your powerful. Well, maybe not, but he is. Let's talk about it on this edition of Keylight. You kind of get tired of doctrine without application, religion without reality and cliches without truth. If so, you come to the right place. The place, Keylight, the teacher, Steve Brown. Thanks, Mike. If you have your Bible, you might want to have it around. I'm not doing a verse by verse. Exposition of the Scriptures. We're doing it around the subject. However, these are not my ideas. They're ideas that come from the Bible. That's what I do. I'm a Bible teacher. And the subject for this week and probably a little into next week is we talk about pain and suffering and problems and how hard the life is not for sissies. I mean, this is not an easy place to live. We're talking about how discouragement is the ugly sister of pain. And what do you do about discouragement? We're sintering in on Hebrews 12, 1 through 3. Therefore, we also, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, lay aside every way there. I believe that's discouragement, not the little sins that aren't really sins, but you shouldn't do them. I think that's the neurotic way that we make people feel guilty. And the sin which so easily, just read the Scripture, Brown. And the sin which so easily and snares us and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And then it says that they sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. Now, if you've been listening, we talked about the cloud of witnesses. That you're not the first. You won't be the last. And if they did it, you can do it. And you can encourage others and say, look, if I can do it, then you can do it. We get letters still about people who say, why do you say in your prayer on Monday that you should be forgiven your sins? People think you're a big sinner. I always write back. That's the easiest letter to answer. Bingo sincerely, Steve. But I think one of the things, one of the reasons I do what I do is that people can say, if Steve can do it, I can. If Steve struggles that much and he can do it, I can do it too. And that's what this writer of Hebrews is saying about the cloud of witnesses. Our family is not that pretty. We're not that smart. And some of the worst sinners, I mean, they've done stuff I wouldn't even think of doing. Some of the heroes of the faith. And they say, look, if God can use us, He can use you. If we can do it, you can do it. So don't forget the cloud of witnesses. Then we talked about the demon of guilt. You know, the problem with sin. I hope you don't sin for a lot of reasons. God doesn't want you to sin. You're called to holiness. You're called to obedience. I am too. And I'm better than I was. People get the idea because I'm big on grace that I think sin is okay. I don't. The law is perfect. The law isn't God's suggestions. That's where He calls us to be obedient. But the problem is that when we do something bad, we think every bad thing that follows is the result of what we did that was bad. Stop it. If there are a correlation between your sin and the bad stuff that happened to you, you'd be dead. You wouldn't be interested. You wouldn't be listening to this broadcast. And I wouldn't be doing it. We'd be dead and buried a long time ago. And so there's this guilt thing that causes us to be more discouraged. I think I told you about Catherine Marshall and she was a friend of mine. She was the wife of the chaplain of the Senate. And she wrote a book, a man called Peter. Most of you aren't old enough to remember that book. That book was a life-changing book for me. At any rate, she got sick and she thought it was because she was a sinner. And she even wrote her third grade teacher to ask forgiveness for having looked on somebody else's paper during a test. I mean, you start doing that. That's all you're going to do. That's not the reason you're sick. And so make sure that you just simply before God and say, God, I'm not a good person. Let me tell you some stuff that causes me to blush. And you'll forgive you. He forgave you for you, spoke it. So be sure that you understand the power of forgiveness to remedy the discouragement. Then we saw yesterday that the author of Hebrews says that we are empowered. It says, and this is verse two, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. You know something hopelessness is the twin sister of discouragement too. I mean guilt and hopelessness, ugly, ugly on ugly sisters that go along with discouragement. No Christian ever need feel hopeless because we have the choice of looking to Jesus rather than add our circumstances. You remember when Jesus told Peter to walk on the waves, I'm going to read from the scripture. So if you have a Bible there, turn to Matthew 14, 28 through 32. Now at first the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost, but Jesus quickly told them who he was and settled their fears. I mean when you're in the middle of a storm and somebody's walking across the water, that doesn't feel like Jesus. And I understand man, I had gone somewhere, but there was no place to go. And then Jesus calmed the fears and Peter evidently still had some doubt that Jesus was who he said he was. So he made a simple request. Now let me read it to you from the scripture. Lord, if it's really, really you, well the realies aren't there, but Peter's a friend of mine. I don't know, that's what he said. Command me to come to you on the water. So he said come. And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out saying, Lord save me. And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him and said to him, you were the little fave. Why'd you doubt? And when they got him into the boat, the wind ceased. Most of us, because we're neurotic, think that Jesus would say to Peter, no faith drowned in. Do you have any faith in me? Man, I'm going to get you. No, I reached out and he had, Peter's problem was that he began to look at the waves instead of it Jesus. I don't know about you, but if the waves had been big, I would have looked at him too. When waves are big, the danger is real. And we think about them to the exclusion of anything else. Some broken ropes are so devastating, it's hard to look at anything except the broken rope. When you're going through a divorce, when you've got cancer, when we've faced all the stuff after 9-11, when you've lost a child, others can look at Jesus, but that's a hard thing to do. Can we talk? People are always telling me that it was really hard, but I looked at Jesus and everything was fine. That's not the first place I go. When I'm in a panic mode, I can't even think about you. I just get into a panic mode, and then sometimes the Holy Spirit says, stop it. Stop it. Don't forget Jesus. There's still a difference when Jesus is with us. Looking to Jesus may not be easy, and we can't ignore the waves altogether. However, the point of Peter's experiences was not to show that waves exist or how big they get, but to show how big Jesus is. And that he was there. He was there for Peter. Listen to me. I saw you drift off. Listen up. He's there for you too. One of the many nice things about my wife Anna is that she's always puts little notes in and around the clothes I pack when I leave home for speaking engagement. She knows I get nervous in academic settings right away from kindergarten struggle for the next 20 years and I teach in a graduate school. Can you believe that? Which my mother was still alive so she could see it. And I have a great desire to do well and to have people like me. She knows that sometimes I get depressed. I remember dressing before a lecture. I was to give it a seminary and I in Denver and I found a note in my shoe. Just remember nothing's going to happen today that Jesus can't handle. That note reminded me about the one who owns me and for whom I speak because Anna helped me to focus on Jesus instead of myself and the situation I felt a lot better. But Steve, you don't understand, you're saying. My pain is a lot more than a little fear about speaking at a seminary. I'm going to some tough stuff. I'm so discouraged. I don't think I can go on. Let me tell you something. The principle is the same, no matter what the circumstances. Either Jesus is there or he isn't. Either Jesus does have something to do with your situation or he doesn't. If he doesn't, you have a whole lot bigger problem than discouragement. But the scripture is clear about his involvement. Roman's 828 and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God who are called according to his purpose. Focus on him. It can make a big difference. Now, what I'm going to do and I'm just going to mention the first of these. I want to tell you some things that I want you to remember when you're discouraged. I mean, mention the first. First, don't forget. Don't forget. Let me see if I can put this in a kind of a nice way. Don't forget to forget the past. The past is the informer of the present. Not everything said by Job's friends was wrong. Job 8, 8 through 10. This is one for inquire, please, of the former age and consider the things discovered by their fathers. For we are a bit of yesterday and know nothing because our days on earth are a shadow. Well, they not teach you and tell you and other words from their heart. When you look at the history of God's people, you see God's faithfulness and His love. When you look at your own past, you can see God's faithfulness and His love. Now, we'll talk more about this tomorrow. But if you're discouraged, start keeping a diary, a journal and build a memorial. And the river Jordan in your heart. So that when you're down, you can look back and say he was faithful then. You won't stop now. You think about that. I mean, if you're not a part of our key life tape family, let me tell you how it works. Once you give us a call to 1-800-key life or you can write key life post office box 5,000-Mateland Florida. 32794-key life Canada, post office box 321-5L. Cambridge, Ontario, N-3H, 5N-3. 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