Encouragement in Dark Times Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on Encouragement in Dark Times Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 23:1-11.

Even though we don’t get the response we want, we need to be encouraged, and we need to know that in heaven, God is standing up from his throne, and he is cheering us on when he sees his people being obedient and faithful to him. Hello. This is Hope Worth Having, and I am your host, pastor Mike Sanders, and I’m looking forward to sharing the hope of Christ with you today as we explore God’s word. So I want you to join me today as we begin to study the bible. We’re gonna be in Acts chapter 23, continuing our study, encouragement in dark times.

Acts chapter 23 verses one through 11. Let’s begin. And he reminds the apostle that even in the darkness, that his ministry is not over yet. And there are four things that Jesus shares that I wanna share with you to help you in those dark times of your life, and so that you can be encouraged. The first thing we see is the presence of God.

I want you to go back and notice at the beginning of verse 11, underscore this in your bible. If you like to mark your bible, it’s okay. It’s good to make notes in your bible. It’s good to highlight things in your bible. Some people don’t like to do that, and that’s fine.

I don’t wanna do anything that bothers your conscience. But if you’d like to do that, would you please underscore the lord stood by him? The lord stood by him. There’s nothing more encouraging in a person’s life, a Christian’s life, than the presence of God. There wasn’t many people there to stand with the apostle.

You remember that the apostle, who was very familiar with jail, always being thrown in jail, that he told Timothy, no one stood with me. But here, when others had forsaken him, the apostle found that God did not forsake him. Remember the words of the apostle in second Timothy chapter four verse 17. The bible says that the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the message might be preached fully through me and that all the gentiles might hear. Also, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

What I want you to see here is the presence of God was with the apostle even in his dark time in his life. There are times in our life that the darkness is so thick, and the weight of the trial is so heavy in our heart that we don’t often sense the presence of God in our life. But I want to remind you that God is always with us. No matter where we go, God is always with us. He is with us whether we are serving him, or we are in a space that we are not able to serve him.

God is with us when things are wonderful in our life, and God is with us when things are difficult in our life. Our Lord and savior will never leave us or forsake us. Can God’s people say amen? Now we see this illustrated in the life of Moses, when Moses was leading Israel, and they came to a point where they were wondering, would they have the presence of God with them? It was Moses who pleaded with God that his presence would be with him.

Moses so valued the presence of God that he would not go on without the presence of God. Exodus 33 verse 15. Then he said to him, if your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. You see, church, when we’re out there serving God and we’re trying to be that Christian, that person who is a disciple of Christ out there amongst our family and in the midst of our daily schedules and responsibilities that we have, we must always ask for the presence of God, not just that God is with us. Yes, we know he’s with us.

We know that he’s omnipresent, meaning that he is everywhere at the same time, but we want the manifested presence of God in our life. We wanna be able to sense that God is working. We want to know that God, his presence is with us, and that we will not go anywhere without his manifested presence in our life. The key to Joseph’s success in the old testament was the presence of god. Even though Joseph had been mistreated, he had been betrayed, he had been misunderstood, he desired the presence of god in his life.

Genesis 39 verse 21. But the lord was with Joseph, showed him mercy, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the promise. My friends, you and I need the presence of god, And we need the presence of God in those difficult days, and we need to seek his presence, and we need to desire his presence, and we need to pray for his presence, and we need to claim his presence. We talk about claiming the promises of God, but we also need to claim the presence of God in our life. Because, you say, what’s the big deal, Mike?

Your presence, and definitely God’s presence, makes a big difference. Sometimes people say to me, I don’t know what to do or say to a person who is grieving. I don’t know how to help them, Pastor Mike. I don’t know what to say. And I always remind them, you don’t have to say anything.

Because most of the time, 90% of what you’re gonna say is more hurtful than not saying anything. Because in our good intentions, we might misspeak. We might say something that is really not aligning with God’s truth. But let me tell you what is most important, is your presence. Just be there.

Just be available. Just be a listener. Just be someone who is present in their life. What I want you to know that that’s the way God is in your life. God is not up there judging you.

He’s not up there correcting you. He’s not up there trying to say, well, you should’ve done it this way, or I told you so. But rather, his presence is with you. When you feel discouraged, when you feel like you’re going through a dark time in your life, you have the presence of God, and you need to encourage yourself in the Lord that his presence is with you. God is with you.

And when God is with you, you can endure. You can move forward. You can take the next step for him. It doesn’t matter whether others are with you or not, as long as the Lord stands with you. It’s difficult for us to deal with the absence of people in our life.

Sometimes the Lord calls our loved ones to be promoted to heaven. Sometimes our loved ones are walking through the journey of life with us, and they decide they don’t wanna be a part of that journey anymore, And they abandon us, they betray us, or they break their vow to us. But listen to me, friends. No matter who forsakes you, no matter what relationship lets you down, there is one person who will never let you down, and his name is Jesus Christ. And his abiding presence is always with you, and you can be encouraged, and you can be comforted with that promise.

And Jesus taught us that he will never leave us nor forsake us in the book of Hebrews. I want you to stand on that promise, and I want you to claim his presence in those difficult times in your life. And that was so powerful in the life of the apostle is that the lord stood by him. The second thing I want you to see in how he encouraged the apostle was from the precepts from god. Now when I use that word precept, I’m just talking about the commands of God, that God gives us direction, that God gives us a directive.

And here is what he tells the apostle after having been there. His presence is with him, he stands with the apostle, he says, be of good cheer. That’s the command. Be of good cheer. Now when you think of that word, be of good cheer, it’s the idea of being courageous.

It’s the idea of being bold. And what he is saying to the apostle is, don’t quit. I want you to be courageous. I don’t want you to let this setback stop you. I want you to press on for the glory of God.

I want you to get up. You’ve been knocked down. Get back up. When our kids were growing up, we would often tell them, get up. They would fall in the living room, bump their head, and rather than everybody running to them and wanting to pick them up, we would just say, get up.

Get up. Why? Because we wanted them to learn. When you fall, you get back up. You say, Mike, that’s not profound.

We didn’t come this morning just for some little principle on when you fall, get back up, but let me tell you something. In today’s society, how many people need that? There are many times we get overloaded with the circumstances of life. We fall, we flounder, and we struggle, and we just continue to have a pity party. And we dig deeper into our discouragement, our depression, I want to tell you that the height of your healing is never to close the blinds, shut the door, and grab a bag of potato chips and sit on the couch.

That the only way that you will experience the full healing of God in your heart, in your emotions, in your spirit, and in your mind is to get up and take a step. I’ve told you this before, church. You know how it is. I could say, how many of you have had a a knee replacement, or how many of you have had your shoulder replaced, or you’ve had your whatever hip replaced. You know?

And next thing I know, they’re gonna be saying, pastor Mike, I’m getting my head replaced. Okay. I mean, pretty soon, they’re gonna attach a AI head to you. Okay? It’s gonna be all automated, and you’re gonna be artificial intelligence, and you’re gonna be smarter than everybody.

But you know what they tell you? Get up after surgery. Get up. You’re not laying in this bed all day. Get up.

You stay in this bed, you’ll get infected. You stay in this bed, you’ll get stiff. You stay in this bed, you won’t be able to have the flexibility that you need. And that’s what I’m saying to you spiritually, is that you have to get up. You have to remember.

Be of good cheer. We may be very surprised that encouragement comes from those directives and commands of God that we don’t always feel like obeying. Sometimes you say, well, I don’t wanna go to church. Well, the Bible says, don’t forsake it. You say, I don’t wanna assemble with God’s people because and you got all your thousands of reasons, and I’m not saying any of them aren’t legit.

But let me tell you something, friends. If you don’t re engage, you’re gonna spiral farther downward. When you isolate your life from others, when you seclude yourself from the opportunity for God’s people to bear one another’s burdens, and to minister to you, and to encourage you, and to help you to keep moving forward for God, then I’m telling you, you are going to have a major setback in your spiritual life. That’s what we do. We build walls, and we try to keep people out, and we say, boy, I’m I was hurt, and I don’t want to be offended again.

Listen. You can’t live your life like that. You have got to say, I’m gonna be of good cheer. I’m gonna take courage in God. Listen to what Jesus said to the disciples.

The bible says in Matthew 14, immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid. Take courage. God’s commands are given to us, not to be a burden to us, but to bless us.

And you say, well, I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to. That’s like the little kid who said, hey. I don’t wanna go to school. Yeah.

You let the little kid sleep it all day in bed. He’ll never go to school. He’ll never be educated. He’ll live with your mom until he’s 99. And I know some of you moms want that.

Right? You want your little one to stay with you till they’re 99. But here’s the problem. When they’re 99, mom ain’t gonna be there, and they’re not gonna be able to function without you. Take courage.

God is with you. Take courage. His commands are to bless you. His commandments are an avenue and a means of blessings and grace in your life. If God thought that it wasn’t important for you to follow His commands, He would have never given them to you.

He gives them to you so you can continue to flourish in your faith. It’s not easy to obey God, is it? I’ll be the first to admit, I know the rest of you are more spiritual than me, and I appreciate that, And I’m trying to catch up with you. I want you to know that. But let me tell you something.

I know it’s hard to obey God. But even though it is hard to obey God, we cannot fall into the trap of pouting and complaining and having pity parties. We must be courageous, church. We must press on. We must move forward for God.

And sometimes, it’s a step. And sometimes, it’s just taking a small step. But let’s keep moving forward for God in our discouraging times, and not be quitters, because it’s always too soon to quit, and to keep moving forward. Remember what the apostle taught us. Rejoice in the Lord always.

And again, I say what? Let’s do that again, church. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say Rejoice. Oh, I love it. I love it, church.

He didn’t say, when everything’s wonderful in your life, rejoice. He didn’t say, when your bank account’s full, rejoice. He didn’t say, when everybody likes you, rejoice. But he said, rejoice always. We rejoice always.

We make the choice to rejoice. We choose that we’re going to live on a higher plane through the power of his spirit, through the strength that he has given us. And he commands us, and he calls us to be courageous. And when he tells us to be courageous or to be of good cheer, he’s not gonna give us a command, that he’s not gonna equip us to be able to obey. You say, pastor, I could never do that.

I’d rather be negative all day, and I’d rather find fault with everything, and I’d rather just kind of fizzle out here and complain about everything. No, my friends. I want you to make a decision today. I’m gonna be courageous and rejoice in God Almighty. Now the third thing that I want you to see here in how God encouraged the apostle is that you will see the praise from God.

Look again at this text. He says, be of good cheer, Paul, for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem. I’m certain that the apostle may have felt that there were times man, am am I making a difference? Is anything happening here? I’m over here trying to be a witness for god in Jerusalem, and I’m I’m trying to win people to Christ, and I keep getting thrown in jail.

I mean, let’s just be honest. 99 percent of us would have already given up. I mean, if we went downtown and tried to pass out some tracks and they grabbed us by the throat and they threw us in the jail, we’d be like, you know what? I’m done. I’m not doing that no more.

I don’t know why pastor would ever tell me to do that. We witness to our neighbor. We invite them to come, and they never come. We try to get our grandchildren to come to vacation bible school, but they don’t come, and we’re ready to quit. Throw in the towel, and we’re ready to say, you know, woe is me.

Listen to me, friends. I want you to see the praise that God has given the apostle. He is saying to him, you have testified. You have testified of me in Jerusalem. You’re not a failure.

We define our success by numbers. We define our success by the responses of others, but God defines our success by our obedience to him and our faithfulness to him. You say, well, it doesn’t matter. Do you have vacation bible school? It doesn’t matter if you reach out to your neighbor.

It doesn’t matter if you help a stranger. It does matter, church. It matters to God. And listen, even though we always don’t get the response we want, and even though we don’t always see the change that we want immediately, it doesn’t mean that God has given up on us. We need to be encouraged, and we need to know that in heaven, God is standing up from His throne, and He is cheering us on when He sees His people being obedient and faithful to Him.

It’s like God is patting the apostles back, and he is saying, good job. You already witnessed for me in Jerusalem. Good job. He’s praising him. I want you to get into God’s word and let God’s word encourage you.

We kinda sometimes look at the Bible and we say, boy, look at what God is He’s beaten down on me. And I’m not saying that there aren’t times that we need to be confronted about our sin, and we definitely do. But I also want you to know, if you read the whole counsel of God, there are many times he’s encouraging us, and he is reminding us to stay at it, don’t quit, and you’re doing a great job. Stay faithful for me, and stay on track. And even though the whole world is against what the Bible teaches, we remain obedient and we remain faithful to God.

That’s something you need to think about. What is gonna be your legacy to your children? What is gonna be your legacy to your grandchildren? I want you to think about that for a second. Now, as a pastor, I have a funeral tomorrow.

I do funerals all the time now. I mean, I I don’t know what it is, but I mean, I used to do maybe six, seven, eight a year. And last year, I did 22 funerals. And I’m all ready. Tomorrow will be my fourteenth funeral for the year.

And it just Wow. A lot of people. But let me just tell you, I attend all these funerals. I have to be there. They tell me I should show up.

But I go to these funerals and I hear these people praise these wonderful Christians. And it’s so encouraging to see the legacy that they have left their family. It’s so encouraging to me to see that, man, they live such a faithful life to God that it impacted them. You see, church, here’s what you wanna remember, that when it’s all said and done, the legacy you leave to your family, and I’m not talking about riches, Okay? And hopefully nobody leaves debt to their family.

Amen? Don’t do that. But the legacy of your faith is most important. Now, I’ve laid that groundwork for you, and here’s what I wanna say to you. Whatever you want your children to say about you, whatever you want your family to say about you at your funeral, you better start living it now.

You can’t, like, turn it on at the last minute. You can’t do that. If you wanna leave a great legacy that they can give honor and tribute to your life, that it’s now that time. And I want to encourage you, don’t quit. Some of you are thinking about, man, is it worth it?

And I’m telling you, it’s more than worth it. And that God is not only gonna honor you, and he is not only going to reward you, but he is gonna continue to praise you because you have been a testimony. You have been a witness for him in whatever and wherever the circumstance may be. I want you to notice the fourth and final principle here that God uses to encourage the apostle, and that thou bear witness also at Rome. You must also bear witness at Rome.

You must also bear witness at Rome. You must also bear witness at Rome. You see, we must also bear witness at Rome. You must also bear witness at Rome. You see, we must also bear witness at Rome.

You must also bear witness at Rome. You see, we must also bear witness at Rome. You You must also bear witness at Rome. You see, why would God bring that up? Why would God even mention this to the apostle?

Because in the apostle’s mind, he’s thinking, man, this is it. I wanted to still get to Rome. I need to get to Rome. I need to get there to share the gospel, to reach out to others. I need to get there.

But you know what? He’s thinking, it’s not gonna happen. And what does God do? He gives him a promise. You must also bear witness at Rome.

I’m certain that this encouraged the apostle Paul. Here he was under Roman custody, and he thought, man, it’s over. But God encourages him with a promise. You’re gonna make it, and I still have a job for you to do. Yeah.

I still have a job for you to do. Psalm 31 verse 15. Here’s what the scripture says. My times are in thy hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from them that persecute me.

Our times are in his hands. Sometimes people say, Pastor, why am I still here? I mean, we got members that are hundred years old, hundred and two years old. I am just amazed how people live so long. It’s wonderful.

I love it. And they say, pastor, why am I still here? You know what I tell them? God has a job for you. You say, well, I can’t do as much.

I can’t come and volunteer for VBS. I can’t get involved and help with this. But let me tell you something. Can you pray? Think about it.

The greatest ministry is prayer ministry. It really is. Although it’s the smallest assembly of groups within the church, it is still the most powerful ministry. It is the most profound ministry within a church. It is the ministry of prayer.

And you say, man, how is it that God has blessed our church? How is it that God is moving this ministry forward? I tell you, it has nothing to do with a person, and and it has nothing to do with a philosophy, and it has nothing to do with a strategy, but it has everything to do with God’s people praying. That’s what makes the difference in people’s lives. That is what is moving the heart of God.

Your times are in his hand, and if God has left you here, he has a plan for your life. He has a purpose for your life, and you must commit your heart that you are gonna live out your life because He has more service for you to do. He has more work for you to do on this earth. And if it’s nothing more than praying, it is still very valuable to God. The bible says in first Peter chapter one verse seven, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

So often, this passage is misunderstood. And here we see that Peter is talking about, is your faith real? Is it genuine? And he says, I want you to know that God is gonna test your faith. He’s gonna have you to go through the fire.

You’re gonna be tested by fire, but that your faith is gonna come out more than gold. It’s gonna be very precious. It is gonna be something that is gonna be found to praise. It’s not that praise to God. Hear me.

And I know this is gonna be so difficult for us to swallow, but it’s in the Bible, so I believe it. But it’s praise to you. God wants you to know that he is one day gonna look at our faith and say, I wanna bless you. I wanna commend you. I wanna honor you for being faithful.

You say, I don’t know if I believe that, pastor. Remember what Jesus taught us in Matthew 25? That the master said to the servant, well done, thou good and what? Well done, thou good and faithful servant. There’s many people in our lives, we’d love for them to praise us.

There’s many people, some of you, you’re living your whole life as defined by whether your father or mother would affirm you. But there is nothing more important than to receive the affirmation and praise from our heavenly father who says, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Paul knew Christ. He knew him in a real way, in a personal way. He had a great faith.

He understood that God had called him to a life of suffering and a life of difficulty, but he was not gonna let that stop him. That’s why he told Timothy, for this reason, I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to him until that day. This faith caused him to be mistreated. This faith and boldness that he had caused him to suffer more than any other person in the bible except our Lord.

If he had not told the truth, the apostle could have lived an easy life. If he had not stood up for Christ, he could have coasted. But he chose to be courageous, and he chose to stand on the promises of God, and he chose to stand for truth. And he used these words of our savior to keep him motivated moving forward for Christ. Let’s pray it again.

Is there anything more encouraging to know that the Lord has stood with you and that his presence is ever near? We forget about the presence of God because we don’t always feel it, but but even though we don’t sense it, he’s still there, and God is everywhere at the same time, and he’s certainly with his people. And so I am praying that God will continue to manifest his presence and that you will stand strong in those dark times in your life. I want to encourage you to check us out on our Facebook page. We have Hopeworth Having, and you can go to that page and you can like us.

We stream live on it, and we put different posts each day. And it’s a great opportunity to get to learn and know more about our ministry Worth Having, and I know you’ll be blessed by that. So take advantage of that. This is pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.