Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Let's stand. We're going to go to the Lord in prayer. Thanks, Kathy.
[00:00:05] Father, we just delight in your grace and goodness today. And I believe that today is a very special day. Not only because it's Mark's birthday, but, Lord, because it's the day that you have made. And I believe today you're going to do a special work of unusual grace in our hearts. And I know that there are people here today, and I've sensed it in my spirit. And you've dropped something in my heart, Lord, that you're going to bring healing to many issues. That have laid dormant and unresolved. In the souls and emotions of people. And I pray today that we're going to see freedom and a new lease on life. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name and God's people said, amen. Amen. You may be seated.
[00:00:51] Marion Duckworth was in the first grade during the Great Depression. It had just ended. And, you know, in that generation, talking about anything to do with sex or sexual abuse was considered untalkable taboo. So when an older man coaxed her away from her paper dolls one afternoon and fondled her, she felt she had to keep her dirty secret to herself. And so she did. She repressed those emotions. She didn't tell anyone about the incident until she was 21 and engaged to her fiance John, who exploded with fury. He wanted to hunt the perpetrator down. But she pleaded with him to let it go. And insisted that the individual would probably not hurt anyone else again.
[00:01:39] What Marion couldn't tell John, though, was that she had suffered from flashbacks. Ever since that day of abuse. She had no visual memory of the incident, but she could feel vividly the man's repulsive touch.
[00:01:52] And any lured or sleazy image. Would trigger these sickening flashbacks in her heart and mind. One afternoon, as she and her husband John were perusing through a drugstore. John showed her a seme magazine cover, disgusted by what children were regularly being exposed to. Man. Can you imagine today we're being bombarded with this junk. She experienced a flashback and quickly agreed with him. And hurried to another part of the store to be alone. Later she wrote in today's christian magazine, while I pretended to contemplate this little bottle of noxima. The Holy Spirit spoke these shocking words unto my mind. You will never relive these feelings again. The message rang within her with such authority. That I didn't doubt it was God's voice. I decided I'd know for sure if this was a genuine miracle, if the feelings never returned. And they never did. Not once through the years had I had asked God to heal that memory. It hadn't occurred to me that he would do such a thing. I was just too ashamed to talk about it to a christian counselor, much less to a holy God. So I simply tried to unsuccessfully suppress it. From that day forward, whenever I was exposed now to another image I'd remind myself with profound gratitude of what did not happen. No more flashbacks, just sorrow and a prayer for God to heal our broken world. You know, I want you to know our broken world has many painful things happen to people and the tragedy that happens in the aftermath. But, you know, all of us have experienced terrible things in our life. There's not one person in the room that could never say, I've been immune to heartache and painful experiences.
[00:03:44] But how do we handle those emotions? That's the real question and that's what I want to focus in on today.
[00:03:52] One thing we forget.
[00:03:54] Well, let me go on to say how do we handle maybe frustration or infatuation or anger? I mean, I could go down a list of things that we struggle with even in our humanity. These are just to name a few emotions. We could make a huge, long list of these things and I'm sure you could add to this list really quickly. But one thing we forget is that God not only created us in his image, but he created us with emotions. Because God is an emotional being and sometimes it surprises us to hear that. So how does God handle his emotions?
[00:04:29] And what can we learn from how God handles his emotions so that you and I can better handle our emotions, actually in a very healthy way. And I think this is a very important message because I think some of us in this room, we struggle. And some of us in this Room, we've probably suppressed some things that we can't even remember because it was too painful. And I know about that because I've done that myself. And God in his grace had to dredge them up and allow me to be healed from some broken things in my soul.
[00:05:00] So how do we handle disappointment or hurt or frustration in our lives? Just because God loves us doesn't mean we don't hurt or disappoint him. This may be a little shocking to us. Can we disappoint God and hurt him? How many know the people you love the most are the most capable of stirring various emotions within us? That's probably where we receive our deepest pain. And I think we all recognize that isn't. That is, you know, so what does God have to say, through Ezekiel, and we're going to look at that from the book of Ezekiel. What does God want to say?
[00:05:37] That was not expected? And maybe the people wanted to hear, let me go back here.
[00:05:43] That knowing that we often fail God and knowing about emotions, I still remember the day I was reading through the message translation. It was my own quiet time. This was not a sermon preparation kind of a thing. And I was reading through the book of Ezekiel, and I had this epiphany because I was looking at a story of the history of Israel. And if you read through the know, the Old Testament is really a story of the continuous rebellion of a nation, continuous rebellion of people, God's people. It continually happened. And eventually there was a consequence to Their sin. And God had warned them and warned them and warned them, and he led them into exile to discipline them. And one of the prophets who was taken into captivity into Babylon at that time was a prophet by the name of Ezekiel. And though the nation had been conquered, it had not been destroyed. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had placed a vassal king on the throne to govern the land. While taking the leadership structure apart, he took out all the nobles, he took out all the leaders, and he brought him into captivity. And EzekiEl was one of those captives. And in chapter 20 of the book of Ezekiel, that's where we're going to be today, those that were living in Babylon were wondering what God was about to do. Would God quickly restore them and return them back to the land? And there were many reports coming from Jerusalem that suggested that this may happen. And people were prophesying it in Jerusalem, people were prophesying it in Babylon. How many know that? We like to prophesy good things, but sometimes that's not what God had in mind. And so these guys were actually saying things that were.
[00:07:34] So you had people like Jeremiah and Ezekiel who everybody didn't like because they were telling people the opposite message and people didn't want to hear it. How many know we have a hard time receiving a message we don't want to hear? Isn't that the truth? And basically, they were saying to them, listen, you're going to be in Babylon for a while, so settle down. You're going to be there for 70 years. You might as well make the best of it, right? And one of the reasons why God left them there that long was because I think God was trying to instill in their hearts and mind the severity of the things that they had actually done. And I think they needed to hear that. So what God had to say through Ezekiel was not what they expected nor what they wanted to hear. And I think that always throws us for a little bit of a challenge. God knew the condition of their souls, that they lacked real sincerity and repentance. They did not seem to grasp that it was because of their sin that the nation was now being disciplined.
[00:08:29] All they wanted was to have the blessings of the Covenant restored. And EzekIel's Message confronts them not only with their failure, but points out to them that as a nation, they had constantly failed God through the centuries. They were just perpetually in a state of rebellion. They had a disposition, a predisposition to rebellion, doing their own thing, wanting to be in charge. Ezekiel now relates some of the history of the nation as that continuous disregard for God which always led them into sin. And one of the greatest moments of betrayal. While Moses was receiving the law from God at the mountain, after leading the people out of captivity, out of slavery, the people under Aaron fashioned golden calves to represent God. And in that process, they perverted themselves. They corrupted themselves. And that's what happens when you sin. It's a perversion and a corruption of yourself. Now listen to how Eugene Peterson relates this text, revealing clearly the nature of God, of grace, despite their sinfulness. And this is the text that really jumped out at me. So let's look at it. Ezekiel 20, verse seven. I'm reading from the message. Okay, this paraphrase from Eugene Peterson. At that time, I told them, get rid of all the vile things that you've been addicted to. Don't make yourselves filthy with the egyptian no God idols. I alone am God, your God. But they rebelled against me. Wouldn't listen to a word I said. None got rid of the vile things they were addicted to. They held on to the no gods of Egypt as if for dear life. I seriously considered inflicting my anger on them in force right there in Egypt.
[00:10:15] Okay, well, we get that.
[00:10:19] How many know God was angry? How many know anger is an emotion? So now we know God has emotion. He's showing it here.
[00:10:27] Then it says in the next verse. Then I thought better of it. Okay, this is really powerful. This is the verse that leaped out at me. Then I thought better of it. I acted out of who I was, not by how I felt.
[00:10:43] That line was so powerful, it changed my whole thinking.
[00:10:49] Let me read that line again. I acted out of who I was, not how I felt. How many times do we act out of how we feel, not who we should be? Isn't that true? We're letting our emotions control us. We're letting our emotions dictate our behavior. God says, I'm not letting my emotions dictate my behavior. I have those emotions, but I'm going to act out of who I am. I'm going to act out of my character. Well, that's very powerful already. Now I'm going. Okay, here's a terrific lesson. Okay?
[00:11:21] He says, I acted in a way that would evoke honor and not blasphemy from the nations around them, nations who had seen me reveal myself by promising to lead my people out of Egypt. And then I did it. I led them out of Egypt into the desert. You know, this morning, as I was in my quiet time, I was so struck by the text about God's word and how God's word is so faithful. Do you know if God says he's going to do something, he remains true to what he said, despite what you and I are doing. God said, I'm going to lead you out. I'm going to take you out. He did it. Despite how bad they were. God honored himself. God honored his name. God brought glory to himself. God's character is true. You and I can have total confidence in what God is saying to us because God's going to honor what he says. Human beings, we let each other down. But God doesn't do that. He says something, he's going to follow through on it.
[00:12:20] Despite their sinfulness, God forgave them. He blessed them. He delivered them according to what he had promised them. He did not deal with them according to how he felt.
[00:12:32] His decision was based on his character, not his emotions. That's a good line. You should write that one down. I'm going to base my decisions not out of my feelings, but how I know I need to behave. I know this is what God expects of me. I'm going to do this regardless of how I feel.
[00:12:51] Okay, we're going to talk more about that.
[00:12:54] How often? This is the very place where you and I fail. We are an emotionally driven people. Isn't that true? Things today seem less restrained. People are expressing themselves in many unhealthy ways, and the end result is pain to ourselves and pain to other people.
[00:13:13] For others is a growing suppression of emotions. There are people in this room living. They don't have any feelings. They've denied those feelings. They kind of cut them off because they're too painful to feel. We're going to talk about how to address suppressed emotions today. They're walking like. But here's the problem with suppressed emotions. You're walking like a time bomb. You don't even know it. And what happens is all it takes is some triggering event. Often the response seems excessive and uncharacteristic of the person. Have you ever read some of these stories where people have gone off and done terrible things and neighbors have said, he was such a nice person, nobody would have thought this would have ever happened. That's what happens when you suppress emotions. Then you start responding in a moment, in a triggering moment, uncharacteristically. And that's a sad situation.
[00:14:03] So how should we handle our emotions? That's the question I'm raising today. If you and I are made in the image of God, and you and I are like God, and we have emotions like God, and we know that God has emotions, and we can see how God handles his. What can we learn from God in how to handle our emotions? And I think there's only three things we can do in dealing with our emotions, and they're simply this. The first one is express them. Secondly, we can suppress them, or thirdly, we can address them. And I'm going to look at those three. So it's going to come back on the screen. You're not going to forget these. It'll come back. Just watch.
[00:14:42] So what do I mean by addressing our emotions? It means to come to terms with them. It doesn't mean we have to act on them, but it doesn't mean we pretend they don't exist. We're not going to be in denial. We're going to admit, yes, this is how I feel, but what am I going to do with my feelings? Okay. That's what I mean by addressing them. Okay. Now, in our text, it said that God acted out of who he was or who he is and not how he feels. Emotions are only a part of who we are. How many realize that it's a part of us? Not all of us. They should never determine or define who we are. Okay.
[00:15:19] Sometimes we talk as if our emotions are who we are. I'm depressed as if I'm a depressed person. No, you're not. You're a person that's struggling with the emotion of depression, but that's not who you are. You see, you have to understand, you have to divorce yourself from the emotion for a minute and say, this is who I am and this is the emotion that I have. Okay, let's divide that for a minute. I think that's important because sometimes we label ourselves with all kinds of things, and so then we just stay in that label. If I can say it that way. You know what I'm saying? And I think God wants us to get past some of these things.
[00:15:56] So let's take a look at these three things about handling our emotions in a healthy way. The three things I think about handling emotions in a healthy way. First one is that we should never suppress them, okay? That's not how we should handle them. God never denies how he feels. He doesn't pretend they don't exist. He's pretty authentic. I think he said, I was upset.
[00:16:23] Isn't that great that God can admit when he's upset about something? We think it's spiritual to be so cool. We never get frustrated. Well, God got irritated. He got frustrated. He got angry. Those are all legitimate emotions.
[00:16:39] We read in various places in scripture the way in which God expresses his emotions in a healthy way, even in difficult and painful situations. Now, let's take Genesis, for example. Genesis. This is an interesting text. Genesis, chapter six. The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
[00:17:06] Wow.
[00:17:08] Everyone goes, oh, it's so bad today, pastor. Well, I don't know. That verse sounds pretty bad back in that day. That sounds a lot worse in some ways. And it wasn't very good. And then it says, and the Lord regretted. And the one translation said, and he grieved.
[00:17:23] That's an emotion. Grieving that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. Are these emotional expressions? I think God's telling us, this is how felt. Okay, wow. So now, in that situation, it got so bad, he goes, there was no way to salvage anything except for this one family. And God saved the one family. That's amazing to me. And by the way, if you don't think God is compassionate, remember when he was dealing with sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham prays he's got to be at least ten righteous people. Remember that? Then he just quit. God didn't quit. He drug out the one family that was still righteous out of town. Isn't that an amazing story? I think God even cares about one single person. That's amazing to me.
[00:18:10] Now, in the ezekiel text, we read that God was angry with his people. Now, if God is angry and does not sin, we can safely say that the emotion of anger is not sinful.
[00:18:25] Everyone's looking at me like, really?
[00:18:28] You mean anger is not bad? Anger is an emotion. I'm going to say this. Anger is not necessarily bad at all because it's how we express our anger that determines if we sin or not. How's that? See the difference? Now you say, well, what? I always thought anger was a sin. No, listen to what Paul says. Paul says that anger is a God given emotion. God himself gets angry. If God is sinless, then anger can't be a sin because God gets angry. I'm going to argue right now, biblically that you and I can get angry. But it's what we do with our anger. Listen to what Paul says. In your anger, do not sin. He's not saying sin is anger is a sin. He's saying, when you're angry, don't sin. Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry. In other words, you got to address that emotion. We'll talk about addressing emotions in a few moments here. Now, I think there's things we need to get angry about that's going to shock some of you. We need to get angry. Anger is a motivating force in our lives.
[00:19:39] How many? We should be angry about injustice. We should be angry about inequality. We should be angry when we see people violated and abused and taken advantage of. That should anger us. We should be upset about some things. Some of these things should anger us.
[00:19:55] I think it's a sin to be apathetic and indifferent.
[00:19:59] I think that's wrong on our part. We should be upset about certain things. We can't just walk around know with our head in the know. We're pretending nothing's wrong. That's denial. That's not healthy. When we do that, sin continues to be rampant. But when we get upset, we're going to do something about it. It's designed to motivate us to do know. Dr. Neil Clark Warren in his book, make anger your ally, harnessing our most baffling emotion. That's a great text. I like the name of that book. This is what he said. He said, anger is a physical state of readiness. When we're angry, we're prepared to act physiologically. What happens is this. We have more adrenaline is secreted, more sugars released. Our heartbeats faster, our blood pressure rises, and the pupils of our eyes, they open wide.
[00:20:46] Something's happening to us, right? That's an emotion that's affecting my body. Then he goes on. He says, we're highly alert. Anger is simply preparedness and power. And he goes on to say the term anger often has negative connotations in people's minds because it's mistakenly linked with aggression. Anger and aggression are different. He goes on to say, aggression is a behavior and it's intended to threaten or injure the security or self esteem of the victim. It means to go against, to assault, to attack.
[00:21:16] So how many now are saying, oh, okay, anger is this, aggression is this. Aggression is the sin. Anger is the emotion. What do we do with our anger, pastor? Well, I think we got to learn from God. What did he do with his anger? Well, I think he stopped and paused. Anger may start us to action, but it cannot be the driving force in our lives. There are, some people are just angry all the time. That's an unhealthy state, right?
[00:21:46] I don't think we should be angry. I think angry is an emotion that comes once in a while. But if we're living angry all the time, we need to be set free. That's not healthy. If I'm a Christian, I should be motivated by love, I should be motivated by joy. I should have peace in my life. And one of the fruit of the spirit is self control. So obviously, if I'm angry and I lack self control, that's a problem because that's not the fruit of the spirit. And don't tell me that's righteous ignignation. It's not. You just don't have control.
[00:22:17] See, there's a difference. What do I do with my anger?
[00:22:21] There's nothing more damaging than allow anger to be the primary motivation of our lives.
[00:22:29] So many psychologists believe that depression, I'm going to pick on a different emotion because people feel depressed, is often a form of repressed anger. And you say, where did you get this? Pastor? I actually took a course on depression from a medical doctor, believe it or not, and what was called reactive depression. And this is what they said.
[00:22:52] I'm not saying all depression is repressed anger, but some depression is. And we need to understand that. Some people are angry, but they don't know how to deal with it in a healthy way. And what do they do? Is they think it's wrong, so they begin to repress the anger and it manifests as depression inside of them. Now, I want to make that qualifying statement. Not all depression is a result of suppressed anger. And nor would I say that all ailments are a result of suppressed anger. But however, some of them are, you would be surprised at how many physical maladies we have are in response to suppressing emotions in our bodies. And it's manifest later on as outward problems.
[00:23:41] It does happen that way. Not all of them, but some of them. That's the way it happens.
[00:23:45] I think there's a healthier way to address anger, the emotion of anger when we've been maybe hurt or violated. I'm going to give you one of them. Forgiveness. And our culture does not practice forgiveness well. People want revenge today. They really do. People are angry and they don't want an eye for an eye. Everyone looks at the Old Testament, that's terrible. Eye for an eye. What are they saying? No, the punishment needs to be commensurative versus what was done. But today people want more than an eye for an eye. They want a body for the eye. They want everything. I mean, people are really angry and they're frustrated and upset, and that's problematic.
[00:24:32] So often as anger is, anger is there because of unresolved issues where a person has been violated or shamed and they've been powerless to do anything about it. But I think one of the greatest liberating truth is the power of forgiveness. We can be delivered from this emotion of anger. We can choose to forgive, and that is a very powerful thing. Do you know what happens when you choose to forgive? What you're basically saying is, I'm going to trust God to make things right.
[00:25:02] I can't make it right. I would never be able to. I'm not suggesting we never press charges. We can take all these things to an extreme right. No, I think when somebody does a criminal action, there needs to be a criminal response. There needs to be some sort of judicial response. But what I'm saying is a lot of times in our lives, what we need to be doing is forgiving people and letting God deal with the culprit. And by the way, if you think people are getting away with things, let me tell you, I just was reading the story of Joseph this morning and they're standing before Joseph now. He's the ruler of Egypt, the second guy in command. And the brothers are now talking amongst themselves and 20 years later they're going, we saw how Joseph pleaded with us and we didn't do anything about it. God is now dealing with us because of what we did 20 years ago. It haunted them for 20 years. It was still in their cylinders because they had never addressed the issue in their lives. And we need to start addressing things. We got to stop fooling around and pretend these things don't exist. They do exist. Why don't we bring them out in the open and say, God, this is how I feel. God says, yeah, I know, why don't we address these things? And then when we get to that part where we say, I'm hurt, I'm frustrated. I'm angered. Lord, help me to forgive this person. I've been wounded by them. I think that's powerful. I need God's help to forgive. Right? Because I have emotional woundedness because of this. And I think when, you know, when we talk to people about the things that we've did, saying somebody, I'm sorry and then continuing to do it, that's the wrong approach. If we're really sorry about something, if we're really repentant about it, let's stop doing it. Amen. That's what repentance means. It's a change of mind that leads to a change in behavior.
[00:26:50] Okay, it's getting quiet in here. I knew this sermon was going to really zero in on stuff.
[00:26:56] Now, God acknowledges his anger, but he does not respond in anger. I think that's an important line. God acknowledges his anger, but he doesn't respond in anger. Anger is often a feeling of being hurt or neglected. Here God decides that his response to Israel's sin is to be consistent with who he is. I'm going to behave based on who I am, not based on what you did to me. You know, when you and I render evil for evil, what we've allowed evil to do is reduce us to become evil. But when you and I render good for evil, what we're saying is I'm not responding to your behavior based at your level. I'm responding to you based out of the goodness of God. In my life, I'm choosing to do good instead of evil. I'm going to overcome the evil by doing good. I'm going to choose to forgive. I'm going to choose to bless. I'm going to choose to pray. I'm going to break the cycle of this continuous conflict or sin that's going on. I'm choosing to break it, and I'm going to let God address it in the other person's life. That's a very powerful decision.
[00:28:06] He does. God does good despite their evil. Why? Because God is concerned about how this will affect other people.
[00:28:18] I'm going to stop and pause here and say something very get some people excited. You know, when we're dealing with marriage issues, we have children. Most of the time I hear from couples. It's about them. And when I look at it, I'm seeing past them to the kids because they're the real victims.
[00:28:37] And so I've talked to some of you as nicely as I can, but no, I've tried to be nice. But you know what? I do talk about the children as well, because that's very important. And what happens to kids? And don't tell me it's better for them. Now, I know there are situations. Don't misunderstand. I know there's infidelity issues and all the rest of it. I get all of that. Those are exceptional cases. Okay? But I'm talking about just dealing with areas that could be addressed. That's what I'm talking about. We got to look past where we're at in the situation at times and see who else is going to be affected like God did here, God was concerned about revealing himself to others, the surrounding nations, that if he had destroyed Israel, they would may have interpreted that God was incapable of taking care of them. Charles Feinberg says, when God could find no basis in them for extending to them his mercy and grace, he did it solely for his name's sake, that is, for his own glory. If God had poured out his wrath on his people, though they warranted such action by their multitude transgressions against them, the heathen could well have concluded, according to their reasonings, that God was unable to deliver his nation from their enemies. Here in Ezekiel, we find that God attributes this rationale to himself.
[00:29:51] What do they mean by that? Well, because when I read the story back in the book of Exodus, and we've all read this story, a golden calf incident, remember that Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. He said, lord, why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say it was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth? Turn from your fierce anger, relent, and do not bring disaster on your people. And then the Lord relented. You know, when you read that story, you think, oh, man, boy, Moses, what a guy. He's just standing in there, and he's pitching this pitch for God. He's just trying to somehow placate God's anger and not to destroy these unruly know. It makes Moses seem like he's more compassionate than God is. How many almost pick that up when you read that intercession? But you see, when you read the story from Ezekiel's vantage point, God says, now, I'm the one that did this. And I think the story that Moses is praying, I think God put it in Moses'heart to pray that prayer so that we could have a sense of what the nature of God was really like. And Ezekiel now is bringing it out that God was being consistent with who he is. That's a beautiful thing. Sometimes you got to read more than one text of scripture to get the real meaning behind it. You know what? You know what I'm saying? Because when I looked at that story, it goes, man, it just looks like Moses is nicer than God here, but I don't think so. I think God is far more patient and knows a lot more about people than Moses ever thought of knowing. As a matter of fact, Moses loses his cool down the so and does what he shouldn't do, where God was upset, but he did what he should have done, and he did. Let me move on to the second thing, not expressing them. Apart from reflection, how do we handle our emotions? We don't express them apart from stopping ourselves and reflecting what should be the right response here.
[00:31:45] Sometimes we need. Well, not sometimes. I think we need to exercise self control. Does anybody believe that's true? Actually, the Bible says the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace. But when I keep reading down, I get to self control. And one of the works of God's spirit in our life is self control. And God exercises self control. And you and I need to exercise self control. Boy, I could preach a whole sermon on self control. Is there a few areas in our lives that we need to practice self control?
[00:32:15] Yeah, right. Because sometimes we do things to excess, gets us into trouble.
[00:32:22] If our emotions are driving our decisions, if we're just spontaneously doing stuff without thinking about what we're doing, we can cause a lot of damage. I remember reading the story of a talkative woman who once tried to justify the criticalness of her tongue by saying, well, it passes.
[00:32:39] It's done quickly. To which the famous evangelist Billy Sunday replied, so does a shotgun blast.
[00:32:46] Such is the action of a critical, angry tongue that it leaves devastation in its wake.
[00:32:53] Some of you are sharp and quick witted, and you can just say it right now. But sometimes it leaves a lot of damage, and you can't always undo that damage. Amen. Yeah, we got to think about what we're going to respond. Sometimes it's best just to take a few minutes, take three deep breaths, reflect on what is being said, and sometimes, and this may shock you, sometimes saying nothing is the best response.
[00:33:17] A soft answer turns away wrath.
[00:33:21] I read that in proverbs 15. Maybe we need to practice that proverb.
[00:33:28] Here we find God communicating through his prophet how he felt about what was transpiring. Like he said, I didn't act out of how I felt. I acted out of who I am, God warns because he knows that our sin will prove destructive to ourselves and others. That's why God warns us. He recognizes that here in our text, we find a challenge because of the unfaithfulness of the nation toward him. They had violated their covenant with God. And when had Israel demonstrated that idolatry in the wilderness? Well, we know the story. It's that golden calf story. And we pick that story immediately up in chapter 32, verse one. When the people saw that Moses was so long and coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, come make us gods who will go up before us. As for this fellow who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what happened to. Hmm.
[00:34:17] Wow. What drove these people to embrace know? I think part of it was motivated out of fear. Who's leading us now? Right? Maybe the question was asked when they asked, where's Moses? Is he coming back? They were probably feeling abandoned. What are we going to do now? Another driving factor was impatience.
[00:34:38] Oh, let's just pause there for a moment.
[00:34:42] Impatience. Do you know impatience causes us to make a lot of bad decisions, right?
[00:34:51] God isn't acting fast enough. I'm going to have to help him out a little bit. Can I tell you all the stories in the Bible where people were helping God out a little bit and it cost Saul his kingdom? Abraham and Sarah made a little arrangement, and we had Hagar. And the story of what we're seeing today still goes on. It's amazing. When we try to help God out, maybe we need to be a little more patient. Where's this guy Moses? He's taken forever to get back here. Let's just take things in our own hands, right? We do that, we're tempted to do that.
[00:35:22] Maybe they were attributing their deliverance to a man rather than an invisible God. Where's Moses? Here was a people trying to comprehend there was only one God. The Jews were the first monotheistic religion in the whole world. And apart from their first father, Adam, which is our first father, most of our ancestors were idolaters. They worshiped the creation rather than the creator. Isn't that interesting that we've gone back to that? We're actually doing that in our culture today. We're worshiping the creation rather than the creator. However, there were individuals whom God revealed himself to. Abraham. For one, the temptation in the wilderness was to fall into the pattern of the culture around them. The temptation is for us to fall into the pattern in the culture around us, isn't it? To embrace the gods of our neighbors, just like they did. They made golden calves. Where do you think they came up with the golden calf idea? Well, that's what the Egyptians worship. They just made the same know. That's why Peterson in his translation, calls know the gods of Egypt, because they fashioned them after the gods of Egypt. Can you see what's happening? We do the same know.
[00:36:33] So the one who had delivered them from slavery was soon abandoned in favor of the image made from the slave holders. Isn't that amazing? Before we criticize them too severely, we need to be aware of our own propensity towards idolatry, which is often looking to what our world offers rather than to what God promises. How many say that's true?
[00:36:56] We just say, I'm going to look to what the world's offering me. It's going to provide enough money, I'll have security, blah, blah, blah, blah. We go all down that track. But you know what? God makes promises. And I want to assure you today, when God says something, his word is eternal, heaven and earth are going to pass away. God's word is the same. I remember one time I was going through a deep trial, and at the point where it seems like your world is falling apart and everything's going down the wrong path, you just feel like you're free falling and nothing's going to save you. And then I just said, you know what?
[00:37:28] I stopped myself and I started thinking. I said, hey, I'm going to just stand on God's word because all the other stuff around me is going to come to an end. The only thing that's going to abide in this situation is God's word. So I'm going to plank myself strictly on God's word. I'm just going to hang on to this word. You know, that was pretty smart, because everything around me, finally, all those circumstances disappeared, and what I was left on was eternal. It's still the same today as it was back then. It's true. We can hang on to God's word. How do we know that God's anger was justified? Well, idolatry always corrupts us. Look at verse seven. And the Lord said to Moses, go down because your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have become corrupt. Another translation says perverted. You know, they had a corrupt understanding of God. How many know that's true? They did. And that's not. Is that not one expression of idolatry is to have a distorted concept of who God is.
[00:38:25] You know, God doesn't like to be misrepresented and a lot of times as christians, we want to make a God after our image rather than letting God be, rather than letting ourselves be made after his image. How many want to be better than what you currently are? Well, then you need to have a good look at who God really is, and then you become conformed into his image. That's how you become a transformed person. But a lot of people today are doing the other way. They want to bring God down to their level and justify their bad behavior. It doesn't work. Then you're going to get more and more corrupted all along. You're going to keep justifying yourself into further corruption rather than allowing your mind to be transformed. Get to know who God truly is and allow that transformation to happen in your life. And in my life. That's what we need to do.
[00:39:13] It says here, when Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control, where's the self control there, right? And so became a laughing stock to their enemies. You know, when sin is in control of our lives, we've lost control.
[00:39:28] We don't have self control. We've lost know. And Paul tells us how important self control is. It's one of the fruit of the spirit. Notice it says here. But the result or fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
[00:39:46] In other words, a person controlled by God's spirit is a person whose emotions are under control.
[00:39:55] Right?
[00:39:56] Says it right there. Let me go to the last point. We have to address them. God doesn't suppress his emotions. He allows his emotions to be expressed, but he doesn't do it apart from his nature and character. There's the beautiful point. That's what we need to learn. I'm going to allow my emotions to be expressed within the appropriate behavior. What's appropriate? I'm going to express it. Then. See, he said I acted out of who I was, not by how I felt. I acted in a way that would evoke honor and not blasphemy. Isn't that a great way to say it? Isn't that an awesome way to say, I want to live like this? I don't want to act out of how I feel. I want to act in a way that'll voke honor and glory to my father. That's how I want to act.
[00:40:43] Well, how can we address our emotions in a healthy biblical way towards others? Well, let's look at the psalmist for a minute. How many know the psalms? I love them. But you know why because they're authentic, real, and they're emotional, and we all have emotions. If you start reading the psalms, you can see the various emotional states that the people were in, because now they're opening their hearts to God and they're vulnerable before God. Listen to the frustration and disappointment even directed toward God that was expressed to him in psalm 13. O Lord, how long, o Lord, we all feel moments of impatience. This is the person to take it to God. How long is this going to continue like this?
[00:41:24] That's what we should bring our complaint to God. How long will you hide your face from me? When are you going to show favor? When is this going to turn around? When is this trial going to come to an end? This is dragged on forever. Is there ever going to be a different season in life? And let me assure you that life has seasons to it. And you may be at a low point right now, but if you hang in there and trust God and be patient and wait for him, God will bring you out of your current season.
[00:41:50] Look at psalm 137. Oh, this is interesting.
[00:41:54] These guys, they were angry about the babylonian captivity. They were ravaged as a nation. Here's the psalm. Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction. Happy is he who repays you according to what you've done to us.
[00:42:08] Oh, that's an impregatory prayer, right? This is like, God, I don't like these guys. You should see what they did to us. And it's not nice. I'm just paraphrasing it. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks. That sounds, hey, how many go, that's gruesome, pastor. These guys are. Does anybody pick up on this stuff? Or as I'm just reading this, I'm going, well, this is a really wild emotion, right?
[00:42:35] Obviously, a lot of hurt is here right now. This is how I feel.
[00:42:40] This is what's been done to us, God, this is what should be done to them. He's just pointing it out.
[00:42:46] What's God's.
[00:42:48] You get a sense of the anger and pain in these remarks. Anybody pick up on that? Somebody's hurting. This is a hurting person. I think so. But notice who they're addressed to. Who are they addressed to? God. He's the right person to talk to about our feelings. But here's God's response back to the nation. When they feel like this, he goes, oh, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I've carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper. So rather than wanting to kill all their kids, why don't you just pray God's blessing upon them? And if you do, you will be blessed. This is how you overcome their evil, by doing good. Isn't this interesting? In the Old Testament, there's this principle of overcoming evil by doing the opposite.
[00:43:31] Sounds kind of like Jesus. This is what Jesus said. But I tell you who are listening, I say, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. Is that always easy? No, very difficult. But with God's help, it can be done. How can we address the emotional issues that cause us to struggle in personal despair? Oh, you know how you do it? You got to talk to yourself. This is called self talk. Psalm 43 five. He's talking to his soul. Why are you downcast? Why my soul? Are you downcast? Hey, buddy, you're in the dumps.
[00:44:07] Why are you so disturbed? Put your hope in God and I will yet praise him. My savior and my God. What's he doing? He's preaching to himself.
[00:44:16] Have you ever preached to yourself?
[00:44:19] Come on, budy, smarten it up.
[00:44:21] Stop whining. Stop being a baby. You got to talk to yourself once in a while. Hey, you know what I need to do? Instead of grumbling and not be satisfied, I need to start thanking God for how amazing he is because I don't deserve most of what I've got going on. I would say all of what I've got going on in my life. I need to start thanking God.
[00:44:40] And who's telling me to do it? I'm telling me to do it like this psalmist is doing. He's telling himself to do this.
[00:44:49] If we do not win the battle within, we lose the battle happening around us. We'll lose our soul in the process.
[00:44:57] We're not going to be able to handle the challenges in our lives. We got to talk to ourselves. You know what happened? Cain, I'm going to close with this. He was jealous of his brother Abel. Remember that? Yeah. The Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? I put it unjustified emotion. Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? Cain, if you do what's right, will you not be accepted? Obviously, the reason why your sacrifice is not accepted is you're doing something that's not right. Cain, God and Cain are having a little conversation. But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door, desires to have you, but you must rule over it. Who's responsible for taking charge of his emotion.
[00:45:38] Cain, and in this case, applied to us. We need to be responsible.
[00:45:47] So I said, who's responsible? God said, cain's responsible. Deal with your emotions. That's what he's telling him.
[00:45:55] What did he do? He didn't rule over it, didn't master it. He killed his brother. His emotions got the best of him, and he did the wrong thing.
[00:46:04] What emotions?
[00:46:09] Go back here. What emotions does God want us to master in our lives? It's a great question. Jealousy, envy, anger, hurt, disappointment, unforgiveness, lust. I think we got to talk to God.
[00:46:25] We got to ask God for his help. We got to speak God's word into our situation. We got to stand on God's promises. We have to take. Often, I think our emotional responses are actually an expression of what?
[00:46:38] Discontentment. We're not happy. We're discontented. But I like what Paul says, and I'll close with this verse.
[00:46:47] He says, you know, I've been in favorable and unfavorable situations, but I've learned the secret to be content in any and every situation. This is the secret. I can do all these things through him who gives me strength. Let's stand as we close today. I really believe that.
[00:47:09] I deeply believe today there's at least one person in this room.
[00:47:17] God's speaking to you really intently right now.
[00:47:21] Speaking to you really intently. Probably more than one, but at least one saying, you know what?
[00:47:28] I want you to deal with the hurt. I want you to address things.
[00:47:36] This is an exposing sermon. It's meant to do that. It's meant to drudge up stuff that we've been shoving down. Are we catching that? What are we going to do with that stuff? We're going to let it go.
[00:47:48] We're going to take it to our father in heaven. We're going to say, lord, I'm hurt, I'm wounded, I'm angry.
[00:47:57] But now I've allowed unforgiveness and woundedness and anger and bitterness to come rifling into my life.
[00:48:09] You have to deal with that stuff.
[00:48:11] You've got to address it.
[00:48:14] It's okay to have emotions. I'm telling you, you've got permission to have emotions. But what are you going to do with them?
[00:48:23] We got to address them in the right way. Can you see that? How many are seeing it? I think we need to come to God and say, lord, this is where I'm at. I'm broken, I'm wounded.
[00:48:34] I need to let this stuff go.
[00:48:37] Just with every head bowed right now.
[00:48:40] How many are here saying, you know what? The spirit of God's speaking to me right now. He's saying, you know what? You've been wounded.
[00:48:46] I want you to let it go now. I want you to say, yeah, that happened, but I'm choosing to forgive, even though that person doesn't deserve it. I got to let that go. That's where I'm at. I can't live in anger anymore. Got to let that stuff go.
[00:49:02] I know evil has been done to so many of us.
[00:49:06] I wish I could tell you every time God peeled back the onion in my life.
[00:49:12] I'm a pastor, right? And here I am. God's dealing with stuff in my soul.
[00:49:18] And sometimes the pain is so deep, you just disconnect the feeling button. You know what I mean by that? It's just so painful. And then all of a sudden, one day, God goes, I want you to deal with it. And he reconnects all the buttons and you just break down. I mean, I've literally wept, wept because God put his finger on brokenness in my soul. But you know what happened out of that? It was healing. He brought healing. We sang that beautiful song, jesus, right? I'm going to bring my addictions to Jesus. I'm going to bring my woundedness to Jesus. I'm going to bring my abuse. To know some of you have been abused. You need to let it go. You need to admit it and say, yeah, I was abused. But you know what, God? You're a healer. You need to heal the woundedness in my soul.
[00:50:09] I can't live with this anger anymore.
[00:50:13] I can't live like this. I want to be free.
[00:50:16] And so, Father, I pray today for my brothers and sisters. My heart goes out to them. I'm one of them. I've walked through this stuff, and you brought healing in my life.
[00:50:26] You brought healing in my soul. You're a healer.
[00:50:30] You love us so much.
[00:50:33] You want us to let go of the pain and the hurt and the unresolvedness of these issues. You don't want us to just act in emotion. You want us to act out of character. We're your children.
[00:50:47] We're to grow up. We're to become like you. We're to behave in an honorable way, Lord. We're to bring honor and glory to you and our behavior, because we're not going to allow what's happening to us to define us anymore. We're not going to just react emotionally.
[00:51:04] We don't want to do that anymore. We don't want to be angry and just spew out a whole bunch of words. And later on, live in shame and brokenness. We want to be free. I just pray today that you will bring healing and freedom in our souls. No matter how young, how old we are, it doesn't matter. We've all walked through things, Lord, and now we're bringing them to you. We're just laying this woundedness at your feet. We're just laying this stuff down. Father and I just pray today that healing would flow. That was our prayer this morning. Healing would flow. That you would heal us in the deepest recesses of our soul. You would heal us, Father, in the places, even in our subconscious, places where we have even suppressed things, where we can't even remember them anymore because we were so wounded. We pray for that kind of healing today. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. God bless you. As you leave today.
