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SOUND MIND - Hope for Depression · REZ CHURCH Podcast

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I search for hope, I search for love, and one day for it leads
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God give me strength to accept the things that I just cannot
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know, that even when I lose control, I will not let you.
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Go Hey everyone how you doing? Good morning.
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You know I'm so glad that I told this to 1st service as well.
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I'm so glad that Kyle and Taylor did their thing with leading us
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in worship before I had to come up here.
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I did not want to follow those crazy people.
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They're all my friends but and the cannon Cannon would have
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been the worst. So anyway, we are going to
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continue. By the way, for those of you who
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don't know me, my name is Vance Furtado.
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I'm a volunteer teaching pastor here at Resurrection Church.
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We're going to be continuing our series that we've been doing on
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mental health. And so this is actually a little
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on the funny side. The topic I was assigned is Hope
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in Depression. The reason why it's a little
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funny is that I haven't been up here for three months.
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I was scheduled to speak. The last time I spoke from the
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pulpit was the first Sunday in March, and I was scheduled two
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other times to speak between then and now.
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And the reason why I didn't is because two dear brothers of
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mine, Pastor Daniel and Pastor Mark, came and talked to me and
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they very clearly told me you need to take a break.
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You're not healthy. And they were right.
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You see, I have struggled much of my life with depression.
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And I was struggling again and I was losing that battle.
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And the reason how I knew really I was losing the battle is I was
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struggling more and more with anger.
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You see, a lot of times depression manifests itself as
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basically repressed anger. And I was holding it down like
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you would hold down a spring as best I could.
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But I was losing that battle. And so my dear brothers said,
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you're going to take a break. You need to heal.
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That was hard, but it was absolutely what I needed.
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So depression is something I'm very familiar with.
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Let me give you guys just 5 facts about to kind of portray
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how big of a problem depression is.
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First of all, and this is a quote, depression is the leading
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cause of disability in the world.
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And it might sound strange, but it incapacitates us to where we
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find it very hard to work, very hard to concentrate, very hard
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to do much of anything. Also, just in the US alone,
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about 22 million people struggle with clinical depression,
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meaning they have been diagnosed with it.
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And I am one of those 22 million for which I take medication.
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My only regret is I didn't do the medication decades earlier.
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One out of every six teenagers will struggle with one or more
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major bouts of depression. So guys, if you feel a little
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weird sometimes it's OK. Lots of people feel that way.
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Depression is often coupled with anxiety.
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And the last one is that depression is sometimes called
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the hidden illness because sadly, what happens is people
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don't get diagnosed and get help with it until it's too late.
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Some of us are familiar with this man.
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His name was Robin Williams, very talented, very gifted
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actor, comedian. Well, Williams was struggling
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severely with depression in his later years, and so he did
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something that was absolutely not the answer, and that was he
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took his own life. That's not the answer.
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Now, by the way, please do not. If you know someone who is
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struggling with depression and you want to help them, please do
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not tell them what I'm going to call Christianized cliches.
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OK, let me give you 3 examples of them.
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Here's one. If you were more spiritual, you
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wouldn't be depressed. OK, great, now I'm depressed and
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I feel guilty. Just pray more.
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You know, that's sort of like this guy sitting in a rowboat.
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The rowboat has multiple holes, it's sinking and you hand them a
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Dixie cup and tell them just bail out more.
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You know, Christians don't get depressed.
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You know, if if anybody says one of those things to you or if you
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maybe have said one of those things in the past, let me just
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mention a couple things that I think are helpful.
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First of all, read the Psalms, because in the Psalms not only
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do you have of course, people praising God and people joyful
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in their walk with the Lord, you also have people sharing the
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fact that they are very struck. They're struggling in their
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life, they're struggling with despair, they're struggling with
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depression. So for example, Psalm 22, the
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Lord Jesus himself quoted that from the cross when he said, my
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God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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Or Psalm 42 and 43, where three times the psalmist writes, Why
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are you downcast, O my soul, why so disquieted within me?
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And then he says, Hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my
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Savior and my God. Here's a verse that we really
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need to practice sometimes with what we say.
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Let everyone be quick to hear and slow to speak.
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Sometimes the most helpful thing is to shut up.
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I'm not saying don't care. I'm saying that maybe if we
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don't have the words to share, maybe just the fact that we're
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sitting with this person, we put our arm around them, we're
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present with them, we pray for them.
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We don't have to necessarily tell them we're praying, but we
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pray for them. That in itself can be incredibly
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helpful. The good news, the good news is
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not only does the Bible have lots to say very honestly about
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depression, it also has information within it to help us
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to overcome those issues that come with depression to where we
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can have hope. As a matter of fact, the main
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point of this message is simply this.
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Despair drowns, but hope floats. And for this message, we're
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going to be looking at three different passages of Scripture.
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First of all, we're going to go to a little book called
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Lamentations. All right?
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We're going to look at 2 passages.
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There. We'll receive, first of all,
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despair depicted. And then we see a decision
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declared. And by the way, don't worry
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about having to copy this. It'll show up later, those of
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you who like to take notes. And then we're going to go for
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the Third Point. We're going to go to the Gospel
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of Mark. Mark chapter 10, verses 46 to
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52, and we'll see their deliverance demonstrated a story
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from Jesus's ministry where He helped someone who was in an
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absolutely hopeless situation. And finally, our last passage
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deals with what I'm calling destiny described, and that's
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from Second Corinthians chapter 4 verses 16 to 18.
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Now, as we do this, it is separate points, but please
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think of this as sort of like basically we're putting pieces
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together, OK? And as we put these pieces
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together in the message, there's going to be some parts of it
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that I think you're going to find perhaps more helpful than
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others, but it is a package. OK?
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So let's go ahead and go to our first passage that is
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Lamentations. I know, what a horrible name for
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a book. I don't know if the Hebrew name
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would be much better in Hebrew. It's simply ho Lamentations.
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Now, if you're wondering where to find it in a Bible, if you
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find in the Old Testament, the book of Jeremiah, it's a little
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book right after that one. OK, so I'm going to Lamentations
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chapter 3, just verses 19 and 20.
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Here we go, remember my affliction and my wanderings,
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the Wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it
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and is bowed down within me. This is despair depicted.
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What in the world is going on? Well, this is most likely
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written by the prophet Jeremiah, and he's looking upon something
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that is absolutely breaking his heart, something that could have
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been avoided. God's people whom Jeremiah had
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ministered to for some 40 years, they kept committing willful,
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determined, defiant sin. God had repeatedly warned them
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and urge them come back to me, repent, I love you, stop turning
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your back on me, stop breaking my heart.
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But they kept rejecting them anyway, until finally, as we're
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told elsewhere in Scripture. But they kept ridiculing God's
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messengers, despising his words, scoffing at his prophets until
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God's wrath was so stirred up against his people there was no
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remedy. And what happened was everything
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got devastated. Now we know what this looks
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like, even if we haven't personally experienced it.
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Because if you've seen stuff on social media or watch cable news
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and you're looking at a war zone where everything is destroyed,
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everything is devastated. That's what Jeremiah is looking
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at. OK, The Kingdom of Judah is
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gone. Jerusalem and the temple, the
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beautiful temple that the Jews had are now just smoldering
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piles of rubble. So many people are dead, they
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don't have enough people to even bury the bodies.
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People are starving, people are homeless, people are exiled.
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It seemed hopeless. And Jeremiah is honestly
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expressing what he feels as he looks on this.
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And that was a start, by the way, because what seemed
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hopeless was actually the beginning of an answer.
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What do I mean? It's a beginning of a change.
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You see, the Lord can't help us unless we're honest with Him.
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It's when we stop making excuses, stop denying the
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obvious truth that we need help, when we desperately need what
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only Almighty God can provide. When we come to that point,
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that's when we start turning and getting serious with God.
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My old childhood pastor used to say the 2 greatest evangelists
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are memory and misery. Now when did I finally start to
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realize I needed help? It was when my wife Linda and I
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were trying to care for our last living parent, my mom, as she
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was in Hospice care living with us.
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Her second stroke deprived her of the ability to speak for the
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last five months of her life. The last complete sentence I
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ever heard her say was You look tired.
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She couldn't say my name. She couldn't say the names of
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her grandchildren. She couldn't say Linda's name.
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And she was slowly declining, and there was nothing any of us
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can do about it. And we knew she was depressed.
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We knew she was upset. We could not help her other than
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to care for her. That's when I realized I
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couldn't handle this on my own. I need help.
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I had to be honest. Let's move on to the next
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passage, still in LAMENTATIONS. Lamentations chapter 3, verses
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21 and 24. This is probably going to sound
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a bit familiar because we just sang these words, but this I
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call to mine, and therefore I have hope.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never what His mercies never
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come to an end. They are new every morning.
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Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my
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soul. Therefore I will hope in Him.
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Did you catch the words hope in that passage?
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Very beginning he mentions hope, and then as he gets to the end
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he mentions hope again. It's like their bookends around
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the passage. You see, the deal is when it
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comes to, and we're talking now about decision declared.
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OK, Lamentations 321 to 24, decision declared.
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When we choose to hope, that's the best choice we could make.
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Recovery usually begins when we choose hope.
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Now to do this, our will has to basically take the lead.
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We cannot depend upon our emotions.
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Our emotions simply will drag us down further and further and
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further. We have to make a choice now.
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By the way, a Christian community of some close friends
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who love us, who also love Jesus, is incredibly helpful for
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this. I can't even tell you how many
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times my Christian brothers and sisters in my small group and
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others around me have helped me. And if you're not in a
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community, you need to be. Jeremiah is declaring his hope
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based on what he knows about God.
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These are things that he has personally experienced about
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God. So if you're here and you're a
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non Christian, you do not know Jesus, but you wanted to come
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out and check out this church. Maybe a friend invited you or
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maybe you just decided to visit. First of all, we're all glad
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you're here. I'm incredibly excited that
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you're here. What you need to realize as we
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go through and look again at this passage is that this is
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what God is really like. This is how God truly is, the
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God that you don't know, but who wants you to come to know him.
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And Christian, this is a reminder of who God is, the God
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who loves you. OK, so there's 3 certain truths
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about the Lord in this passage. And by the way, God himself
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described himself in these terms, OK, earlier in the Bible
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at a place called the book of Exodus 34, verse 6, this is what
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he said about himself. First of all, His steadfast love
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never runs out anytime in this Bible translation, the English
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standard version where you read steadfast love in the Old
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Testament, it's most likely the Hebrew word hesit.
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That word is God's covenant, committed, determined love that
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we will never ever earn, but He gives it to us anyway.
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Why? Because He loves us.
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That's his steadfast love. His mercies never quit.
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How many of us, maybe as a kid or maybe you were reading this
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to a younger brother, sister or grandchild, but how many of us
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are familiar with that little book, Green Eggs and Ham?
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OK, Do you remember how Sam I am kept pushing the grumpy guy to
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eat green eggs and ham? I mean it, it sounded gross.
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It really did. OK.
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And the grumpy guy kept saying no, I will not eat them here or
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there. I will not eat them anywhere.
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And Sam I am just keeps hammering at it and says eat
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them, eat them. And finally the grumpy guy says
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OK. And he eats the green eggs in
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ham. And then he says, I like them.
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I like green eggs in ham. I do.
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I do. I like them, Sam, I am.
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That's what God's steadfast mercy and love is like.
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You got to check it out for yourself.
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I can only describe it so much, but that is what God is like,
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OK. And the third thing, the third
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certain truth about the Lord is that His faithfulness is huge.
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Anytime you have heard somebody or maybe yourself say at church,
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because they get kind of excited about what's going on.
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And so they say that word that we say, Amen.
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Anytime you hear that, that's basically this term, OK,
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faithful, that's what it means. So we put this together.
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God's steadfast love, God's mercy, God's faithfulness.
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Here's what it all means. Our hurts begin to fade when we
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focus on who the Lord is rather than our pain.
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Remember, despair drowns, but hope floats.
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So Jeremiah is making a choice. I'm going to focus on what I
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know is true about God. All right, all this sounds
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probably pretty good, but it's all pretty theological too.
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Let's go to a personal example from Jesus's life where he gave
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hope to somebody who had no hope, who was in despair.
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So we're going over to Mark chapter 10, verses 46 to 52, and
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this is going to be Deliverance demonstrated.
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OK, Deliverance demonstrated. And when they came to Jericho,
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and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples in a great
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crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was
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sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was
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Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of
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David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him, telling
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him to be silent, but he cried out all the more, Son of David,
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have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and said, call
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him. And they called the blind man,
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saying to him, Take heart, get up, he's calling you.
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And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.
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And Jesus said to him, What do you want me to do for you?
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And the blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.
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And Jesus said to him, go your way, your faith has made you
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well. And immediately he received his
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side and followed him on the way.
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OK get the picture. It's a busy, busy Rd. basically
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a dirt path that they're walking on.
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They're leaving the city, they're headed up to Jerusalem.
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And literally there are hundreds and hundreds of people
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travelling because the Jewish festival of Passover is coming
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very quickly. And so everybody is headed up to
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the big temple in Jerusalem and Jesus is going to.
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And lots and lots of people want to hear what Jesus says, want to
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see what Jesus does. And off to the side is a blind
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beggar. Nobody's looking at him.
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He's practically invisible because there were so many
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beggars all over the place in Bible times.
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Sort of like we see the homeless so often, we kind of don't even
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look anymore. That's what it was like.
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We're told that he's lost his eyesight.
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That also was common in Bible times.
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Sometimes people would get their eyes infected, especially from
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flies, and the result of that infection, they would lose their
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eyesight. It might have been cataracts, it
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might have been something else. But if you lost your eyesight
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back in the time of the Bible, it meant two things.
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First of all, it was a disaster because they didn't have things
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like Braille. So if you lost your eyesight,
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basically you would no longer be able to read anything, assuming
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you ever even had an education, even if you wanted one.
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It's not going to happen. You're totally dependent upon
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other people. And so maybe you have a family
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to help you, maybe they're tired of helping you.
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And then the end result is you become a beggar.
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And nobody wants to look at beggars.
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They'll throw them a coin occasionally, but nobody cares,
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not really. And the second thing that
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happened, and this really is frustrating, is that some people
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would say, oh, you must have become blind, maybe because you
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had terrible sin in your life and therefore God judged you and
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he made you blind. You lost your sight because
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you're a great Sinner. By the way, Jesus never accepted
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that kind of thinking. You know the last song that Kyle
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and Taylor LED us in blessed assurance.
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It's an old, old song. It's a beautiful song, but it's
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a song that's also written by a woman, Fanny Crosby, who lost
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her sight as a child. She wrote hundreds and hundreds
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of songs, some of which are being sung in churches right
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now, all throughout Bakersfield and elsewhere.
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Did you catch the line that we sang?
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Visions of rapture now burst on my sight.
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She couldn't see physically a thing, but spiritually she saw
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plenty. She had hope.
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She glorified God in spite of what had happened to her.
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She lived a rich and fulfilling life.
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Why? Because Fanny still had hope.
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Well, Bartimaeus didn't seem to have any hope.
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And then he heard some commotion.
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A crowd's coming. He hears lots of crowds, but
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this one seems to be different because he's hearing people
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talking about Jesus. And of course, he's never seen
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Jesus. But he knows, OK, Jesus is the
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son of David, which means he's the Messiah.
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He's the special one that's coming.
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And he also knows Jesus heals people.
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And so he begins to cry out, Son of David, have mercy on me.
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And the crowd is telling him, you don't count.
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Be quiet. And he's not going to be quiet.
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He calls out even more. He is absolutely determined to
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get to Jesus. And so he comes and Jesus heals
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him. Now please listen carefully, OK?
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Jesus can save. Jesus can heal.
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Jesus can restore because he's God in flesh.
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He's the second member of the triune God.
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All of that is taught in the Bible, but he usually acts when
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we trust Him. And trust is faith.
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That's why we're told in Hebrews 11/6.
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Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since
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the one who draws near to Him must believe that he exists and
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that He rewards those who seek Him.
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Bartimaeus Sodom. Bartimaeus got healed and then
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notice Bartimaeus starts following Jesus.
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You see, he didn't just simply get healed and say, oh thank you
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very much Jesus, and then went the opposite way.
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No, he starts to follow Jesus. What's the big deal about that?
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Simply this, a disciple is a follower.
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From this point on, this healed man walked as much as he could
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with Jesus, which sadly he wouldn't walk with him
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physically for very long because Jesus is headed to Jerusalem to
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die, but Bartimaeus is walking with him.
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All right, wonderful story. Bartimaeus got healed.
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He had no hope. He got healed, but what if God
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doesn't heal you? I'm 64 years old.
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I have struggled with depression probably since I was a teenager.
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I'm not healed. Is it possible to still have
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hope and not be healed? That's where exactly some of us
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are, like me. If God for whatever reason does
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not heal us, can we still have hope?
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Yes, we can. And it's not just my word about
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that. That doesn't really count.
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It's in Scripture. It's something that the apostle
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Paul wrote in Second Corinthians.
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So in Second Corinthians chapter 4, verses 16 to 18, here's what
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he wrote on this issue. So we do not lose heart.
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Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being
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renewed day by day. For this light momentary
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affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory
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beyond all comparison. So we look not at the things
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that are seen, but that the things that are unseen.
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For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that
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are unseen are eternal. This is destiny described by the
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time Paul wrote this. Let me give you some information
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about what he had gone through. He's been beaten up a number of
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times. He's been shipwrecked twice.
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He says. He even spent a night and a day
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just basically floating around in the sea, holding on, probably
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to a piece of wood. He's been attacked and left for
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dead. A crowd stoned him to death and
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thought he was gone. He wasn't.
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He's been attacked by false teachers.
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He's had his reputation shredded.
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He's even got what he only calls in 2nd Corinthians 12.
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He calls it a thorn in the flesh.
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And people have debated for a long time, what was that thorn
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in the flesh? Was it a physical element, maybe
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involving his eyes? Was it a disease like malaria?
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Because once you get malaria it can keep coming back, and it was
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common then. Was it this?
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Was it That we don't know. What we do know is that Paul
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asked the Lord three times to take it away, and the Lord said
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no. You're a better man serving me,
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Paul, with that problem than you would be otherwise.
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My grace is sufficient for you. In spite of all those things,
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Paul says. They are light.
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They are momentary afflictions. How?
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How could he say that? How could he write that?
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Here's why. Paul's focus was elsewhere.
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Paul wasn't focused looking dwelling upon his present
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trials. He was looking ahead.
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He was looking in the head to a glorious, eternal future that
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he's hinting at in these 3 verses, a future that is for
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every person who knows Jesus. And there's so much in the Bible
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about that. But he mentions 3 things here.
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First of all, where we're going to be with Jesus forever.
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It's being prepared right now, Jesus himself said in John 14
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verses 2 and three. He tells his disciples and he
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tells us I am going away to prepare a place for you, and if
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I go away, I will come again and take you to be with me forever.
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Also, we're told here that that place will be glorious and it
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will be weighty. Now, frankly, I never really
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understood that idea of the weight of glory.
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What, what, what does that mean? And then I did some study on it,
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preparing for this message. And the deal is in the Hebrew
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language, which of course Paul knew fluently.
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The word we see in our English Bibles, glory, can also be
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translated heavy, meaning solid, tangible, like a big massive
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rock. Except that rock is the very
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glorious presence of God Himself.
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It is infinitely greater than we can ever imagine now, and we who
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know Jesus will experience God's glory in our new home.
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And if you wonder what that new home is like, just read the last
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two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21 and 22, and you
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get a little taste of our forever home.
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Excuse me? The third fact is that our
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future with Jesus, it's eternal. It never dissipates and never
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slows down. Everything in the world around
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us is transient. When I was 17 years old, I sat
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right there. I'm 64.
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Let me tell you that time went by fast.
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That's what I mean by transient, but that's not how it is in
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heaven. Like the old song, when we've
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been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no
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less days to sing God's praise than when we've begun.
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So eternal means will have never ending joy in the presence of
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God, His angels and His people. So is it possible to have hope
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now and still not be healed? Yes, if we stay focused on where
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we're going, not where we are. What's your focus?
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What fills your mind? What do you dwell upon?
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Is it your present troubles, whatever they are?
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Or are you doing what Paul is telling us to do here?
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Are we focused upon and trying to focus more and more upon the
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indescribable infinite beauty that awaits every child of God?
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I like what Psalm 121 verses one and two say.
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I will lift up my eyes to the hills.
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From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who
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made heaven and earth. So as we wrap this up again one
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more time, our main point, despair drowns, but hope floats.
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Two last questions, all right. First of all, if you're a non
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Christian, you're somebody that's here but you don't know
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Jesus. And again, we're glad you're
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here. Let me ask you this, will you
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come to Jesus so that he can save, restore and love you?
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You see, sadly, what I've been describing, much of the sermon
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is outside your experience 'cause you don't have a
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relationship with the one who died because he loved you and
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who wants to have a forever relationship with you.
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So if you would like to have a relationship with Jesus, I'm
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going to ask everyone please to close your eyes now so that
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there is no distractions. But if you would like to have a
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relationship with Jesus, I'm going to ask you to pray with
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me, whether it's out loud or silently.
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But to pray this, dear Jesus, I want to have a relationship with
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you. I ask you that you cleanse me of
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my sin. I ask Lord, that you would come
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into my heart. I ask and ioffer my life up to
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you. I ask you, Lord, that I would
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have a relationship with you. If you prayed that prayer, would
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you raise your hand so I can see it?
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Thank you. Thank you.
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OK, let's open our eyes. Can I have everybody stand,
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please? If you prayed that prayer with
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me, welcome to the family. I'm going to ask if you prayed
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just now to receive Jesus into your heart.
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I'm going to ask that before you leave here, you would visit.
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We have a table over here where it says I just raised my hand.
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We have a table over here where it says I just raised my hand.
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Guys, can you put the house lights on on those sides so
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people can see them? Please go there at the end of
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service. We have somebody who would like
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to chat with you. We want to help you in whatever
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way that we can. Now my question for the
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Christians is this. Will you return to Jesus so that
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He can help restore and love you?
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Maybe you don't struggle with depression like I have for so
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long. Maybe it's something else.
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But regardless, our Lord is there to help heal and restore.
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We just have to come to Him. So I'm going to invite you to
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come forward so that we can pray for you.
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See, we want to help you in any way that we can.
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And that coming forward and asking for prayer, seeking
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prayer with another brother or sister, that's a good step.
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So if God is dealing with you, my Christian brother or sister,
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you come.