Be Encouraged!

EZRA 5: 1-17

1 Corinthians 15:58 - 

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain

Do you ever feel yourself DISCOURAGED? 

WHY DO WE BECOME DISCOURAGED?

1. WE ARE TIRED AND EVEN SICK AND DO NOT FEEL LIKE WE CAN DO IT ANYMORE
2. WHEN PEOPLE LET US DOWN … THEY DON’T COME THROUGH, THEY LET US DOWN, THEY FALL AWAY OR FAIL IN THEIR ATTEMPT TO SERVE GOD
3. Lose your focus.. when you get criticized by your family, friends, co-workers
4. Charles Spurgeon was criticized throughout his life… his contemporaries constantly criticized his methods and even his salvation
5. Another point of discouragement is because you feel as though God let you down.
1. You wonder if I should still serve or follow the Lord at all 
2. Discouragement causes people to try to fill their need with anything because they are discouraged
6. Hagai and Zachariah were prophets that were raised up by God to lead the people out of DISCOURAGEMENT
7. How do we overcome Discouragement
1. We need a fresh encounter with God
1. How does this happen? THE WORD OF GOD… we have to be in the Word so we can hear from God as he speaks directly to our situation
2. If you are not encountering God… You are not in your Word
3. Your Word oh Lord, is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my feet! Psalm 119:105
4. Even when you don’t feel it. You have to discipline yourself and just DO IT.
5. Dedicated TIME
6. Kill Procrastination
7. The Word will do 4 things:
1. The Word confronts our own sin – Sin is like a disease that will consume us and the Word is for reproof and correction
2. God’s Word confirms His Grace if we choose to REPENT from the sin that He reveals. Return to me says the Lord and I will return to you. Ezra 5:1 in Ezra 3 they have a new beginning and then they get discouraged and then in Chapter 5 they get a NEW beginning
3. God’s Word reorients our priorities under His Lordship. God uses His Word to call OUR choices to come under His design for our lives “Seek FIRST His Kingdom… instead of our own kingdoms
1. Our Temple is NOT a building… our temple is our Heart. God wants outward purity yes… but He wants inner purity more.
4. Lastly… God’s Word directs our steps! (Proverbs 3:5-6)

1. We need to get back to work for the Lord
1. When God uses us in ministry… it is encouraging
2. It gives us purpose
3. Self focus brings about self pity and then it breads discouragement
4. Inactivity causes us to focus on ourselves more than on others

     In our Service to God we have to persevere in the face of opposition.

1. The enemy is going to use opposition to bring discouragement 
2. Even though  the enemy is prowling and watching… SO IS THE LORD! He is constantly watching over us!
1. If you’re discouraged, one way to overcome it is to be BOLD with your Faith
1. To break free from discouragement… you MUST be BOLD
2. Joshua 1:9 - Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go. need to trust in the Sovereign God who is going to accomplish His will among us!
3. This is where we see GOD SIZED miracles and moves of God… the stuff we cant do in our own ability. Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit says the Lord
4. We believe in a God that has proven his ability throughout history and who has delivered people from circumstances and even from death itself through our salvation because of His son JESUS!

1. When we see God moving by bringing people to Christ, when we see people making decisions to turn from their sin and to walk in the Light… when we see people working for God and giving themselves away… this brings JOY to the House of the Lord
2. Illustration of a guy having a Garage Sale and one of his tables are in the yard. One table has all the tools of sin,
3. Another table had one tool on it… discouragement and it had a HUUGE Price tag on it. Why so expensive? It’s the most effective tool I have! It does  not sell and the devil still uses it today as his most effective tool to 

            

Be steadfast immovable… knowing that your work in the Lord is NOT in vain!

FLESH vs SPIRIT

Topic this morning is FLESH vs Spirit

Its like a BIG TUG OF WAR… Wanting to do what is right. nut it seems like sin is right there presenting itself as the more attractive choice.

Its like getting up in the morning… you want to, you need to but every fiber of body feels like and is tempting you to give in and to just LIE THERE IN BED!

Our Battle though is so much more serious than deciding whether or not to get out of bed…

The Bible says that our Battle is NOT against flesh and blood:

Ephesians 6:12New Living Translation (NLT)

12 For we[a] are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

ROMANS 8: 5-11 tells us that as followers of Jesus… there are really only 2 ways to live…. walking in the flesh or walking in the Spirit… or to be IN STEP with the Spirit. 

Lets REMEMBER THIS… if you are a follower of Jesus… THE SPIRIT OF GOD is always in you for the purpose of lovingly leading you!

So… it becomes a battle of 2 mindsets….

• The first is where we focus on and make ourselves the center of attention and one where life is spent chasing after things that satisfy the FLESH. 

Galatians 5: 

19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. 

• The believers responsibility is to set his mind on living in submission to the indwelling Holy Spirit or to focus his mind on Jesus

• One’s mind or the concentration of one’s life either sides with one group or the other, it is impossible to be on both sides at once. You can not serve both God and mammon (or wealth, the world). The basic disposition or direction of our lives is either on God’s side or on the side of sinful human nature. The sinful nature and the indwelling Spirit are in conflict (Gal. 5:17).

WE HAVE TO FOCUS OUR MINDS!

Illustration:

The difficulty of controlling the mind is underscored by Lanny Bassham, an Olympic gold medalist in shooting the small-bore rifle. He explained in Sports Illustrated, "Our sport is controlled non-movement. We are shooting from 50 meters -- over half a football field -- at a bull’s eye three-quarters the size of a dime. If the angle of error at the point of the barrel is more that .005 of a millimeter (that is five one-thousandths), you drop into the next circle and lose a point. So we have to learn how to make everything stop. I stop my breathing. I stop my digestion by not eating for 12 hours before the competition. I train by running to keep my pulse around 60, so I have a full second between beats. You do all of this and you have the technical control. But you have to have some years of experience in reading conditions: the wind, the mirage. Then you have the other 80 percent of the problems --- focusing the mind!"

How often we fail in disciplining that vital part of life! Our thoughts begin to drift from the God centered life into worldly and forbidden areas, and we let them go. We become anxious, lustful, hateful. We think proudly. We give in to self-pity. Race car driver Sterling Moss once said of driving at high speeds, "It’s necessary to relax your muscles when you can. Relaxing your brain though is fatal!”

It’s the same in the battle with Satan. When you let the Devil control the way you think, you will live in fear, anger, depression … and some even live with thoughts of suicide. You are what you think. 

Proverbs 23:7 

"For as a man THINKS in his heart, so HE IS!” 

Your thought-life affects everything about you … how you act … how you feel … how you live. [If you THINK negative thoughts … you will ACT in a negative way. If you THINK sad things … you will BE sad. If you THINK you’re sick … you will FEEL sick. If you THINK you’re worthless… you’ll TURN OUT to be worthless. If you THINK bad thoughts … you’ll DO bad things. BUT … on the other hand … If you THINK Godly things … you’ll ACT more Godly! Each of us need to surrender our mind to God, or Satan will influence more & more, then control more & more of our thinking [ then more and more of his life. For he who will not command his thoughts will soon lose command over his actions.]

Lets go back to our TRUSTY EXERCISE to remind ourselves to get control of our mind….

ROMANS 12:2 - Let God CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK!

Isaiah 26:3 

 “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you!”

How did you learn your multiplication tables … States & Capitals … Bible verses? REPETITION! What you put into your minds, REPEATEDLY, will OCCUPY your mind. What OCCUPIES your mind, will ultimately express itself in your character and lifestyle.

SPIRIT GIVEN LIFE

In verse 11 Paul wrote about an even better promise. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

It was the Holy Spirit who was the agent of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Just as the Spirit lifted Jesus out of physical death and gave Him life in His mortal body, so the Spirit who dwells in the believer, gives to that believer new life both now and forever (Jn. 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6). In other words, God promises spiritually empowered resurrection life now (6:4, 8, 11) as we live in our mortal bodies.

The ultimate destination of our bodies is not death but resurrection. Our bodies have not yet been redeemed but they will be. How do I know? Because the indwelling Holy Spirit is not only the Spirit of Life but the Spirit of resurrection for He is the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead.

Rest assured since the same Spirit which is in Christ and raised Him from the dead now lives in us ( 1Cor. 15:23), even our bodies (1 Cor. 6:19), we will most certainly be raise to new life also. The possession of the Spirit of God which is the source of all real life is a pledge and security that our bodies will be resurrected also.

This resurrection also includes a transformation. The changing of our bodies into a new and glorious vehicle of our character and personality. This resurrected body will be free of all bondage to sin, disease, pain, decay and frailty. It will be a perfect body fit for a perfected person living in a God’s perfect place.

As you live day by day surrender to walking in the Spirit of the Living God and the hope of eternal life with God will shine brighter and brighter within your soul. It will give a peace and confidence that the world, the flesh and the devil can never take away.

If the Spirit of God dwells in a person how careful he or she should be that nothing in his thoughts or feelings offend his or her divine quest! Some questions therefore we need to ask ourselves are:

How am I at mental-discipline? When I catch myself thinking wrong thoughts, do I make myself think about something else?

Where are some of the places I go and what are some of the things I do that feed my mind with the wrong kind of stuff?

Do I need to memorize verses like Philippians 4:5-8 to help discipline and retrain my mind?

According to the Bible every person is either under the control of the Spirit or under control of the old nature, either on a road of peace or on a road that leads to death. Walking in the Spirt is living with Him as the director of our lives.

Today through surrendering to the Holy Spirit in our lives there is a constant abiding of love, power and soundness in our minds. Are you experiencing the abiding love and peace of the Spirit? If not no one can change that but you. Right here right now God is speaking. How will you respond?