Spiritual Depression Pt.14: Growing Weary in Doing Well

Okay, we're up to part four of our discussion on spiritual depression, and there's the good doctor using his book, starting with a quotation from him. The Bible is a book which has been written in order that God's people may be helped in this world.

That is especially true of the New Testament epistles, which are all written because of some situation that had arisen in the churches, and the way to understand their message is not to think of a man writing a thesis in his study.

The Epistles Address Real Church Problems

On the contrary, the Apostle Paul was an evangelist, a man who traveled about and he generally wrote because of some trouble that had arisen, and in order to help people to understand the cause of their trouble and the way to overcome it.

So he dealt with the possible causes as they arose, and we can be quite certain that there is no cause of spiritual depression today that is not dealt with in the epistles. The ills of the spiritual life are always the same.

They never vary. The appearances differ. The particular guise in which the trouble may appear may vary, but the cause of it all is the devil and he never varies in his ultimate objective. I chose this, this is the opening paragraph of chapter 14, and I chose to put the whole paragraph up because it contains some very important information.

From age to age, circumstances change in what we might deal with physically. What I mean by that is my grandparents, when they were growing up, they didn't have to worry about cars starting in cold weather because they didn't have cars, all right?

They had to worry about that the horse didn't freeze in the barn, all right? But the spiritual issues are the same, all right? If you get out and you want to start your car in the morning and it's cold and you turn it and you hear that click, click, click, click, click, click, what comes out of your mouth next is a very good indication of what your spiritual condition is, all right?

Same thing if you go out and find your horse dead, all right? So the appearances might seem different, but the circumstance, you know, the spiritual condition is the same, and that's what Paul is, what Martin Lloyd-Jones is saying here, is that even though the epistles were written 2 ,000 years ago, the issues that they deal with are the same issues that we deal with today in the church.

What did Solomon say? There is nothing new under the sun, all right? Here we find another cause of this condition of spiritual depression, and at once it reminds us of something that we have to underline again, as we have done several times before, namely the terrible subtlety of our adversary.

We have been looking at the way in which the devil tempts Christian people and makes them miserable by suggesting false teaching. If you think about it, let me just pause right there for a minute. Remember, I finish right here, because I might forget that when I turn around, all right?

This is what we've been looking at mostly. If you look at the past lessons, the previous 13, and almost invariably it had to do with some sort of error coming into the church, and even if it's maybe just an error in thinking, all right?

We have observed his very clever way of putting certain things at the center, which should not be there, or giving us some kind of new religion, which is a mixture of various religions. But now we are in quite a different climate altogether.

At this point, the apostle is not concerned about the danger of our going astray through heresy and error, or by taking up some particular cult and believing it to be the true faith. That is not what he is concerned about here.

Here, the devil does something much more subtle, in that there is apparently nothing wrong at all, all right? You following this so far? I don't want to go too fast that you're not following it. In other words, we're not looking at error, we're looking at a status where it doesn't appear that anything is wrong.

What happens is that people just become weary and tired while still going in the right direction. One more short quotation. Here we have the case of those who are on the right road and facing the right way.

They are moving in the right direction, but the trouble is they are shuffling along with drooping heads and hands, and the whole spectacle and picture they present is the very antithesis of what the Christian is meant to be in this life and world.

And this is the verse that he is referring to. This is Paul in his letter to the church at Galatia. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. King James says, let us not be weary in well-doing, okay?

So, this spiritual problem that we see, and that is of growing weary as we go about our work for the kingdom of God, is also a problem that we see in life in general, and we have to be careful because I'm going to be using some circumstances referring to life in general first, but we can't confuse that with the spiritual issue.

One will help the other, but don't confuse the two. Here's what I mean. Psychologists today have a word for growing weary in well-doing. They call it burnout, and if you're in any kind of profession or business, I know like the years I spent on the police department, that was one of the things that we would see, especially with guys who had a certain number of years on the job, they'd start to experience burnout, all right?

And you see this especially like in jobs where there is sales, a salesman is pushing, pushing, pushing, and after so many years, he starts to suffer burnout, all right? Young men and women engage in a task or profession or in any endeavor, even charitable tasks, okay?

They start well, full of energy and drive to accomplish the task to get ahead in their employment, then after a period of time, they find themselves losing the enthusiasm, the energy, and the drive to succeed.

And this is one of the reasons why a lot of companies sponsor retreats. They hire gurus like Tony Robbins and people like him to try to remotivate, get your engine started again. So you see that what we see in the Apostle Paul, what he's writing in the Church in Galatia, is also very true in just life in general, but we're going to be focusing not on life in general, but the spiritual issue.

They hit a plateau, whereas runners say it, they hit the wall. If you've ever done any kind of running on a race, you know exactly what, especially if it's a race of any distance, there comes a point where all of a sudden it's like you're running smack into a wall.

The work begins to suffer, productivity falls, and the examples through history and written biographies are virtually endless. You can go back and see how almost every successful person went through at least one period like this in their lifetime, okay?

But the same phenomenon is seen in the Church of Jesus Christ, and that's what we're going to be focusing on. Thus, Paul's exhortation to the Galatians, let us not lose heart in doing good, and as I mentioned before, the King James Version, let us not be weary in well-doing.

That's where I took the title from. Sometimes I just like to go back to the King James. I just like the way they phrase it. Important note, the admonition that Paul's giving to the Church in Galatia is not a rebuke for straying from the truth or any evil or sinful practice.

That's important. In other words, what he's telling them is you're doing well. You're doing the job, and it's going well for you. Don't grow tired. Don't grow weary while you're doing it. See how different that is from almost everything else that we've studied so far in the realm of spiritual depression.

In one sense, this might be the greatest danger to the Christian today, especially those in Reformed churches. Why I say that is because in Reformed churches, we stress the truth. If somebody in this church started to go astray outside the realm of orthodoxy, how long would that last before somebody came up and smacked him upside the head and said, you know, watch what you're doing?

Spiritually, of course. Right? It wouldn't take long. So, the admonition comes to those who are doing well. And so, what is the admonition? While you are doing well, don't get weary. Just a little paraphrase of it, all right?

We may say then that we are considering people who are not so much tired of the work. Now, notice the subtle distinction. Not so much tired of the work as tired in it. Be not weary in well-doing. That is the condition.

What shall we say about it and what shall we do about it? Let me say at the outset that there is no aspect of this great problem of depression in which negatives are more important than they are in this particular occasion.

The way he breaks it down in his book is he gives us three negative admonitions followed by three positive admonitions. I've used that same outline. So, what then is the remedy for this sort of spiritual depression?

Well, let's look at the spiritual depression first. You can see somebody that has just lost their vigor, lost their enthusiasm. In fact, you know what? Let me back up even a little bit more. It may be helpful to note that this is somewhat common even though the depression he's talking about would be an extreme case.

In the general course of the Christian life, you go through different phases. When you're first born again, you first repent, you first come to Christ. There's an enthusiasm, right? And what do you want to do?

The first thing you want to do, you want to run around and tell everybody, all right? And you're shocked when not everybody agrees and says, oh, this is a wonderful thing, okay? So, you're going along in your Christian life and all of a sudden you start hitting hardships.

The Christian life is not, we're not promised a rose garden. We're not promised that everything is going to go well. We are going to have problems. There are going to be issues that we deal with. So, what we might call the middle age of spiritual life, what happens?

You hit a plateau. The enthusiasm is gone and the thrill is gone, so to speak, okay? And then you have the latter years which have its own set of issues, all right? And if things go right, you regain some of that enthusiasm back because you're gaining wisdom if you remain true to the faith, all right?

So, we're talking about, mostly now we're talking then, about Christians who have been in the faith for a period of time. We're not necessarily talking about those who have just come to faith, but those who have knocked around churches for some period of time.

So, first notice that this type of and cause of depression is primarily from within yourself. Now, others may contribute to it, but primarily it is from within you, all right? Growing weary, growing tired, getting fed up, so to speak, with things that you see and things that you can't do, etc.

And so, it's not so much the external forces that you are around, but how you respond to those forces. You follow? Does that make sense? So, because the weariness comes from within you, it's not that somebody outside can make you tired or make you weary.

They can add to it, they can be a catalyst to it, you know? But nobody can change you, that has to come from the inside. So, if you find yourself growing weary, you know, and where Christianity, well, it's just another day of the same thing.

That's what we're talking about. You look around, you say to yourself, I'm tired, this is just too much. Have you ever come up and say, you know what, I don't need this. Sound familiar? Okay. The first negative response is simply this, don't listen to yourself.

We laugh at that, but we do talk to ourselves, not everybody admits it. But we all talk to ourselves. And the reason simply to say don't listen, why? Because this is usually an emotional response. Our first response is usually an emotional response, because our emotions are way out in front of our brain, far too often, okay?

And emotional responses are oftentimes, probably most times, wrong. What's the old expression? Make sure your brain is engaged before releasing the clutch of your mouth. So, the first negative response is don't listen to those first feelings, those first emotions, because they're probably wrong anyway.

Second negative response is do not resign yourself to those feelings. Look, you're not going to, if you've noticed in past lessons, we've talked about feelings, you can't just will them away. Because there are circumstances that's come upon you, can make you sad, can make you happy, can make you joyful.

You can't just will those away, but you do not have to resign yourself to them, okay? Some people actually go so far as when they get these feelings, they resign from their job. They say, you know, I'm tired of this.

I worked in a, before I became a cop, I was working in an engineering company, and we had an engineer who was from New Zealand, I'll never forget this guy. And he came in one day, and the air conditioner had broken down, so he took his hammer and he broke out the pane glass window.

He was on the second floor, that thermal pane glass, he broke the whole thing out so that his office was, he was right above the president's office, all the glass came down by the president's car where he had it parked.

And when he was threatened, when he came up and, not threatened, when he was confronted by the president, he says, that's it, I'm leaving. He says, packed up his stuff, he says, I'm going to find my guru.

Nobody ever saw him again. That happens. But others continue the task, but accept the feelings of weariness and decide to press on despite how they feel. All right. The doctor says they will go on, but they go on in this hopeless, dragging condition.

To put it more particularly, the danger at this point is to say something like this. Well, I have lost that something which I had, and obviously I shall not get it back again. But I am going on, and out of loyalty, I will go on as a sheer duty.

I have lost the enjoyment I once had. That is gone, and it's undoubtedly gone forever. I just have to put up with it. I will resign myself to my fate. I won't be a quitter. Sounds noble, all right. But it's horrible, especially for a Christian.

Dr. Lloyd-Jones suggests that this is actually the greatest danger of this type. Somebody who is, by a sense of loyalty or a sense of duty, is going to continue, but they're not doing anything about their emotional condition and about the feelings that they have and this tiredness and this weariness that they have.

They just try to work through it, okay. And this happens not only in the spiritual realm, but in the natural realm as well. You see people, I know people who have been in the same job for 30 years. How's things at work?

I hate it. How long have you hated it? 29 years. And they are the most miserable people in the world because they have never addressed the issue that has confronted them. And but they just stick to it.

They're disciplined. I mean, these people have a lot going for them. They're disciplined. They're working. I don't know if I could stay in a job that I hated for 29 years. He says, we are really saying to ourselves, the golden hours have gone.

The great days belong to the past. I may never know that again, but I will just keep on. There is something, of course, which seems wonderful about this, something that seems heroic about it. But you notice that I put it as a negative.

Indeed, I say that it is a temptation of the devil. If he can get God's people to lose hope, he will be content indeed. And as I see things today, this is perhaps the greatest danger of all confronting the Christian church.

The danger of doing a thing in a formal spirit and as a matter of duty. Going on, it is true, but wearily trudging along instead of walking as we ought to walk. Call these people spiritual Eeyores. Everybody familiar with Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh classics?

All right. How are things going today? All right, I guess. To the good day? The good day, I suppose. Spiritual Eeyores. Third danger is resorting to artificial stimulus. In the natural realm, it could be alcohol or drug abuse or anything that presents some sort of escape from the dreariness of life.

And there's a very specific danger that this type of weariness presents to the church. He says, I have seen people in the church dealing with this general spiritual weariness in that very way. They work up some kind of excitement or they adopt new methods.

They say that they must rouse themselves out of this, so they put on some new program. See, in the natural realm, people seek for escapism, be drugs, alcohol, sexual fantasies, power, amusement of something, all different kinds of ways people try to escape.

In the church, what do they try to do? The ministry is sluggish and whatnot. Well, we got to come up with something new. What can we do to get people through the door of the church? We have to change something, all right?

Sometimes it's drastic. Well, let's stop preaching. People don't like preaching. You know, let's add music, and it becomes like a rock concert, but it doesn't resemble church any longer. You know, you've seen this very thing.

This is just what we see in the evangelical churches today. Jay Adams calls it fad surfing. I sat in a lecture by Jay Adams once, and he talked about this. He says, what the modern church is doing today is it's like surfing.

They try to catch the top of each wave, you know? And so just as one fad comes up and then it goes down, they look at another fad so they get to the top of that. Just think about it. Think about how many different things have come along in the church that people gravitate towards.

Do you remember the prayer of Jay Bez? All of us, is anybody praying that prayer now? I doubt it, but there's some new thing will come along, and because the church has become weary, it's tired, and it's losing its enthusiasm, people are losing their enthusiasm.

It's got to be something new, all right? Remember, there was the gold dust falling from heaven, laughing in the spirit was another one. All kinds of things, new things. They were ever vigilant looking for the next new and exciting program to revitalize the church ministry.

Can you not think of certain churches that are always putting out some fresh announcements or finding some new attraction? Such churches are obviously living on artificial stimulants, and it is all being done with this idea in mind.

The pastor or some other responsible person has said, we are just in a rut. We are becoming rather dead. What can we do about it? Well, let's do this or that. It will provide work and activity. It will be a new interest.

That's the situation which you see in so many evangelical churches across America today, but that's the negative. Those are the three negative steps, all right? Then he continues in the chapter, talks about three positive steps to remedy the situation.

Self-Examination and Honest Diagnosis

The first one is self-examination, which is always a good place to start. Ask yourself, how did I get into this? How and why did I get into this condition? And the answer may be as simple as you're working too hard.

I know pastors that put in so long hours, neglecting their home, neglecting themselves, and they're just putting in all kinds of hours. Sometimes, you know what it is with a pastor? They don't like to say no.

And I tell everybody, all the pastors that I've ever counseled with, one of the first things you got to learn as a pastor, you have to learn how to say no. Somebody goes, pastor, can you? And you have to evaluate it.

And if it's not something that you can adequately take upon your plate, or it's going to take away from something else, I'd say, no, I'm sorry, I can't do that. I know pastors hate to hear that. And the same is true for everybody else.

You can't say no, you can't say yes to everything. You have to evaluate it, you know, and prioritize. You can be tired in the work and not tired of the work. There's a difference. And so, you know, what's the remedy?

Maybe as simple as getting the right amount of rest, eating well, and exercising. All right. And you know the best exercise? Pushing yourself away from the table. It's always best to start with the simple answer.

That's the first. But there are other questions that also must be asked in this self-examination. Am I working for the kingdom with purely carnal energy? This is important. When you're coming into work for the kingdom of God, you've got to rely on the power of God.

Why do you think every Sunday morning we meet with a group of men in my study, and why are we in there for half an hour before we come out and we conduct a worship service? We're praying. We're praying that the Lord would give us the spiritual power we need to pray, to lead the singing, to preach, to do all of those things.

If you go out and try to just do that in a carnal sense, just in your own power, you're going to grow weary. You're going to get tired. Preaching is tired work, by the way, just in case you didn't know that.

If you're relying solely on your own wisdom and energy and not on the power of God, you're a prime candidate for spiritual depression, because you're never going to feel adequate for the task. I love it sometimes, and this is how you really know.

I remember once preaching a message, and when I finished preaching, I stepped away from the pulpit, and I hung my head. I said, that has to be the worst sermon I've ever preached. I felt like I stumbled over my words.

I didn't make my points and everything else. I walked to the back of the congregation. I sat there, and person after person goes, Pastor, that's one of the best sermons you ever preached. The Lord keeps you humble.

I know that he took that sermon, which I thought I messed up, and people were blessed by it. The next question is an extremely important one. What is your motive for doing the work that you do? And especially when you're working for the kingdom of God, what is your motivation?

Why have I really been doing it the whole time? It is a terrible question, that because it may be the first time we have ever asked it. We have taken all for granted and assumed that our motive was pure, but we may find that it was not.

Some people work for the sake of the thrill and the excitement. You look at, there are pastors who pastor large churches, and they get a lot of accolades. They get a lot of attention, even media attention.

And there comes a point where they may be doing it for themselves, for the attention and for the glory that they're getting, and not for the glory of God. And that is a danger there too, setting yourself up for spiritual depression.

Why is it that we have seen so many high profile pastors and ministers fall into some sort of immorality? I'm going to suggest to you that this is the answer. They have found themselves not working for the kingdom of God, not working for the glory of God, but for themselves.

And we had a saying amongst, when I was on the Homicide Squad and giving, all of a sudden some guy would be walking around like he was the greatest gift to the detective world. And we had a saying, he's starting to believe his own press releases.

If we are working to satisfy and please self in any shape or form, the end is always going to be weariness and tiredness. How important it is to ask ourselves about the motive and conjection, connection with our work.

And then following on that question is this one. Has the work itself been the driving force of your life instead of it being God's work that keeps you going? In other words, some people can just get tied up.

It doesn't matter what the job is. They're just going to, they just like the idea of working instead of the idea that, no, I'm working for the kingdom of God. My job is to advance the kingdom of God. And here it ties in with the motivation for your work in the kingdom.

Is the motivation factor that it is the kingdom work or could you just be moved by any task? These are important questions for anybody who's in ministry. Now, a word of caution is in order here. All work should be done to the glory of God.

In other words, I'm not just segwaying or segregating, you know, those who are working in Christian service. Everybody, it doesn't matter if you're a police officer, a carpenter, a cook, a salesman, it doesn't matter.

All your work, all work should be done for the glory of God. But everything in the life, everything in the life of the Christian should be accomplished unto the Lord. But there's a special thing that we have to keep in mind, and that is our service in the kingdom.

All right. The factor here is the motivation. Is the motivation factor self-satisfaction or the glory of God? Self-satisfaction is an emotional state that can wane and leave a person tired and weary.

Notice, self-satisfaction, that's an emotional state. And that leads to the second positive principle. Don't forget the well-doing in the admonition. Let us not be weary in well-doing. There's a lot of reasons you can get weary, you can get tired.

But the admonition here is don't be weary in the well-doing. The Christian life is one of well-doing. It's supposed to be anyway. Everything we do is well-doing, all right. Paul says, let me remind you that you are in the Christian life, and the Christian life is a life of well-doing.

If you regard the Christian life as a dreary task, you are insulting God. What is our Christian life? The question is all important, and we too often answer that it is to avoid the things other people do.

That is to walk the straight and narrow road. It is to say no to this and to engage in that. It is to go to church. It is an awful task. It is a hard life in which we find ourselves. It is not that our attitude far too frequently.

Notice what he's saying. How do you view life as a Christian? Do you view it as a task, as a burden? It's just the opposite. If you remember Pilgrim's Progress, what happened when Pilgrim went through?

He lost the burden. Far too many churches add burdens and make it difficult, and that's why you have so many places where kids just hate to go to church. I've mentioned this a few times. The church I grew up in as a kid, we used to call it the Church of No.

You were a good Christian if you didn't do this, you didn't do that, you didn't do that, you know, it was all defined by no. That's not the Christian life. We need to remind ourselves exactly what the Christian life is all about.

What does it mean to be a Christian? If you and I come to regard any aspect of this Christian life merely as a task and a duty, and if we have to goad ourselves and to set our teeth in order to get through it, I say we are insulting God and we have forgotten the very essence of Christianity.

The Christian life is not a task. The Christian life alone is worthy of the name life. This alone is righteous and holy and pure and good. The Christian life should be identified by the positive things that it is, not by the things that you can't do or you shouldn't do.

All right? And that, again, it's a matter of perspective. But the answer to the weariness is not just to bear down and push through, regardless of how one feels. That's Stoicism. In fact, we addressed that in the second negative response.

That's Stoicism. Not the Christian response. Remember, Christianity is not Stoicism. It's not, oh, I would just have to bear through this, have to grin and bear it, even though bad stuff is happening to me, and just let it happen and I'll get through it.

That's not the Christian life. We are to work through those problems and be victorious on the other side. So the response is to remind yourself how you came to be a Christian in the first place. What was your position before God prior to becoming a Christian?

Here's the key. How did you become a Christian? What had to take place for you to be a Christian? Jesus Christ came to earth, suffered, and died on the cross to save his people from their sin. And far too often, Christians go about their business.

And how often do they really think about that? You think about what was made because, you know, somebody stepped on my foot. And yet, what did Christ suffer? All right. And then the fact that God chose you to be saved.

He knew you before the foundation of the world was laid. And what was your position before God prior to becoming a Christian? What is your position? You're bound for hell. And we need to remind ourselves of this.

If it were not for the intervention of Jesus Christ coming to earth and dying, every one of us is bound for hell. So think of that. Then think, what is your position now? Well, if I'm a believer in Jesus Christ, what is my position now?

I'm a child of God. God has put his love upon me, his affection upon me. Says that he will never leave me nor forsake me. And I am bound for heaven and eternity with my Savior who died for me. If you keep some of these things in mind, will that not get you out of your depression?

This is what we might call a reality check. All right. Where was I? Where am I? See, we have a tendency to forget who we are in Jesus Christ. The good doctor says, my friend, if you think of your Christian life in any shape or form with this sense of grudge or as a wearisome task of duty, I tell you to go back to the beginning of your life, retrace your steps to the wicked gate through which you passed.

Look at the world and its evil and sin. Look at the hell to which it was leading you and then look forward and realize that you are set in the midst of the most glorious campaign unto which a man could ever enter and that you are on the noblest road that the world has ever known.

And that leads to the third positive remedy for this weariness. Look at your position here in terms of eternity. In his book, he refers to the Christian life as being in preparatory school, preparing us for eternity.

He says, the world is too much with us. That is our trouble. We are too immersed in our problems. We need to look ahead to anticipate, to look forward to the eternal glories gleaming afar. The Christian life is a tasting of the first fruits of that great harvest which is to come.

So whatever hardships you may go through in this life, remember Jesus Christ went before you with an even greater burden. He endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. And so it's all a matter of keeping the priorities of the kingdom of God in the forefront of all that we do or think.

And then our closing quotation, again, this is his closing paragraph in this chapter. He says, Paul says the most extraordinary thing in writing to the Colossians. He says that he is privileged to make up in his own body what remains of the suffering of Christ.

What if you and I as Christians are having the same privilege without knowing it? Well, remind yourself of your blessed master and look to him and ask him to forgive you for ever having allowed yourself to be weary.

Look at your life again in this way. And as certainly as you do so, you will find that you are filled with a new hope, a new strength, a new power. You will not need your artificial stimulants or anything else.

You will find that you are again thrilled with the privilege and joy of it all. And you will hate yourself for having grumbled and complained. And you will go forward still more gloriously until eventually you will hear him saying, well done, thou good and faithful servant.

Enter thou into the joy of the Lord. Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Self-Examination, Motive, and the Glory of God

Any questions? Yes. So is the correct remedy basically a summary? So self-examination, asking yourself those questions, possibly responding to the questions that reveal something about yourself and also looking ahead to the future and the truth that the Bible shares with us.

Summed up very well. Okay. And when it comes to, so in the very beginning, when you were talking about how typically the initial emotional response is wrong. So basically by asking ourselves those questions of self-examination, is that supposed to help to change the emotional response?

Yeah, to get you to view things as they really are. Okay. The whole idea is, the lesson for tonight is you have to start with self-examination and ask yourself those questions. All right. And so that you really understand where you are, how bad are things, and 99 times out of 100, they're not near as bad as you really think they are.

And if you then view yourself in light of what the Christian life is, what the promises are, what you have been saved from, and what you have been saved to, all right, that should change your whole opinion, you know, of the condition that you're in.

And once you, so your emotions will follow where your mind and your will lead you, all right, when you realize that, oh, the things aren't really as bad, you know. It's the same thing with fear, all right.

If I were to lead you to the brink of a cliff, and you look down, you say, whoa, and you hold up against the wall, but then if I show you it's actually only a painting, that was the reality of it, all right.

You're not afraid anymore, because it's a matter of truth. That's what we talk about all the time. That's why Christianity is a religion of truth. We're always going for the truth. We're not going for it by our emotions.

The emotions will follow where truth leads. Any other questions? No? Okay.