Overcoming Discouragement | Pastor John Greiner

Drawing from Psalm 143, this message digs into what it means to feel overwhelmed, desolate, and pressed down, even for those who seem the least likely to struggle. Discouragement is unpacked at its root, not as a minor mood but as the first step toward something far more dangerous if left unchecked. From there, the teaching moves into practical, scriptural ground for pushing back. Remembering God's past faithfulness, thirsting after His presence, listening for direction, and walking in obedience all surface as tools for resisting the pull toward despair. Woven throughout is the reminder that tribulation and setbacks aren't proof that something's gone wrong. They're simply part of the territory, and there's a way through them.

Transcript

Opening Prayer And Confession

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First, we're going to get into the word together. So let's just lift our Bibles up as our custom and wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Let's say this together. Say, Heavenly Father, I give thanks for Wednesday night. It's time for me to top off the tanks. I want to receive the word of God with an abundant heart, a teachable heart. Lord, I'm not too old or too good that I can't be corrected, that I can't find a better way. And the Holy Spirit is here to help me. Grain the victory in Jesus' name. Amen.

Psalm 143 And The Theme

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Let's look at Psalm 143 tonight. And we'll read the first four verses. Psalm 143.1, it says a psalm of David. He says, Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications. In thy faithfulness, answer me and in thy righteousness. And enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. For the enemy hath persecuted my soul. He hath smitten my life down to the ground. He hath made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been long dead. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate. And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled Overcoming Discouragement. Overcoming Discouragement. You know, this Psalm 143 is a psalm of David, and he's speaking of being overwhelmed and desolate. I mean, this is the same David that slew the lion and the bear. This is the same David who was a man after God's own heart. It's the same David who danced so violently that his wife was, you know, embarrassed. I mean, David, you know, David was a mighty warrior besides being the king. I mean, he, you know, he killed Goliath with a sling. I mean, he's not exactly a soft guy. He's not a guy that's easily intimidated, and yet here he's speaking of being overwhelmed and desolate. And so, you know, I just encourage you, everyone at some point or another needs encouragement. And uh, and so that's the basis of this uh message tonight for those that maybe find themselves somewhat overwhelmed or possibly desolate. Those are two pretty strong words, but but uh hopefully you can gain out of this word tonight a way to combat that.

David At Ziklag Encourages Himself

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You know, uh I think about David at Ziklag, you know, he's he's it's before he's been crowned king, but he's got the 600 in his army, you know, the mighty men, and they had been uh in battle campaigns with the Philistines. He had that he had to go out with the Philistines and try to make them think that he was their friend because they couldn't, you know, he couldn't afford to fight Saul and the Philistines at the same time. So uh he just was careful when he uh was fighting for the Philistines that he wouldn't oppose Israel, and he didn't. But they came home to Ziklag from a long campaign and they're tired, and uh and it's been a tough campaign, and they get into town, and the town has been burned, their wives and children have been taken by the Amalekites and uh all of their stuff. And the Bible says there in uh that in 1 Samuel 30 that they all wept until there was no more power to weep. I mean, that's I don't know if you've ever been that low or not, but I mean that's quite and for David to get you know to get in that kind of condition, but you can see can you know the conditions were bad. I mean, you know, he lost his two wives and his children and all of his stuff, and as well as everybody else. And so there was a great wailing and a great weeping. But the Bible says, but David encouraged himself in the Lord. You know, he didn't just allow himself to stay that way, and that's the way we are. We can't allow ourselves to be discouraged for very long, you know, discouraged. Uh, you know, the devil wants to discourage you, so let's not cooperate with that. You know, discouraged, this, the prefix of discouraged, this means the opposite of. It means deprived of, it means excluded from. I mean, when you think about discouraged, you're excluded from courage. You're you're deprived of courage. You're it's the opposite of courage. Really, I have to say that discouragement really has its root in fear, which is unbelief. I mean, let's just face it, that's really the root of discouragement, is fear. I mean, let's call it what it is. It's just really unbelief. It's you're you're believing the circumstances so much, they're assailing your mind and your eyes, your ears, and and you begin to speak in line with what you're seeing and feeling. Before long you can get lower than a snake's belly. I mean, it doesn't take that long. And so, what I'm my purpose of my message tonight is to try to give you some positive things to combat discouragement. I don't know that we can completely get rid of it, but we can s we can resist the temptation to stay in that position. Because uh, you know, Jesus said, fear not 14 times in the gospels. So we we uh we have no business fearing. Uh we have no business being discouraged, we have no business giving place to it. Uh in fact, God told Joshua, Joshua 1, 8 through 10, he said, be strong and very courageous, told him that three times. So it must be pretty important. Uh Daniel, book of Daniel, chapter 7, verse 25, it said the last days that the devil will come to wear out the saints, uh, literally to mentally afflict them. I mean, that's what the devil is working overtime to do. He's trying to paint things with the darkest of picture, the worst kind of language, the worst kind of outlook, and he gets you to adopt it and get you to agree with it and get you to start speaking, align with it. That's why you've heard me say many times, you know, we'll say, Well, it's not as bad as it looks. You know, I've learned to just say that first before you do anything. You know, you get a report, no matter what the report is. If it's a doctor report, a financial report, whatever the report is of this world, I just say, Well, it's not as bad as it looks. And it's amazing. It's just amazing when you slam the door shut on discouragement, it doesn't have very far to

Discouragement Leads To Depression

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go. Um so uh the devil wants to number one discourage you, and then if he can do that, then he wants to depress you. You know, depression's dangerous. Depression is really dangerous. I mean, that's the next step past discouragement. Some people, I've seen people just give in to discouragement and then they move into depression. And depression is a serious condition. I mean, with depression, people can do all kinds of terrible things. They can make all kinds of terrible decisions. And then finally, if you if you allow yourself to get to depressed, then you can uh you can allow yourself to be dispossessed. I mean, the devil can steal what you have. He can steal your mental health, he can steal your physical health, he can steal your marriage, he can steal your children, he can steal, kill, and destroy. So, discouragement is something that we have to learn to nip in the bud and to stop it before it gets uh very far. Uh so let's stop him at phase one, discouragement. Let's not let it get over to depression and dispossession. Let's stop it as soon as we identify it, as soon as we know. And really, discouragement is all about feelings. It's all about emotion. It's all about our five senses feeding into our mind and giving us a report. And if the devil can get us to agree with that report, you know, and and talking about how bad things are and how terrible it looks, well then, you know, he's kind of got us on the hook. Um so I've got uh some things here that I read. If we keep reading Psalm 143, I've got one, two, three, four uh things I think that we can do to overcome discouragement when it comes. I mean, you know, all of us are subject to that. We live in a flesh body. I'll be glad to get rid of this flesh body. I mean, one of these days Jesus is coming and he's gonna call the church. And when an atomic second, we're gonna all be changed, and we're gonna go up, you know, go up in the rapture, and we'll have a brand new body, and that brand new body won't be subject to discouragement. It won't be subject to sickness, disease, pain, uh, or anything else. So bad. Uh so if you find yourself overwhelmed, desolate, or discouraged, so let's uh let's see number one in verse five.

Remember Past Victories From God

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Uh I remember the days of old. I meditate on all thy works, I muse on the work of thy hand. I see, remember, David is writing this. He's talking about how discouraged he is, and now he's responding to the discouragement. So, number one on the list, remember how God has blessed you. I mean, you know, right in the middle of all this negative feeling and the negative attack on you, start thinking, start counting your blessings, start thinking about how God has intervened in your life. Start thinking about all the things that God has done to deliver you, to heal you, to provide for you. I mean, if he did it then, he'll do it again. I mean, he hadn't forgot the recipe for victory. Yeah. I remember, you know, I've told the story before, but uh in the 80s, you know, I was a home builder and our industry here in uh in Houston, uh, we didn't have just a recession, we had a depression. I mean, it it affected everybody I knew in the business. And most of them, almost all of them went out of business. And uh I had to I had to make a deal with the bank. I had a $1.4 million worth of inventory on, you know, for sale. It wasn't selling, and I couldn't pay the interest, so there, you know, they they had a remedy to loan me another $50,000, you know, on top of what I couldn't pay for. And to get the houses ready for sale. I mean, I mean, I decor decorated the houses out, I I put yards in, and none of that was included in my original loan. So I I planted grass, I gave it a deluxe landscaping package, you know, we'd put the wallpaper and we just did all the life, everything was turnkey, air conditioning was blowing cold. I mean, you never do that on a spec house, but we did it on those houses. They literally, if they sell the house, they could move in the very next day. I mean, everything was turnkey, ready to go. And that's what the 50K was for. And uh I had done that, and then they still hadn't sold, and man, I mean, I was, I was, this was getting kind of rough. And so uh I did some praying and God provided a job for me. We had to move to Corpus Christi. We lived in Portland, Texas. And uh, you know, then at that point, and I'm starting a brand new career. I went out of home building to developing, and I'm learning the developing business. I'd seen it, but I'd never done it myself. And so my job for this company was to develop raw land into uh residential lots. That meant pouring streets, curbs, and gutters, putting in sewer and water lines and having something ready to sell a builder to put put a house on, taking raw land and doing that. So I began something that I'd never done, and so it was kind of high pressure. And in the meantime, I had those houses in Houston that still hadn't sold, and uh, and that was on me. And so every day, I mean, I'm telling you, discouragement tried to just rest on me. I would resist it now, but it just seemed like it was never very far away. And uh I'd get up at 5 o'clock in the morning. We we lived in a little town called Portland across New Asus Bay from Corpus. And we lived in a nice home, a rental home, and uh God provided, you know, he takes care of his home. Uh and we lived across the street from a park, and and then you could see New Aces Bay from the front living room of my house. So early in the morning, five or six o'clock in the morning before daylight, I'd walk out my front door, go over to that park, and there was a concrete picnic table out there, and I'd I'd get on the top of that picnic table and lay down and look up at the stars, and I'd look over at the skyline of Corpus Christi. It's all lit up across the bay, the bay is reflecting the moon and the lights of the city, and and I would just, you know, I'd be, I'd, in my, in my heart, I felt so low, in my in my in my spirit, I felt just so oppressed. And I would have to pray in tongues, and I would I would think about all the things that God had done, all the all the miracles. And one of those was getting me that job. I mean, I had a six-figure contract with a company. I mean, I I came out of a miserable condition here in Houston, and I landed in Corpus with a really uh very good job, very important job, president of the residential division of this company and employees under me and and subs looking to me and all that kind of thing, but make a lot of business decisions on me. So uh I had reason. You see, I had to I had to encourage, like David, I had to encourage myself in the Lord. Every day, almost every day, I had to get out there and get that off of me. See, if you don't get it off of you, it's gonna just get worse, you know. And I could get it off of me to make the day, and I could, I could have the joy of the Lord, and I could, you know, years, years later, God showed me that that was not his perfect will for me to move to corpus. That's why I had such a challenge to stay in the peace of God because I was not in his perfect will. I was in his permissive will. It really wasn't the will of God for me to leave Houston to begin with, especially leaving Lakewood Church. I mean, it really was sad to have to leave Lakewood Church. That was the worst thing of all. And then, of course, second to that is it is my hometown. I, you know, I've lived in Corpus before, and I wasn't looking forward to living there again, but anyway. It was a lot of things like that. But years, you know, God didn't tell me that then. He waited until I grew and had, you know, and I found out like Brother Hagin, you know, Brother Hagin found out that he had pastored for 12 years in the permissive will of God. God told him, He said, Well, I never did want you to pastor, I never called you to pastor. You're entering in the first phase of your ministry, been in the ministry 13 years. And so I kind of, you know, I can laugh because now I wasn't laughing then. I'm talking about overcoming discouragement. So don't get uh down on yourself just because you're tempted in that area, but you you can gain the victory by by rejoicing and thinking about all the things that God has done. If he did it then, he'll do it again. There's nothing too hard for the Lord.

Thirst After God And Be Filled

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And so uh the second one I find in verse 6, he said, I stretch forth my hands unto thee, my soul thirsteth for thee, it thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land. Selah. So the second thing to do to overcome discouragement is to thirst after God. Thirst after Him. You know, I I think about uh Jesus uh in John chapter 7, verse 37, is after the great day of the feast of uh tabernacles. He's they had they had been rejoicing for for a week. They were commanded in the Word to eat apples and honey and build booths and look at through these flimsy booths up to the heavens and remind them of how God delivered them out of Egypt. They had to, they were commanded to dance and to sing and to rejoice for that entire eight days. And when it was all over, they left there just as sad as they were when they got there. I mean, it didn't, it wasn't it didn't change them. And Jesus is sitting outside the gate of the of the city saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. And out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which those who believe on him should receive. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. So he's prophesying that over us. We should thirst after God, especially when we're tempted for discouragement. We just need to get full of the Holy Ghost. You know, I like Isaiah 44, 3. He said, I'll pour water on the dry ground and and uh I'll put I don't know, I'll flood, I'll put pour water on the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. I mean, just thirst after God. Be the dry ground, he's gonna flood. I mean, you know, come to God and just say, I'm so thirsty for you. Stretch your hands up. I did that those those early mornings. I just stretch my hands out to the stars and and just think about how God had blessed me in the past and that that I was still blessed. I mean, I'm blessed to have a nice home and I can come out here to this park, and we're right on the bay. And I mean, my goodness, this is a pretty nice place to live for a guy that's got, you know, a couple of million dollars worth of debt in Houston. Praise God. I mean, he he he he saw me through it all. You know, they didn't just they didn't destroy me. Uh, you know, in James 4.8, it says, draw near to God and he'll draw near to you. I mean, that's exactly what you need to do. You need to draw near and start drinking uh of the of the Spirit, praising and praying in other tongues. I sound like a broken record here lately, but there's no shortcuts to overcoming discouragement. You have to do the things the Bible tells you to do. Be not ignorant, but rem uh understanding what the will of the Lord is. Don't be drunk on wine, don't be getting drunk at the bar, you know, because you you know you drink your troubles away. I remember that doing that when I was lost. I mean, I my my tendency was just to drink another, you know, a couple of six packs of beer when I was under pressure, you know. But now I drink of the Spirit. I mean, you know, I can drink of the Holy Ghost. I mean, I can get so full of him it makes me forget about whatever trouble I've got because he's magnified. He's bigger than anything I'm facing. Amen. And so uh so get full of the Holy Ghost and and until you're drunk. I mean, get drunk in the Holy Ghost. Amen. I was listening to Brother Hagin one time, and he said, you know, I when I would have, you know, some things that were difficult for me, and I was, I'd start praying, uh, you know, he was a night person and uh not a morning person. Uh and it came from his being uh on the bed of sickness, those those many, I think it was 14 months, 18 months, something like that when he was a teenager. He couldn't sleep at night and many times because he was hurting and also afraid of death. And uh so he didn't he didn't like to sleep, and things bothered him. So he developed this idea of staying up and then he would sleep late in the morning. So that kind of stuck with him all of his life. So his he did a lot of praying late at night, and he said, you know, I'd pray in tongues, you know, and I'd lay in bed, and there'd be times, uh more than just a few times. He said, four, five, six times, I prayed all night long in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in my heart to the Lord, which is exactly what Ephesians 5 says to do, to stay full of the Holy Ghost. Speak to yourself in Psalms. And what does that do? Well, it encourages you. A psalm is an utterance that the Holy Ghost inspires because if you're praying much in other tongues, and it's not really intended for anybody else, but it's intended for you to build you up and uh and to comfort you and to strengthen you. Amen. So uh, all right, so that's so number one, let's let's remember how God has blessed us and uh think about how he's intervened. And number two, thirst after God is dry ground. I mean, let him reign on you, get filled with the Holy Ghost. Number three is in verse eight.

Hear Direction And Follow The Witness

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Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning, for in thee do I trust. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto thee. So the number third number three is listen for his direction, especially early in the morning. Again, some of us are not morning people, maybe you're not, maybe you can't quite function. So all you can do is get out the door to go to work, and I understand that, but at some point, you're gonna have to carve out time to have a prayer life and carve out time to listen for his direction. Uh and for me, it's early in the morning. That's what I did in corpus on that picnic table. I mean, I'd get out there and pray in other tongues, and I'd, you know, kind of pray about my day, and I'd kind of be looking at some of the things of problems that I had that I was facing. One time I had a uh uh the we had this beautiful uh uh persimmon tree. And the persimmon tree would, you know, it would it would have persimmon fruit on it, but the beautiful part of this tree, it kind of reminded you of a crepe myrtle. It had it had bark that peeled off of it, and the bark was was kind of a pretty light pink, and the bark was peeling, and it was just a decorative tree. It was so pretty, and it was a it was spreading as a spreading tree. It spread it out. And it was right in line with the street. The street needed to, they needed to take that. And that persimmon tree was about almost 12 inches at the base, which was huge. It's no telling how old that tree was. And uh, and I, who in, where did a persimmon tree come from? It's the only one out there. I mean, every everything else is mesquite. This is Corpus Christi. It's a New Aces River, it's right, right, you know, 200 yards down the road there. You know, that's where I'm at. And so there's all mesquite. It's, it's, you know, there's nothing really pretty, there's no oaks or anything. But this persimmon tree was a specimen tree. And so, you know, that morning, I remember one morning I had a decision to make. I'm, is it my decision that I'm gonna spend $30,000 to go around that tree? I mean, we we already had the plans drawn, we already had the street cleared, and if I'm gonna change anything, I've got to go back to the city, I've got to go back and change all the drawings. And guess what? I mean, the Holy Ghost gave me really, and I did. You go over there today, and that street goes down the street, and all of a sudden it goes like this. And here's that persimmon tree. It survived, it survived right next to the, which is another miracle. But little things like that that I had to pray over. And I got his direction early in the morning, and it bothered me. It bothered me to take that tree down. And uh, and maybe there's some things in your life that you need, you need direction and guidance on how to get out of the situation that you're in. Well, let's let's listen for his direction. That's exactly what David did. He yes, was he discouraged? Yeah. He's smitting his life down to the ground. He's he, you know, looking what he said, he said, uh, I'm I'm just really uh uh down to the ground. He's made me dwell in darkness. My spirit's overwhelmed, he said. My heart's desolate within me. So that's pretty extreme language for David. But see, he he prayed to get the way out. There's a way out. You don't stay there. You don't stay there. So listen for his direction uh early in the morning. Either get up earlier or stay up later, one of the two, and follow your innermost. You know, Brother Hagan, uh he he he knew a millionaire back in in the 30s when a millionaire was more like a billionaire. I mean, a million was more like a billion back then. And uh and he asked the guy, he was a Christian, and he asked, how how do you how do you do that? What do you what do you what do you do? And he said, well, he said, uh I and he wasn't educated, you know. I I I forgot how he made his money. Might have been oil. But anyway, he would he would invest. And he said, somebody come by and want me to invest in their enterprise. And he said, I think it sounds really good, but I won't do anything. He said, I'll go into my prayer closet and I'll pray in tongues until I know, until I know down in my knower what I should do. And sometimes I've got to take two or three days, and I come in and out of that prayer closet and I do a little fasting. And he said, you know, over the years there have been things that I heard about, and it sounded like, hey, that sounds like a good deal. And I had a stop in my spirit. I had a, you know, I had a stoplight, and I didn't invest. And others that came to me sounded like, yeah, that doesn't sound too good. That sounds kind of crazy. And I had a witness to do it. He said, I always obey my deepest premonitions, which he used that word premonition. Really, it's the I always obey my witness, the witness of the Spirit. Quit trying to hear voices, get quiet enough to get the witness of the Spirit working in your life, is the direction, you know, where you feel the direction that you're gonna take, the decision you're gonna make, and you have peace about going down that road or not peace going down that road. All right. And then finally, the last one isn't found in verse 10.

Obedience And Resisting The Devil

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Teach me to do thy will, for thou art my God. Thy spirit is good. Lead me into the land of uprightness. So uh check your life. Have you been obedient to his will? Is there something that you know that you didn't do that he told you to do? Or if is there something that you did that he told you not to do? I mean, either way. I mean, when you pray, God will show you things that you need to clean up. You know, I mean, if you'll ask him, he's not condemning you. But those things that we're talking about will hinder your peace. They will hinder your ability to know what to do with this discouragement. Obviously, discouragement comes to all. In fact, Jesus said, in the world you shall have tribulation. You're gonna have trouble and anxiousness, you're gonna have all kinds of things that are gonna happen, and it just comes with a territory. It doesn't mean you did anything wrong. It can mean you did something wrong, but it doesn't automatically mean you did anything wrong, it just comes with the territory. Don't worry about trying to figure it out. Well, there's something I did. Don't worry about that. Just get rid of the discouragement first. And then you know God's well able to, you know, friend my point. I mean, part of my trouble was that I didn't really have the peace, I didn't really have the perfect will of God when I moved to Corpus Christi. Guess what? He took care of me anyway. You know, he used me while I was there too, and uh and blessed us while we were there. So uh uh God's not looking to hurt you, God's looking to try to help you. He wants to help you everywhere he can. He wants to bless you as far as he can. So check your life. Have you been obedient to your will? Make sure you're on God's side. Quit trying to get God to get on your side. Let's make sure we're on his side. You know, God has a side. Get on it. I mean, that's so simple, but we forget. Oh God, get on my side. No, you get on his side. Find out what it is that you need to do or need not to do. And uh, your eye gate, your ear gate, your mouth, those things are what contributes to discouragement. If you're not careful, you're just always looking on the dark side, looking on the bad side, listening to all the naysayers. You know, I had a partner one time that, you know, he just thought the sky was falling all the time. He was the most negative person I've ever seen. He came to this church opening. He was totally blown away that I was a preacher. I mean, he knew me all these years when I was not a preacher, I was a cusser. And uh, you know, but he knew me, and you know, he came, he sat right over there when we had our grand opening, and and he said, John, I had no idea. I said, Well, I didn't either. But uh he he just he uh he just had this negative all the time. It never could be good enough. He's thinking that the economy is going to fall apart at any time, and it hindered us from taking advantage when interest rates drop. That's when you need to put your foot on the gas if you're a home builder and start building some house. And he was always way reserved, and you know, and this, that, and the other. Uh so your eye gate, your ear gate, and what how you speak can create all of this uh difficulty in your life.

Rejoicing And Closing Exhortation

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So uh James chapter 4, verse 7 says, Submit yourself therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. So submit your eyes, submit your ears, submit your mouth to God, and resist discouragement by praising him and thanking him and doing all the things that we just got through saying. And discouragement will flee from you. Overcoming discouragement. Did you get anything out of this tonight? Come on, let's lift our hands. Praise God. Well, go ahead and rejoice. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. We give you praise, you give us the way out. Hallelujah. It's not over till it's over, and it's never over till we say so. Glory to God.