“God’s Prescription for the Bipolar Christian”

Pentecost 19 – October 10th and 11th, 2009

James 4:7-10

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM as it is most commonly referred to,
defines bipolar disorder as the presence of two polar opposite moods and emotions which result in two polar
opposite sets of behavior. A person who is bipolar can experience extreme emotional highs one moment, only to
slip into a deep depression the next moment, all the while radically affection the individual’s outward behavior.
Bipolar disorder is a serious mental illness, one that needs formal treatment, because in either state, the ecstatic high
or the depressive low, the afflicted person can cause irreversible emotional and physical damage to their own lives, or
to the lives of their loved ones.
James was dead-serious when he called his readers in verse 8, “Double-minded.” Throughout his letter, he
attacked the spiritual bipolar behavior of the early Christians, who acted super-sanctimoniously inside of God’s
house, but increasingly worldly outside of God’s house. In chapter 3, James gives a good example of this: “With the
tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men...out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My
brothers, this should not be!”
Thankfully our God has a regiment of treatment for the bipolar Christian. He invites us to meet with him
in meditation, so that he may counsel us in our Christian faith and lives. Secondly, he offers to us his medication
which cleanses our hearts of sin and cleans es our hands for service. And finally, he offers guidance counseling for
behavior modification, so that our words and actions outside of God’s house are consistent with our confession
inside of God’s house.

I. Meet with God in meditation

One of the treatments that is often prescribed for the mental illness - bipolar disorder - is formal counseling
sessions, where the patient is asked to meet regularly with a social worker or guidance counselor. Counseling is
important for the patient for a couple of reasons. First of all, it reminds the patient that they do have a serious
disorder, lest they begin to convince themselves that they are completely cured and have no further need of
assistance. Secondly, the patient is given a chance to talk about their struggles with the disorder, to lay their heart
open to the counselor so that the counselor can offer sound encouragement and advice on how to move forward in
their lives and relationships.
The first part of God’s prescription regiment for our spiritual bipolar disorder is counseling: “Draw near to
God, and he will draw near to you.” We need counseling. God knows that we need it! Our bipolar sinner/saint lives
show that we need it! Take this command of God seriously. This invitation is not extended to us arbitrarily. Every
single one of us can identify constantly with the struggle that St. Paul describes in Romans 7:19: “For what I do is
not the good I want to do; no – the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing.”
We need time with God. We need the corporate gathering of the congregation where God promises to meet
with his people and bless them in Word and Sacrament. We also need that precious one-on-one time where it’s just
the physician and patient, where his heart is open to us in his Word and our hearts are open to him in prayer. We
need that gracious interaction between God and sinner, so that we cannot begin to convince ourselves that we aren’t
really sick – that we aren’t deathly ill with sin – that we aren’t really in need of anything that God has to offer. Such
thoughts are dangerous and potentially destructive to the soul. For where there is no need for divine counseling and
meditation, there is apparently no need for a Savior. Jesus made that very point to the Pharisees in Mark 2:17, “It is
not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
We need the doctor! “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” You have been invited to counsel
with the Lord God Almighty. Take him up on his offer. It won’t cost you a thing and you’ll never be turned away.
Open your Bibles at home for 5 minutes, 10 minutes an hour. Your counselor will always speak with purpose and
for your benefit. Open your hearts to God in prayer. He will always take the time to listen. Set aside the time,
corporately and personally, to meet with God in meditation. For when you do, when you open those Scriptures
and speak to God in prayer, you are stepping into a counseling session from which you cannot return without
tremendous benefit for your Christian faith and life. “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”

II. Receive God’s cleansing medication

In the medical realm, certain cases of bipolar disorder can be treated simply with counseling sessions. But
then there are cases where the disease is so advanced that it cannot be controlled with just counseling. In some
cases, the disease needs to be treated medically. It just depends on how bad it it.
What is the extent of our spiritual disorder? How bad is it? Remember that Paul speaks of Christians as,
“...God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.” And yet,
we read here in James 4: “You kill and covet...you quarrel and fight..you adulterous people, who choose to be a friend of
the world...and thereby become an enemy of God.” For the recipients of this letter, James wanted to let the people
know just how entrenched their sinfulness was. They laughed and joyed in sinful behavior. They gloried in loveless
and pointless scrutiny of one another and in meaningless faultfinding. They sat in sinful judgment of each other,
unwilling to receive one another as equals under Christ and his cross. “Who are you to judge your fellow man,” James
finally asked in verse 12.
How bad is it? The disease of sin runs so deep within us, through every square inch of our being, body and
soul, that it distorts our minds with impure thoughts, it influences our lips to curse and to slander, and it moves our
extremities for the purpose of destruction rather than divine service. The disease of sin runs deep within us!
God has medication for that. “Cleanse your hands you sinners, and purify your hearts, you bipolar ones.” How,
you ask? St. John explains in his first epistle, chapter 1:7: “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”
God’s remedy for our sin disease is not some magic pill, or a prescribed list of things to do. His remedy is a
complete cleansing through holy and innocent blood. The counselor that we are invited to meet in worship and
devotion is also our spiritual physician, who knows that the only way for us to survive the deeply-rooted disease of
sin is the application of the innocent blood of to us.
Every time that we gather for worship, every time that we spend one-on-one time with the counselor, God
takes the opportunity to lead us to the cross, to take us to Calvary’s mournful mountain, where our hearts and hands
are washed thoroughly with the lifeblood of Christ, so that we may be absolutely certain of God’s promise, “Your
sins are forgiven.” Isaiah 53 says it beautifully, “Surely he took up our infirmities (diseases) and carried our
sorrows...But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us
peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed.“
 III. Submit to God’s behavior modification

With any patient that is suffering from a mental illness, there needs to be an understanding of the
continuous necessity of treatment. There needs to be a trust that what the doctors and physicians say and prescribe
is truly what is needed to bring the disorder under control. There is a certain level of submission on the part of the
patient, whose behaviors are modified because of their dependence upon others for help: the doctors, the counselors
and often, the medication.
James instructs us: “Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you...Grieve, mourn and wail.
Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.”
Doesn’t it seem strange that God would tell his children to be miserable, to be sad, to weep tears of sorrow, where in
many other portions of Scripture, like Philippians 4:4, we hear, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say it rejoice!”
Why insist on an attitude of doom and gloom?
To be joyful and full of laughter in the midst of blatant and open sin is really to be in a state of denial about
the seriousness of sin. If you were deathly ill, would you be jolly and happy? Most likely not! If the doctor told you
what your disease was and told you what medication you had to take in order to live, would you take it? Of course
you would! You wouldn’t walk out of the office mumbling under your breath, “What a quack!” No, you’d run to
the nearest pharmacy, fill that prescription and start taking it immediately.
The Lord does not intend here to have us moping around all the time. We are told to rejoice in the Lord
and his salvation. At the same time, let’s not be in a state of denial about our spiritual condition. We are deathly ill
in sin. And the more we receive God’s medication and counseling in his Word, the more we are made acutely aware
of our dependency on it for salvation. But, unlike chemical dependency, which is most certainly a detrimental
thing, spiritual dependency on our counselor, his Word of promise, and his medication of the gospel in Christ Jesus,
is the most blessed kind of dependency there is, because it leads to exaltation - the ultimate cure for our spiritual
bipolar disorder: the day when our sinful nature will be completely gutted from us, and we will only exist in the
glory of the perfect new man, serving our God day and night in heaven.
5.7 million Americans suffer from bipolar disorder. It’s a serious condition, with treatments that range from
counseling sessions to administration of medication. Most continue to suffer effects of the disorder throughout
their lives, even to the day they die. Every single Christian is, in a sense, spiritually bipolar. At times we show
evidence of the new man created by the Holy Spirit who desires only God’s will to be done, and at other times it is
blatantly obvious that the Old Adam is still there causing damage in us and through us through sinful words and
actions.
For us, God has this regiment of treatment: Meet with him in meditation, so that through mutual
communication with God through Bible Study and prayer, he may bring blessing and direction into your Christian
faith and life. Repeatedly receive his medication – the Word and Sacraments which apply the blood of Christ Jesus
to your sins and wash them away. And trust that the one who counsels you in his wisdom, who administers his
medication to you by his grace, will continue to mold and shape you by his Word, so that “the sinful nature is
drowned in daily sorrow and repentance, and the new man daily arises to live before God in righteousness and purity
forever.” Amen.