These Dang Emotions (wk 7)

Good morning, CHURCH!

(Church joke of the day)

A newly installed pastor went out to visit his church members in their homes.

At one house it seemed obvious that someone was at home, but no one would come to answer his repeated knocks at the door.

Finally, he took out his card and wrote “Revelation 3v20” on the back of it and stuck it through the little letter box.

When the offering was processed the following Sunday, he found that his card had been returned.

Below the pastor’s message of Revelation 3v20 was the added notation, “Genesis 3v10”.

He reached for his Bible to check out what Genesis 3v10 said and busted out in laugutter.

Revelation 3v20 which he left says:

Revelation 3:20 NKJV

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.

But Genesis 3v10 their response reads:

Genesis 3:10 NKJV

So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

Are you ready to be equipped today?

Let me see your Bibles.

Pray (Lord help us to see you as new and fresh through your word today.)

Let’s go to the book of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NLT for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.

This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NLT

Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.

11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Whatever you once were doesn’t have to be a permanent fixture in your future.

There is a way that we in the West use language that works against the way we think about ourselves and others.

The way the East uses language which was the way that Jesus used language benefits them in getting cleansed or made right from their sinful past.

And it starts with the way we use the verb and noun combination.

Some call this the divine law of adjectives.

If I hold up a white flower, I’ve just used the verb (white) ahead of the noun (flower).

But in the East, they would say it was a flower white.

The noun preceding the verb.

You might be thinking that’s not a big deal. Just semantics.

But what about when the woman was caught in the act of adultery.

Does it make a difference if you say she is an adulterous woman or if you say she is a woman adulterous?

In Hebrew they saw mankind as made in the image of God.

So, the woman is the image of God who happens to be currently adulterous.

So, she was not an adulterous woman. She was a woman in the image of God who is in adultery which can change.

We can remove the adultery. We can remove the sin. We can remove that which is not in the image of God.

A woman or man in God’s image can be redeemed from their past.

When you look at a person as first being the image of God it should change the way you see them.

When you look at yourself as first being the image of God it should change the way you see yourself.

But we’ve been used to looking at people through the lenses or verbs of trauma, shame, brokenness and sin.

Let’s change the order of the verb and noun and change the way we look at God’s wonderful creation, mankind.

Luke 13:11-13 NLT

he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” 13 Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God!

Luke 13:16 NLT

This dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?”

Let’s get into today’s message.

These Dang Emotions (wk7)

Testimony (A young man who is a part of leadership in his church ran into a teammate from FFM and said he’d been watching this series and that Pastor J was killing it because he’s seen himself in every single one of the points we’ve discussed in this series.)

In this series we’re covering some signs of Emotionally Immature People.

Foundation Scripture:

1 Corinthians 13:11 NLT

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

Today let’s start with:

Point #1

The emotionally immature do what feels best.

What feels good at the time is not always the right thing to do.

Doing what feels best has caused so much damage relationally.

What happens when a husband is upset with his wife and feels disrespected by her?

Then he goes to work and is highly respected by another woman.

There is something in him that may make him feel like leaning into the respect he’s getting from the other woman.

That would be the emotionally immature and wrong thing to do.

What happens if a wife is feeling neglected by her husband?

And she at the same time is receiving a lot of attention from some guy at work or on social media.

She may feel like leaning into that attention because it feels good to her.

But that’s the wrong thing to do.

That’s the emotionally immature thing to do.

Jeremiah 19:9 NLT

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?

Proverbs 28:26 NLT

Those who trust their own insight are foolish, but anyone who walks in wisdom is safe.

When you to often lean into what feels best, it’s apparent you don’t learn from past mistakes.

Something should eventually click and tell you to stop just going with whatever makes you feel good.

Feelings are there to alert us that something is going on.

Then it’s time to use wisdom and insight to tell us which way to go concerning what we are feeling.

Proverbs 14:8 NLT

The prudent understand where they are going, but fools deceive themselves.

The emotionally immature continue to repeat behavior that has negative consequences.

Whether it’s negative consequences on other people or negative consequences on their selves.

Point #2

The Emotionally Immature don’t do internal emotional work.

When we have been wounded in certain areas of our life, those areas are now weak and fragile.

It is in this fragile state that fear kicks in to protect those weak and fragile areas from being further wounded.

Have you ever heard someone described as being rough and tough on the exterior but inside their just a teddy bear with a good heart?

Have you ever experienced talking to someone and the conversation is just going along smoothly and suddenly, they are defending themselves from you or something you said?

Have you ever been engaged in a conversation and your feeling good about it and the person then suddenly, you feel as if they are attacking you by something they said?

Fear will jump up and play the role of protector of my pain without me even knowing it.

There are wounds hiding beneath the service in our subconscious that we have learned to avoid, ignore and believe they don’t exist.

When that fear and protection check engine light goes off in us, we need to do further investigation.

We need to take a deep dive beneath the surface.

We need to talk to ourselves.

Ask tough questions of ourselves.

We need to call ourselves out on the carpet in a way that our fear doesn’t allow others to do.

Real emotional inner work is like death and rebirth.

We have to kill something in order to bring to life what needs to live.

This type of work on self will eventually strengthen you.

It will give you courage to be the real you.

It will be liberating. It will free you from bondages.

Jesus died to bring us to a place of freedom and he who the son sets free is free indeed.

If you’re watching online or here in the building, I have a very important question to ask you.

What is the Holy Spirit saying to you right now?