Untitled Sermon

Songs on Depression Jimi Hedrix There must be some kind of way outta here Said the joker to the thief There's too much confusion I can't get no relief

She thinks, "Hey, how did I come to this? I dream myself a thousand times around the world But I can't get out of this place"

There's an emptiness inside her And she'd do anything to fill it in But all the colors mix together To grey And it breaks her heart

How she wishes it was different

Oh, there's an loneliness inside her And she'd do anything to fill it in And though it's red blood bleeding from her now It feels like cold blue ice in her heart When all the colors mix together To grey

Comfortably Numb A distant ship smoke on the horizon You are only coming through in waves Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying When I was a child I had a fever My hands felt just like two balloons Now I've got that feeling once again I can't explain you would not understand This is not how I am I have become comfortably numb

Jon Foreman

Been fighting things that I can't see it Like voices coming from the inside of me and Like doing things I find hard to believe in Am I myself or am I dreaming?

I've been awake for an hour or so Checking for a pulse but I just don't know Am I a man when I feel like a ghost? The stranger in the mirror is wearing my clothes

No, I'm not alright I know that I'm not right A steering wheel don't mean you can drive A warm body don't mean I'm alive

No, I'm not alright I know that I'm not right Feels like I travel but I never arrive I wanna thrive not just survive

Tyler Joseph

Sometimes quiet is violent I find it hard to hide it My pride is no longer inside It's on my sleeve My skin will scream reminding me of Who I killed inside my dream I hate this car that I'm driving There's no hiding for me I'm forced to deal with what I feel There is no distraction to mask what is real I could pull the steering wheel

'Cause I still wake up shaken by dreams And I hate to say it but the way it seems Is that no one is fine Take the time to peel a few layers And you will find True sadness

Comfortably Numb, All Along The WatchTower, Colors mixing to Gray, peeling off the layers true sadness.

Depression

Situational, Pervasive, Postpardum, Season, Dysthmia, blues, Exhaustion, Feel off, longing for more. Irony, singers and songwriters write, discuss, inspired by the dark night of the soul. So Common.

Yet often in the church, we are silent. We are much more comfortable talking about physical illness, relational harms…often go silent when it comes to mental illnesses. Easy to talk about exterior lives, often lips stay tight when it comes

Are you depressed?

Have you been depressed? Do you know someone who has struggled with that? Have you ever woke up, felt off, gone through a gray period, got caught up in your head, simply felt blue? Raise your hand Normal part of life, often keep it in the background. Sick as our secrets. Book of Ecclesiastes will isn’t 4 weeks traversing through the book of Ecclesiastes…Raw, Brooding, Honest. Taking an honest look at life. Sandpaper gains against us. Solomon opens up about his emotional life. See his candor, openness, no problem naming reality. What are we going to find if we are honest like him? If we do open up. 2 Problems, 1 Overcoming Hope Ecclesiastes 2

Wisdom doesn’t stop depression Even the Wisest of People Get Depressed

Interesting, people of faith. Christianity entices us to pursue is wisedom. Wisedom the art and the skill of godlt living. Living life well in the gray areas, where the rules of life don’t apply. Key transitions from adolescence to adulthood is this skill to live a life of wisdom. Gain enough wisdom someone we become impervious and somehow skip through life without feeling down. If we do feel down or amiss, taking about it simply let it fester in life. polled the room, we think the world would be a better place if we had more wisdom. Solomon agrees that wisdom is good. V18-I hated life. This is a man who has everything…Solomon Hugh Hefner, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk all rolled into one. Man, that’s hard right. Refreshing, if Solomon experienced. Bible recorded it, that means I have permission to experience and discuss it it normalizes it.

Verses 13-14

13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.

Solomon says something we should agree with. Like its better to drive down the highway with our lights on, walk across your child’s lego strewn floor with lights on, its better to live life and pursure wisdom. Equates wisdom to illuminate, it brings clarity. Better to live with wisdom than with folly. The wise know what they are doing. Wisedom have eyes in there head, wisdom stumble around.

Better to live with wisdom, to know what your doing, simply aimlessly float and coast through life.

Even the wise, do get a pass, don’t simply pass go and collect 200 dollars on the hardest parts of life. Even the wise get depressed. Same things happen to all of us.

Verses 14-16

And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?[1] And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!

Same things happens death. No amount of wisdom, wealth, mental savy. Wisdom doesn’t make you live forever. Air in your lungs, myleaneted sneath and neurons firing in your brains, blood circulated through your heart. Wisdom doesn’t make you escape death

“It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.”

Great Equalizer… ILL: Alexander the Great, Solomon type figure, King of Macedonia, Conquested the Entirety of the Persaisn Empire. Honor, Power, Mighty. During one of the great battles, lost his father. Months later he comes back with his friend and philosopher remember his father. Looking through through bones. What are you doing? "I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.”

Rest of his life, Alexander remembered this. Death is the great equalizer. King and a Slave remain the same in death. That’s the Solomon realizes. What happens to him? Spirals down. Shocking (and refreshing) passages of scripture.

Verse

17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind. Most of us would say that in Church, I hate life. Solomon has the freedom to write it, to speak it, to normalize it. Courage to express it. Solomon’s courage to express this, isn’t a resignation of life. An angering questioning about the purpose of life.

If I am going to die, meet death. Why I have gained so much wisdom? Why have I tried so hard? What am I doing? Death-he hates it, grievious it, scandal. Its not fair. Wise have to acknowledge that.

Problem 1: Where does that lead us? Where do we go? Even the wisest people get depressed?

We are not going to stop go to dig deeper, go to problem 2. Wisdom doesn’t stop depression. Scene grows dark, news gets worse, before it gets better.

Rightness doesn’t stop depression

Even the Hardest Workers get Depressed

Denver for 4 years, entrepreneurial energy, idealism, make something do something. Met many lazy people in Denver. Work Hard in our leisure-hike, walk, ski, RVs week, go backpacking, climb 14ers. Ironically, rest by hard work. Hard work is a value/virtue where we live, sometimes probably an idol.

Solomon says, even the people who do it right, even the hard workers get depressed.

Can’t keep what you earn

Verses 18-21 18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, 21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it.[2] This also is vanity and a great evil.[3] He who dies with the most toys, still dies. Everything I am earning, through my farm, my art, ranch, conquests. Everything I built will be left behind for someone else. I can’t take it with me. Hevel, breath. Just like the air you breate out on a cold day you can’t take it with him. Slip through his hands. What’s worse you might leave it somebody else? Just all crumble, “castle made of sand fall into the sea eventually. ILL: Denver Chalk Art Festival, 2 day street painting festival, 200 artists, 2 days, rutne Larimar Square into the museum. Stick Figures, Hop Skotch or Four Squares.

Does the artist get to take the masterpiece? All their labor, how long do they get to enjoy it, 2 days. Monday cars drive on, rain and street swepers come, lost in haze of life. Toil for we can’t grasp forever…car will go to someone else, bank account will go to someone else, our house someone else, job will go to someone else.

Lasting long 2 day chalk art festival. Do all the things right, momentary enjoyment. Something depressing, about working so hard, goes down the sewer drain.

Hardworks can’t be happy in their work. 22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? 23 For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. [4] I know I can’t enjoy my work forever, at least I can enjoy it know. Not so my fast my friend. Work of Toil, Vexation, Lack of Rest even at night. Crafts of Life-Good and Holy, Need, Broken. Realize, Passion, start a business. Tell me a person I’m so relaxed because I started a business. Promotion, boss you have is a bear. Become a Parent, restless, stress, sleepless nights. Happy as your unhappiest child. Stress

Losses you can’t control

Bored, out of your mind Biding your time until your done. ILL: never wore a watch for the rest of his life

Felt tedious, exhaustion

Lost motivation

Employees tell them to do things, but they don’t do what they are told.

This is work. Work does this to us. Hard workers struggled with work. Solomon said, “Hated work, greatest evil”

Wisest workers get depressed

Hardest workers get depressed.

Big problem. Where do we go? What do we do? Watch Netflix, go on a vacation and pretend everything is okay for 3 days. Put a plastic smile, drink some booze, pretend its just okay.

Go to Hope.

Depression Many Causes to it. Spiritual and Physical Beings. True-some form of depression are physical. Biological differences. Hope by know means I am not saying you can’t go to a doctor, psychiatrist, prescription to help you by a profession. I’d be a hypocrite with no credibility. I am person with biological disposition to depression. Doctors and Counselors have given me some of the greatest physical help so I can actually engage with the spiritual side of depression.

I am saying, Solomon saying peel all the layers. In light of all these problems, one grounded hope. One sure thing. One thing the wise people and hard working people missing… Content Faith found in centrality of God. Solomon is missing, is the centrality of God. Last verses,

“the most remarkable passage in all of Eccl. It explains evthying that comese before and after. This is point of the entire book.” Second time and most meaningful time of the book, God is mentioned. Bringing God into the equation. Bringing God into the spotlight.

Thought experiment without God. God is the equation.

Plently this morning in Denver, place God in the equation. He is the entire equation. Source and Hope, Foundation, finding contentment not in the things of God, but the only God. 24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?[5]

If you life is about God, its about your things, wisdom, work. Things hard work and wisdom. They are no longer your ssaviors, power to disappoint you. You see them as simple and profound gifts you can enjoy.

No longer surprised when they don’t satisfy you, realize they are not the source of your satisfication. When your self getting disappointed in your work or wisdom, check engine going off, put more importance in this than I should.

Wisdom and Hard Work, Beautiful Gifts but hellish masters. Gifts….Free…

Serve wisdom and hard work will be torteous.

26 For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy,[6]