A Heart Attack
Sermon Notes
Recovery is necessary, because loss is inevitable. Everyone who lives in one way or another will face loss. It rains on the just and the unjust. Life happens, it bring loss.
We live in an imperfect world, and this imperfect world is filled with imperfect people; and sometimes you and I become victims of someone else’s imperfection.
Sometimes life happens, other times people happen. Thievery, lying, betrayal, exploitation, drunk drivers, it is the back side of the blessing of relationships. The same person that is close enough to make you smile is the same person who is close enough to make us cry.
Sometimes life happens, sometimes people happen, sometimes we happen. Every decision we make is pregnant with the potential to produce a season.
Some seasons are seasons of gain, some seasons are seasons of loss.
We need to learn to deal with loss without losing.
One way or another I’m going to find a way to win, The quintessential question is “What do YOU believe about loss?”
Can God Fix it? Can God turn it around? Can He turn me around?
The Gospel is a powerful story about Jesus’s ability to recover from something no one else could recover from. The resurrection is a powerful picture, the epitome of recovery.
When Jesus got out of the grave it was a powerful picture of how he could recover from the grave and the betrayal that put him there.
RECOVER!! No matter what RECOVER!
It’s not what you believe about loss, but what you believe about recovery.
The people were weary because they were anticipating a time of harvesting but the locust kept bringing loss.
God tells Joel to tell the people of Israel to be glad not by what they see, but about what He sees that is coming.
Don’t let the drought cause you to doubt who you are!
You should have the expectation to be the exception. What happens with you is not going to be reflective on what happens to everybody else. You are His child.
He made it rain before, just because he is not doing it now doesn’t mean he stopped doing it.
Don’t let the drought make you doubt who He is.
He will orchestrate elements in the atmosphere and create all the appropriate conditions that are necessary to make the clouds fill up with moisture to the degree that they have to release themselves with rain strategically and specifically on the fields you need it to rain on.
When you push out Gods presence you forfeit his protection!
(manifest not omnipresent) Presence.
You are not able to able to benefit from his presence when he has not manifest his presence.
Could it be we engage with restoration when we are able to engage in the practice of recovery?
When disaster hits your life you don’t just lose the harvest you lose heart
Locust can take your hope, optimism, dreams, expectations, drive, focus.
The enemy is not always out to kill you sometimes he is out to steal from you.
If we don’t understand his intentions we will celebrate survival when the enemy sent the season to rob us.
We will celebrate survival when in reality he robbed you and broke you down, you gave up, quit and lost heart
If he can break your will you can’t recover. When the enemy gets your heart, he’s got your wiil. When he has your will, he has your life.
3 Steps to recovery
1. Acknowledge You cannot defeat what you deny; you can’t fix what you can’t face. Faith is not the denial of the fight. You survived but you lost something in the season. PRIDE & PAIN.
2. Identify it It’s one thing to know you’re not the same; it is another thing to know what left you. Whatever took what belongs to you is not bringing it back, you have to go get it.
3. You have to own it You are not responsible for your hurt but you are responsible for your healing. Do you believe Joel?
Read the book of Joel.
What areas in your life have been consumed by locust, be truthful and look deep.
What dreams have you shelved what have you lost?
How can you recover? Find a verse that can become your mantra during this recovery.