Unbiblical STANDARDS lead to unbiblical expectations.
Unbiblical expectations can lead to DEPRESSION .
Read 1 Kings 17 and 18:Getting In (and Out) of Depression: (1 Kings 19:3-18)
- How to Get into Depression: (unbiblical expectations, life isn't what you planned)
- RETREAT by yourself. (1 Kgs 19:3-8)
- REPEAT the negative. (1 Kgs 19:10,14)
- REMEMBER nothing of God's Goodness. (1 Kgs 19:4-7)
- How to Get Out of Depression:
- Return to GOD . (1 Kgs 19:9-11)
- Return to WORK . (1 Kgs 19:15)
- Return to PEOPLE . (1 Kgs 19:15-17)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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Every week I get up here and I preach for about 40 minutes, give or take.
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Every week you come and you hear me preach.
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And in January you've heard me preaching things like this, "Depression is a common problem even in the church." And we've been walking through God's Word and we see that depression was an issue in the Bible.
00:27-00:38
We saw David and Asaph and in fact the Bible says that Jesus Christ himself is a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.
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We're fallen people in a fallen world.
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This world is under a curse and depression is going to be a part of the problem.
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And we've been talking about some reasons that even Christians get depressed.
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You remember?
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One reason that Christians get depressed is if you're in sin.
00:59-01:09
If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, but you're living in unrepentant sin, Ephesians 4.30 says that you're grieving the Holy Spirit.
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You're actually living against the very nature that God has put in you.
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And you know that.
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And you're miserable and you're convicted by that.
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In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul showed how Christians deal with sin.
01:27-01:32
He says you put off the old self, you're renewed in your mind, and you put on the new self.
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And he got very specific on what that looks like.
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So if your issue is sin, if you're depressed over sin, you need to deal with that.
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Knowing that through Jesus Christ, sin has already been dealt with.
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Now you need to get serious about it.
01:55-01:57
Embrace the reality that God's already provided.
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And then last week, we said not only did some people are depressed because of sin, but what did we say last week?
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Some people are depressed because of a crisis that comes in their life.
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and we talked about Job.
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You talk about crisis.
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Here's a man who lost seven sons and three daughters in one afternoon.
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And we saw last week that instead of listening to yourself, you need to learn to preach to yourself.
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People listen to me preach for 40 minutes a week.
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But as we get into this last message, understand that some people are depressed.
02:53-02:56
And I think this might be the top of the list here.
02:56-03:02
This isn't last, like, throw it on so we can round out January with one more depression sermon.
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This might be last and most frequent.
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I think a lot of people are depressed because they have unbiblical expectations about life.
03:13-03:15
Unbiblical expectations about life.
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What do you mean by that?
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Here's what I mean by that.
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Has God made some promises in His Word?
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Absolutely He has.
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And by faith, we embrace the promises that God has made.
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The problem, Christians, is when we start trying to embrace promises that God didn't make.
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We start expecting things out of life that God never promised.
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And that doesn't come from God.
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You listen to me preach for 40 minutes a week.
03:48-03:49
Do you know who you listen to the rest of the week?
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The world is constantly preaching its values.
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The only difference is when I get up to preach, it's pretty obvious.
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When the world preaches at you, it's not always so obvious.
04:10-04:12
The world preaches its values all the time.
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For example, education.
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Is education a good thing?
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Education is a good thing.
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But the other side sort of feels like if you don't have an education, you aren't worth as much, right?
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Bumper stickers that say, "My child is an honor student." Some of us have my child beat up your honor student.
04:40-04:50
But you see, education, there's nothing wrong with education, I think education's great, but sometimes the world presents it as if if you didn't go to college, you're like, second class citizen.
04:51-04:51
Is that true?
04:55-04:55
Or talent?
04:57-04:59
Talent is another one.
05:00-05:35
Like in athletics, not every boy is going to the major leagues. You look at how money is distributed among just the entertainment industry and music and Hollywood and there's such a premium placed on talent. Talented people are worth more, are better people than regular people. That's something the world A beauty in youth.
05:39-05:41
This is just getting worse and worse.
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It's sad.
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I've talked to some people from our worship team, and I've read some things online, different blogs, and you see the hot trends that are happening.
05:52-05:58
But you know Harvest Bible Chapel is a bit of an oddball because of the age of our worship team.
05:59-06:05
Because there are a lot of churches now moving towards, unless you're in your twenties, you shouldn't be leading worship.
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Why? That doesn't come from the Bible, by the way.
06:13-06:17
That comes from the world saying youth is where it's at.
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Youth is important, young and vital.
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Those are the people that you need to put on the platform.
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Meanwhile, we have Guns N' Moses up here.
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Did you know that's what they call themselves?
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We are not advertising that.
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You know what the Bible says about age?
06:42-06:50
The Bible says that we should revere, we should look up to, we should be getting our wisdom from the older generation.
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That's not what the world preaches.
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The world preaches that those old people are out of touch and they don't get anything to offer. That bothers me now that I'm close to becoming one. Close. I'm still not old enough to join the worship team. We laugh but you know it gets sad. Did you see this show that was on a couple years ago? Toddlers and Tiaras. Did you see? How many people saw that show or saw an advertisement? Did you see this? Toddlers and Tiaras. Do you know what it If you saw that show, what was that show all about?
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It was a beauty pageant for children.
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Disgusting.
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They were taking little girls, four or five, six years old, patting their chest, putting putting wigs and makeup on them, making them look shameful, and parading them around, instilling at such a young age, look, beauty is where it's at.
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And from that show came a spinoff.
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How many people know the spinoff that came from toddlers and tiaras.
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What is it? Shout it out. Go ahead.
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Oh, I'm a little embarrassed that some of us know that.
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Here comes Honey Boo Boo.
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Have you seen this?
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Have you seen this?
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Look, if you watch that show, I am not judging you.
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I am not judging you.
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I love you in the Lord.
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But if you watch that show, I need you to explain to me why.
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I could look out my window and watch that show.
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I'm like, one night I came home from a meeting, I'm sure I was doing something holy and spiritual, but I came home and Erin's laying in bed watching this show.
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I'm like, what are you watching?
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She's like, it's called Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.
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And I sat down and watched like five minutes of that.
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That was the worst five minutes of my life.
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Like, what is this? What is this?
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Not a fan.
09:24-09:32
Well, the world is constantly presenting its images of beauty, youth.
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That's what's important.
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And it's at the point now that we're not even elevating good-looking and young people.
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We're creating them.
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Did you know that?
09:45-10:06
this video. You see the world puts that face up on a billboard and says you got to look like this. Newsflash, she doesn't even look like that, right? She's a computer-generated image and we're promoting this to our young women today.
10:07-10:21
This is what you got to look like. And if you're still not convinced, if you still don't believe that there are people out there that will use Photoshop to promote some standard of beauty. Look at this picture.
10:30-12:12
This picture was taken at Harvest University. They're like, "Let's get our group together for a group shot." After a couple days on the road everybody kind of looks the same don't they? I love that picture. That is a good looking team. They look like Guns N' Moses groupies. Many Christians, here's where the rubber meets the road. Many Christians share the world's values and they evaluate worth using the world's standards. Write this down in your outline. Unbiblical standards lead to unbiblical expectations. This is like so important or you'll miss like everything else we're talking about this morning. Unbiblical standards lead to unbiblical expectations. This is the standard. This is what we need to look like. And when I start to expect that, I'm starting to try to cash in promises God never made. Okay, so unbiblical standards lead to unbiblical expectations, and unbiblical expectations can lead to what? What are we talking about this month. Depression. Unbiblical expectations can lead to depression. That's why girls are starving themselves to try to look like these billboard people that don't even exist.
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Because we have this expectation, and why don't I look like that? And to be worthwhile, I have to have the approval of others.
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It creeps into the church.
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If I'm faithful to God, then He's going to do this, and He's going to do that, and suddenly things aren't working out the way we expected them.
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And then what do we say?
12:41-13:22
Well, either God is failing, my expectations weren't met, so either God's failing, or maybe I'm a horrible failure, and there's nothing I can do to change it, and things aren't going to get any better and there's nothing to anticipate. Last week we talked about having a depression caused by a crisis. And the truth is you don't even really need a crisis to become depressed. I think the majority of people are depressed because they're trying to cash in promises God never made. But like depression from crisis, the problem is wrong So this morning, for a few moments, I want to talk about a man named Elijah.
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How many people would say, show of hands, that Elijah is like one of the spiritual giants of the Old Testament?
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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Spiritual giant.
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You know, the Bible says that John the Baptist came in the spirit of... anyone?
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Elijah.
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Elijah.
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Thank you.
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He gave him the spirit of Elijah.
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Luke 1 17.
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Do you remember at the transfiguration when Jesus took his inner circle of disciples up onto the mountain?
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Do you remember who showed up?
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Moses and Elijah.
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Okay?
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How would you like to have been there for that?
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This spiritual giant went through a severe depression because of some unbiblical, unmet expectations that he had.
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And this story is really in 1 Kings chapter 17 through 19.
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We're going to be focusing on chapter 19.
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So I want you to turn there, 1 Kings chapter 19.
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And while you're turning there, just to give you an on-ramp, I'm going to give you an overview of what's happened that led him to this point of depression.
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But you have to read this on your own.
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This is one of the coolest stories in the Old Testament.
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But in 1 Kings 17 and 18, there were a lot of exciting and frustrating experiences.
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King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were displaying their depravity, their rebellion, and their brutality.
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God was displaying His power, His faithfulness, and His provision to Elijah.
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In 1 Kings 17, 1, Elijah shows up and pronounces a drought.
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And during that time, God provides for Elijah through miraculous means.
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He was fed by ravens.
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He provided through a widow.
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When you get to 1 Kings 18, Elijah meets what they have, and after three years of drought, Obadiah hides all of the prophets.
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And then you get to chapter 18 and verse 20, Elijah has a showdown with 450 prophets of Baal, a duel, that they would go to Mount Carmel and they would pray and whichever deity answers with fire from heaven is the real God.
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Okay, so you have this picture up on the mountain.
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Here's Elijah and over here, 450 other preachers.
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preachers of Baal. Well, here's the deal, whichever God sends fire from heaven on the sacrifice, that's the real God. We're going to settle this once and for all.
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Well, verse 26 in chapter 18 says, "These false prophets of Baal spent all day praying and shouting. The Bible says that they actually cut themselves. They would take knives, and that was one of the pagan customs. I'm going to cut myself to get the attention of my God.
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No answer, obviously. Chapter 18, verse 27, Elijah starts to taunt them. You have this picture all day. They're like crying and wailing and cutting and screaming. Elijah starts teasing them. And it's really quite humorous. He says, "Hey, maybe your gods are busy. Maybe you should shout louder. Maybe your gods are sleeping." My favorite, the junior high taunt. Elijah says, "Hey, maybe they're in the bathroom." That's in the Bible, people. He says, "Maybe your gods are sitting on the potty. Maybe that's why they're not answering you." So Elijah soaks his sacrifice three times with water. Fire comes down, consumes the sacrifice and all the water. And verse 40, "Following this display of God's power, 450 of Baal were killed. The famine on the land ended with heavy rain, and then you get to the end of chapter 18, Ahab heads to Jezreel. Elijah says, "I'm going to beat you there." He actually runs ahead of him, beating Ahab back to Jezreel, which was a 20-mile trip.
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Elijah ran 20 miles.
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That's one of the greatest miracles in the Bible in my opinion.
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I ain't got to stop and take a breath after 20 feet.
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So do you have this story in your head now what happened?
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Elijah, 450 prophets, fire from heaven, the big showdown's over.
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The Mickey Mouse gods have been defeated because they weren't even there in the first place, Obviously.
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So Elijah, when he heads back to Jezreel, what do you think he's expecting from Jezebel?
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Sackcloth and ashes, right?
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Repentance.
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Like, oh Elijah, you were right.
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You were so right.
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I was so wrong and you were so right.
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I never should have doubted Elijah.
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You serve the true God and we have been following this false God.
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I'm so sorry.
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I'm so sorry.
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Well, look at chapter 19.
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It says, "Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
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Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, 'So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as a life of one of them by this time tomorrow.'" She threatens him by the same gods that were just defeated.
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Look at verse 3, here it is.
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"Then he was afraid.
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And he arose and ran for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left His servant there.
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Before you're quick to judge Elijah, have you ever worked like so hard on something, just to get a disappointing reaction, or a disappointing turnout?
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Has that ever happened to you?
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Maybe you're throwing a party for someone, and you put a lot of time and money and thought, then the response is kind of like, "Oh." You can imagine Elijah, after all of this that happened on Mount Carmel, to show up expecting repentance, expecting that there was going to be a change of heart.
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Instead, Jezebel swears a vow to kill him and he flees.
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Elijah's faith seems to have failed him.
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But you see, when you start expecting things that God didn't promise, you're going to fall into depression.
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At what point did God promise that Jezebel was going to repent?
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that there was going to be this national turnaround after Mount Carmel. Did God promise that?
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He didn't. But you see, that's exactly what Elijah was expecting. And church, I would say to you again, when you expect things that God didn't promise, you will fall into depression.
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All right, so let's talk about getting in and out of depression.
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We're going to read chapter 19 through verse 18, then I'm going to go back and pick up some of the principles here.
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But first of all, this is how to get into depression, and we're going to see how to get out.
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The Bible says, "He was afraid, and he arose, ran for his life, and came to Beersheba, which Beersheba was about 100 miles south of Jezreel.
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So it wasn't like I'm just going to the next town over.
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When it says Elijah fled, he was like, not just get out of town, but get out of the county.
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But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree.
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And he asked that he might die.
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Saying, "It is enough. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers." And he lay down 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, on hot stones and a jar of water.
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And he ate and drank and lay down again." Does that sound like a depressed person to you?
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Have you ever been depressed?
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I have.
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That sounds a lot like me.
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Roll out of bed long enough to grab a bite and then back to bed.
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Like I'm still tired.
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I just don't want to deal.
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I don't want to deal with it.
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Like with what? With anything.
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The angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, "Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you." And he arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.
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You're like, "Well, he's out of his funk now, right?" It says, "There he came to a cave and lodged in it.
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Behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He said, "I've been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenants, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I only am left.
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They seek my life to take it away." He said, "Go out and stand in the mountain before the Lord." And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord.
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But the Lord was not in the wind.
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And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
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And after the earthquake and fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
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And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper.
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And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak, he went out and he stood at the entrance of the cave.
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And behold, there came a voice to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He said, "I've been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, The people of Israel have forsaken your covenants, thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword.
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And I even, I only am left.
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They seek my life to take it away.
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Let's pause there.
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This is how to get into depression.
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You ready?
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When you have unbiblical expectations, when life isn't what you planned, here's how to get into depression.
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It's all right here in the text.
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The first one is this, "Retreat by yourself." Retreat by yourself.
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Elijah just defeated 450 prophets and now he's afraid of one woman.
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And I kind of get that.
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I would rather take on 450 false preachers than the wrath of one woman any day of the week.
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So he heads off to Beersheba, like I said, 100 miles south of Jezreel.
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But when you're depressed, this is one of the self-defeating activities we often do.
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That's retreating by ourselves because depression shuts out what we need most.
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And that's people.
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It perpetuates the very condition.
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So let me ask you, how are your friendships right now?
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Are you spending less evenings out?
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Are you content to hide out at home?
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Have you been avoiding contact with people?
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Have you been avoiding your small group?
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Not good signs.
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Is it a nightmare if somebody asks you what's wrong?
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Somebody comes up to you in church and says, "You haven't looked well, Bob.
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Is everything okay? Is that like your worst nightmare?
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Often times we're like Elijah in the cave.
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We avoid everyone and then we look around and say, "I feel so alone." Isn't that true about depression?
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I have isolated myself. I have shut everyone out.
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I've stopped answering my phone or emails or texts, small group.
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Then when somebody finally catches up with me, what's the matter?
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I feel so alone.
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You might have something to do with that.
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Secondly, repeat the negative.
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I'm sure you noticed verse 10, verse 14, Elijah gave the exact same speech to God.
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Did you notice that?
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I'm the only one left speech. I've been so jealous for Israel's speech, the exact same speech. We talked about this a little bit last week, but when we're depressed, we have a tendency to be listening to ourselves. We sort of put our mental iPod on repeat.
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What's bad enough to dwell on negative things, but it's worse yet when we start lying to ourselves because actually what Elijah was saying was not true.
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You notice that he says, "I've been very jealous for the Lord." He says, "I'm the only one left." Then you get on to verse 18.
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God says, "I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him." was convincing himself of some things that just weren't true.
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"I'm so alone. There's nobody else." And God's like, "There's 7,000 other people just like you.
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But you've isolated yourself, man.
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That's why you're depressed.
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Instead of being like with the other 7,000, you put yourself in this cave and you just keep repeating the same false message to yourself.
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We do that, don't we?
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We say things like, "I thought parenting would be easier." We sort of idealize it.
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As you know, as a parent of two autistic children, that's something that I've repeated to myself so many times, like, "I just really thought parenting was going to be different." I never imagined having a 9 year old that I'd be unable to have a conversation with.
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I never imagined that when he was born.
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I really thought it was going to be different.
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I thought it was going to be easier.
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But we just keep repeating these lies to ourselves.
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My marriage is terrible.
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My husband is worthless.
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My wife never appreciates anything I do.
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get stuck in these ruts, repeating all these things.
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I read an article recently, talks about how social media feeds this type of depression.
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We were talking about this in our small group.
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Some others have seen this article.
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Social media feeds this type of depression.
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Why is that?
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Because when you get on Facebook, what do you see typically?
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Everybody's highlights.
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You're like, "Here's me with my honey." And you look at that picture, you're like, "Oh, their life is so perfect." Here's me with my kids.
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And they're like water skiing in a pyramid and stuff.
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And you're like, "Seriously?
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"Seriously, my kid can't even write his name.
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"Your kid's trying out for the Olympics." Or like the dog pictures, like look at them and their dog.
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Their dog's cuter than mine.
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I bet your dog's not cuter than mine, by the way.
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But social media has a way of highlighting the best.
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Never seeing the bad side or the hard times.
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I'm guilty of that.
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I keep my phone with me, and when Cade says something funny, I'm like, "Yeah, I'm gonna put that on Facebook.
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I know some people are gonna get a kick out of that." But you know what I don't put on Facebook?
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Like those days that he's screaming for two hours to do a stupid math homework. See somebody could look at my Facebook post and think I live with Jerry Seinfeld like oh this kid's so funny they just sit around and tell jokes all day. I just like to go to their house. I'm sure it's just a riot. You're seeing the highlights man. You're not seeing the three days this past week where Owen just decided he wasn't going to sleep.
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But when you just see the highlights, you start to idealize other people.
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You start to think they've reached this level of success and prosperity that you thought you were going to have and maybe you're entitled to, but you're never going to have.
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That leads to envy.
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That leads to feeling unbiblical expectations in our own lives.
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Repeating the negative.
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And thirdly, remember nothing of God's goodness.
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Remember nothing of God's goodness.
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This is as serious as it gets, people.
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You see in verse 4, Elijah asks to die.
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He wasn't the only one in Scripture.
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Actually, Moses did this too.
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Suicidal thoughts.
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God, kill me.
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God, kill me.
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Have you been there?
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Some of us in this room have.
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And the truth is when we have those feelings, death isn't really what we want.
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We want some change in our circumstances.
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But this is such a terrible place to be.
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Elijah shut himself out.
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He's away from everyone else.
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And he keeps repeating this untrue stuff.
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This was the same guy that was fed by God.
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This was the same guy that just defeated the prophets of Baal.
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This is the same guy that could look in his journal and see all of the times that God has shown up mightily in his life.
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And now because one woman says, "You're dead." He's hiding in a cave going, "I just wish I was dead. God, I just wish you'd kill me. I'm no better than my fathers." When our expectations aren't met, we get depressed and our thinking gets skewed.
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Before you pick on Elijah, you know you and I are guilty of the same thing.
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At your workplace, on any given day, I imagine 20 good things could happen and one bad thing could happen and what do you tend to dwell on?
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True or false?
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20 great things can happen.
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But one person makes one little kind of snarky comment, "What's playing in your mind over and over?" It happens to me.
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We can have a Sunday where everything was firing in all cylinders except there was one little thing that didn't just go right.
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That's what I tend to dwell on.
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I mean, very personally, we really inflate this.
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God has been so good to us.
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It's like 30 below zero out there, and you're warm, and you've eaten today, and if you haven't eaten today, you probably will.
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You have people that love and care about you.
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And you realize there are millions of people over the world right now that can't say that. God has been so good to us, but that one instance that God doesn't cash in when we think that he should have cashed in, we become like Israel.
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You look at the nation of Israel with the exodus and the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea and manna from heaven and water from a rock, and as soon as hardship shows up, they all just turn to Moses and say, "Is God with us or not?" Like, really? We crowd up the testimonies of God's faithfulness with all of the negative and wrong thoughts. But that's what depressed people do. They don't sit down and think, "Here's all the things I have to be thankful for." All they can think about is how disappointed they are about life.
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You're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, I didn't come here to learn how to get depressed. I All right, well I'm going to leave you with this.
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Here's how to get out of depression.
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All in favor?
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Maybe you have disappointments with life, or honestly, maybe you have disappointments with God.
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Here's how to get back on track.
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Let's look at the rest of these verses here.
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Okay, so Elijah gives his speech here the second time.
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"I'm the only one left.
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They seek my life to take it away." Verse 15, "And the Lord said to him, 'Go.
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"Turn on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, "and when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael over Syria, "and Jehu, the son of Nimshi, "you shall anoint to be king over Israel, "and Elisha, the son of Shaphat, "of Abel-mechaloth, "you shall anoint to be prophet in your place.
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"And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael "shall Jehu put to death, one who escapes from the sword of Jehu, shall Elisha put to death. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him." So three things. First of all, return to God. Understand that God never turns His back on you. And the times in your life that you feel that He has, you're the the one that's turned your back on him.
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That's why the Lord, what did he ask Elijah when he showed up?
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Did you catch that? He asked him twice.
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What are you doing here, Elijah?
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Isn't that awesome?
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Elijah turns tail and runs and God's still after him.
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I was like, what are you doing here?
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Knowing that when God asks a question, he's not seeking information.
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He's digging to the heart of the matter.
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What a powerful account.
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Did you see that?
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You know, the Lord wasn't in the wind and He wasn't in the earthquake and He wasn't in the fire, but He was in the what?
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He was in the whisper.
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So often, church, we look for God in the big things.
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We look for God in the big things.
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You know, I've got to land that huge job and I've got to get that popularity and I was expecting this big thing to happen. But here's the lesson that the Lord taught Elijah.
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God doesn't always do what we expect Him to do. And He doesn't always show up in the fireworks. Often He's working quietly. So the question is, are you willing to wait on Him? Are you willing to seek Him? Or are you willing to quiet yourself so you can hear him. What are you doing here? So return to God. Secondly, return to work. Return to work.
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Get back to the big picture. That's what I love in verse 15, like Elijah gives his speech again. I just love the Lord's response. Lord said to him, go return on your way. Like, All right, I hear you, Elijah.
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Let's get back to work.
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Yeah, message received, Elijah.
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Now, come on, we got stuff to do.
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That wouldn't work at your place of employment, would it?
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If you just said, like, Ken, would this work for you?
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If you just said, you know what?
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I'm really sad, so I'm just going to sit at my desk for the next month and not do anything.
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Would that work?
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No, that wouldn't work where you work.
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I'm too sad to work.
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You know, your boss, supervisor, "Hey, what's going on here, Ken?
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We need this work done." "No, I'm just too sad to work right now.
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I'm just going to sit here and do nothing." Well, I wouldn't fly at work, but oftentimes we do that to God.
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And church, He's given us a short time and a glorious mission that impacts souls for eternity.
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And the mission of making disciples is too important to neglect because of our own disappointments.
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Aren't you glad God doesn't just forget about you and move on to someone else?
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Isn't that awesome?
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Like if I was God, you ever play that game?
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You play that game, haven't you Bob?
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If I was God, I'd do that.
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If I was God and I just did all this stuff through Elijah and he like takes off, I'd He'd be like, "I've got 7,000 other people I can get to do this job." He's like, "Hide in a cave?" He doesn't just move on to someone else.
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He just very simply called him back to work.
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And I would say, church, we don't have time to grieve indefinitely.
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God is on the move.
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He's on the move and He wants to be at work through you.
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He's not just going to dispose you.
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He's not going to kick you to the curb.
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He's not going to forget about you.
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He's going to say, "We're going to deal with this and we're going to get you back to work.
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You have a glorious mission.
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God wants to do big things through you.
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Don't think that He's done with you." Then finally, return to people.
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Return to people.
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Hazael, Jehu, Elisha.
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Elijah started the execution of Baal worshippers.
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these three are going to finish it. And getting back to work means doing people business for and with other people. And this is what I would say to you. Church, if you're going through a depression, if you're going through a hard time and you decide, you know what, I guess I have to go to work because we're not going to be I'm not going to be able to pay the rent unless I do.
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I'm just going to stop working at the church.
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I'm going to stop volunteering.
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I'm going to get off the assimilation team.
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I promised Ken and Amanda I'd be involved, but I'm just too depressed right now.
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Please hear me.
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I am not being unsympathetic.
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And I wrestle with depression, I would guess as much as anybody in this room.
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But this is something that keeps me going and I would commend to you.
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Me throwing in the towel doesn't just affect me.
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You know that.
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You say, "Well, I'm just going to quit." There are people counting on you here.
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And that's one of the things that motivates me.
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in the highs and lows of church planting world over these last, how long has it been?
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How long has it been?
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Two and a half years?
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Okay, we've had a lot of highs and lows in that time.
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And I'll tell you what, in the lowest of lows, one of the things that has kept me going is there are people counting on me here.
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So me just throwing in the towel, it's selfish, honestly.
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Because I have people that are counting on me to do my job, as I'm counting on them to do theirs.
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And that's what the Lord was saying to Elijah.
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Look, you got some other people here we got to minister to.
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You got some work to do with people here, so let's get on it.
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Giving up is easy, but it's selfish.
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You know, this whole month, there was something I wanted to say, but I guess there was a fear of man thing in me, this being misheard or received in the wrong way.
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But I can't let this series go by without saying this.
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And I know we've had a long morning today talking about mission and local stuff, and watching videos.
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But I can't end this series on depression without saying this.
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And I'm saying this with as much compassion, and sympathy, and empathy, and speaking from experience.
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So I want you to hear me.
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The easiest way for you to fall into depression is to focus too much on yourself.
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And it's very hard to say that to a depressed person who's already feeling bad, to come along and say, "You're too self-absorbed." "Oh, thanks. Now I feel worse." And you don't care.
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But I want you to hear me.
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As a pastor, if I have any relational equity with you, I want you to hear this.
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You're going to have a tendency towards depression if you spend too much time focused on yourself.
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And somebody would say, "Well, that's not true, Pastor Jeff, myself. That's more true for you because you're still giving yourself an undue, over excessive amount of attention. Because here's the glorious truth, we were never made to find fulfillment in ourselves. We were created to find our fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
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And by the way, what does Jesus tell us to do with ourselves?
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He said you need to die to yourself.
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He says, die to yourself.
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Serve him and minister to others, and that's I couldn't help but notice when we We were going through this at Harvest Bible Chapel.
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We talk about worship, walk, and work.
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That's what we see God calling Elijah to - worship, work, and walk.
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But the best thing you can do when you start to feel a tendency towards depression is to get your eyes off of yourself Put your eyes instead on Jesus Christ.
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Pray with me.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Kings 19:1-17
What are some ungodly standards the world promotes? How can you protect your children from these? [If you don’t have children, think in terms of, “If I did, I would do this…”. If your children are grown, what advice would you give them today (for your current or future grandchildren) on the subject?]
How is depression tied into wrong expectations about life? How does being overly self-absorbed tie into depression / expectations?
Why is isolating yourself a common habit for many people who struggle with depression? What would you say to a friend who seems depressed and isolating him/herself?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another!