The holidays can bring back the empty chair, the family hurt, the memories of when everything felt joyful—and before long, sorrow and anxiety begin to take over. The words of Romans 8 help us in times when grief feels stronger than truth.
The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
The sermon identifies three levels of depression—mild, moderate, and severe. Which level do you find yourself most vulnerable to, and what tends to trigger it? How does recognizing the level help you respond differently?
According to Romans 8:5–8, what is the difference between setting your mind on the flesh versus setting your mind on the Spirit? What does that look like practically during a difficult holiday season or family gathering?
The preacher talks about “emotional reasoning”—using your feelings as the measure of truth instead of God’s Word. When have you caught yourself doing this, and how did Scripture or a trusted voice help redirect you?
In Psalm 77, Asaph moves from honest lament to remembering God’s past faithfulness and mighty works. How does looking back at what God has done change your perspective on present struggles? How could you follow that same pattern in something you’re facing right now?
What is the difference between acknowledging your feelings and being controlled by them? Can you think of a time when you felt sad or angry but chose to respond in a godly way anyway—and what made that possible?
What Scripture, hymn, or spiritual habit could you intentionally build into your life this week so that truth comes to mind quickly when emotions threaten to take over?
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
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Well, that’s the end of announcements. And so let’s prepare our hearts for the meeting. Here we go.
Good morning, Little Hills and people online. We’re so grateful to have you this evening. What’s that? This evening? Good morning. Good morning, yes. That’s in case the bright lights made me think of the morning or my love for Christ is like every morning, every day. Anyways, good evening. How are we doing? Everybody doing good? It’s so wonderful that we don’t have to be formal, isn’t it?
And then the people’s love for you, because I will make mistakes. I will struggle. But yet I have a God who loves me through my mistakes and through my struggles. And I can all live every day with Him and trust in Him. And that’s the whole point of tonight’s when we have a problem. And this is, I have a problem with the holidays. And you may have a problem, even though with the holidays, you can mix that. I have a problem with family gatherings. I have a problem with this thing here. And today we’re going to take the problem, how to live by the confession of faith, to live by the Spirit, not by the flesh.
So let’s all stand as we read. We’re going to read two sections of scriptures today. It’s going to be Philippians 4:13 and Romans 8:5 through 8. Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That’s kind of easy there. That’s the kindling of the whole thing. Romans 8:5 through 8: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind of the flesh is death, but to set the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. So we all want for peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the God’s law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” And that’s basically what we’re going to learn through all tonight is. You all may be seated.
And I’m going to just say a prayer for the speaking and prayer as we give the God’s word. So Father, thank you for this time that I can stand up here and proclaim your word. Lord, may my word be the mouth, may your spirit speak through my mouth that you want the people to hear. Lord, it’s through this time of studying I’ve learned a lot, I understand a lot. And my heart is growing even more for you. Lord, may you bless the preaching of your word tonight. Amen.
So I’m going to read this a little long. So these past years, I’ve had two deaths, three really, on my wife’s side, it’s her parents and her brother. So we get these little letters every once in a while, grievance letters, and they have stories in it. But there’s this quote on here that I thought went really well. It’s by Arthur Golden. It says, “Grief is the most peculiar thing. We’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open on its own. We don’t know where it comes from. Where’s that cold breeze come from? The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less time, and a little less, and a little less. And one day we wonder, whatever became of it?”
And I thought of that. You know, my father’s been passed away for 30 plus years. That window is almost closed. The only time I remember it is just on his birthday, and then, plus I carry his name. But it’s just, when we go through these stages, and through that time, I’ll always trust it on God, and trust it through things. And it’s gonna be very hard, I know, tonight, to try to be happy and positive through this, because it is a sombering thing. It’s something that, you know, a lot of, we may not have experienced this, but there are some things in life that we just have in the blues. And I’m not talking about music. It’s the simple gathering of a meal or an event that can trigger sadness, or the loss of a loved one, of their special event.
I remember that hurt that somebody did to you, that you gotta remember that you have to go to this family thing, or you gotta go to this event. A lot of people even stay out of churches because of it. They were hurt by one person, so they eliminated all the churches. And you shouldn’t do that.
These are many, these many invite the memories of when it was enjoyable, now it’s gone. You remember, I remember some Christmases, or some events where everything was so enjoyable, but now that person’s gone. That link of that chain is gone. There’s another poem with that, couldn’t find it offhand. Our hopes and dreams of enjoying the holidays are gone, or enjoying anything. So depression and anxiety sets in our soul, sets in our mind. That downward spiral has set in, and the flesh starts to overtake the spirit.
As I was studying this section, I went through, you always go, as every pastor and all that, we always go through a lot of research to do things. Well, I was reading this article, and there’s this book here called Out of the Blues. And I am doing this because what happened is, is that most of my sermons coming out of this book. So if you don’t catch nothing, you can order this. I can’t remember, it’s about $10 or whatever. You can order this online, and you can read through it. I would recommend it. It has so much scripture in it. We could spend three or four days. It has diagrams, pictures, and all that for you. Pictures for the guys, because we like pictures. But it’s Out of the Blues by Wayne Mack.
And I’m just letting you know that a lot of this stuff is not for me. I’m not that smart as he was. And so I’m mixing some of the things that God gave me while we were doing this. So the first one is mild. He says there’s three different levels of depression that reality that everyone suffers. First one is called mild depression, which is a discouragement, disappointment, or sorrow from time to time. And we all get that. We’re kind of sad, oh, you know, we ain’t got everybody here, and all that. Or like, we were gonna have this little dinner. You know, yeah, it was like, eh, but yet we went through it. We didn’t all get mad and cancel everything out. That would have been a little bit more of a deeper depression time. But you know, we were able to have our church service. We were able to have all of our, you know, our technical flaws and just go through it.
These are just mild events. We shouldn’t lose hope in everything. Jesus himself experienced feelings like this also. Like in the book of Isaiah 53:3, it says, “Was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” And then, as we, let’s read, here, I can read, thank you, Tim. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” So that’s being afraid of God and afraid of Christ. You know, we’re afraid to bring it out, and then we’re making God sad.
The other one comes out of Hebrews 2:17. “Therefore, he had to be made like his brethren in all things, so that he might become merciful and faithful high priest, things pertaining to God, to make, there’s my big word, propitiation from the sins of the people.” Isn’t it wonderful? So as a priest, preachers, bibles, and teachers, we’re all limited, like I’m limited to speech. I can still talk about the word. I’m not gonna let that be my shortcoming.
I can actually be really depressed over it and not do nothing, not wanna talk to anybody, but it’s the way God made me, and I have problems with that. So I’m okay with it, and we all should be okay with it. You know, we’re okay with how God made us. Jesus Christ became man so he could identify with us as the high priest. We don’t have to go to somebody. We have Jesus always with us.
The other one is called moderate depression. Moderate depression is a wrong response to what would have been done otherwise, and led only to mild depression, if we handled it properly. Like, you know, we handled not being able to have the dinner, or you might be handled, you know, like, I still had to cook the turkey because it was already in the brine. They can’t freeze and do all that. So I got all aggravated, said, “Tim, I’m not coming out tonight, I’m not doing this.” You know, that would not handle it properly. I still cooked it. There is a couple families in another church that doesn’t have food, and one of them loves turkey. So call them up, say, “Hey, you want the other turkey breast? I’ll leave the other one for lunch.”
So anyways, that’s this mild, moderate. Mild and moderate is when you go overboard. You know, maybe throwing things, hitting things. I had to take anger management, and that was the same thing, is I would get mad. Oh, okay, I’m gonna do this. So you make this emotional response of doing something and not letting God take care of it. So they’re acknowledging, but not submission. They are an acknowledgement and submission to feelings.
What is the right response? They are acknowledging, but not submitting to feelings. It’s fine to acknowledge that you feel sad about an event, or the reality of the feeling is bothered, but we need not to refuse to control them by an ungodly attitude. In response to the feelings, we need to be obedient to God’s word. One verse is on Colossians 3:2. It’s “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” You’re gonna start seeing the separation, just like what Patrick did last week. He kind of separated the two churches, a good church and a white people, one did not. But it’s the same thing. Where are you setting your mind? Philippians 4:8 says, “Meditate on things that are good, pure, excellent, and praiseworthy.”
As we do, we will bring ourselves towards a good shepherd, Christ, if not, we fail the next phase. And here it is, it says, “Finally, brother, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is any worthy of praise, think about these things.” So when we come to this depression stage, that’s what we need to think about.
Severe depression, this is the type of depression that goes on forever. Can I get a drink of water? This is the type of depression that goes on forever. This can last for months, sometimes it lasts for years. Thank you, my sister.
Wowee, the thirst. I don’t have to worry about Melanie knocking anything over. So we’re at severe depression, this is the type of depression that’s deeper and more serious than the other two I mentioned. This can last for months, years, and sometimes, I mean years. There’s some things that through counseling and through being able to heart our sanctification as we progress with sanctification, there’s some sin issues way back that I didn’t know that I was using it for my own attitude and for my own way of emotional, I like that, emotional, thinking of yourself only, emotional decisions, making all your decisions out of emotions and not out of what the truth of God is.
So your cup sometimes is always full. You have no more room to do anything else. So the joy of the holidays when your cup is full with all this stuff, full to the rim of all the heartache, discard, and all of a sudden now, Hallmark is coming with all the, “Let’s be all happy, everything’s perfect,” you see this family unit over here having a good time, all the relatives and all that, and then you’re here, you know, and a lot like me. You know, it’s like we raised our kids as Christians in a Christian family, and they decided to go their own way.
So it makes the holidays, it’s like, okay, I can be depressed and not like them, but I’m gonna find other people that need one other fellowship, other people to fellowship with. So that’s what my wife and I does. But the wrong way would be mad about it. But sometimes, our cup is so full that we don’t see the joy that God can give you. And like David writes in Psalms 38:3, “There is no soundness in my flesh, there is no health in my bones.” I must have missed a lot, didn’t I?
So there is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation, there is no health in my bones because of my sin. So that comes to the point to where that aggravation and depression gets to the bone where all we do is we’re bedridden. Or sometimes it gets so hard that all we do is we rely on drugs, we rely on food, we rely on other sexual pleasures because we’re just so depressed, we’re so overwhelmed with things that we get to the side.
Even when we think things should go right, like, hey, we should have a full house here, we’ve been doing this for over a year and a half. What’s happening? We can get depressed and despaired or whatever, but we enjoy each other. We enjoy serving Christ together with each other, and that’s the joy we have.
But you think of the disciples as they were thinking, here’s Jesus, all right, Israel’s gonna be restored, we’re gonna be a great nation, we’re gonna have him as king, and then all of a sudden it comes to his time of being crucified. He knew it, they didn’t know. So in John 16:6, it says, “But I have told you.” Sorrow has filled your heart. What he was saying, he was saying, “My time’s coming short, something’s gonna happen.” They’re like, what, what’s going on? And we all know that whole story. Their dreams have failed, not like they were expecting.
What was their focus? What was the disciples’ focus then? Was it on earth or on God’s kingdom? What is our focus when we get sorrowful or when bad things happen? Do we focus on all that earthly thing or do we focus on heavenly thing? So you’ve kind of seen the trend here, what’s missing. Depressed people are often controlled by their feelings and tend to practice what the books say, and I love that saying, emotional reasoning.
Well, I’m gonna do that because that person hit me. Well, that person cut me off in a highway, so I’m gonna go cut them off. That’s your emotions. And a lot of times we’re all controlled by our emotions or things. Sometimes we fly off the handle and don’t really mean it. So that’s what this emotional reasoning is. It’s considering their personal feelings to be accurate and valid above anything else. Emotions become excuses for not fulfilling your responsibility as a believer in Christ Jesus and a sign not to live in the spirit of Christ.
I’m gonna do it this way. I’m mad at you and I’m gonna treat you that way. Who are you? Or, you know, my mother, I can think of my… you know, we can, you know, my wife has every right not to wanna celebrate Christmas, but she’s going to. You know, or, you know, just, it’s really hard to get in some of these examples. And I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna say something and then turn you off, but what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to point you to Christ through all this. You know, I’m trying to give you the information to point to Christ.
So the idea is the next phrase is renewing your mind. So there’s a big part, we read this earlier out of Romans 8, Romans 8:5 through 8. It says, “For those according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh and those according to the spirit the things of the spirit.” Sorry, I had a footpage. “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace. Because the mind is set on the flesh is hostile towards God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God. For if it is not even able to do so, and then who are the, who’s those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
I put extra words in my title, you should read the screen. So when we look at the things, flesh is death, mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God, and when we’re in the flesh we can’t please God. So we’re in the flesh, that flesh mind is that flesh that is aggravated and trying to control, you got your emotions going, everything’s going inside of you, but yet if our mind’s set on spirit things, we’re in peace with God. And then we’re in peace in the spirit.
See, Christ gave, Jesus gave us the spirit. When he left, “I’m gonna give you this helper, the spirit.” The spirit comes in you, and you get the spirit, he doesn’t like give us all the knowledge. I always wonder, would it be nice, get the Holy, but if we got all the knowledge, why would we need Christ in our everyday walk?
So as we go to church and learn about Christ, as we read our Bible, study, and not just read it to read, and just like you read a stop sign, okay, I know that stop sign, you don’t want to study it, but you know, all stop signs gotta be a certain height and all that, but it’s knowing the details, and when you go into scriptures, you know the details. Memorizing scriptures helps you, because when that emotional comes up, scruffy scriptures will pop in your mind, like “Wine is like, let any unwholesome talk, let not any unwholesome talk come to your mind, except for that is profitable,” and for a bunch of stuff, but I just need that, let any unwholesome talk, or be kind one to another, tenderheartedly, forgiving one another, as Jesus Christ is forgiving you.
You know, those are things when I’m gonna go, you know, “You’re not acting really smart,” or whenever you want to, you know, just these little emotion things that even in my own life I get in, you know, I always, we used to get mad years ago over things, and I would just smart right off to you, and not really care, and then, oops, there I go again. So that’s, so, where am I at?
So what, this is saying that our minds must be focused on God, not ourselves, and we have the Spirit of God to speak the truth to us, and I have our emotional reasoning spirit talk to us, because the emotional reasoning is flesh, and it is hostile towards God. As I just said earlier, God doesn’t go with the law that God has given us. I think I’ve erased, I don’t know why I had that in there.
So when we have this holiday season time, everything may seem forcibly to make us joyful, or you can replace it with an event that brings depression or sorrow in your life. So you have that decision. Your emotions just say, well, you know, I’ve had this bad life, I’m gonna do, I’m gonna have the holidays this way. Well, you know, I’m not gonna go to that family anymore because that one person looked at me cross-eyed or said something weird. He may not even know what you said, you know, but your emotions took it wrong. Or, you know, “I’m not gonna go to that Church Gazette, I’m not gonna go to that restaurant because of that.” But it’s all these emotions things, but what does God say? You need to go in love. He wants to pick you up and carry you on past that, past your emotions.
Emotions are really hard. People play with them and all that. That was one of the questions when my daughter was dating, I always asked the guys, you know, three questions, and one of them was, “Are you gonna mess with her emotions?” So you are, or no, it was, “You wouldn’t want another guy to mess with a girl’s emotions that’s dated someone else, and then you’d have to deal with it, would you?” He would say, “No, Mr. Kroening.” And then plus a couple other things I would ask straight forward. A man needs to hear from another man.
So, Christmas time is coming, the holidays. We’re all forced with everything. But yet, I think if we look at these holidays and look at these things, how can I have a closer relationship with Christ? How can I be peaceful with things? Through this, through the holidays, through meeting the families, driving down the highway, because I’m always doing service calls, and there’s at times I catch myself getting mad at every single person. You know, like, why do you have to be in the left lane driving 10 miles under the speed limit? You should be in the right lane. Or, why is there, yeah, why is there two, I always try to drive three stripes in front of me, and people want to slam in there and want to have to slam on their brakes, because then the eye goes, but I have to say, well, thank, I sort of get mad and angry, and want to, I do honk my horn, so to honk my horn, I want to pull it real close to him, but I always, the right approach would be, this is hard, the right approach would be, “Thank you, Lord, for me, thank you, Lord, for having me notice that they cut in front of me and I was able to stop.”
That’s, amen, there we go. And that’s, that is, that is the right approach. I have, over the years, it’s taken me a long time to do because there’s some times that I’m, I can’t catch, I catch myself out of that mode. Usually it’s when I’m tired, I haven’t been reading my Bible much, I haven’t been listening, a lot of times I have to listen to Christian music, or some type of preaching all the time. It keeps my mindset right.
So, these three stages that we were talking about, you know, being oblivious to God in difficult times of life, where we forget God is there in these difficult times, and we think we gotta carry him out through our own selves, and usually that doesn’t bring us very far. We need to begin to be aware that we need God every moment, every time. I can’t think of that hymn now, I need you all, I need you every moment, or every time. There’s a hymn that talks about how I need you, I need you. We need Christ.
Oh, there we go, there we go. See, and it’s the truth, the songs come to our mind. Oh, I need you, and that’s just something, right girls, that when those bad times come, that song can pop in your head just like a verse. You know, this person’s really aggravating me, oh, I need you, oh, I need you, and then every day I need you, and it’s the truth. And it’s like any other song, same thing with Bible scriptures, it’s the same thing. You’re learning to interact with the Holy Spirit and trust God through that, and it’s the truth right there.
By replacing the negative thoughts and the truth of God in your word, by counseling yourself with biblical truth, not emotional truth, and a lot of times we end up catching ourselves doing that, and our pathways to enjoy life will be more solid as we grow towards looking for biblical truth and not emotional truth. Our relationship with one another will truly grow better as long as we don’t try to judge people on emotional truth.
So we’re gonna look at this passage in Psalms, and it’s, I always want to still pronounce his name wrong, Asaph, okay, Asaph in Psalms 77, and it’s a lot of verses, so I’m gonna read through these, but I’m gonna give you the quick headline, and later on, you’re grabbing it there? Okay, I’ll have it up on the screen too.
So we’re gonna read through this, this is Asaph’s struggle, and we’re gonna see the certain steps how he struggled through this. And this was another part, thing in the book, one of the illustrations in this book that I got also, is then they use other, they use other things, he uses other different people, how they struggled, but uses other different scenarios.
So anyways, okay, Psalms 77:1 through 4: “My voice rises to God, and I cry aloud, and he will hear me. In the day of my trouble, I will seek the Lord. In the night, my hands are stretched out without wearing. My soul refuses to be comforted. When I remember God, I mourn, and when I meditate, my spirit faints. You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I cannot speak.”
So Asaph submits his struggle to God, and that’s what’s important, admitting our struggle to God. “Lord, I am struggling with this now.” He’s not surprised, he already sees you there. Oh my goodness, what am I gonna do? She’s struggling, he’s struggling. Oh, oh, oh, I don’t think he gets all crazy like that. He already knows what’s going on. I use that exaggeration for something else.
So that’s what he’s saying, he’s dealing with this sin, he’s dealing with this guilt. He finally admits his struggle and continues to be honest with God, and we find it in verses five through 10. So it says, “I consider the days of old, years long ago. I said, let me remember my song in a night. Let me meditate in my heart. Then my spirit made a diligent search. Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end of all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?”
Then I said, “I will appeal to this, to the ears of the right hand of the most high.” Here, Asaph is honestly respecting and never accusing God or anyone else. He said, “Lord, you can pull me this out.” He’s not saying, “Well, you know, I can’t do this because that person did this and that person did that, you know, and now I got all these little things and they make me this way.” Yeah, people’s attitude can make you act a certain way, but it doesn’t mean you have to hold on to their sin or hold on to that, whatever brought them down.
You know, people like, I always, I struggle with this. People like people with a good command of the English language. I struggle with it. I’ve gotten better. My wife helps me with it. I struggle with words. I can sing a song, see the word, know what it is in here, but something different comes out of my mouth. That’s very interesting. I’ve learned to say that’s the way God has me. How can I live with it? You know, and people, some people can make fun of it. That’s fine with me. God created me, so I have to look at them as they’re making fun of God, how God created me. Now, do I try to get out of it? I do, so let’s go on.
Where are we, 11 through 15? Is it in there? There it goes. “I remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on all your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might among the peoples. You are the arm, redeem your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph.”
So, Asaph stops exchanging truths of God for a lie. A lot of times we lie to ourselves. “Well, that person’s only behaving that way because,” but he’s changing what’s the truth. And then, I hope I said it, yeah. Asaph stops exchanging truths of God for a lie. You know, not believe what other people tell about you. Let’s look at what God says about you. Who does he say we are? We are his children. He loves us, he’s died for us.
What’s the greatest thing? Gave us the most perfect gift. Who cares? You know, yeah, it’s hard. You know, I know a lot of people think I’m goofing strange, but that’s fine. I’m enjoying my life for Christ, you know.
So, Asaph in, let’s read 16 through 20. Let’s see what he has there. Did I have it on there, Tim? I gotta really, I tried doing something on my own. I’ll learn something how to keep it going right. Yes, sir. I wonder why I didn’t go in. Oh, that’s why, that was hard.
So, here it goes, 16 through 20: “When the waters saw you, O God, and when the waters saw you, they were afraid. Indeed, the deep trembled. The clouds poured out water, the skies gave forth thunder. Your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind. Your lightning lighted up the world. The earth trembled and shook. Your ways were through the sea, your paths through the great waters, yet your footprints were unseen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.”
What is that telling us? He refocused his mind again towards God and looked at his creation and remembered, if God can create all this, trees, land, if God can bring the Israelites out of Egypt and part the waters, God can do all these miraculous signs. I’m sure that he can help me with that feeling that someone said about me. I’m sure that he can help me through the holiday when I’m feeling depressed because that person who I love, that person had this special aspect of that holiday and I trusted it, but God loves me, he’s gonna help me walk through it. As long as I live on, not my emotionals, emotion feelings, emotion judgment, but live on Christ’s judgment. He already washed our sins away; he’s there to help us through. And when we walk through it, we can be joyful.
I mean, there’s all kinds of stuff out there to tell you, if you’re missing a loved one, just take a little bit. I remember my dad, when he died, I was 21. Yeah, 21. My dad liked Big Macs. So when I missed my dad, we were gonna have a Big Mac at McDonald’s. I said I need the Big Mac, and I’ll act like I’m talking to him. Sounds strange, so my mother threw him in a Looney Tune.
Same thing with Taco Bell burritos. He liked Taco Bell burritos. And so me and my brother, if he always could eat three burritos, he had no problem, he never was overweight. So me and my brother would try to eat three, it was a good lot. Didn’t even remember my dad. And as that poem went, those windows had shut.
I don’t think I’d do that anymore. I used to go to his grave site, because I missed telling him stuff as I was growing up as a young adult. I’d go there, and that was my way of expressing something. And then I actually mean myself. As his son, there’s parts of me that I can find that was part of him that I like. And one of his, he was always a gentleman, and I always try to be a gentleman all my life.
Sometimes it gets taken a little wrong, but I’m doing what is right for Christ. They can think whatever they want. So our gratitude is our substance of joy. Having gratitude for what God’s done for us, and where he can carry it is where our joy shall rest upon. Try not to let the world around you steal your joy.
It’s very hard. Some people cannot stand someone happy. Especially us that are extreme extroverts. Extreme extroverts and some introverts cannot stand us. There’s some grace between Tim and I that we’re like, I don’t know what to do. But I mean, there’s some people that do not like it.
I mean, there’s a guy in the spinning class I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I know he doesn’t like me because I’m always happy. It’s fine. I don’t say hi to him or nothing like that, because I don’t want to disrupt him. And every once in a while, he kind of looks at me, and he’s like, okay, but I don’t let that, I can let that ruin my whole exercising thing for that 45 minutes, but it’s given to the Lord. God take care of him, one day he might speak to me. If he doesn’t, I know I’m doing what’s right before your eyes, because you can’t force someone to love you.
Do you see how the sin of the enemy, do you see how sin is the enemy of joy? And when we delight in the Lord, things tend to turn around. So it says in Proverbs 17:22, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up your bones.” Just like the other, David was saying about the bones, it just dries you up.
When things are crushing you and hurting you, and you just let it go, and you don’t drink from that sweet water that God’s given you, from his word. So yes, there are times of sorrow and pain, but how are you dealing, are you dealing in a godly way, or are you dealing just by your emotions? God knows all your pain. He’s already been there, done it, passed it through, he knows your pain, and he can bring you out of it if you let him, because you try, us trying on our own, don’t get very far.
When I try things on my own, I don’t get very far. If I try to act very elegant and quaint, and try to say all these huge words so everybody would be impressed with me, I’ll stumble. I’m gonna be Jim the way God made me, just like you guys should be yourselves the way God made you. And people ain’t gonna like us, everybody can think of opinions, everybody has that. But who are you to God?
Lord, are you pleased with me because I’m standing here building your kingdom, I’m standing here worshiping you, I’m encouraging other people to worship you? They don’t like it the way I’m doing it? I don’t know if that’s a right attitude, who cares? I mean, you should care a little bit, but it’s, God says, give that to him.
You know, if you’re mad at me because I decide, because I like my Christian ways, I like to be pure in thought, pure in attitudes and all that, and you don’t like it, you want me to be dirty, well, you know, I’m not gonna do that, because I know it’s displeasing to God.
And it’s hard, it’s difficult, because it’s okay to lament, but lament in the Holy Spirit, not in your emotional reasoning. I really like that from that book, Emotional Reasoning.
First, in order to have God in your life, what do we must do? We can’t say, “Hey, God, I’m gonna follow all this, your rules and all this,” there’s something missing. What’s missing? First, you must put your faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and his shed blood on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins. Then baptism, of course, follows that. And trusting in God also, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to guide you till we all transition to glory.
And that’s what we’re all waiting to do. We’re just passing through this world, celebrating God. Come join us, come see what this wonderful Savior has for us. Come see what God can give you, because he’s given me everlasting joy. Yes, I’m gonna struggle, because if I didn’t struggle, how would I know if there’s a God? I know that’s a whole weird aspect, but that’s something that these past few years I’ve learned on myself, is I’ve learned, like, cool, I’m glad.
Here’s another example, back with the cookie. I thought smoking the meat, I could get it on, blah, blah, blah, at this certain time today, and be here, be ready for a 4:30. It would never have worked out, because I didn’t put another aspect in my life. And in the process, I forgot about the injection time, and all this little prep time in the middle, so I was actually, didn’t get the turkeys in until after two, well, 1:30, quarter to two.
So, next week, I know I gotta start earlier, before church, and then, or maybe that night before, and then start to give time in case other things happen. Now, the wrong way of doing that would have been getting all upset, forget it, I’m not gonna do it, I can’t do it.
So, where was I going with this? So, this is something off the notes, not off the top of my head. So, when we plan something, and it doesn’t go right, and then something goes wrong, we need to take that and say, “Lord, what have you been teaching me through this?” And you know, our Father teaches us things, and we learn every day.
And I know, count it all joy when you fall in diverse temptation, but not that you go out deliberately looking for wrong. I mean, that’s wrong, but if things are coming your way that are hurting you and bothering you, say, “Lord, when am I gonna learn from this?” You know, what have I learned from my father-in-law’s death? I learned that while his wife was dementia, he was there all the time taking care of her. Maybe that’s something I might have to do later on down in life. But he’s taught me to love her no matter what the condition was. You know, he died up singing praises all the way up until he could do his last breath, you know, waiting for his time to transition.
You know, and I see a lot of people, you know, just going towards Christ. So, here we are, before Christmas, I would just want you just to kind of like, maybe we need some time just to have what we do during our confession day, just kind of quietly meditate on how God has maybe talked to you through this time.
So, I’m gonna give us a little time to reflect on the preaching of God’s word. I didn’t really preach, I felt like I taught, but it was there and he kept me focused on this stuff, and it’s helped me through a lot of things, and confirmed, you know, I am doing okay as long as I’m focusing on Christ, as long as everything’s on his glory, not for mine.
And I know I’m not the greatest, but, you know, it’s no big deal, you know, we’re still preaching. So, I’m gonna bow our heads and just kind of like focus. I know we’ve never done this at the end of service, and then we’ll sing our songs and praise the Lord God. So, just a little bit and I’ll close in prayer.
Father God, I wanna thank you for your loving kindness. Lord, for sending your son on the cross to die for such of a wretched sinner as I. Lord, that I know that I can’t do nothing without you. Thank you, Lord, every day that you’re there the same. You don’t change by yourself. You’re the same. You don’t change by your, you have no emotions that change from day to day. I can trust you to be the same today, tonight, the next minute, the next second.
Lord, may your word be gone without void. Lord, may we always know that you’re there. Trust us, Lord. Lord, may we trust you in all that we do, in your willful nature.
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