Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:07 Welcome to another edition of sermon Q and a I'm Vicki Basinger. And I'm sitting here with pastor Craig and pastor Michael, and we're talking through some questions from July 18th, 2021, and the sermon series, the golden calf. And today this one's a little bit nuanced, I guess, is how I would put it or talking about feelings and feelings are super reliable and we can
Speaker 1 00:00:29 Send them to help us make decisions. Craig hates sarcasm, sarcasm circuits, thinking
Speaker 0 00:00:38 About the, the concept of, you know, feeling that God is close to me or feeling like God is near. Can we talk a little bit about, uh, the question that came in, which is, is it okay if I don't feel God or the presence of God,
Speaker 2 00:00:52 Simple answer, you will not feel God all the time. So you're normal and yes, I guess I would not go that far.
Speaker 3 00:01:04 Oh, you're talking about super holy, not normal.
Speaker 2 00:01:10 Nobody feels God all the time. Here's where we get confused. We live in a postmodern world and the postmodern world has elevated feelings to the place of prominence. So we don't feel it. It can't be there. And if you do feel it, it must be right. Right. How can something so wrong feel so, right, right. We have all kinds of phrases that, that justify feelings. Um, and if we even teach it to our kids, I just want you to be happy. Are you kidding me? I don't want my kids to be happy. My goal is to make them unhappy until they become images of Jesus. My goal is
Speaker 3 00:01:42 To make those images. <inaudible> Parenting conference is not scheduled sarcasm,
Speaker 2 00:01:54 But ultimately our goal in life is not to be happy. If your goal is to be happy, you're going to be a miserable person because you have elevated feelings to an idol. Your goal is to be emotionally, um, fulfilled instead of, um, constantly trying to be an image of Christ in your own life. For those around you. Um, the Psalms are wonderful place to go to, to kind of illustrate this because the Psalms are full of feelings. They're literally hymns, right? And so these are meant to be sung and you can read through them. And it's incredible. One of the ones that came to mind as we were discussing this earlier with some 51, uh, David is not feeling God he's committed adultery with Bathsheba Psalm 51 is his repentance Psalm. And, um, he lives for a year in, in rebellion against God. And it's not until his child dies that he, um, uh, Nathan comes Nathan, the prophet comes in, confronts him with his sin and he writes this incredible Psalm of repentance, full of feelings.
Speaker 2 00:02:55 And we know it is because he says, don't cast your spirit away from me. You know, words like that. Like, I feel like you're not here now, but ultimately every one of those and all the songs that David does writes, right? As long with all the songs that other people write, they all end with an action. In order to overcome the emotion, I will lift up my voice and sing your praise, right? You don't want to, but David knows that's a necessary move so that he gets his emotions in check. Um, it's again, in our world today, emotions lead the way, but in scripture actions lead the way emotions will follow. Sometimes I don't feel like serving my neighbor or loving my enemy. I'll tell you, that's not very often, but when I do it, you know what comes out of that? An actual feeling of love, even for those that abuse me. And that's because emotions don't lead the way. If you turn that on its head. So that emotions leads the way you're always going to run into problems. And that's difficult because our culture promotes that above all
Speaker 4 00:03:55 Things, right? The most common things that I hear, young people say, I hear it everywhere, but it's almost like a, if you're a 15 to 30, this is like a phrase
Speaker 3 00:04:05 It's just so hard.
Speaker 4 00:04:09 And didn't you say that yesterday? You know? And, uh, there's this part of me that like, I don't know if I'm being really transparent here. Often I have this inner rage when I hear that. And um, because I'm just like, yeah, it's hard. Everything we do is hard. Like life is hard. Parenting is hard working as hard. Everything's hard. Life is hard. Sin is just, life is challenging, you know? And so now I'm dealing with it. You know, that's what I want. But obviously like I try to be a good shepherd and be patient, you know, when my, when my kids say it, I'm like,
Speaker 3 00:04:39 Like, you know, but it's coming to the host, but it is, I've had such
Speaker 4 00:04:45 A challenging reaction to it that we've actually made. One of our family values is that fuelings, our last name, fuelings. We do hard things. And so when my kids are like, ah, that's just, I don't want to do it. I'm like, no, but we do hard things is what we do. You got my name. This is just how we roll. Um, if something's complicated or difficult, we run into it because when I'm trying to instill in them is our emotions. Don't drive our behavior.
Speaker 2 00:05:07 And our convictions feels like going on a diet. Oh my God, gosh, nobody. I
Speaker 4 00:05:11 Feel like eating all the time. And it doesn't mean I go, I go do
Speaker 3 00:05:17 It. Isn't going to do it as much as I want to. And so, but that's, I think you
Speaker 4 00:05:22 Just, you nailed this, which is so important, which is, um, if your relationship with God is contingent on you feeling, God, you're going to have a very topsy-turvy relationship. We'll apply this to marriage, right? I mean, who, okay. When you're dating, engage in all the fields, whatever, but like when you're married, you literally cannot exist in that space where it's like, you're like weak at the knees. Every time you see them and your heart is fluttering. And in fact your commitment is so much deeper than that. In fact, I would take a thousand times over a faithful, committed, loving relationship with my over the topsy turvy, insecure fields of dating. It's actually better than that. People don't have a category for it, but it's actually better. And so when your, your relationship with God gets to a mature place, you realize it's actually transcends feelings, but feelings are really good. And so I think you, you also said something, I just want to highlight again, like there are actions prescribed when you don't feel things. Um, maybe you don't feel something because like David you've been living in disobedience and you have quenched the holy spirit. There might've been feelings that the holy spirit wants to bring about in you, but your disobedience has basically covered them up. Um,
Speaker 0 00:06:34 So how do I know if I'm feeling God or not, or
Speaker 3 00:06:39 Your dinner from last night and different things like that? I mean, there's, so I made a short
Speaker 4 00:06:43 List of five, five ways, and there's more, but this is kind of the dominant ways that you can say these are feelings that God produces. So one is all in wonder. And typically this is when you're in the presence of really big ideas or really big landscapes, or you go to the grand canyon and you, but on wonder, you know, it's from God when it's directed to God, that is one of the most important ways that you know, that, um, number two is you have peace from God in the middle of anxiety and stress. And when you go to God in that, and you have the ability to even just rise above and have a, just a peace that God is in control, um, that is a feeling that God produces in you, um, that is irrational to the world and is contrary to what you should be feeling given the anxiety.
Speaker 4 00:07:30 Yeah. Peace that passes understanding amen. Three would be joy, but I w I would actually put this in a specific context. It would be joy in the middle of worship, Bible study or spiritual connection. And if you have had the experience of having a disciplined relationship with God, um, you will know the joy that comes from being in your car and worshiping, you'll know the joy of walking with God. And it's, it's, it's an elation that is really precious now, is that there all the time? No, but it's interesting that it's a different kind of joy that happens through a disciplined relationship with God and spending time with him. A fourth one is security. Um, it's just security that you are loved by God when the whole world is topsy turvy, and everybody's throwing false identities at you. And you just have this sense of like, God and I are okay, that that's actually an emotional reality that you're experiencing. And I would call it security in the, in the emotions wheel. There's an actual emotion for it, which I can't remember, but for practical purposes, security, and then number five would be conviction of sin. Um, you know, the presence of God is with you when you're convicted of sin, that's what the holy spirit does.
Speaker 2 00:08:35 And it's going to hit your emotions. It's going to hit your emotions
Speaker 4 00:08:38 Because you have things like guilt or shame or fear of God in that moment. And, and so those are five ways, all peace, joy, security conviction. Those are five ways that like you're experiencing the presence of God in those moments, just
Speaker 2 00:08:53 To, um, kind of to creation. Yeah, we have emotions because God is an emotional God, right? These are not things that we get because of a sinful world. So we have joy because God has joyful. We have, uh, we have, we grieve over things because God grieves over things. Everything that we have in our lives is because we're made in God's image. So emotions are not a bad thing, but in fact, they're so good because they're from God. It makes sense that Satan would attack those. And so Satan is going to distort anything that is really good. So some of the best times of emotion I've had is being in church services and worshiping the Lord and feeling close to God at those moments. But I'll leave that worship service and Satan will attack my emotional self. It's like Elijah,
Speaker 4 00:09:39 After you saw God do really big things, deep depression. That's right. It's the pastor's Monday.
Speaker 3 00:09:43 He's gonna, he's gonna, we feel,
Speaker 4 00:09:47 Yeah, that's right. So
Speaker 2 00:09:48 If you feel like if your feelings are leading you down a bad road, don't feel bad because that is a natural ploy of Satan to get your eyes off of Jesus just don't put too much weight on it and do the actions that bring you back to where, you know, you should be with him. Emotions will follow if you're a follower of Jesus.
Speaker 4 00:10:07 If I, if I have had a really bad Sunday, like, I mean, you probably don't have this experience, but when I give a terrible sermon, I've never done that. And, uh, I just feel, I felt guilty. I feel shameful. There's like weird things that go on, but I take a nap on most Sundays just to reset my emotions. And it works. It's about an hour, hour and a half. And I reset. And when I don't have that, that is brilliant. It is challenging, but that's a big decision
Speaker 2 00:10:28 I make. And I'm thinking about all of these ways that emotions have positive. I mean, we came to Jesus to follow Jesus because we were impacted emotionally. My sin got to me, I was eight years old, but you know, it got to me in an eight year old level. Imagine
Speaker 3 00:10:41 If it was five years old, my goodness, I don't want to go to hell. I fear. Hell. You know, I know, I know
Speaker 2 00:10:49 Disappointed Jesus. And so it's interesting that emotions are a positive thing, but if you put too much stock in them, St. Louis use them against Dan.
Speaker 0 00:10:57 Yeah, absolutely. So in the end, it's okay. If I don't feel God, that's not going to happen, you know, the whole course of my life, but God uses emotions to evict us, to bring him back to them. But ultimately taking that action is what matters. So we are glad that you joined us today and come back for our next edition of sermon. QA. We'll see you then.
