Rev. David Holwick Z Joshua 1:9 Series
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
July 24, 2016
Joshua 1:9 & Nehemiah 4:6-14
DON'T GIVE UP!
I. Discouragement is pretty common in life.
A. How many setbacks could you take?
Harland was born in 1890 in a small town in Indiana.
His mother was a devout Christian and strict parent,
continuously warning her children of the evils of alcohol,
tobacco, gambling, and whistling on Sundays.
They walked 2-and-a-half miles to Sunday School, then 2-and-
a-half miles back.
At the age of 5, his father came home with a fever and died
that night.
The widowed mother was away for days at a time looking for work,
so Harland had to pitch in and cook for his siblings.
At age 11 he hired out to an elderly farmer and collected eggs,
fed the animals, and milked 16 cows every night, seven days
a week.
The farmer paid him $4 - a month.
At age 29 he sold tires, but they closed down their factory
and he lost his job.
He then ran a gas station, but it closed because of the Great
Depression.
Shell Oil Company offered him another station in Kentucky, rent
free, in return for paying them a percentage of sales.
He augmented his profits by selling dinners to the customers.
Harland bought a motel, which then burned down.
He rebuilt it, then had to shut it down when World War II gas
rationing cut off tourism.
After the war he opened it again and it was a big success -
until the new Interstate 75 bypassed his location and his
customers dried up.
He was 65 years old and all he had was his savings and $105
a month from Social Security.
Harland thought to himself, Is this all my life is going to
be from this point on?
Just sitting on the porch waiting for my next Social Security
check to arrive?
It was a discouraging thought.
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B. What discourages you?
1) Your career, your relationships, your dreams can all
go bust.
2) Even if not everything blows up, something will, sometime. 3) How will you handle it when you hit a wall?
C. Three facts about discouragement.
1) It is universal.
a) No one is immune to discouragement.
b) Whether you have money or not, faith or not, education
or not, you will be discouraged someday.
2) It is recurring.
a) Experiencing it once doesn't make you immune to getting
it again.
b) You can be discouraged by the fact you are discouraged
a lot.
c) You are never completely cured of its possibility.
3) It is contagious.
a) People can become discouraged because you are
discouraged.
b) You can become discouraged because other people are.
c) All it takes is some casual contact.
D. It is pervasive, but it can be dealt with.
1) The Bible contains advice on how to overcome discouragement.
2) Joshua was commanded to avoid it before he even began his
campaign to conquer the Promised Land.
3) Nehemiah presents a more practical guide because he had
to overcome it in real time.
4) He has good lessons for all of us.
II. Nehemiah's sad situation.
A. He was excited to be allowed to return home.
1) He was one of the Jews sent into exile.
2) His master allowed him to go back and rebuild.
3) Jerusalem was weak, threatened, and destroyed.
B. Nehemiah focused on one task - rebuilding the wall.
1) He organized and cajoled the Jews.
2) Each family had their own section to work on.
3) The work made good progress and the people were excited.
a) The wall was up to half its original height.
C. Then something happened.
1) Where God is at work, the enemy is also at work.
a) Foreign opponents conspired against them.
b) The Jews quickly became discouraged.
c) The same thing happens to us.
2) If we understand how discouragement comes we can head it off.
III. What caused their discouragement.
A. Fatigue.
1) Verse 10 - "The strength of the laborers is giving out."
2) Rebuilding walls is hard work, and the new opposition was
the straw that broke the camel's back.
a) When you are physically drained, it is very easy to
become discouraged at the slightest problem.
3) Many projects start easy and end hard.
a) My own experience with a window for our church bathroom.
b) I am one-third done. But I haven't worked on it in
months. It seems overwhelming.
c) I am going to ask Celeste to work on it too.
1> She has less time than me, but I need the motivation.
2> Maybe you need to be motivated to complete something
too.
B. Frustration.
1) Verse 10 continues: "and there is so much rubble that we
cannot rebuild the wall."
a) Their worksites were cluttered with debris.
2) That's a good metaphor for what many of us face.
a) Little problems are everywhere.
b) When you have a lot of junk underfoot, you can lose
track of the bigger goals.
3) What is your rubble?
a) Are trivial things wasting your time?
1> I was walking in New York City recently and half the
people were staring at their phones, looking for
Pokeman characters.
2> They were stumbling all over themselves.
b) Have bigger things tripped you up?
1> Sins and bad attitudes can infect you.
2> Get rid of the rubbish and focus on the goal.
C. Fear.
1) Local Jews said in verse 12, "Wherever you turn, they will
attack us."
2) Fear is contagious - and discouraging.
a) When you are afraid, how do you respond?
b) Don't let it defeat you. It is a tactic of the enemy.
IV. Principles for overcoming discouragement.
A. Reorganize.
1) Nehemiah didn't rebuke his people or punish them, but
reorganize them.
2) In verse 13 he says, "Therefore I stationed some of the
people behind the lowest points of the walls at the
exposed places, posting them by families, with their
swords, spears and bows." a) They were already organized and were halfway done.
b) Nehemiah had to change it up for a new threat.
3) When you are discouraged, reorganize your priorities.
Remember Harland?
When the new highway destroyed his business, he sat down
and wrote out all his gifts, blessings and talents.
Then he began visiting local restaurants and cooking his
mom's special fried chicken recipe for them.
If they liked it, he offered them a franchise deal.
Col. Harland Sanders's Kentucky Fried Chicken rapidly grew
to over 600 outlets and he sold out to some entrepreneurs
at the age of 73.
He was a millionaire.
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a) Do you have a problem in life? Your job, marriage,
your walk with God?
b) Reorganize! Do something different to shake things up.
B. Remember.
1) In verse 14 Nehemiah tells his people, "Don't be afraid of
them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome..."
2) How do you remember the Lord?
a) Remind yourself that he is still there - you are not
alone.
b) Remember that he is great and awesome. He is strong
enough to deal with your problems.
c) Remember what he has done for you in the past, and ask
him to do it again.
C. Resist.
1) Don't give up, but actively fight.
2) Nehemiah continues in verse 14, saying, "fight for your
brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and
your homes."
a) Don't cave in to discouragement, but battle against it.
b) James 4:7 tells us, "Resist the devil."
1> Resist his negative thoughts.
2> Stand firm in your faith and put your trust in God.
V. Raise your perspective in life.
A. Joshua and Nehemiah served the Living God.
1) They were committed to something bigger than themselves.
2) Are you?
B. There is more to the Colonel Sanders story.
After he had gained wealth and fame, the Colonel was asked to
be a delegate for his church at a conference in Australia.
During the trip he turned to his companions and remarked,
"If this plane goes down, you fellows will go to heaven and
I'll go to hell.
I hope I can find the peace of soul I need at this conference."
He did not find that peace in Australia.
Sanders had always believed in God, he attended church, he
was the preacher's friend, he even tithed 10% of his income.
But he wasn't saved, and he knew it.
You can be in the church and be utterly lost.
All his life he tried to live by principles of decency,
hard work, patriotism, and a high standard of morality.
It was not enough.
There was a void inside.
An unanswered question with him was; "How could a man KNOW that
his sins had really been forgiven?"
While attending a service in Louisville he shared his concern
about his spiritual condition.
The pastor asked him to bow and pray and ask God to forgive him,
to have mercy upon him.
Suddenly the Colonel lifted his head and the pastor related,
"He looked at me and said it was the first time in his life
he had ever experienced the presence of Christ within
his heart."
Colonel Sanders' testimony was,
"You can join the church, you can serve on committees,
you can be baptized and receive communion,
you can become superintendent of the Sunday School,
and not be saved.
I know, it happened in my life.
I needed to know something deep within my soul.
There is an inner experience, a new birth, that brings peace.
Morality and good works cannot accomplish it, it is the work
of the Holy Spirit."
So, at the age of 75, Col. Harland Sanders, a millionaire,
found Christ and salvation.
Have you?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
This sermon closely follows the message “Thinking Biblically About ...
Discouragement,” by Rev. J. David Hoke, New Horizons Community Church of
Voorhees, New Jersey, February 24, 1994 (Kerux Sermon #2550).
Kerux Sermons #14916 and #24798 have similar structures; the original
source is probably Rev. Rick Warren (see Illustration #29888).
#28231 “Fried Chicken Recipe Cured His Discouragement,” David Holwick,
adapted from Wikipedia.org and the following internet articles:
"Before He Died Col. Sanders Shared A Huge Secret, What He
Said Changes Everything," by "Dude Named Ben,” January 2016;
<link>; also
“Colonel Harland Sanders’ Testimony,” by H. C. Vanderpool,
April 17, 2013; <link>. An excellent online article is here.
The original illustration was part of the Raymond Jones Jr.
Collection.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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