We are always expending ourselves for whatever it is that we believe is most important, and we should do that for the things that we believe are truly important. The challenge is that with the pull of advertisements, friends, stuff, family, or the prospect of enjoyment, it is sometimes hard to know what is really important. It’s hard to know how these things are supposed to come together to serve a greater more important purpose.

Death tends to bring focus and clarity. The reality of the brevity of life is a helpful aid to understanding what is really important. I don’t think that the many problems and apparent crises that we regularly face quite look the same when faced with the near prospect of death. The goals we set for ourselves in the workplace are seen with a new perspective. You’ve probably heard it said that the businessman on his deathbed never wishes that he spent more time in his office. You may have personally experienced the burden to say what you’ve always wanted to say but had to due to fear, because it was pretty clear that you didn’t have much time left with the person.

Well, in this new series in the book of 2 Timothy we get to hear from the apostle Paul as he faces the reality of an impending death by execution, and through the help of the Holy Spirit, we want to think more clearly about what’s really important in this life. Come join us.

What’s Really Important?

Feb 5	The Gospel	2 Timothy 1:1-10
Feb 12	Loyalty	2 Timothy 1:11-18
Feb 19	Endurance	2 Timothy 2:1-13
Feb 26	Derek Bass	Psalm 13
March 4	Joel Sedam	Psalm 14
March 11	Faithfulness	2 Timothy 2:14-26
March 18	Understanding	2 Timothy 3:1-9
March 25	Travis Rymer	Psalm 15
April 1	Revelation	2 Timothy 3:10-17
April 8	Perseverance	2 Timothy 4:1-8
April 15	Derek Bass	Hosea
April 22	Salvation	2 Timothy 4:9-22

“One final cause of depression in the Christian is the sovereignty of God. Hard though it may e to accept, the ultimate cause may be, “It pleased God.” This, however, is not some sheer arbitrary, sadistic, and pointless infliction of suffering. Not at all. God has wise and loving motives and purposes in all His dealings with His children. The Westminster Confession of Faith says that God will sometimes allow His children to descend into the depths of the depression “to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends” (WCF 5.5).
A well-known example of this is Job, where God allowed Satan to afflict His beloved servant. A lesser-known example is Hezekiah. “God left him, to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart” (2 Chron. 32:31). This does not mean that God actually left Hezekiah. God will never leave nor forsake His people. This is not an objective leaving, but a subjective leaving. God withdrew Himself from Hezekiah’s spiritual feelings so that he lost his sense of God’s presence, protection, and favor. So Hezekiah felt like God had left him. But God had a wise and loving purpose in this. It was to test Hezekiah and to reveal to him what was in his heart when God’s felt presence was withdrawn.”

- an excerpt from Christians Get Depressed Too by David Murray (pp 66-7).

That doesn’t stop us from doing the same thing though. We put up our best photos, and project the best image we can of our life. And while it’s easy to do that behind a computer screen we try to do the same thing in person, even when it comes to Christianity. I was recently given a book that I think illustrates the contemporary view of Christianity. It was by a popular author on living a good Christian life. This book was for adults, but it had a lot of pictures in it. The pictures were of young, physically fit attractive people, with perfect teeth, apparently having fun. It’s pretty clear what kind of life the good Christian lives. And so in churches throughout this country, every Sunday people put on their Sunday best. They put on their smile, they’re always “doing good” when asked how they are doing, and of course they are “happy” to be in church. Perhaps this is why so many of the modern worship songs are happy upbeat songs about our experience with God.

Carl Trueman, a professor of theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, made this observation and wrote an article called, “What Can Miserable Christians Sing?”. He says, “A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party – a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals. Has an unconscious belief that Christianity is – or at least should be – all about health, wealth, and happiness silently corrupted the content of our worship?” He notes that the Bible’s own hymnbook, the Psalter, has a high proportion of songs that “is taken up with “lamentation, with feeling sad, unhappy, tormented, and broken.”

Scan the pages of the Bible and you will find men and women whose spiritual journey included what we call today depression. Moses, Hannah, Jeremiah, and Job come to mind fairly quickly. Martin Lloyd-Jones argues from biblical evidence that Timothy suffered from near-paralyzing anxiety. Pastor and author Steve Bloem writes, “The Psalms treat depression more realistically than many of today’s popular books on Christianity and psychology. David and other psalmists often found themselves deeply depressed for various reasons. They did not, however, apologize for what they were feeling, nor did they confess it as sin. It was a legitimate part of their relationship with God. They interacted with Him through the context of their depression.”

God’s Word has a lot to say about suffering. It’s not random or meaningless. Suffering is one of God’s chosen means for sanctifying His people and bringing Himself glory in this world. We understand that when it comes to the suffering of the body. Depression is a painful form of suffering in the heart and mind. Depression, then, can be applied to the various kinds of trials that the book of James says we will face knowing that the testing of our faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing (James 1:2-4).

For that reason, it’s important for us as a church to consider for the next few weeks what Scripture has to say about this area of life that Christians do and often experience. We don’t want to waste our depression or any form of suffering. As Christians, we want to know how to suffer well, and to do so together, because we want endurance so that one day we might be mature and complete, not lacking anything, including the joy of the Lord.

So please join us for the next four weeks as we begin our new series on “Spiritual Depression”

Spiritual Depression

Jan 8	When I Feel Forgotten	Psalm 77
Jan 15	When I Feel Forsaken	Job
Jan 22	When I Feel Like Giving Up	2 Cor. 1:3-11
Jan 29	When It All Feels Meaningless	Ecclesiastes