Transcript

Please turn with me to Psalm 77. Psalm 77, we have been doing the series that we’ve titled as Redeemed, talking about redemption. We particularly talked about what we’re redeemed from, that is, were redeemed from sickness. We talked about and then that led to talking about redemption of our body. I went into that because redemption is a very important topic, and we need to understand it really well. And I believe that what we’re going to do today is going to help you understand redemption even far better than what you have understood ever before. When man fell into sin, every aspect of man’s life was affected by sin therefore, redemption if it has to be a true redemption, it has to redeem man from everything that has been affected in his life. He was affected in spirit and soul and body, his family life and the social life, the work of his hands in every way. So redemption is not something that just deals with sin. It starts with sin but it must deal with every aspect. Not only that, we talked about how redemption rarely works itself out in our lives. There is an already and not yet aspect to redemption in every aspect. If you take, for example, the spiritual sin and all of those things. Our sin is forgiven. We’re delivered from the power of sin from the dominion of sin. We’re given power, and victory over sin, and so on. And that in an ongoing manner, every day, more and more, we experienced that as we walk with God, we experience that redemption and we see that worked out in our lives in an ongoing manner. And it goes on until Jesus comes. And when he ashes in eternity, that redemption will be complete, in the sense that will thereafter live in a world without sin.

Take for example, the physical aspect of man, Jesus died and rose again that redemption can be applied to our body also, with regard to our sicknesses also. And we can start applying it now there is an already aspect to it. That is why there is healing available for the body, and so on. And that also is available to us right now on an ongoing basis. And then, in the end when Jesus comes, it will reach its consummation. Redemption will reach his consummation where we have given an undying body, immortality and so on. And in that I particularly showed you that not only redemption of our bodies does not only mean that we’re healed from our sicknesses. Last week I showed you that when you do what 1 Corinthians 6 says, that is you consecrate, and dedicate your body to God, knowing that the body is the Lord’s, and the Lord is for the body. The body is for the Lord and the Lord is for the body. That’s what we taught last week. Then bodily redemption happens in a particular way, not healing from sickness. Now the body which was used for fornication, adultery, and all of those things which 1 Corinthians 6 talks about now becomes dedicated to God, belongs to God. And it is used only for the purpose that God intended for it to be what God intended the body to be. He intended the body to be His dwelling place. Body was supposed to be a vessel through which God will operate and work in and through man. That is the intention that God had for the body for us to become his temple, where he lives, where he operates from.

Now when redemption happens, God reclaims the body. God says the body is for the Lord and the Lord has for the body, Paul says. So when we bring that and, and make that effective in our lives, then we live with our body totally dedicated to God as a living sacrifice. And that is bodily redemption, because body now is not used for everything that we used it for before. It is used only for the purposes that God intended. Not only healing is this kind of thing, that is bodily redemption also, the body is now reclaimed by God, it belongs to God. It becomes His vessel once again, God’s original intentions are fulfilled. And that is bodily redemption, we need to keep these things in mind. But today, I want to go into another new direction, something that we haven’t talked too much about, and that is the redemption of our emotions. Now, this is a very important subject these days. Because society has given a place to emotions, that is greater than what emotions were originally intended for. Even sociologists are writing about it these days. They say, one of the biggest lies that has spread through the media and other means throughout the whole world. One of the biggest lies they say, is the lie that says, always trust your feelings. You heard that, right? If you have not heard that you’ve been living in a cave, somewhere. Always trust your emotions. That sounds so right and so good. It sounds perfect because you feel like saying amen. Yeah, always trust your emotions, always trust your feelings. But what about being governed by truth? By reality, the truth.

Instead of being governed by truth, instead of being governed by a mind that is oriented with truth. Now we have taught people to be governed by feelings, go by your feelings. Because we don’t know what the truth this is not so important, they say. This person may say, truth is this, and another person may disagree and say no truth is that. So we don’t really know what truth is. But we know our own feelings. So all we can do is go by the feelings, no go by the truth. So we have thrown truth out of the door. And we have taken feelings and given it a place that we are to given to the truth. And now we have talked a whole generation of people, that’s what sociologists would say, one whole generation of people. They say the Western nations that are there’s a lot of suicide, and a lot of emotional problems and so on mental problems among the young particularly. And I’m all kinds of people because of this kind of a thing, pushing the emotions to the front, and allowing the emotions to govern. And that is why this has become very important. I want to show you today how God when He redeems us, He redeems even our emotions. If redemption is to be real, it has to be applied to every aspect of our life, because every aspect of our life was affected by sin, ruined by sin, and therefore every aspect of our life must be redeemed by this redemption through Jesus Christ.

Now, what does the Bible teach about redemption? The Bible teaches it in three different ways. That is, it first of all, teaches us about how emotions were in man in the beginning, when God created him. I would call it perfect emotions. That’s the first thing that we’ll look at, perfect emotions. That’s what it was like when God made Adam and Eve. And gave them this mind which consists of emotions, also Intellect and emotions. It was perfect emotions. Secondly, we’ll talk about because that’s the way Bible presents it. The disordered emotions. The disordered emotions came into being after fall and sin came into the world. And it has been there for 1000s of years now. Disordered emotions, the emotions that have been affected by sin, ruined by sin. Emotions is not functioning the way it was originally intended. Disordered emotions. We’ll talk about that because that’s well spent a major time on that. The first point is very simple and very brief, because we just have a very short, brief presentation of what it was like originally, only the first two chapters are available. After that sin came in, and everything becomes disordered and therefore disordered emotions plays a big role, because it’s been there for 1000s of years.

Thirdly, we’ll talk about redeemed emotions. So perfect emotions, disordered emotions and finally, we’ll come to redeemed emotions, meaning, what our emotions are to be like now since we have received Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are redeemed people, what our emotions are to be like, and what difference can we see in our emotions? How does God redeem our emotions, all of these things we’ll talk about. So perfect emotions. This is what Adam and Eve had in the Garden of Eden in the beginning. And when you read the Bible, we can simply understand very quickly that emotions in and of themselves are not sinful, it can’t be. Because in the first chapter of Genesis, the most important statement there in the first chapter, nobody can miss it, or the most important word is the word good. And the most important statement is that God saw and said that it was good. And finally He saw everything and said it was very good. Six times he said, it was good. And the seventh time when He saw everything that was created, He said, it was very good. What was very good? Now, some people today say Spiritual things are very good. Material, things are very bad. The world is very bad, spiritual life is good. Material things are bad. This is the kind of general way that Christian preaching goes nowadays. This is more of Greek philosophy than Christian preaching.

Christian preaching must come from the Bible, you read the first chapter of Genesis, anybody that has understood, the first chapter of Genesis will never say that material things are bad. Because God created the material world, God created a material body, a body made of the dust of the earth. God put golden silver in the earth, God put everything that is material that we see. And He saw all of what he has created and said, it’s good, and finally He said, it’s very good. That includes everything, the spiritual, the material, every aspect of man, He looks at man’s spirit, that he’s made in the image and likeness of God as His Spirit. And God says is very good. He is looking at man’s mind, his intellect and his emotions and his will, these faculties. And God is saying, it’s good, it’s very good. He’s looking at him with a companion, a wife, and a family. God says it’s very good. Now, some people want to be more holy than God nowadays. So they are saying all these things are bad, spiritual life is good. Everything material you must reject,become like sannyasi, because spiritual is good, material is bad. That is Greek philosophy that came later on, no Jew would ever subscribe to that kind of doctrine. You cannot convince a Jew about that, a Jew surely believes that everything material, everything in this world is good. God created therefore it is good. So God looked at man, and saw his emotions, and God called it good. It was perfect emotions. He’s loved what he saw in terms of emotions in man. He loved the feelings, the emotions that they had.

They had positive emotions like love, joy, peace, satisfaction, contentment, and so on. Some of these things today, people search for it, they go to mountains to look for it. But God gave it to man and called it very good. And God not only gave these positive emotions to man, He gave them in perfect degree and in perfect balance. What do I mean? They did not have too little of it or too much of it. Now you may say how can anybody have too much of joy? Well, have you heard of psychological illness called bipolar disorder? Bipolar disorder is a man who’s got too much of what we call joy. He is thrilled and too thrilled that he can’t stand, he’s hurting everybody around. He maniac. He is going to one extreme, and going berserk because it’s too much. And then on the other hand, you see him go to the other extreme, get too depressed, too low, too high and too low. But God is so wonderful when God created man, He gave it to man in perfect degree and in perfect balance. You lose that balance, you end up in a hospital. It becomes a disorder. What a delicate thing, man was how perfectly created how wonderfully made fearfully and wonderfully made it. That is how God has made man. So there’s no dangerously unsafe, excessive levels of joy, confidence and optimism.

Adam and Eve, in every situation, that they were in their emotions were perfectly adjusted, attuned and expressed. Their emotions were perfect for all situations, for every need. They were perfectly attuned, perfectly adjusted. They could handle everything. There was no excess, no shortage. And there was no negative emotions by negative emotions, I mean, hatred, anger, and all of those kinds of things. Those negative emotions were not there, when God created man, and called everything good. But that condition that state of being did not last very long, because in Adams day itself, sin entered into the world, into Adam’s life, into mankind through him. And then thereafter, man became a fallen creature, then what you have is disordered emotions. So let’s look at disordered emotions. The second one. Much of humanity’s existence has been spent, in this condition of disordered emotions. The fall came and disordered our emotions and disrupted them. How did it disrupt? And how did it impact man’s emotions? Very interesting. If you look at it, the biblical teaching what I’m giving you is a biblical doctrine of what the Bible has to say about what happened to man’s emotions.

First of all, it disrupted and we therefore have a disorder of the positive emotions that God gave. The Love, joy, peace, and all of those things are now in a disordered condition. This means that we lost a lot of positive emotions. Thankfully, not all of them is lost by God’s grace. Even in this fallen world, we can still experience love, joy and peace to a certain level, God has been gracious that we can experience these wonderful feelings, these wonderful emotions. And derive a great deal of happiness from that. But I think we’ve lost a lot more than we can ever imagine in the fall, we have lost a lot. But we still have a degree of joy, peace and love, we have a degree of satisfaction and contentment, all of those good feelings or good emotions. But we have these things in a very low level. Whereas for Adam and Eve, it was like Everest like levels. They had the highest level of joy, peace and love and so on.

Secondly, how man’s emotion was affected through the fall is that even the good emotions that we still have are expressed in wrong times in wrong degrees and for the wrong reasons now. Let me explain. How can you ever express happiness, a good emotion at the wrong time, in a wrong way? Well, there is a sadistic streak in man if you notice in the foreign creature as the result of the fall, so that today people derive happiness out of other people’s misery. Have you ever seen that? The world of sin is a horrible world to live in. A couple is enjoying their life, they’re having a good marriage, good family, good life. But some people don’t want that. So they go to work. And they get together and do all kinds of things, to somehow bring some disagreements in there. So that the wife leaves the husband or something like that happens, how thrilled they are. That the family that was together is now broken. It should see some people talk as if this has nothing to say. If you can’t agree with us live, we will find another girl, we’ll get married. They are happy that this marriage is broken. They’re happy that these people are having trouble, they’re happy that these people are suffering misery. Have you ever seen that mean streak in human beings today? The world is like that the fallen world has that kind of thing, the people just don’t mind their business, and go do whatever they want to do. They’re always poking their nose into someone else’s business.

Because they have this thing about them, that they want to derive some happiness out of the misery that other people undergo. So that’s why I say, Yeah, we have happiness, we can enjoy happiness and taste happiness in our lives. But the thing is, sometimes we do it the wrong way, at the wrong time, in the wrong degree, and so on. Thirdly, there is an addition of negative emotions. First, they said that there is a disorder of positive emotions. Secondly, I said, those positive emotions that we are able to still express are many times expressed in the wrong times in the wrong way in the wrong degrees. Thirdly, we have an addition of negative emotions. What are the negative emotions? The emotions like mentioned in Genesis chapter 3, we don’t have to read that. It’s all there and we know it. Shame. Man went and hid. Man and woman went and hid. God asked, why are you hiding? He said I’m naked. He’s all of a sudden ashamed, he was not ashamed before. Now he’s ashamed. So he’s got shame, he’s got guilt, that he’s done something wrong, he’s that fear, he’s got sadness. All of these bad negative emotions began to hang over mankind from that day onwards. The human race suffered all these things from that time forward. In chapter three, we are introduced to those things. And even those negative emotions are experienced by us, sometimes rightly, because it is, for example, right to be angry at times in the right way. Jesus was angry. Some people think Bible tells us not to be angry. No, the Bible says, be angry. Have you ever read that? Be angry. How can you not be angry when you see some injustice done to somebody?

Does your heart not rise up within you to do something about the injustice, about all the evil and the wrong that is happening there? If you don’t feel any anger, that means you don’t have any life in you. You don’t have any sense of moral obligation towards anything, you just turn a blind eye. A normal human being in a fallen world must be able to experience anger. So the Bible says be angry. Have you noticed that? And then it says, don’t sin, be angry and sin not. Don’t be angry in such a way that you sin, but be angry in a constructive way to do something and bring correction and reform in that situation. So the negative emotions like anger and so on are experienced by us sometimes rightly, because it’s right to be angry sometimes. But many times it is experienced in a wrong way, for wrong reasons, and wrong degrees. Have you ever seen people say you don’t know what will happen when they get angry? There are homes where women will say to the children, don’t go and ask your daddy this, I will find the right time to approach him and ask him for what you’re asking because you don’t know what he’s going to do. If he gets that anger, rage, you don’t know what’s going to happen, who’s going to suffer? He’s going to break your hand or two. You don’t know what is going to happen because the man is so furious with anger, when anger comes up on him, you don’t know what’s going to happen.

So it’s become normal in life, to express anger like that in an unjust way, in a wrong way. We do that very often. Then fourthly, there are sinful responses to emotions. That’s very common in fallen man. It’s become very common all over sinful responses to emotions. For example, there are those who de fie their emotions, they treat their emotions, like divine something. There are those that are controlled by emotions. People who are controlled by emotions. That is a sin. You’re not meant to be controlled by your emotions. You’re meant to be controlled by your mind and the knowledge of God in your mind with an enlightened mind with a renewed mind. That’s the way you’re supposed to live. Secondly, another sinful response to emotions is there’s another extreme where people deny that they have emotions. Now, there are places you can go to in churches where as soon as people enter a church, they become frozen. No matter how great music group you haven’t, how many guitarists playing drums are beating and no matter how good the music is, they are just frozen. They were all right until they came inside. But once they get in there, inside, they get frozen. And in America, they have a name for them. They’re the frozen chosen. Nobody can wake them up. They’re in a soul sleep, so to speak. They’re like this. They never smile. They never cry. They never do anything. They’re just unmoved by anything. You can preach the greatest sermon; Billy Graham can be there and bepreaching, they’ll be just there like this from the beginning till the end. Only when you take them outside the church, then they’re free. So the church has become like an ice box. Like a refrigerator.

Somebody has told them that you’re not to express your emotions. You need to act like — to be a human being you need to act like you don’t have any emotions. But that is wrong. That is sinful. Because God created you to have emotions and express emotions. To deny that you have emotions is wrong. To act like you don’t have any emotions is wrong. Thirdly, people do the thing of always trusting their emotions, their feelings. That’s what I talked about in the beginning. That is a sin. That philosophy says always trust your feelings go by your feelings. They think that’s a wonderful philosophy. That’s the way to live. And a whole generation socialists are saying that there’s a whole generation perishing because of that. Suicides and mental problems, emotional problems, terrible unhappiness, imbalances happening in the lives of one whole generation of young people as well as the older people. And people in particular, are influenced by this philosophy. This thing is drilled into them. Always trust your feelings become their mantra. Fourthly, the sinful response to emotions I’m talking about. There are some people that seek out negative emotions, they go seeking for negative emotions. Have you ever seen some people are so afraid, normally, but they seek out the worst horror film to watch. When you want to watch a horror film, and then for the rest of the week, they can’t even speak and they’re not happy and they’re grumbling about it.

Some of them come for prayer also, parser all kinds of dreams come to me. So what have you been watching? They seek out to these horror movies and invited these horrible negative feelings or motions. Some of them go on top of a mountain, very high cliff. And from there, they do bungee jumping. And some of them die on the way, they’re screaming on top of their voice. They are so scared. And by the time they finish that whole thing, they’re dead. Because they’re sort of why would they need that? You know that you can’t take it, why do you search it out? There’s the tendency. Then there’s another way in which man’s emotions are affected during the fall or because of the fall. That is, we live in a sin cursed environment that causes a lot of painful emotions. The whole environment is sin cursed environment, we live in a world of sin. That makes everything more difficult than it ought to be. When we talked about work, we talked about toil in work, work is not a curse. God gave work before man fell, before curse came in, work was given to man, work was supposed to be a blessing, was supposed to be pleasurable. Work was supposed to bring great satisfaction and content and to man. It was never intended to be a curse. But the toil in work is the curse. So everything has become difficult because we are living in a fallen world. So we are in situations and circumstances which are extremely are extremely tough and extremely trying.

World is like that, to get some small thing done, you got to go through such mental agony sometimes. And it has a devastating effect upon our emotions. So there’s all these ways in which man’s emotions are affected even our sinkers, bodies, the body is called a body of sin. The Bible calls it the body of sin. Why? Because one of the results of sin is that the body has been affected, it came under a curse. And it continues even today, it’s a sin cursed body. And because of that, it affects our emotions. You see a person simply screaming on top of his voice and angry and so on. You’ll wonder what happened to him? He blew his lid, he said, but no, he’s not a bad man or something. He’s just got BP. His blood pressure is high. So he’s just simply shouting on top of his voice, people that know him know why he’s shouting. It’s a physical illness. It’s not that the man is evil or anything, he’s just got this problem, the bodies is in a sin cursed condition and therefore, the emotions are acting in line with it. Even the food that we put on our bodies affect our mood, they say. They say some beautiful parts of the world, such as the northern parts of Europe, some of the countries on top in the northern part of Europe. There’s three or four countries, which have such little population, the whole entire population of three, four countries will be only as big as the population of the city of Mumbai. But they’re very rich, the GDP is half the size of Indian GDP. But the size is smaller than Bombay.

Just imagine, they’re very rich. But in those rich places, you would think that people will be happy, they have everything they want, and more than anything that they need. But that’s where a lot of suicides are happening. People are having tremendous problems there, they’re saying. And you ask them why they’re saying that you can see sunlight only from 10am to 3pm. And during the time they’re inside the office. So they’re going to work in darkness, coming back from work in darkness, live in darkness of their life basically, don’t see the sunlight for months together. It brings them to a depressed state and does something to their body. I guess everything changes because it’s all gray all the time. It’s wet and gloomy. And they have to catch the sunlight they have to remember to get out at the right time. And he got such a small window where he got sunlight and body goes through changes in vitamin levels and so on. It does something to the body and stresses them out and it affects them emotionally also. Even the brain affects our emotions and what goes on in the brain, your thoughts, what’s going on, in your mind affect your emotions. If you spend most of your days thinking about some gloomy subjects, you’re bound to affect your emotions through it. Your motions are going to go through trouble even the hearts condition affects the emotions.

One of the things about the fallen man is in cursive heart condition, sin cursed heart. So his values are not like it was when God made Adam and Eve. Now he’s got twisted values, his core values are messed up. For example, a guy goes to work and finishes his work and gets ready to leave, his boss comes and literally assaults him verbally, chews him up completely, calls his work, the worst work anybody’s ever done and he’s thinking of dismissing him. And verbally simply assaults him. So just imagine what will happen to that guy. He comes home. And when he comes home, he opens the door of his house kicking the door, usually. And if a dog or a cat, gets near him, they’ll get a good kicking. And with the wife or children come also, they’re bound to get something, nobody can face him, because now he’s angry. The reason is, the core value is such the core value of that person is this, that he thinks that he’s in control. And his identity is tied up with his career and his job. And he thinks he’s so great, and he thinks nothing can go wrong in his life. And he thinks that he is simply the epitope of success or whatever. And this kind of a thing rattles him and brings him down terribly. That’s why he’s screaming, shouting, kicking, and so on.

Just imagine if that person knew God, and had a relationship with God. After encountering something like that, yeah, surely it’s going to have some sadness and what happened is going to bring some anger in him is going to be sad, he’s going to be a little angry and is going to be a little concerned also, to tell the truth, but everything is going to be uncontrolled, because his core values different to him. His job and his career is not the center of his life. It is not the identity of his life. Christ is his identity, his relationship with Jesus is his identity. He takes pride in that. And that is what brings him great joy and satisfaction. Yeah, this thing rattles him a bit, but it doesn’t get out of control. He is able to keep it under control. Now we’re getting into redeemed emotions. What is the difference between this guy and the other guy, the difference in this guy is same thing happened to him, but he’s responding differently, because his heart is in a different condition. His heart has been redeemed, he’s going through redemption, redemption is happening. Redemption of his emotions also is happening. Redemption does not just mean that God has forgiven your sins and when you die, you will go to heaven. Redemption means that Jesus is your Lord is the center of your life. That everything that has gone bad as a result of sin is now being restored day by day in an ongoing manner, little by little, you’re turning into a different person.

And for that to happen, your emotions are also changing. Something happening in your emotions. Let me give you another example. A guy went to work and at the end of the day, he gets ready to leave and his boss comes in and he appreciates him. I mean, appreciates him like sky-high, tells him you’re the best worker, I’ve been noticing you come in time and do all your work ahead of time. You’re so effective and you bring such profits to the company. I’m thinking of elevating to a new position, and giving you a better salary and better position and so on. And the guy hears and if he’s the guy in a fallen condition now has not experienced redemption. You know what’s going to happen. He’s going to come home with a chip on his shoulder. And things are going to be different that day. And they, he’s going to tell his wife, you know how lucky you are to get me as a husband. That’s where the trouble starts. Everything was fine. He ruined it now. The success in his job ruined his marriage now, he’s so proud. He’s telling it, you’re so lucky to get me as a husband because I’m so successfully. Asked my boss, he told me this and this and that. is and half has not yet been told. There’s a lot more to tell him the guy doesn’t he hasn’t even mentioned them. I ought to be made the managing director by next week. He’s not even giving me the position that I really deserve. I’m so great when he’s got an ego as big as anything you have ever seen, because there is no Christ, there is no Christ centeredness. So he doesn’t take pride in God in what God has done in his life. God is not there,he thinks he’s great.

But if that guy knew God, and had a relationship with God, if God was the center of his life, if his core values are different. And it is life centered around his relationship with God, he’ll come home and that will turn into a wonderful weekend, which he will have with his family, he will join the family in celebration over this wonderful thing that has happened to him. And together, they will praise God and thank God for what God has done. That’s the right way to do it. And there’ll be modesty, not this chip on the shoulder, and pride and arrogance. So you’re slowly getting into the redeemed emotions. Let’s talk about redeemed emotions. How does God redeem emotions? I’ve given a little clue here. When a person is saved, his emotions are also redeemed. Something is happening on the emotional level in them. How does God redeem a man’s emotions when he receives Jesus as Lord and Savior? One way he redeems our emotions is that he enhances our positive emotions. I mentioned the positive emotions of love, joy, peace, contentment, satisfaction, all of those things, happiness and whatever. He enhances them. Remember the fall reduce them to a great level. But now, when a person is saved, have you ever noticed his joy is overflowing? He’s happy beyond measure, he is thrilled. And God does that. Why? Because that kind of a thing always leads to see that fullness of joy that he has received now leads to more devotion to God more obedience to God, draws them closer to God. Have you ever seen people that have nearly given their life to Jesus, they’re so thrilled it’s so joyful. They’re so committed, what has stayed so close to God, and the things of God, the joy, they increase the joy that has been poured into them, brings that kind of thing.

It draws them closer to God, and emotions are the fuel of obedience. That’s what fuels the obedience. That’s what encourages and motivates obedience. So God deals with our emotions and redeems our emotions, first of all, by enhancing our positive emotions. Secondly, he does it by using our negative emotions. I said, by using our negative emotions. It’s happens in several ways. One, God redeems our emotions by using even our negative emotions for good. That’s what redemption means making bad things good. You intended this for evil towards me. But God turned it into good Joseph says, God used it. They threw him in the pit and sold them to Potiphar’s family and so on. Then they throw him in jail and all kinds of evil things happen. They meant evil. Everybody meant evil towards him. But God meant only good. God took all the evil and turned it into good. It’s a wonderful story of Joseph. So God uses all these negative emotions, for our good for example, think of fear. In a fallen world, fear is not completely bad. It’s good to have fear that will protect you from all kinds of evil dangers. As parents, we tell our children, teach our children and put fear in our children. Have you put the fear of God in your children? Have you taught your children to fear God? Is that a bad thing? It’s not a bad thing. It keeps them from trouble.

You put the fear of God in them. You put fear over little things, tell them, don’t touch this, don’t do this, because you will hurt yourself. Don’t go over there because you will fall, break your head. Put fear on them, in order to protect them. And God takes fear and uses it for our good in that way. So that we’ll be protected. And we’ll be safe in a fallen world, so that many of the evils that are there in the world will not hurt us. Secondly, God uses negative emotions to reveal our hearts values. Now, this is something wonderful. When you’re fearful when you’re angry, when you’re bitter? When you got all of these things going on in your heart, all these terrible things, terrible emotions filling you, there is something wrong. And you want to know what’s going on what’s wrong there? What is the thing that you should not have that you have there? What is the thing that you need to cleanse your heart of. This is like dashboard in a car. Back in those days, I remember driving the ambassador cars. Some of you don’t even know what that is. But you want to turn to you had to stick out your hand and show your hand. What if you want to turn the other way, you have to have another fellow showing his hand that way. Those were the days, nothing worked. No dashboard, lights and all that. But now all the cars are so modern. If there is something going on in your engine that’s going to give you trouble, it’s all computerized. Some light goes on here. As soon as this light goes on, something is wrong. You turn the car and take it straight to the service station. Give it to them because it told you there is something wrong.

So God uses our negative emotions like dashboard like to warn us tell us something going on in our hearts something wrong is going on in our hearts so that we can have some self-examination character ourselves and do that which is right, right. Thirdly, God uses negative emotions to reveal our sin to us. When a Christian sins, he is more miserable than a sinner sinning. Asinnersinning, he is not so disturbed about it is, he was happy sitting yesterday, he’s happy sinning today. And he will sin tomorrow also and he’ll be happy. He doesn’t even know that he has sinned. But a Christian, it’s possible for a Christian to sin, only thing is sin will make him more miserable than anybody that you’ve ever seen. Have you ever seen a Christian whohas sinned? He is a miserable person. He can’t sleep he can’t pray, he can’t read the Bible, he can’t go to church, he can’t hear a sermon. Everything goes wrong. It feels miserable. And that’s good. See that guilt, the guilt. It’s an emotion, it’s a negative emotion. You should not be always walking around with guilt. But guilt is necessary when someone has sinned. Guilty drives that person to God, to repentance, to see God’s forgiveness to make things right. And in that way it is good, if it will lead them to repentance, that guilt is good. And God uses it for that. God uses negative emotions to reveal our weaknesses also. How God uses the negative emotions are not going to go away just because you’re saved. It’s going to be there, until Jesus comes until the enter eternity all those negative emotions that came as a result of sin. He is going to stay there. We are living in a sinful world. It’s going to continue. So God takes and uses them in a positive way to reveal our weaknesses. What do I mean?

Have you ever felt overly anxious about something terribly afraid and it’s palpitation and you’re so tensed up, and so on? I’m sure all of us have felt that one time or the other. Have you ever sought God? Have you ever gone to God and prayed and asked God’s help and said, Lord, without you, I cannot do anything but with you I can do it? Give me the courage. Give me the confidence, give me help me. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Those kinds of situations reveals to us that in and of ourselves, we are not strong. We are strong because of Christ who lives in us, because of Christ, we can do all things. We need him today. We need him tomorrow. We need Him every moment of our life to remind us, God uses those things. It’s there. In the fallen world, the negative emotions are there, but God uses them in a positive way. Another very interesting way that God uses negative emotions. By using these negative emotions in a positive way, God is actually redeeming our emotion that is an act of redemption. Another way that God uses negative emotions in us is to make Christ precious on our behalf. He uses these negative emotions, to help us to realize how precious Christ is, on our behalf, for us. Now, when you see Christ as the Redeemer, we see him as the one who removes all the negative emotions and brings in all the positive emotions. Well, that’s true, but that’s not everything. You need to look at the Redeemer in this way, that he is a redeemer who has experienced every negative emotion that you are experiencing, and you have experienced.

Have you ever thought of that? He has experienced every emotion that you have experienced positive and negative. When I say he has experienced all negative emotions, some people think well, you mean the various sin? No, I mean, that he has experienced all negative emotions without sinning sinlessly. You go to the Garden of Gethsemane. And there you can see those negative emotions. You can see what is happening there. You go to the cross, you can see what’s see the cry of dereliction, cry of feeling abandoned by God. He says, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? In Psalm 77, in verse 7, the Psalmist is crying out, he say, will the Lord cast off forever? Will it be favorable no more. In other words, he’s feeling abandonment. He feels like God has cast him out. And that he will not show any favor anymore. There’s good news for the psalmist there is one who has felt the same way. When you come to Christ. He is the Savior who not only can just answer you and help you because He’s God, but he is gone through the very same feelings that you have gone through you. He understands you, like nobody can understand. He has felt the sense of abandonment, ultimate abandonment, he has been from eternity past with God, there is not a moment that he was not with God. God and him were one the Bible says. But when he hung on the cross carrying our sins, God turned his face away from him. He was literally separated from God. He felt like the whole world fell apart. And he cries out, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me. That moment, on the cross, when He bore oursins was the toughest moment in his life. He felt like God has abandoned him, that God may not help him here after that he’s gone, finished, doomed. bearing the sin of the world. He knows that. In Hebrews chapter 5, verse 7, we read that in the days of his flesh, talking about Jesus in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with vehementand cries, look at this. Look at how Jesus prayed. It says, in the days of his flesh, when he had offered a prayers and supplications with vehement and cries. In Tamil, it is translated as very loud Christ. He cried out to God, when He knew that he was going to bear the sins of the world and die, and suffer and die like this with vehement and cries, and tears to him who was able to save him from death. He cried out to God was able to save him from the death.

Have you ever cried out to God was able to save you from your troubles? The day of your trouble? Have you ever cried out with a strong cry, crying out loud because you are in such danger and such fear and such bad situation that you cried out to God? Who was able to save you? Jesus has done it. And he was heard because of his God fear. Just imagine what he went through, to pray like that, to cry out to God with a loud cry with tears. And he had Godly fear in him. So when we talk about fearing God, when we talk about praying and going in a moment of crisis to God, and so on, in the extreme emotion, many of us have gone like that. You’re talking about someone who has done it, someone who knows all about it in a greater level than you and I have ever gone through. The Garden of Gethsemane, we’re told that he sweat great drops of blood. The Bible says He descended into hell, not physically, but emotionally, with a spirit and soul descended into hell. That means His emotion was there with him when he descended into hell. That is why in chapter 4, in Hebrews, verse 15, we are told, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. There it is, in all points in every way, tempted as we are, he has gone through every temptation, every suffering, everything that you and I have experienced and much more.

Let us therefore come boldly, to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace, to help in the time of need. That’s why we can come to him we can come to him, literally saying, Lord, you know what I’m going through. And I see, he will say, Yeah, I know and I know better than you think I know. That’s the way it is. He uses next, the negative emotions that we have to help us sympathize with others. If you have passed through some of these negative emotions, such as fear and anxiety, and so on, and they’ve experienced them, and they have found relief through God. When you see people, you understand them. The brokenhearted people, and you understand their need and their urgency and their condition, and that you’re able to intercede for them and you’re there, you’re able to help them in some way, because you’ve gone through it. God uses our negative emotions, to help us sympathize with others. And more interestingly, he uses our negative emotions, this is a process of redemption. When I say he uses our negative emotions, when God takes our negative emotions and turns it into something positive, that is redemption, happening all afresh, He uses our negative emotions to motivate us to fight against the in justices in the world.

Remember, William Wilberforce, a very famous personality of all lived in the 1700s. And he is the one that led a movement against slavery, for the freedom of slaves. They were shipping slaves by the 1000s, into Britain back in those days in ships, like sardines packed in ships, and some of them will die on the way and then throw them in the sea and bring the rest of them and sell them like you sell vegetable in the market. Such an injustice was going on. And educated people were doing it. And a lot of people didn’t even feel anything about it, didn’t even feel anything bad about it, of taking another human being and treating him like a commodity to be sold. And this man, when he came to Christ, and when he has given his life to Christ, a holy anger, a fury rose in his heart against this thing. And he started a movement against slavery, and for 20 years and then finally achieved in the early 1800s. He achieved his goal and brought about a legislation that forbade slavery in Great Britain. Slavery was everywhere in the world. It was a Christian was convinced that this was evil, and that he cannot simply sit and watch it and turn his face the other way. It was a Christian who knew the Bible who knew the word of God who knew these things that stood up and stopped that slavery. Say that because some people will say, well, you Christians all these Christians have had slavery in their countries. Yeah, they had slavery, but they’re the ones that stopped it. Hell, I think, in one telling about this, but I think I’ll stop there. But I’ll deal with one little thing in just the next few minutes.

I have not come to Psalm 77 yet. Some of you might be thinking he read that but never came to that. We never do that here. We always preach on what we read. Unless you understood what I said, I gave you a biblical doctrine teaching on emotions, unless you understand that you won’t be able to understand what Psalm 77 is all about. So we come. So I said, that God redeems our disordered emotions, first of all, by enhancing our good emotions, our positive emotions. Secondly, by using our negative emotions, Now thirdly, I will say he redeems our disordered emotions by replacing our negative emotions with positive emotions. And that is what Psalm 77 is all about. We see the replacement happening. This man is in a day of trouble. Let me read to you from verse one is in a day of trouble. He calls it in verse two. In verse one, it says, I cried to God with my voice to God with my voice and he gave it to me. In the day of trouble, I sought my lord, my hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing. So here he is crying out helplessly. He is sad, depressed, distressed, inconsolable. My soul refused to be comforted. He says in verse two, the last line. He is inconsolable. He says, nothing is happening. I cried to God, He did nothing. I don’t have peace. I don’t have rest. In the day of my trouble. I sought God. And look here. I’m still in trouble, he says. And in Verse3, I remembered God and this trouble is troubled and overwhelmed. He’s anxious. Verse 4 says, you hold my eyelids open. I’m so troubled that I cannot speak. He’s very anxious that he cannot speak. Verse 7-9, he is feeling unloved? Look at that, will the Lord cast off forever? Will it be favorable no more? Has His mercy seized forever,has his promise failed forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his tender mercies. What is happening to this man? He is reacting to the day of trouble with a fury of emotions. Emotions are overtaking him. He is doing what many people are taught to do today. Go with your feelings. Always obey your feelings.

So here is a man some 1000s of years ago. He is going by his feelings; he is allowing his feelings to dictate his thoughts. His feelings terrible. He’s in a day of trouble. He’s threatened. He’s afraid. He’s crying out to God. He sees no answer. He feels terrible, negative emotions. And he allows these negative emotions to dictate to him certain things about God. And that results in really bad thinking about God look at some of the thoughts that he has about God. In verse three, he says I remember God and was troubled. Why would a man remember God and be troubled? Is God someone to be afraid of? To be scared about, is God an evil God? In other words, he’s saying I remembered God and I was troubled. That means I think God is a very bad God. He’s a terrible God. That’s why I’m troubled. Verse 4, he says, you hold my eyelids open. That means God is not allowing him to sleep. He’s keeping him awake. He says, look at the conclusions he comes to about God. Verse5 to 7, he says, I’ve considered the past. Because he says I’ve considered the days of all the years of ancient times I call to remembrance my song of the night. I meditate within my heart and my spirit makes diligent search. What is he found? He found that God has changed. And verse eight, has his mercy seized forever. Has His promise failed forevermore? He claims that God has broken his promises and His mercy has come to an end.

There is no more mercy available with God that God has actually broken is another promise keeper, he is a promise breaker, he says. What a terrible doctrine of God, would you like to take this as your doctrine of God? Now that people have this kind of thought, God is a terrible God. He’s the one responsible for all my problems. He’s the one keeping me awake. My past was good, my future is looks bleak. God has abandoned me, God has changed. God has broken his promises, there is no mercy left. Terrible. Why terrible? Why these thoughts are terrible, because his thoughts come from his emotions. His emotions have dictated these thoughts. He has allowed these emotions to dictate to him. Which is what the world is saying, now you should do you must go by your emotions. Let your emotions rule. Do what you feel, go with your feeling. The turnaround happens in verse 9. At the end of verse nine, you see the word Sayla. What does it mean? It means Be quiet and still. And meditate, think. Just shut up and think, in plain words. That’s what it means. He is just talking, accusing God all kinds of things. And then he stops and things in this quiet and stillness, something begins to happen. What happens is, all of a sudden, now he begins to think. And when he thinks. He is filled with the right knowledge, he’s thinking about right things. So the emotions go to the background and thoughts, right thoughts about God come to the fore. Look at verse 10. Completely picture changes, what is spoken until now completely changes now. And I said, this is my anguish. But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. He is now remembering the right things. I will remember the works of the Lord. Ah, that’s good.

Instead of accusing God, being bad, and causing all the trouble, he is now remembering the works of the Lord, surely I’ll remember your wonders of old. He is talking about God’s miracles. I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds. That’s a good thing to do. A lot of us need this therapy. Sometimes, again and again when you’re down and out when your emotions are getting the better of you. Your emotions are overwhelming you and you feel so terrible. You need to go and meditate upon God’s word instead of saying all kinds of things and accusing this and that about God. Need to meditate upon God’s Word so that the emotions will go to the back and thoughts will dictate and write thoughts will dictate your emotions, not emotions, dictating thoughts, but thoughts dictating emotions. Whenever emotions dictate thought you will be in trouble. When thoughts dictate emotions, you will get out of trouble. That’s the way to turn it around. I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds, he says. Your way Oh, God is the sanctuary, who is so great as our God. Total picture changes. There’s nobody as great as our God he says completely turned around what has happened. Instead of allowing his emotions to blabber, and speak, and convince him. He is looking at God and His wonderful works, his mighty deeds, meditating on them. And now that is filling his heart. And now the emotions are going to the background. Thoughts are ruling now. God wants you to live by your renewed mind, a mind that is totally under the influence of the power of the Word of God, so that the word of God governs your life, not your feelings. Don’t go by your feelings. Don’t follow this philosophy. Always trust your feelings. That’s not a Christian philosophy.

The Christian philosophy is, let the mind be renewed by God’s word and the mind that is renewed by God’s word let it dictate how we go. He says your way Oh God is in the sanctuary who is so great at God as our God you are the God who does wonders your declared your strength among the peoples. You have with your arm redeem your people. The sons of Jacob and Joseph I will not read the rest is simply talking about how God dealt with them from Israel from Egypt and how the mighty hand brought them out and what all he did. He remembers all of that and just opens his mouth and speaks about God’s mighty works of deliverance. What happens to his day of trouble? The day of trouble hasn’t changed. But he has changed. Now I say to you, the day of trouble will change, his troubles will change. That is exactly how it works in our lives. That’s how a redeem the mind works. A redeemedemotion, that’s how it works. And redeemed emotion is an emotion, which is influenced by a renewed mind. A renewed mind dictates to the redeemed emotions, when mind is renewed, emotions are redeemed. God is redeeming our emotions every day. And as your emotions are redeemed, you become a better and better person, expressing the very love of God, the joy of God, the peace of God, the contentment of God through those emotions that God has put in you, God has made you as a vehicle to express his nature and his character. And that’s what all our faculties are doing all our spiritual side of us, the mental, the physical, the emotional, every bit of our every aspect of our life is supposed to do that is to reflect God. That is why He made us in His image and likeness. Amen? Let’s all stand together. Let’s lift up our hands and praise God.