Take Back Your Mind, Pt. 3

Take Your Mind Back  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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Navigating Our Emotions

Bible Passage: Psalm 22:1–25, Psalm 22:31

Right now, some of you are dealing with some things that you've been going on forever, but you've actually never taken the time to process those emotions. You've never taken the time to walk through those. You've never even spoken to anyone about them. You've just been kind of self-dealing with them. You’ve probably heard it said like “keeping things bottled up inside”, right? But today, I'm gonna help to show you a way to let the lid off the bottle. And what we're gonna be looking at is some scripture in Psalms 22.
Now this was written by a guy by the name of David. You may have heard of him, David and Goliath, right? How many of ya’ll know who David is? You may have heard like David's killed his tens of thousands. The guy took out a bear, alright? Like from day one, David was the dude making things happen. Pastor Rick talked about him a little two Sundays ago and showed us that all the baddest dudes that existed at the time of David were all trained by him at one point. and being king, God did so much through him. And so in the back of my mind I tend to think “this guy's gotta have a joyous, amazing life.” Right? And David's even known for writing some of these amazing songs. His songs though are more like poetry. So, like Taylor Swift's on tour right now in Canada and some of y'all probably think her songs are like poetry too. So just think of something like that, ok? David's like Jay-Z or Taylor Swift or who ya’ll even listen to?
So, he’s like that. He's writing poetry. He's writing music. He's making things happen, and here is what he had to say. One of his most significant lines ever. Here we go. Y'all ready for this? It's gonna be joyous. It's gonna be amazing.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Why are you so far away when I groan for help?

My goodness, how joyous, am I right? God, I’m sitting here crying for help and it feels like you’re farther from me than ever before. God, where did you go? And even Jesus felt these feelings in his darkest hour. In two different gospels, it is written that Jesus said “My God, why have you forsaken me?”
David continues in verse 2:

Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.

Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.

Other versions of the bible say, “I find no rest”. You ever feel like that? Like you take whatever you’ve got to God over and over and over and there’s just no relief. No matter what you do you can’t find rest.

3 Yet you are holy,

enthroned on the praises of Israel.

4 Our ancestors trusted in you,

and you rescued them.

5 They cried out to you and were saved.

They trusted in you and were never disgraced.

So I just imagine the weight on David. He is the king and the weight of all the things that God used him to do and all the crazy things that have happened in his life. All those things just start to feel so burdensome. And he get’s to the point where he's just like “God, what do I do? Help me out here. How can I continue on? God, I need you.”
And I think what David is showing us here in these first few verses is that God is a safe place. Many of you have thought to yourselves; “How can I take what I'm going through to God? He’s got way bigger things to worry about. He would’t even care about my little problem.” I'm here to let you know he does care. He loves you and he's there for you. And the bible says that He will never leave us and He will never forsake us. No matter what you're going through, just as David spells out for us here…you can take it to God. God is a safe place.
Let’s continue on and this is where David really starts to become more poetic here in Verse 6:

6 But I am a worm and not a man.

I am scorned and despised by all!

That’s not J Cole. That’s not Jay Z. That was David and the Psalms, folks. He is breaking down an emotional level that you're just like, dude you feel like a worm?
What does scorned mean? Some of you might be asking that in your head right now, right? Scorned means that you are rejected or someone has contempt for you. Contempt means basically that they don’t respect you. I don't know what you feel like right now, but I can imagine that some of you can relate to David. Some of you and your emotions, and the things that you're going through, they are so overwhelming that you don't know what to do or even how to feel but it seems like the world around you is rejecting you. Maybe not even in your faith, but just as a person. I’ve been there, I know what you feel. David goes on with this thought:

7 Everyone who sees me mocks me.

They sneer and shake their heads, saying,

8 “Is this the one who relies on the LORD?

Then let the LORD save him!

If the LORD loves him so much,

let the LORD rescue him!”

What are his friends doing? They're making fun of him. How many of you have been made fun of for your faith? You went to school and you invited a friend to church and they were like, "Ha ha, no, look at you. Your life isn't great. You don't know what's going on. And they didn't want to come but David is not giving up going on to verse nine:

9 Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb

and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast.

Now you can begin to see that as David's processing. He's beginning to realize this idea like, “From day one, God you've been with me.” And as we know, the scripture says, "He will never leave us and he will never forsake us." But with David's, he’s not afraid but he's got some stuff on his chest that he needs to get off, right? Here's what I need you to know. Your emotions are not the enemy of your faith. Emotions are not the enemy of your faith. And David reminds us here and lets us know that just because we go to God in question it does not mean it destroys our faith. I believe David shows us that it actually strengthens our faith.

11 Do not stay so far from me,

for trouble is near,

and no one else can help me.

I believe David knows that there are times in our life that the only person who can be there for us is God. And he's crying out to Him, letting Him know, "Hey God, my life right now is not the best. It's not the most exciting.” Maybe for you, your parents are going through divorce. Maybe you're about to graduate high school and you actually don't know your next step. You thought you had lots of options. You thought maybe you were gonna get that college scholarship. Or maybe for you, you feel like David because the person you thought you were gonna marry even though you're only in the seventh grade, ya’ll just broke up and you feel as if your life is over now. I want you to know that not only is God a safe place to process your emotions but our emotions are not the enemy of our faith. And as we continue to go on down we even see more of David pouring his heart out.

14 My life is poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart is like wax,

melting within me.

Again, David is really going Taylor Swift on us. He's just out here saying "Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me."
See, some of you think, "Hey, God doesn't understand or know the language that I speak", but I'm telling you when you read the Psalms like David you begin to understand it.
Here's what I need you to know: there's power in the process. Because as David is going through how he feels as he's going through and expressing his emotions to God as he's understanding his emotions are not the enemy of his faith, you can begin to see how there's a shift in what's happening.

19 O LORD, do not stay far away!

You are my strength; come quickly to my aid!

20 Save me from the sword;

spare my precious life from these dogs.

21 Snatch me from the lion’s jaws

and from the horns of these wild oxen.

And this is the part I love.

22 I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters.

I will praise you among your assembled people.

23 Praise the LORD, all you who fear him!

Honor him, all you descendants of Jacob!

Show him reverence, all you descendants of Israel!

See, what I love about what David is doing here is this. He's not sitting there saying, "Hey Lord, just make all the hurt stop. All the pain stop.” He recognizes that our God is a good God. That he's a faithful God. He's a loving God. “And God, when you remove this, when you save me God I will scream to the world. I will let everyone I come in contact know that you are God and that you are worthy of praise.”
See, there's power in the process. But when we keep that stuff to ourselves, man we just get caught up in like that in that negative side of “we're just going in direction of our strongest thoughts." And for some of us, that's our emotions because we've never taken the time to process. And I need you to know first that God is a safe place to process. But so are your FCS/FCA leaders. So is your youth pastor. So are your parents. Some of you have mentors in your life, coaches that are safe places for you to process these emotions. And as David goes on, he says this

24 For he has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy.

He has not turned his back on them,

but has listened to their cries for help.

In other words; hey, God is not hiding. God is not making fun of you, but God is there with you.

25 I will praise you in the great assembly.

I will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who worship you.

Davis letting us know that, God is worthy of our praise. And then he says this in verse 31,

31 His righteous acts will be told to those not yet born.

They will hear about everything he has done.

To those who even aren't even born yet, David is declaring how good God is. And so what we can learn from what David did here, I think David kind of answered four questions before God. And those questions are simply this:
What are you mad about?
What are you sad about?
What are you anxious about?
And what are you happy about?
And just like David did here, process your emotions and take them to the leaders around you. Take them to the people in your Godly friend groups and take them before God so that we can understand that there's power in the process.
And you don’t need to be controlled by your emotions. I’ve said this before in another message, but our feelings are real but they are not reliable. If you don’t get control of your thoughts like we did in week 1 and you don’t learn effective ways to manage your emotions, we have a tendency as humans to let our emotions make decisions for us. These last few weeks are all about taking back the power from those things. It’s all about drawing that line in the sand and telling the devil that he no longer gets to call the shots and manipulate you into making decisions from your feelings.
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