How In touch Are You?

Alright, we are continuing our series, / / Could I Be Happier? Last week we started by looking at Matthew 5:3 and laid a bit of groundwork that will carry through the whole series.

First, we looked at what this passage of scripture is. Matthew 5, 6 & 7 are what we call the Sermon on the Mount. In todays terms we would call that Jesus’ kingdom manifesto, or maybe just his political platform. When it comes to positions of authority we always look for a person’s platform to see if we want them in charge. What do they believe? How are they going to do things differently than the other person? And probably most importantly: What does it mean for us? Or how will you being in charge effect ME?

If you believe differently than me, or do things differently than me, that will impact how I live my life if you are put in power over me.

This is essentially what Jesus was doing through this passage of scripture.

He’s outlining what He believes, what He will do, and what that will require of us, or how we should live if we choose to come under his leadership.

Remember, John the Baptist laid the groundwork and Jesus came in preaching the same thing, Mark 1:15, / / “The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!”

In that one little sentence, Jesus outlines what this new Kingdom is going to require of us. If we look at those three words that he uses, / / repent of your sins and believe - we see the way to entering this Kingdom he’s talking about.

/ / repent - the greek word metanoeo which means to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins.

/ / sins - greek hamartano - to miss the mark

/ / believe - pisteuo - which we have looked at and it means much more than just believe, but really to commit to, to entrust yourself to something or someone, like in a marriage covenant.

So, put those three words together in their fulling meaning and this is really what Jesus is inviting us into:

Are you willing to change the way you think, recognize where you have missed the mark, in your theology, in your beliefs, in your way of living, and are you willing to commit to a new way of doing things, a new way of living, a new way of believing....My way? Because if you are, you will inherit all that the Kingdom of God has. Come on, follow me!

And Jesus is saying this over and over again in various ways to different degrees, but always that same message.

Matthew 16:24-26, / / If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way (deny yourself), take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.

So, right from the beginning, Jesus has been laying the foundation - the promise of the kingdom is now here, but it’s going to look different than you imagined, and if you want to partake of this Kingdom you’re going to have to lay down what you think and let me explain it to you.

A lot of people were hoping for a king to take back the throne of Israel, that’s what they thought the promise was, which would have required a militant leader to come in, drive Rome out of the region and reestablish the nation. And they tried 40 years later, a rebellion rose up and Jerusalem was laid under siege, most of the inhabitants killed, the city destroyed along with the temple!

Matthew 5-7, this platform that Jesus is outlining is describing how it will all work differently and right away he starts with, as we saw last week, First, / / you have to redefine what it means to be blessed, and he uses this word that I can only imagine would’ve made people wonder where he was going with it all.

/ / makarios - blessed, happier, favored

And a quick recap, because as we look at the next verse today, Matthew 5:4 we are going to see that Jesus repeats this word again. If you weren’t here last week, you should go back and watch on our website, or youtube, and get the real thoughts behind this word, but essentially it was used in a way that made it a very unattainable thing for normal everyday people.

This is why Jesus got into it so often with the Pharisees because they put such an unbearable religious demand on the people, and acted like they were getting everything right and that is why they would be blessed by God, and if you didn’t get it all right you weren’t. We are better than you because we do it right.

That was the way that they understood this word makarios, it was used in the greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures to describe those who were blessed by God, and we knew they were blessed because of their status and their obvious financial blessing. But that wasn’t attainable to the normal everyday person.

Then how the greeks were using it, it either described how the gods on Mt Olympus lived, outside of this earth; or the dead, outside of this earth, or the 1%, the elite, those who were so rich and powerful that normal life didn’t really effect them.

Jesus comes in and says, You have it wrong, that’s not what it means to be blessed, to be happy.

I would think we get that by now. Money doesn’t make you happy. That’s a pretty common saying. And yet, it is still the thing most people pursue thinking it will.

Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, / / Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings happiness!

And yet so many people are constantly chasing the almighty dollar hoping that is what will make them happy. We work more, so we can buy more. We sacrifice time with our family, friends, community, to prioritize “the life we want.”

And Jesus chooses to start with, / / Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And as we continue through this passage of scripture, let’s read Matthew 5:4, Jesus continues, / / Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

So, we asked three questions last week that we want to ask again of this next verse, / / Who, Why & How?

Who:

/ / Who is Jesus talking to here? Last week we simply answered that as you! You are who He is talking to. But if we take that just a step further, this is an invitation. When we read the NLT it words it a bit differently. It says, / / God blesses those who...

And when we read each of these statements through Matthew 5:3-12, each one is really an invitation to do something, or live a certain way, that will bring blessing. Last week we saw that we are blessed when we remain poor in spirit. Jesus said, / / Blessed are the poor in spirit. I don’t think that is a downtrodden, burned up, beat up poor, but the word means / / those who are reduced to begging. Not just the state of being poor, or not having, but / / Poor in spirit is the attitude of relentlessness that comes with knowing you don’t have what you need, someone else does, and the way to get it is to focus on the person who has it.

What was the result that we saw last week? / / Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

You can’t buy the Kingdom of Heaven.

You can’t win the Kingdom of Heaven.

You can’t bargain for the Kingdom of Heaven.

No, you recognize your need for God in your life, you turn to him, denying yourself, and choose to follow Jesus Christ, and the act of begging in that way, “I need what you have” - following after him, constantly and repeatedly recognizing that I am not God, I am not enough, I am poor, positions me to receive from Him. Because I’m not begging from the perspective of “whoa is me, I’m a dirty ol’ beggar and don’t deserve it, I’m down on my luck, it’s not fair, I’ve been treated unfairly and that’s why I’m here.”

No, because being poor in spirit doesn’t have anything to do with physical needs. Paul said he found this place of contentment in Jesus Christ regardless of whether he had a full stomach or an empty stomach, whether he was in want or had an abundance. And THAT is true happiness. That is truly being blessed. Being OK even if things are not OK!

Kelley and I were just talking about this very thing this week. I would say we all know this to a certain degree, but it is one of the easiest things to forget, even though true contentment, true peace, true happiness doesn’t come from what we have, or what we do or how full our bank account, cupboards or driveways are, / / when things are going well in our lives, we tend to not focus on being poor in spirit, because I would suggest that we still have this greek mentality that blessed is based on stuff. As long as the stuff is flowing, the blessing is there.

It’s not until we don’t have the stuff, or the pressure of life rises, or the circumstances change that we realize what we had was simply masking the things in our heart and life where we truly feel poor. This is why Jesus said it’s those who recognize their need for Him that are met by Him. It’s those that recognize they are poor in SPIRIT, that turn to God and say, “I NEED YOU!”

We read this last week, Jesus said in Mark 2:17, / / “Healthy people don’t need a doctor - sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

It’s the difference between saying, “See, I’m good. I don’t need your help.” and “I am not ok. I need you!”

If you aren’t willing to admit that you are poor. If you aren’t willing to admit you have need of Him. If you haven’t realized yet that money, stuff, work, relationships, drinking, partying, shopping or whatever else it is that we do to try and make ourselves happy isn’t actually making us truly happy - And maybe that’s because you’re too proud, or because life is going your way and you’re just not thinking about it, or maybe you haven’t ever heard that true happiness doesn’t come from stuff, so you have just lived your life focused on the American dream of more of the things - it’s your responsibility to make yourself happy, so you focus on making that happen, then like Jesus said, in that sense you’re saying you don’t need the doctor, you’re saying you don’t need what He has.

Remember how the NLT says it, / / God blesses who who are poor and realize their need for him…

So, to answer, / / Who is Jesus talking to? The invitation is there for everyone, but the ones Jesus is talking about are / / those who accept the invitation. And that is for every one of these statements Jesus makes. They are an invitation. We’re going to see that over these coming weeks.

Last week it was, / / Those who recognize their need for God and come to Him…

Now, what about this week? Who are we talking about?

Again, it’s an invitation and it’s directed not at a particular group of people that are the way they are that can’t change. He’s not talking about a particular type of person, by race, color, gender, height, weight, status or otherwise, he’s talking to those who are willing to do something specific, and that means it’s an invitation for anyone, regardless of any of their defining characteristics.

So, let’s ask the next question and see what this invitation is.

/ / Why are you blessed? Blessed are those who mourn...

Why are you blessed, in this particular situation, because you are mourning. And you might ask, “Is that really an invitation? Not a very good invitation.” That’s a great question - Is Jesus giving an invitation here, or is it just, “if you’re sad, you’re blessed”, because that doesn’t make much sense does it?

I’ve been sad before, and I certain did NOT feel blessed, definitely didn’t feel happier because of it. So what’s Jesus talking to, or, what is the invitation here?

I said last week that this series as a whole is not about our emotions, even though the title of the series maybe eludes to that, but for today, we are very much focusing on our emotions.

I believe that the invitation of Jesus here is simply this. / / You are blessed when you choose to connect with your emotions, with your grief, with what you have the opportunity to mourn in your life. And here is why. Because / / if you don’t, you rob yourself of the opportunity to walk through that grief to resurrection life.

Think of it in the same way as we looked at with what Jesus says in Mark 2:17, this is such a multi-leveled verse.

/ / Healthy people don’t need a doctor - sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.

Let’s reframe that a little bit and pull from something Jesus said in Luke 4:16-21.

/ / When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the scriptures. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

This is such a beautiful scene.

First, we see Jesus in the synagogue, and Luke points out that this was his usual habit. He observed the Sabbath, and he honored God by going to synagogue. This is why I said a couple weeks ago that part of our following Jesus IS the community of church gathering together. You can’t do one without the other. Truly following Jesus is going to put you in a group of believers worshipping together

Second, I love the honor that He is shown here. They hand him the scroll. He’s the visiting teacher, the visiting rabbi, and they are asking him to read.

Then what he reads is Isaiah 61:1-2, and every translation of Luke, and of Isaiah say essentially the same thing. Looking at Luke 4:18 first:

/ / …the oppressed will be set free… (NLT)

…to set at liberty those who are oppressed… (ESV)

/ / …freedom for the brokenhearted… (TPT)

…to set the burdened and battered free… (MSG)

/ / …to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity]… (AMP)

And if we look at Isaiah 61:1-2 the same thing is essentially said:

…He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted… to tell those who mourn that the time of the LORD’s favor has come...(NLT)

…to bind up the brokenhearted…to comfort all who mourn… (ESV)

…heal the heartbroken…to comfort all who mourn… (MSG)

And I love what Luke 4 says when he finishes. It says he sits down and everyone is just staring at him, waiting........ what’s he going to say, why did he pick that scripture?

And he comes out with this… “Yup, that’s talking about me...”

/ / “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

So, making our way back through these scriptures…

/ / Only those who recognize and are willing to admit they need a doctor can get the help they need from the doctor....

/ / The doctor that’s needed when we are mourning is one who can fix our broken hearts. That doctor is Jesus...

He’s the one who has come to bind up the brokenhearted, to comfort those who mourn.

But where does it start?

Blessed are those who mourn… Are you willing to mourn? Are you willing to grieve? Are you willing to connect with your emotions? Because / / mourning / grief / emotional pain is a choice.

Is it? I would say it most definitely is, because most of us have become very good at bottling them up. At pushing them down. We have become really good at convincing ourselves that we’re ok. But are we?

There’s this song by A band called We are Messengers. The song is called Maybe It’s OK. If you listen to K-Love at all you’ve heard it, it was in regular rotation a lot. But the lyrics are just absolutely undoing.

/ / If I didn’t know what it hurt like to be broken then how would I know what it feels like to be whole.

If I didn’t know what it cuts like to be rejected then I wouldn’t know the joy of coming home.

Maybe it’s ok if I’m not ok. ‘Cause the One who holds the world is holding onto me.

Maybe it’s alright, if I’m not alright. ‘Cause the one who holds the stars is holding my whole life.

It’s beautiful. And it asks the question - In the same way that Jesus said healthy people don’t need a doctor, without identifying that you are broken, or hurting, grieving or emotionally at the end of yourself, how on earth are you going to find comfort from the great physician who is Jesus Christ?

And there has probably not been a more pressing time in history to understand this. We have become masters of masking our emotions, bottling our pain, putting on a face and a mask that says, “Ya, I’m good...” And the longer we try to keep up the facade the bigger and worse the fall out will be.

A conversation I had this week, someone said to me, “I feel like it’s just been kind of boiling up inside of me for a while, but I haven’t felt like I had a safe place to let it out.”

Is there a better description of today’s world?

Not to drudge up all the bad news again, but remember some of those stats we talked through on Community Sunday?

/ / 58% of Americans felt lonely and like no one even knows them well.

/ / 53% of people in general said it’s too difficult to make friends, 87% of those age 10-25, because they feel too shy.

What’s that mean? It means unable to connect because you’re unable to express yourself around other people because you are nervous, insecure, afraid of rejection… What’s that boil down to? I’m afraid of my emotions coming up! I’m afraid of being seen! I’m afraid that if you see the real me you will reject me!

So, we hide, we bottle, we mask up...

Again, this is why community is so necessary because God intended the community of believers to be a safe place where we can unmask, where our hearts and emotions can be exposed so that we can find healing.

Rather than alcohol abuse, or drugs, prescription or otherwise, binging not just our favorite shows, but any shows, something, just keep me entertained and busy, food for comfort, porn, relationships, overworking, avoiding real conversation. And pushing down our emotions only causes further problems. This is why anxiety and depression are on such a rise in our country.

When we continually push aside or push down the flow of emotions it puts stress on the mind and the body, creating psychological distress and as a result oftentimes physical symptoms follow the psychological ones.

And let’s be honest, there was a very real and troubling increase in emotional issues through the pandemic. Boston College researchers found reports of / / anxiety increased to 50% and depression to 44% after just a year and a half, not even through the entire thing, which were rates six times higher than 2019. And again, the age group hit the hardest was / / 18-29 year olds. Anxiety up to 65% and depression up to 61%.

Can you connect with your emotions?

Can you mourn?

Can you grieve?

Not only is it OK to not be OK, But I will go as far out on the limb to say, / / Without recognition there can be no healing.

And you might think, as I have heard other say in conversations I have had, “But I’m afraid of falling apart.” Here is the reality. / / As long as you withhold feelings for fear of falling apart, you will never be fully together...

And it’s that important because it’s what Jesus says next that gives us great hope in our struggles.

/ / Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Ok, so we’re answering our last question. How? How are we blessed when we mourn?

The MSG translation of this verse is so beautiful. / / “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”

I said this last week, in my little mac’n’cheese scenario with Kaylee, as long as she is turned away from me, unable to admit she is hurt, afraid, or whatever else is going on in her little heart and body, I am unable to help, to comfort, to bring healing. But as soon as she is ok with admitting there’s a problem, and turns to me, I can help - and she realizes I have been waiting for her.

That’s what Jesus is saying. Don’t hide your emotions. Don’t hide your pain. Don’t cover up your hurts and your fears, but instead, turn to Him and allow Him to comfort you!

This isn’t some mystical, Hey, when you get emotional you’ll suddenly feel comforted… No, We have to read this scripture in the context of the entire message of Jesus - it is connected to Him that we find what we need.

I’m not just putting it out there to the universe,

“I’m sad...”

***POOF***

“Oh wow, I feel so much better now. Wow, that really worked.”

Look at how Jesus talks about experiencing life.

John 15:5, / / “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing...”

In John 6:35 he calls himself / / the bread of life, but you have to come eat the bread to experience the life it gives.

In John 14:6 he says, / / “I am the way, the truth and the life...”, but our path has to be THROUGH him to experience that life in God.

John 8:12, / / “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”

So, reading Matthew 5:4 again in the greater context of the message of Jesus Christ, / / Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

How? Hear the heart of Jesus saying this to you this morning - Because when you are willing to come to me, open up, and will receive my comfort, because I am the one who has come to heal the brokenhearted, bind up their wounds, bring comfort to those who mourn… But as long as you think you don’t need the doctor, the doctor can’t help.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, / / God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.

If you think about our goal here of creating healthy community, it has to be built on a foundation of openness, communication, honesty, humility, vulnerability. Without those things we don’t experience what Paul is talking about there.

Without our own ability to see our need for healing how will we be able to help anyone else? Would seem kind of hypocritical wouldn’t it? And that is one of the things I mentioned on Community Sunday that this place is meant to be a place of healing, not just for those of us who are already here, but a place that people can come into, feel safe enough to find that healing for themselves as well.

Now, without going into a full on counseling session, or skipping right out of this series into another one on our emotions and feelings, and why we feel the way we do, I want to take just a few minutes here and talk through what it looks like to be willing to feel, and how we bring that to Jesus for His comfort.

/ / Are we willing to feel?

I believe our emotions are God given to be indicators of deeper things. And although we need to be aware of and open to the whole range of emotions we have, I want to take particular note of what Jesus is talking about in Matthew 5:4, Blessed are those who mourn, because I truly think this mourning, or grieving, or this deep feeling of sorrow or regret that is an indicator that something in us needs help.

This scripture could mean a few different things. We could easily look at it through the lens of death and loss. We mourn when we experience losing someone in our lives, and if we don’t allow ourselves to mourn we stop ourselves from being comforted.

We can also look at this scripture as referencing a sorrow we feel in connection to our own brokenness before God. Our sinful nature. Do we truly recognize our own sin, do we feel sorrow for it? Can we connect in that way with the saving grace of God and feel his comfort in our recognition and repentance?

I think both of those are completely valid interpretations of this scripture. And I think that’s important to realize as well. Without being there and being able to ask in that moment, “Jesus, were you talking about something specific?”, we CAN actually still ask that question, “Jesus, what do you want to reveal to me through scripture, because YOU are the Word of God, and you speak through scripture.” So, we can make that connection, when Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn” and he also says, “I’ve come to bind up the brokenhearted, comfort those who mourn, bring liberty to those who are in bondage and oppressed, and my purpose is that you experience life and joy in the Spirit,” then we can easily come to the conclusion that Jesus cares about our emotional state, and gave us our emotions to indicate deeper things in our lives, that we are meant to come to Him about, not hide from or hide in.

I’ve said this before, one of my deepest desires is that people would come to an understanding that going through things alone is NOT how God intended us to live. Sadness, depression, mourning, grief, upset, heartbreak, anger, frustration and a whole world of other things we feel - like Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1, we are meant to find healing for ourselves, comfort in Christ for ourselves, SO THAT we can be a comfort to others.

Emotions can be viewed in a couple different ways.

/ / Do our emotions happen TO us, meaning there’s nothing we can do about what we feel? Some people think that way. That our emotions just happen TO us, and there’s nothing we can do about that. “I feel the way I feel and that’s it. So if you don’t like it, that’s not on me. I’m feeling that way. I didn’t make it happen, it’s just happening to me.”

/ / OR… Do we choose our emotions and so it is on us to control them?

And this can lead to, if we are afraid of being vulnerable or we feel like our emotions might expose us, then we try to control them best we can, not letting them get out. Or we feel like some of our emotions are bad.

I’ve met people who were so afraid of anger because they grew up in an environment that told them anger was wrong.

I’m not going to try and define or differentiate between those two schools of thought, whether our emotions are what they are and happen to us, or we pick and choose how we feel at any given moment. Maybe there’s some room for individuality and we all feel, relate and express differently.

However, one thing I do believe and want to look at this morning that is 100% available and necessary for all of us is our ability to manage our emotions. And so it’s really a question of / / Control vs. Manage

Whether they happen to us, or we pick and choose, ...our emotions will either manage us, or we will manage our emotions.

What does that mean?

Well, let’s talk about anger for a moment.

When I feel angry, and I do not know how to manage that anger, or I don’t know why I would feel angry. One of two things will happen, I will react in that anger, OR I will try everything I can to shut it down and as a result shut myself down. Either way, that emotion just ruled my actions. We might say something like, “Oh wow, he really let his anger get the better of him.” Meaning - his anger took charge in that moment, his anger took control, his anger managed his next actions.

He flew off the handle.

Wow, he really exploded.

Wow, she just blew a fuse there.

Don’t blow a gasket, man...

Here’s a big one. They were blinded by their rage… / / The emotion, the feeling unmanaged and unchecked will cause us to react in ways we may not want to.

On the flip side what about if we try to control those feelings:

She’s really shut down...

He’s not in touch with his emotions...

I can never tell what they’re feeling, it’s so hard to approach them...

I’m trying to be so in control of the emotions because I think the emotions themselves are going to give me away, or they are wrong, or they are exposing me.

Now, here is where I think we need to live is this:

When we recognize that we are angry [or any other emotion], instead of reacting in that anger, or shutting it down, we simply ask, why?

Why am I angry?

Or let’s swing back to Matthew 5:4, when you feel grief, or you feel sadness, or you feel that deep sense of sorrow and loss, instead of letting it simply take control and push you into a dark place, OR being so afraid of it that you mask it, you do whatever you can to cover it, whatever the coping mechanism is, shopping, eating, drinking, distraction of any kind, you simply stop and ask, why?

I say simply, knowing full well this is not easy. Simple doesn’t always mean easy. But the key is the same. / / WHY are you feeling what you are feeling? That’s what we want. And that allows us to what I would call “manage our emotions”.

Our emotions are indicators of deeper things.

I’m sad, but why am I sad?

I’m angry, but why am I angry?

I’m feeling tension or anxiety, but why am I feeling that?

What’s going on in my life externally, or internally that is causing this feeling, and what can I do about it?

Now, I need you to hear me very very clearly for a moment. If you need clinical help. I 100%, fully and deeply endorse counseling and therapy. In the same way that Paul says we can help comfort each other, I believe 100% there are people who are just absolutely gifted at helping us connect with, work through and learn from our feelings and emotions. I also know there can be incredibly deep issues at play when it comes to our emotions. Deeper things that we need intentional care to work through with someone who has the knowledge and wisdom to help us.

I also know there are psychological and physiological issues that can be at play that need medical attention.

Here’s where taking this approach helps in that.

If I live my life simply letting my emotions control me I won’t ever recognize my need for help. “It is what it is. I’m just like this. You have change to accommodate me.”

We’ve probably all had that person in our lives we feel we need to “walk on eggshells” around because we don’t know when they’re going to blow up? Or the person we don’t know if we say the wrong thing to that they’ll shut us out, give us the silent treatment, ghost us for days on end. We shouldn’t have to feel like that around others, and I don’t think we truly want others to feel that way around us. So, if that’s how we’ve been approaching things, intentionally being aware of our emotions with the purpose of learning to manage them may give us the insight to see that we have a harder time with that than others.

/ / Taking a proactive and intentional approach with our emotions may bring us to recognizing we need real help with them. And being OPEN and HONEST in community, like we said on Community Sunday, sometimes exposes the things in us that we were previously unaware of that as we are surrounded by people of encouragement, we can feel safe enough to say, “I need help.” Or, “I’m not really good at this…give me some time, I’m learning to manage my emotions...”

The other side is true as well. If we normally, or without knowing it even, take the approach of just pushing our emotions down, of not feeling, for whatever reason, then intentionally taking the time and making the effort to connect with what we are feeling to find out why we are feeling that way may just lead us to the place of being comfortable enough to find help. And like I said, that help may be between us and God, it may be found in community, friendship, or clinical help.

The point Jesus is making is / / we have to connect with what we feel to find the healing we need. As long as we don’t think we’re sick, the doctor can’t help.

/ / It’s not all you

The next thing we need to realize is that there are things within our sphere of control or within our ability to manage, and there are things that are not.

Things that are outside of your control are how other people feel, their thoughts, their actions, their emotions. You can not control that. You cannot manage that. You can only control or manage yourself. Now, when I say control I want to make sure you understand there is healthy control and there is unhealthy control.

You’ve heard me say this plenty of times before, I think one of our mistakes has been trying to convince ourselves that God is in control. It’s so easy to just roll off the tongue. And that is a perfect example of healthy control and unhealthy control.

If God was in control in a way that most people want to say that, it would mean God decides for you what happens to you, on every level. You don’t need to worry about it, you don’t need to do anything. God will do it. That would actually be very unhealthy control. God doesn’t do that. God gave you free-will so that you could make your own decisions.

Now, the reason that works, our free-will, is because / / God is most definitely 100% in control.....OF HIMSELF. God is the most controlled, most self-aware, most honoring of others decision making process. He literally stops himself from taking control of our every action that would cause us discomfort. Why? Because without free-will we are simply just robots.

It may just be semantics, but those words give us impressions and if we allow ourselves to fall into this idea that God just does it all, then we will actually miss areas of our lives that God wants us to grow in because he’s waiting for us. Remember last week I read a quote from St Augustine. He said, / / Without God we can’t, and without us, God won’t. Meaning, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, but without the “I can” what good is Christ’s strength in me if I’m just waiting for him to do it? There is simply a very big difference between “God is in control” and “God will take control”, and if we think about it in that context, I think we get a better understanding of what God is doing and will do.

Shawn Gabie, a friend of mine who pastors Kingdom Culture Ministries up in Ottawa, Canada, said this last week in his sermon, / / “God is not in control… He is in charge”. That’s a great way to put it.

I mean, if God was in control, things would look a whole lot different in this earth, wouldn’t you think?

Why bring that up today? Because just like we know that God did not take control of my body this morning, get me out of bed and make me walk a mile… I didn’t, by the way. But I did yesterday, and maybe I will later today. That was all me. I made myself do that!

I mean, God knows full well I would be ok with him taking control of my body and doing that for me.... but it still has yet to happen. … I still have to make myself do it.

/ / In the same way God does not control me, and God does not control you, He is an example for us to not do that to each other.

I can not do that to you. I cannot control YOUR actions, your feelings your thoughts. That’s all you.

What I’m saying is that there is healthy control and there is un-healthy control. To be in control of myself, managing my emotions, understanding what I’m feeling and what I’m doing and how that is effecting the people around me is a very good thing to do. But, trying to take control of other people, their actions, their feelings etc… is very unhealthy, and I think we all know that, whether we do it or not.

But here’s the thing, we actually fall into that more often than we think. How often do we actually try to convince ourselves that somebody else can control how we feel. / / “UGH! You make me so mad…” No, I don’t. I may have done some things that gave you a lot of opportunity to be mad. But I did not make you mad.

Listen, if I can make you mad that means I have a power in your life that not even God uses...

And let’s be honest, I am not more powerful than God. Because if you can figure that one out, I want you using that power to make me get up and work out every morning, ok?

NOW, that does not mean I’m not responsible for my own actions. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t learn and care and grow in our relationship to do less of the things that give opportunity for you to be mad. Clearly, if you’re mad at me all the time, I’m not being as good a friend as I should be. I’m not saying it’s void of my need to address things. What I am saying is we have the control in our own lives, but we do not have control over other people’s lives.

What that ultimately means is that we need to give that area of influence in our lives over to the care of God. What is not in my control I have to trust Him in.

The point is this. When I decide to manage or take control of my own feelings I am also taking responsibility for those feelings. I am the one that felt them and reacted the way I did. But also, I recognize that there are external forces at play and that does have an impact on my life. So learning to manage that means I have to recognize that sometimes it’s not because of something in me, it’s because of the outside world influencing me and maybe I just need to take a step back from that.

Paul actually says in Romans 6:6, / / Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey?

He’s making the point that we used to be slaves to sin, which if you remember, is falling short of the standard of God. We chose to obey our own selfish or sinful desires, and that made us slaves to those desires.

But he also says in Romans 8:15 that we’re no longer salves to fear. We sing that one. I’m no longer a slave to fear. Meaning what? Where you allowed fear to get the better of you before, where you obeyed the motions inside of you, rather than taking control of them, managing them, you no longer have to, because you have been given a new Spirit, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you who Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:7, / / God has NOT given us a Spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.

The opposite of being a slave to our emotions, controlled by them, made to react and do what they want, is to find freedom in the Holy Spirit to express through our own lives and decisions, self-control. Again, that’s healthy control, emotional management. Not pushing those emotions down, but recognizing we have emotions for a reason, and they are most likely indicating that something is going on inside of us that God wants to comfort, to heal, to deal with.

But, you gotta be willing to feel in order to be comforted.

Ok, so in closing this morning I want to talk us through 5 steps this morning to managing our emotions. And don’t worry this is actually in closing. We are going to take these steps together, right now, praying through things, asking God for the Spirit of LIFE, the Spirit by which we confess we are His children, we are no longer afraid, we are no longer under that fear, controlled by it, but we are free to feel, free to have these emotions, because we understand God has given them to us to help bring us greater freedom and understanding in our lives.

Alright, I did not come up with these 5 steps on my own. I do not have a counseling degree. I’m adapting this from a licensed clinical therapist by the name of Sunshyne Gray… Yes, her name is Sunshyne. Talk about a perfect name for a therapist, right?

/ / 1. Put off a wrong view of emotions

I said earlier, one of the things we can up doing is saying, “Well, i feel what I feel, so that just is what it is.” And that means we essentially are calling our emotions our guides. We go where they lead. Go with your gut, or follow your heart… But that can actually lead us to places we shouldn’t go. Our feelings can be unreliable. Our emotions can direct us toward bad choices if we don’t truly understand them. We all know someone who has reacted negatively.

We have a whole world right now that is just living their lives based on their desires, what will please them, without regard for how it impacts others, without regard for morality or relationship with God. Just whatever feels good. Chasing that feel-good high.

Or any other issues we may have with how we have viewed emotions, especially this mourning & grief that Jesus is talking about. I want us to come back to a baseline. Which means we need to be honest with God and say, “I haven’t always understood my emotions. I haven’t always understood their purpose, their function. And I haven’t always allowed myself to connect with them. And I haven’t always come to You with them.”

/ / 2. Put on a right view of emotions

This is what I have believed for a long time, our emotions are signals, not guides. Our emotions are indicators of deeper things. I am feeling something for a reason, and to understand that reason, I have to be ok with the feeling. And as Jesus is clearly defining in Matthew 5:4, our emotions can actually bring us CLOSER to Him because in our recognition of grief, and sorrow, or sadness, or whatever we are feeling, the answer is found in Him. He is the source of comfort, of healing, of being made whole.

And sometimes that is a moment in His love or presence and we feel that comfort and it just rights it all. And other times it is a journey into the deeper things in our hearts. Sometimes we feel things in certain ways because of how life has shaped us, because of what has happened to us. And God wants to lead us on a journey of healing.

3. Going deeper with God

Proverbs 20:5 says / / The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.

Our feelings can be deep, are we willing to go deep to find them? To draw them out. It can take time, and patience. Patience for yourself. Patience for the process.

I feel some things sometimes that I’m like, “I don’t have the time to find this one...” But that can just lead to stuffing it down, and if I’m feeling it, God wants to speak to it.

There are resources on this one in many different places, but simply put a pen to paper and begin to write down what you are feeling and where it is coming from. Ask God to direct you. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you. As Jesus to comfort you in the process. And you might think, I don’t have time for that. Or, Ya, my wife keeps a journal, that’s not really my thing. OK, well, Proverbs 20 says a man of understanding knows how to get to the deep things within his heart.... I for one want to be a man of understanding. And that’s not a quick process.

/ / 4. Lean into God’s plan

I am noticing in my own life the more I put into practice the way of Jesus, what we might call the Christian Disciplines, or discipleship to Jesus, the more I am understanding the deeper things of my own heart.

Prayer, reading the Bible, studying the scripture, reading good books on Christian wisdom and understanding. Taking time to be silent before God. Listening for His voice. And sometimes just being in quiet and solitude before Him. Sabbath, a day to honor God with our community. I was thinking this past week, the commitment to church actually produces stability in my life. It is part of the process of my healing, my wholeness, my discipleship to Jesus.

These are the things that bring clarity to our lives so that when we feel these emotional responses we can confidently and intentionally go after them.

/ / 5. This is the long game

Because in the end, this is not a one shot fix. This is not a moment and we’re done. Some of your emotions, some of your grief, some of your sorrow and hurt and pain and mourning are deeper than you even want to admit and maybe deeper than you want to dig. And we are such creatures of moments that we go from moment to moment rather than understanding the journey may just be slow and long.

We push down push down push down until it all bubbles up to the surface, spills out of us, usually onto someone close to us, maybe we have a good cry, and then think we’re good for a while and what happens? We start pushing down again without truly taking the time to dig deep into the well of our hearts.

Don’t just go from one bottle cap to another. Don’t try to microwave your emotional healing.

Jesus spoke of this as a part of this platform he was setting for life in the Kingdom of God. / / You are blessed, you will be happier, when you learn to connect with your emotions, because in that connection you can find comfort in Him!

Ok, I want you to pray with me this morning. And I understand, that can kind of be a, “What are you going to make me pray...” I don’t want you to ever feel like you’re going to be led into praying something you don’t want to actually pray.

So here it is.

First, we’re going to pray and ask God to forgive us for trying to control our emotions in an unhealthy way. I’m not assuming you’ve all done that. But I know, even in the best of my practices in life, I’ve missed the mark, and so in any way I have misunderstood or not given place or managed poorly this gift of emotions in my life, I want to clean the slate. I want a fresh start. I want to wipe away any and all trace of doing things wrong so that I can move foreward doing it right.

Then we’re going to pray and ask God to lead us by the power of the Holy Spirit in the love and freedom of Jesus Christ to a better way, a way of managing our emotions with Him, learning the deep things in our hearts, and finding comfort in Him.

And finally we’re going to commit our way to the leading of Jesus Christ on this journey He has us on. Is that ok?

Alright, why don’t we read this together, I know, a little awkward sometimes, but I want us to step into what I believe is a moment of healing and setting some things right in our lives with God.

/ / Heavenly Father, I know I haven’t always got it right. I haven’t always understood the deep things of my heart. I don’t always know why I feel what I feel. And I haven’t always given place to those feelings. I have grieved without understanding why. In any way I have misunderstood, misused, or used wrongly the gift of my emotions, would you forgive me. Do what only you can do. Wipe the slate clean.

And would you lead me. Guide me. Direct my steps toward a new understanding and a better connection with the things I feel. Give me the gift of self-control through the power and leading of the Holy Spirit. I want the freedom and comfort that can only come through Jesus Christ as I begin to understand what I am feeling. Make it safe. Help me feel protected in the process. Lead me to your comfort.

And I commit to the journey. To continuing to follow you and your leading. Jesus, I want Your Kingdom. Your Authority. Your leadership in my life.