0:01 Hey family. Nice to see everyone this afternoon. Thanks especially to the uh Sacramento crew for driving. It's a blessing and a challenge to all of us who find it hard to get here within an hour for you to come for two and a half 0:13 hours. So, praise the Lord for the example. Um today I wanted to I feel led to speak about what do we do with our feelings when our feelings flare up? What do we do with that? What does a disciple do with their feelings? I had 0:29 an experience that maybe some of y'all uh can relate to, but um and if you want, maybe you can you can turn to John 16 while I'm saying this. John 16. Um I had an experience this week where kind of out of nowhere, my feelings caught me 0:44 by surprise. And that happens from time to time. Maybe we feel sad. In this case, I happen to feel sad, but there can be other feelings there. But my question that I was asking Lord is what do I do with my feelings? How do I 0:58 respond? How does a disciple respond? It's true that in the world we have feelings. Feelings are a part of our uh experience of this life. So regardless of how we feel, we we don't need to be condemned by any feeling that we have. 1:10 But we do need to know how does a disciple respond? And um I feel led to talk a little bit about that specifically. three things or even four things I think we need to watch um whenever we whenever our feelings kind of flare up. And I want to start 1:25 with this passage um uh in in John chapter 16 in verse 5. It's interesting because Jesus is telling the disciples that they're going to go away that he's going to go away. Sorry. He's he's going to go away and he rebukes 1:41 them for feeling sad. Look with me. It says in John 16 and:e5, he says, "Now I am going to the one who sent me, and none of you seems interested in the purpose of my going. None wonders why. Instead, you're only filled with 1:55 sorrow." And I I want to just stop there for a second. And we see there Jesus sees that they're filled with sorrow and he says, "I wish what? I wish you were interested in the purpose of my going." but instead you're just sad. 2:15 And I see there that I have to be careful. I have to um I have to be on guard to see what am I fixated on when my feelings come up. Is it my feelings or am I fixated on 2:33 God's purpose? Because Jesus says here that the thing that makes his disciples sad has a purpose. you don't seem to be interested in my purpose. You're just sad. And I see there from Jesus's uh remarks 2:52 to his disciples that I have a choice whenever my feelings come up. Am I focused on my feelings? Is that what I'm looking at? Is that what I'm paying attention to? Or is what I'm looking at God's purpose? And he goes on in verse 7, he says, "The 3:10 fact of the matter is that it's better for you that I go away. If I don't go away, the comforter won't come, but if I do, he will because I'm going to send them to you." And so to me, the the first thing that I feel the Lord was 3:22 telling me when I wonder how do I respond to my feelings is I they don't deserve my primary attention. When I am tempted to feel sad, okay, that's fine. I can be sad. But does that become my all-consuming reality? Is all 3:37 of a sudden the feeling that I'm sad the primary thing in my life? That's a problem. If my feelings become my fixation, that's a problem. A disciple cannot be fixated on his or her feelings. A disciple has to be fixated 3:55 on the purpose of God. And I have to be careful not to forget many times the things that make me sad just like it was true for the disciples. The thing that was making them sad has a purpose and was appointed by God. And 4:10 it's also true for me that sometimes the things that make me sad have a purpose and it's appointed by God. And the question is, is my sadness or my feelings the primary thing to me right now? Or is the primary thing to me what 4:25 God wants to do? And I feel that's always the question that the Lord puts before me. Am I going to keep seeking the things that are on earth because my feelings are a part of my natural, you know, experience? Or as it says in Colossians 3:2, 4:43 set your mind on the things above. And I have a choice whenever and I don't always have a choice between my feelings and and God's purpose, but when I start to um when my emotions get stirred up, I get to choose. Now is the chance to 4:59 choose what is going to be the defining part of my life. Take the day that I feel sad. Is the primary thing that I that about that day that I feel sad or is the primary thing that I'm reminded of God's purpose? I hope it's that I'm reminded of God's 5:16 purpose. And in so far as my sadness actually brings me back into God's presence and causes me to ask him,"Lord, what's your purpose? What are you doing here?" Then my sadness is actually a gift because it's what brings me back to 5:29 the Lord to say, "Lord, I want to know your purpose. I want to know what you're doing here." It says in 2 Corinthians in verse 10 or sorry 2 Corinthians chapter 10 if you want to turn there 2 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 5. 5:51 We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Every single thought that comes into my mind, I don't just let it stay there and I don't even just make it the main thing. I take it captive. I have a 6:11 warrior's mindset. And so when my feelings flare up, my sword should come out. When my feelings flare up, I should say the main thing is that I honor the Lord. And in a sense, you know, one of the one of the verses that we have learned to 6:30 cherish at NCCF in the last 15 years is 2 Samuel 24:24. Probably we we recite it so much many people could recite it from memory, even though I don't know if it's ever been a memory verse, but it's where Arena offers the threshing floor to David to 6:47 make a sacrifice. And David says, "I've got to buy it from you because why? You can say it with me if you want. I will not offer to God that which costs me nothing. I will not honor to God that which costs me nothing. And my feelings, there is a 7:04 price there. And when I choose to not live according to my feelings, when I choose to not let them be the predominant thing, it's an opportunity to offer God that which cost me something. Praise the Lord. I felt that this week as my feelings were welling 7:19 up. I don't want to give God an offering which cost me nothing. The fact that this cost me something doesn't mean that it's wrong. And we can have a tendency of thinking that my disciplehip should never cost me anything. I should never feel sad about 7:32 anything. I should never feel discouraged or disappointed or what. That's not true. And sometimes what I need to do is say, "Praise the Lord for an opportunity to follow God when it cost me something." And maybe what it 7:43 cost me is not paying attention to these feelings, not giving these feelings the primary place in my life. And will we say with David, I don't want to give to God that which costs me nothing. If my disciplehip doesn't cost me anything, 7:59 there's a my disciplehip is deficient. And so if what my disciplehip costs me is that I don't fixate on these feelings, praise the Lord. I want it to cost me something. And in a sense, we could say our feelings can become an 8:14 offering. I want to make an offering. Lord, I'm not going to live by these feelings. I'm going to keep seeking the things above. And as I crucify my flesh, I believe you are honored. And if you are honored, what does it say? The joy 8:31 of the Lord is my strength. Lord, if you're happy, let that be what strengthens me. And when I'm reminded, I I've had I had this experience this week. When I was reminded that the Lord is happy, when I take up the cross, when 8:43 I refuse to fixate on my feelings, then paradoxically, it becomes the thing which brings me joy. The joy of the Lord becomes my strength and I'm strengthened. And I go from feeling tempted to be discouraged or disappointed or sad to being renewed in 8:59 my joy in the Lord. And that's a wonderful change that the Holy Spirit can bring about. So that's the first thing I want to say. What do we do with our feelings? We don't fixate on them. We fix our eyes on things unseen. 9:15 We fix our eyes on things unseen. We keep seeking the things above. And I have to recognize that sure while I'm on this earth, I'm going to have feeling. I'm going to feel all sorts of ways, as they say, about all sorts of things. 9:26 That's not the primary thing of my life. And a disciple has to take up the cross every day. Maybe what my cross is for today is to refuse to get into a funk. As they say, funk just means, you know, disappointment, feeling bad. If I allow 9:43 myself to be drawn down by my feelings, Satan wins. If I overcome by the blood of the lamb and by the word of my testimony because I don't my love my life unto death, then the Lord Jesus is honored. So the first thing I do is I renew my 10:01 focus. I watch my eyes. I'm not going to fixate on my feelings. I'm going to fixate on God's purpose. And just like Jesus says to the disciples, none of you are interested in my purpose. I don't want him to say that to me. I want him 10:13 to say, you weren't filled with sorrow. You were fixated on my purpose. I want I want to be fixated on the Lord's purpose. That's the first thing. The second thing that I think we have to watch besides just watching our eyes, we 10:27 have to watch our ears. Because sometimes it sounds like things are getting worse. Sometimes you hear murmuring and grumbling and complaint. You hear noise. You know, this happened with with uh Saul the king. If you turn with me to 10:45 1st Samuel chapter 13, Saul heard grumbling among his troops. And he didn't know what to do. He thought, "I'm supposed to wait here to make this sacrifice, but I'm hearing all this grumbling and my troops appear to be leaving me." Look with me at verse 8. 11:02 1st Samuel 13:8. Samuel had told Saul earlier to wait 7 days for his arrival. But when he still didn't come and Saul's troops started grumbling and murmuring and slipping away, it says in verse 9, "Saul decided to sacrifice the burnt 11:18 offering and peace offering himself." And this is this is such a tragic thing. Verse 14, Samuel says, "Now your dynasty must end. God was planning to make you and your descendants kings of Israel 11:35 forever, but now your dynasty must end." And what I see here is Saul didn't watch his ears. He wasn't. It says, "Guard your heart with all diligence." And one way that we have to guard our hearts is I'm not just going to listen to the murmuring and 11:54 grumbling that I hear around me. I'm not going to give it credence. I'm not going to give it attention. I'm I'm going to refuse that. And what we see here is Saul lost his dynasty. And it says what Samuel says is the Lord 12:10 wanted a man who would obey him. And that's a precious phrase that Samuel that that was a rebuke to Saul. The Lord wanted a man who would obey him. And what we see there is sometimes the Lord in his wisdom and sovereignty and love 12:26 will allow a situation to appear like it's deteriorating. The situation with Saul looked like it was just going from bad to worse. And why did the Lord allow it? It he wanted to to give Saul a chance to be the man that he was looking 12:41 for. The Lord was looking for someone who would obey him. And the person who would obey him would only be manifested as the situation was deteriorating. And what do we see? Saul missed his chance. When my feelings flare up, it's a chance 12:58 for me to be the man who will obey God. Will I miss my chance or do I seize the opportunity? I want to be one who will obey the Lord. What about when the when things seem like they're deteriorating? when the things um when when the troops 13:14 are rapidly slipping away, as it says here, I want to seek the Lord's help to shine when I'm tempted to be sad, to be faithful there, and to see it as a matter of as as Samuel said to Saul, 13:32 your dynasty depends on it. I don't want to miss the chance to be the man that the Lord is looking for. And sometimes what the Lord in his wisdom allows is he allows the situation to deteriorate to see, do I have an obedient, faithful disciple there? It's 13:48 easy for everybody to be obedient and to stay the course when everything looks like it's going well. What about when all the when all the troops are slipping away, rapidly slipping away? Do I take matters into my own hands? Do 14:02 I disregard God's instructions? I miss my dynasty. I missed my chance to have a spiritual dynasty, you could say. So, watch our eyes. What are we fixated on? Watch our ears. What are we listening to? Saul could have reminded himself of what 14:20 the Lord had said. He could have reminded himself of Samuel's promise. He could have reminded himself of the fact that Gideon just generations earlier, God thinned out his army deliberately so that he could get the victory. But Saul 14:34 didn't listen to what God had already said before. before and what God had already done before. He just listened to his troops grumbling and said, "I guess I got to take matters into my own hands." So, we got to watch our eyes. We got to 14:45 watch our ears. And importantly, family, this is very important. The third area that I wanted to mention is we need to watch our mouths. When we have feelings, we need to watch our mouths. I was really shocked. I was reading a a 15:05 I didn't think that this passage would be relevant to me and my feelings in 2025, but I was reading if you turn to 2 Samuel 13, there's this um really really, you know, terrible um situation in the history of of the 15:23 Israelites. This son of David was named Abselum. And Abselum murdered his brother and then he had to go into hiding. And then he decided he wanted to kind of uh take the kingdom and then he he slept with his father's wives and 15:39 there was this terrible war. It's one of the worst things to happen. It's one of the most disgraceful and shameful things to happen to the people of Israel. It's it's awful. The whole thing you read several chapters here and it's terrible. 15:51 But the thing that struck me was where does it all begin? this entire tragic unfolding of uh you know the the people of Israel in the life of David. Where does it begin? It begins, look at this, with one of David's sons being loose with his 16:10 tongue. It says, if you look with me in uh 2 Samuel 13:1, Prince Abselum, David's son, had a beautiful sister named Tamar, and Prince Amnen, her half-brother, fell desperately in love with her feelings. He became so tormented by his feelings 16:26 for her that he became ill. That's how it says it in the Greek. He became ill. He had no way of talking to her. The girls and the young men were kept apart. But Amnen, listen to this. Amnen had a crafty friend, his cousin Johnab, who 16:42 was a son of David's brother, Sheme. So, he's a he's a family member. Surely I can talk to my crafty family member about my feelings, right? One day, Johnab said to Amnen, "What's the trouble? Why should the son of a king look so sad morning after morning?" 16:57 And Amnen told him, "I'm in love with tomorrow, my halfsister." And Johnab said, "Well, I'll tell you what to do. Go to bed and pretend you're sick." And then all of the wicked wickedness that follows comes from Amnun's inability to 17:13 watch his mouth. He had feelings and he said, "You know what? I'm going to tell somebody about it. And then you look chapter after chapter after chapter of total devastation occurs because this son of a king couldn't control his 17:29 mouth. And to me it really spoke to me that a crafty friend will tell me why my feelings are perfectly normal. A crafty friend will validate my feelings as legitimate and that crafty friend will lead me to hell. That crafty friend will lead to the 17:49 destruction of Israel, so to speak. A godly friend will give me courage to keep fighting. Imagine if instead of talking to Amnen or sorry to uh to Johnab, if Amnen had talked to a godly brother. 18:07 Fight these feelings, bro. Stop lusting after your halfsister. Get your mind off of that. Let's go shoot some deer or whatever they would do. I don't know what they would do, right? A godly brother would have gotten Amnen's mind off of his feelings, but a 18:24 wicked, crafty brother justified Amnen's feelings and co-conspired with him to try to satisfy his feelings. And I see there the grave danger to the people of Israel was actually Amnen's inability to keep his mouth shut when he started 18:44 feeling feelings and to not have discernment to know who can I speak to about these things. So we have all that to say as I said when we start feeling feelings what do we do with our eyes? We have to watch our eyes. What am I 18:56 fixated on? Am I feelings the primary reality of my life right now? We got to watch our ears. Who am I listening to? Whose murmuring or words are having influence on me? And we got to watch our mouths. Who am I telling what I feel and 19:10 how I feel? And do I recognize that depending on who I talk to can have devastating consequences? David, it says earlier, a few chapters earlier, it says that when he when his when when the I think the Ammonites raided Ziglag and his children and wives 19:27 were taken and the men talked of killing him, what does it say? David talked to his sympathetic son-in-law Jonadab about his feelings. Is that what it says? David told Johnab, "No, it says he strengthened himself in the Lord." 19:43 Who do you talk to when you feel a certain way? It's so important that we recognize it's unwise to open my mouth many times. But what can I do? I can tell the Lord. We sing that song, I must tell Jesus all of my troubles. And what 20:00 I've experienced is many times when I do tell Jesus, I don't need to tell anybody else. Have you had that experience, family? When you pour out your heart to Jesus Christ and he strengthens you, I find I don't need to go talking about 20:13 how I'm feeling because the Lord himself strengthens me and renews me and quenches me. And many times I feel the need to lean on the arm of flesh because I am not leaning on the arm of the Lord. And when I'm feeling certain feelings, I 20:32 have to recognize I'm I'm always making a choice. Am I leaning on the arm of the flesh? Am I leaning on my own understanding? Or am I leaning more fully, more firmly, more completely upon the Lord? And anything I love this quote 20:47 Hudson Taylor, I didn't write it down, but it just came to my mind. I'll share it. He said, um, or no, no, it was Charles Spurgeon. Anything which drives me upon the rock of ages, praise the Lord for all the waves that drive me 21:01 upon the rock of ages. Hudson Taylor said something like it. He said, um, it doesn't matter whether pressure comes, but where it comes. And so long as it doesn't come between me and my Lord, the pressure will only serve to drive me into his 21:20 breast. And I have to recognize many times my uttering my problems to other people is actually putting a wedge between me and my Lord. And it's very important that we learn I want to cast all of my cares upon the Lord, not to any other person. And for 21:39 sure not unwisely to a crafty or unwise person definitely not ult. And then the last thing I want to say is watch my questions. Watch my thoughts. You could say I find many times when I when I'm feeling certain feelings all sorts of thoughts can come 21:58 in. All sorts of questions come in. Why? Why did this happen? Why what what could have prevented that? What could I do differently? What should I say? How should I respond? And many times as I have asked as as questions come up in 22:11 regard to my feelings, the Lord brings Acts chapter 1 to my mind. I'll I'll close with this verse. Acts chapter 1, it says in verse uh six, the disciples are asking, Lord, when are you going to 22:30 bring about your kingdom? And what the Lord replies, I feel the Lord replies this way to me a lot whenever I ask questions. It's not for you to know. It's not for you to know. You have all these questions. Why? The solution isn't to discover why. 22:49 The solution is what he say. But you must receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. The solution is be filled with the Holy Spirit. You think more details will help you. They won't. The Holy Spirit will help you. You think 23:03 understanding something is gonna It won't. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is what's going to help you. And all of my questions need to remind me and need to bring me back to in humility before the Lord to say, "I don't need to know 23:17 anything. I need you." And my longing to know is just evidence of my need. It's just evidence of my fleshly need. But Lord, I need you. fill me with the Holy Spirit. You know, Jesus breathed on his disciples in John chapter 20. I really 23:35 feel we need a revolutionary baptism in the Holy Spirit. It says in John chapter 20 that when Jesus appeared to his disciples, it says verse 22, he breathed on them and he told them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." And then they still went out fishing the 23:52 next day, right? In John 21 or sometime later. And in Acts chapter 4, the day of Pentecost, they're filled with the Holy Spirit. And then in Acts 5, they're filled with the Holy Spirit again, right? They're going from, you know, 24:05 water to the ankles to water to the knees to water to the loins. But we need to be filled more and more and more to overflowing. The answer to most of our questions is it's not for you to know, but you must receive power when the Holy 24:25 Spirit has come upon you. A thousand questions will fall by the wayside if we will say, "Lord, you do not owe me an answer to this question, but you've promised to fill me with the Holy Spirit." And if I start to see all 24:42 of these questions and all of these situations and all of these feelings as that which ushers me into the Lord's presence to confess my true need, which is to be filled with the Holy Spirit, then I can thank God for every feeling. 24:56 I can thank God for everything that comes in. Not because I love that thing, but because I love the need that it produces in me. I love the longing that it produces in me to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That's what I need more than anything. 25:13 And that's how the Lord reminded me finally. That's how he brought my heart to rest even in the situation of that I was facing this week. You don't need to know why. You don't need to answer any of these questions. But you know what 25:25 you did need? You did need to seek me for more of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And I've used this situation to draw you to myself, to remind you of my promise that I will fill you. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. Keep asking. That's what 25:43 the Lord tells us. And so, anything that causes me to keep seeking, keep knocking, keep asking, I want to praise the Lord for. I pray that the Lord would help us all to guard our eyes, to guard our ears, to guard our mouths, to guard 25:55 our thoughts, and to really seek him for what we really need, which is more of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. That's the only thing that will help. May the Lord help us.
