Sadness Part 1
Notes
Transcript
What we are not talking about today.
We are not talking about bereavement
Bereavement: be deprived of a loved one through a profound absence, especially due to a loved one’s death
This sadness is associated with grief or mourning. Scripture has a lot to say about God’s comfort during this time of sadness. We even see Jesus weeping at the tomb of Lazarus.
God desires to comfort in the loss of a loved one. This is a natural process of life when we lose a loved one.
A few notes on grief, mourning, and bereavement
You can’t fix grief
If someone is mourning the loss of the loved one or if you are mourning the loss of the loved one, then this is not something that you have to have all the right words to say and try to fix it.
We have hope through Jesus but the loss of the loved one can’t be fixed. Only when Jesus comes again and we enter into New Jerusalem will it be fixed.
Grief, mourning, or bereavement is not easy
This takes a lot of energy. It is draining emotionally, physically, and mentally.
I do this type of work on a regular basis. I sit with people who lose loved ones. I generally know the decisions that will need to be made before the funeral service. I know what the funeral home is going to ask you as a family. I say this to say that I am extremely familiar with this. (When my children were younger and we were at my brothers house my kids were playing funeral with their cousins) preachers kids lol
Mourning, grief, or bereavement is exhausting. It takes time to recover and if you are walking through this or have recently you made need to give yourself a break. Recognize that its hard and ask the Lord to strengthen you.
This grief, mourning or bereavement can lead to sadness of the heart that we are talking about today
What is Sadness?
What is Sadness?
Sadness of the Heart
Sadness: Heaviness of heart brought about through disappointment, disillusionment, failure, or sin.
Sadness describes a state of being. We face disappointment after disappointment and it causes us to enter in to a state of sadness.
Many current events and news stories lead us to a state of sadness.
Sadness may be because of the stage of life you are in. Empty nesters may first be filled with excitement but then be led to sadness as children move out of the home and on their own. Likewise parents of young children are exhausted and tired. These parents don’t believe it will ever get better and may enter into a place of sadness.
Sadness is a heaviness of heart brought about through disappointment, disillusionment, failure, or sin.
You can smile and still have a heaviness of heart brought about through disappointment.
Being lonely might lead you to a sad spirit.
I want to look at a couple scriptures this morning that serve as examples of others who experienced a sadness of spirit. This is just a couple but there are so many examples in scripture of people who experienced a sadness of spirit.
Joshua 7
In Joshua 1 God promises the Israelites that he is giving them the land. He says no one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. I will be with you just as I was with Moses. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous.
In Joshua 3 they cross the Jordan on dry ground. The Lord causes the water flowing downstream to stand up in a mass. God performs this amazing miracle in front of them.
In Joshua 7 they face their first defeat.
1 The Israelites, however, were unfaithful regarding the things set apart for destruction. Achan son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of what was set apart, and the Lord’s anger burned against the Israelites.
2 Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and told them, “Go up and scout the land.” So the men went up and scouted Ai.
3 After returning to Joshua they reported to him, “Don’t send all the people, but send about 2,000 or 3,000 men to attack Ai. Since the people of Ai are so few, don’t wear out all our people there.”
4 So about 3,000 men went up there, but they fled from the men of Ai.
5 The men of Ai struck down about 36 of them and chased them from outside the gate to the quarries, striking them down on the descent. As a result, the people’s hearts melted and became like water.
6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell before the ark of the Lord with his face to the ground until evening, as did the elders of Israel; they all put dust on their heads.
7 “Oh, Lord God,” Joshua said, “why did You ever bring these people across the Jordan to hand us over to the Amorites for our destruction? If only we had been content to remain on the other side of the Jordan!
8 What can I say, Lord, now that Israel has turned its back and run from its enemies?
9 When the Canaanites and all who live in the land hear about this, they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. Then what will You do about Your great name?”
Sadness: a heaviness of heart brought about through disappointment
Disappointment: The sadness experienced when people or circumstances do not fulfil expectations.
Notice that they said don’t send all the people since the people of Ai are so few. They send a few men and the men of Ai respond and kill 36 guys and chased them out of the camp.
Joshua’s expectations were that they would defeat the men of Ai no problem.
This did not happen
Joshua begins to question. God why did you ever bring these people across the Jordan to hand us over to the Amorites for our destruction. If only we had been content to remain on the other side of the Jordan.
Disappointment: Sadness experienced when people or circumstances do not fulfill expectations.
Disappointment leads us to question the Will of God and leads us to question God himself.
It is amazing how often people and their decisions don’t meet our expectations and it causes us to doubt the very plans of Almighty God.
People and Almighty God are hardly comparable, yet we let people shape our view of God.
One more example in scripture
Nehemiah 2
1 During the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was set before him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence,
2 so the king said to me, “Why are you sad, when you aren’t sick? This is nothing but depression.” I was overwhelmed with fear
3 and replied to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should I not be sad when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”
4 Then the king asked me, “What is your request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven
5 and answered the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor with you, send me to Judah and to the city where my ancestors are buried, so that I may rebuild it.”
Why was Nehemiah sad?
This was a sad state of affairs for the Jewish city. Seventy-one years before (in 515 B.C.), the temple had been rebuilt. The year was now 444; yet the city itself still needed much rebuilding.
I feel as though we can identify a little with Nehemiah’s attitude here in this chapter. The temple had been rebuilt 71 years before but the city itself still needed rebuilding.
Apply that to us here locally at Rockaway Beach. God has done a work up here on the hill and we see him continuing to do a work, but our city itself is still in need of rebuilding. The downtown still needs work.
Regardless of building I go back to last week were we acknowledged that relational poverty is greater that material poverty.
I see progress in relationships in our community but it is still heartbreaking to expect people to treat each other better and yet their is still ugliness that takes place online on the community facebook page.
Nehemiah’s expectations were that the city would be rebuilt but it had not happened and he was sad in the kings presence.
When expectations are unmet, sadness may be the result. Psalm 42 accurately describes our feelings in this moment
For the choir director. A Maskil of the sons of Korah.
1 As a deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God.
2 I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night, while all day long people say to me, “Where is your God?”
4 I remember this as I pour out my heart: how I walked with many, leading the festive procession to the house of God, with joyful and thankful shouts.
5 Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God.
6 I am deeply depressed; therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.
8 The Lord will send His faithful love by day; His song will be with me in the night— a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I will say to God, my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why must I go about in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?”
10 My adversaries taunt me, as if crushing my bones, while all day long they say to me, “Where is your God?”
11 Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God.
Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me?
Put your hope in God
Put Your Hope in God
Put Your Hope in God
Our expectations must rest in the Lord and the Lord alone. It is essential that we seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness rather than seeking our own kingdom and we want.
Sadness comes when these two Kingdoms collide. That is our kingdom of our wants and our expectations of how we believe things should go and God’s Kingdom and his will of how things do go.
God is faithful
45 None of the good promises the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed. Everything was fulfilled.
At Joshua’s farewell address to Israel
14 “I am now going the way of all the earth, and you know with all your heart and all your soul that none of the good promises the Lord your God made to you has failed. Everything was fulfilled for you; not one promise has failed.
God is faithful to His promises
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
We must seek first His Kingdom.
We get narrow sighted that is we only see what is in front of us. God’s kingdom always trumps or kingdom. We sometimes get our eyes off of the end and we get disappointed because our plans and our kingdom appear to be failing.
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.” This is the Lord’s declaration.
9 “For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.
We can overcome sadness or disappointment that leads to sadness by aligning our thoughts with God’s thoughts rather than trying to get God to get in line with us.
This brings peace to a restless heart when we trust the plans of God and that his ways are indeed higher than our ways and his thoughts are greater than our thoughts. We can rest at the results of medical test. We can trust the Lord’s plans for our children.
Rejoice in Suffering
Rejoice in Suffering
1 Peter we have been in before Christmas and there is a major theme throughout the book and it is rejoice in suffering.
The opposite of sadness is joy or rejoicing.
12 Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you as if something unusual were happening to you.
13 Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of the Messiah, so that you may also rejoice with great joy at the revelation of His glory.
Don’t be surprised at the fiery trial, Instead rejoice.
Why do you rejoice?
Rejoice that you share in Christ’s sufferings.
If you are sharing in the sufferings of Christ, then you will also rejoice when his Glory is revealed.
6 You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had to struggle in various trials
7 so that the genuineness of your faith —more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire —may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Suffering results in glory and honor. Not only that but we rejoice in suffering because it is an indicator that Christ is the Lord or our life and we identify with him in suffering.
14 If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
15 None of you, however, should suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or a meddler.
16 But if anyone suffers as a “Christian,” he should not be ashamed but should glorify God in having that name.
17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with God’s household, and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who disobey the gospel of God?
18 And if a righteous person is saved with difficulty, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?
19 So those who suffer according to God’s will should, while doing what is good, entrust themselves to a faithful Creator.
Peace comes when we trust God and His plans. Our plans and expectations may not be met. Relax and trust God’s plans.
God’s plans our greater
Close with this clip