"Think Long"
Daniel 9:1-6, 20-23
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Series: "The Circle Maker" by Mark Batterson

Introduction: In the last two weeks we have talked about dreaming big, and praying hard. We learned about how Honi the sage, who in a time of drought decided to draw a circle, kneel down in it, and pray for rain. He did not stop praying for rain until God brought them rain! We have talked about how when we pray within God’s will, God will answer. When we understand God’s promises, and pray for these in our lives, then God will respond. But we must not give up hope when we pray.

There is another story of Honi, who near the end of his life was walking down a dirt road, when he saw a man planting a carob tree. Curious of why the man was planting the tree he asked, “How long will it take this tree to bear fruit?” The man replied, “Seventy years.” Honi then asked, “Are you quite sure you will live another seventy years to eat its fruit?” The man responded, “Perhaps not. However, when I was born into this world I found many carob trees planted by my father and grandfather. Just as they planted trees for me, I am planting trees for my children and grandchildren…”

This encounter changed how Honi prayed. He realized that praying is like planting. Each prayer is like a seed that gets planted in the ground. It will eventually bear fruit, if not for him, then for future generations. Our prayers will outlive us. That is what it means to “Think Long,” which is what we will be talking about today.

I. Thinking Ahead- (Daniel 9; Psalm 5:1-2)

Example- On the Swedish island Visingso, there is a mysterious forest of oak trees; mysterious because oak trees aren’t indigenous to the island. The origin of these oak trees was unknown for more than a century. Then in 1980, the Swedish Navy received a letter from the Forestry Department reporting that their requested ship lumber was ready. The Navy didn’t even know it had ordered lumber. It turns out that in 1829, the Swedish Parliament, recognizing that it takes oak trees 150 years to mature, and anticipating a shortage of lumber at the turn of the twenty-first century, ordered 20,000 oak trees planted on Visingso and protected for the Navy! THAT IS THINKING LONG.

a. The change of prayer- When it comes to prayer, we need to

understand that prayer doesn’t just change circumstances; more important it changes us. It alters both our external realities and our internal realities. It enables us to see beyond our circumstances, beyond ourselves, and beyond time!

Think about the prophet Daniel. Daniel was someone who was committed to prayer. In fact, even when prayer was outlawed, Daniel continued to pray. Three times a day Daniel would pray. Daniel even prayed with his windows open so that everyone could see him praying. Few people have prayed with more consistency or intensity than Daniel.

When we talk about thinking long, we see that Daniel was one who did just this. Daniel had a big dream of the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Daniel understood that this dream would probably not be fulfilled during his lifetime. But he prayed for it just the same. When he prayed, he would make sure he was facing the city of Jerusalem, knowing that even though he wouldn’t see it with his physical eyes, yet he saw it with his spiritual eyes. Daniel knew all this because God had given him a prophecy that it would take “seventy years” for the desolation of Jerusalem to come to an end.

Daniel never stopped dreaming this dream, and never stopped praying this prayer. Daniel gives us a great example of thinking long. That is what prophets do, because the nature of their prophecies is that they will not happen until far into the future. Yet, Daniel had an even greater dream, and that was the second coming of Christ. Understand that I am not saying/ the first coming of Christ/ that we already know about, and talk about at Advent season. I am talking about the second coming of Christ, when Christ will come down from heaven and appear AGAIN! Daniel’s prayers and prophecies were about the blessings we will reap when Christ returns.

Hear the answer to Daniel’s prayer in Daniel, chapter 9. In verse 25 Daniel is told: “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’” In this verse Daniel is told about both the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the coming again of Christ, which will happen long into the future.

When we try and pray like Daniel, it can be seen as long and boring. You draw a prayer circle, you circle the promise of God, and you start to pray. But what if you are praying for something that won’t happen in your lifetime. How do you get excited about that? You get excited, because you know that God is a God of eternity, to whom time has a much different meaning. God hears our prayers now, and will answer them in the future. We get excited knowing that our prayer will change us inside, and will change the external reality in the future. It is simply about praying with faithfulness.

b. Praying on your knees- Daniel was one of the most brilliant

men of all time. Daniel was able to explain riddles and solve problems unlike anyone in his generation. Daniel had the most amazing dreams from God, and God gave him the gift to interpret dreams as well. But what really set Daniel apart was the fact that he would regularly humble himself before his God by getting down on his knees and praying! With his prayers he brought kings and kingdoms to their knees.

Daniel was not one to pray just when he needed God’s help. Daniel was one who prayed every day. I’m sure Daniel was praying when he was in the lion’s den, face to face with a hungry lion, but he approached every day and every prayer with the same intensity. Yet, it was his prayer posture, of getting down on his knees, that was the true power of his prayer.

Daniel was a person who in essence was a prisoner of war. Babylon came and besieged Jerusalem, and in doing so took many of the people back to Babylon; Daniel being one such person. But Daniel ultimately was placed in the position of Prime Minister. How does one move from captive, to Prime Minister? Only by God, and only through prayer.

Prayer invites God into the equation like no other act that we do. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. If you will humble yourself and get down on your knees to pray to God, then you never know what God will do in and through your life, or what you will do, or who you will meet.

While you can pray standing up, lying down, or walking, our posture sets the tone for our prayers. If your words are what you say in your prayer, your posture is how you say it. There is a reason that one of the postures the Bible talks about in prayer is kneeling. When we kneel, we help our heart and mind to understand the seriousness of prayer, and our status to God.

When I extend my hands in worship, it symbolizes my surrender to God. When we kneel down in prayer, we show that we desire to be humble before God, and that the only reason we can even come to God in prayer is because of the great work that Christ did for us on the cross!

Now don’t misunderstand me. There is nothing magical about kneeling in prayer. When you kneel it doesn’t make your prayers more powerful. But it is biblical, and it is helpful for our mental state. When we practice this prescribed posture, we are saying something to God about our hearts, and we are saying something to God about our faith.

The Bible is very clear that Daniel prayed three times a day, upstairs in his room, down on his knees. He opened the window to Jerusalem. He did this because Daniel was facing towards his dream. His physical posture matched his mental posture. It was his way of staying focused. And when we get on our knees, it helps us to stay focused.

It is also about developing a daily rhythm with God. As King David said in Psalm 5:1-2, “Give ear to my words O Lord. Consider my sighing. Listen to my cry for help, my king and my God, for to you I pray. In the morning, O Lord, You hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before You and wait in expectation.” Every morning we should pray to God. During the day we should find time to pray to God. Before we end our day we should pray to God. Develop this daily rhythm, and like Daniel, you might try kneeling when you pray.

II. Our Goal List- (Mark 9:29)

a. The faith barrier- On October 14, 1947 a four-engine B-29

plane took off in the California desert. Attached to its belly was a Bell X-1 experimental plane piloted by Chuck Yeager. At 25,000 feet the X-1 dropped from the fuselage and its rocket engine fired up. It then ascended to 42,000 feet… As the plane approached Mach 1, it began to shake violently. As Yeager’s plane hit Mach .965 the speed indicator went haywire. At Mach .995 the g-force blurred his vision and turned his stomach. Then, just as it seemed the plane would disintegrate, there was a loud sonic boom followed by an almost instantaneous and eerie silence. As the plane crossed the sound barrier, 761 miles per hour, the air pressure shifted from the front of the plane to the back. Yeager reached Mach 1.07 before cutting his engines and coming back down to land the plane. The unbreakable sound barrier had been broken!

Just as there is a sound barrier, so there is a faith barrier. The only way to break the faith barrier is through prayer. You must “pray through”. As you get close to a breakthrough things might start to seem as if they are coming apart. If you allow your disappointments to create a drag, your doubts will nosedive your dreams. To break the faith barrier at these challenging times you must pray through!

Similar to that sonic boom that Chuck Yeager heard when he broke the sound barrier, we will experience a boom in our spirits when that moment comes, where we know God has answered our prayer. In that moment, frustration and confusion give way to quiet confidence. You are at peace and experiencing calm, because you know it is out of your hands and in the almighty hands of God.

There are times when we need something more than prayer to get past the faith barrier. This something is fasting. Jesus told His disciples, in Mark 9:29, in referring to how evil spirits can be cast out: “He replied, ‘This kind can come out only by prayer and fasting.’” Some miracles are only accessible by prayer AND fasting. It takes the combination of the two to unlock the spiritual power we need to accomplish the work of God in and through our lives. If you have never fasted, I encourage you to combine your prayer times with a time of fasting. It is wonderful to see how God works through the combination of these disciplines.

b. Life list- Have you ever made a life list? In 1940, a fifteen-

year-old named John Goddard did. He listed 127 life goals. This was no ordinary list. By the time he was 50 he had achieved 108 of his 127. Listen to some of what he accomplished: milk a poisonous snake; skin-dive to forty feet and hold breath two and a half minutes underwater; study primitive culture in Borneo; land on and take off from an aircraft carrier; light a match with a .22 rifle; circumnavigate the globe; and on and on his list goes!

The truth is, goal setting is a great way of doing what we have talked about thus far in our series: dreaming big, praying hard, and thinking long. Goals are the cause and effect of praying hard. The more you pray, the more God-sized goals you’ll be inspired to go after. But prayer doesn’t just inspire godly goals, it also ensures that you keep praying hard because the only way you’ll accomplish a God-sized goal is to pray! Prayers naturally turn into goals, and goals naturally turn into prayers. Goals give you a prayer target. As I have talked much about dreaming big, praying hard, and thinking long, let’s take the rest of our time to get practical…

1. Start with prayer. Your goals should come from your prayer time.

The reason for this is that through your prayer time God will direct you to the goals He wants you to have. And as we talked about before, it is when our goals are in line with God’s will that God will say “yes” to our dreams.

The other night I was praying and I felt God give me two dreams: grow the church with those who need Jesus; and that God would bring a family to the church that would be healed and strengthened through Him. I am now circling these goals and praying for them to happen!

2. Check your motives. If you set selfish goals, God is not going to give

them to you. You need to take a long, honest look in the mirror and make sure you’re going after your goals for the right reasons.

At the last Session meeting someone mentioned how we need more people in our church. I asked them why? They then said that we need to be fulfilling our mission statement of bringing people to know Jesus Christ. God will honor this goal. God doesn’t want us just to bring lots of people to church. God wants people to come to know Him and have their lives changed because of knowing Him!

3. Think in categories. This will help make sure your goals are balanced.

You might divide your goals into the categories of: family, those who you can influence; your physical well being; and your spiritual well being. Then have God lead you into what He wants for you in each of these categories.

4. Be specific. If a goal isn’t measurable, then there is no way of knowing

if you have accomplished it. For example, losing weight isn’t a goal, unless you will be satisfied with losing just one pound. List the specific amount you want to lose. Going back to my goal of growing the church with people who need Jesus, that should become more specific for me as I pray more about it so I know what God desires. Should it be 2 people, or 200 people? I need God to guide me in this.

5. Write it down. There is a good saying, which goes like this: “The

shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.” What this means is, that when you just try and remember it, it will easily leave your thoughts. But if you write it down and put it in a place where you see it regularly, then you will be constantly reminded of it and where you stand with it. This is then combined with the next one…

6. Include others. At some point it is important to verbalize your goals

with someone that you trust. Nothing cements a relationship like a shared goal. This person can encourage you in your goal, pray for you in your goal, and help to keep you accountable in your goal. This way, you will be less likely to forget about the goal and you will not give up so easily.

7. Celebrate along the way. This is what I like about our new “praise

report” sheets! These praise reports allow us to give thanks to God for answered prayer. It is always energizing to see the success that we have in achieving our goals. It is also helpful to our faith and our dreams when we see that God is leading us forward by achieving what He has placed on our hearts.

8. Dream big. Our dreams fall into the categories of both short-term and

long-term; small and big. It is important to make sure that you have some big dreams on your list. It isn’t a goal that is big/ for the sake of being big. It is a goal that is big because you know this is what God wants to accomplish through you!

9. Think long. Most of us overestimate what we can accomplish in the

next year, and in the next two years. If we want to dream big, then we have to think long. We have to have dreams that will take years to achieve, or might not be achieved until after we are gone. We might have dreams that start with us, where we just plant the seed and get it going.

10. Pray hard. Goal setting begins AND ENDS with prayer. God-

ordained goals are conceived in the context of prayer, and prayer is what brings them to full term. You need to keep circling your goals in prayer. As you circle your goals, it not only creates God-ordained opportunities, it also helps us to recognize God-ordained opportunities.

Conclusion: I love this thought of “thinking long.” I love it because like Honi, it has stretched my thinking about how I am called to dream and pray. If I don’t put this concept of thinking long into my life, then I will be fearful of having big dreams, because I won’t believe that my actions today will lead God to do a great work beyond my lifetime. I will lose the perspective that a seed planted today becomes fruit somewhere down the road. I hope you are challenged today to dream big, pray hard, and think long. Amen.

"Pray Hard"
Luke 18:1-8
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Series: "The Circle Maker," by Mark Batterson

Introduction: Today we are in week two of our 4 week series on Mark Batterson’s book “The Circle Maker.” Last week we talked about God wanting us to dream big, and pray big. However, we need to understand that the dreams that we have need to come from God to us. As we understand God’s will for our lives, and what God wants to do in and through our lives, we then pray for this believing that God will answer our prayers.

God wants us to believe that we can achieve big things, because we have a big God walking with us. God wants us to believe that we can accomplish whatever is within God’s will in spite of what might seem like limited resources. God wants to work in and through our lives for the purpose of bringing glory to His name.

Today we are going to look at how God wants us to pray hard!

I. Being Persistent- (Luke 18:1-8)

a. The habit of persistence- More than a decade ago a man named

Anders Ericsson and some of his colleagues at Berlin’s elite Academy of Music did a study with the musicians. They divided the violinists into three groups: worldclass soloists, good violinists, and those who were unlikely to play professionally. All of them started playing at roughly the same age and practiced about the same amount of time until the age of eight. At this point there was a divergence in their practice habits. The researchers found that by the age of twenty, the AVERAGE players had only put in about four thousand hours of practice time, the GOOD violinists totaled about eight thousand hours, and the elite performers practiced for ten thousand hours! While innate talent has something to do with it, effort had an even greater effect on making someone really good.

As Neurologist Daniel Levitin says: “The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything. In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again…No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time…”

Should prayer be any different? Should we expect to be expert prayers and yet not develop a habit of persistent prayer? Habits need to be cultivated and practiced. Prayer is no different. This is what we talked about last week when we talked about praying through. It isn’t about praying just once. It is about praying over and over again. Prayer is a discipline that needs to be developed; a skill to be practiced. The bigger the dream, the harder you must pray!

b. Persistently praying the promises of God- Take the widow we just

read about. Luke 18:1 says, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” This parable Jesus told is for the purpose of teaching us that prayer is something we should do with persistence. Jesus uses the example of a woman persistently bugging a judge to get justice against her adversary. Because of her persistence the judge granted her justice! She got what was right to come to her because of her persistence. Then Jesus says in verse 7: “And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?”

Another example of this is Elijah. During the prophet Elijah’s life there was a drought. This drought lasted three years. Then the Lord promised Elijah that He would send rain, but it would require Elijah to pray. So Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel, fell on his face, and prayed for rain. Six times Elijah told his servant to look toward the sea, but each time there was no sign of rain! This is when most of us give up. We have prayed a few times, nothing seems to happen, we doubt God will act, and so we stop. But Elijah didn’t stop. He prayed a seventh time. In essence, Elijah was saying, “I will not move from here until God answers.” After the seventh time Elijah’s servant saw a small cloud.

What if Elijah had stopped after six times? The obvious answer is that Elijah and his people would not have experienced the miracle of rain. But Elijah did pray through, and God came through! The sky turned black and the raindrops fell for the first time in three years.

The reason many of us give up too soon is that we feel like we have failed if God doesn’t answer our prayer. That isn’t failure. THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN FAIL IS IF YOU STOP PRAYING.

II. God’s Favor on us- (Psalm 84:11, 23:6)

a. Standing on the promises of God- The Bible tells us that the Lord is

watching over His word to perform it. There is nothing that God loves more than keeping His promises. He is actively watching and waiting for us to simply take Him at His word. He promises to forgive us when we confess, but we must pray. He promises to not leave us nor forsake us, but we must pray. He promises to take care of our needs, but we must pray.

Praying hard is standing on the promises of God. And when we stand on His word, God stands by His word. His word is His bond. We sometimes think that we are asking too much of God, but if it is in accordance to His will, it is never too much. As Psalm 84:11 says, “No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” A good prayer to pray persistently is for us to walk uprightly.

Don’t think that God is holding out or holding back. It is not in God’s nature to withhold any good thing from us. He doesn’t bless us in our disobedience, but He will definitely bless us in our obedience! If we take God at His work, we will joyfully discover that God wants to bless us far more than we imagine. And God’s capacity to give is far greater than our capacity to receive.

Listen to the first half of Psalm 23:6, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life…” When we walk in a right relationship with God, God will make sure that His goodness and mercy will follow us; be ever upon us. How could we ever doubt God’s intentions once we really come to know who God is and what God wants to do? God reminds us time and time again of His promises; His promises which He wants to fulfill for you and me!!

b. The favor of God- I hope you agree with me that the greatest

moments in life, are the moments when God intervenes on our behalf, and blesses us way beyond what we expect or deserve. When this happens, it is a humble reminder of God’s sovereignty. It is when God bestows His favor on us.

As I was writing this, I stopped to think of one of these moments. The first thought that came to my mind was when Tami and I got pregnant with Tyler. We had been trying to get pregnant for about 2 years, with no success. Then, out of the blue, in the midst of moving to Colorado, setting up our house, getting established at my first pastoral ministry, in a time you would think would be very stressful, we found out Tami was pregnant. Tami and I immediately thanked God, because we knew that this was God’s favor bestowed on us!

When God’s favor comes upon us, it doesn’t mean that we won’t still go through challenging periods. It was very challenging to find out month after month Tami wasn’t pregnant. It took great perseverance to continue to pray for this in the midst of it not happening. But when you pray in this way you begin to pray like it depends on God. The more it doesn’t happen, the more we have to pray, and the harder we have to pray. And as we patiently wait, we will come to experience God’s miracles taking place.

III. The Promptings of the Holy Spirit- (Acts 12)

a. The answer as we pray- Sometimes we are led to pray, and while we

are praying God is working on the prayer to be answered. There is a great example of this in the book of Acts, chapter 12. In this chapter King Herod decided he was going to arrest many Christians, including Peter. The church started to pray for Peter’s release. The night before Herod was going to bring Peter to trial, while Peter was sleeping between 2 soldiers, an angel of the Lord appeared, woke Peter up, and caused the chains to fall off his wrists. The angel told Peter to follow him, which he did, but Peter didn’t know what was really happening. Peter thought he was just seeing a vision. Peter followed the angel past 2 guards and the angel then opened the iron gate leading to the city. At this Peter knew that this was all the Lord’s doing in answer to the church praying for him. Once he realized this he went to the house where the church would be praying. Let me pick it up for you in Acts 12:13, “Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. ¹⁴ When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!” ¹⁵ “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.” ¹⁶ But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished. ¹⁷ Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison.”

While the church was still praying for Peter to be released from prison, Peter was standing at the door of the house where they were praying!! They had been prompted by the Spirit to pray, and the answer to their prayer came to them while they were still praying. They weren’t expecting God to answer in that way. They probably thought that Peter would go to trial, and there would be a long fight, and in time, Peter would be released.

In the Old Testament, when the people were hungry as they wandered in the wilderness, Moses prayed to God for food. What did God do? He provided manna for them. As God told Moses, the manna would come down from heaven at the start of each day, and they would have ‘just enough’ for that day. The manna was a daily reminder of their daily dependence on God./ We are prompted to pray, and God provides, but too often we don’t think that God provides enough, and because of this we miss that God has answered our prayer!

b. Prayer is hard- We are talking in today’s sermon about praying hard,

but we forget that prayer can be hard. It is hard to pray for something that doesn’t exist yet. It is hard to pray when there doesn’t seem to be any answers. It is hard to pray when things don’t make sense, or when your life isn’t working out very well.

One reason many people get frustrated spiritually is that they feel like it should get easier to do the will of God. The will of God does not get easier the longer you are a Christian. The reason it doesn’t get easier, is because the more you understand about God’s will, and prayer, and how they relate together, the more you realize you have to pray. You realize that you have to pray hard for God’s will to come about.

God will keep putting you in situations that stretch your faith, and as your faith stretches, so do your dreams. As God brings about each dream, you start to have bigger and bigger dreams. Therefore, the will of God actually gets harder and more complicated. But complications, and God’s answers to these complications are evidence of God’s blessings!

When you hear the word complication, what do you think? Many people think that complications are bad, but this is not always true. There are actually good complications. When Tami and I got married, our lives became more complicated, because we had to learn how to live together, and work together, and compromise our lives for each other. And when we had children our lives got even more complicated. But I would not trade these complications for anything!

This is true of our spiritual life as well. Blessings not only bless us, but they also complicate our lives. But they complicate our lives in ways that God wants our lives to be complicated. When I became pastor of this church, it was a blessing, but it also has its complications. When we pray for God’s will to happen, and it happens, that opens a door for God to use us all the more. So our prayer should be: “Lord, complicate my life.”

For example, I have recently had the conversation with a couple of people who told me they prayed to God for patience. We know that this is definitely in God’s will for our lives, because the Bible often talks about us needing patience; patience is a fruit of the Spirit. But, to grow in the ability to have patience means that you have to go through situations that will potentially cause you to be impatient. So this prayer, and the blessing of God giving us patience, actually complicates our life and makes it more challenging!

IV. Unanswered prayer is an answer- (Deuteronomy 29:29)

a. When God answers “no”- Some of the hardest moments in life are

when you’ve prayed hard, but the answer is no. Usually, if we don’t get what we pray for, we think God isn’t listening, or that God didn’t answer our prayer. But we have to remember that “no” is an answer. I know that I answer “no” to my kids’ requests all the time. Why do I answer no? Because it isn’t the right time for them, or it isn’t the right experience for them, or because they need to earn it, or because there is something else they need to be doing!

The question I have for you is this: Do you trust that God is for you even when He doesn’t give you what you ask for? Do you trust that God’s ways are better than your ways and God’s understanding better than yours?

Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” There are secret things, some mysteries in life that won’t be revealed to us until we get to heaven. I don’t understand why God won’t heal my back. I don’t understand why some people, who I think would be great parents, can’t get pregnant, while others who aren’t good parents do. There are many questions that come to us because of prayers that are answered “no” by God.

However, sometimes prayers that God answers “no” to, provide opportunities for God to answer “yes” to something else. Ruth Graham, the wife of the great evangelist Billy Graham, says that she almost got married twice before she said “yes” to Billy Graham. Both of them would agree that God’s answer of “no” to others, was in the end a great blessing!

b. Just in Time- All of us love miracles. However, we don’t like being in

situations where a miracle is needed. You don’t want to find yourself between an Egyptian army and the Red Sea. We want God to provide for our need before we even know we need it. But sometimes God tells us to “wait.” Sometimes God leads us to a place where we have nowhere to turn but to Him; our only option is to trust Him. So why does God wait until the very last second to make His move?

Praying hard is trusting that God will fight our battles for us. Praying hard means that we take our hands off the challenges we face and put them in the hands of God. Praying hard is believing that God can handle what we give to Him. And the truth is, He can! The hard thing is to keep our hands off of them once we have given them over to God.

We have a sanctuary that can hold over 200, but each Sunday we have 50-60 people. I can’t solve this problem on my own, I need you, and we all need God. We come up short about $2,000-$3000 in our collection every month. I can’t make up that difference. These are challenges that I must, we must hand over to God. But once we hand it over, we must PRAY HARD!

The exciting thing is to see God answer our prayers when we pray hard; when we pray persistently. Sometimes God needs to take us to the brink of death for us to admit we need Him. Sometimes God will close doors so that we have to trust Him to open the ones that need to be opened; doors we wouldn’t have even thought of opening had we not had the other doors close.

Conclusion: Remember the words of Daniel Levitin: “No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time (than 10,000 hours of practice).” How often do you pray? When you pray, do you pray with great energy and faith, or do you just go through the motions? Do you pray persistently, or do you give up easily? Do you allow the challenges of life to cause you to trust God all the more, or do you let them cause you to question and doubt God? I encourage you to pray persistently, pray with faith, PRAY HARD. Amen.

"Dream Big"
Joshua 6:1-10
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Series: "The Circle Maker" by Mark Batterson

Introduction: I want to tell you of a story that happened in the first century, B.C. called The Legend of the Circle Maker. This story motivated minister Mark Batterson to write a book called The Circle Maker that we are going to look at over the next 4 weeks. I believe this story, and the material from this book, will challenge our prayer life, and forever change how we pray!

The story goes like this: In the first century there was this terrible drought that threatened to destroy a generation. This was the generation before Jesus. The last of the Jewish prophets had died off nearly four centuries before this. Many struggled to believe that God did miracles anymore. In the midst of the drought an eccentric sage name Honi believed that God could still hear them.

The people believed that Honi was there only hope as he was famous for his praying for rain. It was on this day, come to be known as The Day, that Honi would live up to what people believed about him.

Honi carried a six-foot staff, and as he walked within the walls of Jerusalem, to where the people were standing, he used his staff to draw a circle around him. Honi dropped to his knees and raised his hands to heaven. With the authority of the greatest of the prophets, Honi called out to God with these words:

“Lord of the universe, I swear before Your great name that I will not move from this circle until You have shown mercy upon Your children.”

The words of his prayer continued from the depth of his soul with confidence and yet humility.

Then it happened. The raindrops began to descend to the earth. An audible gasp went out from the people. The people rejoiced over each drop. But Honi wasn’t satisfied. Still kneeling within the circle, Honi lifted his voice over the sounds of the celebration, and said: “Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain that will fill cisterns, pits, and caverns.”

The sprinkle turned into a torrential downpour. And Honi continued: “Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain of Your favor, blessing, and graciousness.”

At this it began to rain calmly, peacefully. The rain was a tangible reminder of God’s grace. Because of this rain, it was impossible for people not to believe in God as a God of miracles; a God who hears the prayer of His people.

This prayer was deemed one of the most significant prayers in the history of Israel. This prayer stands as a testament to the power of a single prayer, and the ability for all to make a difference with their prayers!

I. Circle Makers-

The theme behind this book, behind this series is this: BOLD PRAYERS

HONOR GOD, AND GOD HONORS BOLD PRAYERS!

If your prayers don’t go beyond what you are capable of doing, then you are

not praying like you should! Why is this? Because anything that doesn’t require diving intervention is unnecessary to pray. If you can do it, why do you pray to God? Prayer is designed to connect us with God in a deep relationship, and then lead us to pray within God’s will. When we do this, God rejoices in our prayers, because God loves to keep His promises! God is a God who answers prayers, performs miracles, and fulfills dreams. That is who God is, and what God does.

God therefore wants us to draw circles around the impossible situations. God

is ready and waiting for us to do this. This is because God is for us, and God has created us as people who are to dream. If you don’t believe this, then your prayers will be small and timid. And this might be the way you are praying now!

Like Honi, we need to determine what God wants for us, draw a circle

around it, and then pray for this diligently, fervently, and with sincere faith. The key is that it all starts with what God wants; what God wills. Getting what you want isn’t the goal; the goal is glorifying God. That is where too many people falter in their prayers. Their prayers are not prayed with the purpose of glorifying God, but trying to get what they want.

As we are told in James, chapter 4, verses 2b-3, “You do not have because you

do not ask God. ³ When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” So, one mistake we make is to not ask. The second mistake we make is to ask for our own pleasures. These both lead us to not experience answered prayer.

When we ask with the right motive, and faith, and trust in God, in the

context of wanting to see God’s will happen in our lives, and with the desire for it to glorify God, then we will see God answer our prayers. It takes faith, determination, and perseverance.

II. The Jericho Miracle- (Joshua 6:2-5)-

There is a book called The Book of Legends, that contains some teachings of

Jewish Rabbis. The story of Honi the Circle Maker is in this book. It is a reminder that people have been praying to God for centuries, and God has been answering their prayers. It is a reminder that we are a part of a great work all around us. It is a reminder that prayer is not something that we just do because we want something, or because all of a sudden we have a need.

Prayer comes out of our ongoing relationship with God. In this relationship we form a bond with God, so that we can begin to know the mind of God and the will of God. It is a connection that is made so that when we do pray something big, we not only believe God will do it, but we know why God will do it! Through this we

are inspired to pray big prayers because we know that we worship a big and powerful God who is able to answer these big prayers. We know that when we experience circumstances beyond our abilities or control, we have a God who can come alongside and take care of the need.

One great example of this is the story in the Bible of the Israelites circling Jericho for seven days. Imagine when the Israelites came upon Jericho! What they saw was a six-foot wide lower wall and a fifty-foot high upper wall that encircled the city. It appeared to be an impregnable fortress. God had promised Jericho to Israel, but God had promised the impossible, they must have thought.

Then God gave the Israelites the battle plan: “Then the LORD said to Joshua,

‘See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. ³ March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. ⁴ Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. ⁵ When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.’”

Have you ever wondered why they didn’t use a battering ram? Or cut off the water supply? The soldiers must have felt foolish doing this! By their obedience God answered a 400-year-old promise. He proved that what He promises to will true. He did it this way so that the people would know that it was God’s doing, and not theirs!

What is your Jericho? What is mine? I believe one of mine is the success of this church. We are facing a challenge with attendance, and with finances. But I believe if we pray to God, God will answer! The key will be to pray this prayer with the idea of glorifying God. We can’t pray a vague prayer, but a very concise and purposeful prayer: “Lord, help us to bring Your word of truth and life to those who are lost so that they might come to this church. Give us the finances we need to continue doing ministry for years to come, FOR YOUR GLORY!”

III. Praying through-

I’m sure you have heard the name Mother Teresa; a missionary of charity to the poorest of poor in Calcutta, India. But have you ever heard of Mother Dabney? In 1925, Elizabeth J. Dabney and her husband went to work for a mission in the City of Brotherly Love. The mission was in a literal hellhole. Her husband was called to preach. She was called to prayer. She didn’t just pray, she prayed through.

One afternoon as she was thinking about a bad situation in their North Philly neighborhood, she asked God if He would give them a spiritual victory if she covenanted with Him to pray. She felt strongly that God promised He would. She felt the Lord prompting her to meet with Him the next morning at the Schuylkill River at 7:30 a.m. sharp. The next morning she went down to the river outside the city walls, and the Lord said to her, “This is the place.” She said that the presence of God overshadowed her. She drew a circle in the sand and prayed this prayer:

“Lord, if You will bless my husband in the place You sent him to establish Your name, if You will break the bonds and destroy the middle wall of partition, if You will give him a church and congregation—a credit to Your people and all Christendom—I will walk with You for three years in prayer, both day and night. I will meet You every morning at 9:00 a.m. sharp... Furthermore, if You will listen to the voice of my supplication and break through in that wicked neighborhood and bless my husband, I will fast seventy-two hours each week for two years...

After she ended her prayer it was like a cloudburst of God’s glory that fell from heaven. And so she faithfully prayed every morning at 9:00 a.m. Soon the mission was too small to accommodate the people. The more she prayed, the more God came through! Mother Dabney’s prayer legacy was published by The Pentecostal Evangel under the title ‘What it means to pray through.’

The truth is, most of us don’t get what we pray for because we quit circling. We give up too easily. We give up too soon. We don’t commit ourselves to what God wants to do in and through us, and we don’t PRAY THROUGH!! We don’t refuse to move from the circle until God moves.

IV. The Foolishness of Prayer-

We are called to pray before anything happens. It can look foolish to others because we are praying for something beyond ourselves! Think about Honi, drawing a circle, kneeling down, lifting his hands to heaven, and praying to God for rain. Drawing prayer circles can look like an exercise of foolishness. But it’s shows faith. Think about Noah, exercising his faith by building an ark in the middle of a desert. The Israelite army looking foolish marching around Jericho and blowing trumpets. A boy named David using a slingshot and some rocks to defeat a giant.

Jesus Himself exhibited this same faith when he took 5 loaves of bread, and 2 fish, and prayed that it would feed over 5,000 people! If you add it up, 5 + 2 = 7! But if you add God to the equation, 5 + 2 equals whatever God wants to do with it. God is in the business of multiplication. This is God’s economy. In fact, for God, 5 + 2 equals 5,000 plus 12 baskets left over.

The challenge for you and for me is to pray when we don’t understand; to trust when we don’t see a way out. We have to ask ourselves if we are willing to draw a circle and pray even when things don’t add up. Are you and I going to really add God to the equation, or will we fail to pray through, because we think it might look foolish? Will we carry on with the Lord at our side, or will we quit?

God isn’t offended by big dreams. However, big dreams require the foolishness of prayer. Actually, God is offended than less than big dreams, because we are selling God and ourselves short. Without big dreams, there is no need for God in our lives. The bigger the prayer circle, the more God can multiply.

V. The Surprise of Prayer-

There is a wonderful phrase in the book, in chapter 6. The phrase is this:

“VISION BEYOND YOUR RESOURCES.” Most people do not have vision beyond their resources. They look at what they have and try to come up with a plan using the resources they now possess. But you cannot dream big by only using the resources you have now. The whole idea of a dream is achieving something that doesn’t already exist. A dream is there to take you to where God wants you to go next.

I have a minister friend who is the minister of a church that has an abundance of money and resources. I told him about how a few years ago we did something called Return to Bethlehem, which required us to make back drops, and props, and costumes, and transform our Fellowship Hall into a first century market place. It also cost $1000 and took 55 people to pull off. We gave it to God, and God accomplished it for us! I could tell you many stories where this has happened in our church.

As I told him stories like this, he was amazed, because he said that their church never decides to do anything until they have first figured out if they could afford it. They don’t step out in faith in this way!!

When you circle a promise in prayer, the truth is, anything can happen. To presuppose what the Lord will do with your prayer, or to put expectations on God in the prayer, is not what praying is about. Prayer adds an element of surprise to your life. Once you have circled the need and prayed the prayer, the rest is up to God. The surprise comes in wondering what God will do with the prayer and how God will answer it. God is predictably unpredictable.

His timing is also a surprise. I have seen God answer prayers at the last minute so many times. I have had so many people tell me God waited until the last minute to answer their prayer. I believe that this enhances our trust and faith in God. We know, when the answer comes, that it was from God.

Conclusion: Sometimes when you hear the answers to prayer that others have experienced, it can be discouraging instead of encouraging because you wonder why God has answered their prayers but not yours. Let me help you to understand that the answer to their prayer, while seemingly happening shortly after they prayed it, is something that God was working on for them over much time.

Sometimes the power of prayer is the power to carry on. It doesn’t always change your circumstances, but it gives you the strength to walk through them. When you pray through, the burden is taken off of your shoulders and put on God’s. Don’t think that your dream or your prayer is too big. If it is in accordance with the will of God, for the purpose of giving glory to God, God’s answer will come for you. Amen.

"Becoming More Like Jesus"
Genesis 41:46-52; Galatians 5:16-23
Sunday, January 29, 2012

Introduction: As parents, we are constantly trying to make sure our kids stay safe. We also regularly teach them how to make good decisions. Not too long ago I was driving in the car with Tiffany when this teenager made a wild U-turn in front of me. I began to talk with her about being careful whom she rode with in a car. Or maybe we are watching a television show and something comes on the TV that we need to process together.

The truth is we live in a world that has all kinds of dangers and horrors around us. We pray that our kids will stay safe; that we will stay safe. But sometimes it can happen where we face some deep hurt. It might come from a relationship gone bad, or a bad investment, or even something happening in our families. We cannot completely control what we will experience. In these times of deep hurt it is good to know that the Holy Spirit is there for us.

Today we finish our series on the comfort of the Holy Spirit, understanding that the Holy Spirit can help us even when we are hurt deeply!

I. The Walking Wounded- (Genesis 41:46-52)

a. Parting with resentment- There are many people, many Christians,

who are ‘walking wounded.’ Meaning, that they have some deep hurt that they have experienced but have not been able to let go of. There are many people who don’t know how to get rid of these hurts in their lives! Part of the problem is that when we are hurt deeply, when experience resentment toward the person or event. This resentment can cause even further damage in our lives.

Often times we either try to mask the hurt or go through the motions in trying to find healing. However, because the hurt is so deep, we have trouble letting ourselves deal with it completely, and so the hurt stays in our lives. It might be dormant for a time, and then one day just pop up out of the blue. We think it is gone, but it is not… There is hope though.

Thanks be to God for the Holy Spirit, who comes to us to heal our deep hurts. Because the Holy Spirit can delve deep into our spirit, the Holy Spirit can do the work that needs to be done to rid us of this pain. However, for the Holy Spirit to be able to heal our deep hurts, we must be willing to part with the resentment that is in our hearts. When something deeply hurtful happens to us, more often than not we respond by feeling sorry for ourselves. We wonder, why me?

The only way to abandon the resentment is to give it to the Holy Spirit. We need to let the Holy Spirit completely remove the resentment from our lives! Only then can there be the deep healing that will help us to get past the hurt and live our lives again free from concern. The Holy Spirit can’t bring healing where there is bitterness. But once the bitterness and resentment are removed, then you will be amazed at how life will seem worth living again.

Let me give you a couple of examples….

b. Joseph being sold into slavery- You might be familiar with the story of

Joseph, in the book of Genesis. Joseph was given a gift from God. This gift enabled him to see the future. In one of his dreams he saw that he would be over his brothers (who were all older than him). When Joseph told the dream to them they got so incensed that they concocted a plan to sell Joseph into slavery. So, one day they staged his death, put blood on his coat, sold him to travelers, and then took the coat back to their father to tell him that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.

How do you think Joseph felt having been sold into slavery? He was probably fearful about now being a slave. He was fearful having to live in a strange land; in Egypt, far away from his family! He was angry and bitter that his brothers would do such a horrible thing to him. How could they sell him as a slave? How could they hate him so much? He felt unloved and troubled by where he was now in his life. Deep pain. Deep bitterness. Deep resentment.

It took much time for Joseph to deal with this resentment. Joseph spent many days and nights praying to God. Joseph had to deal with the loneliness of being in a strange country. He had to deal with the humiliation of being a slave. But Joseph, with God’s help, sought to make the best of it. In time Joseph became a high ranking person in the Pharaoh’s land.

Joseph continued to use his gift and continued to live his life, instead of dwelling on his hurt and resentment. God gave Joseph a dream that there would be a famine. So Joseph began to store up extra food so that the people of the land would not starve. In time, this led Joseph’s family to have to come and buy grain from him (although they didn’t know it was Joseph at first). In this way Joes

We saw in our reading from Genesis 41 that Joseph also got married and had two sons. In Genesis 41:52 we see Joseph’s frame of mind, where he says: “It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.” Joseph was able to give his resentment to God, and God’s Spirit was able to free his from his pain. Because of this Joseph led a prosperous life for the Lord. Because of this, Joseph wasn’t crippled by his pain. Because of this, Joseph wasn’t controlled by his bitterness!

c. Joni Eareckson- Have you heard of Joni Eareckson? As a teenager,

Joni loved life. She enjoyed riding horses, hiking, tennis, and loved to swim. But on a hot summer day in July 1967, that all changed. While on a beach with some friends, Joni dove into Chesapeake Bay not knowing how shallow the water was. She broke her neck—a fracture between the fourth and fifth cervical levels—and became a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the shoulders down. While her friends were preparing to go to college in the fall, Joni was fighting for her life and facing the fact that she would have to live the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Joni’s rehabilitation was not easy, and she struggled through it for the next two years. She was angry, struggled with depression, and had frequent thoughts of suicide. She wrote a book in which she questions how God could let this happen to her. She decided to immerse herself in the Bible to become spiritually strong.

When Joni became paralyzed, she had a choice to make. She could become bitter at God and at her circumstances. OR, she could seek out God and ask for His help. Joni chose to seek out God and God’s Spirit came to her and strengthened her in her spirit! Instead of holding onto bitterness, she took hold of God’s comfort. Instead of dwelling on why this happened, she sought God in how she could still live a full and meaningful life.

What became of Joni’s life? Despite her severe disability, she has led an adventurous life. She has written over forty books, recorded several musical albums, starred in a major autobiographical movie of her life and is actively involved as an advocate for disabled people. During her two years of rehabilitation, Joni learned how to paint with a brush between her teeth, and later began selling her artwork.

We do know that at first Joni was angry and bitter. That is natural and expected when something painful happens. It was how she chose to act after this anger and bitterness, that is so important. She didn’t let the bitterness and anger control her. She gave it to God, and let go of it. In doing this, she experienced inner healing. Outside she remained the same, but inside she was made anew.

We all have a choice when we experience hurtful things in our lives. We will probably experience bitterness, anger, and resentment in the beginning. But the question is, will we let the resentment win? Will we let the bitterness control us and confine us? OR, will we seek the Holy Spirit and let God’s Spirit give us inner healing? If we do, then we can be free of that hurt and pain and bitterness.

II. The Holy Spirit contributes to our Growth- (Rom. 8:29; Philippians 1:6; Galatians 5:16-23; James 3:9)

a. More like Jesus- In the midst of the 5 hurts that we experience

(rejection, false accusation, disappointment, failure, and deep hurt) there is another aspect where the Holy Spirit helps us: in helping us to become more like Jesus Christ. It is important for us to understand that part of our being Christians is that we are to be followers of Christ; disciples of Christ, so that we can become more like Christ.

I have said before that one of Jesus’ reasons for coming to this earth was to give us an example of how to live. Because of our sinful nature, we have a tendency to default to our sinfulness and not live as God created us to live. We love with conditions. We fail to forgive others. We are selfish and willful. We seek to be independent and not listen to God. And on and on it goes. We often don’t live like Christ, and therefore don’t live as God intended for us.

The good news is that the Holy Spirit comes alongside us in our lives and assists us in becoming more like Jesus. This is good news because on our own we would struggle to understand how we are to live, and not have the strength to carry it out once we do understand.

Have you ever considered what is God’s chief goal for your life? It is not to make you like some other person you admire. God’s chief goal is to mold us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. We are told in Romans 8:29, “For from the very beginning God decided that those who came to Him…should become like His Son.” That is a very wonderful and telling verse! The Holy Spirit comes within us to order our lives and to contribute to this goal of being like Christ.

The apostle Paul encouraged us in this as well in many verses in the New Testament: In Philippians 1:6 we are told, “I am confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” The good work that was begun was our becoming Christians and asking Jesus to be our Savior and Lord. The work that continues is the work of becoming like Christ.

In Galatians 5:16-17 the apostle Paul instructs us how the Holy Spirit assists us in this good work: “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.” To even desire to be like Christ we must walk in the Spirit; we must let the Holy Spirit have control of our lives. Our natural tendency is to walk in the flesh, not the Spirit!

When we walk in the Spirit we are told of what becomes of our nature in Galatians 5:22-23, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” When the Spirit is active in our lives, the result will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather be living with these qualities, than to live with unforgiveness, and selfishness, and a willful spirit!

b. Understanding Christ’s nature- Galatians 5:22-23 helps us to

understand what the nature of Christ is. We need to understand that this is what we are trying to achieve. We are trying to develop these important qualities, fruit in our lives… If you were honest with yourself, you know, and I know, that we need to do better with how we love, how we experience joy, how we allow peace to reign in our lives, and so on!

The nine fruit of the Spirit were exemplified in the life of Jesus. The Holy Spirit wants to infuse them into our personalities. The reasons they are referred to as “fruit” is because they are to become a natural outcome of who we are. We are not to have these fruit forced upon us, but rather enhanced in our lives. We already know how to love, just not unconditionally. We already know how to enjoy life/ to an extent, but our enjoyment of life is based on the good experiences. God wants us to experience joy in all aspects of life.

Wouldn’t it be nice to experience true peace in life? Well, when the Holy Spirit comforts us from our hurts, and worries, and anxiety, and replaces them with hope, then we do experience peace. We have times when we are patient, but many times when we are not. With the Holy Spirit our patience will increase. We can be truly good people, doing good works, if we allow the Holy Spirit to come fully into our lives.

We exhibit kindness when we open the door for someone, or give someone a ride. But our kindness is tempered by our propensity for anger. And in our anger, our kindness disappears. It is one thing to be gentle with a baby, because we know the baby is fragile, or in our praise of God. We can be gentle when we encourage another person. But then we turn around and curse someone else. As James says in James 3:9, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.”

We are faithful when we keep our commitments and do what we say we will do. Yet, how many times have we let someone down? How many times have we not kept our promises? One of the areas we all struggle with the most is self-control. This shows itself to be true differently for different people. For one it might be a tendency to eat too many desserts. For another it might be the inclination to gossip about another person. We have trouble exercising self-control in all areas of our lives! But with the Holy Spirit the fruit of the Spirit can be evident in our lives.

Someone once said, when we are in Christ, (through the power of the Holy Spirit), evil is alien, but goodness is natural.” Remember Adam and Eve, back before they sinned. They didn’t know evil, just good. It wasn’t until they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that they knew evil. Once they ate, they knew they were naked, and their nakedness became evil. Because of this they covered themselves with fig leaves!

The nature of Christ is love. The nature of Christ is joy. The nature of Christ is kindness. The nature of Christ is self-control. That nature can be ours. The more we are able to let the Holy Spirit dwell in us, and work in us, and comfort us, and strengthen us, the more we will have the nature of Christ!

Conclusion: Our prayer to God should be one of praise and thanksgiving. If you would like, please pray this prayer with me. It is printed in the outline of your bulletin. “Holy God, we know that we are far from what we should be. Forgive us. We thank you that Your Holy Spirit is here, active in our lives. May we be open to Your Spirit. May we allow the Spirit to comfort us in our pain, and lift us up to become more like Christ. Help us to desire to take on the nature of Christ by allowing the Holy Spirit to cause the Fruit of the Spirit to blossom in our lives. Let our lives bring glory to You, O God, so that those around us will see the light we shine, and see that this light shines to You. We praise You for being a God who created us with great care and concern. We thank you for being a personal and loving God. We thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to bring about the expression of the Fruit of the Spirit out of our lives. We commit ourselves to You in this, O God, this day, and every day. Amen.”

"Comfort in Disappointment"
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Psalm 43:1-5

Introduction: A number of years ago the army came up with the slogan “Be, all that you can be.” It is a slogan that is challenging, encouraging, and speaks to having a purpose. It is a positive statement that tells you that you can be special. It helps people to feel that they have something to live for. It speaks to people who have experienced disappointment and failure in life, offering them a chance to overcome those experiences.

Last week we looked at two of the top five hurts that people experience: rejection and false accusation. Today we look at two more: disappointment and failure. The truth is, when we experience failure and disappointment in our lives we can feel less than what we were created to be. These feelings can affect our self-esteem and our excitement for life. So let’s take some time to look at how the Holy Spirit comes to us in these times to offer us comfort and support!

I. Dealing with the hurt of Disappointment- (Psalm 43:1-5; James 1:2-4)

a. Expectations- I find it interesting that we are a people of expectations.

What I mean by this is that we expect certain things to happen in life. To name a few: we expect to not only be educated, but to have the best education we can have. We expect that we will be treated fairly in life. We expect that we should make a better living than our parents. And I on and on I could go.

I believe these expectations come from our sinfulness; the selfish part of us that only thinks about what we want. These expectations start from when we are young. If you notice how when a young baby wants something, that baby will be determined to get what he or she wants. She will cry until you give it to her. Or, she will continue to reach out and grab for it until she has gotten it. From our wants and desires we form our expectations.

The problem with expectations is that when they don’t happen, you will feel let down. To put it bluntly, you expect to get what you expect to get. An expectation is something you “hope” you get. So by the nature of the definition, there is great disappointment when it doesn’t come to you as you thought it would. It is something that you count on getting, but it is not something that is required for to have.

Let me give you an example: People can have the expectation that at the end of the month they will get a paycheck. If they don’t get their paycheck, they will be disappointed. But since it is something that is required that they get, since they worked for it, then it WILL come to them. But let’s say a parent expects that their child will respect them. If they don’t get respect from their child they will be disappointed. But it is not something that is required for children to do. It is beneficial for the family structure, but not necessarily required. Maybe the children don’t respect the parent because the parent is never there for the child. Maybe the parent is abusive. Maybe the parent withholds any kind of blessing. This can lead the child to stop respecting the parent. The parent needs to earn the child’s respect.

It is not good to live your life with expectations. This is because there are too many variables in life, and too many ways that things can change or not come to us as we think they should. There are not many guarantees in life, and so living with expectations just set us up for frustration and heartache. That doesn’t mean you live your life without goals or desires, but you do it with a humble spirit.

b. God letting you down- We also tend to put expectations on God. These

expectations again come from our sinfulness and selfishness. We believe that God should answer our prayers just the way we ask. We think that God should heal people every time we pray for healing. While we don’t expect people to live forever, we blame God if a loved one dies because God didn’t heal them. We think that we shouldn’t ever be in want, or have struggles in our lives. And when these things come about, we are disappointed in God, because we feel like God let us down!

As we just read the words from the psalmist in Psalm 43:1-2, “Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause against an unfaithful nation. Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked. ² You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” The psalmist here is questioning why he and God’s people are having to experience oppression from their enemies. He has the expectation that God will always come and rescue them from the deceitful and the wicked. There is great disappointment here because God is not doing what is expected of Him.

We do the same thing. We are disappointed in God when He doesn’t do what we expect. We want a particular job, so we pray to God. We go for the interview but don’t get the job. Who do we blame? God. We are struggling in our finances and we are having trouble paying our bills. We are disappointed that God hasn’t taken care of our needs.

This is particularly hard because God should be the only One we can truly rely on. We know that God is powerful. We know that God is loving. We know that God promises to never leave us nor forsake us. The problem is that in our expectations we correlate God’s love with our never having any problems. We believe that God would never want us to experience hardship. And so when hardship and trial come, we are disappointed in God.

We forget that much of our hardship comes from our own poor choices. We forget that sometimes God allows us to experience trouble to make us stronger or to learn a lesson. In these times we have to remember James 1:2-4, which says: “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

The problem is not God, but in our expectations of God!

c. Others letting you down- There is a third area of disappointment, and

that is with others around us. Because we have many relationships in our lives, and because our relationships are flawed, we will be let down by others. The let downs run the gamut from parents not showing up to a child’s event when the parent gave his or her promise. It happens when one spouse says they will do something and then they don’t follow through. It happens when you need your friend to be there for you but they are too busy.

Again, we have expectations in our relationships. These expectations aren’t necessarily bad. It isn’t wrong for a child to want his or her parent to come to the performance. It isn’t wrong to expect your spouse to do what they say they will do. It isn’t wrong to expect that your friend should be there for you when you are going through a trial. The problem is, because we are not perfect people, we will not be able to live up to the expectations put on us.

What makes a relationship strong is having appropriate expectations, and learning how to resolve the disappointment when it comes. If you realize that you will experience disappointment, then you can prepare yourself for it when it comes. Of course, some disappointment is greater than others, and some might end the relationship. This you have to put in proper perspective.

The key in all of this, is that when you are disappointed, know that the Holy Spirit can bring you comfort. Instead of trying to deal with it on your own, or push aside how you feel, bring it to God. God is not going to get angry if you are disappointed with Him. God is not going to ignore you if you are disappointed in one of your relationships. If you open yourself to God, God will bring the comfort of the divine Comforter, the Holy Spirit, and make you whole.

II. Dealing with the hurt of Failure-

Another area of hurt in our lives is that of failure. Many times when we feel we have failed, we want to give up. I’m sure you have heard the saying, “If you fall off a horse, get right back on.” The meaning is that if you don’t get back to trying, then your failure will not only be painful, but it will ultimately destroy you! We must understand that failure is part of living.

a. When what you try doesn’t work- Failure is when we try something,

and it doesn’t work. There is a great commercial where a dad is cooking some eggs for his son. As the son walks in the father says: “Son, would you like an omelet?” The son responds: “Yes, dad, that would be great!” The father then tries to flip the omelet over, only to have it completely break up. To which the father says: “I guess we’re having scrambled eggs!”

Our family just watched the Miss America pageant last week. Miss Wisconsin ended up winning. Miss Oklahoma took second. For many, second place would seem like a failure. Especially when we live in a society, which lifts up winners, and remembers winners. At one point in the show they brought out Miss America 2011. They didn’t bring out the second place finisher from 2011… We have to remember though that Miss Oklahoma won her city and state competitions!! In fact, every one of those women who made it to Miss America did not fail, because just competing in the event was success!

Or how about the Green Bay Packers? They were undefeated for most of the year. They only lost one football game during the season, and were picked by many to return to and win the Super bowl. Yet, they lost last week in the second round of the playoffs. For them it was a failure, because since they had already won the Super Bowl the year before, the only goal for them was to win it again. Anything less would be failure.

FAILURE. We have a warped view of what is success and what is failure!!

A few years ago I had a friend who was offered a promotion. The promotion would mean she would make more money. It was a recognition of her accomplishments and capabilities. However, it would mean she would have to take on new responsibilities. It would mean she would have different duties. In the end she decided to not take the promotion because it wouldn’t be what God wanted for her! She actually did what some would think of as a demotion, and took a lesser job, because that job fit more with her giftedness! Some would think that would look like failure in her career. But to her, and to God, it was fitting with what God would have her to do!

C. S. Lewis once said in his book The Screwtape Letters, where he was describing Satan’s strategy against Christians: “Satan gets Christians to become preoccupied with their failures; from then on, the battle is won.” The battle is won because when we think we have failed, we beginning to lose energy and enthusiasm for life. We stop trying as hard. We think that God doesn’t love us anymore, because no one loves a loser!

b. Believing a lie- If we were to use the criteria that the world uses for

success and failure, many would look at Jesus and say that He was a failure. Jesus was rejected by His nation and His life ended on a cross. He was crucified as a criminal. He had failed to meet the expectations of so many. Jesus didn’t turn Israel into a national power. Jesus didn’t take a leadership position. Jesus wasn’t respected by the religious leaders of His time. Jesus wasn’t even respected by the masses of people who shouted out at His trial for Him to be crucified.

But what can seem like failure can become success; especially in the hands of God. For three days later His failure turned into triumph as He rose from the dead and proved Himself victorious over all His enemies!

The truth is, to believe the statement “I am a failure” is to believe a lie. The fact that you have failed something does not make you a failure. Because you are a child of God and a joint heir with Christ, you have eternal life in Christ. Because of your faith in Christ, you will be forever be loved by God. There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 8:38-39. How then can you say that you are a failure? Some things may have not worked out in your life as you might have liked them to, but that might not be all that terrible.

Success or failure is not so important, as being true to what God has asked you to do. We are not called to be “successful” as the world would consider success, but to be faithful to God in how we live. If we are living the way God calls us to live, and doing what God calls us to do, then even in those times where we fail at something, or when something doesn’t go right, we can still know that God will pick us up, put us back on the road, and get us going again!

Again, the Holy Spirit is there for you. Whatever you feel about the failures in your life, don’t feel like YOU are a failure. God has created you. God has created you to do good works. God has created you to be a blessing to others. As Jesus said, if we love God, and love others, then our lives will be a success.

Conclusion: Disappointment and failure will be a part of our world. But we can minimize its affect on our lives. We can change our expectations so that we aren’t disappointed. We can learn how to resolve our conflicts. We can look to God whenever these disappointments come. We can trust the Holy Spirit to comfort us and keep us strong. We can ask for God’s help to give us the right perspective on life.

Even more, we can understand that failure is a part of success. I read a great quote the other day on Facebook from one of my Facebook friends. The quote comes from Michael Jordan, where he says: “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

So, whatever pain you are experiencing from disappointment and failure, let the Holy Spirit comfort you. Let the Holy Spirit lift you up and strengthen you to keep moving forward in life. Let the Holy Spirit help you to live a life where at the end you will not be disappointed in what you accomplished and you won’t feel like a failure. Live in a way so that when you get to heaven, you will hear God say to you: “Well done my good and faithful servant.” Amen.