Facing Discouragement
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Intro
Intro
Well I don’t know about you, but thanks to our family getting COVID, my New Year has not begun the way I wanted it to.
I had all these plans, you know? Plans to spend some special focused time with my family. My wife Neva and I had plans to do a fun New Years cocktail class together online and that was scrapped. I had plans to preach this text, and I had a whole obligatory illustration using new years resolutions all planned out, and of course now that would just feel forced and awkward.
But you know that’s just how it goes right? We make the best of plans, we have the best of intentions, we get really excited about the goals we set, and then you know, life just has to get in our way.
Now I’m being a little cheeky here about crashed New Year plans. But I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say every one of us here knows what it feels like to set good goals or to have godly intentions that only lead us down a path of resistance, discouragement, or even fear.
I’ve talked with a number of you who moved here to Indianapolis just weeks or days before the pandemic hit. You had the best of intentions to get plugged into a church and grow in your faith, and then the pandemic all of a sudden made you just press pause on all of that for well over a year. Now it just feels so much harder and more awkward to actually get connected in the way you once intended.
Still others I know have had real challenges with employment, or finding a true sense of calling when the whole world just seems like its on fire right now. Many of us have faced a lot of loss these last couple of years, and the thought of moving forward with our grief and sadness can just feel like too much to bear.
I think there are really two big questions raised by the text before us this morning. The first question is, “How do we faithfully build or rebuild our lives around Jesus without compromising our convictions?” This is the question that I think is really raised by verses 1-3, and if you could just set that aside this morning, Charles will be addressing that question next week when he revisits this passage.
But the other question, and the one I want us to consider, is what do we do when faithfulness and the best of godly intentions put us on a path of opposition, fear, and discouragement?
Speaking of godly intentions, one that I know many of us share is a desire to spend more time in God’s Word. Maybe this year a Bible reading plan was one of your resolutions. You may have heard before about a plan called the “M’Cheyne Reading Plan.” Robert Murray M’Cheyne was a 19th century Scottish minister, and his Bible reading plan is sort of regarded as the gold standard. If you follow his plan, you’ll read 4 chapters a day, and by the end of the year you’ll have read the Psalms and New Testament twice, and the rest of the Old Testament once.
Now what makes his plan so unique is that it actually has you starting in 4 different places in the Bible. So if you started this plan on January 1st, you would be reading Genesis 1, Ezra 1, Matthew 1, and Acts 1. And the reason why he chose these 4 places is because they are 4 new beginnings in the Biblical story: Creation, the return from Exile, the advent of Christ, and the beginning of the church.
Each one of these new beginnings are filled with such hope, promise, and expectation. But by day 4 of the plan things start to look a little different for God’s people.
Genesis 4 is the tragic murder of Abel by his brother Cain. In Matthew 4, Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted and confront Satan. In Acts 4, the Apostles are arrested and put on trial by the religious leaders.
And here in Ezra 4, God’s people returning from Exile meet intense resistance from their enemies. At this point in God’s new beginning and redemptive work in his people, a hopeful story becomes one of conflict and opposition. This conflict will now hang over the rest of the narrative. God’s people - hopeful and expectant for what life would be like as they return to their land - must now deal with the reality of resistance, oppression, fear, and discouragement.
You see, there is a pattern in Scripture that plays out again and again. Faithful living and godly intentions often put God’s people on a path of great opposition, discouragement, and fear. In fact, what the Scriptures tell us is that more often than not, this pattern is normative for God’s people. Jesus spoke of it as the need to carry our cross. The Apostle Paul said that is only through many hardships that we will enter the kingdom of God. Opposition, discouragement, and fear, are to be expected for those trying to live faithfully in a fallen and sinful world.
We aren’t told much about the specifics of the opposition these exiles faced. The inhabitants of the land, these enemies, they wanted to thwart the plans to rebuild the temple. Their first strategy was to try and join the exiles in order to disrupt the building from the inside. But when their help was declined, these enemies responded with much more deliberate and outward forms of resistance.
Through some combination of verbal threats, psychological intimidation, and political influence, these enemies set about to frustrate the plans of the exiles to rebuild the temple.
Whatever this campaign of opposition looked like, the feelings of discouragement and fear must’ve been very intense. Fear was not a new experience for these exiles. In fact, we are told in Chapter 3 that despite the fear of the people around them, the exiles built an altar and made their sacrifices. So it was not a new experience of fear that afflicted the exiles here in Chapter 4; it was the severity of their fear.
The discouragement and fear were so intense that we are told in verse 24 the work on the temple came to a halt until the second year of Darius of Persia. The temple building began in about 537 or 536 BC. The second year of Darius would be about 520 BC. This is a period of about 16 or 17 years. So for nearly 2 decades, these bold, courageous, and faithful exiles are so overcome by fear and discouragement that they stop the work God had called them to altogether.
Let this sink in for a moment. These are the same returning exiles of whom it was said that God had moved in their spirit to bring them back to Jerusalem. These are the same exiles who sacrificed family, friendship, vocation, possession, and safety to make this perilous journey and follow God’s call. And yet even they, these heroes of the faith, met discouragement and fear that was simply too much for them to overcome.
The author here does not tell us what happened in the intermediate time. The prophets Haggai and Zechariah give us more detail on how the people responded to their discouragement with apathy and selfishness, and we will hear from them in a few weeks. But the author’s intent here was not to report those finer details. They simply wanted us to know what was: a bold and courageous people who met opposition that just simply became too much.
From this we can conclude that even the most courageous and strongest of faith are not impervious to the pain of discouragement nor to the suffocating anxiety of fear.
Have you ever found yourself in a place where you were overwhelmed by fear and discouragement? Maybe you’re feeling a little of that this morning. I know I have. Several times, even.
One of the most difficult seasons for me was when I started my seminary training in 2012. This was just a couple years after I became a Christian in 2010. I remember being so excited at the thought of beginning my studies and entering vocational ministry. I thought for sure that since I was “doing this for God”, everything would go exactly according to my plans.
But nothing could’ve been further from the truth.
First, I lost my church. I was working part-time at the church where I had become a Christian just 2 years prior. And when they found out I was becoming Reformed in my convictions, they asked me to resign and leave the church.
I was heartbroken. And then, just a couple weeks later, my full-time job where I worked as a consultant, they decided they wanted to switch my contract to working night hours. The thing is, all of my seminary classes were at night. When I told them I was taking night classes and couldn’t make the switch in my hours - they fired me.
So here I was , barely a Christian for 2 years, trying to start seminary now with no church and no job. It was a very painful and confusing time. The fear at times was so severe that I would wake up at night with panic attacks. I thought for sure that either I had done something very wrong, or that God had turned his back on me.
But God was faithful, as he always is, and he led me through that season. He gave me the grace and faith I not only needed then, but also to face the many other hardships that have been a part of my story since then.
As I mentioned a few minutes ago, opposition and conflict will remain a key part of the story for the rest of Ezra and Nehemiah. And as we continue to seek God together and discern what he might be building or rebuilding in us during this next season, I think wisdom and sobermindedness would lead us to expect that continued hardship, discouragement, and fear might be a part of our narrative as well.
So what do we do when we, like these returning exiles, find ourselves meeting hardship of various kinds? How do we remain faithful when our discouragement, fear, make us want to give up, or retreat from one another?
I think we find our answer by turning once again to the book of Hebrews.
A few weeks ago Charles reminded us that this altar and all of these sacrifices, which had to be made again and again for the sins of the people, while they were sufficient for their need, they were never meant to be permanent. They were never meant to be the main thing. They were meant to remind the people of their sin and drive them toward their need for God to deal with sin once and for all.
And what the author of Hebrews tell us again and again is that Jesus is the one who fulfills everything these sacrifices pointed forward to. He is the final priest who now lives forever to intercede for his people. He is the final sacrifice who paid for the sins of his people once and for all. Now, because of Jesus, Hebrews 10:18 says that sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.
Jesus paid it all. What the returning exiles were seeking to build was only a shadow of all that would be fulfilled in Jesus. What they could at best only look forward to in hope, we can now look back on with full confidence and assurance.
And beloved, this makes all the difference in the world for us. The author of Hebrews tell us as much in Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 19 which is printed in your bulletin. Here we have what I think is a beautiful and powerful four-fold strategy for dealing with discouragement and fear in the Christian life.
First, we’re told that because of all Jesus has done for us, we are told to draw near to God with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith. Jesus has done everything necessary to give us full, constant, and intimate access to God. Because of his finished work, we have complete confidence to enter the Most Holy Place, the very presence of God. This means we are believing lies whenever we feel like we are cut off from access to God - whether because of our circumstances, our performance, our sin, our shame.
I suspect this assurance to draw near to God was one of the hardest things for the exiles to grasp. Remember, they were coming out of nearly 50 years without temple worship. As they were coming back to the land it probably felt like all of the emphasis was on them and their ability to make sacrifices in order for God to truly accept and pardon them.
I think our struggle is often the exact opposite. Without the regular, mandatory, tangible offering of sacrifices, we might start to feel pretty distant from all that Jesus has accomplished for us. And in that gap, a very similar problem arises where the basis for our relationship with God becomes about us, rather than about what Jesus has done for us.
This is a space where we need the gospel to pierce our hearts again and again. Jesus is the only assurance we need.
Second, we’re told to hold unswervingly to the hope we profess. But notice the basis for this exhortation: it’s not anything in ourselves, it’s not the strength of our faith or our faithfulness. The basis for our hope is Jesus, because he has made promises and he is faithful to us.
Years ago I sat with a family during their exit meeting with doctors as they were leaving the hospital. We were talking about how discouraging this season had been for this family. Hearing that this family was Christian, the doctor opened up about his own faith in Jesus. And he said something that really stuck with me. He said, “You know what has helped me over the years is seeing our security in Jesus as a double grip. Yes, I hold on to Jesus by faith. But even when my faith is weak, even when I feel like I’ve lost my grip, he still has his hold on me. His grip is far stronger than mine, and even if I let go, he doesn’t let go of me.”
Do you see that? He who promised is faithful. Nothing can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. He has not and will not let go of you, even when it feels like the discouragement or fear are simply too much.
Notice where verse 24 goes next. I don’t want to draw a hard line between verses 19 to 23 and verses 24 and 25. However, if these first 4 verses were personal implications of faith in Jesus, verses 24 and 25 are the outward implications for our life together. And what we see here is that the third strategy for facing discouragement is through active encouragement. There is an active role on our part, one of spurring others on and being an encouragement to others.
In the book of Acts, the work of encouragement is described as the strengthening of souls. I like that. You and I have the sacred charge of using our words and our actions to strengthen the souls of others.
The German Martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been getting a lot of press among some of the staff, which is why you’re now getting your 3rd sermon illustration in a row about him. You know, as the Nazi party was coming into power, Bonhoeffer had the opportunity to flee and seek refuge in the United States. Instead, he decided to stay. Faithfulness for Bonhoeffer in the face of this opposition meant staying in Germany to lead a secret seminary for pastors. He wrote down the lessons he learned from this experience in a great little book called Life Together. And one of the lessons he learned was the importance of Christians to be an encouragement to one another. He said we need other Christians to speak God’s Word to us, because on our own we are so prone to becoming uncertain and discouraged. There will be times when the Christ in our own heart is weaker than the Christ in the words of our brothers and sisters. If my heart is weak but yours is sure, I need you to speaks words of life, grace, and truth to strengthen my soul once more.
Who in your life is God asking you to strengthen the soul of? Maybe a neighbor, a co-worker, a friend? How could you be an encouragement to others in the ministries you’re a part of here at Redeemer? What if every Sunday we each made it our goal to speak at least one word of encouragement to someone here? How might God use a surge of encouraging words here at Redeemer to strengthen our collective souls?
Lastly, we’re exhorted not to give up meeting together. Do you see the emphasis here? Spur one another on. Encourage one another. Don’t neglect meeting together. There’s a one-another-ness that flows out of the access Jesus has given us to God. The church isn’t just a place we go so that we can be taught or counseled. The church is a people we are a part of so we can take part in teaching and counseling one another; in building one another up. There is an active, mutual, dependence that comes with our new access to God in Jesus.
Do you have a group of people around you who are committed to helping you become more like Jesus? Do you have people you are committed to being more than just friendly with, but intentional about their growth in Christ’s likeness? I hope so. Our deepest desire is that you would find that here.
No church is perfect. Redeemer is not perfect. Often, church communities are a source of deep wounds. There is no excuse for the pain or damage that churches have often caused. Our family knows that first hand, and if you need someone to process your church hurt with, I would be honored to sit down with you and try to help you through that pain as best as I can.
Yet the fact remains that Jesus has promised to build his church. Jesus gave his life for his church. He loves his church. And his desire is that we would grow in our love for the church more and more.