Skip to content When Sadness Invades: Finding Refuge in God || Pastor Adam Mesa Sep 15 · 44 min ...more
When Sadness Invades: Finding Refuge in God || Pastor Adam Mesa
September 15, 2024 · 44 min
Series Patria Sermons September 15, 2024 · 44 min · Patria Sermons
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Adam Mesa is Lead Pastor of Patria Church and speaks to a congregation of 12,000 about how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings purpose to every life. Patria
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The Burden of Sadness 1:04 This has just played sad. All these people here living their life happy. She just stayed in bed.1:17 They're just irritating me with their joy. Well, I'm in pain. They have sunshine. I have rain. Wait. Is1:29 that it's an OJ rap lyric by Rob Base? What is that? John and pain, sunshine Yep. That's Robeys.1:41 Yeah. I heard it at the work karaoke night. God, that was such a fun night for everyone else.1:53 I hated it. I was so miserable. Why do they even invite me? I just loathed that stuff. It's like they2:05 invite me so I can hate it. Maybe they hate me so much, they are actively contributing to my misery.2:27 He looks is that Trevor? He looks so much like Trevor. I can't believe he broke up with me.2:39 We had such good times. I miss him. He was kind of a symptom.2:51 Yeah. It's a total buzzkill. It would always bring me down. And I feel so alone.3:09 What what am I even doing here in life? The movies? Because it's just it's just a reminder that my life is a horror movie3:21 or, like, a tragic love story like Titanic. I would be3:33 Jack. There's no real Furmi on the life raft.3:45 God. I'm the Titanic, and all of these people are icebergs. This is such a3:56 sad day.5:45 I'm sorry about that. Sorry about what I did. Sorry. I wanted to ask you something because you're a doctor. Right?5:58 Yeah.6:01 I don't like myself sometimes. Can you help me?6:13 Mary, I'm a dentist. I what kind of help do you think I can give you?6:20 Hey, Evelyn.6:21 Can I6:21 ask you a question? You got a moment? Mhmm.6:25 Which team do you play for?6:29 Well, I I'm a peach.6:30 Well, I was just wondering because I couldn't figure out why you would throw home when we've got a 2 run lead. You let the tying run get on second, and we lost the lead because of you.6:49 Are you crying? No. Are you crying?6:53 Are you crying? There's no crying.6:57 There's no crying in baseball.7:00 This is sadness. With a caring touch and a kind heart, sadness leaps into action to let you I said sadness leaps into action. Sadness? Oh,7:11 sadness.7:46 Sadness. You know, when you think about it, sadness can be a great friend, but it also can be a great enemy depending on what you feed that sadness. You know, if you've been like me, anytime you've gotten a new car,7:58 every car takes a different level of fuel. Some take regular fuel, some take premium fuel, and it's important to understand if you wanna take the vehicle somewhere, you gotta know what fuel to put8:09 in the vehicle. Your sadness is kinda like that. You have great movies that provoke either sad emotions or the movie itself is sad in and of itself.8:25 Long live the king.8:36 You also think of the movie The Lion King where Simba loses his father. He's in a power struggle with his uncle, and he's outcast from his family and his community. There's other movies8:48 like Marley and Me where a great man who loves his dog is gonna lose his dog and it may pass away. There's incredible movies like this that provoke and feel certain feelings of sadness9:00 that we see. The reality is sadness could be so healthy for us if we're in the process of grieving, but also sadness, should we not know how to breathe properly could be something that we remind ourselves9:11 every single day. There are some emotions that just aren't healthy for you on a regular basis, but unfortunately, sadness isn't 1 of those. Sadness, grieving, crying, those could be really9:23 good for your soul. But also, should you continue to hold on to those emotions and you find yourself sitting in that place, that can also feel levels of desperation, levels of depression, and you'll even9:35 see anxiety creep in in that emotion as well. So why don't we take a look a little bit deeper today into that feeling of sadness.9:45 Alright. Let's talk about sadness. I didn't know if we were gonna do that Lego giving, video again. You're ready to jump in the word, would you go to Psalms, 31? That's where we'll9:57 start. So good to see everyone. As you're a draw So it's 31. If you didn't bring a Bible today, that's okay. We'll have it up on a story. I just wanna just wanna can we thank all of our dream team and volunteers for this10:09 month specifically? Everything they've done for At The Movies, you know, we get popcorn outside, and characters, and our dream team is wearing their blockbuster shirts,10:21 experience. I'm so thankful for all that, sir. And if you ever want to jump into serving any where in the we do something called Growth Track every Sunday. So if you ever want to be10:31 part of Growth Track, you just go10:32 on our website, go to the Connect. And it's not just about serving, it'll also tell you about our church. It'll teach you a little bit about your it'll let you discover a little bit about God. It'll know a little bit10:43 about your and then lastly, if you'd like to plug in in some type of way. Web.10:55 If you're there, why don't you do me a favor and stand for the God's word today, Psalms.11:16 Original language would have. It would have maybe words that you aren't familiar with. NLP will have it in a language that we understand today to really emotions were11:28 in Psalm 91 or Psalm 31. Here's what it says. Show me loving kindness, oh, Lord. From in My eyes, my soul, and my body are becoming weak from11:40 being sad. For my life gets weaker with sorrow and my years with crying and my years with crying inside myself. My strength has left me because of my sin, and my bones waste11:52 away. Because of all of those who hate me, I become ashamed to my neighbors. Friends don't want to be with me. Those who see me on the street run for me.12:04 I'm forgotten like a dead man, and they do not think about me. I am a broken pot. For I have heard many saying things to hurt me. Fear is on every side. They plan12:16 together against me. They thought of ways to take away my life. But as for me, I trust in you, oh Lord. I say you are my God. My times are in your hands. Free12:28 me from the hands of those who hate me and from those who try to hurt me. Make your face shine upon your servant. Save me in your loving kindness. Do not let me be put to shame,12:40 oh Lord, for I call to you. Quiet in the grave. Let the lime lips be quiet, for they speak with pride12:52 and hate those who do right and do good. Amen. You may be seated. Just close in prayer and head home and get in our cars. You just13:04 that speaks enough in it own. But maybe we'll use that as a launching point today to see how King David encouraged us. And then we're gonna actually see some from some individuals in the bible who experienced, sadness13:16 in their life in 3 different ways. But, I just want us to see this morning, normally, when we think of some type of sadness in our life, connotation of a13:27 few we experience sadness when we experience maybe you've lost someone or you've lost something, and it causes a massive amount of grief in your life, and so it hurts. And so you're13:39 sad continually, and you find those emotions there. We also find ourselves in a place of sadness often when it comes to being ashamed of something. Maybe it was a large decision you made, or maybe you13:51 don't want to show your face to a certain type of people, or maybe you don't even want to show yourself your face to God because of something. And so there's a shame, there's a sadness in that. And then a little bit14:01 different, but similar is, well, God's calling somebody. And then lastly, there's also this idea of embarrassment. You know,14:12 embarrassment happens. A shame may be something that we don't want to see or revisit, but embarrassment is just, hey, something has happened to me in my life, and and I just completely am embarrassed about it. And I14:24 don't know if you've ever got that ick before, where you're just sitting in the car, or you're somewhere, and you just remember something really embarrassing you've done in your life, and you just you're just like, I14:33 can't believe I did that, or I can't believe I said that. That's normally we kind of where we think of where sadness sits. But I also want you to see sadness is also in some other things that are seasonal. You see14:44 sadness can happen. I have been a youth pastor for many years. School, and they were going off to college. They weren't gonna see their high school friends anymore.14:56 It was a step into adulthood. They were gonna go to college, where they didn't know if they were gonna do good, were they gonna do bad, how things were gonna be. And so I always knew seniors who would experience sadness15:07 during those seasons. I also know seasons of sadness often happen for parents who start to become empty nesters. Celebration, but when that last kid either goes to15:19 college or gets married and they're moving out and then you look at your spouse for the first time and say, I haven't looked at you in 18 years. There's sometimes sadness attached to15:31 that because you've realized your whole life has revolved around your children, and so there's a sadness to say, oh, what's our marriage going to look like in this season? What's my life going to look like in this15:40 season? Some people celebrate it, but all too often I meet parents who are sad about it. There's also people who find sadness. I know for me, I found sadness when my son Mathias went to kindergarten for the first time.15:52 That was a hard day for me because similar, I don't have teenagers yet. So for my son, I'm off Mondays and Tuesdays. When kids are at school. So when my sons, before they go to kindergarten, they start a16:03 school, I could do anything with them on a Monday and Tuesday, because that's my day off. And then they start school, and I'm like, oh no. I like, this is gonna be hard to navigate, hard to wrestle with, because the days16:14 that I'm off, my son's in school. And so I missed I I kind of missed those days where I was able to just, on a Monday, my day off, go to Disneyland with him or whatever. And it was a new season that I had to navigate,16:24 and it was sad for me and Ashley. And him out whenever we want, because he's still in pre k. But still, there's this idea that in seasons of life. They're in chaos, sadness,16:36 too. It's not just embarrassing moments. It's not just16:39 a it's also natural moments that16:39 you and I will and will It's also natural moments that you and I will encounter that will be sad things. And so how do we navigate those things? How can we see purpose in those times? How can we visit16:50 sadness without building a tent for sadness? How do we do that? Well hopefully today we'll offer some things. Henry Nguyen, a great Christian thinker says this. Sadness should not be seen as a17:02 problem. It is a human response to our brokenness and the brokenness of the world. In acknowledging our sadness, we open ourselves to the possibility of healing.17:14 We can open ourselves to the possibility of healing when we understand what sadness where it's been some time in just a moment. Genesis chapter 16, if you'd like to turn there, we're gonna read a little bit from there17:25 today. There's 3 people in this biblical story I wanna share with you about. All 3 of them experienced sadness in 3 very different ways. And there are times in your life that you may17:37 experience sadness in 1 of these 3 ways. We have 3 characters that we're gonna read about, 3 historical figures. The first 1 name is Abraham, but in this story, he hadn't had his name changed yet,17:49 so it's still Abram. We're going to hear about his wife Sarai, and then we're going to hear about a servant of theirs named Hagar. It's important to note that in this passage, they're going to reference Hagar18:01 as Abraham and Sarah's servant. 1 of the things that's important is to understand culturally those days what a servant, your translation may use the word slave, they're kind of18:12 interchangeable, but what it was back then is if you were someone that was either part of an impoverished nation, tribe, or people, if there was a person who was doing better, they let's just18:24 say they were a successful farmer, they were a successful craftsman, what you and your family would do is you would offer yourselves as a servant or a slave to get covering and protection from18:36 that person. Okay? So you would say, hey. I will become your servant if you give us food, clothes, and a place to live. And when that exchange is agreed upon, you immediately become in their18:48 servitude. Otherwise, you recognize that without some type of person providing for you, your family may die of malnutrition. So that was very common back then. Many tribes still do that to this day in19:00 very developing countries, and so when you see that, it wasn't forced slavery or forced servanthood. It was it was something that they chose to step into. Nonetheless, even though someone chose to be a19:12 servant, you can still abuse it. And we see how Abraham and Sarah abused their servant. But we're going to see today. So Genesis chapter 6, divorce 1, here's what it says. We do a little reading, but19:24 it's important to get the context. It says, now Sarai Abrams' had born him no -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge. -Jorge.19:35 -Jorge.19:35 -19:40 Go into my servant. It may be. So I shall obtain children by her. So she tells Abraham to sleep with his servant. Probably gonna be no problems. Probably19:52 not. No red flag whatsoever. And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So after Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan,God Sees You 20:04 Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram, her husband, as a wife, as a second wife. And he went into Hagar and she conceived.20:17 And when she had saw that she had conceived, she looked at her mistress with contempt. Be done to me on you. I gave my20:29 servant to your embrace and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me. But Abram said to Sarah, behold your servant is in your power. Do to her as you20:41 please. Then Sarah dealt with her harshly with her, and she fled from her. The angel of the Lord found her, speaking of Hagar, by a spring of water in the wilderness. The spring on the way20:52 to shore. And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? She said, I'm fleeing from my mistress Sarai. The angel of the Lord said to her, return to your21:04 mistress surely multiply your offspring so they cannot be numbered for multitude. And the angel of the Lord said to21:16 her, behold, you are pregnant and you shall bear a sob. You shall call his name Ishmael because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and21:28 everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen. So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, you are a God of seeing. For she said, truly, I have seen21:40 him who looks after me. Therefore, the well is called where it lies between kadai and Barret. Let's talk about that for a few moments today. You see what21:51 happens in layman's terms, what happens is Abraham and Sarah are married for many, many years. They're they're now in their older years.22:04 Great idea, which is, hey, you should sleep with my servant, take her as a second wife, and then we'll have children together.22:22 Maybe we should trust God in this season of Baroness, and maybe maybe we should trust God that 1 day he will give us a child, which actually 2 chapters later God does give them a child, but they were impatient.22:35 And so he says, hey. That's a great idea. Who who doesn't want 2 wives? 1 wife has never been hard. Let's just add another to the equation. And so he takes22:46 a second wife, and then immediately now, Hagar becomes pregnant. She conceives. And now Hagar looks at Sarah like, I can do what you can't do.23:01 So then Sarah goes back to Abraham and says, Hey. You need to stick up for me. She's giving me the side eye when I walk in the room. She's holding her belly every time I walk in the room and then looks over at me.23:13 What are you going to do about that Abraham? Abraham goes, that's not my servant, that's your servant. I just did what you wanted me to do. You do whatever you want with her. And Sarah23:25 goes, okay. Perfect. I'm going to treat her terribly. Now, we don't know what terribly or harshly is. We don't know if it was physical. We don't know if it was emotional. We don't23:37 know if it was communal. We don't know if Sarah told all her friends that we don't talk to Hagar anymore. We don't know what it is. But what we do know, it was harsh enough that Hagar wanted to run away.23:49 So Hagar decides, I'm out. I'm running away. And she goes into a wilderness and she finds herself far, far, far, far away in a spirit.24:02 Conversation. And she says, I'm done with this. I'm done with Abraham. I'm done with Sarah. I'm good being a single mother. That's what she says. I'll do this on my own.24:15 The angel of the Lord says, no, Hagar. That's not part of the plan. You need to go back to Abraham and Sarah. And then he says, but here's a promise, is where they did not see you, where they24:27 did not care for you, where they did not look after you, I see you. I will look after you. And I will whether they take care of your son or not, I will take care of24:39 your son. I will make in him a great nation. I will bring about a people in him. Because there's always this idea in their day that because of famine, because of poverty, that their family line can end at any24:51 moment. Any disease can happen. And so there was always this concern like, is this it for my family? Does it stop with me? And And God makes a promise to her say, it doesn't end with you. This doesn't stop with you.25:03 And so in that moment, she introduces us to a name of God that we have yet to ever hear before. And she gives him the name Elroy He, great25:19 thing25:21 about sadness, or implications of sadness, or when you feel like running away, or you feel like your time to go into wilderness. The beauty is no matter how far you run, God sees25:32 you. God sees you. God sees you. And he ensures Hagar, he says, I have seen you. And she says, You know what? You're Elroy He. That name has never been given to God before. You're the25:44 God who sees us. And so I don't know about you, but for me, I can only see so far. Right? My naked eye, my naked eye for Adam, it only takes me25:56 so far. I can only see and I can only hear so far. So when I'm not in rooms, I don't know what people are or aren't saying about me. When I'm in a space, if they're out of my eye26:08 distance, I don't know whether they're looking at me positively, negatively. I don't know what's going on. I can only see so far. I can only do so. Give me binoculars. I mean, I can see further than my26:19 eyes. Binoculars, I can see some people, you know, back there, you know, sitting down. I can see some people down in the hallway. I could okay. I can see further than what my naked eye is.26:33 I can't see further than that, but then I could get a telescope, and I'm like, oh, okay. If we open the double doors, I could probably see someone in the courtyard watching service right now. Okay? If I get a telescope,26:42 I could see to a certain And And I can only see as far as something that aims or helps me. But when but when Hagar says,26:54 you're the God who sees, she's saying there is no element, God, that you need to assist you with your sight. You can see in any darkness. You can see in any valley. You27:06 can see in any brokenness. So she sits there, she says, God, I came here to run away, but I guess there's nowhere far enough I can run that you can't see me. Nowhere far that I can't27:18 go. I love that. That's the beauty of God. I can only see what I see. Last week I met a beautiful family, and she came up to me and we prayed, and she had her air27:29 pods on, and she said, on Sundays, my husband who's in prison, he calls during his allotted call time, and I sit in service, and I have my air pods in, and he listens to the sermon while27:41 he's sitting in the penitentiary. Hallelujah. And she said, will you pray for my husband? He's on right now. And we pray for the whole family. Here's the thing. Pastor Adam, I didn't see him. I can't27:53 see him. I'm not there. I can't go there on Sundays. You can't go there on Sundays, but God can go. God can reach areas that you28:05 and I can't reach. He can touch people that you and I can't touch. That's the beauty about Elroy He. He sees where you can't see. And that's the beauty for Hagar is she28:17 realizes, man, God is good. And for her, she's Egyptian. That that's she she worships false gods. So she meets Yahweh for the first time as the 1 who sees28:28 her. He saw her. So for a few moments today, I just want to look at 3 aspects. Sarah's, Abraham, and Hagar's aspect of sadness, because they're both experiencing sadness very differently.28:40 And I'm going to give you the thoughts ahead of time, and we'll break them down really quickly together, but I want you to see this. Is the first aspect of sadness for Abraham and Sarah and Hagar. First aspect of sadness28:52 is it was invited. They invited sadness into their home. You see, Sarah invited sadness in her home because in her barrenness, in something29:04 that she wasn't willing to trust God anymore, she came up with a solution that at the time felt like it was a great solution. Until reality set in when there was going to be a child in the home that wasn't hers, and was29:16 going to get the attention of her husband, and was going to potentially get the inheritance of her husband. She starts thinking to herself, I don't like this idea. Well, Sarah, you invited29:28 this idea into your home. You invited sadness into the home. The second aspect is it was invented. It wasn't just invited. Sadness was29:39 invented in their home. You see, Abraham agreed to a solution that would lead to sadness. So Abraham is the father of the home says, okay. Yeah. Let's do it.29:52 Let's do it. So they they start to invent a sadness, create a problem in their home that was never gonna be there, was never meant to be there. God had was going to promise, and he had always promised them a30:04 seed, but they, let's let's go to Hagar. And then there's little old Hagar, which sadness was instructed to her. She didn't ask for this. She30:16 wasn't begging on Abraham's door saying, would you please take me as a wife? She was perfectly fine as a as a servant. They presented a good idea to her. And then it was instructed to her. And so30:27 Hagar felt the effects of sadness by just obeying what was asked of her. And sometimes30:39 something, asks someone asks you to be a part of something, someone asks you to hold something, and then all of a sudden sadness is on your front door. And you're like, I was I I thought what I was doing was the right30:50 thing. It was asked of you. It was instructed of you. Here's the first aspect. I want you We're gonna look at where it was, where it was invited. You know, Sarah begins to invite this because31:02 she is sad and of herself. She's hurt because of her brokenness. She's hurt because of her barrenness. For decades she has prayed for a child. And so what happens because her prayers are31:14 answered on her time, she concocts a solution that might help, but it doesn't. So in fact, she ends up inviting this into her home. You know, a few weeks ago, I had31:26 opportunity that I was in Ephesus, which is the letter of Ephesians was based off of where an early church was booming. It's in modern day. And, the apostle Paul had been there and preached there and he established a31:38 church there. Right. To go see, and learn about the Ephesians and the early church. 1 of the things that we were told by our,31:52 the picture, there's these there's these baths. And the Ephesians, and the Romans, really, they put these baths everywhere. So they put these baths, and that may look dirty there because that was rain and32:04 all that kind of stuff like that. They don't feel the bats today. So that's just, after some rain and stuff like that. But gives us an idea of what the bats. So they were clean and they were refilled all the time and all32:14 the natural springs came to them. What they did was. And they32:16 were refilled all the time. And all32:16 the natural springs came to them. What they did was. And they sickness was really prevalent in their day, they thought to themselves, everybody was coming into our city dirty and passing like32:28 germs. And so they figured, they put bass in the entry of the city. They put bass in front of everybody's store, and they put bass in front of everybody's home. And32:40 anytime you entered the city, you had to take a bath. Anytime you entered into a store, you had to take a bath. Anytime you entered into someone's home, you had to take a bath because no 1 wanted to get sick32:51 and die. What they didn't know is when you include that much amount of water with human conditions, you invite a bug called a mosquito33:03 that carries disease and malaria. And so what happens is by them thinking they're providing a solution by adding bass after bass after bass, They're actually33:15 inviting mosquito after mosquito after mosquito, and so they were actually causing their own death by passing malaria to each other. By every home that put a bath,33:27 it invited a new cluster of mosquitoes. And so the Ephesians never figured it out that they were inviting and causing their own issues.33:39 They were inviting their own sadness,33:52 baths.33:53 Good work.33:54 Just people are dirty. Make them bathe more. But the problem was in making these baths more prevalent, they were inviting more issues. There's a lot of times in our sadness, instead of focusing on theShow more In this video 0:00 The Burden of Sadness20:04 God Sees You34:02 Inviting and Inventing Sadness
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