Jack Hibbs delivers a powerful sermon on 'The Discipline of Disappointment,' emphasizing that disappointment is an inevitable part of life that can be managed through faith in God. He explains that unreasonable expectations often lead to disappointment and encourages the congregation to place their hope solely in God's character. Hibbs highlights the importance of preparing for disappointments and uniting our will with God's will, while also prioritizing the right influences in our lives. Ultimately, he reassures that God is unwaveringly faithful and that we can overcome disappointments by giving our hurts to Him.

Father, we pray for those that are not only here, but Father, for those that are, Lord, viewing in, listening in. We ask, Father, that by the power of your Spirit, your Word would change our lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, Church, grab your Bibles tonight and turn, if you would, again, as you very well know, to two portions of Scripture tonight. One is the predictable, that is Matthew chapter 28, which is the theme of our entire series. As we look to the disciplines of life, tonight we look at what you see on the screens, the discipline of disappointment. Of disappointment. And I gotta tell you, I'm encouraged by this message. You say, how can that be true? Because God has given us the tools and the resources to conquer and to manage and to know about this thing, disappointment. Matthew chapter 28, verse 18 says, And Jesus spoke unto them, saying, that is the disciples, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Now, keep going to the right to 2 Corinthians chapter 2. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 13, just the front end of that verse. 2 Corinthians 2, verse 13 says, Paul is speaking, I had no rest in my spirit because... And I'm gonna stop right there. We can fill in the blank about what's going on in our life regarding the because. But we're looking tonight at the discipline of disappointment. How many of you ever been disappointed? Raise your hand. If you can't raise your hand, you have never lived in this life. And I mean that sincerely. Because without love, without life, without hope, without fill in the blank, you will never experience disappointment. You say, I don't want to experience any disappointment. Then you will never have a life that's worth living. Now, this is not some sort of a psycho babble message tonight. You say, well, that sounds crazy. It is pure fact. You and I live in a world and in a life, and the Bible anticipates disappointment for us. Mankind is something that has to battle with disappointment. Disappointment is part of life. You will never escape it. And so that's why the value of tonight's message, I think, is so vitally important. Noah Webster defines disappointment, and I found this extremely profound. You might want to write this down. Noah Webster in his dictionary. Disappointment, he said, is the defeat or failure of an expectation. The defeat or failure of hope, of a wish, of a desire, of an intention. Listen to this. It is the miscarriage of design or plan. Noah Webster went on to say that disappointment must be well managed, for if we hope for things of which we have not thoroughly considered. Listen, this is deep. Of value, our disappointment will be greater than the pleasure derived from the fulfillment of them. We are prone to complain of the disappointment of our hopes and plans, but disappointments most often prove to be blessings and save us from calamity or even ruin. Disappointments. We can learn from them. They're powerful tools. And we want to embrace disappointment tonight. We don't want to run from it. Church, it would be ridiculous for us to try to have a life that is padded, encoded, thinking that we'll never get hurt. Disappointment is a form of great hurt. In almost every case, disappointment, though, unfortunately, is mismanaged or handled in a wrong way. Jesus warned against the mismanagement of disappointment. In Matthew 13, 21, Jesus says, For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word of God, immediately the man stumbles. Jesus is talking about the one that goes and sows the seeds of the word of God and it falls upon the heart of someone who believes in God. Listen, they're not converted. They only believe in God. They're never born again by faith. They believe in God for a while. But what happens is disappointment overrides, overrules their belief that should have taken them to faith. Jesus says, watch out because it winds up ruining your early stages of coming to faith. And that is that belief moment. You can believe in God tonight. You can say that you believe in God, but he's not governing your life. And the reason why that's true and that he's not governing your life is because you don't have faith in God. This is quite shocking for people to hear. Jesus in Matthew 13 says, These are they who believe for a while, but when persecution arises, they go back to the world. When hardship comes up, disappointment comes up. They give up on Jesus and head back to the world. They were never born again. They believed for a season. Your belief for you to make it to heaven must take you from belief to faith in God. Why is that important? Because faith in God will see you through every disappointment that comes into our lives. That is vitally important to understand. So church number one, jot it down tonight in our study. The discipline of disappointment is this. Why do we experience disappointments? You ought to write that down. Why do we experience them? If God is God and God is good, then why do we experience disappointments? Well, here we go. And I'm going to be looking at my notes a lot tonight because I've written down a lot of quotes from great, great speakers or great teachers of yesteryear. When we place our expectations, G. Campbell Morgan says, on anything other than the character of God, we set ourselves up for disappointment. Isn't that a great statement? It's so simple but profound. When we place our expectations on anything other than the character of God, we set ourselves up for disappointment. He says, this is reality and it is the teaching of scripture. Disappointment. Why do we experience them? In all honesty, number one, it's this. Disappointment comes from our unreasonable expectations. All of us have expectations. You came in here tonight with an expectation to meet God. Spurgeon said, you've come tonight, Charles Spurgeon, and his great writing on this, said that you come into the congregation of the fellowship of God's people to have intercourse with God, to worship him and to have him speak to your heart. That is a profound statement. Disappointment, though, comes from an unreasonable expectation in life. Maybe you're following God and God, in your opinion, is not answering your request or your prayers and you're a little bit disappointed in God. I don't know. Maybe someone's disappointed you. And so you're harboring bitterness or whatever. We'll talk more on that in a moment. But we need to have a well-balanced, secure mind when we talk about this issue of expectations. Church, listen, mark it down if you need to. Every expectation that you and I have, we've all got them. We need to examine them and challenge them in reality. If you're looking to someone or something to be your rescue, to be your life raft, that's a dangerous thing. If I put anything in that place of God in my life, well, this guy's going to pull me through it all. No, he's not. God will see to it in life that every human being will experience some form of disappointment. Listen, God will see to it that you and I experience a disappointment regarding that person that we might so highly esteem in life that it's almost as though as it was in the days of Isaiah. He so exalted King Uzziah that the Bible says in the year that King Uzziah died, what does it say? I saw the Lord, Isaiah chapter 6. King Uzziah was a great king of Israel. But regarding Isaiah's life, Uzziah seemed to be in the way of him seeing God. You might have a child that's in the way of you seeing God. Maybe you're idolizing that child, or maybe it's some person in your life. That's a dangerous thing. They can become an idol easily. Well, God will see to it that those that you might look up to are humbled. On Sunday, I had to leave immediately after third service to get a flight. I had a board meeting to attend in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Have you ever had crawdad and all that kind of food? Yikes. Anyway, I got to the airport, and you get to the security check. In the first security check, the young lady said, Hi, Pastor Jack, how are you? TSA agent. She looked at my ID, and she checked my ticket, and then I went up the escalator, and then there's the scanning machines, and I guess now they're going to be the porno, naked scanning machines that look through every bit of you. And so I get to the top of the escalator, and there's four different aisles to go through, and there's another TSA agent that says, Pastor Jack, come to my line. And immediately I thought, Is one of those naked scanning machines here? Am I going to have to do this in front of the little lamb that attends Calvary Chapel? Will I have to pull out my pocket Constitution and declare my Fourth Amendment rights? I got nervous. Unreasonable expectations. I would want to believe that if I pass through that x-ray machine that they would look on the screen and see the Holy Spirit inside going like this. That ain't going to happen. But we need to challenge our expectations. Lamentations 3.24 says, The Lord is my portion, says my soul. I love that. Therefore, I hope in Him. Do you hope in Him? Are you trusting in Him? It was said that we must not set aside the pursuit of greatness or achievement or excellence. We should never set that aside. But listen, do your best for God's glory and after having done your best, leave the results to God. Why? Because the Lord is your portion. Unreasonable expectations in life, they set us up for disappointments. People will let us down. Make a note of that in your heart. But God will never let you down. Listen, if you think God has let you down, you have mismanaged the situation of your life. You've mismanaged that. I just saw that. There's the TSA agent right there. Oh my gosh. You didn't have one of those machines, right? Not yet. Okay, that's the last time I'm flying out of that airport. No, I'm kidding. Only a male can check me? But what if he's not straight? I just unleashed the next YouTube moment. What if the TSA agent is gay and he's checking me? I'm calling my congressman right after service. By the way, getting back to the message, which we should do. Right now, America is going through, literally America, I'm very serious about this. America is going through a little bit of a expectation crisis right now. We know this for a fact. That's why the election went the way that it did a couple weeks ago. America is shocked. Why? Because when you overpromise and you do not produce, you upset people and anger people. And the only one who makes a promise and never breaks it is God. So watch out about unreasonable expectations because disappointment will come. I'm not saying, please don't misunderstand me. We are Americans. From all nations of the earth, we have come here to be Americans. And here's the deal about Americans. And I've heard this from people in Europe. You Americans, you Americans. And what about us? I've been told this. You guys always want to fix something. You guys, you always want to do this. And when the light turns red, you guys, if you look around and there's no cars, you'll walk across the street. You guys are so independent. You'll do this and you'll do that. We are like that. We are like that. I'm not saying let your guard down or lower the standard of your heart that God has given you to pursue, to stand strong, to challenge. That's good stuff. And if you're in college, ask your professor why. Why what? Whatever. Whatever your professor says in college or in high school, your teacher say, why do you think that's true? Ask questions. You'll learn more that way. God's word says this. Jesus said, and here's the fix, to unreasonable expectations from man that break our hearts. John 15, 11 says, these things, Jesus said, I've spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. If your commitment is in Christ and that is your focal point regarding expectation, he will never let you down. John 16, 33, Jesus says, these things I've spoken to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, disappointment, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. Those are the verses that you need to hang on to right now. Are you going through something? You need to latch onto those verses. Another thing is this. Disappointment comes when hope is misplaced. That is when we put hope in someone or something that we're not to be. In Genesis 3, verse 4, the Bible says, then the serpent, listen to this, then the serpent said to the woman, Eve, you will not surely die, for God knows in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and the tree desirable to make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate. What is that all about? Listen, disappointment comes when hope is misplaced. Was not Eve supposed to be hoping, trusting, living, and walking with God? And then Satan comes along and says, hey, I got an idea. Why don't you eat this thing? God says not to eat it. Oh, yeah, you know what? He doesn't want, listen, he doesn't want you to become like him. Any doctrine that says that you can become a God comes right from old Satan himself. Oh, come on, Eve. And what she did was she took that and it must have been so appealing to her that she misplaced her hope. She took another doctrine. She listened to another form of teaching other than that which was scriptural from the mouth of God. And here's the fix for that. God's word says in 1 Samuel 2 verse 2, No one is holy like the Lord, for there is none besides you. Nor is there any rock like our God. Okay, listen to this. I hope this is exciting to you what I'm about to say because it really got me going. If there is no God like our God, I want you to get your finger ready. Everybody get your finger ready. If there's no God like our God, he's the only one that there is. He's enthroned in heaven. Take your finger, get ready, and point to where heaven is. I mean, you know, symbolically, right? Yeah. Okay, now watch this. We need to stop thinking from the bottom up in our life regarding disappointment. If he is our God and our Lord and there's none like him, and that's where he's at, is not our citizenship, says the Bible, in heaven? Is that not our home? Does not the Bible say that? We're not home yet. We're passing through. We're going home. We're en route. So check this out. We need to stop thinking from the bottom earth upward. If our citizenship's in heaven, we need to start thinking from the top down. We need to... Isn't that what God does with the Bible? He wants us to think heavenly thoughts. He wants us to think godly thoughts. He wants us to make our decisions based upon the information from above. I find it kind of interesting that everything that you and I do now is almost predicated upon you and I getting information from above in the sense of, well, what's my phone say? What time is it? What temperature is it going to be? How should I dress today? Where am I going? I mean, this is true. Maybe you have this app on your iPhone. But if I park at some big place where I'm not sure I'll remember where my car is parked, when I pull up, I pull out my iPhone and I press a button and it memorizes the exact GPS spot of where my car is parked. I go on my trip. I come back. I walk out of the airport. I press the button and there's a little blue dot. That's me. And a little red dot, that's my car. And it leads me to my car. When you're over 50, that's what you do. It's really cool. It's a great little app. Everything's coming down from above. If things can come from a satellite and direct us, don't you think it would be even wiser yet still to have God let His wisdom and His guidance rain down from above and speak to us and lead us and guide us? God speaks to us from the top down. We need to stop viewing it all from the bottom up. His vantage point's perfect. I love this. In 2 Kings 6, this is a great, great event. Elijah, you know, can you imagine hanging out with Elijah? Gehazi, his assistant, he had an assistant, personal assistant, Gehazi. Elijah, he saw things. He could see things. Elijah would talk to God, God, show me something. Boom! So check this out. In 2 Kings 6, verse 15, it says, And when the servant of the man of God arose early, he went out, got out of his tent or stood up and walked out, and there was an army surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, Alas, my master, what shall we do? So he answered, Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Excuse me. There's two of them, and they're surrounded by a massive army. Then Elijah prayed and said, Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see. Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elijah. So the enemy had his army that you could see on this level, yeah? Like you and I. Oh my goodness, we're gonna die. In the invisible realm, looking from above, Elijah just simply says, can you imagine walking with God like that? Elijah was like, Hmm, those poor armies. And his assistant's freaking out, and he says, Lord, open his eyes so he can see what we can see. And the guy blinks and opens his eyes, and he sees flaming chariots about ready to slaughter the armies of the enemy. How do you know right now if in your moment of disappointment, there's not some divine, supernatural, invisible answer right over your head? Radio waves are flying through this room. Data is coursing through this room. You can't see it. Is it a fact? Is it a fact that data is flying through this room? Absolutely. But you can't see it. It's completely invisible to your naked eye, to your human eye. But it's here. And think, the Bible says that whenever the word of God is opened up, angels look into those things. There's angels in the atmosphere right here where we're at. Spiritual entities. Can you imagine? Now, I have never prayed this prayer. I don't ever intend to pray this prayer. But can you imagine if Elijah, imagine if I were in the place of Elijah, and I said, Lord, open up their eyes that they might see. Let me tell you, we would probably freak out at what is going on in the spirit realm. But you know what I learned from the Bible? I bet you we'd be radically encouraged. Because those that are with us are much more than those that are with them. Also this, why do we experience disappointment? It's disappointment comes by others letting us down. Now, listen. Disappointment comes by others letting us down. That's gonna happen. This is just part of life. Setbacks, difficulties, rejection. But it's not the end of your life. Why is it we've gotten so thin-skinned that if somebody rejects our offer or rejects our affection or rejects our whatever, we freak out? Are we so thin-skinned? Are we so fragile? I don't think so. When I read history, I know that God has made the human heart and the mind and the spirit stronger than that. When you look at great moments in history where people were let down. And when you see in your Bible, when you read your Bible, by the way, it's God speaking to you when you read your Bible. And He's constantly making promises to us. Is He not? Is this not the book of promises? God gave us this book. And you might be here tonight and you say, well, you know, I'm cool with everything. But if I read that and He doesn't come through for me, then it's going to break my heart. Listen, you've got to trust Him. He's the one saying to you tonight, step out of the boat and follow me. You've got to trust Him. He will never let you down. Now, listen, people disappoint us. It's going to happen. I've learned, there's a couple of things I've learned, just a few things. And number one is to stop, to stop making promises to God. That's a joke. Because as much as I want to, I'll fail at them. I learned that from Paul the Apostle, by the way, chapter 7, Romans chapter 7 and Romans chapter 8. But listen, I've learned to stop making promises to people. I don't think, I'm pretty sure I've stopped saying, I promise I'll be there. Do you realize I have no power to fulfill that promise? Do I intend to be there? Yes. Do I even set out to go? Yes. What if I run out of gas? What if I drop dead? What if I'm late? That's why, you know, I'll pick you up at 9. Listen, if you say to somebody, I'm going to pick you up at 9. I don't know how you were raised. This is how I was raised. My dad said, if you're going to pick somebody up at 9, if you're supposed to be somewhere at 9 o'clock, you better be there at 8. My wife was brought up, if you're supposed to be somewhere at 9, get there at 10. I mean to tell you, the biggest struggle of our marriage has been, what time are we going to get there? I'm serious. Disappointment. Expectation. Promises. In fact, the Bible, James tells us, you should say, if the Lord wills, we will go to such and such a place and do such and such a thing. He said, well, pastor, I'm sitting here to the man I'm engaged to, and he's promised me to love me all the days of his life. I understand his emotion saying that, but let me tell you something right now, young people, listen, write this down. It's free. The only way that that marriage is going to truly work out is if each of you are lifting one another up to the throne of grace and asking God to fulfill his promise to your marriage, because he's in on the marriage. He digs it. He loves it. He wants it to succeed. But the ultimate keeping of a promise is a divine move of God. Psalm 61 one. Here's the here's the fix. Psalm 61 one. How do I how do I overcome the disappointment of others? Psalm 61 one through three says, hear my cry, O God, and attend to my prayer. You don't cry to your friends and say, answer my prayer, Bob. Not going to happen from the end of the earth. I will cry unto you when my heart is overwhelmed. Disappointed lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for you have been a shelter for me and a strong tower from the enemy. Those are beautiful promises. Yeah, here's here's the thing. You can see him on the screen. You can write him down. But unless you apply them, they'll never become your promise. They've got to be your promise. Parents sometimes have huge or place huge burdens on their kids that are unreasonable and set the kid up to let the parent down. A lot of parents listen. A lot of parents live their lives vicariously through their kids. Maybe maybe the dad was a rotten basketball player. So he wants to compensate for that by having the kid go to every basketball camp on the planet. And when the kid misses a shot, the father has a heart attack, breakdown. What's wrong with you? How could you miss that? Listen, the truth is when a father does that, it's what he's really saying is you missed it, just like I missed all the shots in my life. Huge setting the kid up for a huge disappointment. Listen, don't misunderstand me. We need to pursue excellence. If you're a basketball player, do your best for Jesus. Play basketball for Jesus. Be the best at it. But listen, parents, if your kid fails after having done his or her best, make sure they know you love them anyway, regardless. And by the way, I think if they know you love them, no matter how it turns out, I think they'll try harder. Encourage your child. Support your child. Pray for them, obviously. And let them hear your prayer for them. I think that is what the whole story of the prodigal son's all about. The prodigal son, you know the story, I don't need to tell you. He's off living his life being an absolute mess, running around, hanging out with girls, getting drunk, winds up losing everything and sleeping with pigs in the mire. And the father was consistent and that boy knew he could always go home to his dad. That love. People are going to let us down. How many of you have kids in here? Raise your hands. You have children. Wow. Have you let your kids down? You want to think you haven't maybe, but you have. You can make that such a, what's the buzzword these days? You can make it such a teachable moment. You can tell them, listen, Junior, I'm sorry. I was 15 minutes late in picking you up. Just understand this. God is not like me. And that kid knows that love. There's a lot of grace. The Bible says in Ephesians 3 20. Listen to this. You say, well, Jack, this is a big expectation verse. Yes, it is. But notice the target and notice the base Ephesians 3 20. Now to him, that's your father in heaven who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. That's the Holy Spirit. That's huge as expectation, is it not? Notice God does not want to set you up for pain. He's not wringing his hands right now, trying to figure out how to ruin your life. He wants you blessed. He wants you growing. This verse is God's promise that if you let him lead and guide your life, stop scheming, stop planning, stop, stop trying to do that thing and let him rule. Let him guide you. Let him lead you. He'll never let you down. And when you think this moment of disappointment has come, the truth of the matter is God is preparing you for a great thing. Point number two tonight is this, the disciplines of disappointment is preparing for the disappointments of life. We need to prepare for them. We need to prepare for them. And you need to be able to think mature thoughts about that. It requires us to grow up in spiritual matters when we talk about disappointment. How do we handle them? How do we deal with disappointments? Well, it requires you and I to grow up spiritually regarding spiritual matters. Listen, this is going to sound harsh, but man, do I believe this? There is literally no biblical excuse for you and I to whine or complain about, why did God have me lose my job? Notice how God always gets blamed for everything. First of all, people lose their jobs. Did you know that? It happens. You want to take it a little deeper? You can be in this room tonight in the sanctuary, the most right on godly Christian on the planet, and your child dies. It would be completely biblically incorrect for you to stop and say, how could this happen? We say things like that, and we get disappointed horrifically because we view it wrong. We somehow think that maybe because we're Christians, we're exempt from certain pain, from certain disappointment. Not so. The truth of the matter is, you and I need to know our Bibles, everything, listen, everything that happens in your life and my life is pre-programmed to be answered in this book. Every one of us, every human being that has ever lived, the answer to life's disappointments is in the word of God, guaranteed. This book is the answer to your soul's quest. Well, I don't know why God, answer is in the book. Honestly, look, none of us are exempt from this. When I'm tempted to say, I don't know why the Lord just doesn't bring fire down and have him consume that guy. The answer is in the book. God says, when I calm down, I'm slow to anger, I'm patient, back off Jack, vengeance is mine, I shall repay, say it the Lord. You see? But we tithe, we serve, we've brought our kids up in the Lord and our daughter's gone to college and has turned into a socialist, communist, liberal, whack nut, maniac, goofball, anti-Christ, anti-American, and I'm paying for it all person. Listen, this world's dangerous. This world has fallen. And you're disappointed, I understand that. But what does God say? God would answer you tonight and say, pray fast, for this kind does not come out without much fasting and prayer. Send your kid off to college, they get possessed or something, I don't know. But we need to grow up and mature up. God's word says this in 2 Timothy 2.15, this is for everybody. Study, that's the Bible, to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, but shun or put off profane and vain babblings, for they will increase unto more ungodliness. Is that not the age we live in? We need to know the Bible. What's the answer? Study the Bible. My nephew's in college and he's got a full ride baseball. He's a great kid. And I'm having a ball with him in college because he's texting me. I don't know if he's doing his homework at all. He's a very smart guy. Maybe he's getting along just fine, but I'm telling you, it's cool. He's texting me all the time. I'm talking to this guy right now about the Bible. He's asking me about this, about Scripture. What's the answer? And it was cute. Like I said earlier, I was in a board meeting these last two days. We all have our phones. It looks like nobody's paying attention to each other in the meeting because everyone's going like this. It's horrible. But I'm giving him these verses. Well, now the guy says this. What should I do now? This word. And a thousand miles away. The answer's in the Bible. And you study to show yourself approved unto God. The Bible says in Ephesians 4.15, Speak the truth in love that you may grow in all things unto him who is the head, even Christ, from which whom the whole body, that's the church, joined and knit together by every joint supplies according to the effect of working by which every part does its share. That's the body of Christ. Some of us are mouths. Some of us are brains. Some of us are elbows. Some of us are knees. But we're the body of Christ and causes to grow the body edifying itself in love. This he says I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles or unbelievers walk in the futility of their mind. Listen to this. Sounds like today's news. Watch. Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. That's not you. That's not you at all. Also this, preparing for disappointments of life causes us to see God's unwavering faithfulness. Man, this is true. If you've ever gone through a trial and a difficulty. If you'll be still and yada. The word is be still and know that I am God. The word no in Hebrew is yada. It's a very cool word. It means be still. So the world's blowing up around me and all this stuff is caving in on me and everything's gone wrong. God says be still and yada. The word means discover who I am in the moment. You know when you go. God says now calm down. Know who I am right now at that moment. Yes. His unwavering faithfulness. The Bible is full of accounts and events that prove that unless man is led and guided by God, things don't go very well. Why? Because God alone is the one who is unwaveringly faithful to us. Proverbs 16 25 says there's a way that seems right to a man, but the end of that way is death. We need to pray for our leaders. We need to pray. There's a way that seems right to a man and aren't currently if you're watching the news, if you're a news freak like I am, I'm not saying this to be mean or divisive or controversial, but I'm watching now since the election. I'm watching the decisions that the administration is making and it's out of sheer panic and terror and everybody knows it, but those who are making the decisions, it's really a sad moment right now for American history. There's a constant day from day knee jerk reaction to the events that are going on in and out of America. And it's embarrassing. We need to pray. In fact, Father, let's pray right now. Father, we pray for our national leaders. We pray for Barack Obama. We pray for his cabinet. Lord, there is no doubt and it is evident to the most simple man on the planet that they're in a state of crisis and chaos. And I don't even know if they're able to sleep at night. But Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would come upon this nation. In Jesus name. The Bible says in Hebrews 4 16, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace. His unwavering faithfulness, church is awesome. Secondly, it develops within us a happy and thankful spirit. Did you know that if you prepare for disappointments? So what do you mean by that? I'll just say this very quickly. The Bible tells us over and over again to be thankful. Being thankful. I've never been, Lisa and I, we've never been more thankful than right now in our lives. Why? I'm gonna venture to say you've never been more thankful than right now. Why? Because now in America, there is the looming specter. There is a hammer that's about to fall that has to fall. Where what you and I have and enjoy and thought that our generations after us would enjoy, it's no longer true. Things are evaporating. The dollar is collapsing. The economy is imploding and it's all a facade right now. And so when you eat, aren't you thankful? When you wake up in the morning, you guys, most of us, if not all of us have beds. And if you don't have a bed, you're probably, I don't know what's going on. Think you got shoes or flip flops. You got something on your feet. It's amazing. I'm so thankful like never before. And when you're thankful, it causes you to have a happy heart and it prepares you for disappointments. Now, please don't leave the sanctuary tonight and say, well, you know, look, my car has this flat tire. Well, I should have known. You don't walk around like Eeyore. Well, there you have it. Another huge problem. You know, like Debbie Downer or whatever that thing is. Everything is probably going to die of cancer now. You know, there's people like that. They need this message, but that's not being prepared for disappointment. To be thankful for it. Whatever God allows you to have is a glorious thing. And then third, we'll end with this third point. Listen, the disciplines of disappointment. How do we overcome the disappointment? That's what I want to know. How do we overcome them? Three ways. Number one, uniting our will to God's will. I'm disappointed. Okay. Are you disappointed tonight? Not your will be done, but his will be done. Unite your will to God's will. Father, I'm disappointed. Give me the right vision. Give me the right understanding. Cause my will to be in line with your will. That's important. By uniting our will to God's will, I have discovered in preparing for this study, thinking deep thoughts, that I almost 100% of the time, pre-pair, pre-cast, set myself up for disappointment when I don't look to God's will. I'm going to do this. Have you ever had that thought? I'm going to do it. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to do this. Talk to God about it. What for? See, I think this is going to make me happy, or us happy, and we're going to go do it. And then crash. I need to unite my will to God's will. Also, number two, by prioritizing the words and people in our lives. You say, what does that mean? How do we overcome disappointments? Listen, this is just going to be right down to street level. There are some people in your life, perhaps, you ought not to be hanging around with. Just cut it off. Because, listen, you will become like the people you hang out with. You say, well, Pastor, I'm a wonderful, strong Christian. I hang around with a bunch of losers, a bunch of non-believers, and I'm going to lead them all to Christ. You can witness to them. You can fly in there and drop your bombs, like a Christian, so to speak, and fly out of there, which I think is wise. But you hang out with them? The Bible says that their conduct will corrupt you. Now, the gospel is not fragile. But when you hang around people who say, come on, come on, oh, come on. You say, no, I'm a Christian. Come on, come on. Eventually, listen, they're going to wear you down. Listen, what fellowship does light have with darkness? You can witness to them. But look, if they don't want you to tell them about God, but they want you to go, hey, man, just drive us home. When we get totally plastered, we can look to you to be the one that drives us home. You are flirting with disaster. Watch out. Get away from those who do not build you up in Christ. See, man, but I work with a bunch of nonbelievers. That's why you're here right now. And that's why you read your Bible every day and talk to God. You get pumped up. You get built up. You go back into the world tomorrow. You'd be a witness for Jesus. Okay? And you're dropping those spiritual bombs all day long. Lord, there's Fred over there at the copy machine. Save him. Freak him out, God. I'm serious. I'm dead serious. I'm not joking about what I'm saying. I worked 13 years at Baxter Healthcare, and I would do that very thing. There's so-and-so God. He's a full-blown atheist. Cause something to go on in his life that causes him to cry out to you. I told you guys this years ago. We are right in the middle of an experiment, and there's this guy. I'm not going to say his name. I remember the moment I could tell you what it looks like. He's standing there, and we're working, and he was the boss of the experiment. So we're all doing the stuff, and he's telling this off-color joke. Hey, you know what? Hey, listen to this. And he's... And remember the Whittier Narrows earthquake? Boom! Earthquake hit. The guy went from cussing to instantly saying, Somebody pray. Somebody pray. At least he knew enough that his prayers would never be heard. He says, Somebody pray. Somebody pray. And I remember. I would literally silently pray in my mind. Lord, that guy, that girl. Lord, speak to them. Lord, reach into their lives. Man, when you guys... Do you do that? Please tell me you do that. Lie to me, will you? When you go to work, man, you need to be doing your job but looking around. When you see that guy walk by or that woman's at the copy machine or the boss pulls up, you need to say, Lord, God, get them. Get them, Jesus. I'm serious. Get them. Speak to them. Do what you must. Just get their attention, Jesus. You should be thinking like that. I'm sure you do. You have to be thinking like that. Prioritize in the words and the people that are in your life. Ephesians 5.11 says, What fellowship does unfruitful works have with darkness? But rather expose them. For it is a shameful thing to even speak of those things which are done by them in secret. Wow. And then here we end with this. By giving the hurt to God and leaving it with Him. How do we overcome disappointments? Listen. In fact, close your Bible. I'm gonna ask you to do something. Just listen. Close your Bible. Sit still. We're done. I want you to just... I want you to get fixed right now by the Holy Spirit. This is a decision that you have to make. You've got to give your hurt and disappointments to God and leave it with Him. I want you to get real quiet for a second. I want you to just bow your head, close your eyes, and just as these thoughts come into your mind, you make them your prayer. Let's do business before the throne of grace right now. Many people, maybe you're here tonight and you're wounded and you're hurt by being abused or injured by those who you once trusted in life. I don't know, maybe when you were younger. And the younger you are, the worse it is because you trusted people when you were younger. You've learned to become cynical. You've learned to become bitter. And you've got unhealed disappointments. You're bitter. You're hurt. And you don't even like to hear that, but you know that when the challenge comes to you of hope and trust to get up and to make yourself, like Jesus, vulnerable to those around you, you recoil at that. I understand. You withdraw. But that's one of Satan's tricks, to sterilize you. Maybe you have dad hurts in your life. Mom hurts or brother or sister hurts. Or maybe a friend has hurt you really bad. And whatever it is, maybe molestation or violence, I don't know, or abandonment. I read today that this one factor of disappointment was a person who had been adopted and felt angry all their life because they were given away. And they viewed it from the bottom up instead of from the top down. And maybe tonight you're viewing things from the bottom up and you're constantly, perpetually disappointed. Stop right now and start doing it from God's perspective. And here's the fix. Father, I pray right now for these that are here. And I pray this, that they would take on, Father, your mantle. Lord, that you'd open up their eyes to see that our warfare is not of the flesh. And that these weapons that we have are of the spirit. Lord, that you would bless everyone, every one of us right now, to cast down these imaginations that challenge, Lord, the place of Jesus in our hearts. That tonight, Father, you would sweep across this sanctuary and set people free. There are men in here tonight that have never felt the love of a father or women in here that never felt the love of a father. And there's anger or bitterness. There's sons and daughters in here that have never felt the caress of a loving mother. I don't know. And we want to believe that we've just put it out and it's done. But the truth of the matter is there's bitterness in our hearts. And Lord, I pray that right now, right where we're sitting, that we'd cast all our care upon Jesus. That, Lord, we would turn to you the anchor of our soul. And, Father, that we would all be anxious for nothing from this moment further. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, we would make our request known unto you, God, so that the peace of God would surround us and surpass all human understanding and guard or garrison our hearts and minds. Through that name that we pray, that name above all names, Jesus Christ, Lord, heal. Lord, wash away. Lord, speak. We release to you tonight our disappointments. And we ask tonight for your renewal of our lives. Thank you for dying on the cross for our sins, Jesus, and having been risen from the dead to set us free from all power of sin and death, that Jesus Christ is our only hope and he's the only one we need. And we call out to him tonight. In Jesus' name.