Victory Through Despair - 3
June 12, 2022      |     By: Jonathan Brickley      |      Category: Sermons      |      Location: El Dorado
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Submit + Resist more than Bear Despair

Tests are like a plumb line

1) Despair over Performance As Dad
Psalm 97:11 (NIV)
11 Light shines on the righteous and joy on the upright in heart.

2) Despair over Performance As Pastor
Romans 15:13 (NIV)
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

God is a Weightlifter 

Psalm 68:19-20 (NIV)
19 Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.
20 Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.

BUT

Psalm 55:22 (NIV)
22 Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

God WILL NOT bear what we WILL NOT Cast Upon Him

We do not often think to reach to God
So, in His kindness He reaches to us via His church - His body - His hands

His touch makes us alive / Makes us Praise

Psalms 68:3-6 (NIV)
3 But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful.
4 Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds; rejoice before him—his name is the Lord.
5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
6 God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

Why Not Call Upon THE Deliverer for Deliverance?

Emotional Confusion Requiring the Word of the Lord

Israel’s Transition from Slave to Free
From Slavery Mindset into Sonship Mindset

Rescue Plan - Exodus 3:7-9
Exodus 3:7-9 (NIV)
7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.
8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.

Required Belief - Exodus 4:1, 5
Exodus:4:1 (NIV)
1 Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”
Exodus 4:5 (NIV)
5 “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

Miracles / Signs
Passive Belief Leads to Worship – Exodus 4:29-31

Exodus 4:29-31 (NIV)
29 Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites,
30 and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people,
31 and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.

Testing (bricks w/o straw)

Appeal to Abuser / Shun Deliverer = Exodus 5:15-21, 6:9
Exodus 5:15-21 (NIV)
15 Then the Israelite overseers went and appealed to Pharaoh: “Why have you treated your servants this way?
16 Your servants are given no straw, yet we are told, ‘Make bricks!’ Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people.”
17 Pharaoh said, “Lazy, that’s what you are—lazy! That is why you keep saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’
18 Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks.”
19 The Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told, “You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day.”
20 When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them,
21 and they said, “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”

Exodus 6:9 (NIV)
9 Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor.

Miracles / 10 Plagues =
Active Belief Leads to Worship – Exodus 12:21, 27-28
Exodus 12:21, 27-28 (NIV)
21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb.
27 then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped.
28 The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.

Testing (approaching army)
Appeal to Abuser / Shun Deliverer = Exodus 14:10-12
Exodus 14:10-12 (NIV)
10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.
11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?
12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Miracles / Red Sea
Active Belief Leads to Worship – Exodus 14:31 - 15:3
Exodus 14:31-15:3 (NIV)
31 And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.
15:1 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord: “I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea.
2 “The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
3 The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name.

Slaves versus Sons

Slaves are in the Grind - Sons are in the Flow

Led by Performance - Led from Position

Isaiah 31:1 (NIV)
1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the Lord.