Pastor Don Mackintosh, Pastor of the Weimar Campus Church, gives us advice from the Scriptures on how we should respond when other fail us.

<p>Pastor Don Mackintosh, Pastor of the Weimar Campus Church, gives us advice from the Scriptures on how we should respond when other fail us.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

What to Do When People Let You Down

Father in heaven, thank you today for the opportunity we have to study your Word.

So bless us to that end, and we come in Christ's name.

Now, I'm used to having my computer right in front of me, so forgive me if I'm looking at the screen.

How do you strengthen yourself in the Lord?

Well, first of all, you know, why do you even come to church?

Church is a place you come to because you want to increase your hope.

A lot of people are losing hope in the world today.

It's made up of the will to live and the way to live.

If you don't know how to live, you don't have the way power, it doesn't matter how much willpower you have.

And that's why we come to church, because we learn strategies on how to live and we set goals.

And it was not until the Jewish Torah, this means the Jewish teachings or instructions came, that actually hope was talked about.

It's actually a Judeo-Christian concept, even though now you have over 2, 000 studies on hope.

First of all, it originated, not any of the philosophers, they all believed hope was just prolonging your agony if you lived longer, and So they didn't believe in it at all.

But the Judeo-Christian scriptures is what brought that to the fore.

And people who come to church, they rate themselves 33 points more hopeful and they read the scriptures than scripture readers.

So when I'm working on counseling things, I give people scriptures to read because I know that's true.

They did a study of atheists at Oxford University recently who said they didn't believe in prayer.

So they asked them to pray for I don't know how many weeks or months it was, and they enlisted them in a study.

And they found out that the people that had never prayed before but started to pray, actually came to belief because they started to pray.

So, pretty interesting study coming out of a group of atheists that actually came to faith because they tested out something that they hadn't, had decided didn't work, but they never tried.

The more frequently they read the scriptures, the better they got in terms of hope.

And here's a summary of the Harvard study.

Scale of 1 to 10 with 100, 1 to 100, 100 being the most hopeful.

Americans who report reading the Bible 3 or 4 times per year scored 42.

So if you want your hope score to increase You want to strengthen yourself in the Lord?

You know you search the scriptures daily and They are they which testify of me.

If you want your hope score to increase, actually reading the scriptures, even if you don't believe in them at first, it will increase your hope score, is what the research shows, okay?

Evidence of Americans who actively engage in the Bible and corporate worship score higher on every measure of human flourishing, including better mental, physical health, better sense of character and virtue.

They even have a higher sense of financial and material stability from those who don't do that so They're more hopeful.

They're happier They're less likely to die by suicide and never gather sense of purpose in their lives.

So you're in the right place Look at that person next to you and say you are in the right place Some of you did not do that Look at that person next to you and say, you are in the right place.

Look at that person next to you and say, you are in the right place.

So now sometimes people will let us down sometimes leaders will let us down and fellow believers you know the Bible says imitate me Paul says quote imitate me as I imitate Christ sometimes people take people no matter what they do but we're only to imitate people as they imitate Christ, which means who we're supposed to be studying.

Christ, so we know if they're imitating them or not.

And so 1 of the biggest reasons that we get discouraged and lose our strength is because people are not imitating Christ in their life who we think should.

And then sometimes people get discouraged with church.

And I've been discouraged with church times in my life, angry and bitter and left church.

If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship 1 with another, and the blood of Christ cleanses us from every sin.

So essentially, when we come to church, we're coming to church to walk in the what?

And then what do we have with each other?

Look at that person next to you and say, it's great to fellowship with you today.

You guys are not really big on fellowshipping, are you?

Look at that person next to you, yeah, just say, great to fellowship.

But notice what it says when we fellowship with each other.

Well, the blood of Christ needs to be there because there's gonna be sin.

So when we fellowship with each other, there's gonna be things that go wrong.

Outside the church, you have no way to deal with it.

Inside the church, you have something to deal with it.

What is it that you have to deal with it?

The blood of Christ and so if we Claim the blood of Christ to forgive our sins to empower us then unlike other systems we can strengthen ourself knowing that there was someone who died for that very sin.

And if we confess that sin, he's faithful and just to forgive it, and we forgive 1 another.

It's the place where messes are supposed to be taken care of.

Some people come to church and they think, well, I'm going to church because I want to go to be in the midst of a whole bunch of great people.

Because as we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship 1 with another.

The blood of Christ cleanses us from every sin as we're walking in that light.

So I'm preaching the word, which is the light today, but that doesn't mean that I haven't made mistakes this last week, and it certainly doesn't mean you haven't.

Look at that person next to you and say, I know you made some mistake this week.

And the reason you come is to be reminded of the mercy of God, not your ability, but his ability.

Do you come to church because you think everybody here is perfect?

Like they say, if you find a perfect church, don't join it because you're going to spoil it.

And so what do you do when people fail you or you think they've failed you?

David had this case, and we had that scripture reading from the angelic 3 angels of the Walper family this morning who said there are not angels we had 3 of them up here singing And David had been out to war, you know.

He was actually, he gave himself to go help fight in the Ukraine, not the Ukraine, this time in Israel.

He had been ostracized by Saul, and he was in a cave with all kinds of malcontented people.

And then, you know, the king said, you know, come and fight with us because we recognize you don't like Saul.

So he goes over trying to do a good deed.

And then he gets over there and they say, no, we don't want you to fight here.

And they turn him back at the border because they say, we don't trust you because if you get into it, you're not going to probably kill your relatives who speak the same language as you and everything else.

And when he goes back home, he finds out that all the people there had invaded the south and Ziklag and attacked Ziklag, burned it with fire.

So they hit his city with missiles, and they blew up all his places, and everybody got upset.

And he goes back and they go, okay, you're back.

Now David, verse 6, was greatly distressed for the people spoke of stoning him because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and daughters.

So it's like he walks into, to help in another war, he comes back and his, all of his city is blown up and everybody's taken captive.

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What to Do When People Let You Down

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