So we are walking our way through a series on Emotionally Healthy Relationships which has been really meaningful to me…and I wonder how you are doing with all of this stuff so far? I think for so many of us we maybe wouldn’t make the connection between our emotions and our spiritual journeys but it is so important. This is why Pete Scazzero would go as far as to say that you cannot ignore your emotions and grow spiritually. You can’t do it because all of these things are tied together…your emotional health, your spiritual health, all of it. You know I think for so many of us, we don’t tie emotional and spiritual health together, and I think in many ways this is exactly why we see so many hurt and busted up people walking away from church…because so many good Christians miss the key, that loving God and loving others are not separated…and that our emotions are actually not a bad thing, they are from God and may actually be God speaking to us. I mean, for so many of us who grew up in a church setting I think we could say that it’s hard to look the part of “good, healthy, Christian” and show emotions right? Well, in many ways our emotions are speaking to us, and telling us what is actually going on inside our hearts which is a really big deal! Ken once shared the imagery that our emotions are much like a check engine light in a car, helping us see what is going on inside of us…letting us know, something is going on under the hood that needs some attention but for so many of us we ignore our emotions, or we don’t want to engage them, or we try to push them down rather than realizing that God actually speaks to us through our emotions. Sometimes while it hurts, or may cause some discomfort we must engage into it, we may even need to avoid our instincts and turn into some pain at times, even though every instinct that you may have would be to run away from the pain, or the hurt, or just the uncomfortable feeling. I would like to share with you a moment like this for me, that I can look back on now and realize caused me damage for years and years in my life…because I wasn’t willing to face and engage what was going on inside of me and I look back now and realize because I couldn’t admit or share or deal with my emotions I began walking in almost what I look at now as a double life…smiling on the outside and hurting and angry on the inside.
When I was 12 years old a very close friend of mine was killed in a car accident. I have to tell you that I didn’t have the ability to process this. He was a really good person, and he was on his way with a group of our youth group to a Bible Quizzing event when they were in this horrible accident. The news of what was going on hit me so hard and I remember feeling so shaken, and sick, and confused, and I had no ability to understand how God would allow something like this. I loved the family involved. I looked up to his father and as I watched his sisters and family deal with this…I went from confused and devastated to angry and I something in me knew that wasn’t ok. I mean how could a good Christian young man like me be angry with God…it seemed so wrong and I really began to pull away. I didn’t want to address all that I was dealing with and I pulled farther and farther away. I can remember watching everyone at the funeral singing “It Is Well with My Soul” lots of hands up, tears, smiles…but I couldn’t sing it, because it wasn’t well with my soul and I pulled away even more. I felt so much and didn’t want to feel any of it. I didn’t understand that it was ok to walk in pain and hurts. I didn’t understand that it was ok to be angry, and I really struggled with releasing my emotions, and I will tell you it sent me back years until I could finally admit some of the things I was dealing with, the anger, the guilt, the emotions that I didn’t think were ok, that actually are absolutely ok…and by admitting them and turning into them, and engaging them I started to find real healing…but it took years…and it’s fair to say I carried a lot of that stuff into adulthood before finding healing. I mean years of baggage, hurts, emotions…and all the while God wanted to talk to me about it, and I just couldn’t handle it.
It’s amazing how big of a role our emotions can play in our lives yet for so many of us we grew up thinking it wasn’t ok to feel…especially if you were a good Christian…which simply isn’t true. Do you know how we know that isn’t true? Because God came to this Earth and walked through life as a human, and he felt things too. I want you thinking about this today because for some of us, we know that Jesus is God in skin, but we miss that he walked through every emotion and feeling that we walk through. That isn’t a small point…that is a big deal. Your Savior has felt what you feel. And if he felt what you feel, maybe that means that feeling these emotions isn’t evil at all. Listen to this in Paul’s letter to the Romans…
Romans 8:1 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. 2 A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. 3 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. 4 And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. MSG
So there is so much to talk about in these four verses, in fact as I wrote this talk I just debated reading all of Romans Chapter 8 today, it’s just that good but I want you to see a couple of things here. The first thing that is so beautiful is that Paul says if we enter a life with Jesus we no longer have to live under the continuous low lying black cloud because the Holy Spirit is taking over. What a beautiful thought. But check out verse three.
3 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. MSG
Oh man this is good stuff…Here’s verse three in a different version…
Romans 8:3 The law of Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature. But God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. NLT
So the idea that God took care of our enemy and our pain by sending His son is an amazing thought. That God saved us through Jesus, because of His immense love for us is so profound, and I want you to see something about Jesus there. Jesus took on the human condition. Jesus had a human body like ours. So Jesus Christ, who is fully God is also fully man, which means He feels just as you and I feel. This is a very important thing for us to see. So for me growing up being a good Christian boy I believed a lie and that lie was that it was wrong to feel emotions…but I just read for you that Jesus who was sin free…felt emotions! Jesus didn’t model for us a life without emotion, he felt and freely expressed his emotions, he wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed and he certainly didn’t suppress or hide them.
Jesus shed tears!
Luke 19:41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it. NIV
Jesus was filled with joy.
Luke 10:21 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. NIV
Jesus was overwhelmed with grief.
Mark 14:34 He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and watch with me.” NLT
Jesus was angry and distressed.
Mark 3:5 He looked them in the eye, one after another, angry now, furious at their hard-nosed religion. He said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” He held it out — it was as good as new! MSG
Jesus was sorrowful and troubled.
Matthew 26:37 He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. 38 Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” NIV
Jesus’ heart was moved with compassion.
Luke 7:13 When Jesus saw her, his heart broke. He said to her, “Don’t cry.” MSG
Jesus expressed amazement.
Mark 6:6 And he was amazed at their lack of faith. NIV
Jesus was fully God and fully man. He felt what you and I feel. He experienced all of life. He even experienced a friend betraying him, and the rejection of people walking away from him when the teaching got tough. He experienced joy, and pain, and wonder, and pressure and stress…he experienced all of it which I find so awesome…God knows and feels us. Just an awesome thought, but let’s take it a step further. If Jesus who was fully God and fully human experienced all of these feelings and emotions and they are so deliberately written down in scripture, why do you not believe you would and should and can experience them too? Where did we get the idea that acknowledging and expressing authentic emotion is somehow less than spiritual? And why do we believe that we can grow spiritually while ignoring these emotions? You just can’t do it!
I have to tell you this isn’t something that I understood as a young man and I wish that I had because I can look back at that moment of my childhood and realize that in many ways it started me down a path for many years of trying to mask or hide my feelings and thoughts. I was so angry at God. I was angry at well-meaning church people who said things that just weren’t all that helpful in the moment…then I felt guilt and shame for feeling and thinking those things. I tried to fake it for a while but eventually it became to hard to fake…and it was years until I was able to admit my emotions. Which is so interesting isn’t it? I was believing a terrible lie, and walked in some real wreckage for quite a long period of time because I wouldn’t engage and tie my emotions to my spiritual life. It leads to a kind of double life that no one should live and it took me a long time to realize the truth that we read earlier in Romans…
3 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. MSG
Maybe for you it’s a new thought. That your spiritual maturity and your emotional health are inseparable. If so that is ok, but I want you to begin to think about how amazing this thought really could be. That a sin free Jesus, who is God, had emotions and experienced them. He didn’t shy away from them and in that He is modeling something very important for all of us. We must see this. You weren’t created to be a robot that doesn’t feel. You were created to feel. It’s in those emotions that God can be speaking to you in a beautiful way, and to ignore them is so damaging and they will come out of you, one way or the other. Through your behaviors, or your relationships, but believe me, no matter how good you are at pretending they are coming out, people around you are feeling them.
Listen your relationship with God is more than what happens in your devotional time, or in the privacy of your own home, your relationship with God comes out in your relationship with others. They are intimately tied together, and today I wanted you to see that your emotions are an enormous part of this, you are allowed to feel. You were designed to feel. If you are trying to avoid your emotions even for all the right reasons, it will not end well. Just look at how Jesus lived, and felt, and walked through life on this Earth. Many of us grew up believing and being taught that we should model our lives after Christ, but few of us actually read the Bible for ourselves enough to see that Jesus felt, and lived, and laughed, and cried, and got angry, and frustrated, and overwhelmed…Jesus felt it all too! Oh, I hope you can hear me today, too many Christians walk through life suppressing their feelings because they feel at some level like they are wrong or sinful. But hear me…
Jesus was sinless not emotionless.
So let’s really try to process and try to reflect on what Paul told us about our Savior in Romans 8 for a moment.
Romans 8:1 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. 2 A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. 3 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. 4 And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. MSG
God through His immense love for us, (His children) sent Jesus to take care of it. He sent Jesus to live, to feel, to model for us how to do it, then to save us from what the rules of religion could not save us from. This is what it’s all about and this is really where my heart is for today. That you see that you have a God knows you. He feels you. Your emotions are not evil or sinful they are part of the design of your life and God can speak through them. When we suppress them it damages everything from our relationships with people to our relationship with God.
I want to end today by walking through a prayer that is found in the Emotionally Healthy Relationship book it’s just beautiful and has really just captured my heart. It really helps us see the importance of our relationship with God and others and how well they tie together. God isn’t just found in our alone time with him He is found in our relationships with one another. I have been saying this since the beginning of this series but a lot of the mess around our churches is because we separate loving God from loving others. This is why Jesus was in constant conflict with the religious leaders of his time right? He kept reminding the religious leaders of his time that they were really good at loving God, but they were missing the loving others part. So let’s walk through this prayer as we head towards communion today. This is written by Richard Rohr.
“I thank you, Lord Jesus, for becoming a human being so I do not have to pretend or try to be God.
I thank you, Lord Jesus, for becoming finite and limited so I do not have to pretend that I am infinite and limitless.
I thank you, crucified God, for becoming mortal so I do not have to try to make myself immortal.
I thank you, Lord Jesus, for becoming inferior so I do not have to pretend that I am superior to anyone…
I thank you for becoming weak, so I don’t have to be strong.
I thank you for being willing to be considered imperfect and strange, so I do not have to be perfect and normal.
I thank you, Lord Jesus, for being willing to be disapproved of, so I do not have to try so hard to be approved and liked.
I thank you for being considered a failure, so I do not have to give my life trying to pretend I’m a success.
I thank you for being wrong by the standards of religion and state, so I do not have to be right anywhere.
I thank you for being poor in every way, so I do not have to be rich in any way.
I thank you, Lord Jesus, for being all of the things humanity despises and fears, so I can accept myself and others in you.”
Richard Rohr – Emotionally Healthy Relationships page 127-128
I really hope that you can slow down and think through each line of this prayer. It is so profound. This is what God has done for us through Jesus. This is why our King’s life looked so different. Do you see it? Because Jesus died we can simply be ourselves. We don’t have to conform, or look the part because He didn’t! And as we walk into a time of communion to conclude our service. I really want you reflecting on God’s love for you and what the crucifixion and resurrection really means in your life. As you think about this prayer, what line hits your heart the most? Please reflect and pray on this moment as we remember what Jesus did for us on the Cross.
Remember Jesus felt it all too. He knows you. He has felt what you feel and He is with you in all of it.