 |
| Rev. Brent Russett |
Pastor of
Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/ _______________________________________________________
LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, April 26th, 2015:
‘The Tension Between Faith and Feeling’
Good morning. And welcome to good news in the
morning. My name is Brent Russett. I am
the Senior Pastor at Sunnyside Wesleyan Church. It is my pleasure to look at
some of life’s challenges, and then bring you some good news in the morning.
I am
glad that you tuned your dial to CFRA. I want you to know that you can also
find Good News in the morning on the internet at Goodnewsinthemorning.ca
. There you can hear past episodes and find interesting articles.
This
morning’s program is Sponsored by Good News Christian ministries and Alice and Clifford Miller.
Thank you so much for your generous
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Good
News in the morning is sponsoring a wonderful event that is taking place next
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It is “Ask the Pastor” day. There is going to be a light lunch and a
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offering which will go towards helping fund this program.
It
looks like it will be a wonderful time full of stories and music. If you want
more information, you can find it at www.goodnewsinthemorning.ca
This
morning I am going to be looking at the tension between faith and feeling. Or
for some of you it might be better framed as the tension between intellect and
feeling.
Part
of what it means to be human is that our emotions and our brains are not always
synchronized. Sometimes I know I should
be content, but I don’t feel
content. Sometimes I know I shouldn’t be angry, but I find myself being angry.
Sometimes I know I should be happy-- but I feel sad. My intellect says it would
be better to interpret a situation one way, my emotions react to the situation
in a totally different way.
Have
you ever been there. Have you ever been talking to someone and you know you shouldn’t
say anything, you know you should bite your tongue, but all the while you can feel your anger
rising. Your emotions and mind battle it
out. Some of you will go ahead and blast the person and others of your will
bite your tongue.
Some
people who have very few filters, so if they are feeling something – they are
going to say it. Others have extraordinary filters, and they keep their
emotions under severe check.
Which
side you believe that it is better to err on
probably has as much to do with your family system as it has to do with
anything else. That is the human condition, there is often a battle between
mind and heart.
But
sometimes this battle bleeds over into our spiritual condition. Our faith and
our emotions are sometimes at odds with each other.
This morning I want to speak to those of you
who know Jesus as your saviour. You have received him into your life. You have
given your life to him. But sometimes your faith, what you believe and your emotions
are at odds with each other.
I
don’t know how many people have told me, I believe that God loves me, at least
in my head. But it is a long piece between my head and my heart. They are
saying “I know that God loves me but I don’t feel that God loves me.”
Or---I
know that I am forgiven, but I still feel guilty and ashamed before God for
past sins. My faith tells me that Jesus took my sin away, my heart still feels
weighted down with my past.
Or--I
know that Jesus has purified me and cleansed me from all sin, but my heart
still tells me that I am not acceptable. I am from the wrong part of town. I
will never be fully accepted by God.
Our
faith tells us one thing, and our hearts tell us another.
It is
really hard when your faith tells you one thing and your emotions tell you
another. It is made more difficult because we know that sometimes our emotions tell
us the truth. When we do something we know we shouldn’t do we feel guilt.
Sometimes that is an appropriate feeling.
So
what do we do about this tension between faith and feeling. Well in a moment I
want to take you to Scripture, but before we do that let’s listen to Accapella
Singing
Music.
Set Me free 4:17
What
do you do when your faith tells you one thing but your emotions tell you
something else.
Let
me start by taking you to
2 Corinthians 7:10
(NIV)
10 Godly sorrow brings
repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow
brings death.
There
is a kind of sorrow that is godly. There is a kind of sorrow that is worldly.
The
NLT is much more expansive in its translation. It says
2 Corinthians 7:10
(NLT)
10 For the kind of sorrow
God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation.
There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks
repentance, results in spiritual death.
There is a proper and true sorrow for our sin. We have
sinned against a holy God. Our sin was part of what put Jesus on the cross, so
we were part of the crowd that were yelling crucify him crucify him. This kind
of sorrow leads us to repentance, which means turning from the way we were
going and heading towards God.
There is another kind of sorrow. Paul calls it worldly
sorrow. This is the sorrow that feels sorrow over feeling sorrow. So we really
blow it and we feel the weight and guilt of our sin. It is not a good feeling.
We feel sorrowful, not for what we have done, nor for what we have done to God,
we feel sorrowful for the guilt that we have and how it makes us feel. We feel
sorrowful that we got caught.
But our sorrow does not turn us towards God. This kind of
sorrow often turns us towards ourselves. This sorrow becomes all about us. We
dwell on how bad we are. Or we rationalize the situation and talk about how
good we are. The sorrow is all about us. This kind of sorrow results in spiritual
death.
If we
have sorrow over what we have done, the appropriate thing to happen is that it
drives us towards God, it drives us towards the cross. There is a reason why
Jesus died on the cross. We were guilty. Yes he takes our shame and our guilt upon
himself
But
what do you do when you asked God for forgiveness but you still feel guilty.
What do you do when you have had Godly sorrow, and you have repented to God,
but you still feel shame?
One
of the things that could be happening that complicates things is that Satan is a liar and he is also the
accuser of the brethren. One of his tricks is to bring up our past and hold it
against us. He often will whisper in your ear, you know you, how do you think
God can love you.
Worse
yet, he will put horrible thoughts in your mind and then condemn you by
whispering in your ear, how can you think those horrible thoughts. Satan is
your accuser. He does accuse you. He loves to heap guilt and shame on you.
He
calls into question the love of God and the power of the cross.
So we
have this tension. Our faith says one thing and our emotions say another things
Have you ever been there. Maybe some of you
are there right now. You are feeling really bad about who you are or really
bad about what you have done. The question is, what do you do with that?
Come with me to 1 John 3 John has been
talking about loving one another. Then he says (in)
1 John 3:18–22
(NIV)
19 This is how we know that
we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence:
Our
faith says one thing and feelings say another things. But our hope is to set
our hearts at rest in his presence. When our hearts are at rest in his
presence, there is not conflict between faith and feeling. That is what we
really want to happen. We want what God says about us to be the same as what we
feel about ourselves.
Our
hearts and our heads are aligned in the presence of God. The question is how
does this happen.
1 John 3:18–19
(NIV)
18 Dear children, let us
not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
19 This is how we know that
we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence:
The
first way and the best way for this to happen is when our actions are
consistent with what we believe. That is what we want. We want what we believe
and how we live to be aligned.
When
those things happen, there is this confidence when we stand before God. That is
always the best way.
But
the problem is of course, that this is not always the case. Sometime we believe
that we should have done more, or done less and our hearts are not at rest.
Sometimes we are not sure if we did the right or the wrong thing, and our
hearts are not at rest.
The
truth of the matter is that sometimes we doubt. We doubt ourselves. We doubt
our actions. We doubt God. Sometimes we doubt.
We
doubt that we did enough, or that we did right. Or sometime we are pretty sure
that we didn’t do right. We are pretty sure that we have done wrong. Our
actions and our faith haven’t lined up.
What
do you do when you know you have blown it. What do you do when you know you
have blown it. Well you know what to do.
1 John 1:9 When we
confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
So
you blow it, and you confess your sin. You agree with God that it was wrong.
The promise of God is that you are forgiven.
But
you don’t feel forgiven. You don’t feel sometimes even like you deserve to be forgiven.
Your heat and your faith don’t align. You doubt the truth of 1 John 1:9
So
what then
Verse 20
20 If
our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he
knows everything.
Did you catch that, so you heart
condemns you. You feel guilty. You feel unworthy. You feel hopeless. You feel
wrong. You feel full of doubt and fear – your heart condemns you.
The bible says two things in
response to that.
1.God
is greater than our heart and 2. he knows everything.
It is sometimes hard to remember
that God is greater than our hearts. When you are feeling guilty, the way you
feel is that your guilt is bigger than God. Intellectually you know that is not
true, but it feels true.
But John tells us that God is
greater than our hearts. He is bigger than your guilt. He is bigger than your
fear. He is bigger than your doubt. He is greater than your despair. He is
greater than your depression. He is greater than you grief. He is greater than
your sadness. God is greater than our hearts.
Some of you know what it means to be
overwhelmed by emotions. You know what it is like to be completely stressed
out. You know what it is like to curl up in a ball and cry. The emotion that
you feel is overwhelming.
When you get there, you wonder where
God is. Your emotions are so loud that they seem to dwarf the presence of God
and the voice of God. But I want you to know, God wants you to know that he is
greater than your heart.
When your heart is overwhelmed, it
is no longer about the strength of your faith, it is about the greatness of
God. It is no longer about your doubt, it about the faithfulness of God. It is
not about your guilt it is about his mercy and grace. It is not about what your
heart says about God it is about what God says about you that matters.
The
first thing that God wants you to know is that he is greater than your heart.
The second thing that
God wants you to know is that he knows everything.
Some people who are feeling bad
about themselves- then they hear that God knows everything – it seems to make
things worse. They think, God knows how bad I am.
Yes, God knows that. He also knows
who you really are. ‘There is nothing that you have done that has caught God by
surprise. He knew what you would do and he still he called you. He still drew
you to himself. He still wanted you for his very own. He knows everything and
he still called you by name.
He never looks at you and says, oh
you are worse than I thought you would be. No, he knew you before you were
born, and he knew all of your days – and he looks at you and says, I love you.
He knows everything – he knows everything about you and yet he loves you.
He knows all about the situation
that you find yourself in. He knows the measure of your strength. Some of you
feel like you should be stronger than you are – God knows how strong you are.
He knows your failures that were really failures, and he knows the things you
could have done differently. He knows everything – and still he loves you.
And he knows the power of the cross.
That is something that most of us will never grasp. But on the cross he paid
the debt for our sin. He conquer sin and death and evil and hell. The power of
cross has not lost its power. He knows the power of the cross to rescue and
redeem, to heal and to save. And while you may feel hopeless, God knows
everything including the power of the cross.
So when you are languishing in that
tension between your head and your heart, and I want you to know that God is
greater than both those things and he knows everything.
So on those days when you wonder
where God is and you doubt yourself I want you to know that God is greater than
your heart and he knows everything. I also want you to know that you could not
even want to move towards God unless God were at work in you.
VERSE 21
21 Dear
friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and
receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what
pleases him.
We of
course want to keep our heads and hearts aligned. When our faith and our hearts
are working together it affects our prayer life. We have confidence before God.
We start to work in sync with God, so we are praying in the will of God. When
we pray in the will of God, our prayers tend to get answered.
When
our faith and hearts work together it affects our prayer life, but it also
affects how we live – we keep his commands and do what pleases him. .
We
kind of create a feedback loop. Our faith and our hearts align and we keep them
aligned by doing what we know is right and that keeps our faith and our hearts
aligned.
Here is what you need to know.
Contrary to every other religion, our faith is not about what we have done for
God, our faith is in what God has done for us in the person of His son Jesus
Christ. Jesus gave his life for you. Jesus paid the price for your sin. Jesus
offers you the free gift of salvation. Jesus makes a way for you to know God
and have a personal relationship with God. It is about Jesus.
For
those of you who have not put your faith in Jesus, I want to urge you to do
that today. It is not about how bad or how good you are, it is about what Jesus
has done for you. Will you ask Jesus to forgive you for every way that you have
broken God’s laws. Would you ask Jesus to come into your life. Will you give
your life to him.
Some
of you have wondered if God could ever love you. I want you to know that God
wants a relationship with you. Your emotions may tell you that you have been too
bad for God, but I want you to know that the Bible says that God is greater
than your heart. It is not about what you have done for God but what God has
done for you. Will you receive the work that God has done on your behalf.
PRAYER:
Lord Jesus, I
pray today for those who have been struggling with a conflict between their faith
and their emotions. I pray, Lord, that you would show them that you are greater
than their heart, that you know everything. I pray, Lord, that you would just allow
their faith to arise, to say how you would talk about them and how you know them.
Lord, I pray that you would help their head and their heart to align, soon. But,
Lord, more than anything else, I pray that you would bring the fact that you care
about them deeply, to the forefront of their mind.
Lord, help them
to trust your word, in Jesus’ name, I pray. AMEN.
If Good News in the Morning has been a factor
in your journey of faith, we would love to hear your story. Nothing could
encourage us more in this work. Contact
us by e-mail or Twitter via the web site: goodnewsinthemorning.ca
Again, a special thank you to Alice and Clifford Miller for
sponsoring this program.
Mark your calendars for May 2nd,
at noon at Bethany Baptist Church, for the Good News in the morning Ask the
Pastors Luncheon. For more information you can check it out on line as well.
And Thank you for listening this
morning. This program is on the air by the grace of God and donations of many
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to goodnewsinthemorning.ca Thanks for
considering this.
May
you know Jesus Christ personally and
profoundly. May the Holy Spirit reside
deep within your heart . And may the
heavenly Father surround you with His constant and abiding and accompanying
love
MUSIC
Paul Boloche “the Same Love” 4:35
By Rev. Brent Russett
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
_______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, April 26th, 2015:
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, April 26th, 2015:
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