The Shadow of Despair

Greeting

Thank you Ps Sam! Welcome everyone to our second Fighting Shadows night. It’s such a joy to gather our Men together. You guys are our pillars and God is using you to lead your families and to lead your homes.

Can we once more shout down Manny for the incredible job he did with the food!

So good. Thank you!

Are you ready to dive in?

Come on let’s pray for just a minute and then we’ll dive in.

[PRAY]

Introduction

Viktor Frankl is a Holocaust Survivor who would go on to become a neurologist, psychologist, and philosopher, in addition to being an author. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning he observed that if a prisoner lost hope for their future, they were more likely to die an early death.

In this book Viktor writes about a man named Felix, who was also an inmate in the concentration camp. Felix in a dream heard a voice tell him that he would be free from the camp on March 30. Felix so believed this dream, and he gave this so much authority that it became a beacon for him to survive the horrific circumstances of his life.

As the date got closer, Felix grew nervous that no real end was in sight. March 30 would come and the only thing happened on that day was Felix became ill. The next day, March 31, Felix died.

Although the conditions of the camp were horrific, Felix’s death was a result of unmet hope.

Viktor Frankl wrote about Felix, “His faith in the future and his will to live had become paralyzed and his body fell victim to illness…”

When someone loses hope for the future, they fall into the shadow of despair, and tonight that’s the shadow we are going fight today. The Shadow of Despair.

Death by Despair

Now what I’m going to share with you is going to come as a surprise to some of you, but it’s worth unpacking here together. There are a lot of men who are suffering from despair. There is actually a category for this affliction that is affecting men as they eventually fall to this shadow, it is called Death of Despair. You might have never thought of it this way, but suicide, drug overdoses, and complications from alcoholism all fall under the category of Death by Despair.

These kind of deaths are disproportionately affecting men today. Depending on the age range, men are four times more likely to experience death by despair than women. Simply put, men are killing themselves and they don’t ever know why they are doing it.

So what is it that brings a man to this place of despair?

Well, it all comes down to how a man sees the future and what he believes about it.

Some of you may not be able to relate, but I know that there are many in the room who can; you could be going through something so dark and so lonely that you have no hope that the future will be better than what you are facing right now.

A failed marriage

Abuse that you may have suffered

A father wound

Anxiety

Depression

The list can go on and on, but they can all trigger the feelings of despair.

And what I want to share with you men today is that we have to wake men up to their inheritance in Christ once again.

Men have forgotten who they are in Christ.

Men have stopped pursuing the call of God on their life, or they only pursue it half-heartedly.

Men have somehow been spiritually emasculated and they are no longer leading their homes and their families into the promises of God for them.

The Mind of Christ

The first thing that we have to do men is to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

Romans 12:2 (NIV)

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Men, we have got to start feeding our minds the word of God daily.

Our thoughts are a reflection of the the things that we are filling our minds with. Paul tells us that when we renew our mind, or as he says in other places, as we put on the mind of Christ, we are going to see God’s good, pleasing and perfect will.

To have the mind of Christ is to think the way Christ thinks at all times.

Throughout the gospel we read that Jesus thought not just differently, than others, but his thoughts were superior. I know that we don’t use that language often when we describe the mind of God, but if you look at how Jesus interacted with people it was stronger and better than anyone else around him.

Jesus was strong with the Pharisees, and gentle with the sinners.

He was playing chess when everyone around him was playing checkers.

And when we begin to consume the word of God with great delight, it will begin to completely transform the way that we think.

Now, for some men in here, you might be thinking that the Bible is hard to read or that it doesn’t make sense. I get that, I do.

But let me help you with that:

A better version for yourself.

A plan.

Consistency.

Men, I’m telling you it was transform your thoughts.

And when the Shadow of Despair comes you are can stand against it because you have the mind of Christ! You have the word of God lodged in your thoughts. You are a man that is full of truth.

You’re not full of opinions. You are not full of pop-culture. You aren’t full of Fox News or CNN. You are full of God thoughts and they consume you.

Now, I want to call the Mind of Christ the jab in our fight plan against despair. It’s important, but it’s not the only thing. It’s a set up to what’s next.

Our Telos

I want to teach you a Greek word right now.

Are you ready?

Telos - Our Chief aim.

Wether you know it or not we are all living with a telos. We all have a Chief Aim in life. We have a bullseye that we are hitting by intention, or we are hitting by default.

When we have a Chief Aim that is birthing hope for the future in us, it is going to push us forward into the plan and the purpose that God has for us.

When we have a Chief Aim that is rooted in the world’s view of what makes a man successful, it will likely lead him to despair.

For example, if a person’s telos is to be rich he will chase this Chief Aim and find it completely unfulfilling.

If a person’s Chief Aim is only to have a family and lots of kids, they are going to eventually find even that good thing the wrong thing because loss is inevitable and we can’t control the future of our families.

You see too many men have the wrong telos. They have the wrong aim for their life and it kills their hope for a future.

So what is our telos? What should be our Chief Aim?

Well, we turn to the scriptures and here is what we read about our King. He is making all things new again. God is going to renew this earth and make it the way He designed for it to be, and here it is, he asks us to join him in that.

The calling that we have in the here and now is wrapped up in the future God has planned in Christ.

You see we need to start living with eternity in mind.

Our lives, our coming and our going, has to be set on a higher purpose than the temporary and the here and the now. We have to see what God is doing and join with Him!

We need to see what he is calling us in to, and allow that to be birthed deep inside of us.

So put some meat on this idea:

Bringing renewal to this earth begins with praying for God’s Kingdom to come to earth right now.

There is a false narrative about heaven that we will be cellulite free spiritual beings floating around in the clouds one day in the very distant future. But that’s not at all the message.

Jesus tells us that we need to repent because the Kingdom of Heaven is coming! We need to bring the Kingdom of heaven into the here and the now. We are bringing the heart of God to the people God loves. And this is a telos worth living for!

We don’t live to work, go on vacation once a year, pay taxes, and then die. That’s not a life I want to live. I want to see people changed when the Kingdom of Heaven comes to earth. We want to see generations set free from addictions and strongholds. We want to see People wake up and become fully alive in Christ.

The second thing we need in order for this telos to be birthed inside of us is to reconcile that we will all experience earthly suffering.

I know this doesn’t feel hope-filled, but that’s because we’ve not learned how to suffer like Christ.

We’ve been fed this Western-Prosperity false gospel that we will never be sick or that we will never suffer. I’m sorry, but that’s not the Bible that we read. Men, we are going to have our hearts broken. We are going to go through some things. We are going to suffer here on this earth. And, we need to learn how to suffer well.

You see, in order to experience the power of his resurrection we need to experience the fellowship of his sufferings. And when we suffer, we need to learn to count it all joy!

Paul said it best when he said to live is Christ and to die is gain.

And finally, we need to surrender this thought that we are not in total control.

Men, you are not in total control. You can’t control tomorrow any more than you can control the weather. It’s foolish to believe we can somehow operate in a capacity of total control. We believe this and when trouble comes we fall into despair.

“I never thought this would happen…”

“I never thought this would happen to me…”

Well, it has. It has and it’s here. How will you respond? What kind of man will you be?

Will you allow the things that you’ve not planned for your life to win, or will you push back and believe that God is the one who is on control and all we have to do is trust in his word, obey his voice, and follow where he is leading us.

Hope Against The World

As I close I want to give you some things to do. Last week I had you write down your shadows that you are facing. Today, I’m giving you homework to do on your own time.

Audit your Years - I want you to mark moments where your view of life changed, for the good or for the bad. And then, I want you to think about how you can make your perspective of this event change. I want you to see hope, instead of despair for this event. I want you to start reframing your experience, and thinking about a better future.

How many men will take that challenge?

How many men are going to reframe their life experiences and learn to see a better future for themselves, and for their family?

Call

Finally, we want to close in prayer. Today, I want to especially pray for those who’s hope is failing. We want to pray for you and believe a change is coming and it starts tonight.