The Wounded Spirit – Timothy Keller [Sermon] — Transcript

An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.

Even in laughter, the heart is sad, and the end of joy is grief.

A tranquil mind gives life to the flesh, but passion makes the bones rot.

The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.

A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.

The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.

All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord.

A man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear?

The wicked man flees, though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

This is God's word.

Well, we're looking at the book of Proverbs every week, and we continue to do that.

We're looking at the subject of wisdom, we've said that wisdom is competence with regard to the complex realities of life.

So, for example, uh, it means being not less than moral and good.

But more, so, for example, if you want to help a poor family out of poverty, that's wonderful, that's right, that's good.

That's moral, but if you're simple-minded, if you're a simple-minded conservative and you think poverty is completely the result of lack of personal responsibility, or if you're a simple-minded liberal and you think poverty is completely the result of unjust social structures, in other words, if you're reductionistic, if you're simplistic, if you're not savvy about the complex realities of poverty, though you have, you mean well and you're being moral and right and good, you can ruin that poor family's life.

Now, tonight, what we want to do is talk about wisdom with regard to the complex realities of the inner being, the inner life, or what we would today call the psychological life, which, as we're going to see in a moment, is a modern category that's actually itself too reductionistic.

Nevertheless, what are we talking about? Well, you know, we all at certain times just have a lot of trouble understanding, dealing with the very deep, conflicting, confusing, powerful, uh, sometimes warring dynamic impulses and feelings that just roll, just roll through our heart, roll through ourselves.

And, uh, sometimes we don't feel we we've got any power over it, we feel helpless, and we don't know how we got feeling like that, we know there's something deeply wrong with it, we don't know what to do about it, well, tonight, maybe we'll get some wisdom.

Because we're taking a look at what the book of Proverbs says about this subject, and I'd like to look at the, uh, uh, the passage under four headings.

Let's see what we learn from these collected Proverbs about the priority of the inner life, the complexity of the inner life, the solitude of the inner life, and how to heal a crushed spirit.

You're not going to be wise unless you understand the priority of the inner life, the complexity of the inner life, the solitude of the inner life, and the healing of the inner life.

Now, let's take a look.

First, uh, take a look at the second from the last proverb in the list.

And we'll learn something about the priority of the inner life.

A man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear?

Now, what's the word spirit mean?

In in, uh, the Hebrew scriptures, in the Old Testament, the word spirit is actually literally the word for wind, and whenever the word wind, uh, Ruah, spirit is used in the Old Testament, it has to do with force, with power, with energy.

Passion for life, that which, uh, propels us out into life.

Makes us want life.

Makes us want to take it on.

Navigate.

Deal with it.

So what's a crushed spirit?

A crushed spirit then is to look out at life and to have no desire for it.

Have little or no joy in it.

Uh, have no passion to get out there and deal with it.

And of course, there's degrees of a crushed spirit, it can be anywhere from listlessness and restlessness to, uh, discouragement, to despondency, to being very, very cast down and to losing all desire to live.

Now, what is this proverb saying?

Look at it again, and here's what it's saying.

There is nothing more important than maintaining your inner being.

When it says, a man's spirit sustains him in sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear, here's what it's saying.

A broken body can be sustained with difficulty by a strong spirit, but a crushed or broken spirit can never be sustained or carried by the strongest body of all.

In other words, this proverb is getting at something that actually the whole Bible gets at, we human beings are obsessed with the idea that our happiness is determined by our external circumstances, that our happiness is completely determined by whether our body is healthy or whether our body is looks good, whether we have money, whether people are treating us right, whether things are going well out there, that's what makes us happier, that's what makes us unhappy, when the Bible actually says, no.

It has nothing to do with your circumstances, happiness is determined by how you deal with your circumstances from inside.

How you process, how you address, how you view them.

That's the reason why Paul, Paul's prayers for the churches he's writing in the New Testament letters are amazing.

When you consider when he's writing all these these, uh, churches, he's writing churches that were in great difficulty and straights.

He's writing churches that were persecuted, he's writing churches where, uh, civil magistrates had had broken in and and pulled off some of the Christian families to jail.

Uh, and yet whenever he prays, he says, I'm praying this for you, or I'm praying this for you, he never mentions things like that.

He never says, I'm praying that that civil magistrate won't come and take anymore of you off to jail.

He doesn't pray for protection.

He doesn't pray against suffering.

What does he pray for?

He prays this sort of thing, here's Ephesians 3.

He says, I pray that out of his glorious riches, God may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inmost being.

Hear what he's saying?

If your life is all broken, all things are wrong, and your spirit is strong, you're and powerful.

You move out into the world in strength.

But if everything about your life is is, uh, going fine, just all the circumstances are doing fine, but your spirit is crushed, you move out into the world in weakness.

Now, do you believe that?

Do you understand the priority of that?

The Bible says, Proverbs says, if you don't.

You're a fool.

Or put it another way, are you any are you far, far, far more concerned to deposit grace in your spirit than you are to deposit money in your bank account, if you're not, you're a fool, the priority of the inner life.

Now, secondly, you're not wise, if we see don't see the priority, but secondly, you're not going to live a wise life unless you see the complexity of the inner life.

See, after having said what we just said, it's natural to ask a question like this, all right, so what do you do to keep your inner being from deteriorating?

What goes wrong with a spirit?

What causes a crushed spirit?

Why do our emotions and our feelings seem to get out of control?

Why do we get so downcast sometimes?

Why do we lose all passion for life?

Why do we struggle so much?

What is our problem?

And you know what the biblical answer is?

It's complicated.

In fact, in fact, I want to show you this for the next couple minutes.

In fact, the Bible's understanding of human nature, understanding of what goes wrong inside is more nuanced, more multifaceted, more multi-dimensional, uh, more complex than any other answer that I know of, any other counseling model, any book on despondency or what's wrong or how to have emotional health or how to have a happy life.

You read them all and compared to the Bible, they are one-dimensional.

They're reductionistic.

They boil everything down, they're too simple-minded, they're too simplistic, they're not savvy, they're not wise.

The Bible gives you the most fully nuanced, the most complex assessment of what can go wrong.

And lead to despondency and lead to a crushed spirit.

Let's take a look at five of them.

They're right in here.

Okay.

Here's five.

First of all, a crushed spirit may have a physical aspect.

I know that sounds very weird.

Your spirit has a physical.

Yes.

A crushed spirit may have a physical aspect.

So, for example, let's take a look sort of in the middle of the of the page.

It's chapter 14, verse 30.

A tranquil life gives life to the flesh, but passion makes the bones rot.

And the word passion means literally a hot feeling, and we're it's, uh, that word can refer to anger or bitterness or envy or fear or something like that.

But what it's it's giving us here is a very nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the relationship of the body to the emotions.

Emotional unhealth leads to physical unhealth in all kinds of ways.

Disintegration.

Deterioration.

But what's the implication?

The implication, of course, is that since the body and the emotions are united.

Then bodily weakness can lead to emotional unhealth.

If you're weary.

If you're not eating right.

If you got chemical imbalances.

There's a there's a physical aspect to your spirit to being crushed in spirit.

There can be.

There often is.

He say, how could that be?

Well, for example.

Uh, I had a thyroid problem a couple years ago.

And of course, the problem's gone.

As well as the thyroid.

Well, that's why it's gone.

And one of the things I learned about is, uh, thyroid hormone.

What happens when you don't have it, or you don't have enough of it?

Oh, my word.

And even though I didn't experience anything like this, here's one, here's, here's something I can just tell you the truth of, and that is, if you don't have enough thyroid, uh, hormone in your body, you're going to eventually want to kill yourself.

And you say, well, that's, of course, that's all in your head.

Well, of course, it's all in your head.

I mean, I mean, all the crushed spirit is in your head, but the point is, if you lose all desire to even live because of something wrong with your body.

You've got a crushed spirit.

It doesn't matter what the cause is.

And one of the causes can be the physical.

And one of the causes can be the physical.

There's a physical aspect to what goes on in our inner being.

Secondly, there's an emotional.

Relational aspect.

Emotional relational.

Look at the very first proverb on the list.

An anxious heart weighs a man down.

That's synonymous with.

A crushed spirit.

Uh, it's talking about literally sinking.

An anxious heart weighs a man down.

But a kind word cheers him up.

And don't trivialize it in English.

It comes across a little bit trivial sounding.

What is it saying?

You need sometimes.

What is the what what do you need?

You need an outside word of love.

Of kindness.

You need you need support.

Sometimes you don't need.

Medicine.

Sometimes you don't need.

Therapy.

You don't need an answer.

You don't need complicated reflection.

You need love sometimes.

Because we have an emotional relational nature.

You just need arms around you.

You need a shoulder.

You need intimacy.

You need support.

Because we have a we have an emotional relational nature.

Thirdly, there's not just a physical aspect to what goes on inside.

And an emotional relational aspect to what goes on inside.

But third, there's a moral aspect.

Take a look at the last of the of the Proverbs in the list.

The wicked man flees, though no one pursues.

But the righteous are as bold as a lion.

What's that talking about?

Well, it's a quote from Leviticus 26.

Where God says, if you disobey me, you will flee, though no one pursues.

And my word, look how, look how nuanced this is.

It's talking about conscience.

It's talking about guilt.

It's talking about what can go wrong inside in your spirit, in your emotions.

What can go wrong inside if you know that you're not living right.

If you know you're not living up to standards.

If you feel guilt.

If you feel shame.

If you feel like a failure in any way.

But look how nuanced it is.

It doesn't say, you you flee when someone pursues.

You flee when no one pursues.

Guilt just generalizes.

A sense that there's something wrong with you just generalizes.

So you have so you not only feel guilty for some things you ought to feel guilty for.

But you also can't help then feeling guilty for all kinds of things you shouldn't feel guilty for.

So someone, uh, someone criticizes you and you feel assaulted, attacked.

Bad conscience.

Some you make a little failure and you feel like a total failure.

Bad conscience.

There's a moral aspect.

There's a conscience aspect.

Okay.

That's not all.

You see, there's can be a medical aspect or physical.

There can be emotional aspect or relational.

There can be a conscience or moral aspect.

And you realize how wrong it would be if you treat a crushed spirit.

That's basically a physical problem.

As a moral problem.

Or not look at all these matters.

But let's keep going.

Then fourthly, there's an existential aspect.

Yeah.

Go to the, um, fourth proverb down.

Even in laughter, the heart is sad.

And the end of joy is grief.

Now, when you first read that, you know what you're automatically doing?

You say, I think I know what that's talking about.

And you're relativizing it.

You're saying, sometimes some people, um, are laughing and they're having fun.

But down deep, they're still sad.

They're putting on a happy face.

They're trying to forget their troubles.

But though they are laughing, uh, down deep, they're sad.

And and and though they have.

They're they're trying to be happy.

In the end, they're still grieving.

But that doesn't say, does it?

Some people in laughter, the heart is sad.

It's an absolute statement.

And what amazed me was that every single Hebrew commentator.

I mean, every Hebrew scholar that was that I looked at about this verse says.

We mustn't relativize it.

We must realize what a profound thing it's saying.

This is true of everybody.

Everybody.

Why?

Do you not realize that there's an existential angst that comes down deep.

From under everything.

Everybody knows that all parties eventually are going to be over.

That all joy really does end in grief.

You say, what are you talking about?

Well, let me just give you some examples.

Here's the happy family.

Sitting around the dining room table.

And the simple reality is that one of those people is eventually going to see every other member dead.

Death.

Ends everything.

Everything your heart wants out of life eventually will be taken away from you.

Your health will be taken away from you.

If you don't die a tragic young death, eventually your health will be taken away from you.

Your loved ones will be taken away from you.

Everything will be taken away from you.

Everything.

It'll all be gone.

And some of you are saying.

Oh, gee, I'm so glad I came tonight.

This is a wonderful.

I guess that's right, I guess that's true.

But I mean, do you have to tell me about it?

Do we have to think about it?

Guess what, try not to think about it.

And this is saying down deep, you know about it.

That there is a there is a ground note of sadness.

That you cannot overcome.

I mean, New York is filled with people who say.

Well, you know, I don't believe I was created.

I believe I'm here by accident.

And I believe when you're dead, that's it.

You're rot.

That's it.

You're gone.

And, uh, I understand that.

But, you know, that point is.

Have fun while you're here.

Wait a minute.

If your origin is insignificant.

And your destiny is insignificant.

Which means someday, not only nobody will even remember anything you ever did.

If your origin is insignificant and your destiny is insignificant.

Have the guts to admit your life is insignificant.

And what that means is.

Unless you have some way of dealing philosophically with this, unless you have some way of ascribing meaning to the daily things that you do.

Which is really pretty hard.

You're going to have this ground note of sadness that underneath all your laughter, you're going to be sad.

Because you know that all joy eventually ends in grief.

Now, I'm not exaggerating.

Do you see what we're what's happening now?

This is a philosophical problem.

And a lot of people have it.

In fact, we all have it until somebody helps us deal with death.

If you don't if you're not able to deal with the idea of death.

If you're not able to overcome your fear of it.

If you're not able to find some way in light of death that you can ascribe meaning to the things you're doing now.

Today.

Do you see there's a medical possibility for a crushed spirit?

There's an emotional or relational.

A moral, an existential.

A philosophical.

You see how.

And you see, by the way, doctors don't want to think about philosophy.

And friends don't want to think about medicine.

They just want to love you.

And Christians, you know, what Christians do?

Oh, we turn everything into moral.

Hmm?

We say, oh, you're downcast.

You're down.

Well, have you, um, have you claimed all the promises?

Have you confessed all known sin?

Are you having your quiet time?

Are you praying?

Are you thanking God?

You know, are you doing everything right?

Check, check, check, checklist.

You turn everything into a moral issue.

We're reductionistic.

And of course, the people who are into self-esteem.

What do they say?

Well, it's all emotional and relational.

Uh, and of course, the people who think we're just a body.

What's what what do they say?

It's all the physical.

And that's not all.

There's a physical aspect.

But not only a physical aspect.

There's an emotional aspect.

There is a moral aspect.

There's an existential aspect.

And finally, there's a faith aspect.

Oh, yeah.

And here's what I mean.

Look at, um, look at about halfway down, a little more than halfway down.

This is chapter, pardon me, chapter 15, verse 13.

A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.

Heartache crushes the spirit.

Now, a lot of people would say, well, wait a minute.

I thought the heart, the spirit, pretty much the same thing.

Well, in English, heart means emotions.

Versus head, which means the reason.

And so that's why we would say, you know, the spirit.

Which seems to be emotional passion.

And the heart wouldn't be the same thing.

No.

In the Bible, the heart means something quite a bit more than that.

The heart is your core commitments.

The things you most fundamentally trust.

The things you most fundamentally love.

The things you most fundamentally are living for.

The things you most fundamentally hope in.

That's why the second, we'll get back to this in a minute.

The second proverb says.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

And that word longing means a desire from the depths of your personality.

Now, when your heart has been set on something.

And it's got to be set on something.

You've got to set your heart on something as your ultimate hope.

Your ultimate trust.

The thing you're looking for to really make yourself happy.

Really make yourself feel significant.

The thing you say, if I have that, then my life means something.

Then I know I'm somebody.

Then I know I'm all right.