Why are so many people so unhappy?
Why is it that there are so many people with so much ability and with so many resources, but they still feel profoundly unhappy and frustrated?
A great many people do, you know. Some of them show it in the obvious ways; some of them are angry and even dangerous because they are, ill housed, ill fed, and ill clad. It’s pretty easy to see why they would be unhappy and frustrated.
But this deep discontent, this frustration knows no boundaries of class or education or wealth. By now we know that we can’t be fooled by the plastic images we see on TV. By now we know that a good many of the glittering public personalities are embroiled in lawsuits, their marriages are breaking up. Some are into drugs because they want to escape their real lives, and some lie on psychiatrists’ couches for endless hours, because they want to discover their real lives!
Where does this unhappiness come from? How do you interpret all this frustration? And what is its remedy? Who has a cure?
The apostle Paul gives us a very pointed description of the human dilemma in the Roman letter. In just a few brief words he puts labels on some of the frustrations we feel. If you listen carefully while I read, and you listen especially for the word "while", you’ll identify the levels of our frustration.
Romans 5:6-11
Let me highlight those three "whiles", those three levels of frustration: "While we were still weak", "while we still were sinners", and "while we were enemies". Remember those three key words: weak, sinners, and enemies.
And then let me highlight God’s response. How much does God care about us? Enough to die for us. "While we were still weak, Christ died for the ungodly" "While we still were sinners, Christ died for us" And "while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son."
To get you into thinking about this, I have a parable brought to you out of my basement. I have a plumbing parable that will teach you about these levels of human frustration.
About three or four weeks ago I was cleaning something very dirty and greasy, and I was doing it in our basement laundry sink. The next time somebody tried to do a load of laundry, we had a minor flood in the basement, because the sink drain had stopped up. Well, I tried the usual remedies. I waited to see if it would correct itself, I poured in some Drano. But to no avail.
And so I dismantled the sink trap and got my plumber’s snake and went to work. With enough wiggling and jiggling I think I got that snake in about 12 or 15 feet before I hit the problem, and with some twisting and turning, I brought out some of the gunk. I thought I had accomplished my goal.
But a test proved otherwise. This time instead of water backing up in the laundry sink, it began to bubble up out of the floor drain, along with slimy, smelly yuck. The truth is that I wasn’t strong enough and my equipment wasn’t powerful enough to bring all the plug out. Frustration because of weakness.
So next I did what every red-blooded American male would do. I ignored the problem and went on. I let it sit there. That’s what you do if you are a man. You are certainly not going to ask for help! Why that would be almost as bad as asking somebody for directions when you are lost! It just isn’t done! So I ignored the problem. I had no particular game plan, except to hook up a garden hose so that we could send the washing machine water out the back door and put soap bubbles into the rose bushes. Who knows? Soap might be good for roses!
Now at this point, do you see the label for my frustration? What was I experiencing now? At first weakness, but now pride. I couldn’t get done what I wanted to get done because foolish pride wouldn’t let me ask for help.
Well, it all came to a head this past Monday. When my daughter phoned and said, "I want to bring over some laundry, what’s the situation?", that was bad enough. When my son came home and said, "Do we have a drain yet?", that was hard to take. But when my wife said, "I want that taken care of and I want it done today" … well, that was the end of the line!
Why? Because what had started out as a nuisance, and I just didn’t quite have the strength to take care of it ... and what had moved on to be a badge of pride … now had become a disruption of relationships! Suddenly the issue wasn’t plumbing anymore; now it was how family members felt about me! Now it was feelings! And that really got my attention!
Now you think you know the answer. You think you know what ought to have been done. And you are probably right. But we’ll save that for a while. Right now we’re just looking at the levels of human frustration: why are we so unhappy, why are we so frustrated, why are we unable to do what we want to do?
Weakness, pride, and broken relationships. Weakness, pride, and broken relationships. Paul speaks of them this way: ’’While we were still weak … " "While we still were sinners … " "While we were enemies " Let’s explore these together:
I
The first level of frustration is weakness. We just can’t seem to get the strength to do and to be what we want. Weakness.
Weakness wears several faces. Sometimes it looks like insecurity. Sometimes it looks like doubt. Sometimes it is just being unsure and indecisive. I have a friend who when presented with almost any kind of decision will say, "I’ll have to get back to you on that. I don’t know what to do." And you can count on his never getting back with a decision and on never being sure of what he ought to do.
Weakness plagues us and frustrates us because we can’t come to terms with priorities. We can’t seem to figure out what is really important. We keep hearing people tell us to be all we can be, but we hardly even know what we want to be, much less have the strength of mind and muscle to pull it off.
I believe that a lot of people feel frustrated and unhappy just because they feel weak. They feel unsure of themselves, they lack the courage to take hold of their lives. They just sort of blandly do whatever comes along to do. You see, this is why a lot of young people are so vulnerable: if nobody has helped them to get a grip on themselves, if nobody has taught them anything about standing for something, then they will be led by others. As the old saying has it, "If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything."
I have another friend with whom I play a little game sometimes. I’ve found out that she will agree with anything I say. No matter what it is, how ridiculous it may be, she will just agree. So sometimes I play a little game and I will say things that are absolutely contradictory, just to see what will happen. "It’s getting colder, I think." "Oh yes, it’s chilly". "Nice day to go out without a coat on" "Don’t need one at all."
Weakness is not knowing who we are or what we think, and so we end up being timid little mice who will do only what others want us to do. And since we cannot satisfy everybody else and have not learned to satisfy ourselves, we get frustrated.
Now Paul says, " ...while we were still weak …Christ died for the ungodly." He is saying that Jesus the Christ shows us what strength really is. God in Jesus Christ loves us enough to demonstrate the awesome strength of a man who knows what He is about, who knows what He is to do. God cares enough about our weakness to put in front of us one who faced even death, and who did it with resolution and with joy. The Scripture says that Christ "for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross."
"While we were still weak … Christ died for us." And when you and I are able to see and to receive what Christ has done in dying for us, then, as Paul says in another place, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." The weakness issue is over and done with. And power comes.
You say, "I wish I really could believe all that. I wish I could get that kind of strength from somewhere." And I will tell you that our God often gives a special assurance to those whose weakness threatens them.
You have read about the priest in Virginia who is experiencing weeping statues and wounds like those of Christ. I find all of that hard to believe, Personally, but also find it hard not to believe because there have been objective investigations. But I was struck to read that this priest had begun to have doubts about Christ and doubts about his own calling, and now he says those doubts are cleared up.
Who knows what this all means? I just know that our God loves us enough to give us gifts of assurance when we are weak.
How much does God care about us, then? He cares enough to permit Christ Jesus to die for us, that we may see strength instead of weakness. Live life outside of Christ, and we will be endlessly frustrated because there will never be enough certainty, never enough power, never enough strength, to be all we can be.
Live life seeing and receiving the Cross, and we will share in the strength of one who died, willingly, for us. Good news!
II
But now I have said that there is a second level of frustration, a second level of unhappiness. This one comes from pride. Beyond our problem with weakness, we have a deeper problem, and that is pride.
Now the theological word for pride is sin. Sin. Don’t be put off by that ugly word. Don’t reject it. I know it suggests decadence and degradation to a lot of people. But sin as the Bible understands it is a whole lot more than breaking rules.
Sin is pride. Sin is the foolish way we have of thinking we can stand on our own two feet and do everything that needs to be done without any help, thank you.
Sin is that stubbornness inside us that makes us suppose that if anything is going to get done, we’re going to be the ones to do it. Sin is that surge of arrogance in us that leads us to insist, with the woman in the old TV commercial, "Mother, please, I’d rather do it myself."
The trouble is, of course, that most of the great tasks of life we cannot do ourselves. Most of the challenging undertakings we cannot do alone. And so we mess up. We blunder. We blow it. And pride keeps us from asking or receiving help.
Bob Rich is our stewardship consultant. He taught some of us last week what we are supposed to be doing toward raising the church building fund. I had already noticed that Mr. Rich talks and moves at a very rapid pace. When he walks in, it feels like you’ve been hit by a lightning bolt; and when he speaks, it sounds as though the thunder is rolling. I only wish I had half his energy.
Well, over the past several days some of us said, "I didn’t really understand everything. I couldn’t keep up with Mr. Rich. He went too fast." But guess what? Almost none of us stopped him to ask any questions! Almost none of us were willing to admit in public that we didn’t get it! And that includes me, by the way! We all said, "Oh well, I’ll read the book and I’ll get it for myself." Now what was that? That was pride!
Pride says, "I’ll do it myself." Pride says, "I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul" Pride says, "I don’t need you, I don’t need anybody, I’ll just find a way to get my own life together."
And that, folks, is an illusion. That never works. Paul says in this same Roman letter, "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do". Sin is irrational, sin gets hold of us, sin and pride are out of control. Just plain out of control; frustration comes because we know what we want to do, but pride just will not let us get help.
Ah, but hear again the good news. "While we still were sinners, Christ died for us." While we still were caught up in all this pride thing, God in Jesus Christ went to a shameful cross and showed us that foolish pride means nothing. God in Jesus Christ went to a: crude, rude cross and paid a price we were unwilling and unable to pay, and said, "You can be forgiven. All that shame, all that sin, all that pride, I will take away."
How much does God care about us? "God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners, Christ died for us." Live life outside of Christ, and we will be haunted by guilt, frustrated by our inability to do the good things we say we want to do and plagued by the memories of those sinful things we did because pride led us to do them.
III
I will not take the time this morning to spell out what is obvious. I need not remind you that in anything we do the toughest problems come when others will not cooperate. In this town I certainly do not need to elaborate political realities – that sometimes we can’t do what we are supposed to do just because somebody else dislikes us or wears a different party label. Life’s deepest frustrations come from broken relationships.
And so it is no surprise when Paul identifies our problem this way: "While we were enemies … " While we were enemies …” We have chosen to take our stance against God. We have chosen to set ourselves apart from God, against God. We have chosen to slap God in the face and to defy Him. We have chosen to be God’s enemies.
And that’s why we are frustrated. That’s why our lives are so full of failure. We dare to think we can go up against the very creator of the universe and win it … how ridiculous! As somebody has put it, you may think that if you step off the edge of a ten-story building, you should be able to break the law of gravity, but the truth is that the law of gravity will break you! And we may think that we can get away with ignoring God, defying God, working against everything God stands for … but in the end because we have chosen to be God’s enemies, God will work against everything we stand for. Frustration. Enemies.
We don’t have to go to the ghettos or the prisons to find examples of this. We don’t have to point fingers at the crooks and the criminals. We need go no further than our own hearts. When I neglect to pray, I have shut God out and made myself His enemy. When I treat the work of His church carelessly, I have pushed God to the back shelf and have made myself His enemy. When I tip Him with no more of my money than I would give a waiter at the restaurant, I have cheapened Him and have made myself His enemy. Hostility, broken relationship … this is the plight of every person. Enemies of God.
Oh, but I do have good news. Again I have good news! [Even] "while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son". Even though I have set myself over against God, He sets Himself up on that Cross out of love for me. Even though I tell God I do not care about Him, He cares about me.
And that cross says, "My child, you may hate me, you may ignore me, you may treat me badly. But can you ignore this cross? Can you really overlook this? Look at what I’m doing for you."
How much does God care about us? God cares enough to reach out to us with the ultimate sacrifice in order to bring us back home, back into fellowship.
Live life without Christ and we will live it not caring what God is about, not caring where His heart is. And that means that nothing will go right. We are set against God and nothing will work. Total frustration.
But live life seeing and receiving the Cross, and all the frustrations dissolve. They dissolve because we are no longer enemies of God, but we are His friends. We are reconciled to God by the death of His son.
"What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear … what a friend" Good, good news!
Conclusion
Well, I called the plumber this week. I finally admitted that I was too weak and ill equipped to clear that drainage line.
I got in touch with the plumber this week. I recognized that all the pride in the world was not going to solve the problem. I needed help.
The plumber did his work this week, and there were smiles all around. The job was done, and we all could deal with our dirty laundry. Not only our clothes but also our feelings got cleaned.
All I had to do was give the plumber a check. He did all the work.
And all you have to do is to give Christ your heart, your life, and your trust. He will do all the work.
If you are weak, Christ died for that. If you are proud, Christ died for you. If you are so far gone you are God’s enemy, Christ died to bring you home.
How much does God care about us? Enough to die. Enough to take us just as we are. Just come. It’s so simple, really. Just come.
