[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our
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[00:00:25] Speaker B: Met Church, I am so excited to be with you today.
We bring you greetings from Colorado. My wife Carrie and I are just thrilled to be here. I can't tell you how long I've been looking forward to being here with you. For years. I've heard about you. I've heard about your ministry here in this area, how you're reaching out to your community, how you're loving on people in your own church, even reaching out with the Cindy Ramsey center, all of that wonderful stuff. And most importantly, your love for Jesus, I continue to hear about. So I am just excited to be here because I love the Ramses. They're wonderful people and I love and believe in them. And I love and believe the fact that you are just as wonderful as well. So I'm here, you're here. What do you say we just dive into it and enough of that small talk, right? Would you pray with me? And let's speak to our Heavenly Father today. God, we are so grateful to be in your presence right now. And we just ask that you would meet with us, speak to us right now. That's what we put our hope in right now, is that you would speak to each of us. Cause you know where we are. We know, you know, those of us that need encouragement, we need direction, we need a touch from youm. So Lord, please bless us today. And it's in Jesus name we pray. Everybody said amen. Amen. I can remember I was about 20 years old when I was first given an opportunity to speak to adults. I was volunteered voluntold really to do an adult Bible class called Starting Point. And it was like a New Believers class. And at 20 years old, I got extremely nervous. I don't know if you've ever been hopeful for something in your life and finally give the opportunity and it almost makes you sick. You're so nervous. Well, I always wanted to be a pastor. I grew up in a pastor's home. I watched services my entire life. I sat in two or three services every Sunday morning. So I wanted to be a pastor. And I remember at this opportunity to teach this class, like I got so Excited. And I started studying this information for our New Believers class with my entire heart because I didn't want to mess up at this. I realized how big of an opportunity it was. So I remember we put a clipboard out in the lobby of our church and people started signing up for it. And week after week, I saw another name pop up and another and another to where. Finally, the week of my class came around. At 20 years old, I realized that I had 15 people that were going to show up. And, like, most of them were, like, not just twice my age, but, like, three times my age to show up in my class. So I've got to really study hard because I don't want them to come and be bored. And, like, what is this kid doing? What is he even talking about? I studied harder for this class than, like, all of high school combined, right? And I showed up and I was so pumped for it. It was a Tuesday night, and I was excited. 7:00, people are supposed to start showing up. And one person comes in, and then two and three people come in, and I start looking around, and I'm excited still, but I recognize, like, the class should have started 10 minutes ago. And there's supposed to be 15 people here and there's only three people here. I mean, needless to say, I was a little disappointed. But, you know, I want to be a pastor. I want to do a good job. So I came out and I preached with my whole heart, man, spitting in everything, right? I wanted them to know I was convicted by this word. And I told them all about the love of Jesus. And I was thinking, like, I'm going to do my very best. Well, once this class was over that night, I thought I didn't put in the work I should have put in beforehand. So what I need to do is I need to get in contact with all these people. So I decided I was gonna call and leave messages on their answering machines. I'm sorry for the younger crowd in the room. An answering machine is a machine that actually sits in your house. You can't remove it from your phone. It's not like digital voicemail. And it has a cassette tape in it. And I'm sorry for the younger crowd in the room. A cassette tape is this little piece of plastic with a ribbon in it that spins around. Anyways, it records your voice. So I called and I waited for the answering machines to record my voice. And I'd be like, guys, I recognize you signed up for, and we're so pumped about it. But you missed Last week. So I'm waiting for you. It's gonna be exciting, show up. I'm gonna tell you all about Jesus's plan for your life. It's gonna be amazing, right? I did all the work and then I started freaking out. Oh, I had three people that showed up and 12 people that didn't. I'm already on week two of the curriculum and I need to go back over all of week one of the curriculum are these 12 people that show up aren't gonna know what I'm talking about. So I studied so hard to where I crammed both weeks one and two into the week to teaching and I had like a two hour long class ready to go. I studied all week long. 7:00 rolls around, I think I've called everybody, it's going to be amazing. And I look in 7:05, 7, 10, 7:11.
This one sweet little lady pulls up her car and I open the door and she comes in and she slowly walks to her chair and sits down. Now see, if this were to happen to me now in this stage of life, I would have just bought this lady a cup of coffee and said, hey, the class didn't work and sent her home. But that's not how my 20 year old mind works. I thought, man, I've studied. And she showed up, so she needs to hear the word of God. And I preached for an hour and 15 minutes, right? Face to face with her like in the podium, right? Looking at her in the eyes, giving her everything I had for an hour and 15 minutes. I told her about Jesus has a plan for you and he's got so much that he's going to blow your mind with everything he wants to do in your life. And I never saw her again after that.
I can't say I blame her, right?
Like you imagine that. Sit down with like an eager 20 year old pastor and let them talk. Because it's not even a conversation, it's a monologue, right? I just like blabbed at it for. I feel bad about it, but I recognized after that class was over. Then on week three, went from three people to one to didn't see her again. I went from disappointment to discouragement because after all I want to be a pastor, right? I want to teach people about God's love. I want to see God do amazing things in people's lives. So like when that failed, it's like, oh, see, the Bible says in Proverbs 13:12 that hope deferred gives you a sick heart.
I don't know if you've ever experienced that before. But, like, if you really wanted something and you've gone after it and then you've been disappointed, it'll give you a sick heart. Praying for this and getting ready. I was just wondering, like, is discouragement, is disappointment something that the people of the Met deal with? And, I mean, then I realized, like, here we are in cowboys country. So year after year, like, if there's a crowd that's gonna know about disappointment.
I'm so sorry.
I should get back to the notes or they're never gonna invite me back. I.
There's a story we're gonna look at today because I believe it's a beautiful picture, an authentic picture of what disappointment and discouragement looks like. And I want to take a look at Jacob's story and if we go all the way back to where it begins, just to give you a little overview. In Genesis, chapter 28 is talking about Jacob. Now, when God talks about himself in the Old Testament, he says, I am the God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It's that Jacob that we're talking about. And in Genesis, chapter 28, we see that Isaac, Jacob's father, has a little conversation with him and says, listen, son, I can see you're getting a little bit up in your years. Now it's time for you to go out and look for a wife. So we know Jacob, he's out on the prowl looking for a woman, right? And his dad's like, so, son, I got a plan for you. What I want you to do is I want you to go to your Uncle Laban's house, and I want you to look for a wife amongst your kin.
That went right over your head. Maybe you didn't get enough caffeine. Did you not catch what I just said? The plan from the man of God is he saying, what I want you to do is go to your uncle's house, hang out with your cousins, and see if any of them catch your eye. This is like some old time Arkansas stuff right here. This is weird.
Sorry if you're from Arkansas, but I don't know about what type of family you grew up in. But I can tell you something that never happened to me when I was growing up. Like, my parents never pulled me aside as a teenager. Said, dan, you look like you need a girlfriend. But don't fret. We have a family reunion coming up.
I don't even know what to say about that. I digress again. But anyways, he finds himself doing exactly what his father says he Goes to Laban's house, and Laban has two daughters. And the Bible says that he meets these two daughters. And in fact, I want to go and read to you what the Bible says. In Genesis 29, verse 16, it says, Now, Laban had two daughters. The name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely and form and beautiful. And Jacob was in love with Rachel. You know, Bible scholars dispute of what it could have meant with the fact that the Bible describes Leah as having weakness. Some say that maybe that meant that she was ugly. Others say maybe it has nothing to do with her physical looks. It could have just been like a weakness in her physical ability to see. We don't know. But what we do know is the Bible describes Leah and Rachel incredibly different. That Leah has weak eyes, but Rachel, she's. She's lovely in form and beautiful. And Jacob loves her. In fact, the Bible goes on to say that Jacob loves her so much that he decided he would do whatever he could in order to be able to have an opportunity to marry this girl. So he starts negotiating with Laban and says, listen, I'll do whatever you want. I'll work for you. You just tell me what. And he says, okay, so if you work for me for seven years, then I'll let you marry my daughter.
And we see that Jacob begins working with all of his might to make Laban's life better and easier so that he could have a chance to marry Rachel. Now, what he didn't know is that all along, Laban had no intentions of allowing him to marry Rachel because it wouldn't have been customary to let the younger daughter be married off first. That we already know that Laban had a plan that when it came time for them to marry, if Leah wasn't already married, he was going to give Leah first in marriage. So he's working this whole time and he shows up. And now here it's finally at the end of seven years and Laban comes around the corner on his wedding day. He's so excited to see. But hold on a minute. That's not Rachel. That's Leah. You think he was disappointed he got tricked?
I don't know how you get tricked into marrying someone.
Don't look at your spouse right now.
Some of you might know what that feels. I hope Carrie doesn't feel like she got tricked into marrying me.
But he found himself in this situation where now he's married to the older sister of the woman he really loves. It's a confusion story, something we don't really deal with in our culture now. But if you picture it here now, it's like he still loves Rachel to the point where he's like, okay, you know what? I care so much for her. I'm gonna just go through with Laban's plan. I'm gonna marry Leah, and then I'm gonna negotiate and work more years for Laban so that I can marry Rachel, too. So he marries both sisters, Leah and Rachel. So you have the original series Sisters Wives right here. It was long before the television show, but we have him now married to these. To women.
And if you think about it, there's a lot of different perspectives that you can take this story. I mean, first off, from Jacob's standpoint, it's like, you know that he would have been disappointed because he put so much time and effort and energy and work, years of his life, into marrying a girl that he loved with all of his heart. But he was tricked in, and things didn't turn out the way he wanted. So now it wasn't just his honeymoon with his wife, but now there's another person in the picture. It's confusing. It's weird. You know, he had to have been disappointed. And for Rachel, I mean, think about it. For her, I mean, she loved this man. She saw he was working for her. And after slaving away for all these years, now all of a sudden, her sister is brought into the mix.
Like, no one wants that, right?
And it's like this builds this huge, uncomfortable competition between these two sisters, because I want to take the rest of our time together and look at this story through the perspective of Leah.
Think with you. With me, if you will. What would it have been like to have been Leah?
The fact that you wish that someone was coming around and wanted a relationship with you. She wanted to get married for the same reason that any one of us would want to get married. She dreamed as a little girl, probably twirling around in dresses and stuff about what it would be like someday to have a husband who would. Who would share dreams with her, who. They could build homes together. They could. They could live a life together. She wanted a partner, right? And now she finds herself in a situation where. Where she is being thrust into a relationship between her and her sister, who she already feels inferior to in every way because no man's coming around looking for her. The man's there for her little sister. This is supposed to be the younger sister. Forget about her until it's my time to shine. But here she is, and now she's in the middle of a relationship where she's lovely and beautiful and form and I have weak eyes.
And now this man wants to marry me. Not because he wants anything to do with me, but he wants to marry me so he can get a little bit closer to her.
Do you think she was disappointed? You think she was miserable? In fact, the Bible describes her as being miserable. If we look at what the Bible says, it says this in Genesis 29, verse 31. It says, when the Lord saw that Leah was not loved.
I want to hit the pause button for a second on that.
The Bible says that the Lord saw Leah was not loved. That's an encouraging statement for me, because what that shows me is that God sees you. He sees the pain that you go through. He sees the tears that you cry. He sees all the nights when everyone else is asleep, but your mind is walking the floor and you keep just staring at the ceiling because of all that is on you. And you wonder, does anyone care? Does anyone notice? Does anyone see me? We know that God sees you. It says, when the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. And Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. And she named him Reuben. For she said, it is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.
What an authentic picture of disappointment. The circumstances of her life have been handed to her in a way where it is absolutely miserable. She doesn't like her life. She's not happy, she's not loved. And when circumstances change, she starts to think, maybe then if I can just change a little something with my circumstance, then I'm gonna be happy. If I can bring a son into the mix, then my husband's gonna love me now. So you gotta imagine with me then if there's a competition between her and her sister, she just wants to be loved. Rachel hasn't had a baby yet. She has got to be excited when she. She finds out she's pregnant. And, you know, there had to have been some anticipation, hope, and prayer that it would have been a boy. Because in this culture, we know that all of the inheritance and the honor, the name, everything was passed down through the firstborn son. So the thought is, if I have a son first, then I'm gonna. My husband will be more attached to me. He's gonna love me. My. My life is gonna change. I'm gonna be happy because he's gonna love me. So surely my husband will love me now. But we see that her misery continues because in the very next verse we see in verse 33, it said she conceived again. And when she gave birth to a son, she said, because the Lord heard that I am not loved. So she is still with the second born son in a place where she knows she's not loved. She said, he gave me this one too. And she named him Simeon. Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to the son, she said, now at last we're talking about the third son. Now @ last my husband will become attached to me because I have borne him three sons. So he was named Levi. So here Leah has accomplished a great feat.
She's given birth to three sons, she's mothering three boys, and her expectations continue to be crossed, crushed, because she continues to put her hope in the fact that if her circumstances change, somehow that's going to make her happy on the inside.
It's a weird thought, right, that someone back in that day would place their thought and their hope on. If circumstances just change, then I'll be happy. Like, we don't do that now, right?
None of us think if. If the relationship just works out, if I could just lose the weight, if I could get the job, or if I could get the promotion. None of us attach our hopes to any sort of a circumstance that we can tangibly hold onto, right?
No, we find ourselves very similarly looking at Leah and her story here, going, why don't you learn from this, Leah? It's like you continue to put your hopes in a relationship. You continue to put your hopes in the fact that a child's gonna to bring you happiness, the fact that somehow you're going to receive joy and love all because you're giving birth to children. We think, why would you attach your hope to just thinking that if something on the outside changes, then you can be happy.
But I know that that's something I've struggled with a lot in my life. I think that there's a lot of you in here that would agree that you've done that too.
And we see, though, that something very drastic happens in Leah's life. And it takes places between verses 34 and 35. And it's not something that happens to her circumstances, it's something that happens to the perspective in her heart.
Because over and over again she has a boy and she says, surely then God's gonna love me now. And then she has another one. Surely, surely my husband's gonna love you now. She has another one. Surely this time he's going to love me now. But then there's a fourth boy. And this is what we see happen. She conceived again. And when she gave birth to a son, she said, this time I will praise the Lord.
Do you see the shift in her heart? Do you see the perspective change of going. Instead of it being circumstances that I'm going to look at in my life to bring me joy and happiness, I'm going to recognize that this time I'm not going to look for my husband to love me more. I'm not going to look for anything to change. I'm going to say, this time my God deserves to be praised. And he keeps giving me these wonderful gifts of children. And I've been looking for joy in other places, but this time I'm going to praise my God because he deserves it.
And then she goes on in the second half of this verse is very beautiful because the Bible says she names him Judah.
And the name Judah itself means praise.
And I think that this is very smart because she was using this as a reminder of every time she called out to the little boy, she was reminding herself that, I'm gonna live life differently now. I'm gonna praise my God now. So she's not just changing the diaper. She's not saying, hey, hey, Judah, just get over. No, hey, Praise, come into this house, right? Hell, Praise, take your shoes off. Hey, Praise, wash your hands. And it's a reminder to go, you know what? I don't like my circumstances right now, but my God still deserves to be praised. So, Matt, my question for you today is this. When we face discouragement, when we face the disappointment and the trials of life, what will you do this time?
Will you continue, like we saw in the first part of her story, to look at life and think, if I can just change my circumstances, then I'm going to have hope? Or will you start to recognize and take on the perspective shift that she did in her own heart where she started saying, my God deserves to be praised regardless of what is going on, regardless of the diagnosis, regardless of things not going right in my life. And that strength, that. That strength will take you through to all new levels in your relationship with God.
Because we're gonna go through difficult times, we're gonna go through trouble. And we don't have to just look for our joy in the trouble stopping. In fact, no, we see that our God will walk through us, with us, right through trouble. And in the midst of it, we can have joy, we can have hope, we can have peace. So it's the reminder, what will you do this time? And we can't look back and think, what should I have done last time? That just brings disappointment, sadness, right? Regret. And we can't look forward too far. And what will I do next time in the future when things don't go right? Because that starts to bring all sorts of worry and anxiety looking for the next time things are gonna go bad? We don't wanna do that either. The question is, what will you do this time?
I've spoke with so many older men and women who. Cause I've gone through a couple things in my life. My story hasn't always been shiny. And I've spoke with some older men and women who have been Christians longer than I've been alive. And I've kind of looked at them first, thinking, like, they must have their lives so incredibly easy.
It's like. Cause it never looks like they go through anything.
It's like. So their lives are just easier than mine. Mine's just more difficult. So you wouldn't really understand.
As I've talked to some men and women who have gone through some stuff, I've started recognizing some truths that they've tried to share with me. Like Joshua 1:9, be strong and courageous. Do not be discouraged. Do not be afraid, for the Lord your God will go with you wherever you go. Do you recognize when God is telling us to not be discouraged? There, that's not just like, hopeful talk. That's a command from our God. Don't be discouraged. Just don't do it.
Well, how? Cause I'm discouraged right now. Right? I don't like what the doctor said. I don't like what's going on in my relationship. I don't like these things. So I'm discouraged. How do you do that? And I feel like what the enemy will try to do is he will try to make you believe you have to do something huge and drastic to come out of discouragement. Like if you come through years of rehab or if you go through the divorce or you come through marriage counseling. He's saying, you gotta do something big. But. But really what we learn in our faith is our walk with God is just one small step at a time, one small practical thing at a time. What are the things I can do this time today so I can choose to praise God and have the strength in the midst of discouragement, to love on him and watch him do miracles in my life. So in closing today, I want to give you three very practical points of what can you do this time to overcome discouragement? So, number one, the first thing you have to do is look back.
Look back at what? Look back at the track record of what God has done in your life so far.
Cause I think that there's some of you in this room who, just like me, would say, you know what? I recognize I shouldn't be alive, I shouldn't be in this room, I shouldn't be breathing today if it wasn't for the grace of God in my life. And he's rescued me from the car accident, he's rescued me from the bomb relationships, he's rescued me from so many terrible things in my life. So thank God for that, right?
Cause you might even think, I haven't been a Christian for so long, I don't really know how I can look back. The fact that you're here today, you can see that there's some things that he's brought you through that you wouldn't be standing if it wasn't for his grace.
Man, I can remember one of the scaredest times I've ever been in my life was when I was in the hospital and my father had a heart attack back in 2014. And I was terrified. I didn't know what this would mean. I wasn't ready to lose my father. I didn't know what it would mean for my work, for my life, just as a young man trying to learn and grow. Like, I didn't want to go through this, but I can look back on that and say, I don't want to go back to that moment, but I recognize God got me through it. Is there anyone in here you can recognize where God got you through something?
And I can recognize, you know, going through divorce, going through custody battles, moving away from my family, being in another city all alone, being discouraged and in so much distress and all sorts of anxiety and depression and thinking, I never want to go back there. But you know what? I can look back on God got me through it.
And when you can look back at what God's done for you in the past, then in the moments of discouragement you face now, you could get a whole new swagger and you can say, you know what? I don't like what's going on, but I know my God's good and he's gonna bring me through. So, number one, look back. Number two, look out. Look out for what?
You gotta look out for the things that bring discouragement. You know, there's a lot that we do in our lives that we're the ones that are discouraging ourselves. A lot of it's gonna just happen on its Own. And I'm not gonna be the old timer pastor that's gonna stand up and like preach against social media or any, anything like that, right? But I know for myself it's a hot button topic because there are certain things. Do you recognize, there's certain things that you can ingest. And when you take them in, it feels so good.
But then later when you're digesting it, it makes you sick, man. That's my relationship with chicken wings.
So I've never been eating chicken wings and just been like, oh, this is a bad idea. No. Every time I'm like, bring them on. I want some more. You gotta have some more. Get the hot, hot, hot sauce and bring it out this time. I need a towel for the sweat on my head. Let's keep it coming. And every time I'm like, that was a terrible idea.
And then I find myself scrolling on my phone, looking, making comparisons. Look, how can he afford that? How are they on vacation right now? I know how much debt they're in. That don't even make sense. Like, and it's like those things, you ingest them or maybe bring up a little bit of gossip, like you heard about what happened with so and so, right? We were sipping tea, right? It tastes so good at the moment, but a little bit later.
See, we have to look out for the things that we know are just going to bring discouragement to us. Because there's certain things in your life you can't stop. Discouragement will come, but the things that you can control avoid those. So we gotta look back at the track record of what God's done, look out for the discouragement. And then lastly, look up. Look up to what? Look up to how great our God is.
You know, for years I had a telescope in my office because it reminded me of a principle that we see in the Bible. If you've ever looked through binoculars or a telescope, you know that the, the object of your focus is going to look large and clear, but everything else is gonna fall out of focus and be very small.
So whatever you're pointing at, I mean, it just makes sense. Now think about this. In our own lives, what happens when you take a telescope and you flip it around and you turn the object of focus onto yourself? If the object of focus is me, then when I look back through the telescope, whatever I'm trying to focus on looks so distant, so small.
And that's what happens a lot of times in our own lives when it comes to our walk with Jesus, if my focus is on him and I see all the things he's done where he's given me strength and he deserves to be worshiped, and he's gonna get me through and thank you, Jesus. Then all my little problems down here look so small.
But our culture teaches us, no, it's about you. You shouldn't be treated that way. You should never have to go through difficulty that way. I can't believe you're going through that. We turn the focus around. Oh, my gosh. And I stubbed my toe, and it's so sad, and I feel so. And as we look at our problems in life and make that the central focus of our lives, then when we look back at God, we think, oh, he seems so distant and so far away.
So we have to remind ourselves that if you continue to focus on your disappointment and focus on your discouragement, then you're gonna continue to be in a place like Leah, where you're like, well, this time my circumstances will change. But when we can flip it around and we can say, our God is what, who deserves to be praised no matter what happens, then everything else falls right into its place of being out of focus and small. Can I pray for you today?
Heavenly Father, I recognize that there is a lot of people in this room who maybe this is just tools in the toolbox for maybe a time where we have faced dis, disappointment or discouragement in the future. But I know that there's also a lot of people in this room who have been through some things who are going through difficulty right now. And Lord, I pray that right now you would help us today, help us to remember what you've already done in our lives and that you deserve to be worshiped and praised and glorified. And God, I pray that you would help us as we reach out to you and focus on you and look up to you. Give us the strength to always remember that no matter what we feel face, you are still God. You're still big enough, and you're going to get us through this, too. Lord, I pray you bless each and every person listening to this message today. Be glorified hearing this. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward forward to seeing you next week.
