Grace Church
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Burlington, WI 53105

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On the Road to emotional wholeness Isaiah 61:1-3 Dealing with Feelings Sermon Series Sermon #9 Tim Woodall is a young regional sales representative for a company that manufactures building materials. He travels by car, covering a large section of East Texas as he visits building supply stores in the many small towns there. One afternoon after his last appointment of the day, Tim decided to drive home instead of spending another night in a motel. At about midnight, driving down a lonely, two‑lane country highway, he dozed off. His car ran off the road, hit an embankment, and flipped over. Tim was dazed, and when he moved, seemed to hurt all over. He managed to struggle out of his car, and then lay on the grass trying to grasp what had happened to him. I’m okay, he kept telling himself. It’s really not that bad.   About forty‑five minutes later, Tim, barely conscious, heard the sound of an approaching car. He tried to raise himself up, but it was useless; he was too weak. The car zoomed past, and then braked. Bob and Natalie Johnson were driving through the night from El Paso, Texas, to Montgomery, Alabama, to visit their daughter. In the moonlight, Natalie had spotted the overturned car from the corner of her eye. Now, her husband backed down the road and pulled over onto the shoulder. Beyond their headlights, they could clearly see the wrecked car, and lying next to it, Tim.   Tim lay in a pool of blood. Beneath the light, the Johnsons discovered that his head and arm were badly cut, and as they tried to help him to his feet, realized that his left leg was probably fractured. Seeing his own blood‑stained shirt; the dirt, wet beside him; and the concern on the Johnson’s’ faces, Tim began to shake uncontrollably, suddenly aware that he was badly hurt. He was, in fact, slowly bleeding to death, but due to shock, wasn’t fully able to comprehend the extent of his own wounds. The Johnsons lifted Tim into their car and sped him toward the county hospital, where his cuts were stitched and his fractured leg put into a splint. This would be replaced with a cast when the swelling went down.   If the Johnsons hadn’t been driving to Alabama that night; if Natalie had been looking another way; if the headlights of their car hadn’t enabled them to find Tim in the darkness, he might have died.   This true story illustrates a reality in many of our lives: we are hurt, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually, but because we aren’t aware of the extent of our wounds, we can’t take steps toward healing and health. Our problem is not stupidity, but a lack of objectivity. Because of this, we fail to see the reality of the pain, hurt, and damaged emotions in our lives. For too many of us abnormal is our normal.  And sometimes a sermon series like this seems to cause pain because it makes us aware of the deep rooted issues that previously we had been ignoring.   Sometimes these issues are engraved on our souls. William Wordsworth was right, “the child is father of the man.”   For children of divorce, alcoholism, substance addiction or abuse – abnormal is often normal. But you don’t have to grow up in a broken home or an alcoholic home to be scarred. An angry parent or a perfectionistic parent can also do damage to a child’s soul. Add to that cruelty from peers in childhood, our individual temperaments and obviously our own sin nature...all of us struggle at some level with fractured emotions. So what’s the solution? How can we get on the road to emotional wholeness? Several truths... 1. Emotions are a gift from God. You may have heard the story about the enthusiastic man who walked into a very formal and dignified worship service and sat down in a pew. The minister had just started his sermon when the visitor said fervently, “Amen!” A moment later the fellow said, “Praise the Lord!” The usher walked down the aisle and whispered to him, “You need to be quiet! We don’t do that here.” The visitor said, “But I’ve got religion!” The usher said, “Well, you didn’t get it here.”   Many of us can relate to that situation because we tend to be more comfortable with the intellectual aspects of Christianity than we are with the emotional. We’re more comfortable discussing doctrine than we are how we feel about what we believe. Our tendency is to shut our emotions down or at least suppress them, especially during worship because we’re afraid of what will happen if we don’t. Sometimes we’re embarrassed that we might become too emotional. We don’t want to be seen as too enthusiastic or excited about what God has done for us. We don’t want to be perceived as someone who gets a little too “carried away” with religion.   Remember though that Jesus said, in giving the greatest commandment, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt. 22:37). While we’ve done a good job in the church of loving God with all our mind, we’ve been a bit hesitant to love Him with all of our heart.   When I meet with couples who are about to get married, I always talk with them about what love means. One of the questions I raise is this: “Is love something you feel, or is it something you do?” Ultimately, love is something you do; it’s a commitment that will hang in there regardless of what happens. Love gets you up in the middle of the night and take care of a sick family member even when you don’t feel like it. Love causes you to make sacrifices for the benefit of others even when you have trouble feeling excited about doing it. Active love is the foundation of a healthy marriage. It’s also foundational in our relationship with God. There are times that our love will express itself to God even when we just don’t have that lovin’ feeling.   But does that mean that love has no feeling? Imagine a husband who loves his wife, he’ll do anything he can for her. He will make any sacrifice necessary. But he doesn’t have any feelings for her. He doesn’t get excited when she walks into the room. He doesn’t laugh with her and he doesn’t cry with her. There’s no feeling, no emotion...just a commitment. I think all of us would agree that there’s something sadly missing in that love. Yet we are often afraid of feelings when it comes to the realm of the spiritual. One writer summed up this emotionless spirituality when he said, “emotion is regarded as something almost indecent.” God did not design us to be Mr. Spock with no feelings or emotions.   A. God the Creator has emotions and therefore has endowed us, who are created in His image, with similar emotional capacities. Through the history of the Church some have foolishly denied that God has feelings or emotions. The Westminster Confession states, “There is but one only living and true God who is...without body, parts or passions...” But that’s not what Scripture teaches. God was grieved in Genesis 6:6 that He had made man because of man’s debauchery and He became weary of hypocrisy in Isaiah 1. His anger against sin is expressed numerous times throughout the Bible.   When Jesus, the God-Man, walked this earth, He expressed sorrow (Jn 11:35), anger (Mk 3:5), frustration (Luke 9:41), amazement (Luke 7:9), and joy (Heb. 12:2). To deny or even suppress all emotion is to deny our very being and the way that we were designed by God.   God originally designed us to live in physical, spiritual, and emotional unity. With our bodies we can relate to our physical environment, with our spirits we can be in fellowship with God, and with our emotions we can be affected by either relationship. In fact, we sometimes cannot easily separate the various aspects of man in our common experience. As a result, our emotions can be affected by our relationship with God or the haphazard and fluctuating experiences and circumstances of life.   B. God created us with emotions so that our lives might be enriched. Now for those suffering with emotional issues, this seems unbelievable.   Let me share a portion from a transcript by Christian apologist, Ravi Zacharias, "You may recall the chess victory by the computer Deep Blue over the world champion Gary Kasparov, which caused many to compare the similarities of machines and humans. Yale professor, David Gelertner, disagrees. He writes, “The idea that Deep Blue has a mind is absurd. How can an object that wants nothing, fears nothing, enjoys nothing, needs nothing and cares about nothing have a mind? It can win at chess, but not because it wants to. It isn’t happy when it wins or sad when it loses. What are its [post]‑match plans if it beats Kasparov? Is it hoping to take Deep Pink out for a night on the town?” He continues: “The gap between the human and the surrogate is permanent and will never be closed. Machines will continue to make life easier, healthier, richer and more puzzling. And humans will continue to care, ultimately, about the same things they always have: about themselves, about one another, and many of them, about God.” What a unique capacity God has put within us‑the capacity to feel. The unique capacity to feel is not often appreciated, and for many, healthy and emotions are not two words that show up in the same sentence.   God could have created us without emotions. We could be intelligent, calculating, insensitive machines, but life would be incredibly dull. True, there would be no sorrow, but there would be no joy either. We would live without a sense of anticipation, and we would not experience the comfort that can be ours at a time of tragedy. Life would progress without the laughter of children, without the spontaneity of lovers, or without the sympathy of friends. But God is not like that, nor did He wish us to be. Our emotions were given not to control us but that we might be able to enjoy life. We would not be better off if we were free of them.   C. Sin contaminated our entire being, including our emotions. The reason our feelings give us so much trouble is that they were infected by sin when mankind rebelled against God. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, chose to disobey God in the Garden of Eden. By choosing to rebel against God, the parents of the human race fell from God’s grace. It was at this time that sin entered the human race and corrupted it. The Bible teaches that all of creation was affected by the Fall. In man, the image of God was distorted. While God’s feelings and emotions reflect His perfection, our feelings and emotions reflect our imperfection. Sin has so contaminated our feelings that they become a problem at times. Dealing with feelings can be difficult.   Turn to 2 Cor. 4:7-10 (p. 818). We learn from this passage that it is possible to be under extreme pressure in adverse circumstances and still be able to deal with our feelings. Paul talks about being afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. In the midst of the most trying of times, though Paul felt extremely perplexed, he was able to keep from succumbing to despair. In other words, even though he did not understand always what God was doing, he was able to hold his feelings in check and not be side‑tracked by them. Though Paul’s emotions, like ours, have been contaminated by sin, they did not conquer him, instead he controlled them.   D. Emotional pain is used by God to bring about spiritual gain. Just as bodily pain is God’s way of telling us that something has gone awry with our physical nature, so emotional pain may tell us that all is not well with our spiritual nature. If we try to solve a spiritual problem with a physical remedy (such as curing depression with drugs), the results will be disappointing. It’s popular to think that the answer to our spiritual needs is a physical stimulus. While a physical remedy can appear to solve a spiritual problem, it usually just camouflages the real issue. Our spiritual and emotional natures must ultimately be brought into harmony with God. Only then can we achieve emotional balance. Remember Augustine’s words: “O Lord, Thou has made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their all in Thee.”   Now I’m not suggesting that all emotional disorders have spiritual causes. Yet, emotional issues are often used by God to bring us to Himself. The emotional issues we’ve dealt with in this series: loneliness, anger, stress, fear, worry, depression, bitterness and guilt, are often used by God to draw us to Himself. But it is easy to settle for band-aids instead of cures.   Isaiah 61alludes to the fact that one of Jesus’ purposes in coming was to bring about our emotional healing. Turn to Isaiah 61:1-3 (p. 529). Jesus came to free us from our enslavement to sin. Notice a wonderful part of vs. 3, “to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Another way of saying beauty for ashes would be glory for remorse. In the Old Testament one would often literally take ashes and pour them over his head to demonstrate that he was repenting of sin. When Jonah preached on the streets of Nineveh and the people became convicted of their sin, they heaped ashes on their heads as a symbol of remorse and repentance. God wants to give us His beauty, both inside and outside, for our remorse over sin.   Then, He wants to replace our grieving with His oil of joy. What better joy than the joy that comes from the Spirit who indwells us at salvation and is often symbolized by oil in Scripture.   And He wants to replace our despair with praise. The KJV translates this, “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” The same word for heaviness is used in Psalm 42:3 for putting out a lamp. When you have heaviness on the inside, you feel like your light is out. God wants to exchange our feelings of darkness for His light of glory and praise. That’s why He came, that why Jesus went to the Cross. So that we could be healed.   While you and I will struggle with our emotions until we get Home, just as we struggle with these physical bodies, we do not have to be conquered or victims of our emotions. To have victory over emotional issues, we have to take those first steps, even if their BABY STEPS. [Film Clip from What About Bob? about Baby Steps.] 2. We can have victory over emotional issues. Many years ago there was a small Oklahoma town which had produced a series of terrible football teams. They usually lost the important games and were invariably clobbered by their arch rivals from a nearby community. Understandably, the students and their parents began to get depressed and dispirited by the drubbing their troops were given every Friday night. It must have been awful. Finally, a wealthy oil producer decided to take matters in his own hands. He asked to speak to the team in the locker room after yet another devastating defeat. What followed was one of the most dramatic football speeches of all times. This businessman proceeded to offer a brand new Ford car to every boy on the team and to each coach if they would simply defeat their bitter rivals in the next game. Knute Rockne couldn't have said it better. The team went crazy with sheer delight. They howled and cheered and slapped each other on the back. For seven days, the boys ate, drank, and breathed football. At night they dreamed about touchdowns and rumble seats. The entire school caught the spirit of ecstasy, and a holiday fever pervaded the campus. Each player could visualize himself behind the wheel of a gorgeous new car with beautiful girls hanging all over him. Finally, the big night arrived and the team assembled in the locker room. Excitement was at an unprecedented high. The coach made several inane comments and the boys hurried out to face the enemy. They assembled on the sidelines, put the hands together, and shouted a simultaneous "Rah!" Then they ran onto the field and were demolished, 38 to 0. Why? Feelings and emotions have a definite place in our lives, but they should never lead us. Someone said "Emotions don't make a good engine. They only make a good caboose." Can you imagine a train trying to be pulled by the caboose? To do so the train quickly becomes inoperable because the caboose has no power on its own to pull or push. The key to victory over emotional issues is to start with the engine, the spiritual. You will never have victory over emotional issues if you start with your emotions, the caboose.   In Proverbs 25:28 Solomon wrote, “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls” (NKJV). Solomon uses the analogy of a city broken down with no walls to speak of a person who cannot control their emotions/feelings. The city walls were for the protection of the inhabitants in the city. Without them they were vulnerable to attacks by foreign powers. The person who lives by their feelings will be continually vulnerable to the attacks and swaying of uncomfortable feelings, beliefs and practices. If we are going to have the victory that God wants us to have with emotional issues, we must start with the spiritual.   A. We must accept God’s forgiveness and cleansing. Forgiveness comes when we accept God’s gift of salvation. Forgiveness is God’s gift to us that assures us of a right standing in His presence. Cleansing is the application of His forgiveness in our lives. It is important that our past be put behind us, both legally and experientially. Scriptures refers to this as the renewal of our minds that is to take place at salvation.   The Apostle Paul alluded to this in Ephesians 4. In verse 19 he told us that many people have given themselves over to sensuality. He talks about our life without God, the corruption and the control of lusts that are latent within us all. But then he urges us “to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (vss. 23‑24). The renewed mind is different from the natural mind, which focuses on negative emotions rather than the positive light of the Gospel. At salvation God forgives us and then cleanses our minds from the ill effects of the rejection and guilt that we may carry with us. Now I’m not saying that such deliverance will take place speedily, though I have known those who have had instant deliverance from the harassment of past sin and memories. But if we stand our ground, there will be emotional release.   B. We must exalt the Cross as God’s answer to our emotional hurts. Usually when we think of Christ’s work on the Cross, we emphasize that He died in our place so that we could be freed from sin. What is less known is that the same death took place that we might have emotional freedom. In Isaiah 53:4 we learn that Christ identified Himself with our feelings, “Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows.” Just as the Cross represents an exchange for our sin, our sin is imputed to Christ and His righteousness is imputed to us, so it is with our emotional responses. As we commit ourselves to Him, He brings about emotional wholeness so that we might be able to live out His life in us.   I’m not implying that we should expect to live in perpetual emotional tranquility. Jesus Himself experienced grief, sorrow, rejection, and depression. But He was able to endure them through the triumph of His obedience. Paul explained that redemption was accomplished for the body, soul, and spirit. While total deliverance will only take place when we are in heaven, we can begin to benefit from that redemption now. The Cross includes deliverance from emotional slavery.   I shared this recently with my Grace Group. Suppose you lived in an apartment complex in which the landlord harassed you, charging exorbitant rent and blackmailing you. You became filled with fear, anxiety, guilt, and depression. Yet there was nothing you could do, for you were captive to this intruder. But suppose that a new landlord buys the apartment complex. He is kind and considerate, and rather than using intimidation, he lavishes you with love. Now what if your former landlord returned and demanded your allegiance once again? You’d tell him to take up the matter with the new landlord and then firmly shut the door! That’s what Christ has given us the authority to do. As believers, we’re under new management. The emotional burdens of the past need no longer be carried by us, we have a new owner. When Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32), that freedom included release from emotional slavery. Because of the Cross our emotions do not need to rule over us anymore.   C. We must be involved in Christ’s community. God accepts us, but He also wants His people to demonstrate acceptance toward one another. While Jesus did die for us individually, we too often forget in our American individualism that He died for His Church. The local church is God’s plan for this day. Many people today grow up without a sense of identity. Someone who has been adopted often daydreams endlessly about who his real parents were or why he was given away. Others may experience severe feelings of rejection for innumerable reasons. They grow up without a sense of “belonging.” They may have no family roots, no sense of social acceptance. Emotional healing takes place best within the context of community, of caring Christians who not only bear their own burdens but share those of others.   Hospitals and researchers have found that those who have a personal relationship with God and are involved in a worship community or small group generally do better in their physical and emotional health. Like Vance Havner once said, "Snowflakes are frail but if enough of them stick together they can stop traffic."   Are you a member of Grace? Are you involved in a small group? That’s God’s plan for us and part of the prescription for inner healing. Small caring communities within the church are vital for us to grow and heal emotionally.   D. We must see ourselves through the eyes of faith as God sees us. This can only come about when we cease believing what our emotions tell us and begin believing what God says about us. We must live by faith, not feeling.   We are confronted by two pictures of ourselves. One is of us as we are in Christ: sons of God; indwelt by the Holy Spirit; joined to the Son; considered as God’s special possessions; and assured of future glorification. Then there is another picture of what some of us are like in the world of our emotions: pessimistic, guilt‑ridden, irritable, touchy, depressed, and worthless. Faced with such an apparent contradiction, we must make a choice. Do we believe what God has said, or shall we follow the path of least resistance and give in to our feelings? It boils down to this: Which portrait shall we live by?   We’ve got a dilemma. Our emotions, inclinations, and circumstances point in one direction, but God’s description of us points in another. We cannot live by both, for they cancel out each other. Faith means that we must not merely believe what God has said, but we must also disbelieve what our experiences and feelings seem to tell us.   Can our inclinations and observations actually be wrong? If I see myself as unloved, unacceptable to God, and powerless, might I be mistaken? Yes! Left to our private observations, we would conclude that the sun revolves around the earth. What could be more obvious than that the earth is stationary and the sun moves from east to west? Yet that conclusion is dead wrong. Astronomers tell us that the sun never rises; rather, the earth turns, tilting on its axis toward the sun. Our commonsense conclusions can be misleading. That’s the way it is with our interpretation of the events of life. Hunches and feelings are not a reliable guide to understanding the real you; God’s statements invalidate our distorted self‑image. If He says He loves us and accepts us, and He does so repeatedly, then we are loved and accepted whether we feel like it or not. If we have been seated in heavenly places, we are in God’s presence even when He seems distant. In Christ, our acceptance before God is complete and secure even when we are disappointed in ourselves. Victory, then, is not “feeling just right.” It is found by faith and faith alone. Whenever faith runs counter to feeling, we must accept faith in God’s Word as the true barometer.   E. We must see joy as a by‑product of obedience. Many people seek happiness and never find it because it is never found when you seek it directly. Joy is part of the blessing that comes from obedience and doing God’s will. Today there is a lot of advice on how to find lasting happiness. Most stress the need to have well‑defined goals such as self‑fulfillment, a challenging career, or making money. The joy of the Holy Spirit does not come though by seeking self‑fulfillment; it comes by seeking Christ’s fulfillment. Joy comes from obedience and surrender to Christ’s will. Someone has rightly said, “Joy is the flag flown from the castle of the heart when the King is in residence there.”   When there is joy, there will always be praise and thanksgiving! An emotionally healthy person is always a grateful person. As believers, we have so much to be thankful for. The parents of a young soldier killed in action gave their church a gift of money as a memorial to their son. During the presentation service the mother of another soldier whose son was overseas whispered to her husband, “Let’s give the same amount for our son.” “What’s the matter with you?” he asked. “Our son hasn’t died in battle.” “That’s just it,” the mother replied, “Let’s give because he has been spared.” As believers, we have been spared from God’s wrath because of the Cross. We then should be the most joyful and grateful of people! Conclusion: I Cor. 10:13 says, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” Though we may struggle and wrestle with our feelings, we know that God is faithful and will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we  can bear. He knows our limitations! There is no struggle so overpowering that we are helpless to resist it. To surrender and say “I can’t control my emotions” questions the very integrity of God.   Our Heavenly Father will see us through. Our faithful God does not expect us to do what we cannot do; thus He supplies the resources! The word in the KJV escape means “to exit.” This does not necessarily mean relief but the power to be able to endure the testing. James 1:12 “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life” Joseph faced sensuality and won; Moses overcame anger; Elijah beat depression; Daniel faced peer pressure successfully, Paul refused to be bitter; Timothy conquered his fears.   In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian and Hopeful fell asleep in a field belonging to Giant Despair. The Giant captured them and threw them into Doubting Castle where he beat them and locked them in a stinking dungeon without food or water. After the giant left, the two discussed what they should do. Finally Christian remembered a key in his pocket, “I have a key in my bosom called Promise, that will...open any lock in Doubting Castle.” Sure enough all the doors to the castle were opened, even the gate.   Dear Christian friend, God does not want you to be defeated by your feelings. Live in faith! Use God’s key of promise! Friend, trust His Word. Live by faith not feelings!!