Created with Emotions

Introduction:

This morning, I want to spend a little bit of time setting up the next series of messages before we get to the highlight of our service, which is the rest of the baptisms. As I shared on Easter Sunday, we are going to dive into the topic of emotional health and wholeness, which seems to be a growing concern in our country. Even this week, I’ve seen multiple articles on the increasing rates of anxiety and depression especially among generation Z but clearly not just limited to them. None of this should be surprising to us. At the outset of the pandemic, experts warned us about the looming mental health crisis that would follow even after we got this virus under control. In the years running up to Covid-19, there were already warning signs in our society as evidenced by the number of books written on the growing epidemic of loneliness and the problems that this creates overall in terms of our health. And one of the reasons, why we are focusing on this theme of “Loving One Another” is the fact that human wellness is dependent on the quality of our relationships. So this is all tied in together. The isolation that so many people have endured over the last two years has not only exposed some of these core issues but they have amplified and made them much worse. As a whole, I do think that people in the church have fared better than those in the broader society because we have the means to deal with these problems. For the most part, we were still able to connect with a community, find some level of support, but most importantly, our relationship with God gave us a way to deal with all the emotions that we were feeling. That certainly doesn’t’ mean that we escaped the negative impact of the past two years but through Christ, we have the power to overcome the wounds that we have experienced and find healing if we so desire.

In this series, we are going to spend most of our time looking through the book of Psalms because one the things you will notices is that the Psalms are filled with a lot of emotions, both positive and negative. There is paralyzing fear, doubt, and sorrow but there is also inexpressible joy, gratitude, and hope. Let’s take a look at just a few verses as a sample of the emotions that we see in the human condition.

Psalm 6:7 ESV

My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes.

Psalm 34:4 ESV

I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

Psalm 25:16 ESV

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.

Psalm 4:7–8 ESV

You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

Body:

There are some fundamental truths about our emotions that we can agree upon before we explore any particular emotion in detail.

God created us with emotions

Emotions inherently are neutral and can be used for good or evil

How we manage our emotions determine the outcome of our lives

When the Scriptures tell us that we have been made in the image of God, we automatically think about our value as human beings or the sense of eternal purpose that is embedded into the human heart. Rarely do we think about our emotions as part of the image of God that we bear but when you see God being revealed in the Bible, it’s clear that He has emotions. It’s not exactly in the way that we might have emotions as humans but God is described as being grieved, angry, pleased, compassionate, and even jealous. I remember when I first came upon the verse that described the jealousy of God, it unnverved me because I always considered the emotion of jealousy to be a negative trait. In my mind, I had many examples of jealous boyfriends and girlfriends who used that emotion to manipulate and control their relationships and so it was rather surprising to me when I read that our God is a jealous God.

Exodus 34:14 ESV

(for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God),

No one ever mentions that this is one of the names of God. We always talk about God our Provider, or our Redeemer, or our Banner, but God the Jealous is definitely not a popular term to describe God but in the context of this verse, jealousy is an important part of who God is. He desires the worship of His people wholly to Himself, and He will not share that worship with anyone or anything else. This is not only a case for monotheism but that jealously that we see in God is reflected very clearly in the human heart. If a wife doesn’t become jealous when their husband starts flirting with an ex-girlfriend, or a husband isn’t jealous when his wife starts spending a lot of time with that really good looking co-worker, then there is a bigger problem in that relationship, which is a lack of love. Now we may not want God to love us like that but if His love is authentic towards us, it necessitates that He become jealous when we start flirting with the idols and gods of this world.

All of that to say, God created us with emotions and in the right context, we need the entire range of emotions to be a whole and a healthy person. The inability to feel the right emotions at the appropriate times is a signal that something is wrong. For example, if you can’t grieve when a loved one passes away, that is a sure sign that something is not right emotionally. Conversely, people can also feel too much and find themselves unable to control their emotions. An example of this is a person who allows their anger to devolve into blind rage or the person who has reasons to have sorrow but then slides into the darkness of depression. At the extreme end, having the wrong emotions like being happy when you see someone suffering can be a sign of some form of social pathology. In the book of Romans, we see that being able to share the same emotions at the appropriate times with one another is the key to harmonious relationships in the church and beyond.

Romans 12:15–16 (ESV)

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another.

This just makes a lot of sense from a EQ perspective. If you are rejoicing while everyone is weeping, people are going to think you are an insensitive jerk. If you’re weeping while everyone is rejoicing, well then you’re a killjoy, a debby downer. Connecting to others at this emotional level, requires a certain level of our own personal emotional health and the ability to embrace the full range of emotions that God created us to feel. The problem is that many of us, speaking largely for myself, are uncomfortable with what we consider to be negative emotions because we categorized certain emotions as being bad. But if God created our emotions then in general, we can consider our emotions to be neutral until we do something with it either for the good or for the worse. And this is where our emotions are different from God’s. Because God is without sin, all the expression of his emotions are for the good but that is not the case with us. A prime example of this is found in Ephesians.

Ephesians 4:26 ESV

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,

If you think about it, this is a remarkable verse that both legitimizes the feelings that we have but at the same time, keeps us from acting sinfully on those emotions. In 6 short words, it keeps us from making the two biggest mistakes that people tend to commit with their emotions.

My feelings are legitimate and so I can say and do whatever I want. It is appropriate, even good for us to be angry at the right times because there are situations in life that warrant our anger. You can even say that there is a purpose for our anger but that purpose is rarely fulfilled if you just vent your anger in whatever way you want. You will say and do things that you cannot undo. And because we recognize the damage that emotions like anger can have, many of us make the second mistake.

We think our feelings are illegitimate and simply repress these negative emotions. For this very reason we tend to misinterpret emotional repression which is actually a bad thing with being patient and slow to anger which is obviously a good thing. This verse is a reminder that holding onto our anger for too long is just as dangerous as not controlling it. Repressed anger is the cause of so much bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness. It has even been said that anger repressed long enough leads to depression.

When I became a Christian, everyone applauded me for being so godly because on the surface I seemed so patient and nice and I completely bought into the hype. But truth be told, this was the way I was all my life and it wasn’t because of my inherent goodness, I just didn’t want to deal with confrontation. CS Lewis, in one of his essays, talks about the fact that we often mistake temperament and personality for godliness. But the fact of matter is some of us are like Golden Retrievers, nice and lovable, some are more like Doberman pinchers, intimidating and aggressive and because we are made differently, the way we deal with our emotions looks different in each person. We will lean more towards one of those two mistakes depending on how we are made. But the question remains, if we can’t just freely express our emotions any way we want and we can’t repress them, what are we supposed to do?

Well, we can all learn to manage our emotions appropriately and that begins by trusting God with all of our raw and unprocessed feelings. Again the Psalms are a wonderful example not only of prayer but how to express our emotions in prayer so that God can begin to work in our hearts. This is why prayer is such a vital part of the healing of emotions.

Psalm 3:7 ESV

Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.

Psalm 39:13 ESV

Look away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more!”

God invites us to share our deepest, darkest, and unfiltered emotions because He can handle it and He already knows what is in the heart of man. Nothing is going to surprise him. One of the many benefits of a genuine relationship with God is that it provides a healthy way of dealing with our emotions but can’t stop there. If we go back to the first point, if God created us with emotions and they are all legitimate, then there must be a God-given purpose for our emotions. In fact, there is a purpose for our emotions that we so easily overlook and that is to fulfill God’s purpose for our lives.

Without the right emotions, we rarely are moved to the right action. Anger was meant to motivate us to do what is right and to confront the wrong that we see. Jealousy was meant for us to guard our loved ones. Fear is meant to keep us from unneccessary danger and harm. Sorrow was meant for us to interact with the pain of this world and to yearn for a better place. (Who would look for God, if there was no sorrow?) Our passions and desires supply the necessary energy to undertake any important goal or task in our life. How do we undertake the great commission and reach the lost without hearts that are full of the right emotions. Jesus himself was moved by emotion.

Matthew 9:36 ESV

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

And becasue our emotions are so vital for fulfilling the purpose of God, the enemy of our soul has learned to use our emotions against us.

Ephesians 4:27 ESV

and give no opportunity to the devil.

If we don’t process and use our emotions correctly, we not only fall into sin, Satan is given a wide open door to come into our lives and we cannot dismiss the part that the devil has in creating emotional distress. Science tells us that our emotions are simply a result of chemical reactions in our brains and bodies but I think we all know that this only part of the answer. What can explain the intrusive thoughts, the nightmares, the constant worry and anxiety that some of us are feeling? There is a spiritual element to our emotional health and unless you are willing to explore that, you will never find the peace and contentment that you are looking for.

Isaiah 61:1 ESV

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

In the end only Jesus can redeem our broken and damaged hearts and make us whole again. This morning as we hear Amy and Jaewoos testimonies before their baptism, I pray that you would be convinced of the healing power of the Holy Spirit as the gospel is proclaimed!