Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you.
I believe today's going to be a special day.
I believe the guy wants to put life in the dry and dead bones
in Jesus name. I believe that he wants to put
streams in the middle of the wilderness, in the wasteland,
and so if you feel like that today, then you have come to the
right place. In Jesus name.
Hello to you watching online. Wherever you're watching, you're
in the right place too. If there's a local church near
you, get there. If you're near here, get here.
Love to have you with us. I want to tell you that in two
weeks we are going to be celebrating our 13th anniversary
here at Illuminate Church. Blessed 13.
Yeah, Anniversary came about because we didn't know if it's
an anniversary or birthday. We didn't know what to call us.
It became an anniversary the first year and it just stuck and
it's stuck ever since. And I have to explain it every
year. So there you go.
Anniversary, October 5th or 6th, whatever.
That Sunday is the 5th and it's going to be a special time.
We have a guest coming from Africa who's going to be here
with us. We're going to preach kind of
together. You'll see it's a special
Sunday. We haven't had a Sunday like
this in a long time. And also the night before is our
Dream Team weekend. The guy who wrote the last song,
only Jesus that we just sang, his name's Martin Smith.
He's written so many songs that you sing that you don't even
know that he wrote. He will be here for our Dream
Team weekend, for our Dream Team members on Saturday night.
It's going to be a special time together.
I'm looking forward to that wholeheartedly.
I wanted to mention last week just a little bit, if you didn't
see it, I sent out a message. Anybody see the message that I
sent out on YouTube? It looks like this.
I'm wearing a red shirt. I got a big giant forehead and
the shirt makes me look fat. I don't know why, but there's
that. I was explaining why we did what
we did last Sunday and why we had a normal service when the in
the aftermath of what happened with Charlie Kirk and his
family. And there was some a concern
that we didn't spend enough time or too much time, all these kind
of thoughts going on. And I'll say the Holy Spirit
speaks to us. We believe.
And he says like no matter what the problem is, the answer is
always going to be Jesus. So when people show up in droves
and they showed up in droves, you all showed up in droves last
week. The Holy Spirit said, just give
them what you normally give them.
And that is Jesus. And if I didn't connect the dots
well for you last week, I apologize for that.
But that was our intent. Like, let's get in the house.
Let's acknowledge the grief and the pain and the various views
of which we are approaching Charlie Kirk's assassination,
and then let's center ourselves under the headship.
Of Jesus by. Worshiping him and then getting
into the word that Pastor Valdemar so beautifully and
powerfully delivered. His name is Valdemar.
No more shame. Amen.
Hallelujah. Yeah.
Praise God, and God certainly is using what the enemy meant for
harm for good. I want to tell you that if you
still have lingering thoughts, need to process, just want to
pray for our nation, pray for yourself, pray for other
believers. We're going to be right in this
room Tuesday night from 6:30 to 8:00, and we invite you all to
come. There may be 10 of us.
There may be 10,000 of us. I don't know if there's 10,000,
we're in trouble. There may be 1000 of us, so
please coming out a special time of prayer.
It's not a debate forum. There's not going to be
disagreements and what you see on social media division.
There's going to be unity and some time to process what it is
we're thinking and feeling and ultimately submit that all under
the headship of Jesus Christ and his word.
Amen. Tuesday night at 6:30.
You say it perfect. We had record attendance last
week other than Easter and Christmas, which means people
are looking for answers when what we see before our eyes is
what we see. We should not see what we have
seen in the last. Really with not just Charlie,
but across our globe, it looks like disarray.
It does not look like the order of God for certain.
And I want to show you like a video that one of our guys,
Garrett Harder took. He's one of our usher's a good
friend of mine. And he, he filmed just driving
into church. It's like, whoa, there's a lot,
a lot of people. Did anyone see this video?
Yeah. And and then he like, here's the
line coming in. Do you guys know this line?
Are you familiar with this line? Isn't it great to have to wait
to get into church in Jesus name?
Is that a blessing? Is that a blessing?
It's so great to wait to get into.
OK, good. And then just filming the
church. And he posted this.
Now Garrett has five reels. The other four reels.
This is the fifth one, the highest grossing reel as terms
of views with 694 OK and most of his reels, which is just the
other three, have an average of about 300 views for those reels.
This reel of our church being packed out last Sunday has
nearly 1 million views, which means God is taking what the
enemy meant for harm and using it for good.
We weren't the only church packed out last weekend.
People are coming. And let me say this to you.
If you showed up last week because of what happened to
Charlie and if you showed up looking for answers and saying
there's something is not right and I believe the answer is
found in a church. So I'm going to go to this
church. Let me tell you, I'm so glad
you're here and I'm just a human.
I can only imagine what the Lord our God thinks that you showed
up to His house to hear from Him and His Word and to worship Him.
And this is the counsel I give you this, the best counsel I can
give you. If you're brand new in the last
couple weeks or if you've been here a long time, it doesn't
matter. Stick around.
Don't leave when the feelings leave.
Don't leave when the new cycle changes to the next thing.
God drew you here in this time to capture your heart, and if
you will stick around, here's what will happen.
The Lord Jesus will avail himself to you.
Those who seek, find. So stick around and seek.
You will be. Found by Jesus, you will be
loved by Jesus, you will be saved by Jesus.
You're going to love your life with Jesus in it if you'll stick
around. The world is starting to say you
can do church out there, you don't need a church.
Well, the Lord himself says in Hebrews did not forsake the
gathering of the Saints, and you've made a good choice to be
here and to be a part of the gathering.
Amen. So look at your neighbors, say
stick around. Look at your other neighbors,
say stick around. Yep, the second neighbor is the
one you love second, by the way, and they know it.
You chose that other person 1st. And if you are sticking around,
the best place to start is life step one.
Life step one, if you haven't been, head to Connect Central
after this service is right out there in the lobby and they will
help you get into life step one. We have another one coming
October 5th, the same day as anniversary.
A one hour experience that can change all the rest of your
hours for the rest of your life. Life step one, everybody clap
twice. All right, well, I'm glad you're
here. Today we're in our series called
Weeds in My Garden where we are getting honest about mental
health and bringing a light to our most places don't want to
bring it to light. And if we keep it in the
darkness, the people struggling with mental illness stay in the
darkness and we want to be a church that brings it all to the
light. Somebody say Amen.
When we began the series, I was a more than a little nervous
basically because you say, hey, we're going to do 12 weeks of
mental health. Will anybody be here at the end?
Like, are you going to stick through?
Are you even going to show up? And what we actually saw as a
10% growth in attendance and it stayed that way.
We've had at least 33 salvations.
That doesn't even include last week or this morning service,
the 9:00 AM service where a bunch of people raised their
hand for salvation. And here's what we've seen.
God has set people free of demonic oppression.
We have seen deliverance. We have.
Seen it? God is breaking chains for
people. And if you're still in the
middle of your journey, what we're seeing is hope restored in
the middle. There is a way forward because
of Jesus. Amen.
Yeah.
And so what's happened is the opposite.
I thought we'd go down in attendance, and we've gone up in
attendance, and it's just incredible.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for saying that this
matters. And I know that not everyone
here is inclined to this series. Like you're like.
OK, some people need it, but I don't.
I mean, I'm great. I don't, you know, and you don't
mean that in a prideful way. You're just doing great in life
right now. Praise God, but you're still
here. And I want to say to you, thank
you for sticking around and leading and loving.
Well, One of the great signs of maturity and a believer is when
you become others focused, you recognize that this service
isn't all about you. In fact, this entire service is
all about. Him.
And we get the byproduct of His presence here with us to help us
in our lives. But this is a worship service.
And we don't worship ourselves. We worship the King.
It's a sanctuary, not an auditorium, not a theater.
So we're not here for a show. We're here to worship and to
receive from him. And so when you say it's not
about you and you hit sticking around, here's what I do know.
All of us know somebody or will know somebody that we love and
care for that's going to struggle with a mental health
issue. And as you stick around here, I
want you to be prepared to be a moment for them of light in the
darkness. I want you to be ready to love
and to lead them well. I want you to be prepared to
offer solid counsel to them, to give them a biblical framework,
and most of all, to give them hope.
This is not the end. There's more and you get a
chance to say that one of the things that we've done here with
favorite things we've done here, and you may not even know yet on
your app, we have a resource page, the church Center app or
illuminate dot church. It looks like this.
If you open up your church app, you click on the weeds in my
garden like this, like that, and then it's going to flip to that
screen just like that. And those are the series of the
rest of the messages that we're going through.
And then beyond that are the resources videos.
There's 10 videos there by a professional licensed mental
health counselor, Christian dude, amazing.
Watch those 10 videos. And then you got the national
resources, the local resources, including our biblical
encouragers here, our freedom group scriptures.
You can pray. And then note this warning signs
of suicide. We're going to talk about that
today. They're listed here.
And you'd be surprised. What's on the list of warning
signs that people that near suicide sometimes get very
joyful because they finally think my misery is about to end
and you think why they're doing so much better, but really
what's happening is they're giving you a sign and we need to
pay. There's lots of signs that you
need to pay attention to them. All those resources are there on
the app, Church Center app. If you need to download it, you
can download it or go to Illuminate that church.
Well, today may very well be the most difficult message that I
deliver all year long. I have been preparing for a
bunch of weeks on how best to deliver this message in both a
meaningful and a conscientious matter, because today here at
Illuminate Church, we're going to talk about suicide.
It's time to bring this into the church and discuss.
Suicide is now the third leading cause of death for teens and
young adults between 15 and 24. 25% of adults between 18 and 24
reported having seriously considered suicide in the past
month, while 18% of high schoolers reported seriously
considering suicide in the last year.
In 2024 in the United States of America, there were 16,000
homicides and there were 49,000 suicides.
That means in the United States of America, you're three times
as likely to die by suicide as you are by homicide.
There's a suicide death in America every 11 minutes.
There is one death for every 25 attempts, which means there is
an attempted suicide every 27 1/2 seconds.
That means from the moment that this message started until it
ends about 45 ish or so minutes later 90.
Eight people in America will have attempted suicide.
And seven of them, that's what we're talking about today.
To bring it closer to home, we did a survey right before the
series started of our church body, how are we doing in mental
health? And we got all these responses
back. One out of every 20 people said
they are struggling with either suicidal thoughts or self harm.
People here right now. 20% were in their teens, 30% were in
their 30s, and 30% were in their 40s, which means 80% of those
thinking about suicide or self harm are under the age of 50.
Even split between men and women, if these patterns hold
true throughout the entire church, not just those who took
the survey, it means about 100 people in the church right now
sitting next to you or maybe sitting in your seat are
considering self harm are suicide they're silently
battling on Sunday mornings. Now there may be some of you
here that say I'm not suicidal, but I can tell you this, most
people who died by suicide were probably not suicidal at some
point. Or maybe you think I'm not going
to do that. But most people who died by
suicide were probably thinking at one point, I'm not going to
do that. Or you say that can never happen
to me. But most people who died by
suicide, who at one point were numbered amongst us, would have
also said that I'm never going to let that happen to me.
So we need to pay attention. As I preach this, there are
three groups of people that I'm primarily thinking about.
First of all, I'm thinking about those of you who are followers
of Jesus. You love God and you want to
help people because you love people.
You care deeply for the people around you, and you know that
some of them are dealing with deep battles in their mind.
You can. You can hear the darkness in
their words. You can see the pain written all
over their face. You want to do something, but
you're not sure what to do. You want to say something, but
you're not sure what to say. You want to help, but you're not
sure what help even. Looks like we're going to help
you today #2 I'm thinking about those of you who have lost a
loved one to suicide. Me too, A horrific pain.
Your heart isn't broken. Your heart is in pieces is
absolutely and utterly. Shattered.
You can't even begin to articulate the pain that you
experienced in the loss of your loved one through suicide and
the grief that comes in waves. Sometimes you'd be out somewhere
and somebody has a mannerism that looks like your loved one
who died and it hits you. Sometimes they walk by somebody
and. They you just got the Cologne or
the perfume and that's all it takes, right?
Or their favorite season hits like Man She loved Christmas.
Or their birthday comes. Or you walk down the hallway and
there's their room, untouched. The heaviness.
You can also feel things like guilt and shame because you have
a good day and you feel horrible having a good day.
Also today I'm thinking about those of you.
Mostly I'm thinking about those of you who are right now self
harming or you inundated with suicidal thoughts.
Your mother's. You are brothers.
You are fathers, your husbands, your daughters, you are sons,
your wives. And behind the smiles and behind
the long showers, the never ending fatigue, there is this
endless erosion of hope happening in you.
And the thoughts that you have become whispers and the whispers
become shouts. And then you pry to silence the
shouts and you cover your ears. But it only gets louder because
the shouts are coming from in here.
You can barely hear anything other than these shouts.
So I want to address you who are hurting like this with suicidal
thoughts or self harm and I want to address you first and I want
to address you last. I want today to saturate your
soul. With truth, and I want you
church to, I don't know, affirm these statements.
Whatever comes out of your spirit, if it's a yes, if it's
an Amen, if it's clapping or whatever to encourage and
saturate the people around you who may be struggling.
First truth is this you listen to me.
You are the one and only. You there?
We say this about God. We say there's no one like you.
Guess what? It's true of you too.
There is no one. Like you, there is no one that
can replace you. You are irreplaceable.
Even if you're a twin, you're the one and only you.
There'll never be another you. It's you and you only You have
incredible value. To the Lord your God, somebody
say yes, extraordinary value. You are loved by the Father and
you are loved by us. Not only that, you are seen by
God. How do I know?
Because you're sitting in the service.
Would you believe? I believe this God loves you so
much that he designed this entire series for you right now.
Because he sees you. He sees your thoughts, He
understands the pain, and he's come to intervene in the middle
of the story and reverse the lie of the devil that is trying to
destroy. Because he sees you, He sees.
You right here, right now, in this place.
You are loved by the Father and you are loved by us.
Lastly, you are not your thoughts.
Pastor Valdemar was teaching this last week.
When we hear these thoughts, we think they're ours, but it's the
voice of the enemy. You are not bad.
You are not broken beyond the hair repair.
You are not meaningless or worthless.
You are a creation of the Lord our God, and He gifted you with
the breath of life. Hallelujah.
You are loved by the Father and you are loved by us.
I think I've told you before, but on Fridays I come in here
and there's nobody else here. The staff has Friday off mostly
and I sit. Right about where you are.
What's your name again? Julia?
You told me that before service and I already forgot.
Forgive me. Thank you.
I sit where you are, Julie, and I read the word and I journal
some and then I pray. And when I normally pray, I just
touch every single seat, all the seats, even the seats up there
and the seat you're sitting over there in the corner.
I see you. Hello.
But this Friday I got up to do that and I started walking
towards this aisle, these seats here where I normally start, and
the Lord just had me come to this corner and I started just
walking laps, Just walking laps. And I'm not getting exercise in.
I'm praying. And I felt like what the Lord is
saying is, I want to encircle you with my love.
I want to fully encircle you so that no part of you is outside
of my love. To completely embrace you with
my love. And as I'm praying, I got this
weird idea. Y'all, can we do this?
It's going to take some courage from you.
Can we do this? This is what I felt like the
Lord put on my heart. But there's somebody here right
now, many somebodies, lots of people who are in.
Desperate need to feel the love of God, the embrace of God.
I'll say it to you this way. Is there anyone here who could
use a hug? Here's what we're going to do.
I'm going to count to 3. And if you need a hug from the
Lord? Allow us the body of Christ.
To be His body to you and embrace you in a holy embrace.
We could do this rightly, correct?
Correct. So if you need a hug, here's
what's going to happen. You're on a count of three.
You're going to stand up and just a second behind that, the
rest of the body without me even telling them what to do, is
going to do what they know they should do.
If you need a hug from the Lord, and you allow it to be us on the
count of three, stand 123, come on.
Thank you. I know.
I know you needed one. I know he knows too, thank.
You, how are you? Love you brother.
Thank you did. Everyone get what they needed.
Did everyone get what they needed?
Praise the Lord, have a good Sunday.
Thank you, Rob. See you next week.
Let's talk about suicide. Let's peel back the curtain and
bring it into the light. Amen.
Is suicide in the Bible? The answer is yes.
I'm just going to answer some questions so that we're all
biblically equipped a little bit brighter and can speak with
wisdom to the subject. Yes, it's in the Bible.
Depending on how many you count or how you count, there's either
6 or 7 suicides in the Bible. You'll understand why one of
them is questionable here in a minute.
But the first is Abimelech in judges Chapter 9 who was an evil
king. He burned down a temple and 1000
people died. He goes to the next town to burn
down a tower and a lady in the tower drops a giant rock on his
head. His head splits open and he's
going to die and he says to his armor bearer, I cannot be known
as a man who got killed by a woman, so run your sword through
me and the armor bearer takes his life.
There was Samson and Judges chapter 16 and this is the one.
Some consider his act as a suicide, while others do not.
But he wished. To die with his enemies.
And so there in the temple, he pushed against the column, and
the temple came down and killed everybody in it, including
Samson. There was King Saul, the first
king of Israel. This is the one who brought
David into the palace. This is the one who led David
into the battle with Goliath. Saul was in a battle.
Pastor Valdemar talked about this last.
Week he got. Pierced with three arrows and
was about well he was very weak and so he said to his armor
bearer. Run me through with your sword.
The armor bearer refused, so Saul turned his sword around and
he fell on his own sword. The next verse is armor bearer
seeing that Saul was dead, the king was dead, he himself fell
on his own sword and died with his king.
In Second Samuel chapter 17 verse 23, there's a man that's a
hard name to say. It's Apathofil.
He is one time a good friend and companion of David, but his
relationship with David soured and Apathofil, that name became
friends with David's son Absalom, and the two of them
fought against David and it didn't go well for Apathofil.
He didn't feel like anyone was listening to him.
He went home, put his things in order in his house and he hung
himself. First Kings chapter 16.
An evil king named Zimri. He gets his way to power with
like deception and betrayal. All this terrible things.
Everything finally catches up to him.
He goes into the palace, he lights it on fire and he
perishes within the fire. And then there's the most
famous. Suicide of all Judas.
Who betrayed Jesus? Matthew chapter 27 Early in the
morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people
made their plans how to have Jesus executed.
So they bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate,
the governor. When Judas, who had betrayed
him, saw that he was condemned, he was seized with remorse and
returned to the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and
the elders. I have sinned, he said.
For I have betrayed innocent blood.
What is that to us? They replied.
That's your problem. So Judas threw the money into
the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged
himself. I share these with you to
explain to you that suicide is not a new problem.
It's been haunting us, if you would, even in biblical times,
even with Jesus on the earth. Suicide.
The word means to cut off the self.
The side is the cut off. The sewer is the self.
Pesticide, Cut off the pest, infanticide.
Abortion. Cut off the baby.
Decide. Know what this word means?
When you decide you're not choosing for something, you're
eliminating all other options. I'm cutting off every other
option so that when I marry my beautiful wife 27 years ago,
last two Fridays ago, every other woman from then that 4th
is dead to me. And I don't mean that in a weird
way. You're alive.
Are you breathing? Yeah, but you're dead to me, so
you know what I mean. To decide means to put all their
options to death. Suicide, the cutting off of
self. Is suicide a sin?
The answer is yes, Exodus. Chapter 20, verse 13 You shall
not murder. It's the six of the 10
commandments. Suicide is self murder.
We are told in the Psalms that God is the giver of life that
comes from Him. Psalm 36, nine.
For with you is the fountain of life.
In your light we see light. We are also told in Job chapter
14 that our days belong to the Lord.
A person's days are determined you.
This is God. You have decreed the numbers of
his month and have set the limits he cannot exceed.
Suicide is against God's will because it robs us of our
potential in Christ and it robs us of our participation in the
glorious mission of breaking forth the Kingdom on the earth.
It cuts short the days that God has laid out for.
Us it is a sin, however is suicide and unforgivable sin.
When I was in student ministry, about 10 years in the ministry,
I went to seminary 2000 and. 6. 11 years in, I guess Audrey had
just been born. We of course we had Owen and I
was driving down here to Orlando because that is where my
seminary was, Asbury Theological Seminary, their main campuses in
Wilmore. You might have heard about them.
They had a revival last year on campus for like.
Weeks and weeks I am. Sitting in a class, it's a small
campus, so you kind of know everybody.
And an administrative guy point pokes his head in the door in
the middle of class and says, Tim, I need to see.
You. My first, I was like, did I not
pay my tuition? And then my second thought was,
did somebody in my family die? What's wrong?
Something's not right. I go out and in the hallway he
says. We just.
Got a call from your church? One of your students has killed
himself. Sweet boy.
A piano prodigy. I see his face right here.
Some of you have gotten these calls.
They said the family wants you to come to their house.
I'm like, what? Me Like, what am I going to say?
I'm grieving myself. I love this kid.
Yeah, you need to. Go.
I go until the class. The class prays.
For me, I get in the car, in the entire car ride, I'm praying,
Lord, I have no idea what to say, what to do.
I'm grieving myself like I show up to the house.
I. Remember sitting in the car and
having like one of them talk to yourself most like you got.
This ready Go go, go. Walk up the sidewalk, knocking
the door. Dad answers the door.
I've been praying this whole Time Lord tell me what to say
and as soon as he opened the door I knew I was supposed to
say nothing and just hold him and he and I embraced and then
there was like a bunch of family including his brother hugging.
Nobody was talking for seemed seemed like a long time was.
Probably like 3 minutes, we're just embracing going on the line
and I get to the end of the line.
There's his Mama, her name is Mary and she's the first one
that talks and she says barely a whisper, it's my son in heaven
and y'all God answered my prayer in a powerful way.
I felt it from my feet all the way up into my bosom and I just
burst it forth with this righteous answer to her.
And I said today your son met Jesus face to face.
And as soon as the words came out of my mouth, she slumped
into me with such force that we fell back onto the There was a
couch right here. And I just sat down, plopped and
she rested upon me for like it. I think it was half an hour.
And the entire time she's weeping.
She wet my shirt with her tears. This Mama thought there was a
potential because somebody taught her bad theology that her
son was in hell. Is suicide an unforgivable sin?
The answer is no. It is absolutely forgivable.
And I am absolutely amazed at how well the lie has been
perpetuated. That suicide sends you to hell
if you're a believer. And I'm sorry that if you have
been taught that, that somebody taught that to you.
I can't imagine looking at a family.
Who's trying to put all these pieces back together and
somebody speaking something that is so foreign to the biblical
text and the gospel truth. The reason people sometimes.
Say that suicide is unforgivable is because you can't repent of
the sin of suicide because you're dead.
Can I just say some truth to you?
Nobody is saved. Based on their repentance of
sins, no one. There are sins you commit every
day that you don't repent of. Some of them you are aware of
and some of them you are not aware of.
We are not saved. Based on our last act, we are
saved. By the blood of Jesus alone we
are not saved by our sinless state by but however we are
saved by a sinless Savior. Amen.
That's what grace is. If you add anything to grace,
it's no longer grace, even repentance.
There is only one sin that is unforgivable.
It's found in Matthew chapter 12 verse 3031.
I start with and so I tell you, every kind of slander, every
kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against
the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against
the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against
the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or
the age to come. What kind of sin can be
forgiven? Daniela shown 31 again, what's
it say? What's it say?
Every kind of sin and suicide is a kind of sin.
It can be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is this.
When the Holy Spirit comes to you and says, let me show you
salvation in Jesus, let me woo you with grace and love and the
majesty of the earth and the majesty of the church.
When people are loving and living right, let me show you
the kindness of God and here is Jesus.
Receive Jesus as Savior and you say no.
Holy Spirit, I won't do that. And when you don't receive the
work of the Holy Spirit, you don't receive Jesus.
And Jesus is the one who forgives.
And so there is no forgiveness for the one who hasn't received
forgiveness in Jesus Christ. I'm going to give you a chance
today, later, to receive that forgiveness if you never have.
Make today your day. Amen.
What do I do if I know someone is struggling with suicidal
thoughts? I want to give you biblical and
practical. Can I give you both?
Say yes. We've been saying this
throughout the entire series. You want to love them the way
that you would want to be loved. Mark chapter 12 verse 3031.
Love your neighbor as yourself. Love them the way that you would
want to be loved. If you were struggling, if you
had suicidal thoughts, if you were self harming, what would
you want somebody to do and go do?
That. Don't ask their permission.
Go and do that. Go and be that.
Be the all in friend. Be the I will go with you, Fred.
I will check you in. I'm going to make the call that
you don't want me to make that I'm going to make it.
You would rather make the call and offend them than to lose
them. First John, chapter 318.
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with
actions and in truth. Galatians chapter 6, verse 2.
Carry each other's burdens. And in this way you fulfill the
law of Christ. What's the law of Christ?
Mark chapter 12, verse 31. Love your neighbor as yourself
and right before it, love the Lord your God, love God, love
people. When you carry one another's
burdens, you fulfill this law. When somebody's hurting, when
somebody's wrestling with suicidal thoughts and you love
them and serve them instead of rejecting them and distancing
from them because it's too much and too weird.
And remember, it is not a sin to be sick when somebody is.
Suicidal is the last. Time to be judgmental.
Meaning it's not the last That sounded weird.
It's the worst time to be judgmental.
They're in a fight for their life.
There's many things arrayed against in the, most of which is
demonic activity seeking to destroy the very thing that God
has given them, which is life. When you add to that potentially
chemical malfunctions going on in their body, situational
trauma that's around them, or clinical diagnosis, all of this
seems to crash in on them at once.
So what do you do? You be a life buoy right in the
middle of it. You give them something to hold
on to, your stability in your faith in God and in His Word.
Be near to them. Be a voice of hope.
Be a voice of truth. Also take suicide seriously.
Take suicide seriously. It is never a joke.
It is always better to be safe than sorry when it involves
suicide. The national suicide hotline
number is 3 numbers 988 you say it 988.
When you call 988 you will be directed.
First you got to go through some prompts, like are you a veteran?
Do you need another language? And then you hang on the line
and while you're waiting, what they're doing is they're routing
the call to Central Florida. If you were living in Minnesota,
they'd route it to Minnesota. They're trying to get you help
near people around you so you can go and meet with them.
What they really want to do when you're on the phone line is stay
with you through the wave of whatever is happening to you or
the person that you're with. Talk about suicide.
It is a myth that talking about suicide with the person who's
thinking of it will make them think about it more and want to
do it. It's actually the opposite.
Asking someone directly about their suicidal feelings will
often lower their anxiety level and act as a deterrent.
Why? Because your openness and
concern and asking about suicide allows them whoever's
experienced the pain to begin the process it and speak about
it out loud. It allows the person with
suicidal thoughts to feel like I'm not alone, I'm not isolated.
And actually, they end up being a bit relieved because now
they're not the only one carrying this big, dark, deep
secret. You're carrying their burden.
With them, you just showing up and asking sends a message.
Somebody cares for me, somebody loves me.
If we hide from the subject of suicide, they will hide the
subject of suicide from us until it's to late.
If you're going to talk about it, talk about it directly.
When you notice the warning signs that you can see there on
the app that I showed you earlier in the resource page,
It's important to ask directly about suicide.
Don't ask kind of vaguely. Are you thinking about hurting
yourself? That's vague.
Direct question is are. You thinking about killing
yourself? Hey, I love you Kenny.
Are you thinking about suicide? And once you've asked that
question, you get the three kind of famous questions that you
hear people say you need to ask them.
Have you thought about how you would kill yourself?
Have you decided when you would do it?
And have you done anything to get the things you need to kill
yourself? Let me say it again.
Have you thought about how you would kill yourself?
Have you decided when you would do it?
And have you done anything to get the things you need to kill
yourself? If the answer is yes to any of
these questions, skip 988 and call 911.
It's immediate intervention, don't let it linger when you
call 911 asked to be. Sometimes the dispatcher will
have the ability to connect you to a mental health crisis
professional on the spot and then you.
Stay with the person, whether they're on the phone, whether
they're next to you. Stay with the person until the
wave passes. We're going to talk more about
in a second, What do you do if you've lost someone to suicide?
I want you to remember that God knows what it's like to lose a
loved one deeply, personally, he's been through the pain.
He knows the pain of death and he especially understands the
pain of a life cut. Short.
But the Lord our. God also knows the beauty of the
resurrection. And we need to start align in
our hearts with Him. Remember that God is close.
Psalm 3418. The Lord is close to the broken
hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
I cannot think of a more broken hearted or crushed in spirit
circumstance than coming home to a letter getting the phone.
Call or finding the body. Wow, God is close to you.
And his strength is going to get you through.
I also may ask you to release any guilt or shame that you
carry. Maybe you've heard these words
before, but receive them into your spirit.
What happened was not your fault.
Any guilt or shame that you feel doesn't come from God.
Rather, it comes from the devil who's trying to use the horrific
choice of your loved one and the horrifying pain that you feel to
continue to devour you, to isolate you, to rob from you,
your purpose, to rob from you, your future, and make you sit in
this pain. As if it.
Was your fault You did what you thought was best.
If you knew then what you know now, of course, you might have
done things differently. But you didn't know then what
you now know. I pray Proverbs 3 five and six
is helpful to you today. Trust in the Lord with all your
heart. Now watch this.
Do not lean on your own understanding.
You know that when some trauma hits you, your brain is not
working right. Your emotions are trying.
To fool you. And the devil gets into that
space and tries to get you to do wicked things to medicate you
from the pain. Verse 6.
Rather, here's the better option in all your ways.
Acknowledge him, and he alone will make.
Your path straight. If you've lost the love in the
suicide, you're in a horrible spot.
It's gut wrenching. It's life altering and you
cannot rely on your own feelings in the middle and you cannot
rely on your own strength to get you through.
You're going to need, we all going to need to fully trust in
the strength of God, the strength of His word, and the
power of the Spirit to pull us through.
Otherwise, we make decisions that only make the matters
worse. A suicide in a family can
potentially turn into divorce or financial problems or addictions
or relationship woes. With all your friends and family
in the middle of this journey, the valley you find yourself and
remember what Jesus promised that I will walk you through.
The Good Shepherd walks you through Don't put up furniture
in the valley. Don't put up artwork in the
valley. This is not your home.
Walk through and He'll lead you. I believe that we serve a God
who loves you, who cares for you and has a purpose for you.
I believe that we serve a God who can bring beauty out of the
ashes and strength from weakness.
I believe that we serve a God who makes all things beautiful
in His timing. I'm not asking you to forget the
person, or to stop mourning or last, or to stop hurting in
their absence. I'm asking you.
To stop carrying the guilt and the shame that Satan is trying
to put on you to expand his already heavy toll.
Lastly, let's talk to the people who are in the room.
What do I do if I'm struggling with self harm or suicidal
thoughts? Full stop.
Call 988. Like that as soon as the
thoughts start. Don't let the thoughts take root
and go deep. Call 988.
It's an intervention moment. You're giving space for a person
to talk to you while this thing passes.
Or run to the church. Drive here, get here and we will
sit with you. Till it passes, but sometimes
it's 2:00 in the morning. That's why I'm telling you 98898
is always up. So is the Lord your God.
Maybe pray and then 988. OK, can we put the two together?
Two things. Understand the trick of the
enemy. Hear me very clearly.
Let this soak into your brain. The devil is trying to kill you
himself. From the very beginning, his job
description has been to steal, kill and destroy.
The killing is of your body. He's lying to you.
It's a scheme of the wicked, one of the most disastrous of forms.
He wants to take away all the promise of who you are and who
you can be. When we lose someone to suicide,
we don't just lose a person. We lose the potential of
everything that was supposed to come after.
And this is what the the enemy's trying to steal.
All the potential of what's to come, all the beauty, The
Walking down the aisle, the holding of hands with your
children, all, I mean, we could just make a long list here.
All of this is what the enemy is trying to steal.
And at some point we're like, wait a second.
I'm not falling for this trick. I will not allow him to steal
this from me or from the people that I love.
Remember some of these famous words.
You've heard this before, but suicide is a permanent solution
to a temporary problem. Rick Warren who is a kind of a
famous pastor with the purpose driven life, incredible great
man, very loving man. His son died in suicide and he
says this. Most people don't want to die,
they just want out of their pain.
And I'm here to tell you, you do not have to end your life to end
your pain. There is another way, there is
another truth, and there is another life in Jesus name.
I think you know this, but emotions don't last forever.
I found this out in my battle with anxiety.
About two years in. I realized that the anxiety
would come and go. And then I began to realize
like, oh wait, if I just outlast the anxiety and endure, I'll be
all right. So it hit me and I'm like, it's
going to go away. I know it's going to go away.
In Jesus name, it's going away and all the chemicals that get
dumped in your body, whether it's depression, anxiety and all
this, all this stuff, the body reabsorbs them and the Spirit of
God comes and ministers peace and all of a sudden you've made
it through. And the more you learn to endure
and make it past the wave, the more the waves seem to get
smaller and smaller and smaller until they're just waves lapping
at your feet, trying to get your attention, occasionally building
up this big tidal wave like. Uh huh.
No way this will pass when it hits you.
Make sure that you say I know this is a scheme of the enemy
and it will pass. Here's the last thing.
Understand the victory of the Savior.
Hear me clearly. The one who is in the heart of
the believer is far greater, supersedes the one that is in
the world far and above. It's not even a close match.
It's like comparing the size of a mosquito to the size of the
universe. Greater is the one that is in
the heart of the believer than the one who's in the world.
Greater is the Holy Spirit in you than the enemy who's trying
to devour you. Right after we learned of the
devil's job description, the very next verse his job.
Description is steal, kill and destroy.
Jesus gives us his job description.
He says I have come to the earth to give them life and to give it
to them in the full, and the devil is trying to steal the
gift of life that God himself in Jesus Christ has given you.
So let's make a declaration today.
Would you sit up a little straight in your seat?
Would you make your back straight?
Would you make your spirit in agreement with your heart and
your mind and repeat these words after me saying Devil in the
name of Jesus, My life is a gift from God and I'm going to live
it. Devil in the name of Jesus, my
life is a gift from God and I'm going to live it to the full.
Close your eyes please, one more time now mean it in your spirit
to yourself saying devil, my life is a gift from God.
Get your hands off me In the name of Jesus.
Thank you, Father, Father, in the name of Jesus.
May this be the last day that we think about suicide, the last
time we entertained the temptation to take what you have
given. Thank you for your victory over
the enemy. If you're here today, I want you
to know. That Jesus is the only permanent
solution to all of our problems. Romans chapter 10 says that if
you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that
Jesus is Lord, you will be saved.
Hallelujah. As you have your eyes closed and
your heads bowed, I want you just consider.
Have I ever confessed him as Lord?
Have I ever been saved by faith in Jesus Christ?
Let's make a good confession. The entire church here praying.
If you're online, pray this at home in your room.
They're saying these words, Father, come a whole church.
Father, in the name of Jesus, I recognize that I am a Sinner in
need. Of a savior.
And I confess and I believe that Jesus is that Savior, and I
receive you into my heart today. Come and live your life.
Through me, Yeah. Just as you're there praying.
Make that personal. Yes, God, I believe I'm crossing
the line of faith. It's by faith that we are saved.
If you pray that prayer for the first time today, I'm going to
ask you to do one thing and one thing only, very boldly, just in
the same way that Jesus boldly went to the cross for you.
I'm going to count to 3 and if you prayed that prayer to
receive Jesus as Savior for the first time today when I hit
three, you're going to throw your arm up in the air as high
as it can go and hold it there for a few moments so that we
might bring you a gift. You need this gift on the count
of three. If you prayed that prayer for
the first time, raise your hand one. 2.
Three in the mezzanine on the floor online.
If you're raising your hand, just keep them nice and high.
We see you we're going to bring something to you.
Praise God. It's just going to take a minute
because they're walking around. Come on.
Did we get everyone in the back there?
We got some on the side. Way over here.
Javier, you see?
Yeah. You got to figure that out.
Any others up in the mezzanine? Are we good?
OK, we got you. Well done.
Did we get you? Praise God how He loves you.
Now would you rise? Everybody, everyone stand.
If we missed you, I pray we didn't miss you.
That's all I'm going to say. Here's what I want to close.
I'm going to tell you before the prayer ministers come.
The altar is right now open. And if anything in this power
that we spent with the Lord has moved in your spirit, I want you
to come forward to the altar. There's not an actual altar
here. That's an altar of a meeting
with the Lord. And I want you to come and just
be present with the Lord. No prayer, ministers.
Just you hearing from God himself, him to love on you.
And so if that's you today, somebody's going to be the bold
first one and come. And once one comes, the door of
faith opens and other people come because courage is at least
in the house. If you're in the mezzanine, get
all the way down here. We got space for you.
Anything that you need. Your heart is broken over
suicide. You're thinking about suicide.
You've lost somebody to suicide or you got a hard week at work.
You lost your job. If your marriage is in trouble,
the altar is open it. Here's what I'm saying to you.
There's a gigantic buffet of grace and goodness up here.
Why not come and eat and see what the Lord has for you?
So that's you. Come now, come now, I'm not
manipulating you, I'm encouraging you with all my
might. Don't waste what the Lord has
prepared for. You come now.
It's if it's on your heart to move, just move.
Don't be afraid. This is a House of faith.
Come now, Mezzanine. I'm still waiting for one of
you. Here you come.
Are you coming? I see you.
Come on. I knew you were coming.
Who else? Come on, if you need somebody to
go with you, grab them. You're like, I can't go by
myself, just grab them. Here comes the whole family.
Come on, I rejoice. Hallelujah indeed.
Come on, bring your baby to the altar.
It's a blessed baby. I'm going to be quiet for a
minute because I don't want any human to intervene.
I want you to hear from the Lord and make the exchange.
Ashes for beauty, mourning for the oil of gladness, rags for
crowns. It's a swap meet of God.
Make the exchange. Thanks for joining us today.
We hope God is speaking to your heart through this message.
If you'd like to connect with us, you can text connect to
407-588-0115 or visit Illuminate dot church.
Have a great week.