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Introduction:
Last week we talked
about how in the past in church it was hear no evil, speak no evil, see no
evil. There were just some things we
didn’t talk about in church. We didn’t
talk about sex and money for sure, and we don’t talk about our hurts, issues
and depression, because the church culture says that now that we are in Christ
everything should be perfect in our lives.
If it’s not, then there is something wrong with us and our faith. Because of that people with real issues never
talk about them and never deal with them.
We have Christian people who are depressed and who have other issues who
never talk about them. The church should
be a place of healing but it is often a place of cover up. When people don’t address their issues two
things happen 1) somebody eventually finds out and it becomes rumor and gossip,
the leadership finds out about it and they ask them to step down from
leadership or leave until the problem is solved, or 2) which is the worst thing
that can happen, they just leave because they can no longer keep up the
charade.
We said that biblical
giants had problems and bad days just as we do.
The three that we talked about were Moses, Elijah, and Paul.
Today we are going to
talk more about depression using chapters 7-9 of our book, Overwhelmed: Winning the War Against Worry.
Your Story
In chapter Pastor
Noble talks about his background from the time that he was two or three until
the time that he admitted that he was depressed, and then got help and dug his
way out with God’s help. It started with
a dysfunctional family, continued with the death of his mother while he was
still a young boy, and what he thinks was his father being bipolar or at the
very least very depressed. The principal point was that a number of things can
cause depression it’s not usually just one thing and that until we realize that
we are depressed and accept it we can’t beat it. When we finally stop trying to do it ourselves
and rely on God then and only then can God take us through it. At one point he was even very bitter at and
angry with God.
1. Have you ever been angry with God about
something? If so how did you deal with
it and how was it resolved?
2. What can cause that bitterness?
Misconceptions about
God...the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away - Job 1:21 (HCSB) 21 saying: Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will leave this life. The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away.
Praise the name of Yahweh.
The Lord took my ….
(you fill in the blank)
Let me read a portion
of something written by a guy named Steve Rudd which is a
pretty good response to this question.
Someone gets sick and
dies, and the surviving loved one goes on a "Hate God" rampage! First, let’s clear a few things up. Life on
earth is not predestined where God chose before the earth was created who would
live, and when and how they would die. He knows what, when, and how but He did
not predetermine it (my comments).
Second, God did not make your loved one sick, neither did he kill them
as a direct act. (Although God does chasten his children when the sin in various
ways: Heb 12:4-14.) The fact is, some bad things happen by chance, others
because of another's sin, or because of our own sin or carelessness.
Here are some
examples:
- When a skydiver's parachute doesn't open, we realize that mechanical things don't always work the way they should and sometimes people die as a result.
- When a person talks on a cell phone while driving, drinking a cup of coffee and glancing at the paper in the passenger side of the front seat, and they run into the back of a parked truck, we realize that our own careless can kill us.
- When an innocent person is shot by a bank robber, we realize that another's sin can kill us.
- When we have certain allergies, and are stung by a bee or eat a peanut, we realize that our genetic code can kill us.
- When we by chance, come in contact with a contagious disease, we realize that such encounters can kill us.
- When we smoke 1 pack of cigarettes per day and die of lung cancer at 35, we have committed a form of suicide, where no one is to blame but ourselves.
Remember, God
originally provided a perfect home of eternal life in paradise in the Garden of
Eden and MAN'S own sin got him kicked out. Have you ever sinned?
It’s ok to grieve,
but don't blame God. We live in a world where sometimes things just happen.
But what about your
prayers? You prayed for God to heal your loved one of Cancer and he died
instead!
You had enough faith
and you prayed perfect prayers, but sometimes God SAYS NO! Other times God
might extend life, but sooner or later, WE ALL MUST DIE. Are you praying for
eternal life on earth?
Hezekiah was very
sick in 1 Kings 20 and likely prayed to get better. God answered, NO: "Set
your house in order, for you shall die and not live." (v1) Hezekiah, however
prayed again and this time God answered: "I will add fifteen years to your
life" v6 God still answered NO, but gave an extension of life to the sick
man. How do you know God didn't answer your prayer by giving your loved one a
few extra months, he otherwise without your prayer, wouldn't have gotten!
God loves you and
cares for you, but we all must die. Set your hopes on what is above, not the
earth. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (HCSB) 16 Therefore we do not give up. Even though
our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by
day. 17 For our momentary light
affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of
glory. 18 So we do not focus on what is
seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen
is eternal.
Pastor Perry also
talks about becoming self-righteous and legalistic which may have been the
result of not dealing with some baggage he was still carrying. I had never thought about that before but it
may be very true. Someone dealing with a
problem with pornography, or drugs, alcohol,
or whatever, may be very legalistic with others struggling with that
same problem.
3. Ever known anybody
like that?
The price of Success
Pastor Noble talks
about the success of his ministry NewSpring Church which experienced phenomenal
growth and at the same time his wife was doing a 3 year family practice
residency program. Their congregation
went from 115 in 2000 to 8000 in 2006.
With that success came non-stop work, and then criticism from his fellow
Christians all of this contributing to his becoming deeply depressed.
4. How can success cause you to become
depressed?
Warning Signs That
You are Headed for a Crash
As I said depression
is usually not brought on by just one thing although a tragic event can cause
you to start down the path toward depression if you don’t start to do anything
about it.
Sign 1 An Unrealistic
Pace
5. We are always rushing from one thing to
another one deadline after another why do we do that?
Pastor Noble says he
heard someone say once “If I were the devil, I would invent a device you could
hold in your hands that would ensure you’d always have your schedule in front
of you and give people access to you anytime they wanted”.
There are a lot of
good Christians who have no intimacy in their relationship with God because
they don’t take time to see His beauty.
We are always in a hurry working for God. (I have that problem)
6. How can we work for God so much it can lead
to depression?
I told the story in
our previous study of Pastor Noble’s friend who told him that he couldn’t
continue to keep up the pace he was operating under. He was going way too fast. And like many of us when we get that kind of
criticism especially when we think we are doing the Lord’s work, he got angry
and said “The devil never takes a day off”
His friend’s response was Perry, “I’m not sure the devil is supposed to
be your example.
Then he got a revelation,
which I never really thought about. In
the Ten Commandments the one that God spent the most time explaining was the
one on rest. Exodus 20:8-11 (HCSB)8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy:
9 You are to labor six days and do all
your work,10 but the seventh day is a
Sabbath to the LORD your God. You must not do any work—you, your son or
daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the foreigner who is
within your gates. 11 For the LORD made
the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then He
rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and
declared it holy.
Hebrew
Transliteration is shābat. English
words used in the bible are:
- cease
- rest
- away (get away)
- fail
- celebrate
From Strong's Talking
Greek & Hebrew Dictionary
primitive root; to
repose, i.e. desist from exertion; used in many implication relations
(causative, figurative or specific) :- (cause to, let, make to) cease,
celebrate, cause (make) to fail, keep (sabbath), suffer to be lacking, leave,
put away (down), (make to) rest, rid, still, take away.
Here is how important
the Sabbath was.
- There was not only the "seventh day" Sabbath, but the first and last days of the seven Old Testament feasts were special Sabbaths, to be observed just as a seventh day Sabbath. (See Exodus 12:1-6; and 14-16 and Leviticus 23:1-8).
- So, there were at least 64 "Sabbaths" in each calendar year. Many weeks had multiple "Sabbaths", one a seventh day Sabbath, the other a "Holy Convocation", the first or last day of a feast. Often, there were Sabbath days back to back - two days in a row. And. probably just as often, a Feast day Sabbath occurred the same day as the seventh day Sabbath
- God commanded for not only the people to rest but also the land. There were to be Sabbath years.
The sabbath year
(shmita Hebrew: שמיטה, literally "release") also called the
sabbatical year or sheviit (Hebrew: שביעית, literally "seventh") is
the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah for
the Land of Israel,[1] and still observed in contemporary Judaism.
During shmita, the
land is left to lie fallow and all agricultural activity, including plowing,
planting, pruning and harvesting, is forbidden by halakha (Jewish law). Other
cultivation techniques (such as watering, fertilizing, weeding, spraying,
trimming and mowing) may be performed as a preventative measure only, not to
improve the growth of trees or other plants. Additionally, any fruits which
grow of their own accord are deemed hefker (ownerless) and may be picked by
anyone. A variety of laws also apply to the sale, consumption and disposal of
shmita produce. All debts, except those of foreigners, were to be remitted.[2]
Chapter 25 of the
Book of Leviticus promises bountiful harvests to those who observe the shmita,
and describes its observance as a test of religious faith. There is little
notice of the observance of this year in Biblical history and it appears to
have been much neglected.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmita)
Pastor Noble’s
counselor told him “the Bible calls those who will not work lazy, (lots of places
in Proverbs 6:6-11; 13:4; 18;9;10:4-5; 21:25, but it calls those who will not
rest disobedient”
Sign 2 Unrealistic
Expectations of Others
7. When we are depressed we often put the blame
on others and are mad at them for the way they feel. Why do you think we do that?
Pastor Noble says
it’s easier to blame somebody else than ourselves. They are the ones with the problem not
us. I used to work for a guy who would
never accept responsibility for anything that went wrong. It was always somebody else’s fault. Doesn’t make for a very good work environment
because if you follow what he wants you to do and it blows up then it was not
his direction or orders it was your incompetence. That’s the way depressed people act sometimes
and I can tell you that it’s true I have firsthand experience.
As Pastor Noble came
to the realization that he should stop asking God to change the other person,
because He won’t in most cases, but to change him and his attitude, so did
I. I like what he said about people who
have a victim mentality always blaming others.
He said and I agree that they never walk in the victory that Jesus
promises.
8. How do you think that coming to that
realization helped him?
Sign 3 An Unrealistic
View on Life.
If we don’t do
anything differently things will not change and we will stay in our depression
of state of anxiety. Depression and
anxiety do happen but they don’t just pass like the season. If we think that depression is just a season
and it will pass then we have a serious problem. We must, as he says go through it. But we don’t have to go through it alone we
have God who said that He would never leave us or forsake us. Even when things look insurmountable like the
situation Daniel found himself in having to not only interpret his dream but
tell him what the dream was.
Sign 4 An Unrealistic
Desire to Be Liked by Everyone
I use to have this
problem. I wanted everybody to like me
so I did some things and went some places that I should not have done or gone
but I wanted people to like me. When
you are in the banking business, as I was at one time, wanting everybody to
like you can be a major problem especially when somebody wants a loan and they
don’t qualify. It does create some
anxiety.
Well everybody is not
going to like you so don’t sweat it.
Everybody didn’t like Jesus and we can’t let what others think about us
dominate our lives we should be seeking the approval of God and not man.
Using my example I
don’t even remember the names or faces of most of those people that I was
concerned about them liking me. John
12:42-43 talks about people who actually believed in Jesus but were afraid to
admit it. John 12:42-43 (HCSB) 42 Nevertheless, many did believe in Him even
among the rulers, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, so
they would not be banned from the synagogue. 43
For they loved praise from men more than praise from God.
Remember Nicodemus
came to Jesus in the middle of the night and he was the one that got the
revelation that we now have that you must be born again John 3:3 (ASV) 3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of
God. Yet he didn’t come out to the
closet, so to speak, until after Jesus was crucified. He was more concerned about what his Pharisee
buddies would think about him. John 19:38-39 (ASV) 38 And after these things Joseph of Arimathaea,
being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate
that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came
therefore, and took away his body. 39
And there came also Nicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night,
bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.
We are out of time we
will have to finish Chapters 8 and 9 next week.
Please read Chapters 10-12 and we will try to get through all of them
next week. I will try to be a better job
of controlling our time although what we talked about today was good stuff and
I think very helpful.
Close with prayer.
Next week chapter 8
starting with the section Getting off the Collision Course through Chapter 12
If you want to study along with our Sunday study group, and get the most from it, you will need to get the book. You can get it from Amazon by clicking the title of the book link that is above or clicking on the image of the book at the end of the blog. Join us as we learn to win the war against worry.
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God bless you. I’ll see you next week.
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