Ep. 054 Suicidal Tendencies

Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located

in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship

Ministries with 3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism,

discipleship and church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church

and other sermons from throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bigford and I will be your

host for this podcast. I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing

to you and bring you closer to God.

Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. My name again is David

Bigford and I am back. We were at our Chilliwack annual conference just last weekend so I wasn't

able to get a recording in. I apologize for that but we had a great time. We had a new

church sent out to be started in West Edmonton but it will make the third church that we

have in Edmonton so that is very exciting. I am very happy to see new churches getting

planted in this mesh network of our Christian Fellowship Ministries to continue to grow

and continue to see people, disciples, raised up and sent out. I just want to send my blessings

to the new church there and I can't wait to see what they are going to do. The message

I put together today is suicidal tendencies and the subheading for it is going to be stepping

back from the ledge. The text that we will be using as our jumping off point today is

Hebrews 416 so if you are following along you can go ahead and turn there. I found this

illustration I thought would be useful here called On Being Fed Up and it is about Ralph

Barton who was a popular cartoonist from New York and he is reported to have committed

suicide leaving behind his well known and publicized confession. It says, I have had

few real difficulties. I have had on the contrary an exceptionally glamorous life. As life goes

I have had more than my share of affection and appreciation. The most charming, intelligent

and important people that I have known have liked me. I have run from my wife to wife,

from house to house and from country to country in a ridiculous effort to escape myself. No

one thing is responsible for this suicide, no person except myself. I did it because

I am fed up with inventing devices for getting through the 24 hours of a day. This is a horrible

thing to come into grips with. Suicide is something that is just one of the saddest

things that we have to deal with in our lives and humanity and when we see loved ones who

become so lost that they choose to go down this path. We know as Christians that God

the Father and Jesus our Savior desperately want us to reach out to Him and seek salvation

and for Him to relieve that burden from us and to help us. We just cry out and our hearts

go out for people dealing with depression and all of this stuff that can lead to suicidal

thoughts or tendencies. I don't say that as a disclaimer because I don't want to touch

on something that is serious. I definitely want to touch on something that is serious

and that is why I have entitled it Suicidal Tendencies because I want us to remember that

we have the opportunity to pull ourselves back from the ledge by leaning upon Christ.

In our text Hebrews 4.16 it says, Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of

grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in times of need. This is such a critical

thing for us to recognize as we grow within our relationship with our Savior because so

much of our life is spent going from pillar to post and from struggle to struggle. If

you think of Job and how he struggled so much during his time of testing it is very clear

that these are real human emotions that we have to be able to learn to deal with. We

think of it like in our terms of today and a lot of it is going on in our tumultuous

world. When I was writing this sermon it was just after there was an assassination attempt

made on a former President Donald Trump. Whenever something like this happens there is this

race to get details. That usually brings out the weirdest of theories and the most inaccurate

of reporting imaginable. This is a lot like our daily walk with God. We will be going

through our day to day life and then just boom, just like that something hits us out

of nowhere. In these moments we have to make choices. Are we going to stand in faith or

are we going to cave to all the craziness and most self-defeating ideas that are floating

through our minds. Often in life we are torn in two by our burdens. All of the responsibilities

that we have in life and the responsibilities that we take on ourselves can be overwhelming.

The weight can just be a huge burden to bear. We can find ourselves crying out for escape

or release from these responsibilities. This can create a situation where people are willing

to sabotage their lives with the misdirected goal of gaining freedom. We might tell ourselves

it's time to just hit the self-destruct button. This brings me up to our first point of the

morning or the evening whenever you are listening. It is poison of the mind. Expectations are

huge and people have expectations of happiness and emotional fulfillment on a day to day

basis and that can become something that is very unrealistic. Not every day is going to

go as smoothly or as perfectly as we hope. We are all going to have our struggles. When

you are down and out or bored it is usually because you have high standards. It can be

easy to find yourself dealing with dissatisfaction, boredom, wanting more, hoping for something

better or greater. Here is an excerpt from an article I found. This article deals with

the reality that some of the ministry will knowingly or unknowingly decide to sabotage

their own ministry because of poisonous thoughts that they have allowed to grow and fester

in their minds. The title of this article is Why Do Some Pastors Sabotage Their Own

Ministries? It is written by a guy named Stephen or Stefan Woodsworth. As caring new will reflects,

failure is sometimes the quickest escape. When I first started out in the ministry I

had met with a pastor who had just had to resign because of an affair. He was 20 years

my senior and we had met for lunch. I asked him why he had an affair and he told me in

part it was because he couldn't handle the pressure of ministry anymore but couldn't

find an easy way to get out. The affair forced him out. Years later I would discover the

pain of burnout personally. Again this is from a different person. This is an article

I'm reading. If I was so burnt out that an escape from my life looked appealing but by

the grace of God I knew enough to keep my head in the game even though my heart had

stopped working. As a result during my darkest months I kept saying to myself whatever you

do don't do anything rash, don't cheat on your wife, don't quit your job, and don't

buy a sports car. And the simplest term self-sabotage or self-defeating behavior includes any behavior

that undermines a person's own goals. Psychologist Ellen Hendrickson suggests that among other

reasons many people self-sabotage because it gives them a feeling of control over their

situation. She notes it feels better to control your own failure at least when you're steering

the ship. Going down in flames feels more like a well-maintained burn. As the article

goes along it describes that some will sell will sabotage themselves due to insecurity.

They say that this can be described as imposter syndrome. Feeling like a fraud can easily

lead you towards procrastination or diversion. When faced with a task that makes you feel

like a phony it's tempting or alluring to start some kind of other project or busy work.

So I can recognize this in my own life. It manifests in many different ways. I know I

have to do X but instead I'll go or clean or organize or cook or do any number of things

instead of what I know I should be doing. This always happens around tax time too if

I can admit that because who wants to sit down and try to deal with federal forms? It's

probably one of the most arduous boring and painful things that you can imagine doing

but it has to be done but we will put it off because we don't want to get it we don't want

to face that. It makes you feel insignificant or phony because you're like wow what is this

form how hard this is such a difficult form how do they expect me to do any of this stuff?

So we always find ways to avoid it but others will still will sabotage to try and gain some

sort of equilibrium. We all battle the feelings of inadequacy from time to time and in those

moments we might look to the ledge and think that it is the easiest way out. We need to

remember that God has our best interests at heart but these feelings are not new or unique

to us. The Bible gives us many examples of those who have dealt with similar feelings

and struggles. Even our Lord Jesus had to go through emotional and physical battles

in Jeremiah 29 11 we read for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans for

welfare and not for evil to give you a future and hope. So as I was putting this message

together together I found this prayer that I'm going to share with you because I believe

it helps us to reframe our thoughts in a way that will help move us along to my next point.

It says here Father you would reassure that you have plans to give me a hope and a future

Jeremiah 29 11 but I feel as though my days have no meaning. Job 7 15 through 16. Holy

Spirit I invite your truth to sink into the sorrow soaked places of my heart and mind.

Jesus in your darkest valley you experienced emotional language and wept tears of blood.

I know you understand my pain and that you promise life abundantly like what is written

in John 10 10 but the one who comes to steal kill and destroy taunts me with the untruth

that is all there is to life. I cry out to you. I do believe help my unbelief as you

tell us in Mark 9 24. Today I lay my pain at your feet as a living sacrifice. Help me

to take every thought captive like you tell us to in 2nd Corinthians 10 5 and by your

strength choose life in the powerful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. So this brings me to

my next point which is gratitude. You have to get back to gratitude. You have to strive

to be content. Being content is not the same as being complacent. You have to actively

remind yourself of your blessings. You have to remember that your Father in heaven cares

deeply for you. I know this is a hard thing for us to understand. It can be a harder thing

for us to conceptualize or to put into practice but you do have the ability to focus on the

good rather than the bad. To focus on the good direction God has for you rather than

maybe the negative direction you've gone in the past or that you feel like you're on now.

That's why the importance of reading the word of God is so powerful in praying and just

really sitting in meditation of the word of God. So in this in guidepost there's this

article I came across from Ronald Pinkerton where he describes a near accident he had

while hang gliding. He had launched his hang glider and been forcefully lifted up to 4,200

feet into the air and as he was descending he was suddenly hit by a powerful new blast

of air that sent his hang glider plummeting towards the ground. He says I was falling

at an alarming rate trapped in an airborne riptide. I was going to crash. Then I saw

a red-tailed hawk he says. He was six feet off my wingtip fighting the same gust. I was

looking down at 300 feet from the ground and still falling fast. The trees below seemed

like menacing pikes. He looked at the hawk again. Suddenly he banked and flew straight

down straight downwind downwind straight down. The right air is anywhere. It's got to be

up when he's telling himself. So he's thinking that during this tale that the hawk is willing

is committing suicide. Two hundred feet come up from no from out of nowhere. The thought

entered his mind. Follow the hawk. It went against everything he knew about flying but

now all of his knowledge was useless. He was at the mercy of the wind. He followed the

hawk 100 feet and then all of a sudden suddenly the hawk gained altitude for a split second

it seemed to be suspended motionless in space. Then a warm surge of air started pushing the

glider upward. He was stunned. Nothing he knew as a pilot could explain this phenomenon.

But it was true. He was rising on on occasion. We also deal with these similar downdrafts

in our lives and the reversals in our fortune the humiliating experiences. We want to lift

ourselves up but God's word like the red-tailed hawk tells us to do just the opposite. God's

word tells us to dive in to humble ourselves under the hand of God. If we humble ourselves

God will send the thermal wind that will lift us up. I really like this story when I was

a in middle school in California at sixth and seventh grade I believe I was part of

a model. It was a glider club so it wasn't remote control planes. They didn't have engines

these remote control gliders. You have to use a tow line to get this this glider up

into the air or you had to throw it off a cliff. Having faith that when you throw it

off this big huge cliff you're going to be able to catch the thermals to be able to get

the glider up in the air. You're going to circle it up into a thermal just like in our

story which the thermal is pretty simple it's just a warmer chamber of air that's kind of

coming up off the ground and allows you to get better lift. But you you fly this glider

around in the air like this hang glider and if you hit a cold patch of air you start losing

altitude and you have to kind of try to you know dive down and try to catch another thermal

otherwise your flight is over. Now with us we were in big fields or we were able to land

these gliders whenever we wanted to but it's still like you had to know what to look for

you had to watch if there were birds around what they were doing so that you could gauge

what was going on. It's like in this tale we have to humble ourselves and know that

God has something better for us and just because we hit a cold patch it doesn't mean that there

isn't something better on the horizon. Luke 18 9 through 14 says he also told this parable

to some who trust in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.

Two men went up into the temple to pray one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus God I thank you that I am not like other men

extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. Fast I fast twice

a week I give tithes of all that I get but the tax collector standing far off would not

even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying God be merciful to me a sinner.

I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other man for everyone

who exalts himself will be humbled but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. James

410 says humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. These are powerful

pieces of scripture that highlight to us the problems that we run into when we are dealing

with these other words, these thoughts that come into our head they often times try to

get you to be lofted up because it's easy to knock you down from pride but when we remain

humble humbly before the Lord we can battle against this. We can battle against this.

In Philippians 418 it says finally brothers whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever

is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence,

if there is anything worthy of praise think about these things. Dr. Daniel Amon calls

negative thoughts ants, A-N-T-S, shorthand for automatic negative thoughts. Just as we

would like we would take action to remove actual ants in our space we should intentionally

remove negative thoughts from our headspace. But why is it important to break the cycle

of negative thinking in the first place and how do we get rid of negative thoughts? Negative

thought patterns steal our joy. They feed us lies and keep us from rightly worshiping

God. Have you ever noticed that it's much easier to see what is wrong in the world than

what is right? We can't help but see how our spouse loads the dishwasher imperfectly

or you know we hate how that person in front of us pushes the brakes before moving into

the turn lane. It irks us when we don't quite compare with the other moms or dads at school.

All day we are bombarded with thoughts and if left unchecked we become anxious and discontent.

Negative thinking turns into anxiety creating a compound effect that makes us feel more

and more defeated. How do we get rid of these negative thoughts? God doesn't want us to

exist this way. He doesn't want us to be hyper focused on all that is broken in the world.

He knows we enjoy life and our relationships more fully when we praise him. That's why

he calls us to lean on him to praise him. How do we eliminate the ants then? The truth

is we won't be able to get rid ourselves of all these toxic thoughts completely. But

we can practice breaking the cycle. We can imagine putting a giant barrier in the middle

of a stream of ants to reroute them back outside where they belong. We do this by following

Paul's commandment in Philippians 418. Instead of ruminating in all the ways life isn't

measuring up, how life isn't perfect, we can think about what is true, what is honorable,

what is lovely, what is pure, the admirable things. We dwell in the things that are excellent

and worthy of our praise. This first can serve as a litmus test when you notice negative

thoughts. You can ask, is this true? Is this worthy of my time, my attention? We can ask

God to help us to notice what is true, honorable, pure, and lovely. And as we notice those things,

we can thank God for them. We can find our joy in his presence. In Psalm 1611 it says,

You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is a fullness of joy.

At your right hand are the pleasures forevermore. No one likes when ants get into the house,

and neither should we tolerate ants in our minds. By understanding how negative thinking

harms our souls and intercepting those with better thoughts, we can finally break the

cycle of negative thinking. One of the ways you can deal with this in your own life is

you can make a gratitude list. What we started today in church is we actually put out a prayer

list. I got this from one of the pastors in our fellowship, Dean Dumont in the Hope Church.

We put out a prayer list so that we can write out our prayers, the things that we need so

that each of us can ask for prayer. But we can also check off and say that's an answered

prayer. So that as we create this list, we're going to see not only the needs that we can

bear together in Jesus' name as a church body, but also we can praise God and glorify God

for the answers to prayers as they come through. Such a powerful thing. I really commend Pastor

Dean Dumont for putting that together. It was something that was really neat. I don't

know if it was his idea or someone in his church's, but I know he listens to podcasts

and I really appreciated learning that. It was a really cool thing to see.

With a gratitude list, there's something similar that we can do for ourselves. So when you're

all doing your own prayer list, when you're doing your own prayer, you can thank God for

the things that he has done because this will help you to increase in joy. Because as you

think about what is good, you train your mind to notice more and more of what is good and

lovely in your life. That brings me to my final point, which is redirecting your attitude.

As Christians, we need to direct our focus on those around us. We need to look to service

others. I use this analogy in sales quite a bit because I've worked in sales for a number

of years and it's been pretty interesting what you come across with different people.

I actually tell my boss this quite a bit. When a salesperson is getting depressed, it's

because they are not out visiting their customers. They're not out there looking to others and

how they could be a service to those they are supposed to be serving. You need to get

back out into the front line. You need to go look at the lives that are changed by the

gospel of Jesus Christ. Just like at sales, if you go out and you're actually going with

a servant's heart to help somebody, then you can go back to those people time and time

again and they'll bring you joy because you know you've done the best that you can for

them.

So as you bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to people and you see lives change, then when

you look back on that, it will bring you joy.

So there's another article I found from Camilla Klein, Discover the Importance of Christian

Service for Your Spiritual Growth. It says, Christian service is more than just volunteering

or helping out in the community. It's about living out the teachings of Jesus and putting

your faith into action. Service is at the core of what it means to be a Christian and

it's an important aspect of spiritual growth and sustainment. Through service, we can show

God's love to others and make a positive impact on the world. It is an opportunity to use

our gifts and talents and to serve others to bring glory to God. Matthew 25, 40 says,

And the King will answer them. Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least

of these, my brothers, you did it to me. Christian service is also an act of humility. It allows

us to put others before ourselves and to recognize that we are all equal in God's eyes. It's

a way to step outside of our own needs and desires and to focus in on the needs of others.

By serving others, we can also experience a sense of joy and fulfillment. There's something

powerful about helping someone in need and it can bring a sense of purpose to our lives.

As Mother Teresa once said, I found the paradox that if you love until it hurts, there can

be no more hurt, only more love. Ultimately, Christian service is about following the example

of Jesus. Through his life, Jesus showed us how to love and serve others and his ultimate

act of service was giving his life on the cross for our sins. As his followers, we are

called to follow in his footsteps and serve others with humility and love. So as we come

to a close, I want to take a minute to recap and reconstitute this message. We all have

to battle negative thoughts and we have all found ourselves standing on a ledge emotionally

from time to time. It is important to understand that this is not an unexpected occurrence.

We live in a fallen world. Sin permeates and corrupts all of creation. That is why God

through his Holy Spirit has provided us with the word and our savior, Jesus Christ. Throughout

the Bible, we read about leaders of our faith that are being tested. Tales of trial and

calamity, success and failure fill the pages of the Bible. The story of Job is there for

us when we are going through tough, tough times. But we also have lamentations and psalms

and many other places that we can look at when we are struggling because we have to

understand those are real feelings. Even our Lord Jesus Christ had to deal with extreme

anguish when he came to earth. The sacrifice of our Lord, our God Jesus Christ is also

a picture of humility and something that we should not take lightly. We need to reframe

our negative thoughts into the gratitude for what he did for us. We need to stop this cycle

of negative thoughts and refocus on the many blessings that we have in the Lord. The sacrifice

that he has made for us and that others make for us as well. Finally, the lesson we learned

from our Lord Jesus to get back out to the front line. We need to learn from his example

and serve those around us. We need to take part in the Great Commission and focus our

efforts on the kingdom. Sometimes you might hear me or others say that you need to learn

to enjoy the process rather than just looking for the result. This simply means that there

are times in life when it might seem like it is all for nothing. But those thoughts

are lies. Just like when you plant a seed, you can see what is happening. You will water

the seed for days and still nothing is happening. But eventually you will see this tiny little

sprout. Even then, it might be years before it bears any fruit. So in final closing, when

you think of a cultivated pearl, these are the pearls that are kept in captivity basically

to create cultivated pearls. They typically create pearls faster than those that are created

in nature. But even then, even with the irritant placed inside of the pearl so that they will

produce the pearl in itself, it takes up to four years before those pearls can become

harvestable. Four years of nothing for the payoff that comes with the pearl. So with

that, if I could have every head bowed, every eye closed, the reality is that we already

have the precious pearl. And that is our Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice that he made

on the cross at Calvary for us. He already died for us. He already rose from the grave

so that we could accept grace in his name and be saved by the blood of the Lamb. That

is the pearl, the precious, precious pearl of the gospel. So with that in mind, if you

know you're not right with God today and this message has stirred you and you want to get

your heart right, you want to give your life to Jesus Christ, maybe you're on the ledge

and you see just the glimmer of hope, I want you to grab a hold of that because that hope's

name is Jesus. Jesus Christ died for you, my friend, just like he died for me and saved

me from a life of anger and drunkenness. He can do the same for you. He can pull you back

off that ledge. But don't let the moment pass. If that's you and you know that your heart's

not right and you're feeling convicted, I want you to signify that with an uplifted

hand wherever you are because God can see it. God sees everything. If you rose your

hand and you meant that, I want you just to repeat this simple prayer. It's just a confession

basically of what we talked about already. But just say, Dear Lord God, I know that I'm

a sinner, but I know that you sent your son Jesus, that he died for my sins. I accept

him as my Lord and savior and I repent. I turn away from my sins in Jesus name. Amen.

That simple prayer is just a confession of your sin. It's a humility. Know in the knowledge

that you need Jesus to be your savior. If you prayed that, I just wish I really pray

that you reach out to me, reach out to one of us and we'll get back to you. We can help

get you in contact with the church because that's really what the church is there for

us so that we all bond together so that we can grow in Jesus name. But I really want

to commend you for taking that leap of faith to step back from the ledge, but now to rely

on Jesus as your Lord and savior. So again, thank you for listening to this message today

and we're going to go ahead and get going here and I just want to thank everybody for

listening. Make sure you like, share and subscribe to podcasts. It helps us get the message out

and again, God bless you. Can't wait for you to come back next time.

Thank you for listening to the P.H.S.A. Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. Be sure to follow

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doing. Join the conversation and discover how Jesus Christ can revolutionize your life.