I search for hope, I search for love, and one day for it leads
God give me strength to accept the things that I just cannot
know, that even when I lose control, I will not let you.
Go Hey everyone how you doing? Good morning.
You know I'm so glad that I told this to 1st service as well.
I'm so glad that Kyle and Taylor did their thing with leading us
in worship before I had to come up here.
I did not want to follow those crazy people.
They're all my friends but and the cannon Cannon would have
been the worst. So anyway, we are going to
continue. By the way, for those of you who
don't know me, my name is Vance Furtado.
I'm a volunteer teaching pastor here at Resurrection Church.
We're going to be continuing our series that we've been doing on
mental health. And so this is actually a little
on the funny side. The topic I was assigned is Hope
in Depression. The reason why it's a little
funny is that I haven't been up here for three months.
I was scheduled to speak. The last time I spoke from the
pulpit was the first Sunday in March, and I was scheduled two
other times to speak between then and now.
And the reason why I didn't is because two dear brothers of
mine, Pastor Daniel and Pastor Mark, came and talked to me and
they very clearly told me you need to take a break.
You're not healthy. And they were right.
You see, I have struggled much of my life with depression.
And I was struggling again and I was losing that battle.
And the reason how I knew really I was losing the battle is I was
struggling more and more with anger.
You see, a lot of times depression manifests itself as
basically repressed anger. And I was holding it down like
you would hold down a spring as best I could.
But I was losing that battle. And so my dear brothers said,
you're going to take a break. You need to heal.
That was hard, but it was absolutely what I needed.
So depression is something I'm very familiar with.
Let me give you guys just 5 facts about to kind of portray
how big of a problem depression is.
First of all, and this is a quote, depression is the leading
cause of disability in the world.
And it might sound strange, but it incapacitates us to where we
find it very hard to work, very hard to concentrate, very hard
to do much of anything. Also, just in the US alone,
about 22 million people struggle with clinical depression,
meaning they have been diagnosed with it.
And I am one of those 22 million for which I take medication.
My only regret is I didn't do the medication decades earlier.
One out of every six teenagers will struggle with one or more
major bouts of depression. So guys, if you feel a little
weird sometimes it's OK. Lots of people feel that way.
Depression is often coupled with anxiety.
And the last one is that depression is sometimes called
the hidden illness because sadly, what happens is people
don't get diagnosed and get help with it until it's too late.
Some of us are familiar with this man.
His name was Robin Williams, very talented, very gifted
actor, comedian. Well, Williams was struggling
severely with depression in his later years, and so he did
something that was absolutely not the answer, and that was he
took his own life. That's not the answer.
Now, by the way, please do not. If you know someone who is
struggling with depression and you want to help them, please do
not tell them what I'm going to call Christianized cliches.
OK, let me give you 3 examples of them.
Here's one. If you were more spiritual, you
wouldn't be depressed. OK, great, now I'm depressed and
I feel guilty. Just pray more.
You know, that's sort of like this guy sitting in a rowboat.
The rowboat has multiple holes, it's sinking and you hand them a
Dixie cup and tell them just bail out more.
You know, Christians don't get depressed.
You know, if if anybody says one of those things to you or if you
maybe have said one of those things in the past, let me just
mention a couple things that I think are helpful.
First of all, read the Psalms, because in the Psalms not only
do you have of course, people praising God and people joyful
in their walk with the Lord, you also have people sharing the
fact that they are very struck. They're struggling in their
life, they're struggling with despair, they're struggling with
depression. So for example, Psalm 22, the
Lord Jesus himself quoted that from the cross when he said, my
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Or Psalm 42 and 43, where three times the psalmist writes, Why
are you downcast, O my soul, why so disquieted within me?
And then he says, Hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my
Savior and my God. Here's a verse that we really
need to practice sometimes with what we say.
Let everyone be quick to hear and slow to speak.
Sometimes the most helpful thing is to shut up.
I'm not saying don't care. I'm saying that maybe if we
don't have the words to share, maybe just the fact that we're
sitting with this person, we put our arm around them, we're
present with them, we pray for them.
We don't have to necessarily tell them we're praying, but we
pray for them. That in itself can be incredibly
helpful. The good news, the good news is
not only does the Bible have lots to say very honestly about
depression, it also has information within it to help us
to overcome those issues that come with depression to where we
can have hope. As a matter of fact, the main
point of this message is simply this.
Despair drowns, but hope floats. And for this message, we're
going to be looking at three different passages of Scripture.
First of all, we're going to go to a little book called
Lamentations. All right?
We're going to look at 2 passages.
There. We'll receive, first of all,
despair depicted. And then we see a decision
declared. And by the way, don't worry
about having to copy this. It'll show up later, those of
you who like to take notes. And then we're going to go for
the Third Point. We're going to go to the Gospel
of Mark. Mark chapter 10, verses 46 to
52, and we'll see their deliverance demonstrated a story
from Jesus's ministry where He helped someone who was in an
absolutely hopeless situation. And finally, our last passage
deals with what I'm calling destiny described, and that's
from Second Corinthians chapter 4 verses 16 to 18.
Now, as we do this, it is separate points, but please
think of this as sort of like basically we're putting pieces
together, OK? And as we put these pieces
together in the message, there's going to be some parts of it
that I think you're going to find perhaps more helpful than
others, but it is a package. OK?
So let's go ahead and go to our first passage that is
Lamentations. I know, what a horrible name for
a book. I don't know if the Hebrew name
would be much better in Hebrew. It's simply ho Lamentations.
Now, if you're wondering where to find it in a Bible, if you
find in the Old Testament, the book of Jeremiah, it's a little
book right after that one. OK, so I'm going to Lamentations
chapter 3, just verses 19 and 20.
Here we go, remember my affliction and my wanderings,
the Wormwood and the gall. My soul continually remembers it
and is bowed down within me. This is despair depicted.
What in the world is going on? Well, this is most likely
written by the prophet Jeremiah, and he's looking upon something
that is absolutely breaking his heart, something that could have
been avoided. God's people whom Jeremiah had
ministered to for some 40 years, they kept committing willful,
determined, defiant sin. God had repeatedly warned them
and urge them come back to me, repent, I love you, stop turning
your back on me, stop breaking my heart.
But they kept rejecting them anyway, until finally, as we're
told elsewhere in Scripture. But they kept ridiculing God's
messengers, despising his words, scoffing at his prophets until
God's wrath was so stirred up against his people there was no
remedy. And what happened was everything
got devastated. Now we know what this looks
like, even if we haven't personally experienced it.
Because if you've seen stuff on social media or watch cable news
and you're looking at a war zone where everything is destroyed,
everything is devastated. That's what Jeremiah is looking
at. OK, The Kingdom of Judah is
gone. Jerusalem and the temple, the
beautiful temple that the Jews had are now just smoldering
piles of rubble. So many people are dead, they
don't have enough people to even bury the bodies.
People are starving, people are homeless, people are exiled.
It seemed hopeless. And Jeremiah is honestly
expressing what he feels as he looks on this.
And that was a start, by the way, because what seemed
hopeless was actually the beginning of an answer.
What do I mean? It's a beginning of a change.
You see, the Lord can't help us unless we're honest with Him.
It's when we stop making excuses, stop denying the
obvious truth that we need help, when we desperately need what
only Almighty God can provide. When we come to that point,
that's when we start turning and getting serious with God.
My old childhood pastor used to say the 2 greatest evangelists
are memory and misery. Now when did I finally start to
realize I needed help? It was when my wife Linda and I
were trying to care for our last living parent, my mom, as she
was in Hospice care living with us.
Her second stroke deprived her of the ability to speak for the
last five months of her life. The last complete sentence I
ever heard her say was You look tired.
She couldn't say my name. She couldn't say the names of
her grandchildren. She couldn't say Linda's name.
And she was slowly declining, and there was nothing any of us
can do about it. And we knew she was depressed.
We knew she was upset. We could not help her other than
to care for her. That's when I realized I
couldn't handle this on my own. I need help.
I had to be honest. Let's move on to the next
passage, still in LAMENTATIONS. Lamentations chapter 3, verses
21 and 24. This is probably going to sound
a bit familiar because we just sang these words, but this I
call to mine, and therefore I have hope.
The steadfast love of the Lord never what His mercies never
come to an end. They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my
soul. Therefore I will hope in Him.
Did you catch the words hope in that passage?
Very beginning he mentions hope, and then as he gets to the end
he mentions hope again. It's like their bookends around
the passage. You see, the deal is when it
comes to, and we're talking now about decision declared.
OK, Lamentations 321 to 24, decision declared.
When we choose to hope, that's the best choice we could make.
Recovery usually begins when we choose hope.
Now to do this, our will has to basically take the lead.
We cannot depend upon our emotions.
Our emotions simply will drag us down further and further and
further. We have to make a choice now.
By the way, a Christian community of some close friends
who love us, who also love Jesus, is incredibly helpful for
this. I can't even tell you how many
times my Christian brothers and sisters in my small group and
others around me have helped me. And if you're not in a
community, you need to be. Jeremiah is declaring his hope
based on what he knows about God.
These are things that he has personally experienced about
God. So if you're here and you're a
non Christian, you do not know Jesus, but you wanted to come
out and check out this church. Maybe a friend invited you or
maybe you just decided to visit. First of all, we're all glad
you're here. I'm incredibly excited that
you're here. What you need to realize as we
go through and look again at this passage is that this is
what God is really like. This is how God truly is, the
God that you don't know, but who wants you to come to know him.
And Christian, this is a reminder of who God is, the God
who loves you. OK, so there's 3 certain truths
about the Lord in this passage. And by the way, God himself
described himself in these terms, OK, earlier in the Bible
at a place called the book of Exodus 34, verse 6, this is what
he said about himself. First of all, His steadfast love
never runs out anytime in this Bible translation, the English
standard version where you read steadfast love in the Old
Testament, it's most likely the Hebrew word hesit.
That word is God's covenant, committed, determined love that
we will never ever earn, but He gives it to us anyway.
Why? Because He loves us.
That's his steadfast love. His mercies never quit.
How many of us, maybe as a kid or maybe you were reading this
to a younger brother, sister or grandchild, but how many of us
are familiar with that little book, Green Eggs and Ham?
OK, Do you remember how Sam I am kept pushing the grumpy guy to
eat green eggs and ham? I mean it, it sounded gross.
It really did. OK.
And the grumpy guy kept saying no, I will not eat them here or
there. I will not eat them anywhere.
And Sam I am just keeps hammering at it and says eat
them, eat them. And finally the grumpy guy says
OK. And he eats the green eggs in
ham. And then he says, I like them.
I like green eggs in ham. I do.
I like them, Sam, I am.
That's what God's steadfast mercy and love is like.
You got to check it out for yourself.
I can only describe it so much, but that is what God is like,
OK. And the third thing, the third
certain truth about the Lord is that His faithfulness is huge.
Anytime you have heard somebody or maybe yourself say at church,
because they get kind of excited about what's going on.
And so they say that word that we say, Amen.
Anytime you hear that, that's basically this term, OK,
faithful, that's what it means. So we put this together.
God's steadfast love, God's mercy, God's faithfulness.
Here's what it all means. Our hurts begin to fade when we
focus on who the Lord is rather than our pain.
Remember, despair drowns, but hope floats.
So Jeremiah is making a choice. I'm going to focus on what I
know is true about God. All right, all this sounds
probably pretty good, but it's all pretty theological too.
Let's go to a personal example from Jesus's life where he gave
hope to somebody who had no hope, who was in despair.
So we're going over to Mark chapter 10, verses 46 to 52, and
this is going to be Deliverance demonstrated.
OK, Deliverance demonstrated. And when they came to Jericho,
and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples in a great
crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was
sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of
David, have mercy on me. And many rebuked him, telling
him to be silent, but he cried out all the more, Son of David,
have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and said, call
him. And they called the blind man,
saying to him, Take heart, get up, he's calling you.
And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.
And Jesus said to him, What do you want me to do for you?
And the blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.
And Jesus said to him, go your way, your faith has made you
well. And immediately he received his
side and followed him on the way.
OK get the picture. It's a busy, busy Rd. basically
a dirt path that they're walking on.
They're leaving the city, they're headed up to Jerusalem.
And literally there are hundreds and hundreds of people
travelling because the Jewish festival of Passover is coming
very quickly. And so everybody is headed up to
the big temple in Jerusalem and Jesus is going to.
And lots and lots of people want to hear what Jesus says, want to
see what Jesus does. And off to the side is a blind
beggar. Nobody's looking at him.
He's practically invisible because there were so many
beggars all over the place in Bible times.
Sort of like we see the homeless so often, we kind of don't even
look anymore. That's what it was like.
We're told that he's lost his eyesight.
That also was common in Bible times.
Sometimes people would get their eyes infected, especially from
flies, and the result of that infection, they would lose their
eyesight. It might have been cataracts, it
might have been something else. But if you lost your eyesight
back in the time of the Bible, it meant two things.
First of all, it was a disaster because they didn't have things
like Braille. So if you lost your eyesight,
basically you would no longer be able to read anything, assuming
you ever even had an education, even if you wanted one.
It's not going to happen. You're totally dependent upon
other people. And so maybe you have a family
to help you, maybe they're tired of helping you.
And then the end result is you become a beggar.
And nobody wants to look at beggars.
They'll throw them a coin occasionally, but nobody cares,
not really. And the second thing that
happened, and this really is frustrating, is that some people
would say, oh, you must have become blind, maybe because you
had terrible sin in your life and therefore God judged you and
he made you blind. You lost your sight because
you're a great Sinner. By the way, Jesus never accepted
that kind of thinking. You know the last song that Kyle
and Taylor LED us in blessed assurance.
It's an old, old song. It's a beautiful song, but it's
a song that's also written by a woman, Fanny Crosby, who lost
her sight as a child. She wrote hundreds and hundreds
of songs, some of which are being sung in churches right
now, all throughout Bakersfield and elsewhere.
Did you catch the line that we sang?
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight.
She couldn't see physically a thing, but spiritually she saw
plenty. She had hope.
She glorified God in spite of what had happened to her.
She lived a rich and fulfilling life.
Why? Because Fanny still had hope.
Well, Bartimaeus didn't seem to have any hope.
And then he heard some commotion.
A crowd's coming. He hears lots of crowds, but
this one seems to be different because he's hearing people
talking about Jesus. And of course, he's never seen
Jesus. But he knows, OK, Jesus is the
son of David, which means he's the Messiah.
He's the special one that's coming.
And he also knows Jesus heals people.
And so he begins to cry out, Son of David, have mercy on me.
And the crowd is telling him, you don't count.
Be quiet. And he's not going to be quiet.
He calls out even more. He is absolutely determined to
get to Jesus. And so he comes and Jesus heals
him. Now please listen carefully, OK?
Jesus can save. Jesus can heal.
Jesus can restore because he's God in flesh.
He's the second member of the triune God.
All of that is taught in the Bible, but he usually acts when
we trust Him. And trust is faith.
That's why we're told in Hebrews 11/6.
Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since
the one who draws near to Him must believe that he exists and
that He rewards those who seek Him.
Bartimaeus Sodom. Bartimaeus got healed and then
notice Bartimaeus starts following Jesus.
You see, he didn't just simply get healed and say, oh thank you
very much Jesus, and then went the opposite way.
No, he starts to follow Jesus. What's the big deal about that?
Simply this, a disciple is a follower.
From this point on, this healed man walked as much as he could
with Jesus, which sadly he wouldn't walk with him
physically for very long because Jesus is headed to Jerusalem to
die, but Bartimaeus is walking with him.
All right, wonderful story. Bartimaeus got healed.
He had no hope. He got healed, but what if God
doesn't heal you? I'm 64 years old.
I have struggled with depression probably since I was a teenager.
I'm not healed. Is it possible to still have
hope and not be healed? That's where exactly some of us
are, like me. If God for whatever reason does
not heal us, can we still have hope?
Yes, we can. And it's not just my word about
that. That doesn't really count.
It's in Scripture. It's something that the apostle
Paul wrote in Second Corinthians.
So in Second Corinthians chapter 4, verses 16 to 18, here's what
he wrote on this issue. So we do not lose heart.
Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being
renewed day by day. For this light momentary
affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory
beyond all comparison. So we look not at the things
that are seen, but that the things that are unseen.
For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that
are unseen are eternal. This is destiny described by the
time Paul wrote this. Let me give you some information
about what he had gone through. He's been beaten up a number of
times. He's been shipwrecked twice.
He says. He even spent a night and a day
just basically floating around in the sea, holding on, probably
to a piece of wood. He's been attacked and left for
dead. A crowd stoned him to death and
thought he was gone. He wasn't.
He's been attacked by false teachers.
He's had his reputation shredded.
He's even got what he only calls in 2nd Corinthians 12.
He calls it a thorn in the flesh.
And people have debated for a long time, what was that thorn
in the flesh? Was it a physical element, maybe
involving his eyes? Was it a disease like malaria?
Because once you get malaria it can keep coming back, and it was
common then. Was it this?
Was it That we don't know. What we do know is that Paul
asked the Lord three times to take it away, and the Lord said
no. You're a better man serving me,
Paul, with that problem than you would be otherwise.
My grace is sufficient for you. In spite of all those things,
Paul says. They are light.
They are momentary afflictions. How?
How could he say that? How could he write that?
Here's why. Paul's focus was elsewhere.
Paul wasn't focused looking dwelling upon his present
trials. He was looking ahead.
He was looking in the head to a glorious, eternal future that
he's hinting at in these 3 verses, a future that is for
every person who knows Jesus. And there's so much in the Bible
about that. But he mentions 3 things here.
First of all, where we're going to be with Jesus forever.
It's being prepared right now, Jesus himself said in John 14
verses 2 and three. He tells his disciples and he
tells us I am going away to prepare a place for you, and if
I go away, I will come again and take you to be with me forever.
Also, we're told here that that place will be glorious and it
will be weighty. Now, frankly, I never really
understood that idea of the weight of glory.
What, what, what does that mean? And then I did some study on it,
preparing for this message. And the deal is in the Hebrew
language, which of course Paul knew fluently.
The word we see in our English Bibles, glory, can also be
translated heavy, meaning solid, tangible, like a big massive
rock. Except that rock is the very
glorious presence of God Himself.
It is infinitely greater than we can ever imagine now, and we who
know Jesus will experience God's glory in our new home.
And if you wonder what that new home is like, just read the last
two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21 and 22, and you
get a little taste of our forever home.
Excuse me? The third fact is that our
future with Jesus, it's eternal. It never dissipates and never
slows down. Everything in the world around
us is transient. When I was 17 years old, I sat
right there. I'm 64.
Let me tell you that time went by fast.
That's what I mean by transient, but that's not how it is in
heaven. Like the old song, when we've
been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no
less days to sing God's praise than when we've begun.
So eternal means will have never ending joy in the presence of
God, His angels and His people. So is it possible to have hope
now and still not be healed? Yes, if we stay focused on where
we're going, not where we are. What's your focus?
What fills your mind? What do you dwell upon?
Is it your present troubles, whatever they are?
Or are you doing what Paul is telling us to do here?
Are we focused upon and trying to focus more and more upon the
indescribable infinite beauty that awaits every child of God?
I like what Psalm 121 verses one and two say.
I will lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who
made heaven and earth. So as we wrap this up again one
more time, our main point, despair drowns, but hope floats.
Two last questions, all right. First of all, if you're a non
Christian, you're somebody that's here but you don't know
Jesus. And again, we're glad you're
here. Let me ask you this, will you
come to Jesus so that he can save, restore and love you?
You see, sadly, what I've been describing, much of the sermon
is outside your experience 'cause you don't have a
relationship with the one who died because he loved you and
who wants to have a forever relationship with you.
So if you would like to have a relationship with Jesus, I'm
going to ask everyone please to close your eyes now so that
there is no distractions. But if you would like to have a
relationship with Jesus, I'm going to ask you to pray with
me, whether it's out loud or silently.
But to pray this, dear Jesus, I want to have a relationship with
you. I ask you that you cleanse me of
my sin. I ask Lord, that you would come
into my heart. I ask and ioffer my life up to
you. I ask you, Lord, that I would
have a relationship with you. If you prayed that prayer, would
you raise your hand so I can see it?
Thank you. Thank you.
OK, let's open our eyes. Can I have everybody stand,
please? If you prayed that prayer with
me, welcome to the family. I'm going to ask if you prayed
just now to receive Jesus into your heart.
I'm going to ask that before you leave here, you would visit.
We have a table over here where it says I just raised my hand.
Guys, can you put the house lights on on those sides so
people can see them? Please go there at the end of
service. We have somebody who would like
to chat with you. We want to help you in whatever
way that we can. Now my question for the
Christians is this. Will you return to Jesus so that
He can help restore and love you?
Maybe you don't struggle with depression like I have for so
long. Maybe it's something else.
But regardless, our Lord is there to help heal and restore.
We just have to come to Him. So I'm going to invite you to
come forward so that we can pray for you.
See, we want to help you in any way that we can.
And that coming forward and asking for prayer, seeking
prayer with another brother or sister, that's a good step.
So if God is dealing with you, my Christian brother or sister,
you come.