The Comforter has a ministry of reminding you of the good things of God. But, there are other voices that come and try to remind you of things also. There are voices of discouragement. Picking them out is the difference maker. Recognizing who is speaking to you, discerning and sifting your thoughts is the key. How can we tell the difference between the Holy Spirit’s reminders and these other voices, like discouragement?

The Voice of Discouragement

ILLUSTRATION: on Remembrance or Memory
Donald Miller wrote a book called ‘A Million Miles in A Thousand Years.’ “The saddest thing about life is you don’t remember half of it. You don’t even remember half of half of it. Not even a tiny percentage, if you want to know the truth. I have this friend Bob who writes down everything that he remembers. If he remembers dropping an ice cream cone in his lap when he was seven, he’ll write it down. The last time I talked to Bob, he had written down 500 pages of memories. He is the only guy I know who remembers his life.  He said he captures memories, because if he forgets them it’s as though they didn’t happen; it’s as though he hadn’t lived the parts he doesn’t remember. ¹

• Now, even spiritually, you know this is true.
• You know that you don’t remember so much of what you hear in church.
• What verse did your Pastor preach on last week?
• What was the Sunday School lesson about two weeks ago?
• You see even in the short term, we forget so much.
• So does this verse now mean any more to you since you have heard this?

John 14:26 (ESV)
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

• The Comforter has a ministry of reminding you.
• Can you value His ministry of reminding you, His mission of putting you into remembrance a little bit more?
• But, you know there are other voices that come and try to remind you of things also.
• There are voices of discouragement.
• Picking them out is the difference-maker.
• Recognizing who is speaking to you, discerning, and sifting your thoughts is the key.
• How can we tell the difference between the Holy Spirit’s reminders and these other voices?
• One way is by looking at the end result.
• You can look at the end result of listening to some of these voices from past experience.

• What was the end result?
• When the Comforter came to remind you, when He brought you a thought, that was the end result?
• ALL of His thoughts will lead you into paths of peace.
• The Holy Spirit’s reminders are always encouragement, comfort, and peace.
• Voices that lead to discouragement and frustration, are not from heaven.
• They are from other sources.
• So, let’s define some things.

What is Discouragement?

Ephesians 3:13–16 (ESV)
13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

DEFINITION: lose heart/ἐγκακέω/enkakeō – to lose enthusiasm, lose motivation, to be discouraged, to become weary.

• From a Christian perspective, discouragement is a sense of unhappiness arising from a loss of confidence in one’s own abilities, in the reliability of God, or in the power of the gospel.
• Discouragement can occur in the Christian life, especially when there is resistance to the gospel or in instances of personal failure.
• They can also come from other sources like…

Sources of Discouragement: Unrealized Expectations

• Sometimes these can come from over-ambitious goals.
• Or they can come from misreading the outcome of things.

Sources of Discouragement: Coming Down from Mountaintop Experiences

• Sometimes we have pinnacle-type days where we have reached the height of something.
• Maybe it is a project that you have worked on for a long time.
• You have been energized to work at it.
• You have been moved and motivated to achieve.
• You have thought about it, dreamed about it.
• And you do achieve.
• You do accomplish.
• And you do make your goal and then what?
• Well, there is another day to live after the euphoria.
• You don’t die when you reach the mountaintop.
• There are more days to live and more mountains to climb.
• There is another month that you have to experience, another year that you have to harness your energies, and another decade of useful existence to fulfill the plan of God.
• It boils down to this.
• You have climbed your mountain, now what?
• In the Bible, there was a man that experienced both of these sources of discouragement in the same episode, Elijah.
• Elijah had unrealized expectations and the coming down off the mountaintop experience.
• Elijah, the prophet of God, had this great experience at Carmel – severe progress had been made against the false prophets of Baal.
• Elijah had prayed let the God who answers by fire be God – and God did answer by fire – so astonishingly so that a revival had broken out.
• But look what happens next…

Elijah’s Mountaintop Experience

1 Kings 19:1-4 (NLT)
1 When Ahab got home, he told Jezebel what Elijah had done and that he had slaughtered the prophets of Baal. 2 So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah: “May the gods also kill me if by this time tomorrow I have failed to take your life like those whom you killed.”
3 Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there. 4 Then he went on alone into the desert, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”

• What’s going on here with Elijah?
• This is the ‘discouragement phenomenon.’
• Look at the voice that Elijah listened to.
• He listened to the voice of fear and threatening.
• But, realize that there is something else going on here with Elijah.
• The day before ‘macho man’ Elijah stood up to 850 prophets.
• He single-handedly took on 850 men.
• The next day, he cannot even stand up to one woman.
• What is going on?
• Why the imbalance?
• These 850 men could have easily threatened his life and yet Elijah stood tall against them.
• Here is one woman who threatens his life and it breaks him down totally.
• How come?

It is not what Jezebel said, it’s when she said it!

• She said this when Elijah was coming down from his mountaintop experience of calling fire down.
• Elijah dealt with the 850 prophets on the way up the mountain.
• Jezebel hit him on the way down the mountain.
• The experience was over.
• The fire had fallen.
• How do you top that?
• Elijah dealt with the false prophets when he was full of the energy of the vision that he had to rid Israel of false religion.
• Now, he has done it!
• And naturally, there is a let-down and Jezebel caught Elijah right there, right at that moment of the letdown.
• You have to learn to guard yourself here.
• You have to guard your heart against the emotions of your soul.
• Never let the highs be too high or the lows too low.
• So that was the ‘coming down from the mountain top’ part of the discouragement piece with Elijah.
• But there was also the ‘unrealized expectation’ piece in play.

Elijah was discouraged because Elijah was a goal setter.

• His goal was to sweep Ahab and Jezebel and their false worship of Baal right out of Israel.
• Though he put a dent in that, Ahab and Jezebel were still very much in control.
• And so Elijah did not accomplish all his expectations.
• And so we have unrealized expectations.

Elijah thought every day was going to be Sunday!

• Now that he had a spiritual breakthrough, he thought every day was going to be a fire falling, devil chasing, and miraculous outpouring, fire from heaven falling day.
• And it’s not because after Sunday comes Monday.
• After you have climbed up to the mountaintop, you have to come down to the plains.
• After you received an unexpected check in the mail, you have to use it to pay the bills.
• After you get healed, you have to stay healed.
• Here’s a secret!
• We have to learn to enjoy Mondays as well as Sundays.
• It is not just enjoying your mountain top experiences.
• The secret is learning to enjoy the ‘normal every day’ stuff of life.
• Let me ask you some questions here to frame this next part.

Spiritual Life Versus Natural Life

• Have you ever gotten in a place where all you wanted to do is pray?
• Have you ever gotten in a place where all you wanted to do is study the Word?
• Have you ever gotten into a place where all you wanted to do is worship and enjoy His Presence?
• Have you ever gotten into a place where you have little or no appetite for natural things?
• Have you ever been to that place?
• If you have been, be careful!
• I have been there many times; it is not the best place to be.
• Now, that may surprise you.
• You may be thinking, what could be better than praying every moment of every day?
• The problem here is a lack of understanding of what life is.
• Life is not two separate components, natural and spiritual.
• You have made a distinction between the two as far as God’s involvement is concerned.
• God will be God in your life when you pray when you worship, and when you engage His Word.
• But, God will also be God in your life when you are washing the dishes, mowing the lawn, or going to work.
• You can learn to live with Him and follow Him in every realm of your life.
• How do you do that?
• You don’t just have your place of prayer and then go and leave that place and go deal with the natural.
• You instead leave that place of prayer but you don’t stop praying.
• You pull your prayer life over into the natural by praying about the natural.
• You know you can pray about all the natural areas of your life and you can engage God while you are in all those areas.
• You can pray while you mow the lawn.
• You can pray while you work.
• You can ask God questions about your natural duties and you will be surprised at how He responds.
• And when you see Him respond in these natural areas, you will understand that Jesus is Lord over all realms.

ILLUSTRATION: God Answers Before You Call
This week, I prayed a simple prayer about work. I wanted my work shift to go well and began to talk to God about my natural ‘work life’ while driving to work. And so, the shift starts. I start my line up and begin operating this machine and it’s not working right. It’s messing up. And so I’m trying to fix it. I am trying to get it to work right and nothing is working and all of a sudden one of the company mechanics walks right up behind me and reaches his hand in and starts to make adjustments. Now, you cannot get these guys unless you make a special call. And then the mechanic is called and they come from another floor. But today this guy was right there, right when I needed him. Right on time. He had it fixed just like that and we went up the road. I stepped back from that with this kind of eerie sense of how close God is to us and how there is no distinction between realms.

• Remember that most of life is ordinary stuff.
• Most of life is normal, straightforward, nothing special kind of days.
• If your spiritual life were on steroids, that is if you prayed and studied the most you could, at the very best, it would only come to about 20 percent of your life.
• Eighty percent of your life is in, what we call, the natural realm.
• Are you telling me that God confines Himself to only 20 percent of our life?
• We must learn to allow God in all the areas of our life.
• Let Him into the other 80% of your existence.
• Here is another source of discouragement.

Sources of Discouragement: Lack of Proper Recognition

• Isn’t it nice to have a thumbs up from someone for what you have done?
• Does it make you feel good to have some applause or be made to feel like a star for what you’ve accomplished?
• How does it make you feel when that is withheld from you at these critical moments?
• Do you ever feel that you are not properly recognized for all that you do?
• Do you ever feel that people do not appreciate all that you do?
• It can lead to discouragement, can you see that?

ILLUSTRATION:
One New Year’s Day a millionaire (whose pride never allowed him to offer a tip for any service) faced a terrible situation.  His chief accountant, who put in years and years of service, disappeared.  When they checked the books that the accountant kept, they found them in perfect order.  The affairs of the missing man were prosperous and calm and in perfect order.  The only thing they found was a letter left by the accountant to his millionaire employer.  It read the following, “In 30 years, I have never had one word of encouragement. I’m fed up.”

• I want you to know that the Lord Jesus Christ will not be caught like this millionaire, never giving a word of encouragement to those who serve Him.
• The Lord Jesus Christ knows how to say thank you!
• He knows how to show appreciation.
• Have you ever heard the Lord say thank you?
• Now, this may sound foreign to you for a couple of reasons.
• We have been conditioned to wait for our ‘thank you’ from the Lord when we get to heaven:

Matt 25:21 (KJV)
21 His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

• We have heard messages to this effect that encourage us to work and to be faithful because we want to hear ‘Well done.’
• And so, it would never enter into our thinking that HE would actually express His appreciation to us or be thankful to us for obeying Him before we got to heaven.
• But know today that the sacrifices that you have made for Him, He notices.
• The extra money that you have spent out of your own pocket for Him, He appreciates it.
• The time that you have put in praying for others and their needs and situations, He honors.
• The service that you gave to keep His house up, is respected.
• You didn’t have to sacrifice; you could have kept the money.
• You could have prayed for yourself, instead of others.
• You could have worked on your own house, instead of His house.
• Now you might say to me, how do you know that the Lord feels this way about me?

Ephesians 6:8 (KJV)
8 Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.

• What does ‘whatsoever’ mean?  –
• Does ‘whatsoever’ mean big things only?
• Does ‘whatsoever’ mean important things only?
• What does ‘any man’ mean?
• Does ‘any man’ mean people that are called especially of God?
• Does ‘any man’ mean big-time people only?
• Any good thing any man doeth….

ILLUSTRATION:
I have been in some meetings where no one showed up.
One particular service, a night service, I’m standing in a pulpit, Sharon is singing, the children are sitting in the pews, and nobody is there for this service.
You pray and work hours on end to try and get a message put together and nobody is there. It can be discouraging.  This one particular night,  I’m saying to myself, ‘Nobody is here’ and my mind didn’t even get a chance to go down that path of discouragement before the Lord said, ‘Yes, but I see you here!’

• The Bible says this about the Lord.

Psalm 145:8 (KJV)
8 The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; Slow to anger, and of great mercy.

DEFINITION: ‘gracious’ – having or showing kindness, courtesy, to be indulgent or polite.
He was so polite and kind to me in that situation.

• God is the ultimate gentleman.
• We teach our children to be polite.
• We teach it by modeling polite ourselves.
• Do you think it’s beyond Him, who is ultimately gracious to say ‘Thank you?’
• Where is that in the Bible?

1 Peter 2:19–20 (KJV)
19 For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. 20 For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.

DEFINITION – the word ‘thankworthy’ and the word ‘acceptable’ is the same Gr. Word – in the margin of my Bible – the translation reads ‘thank’.  Thankworthy is old English for worthy of thanks.

• The Lord is saying, here in this verse, that if you are in a situation where you are suffering due to no fault of your own, and you are doing it for the sake of the gospel, and you are doing it as unto the Lord, God says ‘Thank you.’
• Some of you were once married and are now single.
• Your spouse just ran off and left you.
• There was no fault of your own, you had to raise children and go through all kinds of hell, and you did it patiently with conscience toward God.
• God says thank you for doing your best in raising those children to respect Him.
• God says, ‘I appreciate you.’
• Some of you have had jobs that you’ve stayed on; maybe they ostracized you for being a Christian, maybe you just didn’t like the job– you didn’t want to be there – but you did it so you can support the kingdom of God.
• God says, ‘Thank you.’
• Some of you children have had to put up with situations that were just thrust on you.
• God says,’Thank you.’
• The Lord not only tells us to appreciate Him, and we can see that He appreciates us.
• Doesn’t it also stand to reason that we ought to appreciate one another?
• Shouldn’t we be a voice of encouragement to others?

Call to Action:

God is the most encouraging person you have ever met. Hanging out with Him and His Word will positively impact your life. Take what you know of Him and sow that into another persons life and the principle of sowing and reaping will go into operation. If you sow, encouragement, you will reap it also. Try it out this week and see.

Question: What other ways have you found to deal successfully with discouragement? Would you please leave your remarks in the comments section below?

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