Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation podcast. We’re actually bringing this particular podcast from Miami, Florida. So our team has been enjoying 80 degrees and a lot of humidity. But it’s been a great week and tonight we finish here, Friday night, trusting God for a great finish. God is working but there’s more work to be done. If you get the podcast and listen to it before Friday evening, you can pray for us that tonight we’ll see a harvest of souls as well as God continue to work here in the Christian school. This afternoon we had, or this morning I guess it would be, we had a prayer meeting in both the junior high and the high school here, a large Christian school down here in Miami. And we were grateful for the heart cries of young people who lifted up their voice and trusted, really were trusting the Lord to enable them to keep the decisions God has burdened them about in these days.

Which brings us to our podcast. I know many times, many of you listening, in many times people make decisions and almost expect the decision not to be lasting and get a little discouraged when there’s a defeat or a failure. And sometimes that discouragement throws them into a spiral downward where they just give up. And they end up going back and living like they were before they made the decision. I’d like to address that issue with you because I’m sure some of you, perhaps even recently, maybe a couple of weeks ago at Special Forces or maybe at the Cola Clash Plus in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, or some other decision you’ve made for Jesus Christ, and maybe for a few days or even weeks, things went well, and you were encouraged, perhaps somewhere along the line there was a failure in your life and immediately you got discouraged. I want to deal with that discouragement because that discouragement is actually the beginning of the problem. Well, I should say that in a certain sense the failure is the beginning of the problem, but I say something you perhaps some of may heard me say, but I’m going to say it again because it’s something that’s very important. Failure is God’s reminder that you cannot live the Christian life in your own strength. So if you’ve ever been in a situation where you made a decision for a while, kept it, and then boom you’re back on your face. Remember that the reason you’re on your face is because of some measure of self-dependence. You know John 15:5, Jesus said, without me you can do nothing. Now he means that. So anytime there is any measure of self-dependence, eventually you’re going to be defeated. So the answer when you’re in self-dependence is not to wallow in despair and unbelief.

I put it this way, the answer for unbelief, which is self-dependence, is not more unbelief. But that’s how many people operate. Think that the discouragement is somehow spiritual, but it’s not. It’s unbelief. And I believe that many times that discouragement, that unbelief, is the greater sin, because we’re doubting that God can restore us. So when there’s a failure, God is tapping you on the shoulder in a sense, and He’s saying, see, it didn’t work. You can’t live the Christian life in your own strength. Now we know the other side.

In Philippians 4:13, I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. So everything that God wants you to do can be done in His power and His strength, and that comes by believing Him, trusting, depending upon His strength, to enable you to do what you couldn’t do unless He enabled you to do it. So certainly, if you’re sitting here and you got discouraged, you failed first of all, and then you got a discouragement. What you did was you added unbelief to unbelief. What needs to happen is the moment you fail, realize, okay, was self-dependence. I stopped trusting God, and in some measure I trusted myself, and the inevitable happened. I failed. So the answer is not to wallow in discouragement and more unbelief, but to look to Jesus first to forgive you, 1st John 1:9, to cleanse you, and then to restore you, and to give you victory where you’ve been defeated. Thanks be unto God who always causes us to triumph, and the key here is in Christ. So if you’re sitting here and been discouraged, maybe even given up, gone backwards a little bit from what God had done in your life. Realize what you did was it was unbelief or self-dependence that got you into failure. And then you thought unbelief would be the answer, but it wasn’t. Discouragement only leads to more unbelief, to more unbelief, and pretty soon you throw up your hands in despair because you can’t live it. Jesus said, or the Bible should say, in Isaiah chapter 41 verse number 10, says, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God.” The answer always is God. It’s always Jesus. It’s never to focus on our failure and wallow in despair because of it, but to realize, okay, that self-dependence, that unbelief caused me to go down. So the answer is to look back to Jesus. And friends, He’s the one that can cleanse you, restore you, and give you victory where you’ve been defeated. Now there’s a Bible illustration in the book of Joshua. They had a great victory in Jericho. Walls came down, miracle upon miracle some of you have seen Jericho victories in your life, but then Ai came along and they got in despair. They actually were defeated at Ai because they depended on themselves. They didn’t look to God so down they went and the the Leadership got on their faces in the tabernacle doing something We might thought they might have thought and we might to think was spiritual ,they were putting dust on their head crying out in despair and God says get thee up the problem with them was that they had not depended on the Lord. So the Lord says sanctify yourself. In other words, get right with me and trust me to cleanse you, restore you and give you victory where you’ve been defeated. And once they dealt with the sin, just like you need to deal with, when you deal with it biblically and thoroughly, that’s when God intervenes. So He did it at Ai and gave them victory where they’ve been defeated. And so he will in your life. Now young person, if you’ve been defeated and you’ve been discouraged and you’ve been downhearted,then let me encourage you to realize that that’s unbelief. Unbelief caused the problem, and unbelief certainly will not solve the problem. What you need to do is get on your knees right now and confess your sin before Almighty God. If there’s a faith step like getting right with your parents or teacher or somebody you’ve wronged, then take that faith step and get it right. Take God’s cleansing, look to Him for restoration, and to give you victory where you’ve been defeated. Realize that every problem you have, Jesus is the answer. I put it this way.

We’re the Messer-uppers, He’s the Fixer-upper. We’ll never be able to fix our own lives, but He can. None of us want to fail, and none of us want to be the one that is messin’ up, but when we do, Jesus is the answer. So just an encouragement to everyone out here to look to the Lord. And if this message has somehow resonated with you, don’t hesitate to let us know. We’d love to hear from you, and hear that you’re taking steps of faith, and believing God. Thee Generation is not a perfect generation.

It’s just the generation that believes Jesus is always the answer. Remember, total surrender, total dependence.