Thank you for watching!
time to get started this morning.
If you'd grab a hymnal, turn to 421, the first Noel.
Got to get your last fix of Christmas music.
421, the first Noel.
We'll sing there on the first.
The first Noel, the angel did say, was too certain.
Amen.
The sign will open with a word of prayer
if you bow your heads with me.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day,
just for another day to freely gather together
and sing praises in your name.
I just pray that you'd be with us for the services today
that everything would be done decently in an order,
that you'd fill Pastor Oz with your spirit
and that you would open our ears to the messages
that you've laid on his heart.
Also pray that you'd just be with those
that are not feeling well,
or those that are traveling through this holiday season,
that you would just strengthen them,
keep them safe and restore them to good health.
These things we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Alright, for our next hymn this morning, turn if you would to 423, Joy to the World.
423, Joy to the World.
They're on the first.
Joy to the World.
The sounding joy, repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.
No more the scent and sorrow's throat,
nor forms it passes the ground.
He comes to make his blessings flow,
far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.
Baptist Church. This time we'll go through our bulletins. Don't have one go and raise your hand and Usher will bring you one.
on the front is our Bible memory passage of the week. Hebrews chapter 6 verse 20, we're doing this
verse one more time because we just want a grace week at the end of each chapter. So you got one
more week. If you can quote this before Sunday next week, so you got the rest of this week,
to a non-family member, word perfect, then next Sunday morning you will receive a prize of your
choice. Really excited for that.
On the inside is our service times listed Sunday morning at 1030 Sunday evening at 430
and our midweek service at 7 but please be reminded that this upcoming week we have a Tuesday
midweek service.
So many times are listed there all of those meet here at the church building as well as our nursing home
Ministry schedule on the bottom is our year-to-date
Statistics great job for the month of December
45 salvatans for a cold month like that is a great job for sure
And we only have a few more days left in the year
So definitely keep working hard as long as you can to try to do that final push
I know we did have nine salvations this Saturday with just a handful of groups.
So it was a really receptive time and I'm always just thankful that we live in a city
that's very receptive to the gospel.
So don't take that for granted for sure.
On the top right is our list of expecting ladies.
Please be in prayer for Miss Reed,
also just for the Reed family's health at this time.
And our upcoming events, remember this Tuesday,
we're having our New Year's Eve party
and it's gonna start at seven o'clock
with a men's preaching night.
I think we have four or five guys slotted to preach.
They're already signed up and it's going to be a 15 minute time limit for that.
So it's just going to be like a normal service, songs, preaching, everything like that.
So looking forward to hearing those guys and then afterwards we'll kind of get
this room set up for some food and games.
And we're going to have a great time as a church.
Online giving is there at that QR code.
Well as our prayer list if you have any prayer requests or updates
I do ask that you please email the church or just some way to get in contact with me
And I'll make sure that gets updated for you on the back is the place for you to take notes
If you'd like that's gonna be it for our announcements this morning. Let's go and go to our third song
Alright, our third hymn this morning is number 425, No Room in the Inn, number 425, 425, No Room in the Inn.
We'll sing their starting on the first.
No, man, what is that?
And then as the offering plates are being passed, turn if you would to 2nd Corinthians, chapter number one.
2nd Corinthians, chapter number one.
Second Corinthians, chapter number one, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God and Timothy, our brother, under the church of God, which is at Corinth, with all the saints, which are in archaic, grace be to you in peace from God, our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble by the comfort
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God for as the sufferings of Christ
abounded us so our consolation also abounded by Christ and whether we be
afflicted it is for your consolation and salvation which is effectual in the
enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.
or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings,
so shall ye be also of the consolation.
For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia that
But we had a sentence of death in ourselves
That we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raised up the dead
Who delivered us from so great a death and death deliver and whom he trusts that he will yet deliver us
Yet also helping together by prayer for us for that that for the gift bestowed upon us
By the means of many persons
Thanks may be given
By many on our behalf
For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and
godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our
conversation in the world, and more abundantly, to you word. For we write
none other things under you than what ye read or acknowledge.
And I trust ye also acknowledge, even to the end,
as also ye have acknowledged us in part,
that we are your rejoicing,
even as ye also are ours in the day
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And in this confidence, I was minded to come unto you before
that ye might have a second benefit,
and to pass by you,
into Macedonia and to come again out of Macedonia to you and of you to be to be
brought on my way toward Judea when I therefore was thus minded did I use
lightness or the things that I purpose do I purpose according to the flesh that
Our word toward you was not yea and nay, for the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Sylvainas and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea.
For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him, amen, under the glory of God by us, now he which established with us
with you in Christ, and hath anointed us is God, who hath also sealed us and given the
earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
Moreover I call God for you, I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I
Not for not for that we have dominion over your faith, but our helpers of your joy
For by faith you stand. Let's pray
Amen. All right. Well, we are in second Corinthians chapter number one.
Let's start reading in verse three, the Bible says, blessed be God,
even the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all
comfort. And so in the introduction of this chapter here,
Paul is giving some descriptions about God.
One of the things is the father of
Mercies and of course in order to show mercy on someone they have to be deserving of something bad, right?
And so for us to appreciate the fact that God is a merciful God
We have to realize that we deserve things that are bad. We deserve wrath from God
In fact, we deserve hell is what the Bible teaches
And so when you look at a title like this the father of mercies the only reason you could even appreciate that
is the fact that you know that you're not worthy of God's goodness.
Then the next says this and the God of all comfort.
Now again, how is it that we can appreciate comfort?
The fact that God comforts us, gives us strength and peace.
Well, it would have to be that you would have to go through things that are uncomfortable.
In order to experience comfort and realize the blessing that comfort is, you have to
go through things that are not comfortable.
And then he explains more about this in verse four.
He says, notice who comforted us in all our tribulation.
Notice it's not that God comforts us in all our successes and joys and spiritual highs and God comforts us when everything's going great in our life and our lives are just perfect.
No, God is the God of all comfort because what we experience oftentimes is tribulation. What does that mean? Trouble.
And we experience trouble in this life. Notice he says...
That, meaning so that, we may be able to comfort them, which are in any trouble, by the comfort
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
He's saying, look, we're going through all this tribulation and troubles so that we could
be comforted by God, and in turn, we could comfort other people with the same comfort
that we receive from God in our troubles.
aboundeth by Christ you know that's kind of a great attitude to have he's saying look if my
suffering is abound if my life is just going through all these terrible things well the good
news is at least the comfort is going to abound at least all the consolation is going to abound
you know someone that goes through a lot of troubles and problems they at least get to
experience more comfort from God than someone who just has an easy life
Verse 6, and whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings, which we also suffer, or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.
Verse 8, for we would not brethren.
Have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia that we were pressed out of measure
above strength notice this in so much that we
disbared
even of life
Those are some pretty chilling words that the Apostle Paul said there. He's saying look
I'm happy that we're able to be comforted by God, and my hope of you is steadfast that
you're going to be able to be comforted by God as well, but I don't want you to be ignorant
and be surprised and think that our life as apostles has been so easy serving Christ,
and it's just a prosperity gospel. And if you're on God's side, you're going to be healthy,
wealthy, and everything's going to be perfect in your life. He's going to say, no, actually,
What does that mean he's so stressed he feels like it's beyond something that he could even handle.
And it says this above strength right he can't do it in so much that we despaired even of life.
The title of my sermon this morning is
Despairing of Life.
Here, the Apostle Paul and other disciples
got to the point where it was hard for them.
They didn't want to.
It was a despair, a drudgery for them to even live.
Now, I'm here to tell you that this is something
that is common in the Bible.
many people experience this in the Bible and this morning I want to give you two
points by way of introduction and then I want to answer this question. What to do
when you despair of life? Number one, you will experience pain in life. This is
just a point by way of introduction. You need to understand that you will
experience pain in life. It doesn't matter if you're the most wicked person on
this earth who's not saved.
who's not following God's commandments, that person will experience pain.
That person will lose their mother and father.
That person will get sick.
That person will deal with the consequences of their sin on this earth.
Okay, and then you could be the most righteous guy.
You could even be the Apostle Paul.
You could be the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ
going out, turning the world upside down with the gospel, and even
those people could get to the point where they despair
to even live. And I'm here to tell you that you in this room
will also experience pain in life and it is a unreasonable expectation that people have to
think that we should always be happy, that you should always be doing great in your life emotionally
or whatever. There are times where you are not going to be happy. Let's read that again.
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the
God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort
them, which aren't any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us,
so are consolation also abounded by Christ.
And of course, like I said, in order to be comforted,
it means you have to be going through something hard.
In order to have hope of something in the future,
it means that what you're experiencing right now
is not fun, right?
I think of running.
You know, when I run, I'm just thinking
of the hope of the finish line.
Because if there was no hope,
Why would I even be running?
Why would I just not quit right then and there?
But I keep going because there's hope towards the end, right?
You know, Pastor Shelley had us do this pushup challenge
in the month of December, 100 pushups a day,
and I signed up for it.
But unfortunately on Wednesday, I had the stomach flu.
and it was tribulation.
It was trouble.
It was terrible.
But I was like, look, I got this far into this challenge.
I'm not going to quit.
So I'm just like, one, two, three.
But I had hope, though, that we're almost at the end of the month.
So it's like, we're going to keep going because we have that hope.
So to experience things like comfort.
Hope, joy, peace, you have to even know what the opposite of those things are in order to
even fully understand or appreciate those emotions.
And that's that's like one of the things about hell that has to be so terrible is that every
single person in hell has experienced some level of joy in this earth.
I mean, they've experienced a beautiful sunrise, most likely unless you're born blind, but
the love of a friend, the love of a spouse, a good meal,
a beautiful sunset, things like that. You've experienced something that's good.
And when you experience something terrible,
you have it something to compare it to and vice versa. Right?
If I'm going through something terrible and God comforts me,
now I could appreciate that comfort.
And so we have this mentality in our society,
especially where we just want to avoid all pain.
Avoid all suffering. You should never be sad if you're sad. There's something wrong with you
But I'm here to tell you that you wouldn't even be able to appreciate the good things in life if you didn't go through pain
And this is why people who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth and are spoiled their whole lives
They they lack perspective. They're not appreciative of things in life
They're spoiled brats because they often haven't gone through things that are hard
And you'll notice oftentimes people that go through things that are really hard are people with high character.
People that have a high tolerance to go through things. Go to John chapter 16.
John 16, I want to show you that you will experience pain in life.
John chapter 16 verse 33 Jesus said these things have I spoken unto you that in me you might have peace in the world
Ye shall have tribulation
But be of good cheer I have overcome the world see Jesus wanted to make sure that we had the right
expectations out of life
That we didn't think that because we're saved, because we're Christians in this world, everything's going to be great for us.
No, he says, in this world, you will have tribulation.
You will have troubles, problems.
The Bible talks about how we're going to be persecuted if we're righteous.
Jesus said that the world's going to hate you.
But notice, he said, in me, you have peace, right?
And that has to, we have to calibrate our expectations as Christians to realize, hey, in God, we have peace.
In God, everything's good, but in this world, we're going to experience trouble.
We're going to experience tribulation and pain.
Go to Ecclesiastes chapter number two. Ecclesiastes chapter number two.
And the book of Ecclesiastes is a good place to turn for this topic because really the whole book is about a guy
explaining life from a carnal perspective.
I mean over and over again in this book the Bible talks about how
this happens under the sun and these are the things going on
under the sun because really Solomon's focus is he's saying
this is what the world is going to look like when you look at things from a
carnal perspective, when you look at things from a worldly perspective
and this is what many people do.
Look at verse 14 of Ecclesiastes 2 it says the wise man's eyes are in his head
But the fool walketh in darkness and I myself perceived also that one
Event happeneth to them all he's saying look carnally speaking
It doesn't matter if you're wise or if you're a fool the human experience is universal
It does not matter if you are the wisest person on this earth or the most stupid ignorant fool on this earth.
Things like your parents dying is going to happen to both of you.
Things like the possibility of losing a child is going to happen to both of you.
Getting sick, going through financial problems,
getting ripped off, getting robbed. All these things, it happens to the wise,
it happens to the fool. One event happeneth to them all,
the Bible says. It's a universal human experience. Verse 15 says,
then said I in my heart, as it happeneth to the fool,
so it happeneth even to me.
And why was I then more wise than I said in my heart that this also is vanity.
So again, he's looking at things from a carnal perspective and he's saying, if the same things
in life happens to the idiot, as happens to me, someone who has given myself to learning
and you know, the Bible talks about in Ecclesiastes one, how he really studied and tried to learn
as much as possible.
He's saying then what was the point of getting all that wisdom, right?
Look at verse 16, for there is no remembrance of the wise more than the fool forever.
Seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten.
and how dyeth the wise man as the fool.
And you know, with the exception of people
like King Solomon, people that were living
around his time, we've forgotten about them.
I'm sure there's tons of wise men
in his kingdom during those days,
and we know nothing about them.
We've completely forgotten about them,
just like we forgot about all the fools
that were living during his time too.
And he's just saying, what's the point of all this then?
It's all gonna be forgotten.
And then at the end, he says,
how dyeth the wise man as the fool?
I mean, someone could work their whole life really, really hard, they could get really
well educated, get a great career, and they could just randomly be a victim of a random
act of violence, right?
This happens all the time.
You know, I saw a video a few months ago in Oklahoma City where this crazy guy went to
a gas station and just started shooting random people.
Who knows what those victims were like? Were they really well educated? Were they Christians?
Were they working really hard in life or were they drug addicted bums who were stupid and were flat earthers?
It doesn't matter because the same event happens to them both. That's what this is saying
It's like how die how dies the wise man like the fool does. Oh, I was wise. I worked really hard in life
I got cancer too
I got Alzheimer's too.
Oh, someone was a fool and an idiot.
They died of liver failure.
They died of heart failure.
It's like they die the same way
and it could be kind of blackpilling to look at life
only through this carnal perspective
because what Solomon's saying is completely true.
I mean, think about this.
President George Washington.
You know how this guy died?
Because all the quacks of his day
thought it was a good idea to heal sickness
by this thing called bloodletting.
You know how the president of our nation died?
Some doctors said, I got a good idea.
Let's just cut your veins open.
That's how the president died.
How did he die?
As a fool.
That's crazy, even though he was a wise person.
He was a valiant man in battle.
How did the first president of America die
by some weirdo cutting his veins open
and letting him bleed to death?
Wow, that's crazy.
But guess what?
We all die the same way oftentimes.
Regardless of how great you are in life,
we all die the same.
And look at his reaction, verse 17.
He says, therefore I hated life.
Sounds like he despairs of life.
Because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
And you know, sometimes unsaved people even understand this.
It's like the Blackpill community where they understand the carnal truths of Ecclesiastes here.
They realize like, wow, everything is vanity.
You know, the things that I do in this life, it's going to be forgotten.
I'm going to die the same way as the fool dies.
Why am I the more wise?
I hate life.
But of course we know, like Jesus said, that in him we will have peace.
He's overcome the world.
We can have joy in that.
We know that.
But I'm trying to remind you that sometimes even Christians forget about that perspective
and look at life through carnal means and they too can sometimes hate life.
Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me, and who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool, yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun, this is also vanity.
He's saying, look, I'm working so hard, I'm the king of the nation, I'm building this nation, and it's true under Solomon, the nation was the most prosperous.
the most in peace and he's saying who knows someone can come after me and just ruin it in a day.
One center destroys much good right and someone could work super super hard and build a business
where they're toiling, they're putting in the hours, they're working late, they're working weekends
and then they're like all right son let me just hand it over to you and the sun is a moron.
The sun is spoiled, the sun doesn't understand the value of working hard or the sun doesn't understand money or finances and the sun could just ruin it immediately.
This happens all the time in businesses. This happens in churches.
A pastor could work really hard, plan a church, build a great church through solid preaching and
soul-winning and ministering to people, and then the fool after him could just destroy it in a
moment. And it's like you could just look at that and you could kind of get blackpilled from that.
You can kind of say like I'm despairing of life because who knows if the fool comes after me and
Therefore, I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labor which I took under the sun.
For there is a man whose labor is in wisdom and in knowledge and in equity,
yet to a man that hath not labored therein shall he leave it for his portion.
This also is a vanity and a great evil.
For what half man of all his labor
and of the vexation of his heart,
wherein he hath labored under the sun.
For all his days are sorrows and his travail grief.
Yay, his heart taketh not rest in the night.
This also is vanity.
Hey, this is not a positive chapter this morning.
This is not a prosperity gospel,
but this is the reality of life
from a physical perspective.
the prosperity preachers are liars, okay, because unless they're better than Solomon,
unless they're more wise than Solomon and more godly than Solomon,
Solomon's describing life as being painful, full of travail, sorrow, grief, vanity,
vexation of spirit to the point where he's saying, I hate life.
And what did we see with the apostles? They too even got to a point in their life
where they despaired of life. The prosperity gospel is a lie.
There's no one on this earth that does not experience pain saved unsaved
There's no one on this earth. That's just happy every single day and the facade that people see on social media
Really can harm people's minds, especially young people where they think like wow this person they've got a mansion
They've got a nice car. Oh look at Anjit Tate. He's got all these girls around him. That must be how you find happiness
I promise you that guy is miserable
And I promise you, rich men of this world are miserable people.
The Bible says, whoa unto you that are rich.
Woe be to the rich men.
I mean, the Bible does not speak positively
of the rich in general, okay?
And these people are not living happy lives.
Oftentimes, they're miserable on the inside.
That's why all these celebrities oftentimes
are addicted to drugs, addicted to gambling,
blow their brains out literally,
because guess what, they have problems
just like the poor beggar has problems.
Because life in general, under the sun,
is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Go to 1 Peter 4.
2 Timothy 3-12 says,
Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecution.
Notice the reward for being godly
is not wealth, riches, health, prosperity, and easy life.
According to the Bible, those that live godly,
their reward is persecution.
Trouble, being hated, being despised.
1 Peter 4 verse 12.
Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though
some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's
sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
And this is what the Bible is trying to do.
The Bible is trying to warn you
to have the right perspective on life
and the right expectations out of life
and saying, hey, don't look at life
and think it's strange when fiery trials come to try you.
Don't think it's strange when you struggle
with your health or your marriage or your money
or just any problem in life, your entire life
because the Bible's saying, look,
this is already told, it's gonna happen to you.
Don't think it's strange, but in fact, rejoice why in as much as you are partakers of Christ's
sufferings. That is the key that we have as Christians that the world doesn't.
They sometimes understand these things that we go through sufferings, but for them it's meaningless.
But for us, we could say, hey, we could actually partake with Christ in his sufferings,
have fellowship in his sufferings, and then guess what happens? We have Jesus, the God of all what?
Comfort and he can comfort us. That's something the world doesn't have
So number one you will experience pain in life number two you may even experience a desire to die
This is not the happiest sermon this morning,
but I'm just telling you the truth from the Bible
is that you, yes, you as a saved Christian
may even experience a desire to die.
Now, maybe some of the children in this room
have no idea what I'm talking about.
I hope you don't.
I hope you've never experienced anything like this.
There's some children in this world
who probably have experienced this, let's be honest.
I mean, some of the children that are living in Israel
and Palestine right now,
that have seen some pretty terrible things, I wonder if even some children have experienced
this desire, but I'm telling you that you may even experience this in your life. Now,
I have an article here from the CDC. It's a study, actually. It's called Suicidal Thoughts and
Behaviors Among Adults in the United States. It says, Problem, Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors
In 2019, suicide was the 10th leading cause of death among persons 18 years and older.
In that year, 45,861 adults died as a result of suicide and an estimated 381,295 adults
visited the emergency room for non-fatal, self-inflicted injuries.
So in 2019, the 10th leading cause of death in the United States for adults was suicide.
I mean, there's a lot of people dying out there from all sorts of different things,
but in the top 10 is people taking their own life.
Sounds like this is something that people experience and that people struggle with.
Now, here's the results of the study.
It says, prevalence estimates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors varied by socio-demographic
factors, region and state.
4.3% of the adult population reported having had suicidal thoughts during the preceding
year.
Now, I'm going to be honest, I feel like that's probably way lower than it truly is.
I don't know if everyone's being honest in this study, but this is saying that 4.3% of
adults even just have thoughts of desiring this or wishing to depart if you will or something
But you know, I think it's probably higher because as we're going to see in the rest of this sermon,
it's pretty high amongst men of God in the Bible.
Great men, men filled with the Spirit, men that did great things for God.
The prevalence of them who at one point in their life or another desired this or felt this way was pretty dang high.
So seeing 4.3%, I feel like it's probably higher than that.
But it says, the prevalence of having had suicidal thoughts.
ranged from 4% in the northeast and south to 4.8% in the west
and from 3.3% in New Jersey to 6.9% in Utah.
So Mormons are just the highest ones there apparently.
It says 3.1 million adults, 1.3% of the adult population had made a suicide plan in the
past year.
And to me, that's a way different thing.
Like there's a way different spectrum between like desiring that or having thoughts about
that, like these men in the Bible did, to like making a plan to carry out on that.
Those are way different things then there's like actually attempting it or doing that action.
These are far apart from each other on the spectrum, but still still there's 1.3% of the population that made a plan to actually carry it out and then it says.
1.4 million, 0.6 percent of the adult population
had made an attempt in the past year.
So this is something that obviously people
are struggling with and go to Job chapter three,
if you would, Job chapter three.
I want to show you in this point,
and what are we talking about?
You may even experience in your life the desire to die.
Let me show you from the Bible,
men who experience this in their lives.
Job chapter number three.
Verse 11, notice what he said.
Why did I not from the womb?
Why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
That's pretty dark right right there what he's saying he's saying look
I would have just rather had just perished during birth
Just I wish I would have died as a young baby because he's despairing of life so much and here's the thing
What he went through who would not be feeling this way. I mean losing all of his children
Losing his wealth, losing his health,
he's scraping himself with a pot shirt,
with these nasty boils all over his body.
His friends have all forsaken him.
His friends are lying and railing against him,
saying that he's doing all this stuff
that he wasn't guilty of.
On top of that, his wife is nagging him.
I mean, who in this world would not just wish for death
in that situation?
But again, here's the thing, there's a difference between feeling those emotions,
wishing that you would die, feeling thoughts like that,
and like making a plan to do something about it, or actually making an attempt.
See, Job, though he felt that way, he never tried to do anything,
he never made a plan to do anything, this is just how he felt.
And I'm trying to tell you that if you ever feel your like this in your life,
it's not like there's something wrong with you or you're strange or you're
alone in that type of emotion because life is hard and some of us life is
harder than others. And generally speaking,
the harder your life is,
the more of a chance that you will feel like this some point in your life.
I mean, the apostle Paul, he said that he disparate of life.
The guy was constantly getting beaten.
He was constantly getting backstabbed.
He was laboring more abundantly than they all.
He was being in perils of robbers and the heathen
and his own countrymen and false brethren.
And on top of that, the care of all the churches.
And then he's got a church at Corinth,
questioning his authority, not appreciating him,
being a bunch of jerks to him basically.
And like, I could see how at times he said like,
hey, I'd rather just depart and be with Christ.
Which is far better, but for you it's needful, right?
So he felt that way, but he never made a plan, he never made an attempt, okay?
Job, he felt that way, here's another person who felt that way, go to Numbers chapter 11.
Numbers chapter 11, verse 14,
Moses said this, I am not able to bear all this people alone because it is too heavy for me.
Sounds like he's pressed beyond measure, above strength.
He says this is too much for me to handle.
And if thou deal thus with me, notice, kill me, I pray thee out of hand, if I have found favor in thy sight, and let me not see my wretchedness.
I mean, this is intense.
Like we talked about a few months ago how prayer, we should take prayer very seriously when we're approaching God.
Like we're talking to the God of the universe.
We need to think about the things that we're saying to God and asking of God.
Moses is a meek man. He's a godly man, and he's going to God and he's asking God to kill him
I mean that is that's a higher level of just like yeah
I kind of feel like I could die where you're going to the Lord and you're literally asking him to kill you
This was Moses. This was a man of God.
This was not someone that needed to be treated in a psych ward.
This wasn't a guy that has mental problems or an imbalance or anything like that.
This was just a man who just had a hard life,
who was just getting sick and tired of it and literally asked God to kill him.
Moses is not a baby.
Moses is not a weak man, okay?
And just realize, like, if you ever experienced
these emotions, it's not that you're crazy
or there's something necessarily wrong with you
when it's like, okay, Paul, Moses, Job.
Let's look at another one.
How about Elijah?
First Kings chapter 19.
First Kings chapter 19 and maybe you're reading these verses and you're like I can't relate with this
I've never felt this way. We'll praise the Lord for that. I'm happy for you
But I just want you to know that your brothers in Christ other people in this world will experience this in their life
And you need to be aware of it first Kings 19 verse 4
But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree
And he requested for himself that he might die
And said, it is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers.
Even Elijah, the mighty prophet who did tons of amazing miracles, even this great man of
God who we read the stories of Elijah and we think this guy is amazing, what a great
Christian, yet he even requested to God that he might die.
Sounds like you could be a great person and sometimes wish to be dead.
Go to Jonah, Jonah chapter number four, Jonah chapter number four.
Jonah said this, therefore now, oh, Lord, take I beseech thee my life from me,
for it is better for me to die than to live.
There's three men so far in the Bible that literally asked God for them to die.
And then said the Lord, do us thou well to be angry.
And so, what I'm trying to show you is that you may experience this, your brothers and
Christ may experience it.
What I'm not saying is that this is good or this is something that you should want to
have or something like that because God looked at his request and said, hey, are you really
doing well to be angry right now?
And it's like, while there's the reality of life that we're going to experience this,
of course God doesn't want us over much sorrow, God doesn't want us just constantly despairing
of life.
That is what God would want for you even if you feel this way even if you may at times you know cry out to God and even request that of him God would never want one of his children to kill themselves.
That's something that God would never want so please never do that never ever do that verse five.
So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city and there made him a booth and sat under it in the
Shadow till he might see what would become of the city
So you know, he's got his shade up
He's got his umbrella up and he's ready to watch the city get destroyed by God
Verse 6 and the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow over his head
So he's giving them like a big sun hat or something to keep them from getting sunburned
to deliver him from his grief.
So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.
So now, you know, he's starting to feel happy again,
which again, you have to have experience
in opposites to understand this.
Like if the sun is beating on your head
and you're getting cooked and you're getting sunburned,
now you could experience joy
when the gourd comes over and covers you, right?
But verse seven, this is just how life is,
but God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day
and it smote the gourd that it withered.
This is life right here.
It's just immediately bad again.
Verse eight, and it came to pass when the sun did arise
that God prepared a vehement east wind
and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah
that he fainted, noticed and wished in himself to die
and said it is better for me to die than to live.
And it's like, look.
If I was getting sunburned for that long, I would want the exact same thing.
I was not made to be out in the sun for very long.
But just notice, notice, this is just life, okay?
Jonah, he's asking him to die, okay?
Oh, he's happy again.
Yay, he's got a gourd.
A few verses later, he's asking to die again.
It's just like...
This is the human experience sometimes.
This is just how it is.
Sometimes it's just you're feeling great,
things are going well,
and then all of a sudden it's 120 degrees in Texas
and you're just under the sun all day
and you're just like, Lord, take me home.
I'm just ready.
This is literally how life is sometimes.
Go to Jeremiah 20, Jeremiah 20.
You're starting to see this is a theme in the Bible.
This is not just one person who felt sad.
Many people in the Bible were so overcome with grief
sometimes where they literally desired to die.
Jeremiah 20, verse 14.
Cursed be the day wherein I was born.
Let not the day wherein my mother bared me be blessed.
Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father
saying a man child is born unto thee.
making him very glad and let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew and
Repented not and let him hear the cry in the morning and the shouting at Newton tide because he slew me not from the womb
Or that my mother might have been my grave
and her womb to be always great with me.
Wherefore came I forth out of the womb
to see labor and sorrow
that my days should be consumed with shame.
Sounds like Jeremiah also experienced this
where he literally felt a desire to die.
And I mean, can you blame him?
At times in his ministry, he's literally in a dungeon
sinking in the mire, you'd think like Jeremiah, the great prophet of God, the one that's going
to go rebuke the nation of Israel, it's going to bring God's message and warn of the Babylonian
invasion coming.
And it's like, what's his reward for being a great man of God?
Sinking in the dungeon, sinking in the mire, being alone, being persecuted, being made fun
of, being put in the stocks.
And he's just like, cursed be the day that I was even born.
Like why did I even come out of the womb just to experience all this sorrow and grief and travail?
That's what Jeremiah felt like. How about our Savior go to Matthew 26, Matthew chapter number 26.
You know Jesus was a hundred percent man. You know the Bible calls Jesus the man of sorrows.
You know the Bible says that he was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin.
meaning that he fully understands the human experience
because he himself fully experienced the human experience.
Look at Matthew 26 verse 37 in the Garden of Gethsemane.
The Bible says,
And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee
and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.
Then saith he unto them,
My soul is exceeding sorrowful.
Notice, even unto death.
Terry here and watch with me sounds like even our savior
Experienced the exact same thing. So, you know, if you ever feel like this, you're saying man
I think there's something wrong with me.
There's times where I even feel like
I just would rather go to heaven than be on this earth.
It's like, okay, we'll see Moses and Job and Jeremiah
and Ezekiel and Jonah and the Lord Jesus Christ
and all the apostles.
And it's like, you're in pretty good company, okay?
I'm just, I'm here to tell you that you're not strange.
You're not going through something
that other people don't go through and don't experience.
Even godly people, even great people.
How about another one?
How about King David?
Go to Psalm.
31, Psalm 31.
Early a king would never be sad, right?
He's got all that he wants.
He's got all the food.
He's got all the riches.
He even takes Bathsheba, right?
I mean, everything that a man may think
in his carnal mind that he wants.
David gave himself that at times,
but look how he felt.
Psalm 31, verse nine.
Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble.
Mine eye is consumed with grief.
Yea, my soul and my belly for my life is spent with grief and my years with sighing.
My strength faileth because of mine iniquity and my bones are consumed.
This is the man that killed Goliath.
This is the man who killed the lion and the bear and ended up killing Goliath and rose
up to be the king of Israel, yet he says that his life is spent with grief.
And I'm telling you comparison is such a foolish thing to do because people look at someone and they say that person's life must be great.
I mean, look at King David.
The ladies are singing songs in his honor and glory.
He killed the mighty warrior Goliath.
He's the king of Israel.
He's super talented musically.
He writes all these beautiful songs.
I mean, David must have it made.
But it's like, oh, but did you know about him evading?
Saul's spears every day seemingly like Saul's trying to kill him.
He's constantly on the run.
He's estranged from his people.
You know, he has really close friendship with Jonathan that he can't fully
really enjoy because he's on the run.
I mean, he has major marriage problems at times in his life.
It's like, oh, David really hasn't made.
Well, David's life was spent with grief.
and his years with sighing and his strength failed because of his iniquity and his bones are consumed.
That's how David felt sometimes.
And sometimes you got to just stop comparing yourself to other people and think if I just had that person's life, I would be happy.
If I just had that person's marriage, that person's career, that person's home, I would finally feel happy.
No, you wouldn't.
Because all these men experienced this at times
And guess what? We just have to learn to get our joy from the Lord
because your joy is just not going to come from this life.
From a carnal perspective, you are not going to be happy with money,
power, position, riches, prestige,
anything you could think of that's a carnal pleasure on this earth.
You will never, ever be happy with it.
Man's eyes are never satisfied.
You're not satisfied by gold or silver or anything like that.
No, the only place that satisfaction comes is from the Lord.
go to, actually let me read this for you.
So I kind of talked about how just because you experience
something like this, doesn't necessarily mean that there's
something wrong with you or something wrong with like the
chemical makeup of your brain.
Now look, I'm not a doctor and I'm never going to give
medical advice.
I'm sure there are people where that is the case for them
and I'm sure there are people where they really do need to
go to a doctor and get treated.
I'm not telling you to not get treated.
But what I'm telling you,
is that the default reaction in our world is like you're experiencing sadness.
Well, go to the doctor and get some SSRIs, some Prozac, some medication to fix your problem.
But I'm here to tell you that medication is not always the solution to your problem.
Now, what are SSRIs?
Has anyone ever heard of these before?
Raise your hand if you've heard of SSRIs.
Okay, a few people.
It's like the most common type of drug prescribed to people
suffering from chronic depression and anxiety
and things like that.
It's called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
And this is from the Mayo Clinic, this is how these work.
It says serotonin is one of many chemical messengers
in the brain called neurotransmitters.
Neurotransmitters carry signals
between nerve cells in the brain called neurons.
And usually things like serotonin
is related to feelings of happiness.
After carrying a signal between brain cells,
serotonin
Usually is taken back into those cells, a process called reuptake, so your brain kind of like
stores it and isn't really using it anymore, but SSRIs artificially block this process.
Blocking reuptake makes more serotonin available to help pass messages between brain cells.
SSRIs are called selective because they mainly affect serotonin and not other neurotransmitters.
So, what are these drugs?
They're basically drugs that are artificially changing the way that the neurotransmitters
in your brain communicate with each other, and it's stopping your brain from re-uptaking
serotonin and kind of just keeping it in the pathways for longer than it would naturally
speaking.
Now, though I'm not a doctor and I'm not going to give you medical advice, I do want
You need to do research, you need to be very careful before just putting random stuff into
your body because here are some of the side effects admitted to by the same source here,
the Mayo Clinic.
Here's some side effects.
Upset stomach, vomiting or diarrhea,
sweating, headache, sleepiness, trouble sleeping,
dry mouth, nervousness, anxiety or restlessness,
shakiness, sexual problems,
change in appetite,
leading to weight loss or weight gain.
Now, I don't know about you.
If I was really struggling with depression
and all of these problems just got added onto my life,
it would make things way worse.
And you know what often happens to people?
And I've seen this in my life.
I've seen people take these drugs
and their mental health was worse after taking this stuff.
And it's like a well-known thing
that a lot of school shooters in the past
have been people on Prozac.
SSRIs and it's kind of like a known thing like watch out for the Prozac heads
because they go in and shoot up schools and it's like I'm not saying that
everyone who takes this is gonna start experiencing that or that desire but I'm
saying is oftentimes someone already is a little mentally unstable or they're
already depressed or they're already anxious and then they take these drugs
and then they're worse than the beginning. It's kind of like the woman in the
Bible who had an issue of blood and then she spent all of her living
on the doctors and the Bible says that she was actually worse after she had done that and look
that is still true today people oftentimes they don't look for solutions that are actually going
to help them like I don't know getting good sleep getting exercise being with your spouse
reading a book doing something outside serving God there's like okay give me the ssri's
chemically change the makeup of my brain here's another thing it says most antidepressants are
But, the FDA requires that all antidepressants carry boxed warnings, the strictest warnings
for prescriptions.
In some cases, children, teenagers, and young adults under 25 may have an increase in suicidal
thoughts or behavior when taking antidepressants.
I mean, even from the the source here even from the Mayo Clinic, they're saying people
that are 25 and younger sometimes when they take SSRIs, they actually are more suicidal.
Again, what is the stereotypical school shooter?
It's usually someone between the ages of like 14 to 25 years old and they just happen to
seemingly always be on these SSRI anti-depressants.
I'm just saying, these are things that you should be aware of and not just flippantly
take.
Yes, there are some people, they absolutely need medical help.
I'm not denying that whatsoever.
But a lot of problems, a lot of times you're sad, not because there's something wrong with
but because life is just hard.
And sometimes you're sad because you're suffering
from the consequences of your own lifestyle
and your own sins that you actually could
do something to change.
There's some things you can't change.
Look, if your mother dies tonight, I'm sorry,
you can't change that and you're gonna be sad.
And if you're sad and if you're depressed,
let me tell you something, that's normal.
That's okay. You can be sad. You can be depressed.
You don't need to start taking drugs because you're sad. That's a normal thing.
But let me tell you this. If you're sad because you're chronically unhealthy,
because you're super overweight, because you're not exercising,
and you're eating crap, and you're super sad all the time,
that's something that you could actually do something to improve.
And that's something that you should do something to improve and you will start to feel better when your life improves in that area
Or whatever area of life you're struggling in if you're struggling financially and you start doing better at work
You find a better job you make more money
You'll probably find that you're happier in that area when you start making improvements in that area
But this is what people think like oh man, my health is terrible
My body is completely destroyed because of my own neglect and my own life decisions. I know what I need to do
I need to take SSRIs.
It's like, you're just going to make your body even worse.
You're not only now, now you have terrible physical health,
now you're going to make your mental health worse.
It's like, no, why don't you actually do something to change it?
There are some things that are in your control.
Now let's talk about this.
Go to James chapter 4.
What to do when you despair of life?
What to do when you despair?
of life because I've shown you, hey, people in the Bible,
they struggled with this. You probably will struggle with this at one point in
your life too
and I'm here to tell you that's normal. You're not weird.
You're not alone in that, that is normal. What to do when you
despair of life? Number one, draw nigh to God.
Draw nigh to God. Look at James chapter 4 verse 8.
Draw nigh to God and he will
Cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded
This is an iron clad promise in the word of God that when you draw close to the Lord
The Lord will draw close to you, but this people have it backwards
People have it backwards. This is what they think. Oh God when you help me with my health
I will reach out to you. Oh God if you help me with my finances. I'll start going to church
Oh God, if you help me with my marriage, if you help me with my child rearing, I'll start
reading the Bible more.
I'll start praying more.
That's not how it works.
That is a foolish way to look at life and this is what people do.
God, if you do this for me, I'll serve you.
I'll do something great.
No, no, no.
God wants you first to draw night to him and say, hey, it doesn't matter if my life sucks.
It doesn't matter.
Some days I feel like going to heaven.
It doesn't matter if my finances or health or marriage or child rearing is all jacked
I'm going to put God first and then you'll notice something amazing happens, God draws
nigh to you.
God is ready there to help you and I found that to be true in my life, that sometimes
God even just gives us these problems and these issues because he wants us to be close
to him.
And some of the closest times I've ever had with the Lord has been through some of the
darkest moments of my life.
And at those times, during those moments,
you are at a crossroads in your life
where you decide who you're gonna trust in,
where your strength is gonna come from,
where your faith is going to lie.
Is it gonna lie in your own strength
of you trying to fix every problem,
you trying to outsmart every situation in your life,
or you just gonna get to a point where you just realize,
I can't do anything, I just need the Lord to help me.
And the truth is, is that all of us need Him at all times.
Look at verse number nine.
The Bible says, be afflicted.
and mourn and weep.
Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness humble yourselves up in the side of the Lord
And he shall lift you up say oh, man. I'm sad. There's something wrong with me. I need to change that
I need to take something God saying just be afflicted. He's saying be afflicted and mourn and
Weep sometimes you should be sad
And you know we need a culture again in America where when you sin when you do something bad
There's some mourning and there's some weeping over your wrong actions again
Not just like so flipping about what you do when you sin against the Lord or sin against your brethren
where it doesn't even bother you. Your conscience is kind of seared to that. No, when you've done wrong,
you should be afflicted. You should mourn. You should weep. And sometimes the reasons that we're sad,
sometimes the reasons that we're depressed is because we're literally suffering from the
consequences of our own actions. And God's saying, yeah, be afflicted. Yeah, mourn. But here's the
Cleanse your hands ye sinners and purify your hearts. He double-minded. He's saying look I understand you're sad
Be sad now do something about it cleanse your hands change man. I'm just so sad
It's like I'd be sad too if I skipped church every week. Oh, I'm so sad
I'd be sad too if I never read the Bible. Oh, I'm just so depressed all the time
Yeah, I'd be depressed all the time if I was never right with the Lord too
If I never put anything into practical application,
if I never did what the Bible said,
yeah, you'd be sad all the time.
Go to Psalm chapter 34,
Psalm chapter 34.
And again, don't forget what I said earlier in the sermon.
Sometimes you can be righteous,
you can be doing everything right
and you could still feel this way.
But also we have to realize
that sometimes when we're feeling this way,
it's because of our own stupid fault.
A lot of time.
Psalm 34.
Notice verse 15.
upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.
The face of the Lord is against them that do evil,
to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth,
and delivereth them out of all their troubles.
The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart,
and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."
Notice how God is not close to the proud man.
God is not harkening unto and waiting to comfort and waiting to help the proud man that thinks
he could do everything on his own without God.
His life is great by his own doing, his own hand.
Who is he ready to hear?
Those that are of a broken heart.
Those that are of a contrite spirit and why is that? Because remember in 2nd
Corinthians 1 we learned that God is the God of all comfort. God wants to
comfort us. God wants to be the source of our comfort when we're sad, but
oftentimes do people is their first reaction? Okay, draw a night of God and
he'll draw a night to me. Go to the Lord and he'll comfort me or is
Isn't this what people do today?
Drinking away their sorrows.
That's just gonna make your life more miserable.
Or picking up the needle.
Or hiring a hooker.
I'm just being honest.
What do people do in this world?
When they're sad, oftentimes it's just straight to sin.
Straight to worldly activities.
When God is saying, look,
he's nigh to those that are of a broken heart.
He's ready to save those that are of a contrite spirit.
He's just ready for us to acknowledge
that we need him at all times.
And sometimes, unfortunately, we're only painfully aware of how much we need God during the darkest times of our life.
But you know what? We do well just to realize that we need Him Sunday through Sunday,
whether something's good, whether something's bad, we need the Lord at all times.
Verse 19,
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth Him out of them all.
You know, part of why God gives us so many afflictions, it allows us to go through many...
trials is because it shows God's might and God's glory when He delivers us out of those afflictions.
Right? I mean, the Moses and the children of Israel going through the Red Sea, I mean that's a pretty
huge affliction that they were going through being slaves for hundreds of years, Barrow's army
chasing after them, ready to kill them, and then God delivers them out of that trial. And what happens?
God gets the glory. God gets the honor. You know, Daniel and the lion's den, that's a pretty big
He's in a lion's den and then God delivers him and who gets the glory?
God does.
And so we would do well just to realize whatever problems, whatever tribulations
or trials we're going through, that there's an opportunity there for us to
glorify God by us relying on him, trusting on him, not just being like,
well, I'm sad, let's go to the drugs, let's go to the alcohol, let's go to
fornication, let's go to being lazy.
No, turn to the Lord.
He's ready to deliver.
Go to Matthew 11, Matthew chapter 11.
Matthew 11 verse 28.
Jesus said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall
find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
You have to train yourself that when things are hard, when you feel like your burden's
heavy, when you're going through problems, you must train yourself that the first thing
You run to the Lord Jesus Christ because His burden is easy, His yoke is light.
Run to spiritual things when you are feeling sad.
We'll skip some of this for sake of time. Go to Philippians chapter number two.
So what to do when you despair of life? Well, number one, draw a night of God.
Number two, make your life count for other people. Make your life count for other people. Look at
Verse number two, notice the first phrase here,
fulfill ye my joy.
So let's figure out how we get joy,
that you'd be a lot like-minded, having the same love,
being of one accord and of one mind.
Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory,
but in lowliness of mind,
let each esteem other better than themselves.
Look not every man on his own things,
but every man also on the things of others.
Let this mind be in you.
which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation
and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men.
Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
He starts out by saying, hey, fulfill my joy and he gives us an example of what the Lord Jesus Christ did.
And what is that? That's esteeming other people better than yourself.
And I'm telling you, a sad life, a chronically depressed life is a life that is focused only on self.
It's very easy to be sad when all you're doing is thinking about your problems, your
issues, your marriage, your money, whatever problems you have, but oftentimes you know
it fulfills your joys when you esteem someone else better than yourself.
Here's an example of that.
It's called soul winning.
I can't tell you how many times in my life I've gone soul winning where I was having
a rough week, having a rough day, didn't really feel like going soul winning.
Whose husband has forsaken her who's raising children by herself in some ghetto nasty apartment and that woman
Here's the gospel of Jesus Christ and calls upon the name of the Lord and it's now saved for all of eternity
And I realize number one. I realize my life is pretty great
That's one thing I realize and number two. I realize that you know, it brings me happiness is helping someone else
Investing into someone else and I've never ever ever gone soul-winning and felt worse by the end of it
than the beginning.
I always feel better after soul winning
than however I started.
Even if I went in with a great mood,
I'm in a better mood after I'm done.
Because there's just something about helping someone else.
There's something about not esteeming yourself as the best
and your needs and your desires and what you wanna do,
but rather saying there's people dying and going to hell.
There's people that need our help.
We are ambassadors for Jesus Christ
and I'm gonna go serve that person.
I'm gonna help that person.
That will make you joyful.
That will fulfill your joy, you know what else always makes me happy going to church always makes me happy
I love going to church and even a depressing sermon kind of like this
You know what? I'm happier now than I would have been if I just stayed at home and just did nothing with my life this morning
You know, and people today, it's like, oh, I'm so sad all the time.
It's like, yeah, because what do you ever do for other people?
Oh, you just watch the sermons online?
Well, that's great for yourself.
But what about for your brothers in Christ,
who could have been edified by you being here today?
You know, what about iron sharpened with iron?
What about we need friendship and fellowship in this world?
We need encouragement from other people
that are living life with us.
Hey, I'm raising kids, you're raising kids.
Hey, we're going through problems.
You're going through problems.
We're doing this together.
That helps us rather than just being so selfish
where it's like, well, I'm just gonna watch the sermons online.
That's a selfish attitude.
And don't be surprised if your life is sad and miserable
when you're not esteeming anyone better than yourself.
You're worried about yourself only.
You know helping someone learn the Bible helping someone learn some truth from the Word of God
That's something that always makes me really happy
One of the, one of the happiest moments in my life was I preached a sermon about being fruitful and multiplying and a year, a year later, this woman came up to me with this little baby and said like, Hey, we had another kid because I listened to that sermon.
I was like, that is the coolest thing.
Like there's a life now in this world because someone heard the word of God and they decided, yeah, let's, let's have kids.
That's a pretty amazing thing that brought me joy.
And here's the thing, no matter what is going on in your life.
Even the terminally ill, hospice patient, who's a Christian, can serve other people in some way.
You can always bow your head and pray and ask God to help someone.
You could always be serving other people, and if you want your joy fulfilled, you have to find a way to serve other people.
Go to John chapter number 13, John 13. You have to make your life count for other people.
Why because remember everything under the sun is vanity. It's vexation of spirit. It's worthless
It's all gonna pass away. We're gonna die whether you're wise
You're gonna die just like the fool the thing that happens to the fool same thing that's gonna happen to you
Oh, you're gonna build something great with your life
Don't worry the person coming after you is gonna destroy it all and it's gonna be completely worthless and forgotten
And then guess what you're gonna die and your life is gonna be over
and our life is like a vapor.
But when you actually spend your life
investing into other people,
that lives on after you.
That actually makes a difference.
Look at John 13.1.
Now, before the feast of the Passover,
when Jesus knew that his hour was come,
that he should depart out of this world unto the Father,
Having loved his own, which were in the world, notice this, he loved them unto the end.
That should be the testimony that we strive for as Christians, that those people that
God has placed in our lives to love, that we would love those people.
unto the end, that we would use our lives not for our own selfish gain and to see how much
pleasure and how much, how many vacations we could take, how much money we could stockpile,
but we should think, how much can I love my brethren that God has given me? How much can I
love my wife? How much can I love my children? How much can I love my church and can I love them
unto the end? That should be the goal for our lives. Go to Acts chapter number 20.
You know, we're going to sing this song after the service, but I think this song, it puts
things in perspective of what I'm talking about.
It's a great hymn when we see Christ.
The lyrics say, life's day will soon be over, and believe it or not, we will blink our eyes
and be in heaven pretty soon.
All storms forever past will cross the great divide to glory safe at last, and we'll all
share the joys of heaven, a harp, a home, a crown, see all joy is coming someday.
The tempter will be banished, will lay our burden down, it will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
Life's trials will seem so small when we see Christ.
One glimpse of His dear face all sorrow will erase, so bravely run the race.
till we see Christ.
That should be our mentality
that, yeah, life is hard right now.
Yeah, we do have sorrows right now,
but someday it's all joys in heaven.
Someday it's laying down our burdens in heaven.
And so, hey, until we see His face,
let's run the race.
What does that look like?
Love other people.
Go soul winning.
Go to church.
Pray for your brethren.
Serve other people.
Run the race until you see Jesus Christ.
What to do when you despair of life?
Number one, draw a night of God.
Number two, make your life count for others.
Number three, learn the art of discipline.
This, I want people to understand and to really internalize what I'm saying.
You need to learn in life how to be a disciplined person.
You cannot be successful in anything in life if you rely on your emotions and your motivation
to carry you through anything.
If I was just listening to my emotions when I was throwing up on Wednesday, I would not
Okay? And ladies, if you're just relying on motivation to raise your kids as they're destroying everything,
there's going to be days you're not motivated.
Men, if you just went to work when you were motivated, how often would you go to work?
If you just went soul winning every time you just felt like it,
how often would you go soul winning?
Nothing gets done successfully on a long-term basis
from people just riding on their emotions
and riding on their motivation.
I almost hate that word motivation.
I think it's so overrated.
It's like a terrible word.
Just get rid of it.
It's a bad word.
Look at Acts chapter 20 verse 22.
Notice what Paul said and now behold I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem
Not knowing the things that shall befall me there save that the Holy Ghost witnesses in every city
Saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. I know I turn here a lot, but I just I love Paul's mentality
I don't know what I'm gonna face except bad stuff
All I know is that it's going to be hard, that afflictions and bonds abide me.
That's what I know I'm looking forward to.
With that in his head, notice his mentality though.
But none of these things move me.
Neither count I my life dear unto myself.
Sounds like he's not living for himself.
So that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus
To testify the gospel of the grace of God. What is he saying? He's saying look, I know bad things are happening
But I'm not gonna let that stuff move me. Why because I don't count my dear little precious life as something
That's so important for me. Why because I'm actually living this life for other people
Yeah, do I despair of life sometimes that's what he said in the Word of God, but he says look
I'm here for other people. I'm here to serve other people and notice what he says and the ministry
What's that? He's got a mission
He has something he's dedicated to, he has a goal, he has something to run towards, he has a finish line to run towards and he says look
which I've received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God, he's saying look God Almighty God gave me a ministry
and so I don't care if what I have to look forward to is bonds and afflictions, troubles, tribulations, trials, despairing of life, it doesn't matter
I'm still going to go there because it's for other people
and it's for the ministry that Jesus Christ got me.
Realize this, discipline wins when desire fails.
Discipline wins when desire fails.
There will be time in your life all the time
where you will not have a desire to do a certain thing.
But you want to know what gets you through that and allows you to be successful in any area. It's called discipline.
What is that doing the right actions regardless of how you feel?
You don't sit there and engage in your mind. Does this sound fun?
Does this sound like something I want to do?
Am I motivated?
I hate that word so much.
Just get rid of that word.
Who cares if you're motivated?
Do what's right!
Oh man, I just don't really feel motivated to read my Bible this morning.
Read your Bible anyways.
Why?
Because discipline wins when desire fails.
Discipline will triumph over emotion.
When you're not feeling it, but you're just disciplined and you do it anyways, that will always triumph over emotion.
Look, Jesus Christ did not want to go to the cross.
He was not motivated to go get tortured and die.
He just wasn't feeling it that day when he was going to go get tortured to death on the cross.
But he said, you know what? I've got a mission to do. It's called Saving the World.
saving mankind and dying for every person that's ever lived and you know
what I'm just gonna do it anyways. This is the difference between someone that
accomplishes something in their life and someone who doesn't. See it's not one
person struggles with depression and one person doesn't. Let me just let you on
in a secret. Probably 99% of people struggle with depression. Let me just
tell you most people probably have felt a desire to die in their life even great
But you know what made them great is that they were disciplined and they just did what they needed to do regardless of how they felt
Don't worry about your motivation
Get that word out of your vocabulary. Go to 1st Corinthians chapter number nine 1st Corinthians chapter number nine
Man, please don't wake up in the morning and ask yourself if you're motivated to go to work
Ladies, please don't ask yourself if you're feeling motivated to cook dinner or to clean the house
Just do what you're supposed to do.
Children, don't ask yourself,
do I really feel like cleaning my room today?
If mom said to clean your room,
I don't care if you're sick,
I don't care how you feel,
just do what you need to do.
1 Corinthians 9, verse 24.
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all,
but one receiveeth the prize.
So run that ye may obtain,
and every man that strived for the mastery
is temperate in all things.
That's a disciplined person, temperate.
Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown.
But we an incorruptible I therefore so run not as uncertainly so fight
I not as one that beat at the air
But I keep under my body and bring it into subjection
Lest that by any means when I have preached to others I myself should be a cast away
Notice how he says that he keeps his body under subjection. He's in charge of what his body does
He's not gonna listen to his body tell him. Hey Paul. You just got stoned. Don't go preach the gospel
He's just like I'm doing it anyways
Hey Paul, you're pretty tired, don't read the Bible, don't study,
don't go plan another church, just rest a while, give up.
He's like, no, I'm keeping my body under subjection. It's going to do what I tell it to do.
Why? Because I've received a mission to do and I'm going to carry it out.
I mean, you know, it talks about men striving for mastery,
incarnal things, you think about athletes,
I think about like special forces soldiers.
You really think that those guys wake up in the morning
and they're just like,
do I feel like training for combat today?
Do you feel like doing drills today
and getting ready for our deployment?
It's just like, no, they're just gonna train,
whether they're sick, whether they're feeling good,
whether they're motivated or not,
they're just gonna train.
You know, the world-class athletes of this world,
the best baseball players who's ever lived,
they never thought like,
man, should I hit the bat in cages this week?
I'm just not feeling it.
They're just like, they're gonna go do it regardless.
And it's like people like that in this world,
and I have respect for people like that in this world,
who are disciplined.
For a carnal cause because I just like discipline in any area of life. I just I think it's cool when you look at someone
Who is just mastered discipline and you know what we can learn something from those people and but here's the thing
We should apply those disciplines that they've done for carnal things to spiritual things
Because if they have that level of success in sports or the military,
you know, what would it look like if a Christian put that level of dedication into serving God?
What would success look like for a Christian that actually said,
you know what, I'm going to read the Bible every day of my life,
regardless if I'm motivated to do it or not?
Hey, you know what?
I'm gonna go to church and as long as I'm not spreading disease or anything like that,
please stay home if you're sick, okay?
But as long as I'm not spreading disease, I'm gonna be at church, whether I feel tired
or happy or sad, why?
Because it's what Jesus Christ wants me to do.
And that's the decision that you should make, is what's right.
That's the decision.
What is the right thing to do?
That's what you're doing.
Not, what do I feel like doing?
It's what's the right thing to do.
Now here's the good news.
is that as you build discipline it also can change your desire because building
discipline is very very hard at the beginning.
It's like people that start working out from scratch.
They don't work out at all, and all of a sudden they start working out.
They're going to be in so much pain for weeks of just brutal soreness.
And you start hitting the gym, you start lifting super, super hard.
For weeks, you're going to be in so much pain, but if you just keep going, if you just stay
disciplined, you're going to get to the point where you could work out and you feel great.
And the next day, oh, tiny little soreness.
And then maybe the time after that, no soreness at all.
And you just, you're getting stronger,
you're getting more disciplined to where it becomes easy.
This is like this in everything in life.
Look at Proverbs 16-3.
Commit thy works unto the Lord,
and thy thoughts shall be established.
You see, sometimes doing the right actions
can actually change how you think about a thing.
Like, if someone wanted to start reading the Bible, they had never been reading the Bible
where they're not used to reading in general.
When they start reading the Bible, it could be really hard to read one chapter, two chapters.
But when you commit your works to the Lord, oftentimes your thoughts can be established
to where you're like, you know what, I actually like reading the Bible.
And you could actually get to the point in your life where you look forward to reading
the Word of God, where it's one of the highlights of your day.
It's something that you want to do every single day.
You know, maybe some people don't understand this.
There's some people that they want to exercise.
It's like the highlight of their day.
And many of us were just like, what?
That's crazy to actually want to exercise.
But there's people like that, or they desire to run.
There's people that want to run.
There's people that want to do planks.
There's people that want to go swim in the ocean.
I mean, I would not want to swim in the ocean, but there's people that want to do this.
Why?
Because they've just committed to discipline, and then their thoughts start to change.
This is a good idea for your marriage too.
Why?
Because discipline carries you when desire fails.
You want to know why so many marriages fail?
Because the moment the desire fails, they give up.
They quit.
Because some idiot lied to them and said, you're always going to be happy.
Everything's always going to be good in your life.
Your marriage is always just going to be fireworks and just red hot fire and if it's anything
other than that you need to quit and go find someone else.
No, what you need to do is you need to keep doing the right actions regardless of your
desire, regardless of your motivation, regardless of your feelings and you know what you might
find when you keep doing the right actions is you might find your feelings come back.
You might find that your thoughts get established and you say, hey, I am happy I stayed married.
You know, I've never seen someone that's been married 50, 60, 70 years that regretted
staying married, but boy do I know people that regretted getting divorced.
Boy do I know people that regret leaving their spouse and now they're like, all right, let's
find a young bride as I'm in my 50s and 60s.
Good luck, man.
Good luck, lady.
It's not going to work like that.
No, you need to be disciplined and keep going.
Romans chapter number eight.
So remember, please remember,
discipline will carry you
when desire fails.
You don't want to read the Bible, just read it anyways.
You don't want to come to church,
just come to church anyways.
You don't feel like going soul winning, just go soul winning anyways.
You don't feel like doing your job,
or cleaning your house, or cooking dinner,
just do it anyways,
because it's the right thing to do. And let me say this,
As you see, often happens in the Bible, just keep living anyways.
Keep doing the right actions regardless of your feelings.
And let me be honest with you, I absolutely have felt like that at times in my life,
and I'm not ashamed of that.
I'm not thinking, oh man, there's something wrong with me because I just look in the Word of God,
and I see how many people have felt like that before,
and I'm just like, okay, yeah, I feel like that sometimes, but guess what?
I'm not going to quit.
I'm going to keep doing the right actions, regardless of how I feel, and you know what
I notice, when I keep doing the right actions, the joy comes back, and life just ebbs and
flows with joys and sadness, joys and sadness, but you know what, I'm running the race.
I'm looking for the day when I behold my Savior's face, and I'm going to keep running the race
until that day comes, regardless of what happens, regardless of my health, finances, life, doesn't
matter, none of these things will move me because of the ministry that Jesus Christ has
Romans chapter 8, let's just finish with this beautiful passage here in verse 18.
The Bible says,
Never forget that this life that you have when you use it to serve God
It's not in vain in the Lord and that you will be rewarded greatly in heaven and all the sufferings and problems that you experience in this life
You won't even remember them. They won't even be comparable to the glory that will be revealed in us someday
Verse 35,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Let's pray, Lord. Thank you so much for this day. Thank you for the Word of God.
Thank you that you are the God of all comfort the God of all mercies
I pray that as we go through problems in life that we would learn to as our knee-jerk reaction turn to you draw an eye to you
Draw to spiritual things not to sinful things. We just pray that you would comfort us give us strength
To make it through this life
And I pray that if there's anyone struggling with this idea today that you would just give them hope and comfort and
Just help them to keep doing the right things and I pray that you would just renew
the right attitude and their mind and heart and I just pray that everyone would know that there's
always people here that love them and care for them. Jesus name pray amen.
All right for our last hymn this morning turn if you would to hymn number 81 when we see Christ.
Hymn number 81-81, when we see Christ, we'll sing their starting on the first of time.