04.25.2010 How to be Spiritually and Emotionally Healthy - Gloom, Despair, Agony on Me, Deep Dark Depression, Excessive Misery

04.25.2010 Grace Summit Sermon How to be Spiritually and Emotionally Healthy - Gloom, Despair, Agony on Me, Deep Dark Depression from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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SermonAudioLord, we ask that You would be honored and glorified today – as people look at us, that they would see Jesus Christ – because of what You have done – buying us and for=giving us of what we have done. We ask for grace that Your Spirit would touch, heal, encourage and strengthen our hearts today. May we leave here better as a result of You.
We have been looking at Spiritual and Emotional Health – Anxiety, Anger –
Today, we will look at the issue of sorrow – despair, grief, discouragement. Not so much depression. If you are struggling with an issue of clinical depression – this sermon will probably not be enough. If you have a significant issue – depression, anger, anxiety – that is consistent and prevalent – I urge you to find someone who can help you with that. I’ve discovered that most people wait too long to get help – and I encourage you to deal with the issue now.

There are times we let our emotions get the best of us. Can you remember a time where you were grieved by a decision you made? It may have been turning left instead of right and hitting a pothole and your wheel fell off – which wouldn’t have happened if you had turned the other way…
Or maybe there are just circumstances that have come upon you that are no fault of your own.
Today we will look at sorrow, grief, depression, and despair.
I will cover a lot of texts – from all over Scripture. What do Noah and the Ark have to do with sorrow and grief? We’ll see
Genesis 6: 5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 And the Lord said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them."
The NIV translates SORRY as REGRET…
The KJV says that God REPENTED of making man on earth.
There is a place for the theological questioning of well, if God knew that man would do this and that, why would He allow it? God experienced sorrow and regret – the same emotions that we experience, we experience because we are created in the image of God. But because of our fallenness, we often take these emotions and they become negative… Sometimes even doing the right thing can lead to sorrow and difficulty.
These emotions can help us to grow – those circumstances that produce sorrow in our lives can help us to grow – OR they can cause us to lose heart and make us want to give up in our faith. I’d like to help you today to learn to do the former.
There will be a lot of scripture today –
We have the wrong expectations. We think that because I am a Christian, things should go our way…
John 16:33 -33 "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
You must expect that, in this world, we will have difficulty.
Through MANY tribulations, through MANY difficulties, you will enter the kingdom of God. Not just OCCASIONAL difficulty.
For 2000 years, suffering has been the thing the church has dealt with the most.
If you read about the church – the leaders of it have suffered tremendously. But for the past 100 years – in the West – a lot of that suffering has been eliminated. In light of that, we have grown to expect things to be different than what the Bible really says.
Larry Crabb - ____ Your Dreams – We think that if we do A and B, we should get C – but that is not BIBLICAL. We’ve made it up because we want it to be that way. The Bible guarantees one thing – difficulty! We need to develop a theology of suffering – and to have a worldview and mindset of suffering before it happens – because it will happen. If you have gone through some difficult times and weren’t prepared – it just knocked you down. I’ve seen it where one is just rolling through life and out of nowhere the circumstance hits – and if you are not prepared for that, it knocks you down.
In this understanding – theology is not a good word – but this understanding of suffering – it helps us to know and accept it.
This is true about Jesus – Isaiah 53 is a prophecy of Jesus – I won’t go into why that is – but it is true:
Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
He experienced grief and sorrow like we can’t even understand – it was true of Jesus and it will be true of us. He grieved so much that He sweat drops of blood…
Heb. 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart.
If we don’t understand that He has been through it – we will lose heart when we go through it.
Heb. 4 talks about Jesus being a sympathetic priest – whom we can go to and find mercy. Christ has already experienced our suffering and more.
Matt. 5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Sorrow and grief are a blessing. It is the opposite of what we think. This does not make it in our mindset. Blessed are those who mourn and grieve and weep (it says in Luke). We think the opposite – blessed are those who are HAPPY! That is the way we think. “Blessed is he when all things are going well!” But Jesus says blessed are those who weep/mourn/suffer/go through adversity. This doesn’t compute but we need to trust that it is true.
We look at those who are struggling and think – there must be something wrong – they don’t have what I have – they haven’t been blessed like I have.
There is a lot of Christianity that promotes that today. It is not about health and wealth and everything working out for you – that is not Biblical.
If we want to make suffering work for us…
Romans 5: 3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us
Sorrow, suffering, difficulty and grief are transformational. We all want to grow in our spiritual maturity – but that only happens through difficulty, tribulation, sorrow, and disappointment. That is where growth comes from – through difficulty.
Romans 8: 28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose.
That is in the context of going through difficulty – and our response to it.
2 Cor. 1: 3 Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; 4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. 6 But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer;
Suffering and difficulty can be comforting. God wants to come to us in a unique way when we are going through difficulty – the Father of all mercies and the God of all comfort – there is a relationship with God that you cannot get in any other way. There is an understanding of who He is that you can’t get in any other way. We would LIKE to develop it in other ways – but that is not possible.
The word MERCY comes up in many of these passages – tribulations – and as we receive mercy, we continue on. God is able to be merciful because He has also suffered.
There is a temptation to lose heart and give up faith. But suffering brings us sorrow and brings us to the point of losing faith – and that is what someone goes through when they suffer – they are ready to chuck their faith – that is not unusual – but God gives MERCY in the crisis of faith.
Gal. 6: 9 And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.
Another thing to think about – this is the sixth thing – we WILL go through difficulty – but we will REAP – we will be REWARDED for our struggle and remaining faithful. We will be rewarded – Psalm 27: 13 [I would have despaired] unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord In the land of the living. 14 Wait for the Lord; Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.
Don’t lose heart – there will be reward HERE.
That is not where the great reward comes (we’ll look at that at the end).
We will see God’s grace and mercy in this world.
I’d like to just go through Psalm 42…
Ps. 42: 1 As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for Thee, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and appear before God?
This verse is not about having good quiet times – this is a Psalm of lament – and he is panting for God because he has lost God…
3 My tears have been my food day and night, While [they] say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" 4 These things I remember, and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng [and] lead them in procession to the house of God, With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
Somehow the writer of the psalm has been isolated from the presence of God. When you feel sorrow – I think that is what you feel first (isolation from the presence of God). He remembers the good times – life was like THIS and now it is like THAT. You see this in Scripture – this happens a lot – you think – How can I continue – I have a friend who lost a son in a car accident who had been a pastor for 25 years – and he went two years struggling in his faith, wondering if God was really there.
6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me;
He is honest in evaluating the situation. It is like God is gone – and he recognizes the despair, depression, discouragement. Everything is falling apart. You get this sense of panic – that feeling when things start going wrong – and despair and discouragement come in and you panic because you don’t know…
You know how they say you shouldn’t talk to yourself? Well, it’s okay to talk to yourself. Then they say, as long as you don’t answer yourself. Well, it is okay to answer yourself – the psalmist does it right here:
HOPE IN GOD. 6 O my God, my soul is in despair within me; Therefore I remember Thee from the land of the Jordan, And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep at the sound of Thy waterfalls; All Thy breakers and Thy waves have rolled over me.
Thy waves rolling over me is not about surfing – but when you get crashed into the beach. He is doing some soul talk here – and it takes time and is a work and battle that must take place.
8 The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life.
He says – the Lord will command – He turns to God’s word and promise – a song – you get this sense that he is forcing himself to sing and praise God.
9 I will say to God my rock, "Why hast Thou forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" 10 As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, While they say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" 11 Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance, and my God.
Hope in God. When you are undergoing sorrow and difficulty and grief – there IS only one answer: Hope in God – the God of all mercy and comfort is the absolute only answer for your life – there is no other.
It is not over in Psalm 42 – Psalm 43 is a repeat!
In closing – this gives us the ultimate goal/purpose of sorrow and grief…
Romans 8: 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for [our] adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. 24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one also hope for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
We hope in God – but our ultimate hope is for what is to come after this life
If your hope is only for this life, you don’t have the right hope. We know that God will work for us in this life – but ultimately our hope must be for the next life – the glory that is to be revealed – because the difficulties of this life can only be understood in light of the glory of the next life. It is all worthless if there is not glory to be given in the next life.