Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located
in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship
Ministries with 3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism,
discipleship and church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church
and other sermons from throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bigford and I will be your
host for this podcast. I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing
to you and bring you closer to God.
Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. My name again is David
Bigford and I am back. We were at our Chilliwack annual conference just last weekend so I wasn't
able to get a recording in. I apologize for that but we had a great time. We had a new
church sent out to be started in West Edmonton but it will make the third church that we
have in Edmonton so that is very exciting. I am very happy to see new churches getting
planted in this mesh network of our Christian Fellowship Ministries to continue to grow
and continue to see people, disciples, raised up and sent out. I just want to send my blessings
to the new church there and I can't wait to see what they are going to do. The message
I put together today is suicidal tendencies and the subheading for it is going to be stepping
back from the ledge. The text that we will be using as our jumping off point today is
Hebrews 416 so if you are following along you can go ahead and turn there. I found this
illustration I thought would be useful here called On Being Fed Up and it is about Ralph
Barton who was a popular cartoonist from New York and he is reported to have committed
suicide leaving behind his well known and publicized confession. It says, I have had
few real difficulties. I have had on the contrary an exceptionally glamorous life. As life goes
I have had more than my share of affection and appreciation. The most charming, intelligent
and important people that I have known have liked me. I have run from my wife to wife,
from house to house and from country to country in a ridiculous effort to escape myself. No
one thing is responsible for this suicide, no person except myself. I did it because
I am fed up with inventing devices for getting through the 24 hours of a day. This is a horrible
thing to come into grips with. Suicide is something that is just one of the saddest
things that we have to deal with in our lives and humanity and when we see loved ones who
become so lost that they choose to go down this path. We know as Christians that God
the Father and Jesus our Savior desperately want us to reach out to Him and seek salvation
and for Him to relieve that burden from us and to help us. We just cry out and our hearts
go out for people dealing with depression and all of this stuff that can lead to suicidal
thoughts or tendencies. I don't say that as a disclaimer because I don't want to touch
on something that is serious. I definitely want to touch on something that is serious
and that is why I have entitled it Suicidal Tendencies because I want us to remember that
we have the opportunity to pull ourselves back from the ledge by leaning upon Christ.
In our text Hebrews 4.16 it says, Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of
grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in times of need. This is such a critical
thing for us to recognize as we grow within our relationship with our Savior because so
much of our life is spent going from pillar to post and from struggle to struggle. If
you think of Job and how he struggled so much during his time of testing it is very clear
that these are real human emotions that we have to be able to learn to deal with. We
think of it like in our terms of today and a lot of it is going on in our tumultuous
world. When I was writing this sermon it was just after there was an assassination attempt
made on a former President Donald Trump. Whenever something like this happens there is this
race to get details. That usually brings out the weirdest of theories and the most inaccurate
of reporting imaginable. This is a lot like our daily walk with God. We will be going
through our day to day life and then just boom, just like that something hits us out
of nowhere. In these moments we have to make choices. Are we going to stand in faith or
are we going to cave to all the craziness and most self-defeating ideas that are floating
through our minds. Often in life we are torn in two by our burdens. All of the responsibilities
that we have in life and the responsibilities that we take on ourselves can be overwhelming.
The weight can just be a huge burden to bear. We can find ourselves crying out for escape
or release from these responsibilities. This can create a situation where people are willing
to sabotage their lives with the misdirected goal of gaining freedom. We might tell ourselves
it's time to just hit the self-destruct button. This brings me up to our first point of the
morning or the evening whenever you are listening. It is poison of the mind. Expectations are
huge and people have expectations of happiness and emotional fulfillment on a day to day
basis and that can become something that is very unrealistic. Not every day is going to
go as smoothly or as perfectly as we hope. We are all going to have our struggles. When
you are down and out or bored it is usually because you have high standards. It can be
easy to find yourself dealing with dissatisfaction, boredom, wanting more, hoping for something
better or greater. Here is an excerpt from an article I found. This article deals with
the reality that some of the ministry will knowingly or unknowingly decide to sabotage
their own ministry because of poisonous thoughts that they have allowed to grow and fester
in their minds. The title of this article is Why Do Some Pastors Sabotage Their Own
Ministries? It is written by a guy named Stephen or Stefan Woodsworth. As caring new will reflects,
failure is sometimes the quickest escape. When I first started out in the ministry I
had met with a pastor who had just had to resign because of an affair. He was 20 years
my senior and we had met for lunch. I asked him why he had an affair and he told me in
part it was because he couldn't handle the pressure of ministry anymore but couldn't
find an easy way to get out. The affair forced him out. Years later I would discover the
pain of burnout personally. Again this is from a different person. This is an article
I'm reading. If I was so burnt out that an escape from my life looked appealing but by
the grace of God I knew enough to keep my head in the game even though my heart had
stopped working. As a result during my darkest months I kept saying to myself whatever you
do don't do anything rash, don't cheat on your wife, don't quit your job, and don't
buy a sports car. And the simplest term self-sabotage or self-defeating behavior includes any behavior
that undermines a person's own goals. Psychologist Ellen Hendrickson suggests that among other
reasons many people self-sabotage because it gives them a feeling of control over their
situation. She notes it feels better to control your own failure at least when you're steering
the ship. Going down in flames feels more like a well-maintained burn. As the article
goes along it describes that some will sell will sabotage themselves due to insecurity.
They say that this can be described as imposter syndrome. Feeling like a fraud can easily
lead you towards procrastination or diversion. When faced with a task that makes you feel
like a phony it's tempting or alluring to start some kind of other project or busy work.
So I can recognize this in my own life. It manifests in many different ways. I know I
have to do X but instead I'll go or clean or organize or cook or do any number of things
instead of what I know I should be doing. This always happens around tax time too if
I can admit that because who wants to sit down and try to deal with federal forms? It's
probably one of the most arduous boring and painful things that you can imagine doing
but it has to be done but we will put it off because we don't want to get it we don't want
to face that. It makes you feel insignificant or phony because you're like wow what is this
form how hard this is such a difficult form how do they expect me to do any of this stuff?
So we always find ways to avoid it but others will still will sabotage to try and gain some
sort of equilibrium. We all battle the feelings of inadequacy from time to time and in those
moments we might look to the ledge and think that it is the easiest way out. We need to
remember that God has our best interests at heart but these feelings are not new or unique
to us. The Bible gives us many examples of those who have dealt with similar feelings
and struggles. Even our Lord Jesus had to go through emotional and physical battles
in Jeremiah 29 11 we read for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans for
welfare and not for evil to give you a future and hope. So as I was putting this message
together together I found this prayer that I'm going to share with you because I believe
it helps us to reframe our thoughts in a way that will help move us along to my next point.
It says here Father you would reassure that you have plans to give me a hope and a future
Jeremiah 29 11 but I feel as though my days have no meaning. Job 7 15 through 16. Holy
Spirit I invite your truth to sink into the sorrow soaked places of my heart and mind.
Jesus in your darkest valley you experienced emotional language and wept tears of blood.
I know you understand my pain and that you promise life abundantly like what is written
in John 10 10 but the one who comes to steal kill and destroy taunts me with the untruth
that is all there is to life. I cry out to you. I do believe help my unbelief as you
tell us in Mark 9 24. Today I lay my pain at your feet as a living sacrifice. Help me
to take every thought captive like you tell us to in 2nd Corinthians 10 5 and by your
strength choose life in the powerful name of Jesus Christ. Amen. So this brings me to
my next point which is gratitude. You have to get back to gratitude. You have to strive
to be content. Being content is not the same as being complacent. You have to actively
remind yourself of your blessings. You have to remember that your Father in heaven cares
deeply for you. I know this is a hard thing for us to understand. It can be a harder thing
for us to conceptualize or to put into practice but you do have the ability to focus on the
good rather than the bad. To focus on the good direction God has for you rather than
maybe the negative direction you've gone in the past or that you feel like you're on now.
That's why the importance of reading the word of God is so powerful in praying and just
really sitting in meditation of the word of God. So in this in guidepost there's this
article I came across from Ronald Pinkerton where he describes a near accident he had
while hang gliding. He had launched his hang glider and been forcefully lifted up to 4,200
feet into the air and as he was descending he was suddenly hit by a powerful new blast
of air that sent his hang glider plummeting towards the ground. He says I was falling
at an alarming rate trapped in an airborne riptide. I was going to crash. Then I saw
a red-tailed hawk he says. He was six feet off my wingtip fighting the same gust. I was
looking down at 300 feet from the ground and still falling fast. The trees below seemed
like menacing pikes. He looked at the hawk again. Suddenly he banked and flew straight
down straight downwind downwind straight down. The right air is anywhere. It's got to be
up when he's telling himself. So he's thinking that during this tale that the hawk is willing
is committing suicide. Two hundred feet come up from no from out of nowhere. The thought
entered his mind. Follow the hawk. It went against everything he knew about flying but
now all of his knowledge was useless. He was at the mercy of the wind. He followed the
hawk 100 feet and then all of a sudden suddenly the hawk gained altitude for a split second
it seemed to be suspended motionless in space. Then a warm surge of air started pushing the
glider upward. He was stunned. Nothing he knew as a pilot could explain this phenomenon.
But it was true. He was rising on on occasion. We also deal with these similar downdrafts
in our lives and the reversals in our fortune the humiliating experiences. We want to lift
ourselves up but God's word like the red-tailed hawk tells us to do just the opposite. God's
word tells us to dive in to humble ourselves under the hand of God. If we humble ourselves
God will send the thermal wind that will lift us up. I really like this story when I was
a in middle school in California at sixth and seventh grade I believe I was part of
a model. It was a glider club so it wasn't remote control planes. They didn't have engines
these remote control gliders. You have to use a tow line to get this this glider up
into the air or you had to throw it off a cliff. Having faith that when you throw it
off this big huge cliff you're going to be able to catch the thermals to be able to get
the glider up in the air. You're going to circle it up into a thermal just like in our
story which the thermal is pretty simple it's just a warmer chamber of air that's kind of
coming up off the ground and allows you to get better lift. But you you fly this glider
around in the air like this hang glider and if you hit a cold patch of air you start losing
altitude and you have to kind of try to you know dive down and try to catch another thermal
otherwise your flight is over. Now with us we were in big fields or we were able to land
these gliders whenever we wanted to but it's still like you had to know what to look for
you had to watch if there were birds around what they were doing so that you could gauge
what was going on. It's like in this tale we have to humble ourselves and know that
God has something better for us and just because we hit a cold patch it doesn't mean that there
isn't something better on the horizon. Luke 18 9 through 14 says he also told this parable
to some who trust in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.
Two men went up into the temple to pray one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus God I thank you that I am not like other men
extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. Fast I fast twice
a week I give tithes of all that I get but the tax collector standing far off would not
even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying God be merciful to me a sinner.
I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other man for everyone
who exalts himself will be humbled but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. James
410 says humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. These are powerful
pieces of scripture that highlight to us the problems that we run into when we are dealing
with these other words, these thoughts that come into our head they often times try to
get you to be lofted up because it's easy to knock you down from pride but when we remain
humble humbly before the Lord we can battle against this. We can battle against this.
In Philippians 418 it says finally brothers whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever
is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence,
if there is anything worthy of praise think about these things. Dr. Daniel Amon calls
negative thoughts ants, A-N-T-S, shorthand for automatic negative thoughts. Just as we
would like we would take action to remove actual ants in our space we should intentionally
remove negative thoughts from our headspace. But why is it important to break the cycle
of negative thinking in the first place and how do we get rid of negative thoughts? Negative
thought patterns steal our joy. They feed us lies and keep us from rightly worshiping
God. Have you ever noticed that it's much easier to see what is wrong in the world than
what is right? We can't help but see how our spouse loads the dishwasher imperfectly
or you know we hate how that person in front of us pushes the brakes before moving into
the turn lane. It irks us when we don't quite compare with the other moms or dads at school.
All day we are bombarded with thoughts and if left unchecked we become anxious and discontent.
Negative thinking turns into anxiety creating a compound effect that makes us feel more
and more defeated. How do we get rid of these negative thoughts? God doesn't want us to
exist this way. He doesn't want us to be hyper focused on all that is broken in the world.
He knows we enjoy life and our relationships more fully when we praise him. That's why
he calls us to lean on him to praise him. How do we eliminate the ants then? The truth
is we won't be able to get rid ourselves of all these toxic thoughts completely. But
we can practice breaking the cycle. We can imagine putting a giant barrier in the middle
of a stream of ants to reroute them back outside where they belong. We do this by following
Paul's commandment in Philippians 418. Instead of ruminating in all the ways life isn't
measuring up, how life isn't perfect, we can think about what is true, what is honorable,
what is lovely, what is pure, the admirable things. We dwell in the things that are excellent
and worthy of our praise. This first can serve as a litmus test when you notice negative
thoughts. You can ask, is this true? Is this worthy of my time, my attention? We can ask
God to help us to notice what is true, honorable, pure, and lovely. And as we notice those things,
we can thank God for them. We can find our joy in his presence. In Psalm 1611 it says,
You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is a fullness of joy.
At your right hand are the pleasures forevermore. No one likes when ants get into the house,
and neither should we tolerate ants in our minds. By understanding how negative thinking
harms our souls and intercepting those with better thoughts, we can finally break the
cycle of negative thinking. One of the ways you can deal with this in your own life is
you can make a gratitude list. What we started today in church is we actually put out a prayer
list. I got this from one of the pastors in our fellowship, Dean Dumont in the Hope Church.
We put out a prayer list so that we can write out our prayers, the things that we need so
that each of us can ask for prayer. But we can also check off and say that's an answered
prayer. So that as we create this list, we're going to see not only the needs that we can
bear together in Jesus' name as a church body, but also we can praise God and glorify God
for the answers to prayers as they come through. Such a powerful thing. I really commend Pastor
Dean Dumont for putting that together. It was something that was really neat. I don't
know if it was his idea or someone in his church's, but I know he listens to podcasts
and I really appreciated learning that. It was a really cool thing to see.
With a gratitude list, there's something similar that we can do for ourselves. So when you're
all doing your own prayer list, when you're doing your own prayer, you can thank God for
the things that he has done because this will help you to increase in joy. Because as you
think about what is good, you train your mind to notice more and more of what is good and
lovely in your life. That brings me to my final point, which is redirecting your attitude.
As Christians, we need to direct our focus on those around us. We need to look to service
others. I use this analogy in sales quite a bit because I've worked in sales for a number
of years and it's been pretty interesting what you come across with different people.
I actually tell my boss this quite a bit. When a salesperson is getting depressed, it's
because they are not out visiting their customers. They're not out there looking to others and
how they could be a service to those they are supposed to be serving. You need to get
back out into the front line. You need to go look at the lives that are changed by the
gospel of Jesus Christ. Just like at sales, if you go out and you're actually going with
a servant's heart to help somebody, then you can go back to those people time and time
again and they'll bring you joy because you know you've done the best that you can for
them.
So as you bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to people and you see lives change, then when
you look back on that, it will bring you joy.
So there's another article I found from Camilla Klein, Discover the Importance of Christian
Service for Your Spiritual Growth. It says, Christian service is more than just volunteering
or helping out in the community. It's about living out the teachings of Jesus and putting
your faith into action. Service is at the core of what it means to be a Christian and
it's an important aspect of spiritual growth and sustainment. Through service, we can show
God's love to others and make a positive impact on the world. It is an opportunity to use
our gifts and talents and to serve others to bring glory to God. Matthew 25, 40 says,
And the King will answer them. Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least
of these, my brothers, you did it to me. Christian service is also an act of humility. It allows
us to put others before ourselves and to recognize that we are all equal in God's eyes. It's
a way to step outside of our own needs and desires and to focus in on the needs of others.
By serving others, we can also experience a sense of joy and fulfillment. There's something
powerful about helping someone in need and it can bring a sense of purpose to our lives.
As Mother Teresa once said, I found the paradox that if you love until it hurts, there can
be no more hurt, only more love. Ultimately, Christian service is about following the example
of Jesus. Through his life, Jesus showed us how to love and serve others and his ultimate
act of service was giving his life on the cross for our sins. As his followers, we are
called to follow in his footsteps and serve others with humility and love. So as we come
to a close, I want to take a minute to recap and reconstitute this message. We all have
to battle negative thoughts and we have all found ourselves standing on a ledge emotionally
from time to time. It is important to understand that this is not an unexpected occurrence.
We live in a fallen world. Sin permeates and corrupts all of creation. That is why God
through his Holy Spirit has provided us with the word and our savior, Jesus Christ. Throughout
the Bible, we read about leaders of our faith that are being tested. Tales of trial and
calamity, success and failure fill the pages of the Bible. The story of Job is there for
us when we are going through tough, tough times. But we also have lamentations and psalms
and many other places that we can look at when we are struggling because we have to
understand those are real feelings. Even our Lord Jesus Christ had to deal with extreme
anguish when he came to earth. The sacrifice of our Lord, our God Jesus Christ is also
a picture of humility and something that we should not take lightly. We need to reframe
our negative thoughts into the gratitude for what he did for us. We need to stop this cycle
of negative thoughts and refocus on the many blessings that we have in the Lord. The sacrifice
that he has made for us and that others make for us as well. Finally, the lesson we learned
from our Lord Jesus to get back out to the front line. We need to learn from his example
and serve those around us. We need to take part in the Great Commission and focus our
efforts on the kingdom. Sometimes you might hear me or others say that you need to learn
to enjoy the process rather than just looking for the result. This simply means that there
are times in life when it might seem like it is all for nothing. But those thoughts
are lies. Just like when you plant a seed, you can see what is happening. You will water
the seed for days and still nothing is happening. But eventually you will see this tiny little
sprout. Even then, it might be years before it bears any fruit. So in final closing, when
you think of a cultivated pearl, these are the pearls that are kept in captivity basically
to create cultivated pearls. They typically create pearls faster than those that are created
in nature. But even then, even with the irritant placed inside of the pearl so that they will
produce the pearl in itself, it takes up to four years before those pearls can become
harvestable. Four years of nothing for the payoff that comes with the pearl. So with
that, if I could have every head bowed, every eye closed, the reality is that we already
have the precious pearl. And that is our Lord Jesus Christ and the sacrifice that he made
on the cross at Calvary for us. He already died for us. He already rose from the grave
so that we could accept grace in his name and be saved by the blood of the Lamb. That
is the pearl, the precious, precious pearl of the gospel. So with that in mind, if you
know you're not right with God today and this message has stirred you and you want to get
your heart right, you want to give your life to Jesus Christ, maybe you're on the ledge
and you see just the glimmer of hope, I want you to grab a hold of that because that hope's
name is Jesus. Jesus Christ died for you, my friend, just like he died for me and saved
me from a life of anger and drunkenness. He can do the same for you. He can pull you back
off that ledge. But don't let the moment pass. If that's you and you know that your heart's
not right and you're feeling convicted, I want you to signify that with an uplifted
hand wherever you are because God can see it. God sees everything. If you rose your
hand and you meant that, I want you just to repeat this simple prayer. It's just a confession
basically of what we talked about already. But just say, Dear Lord God, I know that I'm
a sinner, but I know that you sent your son Jesus, that he died for my sins. I accept
him as my Lord and savior and I repent. I turn away from my sins in Jesus name. Amen.
That simple prayer is just a confession of your sin. It's a humility. Know in the knowledge
that you need Jesus to be your savior. If you prayed that, I just wish I really pray
that you reach out to me, reach out to one of us and we'll get back to you. We can help
get you in contact with the church because that's really what the church is there for
us so that we all bond together so that we can grow in Jesus name. But I really want
to commend you for taking that leap of faith to step back from the ledge, but now to rely
on Jesus as your Lord and savior. So again, thank you for listening to this message today
and we're going to go ahead and get going here and I just want to thank everybody for
listening. Make sure you like, share and subscribe to podcasts. It helps us get the message out
and again, God bless you. Can't wait for you to come back next time.
Thank you for listening to the P.H.S.A. Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. Be sure to follow
us on Instagram at pottershouse underscore salmon arm to keep up to date on what we're
doing. Join the conversation and discover how Jesus Christ can revolutionize your life.