Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: The same God who created the entire universe and holds it together lives in this physical body. What is possible if that is true? And it is true. So you face an enemy. You will never face any enemy greater than He who is in you, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Every time, everywhere, no variation. Not going to happen.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Richard's style is unlike anyone else's, where he shares the life-changing message of the gospel in a way that's real, refreshing, focused, and fun. We know that life is pretty challenging these days, but these talks will help you meet those challenges head-on with biblical truth, encouragement, and direction.

Now, if you're not able to stick around with us for all of today's talk, you can always listen to, download, and even share this entire message with a friend right from our website, richardellis.com. So let's jump right in with today's talk. Here is Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is "In Courage." Go to Deuteronomy 31:6. Now, the Bible is replete with challenge and encouragement and words to tremendous leaders. And you make assumptions sometimes, you say, "Well, but powerful people, strong people, godly people, they don't get discouraged. They don't need encouragement." I did a sermon years ago called "The Big Head." And we think, "I'm not going to say something nice to that person because they'll get the big head." Let me tell you something, nobody I've met got the big head in a right way because they got encouraged too much.

People need encouragement. And if you think something—I've quoted this before, and a buddy of mine told me this 40 years ago—the worst form of criticism is a compliment withheld. So when you think about somebody, don't just think it and go, "I was going to text them that and tell them that." Text them that and tell them that. Call them and tell them that. Write them a note, tell them that, because people get that stuff and it is like wind in their sails.

And you say, "How do you know that?" Because you know that. Because either you get zero encouragement or you're getting encouragement all the time, and you can usually tell when somebody's battery is dead because they have no juice for anybody else. If my alternator is working, my battery is full, and you need a jump, I have more than enough for me and you if I can help you. So I can encourage you and lose nothing.

People who never have anything for anybody else are barely hanging on themselves, or they're just so selfish. And that's barely hanging on themselves. They are empty. You can always tell a healthy person because they are handing it out, encouraging people. They know who they are, and they are not going to lose anything by telling you you're good at what you do.

Deuteronomy. Look at these words. This is Moses to all of Israel before he dies. Deuteronomy 31:6. "Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them"—in other words, the people that you're going to have to encounter going into the Promised Land. "For the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you." Now, how does Moses know that? Because that is true. It was true for Moses personally, and he is telling them this is truth. This is what is true.

So you say, "I can't do this. I can't go. My enemies are too great. My challenges are too great." Read scripture. It is the same God. And He doesn't just go with us. If you are a Christian, He goes in you. Joshua 1:9. And it's interesting this thread that runs through here. Joshua 1:9. "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go."

Now you say, "But that's Old Testament. That's going with us." I do not pray this prayer: "Oh, God, be with me today." He does not have a choice. I am not going to ask Him to do something He cannot do, even if I ask Him not to do it. He is not going to not be with me. He is in me. He's stuck. So I know He's going to be not just with me, but in me. So wherever I go, He's there.

How in the world could I face anything in the world, even beyond this world, greater than God who lives in me? My little brain cannot comprehend this, that the same God who created the entire universe and holds it together lives in this physical body. That same God. What is possible if that is true? And it is true. So you face an enemy. You will never face any enemy greater than He who is in you, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Every time, everywhere, no variation. Not going to happen.

First Chronicles 28:20. Now look at what David is saying to his son. Not a bad thing for scripture to be quoted, because in the Bible, people in the Bible quoted scripture in scripture. First Chronicles 28:20. And David said to his son Solomon, "Be strong and of good courage, and do it. Do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord God, my God, will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you until you have finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord."

Let me tell you what is so discouraging in being encouraging. There are people who have no dad saying anything remotely close to this to them. If you're a dad, you need to open your mouth and speak these type of words, scripture, to your children. This is David saying to his son, "Be strong and of good courage." Dads need to tell their kids that. "Do it. Do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord my God will be with you. He will not leave you or forsake you." You have got to tell your kids that because I need to hear it. And if I need to hear it, my kids need to hear it, because we all get overwhelmed. We lack courage, and we need encouragement to keep moving.

Second Chronicles 32. Part of the reason I am reading you a ton of scripture is I am trying to whet your appetite like a salt lick in a pasture. You lick enough of this salt, you're going to go looking for some water. You're going to find it for yourself. Second Chronicles 32:1. "After these deeds of faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and entered Judah. He encamped against the fortified cities, thinking to win them over to himself. And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that his purpose was to make war against Jerusalem, he consulted with the leaders and commanders to stop the water from the springs which were outside the city. And they helped him."

"Thus many people gathered together who stopped all the springs and the brook that ran through the land, saying, 'Why should the king of Assyria come and find much water?' And he strengthened himself, built up all the wall that was broken, raised it up to the towers, and built another wall outside. Also, he repaired the Millo in the city of David and made weapons and shields in abundance. Then he set military captains over the people, gathered them together to him in the open square of the city gate, and gave them encouragement, saying"—and look at what he said to the troops—verse seven: "Be strong and courageous."

This seems to be some kind of theme in the scripture. "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria, nor before all the multitude that is with him, for there are more with us than with him." You say, "Does that mean that they outnumbered them?" Keep reading. "With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles." Who is fighting your battles? You say, "I am fighting them." No, you're not. You can't fight these battles without Him.

I had lunch the other day with an F-18 fighter pilot, a guy that landed F-18s on a postage stamp in the middle of the ocean in the dark. You say, "He's a fighter, he's a pilot, and he took out the enemy." No, he did not do any of that by himself. You have got to have a ship in the middle of the ocean, you have got to have crew, you have got to have support, and you have got to have all this stuff. You can't do it by yourself. And if you can't do it by yourself, you need encouragement.

Sometimes, like in this case, they are afraid. They say, "There's a king out there." Yeah, but there's another King on a throne, and I'm His kid. What are you going to bring against me? What do you got? You have nothing. You say, "Oh, yeah, I do." Bring it. Bring what you got. You say, "You're defying the enemy." He got defied on a cross 2,000 years ago. You need to stop giving so much attention. The enemy is real, but he is not anywhere near our God.

He is an angel, a fallen angel with a bunch of angels. They have power, they have game, but they don't have my God. And the reason we need each other, we need scripture, we need someone to look us in the eye and say, "Dude, be strong, be of good courage, it's going to be okay, it's going to be more than okay." No, there is no but. Get off your butts and believe Him.

Look at these verses. "There are more with us than with him. With him is an arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God to help us and to fight our battles." So what is your battle? There's a kid here today who struggles with addiction. You go, "Is he going to make it?" I don't know. Is he a believer? Yes. And you may get a call and go, "He's gone." I know where he's gone to, but he doesn't need to be gone if that is not really God's plan for his life.

You can encourage someone, but sometimes the courage they have to say, "Okay, I'm encouraged, now I'm going to move forward in courage." And I am going to do it one day at a time, and I choose to live. We all have issues. You say, "I'm not some kind of addict." We are all addicts of some kind. Some people it's anger, some people it's fear. You just can't function without your drug. And you don't have to live that way.

Esther chapter four. And this is for everybody, but women in particular. By the way, this is back when women had no rights. We'll read a little bit of the story here. You say, "Women have limitations." I am so tired of hearing this. You will not get out of my three daughters that I told them they couldn't. Not going to happen. You can be anyone that God wants you to be. You can't be anybody you want to be as a man or a woman, but you can be anybody that God wants you to be.

If you have got something that says something different, bring me your verses. You don't have any, so we don't have to waste that time. Esther 4:1. "When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth and ashes and went out in the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. He went as far as the front of the king's gate, for no one might enter the king's gate clothed with sackcloth. And in every province where the king's command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews with fasting, weeping, and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes."

So Esther's maids and eunuchs came and told her. Esther is Queen Esther. They told her, and the queen was deeply distressed. Then she sent garments to clothe Mordecai and to take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept them. Then Esther called Hathach, one of the king's eunuchs whom he had appointed to attend her, and she gave him a command concerning Mordecai to learn what and why this was.

So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city square that was in front of the king's gate. And Mordecai told him all that had happened to him and the sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king's treasuries to destroy the Jews. This is about the Jews being wiped out. He also gave him a copy of the written decree for their destruction, which was given at Shushan, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her, and that he might command her to go in to the king to make supplication to him and plead before him for her people.

Hathach returned and told Esther the words of Mordecai. Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a command for Mordecai: "All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know, everybody knows this." And she's the queen. "Everybody knows that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king who has not been called, he has but one law: put all to death except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter that he may live."

If you walked in unannounced, uninvited, and the king looked at you and you were not supposed to be there, kill him. But if he held out his scepter, you could come in. "Yet I myself have not been called to go in to the king these 30 days." So they told Mordecai Esther's words. And Mordecai told them to answer Esther. This is an entire nation, Jews, at stake.

"Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king's palace anymore than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" You were made queen. You can go back and read how all that went down.

Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai: "Go gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan and fast for me. Neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law. And if I perish, I perish." So Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther commanded him. Now there is some courage. And you think that the whole nation, all the Jews, weren't encouraged by that one woman saying, "If I perish, I perish, I'm going in"?

You say, "I have got a lot to lose if I go in and it doesn't go well." You have got a lot to lose if you don't go in at all, because you've already lost. Please see this stuff. You think, "If I don't try, then I haven't failed." You're sitting on your rear end in failure already if you were supposed to try. Anybody that knows me any amount of time knows no is not a popular word with me. If the answer is no, I'll go with that. But let me tell you something about the word no: it is not always the answer.

Persevere. You would be amazed how many times no turns into yes because somebody realizes you're not going away. So what do you have? If you are a Christian, you have God. So what has He put in your heart? What are you doing with that? And who knows about it?

Psalm 27:14. Read scripture. It's all in here. Psalm 27:14. "Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord." So be patient, wait. Be of good courage, and He'll strengthen your heart, wait on Him.

It's too long a story to tell you why I have a compressor all of a sudden. I didn't want a compressor, I never thought I would own a compressor, but I have a compressor. I didn't even know how to operate a compressor. Now I have a hose for the compressor and these valves. I know how to operate it, but what is it? So I turn the compressor on. It's a noisy compressor. I guess they all are.

When I turn the compressor on, I hit the little hose thing and nothing. So I don't know anything about compressors yet, but I'm learning. Do you know what you have to do with a compressor? You have to turn it on and let it compress and fill the tank. And once the tank is full, I found this out, the compressor goes off. Why? Because the tank is full. Now, what does that mean? It is ready to move some air. And if you start moving air, it will come back on because it's ready to move some air.

So what do I do now? I wait until it's full of air before I try to move some air. So you say, "God told me to do something." You wait until it's compressed. And you say, "Lord, we're about to go, aren't we?" "Yeah, we're about to go. Wait, wait, wait, now." But it takes courage to go even when you know all that.

The tragedy for me is the nightmare as a pastor. That in this room or somewhere beyond here, whoever I can reach and we can reach as a church, there is some kid, there is some woman, there is some man, there is somebody, and they were that close in the only life they would ever have to achieving greatness for God. And nobody pushed. Nobody said, "Hey, here you go." A simple, "You can do it. I'll help you." And they just sit because nobody ever comes along and speaks anything to them.

Give God the opportunity to be God and show up on your behalf. And it may take your breath away. It may be a little scary. But what if He's got something for you that you never would have known unless you persevered?

Psalm 31:24. Let's just go through these pretty quick. "Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord." Psalm 56:3. "Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God I will praise His word, in God I have put my trust, I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?" Proverbs 28:1. "The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion." If you find out who you are and whose you are, there's not much that can stop you.

I appreciated the honesty of this quote. This is Louis Armstrong. Listen to this: "We never did try to get together and to show the younger Negroes such as myself to try and even to show that he has ambitions. And with just a little encouragement, I could have really done something worthwhile, but instead, we did nothing but let the young upstarts know that they were young and simple and that was that." Louis Armstrong.

He is admitting, if I had known what to do or done what could have been done, these young upstarts I could have said, "Man, you're amazing." Why do we not tell people the truth? If someone is good at something—a lady came to help us with our kitchen. She's a master designer. And she told me no, and I said okay. You know why? She's the boss. I said, "What if we do this and that?" She says, "No." I said, "Okay."

Why did I take no so fast? Because she knows what she is doing and I don't. And in tears, I said to her, "You have no idea how much I appreciate what you can do, because you are helping us with something that we don't know how to do, and you do, and you're good at what you do. You're the best." Why would I not tell that woman that? If she is good, she knows that. People don't mind hearing that every once in a while.

If your mom's a great mom, tell her she's a great mom. If your dad's a great dad, if your kids are good, encourage them. "Oh, I don't want them to get ahead of themselves." They are barely keeping up sometimes. How are you going to get ahead if you can't keep up? This is so simple, and why is it so powerful? Look at the things that God says to us and does for us and puts wind in our sails. And then we turn around and we have nothing for anybody else. It doesn't make sense. Just random people even. "Wow, you're really good at that." "Thank you."

I promise you, you live this kind of life encouraging people, you'll see eyeballs just popping, because in many cases, no one's ever said anything. It is horrifying how much we reveal about ourselves when we are not an encouragement. The other person's left without encouragement, but we reveal who we are because we would not speak what is obvious.

Annie Olsen, right there. She is one of the most gifted—if you knew what she did. She creates script for—it's almost impossible to explain this, but if you see fonts, fonts are easy to read in certain languages because of the way they are designed. And Annie's life is committed to building fonts for people groups so the scripture can be read in their language where it runs easy and the J's and the G's all connect. She's a genius at what she does. You think anybody knows what she does? They do now.

When I said her name, her body lifted in the chair. Literally, because very few people are saying anything about Annie Olsen and what she does. But she's good at what she does, or she wouldn't be the person they called to do it. "Well, I'm not going to say anything to you about that because whatever." You are the whatever.

Mark five. We'll do a few more. Mark 5:35. This is talking about Jesus. While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house who said, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?" As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, "Do not be afraid, only believe." Powerful words from Jesus. Highly recommend underlining that: "Do not be afraid, only believe."

Guest (Male): Before Richard comes back to wrap things up for us today, I'd like to share a couple important things with you. Let me encourage you to take a minute and check out our website, richardellis.com. You'll find today's talk right there in the talks page along with all of Richard's audio and video messages. You can even forward them to a friend so they can hear them too.

You'll also find the prayer wall to add your prayer requests, a link so you can connect with us, the contribute page for you to be able to give to this ministry, all of our social media links, and much more. So check it out, richardellis.com. And Richard's back now to wrap up today's talk.

Richard Ellis: Mark 15:43. And I have totally missed this until this week. How I missed this, I have no idea. I've been reading this and talking about this guy forever. Jesus has died on the cross, and they have to get Him down and get Him buried before sunset. In verse 43: "Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, coming and taking courage, went in to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus."

Now you say, "He was powerful, he just walked in there." No, it doesn't say that. "Coming and taking courage." Sometimes you go in, you're just like, "I'm not sure how this is going to go." Let me tell you how it's going to go if you don't ask. The answer is no because you didn't ask.

I have this conversation with salespeople all the time. What is the line everybody uses? "Let's call them because all they can say is no." And I stop them and say, "Wait, what are you saying? If all they can say is no, why are you even going to call them? We're going to call them because they might say yes. That is why we are going to call them."

But we are so terrified that we are going to look stupid or defeated or it's not going to work, we won't bother to ask. And here Joseph of Arimathea, God uses his position and his courage to get him into Pilate and say, "I'm asking for His body. I'll take responsibility. What do you say?" And because he had the courage to go in there, look what happened. Jesus got buried in time.

Whether you get this or not, and I don't know who you are here, out there, you think, "Oh, that's somebody else." Let me tell you something, you are somebody else. You are the somebody else. There is nobody else. You are the dad, you are the mom, you are the kid, you are the employee, you are in that job, in that situation. There is no one else there. You are either up or it is not going to happen, or it is going to be greatly delayed until somebody else shows up that will participate.

So stop looking around going, "Oh, somebody else." You are the somebody else. And in courage, you need to take a step, do what you need to do, because that in turn is an encouragement to other people.

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