I am going to give a pre-message to a message because I'm going to jump off of what Igor had, or Pastor Igor had been saying.
Lord showed me last night. He said there's some people who are struggling with discouragement.
Well, he kind of came at it from a different angle. I'm going to come at it from another angle.
Weary, tired, struggling to move on, and God wants to stretch us to be able to deal with these things and move on.
I'm going to talk to you a little bit about encouragement, and then we'll go to the normal message.
First Samuel 30, New King James Version. We'll start at verse one.
Now, it happened when David and his men came to Zyg leg on the third day that the Amalekites had invaded the south in Zyg leg,
and Zyg leg burned it with fire. So Israel had been invaded, and the city was burned with fire.
The Amalekites had taken captive the women, and those who were there from small to great, they did not kill anyone,
but carried them away and went their way. So David and his men came to the city, and there it was,
burned with fire, and their wives, their sons, their daughters had been taken captive.
That's hard on a good day, right there.
Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more power to weep.
David had two wives, names them there, they had been taken captive.
Verse number six, now David was greatly distressed.
For the people spoke of stoning him. That'll make it a worse day.
It's not good already. The king, he needs to do something here, and the people are not happy.
They spoke of stoning him because the soul of all the people was grieved.
Every man for his sons and his daughters.
But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God.
Okay, so let's talk about that just a few minutes here because it goes along with being stretched.
New wineskin.
We can keep approaching life like we always approach life.
Everybody hits discouraging times, everybody hits difficulty.
That was a rough day for David, rough time for those people.
The people are wanting to stone him so he can't go to them and get encouragement.
They're not going to offer him any.
So he encouraged himself.
That is something that Christians need to learn to do.
We need to learn how to grow into that.
There's a stretching that takes to make that happen.
Jesus said in this world you will have trouble.
So just because we've got some things going bad doesn't mean that God has abandoned us.
But how are we going to come out of it victorious without getting all depressed and self-pity and discouragement and so forth?
The key is in verse number six. Could you bring that back up again?
David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.
The word Lord there is Jehovah. That's the name.
The name God has been translated into the English as God. It's Elohim.
If you don't have this book, you need to get it.
Other papers I stuck in there. The names of God.
It's out on the literature rack. They're free. If they disappear, we'll just replace them.
Jehovah. Look at there. These guys are on the ball. I sent it to them this morning and they already got it.
Jehovah, self-existing eternal one who keeps covenant and fulfills promises.
A God who is merciful and gracious. God is not an angry God sitting on the throne waiting to beat us down.
He's merciful. He's gracious. He's slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness and truth.
That's what the name Jehovah means.
The word Elohim which was translated God there means God's, it's speaking of three, the Trinity,
total power and might, complete sovereignty, complete creativity, creative power, complete power,
complete creative power, complete creativity, completely sovereign.
He owns total power and might and he has made promises to us and he doesn't need anything to sustain those promises
because he's self-existing Jehovah. He's eternal and his attitude is he's merciful and he's gracious
and he's slow to anger. David knew who God was.
If you jump over to where David confronted Goliath, this is when he was younger, David confronted Goliath.
On the way to deliver the stone, he yelled,
You come to me with your spear and sword, but I come to you in the name of the Lord.
Have you ever looked up what that is there?
Jehovah, the God of covenant. Remember he told his brothers,
he said, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that you even let him talk to you that way?
Do you know what he's referring to? They're covenant.
We're in covenant with God. Who is this clown?
Why are you letting him talk to you that way?
Jehovah, Sabaoth, it's the name of God that means the God of war, service and the appointed time.
Notice he said, I'm coming at you, Goliath, in covenant with God, and he is the God of war.
He's going to take you out. You come at me with a sword and a spear, whatever.
I'm coming to you with something much greater.
Back in 1 Samuel 30, he encouraged himself in the fact he knew who God was
and once you know who God is, you now can know who you are in him.
If you don't know who God is, then it's like, well, who am I? What am I going to do? How am I going to handle this?
But if you know who he is, wait a second, he's Jehovah. Run it back to that name.
He's Jehovah. He has been around forever. He self exists. He doesn't need anyone.
And he has decided to keep covenant and fulfill promises with me.
With me, David knew him. He knew what he was like.
And then he drew on God's creative power.
God is totally sovereign. He has complete power and control.
If he doesn't, if there's no answer that exists to fix what you're needing, he will create one.
He's Elohim. The Israelites are coming from Egypt to the Promised Land.
Never in the history of the world had manna ever happened.
They had a problem. I mean, how are you going to feed several million people that long?
Of course, they lengthened it some. It wasn't supposed to be quite that long,
but they decided to lengthen that. They enjoyed the wilderness so much.
For 40 years, how are you going to feed several million people for 40 years?
Going into it, if Moses would have said, well, we can't do that.
There's no way to feed them for 40 days. And what happens if it takes us longer and lack of faith just quit?
No, he just did what God said. And God said, I'll create something if I need to. And he did.
He created manna. Whatever you're facing, that's discouraging you.
Who is He to you? Do you know? If you don't, it's time to get to know.
You've got to get to know Him. Get this book that will help you.
It will give you some place to at least start. Who is He to you?
Because whatever He is to you is what you become in Him.
See, if He is the one who keeps covenant and fulfills promises, that means from me to Him, He's going to keep His word to me.
Well, what has He told you? I am on the receiving end of a God who is merciful, gracious, slow to anger.
I am on the receiving end of the God who has all creative power.
And He wants to fulfill and keep His promises to me.
David encouraged himself, not by, oh, I'm going to have to figure this out, or I find somebody that can say something nice to me.
I hope somebody is with me.
David encouraged himself in who God was to him, which made him to be something to God.
And I'm sure if we were there, he sat on that for a bit.
That wasn't just a momentary decision.
He might have walked away and said, I got to talk to God for a bit and sat under a tree for an hour and rehearsed.
Who are you? What have you told me? Who am I to you?
And got that settled again so His own discouragement wouldn't destroy the whole mission.
Once He got that settled, then He got up and said, what's God telling us to do with this?
This problem right here.
First He got Himself back on track with God. He encouraged Himself.
Then He addressed the issue at hand.
A lot of times we as Christians, do you know what we do?
We address the issue at hand without stopping to realize who we are and what He said to us.
Oh man, it went bad. What are we going to do now? We can't do this. We can't...
Wait, wait, just slow the boat down. Who is He?
Who are we to Him? What does He promise us?
Because He's not a man that He's going to lie.
Let's get ourself grounded again.
Now, okay, Lord, what do you want us to do with this problem?
Knowing everything is established.
Don't try to figure out what to do with the problem until you've grounded yourself in faith again.
Grounded yourself in who you are in Him and who He is to you.
You say, well, I don't know. Well, study to show yourself approved.
That's why we need to spend some time in the book.
That's why we need to spend some time studying the book.
Because when we hit that wall, and we all hit it from time to time,
when we hit that wall, we need a resource to go back to and say,
but wait a second, this is who God is.
This is what His word declares Him to be. This is who I am to Him.
This is what He promised to me. This is what He told me.
Nah, we're not going to bow for this.
In David's case, we're going to go get our wives and sons and daughters.
We're going to get them all back. What if you get killed?
No, no, no. Wait a second. I served Jehovah Elohim.
I know who He is to me. I know who I am to Him. That is settled.
The Amalekites are not in covenant with God. I am.
And He took the step forward on the basis of Jehovah Elohim, His God.
And see, that goes way deeper than, well, He believed in the Lord God.
No, no, no. That goes way deeper than that.
That's where He drew His strength from. That's where we need to draw our strength from.
And we need to grow and be stretched to the point where those resources
are quickly, readily available to us to grab and say,
No, this is what He said. No, this is what He said I am. No, this is who He is.
He is faithful. He's true. He's not going to lie. He's not going to back off.
And we just reground ourselves and go, yeah, wait a second.
This don't look good right now, but the dust hasn't settled yet.
That's right.
Wait till the dust settles. This is going to turn around.
So Lord, I pray for everyone who is weary, who's tired.
You're stretching us. You're growing us.
Everyone who's gotten discouraged because they're facing something.
Grow us in this, Lord.
Grow us so that we can actually stop and re-cement our position in you
because we know you and we know you know us.
And there is a relationship. There's a covenant.
There are promises that we are living in and we're not going to be turned one way or the other.
We're going to follow you and regroup, regroup emotionally, regroup in our faith,
regroup in our thinking, calm all the racing thoughts and all the unbelief that tries to set in
and just say, no, we're not doing that. And get it all calm.
Teach us, grow us, stretch us to become a people like that.
Then we'll stop and say, okay, what do you want us to do?
And get your leading. In Jesus' name, amen.