2. How to Avoid Selling Out to Your Pain, The Role of Encouragement

In times of pressure, pain or intense need, we can make poor decisions that will impact us  long term. In this series we unpack an interesting Bible story where Esau sells out to his own hunger and makes a decision that changes his life. Learn keys that will help you become a better decision maker when the sound of your distress seems louder than the voice of reason.

In this talk, understand the key role encouragement has in enabling us to live for the things that matter most to us.

Transcript

Hey, I'm Josh Hallmark and I want to thank you for listening to one of the Oaks podcast.

Remember this message from Isaiah chapter 61.

God takes the seeds of brokenness and turns them in the Oaks of righteousness. And that's you.

Listen, I'm so glad to see you guys this morning.

I am about to share something, it's gonna absolutely change your life. Every week, right? Hey, so we've been in a little series here

that

I've called How To Avoid selling out to your pain. You could also call it how to not throw your destiny away in a moment's time. Or don't give away your birthright for lentil stew. That could also be the name of this series we've been talking about this particular instance where Esau and Jacob, these are both Isaac's sons. And Esau goes out hunting, he gets really hungry, he gets in a place of pain, he gets in a pinch. And in that moment, he makes the business that you know, they say don't go to the home. Don't Don't go in the grocery store when you're when you're hungry. We just make bad decisions. Sometimes when we're in a moment of desperate need. We make bad financial decisions sometimes. Sometimes it's funny, like if we get a pinch financial, then we make a decision that's even that worsens what we do. This is what happened with Esau. He was really hungry. And again, we don't know why I became really hungry. But I suspect that there was something driven this in him or there was some reason that he got to the point that he got to. Before he came back to Jacob. Why did he come home earlier if he was that hungry, and this is what the Bible says that Jacob gave Esau some bread and some of his lentil stew, and that must be some good cooking. And Esau traded his birthright, which we know that equivalent in about two thirds of his inheritance, plus it gave him a legal authority, if you will, I don't know it gave him legally gave him headship over their family. And, and it says, This is the commentary that the writer of Genesis said so Esau despised his birthright. In other words, he saw it he

he zoned in on the temporary rarey

in such a bad way, that he forgot about his destiny. He forgot about the long term.

And

I think the point of the writer of Hebrews, not Hebrews, the writer of Genesis would like to make us is Look, don't despise what is truly valuable. I mean, little stupid. I know your foodie, little stew though it's momentary, and he was hungry. And this is what we've been talking about is in our moment of pain. That's when we make the dumbest decisions sometimes right? In our moment of need in our moment, where we feel the hunger pangs, if you will,

of need.

We make decisions that are costly.

And so that's not really what we want to do, is it

so Esau makes this this big decision in the short run that cost him dearly in the long run, and what I think he saw was looking forwards this one right here is really, I think Esau was looking for relief.

And here's my encouragement to you guys today.

If things get tough in your life, and you know, we were feeling pressure, right from all the season that we're in, you want to go back and the things that we've talked about already in the previous series, go back to doing the things that you know awry.

Go back to know it.

I'm going to honor God's word. I'm going to do the things that I know are right to do.

Because if we can do that,

and not just try to get relief, sometimes we get relief in the wrong way. And and we end up

we end up on another path.

What I mean is like this, I want you to think about

think about having marriage troubles. Inevitably when there's one there to people in a marriage, and this person has needs, and this person has needs, and those needs are not the same. You have this idea that's called conflict. When your needs and my needs are against each other, that's what you call conflict. And conflict is not fun is it?

You might like conflict.

I mean, some of you guys do need to you need to repent, right? You just want to fight. And, um, anyway, um, and so it's easy to say, you know what, just because it's hard, let's just quit. let's just, let's just not do this married thing anymore. Right. And it happens a lot. And I know some of you guys are in a marriage. That's not the original marriage that you're in. And I'm going to tell you something, that the more times you get married, the easier it is to go there. And I'll tell you to dig in. Dig in now.

They listen,

if Josh said anything good, it says dig in. Now, you can do this. But life is hard. But I want you to understand something, that if you're just trying to get relief, then that relief only last for a moment, but you say, Okay, I'm gonna give me another example. I want you to think about somebody who is struggling with their gender identity. They're struggling with the same sex and when I say struggling, I mean that they don't want to be like that. But there's forces going on in them. They don't even know what it is. They don't know if it's connected to the parent. They don't they don't think about any of that. They just do their vices, okay, on Tick tock, right. Um, and so what they do, they start feeling this internal pressure, but they're struggling against it because it's a struggle.

Maybe they don't want that.

But what they go to is this word right here.

It's relief

and so they They allow in a moment you know what they do? They come out.

We've made it an event Haven't

you come out and when you come out a lot of them, what do they say? Initially?

I'm so glad to get that off my chest.

See, that's what he saw. Got it, he got relief. But do you understand that that one decision to come out sets that person on a completely new trajectory? Not that they can't change or can't repent, but I'm just telling you that in the long run, it punishes them more. It's just like, it's just like being in a financial bind and said, you know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get another loan because that's what's really gonna help me.

Are you guys tracking with me?

And in the long run, it's punishing.

It hurts. And so

what I'm trying to do This series

is to say, Okay,

I know you're hurting and needs are legitimate, right? We all have needs, and sometimes our nature yelling at us, you need a husband, you need a wife, you need this right? And we have to trust the Lord. We don't know how he's going to provide for us. We have to trust the Lord is going to take care of us because we're sons and daughters. And so what we talked about last week, I'm not gonna keep talking about it. Okay, I promise. I talked about this for a couple weeks now. But this is really important that we extend our vision to be able to see you guys know that vision is the ability to see what's in front of you. And here's an amazing thought. Vision is not just like a self help idea, like you, you know, we've got to have a vision for the future. And it's not just that. It's not just that I have a vision that creates goals, you know, that I have values and I have a vision that that I'm directing those through the values through the vision but to attain certain goals, you know, values help define your goals. And that's good. And I actually want to talk about that in the next few weeks maybe but, but vision is also being able to see the connection between your current behavior and where it's leading you. You ever heard the saying that, uh, doing the same thing and expecting different results? That's the definition of insanity. Right? vision is the ability to connect what I'm currently doing to the trajectory that it's taking Mele. And so you need to know doing what's right in God's eyes. And what you know is right in God's eyes, it displays vision, that's the verse that we looked at is where there is, there is no vision, the people cast off restraint. In other words, they don't Marshal themselves towards a certain direction. If they have no vision, you know, One of the translations of that verse is where they have no revelation. We talked about this last week looking at what our vision is as a church as a as 61. Is our mandate seeing broken people come to being trees, oaks of righteousness, right,

stable and alive.

One more verse. Oh, wait.

No, I think I've lost the verse that I want to share with you guys give me just one second.

I think I might accidentally

deleted it, but let me share a verse with you.

Um,

it's in Hebrews. I think I've deleted and typed another person's place.

But it says this. This is about vision.

That for the

joy set beforehand, Christ endured the cross. The joy set before him. This is vision. Jeez. could see the joy, which I think the joy set before Him is you and you, and you and you. He saw what the cross was gonna get. So for the joy set before him, that's the vision. He endured the cross, which is the hard part.

That's the part of

going and pressing through your pain to do what's right,

even though you're hurting.

Amen.

Tell your neighbor, he's really doing a great job today.

I need the encouragement.

I'm gonna tell you something. So we talked last week about vision for the church. And that vision helps us will help us Marshal our troops, if you will, towards the end that God's calling the church to well,

we looked at Isaiah 61.

And just when I was meditating,

this morning, the Lord just brought this verse to my mind. I feel like that he was just saying okay, What we've been asked and this is kind of what we were hitting at last week we prayed about this as a church last week is Lord, okay, we know Isaiah 61 is kind of what you've called us to. But what do you want us to do in this season? Like covid, 19 and 2020. What do you want us to do? With this current situation? We're in a pandemic. Okay. How do you want us to respond as a church during this time? And this verse kanem on I feel like this was maybe an answer to those awesome prayers that y'all are praying last week during our service. And this is this is one that's going to lead me into the next thing I'll say, but it says Ephesians 416. The individual part as the individual part does its job the body builds itself up in love. I was thinking this is something that God wants to see happen in our church. So I spend some time with the Lord.

I was writing

and without giving you a ton of details, how it got to this, I felt like something happened. For us for ginger and on our business. And it's like, uh, it was like a blessing, like a like a huge blessing. Basically, I don't even want to get into it. It's just a blessing, okay? It's gonna be a blessing to us.

But I felt like the Lord told me this morning. This is a prophetic

symbol for what I'm about doing your church. And that I felt the Lord is about to start adding families to our church, and I don't know how he's gonna do it. You know? We're at home plate batting. And we don't know if we're gonna get on base or not. We might strike out I don't know. But we have to trust the Lord. Trust Him. That the look not trust Rob. I'm just do trust you though. But trust the Lord how he will bring About, I thought the Lord's about interest our church with new families. And I don't know from where I don't know how that will look, no idea. Anytime I try to think that I know how the Lord will do it, he used to do it a different way, right.

But I was thinking about what would God be calling people into because right now, we're not really doing small groups right now, that pretty much what we're doing is this, right? But this is our church and this is our this. So there's the church at large the body of Christ, but the the mandates of the church at large have to be manifest in a local setting. And that's why you find your bottoms and the seats is because there's got to be a local place where it's all fleshed out. And um, and so what I was thinking about is what is The environment that God is calling people into when they come into this church. And this is where our values come in. What do people feel when they come here, and I don't know if you guys have ever been to our website before. But if you go to our website, we actually have our values listed on there. But I want to talk about one of our values today, just one

in terms of

what we want people to be called into. And I think this also answers the question of what the Lord or one of the things that the Lord wants us to be doing right now. And I'm gonna call it opportunity 2020. Just don't just name it bother. The negative name. You know, I'm saying God's always up to something, right? We're not trying to just label what the devils do. We want to know what the Lord is doing. So here it is, you're ready. Here's the second thing you can do, to avoid selling out to your pain, which also is the thing that I think is gonna make us a Prime place of safety for God to send new people. And it's this is to encourage

one another.

This is what the Bible says in First Thessalonians 511. Let me just tell you something.

Let's go back to Esau.

Esau was standing in front of Jacob, looking at his lentil stew, his red stew. And man, I made some little stool one time while I was in college. Actually, I didn't make it my roommate, Joanna you know him Blake. Anybody else know Blake, he was my he was my roommate in college, but like he made a good a good connection. Blake made some little story one time. I told him about so Selma Burton. I didn't tell him that.

I'll try.

I don't think I'd ever had lentils before.

I eat lentils.

I'm sorry. I should not tell you all this.

Sometimes I get myself in trouble.

I say things that I should not say.

They gave me

but I didn't know that's what it was. You know why? We went to Auburn basketball games in the old Coliseum invited. All the sudden, I started having pain in my

chest.

I thought Look, I was 20 years old about, I thought I was gonna die. I thought I thought I need comedy and I have a cell phone that was before cellphones. And I need to call my dad because I think I'm about to have a heart attack.

I mean, I'm not joking. It hurts so bad. I went home

and I did talk to my dad.

And he already said,

I thought I'm having a heart attack. He said sounds probably gas you know and get up in there sometimes.

It never happened to me before. Anyway.

Everything came out alright, that's

everything turned out All right, let me say that way.

I know he saw me I was not selling out for the little stew it I thought I was gonna die. I don't know maybe I've eaten little since but not much. But he saw heat man he thought that lentil soup is something and but what if in that juncture where Esau was just about to say you know what I'm about to sell out all this important to me my whole future I'm about to sell out for for relief. What if

someone had been there?

One of his one of his dad had been there as I saw it's gonna be okay just cares. Now what if he says What if? What if ASIC had been there and been able to say Hey, man, just hang in there minute, Mama cookie song

we'll tell you guys It's gonna blow you away. There was a study done on mice.

And in this study

a mouse was dropped in water and was having to swim for dear life. This is currently By the way, but Joe had to just get over

a mouse so it was not done on humans. Okay.

Massive swimming.

And the study

concluded

that after how many people think how long the mouse lasted?

I want to guess we got 20 minutes. Can I get 2525 25 has anybody said less than that?

15 he said that

is 15

it was 15 minutes after 15 minutes. The mouse would give up

and he was sitting down there

Then he tried something, he tried something different. So the the mice were all done at about 15 minutes

after this

right before the mouse died

right before they got the 15 minute threshold, they would take the mouse out.

Let him go free.

Catch him again and put him in there

back in there.

Now, the mouse, the only difference in the mouse, the mice that died and this mouse, the only difference is that he had hope

for the future.

He had hope he knew what escape look like. He knew escape was possible. He had encouragement, if you will, that things could get better. Would you like to guess how long the mass that had been rescued the mass of had a little encouragement lasted

I want to guess.

25 minutes. That's when I guess, an hour

for our Hey,

y'all, the rescued mice lasted 60 hours. And there is something incredibly powerful when we believe that things can get better. Human beings can endure

incredible things if they don't give up.

And the Bible says this in First Thessalonians 511 encourage one another and build each other. In fact, Paul says this to the Thessalonians you're doing this already. But I want to just I want to mention Courage you keep doing this. This is really important. The writer of Hebrews who I don't think it was, Paul said, some people think it was somebody that's Barnabas. There's nobody knows the writer of Hebrews also said, encourage one another

while it's called today

is today call today right now, encourage one another while it's called today,

lest you be deceived

or bless you be I'm sorry hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Sin like when we sin, it has a way of hardening in us, but sin is always lying to us.

If you just eat the little stew right

now, it's actually just gonna make everything better. I mean, a meal goes a long way but doesn't go that far.

It doesn't go destiny length, right.

But encouragement is the very thing

that could keep us or our friends or our brothers and sisters from throwing it all away. Can I tell you guys, this is something people get hurt in the church, right? You don't want people get hurt in church? Because people go to church. Okay. That's why and people have got issues, right? It's likely that if you got hurt by the church, you probably have issues. Okay. And the church, those people have issues.

I'm the only one that doesn't have issues.

Not really, my kids and my wife was not sure.

We've all got issues.

But some people think you know what i'm done with church. Ginger, and I've seen this so many times over the years. It is heartbreaking

that people give

up on the church and the next thing to host their marriage. Let's just say I'm done with church. feel the pain and I'm just going to sell out to this moment of pain I'm just going to do your own thing. We're going to separate from that from that that which gives us life. We don't realize it. We receive life from each other. there something that happens when we get and that's why it really is a privilege right for us to be able to be together. Can we just all give Jesus a high fives I thank you Lord, for letting us be together today. While we're the mask at least when I'm at Publix

okay

I told ginger I'm I think you

are pretty good at math.

This is a fascinating

that the writer of Hebrews makes a connection between encouragement and sinning. Have you ever just thought that you might know somebody that they just gave up on God? And it's because it's not because they were the wicked person that we thought they were. It's not because they were just evil, but it's because they got discouraged.

discouragement

creates an environment. Can you say environment,

that's a word that I'm wanting to come back to. discouragement creates an environment that enables us to be deceived. See, sin is deceptive. But the anecdote

is encouragement.

And this is one of the core values

of our church. We want to be prophetic in our encouragement. We want to hear the good things that God has to say. encouragement creates an environment. So listen, I'm gonna just throw this out. You got

it. Somebody down and out. Maybe

you could do this, this is applying of what does God want you to do in COVID in opportunity 2020.

I want you to think about somebody

and think how can I just maybe write them a text and so you know what? I was just thinking about you.

I just want you to know that I love you.

I care about you.

encouragement, right.

One of the greatest things that you can do is to compliment somebody say I was just thinking about that time where you said something and it really meant something to me.

You will blow them away.

Just by

giving a word of encouragement, it can help them hang on for 59 hours and 45 more seconds.

And that's when they're just swimming for dear life, right?

All right. Here's the word from. This is actually what we have written on our website, I want you to hear it. encouragement is a force that moves us forward in our destiny. It keeps us from giving up. Paul the Apostle wrote, when a man prophesize he speaks to other people, for their encouragement for their comfort for their strengthening. God has given us a special heart as a church to encourage and build up those who need to hear the good things God has to say. So let

me just throw this out at you.

If there's anybody know, somebody that has had COVID

maybe just shoot them a text or just give them a phone call. So I just think about you love you. We've been thinking about this at school. You know, we're getting ready to start our school year. And we're thinking, Man, you know, when you if anybody had covered in here, Don't raise your hand. We're traded We it feels a little bit like leprosy. It's not leprosy By the way, it's a virus, okay. But, you know, Jesus touched the liver. And so what you should really do is go out and touch everybody that has had covid and then you will be like Jesus. Not really. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. But I'm saying I'm making a point is that when somebody gets COVID, this is under the context of encouragement. Okay, I'm not talking about leprosy. Is it when somebody gets COVID and they quarantine, and they come back?

We don't want to treat them like they got the plague because they don't got the plague.

They're all clear, right? That's the time to encourage them. I'm not man. I don't want you to write.

But if I do, I hope you'll be nice to me.

And this is part of how we can think ahead. If we know somebody,

it just encouraged them.

What if we create an environment you guys?

And the laurels and

trust new people to us? What if we created an environment where they come in and they feel like this, I can do this, whatever this is, I can do this. We can do it. That's what that's what an environment of encouragement it looks like.

And I will just tell y'all that you're awesome.

You really are. And we can do this a man will stand up.

And Bill's gonna

come up and play the keyboard. We've been doing this since we came back is just taking some time to pray the Lord's prayer together and making some declarations over our lives. And we're gonna finish today by doing that, and, and then we'll be finished. We'll be done for for this Sunday. What would you do this week? Close your eyes with me right now. We think about somebody that you maybe you could encourage.

Maybe you can call them.

It could literally be just the Lord anointing your mind to remember somebody that did something that meant something to you. It could, it could be the time to write them a snail mail letter, write them an email, send them a text, give them a call, whatever is appropriate. Just to say, hey, just thinking about you know, I appreciate you your life matters.

You know, somebody's going through a tough time.

Just taking the time

to just connect with them and say, Hey, thinking about you.

Love you. You're gonna get through this.

I believe in you.

So it's the Holy Spirit would just give us a person right now. Help us all think of somebody

help us all. Think of someone

that we can encourage. And Father, my prayers, pastors, that you'd encourage everybody that's here, and they will know that they can do it, they are gonna make it and I just declare that over you guys, you're gonna make it. You guys are you God is with you. You're gonna like

can we pray together? Let's say this. Our Father in heaven

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

Amen. All right, let's say these together, you ready? God is good. This is the declaration. We're declaring this. God is good. We're building an atmosphere with this God is good.

God sees me.

God is with me.

Jesus will never leave me.

God is a good father.

God knows what I need before I even ask.

I am righteous because of Jesus.

I have the peace of God.

I can pray and see results.

God has given me vision for my life

I am pressing my pain into God.

God is meeting my needs.

Here's your bonus. I'm gonna rock this day.

Someone rock this week, rock the whole way. All right, well listen, may the Lord bless you and keep you make his face shine on you. Turn to you and be gracious to you and give you his peace. I bless you in the name of the Lord Jesus and now also just declare over you guys I just speak courage in your situation, to move forward and keep go. We're gonna get through this. Amen.

For more information about the visit the OIC dot o RG thanks for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai