East of Eden: Depression

[SPEAKER_00]: On November 15th, 1731, a man named William Cooper was born.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now his name is actually spelled as spelled as it looks like Calper.

[SPEAKER_00]: You guys think Calper, it looks like Calper, which is always funny, but it's actually pronounced Cooper.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he was born into a wealthy family and his dad was a pastor or a clergyman, how they were said.

[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't like this.

[SPEAKER_00]: This parse stage is almost like a state that you have as a pastor.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, simply, while off, but if you asked him later in life, he might have told you it would have been better if he was never born.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's because when he was 60 years old, his mother died, and he already had five of his siblings died in infancy.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when his mom died, his father, who was not...

[SPEAKER_00]: seemingly a very caring man sent him off to boarding school, at six years old, for spring maybe seven years old, and Bradford's mom died.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at boarding school, he was bowling abuse in ways we're not really exactly sure the sense of it, but very painfully by a older boy who's 15 years old, and went on for quite a while.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he faced a lot of trauma and hardship early on in life,

[SPEAKER_00]: And this led to a lifelong struggle for William Cooper with depression, and there was four really intense periods of this throughout his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of these was in 1763.

[SPEAKER_00]: Ladies, you had older now, and it's later 20s, I'm pretty sure, and actually that would be his almost 30 years old.

[SPEAKER_00]: I used about to get a huge promotion in Parliament because he was born in England.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the pressure scared him so much to the degree that he had a mental breakdown and he tried to give it suicide in three different ways, put poison by hanging himself in another way.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that that point was cut off from all public life and he's overcame with guilt for trying to murder himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this left him even deeper in despair that his nights were either sleepless or full of terrifying dreams.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you've committed to an insane asylum, which was not always good place to be back then.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were soon as really bad places.

[SPEAKER_00]: But while in the asylum, a Christian charge named Dr. Cotton shared the gospel repeated through which him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And gave him bibles, and as he read passages like John 11,

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, the hope, the kindness, the tenderness, the gentleness of the Savior.

[SPEAKER_00]: I saw there raising Lazarus from the dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Jellon was about.

[SPEAKER_00]: He started to melt my heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he read from his three.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it says that Jesus, beginning the propagation of sacrifice, that takes away our own guilt.

[SPEAKER_00]: All our shame, our punishment, but evil things we've done.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so he finally found the joy of our assurance and forgiveness that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we might think that after this conversion in the asylum, his struggle with depression would end, but that's not how things played out.

[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of his life he faced this struggle.

[SPEAKER_00]: He believed that God was gracious and could save the worst of sinners that would never cast out those who came to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He had solid or formed theality like what we have in this church.

[SPEAKER_00]: He believed that God would those of me say we'll always be saved.

[SPEAKER_00]: He thought God had just given up on him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He would doubt whether those promises were him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he could have heard of John Newton, the author of the him amazing grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was also, he also his mom died six years old, and he was a slave trader with his dad, but God saved him and he became a pastor.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was, after Cooper got out of the asylum, he was living with his family called Unland family, really kind family and Christian family.

[SPEAKER_00]: But the father of his family who's also the husband, he died.

[SPEAKER_00]: And no, the pastor in that region didn't really care about them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were going to help them.

[SPEAKER_00]: But John Devenen was such a kind of hearing pastor.

[SPEAKER_00]: But even though with his region, he came over there to take care of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they just grew into love for John Devenen that they had actually moved into the region where his parish was.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what happened was for about 13 years, they were living there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And John Devenen, who were became very close friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when the Cooper was always despairing, always doubting,

[SPEAKER_00]: Never really sure if he could trust God or have any hope for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they wrote actually a hymn book together, the only hymn though.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of my favorite hymn were written by William Cooper.

[SPEAKER_00]: This man who was like, trying to give him a press, there's a common skill with blood.

[SPEAKER_00]: You probably never heard of that hint, one of my favorites.

[SPEAKER_00]: Another one got news in a mysterious way.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the greatest hymn ever about God's purposes in suffer.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would encourage you to look that up.

[SPEAKER_00]: God news in a mysterious way.

[SPEAKER_00]: They wrote those hymns together, and all at any time when John and I were going to group with South Korean John and I were in Councilor.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even when he moved away in 1780, still for the next 20 years, John, you can kept up course bonds with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you would think he would have given up on William Cooper, this guy just seemed like a hopeless case.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he didn't.

[SPEAKER_00]: He kept loving him, kept giving him hope, kept encouraging him and the promises of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: It gave William Cooper a little bit of hope to hold on to her.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote so many poems about his suffering, about his pain and grief, but there was always a little bit of hope in it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he died, still mostly despair.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he had enough hope to hold on to that we know now his despair is all over.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he has four perfect joy in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's hope that little ties you to hope has been realized.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now he's perfect with Jesus in heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was the help of John Newton that helped him persevere to the end, trusting in Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: John Newton helped to peek through the dark clouds and see a little razor sunshine from Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: So today, we're talking about depression.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a lot more complicated than sometimes we think it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're done on how to deal with the full spectrum of negative emotions that it entails, which means this applies to all of us, because we all have grief or sorrow or doneness in our hearts sometimes sadness, apathy, and so my goals that we'd understand are depression better.

[SPEAKER_00]: We find hope in these troubles, and also learn how to give hope to others who are suffering through this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's personal for me because I had a friend who was wrestling with this and I spent some time for, I don't know, the year, talking with him through it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was hard for him to accept, but his new Donis is doing better now.

[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, let's turn the Psalm 77, the great Psalm to think through this issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever we're dealing with grief and sorrow and heart emotional, Psalms are always a good place to go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Psalm 77, first one.

[SPEAKER_00]: I cry aloud to God, aloud to God and He will hear me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will hear me.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord, in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying.

[SPEAKER_00]: My soul refuses to be comforted.

[SPEAKER_00]: Try to feel this man's emotions as he's praying.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I remember God, I'm alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I meditate, when I try to do spiritual things, my spirit fangs.

[SPEAKER_00]: You hold my eyelids open.

[SPEAKER_00]: I take it, sleep at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

[SPEAKER_00]: I considered the days of old, the years long ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said, let me remember my song in the night.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me meditate in my heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then my spirit made a diligent search, with a Lord's spirit forever and never again be favorable.

[SPEAKER_00]: As his steadfast love forever ceased, ours promises at an end for all time.

[SPEAKER_00]: has got forgotten to be gracious as the anger set up his compassion, and those that say long.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we've got this grief, his spirit is crushed.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's really doubting whether anything he believes about that is true, whether God really loves him and cares for him is gracious and compassionate.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what does he do?

[SPEAKER_00]: He preaches to himself.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then I said, I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the most high.

[SPEAKER_00]: God is a good track record of being faithful even in really dark circumstances.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will remember the deeds of the Lord, yes, I will remember your wonders of old.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your way O God is holy.

[SPEAKER_00]: What God is great like our God?

[SPEAKER_00]: You and the God who works wonders.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have made known your might among the peoples.

[SPEAKER_00]: You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now you're going to talk about the excess.

[SPEAKER_00]: When the waters saw you, oh God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid.

[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, the deep fremble.

[SPEAKER_00]: The clouds poured out water.

[SPEAKER_00]: The skies gave forth thunder.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your arrows flashed on every side.

[SPEAKER_00]: The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your lightings lighted up the whirlwind.

[SPEAKER_00]: The earth trembled in shook.

[SPEAKER_00]: your way was through the sea, you're path through the great waters, yet your footprints weren't seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's play one more time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, thank you for your words.

[SPEAKER_00]: Please guide me and instruct us today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our hearts are here right, humble to receive.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to receive your comforts and our suffering and pain, and also be equipped to share those comforts of promises and your hope with other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: So help us to that Lord, and we all say together, G is made, amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, at first point is this, voice your troubles.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't keep quiet about them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't pretend you don't have problems.

[SPEAKER_00]: Voice your troubles.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what you'll notice about the Psalms often is that they are a lot more raw and improper, we might say, that we are today in how we talk about talk to and about God.

[SPEAKER_00]: They don't feel the need to say the same old cliches and try Krishna's saying, every time they talk about God or talk to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: They just tell God how they really feel and then they ask him for help.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how the Psalms are.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they're just a book of prayers.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's got a model of how he should pray to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they believe that he does hear, and he will help.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the first verse says.

[SPEAKER_00]: Says like, cry, allow to God, allow to God, and he will hear me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's hard to believe the God will hear our prayers.

[SPEAKER_00]: From whatever we've heard from many of you, maybe on two sinful, or like, wow, even here, he's got it, and I'm just a human.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, no, I know who got it, he will hear.

[SPEAKER_00]: God does care.

[SPEAKER_00]: much of good days in your bad days.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will hear me.

[SPEAKER_00]: This almost has this confidence in God that God will hear but why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because He knows God's character.

[SPEAKER_00]: He knows that God cares.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not distant and disinterested.

[SPEAKER_00]: He treasures and watches over his children.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we know about God.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what can encourage us to pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm coming to my father who's a good father.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not like

[SPEAKER_00]: Um, he's like some of the fathers in this world, but better, just no father's world is perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: And some of them have really heard us in ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them are the reason we have depression, or at least part of the reason.

[SPEAKER_00]: But he's a good father.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your wobble leaving this and starting with an initial statement of trust, he's not afraid to admit that's not easy for him to seek and trust the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just like it's not easy for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says in the next verse, in the day of my trouble, I seek the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the night, my hand is stretched out without re-remain.

[SPEAKER_00]: My soul refuses to be comforted.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I remember God, I'm alone when I meditate.

[SPEAKER_00]: My spirit thanks.

[SPEAKER_00]: And depression would certainly count as this day of trouble.

[SPEAKER_00]: These are often called by external trouble.

[SPEAKER_00]: Things happen to you, like the loss of someone you really care about or love, or someone really hurting you, of using you in some way, that can lead to just deep grief, at least depression or guilt and shame, at least to depression, there's so many factors that can lead to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: It can be a day of trouble, but a long, long day sometimes.

[SPEAKER_00]: It starts off external, a lot of times, but then becomes internal.

[SPEAKER_00]: It becomes trouble and just it ongoing inside in our hearts.

[SPEAKER_00]: This trouble, the heart can vary in frequency.

[SPEAKER_00]: It can be something that we rarely experience anything at all like depression, or we're experiencing it all the time, instigable.

[SPEAKER_00]: It can be

[SPEAKER_00]: that we, it's given a frequency and intensity.

[SPEAKER_00]: It can be that it's barely perceptible for some people, or overwhelming and debilitating for other people, so they can barely even function at some points of their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Most of us are not in that rare or very perceptible position.

[SPEAKER_00]: We all struggle with grief or sorrow at different points our life.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a spectrum at how we experience this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, all experience days of trouble.

[SPEAKER_00]: So how shall we handle it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Notice what he says.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, my soul refuses to be comforted.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's often how it is for people that are depressed.

[SPEAKER_00]: They feel like they can't experience even good or bad emotions.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's so many different dimensions to it, but we should seek the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we should do when to handle suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see that he is trying to seek God a prayer and trying to meditate on God's truth, but he finds no comfort in it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, he only gets more weird.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's losing motivation.

[SPEAKER_00]: If he ever been greeted like this, that you'd like to any motivation to seek the Lord or spend time in his word.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes, while we experience in the world it can just crush us, so that we lose all motivation.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says that his soul refuses to be confident like I said before.

[SPEAKER_00]: The truth is that promises a scripture that once a baby refresh, delighted and made him happy, they not feel empty and hollowed to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: This resembles the common scripture of depression, to be one aspect of it is numbness, just a complete lack of feeling.

[SPEAKER_00]: We often think of depression as sadness, which that's often what it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes it's more than it's like not anything of the feel sad or happy.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just numb, like nothing matters.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then apathy, very close to related, would be another feature, is the lack of care for the things that we should really shit care about, like God.

[SPEAKER_00]: We don't care about the Bible, don't care about prayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe don't even care about a family that much.

[SPEAKER_00]: We just lose care for anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then sadness, it's this actual viewing and kind of low-grade, always there, sorrow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Another would be lack of pleasure.

[SPEAKER_00]: The things that we use to enjoy, don't bring us happiness anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about this, guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's people you know, people in this room, who often feel this way.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're talking about this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we want them to have hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want all of us to find hope in these kind of troubles and to be able to give hope to them as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: Another common feature depression is extreme fatigue, hyper insomnia, like an inability to actually go to sleep and just being exhausted all the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this almost actually addresses that, in the next verse saying, you hold my eyelids open.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a funny image, but you're saying, God, you're not letting me get any sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm always, I'm always, yes, some of you guys need to hold your eyelids open right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: I actually make you up to sleep during the sermon, but he's saying,

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it was sleep at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have a sleepless night or I go to sleep and I have terrifying horror fine dreams that make things even worse for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then it becomes endless cycle.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because depression, the way it is like physically in your brain, it kind of throws off all the cycles of your sleep so that it makes it hard to sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then when you don't sleep,

[SPEAKER_00]: what can't keep your brain healthy.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's an endless cycle back and forth.

[SPEAKER_00]: Depression, heart, sleep, and sleep makes your depression worse.

[SPEAKER_00]: And your sorrow works.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need sleep, God made it for a good reason.

[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a spiraling effect.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all this trouble and turmoil is hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's worse than by in thinking about how things once were in his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: There was one to time in his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: When he felt close to God, it was not burdened by so many troubles.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this can make the troubles feel even heavier.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, see that in verse 5 and 6.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I considered the days of old, the years long ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I remember kind of my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why is he so joyful?

[SPEAKER_00]: So I used to be so fired up for God and loved Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I used to have everything we need to be going great.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was happy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I consider those days of old, long ago, because it doesn't, it's not how it is now, it feels like.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember when God used to feel close, and now it feels far away?

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I remember, I said, let me remember my song in the night.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let me meditate in my heart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then my spirit made a diligent search.

[SPEAKER_00]: And often, these kinds of reasons have been said at least to question whether guiding cares for us anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what you see in these next questions, yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, with a Lord's sperm forever, and never gonna be favorable.

[SPEAKER_00]: Panel like a friend who got in over to you and every time you try to talk to them, they just kind of push you away, give you the cold shoulder.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, let's help, it feels like God is to me right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is he gonna stay that way forever?

[SPEAKER_00]: And my never again gonna get to experience God's presence and enjoy it knowing him?

[SPEAKER_00]: Will he never gonna be favorable?

[SPEAKER_00]: Has this steadfast love forever ceased?

[SPEAKER_00]: See, there's a funny question

[SPEAKER_00]: will cease forever, while I ever experience God's love again.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how we improve our belt.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, yeah, I know it's a turn of love, but not for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our promise is, which God is truly cannot lie.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will never go back as world.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, our promise is an end for all time, has God forgotten to be gracious.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because that's often how it feels.

[SPEAKER_00]: has eaten anger, shut up his compassion.

[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever felt like that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Have those questions ever been so that you could have said?

[SPEAKER_00]: Has got anger, shut up his compassion?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does he even care about me anymore?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or have I just put up them so much by all the evil things, all the wrong things have done, that he's just, he's got no more room for compassion in his heart towards me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And often when we have such thoughts of despair like that, we just lose hope altogether.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why the last elements of depression are one thoughts on the desirability of death.

[SPEAKER_00]: If that's how life is, I don't even know if it's worth living anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: And people and I will talk to about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Joe talked about that in Joe three other places and I can't remember exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jeremiah talked about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And many people mentioned that because they suffered so much in their life and they said, God, why was I even born?

[SPEAKER_00]: If length is going to be like this for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So people have thoughts in the desire to believe that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not as dangerous as when it gets to the next stage of suicidal thoughts when they start actually planning.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the way that if you, at the rest of the person do this, are actually planning how they might attempt to end their life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Guys, people in our groups are struggling with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And our job is not to judge, but to come alongside them and help them, because they need our help.

[SPEAKER_00]: We all need each other to help the different stages.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that can be more dangerous.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's only really need help from other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what do we do when things reach this level, up to Spader, and Sadness in our lives?

[SPEAKER_00]: What do we do whenever we are experiencing it,

[SPEAKER_00]: That's point number two.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember your Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember your Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember who he is that he is faithful.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's in verse 10.

[SPEAKER_00]: The house where we respond to the depression.

[SPEAKER_00]: We must remember that we are made with both body and soul.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're not merely spiritual beings, we're not merely physical beings, or just brains with brain chemistry.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's why sensuous psychologists are therapists often get things wrong, because they assume that humans don't have a soul or spiritual dimension.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if they give you counsel, they're going to say you're just body's in brain chemistry and maybe you need some therapeutic talk, which that would be helpful.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing wrong with that, it can be helpful.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's better than nothing for sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: God has given time of grace to help anybody's struggling with depression.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that's a problem, because humans are not just bodies, not just brains with brain chemistry, we also have souls.

[SPEAKER_00]: But some Christians can emphasize that to the neglect of our bodies.

[SPEAKER_00]: We get an attitude that all depression, which is say as a result of sin, is a purely spiritual problem that can be easily remedy if you have enough faith and no enough Bible verses.

[SPEAKER_00]: But both of these approaches have an naive understanding of human nature and our fallenness.

[SPEAKER_00]: and how broken we are because of the fall.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, there is a physical side to the pressure.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why sometimes the best thing that a press person can do is go outside and get some sunshine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Get some exercise, like get a routine of exercise and try to get a good, sweet schedule.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now that's hard to do, because you lose all motivation and you're depressed.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to do any of those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: But those are helpful.

[SPEAKER_00]: But just beware of the fact that these meds, and then another thing you can take meds, those are how full can be to extend.

[SPEAKER_00]: They can calm the trouble waters and the hearts so we can get to the root of the spiritual problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: But just beware of the fact that these meds can have other bad side effects.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that sometimes doctors are often too quick to prescribe medications without thinking about a more holistic approach to a whole problem of what's going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: but we do need it, it puts all the especially if it's leading us to maybe harm ourselves if our depression is.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there's also spiritual side to depression.

[SPEAKER_00]: And part of that is, often our feelings of depression and despair are because of misplaced rival hopes.

[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the reason we're depressed is because we misplaced our hope in, we want to be popular.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want to perform, we want to be really good school, like so for me, when

[SPEAKER_00]: I've noticed that I really looked getting the best grades for all my classes as I was in college and secondary.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so if I, I got like, I took a quiz and I got like 98% instead of 99%, 99.9%, or whatever percent.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, what's going on?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm getting kind of anxious and freaked out and I'm like, I'm idealizing this thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: If it's crushing me like this, then I'm so afraid of getting a, like, slightly

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a misplaced hope and so there's often things in our life like I've also when I had my voice injury and I started to really stand and rest because I couldn't be out of front anymore I couldn't be talking to people to be more visible in my role that's sure my hope is in being seen my others I want to be seen and improved and as a righteous guy and religious guy and when you have your hopes in these things that can't sustain it and actually they're going to be popped

[SPEAKER_00]: and they're in costume.

[SPEAKER_00]: They get in at my misplaced hopes, I like this little balloon you're holding onto.

[SPEAKER_00]: A helium balloon.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you keep inflating it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then it floats up from the air.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you feel so good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it floating up the air until it pops?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you fall and it goes flat on the ground.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you're impressed.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need sun and hang on to.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not just a little, maybe helium balloon.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need the Lord's help.

[SPEAKER_00]: We need him to be our anchor.

[SPEAKER_00]: And our rock that we stand upon, rather than floating on this balloon.

[SPEAKER_00]: of misplaced talk.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, so think about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why am I depressed all the time?

[SPEAKER_00]: I am always a trust.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you put your hopes in these that can't hold you up.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's just like a little limb that's got a top.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to stand on a rock.

[SPEAKER_00]: You need to put your hope in the only one you can really hold you up.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, how do we do this?

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we see in the Psalm, preach it to yourself, pray the Psalms and preach yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the two ways we can do this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pray the Psalms and preach yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Look at verse 10.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then I said,

[SPEAKER_00]: He's remembering the Lord, I will appeal to this to the years of the right hand of the most high.

[SPEAKER_00]: That has shown himself to be trustworthy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've remembered the deeds of the Lord, is I'll remember your wonders of old life.

[SPEAKER_00]: God, you've done things in the past that should make our jaws drop.

[SPEAKER_00]: Should leave us amazed at your power and your love to say, I'll ponder all you work in, meant to you on your mightedies.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's how you set your feet upon a rock.

[SPEAKER_00]: You think about who God is?

[SPEAKER_00]: His character.

[SPEAKER_00]: His saving action, his faithfulness, and how it's been shown everything he's done.

[SPEAKER_00]: He said, you're a way your God is holy.

[SPEAKER_00]: What means holy means there's no one like him.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's distinct.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's set apart.

[SPEAKER_00]: What God is great, like dark God.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's incomparable.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no one like him.

[SPEAKER_00]: It means he also doesn't always perform according to our expectations.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because he's not like us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Regardless of what leaves us to grasp, because we want him to be just like our little light.

[SPEAKER_00]: and will meet who aren't and the better for us in the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were the God who works wonders.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have made known your might among the people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when you see, when you think back about all the ways guys are faithful to people in the path, maybe you read it's Christian biography or you read the Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great book to read, I have to recommend it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You'll be like, wait a minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen people like Joe, like Joseph, who were down in the pit before, but God brought them up.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can do the same for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's showing self-fatal through subprayer.

[SPEAKER_00]: He can do it again.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I would encourage you to play the songs.

[SPEAKER_00]: I once had a really dark season as the middle of winter.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no sunshine.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I was just often just feeling depressed and low and depressed and fully Dallas, far away, and didn't care about me.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was so hard for me to read the Bible or pray or anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so what I do is I get out my Bible, and I'll just pray through the songs, I read the verse, and then you kind of put in my own words and pray to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you'd be like, you would say, like verse 13, your way of God is holy, what God is great like our God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, God, your way is holy, there's no one like you, there's no one's great like our God.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're beyond my mind's ability to comprehend

[SPEAKER_00]: And you just kind of work off of what the word says and you pray that back to God and helps get your mind in your, helps get your mind thinking the right way.

[SPEAKER_00]: But also, you can pray versus seven through nine.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like God, are you gonna spurn me forever?

[SPEAKER_00]: Are you ever gonna be favorable to me again?

[SPEAKER_00]: Do I have to keep looking at this?

[SPEAKER_00]: You can pray that to God.

[SPEAKER_00]: The songs can teach you how to pray.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're going through sorrows or depression, I'd encourage you to pray the songs.

[SPEAKER_00]: but then also preach to yourself, preach to yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've probably heard that before, preach the gospel to yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: We should be doing it every day because every day we need the boards of grace.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you see in this passage, this author thought back to the Exodus, because if you're in the Old Testament, the great example of God's salvation was the Exodus.

[SPEAKER_00]: With your arm, you redeem your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then he describes the Exodus, so the flood and all those things.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what he thought back to.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we can think that to God's great new Exodus, this is a phony accomplished in Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were enslaved to sin, like these lights and slaves of the Egyptians, but Jesus came down, he visited us.

[SPEAKER_00]: He actually cared about us enough to come down, to see us in our suffering, to share in our suffering.

[SPEAKER_00]: to live 30 years among us, never sinned, and then to die for us, even though always closes friends betrayed him.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we were never to betray him, and run away from him as well, then the die for us say Father forgive him for they know not what they do.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even I've been going to get 70.

[SPEAKER_00]: He offered up loud times and tears to him who was able to say him from death.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was heard because of his ribbons.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus, often prayed in agony just like Psalm 77.

[SPEAKER_00]: This could have been with the prayer Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like God, whatever it be favorable to me to get think of him on the cross, the agony he felt.

[SPEAKER_00]: Separated and cut off from God because he was bearing the wrath for our sins.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, that's the thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Any sorrow, experience in this life is,

[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus is the only one who never does any sort of sorrow and pain, and then He suffered also.

[SPEAKER_00]: We could have been joined.

[SPEAKER_00]: The infant was going to happen.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what he did on the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: He dies to take our punishment so that we could have His suffocation, His joy.

[SPEAKER_00]: So remind yourself of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You scripture to preach the gospel to yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Remind you of His mercy, His salvation, in the past of the cross of what even didn't your life maybe earlier in your life.

[SPEAKER_00]: mind yourself what he's done.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if he's done all that, can we get us love?

[SPEAKER_00]: If he loves us in the past, will he stop letting us down?

[SPEAKER_00]: So remember the Lord, do that by praying to Psalms and do that by preaching the gospel, preaching God's character to yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And lastly, point number three, stick with your flock, stick with your flock.

[SPEAKER_00]: The last verse in this passage, verse 20,

[SPEAKER_00]: He says, you led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's just the reality that when God saves us, we're talking about God's salvation, preaching the gospel to ourselves, He saves a whole flock of people.

[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't just save us as individuals, and he also saves us through other people who preach the gospel to us, who bring us into salvation, and teach us God's ways, God's Word.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been encouraged by William Cooper, even though his, like, had a lot of problems in it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lots of struggles.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've got to use him.

[SPEAKER_00]: His hand, there's a found so much blood.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was one of the most comforting to me when I lost my voice.

[SPEAKER_00]: You get to know about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can talk for seven months, which I love talking.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, it was really hard for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the last verse of that hand was, when this poor Lisbon's stammer and tongue, my style was in the grave.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in a noobler sweet or solemn, I'll sing that cowardice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now when I can talk, and I feel like I don't have a Lisbon stammer and tone, I couldn't have any golden or crazy lord with it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I said one day, I'm gonna be in heaven.

[SPEAKER_00]: And even if I never get my voice back in this life, the first song I sing in heaven will be where all of a suffering, all the loss of my voice here on the world.

[SPEAKER_00]: And his hymn reminded me of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'll sing that cowardice, I'll sing the Lord's cowardice.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, God uses sinful broken people to help out with people.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's why I'm saying to stick with your flock, because often when people are depressed, they want to isolate themselves.

[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they've been hurt by so many people in the past.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, why would I go near to other people who are hurt again?

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's true, people that hurts my ear too.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they can also help you.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're all going to hurt each other in some ways, but we can not help each other and love each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: learn to trust.

[SPEAKER_00]: You have to trust a little bit in order to love, and God call us to love our family, and to receive help from other people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't isolate yourself.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't set yourself off from community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even though it's hard, CS Lewis said this, to love it all, is to be vulnerable.

[SPEAKER_00]: Love anything,

[SPEAKER_00]: and your heart will be wrong and possibly broken.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to make sure of keeping intact, you must give it to no one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not even an animal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rapid cares me around with hobbies and little luxuries.

[SPEAKER_00]: Avoid all entanglance.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in that casket, safe, dark motionless, airless, it will change.

[SPEAKER_00]: It will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, iridimable.

[SPEAKER_00]: To love is to be vulnerable.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, love others by any vulnerable with your own struggles, and love others by listening when they tell you their struggles, and actually caring.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, so for those of you who are going through heart things, talk to someone about a video tonight, ask someone, hey, can we talk?

[SPEAKER_00]: And share with them whether it's a sin or just a really hard thing you're going through, maybe it is depression.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, you have trouble with this, can you pray for me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or can you just listen to me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Remember that we all have responsibility to love each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're all going to go through hard seasons of life.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're called to love those going through seasons of down despair and to stick with them as they try to hold on to hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: And to live even when they resist us.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bear their burdens and walk the lonely road with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can't take everyone's burden for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: They have to do this, but they don't have to do it alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can carry them as they carry their birds.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would love it if even just 10 students in this youth group became so full of love that they looked for other students that they sought to find that are struggling and they sat with them, listened to them, talked to them, prayed for them, and walked with them.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's been lots of time on the phone with them, maybe.

[SPEAKER_00]: as long as that other person needs.

[SPEAKER_00]: It might seem like a waste of time to some of you, but it's not.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of the most important things you can do is God cares about the broken heart, the desperate people.

[SPEAKER_00]: So in this kind of love is the most Christ-like thing we can do.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we are made for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think about how Jesus daily puts up with our feelings and our doubts.

[SPEAKER_00]: He listens to our complaints and our troubles.

[SPEAKER_00]: They come from strengthens us to keep going.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's follow our Savior Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: So if some of you are in a day of trouble like this and you're discouraged, you're spiritually dry, or you're experiencing some form of depression, whether it's mild or severe, voice your troubles, don't be quiet about, bring it to a Lord, bring it to a friend, to a leader.

[SPEAKER_00]: to your parents, and then also remember your Lord, remember the hope you have in Jesus Christ and stick with the flock, stay around the leaflets, open up, be vulnerable.

[SPEAKER_00]: As you do this, God will hear you, you can trust this character, keep fighting for hope even when it feels impossible, and then let church, let's not leave these people behind.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just think of the example of John, for 30 years, sticking with this man, dealing with the same

[SPEAKER_00]: actually there's maybe closer to four years and you just clap off right in the hope of Jesus over and over again being there to help them being spent best friends in his counselor as pastor.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can be friends, we can be counselors to those who are suffering like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Jesus calls us too.

[SPEAKER_00]: I see you shown us such great love which it's shown to others as well.