“HELP!  I’M IN A FUNK.”

FUNK-A state of depression. Depression has been called: “A Blue Funk.”

 I Timothy 5:6 -“She is dead while she lives.”

This message has been in my heart for several weeks.  Every so often there will be something that will come along and just grab you. Well, something grabbed me.

This is a teaching message. It is one of help and strength.  This will; be a 4 part message.  

I feel that it will be a help to many of you. I want to impart this to your spirit.

DIRECTION: I will try and drop all the pretty preacher phrases; I want to get real with you. I’m going to ask you to pull up a chair so to speak and let’s have a chat. 

I will try and speak very plain because I believe that I have something that will set many free this morning, and also bring understanding to the process of victory in many people’s lives.

-When you are dead on the inside, it is hard to feel things. It is hard to connect relationally. It is hard to navigate life. It is like you are watching things happen.

I will deal with things in the present. I will deal with things in the physical….things in the emotional and even some things in the psychological. 

-I will also deal with the spiritual…because without the spiritual being well, there is no healing. As the Bible says: “The heart is faint, therefore the whole head is sick.”

-I believe when the spiritual is sick, the emotional is sick. I also believe without consistent emotional health; it is difficult to maintain your spiritual health.   I have seen many people have spiritual highs that are not maintainable because of wrong emotional processing.

We live in a time when the word of God is no longer viewed as the GOLD STANDARD. Many people just add the word of God to their own personal viewpoints. The problem with that is…everyone has an opinion.

There are things that affect you physically that must be discussed and there are things that affect you emotionally that must be addressed. Sidestepping these issues creates increased difficulty down the road.

Anytime there is a crowd of people, there will always be people who are hurt, who are wounded, and people who are enduring pain.

*THAT GOES ON SUNDAY AFTER SUNDAY that is something that we all know.

*Most people think that their issue is bigger than other people’s issues.

ILLUS.: I think of people who attend, and there are relational hurts in their family. There are people experiencing difficulty, and pain on a weekly basis.

It is very possible to come to Church and have tremendous hurt and devastation.

What I am dealing with this morning is a different angle.

With many people, it is easily recognizable. Some people’s face tells the story.

Some are good at avoiding questions: “How are you? God is good!” “How are you? – I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?”

Some are older and more experienced. They have learned how to hide it, and how to not show it. We become good at being non-transparent.

Certain situations hide the hurt easier… or they tend to expose it whether we are ready or not.

 -Sometimes when you are hurt…it may seem like the CHURCH doesn’t care.  -I think one of the frustrating things at times is….. A Pastor doesn’t want anyone to hurt…but they do.

-THIS is where a CHURCH must strive to be a caring Church.  In order to be a great Church, a Church must be a caring Church. A LOVING CHURCH.

-The Church people must be caring and empathetic. -When we talk with people.  We must show compassion. 

Empathy must come from our eyes, and sympathy must come from our hearts.

It needs to be seen in our facial expressions; it needs to be understandable in our non-verbal behavior.  We need to learn to understand each other, let’s not be so consumed in our own affairs that we don’t have time for other people.          

ILLUS.: OUR QUALIFICATIONS TO BE A CHRISTIAN come from Christ. Whenever you think someone else doesn’t measure up.

-Then we should place our life next to the BEATITUDES. These are the ones he mentioned in the sermon on the mount.

Psalm 19:7, Proverbs 15:13 NASB-“When the heart is sad, the spirit is broken.” Proverbs 17:22

Dries: Withering of plants, trees, etc. To cause to dry up.          

POINT: Physical Life comes from your bones.

-Your bone marrow makes the red blood cells. The Bible says it plainly, THE LIFE OF THE FLESH IS IN THE BLOOD. (Leviticus 17:11)

-When your platelets and blood counts are good, then your body feels stronger. The Red Blood in your body feeds the cells in your body. BUT…… If something is wrong in your spirit. If you are wounded, hurting, going through pain, if you are heavy and sorrowing then your bones will be dried.         

WHICH MEANS: You will not produce as many red blood cells as you should. It will affect your heart, arteries, organs, your strength, your energy level. A broken spirit will dry up your energy.

Proverbs 25:20

ILLUS.: Take a person’s garment away in cold weather and it will hurt them.  Put vinegar upon food it will sour it.

So it is with someone who sings songs to a person with a heavy heart………It is difficult for someone to minister to a heavy heart being gleeful and cheerful.

ILLUS.:  Don’t try….it will be a disservice. It won’t work. It is like a morning person coming in and greeting a person who is not a morning person.  Morning singers!

GOOD Morning! Curse the day those morning people were born.

              This message may not be you, but it might be…..for someone close to you.

-Over and over in scripture we are told to lift the hands that HANG DOWN.

-There is coming a day when God will sing over us. God knows our plight and knows our situation, and He’ll be happy when it is over. He will sing for us. -What about now? He’ll help you through it.      

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, and the Lord delivers them out of them all.”

You will go through things, you will go into problems. The world we live in is sinful and full of problems. Unfortunately, it is part of life. You will get hurt.  You will get used, abused, and confused.

1. YOU CAN CURSE THE HURT, REHEARSE THE HURT OR MEND THE HURT.

I am believing God for hurts to be reversed. This verse in Zephaniah talks about the “Jews and Zion.” Zion is a term used for Israel and the Church.

Zephaniah 3:16-20; Vs. 17-“With joy God sings over you.

He will touch those areas where people bleed and hurt. “God let your hand soothe, heal, and bind up those who are going through it.”

When I talk of those who are wounded, I am not speaking from childhood, but who are wounded now. Maybe a state where they really don’t want to pray anymore or even want to read the Bible anymore. 

Q – Bro. Temke is there a place where people don’t to even pray anymore?    

• Maybe you feel like life is draining from you. The energy is not there. The creativity is not there. The spirit is not there.

Is it physical? Or is it something that I’m allergic to? Something you’re just going through? A stiff fear you have encountered. Something that grips you tight. Maybe you feel a loss, you feel it is inevitable that you will lose your income, family, home etc. 

You feel your energy being depleted. You keep thinking the energy level will return, but it is taking you longer and longer to recover that strength.

Your wondering: “How much longer can I go?” &  “How much longer can I work on this thing?” Just because you’re Christian doesn’t mean you’re not human. 

In the body of Christ, you are needed right now. These days are winding to a close. You are needed more than ever. Here is the dilemma: You are in the body of Christ, but you are really not usable….you are sidelined.:

It could be any number of a score of reasons. But just when you were needed the most.  The devil devised some set of circumstances, set some plans in motion. Put some situations in your way that stopped you from running in the race.   

ILLUS.: We want our Church to become known as a ministry church. ROL has been active in the ditches pulling out people. Our Church is becoming known as a PLACE OF HEALING AND FREEDOM.  WE ARE NOT THERE YET, BUT WE ARE GETTING THERE.  People are calling and saying will you pray for us.

**I believe the enemy will sideline people just so they can’t be unused. THAT IS A FACT.

Q-Pastor-Do you feel bad towards me because I can’t be used?  No, not at all. God doesn’t feel bad either. I will always love you for who you are even if you never do anything, but at the same time, I will shepherd you to become involved in the things of God. 

-A PASTOR’S JOB IS TO EQUIP THE SHEEP-I will encourage you in your calling, even when you don’t feel like it.

-You are probably harder on yourself than God is on you. Many don’t know the God of the bible. Some know what has been preached or taught to them, but many don’t know God as they should.

-God knows your body, He is sympathetic, He cares, and He will help you. But if you get to the point, that you think that God is against you – THEN YOU’RE DONE.

You can backslide, turn your back on God, and do everything that is against the NATURE OF GOD, and yet God still loves you. He still cares for you. 

If there is even a spark left in you….and you’ll say: “God I don’t know why I am like this.” You know what God will say: “Let me help you.”

ILLUS.: Look at the woman caught in adultery…They used to stone people for that.  They brought a woman to the feet of Jesus, and Jesus said: “I don’t condemn you, go and sin no more, lest something worst come upon you.”                                                                           

THAT’S JESUS! Some people get so beat down…that they interpret the attack of the devil as the attack of God. The devil will make you think that God is against you…That is untrue……God is there to care, and there to help.

He is always there:  “I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU.” Some say: “My life is a mess, I am away from God….then turn around and come back to God.”

Many people have become unusable…..wounded in battle, stressed out, struggling to survive.  Some spouses have the total responsibility of a household.

People remember a time, when they were in Church and the Church was a big happy family. BUT BECAUSE OF PAIN: They don’t feel like they fit in.

Young people try to keep up, try to please Mom, and Dad. They are trying to have acceptance of parents, teachers, and other students. The issues of LGTBQ, Racism, Visceral Politics, Medical issues out the ying-yang.

While they are doing that in school; trying to wrestle with all this stress.

They also know that if they compromise…God won’t approve of them, but if they don’t compromise then their friends won’t approve of them either.  STRESS

Many people in the body of Christ are in a state where they want no responsibility, they want no more pressure, no more extra load. They hate to work whatever it is. Whether it is job, house, home, family, Church.

If someone calls and says, “Can you do this…” It is looked upon as pressure.” People want nothing to do with pressure.

TODAY – People want to get away and hibernate, and God knows that if it wasn’t for you having to make a living that many would not return to WORK!

Many today despise the work it takes in marriage, the responsibilities, the difficulties, the trying times. You feel bad about your weight, your personal creativity is at an all-time low, and when you think of praying it just adds more pressure on you. 

How can I pray? I have too much negativity, I have too many problems – I can’t even hardly grunt.

Does anyone know what I am talking about?  I want you to know that there is an understanding Lord, there is an understanding Pastor. I want this message to be like we are having a talk, and your chair is pulled up, and we just sharing.

2. THERE ARE 3 THINGS HAPPENING TO PEOPLE TODAY.

• Information Overload
• Habitual Cyclical Stress
• Lack of respite and renewal

#1-INFORMATION OVERLOAD. Daniel 12:4

Information overload (also known as infobesity, infoxication, information anxiety, and information explosion) is the difficulty in understanding an issue. This effectively causes decisions to be reduced because one has too much information (TMI)about that issue, and is generally associated with the excessive quantity of daily.

Burn-out is physical, depression is emotional, and information overload is mental. It makes you unsettled, and you worry way too much about things that are useless.

-The internet is full of random, useless, nonsensical information.  -Hurts are received more easily when you are the most vulnerable.   

VULNERABLE

People who are givers and fixers struggle with information overload because they want to help people.

-Burn-out comes to people who are givers. -This Church is blessed with people who are givers, (not financially) who give of themselves and their time. I admire you for that.

-BURN-OUT happens to people who are givers, they think of others first: wife first, husband first, CHURCH, family, community, other people of those helping the needy…always giving…people smiling and giving. 

Today people are depleted of physical energy and emotional resources. You and I are not made by God to worry about everything. ECCLESIASTES 12

WHEN YOU ARE DEPLETED…. You have let down your will down to give more, and since you have depleted yourself. When you have gone through so much, and when you let your will down there aren’t many drops left in that bucket.

Do you wonder what is wrong with me?  I’m really no good to anyone, not even the Church. There are 2 more levels below that?  Some of you have lowered your bucket, and there’s nothing there, but some of you have been going through depression, and that is new to you. Some have been going through it for a while.

Burn-out is the Physical end. Depression is the emotional end of it.

-God made you to rest, then you get up and go. You’re energized.

-But due to stress, you don’t sleep well, so after you have gone, gone, gone, you are depleted of energy…that is burn-out in the physical.

-But it also affects you in the emotional part of your being. Just as God gave you the capacity to rest and get rejuvenated in the physical; He also gave you the capacity to get over things in the emotional.  QUICK!            

Philippians 4:7

You would be shocked how your natural physical body affects your emotional body. When you drop that bucket into your emotional well, and there is nothing there.

THINGS begin to cave in on you. If you get bumped a little, then you make an issue out of something…no one loves me, no one cares, nobody calls, No one visits me. 

SEE THE BUCKET IS GOING DOWN BUT THERE IS NO RESERVE.

-If you have been a Christian for a long time. If you are needing prayer, encouragement, you need to seek it out.

                     The Bible says: “In the last days, the devil will wear the saints out.”

#2-HABITUAL CYCLICAL STRESS

You get set up for wounding when you are emotionally depleted. When you let the bucket down emotionally and there is nothing there, and there is always someone there who is an agent of the devil who is there to come in for the kill, and it is called wounding.

If you’re burn-out, you have the hope of rebounding. You go off somewhere and get rejuvenated.

Some sleep, some rest…get everything off your mind.  Spend some time in R & R. There are not enough trips you can take to rejuvenate yourself if you don’t learn how to focus.

In depression, you may be physically ok, but when you have the opportunity to drop the bucket down and get some emotional energy…and after you are rested up, you feel better, but in this condition, you are hypersensitive to feelings -you take on other people’s offenses. This information overload and habitual stress create a recipe for complete mental, emotional, physical burn-out.   

It is like a cap is put on top of the depression and burn-out, and it is screwed on tight.  The devil says: AHA!  But the HG is going to blow the lid off TODAY!        

ILLUS.:  When a person is wounded, they go through things and don’t behave as they used to.

#3-LACK OF RESPITE AND RENEWAL

God says: Don’t begin what I have assigned you to do without being filled with God’s assignment.

Biblical Sabbath: “A 24-hour block of time in which we stop work, enjoy rest, practice delight, and contemplate God.

*Sabbath rest brings renewal, recreation, and respite for enhanced revelation from God.

*Sabbath rest will bring growth and healing to our spirits, souls, mind, and bodies.

*Sabbath rest will build the person and build the family.

Sabbaths create moments of time for God to print upon the soul.  

We pull away and recharge our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical parts.

SABBATHS ARE RESET BUTTONS FOR THE WEEK. SABBATICALS ARE RESET BUTTONS FOR LIFE.

3. YOU ARE NOT YOURSELF.

Let me illustrate: You can get to the point when you are healthy and vivacious. You feel everything. When someone shakes your hand. You feel that LOVE. When someone calls you, you feel that compassion in that call. When someone hugs you feel that warmth.

But when this individual begins to go through things, when the bucket is empty.

It is when they are vulnerable when they need help……things are NOT FELT.

LOVE IS NOT FELT (THE BODY OF CHRIST….SHOULD BE SENSITIVE)

It doesn’t help to side with the hurts, but we want to love people in their hurts.

If you side with someone, you may give them an excuse to be like they are.

What Christ wants is…for us to love them, then let Christ fix only what He can fix.     

We should know when someone is hurting, it may not have a thing to do with you,

but it may be something that they are going through. 

Then when they are around you, you say: I didn’t feel that same old tenderness in His voice. He wasn’t as caring.

Sometimes in a Church, everyone may be in the boat at the same time, and some just hide it better than others. I used to feel that tenderness! What’s wrong? We should be praying about this INSTEAD of talking about it.

In the body of Christ, many of God’s choicest saints have been bleeding, hurt, they have been mashed. They are in burnout. They have given till they can’t give anymore.  That old oppressive spirit sets in, instead of someone reaching out to them, we draw away. Sometimes in the body of Christ, we want someone to reach us, and they also want someone to reach out to them. Then we don’t give a warm arm.

We say they are not LOVING. We smell blood and begin to circle….we size it up: “They have changed”. The church is changed! What’s wrong?

We see someone who is wounded, infected, cut, hurting, bleeding, lacerated. We see them and we climb in and step over them. Let me get up out of the ditch, I need some fresh air…let me get clean clothes on.

A great tragedy in this last day is that people….are wounded…..they are hurt.

They should be in an emotional intensive care ward, but there is none. YOU ARE GOING STRICTLY OFF adrenalin, but inside the emotional realm you are tattered and frazzled, and you don’t know how you cope and still get a pay-check.

Then someone who has joy, who comes along….and says, “ISN’T GOD GOOD.”! Pastor Ben is trying to get you to worship to get out of the FUNK, and even that offends you. When you get this way……everything bothers you.

WHEN A PERSON bleeds, they know it…there is stress on them knowing that they are not themselves.

         Q-Have you ever been around someone who’s been through a nervous breakdown.

If there is any place, we should feel at home with them, it is at the Church. Their co-workers won’t understand, but we are of the household of faith.  

Some don’t want to come into Church because everyone else around is praising God, and they can’t. “Well, they should praise God anyway!”  Tell yourself that the next time you have your hands stuck in your pocket and can’t lift them up in Church.

I have done this long enough that I have watched people say: “People should be worshipping and praying….” I look back and those same people have their arms folded. (IT JUST SHOWS YOU ARE HUMAN)

The sharks are coming in for the kill, do you see where I am coming from?

This is a war-zone, rough times, people who are hurt, cut, and stuck, and we go on our merry way wanting someone to send us a good happy letter…it doesn’t work that way.

YOU WANT A SALUTATION GIVEN TO YOU, a greeting a hug, but what about you giving one. What about you reaching out to someone else just as hurt, just as down, and just as depressed?          

WHEN YOU ARE THIS POINT: Here is what happens your…sleep goes….you dread going to bed. There is no rejuvenation…your body arises out of the bed in the morning just as tired if not more tired. The creativity is no longer there. You feel you have nothing to add to – and can’t add anything to anything. 

Sometimes we feel we are accepted, because of what we contribute to this person or this Church.

Whether you contribute anything or not, you are still accepted. Your money doesn’t make you loved.

TRIPS, CARS, THINGS will not meet your needs.