I. Attention: We Live In An Age Where Depression Runs Rampant And Suic
ide is on the rise, to what can we attribute the cause? What could possibly cause millions of people each year to give up hope? People give up because of loneliness and despair.
Preview: But despite life’s hardships there is someone who can give us hope through our despair and friendship in our loneliness.
II. Need: According to the National Depressive and Manic Depressive Association, 10 % of all teenagers between 14 – 18 suffer from depression, a total of 17.6 million people in the United States alone. Depression can have many different causes, the loss of a loved one, divorce, marital problems, grades, and break ups. The circumstances that cause depression plague suffers with feelings of hopelessness, despair, intense sadness, self doubt, low self – esteem, and little self – worth. The depressed person may consider these feelings unbearable. The ultimate culmination of loneliness and hopelessness is beyond depression. It’s final and there’s no turning back, it’s SUICIDE. People with untreated depression have a 15% suicide rate, states the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association. But there is hope for a new tomorrow with out loneliness and despair, there is hope in the healing love of Jesus Christ.
III. Satisfaction: With Jesus Christ one can have hope. He can ease your pain. Jesus claimed that He was God and He asks us to believe in Him as the Son of God. “? believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 21:31. Jesus died that we may have life, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16. Jesus Christ came to Earth with the sole purpose of dying a terrible death to free the world from their sin. Sin being, all the things we do that are not pleasing to God, because of our sin we are separated from God, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23. He died so that we may have a relationship with Him. Jesus wants us to lay our burdens at his feet. He wants us to come to Him in our need. He doesn’t wants us to ever be lonely or with out hope, He wants us to have life in Him. “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” says Jesus in Mark 11:28-30.
I know of the healing power of Jesus Christ. He has carried me through some of the toughest most trying times of my life. I came to know Christ as my best friend my freshmen year of high school. Since then my life has gone steadily down hill. Over the past three years my parents have grown increasingly more hostile towards one another, fighting constantly. I can’t tell you what it feels like to wake up in the morning knowing your parents hate each other or going to bed at night praying for them to get a divorce. As my parents relationship deteriorated so did my security and ultimately my life. My grades dropped, my friends didn’t understand, and I felt alone. Over Christmas through a certain turn of events my parents finally decided to separate. Unless you’ve been through it you can’t understand how this can destroy your world. But through it all Jesus has been there for me. He’s there for me at night when I cry myself to sleep, He’s there to pick me up when I fall, and He loves me when no one else cares. He has given me the strength to proceed.
Despite the peace that Jesus can give, people refuse to accept him as the Son of God calling him a great moral teacher and prophet but not God. Jesus did not just teach the world moral lessons, He claimed He was God. If He’s not God and his claims are false, then He wasn’t a moral teacher He was either a lair, or a lunatic. If Jesus was a lair, He knew that He wasn’t God; yet He still deceived millions of people into believing that He could give them eternal life. This would make Him a demon, if He knowingly deceived people into believing something He knew wasn’t true. If he was a lair, he was also a hypocrite because He told people to be and live honest, while he taught and lived a lie. Then He was a fool because He died for a lie. But Jesus life doesn’t support that he was a liar. “How, in the name of logic, common sense, and experience, could an imposter – that is a deceitful, selfish, depraved man – have intended, and consistently maintained from beginning to end, the purest and noblest character known in history with the most perfect air of truth and reality?” says historian Philip Scaff.
Second He could have really thought He was the Son of God, making him a lunatic. Jesus believing He was the Son of God is equivalent to someone believing that they’re a purple goose. He would be deluded and self-deceived, in modern terms, schizophrenic trying to escape reality. But in Jesus we don’t see the abnormalities and imbalance of one being deranged. People flocked to Him to hear his teachings, not many people I know flock to hear the advice of a madman. Clark H. Pinnock says, “? the skill and depth of his teaching support the case only for his total mental soundness. I only we were as sane as he!” So if He’s not a lair and He’s not a lunatic then He must have known His claims were true and that He could support them. He must have been Lord.
IV. Visualization:
Positive method: If Jesus Christ is truly the messiah then by believing in him and committing yourself to Him you will receive the fulfillment of His promise of eternal life. “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:11-12. There is no need to fear death because you can have eternal assurance of life through Christ. Heaven is an eternity in prefect union with your Creator. With salvation, Jesus’ death for our sins, we receive eternal forgiveness. No one can, out sin God. ” ? as far as the east is from the west so far has He removed our sins from us.” Psalm 103:12. As well as eternal life in heaven with God, you’re promised abundant life here on earth, Jesus says “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10. Through a personal relationship with Christ you’ll have a friend when you’re lonely, a stronghold in your weakness, and someone to catch you when you fall.
Negative method: If you believe that Christ was not the messiah and that he didn’t die on the cross to forgive us of our sins, then I ask you, where do you find your hope? You are left with only yourself for comfort in your despair. Only yourself for eternity, an eternity of eternal separation from God. “Those who do not know God ? will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of God.” 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9. The decision is your choose wisely.
V. Action: Jesus Christ can heal the heart of the depressed, filling the hole of despair. Accepting Jesus Christ is a life-changing event. It’s not just professing a belief its submitting your life to His love. It’s not just a one-time event; it’s a commitment that’s a process, to live your life for the glory of His kingdom everyday. To accept Jesus you simply ask Him to come into your heart and become a part of your life, “That if you confess with your mouth ‘ Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9. He can fill the hole in your heart.
VI. Summary: Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me” John 14:6 Jesus was not a lair, He was not a lunatic, He is Lord, and” To all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become Children of God.” John 1:12. Jesus wants to give you hope, He wants to be your friend. Jesus is the only thing that can fill the void of despair that overwhelms the depressed, He can give hope to the suicidal that feel are their hope is gone. Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will go in and eat with him, and he with Me.” Revelation 3:20. You’d have to be a lunatic to not accept.
Bibliography
Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980.
McDowell, Josh. More than a Carpenter. Illinois: Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc., 1973.
National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association. “Depression”. January 1,1999. http://www.ndmda.org/index.html January 9,1999.
New International Version. The Teen Study Bible. Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1993.
