Sermon Tone Analysis

Feelings are...

A Gift

Our feelings are a gift from God, after all, if we didn't have our feelings we would never know the good times from the bad.

Feelings can also lead us astray.

Sometimes our feelings can cause us to feel joy about a situation that is not joyful.

Example: laughing when someone gets hurt

Feelings can also provide us with a false assessment of how someone else feels about us.

Have you ever thought someone didn't like you, only to find out they thought the same thing about you?

Able to make us knowingly do wrong

In a relationship, we can develop feelings that make us want to behave in a way that does not honor good.

This can lead to Fornication

- doing married people things with someone before you are married to them

- Married People Things: Heavy petting, sex (anything that has the word sex in it), sending nude pictures...if you have to ask if this is okay, it's better to ask someone or just steer clear of it.

That subtle pause is the Holy Spirit checking your feelings into place.

- For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

Able to cause doubt in us

Jesus Heals a Boy with an Unclean Spirit -

Father comes to have Jesus heal his son that has been tormented since birth

The son is mute, foam at the mouth, becomes stiff

The spirit has tried to fling the boy into the fire & water several times

vs 23-34 - 23 And Jesus said to him, “ ‘If you can’!

All things are possible for one who believes.”

24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

Jesus just told the man, all things are possible for someone who believes.

The man replies basically saying, I believe, but if I'm honest there's part of me that has unbelief.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Two things are very remarkable here:

First, The felt and owned presence of unbelief, which only the strength of the man’s faith could have so revealed to his own consciousness.

Second, His appeal to Christ for help against his felt unbelief—a feature in the case quite unparalleled, and showing, more than all protestations could have done, the insight he had attained into the existence of a power in Christ more glorious them any he had besought for his poor child.

This man recognized that his feelings were getting in the way of his unbelief and he did something so simple, that many of us, including myself need to do...ask God for help.

There's no point in withholding information from God, he already knows your thoughts and feelings.

Instead of trying to hold it all together, why don't we hand God our beautiful mess of a life so he can take our natural and put his Super on it and make something Super Natural happen?

Feelings Reveal Reality

Jesus Forgives a Sinful Woman -

This woman was broken and overwhelmed with feelings.

She had come to the realization that she was not worthy of the salvation she was receiving from Jesus.

As a woman of the city, she was most likely a prostitute.

She was used to false feelings in her life.

She was used to people saying things about her.

She was most likely full of feelings of regret, sorrow, doubt...

She brought him a gift of precious value in their culture.

It doesn't clearly say what brought about her realization, but it can be speculated that Jesus had already forgiven her sins at an earlier time.

She was still overwhelmed with joy that it overflowed into her actions at the dinner table that night.

The tears that she had cried many a times because of the place her life brought her to, were now turning to tears of joy because her mourning has turned to joy. ( - I will turn their mourning into joy; I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.)

Her hair that was long and flowing, would have been considered immodest at best in that day.

All in all, this woman was a reject in public society.

To have a woman of this caliber entering the room without permission, then touching the guest of honor - the room was left speechless.

The home owner has a thought to himself and Jesus responds to his thoughts describing the contrast between him as the home owner and not honoring Jesus, and her as a sinful woman hasn't stopped honoring Jesus since she arrived.

Jesus concludes this scene by the following...

Lk 7:48

The Fight is Worth the Reward

This woman fought past every negative feeling she had and trusted the feeling that led her to the feet of Jesus

his woman fought past every negative feeling she had and trusted the feeling that led her to the feet of Jesus

The feelings that we have every single day, we need to filter them down to where do they lead us?

If our feelings ultimately lead us to the feet of Jesus, we can trust those feelings.

There are feelings of lust, greed, power that lead us far from the feet of Jesus.

But there are feeling of love, compassion, grace that lead us to the feet of Jesus every time.

Fighting Our Feelings

Jesus Prays on the Mount of Olives -

Lk

Jesus felt the most feelings of anyone in history.

To be under the type of stress that your sweat has blood in it is some pretty heavy stress.

Jesus felt the most feelings of anyone in history.

To be under the type of stress that your sweat has blood in it is some pretty heavy stress.

RELATE - vs 39, as was his custom (Jesus must have prayed here often)

REQUEST - vs 42 (Man with son with unclean spirit) - don't be afraid to ask God for help

RECEIVE - vs 43, God will send help, but you have to receive it.

Remember God is a relational God, not transactional

We cannot treat God like the cashier at Dunkin’ Doughnuts.

We must have a relationship with Him.

Expressing our thankfulness for Him and praising Him.

We must talk with Him on a regular basis, and not just when we need something.

As you spend more time with God, the feeling of His presence will become more natural in your life and you will be able to judge what is His righteousness and what is not - this is called discernment.

This Week’s Feelings

Fear with school shootings - many of you had extra police on your campus’ this week, some of you went on lockdown.

What did you feelings reveal to you in that time?

What thoughts ran through your mind?

Procrastination - believing the lie that there is still time to do that task…at some point there isn’t going to be anymore time - what then?

It’s all about perspective - picking up a new car

NEW JEEP WRANGLER RUBICON - fire orange, lifted, soft top, stick shift, light bar, front winch

Accomplishment - now what?

Some of you will experience great accomplishment this week.

What are you going to do with it?

Stay humble.

Intimacy - some will experience great intimacy with God this week.

Let your feelings lead you to the feet of Jesus