Summertime Sadness | Summer Playlist | Psalms | Trinity Sermons

Welcome to Trinity Sermons. Here at Trinity Church, Streetsville, we want to love Jesus,

live like Jesus, and lead others to Jesus. And today we are continuing our series called

Summer Playlist and reading about one of the Sadder Psalms, Psalm 42. Rob talks to us today

about spiritual depression and how we can work through, alleviate, and even treat this

depression. We hope you learn from and find some hope in today's message. God bless.

Today's reading is from Psalm 42. As a deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants

for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet

with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long,

where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul. How I used to go to

the house of God under the protection of the mighty one with shouts of joy and praise among

the festive throng. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed with me? Put your

hope in God, for I will praise him, my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me.

Therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon from

Mount Mizer. Deep calls to deep. In the roar of your waterfalls, all your waves and breakers

have swept over me. By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me. A

prayer to the God of my life. I say to God my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why must

I go about mourning oppressed by the enemy? My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt

me, saying to me all day long, where is your God? Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so

disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my

God. The word of the Lord.

Well, most people associate singing with happiness. I mean, there's, you know, that's why people

say I'm so happy I could sing. And it's true. A good number of our songs are happy songs.

They encourage us. They lift us up. Even the song that we just sang this morning. This

is my story. This is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long. That sounds like

a pretty happy song. And yet there are other types of songs out there. A whole other category

of song that you would call a sad song. If you go to Spotify and you search on Spotify

for sad songs, you get a whole bunch of very interesting playlists. Playlists with titles

like Sad Crying Mix, Most Depressing Mix, Sad Country Mix. They aren't all country songs

sad, but Classics for Crying, Crying Myself to Sleep Mix, Moody Mix. For some reason,

human beings like to write sad songs. They like to sing sad songs. And they like to listen

to sad songs. Songs about heartbreak and loss and loneliness and regret and depression.

There's a singer called Lana Del Rey. A few years ago she wrote a song called Summertime

Sadness. And that song seems to trend like every summer ever since. Because people seem

to instinctively know that even though it's sunny and bright outside, we can still feel

sad on the inside. And there's been a bit of research about why we like to listen to

sad music. It seems like sad songs actually help us to realize we're not the only ones

who feel this way. Obviously other people out there feel this way and that makes us

feel good. And the sad music actually enables us to process some of our sad emotions along

with the music. Well this summer we're going through a different kind of playlist. We're

doing a teaching series called Summer Playlist. And we're looking at a very ancient playlist

of music. It's found right in the middle of your Bibles. It's called the Book of Psalms.

It's 150 tracks of all different sorts. But if you open up your Bibles and you start to

look through those Psalms or start to listen to them, you're going to realize something

very quickly. And that is a lot of these songs in the Book of Psalms are sad songs. Which

means that people have been writing sad music and singing sad music for thousands of years.

In fact there is a type of psalm that is called a psalm of lament. And these songs again have

been written for thousands of years and they express sorrow and grief and depression and

anger at what's going on in their lives. Over 40 of the songs in the Book of Psalms, there's

only 150 of them, are sad songs. So anyways today we're going to take a look at one of

those songs, the one that JP just read for us. And that is Psalm number 42. And it's

actually really important that we do this because traditionally the church has not always

done a good job when it comes to talking about sadness and you know that spiritual sadness

we sometimes feel or spiritual depression. Now that phrase, spiritual depression, was

coined by Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. And this is Dr. Jones here. He was a Welsh minister

but before he became a minister, this is during the most of the 1900s, he was a doctor. So

as both a doctor and an amazing preacher and teacher, he was the minister at Westminster

Chapel in London, he came up with this idea of spiritual depression. In fact his best

selling book is a book called Spiritual Depression. And so according to Martin Lloyd-Jones, spiritual

depression is not only a feeling but it is a state of mind. He goes on to say that it

is a disease of the soul, this feeling of discouragement, this lack of joy. Now some

of you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know what it's like to lose your zest

for life. You know what it's like to have even the smallest tasks seem absolutely overwhelming.

You know what it's like to kind of lack the energy to kind of get out and live your life

the way that you want to. But what he's talking about and what we're talking about, it's not

just oh I've got the blues today or I'm a little bit sad. It is something deeper. It's

something that kind of lingers longer in our minds and in our hearts. And it may come because

of some traumatic experience that we went through or it may come for no apparent reason.

But when Martin Lloyd-Jones looked at Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 by the way, which were originally

one song, they got split up later, he saw all the signs of someone who's going through

a period of spiritual depression. Which may be surprising because the Psalm itself is

written by a worship director, a worship leader. Right at the beginning of the Psalm, if you

were to open your Bibles you would see that it says this is for the director of music,

a song by the sons of Korah. The sons of Korah, you probably haven't heard of them, but back

in the day they were big. They were a worship team that led worship all around Israel. They

would lead worship in the temple. They would lead worship in big festivals and in big processions.

Ladies and gentlemen, the sons of Korah. Woo! The crowd would go crazy. Everyone loved the

sons of Korah and they loved to lead worship. But you might say that does not make any sense.

How could a worship leader of all people suffer from depression? They're always happy. They're

always on stage. They're always got a smile on their face. They always seem so full of

energy. They can't possibly be sad, but of course they can be. And so can you and so

can I. And that is a good reminder for all of us that no matter what someone looks like

on the outside, we don't know what they're feeling on the inside. And so today it's time

for a little bit of summertime sadness. Let's look at Psalm 42 and let's ask a few questions

or let's look at first the truth of spiritual sadness, the triggers of spiritual depression

and the treatment for spiritual depression. I should let you know that we've got a little

cheat sheet here that we've handed out to everyone to help you take some notes as we

go along. This is actually a pretty important topic. So we want you to get the most out

of this as possible. So first we got to start by talking about the truth of spiritual depression

because for many people, depression is something that they question, something they doubt,

something that they criticize and mostly because they've never experienced it themselves or

they, they just don't understand it. So that's why one of the biggest false hoods out there

is that people go around saying depression isn't real. It's not something that really

happens. It's all in their head. It's all made up. It's just their imagination. But

according to the Canadian mental health association, we read that depression is a mood disorder

that's going to affect one in eight Canadians at some point in their life. We read that

6.5% of Canadian youth experience major depressive episodes once per year. And that's not just,

you know, teenage moodiness. That's a real depressive episode. We read that 7% of senior

citizens will feel the same. Women experience depression twice as much as men do. And if

you already have an underlying illness or a chronic illness or disease, chances are

one in three that depression is going to be something that gets laid on top of that for

you. It just seems that human beings are very, very delicate creatures. And the Bible says

as much, the Bible says that God created our inmost being, our mind and our heart and knit

us together with such precision and intricacy. We're fearfully made. Yes. We're wonderfully

made. Yes. And that delicate balance is amazing. Yes. But at times that balance can be thrown

off, can be thrown off by stress, thrown off by major life changes, thrown off by addiction,

thrown off by hormones, by our age, by all sorts of things. Substance abuse can throw

off the delicate balance of our minds and our hearts. Even just our biochemistry, managing

that, if you've got serotonin levels that are too low, then that's going to make it

difficult for you to sleep. And that actually affects our mood. If you've got norepinephrine

levels that are too low, then that creates fatigue and that affects our mood. If your

cortisol levels are too high, then that increases your fear and anxiety. And all those things

can kind of lead to times of sadness, despair and depression. All that I'm trying to say

is our brain is a really complex organ and there's a lot of beautiful stuff in there,

but it's also, there's a lot that can go wrong and be affected and disrupted. And to deny

this is wrong. And to deny it is actually not helpful for people who actually do struggle

with depression. So that's the first falsehood, the falsehood that, hey, it's not real. A

second falsehood is that therefore, you know, Christians can't really struggle with depression,

right? Because as the argument goes, if we are Christians, if we've given our life to

Jesus, life's problems will automatically be solved, right? Right? You will always be

healthy. You'll always be wealthy. You'll always be happy. You'll just cruise through

life and when you come to church, you'll have a smile on your face and you'll say, how are

you doing? I'm doing good. How are you doing? I'm doing good. You good? I'm good. You good?

I good. We're all good. Everybody's good. But come on, people of faith get depressed,

right? Just read through the lyrics of some of the Psalms. Why my soul are you so downcast?

I'm worn out from all my groaning all night long. I flood my bed with weeping. My God,

I cry out to you by day. You do not answer. My eyes grow weak with sorrow. My soul and

my body with grief. I'm overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death. It's true.

This gives us hope and joy and strength, but it is phony and wrong to pretend that we feel

that way all the time. For many people in our world, becoming a Christian doesn't make

life easier. It makes it harder. It means more stress, more danger, more isolation,

more rejection. So it's a falsehood to say, Christians can't experience depression. It

just doesn't make sense. And that brings us to the third falsehood we have to address

is that is that for some reason, therefore depressed people are less spiritual. If you

were really spiritually mature, you wouldn't struggle with sadness and depression. But

come on, think of heroes of the faith. David, a man after God's own heart, obviously struggled

with deep sadness and sorrow at times in his life. Think of Elijah, the great prophet clearly

had suicidal ideation from time to time. Think of Job, who we are told was the most righteous

man on earth at the time. And yet in that same story, he curses the day that he was

born. Think of the apostle Paul, who said that he despaired even of life at one point.

Another notable preacher, it was a Charles Spurgeon who was called actually once the

prince of preachers in the late 1800s. He was just so well known for his sermons and

his writings. And, and yet he confessed to his own congregate congregation. He said,

I have been in the depths, which I hope none of you ever go. There are dungeons, he said,

beneath the castle of despair. So for this reason, we should never stigmatize people

who suffer from depression or sadness as being less spiritual than others. So that's the

truth about spiritual depression. But now let's talk about some of the triggers. What

are some of those things that happen in our life that cause the depression to erupt? Psalm

42 actually gives us some of these triggers. And I should say what I'm talking today is

not from a medical perspective. I'm not talking to you from a clinical perspective. I'm not

a psychologist. I'm, I'm a preacher. I'm looking at what these possible spiritual triggers

might be as we read them in Psalm 42. Okay. The first trigger that seems obvious is that

depression can hit you when your hopes get dashed, when hope fails you, when life disappoints

you. You know, sometimes in life we, we want to be here, but we're here. Uh, we wish we

were there, but we're stuck where we are. And, and that sense of disappointment of not being

where you want to be or doing what you want to do can really, really beat you up and leave

you feeling flat. The writer of Psalm 42, he says as much, but you kind of got to read

between the lines. He says, as the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for

you, my God, my soul thirsts for God, for the living God. And then he says, when can

I go and meet with God? And what's he talking about there? What he's talking about is again,

he's a worship leader. Where does he want to be? He wants to be in Jerusalem. He wants

to be leading worship. He wants to be doing what he does best, what fulfills him. And

for some reason he can't be there. He can't do what he wants to do. Now some scholars

have hypothesized that it's because he was on the run with David. David had to flee Jerusalem

during his time as a, as an upcoming King. And as a result, uh, the sons of Korah also

maybe got exiled from Jerusalem and find themselves now on the outside looking in and he's stuck

and he doesn't want to be where he is. He wants to be there. He's thirsting to be back

in the temple. He's longing to be back doing what he loves to do, doing something else,

but he can't do it. And hope that is deferred makes the heart sick. Cause we read in Proverbs

and some of you know is exactly what he's talking about. You wanted to be in a certain

relationship and you're just not there. You wanted to be somewhere in your career and

you're just not there. You wanted to have saved so much money by now, but you're just

not there. You wanted to have moved on in some way. You wanted to have, have a job by

now, moved out of your parents basement by now. You wanted to finish your degree by now.

You had goals, you had aims, you had aspirations, but they're just not happening. You're not

where you want to be. And that can weigh on you. And it can be a trigger for spiritual

depression. So that's the first trigger when hope fails you. But secondly, when people

criticize you, look at this, when you are criticized, attacked or beat down by the people

around you, that can really make you question who you are. When they say mean and nasty

things to you. Look, look at the Psalmist. He says, they say, who are they? Well, his

enemies, his critics, they say, where is your God? And my bones suffer, mortal agony is

my foes taunt me. And he says, why must I go about mourning oppressed by my enemy? When

we're criticized, you know what it does? It erodes our sense of self-esteem. That can

lead to depression. It makes us feel rejected and isolated. That can lead to depression.

People are mean. People can be nasty. Frederick Nietzsche said that man is the cruelest animal,

whether it was some bully at school that got you really depressed or whether it's a coworker

who's so competitive or whether it's a spouse who is verbally abusive to you or criticism

can trigger that feeling of depression. Another trigger though, is when problems overwhelm

you. Now we all have problems. One problem here, no problem, no problem. I can handle

a problem here and a problem there. But sometimes it rains and then sometimes it pours and sometimes

your basement just gets flooded like it did a couple of weeks ago. When, when problems

keep coming at you, one problem after another, a relationship problem, a career problem,

a financial problem, a health problem, pretty soon we feel like we are overwhelmed. And

it's when too many things come at us once that it can lead to depression. The Psalmist

gets at this when he says deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls, all your waves

and your breakers have swept over me. He's using this metaphor of waves and breakers

and water because it gets at what we're talking about. Have you ever walked in the ocean and

been knocked over by a wave? That's not so bad. But when you're trying to get back up,

another wave hits you and now you're kind of tumbling and then another wave and now

you're like losing your orientation and pretty soon you're gasping for breath and you're

being pulled back out to sea, right? We can handle a problem, but when lots comes at us

at once, then we are in that space where we can lead to sadness and depression. There

is in fact is this stress test you can do called the Holmes and Ray stress scale. And

it says that according to their findings that if you score between 200 and 300 on this test,

then you are at high risk of a nervous breakdown or some deep, deep depression. And so for

example, the death of a spouse is a hundred points in one year span, a hundred points,

divorce 73 points, retirement 45 points, pregnancy, buying a house, starting school, moving, trouble

at work, vacation, Christmas, it goes on and on. All of these things have a point value

and we can tolerate some of it, but when too much of it comes and the waves keep coming,

then we're overwhelmed. Another trigger can be when the past reminds you. Now lots of

times our memories are very encouraging and they actually cheer us up in times of sadness,

but in the case of this guy, it was actually the past that was pulling him down. He was

remembering better days, what used to be, what life was like before. He says, Oh gosh,

I remember, I remember how it used to be. I used to go to the house of God and we were

under protection. We didn't have to run for our lives. We were protected and there'd be

shouts of joy and we get to lead the worship among all these people. Oh, those were the

good old days, the good old days. When I get together with some of my friends from high

school, we're always reminiscing about the good old days, remembering back to high school,

the stupid things we did, telling stories and laughing at it. And that can be good,

but it was Warren Wiersbie says, he says the past should be a rudder to guide us. Can't

be an anchor that holds us back. And so the lesson is if you think life as it is right

now is always going to be this way and never going to change, then you're heading for a

crash because life changes. The way things are going to be tomorrow is not going to be

like it is today. And the way it is today is not like it was before. It's longing for

another time, longing for another situation can trigger that feeling of depression. Finally,

depressive feelings often spiral and increase when we're preoccupied with ourselves. When

all your thoughts are focused on you. Psalm 42 and Psalm 43, we come across the words

me, my, and I 51 times. And that's okay because God is interested in all your me's and my's

and I's, but the word God is only used 21 times. So that's a little bit out of whack.

And when we focus too much on ourselves, man, if you're always looking at yourself, it can

lead to this self-criticism. It can really throw us off balance because we're often losing

our perspective and it magnifies the problems that we have in our life and the negativity

can increase and depression can intensify. So here's the triggers. These are the system

triggers that seem to be hinted at in Psalm 42 that when hope fails you and people criticize

you and problems overwhelm you, the past reminds you, and when everything is about you, you

could be headed for a time of depression. So these are warning signs that we should

all be paying attention to. But let's end, not by talking about the truth of it or the

triggers, but let's end by talking about the treatment of our spiritual depression. How

do we alleviate the symptoms? How do we raise ourselves out of depressive moments? Many

times we try to just do it on our own. We treat our depression by drinking too much

or eating too much or doing drugs or whatever. Sometimes, actually I read that 35% of people

who are depressed say they solve it by watching TV. Those aren't great treatments. Obviously,

doctors have medical treatments and psychologists and psychotherapists will have their treatments.

But again, spiritually speaking, spiritually speaking, the psalmist suggests a few treatments

that we can take with us today based on what he said. First, tell yourself the truth. Did

you notice how the psalmist is always talking to himself? He writes, oh, my soul, why are

you downcast? Why are you, as if he's talking to us, why are you so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God. He's talking to himself. He's saying, hey there in their soul. Hello,

anyone home? I'm talking to you. Listen. Put your hope in God. Don't listen to what they're

saying. Are you listening to me? Hello, anyone home down there? And he's talking to himself.

And according to Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones, this is exactly what we should do. He writes, we

must talk to ourselves instead of letting ourselves talk to us. Most of our unhappiness

in life is due to the fact that you're listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself.

Rather than listening to those discouraging thoughts, we should be speaking God's truth

to ourselves. Somebody after the first service said, I've heard it said this way, Rob, that

we need to preach the gospel to ourselves. As soon as those inner voices start dragging

you down, say, no, no, no, no, shut up. Listen. Listen, soul. Don't listen to him. Listen

to me. I'm a child of God. I'm made in God's image. God loves me. God's never going to

leave you. This is a strategy. We need to preach to ourselves. We need to talk to ourselves.

That is one of the first treatments for spiritual depression, to remind ourselves about God's

truth. The second thing though is to train our eyes on Jesus. Psalm 42 ends with this

line, put your hope in God for I'll yet praise him, my savior and my God. He's changed his

focus by the end. He's no longer focusing inward. He's focusing upward. He's taking

his eyes off himself and instead training his eyes on God, the savior. Now the Psalmist

doesn't even know what we know. We know that God is such a savior that he sent his one

and only son because he loved the world so much. He sent his one and only son so that

all that believe in him would not perish but have eternal life. Everyone would be saved

through Jesus. So you see, if we train our eyes on Jesus, we train our eyes on our savior

in times of sadness, that can lift us out of despair. Corrie Ten Boom, who found herself

in a concentration camp, she didn't fall into depression. Why? Because she said, if you

look around, you're going to be distressed. If you look within, you're going to be depressed.

But if you look to Jesus, you'll be at rest. So to treat spiritual depression, tell yourself

the truth, train your eyes on Jesus. And finally, think about the future. Both Psalm 42 and

Psalm 43 are sad songs, but they both end with hope about the future. Put your hope

in God for I will yet praise him. This isn't the end of the story yet. There's still more

to come yet. Paul puts it this way. He says, I focus on one thing, forgetting the past

and looking forward to what lies ahead. So friends, whatever's happened in the past,

it's the past. It cannot be changed. But when we focus on the future, gives us hope, gives

us peace, gives us assurance. We know how the story ends. Depression works by saying, you're

stuck in this moment and it's always going to be that way. But the gospel tells us, no,

it's not always going to be this way. God has prepared a place for you. God has a future

for you. Keep your eyes on Jesus and think about your future. That can help lift us up

out of our momentary struggles. So that's why we sing sad songs, because summertime

sadness is a real thing. We get sad. Depression is real. If you are experiencing some of this

deep sadness we've been talking about today, one thing I'd like to offer you is why not

reach out to Trinity? Why not email us at care at trinitiestreetsville.org and maybe

we can connect you with the help that you need. Maybe we can pray with you or put you

into a community of people who can walk with you. But in the meantime, tell yourself the

truth, train your eyes on Jesus and think about your future. Amen.

Thanks again for listening today and we hope you found the sermon both helpful and hopeful.

Come back again next week as we continue singing our way through the book of Psalms. Today's

sermon was taken from the July 28th, 2024 service at Trinity Church, Streetsville in

Mississauga, Ontario.