnerable to a compulsion? You need to know what works,

what the devil uses to work on you. What's your

fundamental sin? What's your fundamental temptation? You need to reinforce

your weak areas. Now, the Bible says this in Nehemiah 4.13.

Here's what Nehemiah did. So he heard that they were

gonna be attacked and they were threatening violence. So I

stationed armed guards at the most vulnerable points, circle vulnerable points.

I stationed armed guards at the most vulnerable points of

the wall and not just the vulnerable points, at the

most exposed places. Circle that. I assigned people by families

to protect each other with their swords and their spears

and their bows. Now, notice what he does here. He

checks out. How does he know what are the low spaces?

What are the vulnerable spots? He's been there. He's done

his homework. He knows where the city's vulnerable. He knows

where the exposed parts are. Do you know what's most

exposed in your life that Satan can just ram you?

And he wins every time because it's just an exposed area.

He wins. And he gets you and he goes, got

her again. Got him again. Do you know where you're

most vulnerable? This is the thing. You've got to reinforce

your weak areas. Before you can reinforce them, you've got

to know where they are. Now, notice here, Nehemiah doesn't

give up on the goal. He doesn't, when everybody gets discouraged,

he doesn't say, oh, you're right, guys, we should have

never even tried this. Let's just all go home and

have a TV dinner and, you know, watch the late

night talk shows. No, he goes to work, he says,

we're just gonna do it differently. We're gonna reorganize. We're

gonna reorder. We're gonna do a new strategy. Listen, when

you have a goal, you have a dream, you have

a desire, and you're going after it, you are going

to have opposition, and you are going to have people

who oppose you, and you're going to have discouragement and

doubt and difficulty And even dead ends. You need to

understand this. Discouragement doesn't mean that you're doing the wrong thing.

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

They were doing the right thing, building the wall. They

were just doing it the wrong way. And a lot

of times when we get discouraged, we think, I'm doing

the wrong thing. No, you're doing the right thing. You

should be doing this. God gave you that dream. But

you may be doing it in the wrong way. So

don't give up on the dream God gave you. Instead,

work on your weak areas. Reinforce your weak areas. Keep growing.

Reorganize and reorder where you need to reorganize, reorder, and

where you need to keep going. Are you deep in debt?

Reorganize your budget. Are you out of shape? Reorder your lifestyle.

and your eating patterns. Are you overstressed? Reorganize your time.

You may need to eliminate some things in your life.

You may need to eliminate some things in your schedule.

You may need to clean out the rubble, the clutter,

the trivial time wasters and simplify. Now notice here, there's

an important point. I stationed armed guards at the most

vulnerable points And then at the most exposed places, I

assign people by families. Okay, listen, very important. If you're

going to make it to the finish line in your life,

in the marathon of your life, you're going to finish well,

you're going to need support. I post to them by families.

You need support. The easiest thing in the world for

Satan to do is to discourage a lone ranger Christian

who isn't connected to a small group. If you're not

in a small group or you've stopped going to your

small group or you've stopped meeting, you are more vulnerable

than you realize. You need other people in your life.

You're not going to make it. Satan is too smart.

It's easy to pick off a single person. It's difficult

when you've got other people in a small group supporting you.

Get back in your small group now. We don't have

to wear masks if you're vaccinated. Start meeting instantly. Here's

a good, next verse is a great post-COVID verse. Hebrews 4, 25.

Some people have gotten out of the habit of meeting

with other believers. Well, duh, for a year and a half,

we couldn't do it. Some people... have gotten out of

the habit of meeting with other believers, but we must

not do that. Instead, we should keep on encouraging, circle

that word, each other. What's the antidote of discouragement? Encouragement.

Where do you get encouragement? In your small group. The

antidote to discouragement is encouragement. Where do you get encouragement?

In meeting with other believers. So get back in the habit.

Start it this week. Get your group or start a

new group, whatever. Now, you may be discouraged because you're

trying to handle everything by yourself. When people come up

to me and they start telling me their problem and

they say, you know, I just feel all, it's overwhelming.

My first question is always, are you in a small group?

Are you in a small group? God never meant for

you to go through life on your own. God never

meant for you to run your marathon by yourself. So

I rest my body. I reinforce my weak areas. Here's

the third thing that Nehemiah did. Refocus on God. Refocus

on God. And I love what Nehemiah says in verse

14 because he knows that one of the problems, one

of the causes of their discouragement is fear. And so

in Nehemiah 4.14, he says this. I love this New

Jerusalem Bible. Aware of their anxiety, I stood up and

said to the nobles and the officials and the rest

of the people, do not be afraid of the enemy. Instead,

he's saying, remember the Lord, who is great and awe-inspiring. Now,

what is Nehemiah doing here? He's saying, get your mind

off whatever is discouraging you and remember what God is like.

Refocus on God. He says, remember the Lord. When I'm discouraged,

what am I supposed to remember about the Lord? Well,

you can remember his faithfulness, how he's always helped you

through everything. You can remember his goodness. You can remember

his power. He's omnipotent. He's all powerful. You can remember

that he's with you right now. That he's not distant.

You can remember that he sees everything that goes on

in your life and he cares about you. You can

remember that he has all the power you need. You

don't need to worry about anything. You can remember his

promises to you. This is the third key to overcoming discouragement.

Change the channel of your mind. Stop focusing on what

you don't want and start focusing on what God has

promised to you. Listen, when you're discouraged, it's because you

are choosing to think discouraged thoughts. That's your choice. You

are as discouraged as you want to be and you're

as happy as you want to be. Nobody's holding the

gun to your head. Nobody's saying, you must be discouraged.

You must be discouraged. You're discouraged because you're choosing discouraged thoughts.

How do you get rid of discouragement? Choose to change

your thoughts. Choose to change the channel of your mind.

Don't keep replaying all those discouraging images in your mind. Instead,

remember the Lord. Choose to think about God and His faithfulness,

His love, His mercy, His compassion. Choose to think about

God because your thoughts always determine your feelings. Do you

want to stop being discouraged? then stop thinking the way

you've been thinking. It's stinking thinking. You've been thinking about

all the problems. Stop. You don't have to think about it.

Think about the Lord. Switch the channel. Remember the Lord.

One of my favorite verses when we went through the

series on Jonah, Jonah 2, verse 7. Look at this

Jonah 2:7

verse up here on the screen. It says this. When

I had lost all hope, I turned my thoughts once

more to the Lord. I turned my thoughts once more.

When you've lost all hope, when you're discouraged, you need

to do a re-evaluation. You need to change the channel

of your thoughts. That's what David did. When David got discouraged,

Psalm 119, the next verse, he said, I'm completely discouraged.

Revive me by your word. Stop watching, as I said,

all the negative stuff and get back into this book.

You're spending more time listening to other people than you're

listening to God. God will always tell you the truth.

People won't. Rest my body. Reinforce my weak areas. Refocus

on God when I'm feeling down, when I'm feeling discouraged,

when I'm at the midpoint. Have a midlife crisis or

this is the middle of 2021. We're right at the

halfway point. June. Halfway through the year. Have you gotten

done everything you wanted to do? Have you noticed this

year went faster than last year? Hello. Last year creeped.

This one zoomed by. Reinforce my weak areas. Refocus on God.

And finally, here's the fourth thing Nehemiah did. Resist. Resist

the discouragement. Don't you dare, friend, Give in without a fight.

Fight back. Fight back against your discouragement. Fight back against

the devil. Fight back against those who want to discourage you.

Discouragement is a choice. Now, in the second part of

verse 14, Nehemiah says, I also told him this. He said,

you must fight. Circle that. You must fight. Fight. Let's

resist the discouragement. Fight for your brothers and your sons

and your daughters and your wives and your home. You

will never defeat discouragement by being passive. You have to

fight it. Now, I don't need to say a whole

lot about this, but as believers, we are engaged in

a spiritual battle. And where is that battle fought? Not

out here in the air. It's fought in your mind.

And Satan's two favorite weapons in the battle for your

mind are number one, discouragement, and number two, distraction. Those

are the two biggest things that he will use to

get you off course, to make you not finish your marathon,

to not finish well in the race of life. He'll

use discouragement, and he'll use distraction. D.L. Moody, great pastor

of the last century, actually the 18th century, said, I've

never known God to use a discouraged person. When you

get discouraged, you get set on the shelf. And so

discouragement distractions, he's going to use both these, try it

in your mind, but you can choose to refuse. Jeremy,

you can choose to refuse the discouragement. I give you

permission to not believe every thought you have because some

of the thoughts you have, as I said, they're stinking thinking,

they're wrong. Not everything you tell yourself is true. Not

everything that Satan puts in your mind is true. So

I'm giving you permission to not believe those discouraging thoughts.

This is the difference between ordinary people and great people.

Great people never give up. They never give up. They

keep on in the marathon of life. Even when they're fatigued.

Even when they're frustrated. Even when they feel like failure.

And even when they're fearful. You know, in the second

year of this church, 1981, I went through an entire

year of depression. The entire year, I was discouraged and depressed.

And I was having these brain problems that I've had

all my life, but they were really bad. And I

was filled with frustration and fear and fatigue and and

a feeling of failure. And my goal was not God

build a great church. My goal was God, can I

put one foot in front of the other? And I

would come and teach on Sunday and go home and

get in bed and basically sleep through Monday. I was

a basket case. I really wasn't a good leader. And

you know what kept me going during that year of

depression and discouragement? is I would finish the sermon I

was going to preach on Sunday sometime about Saturday morning.

And every Saturday afternoon for most of that year, I

would get in the car and drive myself down to

Laguna Beach where that bocce ball area is, the cliffs are,

that the old folks play bocce ball. And I would

sit there and I would watch the waves for a

couple hours and it would just calm me down and

it allowed me to pray and to fight and The

fatigue and the frustration and the failure, sense of failure

and the fears. And in that year of sitting there

watching the beach at Laguna Beach every Saturday afternoon, I

learned something. That the tide goes out. But it always

comes back in. The tide goes out. But it always comes.

back in. When the tide is out, the beach is ugly.

It reveals all kinds of junk and driftwood and stuff.

It doesn't look very good when the tide's out, but

it always comes back in. Right now, the tide may

be out in your life. We've just been through a

horrendous year and a half with COVID. And I'm sure

right now that many of you listening to me are

just barely holding on. It's been a rough year. And

I want to tell you, don't give up. Don't, don't, don't,

don't you dare give up. Hold on. In my office,

there is a plaque on the wall that is written

in Hebrew. So nobody knows what it says, except the

people who read Hebrew. And what it says is, this

too shall pass. The tough stuff that you're going through,

it didn't come to stay. It came to pass. It's

not going to last. COVID's not going to last. The

problem's not going to last. So don't give up on God.

Don't give up on your marriage. Don't give up on

your church. Don't give up on your dream. Don't give up.

You might need to change the way you're doing something.

You might be doing the right thing in the wrong way,

but don't give up. Psalm 142, there on your outline,

verse 3, says this. When I'm ready to give up,

he knows what I should do. Don't give up, look up.

Look up. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created you,

who fought you up, who loves you, who has a

purpose for your life, who died on the cross for you,

who rose again, and is coming back one day, who's

going to take you to heaven one day, Jesus Christ

is the secret of strength to make it to the

end of your marathon and end well. Isaiah, last verse

on your outline, 40, verse 29, 31. God gives power

to those who are tired and worn out. He offers

strength to the weak. Those who wait on the Lord

will find new strength. So this week, here's your homework.

Rest your body. Recognize the vulnerable spots in your life,

the exposed areas. Start working on reinforcing them. Refocus on God.

Stop listening to the negativity and resist the discouragement. Don't

you give in to it. Resist it. Fight it. It's

a choice. You're discouraged because you're allowing yourself to be discouraged.

You cannot fight discouragement with passivity. You have to fight it.

And who will give you the energy to fight it?

Your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So focus on him,

not on the problem. Let's bow our heads for prayer. Father,

this word is so clear and so convicting to each

of us. We all know that there are areas in

our lives where we're tired and frustrated, where we feel

like failures, and where honestly we're afraid. But we come

to you right now. So pray this in your heart. Say, God,

I give you my fatigue. Say it. God, I give

you my fatigue. God, I give you my frustrations. I

give you the rubble in my life, the broken things

that I keep tripping over in my own life that

frustrate me. I don't want to be that way. I

give you the areas that I feel like a failure in.

Where I feel like I can't do it anymore. And

I give you all my fears. Lord, I don't want

to be one of those people who live closest to

the enemy and then just spreads bad news to everybody else.

I want to gossip the gospel, not... the negativity all

around us. So Father, this week I'm gonna ask you

to help me. Help me. You made my body, Lord,

now give me the sense to heed your laws. Help

me to rest my body. Help me, Lord, to reinforce

my weak areas. And Lord, I have gotten out of

the habit of meeting together with other believers. And I'm

not getting the encouragement that I have had in the past.

I want to recommit to being in a small group.

I don't want to go through life as a lone ranger. Lord,

help me when I begin to think of all the

things that get me down to change the channel of

my mind. Help me to refocus on you. Help me

to not be afraid of the enemies, but to remember

the Lord who is great and awe-inspiring. And like David,

I ask you to rewire me and revive me through

your word. And then, Lord, help me to resist the discouragement.

Help me to fight for what I know you want

me to do with my life. And Lord, when I'm

ready to give up, you know what I should do.

I'm asking you to give me the power when I'm

weak and tired and worn out. Give strength to the weak. Lord,

in that sense, I want to thank you for discouragement

because it forces me to come to you. Help me

to see that even discouragement can be good if I

let it draw me to you and to trust in

you instead of myself. I commit myself completely to you.

If you've never said, Jesus Christ, I'm yours, say it

to them right now. Jesus Christ, I'm yours. I'm all in.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.