So today’s a topical message, looking at a component of biblical Anthropology. It’s a fancy way of saying we’re going to talk about our feelings today. It applies to everyone who’s still breathing. Sometimes we think of these types of conversations and it’s like, Oh, not one of those. But again, the reason for it is this affects all of us. There’s not a person here who has not in some way struggled dealing with the feelings that God has given to them at one time or another. We looked into the reading of God’s word if you would join me in prayer. Blessed Lord, as we come before you this day, we recognize that in your kindness, you’ve given to us your word, that you have had it written and preserved for our instruction. So we ask that you give us grace to hear them proclaim this day, that you would strengthen our souls with the fullness of their teaching. Father, it would please you to guide us in the deep things your heavenly wisdom, and from your great mercy, that you would lead us by your word into everlasting life through Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior. Amen.
A medley of text that we will bring together, beginning with Habakkuk. Oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear, or cry to you violence and you will not save? Proverbs 11, The righteousness of the upright deliver them, but the unfaithful are trapped by evil desires. Proverbs 23, Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 16, Whoever slow to anger is better than the mighty. He who rules a spirit than he who takes a city. Psalm 37, Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices. Refrain from anger, forsake wrath, fret not yourself, It tends only to evil. Psalm 103, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his Holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. The word of the Lord. Thank in God. A man falls into water and he can’t swim and automatically starts flailing around, yelling for help, swallowing water, coughing, sputtering, filled with panic and desperation.
And then he hears a voice calling out. Hysteria and hope now collide together. And through all the distress and the fear, these words break in. Stand up. The voice yelled it again. Stand up. And somehow the message gets sent to kicking set of legs and stabbing desperately at the bottom. They quickly come in contact with a hard surface. Standing now in waist high water. Another set of emotions comes flooding in. Relief mixed with embarrassment, touch of humor with a touch of shame, laughter and tears, and all of that with adrenaline coursing through, elevating the whole experience. A few of us have probably ever done that, but we can relate to the experience because we’ve all had similar kinds of emotions. And what’s amazing is that you can feel so many different emotions all at the same time. How all those things can come in with this mass amount of complexity, and yet there we are, able to identify so many of them. We all feel. Well, what do we do with those times when we would rather feel less than we do, or when we wonder if our feelings are having too much control over us?
Have you ever wondered why God made us this way to begin with? Now, we don’t mind the pleasant feelings when life is going really well and the things are good around us. But it’s the dark ones that give us pause. Grief and deep hurt, fear and anxiety, depression, hopelessness. Why are these part of the creational mix? What purpose could they possibly serve? And when you feel like a moment of life has been hijacked by the feeling that you just can’t shake, you wonder about God’s decision to give them to us in the first place. Now, some try to respond by living a stoic life, just squashing all these down, and others let them have free reign to the point of instability. How are we to rightly live with them? Well, because we are fearfully and wonderfully made by a good God. We are to see that our feelings are a gift from him. We are creatures that are made to be moved by our feelings. Emotions are a powerful, tremendous power. When well-harnessed, our lives are fueled by them. But when they go amidst, It’s devastating to the point of despair. Now, our current climate is one where people identify with themselves very much with how they feel.
That their whole identity revolves around how they are at that moment feeling, even in the sense of I feel, therefore I am. And we see all the problems that that produces. How do we go forward? We’re looking first then at the creational beginning and then into that redemptive the ordering that we find in Jesus. At the headquarters of creation, everything the Lord made in Genesis was marked with the statement God saw that it was good. And the very first not good comes in Genesis 2, Adam being alone. No, not good. And Eve is created. And we see that we were created for human relationships. We were created for a relationship with God, with one another. But very quickly, Genesis 3 begins, the fall. Satan lies and he twists God’s words to Eve. And then we read, So the woman saw that the tree was good for food. That was the light to the eyes. And if the tree was to be desired to make one wise. She took fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband who was with her and he ate. Adam and Eve were moved to sin, in part fueled by how they felt.
Chaos now enters into God’s good world, and it affects all of us, our mind, our will, our emotions. The next chapter, the powerful emotion of anger, comes on the heels of the fall. Genesis 4, Cain and Abel bring offerings to God, and we’re told that the Lord had regard for Abel’s sacrifice, but not for Cain’s. And then we read, So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? Why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. And we see how well he ruled it. He speaks to his brother and calls him to the field, and he murders Abel with his own hands because he thought he had been wrong. His offering was blocked. He became angry. He was fueled by his own anger to the point of murder. The Lord told him to rule over his desire, but instead it ruled him. And anger is a powerful emotion that unhinges the best of us. It’s not a surprise how often scripture speaks of it.
There are nearly 600 references to anger or its emotional equivalence. It’s a great problem for our lives. And scripture tells us quite plainly, the anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires. James 1. Proverbs 22, make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor with a rathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare. And acknowledging that we struggle with anger doesn’t get us any closer to mastering it. But that’s hardly our only problem. Like a breath on a mirror, anxiety can cloud our faith. There could be a vertigo between fear and hope. We hear David in Psalm 55, My heart is in anguish within me. The tears of death have fallen upon me. Fear and tremble come upon me, and horror overwhelms me. We’ve experienced that. And biblical wisdom is careful to point out the dangers we face apart from the Lord. Proverbs 11, The righteousness of the upright, delivers him. But the unfaithful are trapped by their evil desires. Desires can actually ensnare us. They can trap us. Envie is another dark emotion that has been the motive for murder, theft, all kinds of deplorable acts.
Proverbs 14, A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot. It’s an inner cancer. It robs us of the peace that the Lord provides. It robs us of joy. It produces a rottenness, a lack of well-being. A child can be so envious of another over a toy that they become so physically agitated, they go and break the toy so the other child can’t have it either. They grieve over their neighbor’s good. A teacher, a parent will ask, Well, why did you break it? Because it wasn’t mine. What are we to do? How do we navigate through all of this? We take our longings, we take our desires, our feelings to the Lord. There’s a redemptive reordering that he brings. And we see this all through the Psalms. Half the Psalms are laments. We are given a way to walk through our darkest thoughts. We do so with the Lord at our side. I’m not saying to squash him to not think about them. It’s to bring them before him. The Prophet Habakkuk is so troubled by what he sees. He takes it to the Lord. We read earlier, he cries out to the Lord, Lord, how long shall I cry for help?
And you will not hear or cry to you violence and you will not save. He goes to the Lord with those deep, dark considerations and thoughts because he knows that his God will respond. And David instructs us, Psalm 37, be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. And waiting is not passive. Oh, yeah, I just got to wait and sit there. Try it. It’s very active. It takes a lot to wait upon the Lord because what do you want to do? Not wait. Try waiting. It’s hard. And David goes on, fret not yourself over the one who prospers and his way, over the man who carries out evil devices. Refrain from anger, forsake wrath, fret not yourself. It tends only for evil. When you lock in on that, it brings you to the same path of the thing that you hate. And David, he writes a Psalm after he had this terrible experience with the Philistines and trying to get away. He even pretended to be mad. And here he writes Psalm 56, When I am I’m afraid. I put my trust in you, in God, whose word I praise. In God, I trust.
I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me? Because that wasn’t his response. He was afraid of flesh. And now reflecting upon it. He’s taking all of that back to the Lord, recognizing what he should have done. David allowed the truth of who God is to invade his fears rather than allow his fears to invade his faith. He allowed the truth of who God is to invade his fears rather than his fears to invade his faith. It’s difficult. We also see the application of biblical wisdom. Proverbs 16, Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules the spirit than he who takes a city. Because it’s hard to rule your spirit. Proverbs 23, Do not let your heart envy sinners, but be zealous for the fear of the Lord. That envying, that they seem to be getting what they want, they seem to be getting away with things, they seem to be prospering. And he said, Don’t lock in on that. With an action, be zealous for the fear of the Lord. Move your hearts in a different direction towards the Lord. A redirecting and even a call to worship, Psalm 103.
There, David says, It says, ‘Bless the Lord, ‘ ‘Oh my soul, ‘ ‘and all that is within me. ‘ ‘Bless his Holy name. ‘ ‘Bless the Lord, ‘ ‘Oh my soul. Forget not all his benefits. Calling ourselves to recall what God has done for us and even reminding ourselves to look up in a away from what we see. Because that’s what happens. We can get stuck with what’s in front of us. And how do we unstick it? How do we move? Look up, look away from it. And it’s a difficult challenge. And It’s a part, as it were, a call to worship. It’s not something we simply do ourselves. It’s corporate. To be able to have our hearts moved in that way by God. And then we go back to that question, why did God make us this way? Well, because we’re all relational beings. We’re made for relationships. And relationships are enhanced by this interplay between mind, will, and emotion. At the incarnation, Jesus took on the fullness of our humanity. That’s good news. He took on all what it means to be human. He wasn’t stoic. He didn’t shove his emotions down, nor was he just letting them run loose.
His feelings moved his actions. We read that Jesus was grieved at the hardness of heart. Jesus wept at the death of his friend, John 11. The Messianic description of Isaiah 53, he was despised and rejected. A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. The fullness of the human experience Jesus knew. Throughout the Gospels, we read how Jesus, compassion and mercy, moved his actions. Mark 14, when Jesus went to shore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them and he healed their sick. Luke 17, he sees the widow of Nain. Her son had just died. He said he saw her. He had compassion on her. He said, Do not weep. He raises her son from the dead. Matthew 15, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days. They have nothing to eat. I’m unwilling to send them way hungry, lest they faint on the way. What Jesus felt moved him to action. See, our emotions are not our enemy, but like the rest of us, they’re fallen and they need to be reordered by the Lord. It is a spiritual journey of maturity.
It should be something that we do grow in over time. The application of the gospel to our lives. But we also see that there’s a natural maturity that comes with regulating our emotions as we age. We can often forget how hard it was as children to work through this. If you’re a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, you are daily confronted with children trying to work through how they feel. And for some, it’s harder than others. We’re all wired differently. To feel deeply is not a defect. It certainly has challenges, but it’s not a defect. You can see at times, children, people, this spontaneous tears for no apparent reason. A child that just emotionally stuck in anger or sadness, you What am I supposed to do? But we teach them the very slow process of bringing these seemingly out of control feelings to the Lord in prayer and in worship. Those times where you maybe even embraced them in the midst of it. No explanation really given, just helping them through and shaking your head going, I have 10 more years of this. They do grow, they do get better. But we’ve been there. It’s a struggle.
It’s part of being human. We remember and teach them what is true, what is good, and what is praiseworthy for Philippians 4. That God does care about their feelings. They can come to him and offer them before them. And even as working through the Psalms with them, how the Psalms is the Book of God’s people, collectively and individually, to be able to take some of these deep and dark moments and pour out your heart with them to the Lord in a constructive way. Developing the fruit spirit, Galatians 5, it comes from keeping in step with the Holy spirit. It includes, of course, self-control. But we don’t technique our feelings away. Hear that, because as Americans who just want steps and processes, what are the things I need to do? You don’t technique your feelings away. You don’t will them away. That rarely works. Maybe a few people can do it sometimes, but generally it doesn’t work that well. Because feelings are not a problem to be solved, rather they are to be submitted to the Lord like every other part of us. There’s a submission of those to the Lord. I think we have that image sometimes, the train, the mind, the will, the emotions, you get them all in line, it goes down the track.
I don’t think that’s super helpful because I don’t think anybody really does that. There’s an interplay between all of those. Not like I get my mind right, I get my will right, and then my emotions come along. You see often that the emotions move us in a direction because of what we see, the compassion, the mercy to an action. And there’s this interplay that happens there. That’s how God has made us to be relational beings, that we are to pursue relationship with him. Throughout scripture, we are given pictures and terms that we understand about who God is A holy and perfect God, a holy and perfect love, a holy and perfect compassion. But that includes a holy and perfect jealousy, a holy and perfect anger for sin and unrighteousness. And that part is hard for us to comprehend because ours is far from perfect. And we see then that in the fullness of who Jesus is, how Jesus responded, how he entered into our suffering, our sin, and our misery to take that upon himself. And we now are reordering ourselves because his spirit dwells in us. Sure you’re all familiar with the story of Jona and the prophet, he was so angry with God.
Why was he angry with God? Because of God’s compassion and mercy, that he wanted Nineveh to be destroyed because Israel had suffered so much at her hand. And towards the very end of the book, Jona prays the Lord. He said, Oh, Lord, is this not what I said before I left my country? This is why I made haste to flee, for I knew you’re a gracious God, merciful slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life. It’s better for me to die than to live. How does that correspond? Because of mercy to people who have hurt you, it’s hard to appreciate. And into this pity party, for that’s what it was, the Lord asked a question. And making Jona look at his own heart to understand it. When God asks a question in scripture, it’s not because he doesn’t know, it’s for the person to reflect. He He asks Adam and Eve, Where are you? Because in shame, they’re hiding from him. He asked the very depressed Elijah, Why are you here? And he’s asking Jona, Do you have a right to be angry? Because our feelings can alter how we see things.
They can restore like a carnival mirror. And the Lord comes into the midst of that. Do you do well to be angry? And Noah, of course, Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die. And the Lord says, You have pity on this plant. He had a plant there that had fated away, and he’s mad about the plant not shading the on. He said, You have pity on this plant, but you don’t have on these people. He said, Should not I have pity on Nineveh, the great city where there are more than 120,000 people who do not know their right-hand from their left and also much cattle? Jona should have been moved with compassion and pity, but he wasn’t. And the book ends right there. It just ends in suspense. What happened? What did Jona do? Well, the book is written We have it, and Jona wrote it. So I think in one sense, we could look at it and go, Jona works through this. But the suspense is there for us. What are you going to do with this? How are you going to respond. Jesus was moved by compassion. Jesus came into the midst of his enemies, calling them to repent, but taking upon himself their sins that they deserved.
The one who said, Pray for your enemies. Bless those who despitefully use you. That is what God has called his people to do. And we see the struggle we have within our own hearts. And when we drive ourselves to these sinful places, fueled by these dark emotions, the response is to repent. Deep pain reveals my heart to myself. What do I do? Where do I go? And we can avoid that because we don’t want to look into our own heart. The easy path is to find ways to relieve these feelings. Often, that’s the very source of our idolatry. The pain is too much, it’s too intense, and therefore I will flee. Jona literally fled, Elijah literally fled. But many can flee by anesthetizing themselves with just numbing, bingewatching, dreaming services. Numb ourselves with wrong relationships, drugs and alcohol, the usual or maybe just giving into despair, or I am just not going to feel. I’m going to deaden myself. To do that is to become less than human. You were not made to be feelingless. You were made to be moved. Again, David allowed the truth of who God is to invade his his fears rather than allow his fears to invade his faith.
You could substitute that with whatever emotion you’re dealing with. Despair, hopelessness, envy, anger, frustration, the list goes on. And we bring those before the Lord, and we allow the Holy spirit working in us according to the word to show us, to evaluate why we feel what we feel, where are we going with this? Because it moves us away from God in particular places. And we come then acknowledging that, confessing that, and allowing them, the Lord, to take those things, to move us in a right direction, to feel overwhelmed because of terrible things happening in the world is not wrong. What do you do with that? To move you to intercensory prayer? To walk through the frustrations of a broken relationship where you want things different. Where do you go with that? Anger and hostility and this venom being spewed back? Or does this then move in a direction of, I’m going to choose to walk in a way that Jesus did. I’m going to bless those who cursed me, even though it’s the last thing I feel. Because I want the Holy spirit to move my heart in a different direction. And that’s the interplay that we have as creatures that God has made to have relationship with one another and with him, and our problems with one another almost invariably go upward to him at some point.
Can we struggle with the people we love? We get mad at God. We get mad at the things that we’re dealing with or are just overwhelmed. And then we hear this. We hear this from Jesus, the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, who with compassion saw those in need, and he moved in their way. And he says, ‘Come to me, all you who are labor and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. God doesn’t want you to be indifferent towards your feelings. He has given them to you. He doesn’t want you to be controlled by them. He doesn’t want you to squash them out of existence. He wants you to come with the fullness of that weight, to put it on his to take the yoke of Jesus and have that relief from the one who from the very depths of his soul has shown his love and compassion to you so that you would have life, an abundant life in him.
Joy ever lasting is before us. And that is fueling not only our relationship with one another, but our relationship to him as we go forward, awaiting for that day when he will one day return. And all this chaos will be put back in order. But until then, come to Jesus, rest in him. Pray with me. Father, as we come before you this day, all of us struggle in some ways with this. We all do. And Father, we ask that you continue to lead us by your spirit, that you would show us, Father, how take this beautiful gift and to grow and be moved in right ways. And Father, where we have been severely disordered, where we have sinned against you and others, we ask that you would forgive us. Father, not only forgive us, but continue to show us our hearts. Father, that you would fill us with joy in believing that our hope would spring eternal from you. And Father, we thank you that indeed we are fearfully and wonderfully made to be moved by you. We pray and offer this before you in the name of Jesus. Amen. His glory and my good, please stand.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.