Title: Dealing with Discouragement

Text: 1 Kings 19:4-5

Date: 9-03-06.am

Introduction: One of the unwritten laws of life is that you don’t always gets to live on the mountaintop. That’s true physically, emotionally and spiritually. The question is what do we do when we come tumbling off the mountain into a valley of discouragement.

I want us to look this morning at the life of the prophet Elijah understand some things about discouragement.

Introduce Characters:

Omri 1 kings 16:23 - more wicked (Om-ree_

Ahab 1 Kings 16: 29-33 - more wicked says it twice set up worship of foreign gods and married Jezebel.

Elijah 1Kings 17:1

                  Confronts Ahab it’s not going to rain

                  Fed by Ravens at the brook Cherith (Kerith)

Lived with widow of Zarephath (Zarafath) and saw God’s provision

                  Raised her son from death

                  Confronts the 450 prophets of Baal (tell the story) 18:16-40

                  Speaks and it rains 18:41-45

                  Runs ahead of Ahab’s chariot to Jezreel 18:46

                  Hears of Jezebel’s threat and fleas into the desert. 19:1-3

We are all subject to discouragement

         We don’t always live on the mountain top. It is usually worse after times of victory.

Have you ever said or thought something like this?

“God, I don’t know why I keep trying to be honest where I work. Everyone else at the company lies and cheats and steals and they seem to get rewarded. I’m tired of trying live my testimony in front of all of these people!”

“God, I’m doing my best to serve you, but the problems keep coming my way, and now I don’t even know how I’m going to pay this bill. I thought I was following you and doing what you want, and it just doesn’t seem to matter.”

“God, I work faithfully at church, and I do the best I can and no one seems to care, no one appreciates what I do. I’m so discouraged, I just want to quit!”

That’s where Elijah was! And we’re not Elijah’s.

What do you do when it happens to you? Do you run away, do you withdraw from the game of life or the church or your faith? Elijah went to a physical place in the desert, but what kind of desert do you run to when you are discouraged? It doesn’t have to be a physical place it could be emotional or psychological desert. You might physically be in the same place but in your mind you have gone into the desert. You’ve run away you just want to give up and sometimes even like Elijah you are saying Lord just let me die and be done with it. I don’t want to go on I don’t want to fight it anymore.

How do we handle it?

         1. Self examination Where are we? How did we get here?

It was like the question God asked Adam in the garden. When we become weary, we lose heart. You start to think self-defeating thoughts. You start to think that nothing is going to go right for you, so why bother? Why are you serving God? Is it only because you expect a temporal reward in this lifetime? Are you serving God because you love Him and because He am God? If for no other reason we serve God because He loved us enough to come into this world in Jesus Christ and die for us on the cross and give us eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.

         2. Refocus on God

         What happened to Elijah? After all God had done through him and after he had been so courageous. He took his eyes off God. Look what God had done but now he is thinking I’m no match for Jezebel and he’s looking at what she had done and who he was rather than who God was.

Peter had the same thing happen to him when Jesus came one night walking on the water.

Hebrews 12:3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Galatians 6:9

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Are you looking for God in only the big things? Look for him in everything even or especially in the small things.

         3. Remember you are not alone

Elijah thought he was the only one doing anything, the only one who cared the only one who was concerned, but He wasn’t and neither are we.

         We have the Holy Spirit of God who is always with us, but we have each other as well. We need to be encouragers of one another. It’s easy to find fault and be negative and be critical but we need to always see the positive, we need to always be ready to give a good word to each other to pray for each other.

         4. Get back into the game

We need to get out of that desert place and get back in the game of life.

Race car drivers

Sometimes we allow our discouragement to take us out of living for Jesus out of working and ministering for Him. While the devil can never take our salvation he can use discouragement to steal our joy, damage our testimony, destroy our ministry and service. We can’t allow that to happen

Remember it is important we get proper food and rest for our bodies, but God gives food and rest for our soul. He provides strength for our task and no matter how things may look through our physical eyes God is always in control, He is always on the throne, He is always God. We must live for Him and not for self.