now we're going to turn our attention to our new series unstuck which kind of brings this image to mind [Music] we have um some exciting exciting content in john 18 and john 19 and in this little window of time that the lord has provided in his providence we want to talk about are getting unstuck from some things and the message today is about is about getting unstuck from depression and the passage of scripture if you want to open your bibles is first kings first kings chapter really 16 17 18 19 in there is the story of elijah and it's actually um a passage of scripture that we have looked at numerous times before in the history of our church one of the portions was the 5g message back maybe 10 years ago we had a message called grace when i'm wavering about the showdown on mount carmel between elijah and the false prophets and and uh but in the midst of all this this is as i said a passage i've preached on quite a few times before and i want to just say say that this subject of meeting god in depression getting unstuck from depression i actually reviewed a message this week of when i preached on this before and i have to just say that it was truthful and i think accurate but as i watched myself preaching 10 years ago i thought you know i i didn't feel the weight of what a person feels who is going through that and this morning i just want to take a minute and pray because this is a sensitive subject and if you have a pattern of thinking that causes dark clouds to hang over your life it's hard to penetrate that it's hard to get going in a different direction it's hard to get unstuck from that and and uh of course we really really badly do need to if you just think about what it's like to be stuck i was up at the camp recently showing a new potential staff member around the camp and i went on a trail to show to show them the property with my truck and i got stuck and i went up a hill back downhill uphill slid off the trail had to have a big tow truck come in it was it's not fun to be stuck and uh if you've ever been stuck emotionally if you've ever been stuck in a pattern of thinking that doesn't seem to be able to go forward i'm just going to pray and ask the lord to help me to give the words uh give me the right words for this so let's just all father we look to you this morning we love you and we love the people in this church and i pray that you would set a watch over my lips that in speaking your truth about this that i would truly feel the weight of those who are within that i pray for my brother or my sister right now who is stuck in a depressive outlook mindset and uh god would you help them would you help all of us and would you give us great compassion and sensitivity as we address this that the words that are spoken would minister grace to the hearers now this we pray in jesus name amen amen all right so um first kings 17 is is where we kind of check in with elijah uh chapter 17 verse one says now elijah the tishbite of tishba in gilead it's like out of nowhere that's it that's his intro do you know that elijah is one of the greatest people in the old testament right did you know did you know turn your neighbor and say i did you know i can't make you say something if it isn't true somebody say prove it i would like to prove it for example in the new testament when jesus christ was transfigured he he took off the cloak of his humanity and revealed all of his glory he picked peter james and john to go up onto a mountain and he was like check this is who i am and glory flowed out of him like a river and two old testament characters showed up to witness the transfiguration of jesus their names were moses and elijah moses represents represents the five uh old testament uh books of the law and and uh elijah represents the prophets he's the greatest of the prophets he was top two in the entire old testament apparently because he got invited to that special glory show in the new testament and and he was like a high high high powered um follower leader follower of jesus christ follower of the lord but a leader and an impactful leader and and the reason i'm emphasizing that is uh we'll come back to and by the way he doesn't even get an intro like moses right moses we get the birth the bulrushes the the the growing up in the palace um none of that for elijah it's just chapter 17 now elijah that's it he's on the scene and god's a powerful man but what i want you to see about him i want you to see that in chapter 19 verse 3 elijah says then he was afraid he rose and ran for his life and came to beersheba which belongs to judah left his servant there went a day's journey into the wilderness sat down under a broom tree and asked that he might die it is enough now oh lord take away my life i'm no better than my father's if you look across the page to verse 10 he says i've been zealous for the jealous for the lord the god of hosts and i did what i was supposed to do in other words the people of israel have forsaken your covenant they've thrown down your altars this whole thing's going to hell in a hand basket effectively and i even i i'm the only one left god and they seek my life to take it away he's you don't have to be a genius to see that he's at a bad place what i want you to see here is is a good everyone's a good man a good man a good woman can get to a very bad place and church doesn't need to be a place to come and act like you've never been in a bad place you've never had a hard season if elijah one of the absolute greatest that ever lived could get to a play i don't want to live anymore then who here would say that they are above that temptation they are better than that a struggle here's a little definition emotion is a a temper or a depression is a temporary emotional state characterized by exaggerated feelings of sadness and hopelessness that are not consistent with reality okay we're not talking about discouragement here we're talking about where everything is out of proportion the feelings are too big and they're too long-lasting now if you know what it's like to be under dark clouds that won't blow away let me just take a minute and uh let's jot down uh if we can uh like how dark are these clouds how dark are these clouds exactly all right um here's here's four kind of stages first of all you can be downcast and a downcast is kind of immediately circumstantial something happens i'm having a bad day the psalmist said why are you downcast oh my soul and you see in yourself a heaviness that is relative to something obvious that you can put your hand on and and generally tomorrow uh the sun will come up the circumstances will change and you're you're back back on the go again but this message isn't about being downcast and if the downcast condition lingers for three or four days we might say you know i've just been really discouraged this week and and the circumstances have lingered and i haven't found a way to think about it that's getting me forward and and you can be discouraged but if discouragement lingers and it becomes a pattern of thinking that is not specifically relative to any circumstance but it's a more general outlook that even when the circumstances have obvious obviously changed the blues have not left me now i'm starting to get into um what would be called depression and and i just want to say this it's extremely serious because a depressive states that continue become despair downcast is bad day discouragement is bad week or month depression is i don't know what's wrong and i can't seem to shake it and despair is everything's wrong and it's never going to change and despair is what leads people to do desperate things and so it's a serious matter and so first king 17 is is kind of where i am it says in verse one uh now elijah the tishbite of tishma that there's a lot of ways that i can make that funny but i have to keep moving in gilead said to ahab um ahab you just have to know ahab is as wicked as wicked gets and elijah is one of the greatest uh men in the whole bible does that impress you if i was like dude that's one of the greatest guys in the whole bible you should say like we'll prove it he's one of the greatest guys in the whole bible okay okay all right so um when jesus went up on the mount of transfiguration to uh uh take the uh cloak away from his humanity and show his glory and his deity he took peter james and john and jesus like just let the light shine and they were all like glowing who showed up moses and there he is a lot of people they could have picked from the old testament they took moses representing the first five books of the bible they even called the first five books of the bible the books of moses and then elijah who is considered the greatest of the prophets so um this guy is is big time now it's interesting moses we learned all about his childhood his parents you know he was born and his mom put him in a basket and set him in the the river in the bowl elijah he just bam he's there now elijah that's the intro to elijah where'd he come from don't know came from tish bite but he was god's man the nation was in massive massive moral decline not unlike today and god sets this guy up ahab was the king he was wicked he was evil he was leading the people in baal worship gross idolatry perversity debauchery i could fill in those blanks i don't want to it was dark and awful ahab was the king and you think ahab was bad his wife jezebel made her husband ahab look like okay so jezebel was so evil she was like 10x her wicked husband now i just told you how great elijah was but this is going to kind of shock you look at chapters it's all unfolding here um chapter 18 he proclaims a famine to get their attention and chapter 19. i'll get into that in a minute but i want you to see this look at chapter 19 verse 4 this is what elijah did he himself elijah went a day's journey into the wilderness came and sat down under a broom tree so he's in the desert he went there on purpose a broom tree gives about as much shade as someone holding their thumb over you okay so this is like he sat down under a stick and he asked that he might die saying it's enough now oh lord take away my life i'm not better than my father's verse 5 i just want to sleep in broad daylight in a desert under a broom tree if you look down in the chapter a little bit later he says in verse 10 i have been very jealous for the lord the people of israel have forsaken your covenant and throw down your all this thing's going to hell in a hand basket and i even i only am left and they're trying to kill me 100 percent he was very depressed and what i want to do with the content that's in front of you those chapters on the pages in your lap in front of you i want to analyze with you how one of god's best men got to such a bad place maybe if we um see how he got there we can get some understanding into ourselves and people that we love and i just want to say that here i'm talking about spiritual causes of depression i'm not speaking to the issue of people who have a medical condition a thyroid condition people who have parkinson's there's all kinds of medical you know if you're struggling with depression go to your doctor and find out how i think that sometimes we wish it was all medical and many times it isn't and and uh but i'm also not trying to my mom had struggled with this at various times and and she was always pretty firm with me that christians can be overly simplistic or deny the reality of physiological conditions understanding first of all the timing of depression how can such a great guy personally summon to the transfiguration of jesus christ how can someone of that caliber get depressed well notice first of all after intense ministry output in chapter 18 my my bible uh has the heading elijah confronts ahab so here's this godless king it says after many days the word of the lord came to elijah first kings 18 1 in the third year saying go show yourself to ahab and i will send rain upon the earth well the reason that was happening was because in chapter 17 he said as the lord god of israel lives before whom i stand there shall be neither do nor rain these years except by my word so for three years there's been a famine and now the lord wants him to go back so if look what's going on in california right now with the drought and so he's proclaimed a famine there's a there's a famine because he proclaimed a drought it's not gonna be rain for three years now if you say there's not gonna be rain for three years and then you come back and you're the guy that proclaimed this on behalf of god how popular are you um at that point and and that's why when he comes back in chapter 18 he goes and appears there ahab actually says to him here comes this troubler of israel and he was so despised and he came back in chapter 18 he also goes up starting in verse 20 and he says all right game on go get all the prophets of baal there were 450 of them go get them bring them up on a mountain here and we're going to have a showdown whose god is real this is one of the most unbelievable stories in the whole bible and he says to him all right um you guys get an altar i'll get an altar you guys put a sacrifice on it i'll put a sacrifice on mine you guys pray in the morning that your gods will come down from heaven and and light that thing on fire if your gods are real that'll happen and on we go if they're not then i get my chance so they're out there all morning read it they're like oh bill answer us oh bill answer us chanting chanting a big part of pagan religion vain repetition jesus called it also they begin to cut themselves with stones another indication of pagan godless satanic sourced religion is self-mutilation you study that yourself they they they mutilate themselves they draw their own blood but in christianity what jesus suffered for our sin in the islam you give your sons for god in christianity god gives his son for you and and so this is the big showdown and so um of course no answer no nothing they're just laying exhausted and then and then elijah comes out and he's like all right um get some water so he's gonna make this dramatic and not only is he gonna pray down this fire from heaven but he dumps bucket after barrel of water till it ran down in the troughs and rounded the hills he soaked everything we can't have anybody thinking there was a random spark here and then he prays and he calls down and the fire comes down from heaven and says in chapter 18 verse 38 then the fire of the lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust licked up the water that was in the trench and when all the people saw it they fell on their faces and they said the lord he is god the lord he is god and elijah said to them seize the prophets of baal let not one of them escape and they seized them and elijah brought them down to the brook kishon and slaughtered them there all 450 god show me what they get with with the noise now come on what do they get correct gone all of them so jot this down understanding the timing of depression how did he get like he got in chapter 19 here's the first thing after intense ministry output after just what i just showed you after intense ministry output and after after jot this down after relational conflict after relational conflict i mean how many people would consider executing 450 false prophets relational conflict that takes but are you listening intense ministry you know that most pastors resign on mondays after intense ministry output and those of you who lead small groups or minister to people in counseling context you understand that giving out in the context of spiritual warfare is something that makes a day of physical labor look like a walk in the park and it is a draining draining draining there's a battle going on right now as the word of god is going on and people are listening to it and resp and it is an exhausting thing and when you have been pouring yourself out spiritually for people for your family it it isn't you're very vulnerable after intense ministry output after relational conflict note this the more important the relationship is to you the more significant the conflict the more that it is like a tap in the side of you and it is running the life out of you some of you live with that every single day non-stop even in your own home why am i depressed after intense ministry i put after relational conflict after physical exhaustion if you in the end of chapter 18 elijah says to ahab you go up and eat and drink for there's the sound of rushing rain here comes the rain here comes the god's answer so ahab went up to eat and drink but elijah went up to the top of mount carmel bowed himself on the earth and put his face between his knees and and he begins to pray so so ahab's already at the dinner table getting some refreshment ahab still um elijah's still pouring himself out then by the end of that paragraph when the rain starts coming it says the hand of the lord was on elijah he gathered up his garment and ran before and he ran and met him at jezreel physical exhaustion these are some of the first parenting lessons how many a parents especially now were grandparents how many parents of small children uh would relate to this you know there was a we got out of our schedule and the kids were up late the night before and then we had to get up early in the morning and go and and and get their hair cut or something and then we had to go to a birthday party and they didn't get their normal nap time and and we got home but i didn't want to put them down because they were falling asleep in the car but i didn't want them to be up in the night so i kept them awake and then all of a sudden it was supper time and and one of the kids was like just melted i want my cookie and they started screaming and freaking out and then i tried to discipline you're going to bed and then they're like i want my spiderman pajamas and they just lose it anybody know what i'm talking about you didn't even like those spider-man pajamas and now it's everything what anybody know what i'm talking about all right now here's the thing that's only kids that are like that we don't ever get cranky because we're overtired someone someone say i do do not look at that person look straight ahead right now he was exhausted he found himself in the desert under a lame shade tree saying i want to die i don't want to do this anymore but it happened in a time in a way after intense ministry output and relational conflict and physical exhaustion a note after a major victory chapter 19 verse 1 ahab told jezebel all that elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword so the husband goes back to the 10x evil wife and he's like this one he killed all of our prophets they're all dead he did it massive massive wow wow victory and why is it that sometimes depressing seasons come after a major victory whether it's the long-awaited job offer or the safe birth of a healthy child or the emotional collapse that seems to follow major victory somehow something we wait for something we long for something we work for something we pray for it happens and then after it we're like because i think sometimes we pin our emotional hopes on what we believe that will when we get in the house when i get the promotion um when we get something paid off when we get when we when we and and on the other side of that athletes wonder why they feel so empty with the trophy on the shelf students wonder why they feel so unfulfilled with the diploma finally in their hand mothers wonder why they can't stop the tears with the healthy newborn infant safe asleep in the nursery upstairs sometimes after a major victory and then notice also after a huge disappointment after a huge disappointment because i think elijah who'd been away from the king and queen for three years during the drought comes back and probably thought to myself man these people are gonna i gotta start i gotta start singing uh you know all to jesus i surrender because these people they're going there's going to be a revival at the palace today and they know that god is awesome and they know their lame fake god is a zero and i've showed it to everybody now i'm going to the palace we're going to have a revival tonight or not then jezebel sent a messenger to elijah saying so may the gods do to me what your non-gods that's not a very scary threat i already know they're a zero but it's what she said then jezebel sent a message to lie to elijah saying so may the gods do to me what you did to the prophets so may the gods do to me and more also if i do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow and i just thought if we could get the whole family together around the around the thanksgiving table and just talk a little bit and everything would be great after that and and it it isn't and i i just thought if i could if i could just just get my my my sister to sit down and and talk to someone in biblical soul care that she'd see the light and everything would change and and now that's been accomplished and everything hasn't changed and understanding the timing after intense ministry output after relational conflict after physical exhaustion after a major victory after a huge disappointment when you feel like you have nothing left to fight with it's interesting he'd spent everything and in verse three he says 19 3 then he was afraid really you just killed 450 prophets you're afraid of jezebel he was a yeah sometimes it's the one woman not the army of men lord please strike that sentence from the minds then he was afraid he arose and he ran for his life and he came to beersheba now what you have to know about beersheba is have you ever seen in the old testament where it says from dan to beersheba from dan is the tribe in the most north all the way up to modern day lebanon beersheba is i mean if you step one foot on the other side of beersheba you're in egypt so from north to south so he goes to beersheba i mean he goes as far as i can get away without leaving the country without getting my passport and everything he went to beersheba which belongs to judah we'll notice this and i i want to say this next um sentence sensitively i'm going to talk for a moment about how to get depressed not because anyone would want to not because anyone would want to but because in seeing how it happens we can say well you know one of the things when you're really struggling is you got to like pick your foot up and place it down very carefully i'm going to think about that i'm not gonna think about that i'm i'm gonna spend some time with them but i don't have the energy right now to talk to them see what i'm saying to choose your steps carefully and these are bad steps we want to avoid these three easy steps how to get depressed here's the first one find a place by yourself so he goes from to beersheba and and almost out of the country and then what really blows my mind is it's right in the text you can see it he ran for his life noticed the verbs he he was doing all this he came to beersheba he left his servant so he's got this one guy that's supposed to be helping him think you know james and rick partners and he's like you know what you're gonna you're not coming with well i'm supposed to be helping you that's what i do i'm help no no not now i don't i don't want you with me i want to be by myself why why does he want to be by himself because when you're planning a pity party you can't take a chance of anybody showing up randomly with cupcakes i want to be sad so he gets as far as he can he gets by himself you stay here this is staggering he went a day verse four he went a day's journey into the wilderness just picked he walked you can picture the nation of israel he walked for what 6 8 10 12 hours walking further and further and further out into the rocky dusty hot what kind of trees do you find in the middle of a desert you find broom trees like i said no shade why would you pick that tree it's the only tree to pick this is where i chose to be i put myself here by myself with no resource with no help with no shade find a place by yourself depression shuts out the thing we need most people to love us people to support us people to give us a reality check what do they do when they want to break down a prisoner they put them in an isolation cell sometimes we put ourselves in isolation find a place by yourself don't just some questions to help you think that through ready here they come five questions let's let's all look in the mirror do you have less personal friends than you did a year ago does it make you angry when the phone rings and you find out it's for you less evenings out retreating to the bedroom the basement away from family a lot have you been doing that the high school student that wants to be in the room by themselves there's a lot going on there have you been skipping small group avoiding eye contact at church or avoiding church altogether just don't want to talk to people right now right and the thing we need most is the thing we most push away is this your worst nightmare being trapped in a corner with someone you know cares and them saying how are you really how are you really doing i have all the time we need talk to me you're isolating yourself you're isolating yourself because you don't want anyone to shine the light of react depression is a a um let me give just a little definition here a temporary emotional state characterized by exaggerated feelings of sadness and hopelessness that are not consistent with reality it's not discouragement this this is out of proportion the way i feel is not proportion to the to the to the struggle the feelings are far greater than the problem too big too long disproportionate to re other people are going through what i'm going through and not isolating themselves in the basement i'm i'm depressed and i've acknowledged and will acknowledge again in this moment that there are other sources other causes i get that but this is one of them and we're talking about that part and if you're finding right now i'm not arguing with me are you arguing with me i love you i'm not trying to upset you why is this so sensitive this wall you've built around your thinking and no one's allowed in to talk to me about this you have garrisoned off your woundedness and it's the last thing you feel like you have then this find a place by yourself and focus on the negative okay the the drought is over the drought's over the prophets of baal are dead really honestly top five greatest victories in the whole bible he just did it god used him to do that and yet he's here i guess he gave too much and spent too much and and all the things we talked about already because verse 9 19 9 he came to a cave and lodged in it and go live in a cave the word of the lord came to him isn't it awesome how god goes after us man i went to beersheba i walked for a day in the desert i found a cave i crawled inside and the word of the lord came to him and i pray for you in rolling meadows right now in niles here in elgin are you down in aurora where are you and you came to church you didn't know what was coming and now i pray that the word of the lord that this person would become invisible and that god himself by his spirit would penetrate the similarities between where elijah got to a good man a good man the similarities between what a light where elijah got to and where you are there he came to a cave and lodged in it and behold the word of the lord came to him and he said to him isn't that tender at the end of verse 9 see it there the lord comes to him what are you doing here elijah you're you're a day's walk into the desert outside of beersheet what what you're what what are you doing here he said i've been very zealous for the lord the god of hosts i did my part i did my part i did everything that could be asked of me to do this is what i get those feelings are very real the word of god is so honest here the people of israel have forsaken your cut this whole thing's going to hell in a hand basket you've thrown down your altars killed your prophets with the sword and i even i only am left that's me myself and i it's the trinity of me and they seek my life to take it away didn't god just like protect you from 450 guys that would have loved to have killed you and you killed them all didn't didn't didn't he didn't he didn't he didn't he just do that drop this down find a place by yourself focus on the negative just focus on the negative just focus on the negative i've had a uh really really really hard week i told the church family last weekend that my four boys in my family my just younger than me two years younger than me brother todd had had a stroke i was flew up to london uh where i'm from in ontario canada and back and uh you know i don't want to share his family business in such a public way but um i mean he had a very massive stroke i saw the ct scan two-fifths of his entire brain i don't um spent most of those two days crying crying with my dad it is very very grim and as i left my dad and got back on the plane thinking about what is coming for his family and four kids two in college two in high school biggest biggest provision years and apart from a miracle he has provided his last dollar for his family that's will he come home no will he ever walk again no really you know i mean just grim and i found that i had in my mind some options i could think about the mercy of god in sparing him i could think about the mercy of god in relieving a lot of suffering in his life that is a back story that i can't share but i gotta say i felt kind of a vortex towards man i live 500 miles away from my brother i've lived in chicago for 30 years you know that's my brother and what if i had been here more and what if i had to spend more time with him and and but i know from experience that there's a lot of kind of roads that you can take and you begin to learn that that's not going anywhere good and and if if my obedience to the lord doesn't advance god's highest person purposes in everything that i care about there's just nothing good down that road and and yet if you have as i have i'll go first i have how many people have spent uh uh too much time down a road of thinking that's not going anywhere good put up your hand if you've done that and all of a sudden you get real comfortable on that road and that's just the way you think about things and he's doing it i've done it find a place by yourself focus on the negative and forget god's provision there's quite an amazing little story here he's hiding in the cave asking that he can die and it says that he um god actually uh he laid down verse five and slept under a broom tree and behold an angel touched him and said to him arise and eat and he looked and behold there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones in a jar of water what god like sent him i guess on like a conveyor belt or with an angel and and he's in a cave out days walk into the wilderness all of a sudden he's like at old country buffet someone lift up your voice and say grace so there he is with his stinking thinking and does god abandon him no he sends a messenger to him and he and i pray that i could be that messenger today and he feeds him and blesses him what a good model for ministry right go to that person who's hurting and don't judge them don't don't condemn them but but get around them and bless them and feed them and bring a word from the lord for them all right just this finally choosing the cure to depression uh first thing is let god confront you let god confront you notice that it says uh here in the text and he said god says to him verse 11 1911 go out and stand on the mountain get outside that cave stand out on the top of the mountain and behold the lord passed by and a great strong wind toward the mountain and broke it in pieces the rocks before the lord but the lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earthquake but the lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake a fire but the lord was not in the fire and after the fire the sound of a low whisper some translations there say a still small voice and when elijah heard it he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave and there came a voice to him and said where what are you doing here elijah and he goes into his little speech again and let god confront you maybe this week you've been in a cave under a dark cloud let god confront you about the part you can control which is your own thinking you got by yourself and you got on the negative and you forgot god's provision let god confront you and as just read let god reveal himself to you get somewhere alone and get your bible open and dig into the psalms and bring your tattered tragic thinking before the god who loves you and just just pray god sort me out just pray god sort me out i've been i've been self-centered and and and i've been having a little pity party here and i and i want to break it up receive god's provision for you receive god's provision for you do what god says immediately obey him and then lastly notices in verses 18 and 19 get involved with people again 18-19 where the lord says yet i will leave seven thousand in israel and all the knees that have not bowed to baal and every mouth that has not kissed him so he departed from there and found elisha elisha's gonna be his understudy so he goes and and finds elisha and that then begins the call of elisha the prophet that elijah is going to pour into who's going to have a double portion of his blessing look up here so i flew back friday night and kathy and i had had a long-standing appointment with a couple for a year we've been trying to get together and with the week that i had with my brother and everything kathy called she said i cancelled them i cancelled them but i knew that that wasn't going to be a good play i went straight from the airport over to these people's houses and we had a wonderful social time get by myself is what the person most wants to do and least needs to do and that's why that final thing is get involved with people again you