SPEAKER_01 0:14

Today's scripture reading is taken from Psalms chapter one zero two, verse one to twelve. Verse one Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come to you. Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me, answer me speedily in the day when I call. For my days pass away like smoke, and my bones burn like a furnace. My heart is dropped down like grass and has to water. I forget to eat my bread because of my loud and groaning, my bones cling to my flesh. I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the weak, wasted places. I lie awake, I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop. All the day my enemies haunt me, and those who derive me use my name for a curse. For I eat ashes like bread and mingle tears with my drink. Because of your indignation and anger, for you have taken me up and thrown me down. My days are like an evening shadow. I wither away like grass. But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever. You are remembered throughout all generations. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Amazing, uh lovely to be to be back here. I want to thank your vicar, Miloca, uh, for this invitation as we uh learn together, particularly about mental health. I thought to take us through a journey together, and I've put together a three-part sermon series titled A Faith That Up Holds. In the next slide. The first is to address our eyes, and that is the seeing. It is to go beyond the stigma of mental health, and that is our focus for today. And the second sermon moves to doing. So we move from seeing to doing, from the eyes to the hands, and the practical actions that we can take. And the third sermon aims for the heart, where we can root our identity in the Lord for the long haul. So today, this morning, we want to begin by learning how to see. We begin by confronting a very painful reality in our midst, the reality of stigma. So you imagine with me, we you go to a doctor, and then you are told that you have an illness. Then after the doctor gives the prognosis, the diagnosis, you feel very lost, and you are just too ashamed to share with anyone. Why? Because you know that there is a certain stigma to this. If other people find out that you have this condition, then you will be treated differently. And they may treat you with scorn. You may be looked down upon, or worse of all, isolated. In Jesus' time, there is such a diagnosis. You know what that is? Come on, YCCA, my Sunday school teachers. What is this diagnosis? That when you have it, it's like, oh, everybody will avoid you. Leprosy, leprosy. The people were very afraid of leprosy. Leprosy is an infection caused by slow-growing bacteria. It leads to the rotting of the skin and the joints, and the body will just waste away. So if a leper in those days were to walk down the street, he's supposed to shout, unclean, unclean. So that no one would come near him. Because if anyone came into contact with the leper, they would also be unclean. So social stigma will force the leper to hide and never come out into the open. The leper will live in isolation, far away from society, far away from his own family as well. So the diagnosis brought not just grief but shame. Last time there was no treatment for leprosy, but thankfully today there is a medical cure. So it's no longer very feared. But today there's still another diagnosis that often results in the sufferer being stigmatized. What if the diagnosis you receive wasn't leprosy but schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or clinical depression? For many people, the response is tragically similar. There would be this feeling of shame, a fear of being treated differently, a desperate urge to hide, especially, and I say this with a very heavy heart, especially in the church. Here in Singapore, the statistics are sobering. A 2022 study showed that almost two in five people struggle with mental health. Among our young people, that is 15 to 35, that number is one in two. So this is not an issue that is out there, you know, but this is a reality here in our pews, in our families, in our homes, and perhaps in our own hearts as well. And yet, in the place that should be the safest and the most compassionate, we often carry unspoken expectations that make those who are suffering feel ashamed, feel blamed, feel unsupported. We have a very subtle but very well-intentioned, yet deeply flawed theology that whispers a good Christian should always be victorious. A good Christian should always be joyful, always strong. And so when a person comes forward with their struggle, they are often met with a barrage of spiritual platitudes that feel really like accusations. You are not a good Christian if you can't defeat your depression. You don't have enough faith. What's wrong with you? You just need to trust God more. You need to pray more. Why are you letting the devil into your life? You need to be stronger. Pick yourself up. So the good intentions become accusations that have the power to shame and derail anyone living with mental illness. In an article on Christianity Today, a patient with bipolar shared, I feel so alone at church. I invite people over for meals and try to make friends, but when they find out that I am bipolar, they either preach to me about sin and healing or ignore me. I long for true friendship and community. I don't need another sermon. I need a friend who will see me as a person. I need a hug. And perhaps someone who will try new recipes with me. Not another sermon, but a friend. Many people are too ashamed, guilty, or embarrassed to take the risk of revealing their struggle with mental illness. In sharing her struggles, Fonda Bryan wrote that people will tell her to pray more, draw closer to God when she shares about her depression. But she wrote, you wouldn't tell someone with cancer, diabetes, or heart problem to just pray about it or give it to God, would you? You hopefully say you need to see a doctor. But when it comes to mental health in the African American community, there is very little compassion or empathy. So that is why we must begin this conversation. And we want to start by asking the most fundamental question. The question that I see in churches that fuels this stigma. Is mental distress a result of a lack of faith? Is mental struggles because we don't have enough faith in God? How does a biblical faith actually see mental distress? So, Father, we come before you this morning inviting you to help us. We invite you this morning to open our eyes that we may see. Help us, Lord. Help us as we learn to see through your eyes of compassion for the many people suffering in pain and in need. Father, we pray that you meet with us this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. So in the Psalm that was read for us, Psalm 102, we see the psalmist crying out from the pit of despair. In verse 3, we read, For my days vanish like smoke, my bones burn like glowing embers. So the psalmist, his bones vanish, his time vanishes like smoke, meaning it just evaporates away. Here today and gone tomorrow. There's the sense of hopelessness and disorientation. What meaning is there in life? He cannot find. So time for him just evaporates and vanishes. And he can literally see his life burning away, coming to an end. What is burning? Comprehension. What is burning? His bones. The bones are supposed to be like pillars of the body, pillars of support for the body. They are supposed to be very strong. The internal fortress of the body. But see here, the psalmist compares it to wood that has caught fire. So the support has become that pain point and it's burning like glowing embers. The burning is not so much of fever, but of pain. So there's deep pain that penetrates the marrow and the bones. So the psalmist is in distress. And in verse 4, he writes, My heart is blighted and withered like grass. I forget to eat my food. The heart is the seed of the soul. And here the heart is blighted, meaning it's very weak. There's no energy, there's no life. It's like withered grass, all dried up. It can no longer receive water, become green or flourishing again. So for the psalmist, hope is dried up. All he sees is hopelessness. There is no life, there is no vigor. And the sorrow is so overwhelming that he forgets to eat his food. He's not purposely fasting, but he forgets to eat. Will you forget to eat? Real question. Will you forget to eat? Usually not, you know. We won't forget to eat. We can purposely fast, we can be so busy, but we won't forget to eat because the body will remind us when we are hungry. Right? The brain will trigger the release of hunger hormones. And it makes your stomach churn and growl. The point is you usually won't forget to eat. Your body is supposed to remind you. But here the distressed psalmist doesn't have such a body response because he is in mental distress. He has lost all appetite for food. He simply cannot eat. And in verse 5, in the next verse, he says, In my distress, I groan aloud and am reduced to skin and bones. So he is in distress. He loses appetite, and because of that, his body weighs away. So much so that his bones clave to the skin. Have you seen pictures like that? I'm sure you have. He has lost so much weight that he is all skin and bones. And in verse 6, he says, I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake, I have become like a bird alone on a roof. This imagery is very profound. First, he says, I'm like an owl. An owl is a solitary creature, a loner. So the Psalmist feels utterly alone, unable to connect with others. So even if he's in a crowd, he feels isolated, different. And where is this owl? It's not in some vibrant forest, not like the children's story books that we read with the owl with the with the with the Professor Head. Not that sort of owl, no, but he's among the ruins. He feels like his life, everything has collapsed around him. Everything is rubble and he's alone in desolation. And this image also speaks of his physical state, that the owl is awake at night. He says, I lie awake. So he suffers from insomnia. He tosses, he turns his mind racing, unable to find the release of sleep. He says, I'm like an owl. And then in the next line, he changes the image. He says, Maybe I'm not an owl, because an owl is naturally solitary. He says, I have become like a bird alone on a roof. Here the ESV tells us what bird? The sparrow. He's talking about the sparrow. Sparrows are social birds. Sparrows live and thrive in flocks. So the difference is this: the psalmist is saying it's not in my nature to be alone. I was made for community. I was made for fellowship. I was made to kinkaia, to go jalan jalan makan with friends together. But my affliction has forced me into this isolation. He's saying I am naturally a social creature, but now I am grounded and alone. And this is the painful difference between solitude and loneliness. Henry Nowen wrote beautifully about this. He says solitude is a chosen state, a place where we can be alone with God and spiritually restored. But loneliness, he says, is a painful, imposed state of isolation, a feeling of being disconnected and abandoned. So the psalmist here is not in solitude, but he is in deep, painful state of loneliness, forced there by his suffering and the stigma that likely came with that suffering. I want us to see the distress that the psalmist is in. In verse 9, in the next verse, we read, I eat ashes as my food and mingle my drink with tears. Why does he eat ashes? But the picture here is that he's so despondent that he lies flat. Can you imagine him lying flat on the ground? So his mouth is on the floor. He licks the ashes of the floor. He licks the ground. And then he cries, so his tears become mingled together with his drink. It's a painful and sorry state that the Psalmist is in. And in verse 11, he says, My days are like the evening shadow. I wither away like grass. In the day, the sun shines so brightly. It gets lighter and lighter. So for the psamis, life for him slowly fades away. Fades away like grass, slowly. What are the symptoms of the psalmis? Let's do a recap. What are the symptoms of the psalmist? First, there is grief, there is loss of appetite, there's feelings of hopelessness, there is insomnia, that sleeplessness, there's the profound sense of false isolation. There is that physical wasting away. These are all signs, classical signs of clinical depression. Classical signs of clinical depression. So the psalmist is in a place of extreme and mental emotional distress, and he cannot see a way forward. And then comes my next question: Does the psalmist have faith? Does he still have faith? Does he still believe in God? Who says yes? Who says no? Right at the start of this distressed psalm, the psalmist calls out to God. He believes in God. He writes, Hear my prayer, Lord. Let my cry for help come to you. Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. Turn your ear to me when I call. Answer me quickly. We started off from verse 3, but this is this is the first two verses at the start of the psalm. I want us to see that this is the earnest prayer of the psalmist. He hasn't given up on his faith. This is the clear prayer and cry out to God. In his pain, he prays that God will hear him, will turn his ear and listen. So he beseeches that God will answer him quickly. He still has faith. This is the language of someone who is desperately clinging on to faith, even when his feelings, his circumstances scream and tell him that God is absent. And after verse 11, where we left off, in the next verse, in verse 12, he says, But you, Lord, sit and throne forever. Your renown endures through all generations. Ultimately, he still recognizes that God is Lord. He knows and has faith that God's renown will endure throughout the generation, and he prays that God will hear and help him. So the psalmist was mentally distressed, and at the same time, he has faith. He has faith. So I say to us, YCCA, that the two are not mutually exclusive. Meaning to say, you can be in mental distress yet be someone full of faith. The psalmist is not alone in scripture, you know. You think of the great prophet Elijah. Elijah, in 1 Kings 18, he stands alone against 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, and he calls down fire from heaven in one of the greatest displays of faith in the Old Testament. But in the very next chapter, the very next day, in 1 Kings 19, after a single threat from Queen Jezebel, the mighty prophet runs for his life into the wilderness. He ran for 40 days in solitude and he became so despondent that he says to God, Lord, take my life away. And this is Elijah, you know, Elijah. If he steps into church today, we will get worried. We will say, Uncle Elijah, you're a suicider. Suicidal! He's pleading with God to take his life away. He didn't want to live. Does he have faith? Are you usually so quiet? Does he have faith? Yes. Of course that is a leading question. Elijah, you know. But was he at that moment in mental distress? Yes. And the Lord approached him gently and attended to his weary body. The prophet falls asleep, and the angel of the Lord meets him in his slumber. And the angel gives him yakun bread. Literally, you know, bread baked over coals is the description in scripture. Bread baked over coals. Chako toasted bread, just no kaya. And a jar of water. Not once, but twice. The angel woke him up and said, Eat, because the journey is too much for you. Then he went back to sleep and woke him up again, eat, for the journey is too much for you twice. You think of the apostle Paul. We always hear of the victories of Paul. But Paul also wrote like this in 2 Corinthians 1. He says, We do not want you to be uninformed. We were under great pressure far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. You pay attention to the emotional experience that Paul writes about. So much so that they, when Paul says we, it includes him. Paul included despair of life itself. And this is the same Paul who encouraged the people to rejoice always. This is the same Apostle Paul, whom the Lord used so mightily. Does he have faith? You know the pattern. Does he have faith? Yes. Was he in mental distress? Yes. And this pattern continues throughout church history. If you look at the giants of our faith, Martin Luther. He was someone who changed the shape of Christianity in very deep and profound ways. But how many of us know that he lived with depressive episodes most of his adult life? Florence Nightingale, she is known to be the founder of modern nursing and she dedicated her life to caring for the sick and reforming public health. She was so devoted to Christ and she had faith, but yet she too struggled with mental health issues. She had insomnia, anorexia, nervousness, and depression. When they looked through Florence Nightingale's journals, Dr. Wisner, an expert in mood disorder, says this, and I quote, Florence heard voices and experienced a number of severe depressive episodes in her teens and early twenties. Symptoms that are consistent with the onset of bipolar disorder. The good preacher Charles Spurgeon himself wrote very openly about his own struggle with depression. Prior to his own experience with depression, he would tell the suffering people, you shouldn't feel like this. Why are you feeling like that? You should not think such thoughts. But everything changed for him when he himself went through and experienced it. It happened one day when he was preaching to thousands at a huge hall in London one day, and then a prankster yelled out, fire, fire! And then there was panic, everybody wanna. And it resulted in seven people dead and another 30 more seriously injured. At that time, Charles Spurgeon was only 22 years old, and in the first month of parenting their twin boys in a new house, still full of unpacked boxes. But what came next was even scarier because the newspapers across London very cruelly, mercilessly blame Spurgeon. They blame Charles Spurgeon. So the senseless tragedy, the public accusation, nearly broke him. Nearly broke his mind. Not only in those early moments, but with lasting effects. It is very likely that Spurgeon suffered from what we know today as post-traumatic stress disorder, and he suffered it for the rest of his life. And Spurgeon would write this: he says, Perhaps you are not well, or you have had an illness that has talled much upon your nervous system, and you are depressed. And therefore it is that you think that grace is leaving you, but it will not. Your spiritual life does not depend upon nature, else it might expire. It depends upon grace. And grace will never cease to shine till it lights you into glory. I want us to see it if we already have not, that mental illness, mental struggles, mental distress is not caused by a lack of faith. It is in effect one of the consequences of the fall. That God's perfect and good creation of our bodies is corrupted and our earthly lives are limited. And eventually our bodies will fill us. Our bodies will fill us. You know that, right? I already had one cataract operation. Our bodies eventually will fill us. And the mind is part of the body as well. It can deteriorate, there can be chemical imbalance here and there, and different events, different triggers can affect different ones very disproportionately. Just because we cannot see it doesn't mean it's not there. It's complicated how the mind works. So if mental distress isn't a lack of faith, what is our role? How should a faith-filled community, how should YCCA see this struggle? It begins by changing our perspective by moving from judgment to compassion. So faith sees with compassion, not judgment. When we assume that mental illness is a result of personal spiritual failure, we immediately pass judgment. And judgment is a defense mechanism. It creates distance, you see. If we can label someone's struggle as a result of their own sin, their own lack of prayer or their own weak faith, then we create a very neat and tidy box for their pain. And more importantly, it creates a sense of security or a false sense of security for us. We will say if it is their fault that they are like that, then we are safe. We say it can't happen to us because we are doing the right things. So judgment at its very core is an act of fear. But faith calls us to a higher and more courageous path. The path of compassion. The word compassion is beautiful. It comes from two Latin words to suffer with, suffer with. So true biblical compassion is not about standing at a safe distance and offering advice or analysis. It is not about offering pity which looks down on another, but true compassion is the willingness to suffer with. It is the choice to climb down from our high horse of judgment, cross that mode of fear, and enter into the reality of another person's pain. It is the ministry of presence. And Henry Nowen calls this hospitality. He wrote, hospitality means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend. So the church is called to be the most hospitable place on earth for the lonely and the hurting. Stigma builds walls, but hospitality opens doors. It says you are safe here, your struggle is welcome here, and you are welcome here. What does this look like here in church? It means we must learn to listen more than we speak. It means when someone shares their pain, our first response is not to correct their theology, but to validate their feelings. It means sometimes we reply to someone with no answers and that is okay. It sounds so hard. Rather than you need to trust God more. It means our cell groups, small groups, must prioritize emotional safety above completing the study itself. It means we must actively work to become a place where the words I'm not okay is not met with shock silence or just easy platitudes, but with the simple, compassionate reply, thank you for sharing. We are together in this. You are not alone. Faith sees with compassion, not judgment. Second, faith sees potential, not weakness. So the second way our vision needs to be sharpened is in how we view weakness itself. Our world, and if we are honest, also in the church, the church culture, we worship at the altar of strength. We celebrate victory, success, resilience. We post those highlights on social media. But weakness, in contrast, is seen as a liability, something to be overcome, something to be prayed away, something to be quickly forgotten. And so when we see someone struggling with their mental health issues, we see a problem, a deficit, a weakness. But faith, however, offers a very countercultural radical perspective. Because scripture often shows that God's power is not hindered by our weakness, but is perfected by it. You look at the giants of our faith. We talked earlier about Martin Luther, Spurgeon, and many others. They struggle with enduring mental health conditions, but in faith they added to the work of Christ. They still can contribute immensely to the church. So as they wrestle with their emotions and mental struggle, it deepened their faith and it made their faith more real. Six years prior to his death, Charles Spurgeon looked back and he wrote this. He said, I'm sure that I have run more swiftly with a lame leg than I ever did with a sound one. I am certain that I have seen more in the dark than ever I saw in the light. More stars, most certainly, more things in heaven, if fewer things on earth. So those who are experiencing mental distress are not weak wallpapers with nothing to contribute spiritually, just brush aside. For faith sees our wounds not as disqualifiers, but as the very places where God's grace can enter and eventually shine through. Third, faith sees the person and not the diagnosis. In our desire to understand and categorize, we fall into the trap of letting a medical label define a human being. We use clinical terms as nouns. We say that schizophrenic, that bipolar, and then we address the person as that. In an article on Christianity today, Michael Lash, he says, Many of my patients feel as if they have no name, only a diagnosis. However, a mental illness is an adjective, not a noun. These people have names before God, and these names are not depressed, bipolar, or attention deficit. To reduce a complex, multifaceted person who was knitted together by God, made in his very image, to a single clinical term is a profound injustice. It flattens them. But it makes it very easy for us to keep our distance. Because we like to put people in categories and boxes. So once we can categorize them into a box, we can keep our distance and we feel okay about doing that. But it flattens them, you see. And it's a profound injustice. As humans, we thrive on personal relationships. The medical condition cannot define one's identity. So I say let the doctor treat the condition. But as a church, know the person. Makan together, laugh together, cry together, build relationships one with another, open up space and show hospitality. You don't need to be a doctor to treat someone, but you can point someone. You can be with someone. So how does faith see distress? Faith sees with compassion, not judgment. It sees a person in pain who needs compassion. It doesn't see a devastating weakness, it sees the potential for God's power to be made perfect. It doesn't see a clinical diagnosis, it sees also a precious, beloved child of God. So we talked about changing our eyes, our lenses today, and this is the new way of seeing to which we are called. This is the foundation upon which we can build a community of true hope and healing. And I think YCCA is placed right here, and you are ministering to ACC Ishun, ACC Ao Kang, and I remember as a parish worker serving here 20 years ago, yeah, we it was already very much of the DNA to outreach to minister to those in mental distress. And I thank the church, I thank your leaders for that continued support. This is a work that is not easy to do, and this is a work that cannot be borne by just a few individuals. But together as a community, as you open your doors, as you open your space, people will find the space to meet with our Lord and Savior, and that is our prayer. Mental distress is real, but the hope that we have in Jesus is also real. Faith doesn't promise a life free from suffering. If you have lived long enough, you will know that. But it promises God's presence in our suffering, and it assures us of his ultimate victory over every shadow and over every tear. So I pray that the Lord today will heal our vision and he will soften our hearts and tear down the internal walls of stigma and judgment, that he may empower YCCA to be this community of amazing radical hospitality, a place where the wounded are safe, where the weak are honored, and where every person is seen and loved for who they truly are. So, Father, we pray that you meet with us and help us. We pray this day that you enable your church to continue to hear your still small voice. As we are faithfully shaped and formed more and more like you. Father, I pray that with new eyes and vision you enable your church to see to see the many individuals being baptized, the many individuals coming to know our Lord and Savior, the many lives that are met and touched. That your church be a space, a safe space for your people to come into. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Ishu Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.