Desperation, Part 1 Sunday,
August 3, 2014
“Desperate
Measures”
Just
completed series Turning Points:
1. Turning
Points for our Nation
2. Turning
Points for the Family
3. Turning
Points for the Church
4. Turning
Points for You
We need an encounter with God the Holy Spirit. We need a touch from His presence. We need to be built on God’s Word. We need to have a burning passion for people.
28 “And
afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your
old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. 29 Even on my servants, both
men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. 30 I will show wonders in the
heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 31 The sun will be turned to
darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day
of the Lord. 32 And everyone who calls on
the name of the Lord will be
saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, even among the
survivors whom the Lord calls. Joel 2:28-32 (NIV)
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Hippocrates: "For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to
restriction, are most suitable."[1].
Erasmus: "Malo nodo, malus quærendus cuneus" which means “for a hard knot a hard tool must be sought.”
Lowe’s
Commercial
A. Desperate
1. Definition:
des·per·ate
adjective
adjective: desperate
feeling, showing, or involving
a hopeless sense that a situation is so bad as to be impossible to deal with. "a desperate sadness enveloped
Ruth"
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synonyms:
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(of an act or attempt)
tried in despair or when everything else has failed; having little hope of
success. "drugs used in a desperate
attempt to save his life"
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synonyms:
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(of a situation)
extremely bad, serious, or dangerous. "there
is a desperate shortage of teachers"
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synonyms:
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(of a person) having a
great need or desire for something. "I
am desperate for a cigarette"
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synonyms:
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in
great need of, urgently requiring, in want of; More
(of a person or fight)
violent or dangerous. "a desperate
criminal"
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synonyms:
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2.
Full Definition
of DESPERATE
Ø 1 a : having lost hope <a desperate spirit crying for relief>
b : giving no ground for hope <the outlook was desperate>
o
b : involving or employing extreme
measures in an attempt to escape defeat or frustration <made a desperate leap for the rope>
Ø 3 : suffering extreme need or anxiety <desperate for
money>
Ø 4 : involving extreme danger or
possible disaster <a desperatesituation>
Ø 5 : of extreme intensity
3.
des·per·ate
adjective
2. having an urgent need, desire, etc.: desperate for attention.
3. leaving little or no hope; very serious or dangerous: a desperateillness.
4. extremely bad; intolerable or shocking: clothes in desperate taste.
5. extreme or excessive.
Desperate
Measures:
Desperate
measures either push you toward God or away from God – toward good or toward
bad.
Example:
TV Show Breaking
Bad on the Dangers of Pride
The critically-acclaimed TV show Breaking Bad centers
on the story of Walter White, a bored high school chemistry teacher who
discovers that he has stage III lung cancer. Desperate to provide for his
family, Walter decides to start manufacturing methamphetamine to create a nest
egg. Initially, his goal is to make about $750,000; enough to cover the
mortgage, college for both his kids and to cover any other major expenses that
might arise over the next 20 years.
But as the series moves forward, the drama focuses on Walter's
transformation from a frustrated middle-class American male to a drug kingpin
and a cold-blooded killer. The central question of Breaking Bad Becomes this: What makes a person
"Bad"? As the story develops we get a clear answer: at some point,
Walter decided to become bad.
Specifically, Walter succumbs
to the sin of pride. Initially, his pride was submerged under a thin veneer of
suburban respectability. But as the show progresses, Walter's pride rises to
the surface. In one of the show's most stunning scenes, Walter chillingly
explains to his wife Skyler why he's the man in charge when it comes to Mexican
cartels and the drug trade. He says,
Who are you talking to right now?
Who is it you think you see? Do you know how much I make a year? I mean, even
if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. Do you know what would happen if I
suddenly decided to stop going in to work? A business big enough that it could
be listed on the NASDAQ goes belly up. It disappears. It ceases to exist
without me. No, you clearly don't know who you're talking to. So let me clue
you in. I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and
gets shot, and you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks.
Walter is no longer the
frustrated, somewhat bumbling and basically good genius of season one. He's
changed, and we're encouraged to look at him the way Diane Keaton looks at Al Pacino at the end of The Godfather:
"What's happened to you?" It's a mixture of horror, deep regret,
and revulsion. It's a disturbing picture of the evils of pride.
Good
people under pressure can go good or break bad.
Desperate
Measures:
1.
An EYE-OPENING
Encounter
“O Lord, make me know my end and
what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Psalm 39:4 (ESV)
Andy
Stanley: Everybody ends up somewhere in
life. A few people end up somewhere on
purpose.
2.
A LIFE-TRANSFORMING
Experience
Sow for
yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for
it is the time to seek the Lord, that
he may come and rain righteousness upon you. Hosea
10:12 (ESV)
3.
A CYCLE-BREAKING
Decision
13 Then Mordecai told them
to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you
will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silent at this
time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you
and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to
the kingdom for such a time as this?” 15 Then
Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, 16 “Go,
gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do
not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also
fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and
if I perish, I perish.” 17 Mordecai
then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him. Esther 4:13-17 (ESV)
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