Biblical Counseling
Vern Peterman · Nov 30, 2008
Biblical Counseling, No. 35
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926117567935

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

With the topic this morning is disappointment and depression. And why would we pair those up? Disappointment and depression. Why are those topics something you could pair up? Sometimes I think disappointment would bring depression. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Disappointment would lead to it. I think you started to say something. False expectation. False expectation. Yeah. Okay. Any other thoughts on that? Okay. Yeah, I think your observation is correct.

Disappointment is a possible lead-in for depression. It's like, this is disappointment, but the amplifier turned up. This is disappointment, perhaps multiple. I think there's another aspect to it, too, and that is a depressed person is more likely to read disappointment into things, right? So that's the reason for pairing them up. They're not automatically connected in every case, but they are often connected.

We've talked about spiritually based negative emotions. Jeremy has been teaching here and as he's been teaching he's talked about anxiety, he's talked about loneliness. So disappointment and depression are part of that same series continuing on with spiritually based negative emotions. And we won't be able to have time to cover it as a class, but anger is another one out of your appendix item there.

Okay. Let's look at the disappointment topic here first. And it comes from failing to satisfy a hope, desire, or expectation. A hope, desire, or expectation. From failing to satisfy that hope, desire, or expectation. Good morning. I have at it here. We've got the handout plus a one-page appendix item. Let's see. That may be. What I specifically recall him saying is to be disappointed in yourself was to have put your hope in the wrong place to begin with, right?

But all disappointment is, and it's a negative emotion that comes from failing to satisfy that hope, desire, expectation. That expectation, hope, or desire can be in a person, a group of persons, an event, or a circumstance, or even God himself. So believers can fall into any of those. This disappointment can range from one that's passing and minor.

It's kind of like, oh, that would have been nice, you know. But you move on to one that is a part of a deep and possibly enduring depression. And we asked the question earlier about an enduring disappointment that lapses into a depression. Okay? With that spectrum of time and intensity, what we call disappointment can range from inconsequential to devastating. I've talked to Christians that have gotten just all turned around emotionally for weeks or longer over some disappointment in their lives. And sometimes that wrapped up with another emotion as well. It's possible for a disappointment to have connection with other emotions, and I list some, fear, anger, heartache, or guilt, among other possibilities. Okay? So that's another thing is disappointment might not be an isolated emotion. It might be that goes along with the fear. I'm disappointed about this and now I'm afraid. And maybe there's an anxiety issue. I'm disappointed and now I feel guilty. So it's possible to have other negative emotions wrapped up with depression.

Aside from the many possible variations in disappointment, the critical distinction we want to make is between biblical and unbiblical disappointment. So here's the question. Is it possible for a believer walking with the Lord to still experience disappointment?

Yeah. Yes, and I think that's something to recognize. We don't want believers to have the mistaken idea that I'm disappointed, I must therefore be sinning. Right? That's not a proper connection. It is possible and would be appropriate for a believer to be walking with the Lord, in fellowship with the Lord, and still have a disappointment.

Well, let's talk about that because that's the first one we're going to talk about here. Is the hope, desire, or expectation biblically placed in what or in whom? So we have three questions. that we say help understand the dividing line between what's biblical and unbiblical disappointment. That first one is, is the hope, desire, expectation biblically placed in what or in whom? Let's say if a working believer was expecting to be home by dinnertime, or if someone at home was expecting the working believer to be home by dinnertime, under most circumstances, those would be seen as reasonable expectations and biblical.

Oh, honey, I'm not going to be home. You know, there's a truck in front of me, had the tailgate down, and he had a keg of roofing nails. And there's 100 cars with four-wheel flats in front of me. I won't be home at 6, right? That's a disappointment, okay? And I'm one of them, right? Okay. So you have that. Next one.

It would be a biblically reasonable expectation for a married believer to have a hope, desire, or expectation that his or her spouse would be faithful. Disappointment would be expected and biblical if he or she found out that this was not the case, along with numerous other negative emotions. So what we were saying there, it would be normal to expect, oh, my partner is going to be faithful. If you find that's not the case, disappointment's likely only one of the emotions you're going to feel.

And it would be normal and expected, right? In other words, you would say, is it okay for that believer who's discovered their partner's not faithful to be disappointed? Yeah. And probably other things as well, okay? So it would be a biblical disappointment. Yeah, but what's the good in being disappointed? What do you mean? Oh, it won't. What I'm saying is I'm saying. Ah, okay. The question is what do you do with it, okay? If it's at that point. If I'm disappointed and it simply is a matter of this is a recognition of the circumstance, that's one thing.

If I take it to a place where I'm headed off in an unbiblical direction and it's connected with other things, then yeah, that's not good. So there is a question of separating biblical and unbiblical disappointment. Unbiblical disappointment would have connected with it expressions internally or externally that were simply of the sin nature and not biblical. Here is just thinking of instances of disappointment. If I were expecting somebody to come into town and visit, and I was looking forward to it, and it turns out they couldn't make it. Illness or something came up, they couldn't make it. That would be a disappointment. Would it be okay to be disappointed?

Yeah. Now, if it turned into, now I'm bitter, that's a problem, right? Right. That's right. In other words, whether it's internal or external, the expressions of the flesh that start to get generated by that, that's not biblical. Right. Right. Yeah, at this point we're still talking disappointment. And it's a key just to look at what's the distinction between biblical disappointment and unbiblical disappointment. It's when you take that disappointment and start going down a path, whether it's internalized or expressed outwardly, that is simply an expression of the sin nature, then that's a problem. That's a problem.

Now, what about if I had an expectation that this happens in circumstances, in romantic situations. What if I had the expectation that I could change this person's heart? I talk to a number of people who, you know, they'll pursue a romantic relationship with the expectation, oh, I'll change him.

Yeah, good luck. Right? Good luck. God is the one who can change hearts. But for me to assume I am going to change this or that person, whoa. Big trouble. Okay? Big trouble. It is a hope or expectation that I'm going to accomplish something that's God's business. That's a problem. Okay? All right? Strangely enough, happens all the time. Okay. Now, the next page there, which is on the flip side, The second question is the hope, desire, or expectation of a biblical character.

One of the more significant disappointments under this question is when believers are disappointed with God. What am I expecting God to do? If my expectation is, and we've got some bullets here, God will prevent all undesirable outcomes and circumstances. Am I going to be disappointed?

Yeah. Oh yeah. If my expectation is God's going to make everything smooth for me, You know, somebody, I heard put one time, you know, here's somebody who becomes a believer and they get up the next morning and they got a flat tire, you know, and they said, well, thanks a lot, that's not what I signed up for. Guess what? That's exactly what you signed up for, okay? This is called trials and suffering, okay?

And so the believer, the believer who thinks that God's job is to keep me from having any hassles, or any problems is going to be profoundly disappointing. I used to think that. Oh, really? Okay, yeah. And what I tell people, I said, if that's God's job, I'll tell you flat out, he's doing a horrible job. If that's his job, he's just doing awful. Because the reality is, that's not what God's job is, right? And so if a person has an expectation or a hope or a desire of an unbiblical character, expecting God to just make a smooth highway until he calls me home, then that's going to be a problem.

Here's the next one. God will fulfill all my desires and wishes if I do everything he wants me to do. God, I did everything right. How come this is messed up? How come you allowed this to happen in my life? Because look, I did all these things today just right. I read the Bible for 15 minutes. I prayed. I helped the old lady across the street even if she didn't want to go across the street. You did everything right. And how come God didn't give me what I wanted?

Okay, that's it. That's it. Thank you. Oh fantastic insight. Okay. Oh He said you didn't do everything right should have read for 16 minutes. Yeah Yeah And so here's another misconception, an expectation, disappointment with God that's based on the character of the expectation that is false in the first place. Right? And so I run into people that have this stumbling and difficulty. I did everything right. How come I had a problem? God's not your genie. Okay?

It isn't rub the lamp three times and make sure it's the right lamp. Some lamps you rub them three times and they just turn off and on, off and on all the time. Anyway, God will spell out, here's the third myth here, God will spell out every single step in my life in ways that are as clearly as if they were written on a jumbotron of the sports stadium.

They want God's will to be spelled out that way, and if it's not, they're upset. And I've talked to folks that have been through that. Why doesn't God tell me what he wants? And what they want to do is they want God to spell out every little step. And all the time, what God really cares about is fellowship.

Imagine. Okay. Here's Vernon and Nancy. And in order that Nancy and I have a good relationship, I asked Nancy, I said, Nancy, you tell me everything you want me to do today. And once I'm done with that, I'll go to the next thing. You just tell me everything you want me to do. Okay? And I'll do that, and then you'll be happy, and I'm glad to do that. Is that the relationship Nancy wants?

No. Relationship, not just following the steps. The Lord does not want believers that just go out looking for the sign on the jumbotron. He wants believers that will fellowship and have relationship with him. Not just, I took the right step here, and the right step here, and the right step here. It's relationship and fellowship. Not just roll the dice and go three steps. or turn right on the game.

This is also one of those instances when disappointment can be accompanied by another negative emotion. Anger directed to God. I am mad at God because of his failure to do one of these things. Ever talk to anybody in that mode? I am mad at God. God put me in this situation and I don't like it. God failed to do what I expected him to do. I did not get all my desires fulfilled and I'm mad at God. Second Corinthians 4, 7-9, Paul wrote, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels, Christ, right? So that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. It's God's doing, not us.

We are afflicted in every way. What? What if that's a disappointment? Well, guess what? We're afflicted in every way, but not Christ. Perplexed, but not despairing. Persecuted but not forsaken. Struck down but not destroyed. Difficulties? Yes. Disappointed with God? No. Because God's doing something else with these difficulties. As a matter of fact, He has something explicitly in mind for those difficulties. Even when we're walking with Him and quote, doing everything right.

The third question here is the hope, desire, expectation set on a biblical level of certainty. Okay? What do we mean by asking that question? What things should I have a certain hope, desire, expectation about in my Christian life? What kinds of things should I say, this is for sure, What's for sure for the Christian? And it's not death and taxes. What's that? The facts of the word. The facts of the word. Good. And can you give some examples? Eternal life. Eternal life. Believe and have eternal life. That's certain, isn't it? That's a for sure thing.

This isn't any, you know, percentage deal. Yeah, good. You were talking about it earlier, no condemnation. No condemnation, yeah. Yeah, and there are things we talked about earlier this year when we talked about the things that are fixed and in place. I'm blessed with every spiritual blessing. There is no way to have any disappointment in any of those. Because I can't lose them. It doesn't depend on me. They're out of your reach. Yeah.

Where it becomes a problem is when a believer looks for certainty. something that we're not promised to have a certain looking for certainty for something we're not promised to have a certain right one there's a group of believers out there who you know the name it claimant group well they'll go and say I'm going to trust God for this What if God didn't promise that, you know? So it isn't faith, it's presumption. Right? And then, well, how come it didn't happen? My faith wasn't good enough. Yeah, yeah, it must be my faith wasn't good enough, or now I'm disappointed with God, or something, say.

And so, knowing the distinction, and Scripture is where we know the distinction, knowing the distinction between what's for sure and what is not for sure. That's the distinction between what's biblical and unbiblical. I might hope for some particular situation in my life, and it's okay to have that hope, but I don't count a certain hope if God doesn't say so. Otherwise, I'm really setting myself up for an unbiblical disappointment. It's unbiblical because I said this is for sure, and it's not for sure.

So the distinction becomes, is there a biblical level of certainty? Let's flip this thing around. Is there a problem if I count as not certain things that God has said are certain? Is that a problem? Yes. Why is it a problem? No foundation. Yeah, no foundation.

You've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. What if you are not certain of that, and in fact, what if you think, well, I've got to do a few things right before I'm sure I'm blessed? How about if I spend all my time trying to make sure I'm saved? I've got to work really hard to make sure I stay saved.

I mean, there are Christians who get really consumed with that. If we count as uncertain something that God says is certain, that's a problem too. So that's where we talk about a biblical level of certainty. Counting as for sure what God says is for sure and not reversing that. Not counting things that are not certain. That's setting yourself up for disappointment.

So we've got those examples. The instance that we have here is, here's Paul, who in a couple other instances, Colossians and Philemon, mentioned a fellow who was with him, Demas. D-E-M-A-S. And in 2 Timothy, and here's his last book, right? The last one that we have. And it's also, by the way, the last chapter of that last book. He says in that one, Make every effort to come to me soon, Timothy. For Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Is it possible that Demas could have made this choice? Yeah. Was Paul disappointed? Yeah. But he wasn't counting on it with the Lord's certainty, was he?

So it's okay for him to be disappointed. But it won't be a disappointment of the kind that it would be if he had said, I am counting absolutely, totally on Demas as an absolute certainty. Some people thought that Demas was not saved because of that. I don't believe that that is. Yeah, I don't know that that's the case. Certainly Paul was disappointed. It doesn't say that he wasn't saved. It's possible he was a believer that just blew it, you know?

And so that could be. Kind of like the situation with John Mark earlier, right? Ah, that's right. That's right. And we're going to look at depression next. That's a good point. He responded in a way that was clear. I'm disappointed and I need Timothy to come because Dean was supposed to be here and isn't. But you're correct. It wasn't a depression and we're going to look shortly here at what's the distinction between the two. Let's take a look here.

Depression is on page 116. Depression we have defined as a sadness that is greater and more prolonged than what is based on any objective reason. Depression is a sadness that is greater and more prolonged than what is based on any objective reason. So let's look at this. A depression is based on a person who has a distorted view of reality.

As a believer, as a believer, it is possible for me to be biblically disappointed. It's also possible for me to be unbiblically disappointed, as we've looked at these questions, that's clear. For the person who is depressed, by the definition here is the depression is of a depth and duration and intensity that's beyond what's warranted. So this person who is depressed is not looking at things objectively. They're taking on a distorted view of reality. A distorted view of reality.

And that's part of the difficulty here. A depressed person can react in a couple of different ways. One way is to convey that sadness to other people. You may have come across that. People that, it's like, you know, you're around them and, man, that guy's depressed. And, boy, it's depressing to be around them.

And so that's one thing, but there's also another possible reaction, and that's withdrawal. So two possible reactions in depression. One is to convey the sadness. Another is just to pull away, to isolate oneself. So see those two possible reactions to depression there.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Right, and that is kind of the ultimate unreality. It's saying God can't handle the situation. God is not, you know, here's Paul who in this passage we just talked about, who's sufficient for these things? He is. But it is possible for a person to get to a place to say even God can't do anything about the circumstance. God is not sufficient.

It is a place of unreality and ultimately unfaith. Well, the only thing to get out of it is to come back to faith. Yeah. That's come back to faith and come back to truth. Because faith is faith in the facts. Faith in reality. So it's stepping away from faith and it's stepping away from the truth.

That's what depression ultimately is. One of the things that we bring out in the second paragraph here is it is possible for depression to have a physiological component. And it can be fairly complex. Anybody here been through a period of what they would call some sustained or deep depression? I have, I mean, you know. So it's possible for believers to fall into this. It can, and especially if it has a physiological reason, let me give you some for instances.

When I say physiological reason, it might be a nutritional cause, okay? that one of the chemicals in our bodies, serotonin, is made from tryptophan, which is one of the amino acids, just from taking in protein. Somebody has a low-quality protein diet, That right there can be enough to kind of feed, physiologically feed depression. Or here's another one. Someone falls into depression and may have other side effects as well from, say, a brain tumor. So that can be one of the things that happens. So there can be various physiological aspects to it. And a couple of things I think are important to note.

Medical science has some things that it can do for these things, but the flip side is medical science doesn't have all the answers either. And it can be very complex. What's the right medication and what's the right amount? And sometimes they're, you know, tough to find an answer at all. So those are key things.

But it's important as we look at this, not to look at it as purely a spiritual issue, although it may be, but there may be physiological things involved. Once a person gets in a state of prolonged depression, the physiological aspect of it can tend to kick in almost across the board. One other thing, there are also physiological consequences. Here's this person who is depressed and they start having physical problems. So not only can physiological issues cause it, but that...

Unbelievers aren't depressed. You got that right. The only reason they aren't is because of unreality and the faith problem. Yeah, I fully agree with you. It would be, imagine, now here you are, you're an unbeliever. Somebody you love and care for dies. What kind of answers do you have? I mean, that's really sad. That's really sad. Yeah. Yeah. Over time, I've gotten into various conversations with atheists. I mean, here we're not talking just agnostic, but flat out, I do not believe in God. And I tell you, the answers that they have that they give them hope or something of that sort are just like, you know, well, you must be smoking something. It does not make sense. It does not make good sense.

Now, there in about the middle of page 116, the person who is depressed can sometime point to events or people, and I said sometime, point to events or people that are connected with his depression or her. He may have one or more negative emotions that appears the root of the depression. That is, I'm depressed because of this anger. I'm depressed because of this resentment. I'm depressed because of what we pointed out before, this disappointment.

Sometimes, not always, sometimes they can point to that. Sometimes it may be, well, it was when this happened in my life or when this didn't happen in my life. An event or maybe even a non-event, a failure for something to happen. Not always is that the case.

Does gender have any effect? Is there, are ladies Well, a very interesting thing. I'm glad you asked that. We covered this a few weeks ago and what we found is that ladies who have premarital sex are three times more likely to be clinically depressed. And it is more the ladies who have that inclination than the men. So you ask a very interesting question, and the answer is it depends. And so there are instances like that that have a particular case.

I think the other thing that is important, and I think it's a part of Peter's recognition, 1 Peter 3.7, that women have a vulnerability because of their cyclical pattern as a female. that may lend to depression. And even the pregnancy cycle post-partum depression is one of the things that they're inclined to. So yes, there is a gender inclination. It's more towards the females.

But it typically or often can have an identifiable cause or connection. And it's one way, you know, I counsel with people at different situations in life. I said, you know, the world tells you to go out there and shack up. The world tells you to go out there and have premarital sex. You need to know that the female is the one who pays the price.

And not just like a 10 or 20 or 30% increase, triple the rate of depression. That's big. That's really big. And in terms of the guys who are often the ones pushing for this premarital arrangement, not always, but often, you know, one of the questions I have for them is, is that what you want for the lady in your life? Do you want to triple her risk of clinical depression? And that's what you're looking at. So...

No, that statistic is not between believers and unbelievers. In my personal observation, it doesn't seem to matter that their rate of depression, again that's personal observation, not a study, but their rate of depression was the same for believers as for unbelievers. For example, Peggy and I are going to Weight Watchers together. For a woman, Peggy gets 20 points and I get 29.

In counseling a person who is depressed, we have here kind of in the middle of page 116, Either way, lovingly listening and presenting reality and biblical truth about each of these events, people, or emotions is what's needed. We bring out there speaking the truth in love. And then here we have some bullets. Anger can be a righteous expression.

Ephesians 4.26, but in Galatians 5.19-20, Paul wrote, Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are enmities, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger. While a depressed person may indeed have anger, often it is not expressed or internalized, not that expression of it is the answer either, as we'll soon see. There's an idea that kind of got started out of the Freudian theories, and that is that if you express your anger, that's better. Well, guess what? Having anger, whether you express it or keep it in, is bad both ways.

I'll tell something on Nancy because she's told it to other people. When Nancy was a little girl, Her mom went through some issues that had her go through some treatment by therapists. And the therapist, under this theory that you've got to express your anger, told her to go ahead and swear and curse and such things as that to get the anger out. Well, pretty soon, some of the neighbors came knocking at Nancy's mom's door and said, Nancy keeps swearing like that. She can't come over and play with our kids anymore. So anyway, they learned that that little principle of therapy didn't work.

Yes? I heard of a study that they said if people perform revenge, they feel better. Oh, they may feel better? But in the end, it's interesting. It doesn't end up helping. And matter of fact, you may feel better but end up going to jail anyway. But the other interesting thing is the consequence, like heart health, whether people keep the anger in or express it, the heart health consequence is the same. It does not help. Now, next one. An overwhelming sense of guilt is often at the root of depression, which may or may not have substance behind it. In other words, you may feel guilty for something you shouldn't even feel guilty about.

Thomas could have felt guilty for doubting the Lord, and it could have put him in a depression. What did he do? He ended up saying, My Lord and my God. And Thomas took the gospel all the way to India from what both the church records say, as well as the believers in India today. The depression didn't set in because the guilt never got there. How about Peter? I never knew him. Did he get all sunk in depression? No. How about Paul? He went around killing Christians. Boy, wouldn't that make you feel guilty.

I heard a fellow by the name of Bernard Nathanson. He was once in leadership and in a participation level on abortions after the Roe versus Wade decision. He said, I had personal responsibility or supervisory responsibility for killing 60,000 babies. He says, only by the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ can you handle that kind of guilt. Here's another one.

Placing oneself under a principle of law can be the source of depression and that can take the form of perfectionism about oneself and others. A standard so high nobody is going to match up to it. I am constantly disappointed. I am constantly disappointed in other people and or myself. Because it has to be perfect.

Yeah, well, and certainly we can look at legalism, but actually people who don't have a religious perfectionism, but simply set up some kind of a standard for themselves or others can fall into a depression because of that. I want this person to behave this way, and if this person doesn't behave this way and falls short of my standard for what a friend or a husband or whatever it is, should be. That person who falls short of that can fall into depression. Why?

Because their standard is based on law. And aside from we've talked about the reality issue, the person who is thinking unreal, okay, is the person who's setting themselves up for depression. Like an autistic person or someone that anything's out of place, any little thing, they've got to go put it in place. You know, it's using where they're supposed to be. It's manual. They get out of whack. Oh, yeah.

But all these are, I have my standard and I set the standard and that perfect standard is now God. And God's grace and God's mercy don't enter into this. And now the only thing I can do is I can be a fountain of depression. Because nothing and nobody will meet that standard.

Whether it's holding yourself up to the standard or somebody else or both. You'll just have to have a couple kids, I guess. That won't cure it. What's that? Yeah, the kids will disappoint them. Yeah, yeah. That'll be really, what it'll do is it'll guarantee that they're depressed if they hold on to that.

Flip side, page 117. The depressed person, once having seen the roots of his spiritually based depression truthfully, then needs to hear about two categories of truth which operate in parallel. Okay, one is dealing with the sin nature. Because the sin nature feeds the depression. Are you talking guilt? Are you talking anger? Frequently, people get depressed over a set of circumstances.

I want out of the circumstances that I'm in, okay? And they'll make their happiness and their whole life viewpoint dependent upon, I've got to get out of the circumstances. Rejoice in the Lord always? No. Okay? It's I'm not going to be happy until I'm out of this set of circumstances. It's fine in the Lord, you know. Yeah. The Lord's there in whatever circumstance. That's the key. Okay?

So as one reckoning oneself dead to the sin nature and alive to God and walking by means of the Spirit and the death and life principle of Galatians 2, 19 and 20. I died to the law and all the standards of perfection that anybody ever set. I died to it. What? Live to God.

One of the problems with depression is depression is just death, isn't it? Depression is spiritual death. For the wages of sin is death. The wages of depression is death. The free gift of God is eternal life. And so here you have alive to God is the other half of that. Not just dead to the sin nature, but alive to God. It's a relationship with the Lord and being alive to Him.

But that death is experiential. Yes. The death is experiential and that's exactly what the depression is. Right. Whereas the revelation of Romans 6 is non-experiential. At the very end is what I'm talking about though. The wages, the outcome. Even for the believer. The believer can, even though they are positionally seated in the heavenlies, can still experience that death as a believer. And so that's part one. The next part here, who each believer is in Christ and who Christ is in each believer.

This is the truth about who we are, which needs to replace the distortions that were the cause and maintenance of the depression. The cause and maintenance of the depression not only has to do with this first issue we talked about, am I dead to the sin nature and alive to God, but also, who am I? And who are these other people? Well, who am I? Oh, I'm someone who's piled with guilt. Who am I? I'm someone who is really, really, really angry. And if I don't isolate myself from you, I'll let you know.

The depressed person has a sense of unreality about who they are. And as a believer, there is no basis for it in our position. The depressed person is looking at something other than the reality of who God has made them to be in Christ. And they are defining themselves by something else.

It would be as if I said, I, Vern, am guilty all the time. and the backpack of my heart and life is just filled with bricks of guilt. Can't you just feel the weight? Or I, Vern, am really, really, really angry. I'm just going to have to study my Bible more.

But to see in the midst of that, no, No. The cause for my anger is unjustified. Whatever I'm angry about, whatever I feel guilty about, whatever happens to be the negative emotion that's dominant, and sometimes there can be more than one, that is feeding the depression, it's based on an unreal set of understandings about who I am. Would this include righteous indignation? Well, righteous indignation is something that is justified in biblical, okay? Because it's righteous. But this is an unrighteous indignation, okay?

And it might be, let's say I'm just really angry with God. The circumstances in my life are not what I want. I want different circumstances, and I want God to change it, and I am really ticked at God because He is not making my life what I want. I want the right circumstances, and if I don't get it, I'm going to be mad.

And then you're mad and depressed because typically the person who is depressed with anger associated is not the person that's going out and hitting people and yelling at people and all that. Typically the anger just stays inside. They're a cat volcano and boy is it hot in there. And it just stays there. And there's a lot of pressure and there's a lot of heat. But it doesn't go anywhere. I just sit there.

At some point in the process, the person who is depressed may need to know the comfort of God by a believer coming alongside. There's a place there for coming alongside this person who is weeping, but not to stay there. So here's the Romans 12, 15. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. If this person is depressed, I would say don't weep with them for 15 months. They may need some compassion in coming alongside, but it's not a place to stay. Because in the end, they need to have faith in the truth, faith in the facts. That's what's needed there. So, compassion is okay, it's not a place to stay.

Most baby Christians are like that. What's that? Well, until they get the facts down. Ah, okay, yeah. It is possible for a baby Christian to be vulnerable, which is also one of the very powerful reasons for, you know a baby Christian? Don't just let them wander around, but come alongside them and make sure that they're in a place where they're getting taught and being, you know, cared for. Oftentimes we'll see somebody and we'll say, well that person's an adult, but they're young in the Lord, they're a baby Christian.

Imagine this, okay? Here we have our granddaughter, Nadia. Nadia's a little over four months old. You imagine if Becky and Kurt came home, you know, with Nadia and said, well, Nadia, you know, we've got fridges full of food, got the closet full of towels there, and there's your bed over there, you know, and thirsty or something like that, you know, get a little water cooler, help yourself.

Change your own diet. Yeah, yeah. That doesn't work, does it? There needs to be more particular special attention to the young believers, because just kind of saying, you know, here's the place, run free, doesn't work. They do need particular attention, or they can fall into some of these things that we're talking about. We want to get them to understand these two major areas of truth that we've outlined.

The reality is there is nothing depressing about a believer's present life. If you understand what is true and believe what is true, there is nothing depressing about it, nor the believer's future, and about that future we have a certain hope that does not disappoint. About that. Okay? Properly understood, there's nothing depressing about the believer's present or future life.

Romans 8, 28, and 39 have kind of selected through those, if we know God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of the Son. I've heard people get real worried about predestination, feeling like they're locked into something. I'm really glad this is locked in. conform the image of his son, it's locked in. Man, that's great. I don't have to get depressed about that at all.

Verse 31, For what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? There's a guilty thing, right? God is the one who justifies and who is the one who condemns. Christ Jesus is he who died, yes rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? No. Verse 37, but in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. Now, does that sound depressing to you?

Not at all. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing. Nothing. Can't find it. This is great news. This is wonderful stuff.

And you notice in here, there was nothing in here that said there's any guarantee everything is going to be really cool. You're just on a slick, smooth highway with no off ramps all the way to heaven, right? No. There may well be things along the way. This doesn't say that.

But it says nothing can separate us from the love of God. And in fact, what God's going to do with me and my life is locked in. That's pretty cool. And it's not the least bit depressing. There's nothing depressing about it. Imagine having a hope that's absolutely certain. Wow. Can't possibly be disappointed, right? If I have an expectation, and it's true, it's real, and if God says this is absolutely certain, there is no chance to be disappointed. That's neat. That's cool stuff.

We've run out of time. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you. Thank you as we look at these things. Certainly, we as believers will go through all sorts of things, but this is uplifting stuff here, and to see that in spite of whatever difficulties or constraints we might go through, difficult circumstances for a time, in the end, it all looks good. And it's because of you, and who you are, and who we are in you, and you in us. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.