By Pastor Bob Rasmussen
Good morning to all of you here at JAM and to those watching online on Facebook, YouTube, and our website.
PSA: This morning, I am going to talk about some things, so I want to give some folks a heads-up. There may be some things we discuss that would be considered triggers.
A trigger in a “trigger warning” is a stimulus—such as a word, image, sound, or situation—that unexpectedly reminds a person of a past traumatic experience and provokes an intense emotional or physical reaction.
I will touch on things like cutting, mental illness, and addiction.
I have posted some support numbers and websites on our social media if you need some help in those areas.
If you are in a mental health crisis or having thoughts of suicide, you can call 988, you can text 988 or you can even chat …0f—at chat.988lifeline.org.
If you are struggling with addiction or substance abuse, you can call 800.662.HELP or 800.662.4357.
I will be putting up another post with that information this afternoon. OK, let’s pray.
This morning I would like to speak on mental health in general. People with mental health issues or addiction issues carry something unique, in a sense – what they are enduring is not outwardly visible, and we cannot see the weight of what they carry.
The statistics are shocking!
- Recent national reporting shows that 23.1% of U.S. adults—about 59.3 million people—live with a diagnosable mental illness, and young adults ages 18–25 experience the highest rates at 36.2%. Nearly one in three adolescents report symptoms of anxiety or depression.
- Over 49,000 Americans died by suicide in 2022, the highest number ever recorded. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for ages 10–14 and 20–34. Emergency departments report sharp increases in self‑harm, with cutting being the most common form of non‑fatal self‑injury, especially among teenage girls, who have seen a nearly 50% rise in self‑harm ER visits over the past decade.
As we gather here in this room, the person sitting next to you might be going through one or several things; they sing praises to God, they pray, and they greet you with a hello.
But what we do not see is that they have not slept because their mind never stops and will not be still. Maybe they gave in to an urge that they know is wrong but cannot help themselves because of addiction. Maybe the only way they have gotten out of bed for the last six months is by sheer will, but they are completely exhausted from the dark that weighs them down.
Maybe they cut themselves, even though they promised themselves it would never happen again – and the same old feelings of guilt and shame wash over them, and it is exhausting.
Psalm 42:5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. 6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me:
We live in a fallen world, a world with sickness and disease. Just turn on the evening news and that can be enough. But clinical depression is a very real thing.
Let me make one more thing very clear. I believe in doctors and therapists; they can help. I have no special knowledge of the brain and how it works. That is their job.
I also believe medications can help, and if they do, keep taking them. Science moves very fast and new discoveries are made every day.
Here at JAM we have had a professional come in and speak on mental health issues a couple of times. If therapy works, keep doing it.
But I also believe in a healer, who I have seen do the impossible, cure the incurable, and bring light into the darkness.
John 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
He said there would be trouble; He never promised a rose garden. And I think that when these issues come up, and we endure them, it can be very isolating; it makes us feel alone, and it may make us feel weird or different from everyone else.
- And you know who likes it when we close ourselves off and isolate ourselves from everyone and God Himself? The enemy!
- And because Jesus is Jesus, He knew we would need encouragement with whatever battle we are fighting.
Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
So, no matter what you are struggling with, I firmly believe that Jesus sees you and can be there with you, even when you do not feel it.
- This was a very hard lesson for me to understand in the beginning of my walk with Jesus. There were seasons and moments where I really needed Him, but I did not feel Him in that moment. When the truth was the opposite.
- There are moments when God has felt incredibly close. I would pray, read the Word, worship, and feel connected to God. And then something would come up, and I would feel nothing.
- I would pray, and He seemed silent. I read the Word, and it was just words, and I would wonder, God, where are you?
- Luckily, not feeling God does not mean He is not there. God’s presence cannot be measured by my feelings. We are emotional beings, and our feelings change from moment to moment.
- But God’s faithfulness does not change. You may not feel Him, but He is still with you. You may not hear Him, but He has not abandoned you. You may not know what He is doing, but He is still working.
Psalm 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God:
And because of His Word I know that whatever struggle we are going through, He knows and understands this for every single one of us whether it is cutting, or depression, anxiety, addiction, panic – He knows all about it.
Psalm 139:1 O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. 2 Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. 3 Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. 4 For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.
That is why for me, I must stop, wait, be still, and remind myself that He knows everything that is going on with me. He knows when I get up in the morning, and all this last week it was early. He knows what I am going through; He knows it all.
- Everyone’s journey is different, but for those of us who have received Him as Lord and Savior, we all have the same God and His Word applies to all of us – each and every single one of us.
- And I understand how difficult it can be to wait. Waiting to be healed from depression or anxiety. Waiting to get relief from the trauma and the pain that drives oneself to cut, to take away the pain you do not want to endure. To sit silent and invisible as you fight another day of depression that clouds most of your thoughts.
- There was a man in the Bible who experienced that too:
- In John Chapter 5 there is a pool, a pool of healing called Bethesda.
- John 5:4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. 5 And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
Let that sink in a moment, 38 years. 38 years of waiting. 38 years of watching everyone else getting healed. 38 years of hoping and being disappointed, 38 years of waking up to the same disease that made him lame.
John 5:6 When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole?
Notice that when Jesus saw the man, He knew that that man had been ill for 38 years. This is confirmation that the Lord knows how long you have been dealing with whatever issue you may be going through.
John 5:7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
He was invisible to those around him. He was alone. He had some hope, but no help. In his mind, the healing he needed was only going to come by the way of the pool. And then:
John 5:8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. 9 And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
Praise the Lord, the man was healed by Jesus and rose up and walked. Praise God.
So I ask you this morning, are you still carrying your 38 years? Have you been beside the pool so long that you are starting to believe you can’t be healed? Do you feel that there is no one there to help, like the man at Bethesda? Do you feel that kind of healing isn’t possible for you?
I get it. I do. Some of the problems come from the church. I have been to churches that made you feel that what you are going through is your fault. That there is some kind of sin in your life, so you brought it on yourself. That God is punishing you. Garbage!
Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Shame on churches that have done this, shame on them. No condemnation; our God is about grace. That is the posture of Jesus and we should be like Him and show people the same grace that we receive. That is why in this church you are safe, you are seen, and you are welcome here.
And He sees you. His name is El Roi – the God who sees me.
It means that there is no corner of darkness where God does not see. It means He sees every single person in the grip of addiction at three o’clock in the morning, shaking and ashamed, certain that no one could ever understand what they are going through. He sees them. He saw me! He sees you.
It means He sees the one who is so gripped by depression that getting out of bed feels like climbing a mountain, who has not told anyone because they do not know how to explain what it feels like to be swallowed by a darkness so heavy it is hard to carry. He sees them.
He sees the family member who has covered for a loved one in crisis, ashamed, who has wept in secret, who is tired and scared and losing hope.
He sees the man or woman, the boy or girl who takes something sharp and uses it to cut their own flesh, to take away the emotional pain of the moment or trauma in the past, whatever the reason; El Roi sees every one of them.
And He is not watching from someplace far, far away. What does the Word say? Not our feelings; the Word says this:
Psalm 34:17 The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. 18 The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
Nigh means near. He draws near to those with a broken heart. Not away, close – close to those who are hurting, close to those who are struggling – close to those who are ashamed. Those who think they are broken. And He is inviting you this very morning.
Matthew 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Don’t get perfect and then come. Not clean and sober and then come. Not mentally healthy and then come. Not healed from the scars of your cutting and then come.
Come as you are – depressed, broken, addicted, anxious, afraid, hungover, or even cut —PAUSE – just come to Him.
There is this temptation, when we preach on healing and deliverance, to give people the impression that the path from suffering to healing is a straight line — that the moment you pray the right prayer, or believe with sufficient faith, the clouds will part and the darkness will never return.
I would love to tell you that is the truth, but more often than not, it is not always true, and when it fails to match your expectation, it will leave you more broken than before. The truth is more honest, and ultimately more beautiful: healing is often a journey. Recovery is often a process. Wholeness may look different than you imagined, and it may come more slowly than you hoped. But in every single step of that journey, God is faithful with you through it.
Hebrews 6:19 Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;
The bible is speaking of the hope we have in Jesus Christ and uses an image of extraordinary power. He calls that hope “an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast.”
And do not think about an anchor for a little boat. Think like this:
An anchor does not prevent the storm. An anchor does not still the waves. An anchor does not stop the wind. What an anchor does is hold — it keeps the ship from being driven onto the rocks when the winds are at their worst. That is what the hope of God does for us in the middle of our suffering. It holds. When the waves of depression crash and the winds of craving drugs, alcohol, or cutting scream, the anchor holds. The God of hope Himself, by the power of His Holy Spirit, fills us — even in the middle of the storm — with a joy and peace that the world cannot give, understand, and circumstances cannot steal:
Romans 15:13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
There is one argument that I would like to address that I have heard. That the challenges of today- mental illness, addiction, cutting- are all new to God, or that somehow, they are not explicitly in the Bible.
First, you need to open your eyes to how big and powerful our God is – that’s another sermon.
We are going to look at Mark Chapter 5
Jesus takes a boat, and when He comes out of the ship, He sees a man with problems, an unclean spirit.
Mark 5:3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: 4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. 5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.
Jesus sees you if this is what you struggle with. It is not new to him. God understands it. He sees you. And look what He did! In this event, He casts out the unclean spirits out of the man into some swine and they jump into the sea. And the result is this:
Mark 5:15 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.
Imagine what He can do for you.
But preacher, you do not understand, really, I do
- Practical examples
- Panic Disorder
- History, treatments, over medicated, fear
- 2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
- Addiction to drugs
- Treatment, 12 steps, ID in the program of NA to a new Identity in Jesus
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
- Panic Disorder
Revelation 21: 4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Think of this cracked plate. It may be cracked, but it can STILL be FILLED!
Broken plate filled – God can fill you, and you can serve Him
Broken phone still shares – our scars do not stop our testimony
Broken instrument still praises; still see the scar, but still able to praise
I would be remiss if I did not say He may not heal you here; he may heal you there.
No matter what your journey, stay with Him. I do not know why He heals this one or that one; maybe I will ask Him – but I do know this: the path is always better with Him, and there are no more scars in heaven.
Being diagnosed does not mean you cannot be filled. Being broken does not mean you cannot share the love of Christ. And going through whatever you are going through, scars and all, does not mean you cannot praise Him.
He is near you, He sees you, and He loves you. And His healing touch is here and now; praise the Lord! Don’t give up; He will not give up on you.
Let us praise Him now!
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