Suicide And The Brain Series

It’s difficult these days to listen to any news reports without hearing the phrases ‘mental illness’ or ‘suicide’. I’m convinced that there are many unnecessary deaths by suicide. Just consider that phrase for a moment. It doesn’t make sense. But given the rates of depression — 80% of all Americans will at one time or another

take an antidepressant, because they will have been clinically depressed – it shouldn’t be surprising.

There are now more suicides in our country every year than there are car accidents. And just how many deaths in a car accident are actually suicides? More people die of self-inflicted gun wounds than are in fact murdered by a gun fired by someone else. It’s serious. And it all has to do with hope – or the lack of it.

The overriding theme of this sermon series has to do with understanding how hope works, because hope is just like love, and it’s just like grace. It’s like so many of those components of what God has given to us. But hope, in particular, works a lot like love and faith. Hope can actually be borrowed. It can be given. The more of it you give away, the more of it you get, just like faith and love – especially love. In 2017, my brother-in-law’s 47 year-old stepson, a sheriff in Phoenix, committed suicide. I read that those in the law enforcement profession have a high rate of death by suicide. (Technically, today you’re supposed to say “died by suicide” and not “committed”.) His death triggered my wife and me, for my mother-in-law had also died by suicide almost 30 years ago, and the pain of that never goes away. My daughter-in-law, who is a social worker, shared that grief is identified in different levels. A Level One grief would be over someone who’s lived a very long life, for instance, Mom. You experience grief, but also joy for them having a life well-lived.

A greater level of grief is when a parent loses a child, and especially a young child. And it just gets more complicated. Level Five grief is experienced for someone who is murdered, because you’re not just dealing with them having died, but how they died and the violence of all that. But the highest level of grief, Level Six, is felt when suicide is involved. It has to do with the fact of violence against self. And there’s usually added grief because of not knowing or having understood what was going on, or all those kinds of things. His suicide reminded me that we really have a lot to do in this country with mental health. We really need to talk about it

more.

I want you to understand that feelings and emotions – the way God made your

brain – has to do with chemicals and with the brain functioning a certain way. Just

like other parts of our bodies work in specific ways, like our hearts, muscles,

tendons, and even colons. I don’t believe we think about the brain working the

same way, but it does.

So I want to say to you, as the psalmist said, “You have been fearfully and

wonderfully made.” You have been made with gifts and abilities and a uniqueness

that is unique to you and you alone. And on top of that, you’ve been allowed to

experience things in your life that no one else has experienced. So between your

gifts and your abilities, and then your experiences in life and your passions as

they’ve developed, you are as unique as your thumbprint. You are as unique as

your DNA. And when God made you, He did not make a mistake.

Some of you may know of a man named Dr. Oswald Hoffmann. One time, he was talking to a group of teenagers, and said, “When God made you, He did not make a big pile of manure, spelled with an S. So don’t act like it!” The reality is, I think many of us live our lives struggling to get past that we aren’t a big pile of manure. And that’s all part of the ploy of the enemy, but it’s also a part of a sickness of our brain. It’s a part of the sickness that has come about as a result of sin. So let’s start with who you are and how you’ve been made. Psalm 139 is where we’re going. And I just want to walk you through verses 1-13:

“Oh, Lord, You’ve examined me, and You know me. You alone know

when I sit down and when I get up. You read our thoughts from far

away and you watch me when I travel and when I rest. The Lord is

familiar with all my ways. And even before there’s a single word on