Grace Thoughts

Guest (Male): God loves you. Hello friends, welcome to Grace Thoughts, the radio ministry of Grace Connection Church with Pastor Tim Kelley. Grace Thoughts has been dedicated to preaching a clear gospel of grace for over 20 years. Here is Pastor Kelley.

Tim Kelley: Psalm 139. We were created in the Garden of Eden as Adam and Eve not only physically perfect—and they, of course, were physically perfect with no disease—but they were also created emotionally perfect and psychologically perfect. There was no stress in the Garden of Eden. There was no grief in the Garden of Eden. There was no worry in the Garden of Eden. There was no poor self-esteem in the Garden of Eden. They were absolutely physically, mentally, and emotionally perfect.

Yet now we live in this world, planet Earth, in a fallen state with iPhones, which bring a lot of peace into our life, don't they? I know my phone, my phone's just like, "Oh, I'm so happy I have my iPhone. It brings peace into my life." No, it causes me to tighten my nerves all the time. That's what it does.

We live in a world that's a struggle. It's a struggle, especially in America, to maintain a mental and emotional balance, isn't it? It's hard. It's difficult. There are so many ups and downs and different things that happen. Now, we're going to talk a little bit about, obviously, we'll just get into the message here and I'll apologize all later.

It seems to me as a Christian, and this is something I've tried to mold my life around, I believe the answer for my life is found in my faith and my faith is answered in that cross and what happened on that cross. I don't say that to be heroic. I say that's really how my mind works. If I'm facing something in my life, whatever that something is—in here, out here, in here, whatever that is—then this is the point where I go if I'm going to cope with this, if I'm going to deal with this, think my way through this. That's where I go. I start there because that's my answer: my faith.

I remember going through a very dark time in my life about 10 years ago and ministry stuff going on. I remember my daughter Hannah had kicked me out of bed and I was in her room then with the princess pillows. I remember just staying there watching the ceiling fan going. I was just counting, "Maybe if I count them, I'll go to sleep. Maybe that's what I'll do." So I'd count one, two, three, four, five. It was on slow.

Then I remember saying to God, "God, I preach this gospel, I believe this gospel, it better be real because I need it to work for me now." That was my starting point. I looked to my faith to find my answer. Now with that said, in 2020, depression will be the second greatest killer in the world. There is so much fear in the world and all you have to do is watch the news to get a little fearful.

There are so many issues going on within families. Depression will be the second greatest killer in the world. The average teenager today deals with the same stress level that the institutionalized teen had in the 1950s. I'll say that again. The average teen today deals with the same stress that the institutionalized had in the 1950s.

35% of the young adults in our zip code, 33707, are from single homes. I'm not criticizing that, I'm not pointing fingers and anything like that. Shut that phone off, please. Thank you. My goodness, I know who it was. It's probably just calling in a pizza. Yeah, get out of here and answer it and make it a pepperoni, if you will. I'll be here after church.

But where was I before that funny little ring went off? Oh, yeah, 35% are single parents. That means out of all those children, one out of three either lost a parent, were born to a single-parent home, or lost a parent through divorce or death in their lifetime. I've talked with children that have gone through divorce and it's never pretty and it's always hard. So again, the average teen today deals with the same stress that the institutionalized had in the 1950s.

Now let me just say this before we dive more into the message. If the doctor prescribed medications for you, take them. I'll rephrase this again. I beg you to take them because I don't have enough hours in the day to meet with you if you don't take them. I preach messages like this and people say, "That's it, I'm going to believe God, I'm going to trust God, I'm going to throw my medications." That's the toilet flushing.

No, don't do that. If the doctor prescribed them, take them. It's okay. You're just as great of a Christian as anyone else. You're just as holy, just as sacred, just as spiritual. There's no detraction on your life. There's nothing speaking against you because there are different reasons why people take them.

There's a dear person in our church who has a TBI, traumatic brain injury. This person needs to take something. My wife for years and in the 90s, and she was married to me, think of this. She was married to me and she was depressed. How would that happen? You thought she might have been the happiest woman in the world. You thought she would have skipped around the house, "Look at my husband!"

That's how I would be if I was her, being married to me. That's how I thought anyway. But she battled depression. How was she depressed? Why was she depressed? Was it obvious she wasn't spiritual? She didn't read her Bible. She did read her Bible every day. She read it more than I read it. She listened to preaching every day. She heard more than I heard.

What was the problem? We found out with a blood test. She was severely anemic. Her hemoglobin was a seven, it should be about 13. She had about half the red blood cells in her body and it caused her migraine headaches and it caused her depression. So with my great faith, I laid hands on her, prayed, and gave her iron.

Not sure my prayer worked, but the iron worked and the depression got better and lifted until now she's depressed because of me. But back then, it was the iron that caused it. So there's lots of reasons. Hormonal things. Maybe you're a lady who's gone through menopause. Guys, I know, I feel your pain. I mean, it's hard. It's a long road.

But maybe that's why your body changes. I'm not saying these things to ever throw a heap on things. I understand life. I understand there's real stuff. That's not the purpose of this message to make anyone feel like they are unspiritual because they have to take this or don't take that or whatever that is.

So with that said, and I'll probably come back and revisit that in a little bit, how do we combat as a Christian? Forget about the meds. Maybe that's part of your life, maybe that's not. How do we combat fear, self-consciousness, self-condemnation, introspection? In some cases, depression. Not all cases. I wouldn't even think most cases. But how do we battle, especially if the depression is caused from circumstances more than biological issues?

Let's read Psalm 139 verse 13. "You alone created my inner being. You knitted me together inside my mother. I'll give thanks to you because I have been so amazingly and miraculously made. Your works are miraculous and my soul is fully aware of this. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was being skillfully woven in an underground workshop." Isn't that great?

"Your eyes saw me when I was only a fetus. Every day of my life was recorded in your book before one of them had even taken place." So this sort of dovetails right into what we said at the very beginning. We were created perfectly: emotionally, psychologically, physically perfectly. So if that's the case and we understand sin came into the human race, but we also understand that the remedy for sin was this cross, then I want to have a starting point when I deal with the effects of sin in my life.

The mental and emotional and, in some cases, physical effects of sin. Sometimes I think we accept a mental, emotional, or psychological condition without ever applying our faith to it. Now, some have issues and they do apply their faith and they still battle with those issues. Amen. Keep in the race, you're doing good. Keep the Bible open, keep practicing your faith. God may deliver you from these things, He may not. Trust me, I've seen it go both ways more times than I could even count.

Let me give you a picture of how this works a little bit. This is sort of an odd illustration used, but I think it's illustrative and I think it's important for us in 2015 Christians to understand this principle. The story of Jacob and Laban. Laban was Jacob's uncle. Jacob travels there, sees Laban's daughter Rachel, and he likes Rachel a lot. He says, "I'll work seven years if I can have Rachel as my wife."

"Okay," Laban's a great uncle that he was. "Okay, yeah, work seven years." At the seven years, now I don't know how this really happened, I don't understand this, but somehow he snuck Leah in there instead of Rachel. So Jacob woke up the day after they got married and said, "Whoa! What happened to Rachel? This is your sister, Leah." Oops. Well, you're married to her now, brother.

So he goes back to Laban. "You tricked me!" Laban says, "Look, I'll give you Rachel now." So he marries both sisters in like a week. Tough job. Then he says, "But you get seven more years of labor for me." So we're at the end of the seven years and Jacob is negotiating his severance package. He says, "I'm getting ready to leave, I'm taking my kids, I'm taking Rachel and Leah, we're heading out of town."

So this is the plan. Let me read you the whole account here, Genesis 30. "What wages do you want?" Laban asked again. Jacob replied, "Don't give me anything, just do this one thing and I'll continue to tend and watch over your flocks. Let me inspect your flocks today and remove all the sheep and the goats that are speckled or spotted along with all the black sheep. Give these to me as your wages."

So instead of giving me anything, let me go into your flocks. I'll just get the speckled ones and the spotted ones and the black sheep and that's what I'll take. Laban's like, "All right. In the future, when you check the animals you have given me as my wages, you'll see that I have been honest. If you find in my flock any goats without speckles or spots or any sheep that are not black, you'll know that I have stolen them from you." "All right," Laban replied, "it will be as you say. Deal."

That sounds good to me. "All I've got to do is look at my flock, you'll all be speckled and spotted or black and then I'll know that they're mine. If you find any other ones in there, Laban, you'll know I stole them from you and I'll be guilty." But that very day, good old Uncle Laban went out and removed the male goats that were streaked and spotted, all the female goats that were speckled and spotted or had white patches, and all the black sheep and he placed them in the care of his own sons.

Took his sons away. "Hey, get all these sheep!" He goes and takes them three days journey from where Jacob was. Meanwhile, Jacob stayed and cared for the rest of Laban's flock. Don't worry about Jacob, he had things under control. Then Jacob took some fresh branches from the poplar, almond, and plane trees and peeled off strips of bark, making white streaks on them.

Then he placed these peeled branches in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, for that was where they mated. And when they mated in front of the white-streaked branches, they gave birth to young that were streaked, speckled, and spotted. Jacob separated those lambs from Laban's flock.

I don't know how this works. If you know how it works, you're probably a homeschool parent. But I don't know how this works. They looked at this and all—let me finish reading. Jacob separated those lambs from Laban's flock and at mating time, he turned the flock to face Laban's animals that were streaked or black. This is how he built his own flock instead of increasing Laban's.

Whenever the stronger females were ready to mate, Jacob would place the peeled branches in the watering troughs in front of them and they'd mate in front of the branches. So what he did—I'll just explain what he did. Here's a watering trough and they're ready to mate. He took these speckled and spotted branches, put them in the trough. So when they're mating and they're looking at these speckled and spotted things, their little lambs came out speckled and spotted.

How's that work? I'm not going to say any more about this because this could go way south really quick, this whole conversation. But it was amazing that it worked. Now there's a principle that I want to bring out here. The principle is this: what we set before us on the outside matters what happens on the inside. There.

Guest (Male): God loves you.