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First Samuel chapter 30 verse number six says, and David was greatly distressed, for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters, but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. The title for the sermon tonight is encourage yourself. Encourage yourself, you see here the story, David's quite cast down, he's quite depressed. We'll go through it soon, what happened, but you see that he goes and he seeks to be encouraged. Yeah, you know, he's cast down, he's discouraged, and so he says, look, I need to get encouraged, and when he gets encouraged, he encourages himself. He says, look, I need to do this myself. Everybody around me is cast down. Everybody around me is sorrowing. There's nobody here that I can rely on to encourage me. I've got to encourage myself, and he does so by going to the Lord his God, and so again, the title for the sermon tonight is encourage yourself, and I went to dictionary.com just to get the definition of encourage, and if you just think of the word encourage, you can see that the word courage is in the word encourage, right? So when you're encouraging somebody, you're trying to instill courage. You're trying to instill confidence in that person, right? And so to encourage is to inspire with courage, spirit, or confidence, to inspire with courage, spirit, or confidence. Now, brethren, can you encourage yourself? When you are cast down, when you are distressed, when you are worried, are you able, do you have the spiritual maturity of King David to encourage yourself? You know, this is something that you need to learn in your spiritual life as you mature, as you grow for the Lord, if you're gonna be a pastor, you need to learn how to encourage yourself. You know, when I was attending church just before, just as a regular brother in the Lord, not having any office, not any role, I would come to church sometimes and not be fully encouraged. I wouldn't be necessarily fully excited about the things of God. Sometimes you go to church just out of the habit that you do have to go to church. Maybe the children, I got dragged to church because my parents came to church and I have to go with my parents. And I guess you kind of get away with it to some extent when you're not a spiritual leader, that you can come and you can try to serve the Lord and just not give your best, not have your heart in it, you just show up. But when you become a pastor, you can't just do that. You don't get away with that. Every time you come to church, every time you get up to preach God's word, you've gotta be encouraged. And you know what, it's a lonely life sometimes. We're living in a world that seeks to discourage. There's a lot of bad news in the world. You switch on the TV, as I said, all it is, it's bad news. It's not there to encourage you in the Lord, right? And so part of the spiritual maturity we all need, all of us need to learn how to encourage ourselves because you won't always have other people around you to encourage you. And you need to learn how to do this. And I say this because as I've been saying on the Wednesdays, I wanna preach sermons that I just really want you to take to heart and think about these. And especially for the men that'll be coming to preach in my absence, I want you to remind yourself, you may not always feel like coming to church that day that you need to preach. You may not always feel excited and oh, you know that you've got something of quality, maybe that you need to preach to the people of God, but you just need to learn how to encourage yourself and say, Lord, I need your strength. I need to encourage myself. There's nobody else that's going to drive me. And so we need to be like David, learn how to encourage ourselves. And so in this story, let's start in verse number one there, 1 Samuel 30 verse number one. It gives us some pointers as to when we do need to encourage ourselves. Verse number one says, and it came to pass when David and his men would come to Ziklag on the third day that the Amalekites had invaded the south and Ziklag and smitten Ziklag and burned it with fire. So this is a city that was destroyed by these enemies. And verse number two, and it had taken the women captives that were therein, they slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away and went on their way. So David and his men came to the city and behold, it was burned with fire and their wives and their sons and their daughters were taken captives. So leading up to the point where David needs to encourage himself, you see the enemy has come and taken away their wealth, their possessions, but more important than all of that, destroying the city, more important than all of that, they came and took captive the wives, the sons, the daughters. They've taken captive the people's families, all right? So when should we encourage ourselves? Point number one here, when you experience great loss, okay? When you experience great loss, you will find yourself downcast. That is a point when you need to encourage yourself. And look, I don't know, I'm sure we've all experienced great loss. Some of that might be the loss of a loved one. Maybe they passed away. Hopefully they know the Lord. Hopefully they're in Christ and you know you'll see them one day in heaven, but it's very sad when you lose a loved one who is not saved and you know where they are for all eternity, right? And we can lose things. We can lose maybe, yes, loved ones. We can lose our possessions. We can lose our wealth. We can lose things that we thought we would always have on this earth and that could cause you to be discouraged. It could cause you to be cast down. This would be an example of when you would need to encourage yourself when you experience great loss. Let's keep reading there, verse number four. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep, okay? So they're just crying. They're weeping. They're full of sorrow. They've run, because you know, if you've ever wept, if you ever had a great sorrow, a great weeping, it taxes on the body, right? It's quite heavy on the body. You know, they're at a point where they're weeping so much they just can't weep anymore. It's all come out of them. Look at verse number five. And David's two wives were taken captives. Ahinoam of the Jezreelitess and Abigail, the wife of Nabal, the Carmelite. So even King David loses two of his wives, but I just want to get back there to verse number four. The other time that we need to encourage ourselves is in a time of sorrow, at times of sorrow, upset. You know, it may not be necessarily of a loss. You know, we can experience sorrow through many, many ways in lives, right? It could be our physical bodies. It could be sicknesses in our bodies. It could be broken relationships, you know, great sorrow, things that just cast us down. And you can see that there is a time to weep. There is definitely a time to weep. And it's good to weep. It's good to vent. It's good to get these things off your chest because once you mourn, once you have sorrow, then you can take the next step, which is to, of course, encourage yourself, okay? So the next reason of when you would need to encourage yourself is in a time of great sorrow. Let's keep reading, verse number six. And David was greatly distressed. Now, why was he greatly distressed? Yes, because of what happened in Ziklag. But then it says, for the people spake of stoning him because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters. But David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. So the third time that you would need to look to encourage yourselves is when people turn against you, okay? You can see here the people of Ziklag, the men of Ziklag were so upset that this city was lost, they thought, let's kill David, let's kill the king. You know, he's let us down. So they've turned their backs against David. They're looking to even kill him. And so the next reason that you would need to encourage yourself, brethren, is when your family, when your friends, when your colleagues, when the people you care about turn against you. You know, it may not be, you think that was David's fault that Ziklag was destroyed? No. You know, people will turn against you maybe for something you've done, but sometimes people just turn against you for no reason, just to find someone to blame, right? And maybe you've copped your fair share of blame where, you know, maybe it wasn't even your fault. People are blaming you about something. You've done nothing to them, right? They've turned their backs against you. They've backstabbed you. They've gossiped about you. You know, they've taken down your testimony. They've tried to drag your name through the mud. You know what? That's gonna upset you. That's gonna hurt. That's not hurts. Right, so it's called backstabbing, because the idea is that you're taking a knife and stabbing somebody in the back. That hurts, if you've ever been stabbed. You know, being betrayed by people, being let down by people, it hurts, okay? And when you experience this, this is when you must encourage yourself. You must encourage yourself and not stay in that state of discouragement. Not stay in that state of sorrow, okay? We need to take the next step. And so we need to encourage ourselves. How do we encourage ourselves? How did David encourage himself, you know? This is, of course, the common answer to everything in the Bible. Anything you need, any time you need anything. No matter what situation you find yourself in, this is the same approach that you should take anyway, right? But let's look at verse number seven. It says, and David said to Abiathar, the priest, Ahimelech's son, I pray thee, bring me hither the ephod, and Abiathar brought thither the ephod to David. Now the ephod, if you don't know, that was the high priest would wear that on his chest. It was part of his priestly garments, and it would have 12 precious stones on the breast there. And those 12 stones represented the 12 tribes of Israel. Okay, so each stone was a different precious stone representing each tribe. And David says, look, can you give me that ephod? Can you bring it to me? Right, what's he do? Verse number eight, and David inquired at the Lord, saying, shall I pursue after this trip? Shall I overtake them? And he answered, pursue, for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all. What I like about David is that even, you know, he's a man of war, he knows how to fight. He's a king, all right? Kings back then were generals in the army. He's had great victories, he's had solo victories, like with Goliath, he's had great victories with his armies of Israel. And so it just seems to me, you know, that someone like David, you know, just naturally, if someone came and burnt down your city, took all your people, you'd just go after them, right? You'd think that, you don't even question it, you just go and do it, you would think. Especially a man of great victory, a man that knows how to war, all right? But we still see in David, he goes, no, I still need to inquire of the Lord. I still need to go to God. Even though it seems common sense to do this, I still need to make sure God is telling me to go and do this, so he inquires of the Lord. This is how he encourages himself, Reverend. This is how we encourage ourselves. When everyone's let us down, when we're upset and cast down and distressed and worried, and whatever, everything's turned against us, there is someone that hasn't. There is someone that is waiting for you to go to him, to inquire of him, that's the Lord. That's the Lord, right? To go to him, and I don't really know why he takes that ephod, it's got those 12 stones. I've heard it preached before that, maybe these are just maybes, right? Maybe that's how the Lord spoke to him. Maybe that's how the Lord communicated back to David to go and pursue, yes, go and overtake them. And maybe the idea behind that is maybe those stones lit up. Maybe somehow the Lord was able to communicate like some type of sound coming through those stones, and he confirmed to David, this is what he did, right? But this is what David had. That's all he had, and of course for us, we will turn to the Bible. We will turn to the word of God, right? We don't have that ephod today. We've got something even greater than that. We've got all the words of God clearly laid out for us here. And so this is where we turn to. We go and inquire of the Lord. We encourage ourselves in the Lord, and say, Lord, what do you want me to do now? How can I get out of this discontentment? How can I get out of this discouragement that I'm in? All right, so to inquire of the Lord, well, you don't need to keep your finger there necessarily unless you want to, because we are gonna come back to 1 Samuel 30. Actually, no, there was one thing that I wanted to cover there in verse number eight, because not only did God say, and thou shall surely overtake them, he says, and without fail, recover all. Recover all, all right? So when you are distressed, when you are discouraged, the Lord says that you, without fail, can recover all. You can go back to the way things were, to the joy that you had before, to the high spiritual state that you were in before. You can recover all of it, you know? But before we can recover it all, we must be encouraged in the Lord. So keep your finger there in 1 Samuel 30, because we will come back toward the end of the sermon. But can you please turn to Psalm 27? Turn to Psalm 27. Psalm 27, verse 14. So he encouraged himself in the Lord. Just let's read some passages here, Psalm 27, 14. It says, wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. This can be one of the hardest things, but God does wanna teach us patience, you know? And I'm sure for David, he had to wait, you know, to some extent, he went and inquired the Lord. The Lord gave him the answer, but we have to wait on the Lord. We have to see where is he gonna guide us? What is he going to say? Yes, it requires patience, okay? And I've often heard it say, you know, to wait on the Lord isn't just to do nothing. It's like the idea of the waiter. You know, the waiter waits on you. You go to the restaurant, he's waiting on you. He's waiting for you to make a decision as to what you're gonna order, but he's there. You know, he's coming. Are you ready to order yet? He goes away, he does something else, he's busy. Then he comes back, are you ready to order yet, right? Waiting on the Lord isn't just doing nothing. It's not just sitting at home. It's actually getting busy and just going back to the Lord. Have you got the answer for me yet, Lord? Have you got the answer? So you're still busy. You know, you're waiting on the Lord. And it says, he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. Please go to Psalm 31 verse 24. Psalm 31 verse 24. Psalm 31, 24. It says, be of good courage. There it is again, be of good courage. And he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord, okay? So we get the idea of now with these two Psalms, when it says to be of, you know, to have good courage, it's talking about the fact that God will strengthen your heart, okay? He will make you stronger. He will give you the ability to be in courage. He'll give you the ability to get out of the miry clay, to, you know, set your feet upon the rock, yes? You know, he'll give you that ability. He'll strengthen you. He will encourage you. Seek the encouragement of the Lord, brethren. When you seek to encourage yourself, you do it through the Lord. There's no other channel that can strengthen you like the Lord. Now, please go to Psalm 55. The next one is why. Why must you encourage yourself? You know, when you are cast down, why should I encourage myself? And I'm going to read to you once again there. We already read it from 1 Samuel 30. But why should we encourage ourselves? Point number one of this one is to get the job done. To get the job done, right? What did God say to King David? For thou shall surely overtake them, and without fail recover all. Remember that being? Without fail, recover all. So David had to get encouraged to go to the fight and recover everything, recover everyone that was taken from the families, right? And so, look, to get the job done, to finish the work, to not just be like, well, what do I do now? You have to encourage yourself to get the job done, all right, to finish the work that you started, right? He said, without fail, recover all. You know, when you're downcast, when you're upset, you must experience a full recovery. You know, God wants you to have a full recovery. He promises you a full recovery. You know, in Ecclesiastes 7-8, it says, better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. Let me just read that again. Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. You know what it's saying there? If you've got a project, you've got something that you're trying to accomplish, something you're trying to do, the end of it is better than the start of it. Because why? The reason is because many people start things. Many people start projects. Many people commit to doing something, right? Hey, many pastors start churches. That's great, yeah, that's good. But even better is finishing the work, is getting it done, right? And so when I look at New Life After Church, we have started this church, and that's great, praise God. But even better is to finish it. Even better is when the Lord comes back and this church is still running, still serving him, that would be even better. Same thing for down in Sydney, which is why I'm heading down there. It's better to get the job done, right? To finish the work. And so it's important for you to, in order for you to finish the job, in order for you to accomplish the mission, the goal that you were trying to do, you know, you need to encourage yourself. You know, not to give up halfway. Not to give up and say, well, this was too hard. No, encourage yourself in the Lord. He will give you the ability to finish what you started, right? Galatians 6, nine, and let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. What a promise from God. In due season we shall reap if we faint not. You know what it says? That if you're unemployed, you know, if you haven't got that full-time job, and you apply and you get rejected, and you apply and you get rejected, you apply and you get rejected. It says don't faint. Don't be weary in well-doing. It's well-doing, okay? Keep going. You say, I'm trying to find a wife. Well, keep searching. Keep searching. Don't faint, all right? It says, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. What a promise. If you just keep pursuing that what you need to accomplish in life, whatever it is, brethren, whatever you're on with the children, you know, your schooling, your education, you know, growing up, gaining character, learning the Bible, reading the Bible, whatever it is that we're at, brethren. If we faint not, we're going to reap. God's going to reward us for the effort that we've put in. That's why we should encourage ourselves. Get the job done. If we faint, if you're halfway through, you give up, well, you're not gonna reap the rewards. You're not gonna get the fullness of the blessings that God would bless you with. Please get, you're in Psalm 55. Look at verse four. Psalm 55, verse four. We're still in point number one to get the job done. And I love Psalms because the Psalmist is always, well, not always, but is discouraged a lot, you know? And some people think that, you know, if they get discouraged or cast down, it's like, what's wrong with me? You know, why is it that seemingly everybody on Facebook, you know, seems to be having a wonderful life? Yeah, it's because they only post pictures when they're happy. So do you. But everyone cries. Everyone gets upset. Everyone has problems, right? And, you know, it's easy, I guess, in this day or age of the social media and stuff to think, wow, everyone seems to be just enjoying life. Everyone just seems to be doing so well. Wow, look at this person. They travel all across the world. Hey, I'm still at home raising 10 kids, 11 kids, whatever it is, right? I'm still, look, what I love about the Psalms, it shows us the reality of life. And a lot of the Psalms are written by David with great victories, great power, great riches as the king of Israel. And even he finds himself cast down many times. You know, if you're cast down, you're discouraged, you know, you've got fears, whatever it is, brethren, please turn to the Psalms. I mean, it's such, it's so comforting, okay? Because many of the Psalms start with that cast down state and then it ends with that encouragement, just a reminder. And the Psalmist will always draw his strength from the Lord, right? That's where he gets encouraged in the Lord. But look at Psalm 55 verse four. So what I'm trying to say is I could have chosen any Psalm, but I just like this one. Psalm 55 verse four. It says, my heart is sore pained within me, and the terrors of death are fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror have overwhelmed me. Overwhelmed, this guy, the Psalmist says, it's too much. I can't handle this, I can't do it anymore. You know, homeschooling, it's become too much. Dealing with these people at work, it's too much, right? Whatever it is, passed from the church, it's too much, Lord. You know, the Psalmist experiences the same issues that you experience, the same griefs, the same struggles, the same discontentment. You're not unusual, this is part of life. You know, life is hard, life is not always easy, you know? Verse number six. And I said, oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest. He says, Lord, raising my family at home, these, you know, I'm saying 11 kids, my wife's never said these words, just using that example, right? It's too much, Lord, I wish I had wings like a dove and just got out of here. It's too much, I feel like that. Sometimes I'm at workplace, just overwhelmed. This has to be done by this time. Have you done, you know, what are you up to? I'm not on track, oh man, what do we need to do? There's too much, there's too much going on. These customers are complaining, these problems are happening. Where's this man's parcel, what's going on? It's too much, I'm like, I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here, I need to go. Have you ever felt that way? I just need to fly away, or the psalmist feels that way. Okay, you know, and then this is what he says. Lo, then would I wander far off and remain in the wilderness. He goes, I'm gonna go to the, it's just better being in the wilderness. I'm just gonna stay in the wilderness. You know, normally you don't wanna be in the wilderness, right? The wilderness is the last place you normally wanna be in. But when you're full of stress and worry, you go, man, if I'm just alone in the wilderness that, you know, and I don't have to deal with all these problems that I deal with every day of my life, that's better for me. It's better to be just flying away in that place. And so you can see the psalmist, he's just very cast down, very discouraged, you know? Just the humanity that comes out. But drop down to verse number 22. And just to remind you how he gets encouraged. Verse number 22. He then says, well, you know, you can't really do that because we all have responsibilities. We all have work to do. We all have something to accomplish, right? We have to get the job done. So how does he get the job done? Does he literally fly, does he literally run away from his responsibilities? Does he literally run away from his work and whatever it is that he has? Does he literally go into the wilderness just to be alone and stay there? No, in verse number 22 it says, cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Stability. He won't suffer, he won't allow the righteous to be moved. But the only way we remain unmovable, brethren, is like we saw there. We need to put our burdens upon the Lord. He will sustain thee. I hope you've experienced that in your life. I hope you've experienced being cast down and sorrowful and say, you know what, Lord, I need you. Can you help me? Lord, these are my burdens. I don't know what to do. I'm just gonna give them to you, Lord. Can you find a way? And he just comes through and does it for you somehow. Whatever it is, financial difficulty, I don't know. We all have different struggles, right? Just different things. And God can come through and sustain you. He can come through and not allow you to be moved. And so brethren, even when we're full of stress and worry and you have the desire, just wanna fly away. I just don't wanna see anyone anymore. I need to get out of here. Just remember, well, that's the point. That's the Psalmist said that. The Psalmist said that. So what do I do? I have to put my burden on the Lord, okay? You don't run away from your responsibilities. The point is to get the job done. And this is how we encourage ourselves. The Lord will be the one that fuels you. The Lord, you've got the new man inside of you. You've got the Holy Spirit. You are the temple of the Holy Ghost. The Lord can do an amazing work internally inside of you. Even when his flesh is weary and upset and worried, the new man, that's when the new man shines through. As long as you put it upon the Lord, you cast your burdens upon him. Now, that's point number one. Why must you encourage yourself? Number one is to get the job done, all right? Point number two is, and if you can turn to numbers 21, let's have a look at this. Numbers 21, verse four. Go to numbers 21, verse four. Point number two, the reason you must encourage yourself, brethren, is because discouragement leads to discontentment, okay? It's not a sin to be discouraged. We all get discouraged. That's not the sin, okay? But discouragement leads to discontentment. That's the sin, okay? To be discontent, that's the sin. Numbers 21, verse four. Numbers 21, verse four. And they journeyed from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to compass the land of Edom. Look at this. And the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. So again, this is Moses leading the Israelites into the wilderness, through the wilderness. They get much discouraged, all right? Now, how do they respond from this discouragement? Verse number five. And the people spake against God, all right? So if they start by getting discouraged, but then that leads to discontentment. Now they are speaking against God. Now they are turning against God. Now they are doubting God. Now they're saying, why God? Why are you making us wonder in this wilderness? They've turned against the Lord. And brethren, you gotta be careful when you're discouraged. Be careful. If you find yourself blaming God, now you know, now you know that your discouragement has turned to discontentment. Now you know you're committing sin. You're in a bad place now, all right? So point number one, you will turn against the Lord if you stay in that state. This is why you need to learn how to encourage yourself. All right? Now look, we've got church, and I hope you come to church to be encouraged. I hope this is part of your encouragement. That's good, yeah? I hope you have brother and sister in the Lord that can say nice words and fellowship with you and just put a good word in and just encourage you in the Lord, I hope you got that. But we're not always gonna have that. You know, it could be Monday and you could be discouraged and you don't have church till Wednesday. It might be Monday and you've got nobody around you that's really a believer. You might be in a workplace where it's just ungodly people, ungodly things and you just might find yourself discouraged. You need to learn how to encourage yourself. So they spoke against God, verse number five, and then it says, and against Moses. All right, Moses pictures a pastor, an Old Testament pastor leading the church in the wilderness, as it were. You know, you're gonna find yourself turning against the servants of God. Maybe the pastor, hey, but we're all servants of God. We're all trying to serve this local body. You know, you're gonna find yourself getting frustrated and upset at anyone that's trying to serve the Lord, right? Oh, he's not doing it right. You know, oh, he's not hearing from God. Oh, he's letting us down. Hey, that's discontentment. You know, we're all meant to be servants. We're all meant to be serving each other. You know, Brother Matthew, you know, he comes in half an hour early, vacuuming, tidying up, right, praise God for that. Thank God, thank God. But you know what, when you're discouraged, it's gonna turn to discontentment and you're gonna start to notice, oh, what about that corner? Why didn't that get done? Oh, he's left that cup over there. What's going on? Discontentment, right? Instead of going, hey, you know what, maybe he needs a bit of help. Maybe I need to go and do that job. Hey, maybe he needs a word of encouragement. No, you know, when you get discouraged, you just start to find problems in everything, in everybody, in anybody that's trying to serve God. You know, why? Because you're so far from God and you hate seeing the fact that others are trying to serve God. It makes you feel bad, right? It makes you feel bad when you're not able to serve God, you know? What else does it say? People spake against God and against Moses. Then he says, wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? Okay? Next thing is you have a negative outlook to life. Just a negative outlook in general. You know, and I don't like listening to negative people. I don't mind negativity from time to time because life is full of negatives, right? But there are some people that you talk to that are just constantly negative. And Brevin, I just challenge you, when you talk, when you have a conversation with somebody, just think of it, just go back to your conversation that you went, that you had, and go, you know what, was I, in that conversation, was I constantly complaining? Was I whining? Was I just talking about negative things the whole time? Or was my conversation uplifting? Was I being positive? Was I being an encouragement to others? You know, start to, because you don't realize. You know, you don't realize when you're so discouraged and discontented, how you're portraying, you know, when you're viewing everything in a negative sense. And listen, when you're like that to people, you're gonna cause them to feel negative. You're gonna cause them to feel like everything's a problem. You know, they used to think highly of Brother so-and-so, but you've told them all about the problems of Brother so-and-so, and now they just can't see Brother so-and-so in the same light anymore. Now, yeah, you're right, that person is full of problems. You know, that negativity is contagious, you know, and it's due to discontentment. Be careful about the things you speak about, you know? I'm not saying there's never a time to talk about something that is, you know, on your mind, you're full of sorrow about something, and you just need someone else to lift you up, right? That's fine, but don't be that person that's just constantly negative about everything. Oh, the virus, oh, the masks. Oh, Pastor Kevin's preaching, I don't know. Can't he preach something else? I don't know. Can't he preach about the rabbit bites again? I don't know, whatever it is, brother. Right, there's so many topics to cover in the Bible, right? I mean, we can become negative about everything. Anything, right? Let's find a reason to be content. Discouragement leads to discontentment. You can see the Israelites here. They've been delivered out of Egypt. They saw amazing miracles, amazing miracles of God. They're like, oh, we're gonna die in the wilderness. Is that why we came here? What else? Then they say, for there is no bread, neither is there any water, and that's true. They're in the wilderness, there is no bread and water, but how did God provide for them? The manna, remember? Right, and the quails as well. But look, he says, neither are there any bread, but then he says this. It's not that they're without food. Because then he says, it says here, for our soul loatheth this light bread, okay? To loath something is to hate, right? To love something is to have like an extreme hate towards something. They're saying, we hate the manna. We hate this bread that God has given us that's fallen from heaven. They hate even the blessings of God. Yes, there was no water and bread in the wilderness, but they got something even better. They were blessed by God. God was showing his hand of provision in a miraculous way. And they got so discouraged, they're like, we don't even want that. We hate that. Even the things that God has given us, we don't want that anymore. This contentment, what a place to be. How negative can you be? I'll just read to you Exodus 16 verse 31, talking about the manna. It says, and the house of Israel called the name there of manna, and it was like coriander seed, white. Now look, this coriander, sorry, this manna wasn't some stale bread with no taste, it says. And the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Listen, if we had right there on the table wafers made with honey, wouldn't our kids go nuts? I was like, wouldn't they be going, hey, where's the service done so I can have some of those wafers? Hey, that's what God was, he wasn't just providing some stale bread with no taste. It was wonderful bread, it was sweet bread. It was yummy bread, right? I guess it tasted like Krispy Kreme donuts or something. I don't know, it was wonderful, but it was also good for you, all right? It didn't kill you, it was actually good for you. And something that was wonderful from God, they hated it. They hated even that. So point number two, brethren, the reason why we must encourage ourselves is because discouragement leads to discontentment. You know, it will turn you against God, it will turn you against the servants of God, it will make you have a negative outlook in life, and you will loathe God's blessings. All right, can you please go back to Psalms now, Psalm 34. And the third reason why you must encourage yourself is to overcome fears, to overcome fears. Now, I think we all probably have some level of fear on different things. Some people have phobias. Some people have different, what's the difference between a fear and a phobia? I had to look it up. So a fear is generally things that you're afraid of that might be a genuine issue, a genuine problem, whereas a phobia is something where there's no real reason to fear it, right? But you're afraid of it anyway. Some people are afraid of what? Hand? Oh, cane toads. Who's scared of cane toads? All right, but there's no reason to be afraid of them, right? It's not like they're gonna come in with a knife and kill you at night or something, right? So some people have a fear of spiders. Some people have a fear of, what are you afraid of? What's the veggie? Asparagus. Isn't that like a phobe? No, I don't know, it's not a phobe, yeah. It's a fear of holes. A fear of holes? Yeah, it's a fear of holes. Yeah, so I mean, these are things that you just have no reason really to, I looked one up, there's a phobia phobia where you've got a phobia of phobias. I mean, but look, huh? I don't know, or maybe that's a good phobia, I don't know. But look, the third reason why you must encourage yourself is to just overcome fears. You know, when King David was giving King Solomon his son some of the last words, he says in verse, I'll just read to you first Chronicles 28, 20. It says, and David said to Solomon his son, be strong and of good courage, right? Courage and courage, and do it. Fear not, nor be dismayed, all right? Fear not, nor be dismayed. What's dismayed? That means to be distressed about something unexpected. And something happens unexpectedly, and you go, oh, I don't know what to do anymore. That's what he means to be dismayed or fearful, right? For the Lord God, even my God, will be with thee. He will not fail thee nor forsake thee until thou has finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord. So King David's telling Solomon how to build the house of God, the temple, right? He says, look, don't be afraid, don't be dismayed. The Lord your God is with you. Have good courage, he's saying, right? And so when we're encouraged, when we have that courage, that'll help us overcome the fears and the phobias that we all struggle with to some extent, right? And so the third reason, brethren, is to overcome fears. Overcome fears. You're in Psalm 34, look at verse number four. Psalm 34 verse four reads, I sought the Lord, and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears. Wow, that's the cure for phobia then, all right? It's not some psychiatrist or something, I don't know, or some drugs to take in order to mess up your mind. No, if you have fears and you want deliverance, look, from all my fears, all of them, okay? It doesn't say certain fears, no, all of my fears, you can be delivered from if you seek God. You know, I sought the Lord and he heard me. The Psalmist is encouraged in the Lord, right? Because fears stop us from doing certain things. You know, I was afraid to come to the Sunshine Coast. All right, what if it fails, what if it doesn't work out? Well, I can just give in to my fear and never start the church. Or you get encouraged in the Lord and you do the work, you get it done, right? You do the job that needs to be done. It helps you overcome fears. Please go to Psalm 118, Psalm 118 verse number five. I better speed up. Psalm 118 verse number five. The Bible reads, I called upon the Lord in distress. The Lord answered me and sent me in a large place. The Lord is on my side, I will not fear. What can man do unto me? Wow, if you have a fear of what man can do unto you, what if they try to make vaccines mandatory? You don't have to be afraid of it, okay? The Lord is on my side, I will not fear. Say, what can man do? Listen, even if, even if, and I don't think it's gonna happen, even if they sent the army to your house and they just strapped you down and injected some vaccine into you, even if that happened, brethren, you don't need to be afraid. You don't need to be afraid, okay? Because the Lord is with you. You're not gonna take these bodies with you to heaven. Yeah, it might mess you up a little bit, but this body's already messed up. It's got a sin nature in it. It's corrupted already, okay? It's corrupted as soon as you were born. It's got a sin nature in it, okay? Another vaccine's not gonna destroy. Now, I'm against vaccines. I'm just saying, right? Spiritually speaking, you don't have to be afraid. You know, the Lord is with you. He'll take care of the wicked Bill Gates' that are out there, okay? The last thing, if you can go to Deuteronomy chapter three, please, Deuteronomy chapter three, verse 26. Deuteronomy chapter three, verse 26, because we know that when Moses was leading the Israelites, you know, he disobeyed the Lord, and he was not allowed to go into the Promised Land, okay? Now, Moses, and you know, Brother Callum speaks about Moses and goes like, I don't know. I could never be like Moses or whatever, right? I agree. I mean, Moses is an amazing man. You know, to be leading a group of whiners for 40 years in the wilderness, right? And you've done everything for the Lord. And then you're like, but I can't go to the Promised Land. I messed up once, Lord. I messed up here, and that's my punishment. I can't go to the Promised Land. Now, that was his dream. That was what he wanted to do, right? Now, listen, brethren, if you have a great dream, a great desire to do something, and God says no, God does not allow it, maybe you mess up. Maybe you get disqualified as a pastor. Maybe that's your goal, to be a pastor, you get disqualified, whatever, right? You can't do it for whatever reason. I mean, wouldn't you naturally kind of be, if I was Moses, I would be pretty discouraged. I don't know about you. I'd be pretty upset. Like, Lord, 40 years, we got him out of Egypt. Can't I go in? Just for a couple of years, Lord? I'd be pretty discouraged. Look at Deuteronomy chapter three, verse 26. This is Moses conveying all of this to the Israelites. Deuteronomy chapter three, verse 26. But the Lord was rough with me for your sakes, and would not hear me, because he asked the Lord, can I go to the Promised Land? Nope. And the Lord said unto me, let it suffice thee, speak no more unto me of this matter. I just got shut down there, right? Verse number 27, get thee up into the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes, for thou shall not go over this Jordan. But look what the Lord asks Moses to do. But charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him, for he shall go over before these people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which thou shalt see. So we abode in the valley over against Bethpil. He says, look, I don't know, if I was Moses, I'm telling you, I'd be discouraged, I'd be upset, okay? But the Lord says, look, I need you to encourage Joshua. So the fourth reason why we must encourage ourselves, brethren, even when we're downcast, is so you can encourage others. All right? Joshua needed Moses to encourage him, even though Moses received some bad news. God was expecting, no, you still need to go and encourage that Joshua. How can you encourage someone if you're discouraged? Don't you have to be encouraged to encourage somebody else? Absolutely. So in Moses, somehow, amazing man, absolutely, right, was able to do this. I'll read another passage to you, 2 Chronicles 35 verse one, about King Josiah. It says, moreover, Josiah is a godly king, moreover, Josiah kept a passover unto the Lord in Jerusalem, and they killed the passover on the 14th day of the first month, and he set the priests in their charges and encouraged them to the service of the house of the Lord, okay? What a great king. He says, look, he's trying to get everything back in order with the nation, again, they turned their hearts against the Lord, and he's bringing them back, all this kind of stuff, set up the house of God, he gets the priests in there, he says, look, I need to encourage the priests, okay? He needs to encourage those that are trying to serve the Lord. And this is for, I sort of started to speak to those that are gonna get up to preach, because you're gonna find yourself having to encourage yourself, all right? And how do you do this? Remind yourself that you, when you come up to preach, you're there to encourage others, you're there to edify others, that's gonna help you get encouraged. When you remind yourself, Lord, you're putting me in an important position here to feed the people of God, the children of God, please help me, Lord, help me to be encouraged so I can be an encouragement to them. And you can see here, the king wanted to encourage the priests to serve in the Lord. So we kind of see the other way around it as well, and you know, I'm just saying to the congregation, you know, from time to time, I need your encouragement. You know, I need you guys to say to me, Pastor Kevin, that's some great preaching, right? Not to give me pride, not to fill me up with anything like that, just to know, hey, you know, the work we're doing here is benefiting people, all right? You know, just to say, hey, thank you for church, you know, it's great that I can come to the house of the Lord, and to the rest of the congregation, when the men get up here while I'm gone, to preach, encourage them. Be like King Josiah and say, look, I'm going to encourage those that come to serve in the house of God. And I'm very thankful to everybody that serves in the house of God, no matter what position it is, okay? And please, you know, if I forget to thank you, please don't get discouraged. You know, I am so thankful to everybody. It's just that, you know, we're all busy, we've got things to do, you know, you just want things to operate like clockwork, and you know, sometimes you forget to thank people, sometimes you forget to acknowledge people. But hey, if someone's forgotten to acknowledge you, don't get discouraged, encourage yourself. Encourage yourself in the Lord. That's the title for the sermon, right? Encourage yourself. Can you please go to 1 Samuel 30, we're near the end now, conclusion. 1 Samuel 30, back to the story that we started with. 1 Samuel 30, verse 17. 1 Samuel 30. So remember, David goes and asks the Lord, inquires of the Lord, and the Lord says, yep, pursue them, you know, you're gonna recover it all. Well, let's just finish the story here. 1 Samuel 30, verse 17. And David smote them from the twilight, even unto the evening of the next day, and there escaped not a man of them, save 400 young men which rode upon camels and fled. So he has a great victory against the Amalekites. Verse number 18. And David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away. I want you to notice that again. He recovered all. God said you're gonna recover it all. It says here, verse 17, he recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away, and David rescued his two wives. And there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil, nor anything that they had taken to them, David recovered all. David recovered all. How did he recover all? By encouraging himself first, then finishing the job that he had, right? Encouraging himself first, and then he could recover all. You know what, brethren, if you're downcast, if you're discouraged tonight, if you're upset, you're full of sorrows, you know what, you can recover it all. You can come back to where you were when you had a great joy for the Lord. You know the great joy you had when you got saved, and you just desired for everybody to know the gospel message? You desired to tell your loved ones, your family, your friends, that that excitement can come back if you're downcast. You can recover it all, brethren, but you need to learn how to encourage yourself, encourage yourself in the Lord. Now, I hope, brethren, that we always have brethren around us. I always hope we have New Life Baptist Church here with us. I always hope you have a good church, good people around you to help you get encouraged, that you can be a blessing to be encouraged to others. But you gotta find, sometimes in life, it's just you. There just seems nobody else, maybe they've turned their backs against you, maybe, whatever it is, brethren, they've turned their backs against you, you've lost your finances, you've lost your possessions, you've had great sorrow, whatever it is, brethren, whatever issues you may face, and you need to learn in your spiritual growth, you need to just learn and say, hey, the only place that I can be uplifted, the only place I can find courage, being encouraged is in the Lord, and you gotta learn to encourage yourself. Let's pray. Amen.