Stop Studying Your Haters: 7 Ways to Beat Hopelessness

Sermon outline

Hopelessness is a feeling, not a verdict, and God's wisdom gives you practical ways to walk through it and stay on your assignment.

1. Wisdom is the principal thing

   Prayer, fasting and faith all matter, but the church has often stretched one truth into the only truth. Wisdom is what lets you navigate life: knowing when to fight and when to be still. Reaching for knowledge qualifies you for promotion, and sorrow, disappointment and hopelessness lead to anger and then depression if left unchecked.

   Illustration: Guilt from people who say 'you've changed' when you finally say no. He calls 'no' the word that will give you salvation in your life.

   “If you take any truth and stretch it too far, it becomes untrue.”

   • Proverbs 4:7
   • Proverbs 11:1
   • Hosea 4:6
   • Luke 16:8
   • Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
   • Proverbs 6:27

2. 1. Recognise that you're only having a feeling

   Feelings come and go, and even your worst day passed. Decide what is big and what is small, and let the small things go. Stop spending your energy studying the people who want you to fail.

   Illustration: Rewind to your most horrible day: you slept, got up the next day, and you were fine.

   “Stop studying idiots in your life.”

3. 2. Examine uncommon achievers

   Become skilled at discerning the character of the people near you. Never forget where you come from or your assignment. Getting off track is not the problem; the key is getting back on track quickly.

   “The key to life is to see where you get off track and get back on track quickly again.”

4. 3. Reset your goals

   Change your goals and you change your disappointments, because unmet expectations create the gap. Manage your expectations, stop investing in people who keep letting you down, and reinvest in someone new.

   Illustration: A farmer won't sow seed on rocky ground, and a young woman should test a suitor before giving him her whole heart.

   “When you change your goals, you'll change your disappointments.”

5. 4. Determine to walk through your hopelessness

   Decide in your heart that you will come through, even if you cry along the way. Stop sitting with the people who caused your pain, and go where you are celebrated, not merely tolerated.

   Illustration: The Lord told him to stop visiting a friend who always left him drained and depressed, because the man was draining the anointing from him.

   “The guy that stabbed you is not going to stitch you.”

6. 5. Turn your hopelessness into a school of wisdom

   Hard seasons teach you who you can trust and who your real friends are. Use them to sharpen your mind, and answer every setback with a comeback and a celebration.

   “If you have a setback, just make a comeback.”

7. 6. Focus on the areas where you have succeeded

   We fixate on the few things we did wrong and forget the many we did right. The greatest good choice is becoming a child of God, so celebrate the good choices you have made.

   Illustration: You may have missed two or three times, but forty times you hit the bullseye.

   “We've all done something right.”

8. 7. Sow seeds of spoken gratitude

   Gratitude is where the church is lacking most: towards God, parents, church, leaders, employers and country. He shares his own journey from idolatry and poverty to salvation, and calls people to arrive early and prepare their hearts before service.

   Illustration: He grew up steeped in idolatry and poverty, rode PUTCO buses and trains, drove cars with holes in the roof, and used to arrive at Bible study an hour early to pray in the car.

   “Respect is about gratitude.”