Trusting God in Severe Depression

Good morning, Cross Church Phoenix. How are you? Like, everyone's like, "Yeah, I'm okay." Good morning. How are you? Uh, I'm Pastor DJ. I'm the pastor here at Cross Church Phoenix, and I want to invite you to open your Bibles to Job chapter 3. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back in front of or around you. And, uh, if you don't have a Bible, that is our gift to you. You can open it up, uh, use it, read it. this morning and then highlight it, mark it up, make it your Bible, take notes, underline, whatever you'd like, and then bring it back next week. Um, as you're turning to Job chapter 3 this morning, I want to share uh this quick story with you. So, and we have some pictures to go up to. Uh, Cross Church mayor had their first official public service launch last Sunday. Yeah. Amen. And I'm hoping we have the the photographs. They had five baptisms opening Sunday. So, Pastor Lyall and his wife Heather and their family have been uh ministering up there leading up to this. They had some preview services. That's Pastor Lyall um right there in the plaid shirt uh baptizing. They had 136 people show up and I think it only I don't know what capacity is, but I think they were over capacity like 120. You can see the betrayer up there with his guitar. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I had to throw that out there cuz I love him. Uh but you see Jesse uh joining the team. Him and Pastor Lyall are doing great up there. I'm glad that just so blessed that God brought us Jesse and that Jordan and and we had a part in just training him up to send him out. I am so grateful for that. Him and him and L are the dynamic duo. They're doing great up there. So I do miss him greatly uh and like to give him a hard time, but we love him. Uh so we rejoice with that continue in prayer for cross church mayor as they continue uh ministering up there. Well, last week we began a new preaching series going through the book of Job. And we covered the first two chapters which lay the foundation for the entire book. Chapters 1 and two reveal facts to us that are not revealed to Job. And if you haven't read the whole book, I'll give you a little bit of a spoiler alert. It never will be. If you read all the way through the end of Job, God will never reveal to Job what we know in chapters 1 and two. That Satan and God are having a conversation about Job. Job is completely unaware of that and will for will continue to be. Um, at least what we know in scripture, he is never told or given the information that we have. God of course says Job is a righteous man. He's upright. He fears God. Turns away from evil. However, Satan shows up and tells God, "You know what? Job only loves you, God, because of he because he's blessed because of what you give him. If you were to allow me, Satan is saying, to take away those blessings, to afflict him, his own body, and to destroy his family and his possessions. Surely, surely, he will curse you to your face, God. And as we talked about last week, Satan's not just making an accusation against Job, but worse, he's making an accusation against God himself. Satan is not only calling Job a fake worshipper, but Satan also attacks God's own character and God's sovereignty. Satan is basically saying, if you step back and think about it, Satan is saying that God is not in fact omnisient. Omnisient meaning all knowing. Satan is saying that he actually knows Job's heart better than God. Think with me. Satan is saying, "God, you don't actually know Job's true heart. Cuz if you took these things from him, his real heart for you would be exposed, which would be cursing of you rather than blessing of you." Satan, if you think through it, is claiming to know Job better than God does. Bold move, right? And this is the spiritual backdrop in which Job's suffering is occurring. And a summary of what we learned last week was that our response to God, hear me, our response to God in suffering and affliction reveals what we believe about God. Jo, our response to God in suffering and affliction reveals what we believe about him. Job's response revealed what he believed about God. Right? He believes God has the right to give and to take away. Either way, his name is to be blessed. Job also believes that we shouldn't only expect good from God. This is chapter 2. But we can also expect him to what? Allow us to go through adversity. And in making both of those statements, what do we know from the scriptures from God and his word? We know what in these things Job did not in saying these things Job did not sin. So those are not sinful statements, right? It is easy to say God is good all the time and all the time. Oh, isn't that great? When life's good. The question is, will we continue to say God is good all the time and all the time God is good. Blessed be the name of the Lord when life is no longer feeling so good. That's the question. And chapter two ends with Job's friends, three friends. Um they're really going to be quite frustrating for him, but his friends coming and sitting with him for a week with no one saying a word. So imagine for a moment it's 11:02 a.m. And I know it's it's, you know, it's time for lunch and stuff like that. If you come to pizza with a pastor, we got free lunch. I don't know. But it's 11:02 a.m. So imagine for a second that you were sitting with three of your friends. I don't know who. Pick them out. Sitting in sorrow, pain, and grief from last Sunday at 11:02 a.m. to this Sunday at 11:02 a.m. with no one making a sound. You've been sitting in pain, grief, and sorrow for a week. You have three people with you, but no one saying a word until now. Now it's 11:03. Job will open his mouth. Right? And that brings us to chapter 3. So let's stand as we read scripture together. I'm going to read select verses, not the entire chapter. Again, I invite you personally to read through uh Job along with us over the next 12 weeks and uh in Bible groups as well to read through the entire chapter. I'm going to start with verses 1-4 and jump down. And it reads this way. After this, Job began to speak and curse the day he was born. He said, "May the day I was born perish, and the night that said a boy is conceived. If only that day had turned to darkness, may God above not care about it, or light shine on it." Jumping down to verse 11, Job is continuing to pour out his heart. He says, "Why was I not still born? Why didn't I die as I came from the womb? Why did the knees receive me? And why were there breasts for me to nurse? Jumping down to verse 20 to the end. Why is light given to one burdened with grief and life to those whose existence is bitter? And who wait for death but it does not come and search for it more than for hidden treasure. Who are filled with much joy and are glad when they reach the grave. Why is life given to a man whose path is hidden? whom God has hedged in. I sigh when food is put in front of me, and my groans pour out like water. For the thing I feared has overtaken me, and what I dreaded has happened to me. I cannot relax or be calm. I have no rest, for turmoil has come. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. Thanks. You can be seated. Well, perhaps you've heard the story of the man who went to the doctor for a checkup. He returned the next day for the results and he said, "All right, doctor. How am I doing?" The doctor says, "Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news." The good news is that you have 24 hours to live. Good grief. The man says, "If that's the good news, what on earth is the bad news?" And the doctor pauses and says, "Well, the bad news is I kind of got busy and forgot to tell you that yesterday." >> Yeah, that's kind of where Job is right now. If Job was told he had 24 hours to live, that would be good news to him. He would receive that joyfully. And I wanted to start with something a little light-hearted because this chapter this morning is quite dark. As you read through it, and if you read through it on your own, you'll see Job, there's no way around it, is in a state of what I'm calling just severe depression. Um, he's in a state of despair, anguish, whatever word you want to use there. That's where Job is. The symptoms are there. He's persistently sad. He feels empty. He's hopeless. And he has, we could say, are recurring thoughts of death. As you can see, as you read through this chapter, you see his repeated use of the word darkness. In fact, Job uses five different words, Hebrew words I should say, for darkness, alluding to different kinds of darkness. So, he's talking about the doom and gloom kind of darkness. He's talking about the darkness of an intense storm. He's talking about literal blackness. Suffice it to say that Job is in a dark place. But that is not all that's going on. As emotionally raw as Job is here in chapter 3, what we also see is him trusting God in the midst of it. And I want us to see that this morning. Our main heading today, trusting God in severe depression. And you again you could interchange severe depression for despair of life um being you know hardcore downness um whatever you want to call that trusting God in those times. The first thing we see here is this number one though Job curses the day he was born he refuses to curse God. Though Job curses the day he was born he refuses to curse God. As we interpret chapter 3, I want to pastorally my heart is to train you also to how to read and interpret the Bible. Um, not that I have all the answers, but I want to help you to see how you draw conclusions. As we interpret chapter 3, we must keep in mind what we know up to this point. And what we know in Job 1 and2 is the theme of cursing has come in. Remember, Satan's wager with God was that Job would curse God if his blessings were taken away and if his physical body were afflicted. And if you remember, not only that, but seeing everything Job is going through, his own wife says, "What? Why don't you just curse God and die, Job?" How encouraging of a wife she is. So, two people really want uh Job to curse God. Satan and his wife. And it's no coincidence that chapter 3 opens with the statement, Job began to speak and what? Curse. He's cursing. Cursing the day he was born. So, the writer in Hebrew, this is meant to draw your attention to things. So when you see that pop back out, it's meant to draw you to, yep, Job will curse, but it won't be God that he's cursing. That's the point. And so Job, the writer, is saying, yes, Job will reach his breaking point and begin to curse, but it's intentional. He's cursing the day he was born, not God. He'd rather curse himself in the day he was born than venture into the far more dangerous territory of cursing God. He starts by wishing he had never been born in the first place as you'll see in chapter 3. There's a progression. I'll I'll I'll share that with you. But he starts with his own conception. He wants even the night that said verse three, a boy is conceived to perish. Now, I need to give some quick insight into verse three. I cannot pass this up. This is another one of many verses in scripture that are prolife. Gives you the scriptures thoughts on this issue of abortion and being pro-life. When Job says a boy is conceived, he means just that. a male human being was conceived. In Hebrew, he's saying a young man was conceived. Job's declaration of when his life began was at conception. Not at birth, not halfway through or at a certain amount of weeks, but at conception. He's saying, "There he was." Now, of course, in his depression, he's cursing that day. He wants God to wipe it off the calendar. But his belief about when his life started shows what the righteous men of old, remember Job is a righteous man shining evil and God's like he's the greatest man in all the east. What does he believe about his life and when it started conception and we ought to as well. In verse 7, Job wishes the night he was conceived would have been barren. Another another touches on this again. The word in Hebrew for the word barren is stony. He's using I wish that the night I would conceive would be stony. Uh meaning he wishes the night of his conception was unproductive and fruitless like stony ground that doesn't produce any fruit. So he's definitely in in in in a dark place mentally, you know. But again, it's fascinating how even he knows when life begins. Now, you might be wondering what verse 8 means. You're like, DJ, I read ahead. Um, there's those who curse days and what about this Leviathan? You could talk more about this in your Bible groups, but quickly, those who curse days refers to ancient enchanters um who literally made a living pronouncing curses. Um, that's what they did. And they were said to raise Leviathan. Leviathan is this um said to be this giant sea monster of the ocean uh that shows up in ancient Canaanite literature. Uh so this doesn't mean that Job believes in these things. What he's saying is that I wish I could have those who make their living cursed days curse mine. They make money off of this. They get paid to curse days. Why don't they curse mine? They while I'm at it. while I'm cursing my own. That's what he's saying. Why don't they rouse Leviathan to come and devour my day um while they're at it? Whether Leviathan existed or not is not the question. Job is simply using pagan thought to say, "Why don't they curse the day I was born while I'm at it myself?" That's what he's saying. But in all of this, Job did not curse God once. He wanted God to overlook that day that he was conceived, right? And not shine light on it. Verse four, but he never curses God. Depression is real. Pain, sorrow, despair are real. We will experience these things. But trusting God in the midst of it says, "No matter what I go through in this life, I will never wait never walk away from him. I will never turn my back on God. I will trust God no matter what. That's trusting him when everything's falling apart. This leads me to the next section number two. Though Job wonders why he survived birth, he never accuses God of wrongdoing. So like I said before, there's a progression in chapter 3. First, Job curses his conception. And then in verse 11, he shifts to saying, okay, if I had to be born, I had to survive. I had to be conceived, go through the progress process of birth, why didn't I die at birth then? Okay, God, like, why didn't why not that? Um, so I could spare the trouble of this life. Verse 12, when he says, "Why did the knees receive me?" It refers to an ancient custom of um placing the newborn child on the knees of the father to say, "This is your beloved son or daughter." It was a custom that they did. Verse 12 is kind of a mommy and daddy verse. Why did dad receive me alive on his knees? And why did my mother have a living baby to nurse? So clearly Job is in a dark place. The scriptures are clear and and it's raw. The Bible's not like softening it up or sweetening it up for you. No, it gives you the truth. And what Job is ultimately seeking is rest, peace, sleep. You see these words. If you look down at verse 17, Job makes observations about others who pass in our rest. He's like the wicked wicked people uh cease their trouble when they die. um captives or slaves, you know, they're at rest when they die. They when they're in this life, if they're captive or if they're a slave, maybe they're taken advantage of and locked in in in into trouble and despair and being abused or whatever. When they die, they're set free from that. They don't have to worry about it anymore, Job is saying. And so, he's essentially like, "Why not me? Captivism slaves are at rest when they die. The wicked cease their trouble. Why not me, God? But notice that at no point does Job ever accuse God of wrong. There is a difference between Job saying he's done right. He he's done with life and Job saying that God, you're wrong for letting me live. He never says God is wrong for allowing him to continue living. Job never says God is wrong. Yes, he's pouring his heart out to God, to his peers, to himself, but he never gets to the point where he will tell God he's wrong. And while I don't know what you're going through, what troubles you've experienced, what troubles may be coming your way, I don't know. I'm not going to pretend to know. But remember that God has sustained you and brought you here and kept you here for a reason. Remember, Job's suffering is serving a purpose greater than himself that he has no clue about. You don't think that could be true of you and I as well? He has no idea that his faithfulness to God is an affront to Satan. And God is using him to show Satan and prove him wrong to show that Job does love me for me. Jo uh Satan to to use him as a as a I used last service a trophy. I don't know if it's the right word, but a trophy of of his love for God and and and God's love for him. Job never asked for this, but God is using him in this way. Job is serving one of the greatest purposes in all of eternity. Can you imagine if God used you to punch Satan in the face and say, "You're wrong." I would love that. But what it takes to get there, you'd be like, "Oh, wait. Never mind. I don't know if I want to go through all that." But I would love to like stomp Satan in the ground and be like, "Satan's wrong about DJ. Satan's wrong about you and your love for God." But will we do what it takes? Will we trust God when he allows us to be tested and to go through these things to get there? I would submit to you that if Satan knew what was going on between God and Satan, he would probably have shut his mouth and said, "I will endure it." But what we get to do is we get to learn from Job and say, "Maybe, just maybe, that's what's going on in your life to trust God with it." What better way to be used as a tool or an instrument to stomp Satan in the ground? Wonderful. But sometimes we get caught up in our own in our just the circumstances around us and we only see what's going on here. We lose sight of what's going on in in eternity and in the spiritual realm. We only focus on the physical and we end up in despair like Job. But while Job is expressing deep pain and sorrow, he is right to never tell God he's wrong. Same is true for us. You and I have every right to pour our hearts out to God, express our feelings, let your emotions out, but we also have the glorious opportunity of trusting God in it. And that leads me to the last section here. I know I got to move, but ver uh number three. Though Job sees no point in living anymore, he doesn't question God's character. So these last few verses, as I said, there's progression. They progress to Job wondering what the point is of living now. He's like, "Okay, I had to be conceived. All right. I had to survive my birth. All right. Why am I still living now? What's the point?" Job is asking. Verse 20, he says, "Why is light given to one burdened with grief? Saying like, why do I keep seeing the light of day when all I have is burdened with grief? Why is God giving me life when my existence is bitter? Why is life given to a man whose path is hidden?" Verse 23, "And whom God has hedged in." Interesting. If you remember the word hedge, it's been used before. Chapter one, Satan said that God had what? Placed a hedge of protection around Job. Satan's like, "I can't get at Job because you placed a hedge of protection. If you remove that God, I'll get at him and I'll get him to curse you." And now that hedge of protection, Job is saying, "Yeah, God has hedged me in." He's using the same word, but to say, "God has apparently hedged him in with grief. God has trapped me in this grief, in this struggle, in this pain, and in this sorrow. That's what Job is saying. And he says in verse 24, he's not even hungry anymore. Maybe you can relate to that. When food is put in front of him, he just sigh and groans. What he feared the most has happened. He's lost everything. He can't relax. He has no rest. Turmoil has come. What's the point? But again, in it all, he never questions God. As we read chapter 3, what's the one thing that Job wants? The one thing Job wants right now is to die. But notice something. He refuses to take matters into his own hands. At no point in this is Job ever suicidal. Job will not take matters into his own hands. Job does not want to take his own life, but he does want God to take it. But what does that show you? What is that? That is continued trust in God with his own life. He doesn't know why he's still alive, but he's also acknowledging that God is in control of his life. It is God who decides whether he lives or dies. And remember, the one thing that Job wants right now is to die is the one thing that God told Satan he can't do in chapter 2. Who's in the way of Job's death? God is. In chapter 2, God told Satan, "You can afflict him then." And he does with the boils from head to toe. You can afflict him, but you can't kill him. The one thing Job wants is the one thing God's like, "No, it ain't going to happen." Ultimately, it's God who's not letting Job die. No one else. Satan can harm Job, but Satan can't take his life. The one thing Job wants is the one thing that it is God's decision. He won't let it happen. God is in the way of Job getting what he wants because God knows what. Job's story is not done yet. Job doesn't see the end. Job doesn't know what chapter 42 has for him. And if you've read through it, you know the end. If you don't, you'll see. But it comes full circle as we'll get to in 11 12 weeks. But Job doesn't know the end of his life any more than you or I do. If I asked you this morning, do you know what the end of your life looks like? You'd be like, "No, of course you don't. You have no idea. Neither does Pastor DJ. We don't have a clue about the end." But guess who does? God does. God spares Job's life even when Job doesn't want it spared because God has further plans for Job. You don't know the end. Don't pretend like you do. Me neither. I preached to myself. So when we're down in the dumps, we can trust God in it because we don't have a clue what tomorrow holds. I think we have a good a few good takeaways from this. First of all, if you're struggling, if you're depressed, hurting, or in despair, really, we can find solace in the fact that even the greatest men of faith struggled, too. Don't forget Job is one of the strongest believers in all of scripture. And yet, he struggled. Remember last week we talked about Ezekiel, just kind of laying the foundation of the book. God brings Job up in Ezekiel when God is judging Israel for their disobedience. He says, "Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were here, they couldn't turn your hearts towards me." That's how wicked Israel was. But even if these three guys, God pulls out the big guns and says, "Israel, even the greatest men of faith in your history were here, you're so hard-hearted, you wouldn't change your heart." But what does it say? God highly esteems those three men. And yet all of them struggled. Paul in the New Testament, he writes in 2 Corinthians 1:8, "For we," about himself and his missionary, his mission team, "for we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despared of life itself." What Paul is saying is he and his team experienced afflictions and burden so bad he and his team despared of life itself. They thought they were going to die. All right, this is it. We're dead. This is so bad. How are we going to survive? You say, "Well, what what was the point?" Paul gives it to you in the very next verse in 2 Corinthians 1:9. He says, "Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death." Like, in our persecution and struggling and affliction, we thought we received the death sentence. All right, God's calling us home. We're done. We thought we had received the sentence of death, but that the suffering and the desparing of life that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. Our suffering teaches us not to rely on ourselves. If you are, it'll come out. It'll be exposed. If your joy and your trust is in people, friends, family, whoever, they will eventually fail you. Cuz we're human. Your family will fail you. The best way to enjoy your family, your friends, all of your relationships is to love God more than them and not be surprised when they let you down and continue to trust God who never will let you down. Not only we have Paul, the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah 53 describes our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as what? A man of sorrows acquainted with grief. We never want to diminish or take away from Christ's deity. Never, ever, ever. But we also must never diminish or take away from his humanity. He's fully human and fully God. The scriptures are clear that he experienced every everything we experienced aside from except for sin of course. But he experienced temptation to sin. Severe temptation to sin worse than you and I have ever experienced. He experienced sorrow and grief, intense pain and suffering far worse than we or Job can imagine because he's perfection suffering. We're sinners suffering. And when Christ is pouring his heart out to the father in the garden of Gethsemane, what is he doing? Sweating, Luke says, like grape drops of blood. And he asks if there's any way the cup, a cup of what? The father's wrath would pass from him. This is deep, intense agony in the garden of Gethsemane beyond what any of us could ever claim to have experienced. Do you think I preached to myself, do you think that anything that you've been through in this life or will go through can compare to what Christ went through in the garden and going to the cross for sin? What we go through and what we experience is like this compared to what Christ did on your behalf. You didn't suffer on the father's wrath for three hours on a cross. You can't pay for sin. But what does Jesus do? He pours out his heart. God, if this cup could pass from me, that would be great. But what did he still do? He trusted the father and said, nevertheless, not my will, not my will, but thy will. your will be done, Father. And he knew that the father's will was the cross. They knew it. They're they're completely tied together. They knew the will of the father was that. But this is Jesus pouring his heart out in deep anguish and agony. And he still trusted the father as he prepared for the worst suffering of all, the cross for our sin. Jesus trusted the father. 1 Peter chapter 2 gives us some commentary on Christ's suffering. And it says this, 1 Peter 2:23, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return. Talking about Jesus, when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He continued to trust the father. He continued to trust God. No matter what him Jesus was experiencing and going through himself, whether it's Job, Paul or Christ himself, the theme we see in suffering is simply trusting God in it. There's no like magic pill, right? Do this thing and come back next week and you'll be fine. Do this, do that, do this, do and then everything will be fine. Sometimes it's just sitting and trusting the Lord and waiting on him. That is the answer. Job, as we'll see throughout the the rest of the book, but Job is not suffering. Not all suffering is a result of sin. Job is suffering because he's a righteous man and Satan made a wager with God and God took him up on it. You could say, "Well, why did God do that?" Well, you can ask him when you get there. But ultimately, God is sovereign. Job knows it and he submitted to it. The theme we see in suffering across scripture is to trust God in it. And that is what we are called to as well. Regardless of what you're going through now or have been through or will go through, remember that your trust is in our gracious, merciful, and unchanging God. I'm not going to pretend to know what you've gone through. I know what I have. You know what you have. And I'm not here to minimize that at all. But the reason that I opened last week with saying I want us to have a high view of God in this, a high theology, high christologology in all of this is because that's what Job calls us to do. His three friends will be wrong for like the next 30some chapters because they all think you sinned. That's the only reason you suffer, right? Cuz you sinned. When when Job is like, "What have I done?" And God is like, "No, there's a different reason." But also remember God will not even when he speaks up. You know what God does when he speaks up at the end? He said he puts Job in his place. That's what he does. Where were you when I made the heavens and the earth? That's the end of Job. Spoiler alert. Job will point God will point Job to himself, but he will not reveal to him why. All of these questions you notice that Job asked why? Why? Why? Why? Why? God is not going to tell him, "Well, you see, this thing happened with me and Satan up in heaven." He's not going to do that. God doesn't owe Job an answer. Job will say, "I want me and God in court." Later, you'll see it's great. I want to meet God in court over this. So, Job gets a little bold and starts to sin. Um, I want to meet God in court in this. And and then as soon as God meets him, he's like, "Never mind. I repent in dust and ashes. It's great. I love it. And then God restores Job. Spoiler alert. Yes, God does restore Job. But the lesson is to trust God in everything. And that's what we need to do as well. I want to invite the worship team up as I close in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for your word. I pray God that you would um help us this morning to see it and understand it rightly. Lord, there is no way around it. There's no like word study we could do to say, "Well, actually, no. Job's not depressed. He's just No, no, no. It it means what it means. It says what it says. Job is in a tough, hard, painfilled, sorrowfilled state." And maybe there's some here who can relate to him right now and what they're going through. I don't know what that is, and I'm not going to pretend to, nor am I going to minimize it. Lord, it is great pain and sorrow that we feel that Job feels when we go through suffering. But what we must remember is to not shake our fist at you as a result, thinking that we know better than you do. Satan's already tried that and he's failing miserably. May we not turn our back on you or shake our fist at you. But may we trust in you and say, "You know what, Lord? This does hurt. This does um stink. This is hard, but not going to accuse you of doing wrong. And I'm going to say the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I pray that for this morning for those who are hurting and suffering. So pray Lord if there's anyone here who doesn't know you as a personal Lord and Savior. God, you went through the ultimate suffering suffering on the cross for our sin. God, I pray that they would come to you this morning, right now. Today is the day of salvation to come and say, "Lord, I give you my life. Here I am. All of me. You can have it all. I'm broken." Bottom line is Christians and non-Christians all suffer because we live in a broken, sinful world. It's just a matter of how we handle it. I pray God for those who don't know you Lord that they would come to you in faith and have just the the experience and have the love that you have for them wash over their lives. Pray God that you would help us as we go about our week to have a high view of God as we go. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let's stand as we sing our last song.