When Does Despondency Become Sin?
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00:00:04.000 | Welcome back on this Friday. Last time we were together on Wednesday, we looked at Psalm 77.
00:00:11.000 | Asaph, the author of the psalm, was deeply despondent. So despondent, he couldn't even sleep.
00:00:19.000 | That's what he says in verse 4.
00:00:22.000 | There are physical dimensions to despondency, and we're going to look at that today in this episode,
00:00:28.000 | and what to do when despondency hits.
00:00:31.000 | It's another episode we recorded live in Nashville. Here it is.
00:00:36.000 | We got an email from an anonymous woman who asked this.
00:00:38.000 | Pastor John, hello. In a previous episode of this podcast, back in 2018, in APJ 1157,
00:00:45.000 | you mentioned at the very end of the episode, in a brief little mention, "the sin of despondency."
00:00:52.000 | I've never heard that before. Can you explain what that is?
00:00:55.000 | What is despondency, and why is it considered a sin against God?
00:01:01.000 | That's a necessary question because it could easily be misunderstood.
00:01:05.000 | I went back and listened to it. What did I really say?
00:01:09.000 | And what I said was, "I jog," I said, "I jog to," I forget the verb I used, preempt or avoid or lessen,
00:01:19.000 | "my bent toward the sin of despondency." I jog to diminish my bent toward the sin of despondency.
00:01:31.000 | Now, before I define despondency and what's going on there, why I think it can be right to call it a sin,
00:01:38.000 | there's an assumption in saying you can jog to avoid sin.
00:01:43.000 | That's a pretty amazing statement, and I really want that to be felt here because I built the APJ around it.
00:01:53.000 | Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, "Don't let a husband and a wife separate from each other,"
00:02:01.000 | that is, stop having sexual relations, except briefly in order to devote yourself to prayer and fasting.
00:02:08.000 | "Then come together, lest Satan tempt you." Huh.
00:02:15.000 | Which means that an appropriately frequent and satisfying sexual intimacy in marriage
00:02:23.000 | is a protection against lust and fornication and adultery. That's what it says. Huh.
00:02:31.000 | So there is a physical phenomenon called having sex, which can lessen the likelihood that you will sin.
00:02:39.000 | Now, that's jogging and moroseness or self-pity or dismal attitudes in my life are similarly related.
00:02:52.000 | If I don't get exercise, I am more vulnerable to discouragement, depression, feeling dismal, feeling excessively sad.
00:03:04.000 | Therefore, I know whatever, you know, there are names for it in the brain, goes on, I'm going to fight.
00:03:11.000 | I'm going to fight that. And the same thing is true of sleep.
00:03:15.000 | If you are prone to be irritable, if you get five hours of sleep, it is God's will that you get eight.
00:03:26.000 | Because it's a sin to be irritable. OK, make that point.
00:03:32.000 | Physical steps in life are means to avoiding certain sins.
00:03:40.000 | Why would you call despondency a sin? One reason is because I'm going to come back and qualify it.
00:03:46.000 | So hang on. One reason is that the psalmist fights against it.
00:03:53.000 | Psalm 42, 5. Why are you downcast, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?
00:03:59.000 | Hope in God, you shall again praise him. In other words, the psalmist got mad at themselves.
00:04:05.000 | When they were despondent. So I say if they're getting mad at themselves because they're despondent,
00:04:11.000 | then we shouldn't be despondent. Now, you don't have to call it sin right away, but you should not like it.
00:04:17.000 | And want to get it gone, get rid of it. That's one reason.
00:04:21.000 | Paul said in Romans 14, 23, whatever is not from faith is sin.
00:04:29.000 | And I suspect that my giving way to despondency is not owing to how good my faith is.
00:04:41.000 | I have let the fight of faith lapse. And I'm just sliding right in to despondency.
00:04:50.000 | That's what I was getting at in that podcast. Now, I think my thoughts about Jesus in Gethsemane here are going to be helpful to you,
00:05:02.000 | because you all do get despondent, right? It's just nobody in this room who doesn't move into discouragement seasons or depressed seasons or sad seasons.
00:05:14.000 | Everybody does. And you're going to say, well, am I automatically sinning when that onslaught comes?
00:05:23.000 | No. And the reason I say no is because Jesus said in John 12, 27, he said, "Now is my soul troubled."
00:05:36.000 | Remember that sentence? Gethsemane night. Now is my soul troubled.
00:05:42.000 | Now, that's the same word in Greek that he used in chapter 14, verse 1, where he says, "Let not your hearts be troubled."
00:05:54.000 | Believe in God. Believe also in me.
00:06:01.000 | Jesus never sinned, ever. He didn't sin in thought. He didn't sin in emotion. He didn't sin in deed.
00:06:09.000 | He never sinned, and he was troubled on the night before he died.
00:06:17.000 | So the question then becomes for me, like, oh, the Bible's got a contradiction in it.
00:06:21.000 | Baloney. That's so naive to draw conclusions like that when the author himself knows exactly what he's doing, and Jesus knew what he was doing.
00:06:30.000 | What you do is you go to Gethsemane, and you say, what did you do, Jesus?
00:06:34.000 | What did you do when this came, this feeling came to you, which you're describing as troubled, which I've been troubled.
00:06:43.000 | My cross comes at me. I see it coming, and I feel that.
00:06:50.000 | What did he do? And I'm just, let me just point out what he did.
00:06:53.000 | This is coming from Mark 14, 3, verse following. Number one, he chose a few.
00:06:59.000 | Peter, James, John, he chose three, and he went off. He left the others, and he went off.
00:07:05.000 | Number two, he poured out his soul to them.
00:07:11.000 | My soul is very sorrowful, even to death. He said that to them.
00:07:17.000 | Number three, he asked them to pray, watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
00:07:25.000 | Pray for me, pray for you. Fifth or fourth, I'm losing count.
00:07:31.000 | He poured out his soul to his father. It says he fell on the ground and prayed, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me.
00:07:41.000 | He's not sinning. He's not sinning, and his heart is very troubled about what's coming in the next few hours.
00:07:49.000 | Will he be able to make it? And he's crying out, Father, if it were possible, let this cup pass from me.
00:07:56.000 | And then he rested in the sovereignty of God. Not my will, but yours be done.
00:08:03.000 | He surrendered to God, and the last thing he did, it's not mentioned there, but it is in Hebrews 12.
00:08:09.000 | For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame and sat down at the right hand of God.
00:08:17.000 | I do not know where the line is crossed as you move into an emotional downer where it becomes sin.
00:08:26.000 | But it does eventually, and it does where you quit fighting. You just surrender.
00:08:32.000 | You don't do what Jesus did. You just say, well, that's the way I'm wired, or I've got that kind of personality,
00:08:38.000 | or nobody knows the trouble I've seen. And so you just surrender.
00:08:43.000 | And I would say the evidence that your hardship is not a sin is because of the strategies you have undertaken to fight it.
00:08:59.000 | If you were there in Nashville, thanks for joining us.
00:09:02.000 | If you were not there, you can hear all five of our recordings.
00:09:05.000 | They're all online as of right now. They include APJ episode 1861 on the 30th anniversary of Pastor John's bestselling book,
00:09:14.000 | Let the Nations Be Glad, and APJ 1877 on what makes for a good musical worship experience,
00:09:22.000 | and then APJ 1882, our first episode of 2023, on John Piper's favorite things,
00:09:28.000 | and APJ 1885 on getting the Sunday morning worship vibe right.
00:09:34.000 | And now finally, this episode, APJ 1887 on what to do when despondency hits.
00:09:40.000 | You can find those episodes at AskPastorJohn.com.
00:09:43.000 | Well, Monday we talk about quitting, quitting jobs, quitting ministry, quitting pastoring, quitting.
00:09:51.000 | When should I quit? And maybe as important, what should I be doing today as I think about quitting tomorrow?
00:09:58.000 | That's up on the other side of the weekend. I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:10:01.000 | We'll see you back here on Monday. Thanks for listening.
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