Feelings Are Gauges, Not Guides | Sermon

Hey. You know with the with the cars and how you have car alarms, and sometimes you have the key fobs that can set them off? What happens when the alarm goes off? You know it means something. Right? But you gotta figure it out. It's like it's supposed to, like, think is my car getting stolen?

But it also could be someone ran into your car. It could be a really big cat jumped on the hood of it or or whatever. Or it might be your kids playing with your keys and held that button down. Right? And so when you hear it, you kinda like react. Oh, no. I gotta go figure out. And then you figure out what it is, and you're cool. But here's probably a new one. Don't if you ever experienced this.

I had my car alarm go off while I was driving the car. And it's like, what is going? You're just driving? And all of sudden, the horn starts going, the lights start flashing, the screen is flashing at me, everything's going crazy. It's like we're in a disco.

You know, it's like it's like and I'm driving. I'm like, what is going on? And you know, the keys, you don't put a key in the so it's like the key is like is in my pocket. So I'm like trying to find the keys while driving and not crashing,

so I could push the button to try to unalarm it. I grabbed the keys and pushed the alarm because I was like, nope. I'm not stopping. I I'm pushing the button and it wouldn't stop.

So now I'm frustrated. I pull over. The only thing I know how to do is stop, and I like I get out and I shut the car off, didn't then restart it thinking that would work. Nope. It stayed on the whole time. So then I finally had to make a decision. I go, I'm not gonna let it stop me from going home

because I just I just I know that my car is not getting stolen, so I just got the car and drove home. And at one point along the way, it stopped.

And then it never really did that again. And then I gave the car to my son-in-law who leads our worship here, and did didn't bother telling him that it had done that once, so he got to have the same experience at one point with it. So it's nice. But you know what? You you you you have this gauge. This this this

kind of a thing a car is built to have that sense tells you something's happening. Right? And and but you still gotta investigate it. You still gotta, like, diagnose it. But in the car when it went off, could you imagine if I just reacted

to what a car alarm is really for and acted like that was the facts and that was the truth? Can imagine if I was driving? I was like, and I went, oh my gosh. Someone's stealing my car.

Where is he? Where is he? I look in the rearview mirror. There he is. He's really attractive and quite muscular. But what am I gonna do? And I pull over and I call the cops, and they go, what's going on? Someone's stealing my car. Well, where is it parked? It's not parked. I was driving. Someone's trying to steal your car while you're driving. So you're being abducted? No. I don't know. I go, well, what does he look like? Well, he's good looking and muscular, so I didn't wanna fight him. And I go, where is he at now? I don't know. I saw him once in the rearview mirror. I haven't seen him since.

And and and could you imagine if the cops showed up and we try to unpackage that whole thing? They'd be like, you're an idiot, and you've wasted our time. And that's probably the dumbest illustration I've ever shared. You're probably like, Bill's stupid. That's stupid. That is the dumbest thing. But how

what if we take that reaction out of that context and land it into my marriage, my parenting, my relationships, the stress I'm having right now, life like any other moment where you get a feeling and what you do with it. You see, I think that that's not that ridiculous in other contexts because that's what we do.

We live in a world that says to do that. We live in a world that says follow your heart. Follow the feelings. Feelings are facts. Go with them. And we just vent them and we chase after it and we listen to feelings and it leads us to stupid places. And it actually stops us from driving home where where you're heading anyways,

and you get other people involved. You just it's just it's just ridiculous. This idea that feelings are truth, and my heart is where I need to follow. That's really unbiblical. Matter of fact, when we chase after feelings, it leads us down a road that we actually end up further away from what we really are built for.

So what we're gonna see today in a few minutes for this next few minutes is we're gonna look at a Psalm, Psalms 42, And we're gonna see this thing about feelings, this big idea. Feelings are gauges, not guides. They're a check engine light. They're not the GPS. Because because here's the thing.

When we let them lead the way, when they become the guide, the GPS, when they become the facts, when we follow the feelings and and and and and listen to them more than the truth, what happens is not only do they become the guide, they become the goal.

They become the goal. And that's what our world lives like. And a lot of us have adopted what the world does, is feelings are the goal. Meaning, we chase after the good feels and try to run away from the bad feels. So when we make them the guides, they become the goal. When you make them the goal,

then you know what happens to that? They end up with you have your list. And how we view life is there's the list of the good feelings. These are the good ones that feel good. We like these. These are good. The bad ones, these are always bad.

And the purpose is to always feel the good ones and never feel the bad ones. Imagine what that does to how you choose to live your life and the decisions you start to make. Feelings are not good or bad. Some are more unpleasant than others.

But all of them is a guide. They're a check engine light. They tell you something, but they don't tell you where to go. And they're that so if you start thinking of good and bad, you will start. I will start. We always do this. When we think that way, we will make poor decisions.

Because if it becomes life is about feeling this and not this, I will make decisions in any given moment that come to how do I get to this quickly and get away from this quickly. And often we make the dumbest decisions in those moments. Let me give you example. For example, I've realized

as as I got older that I go, I am kind of an emotional eater. I didn't think I was. I just didn't. But then I finally started realizing it as when I couldn't out eat my I couldn't out exercise my eating habits that I get the moments that when I get stressed, sad, a lot of pressure,

I like to eat something. And I realized when I did what we're gonna talk about today and started to diagnose that instead of just ignoring it, It goes all the way back to when I was a kid. I was sick a lot, and my mom used to like, I I couldn't go to a baseball tournament because I got sick, or I couldn't do this. I felt so sad. And she go here, have a brownie.

She didn't mean anything by it, but for me internally, I thought, you know what? I'm feeling sad. The best way to not feel sad is eat it away.

So now I get older and now I realize I'm not even thinking about it. When I'm really stressed or something's going on that's tough, I I wait for my wife to go to bed because I don't want the shameful look she's gonna give me.

Forgive me for for you for what I'm about to do, is I'll go in and pull out a whole half gallon of ice cream, wrap a dish towel around it so I don't freeze my hand, sit on the couch, ironically watch sports, and then I key until my spoon hits the cardboard at the bottom.

And I'll do that in like twenty five minutes. I will eat the entire thing. And and and and you know what happened? For that twenty minutes, I don't feel sad or stressed because it gives that dopamine hit, that sugar rush. All of that feels good. Twenty five minutes later, I'm sad again or stressed again,

but now I have diabetes and diarrhea.

Because lactose doesn't like me as much as I've gotten older. And and and and that's kind of a funny example, but it's truth. We do that with lots of stuff. Take it out of the food thing where we can laugh at it and put it in your marriage.

You don't feel satisfied in your marriage. You feel disconnected. You're fighting a lot. And what you feel is, I just feel like they don't understand me. They don't care about me. They don't listen. And then someone at work does.

Guess where your feelings are gonna take you if you listen to them. What about if it wasn't ice cream? What if it was alcohol that you drink to forget the pain and feel good for a moment? What if it's

spending? What if you feel stressed and tired? You feel like I you know, my kids, I wish they had this or I wish we had that. You look at other friends, you're like, I feel like I can't keep up. I feel deprived.

And so you you you use credit and you just overspend. And you buy a house you can't afford. You get cars you can't afford because you wanna feel good about that. And now, you know what, you're still stressed, you're still discontented, and now you're in debt.

See that's how this really lands. It's a subtle thing, but if you don't think about it and unpackage it, we often are letting feelings lead the way. And when they lead the way, they lead you away from truth. They lead you away from life. So what do we need to do about it? Well, what I wanna do is I wanna read Psalm 42.

And if you don't know what a Psalm is, a Psalm is of they're basically a hymn book. Psalms. And people inspired by God, but what's interesting about this part of the word of God is he inspired people to be honest and they write about their emotions.

Psalms is filled with feelings. Every feeling you can imagine you find in the book. Psalms. But as you watch the Psalmist when they write, they don't stuff their feelings.

They also don't just vent their feelings. Some people think just vent it, let it all out. Well, that's gonna get you in trouble. The Bible says to a fool man who vents his anger is a fool. You know why? Because if you fully vent your anger, you might end up in prison.

And so he says, but what are we supposed to do with them? How does God give them to us? Why are they a guide? And how do we manage and know that, hey, sometimes I have to sit in sadness, sometimes I have to go through this, sometimes I have to do that. But what do I do in that process? And we're gonna see that from this this Psalm.

And this Psalm in particular is written by one of the sons of Korah. They were a a family a group of guys that they they led worship at the temple. And the one that particularly wrote this one, he's an exile up north

the North. He's not able to worship at the temple, and he's not happy with the place he is. He feels he's getting mocked. He has enemies ridiculing him, so there's something stress going on in his life. He's not where he wants to be, and he's sad. He's discouraged.

He's he he feels the weight. He's struggling with it, and he's honest to God about it. So it doesn't relate to us at all. Right? But here we go. So let's read it. He says, as the deer longs for the streams of water, so I long for you, O God.

I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him? Sounds good so far. But then he says, day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me saying, where is this God of yours?

My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be. I walked among the crowds of worshipers leading the great procession of the house of God singing for joy and giving thanks amid the sound of great celebration. Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad?

I will put my hope in God. I will praise him again, my Savior and my God. Now I am deeply discouraged but I will remember you even from the distant Mount Hermon, the source of the Jordan, from the land of Mount Mizar. I hear the tumult of the raging seas as your waves and surging tides sweep over me.

But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me and through each night I sing his songs praying to God who gives me life. Oh God my rock I cry, why have you forgotten me? Why must I wander around in grief oppressed by my enemies? Their taunts break my bones. They scoff, where is this God of yours?

Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God. I will praise him again, my savior and my God.

See, it sounds like we are kinda in and out. It's like one minute seems like, I'm so I'd love this, but why am I discouraged? I I will I love you God, but where are you? But I am gonna do that. It's it's it's kinda like this tension, but in there it's really simple. He's doing two things.

There's two things that that's happening in here that I think gives us guidance on how we let feelings be gauges and not guides. And the first one is simply this, we need to diagnose our feelings.

We need to diagnose. Not just divulge them, not just divert them, not just, you know, suppress them. We need to diagnose them. We need to unpackage them, But not just to say them and not just to sit in them. It's diagnosed. It's like it's like what I talked about. It's a it's a gauge. It's like a a check engine light.

Because here's the problem. It's like a check engine light that's not like our newer cars. Like my wife's car when I drive it. Something goes on and it'll not only just have a check engine light, it'll just say, your right front passenger

shows up, shows a diagram of the car, is two pounds low on air. It tells you exactly what to do. My '91 truck, a wheel could fall off of it while I'm driving, and the truck's not gonna tell me anything.

But you know what it does say? If there's something wrong with the engine, a light goes on. A little red light that looks like an engine. That's all it says.

What I have to do is stop and pop the hood and look at it. Actually, there's another step for me. What I have to do is to take it to someone that knows what they're doing to pop the hood and take a look at it. Because you don't know why the lights aren't. We think emotions

are telling us the exact truth and exactly what to do. Feelings are more like just a general check engine light. They are telling you something's going on under the hood. Something's going on in your heart. Something's happening, and it also tells you the way you view life.

Because if you're always super discouraged every time it gets hard or it gets tough, every time you feel a certain way, then you know that you're being led by feelings.

But we have to stop and diagnose them. What does that mean? Well, I think the answer both of these points come out of verse five and eleven. Because if you notice verse five and verse 11 are the same verse, it repeats.

And there's there's there's four lines. There's there's two questions and then two exclamation points. That's the punctuation. You have a question and question, exclamation point, exclamation point.

What we're gonna see is the first thing to diagnose your feelings is that's what he does. He questions them. Instead of just shouting about it, he says, hey, I'm worried. I'm discouraged, he goes, but why? Why am I this way? Most of us don't do that. We have to stop and question it. Find out why.

Find out why do I feel this way? What's driving it? And here's the thing. Use I know why. I'm frustrated because I wish I had more money. Really? That's the surface level answer. But the problem with our feelings is what we see

that we originally feel that we think it's attached to is like an iceberg. We only see what's above the water. The real problem is there's more underneath. And if you just say, well, I'm mad because of this, you're never gonna diagnose. You gotta go, but why do I feel that way? Why does that make me so sad?

Why would it do that and get deeper? Because then you're gonna start unpacking and figuring out what's really going on. You're gonna find it out like, for example, in in in marriage.

I'm I'm in a marriage. I mean, think about it. You can sit there and counseling go, well, you know, we're here. Why? Why just I feel dissatisfied. I feel like this. Why? Well, because he's an idiot. Or she's not nice. Or this and that's probably true.

I'm not saying that the surface level thing isn't happening. You gotta deal with that. But if that's all you deal with, you're never gonna get any health. You gotta dive down deeper. You gotta keep asking questions.

Like this isn't really a marriage series, but feelings and marriage go hand in hand. But I'm gonna tell you right now, this is the golden rule. If you stop with just the surface level feeling and it and and the attached action that you think is the problem,

you go, this is our problem. You know, what you're fighting about, here's the golden rule, is not what the fight's about. It never is. I didn't say you don't have to deal with the thing you're actually fighting about. That might be a real issue.

But if you keep repeating the same things over and over and over again, end up in the same place, I'm telling you what you're fighting about is only a symptom of what the real fight's about. You have to diagnose. You have to go deeper.

You have to question your feelings. Don't obey your feelings. It's critical. Matter of fact, the Bible is saying it really clear here, but but Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast and Slow, studied how people process experiences. He showed that our experiencing self, what we feel in the moment,

will contradict our remembering self, what we know to be true. Example, you may feel like your vacation was ruined by one bad moment, even if most of it was joyful. Emotions distort the big picture. They distort the truth.

And when we think only emotionally, you go, well, I feel that way. And what we're really saying when I feel that way is I believe that's what really happened. That's the truth. But we distort it all the time.

Like you said, a vacation. You could be with your family for a week, and there was it was all good, and then your cousin acted like an idiot the last two hours, and you're like, he ruined it. I know that also works the other way too. We can falsely believe something was great just because of the one little part.

One little part. It's called taking your family to Disneyland.

I'm telling you, if you have kids and you go to Disneyland, you will spend fourteen hours in that park and you only have seventeen minutes that was filled with joy. The rest was filled with lines, heat, whining kids, you know, diaper mistakes, kids getting lost, complaining, overpriced food.

And then and and and of that seventeen minutes, nine of it is you just sneak on to It's a Small World so you can rest.

It's true. We took our kids to New York City back when they were younger. My oldest was just graduated from high school, and we thought it'd be a great experience for them. And they were excited, and then we get there, and and what happened how do you the technical term is my kids were the worst. My oldest daughter.

Before we even got there, because we spent some time with other family in another party, you they didn't cost us any money, And she found out, she goes, hey, can I just fly home and not go to New York City?

Like, what? You're 17. You just graduated. I haven't even turned 18 yet. Why? She goes, well, my friend's having a really cool graduation party and I don't wanna miss it.

You wanna miss New York City with your family to go to a graduation party. How are you gonna get there? We're gonna have to change we had friends that gave us those buddy passes so we flew for free. That's the other reason we're able to afford this. I go, I can't buddy pass change it to get you back.

I go, so we'd have to buy you a ticket. So I'm gonna buy you a one way ticket, and you're gonna spend that money. How are you gonna get home from the airport? You've never even flown. And the only way we can get you back right now is not a direct flight. You'd have to do a stop you're gonna do a layover by yourself? Really?

Yeah. No. You're not. You're just like it's like we said, no. This is the dumbest you think she would realize that. And so she's

sat on her phone. Then my son, we start walking around in New York City, and he's like, why are we walking so much? It's so hot. Milk was a bad choice. You know, he's just acting like that, whining and walking around, and and then

all of them, my youngest, we'd try to get food. I wanted to experience New York. So I'm like, I'm looking for really good experience,

like, let's go to Little Italy and get Italian food. Let's do this. And he's sitting there, and they're like, all of them like, look, there's a McDonald's. Let's just go eat at McDonald's. Like, are you kidding me? Shut up and eat your dirty water dog, you little and

and they were the worst. We wanted to go out at night because it got cooler. Go, let's go back out. We can go see stuff. It's not as crowded. It's nice out. And they're like, and they're all laying on their beds, looking at their phone, and my wife started to get on their case. I go, no. Shh. Shh. Back away slowly.

Let's just go on the town ourselves. That part was awesome. You know why? Our kids weren't with us.

Just a couple years ago, they're all grown, got grandkids now, and we're talking about we should do another big family vacation. And all of them go, you know what we need to do? We should go to New York City.

Man, I had to hold my wife back. I'm usually the aggressive one. She her head about exploded. She's like, what? You've got to be kidding. Why would you wanna do that? You guys hated that trip. You made it miserable. The whole thing was awful. And they're like, no. That was the greatest vacation we ever did.

And it was all because the last day, we had this one last afternoon that what we did, they had a blast. They loved it. We got on the plane to leave. Everyone was in a good mood. That's all they remember. They don't remember the other three and a half days like her mother and I do.

You see that's we do that in our lives all the time. That's the problem. This way you have to diagnose and look closer because your emotions, your feelings will distort the facts, they'll distort reality,

they'll they'll they'll crazy. And if you get to the point like even, you know, one bad thing one good thing usually right at the end is what distorts everything. That's why you're sitting there going you you giving your friend like, why are you back together with that person? They're awful. You know what? On Tuesday,

01/22/2010, they were nice to me for fifteen minutes. I mean, don't actually say that, but the truth is you get lonely, you get separated, and you choose because you're lonely to only remember the good parts. And then you make dumb decisions.

You just remember, especially if it's right at the end. That's why I always try to close with a really good closing story in my sermons because then you don't remember the first forty minutes. You just remember the last five. Like, I'll come back again. And then you're like, why did I come back?

Ask yourself this. When was the last time your feelings told you a story that wasn't the whole truth? And if you don't have one, congratulations. You're led by your feelings because you really believe your feelings were right every time.

See, instead of obeying his emotions, the psalmist shows us you should question them. In other words, do you treat your feelings like a check engine light or the GPS and blindly follow? So you gotta diagnose them. The second thing you gotta do is declare the truth.

That's the second part of verse five and verse 11. He starts with two questions. Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so set? So he's questioning his emotions. But then look what he declares with two exclamations. He exclaims, I will put my hope in God. I will praise him again, my savior and my God.

You see he's now declaring something. He went from questions to exclamation points. And and and and what he's doing is in a declaration, he's actually praising as he's writing this. He was already praising. When you hear declare, we think that that's just something you say or something you know.

No. It's not. It's we're not it's not Michael Scott, I declare bankruptcy. That's not how it works. There's there's other things that are involved in that. You'd be better off when you hear declare a declaration in the Bible. It's more like you should say, do declare. It's something you're actively choosing to do.

You're not just saying it, you're doing it.

When Jesus says, I'm the way, the truth, and life, and he goes, and when you know the truth, the truth will set you free. That word for know there, we in our culture says, okay, I know what the truth is. That's not what that no means. It means you activate it. You act on it. You literally step out in faith and do the truth.

So it should be, do declare this. And that's the key. And what you gotta do is question the feelings and do the truth. Question the feelings and then do the truth. And look at what happened. Do you know what the real problem is? It's seen there right there. We get our punctuation in the wrong place.

Instead of questioning the feelings and exclaiming the truth in our lives, we exclaim with the with the with the exclamation point our issues, our fears, our emotions, our feelings, and then we question the truth. Because we're so caught up in our feelings. I am sad. I am tired.

I can't handle this anymore. I can't go on. I don't have any money. I wish you know, we always are in the same thing. Our relationships, our lack of relationships, our job and our purpose, which are tied, you know, our our our children if we're parents, and money.

That's almost the cause of every struggle we have or in laws or you happen to be following your feelings and you're a Seattle Seahawks fan. That is one other problem that we have.

But the truth is those are the things that always bounce up. Why? Because they're tied to stuff. They're tied to they are those all are tied to our circumstantial feelings.

If our circumstance that we have money, we don't stress about money. If we have a good relation, we're not stressed about it. But but whenever the circumstances are tough, we get tied into those things.

And so what we do is we get really frustrated, and we get discouraged, and we do we we have to the feelings are real. They're just not reliable. That's the problem. So what we end up doing is we get really frustrated,

and we're like, why is this going on? Why am I like that? Instead of questioning, we would say it'd be like this guy saying, you know, why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? And he's he's saying it. And not even saying why. He drops the way. He just says, I'm discouraged. I'm sad.

I'm this. I'm that. That feeling you're feeling that you don't like. And we're yelling it, and then it makes us go, and why would God ask me to do this?

Why would I do that? Why would I come in here and choose to sing when I'm sad? Why would I choose to worship God when I'm worried over things? Why would I serve God when when when I'm been put in a situation that I have no time? Why would I give financially when I feel like I'm kind of broke? Why would God ask me

to not provide for my family but give to Him? But you realize that's not true. Because God says, if you trust me in these things, I'll take care of you. But the feeling takes over, and you lead with the exclamation point and follow with the question. That's what I do.

That makes sense when you say it out loud. Right? Then why do we do it the other way? Why don't we do it where we question the feeling and then declare the truth? What's the big deal? What's the holdup?

I'll tell you what it is. Write this on your refrigerator. Some of you are gonna want it on your tombstone. It's so wise. Here's why we have a problem doing it God's way. It just doesn't feel right. Uh-huh. The reason we don't do it is because it doesn't feel right. It feels frustrating. It feels wrong.

It feels like poor me. I can't believe God would want me to trust him in this when he's allowing this. I can't believe that he'd want me to love my wife like Christ loved the church even though she's trying to crucify me. Kind of ironic.

Because that's exactly when he wants you to love your wife just like he loved us as we crucified him. We turn it around because we're feeling sorry, because we're stuck in feeling world. And we use feelings for the wrong thing. They're to show us there's something going on under the hood and we need to explore that.

So what is your fear? What are you struggling here? I'll give you example as a guy. Because I am one so I can understand guys. I'm not trying to pick on us guys, it's just that I can I understand us a little better? Guys, you know this. We almost process every emotion at some point leads to anger.

Anger is a secondary feeling by the way. It's never primary. You never just get angry to be angry. There's always something else. And with men, it could be anything can make us angry. I'm hungry. I'm angry. You know, I got this. I'm angry. You know, my football team's not winning, I'm angry.

But the reality is if you dig deeper you're gonna find out there's another something attached to it. And what I have seen in my own life, and in my experience working with people and studying this, and counseling and doing all the stuff I've done in my life is I have come to the conclusion that 90% of the time,

a man who gets angry has come from fear. We get the most angry when we're the most scared of something. It's our reaction. We don't wanna admit we're afraid, so we act angry. The best defense is a good offense is what men are like.

And that's so ladies just know that. Half the time if your husband's like, why is he getting so angry? He's probably afraid. My dad used to get mad at my mom when she was really sick. And he would at some point just make an excuse, get mad and leave the house. And I'd watch my mom stay calm.

And I go, mom, you know dad's cool but why why does he do that? He's like, oh, that's just his way of saying he loves me. And I go, what? That sounds abusive. What do mean? He goes, no no no no. He is really scared for me. And he's really really frustrated that he can't fix it for me

because he loves me so much, and he sits in that, and it eats him up, and then all of a sudden I'll say something and he uses like, now he's mad at me because for ten minutes if he's mad at me thinking, she was mean to me. He can like let him off the hook for a few minutes to try to feel okay.

And she goes, he's going to come back in about she goes, forty five minutes he'll be back. He'll go hang out at the bowling alley, talk to Kefuro's friends, feel guilty about it. Think about it, he's gonna go get me my favorite flowers and my favorite ice cream. And like forty five minutes later

she figured that out. The problem is I don't think he ever did. Guys, we need to figure this out. When I say something, here's what God says you need to do to lead your home, and your first response is anger, it's because you're afraid.

And not afraid and like, oh, you're such a wimpy coward. I don't mean it that way. It's the same way I get afraid. What if I can't actually do that? What if I fail? If God wants me to serve, the problem is I'm working all this extra because I need the money.

Because I've actually probably spent too much money on stuff for a good reason. I wanted to give my kids all the things I didn't have. And then after you did that and got in debt you realize, oh, that's why my parents didn't buy that for me. You know, and and and and you you we just it comes from a good place. Guys, that fear and that anger, it comes from a good intention.

I want to do this. I wanna be able to provide. And then we get confused like, well, you're saying to do it, but I'm doing this, and now I don't know how to do that. If I give to God, I don't have enough to provide to give to my kids and to provide for my wife's dreams.

And sometimes we can throw in our own selfish things in there too, but for the most part, you hear something and it's more of, I don't think I can do that. The fear. You're afraid that you can't. And then you get stuck there and then a guy like me starts rattling the cage, and now you get mad.

The reason I know this is happening to you is this is exactly what I do.

So I know that's what's going on. And that's why I'm talking about this because feelings are gonna destroy your faith. You gotta, you know, faith your feelings as Mike Tyson would have said it. Think about it.

You see that's what happens if we don't declare the truth. If we don't put the punctuation in the right place. If all we do is exclaim our feelings, we'll start questioning truth and we'll get stuck.

And we won't get to the other side because here's the thing, when you let feelings lead the way and then they become the not just the guide, the goal, you do know now that your feelings are then 100% controlled by your circumstances.

So there's only one way to be in the right place, and it's to have all your circumstances pleasant. And that's why we question God's truth because God will call us as disciples to go to uncomfortable places. And he wants us there.

But you won't do it, you'll think it's unfair for God. And then if your theology starts thinking feelings first, you're like, God would never ask me to do that. And then we'll do stuff that God says don't do, and we'll say, well, I just prayed about it and the Holy Spirit told me to do that. If if you're blaming

the Holy Spirit on stuff that's not biblical, that was not the Holy Spirit talking to you. The Holy Spirit will never tell you to live with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Never. Not once. Stuff like that. That's feelings. And it's gonna make you miss what God really has for you.

And if you do that, it's usually because you're lonely. You feel like, hey, haven't found anyone good. I like this person. Wanna lose them. A lot times it's financial now. It's like it'd be cheaper if we live together. You're making all these decisions on feelings

rather than the truth of what God says, here's how relationships work.

And then we get struggle with it. We gotta be willing to dig down and and and diagnose and then declare. And the reason I wanted to set this up is because this is an in between. This is just a one off sermon.

And and last sermon series was apologetics. People love it. There's a lot of great information that's a challenge us to believe in Jesus. Awesome. Thousands of people came to Christ. This next series is gonna be the one that mostly people are gonna get a glassy glazed over look on their face, especially as Christians.

If you're a believer because we are talking about the basics. What does it mean to say you're a disciple of Jesus? What did Jesus say? This is what I want my disciples to be about.

And almost every one of you that's been in church for ten minutes is gonna hear everything you've heard me saying over and over again, and the question is how many of you are doing it? And you're gonna wanna half check out because you're like, well I know that's true, but look at my situation.

Look at my problem. Look at this. Look at that. It's the reversing the punctuation again, and I am telling you as your pastor who loves you, this next series is the answer to those situations. It literally is. To know, to grow, and to go is the answer.

It's the answer for your purpose in life. It's the answer for the mission in life. It's the answer to find life. It's where you will find peace and joy and contentment. Those things are feelings that are despite your circumstance.

They're not controlled by them. But if you get stuck in feeling, you're like, but but but but but and declare the feelings with the x one. But this and that, and you don't get it. And how dare you? And how dare God? And how dare this? And how dare that? And then question God.

And it's all because of the feeling orientation that the enemy wants us to have. Think about it. My dad's generation, if he if they all acted like we act today, we don't win World War two, and we don't have freedom. Because his generation didn't get drafted. My dad bent the rules to get in before he was old enough.

That's called do you think he wanted to go in a battle? Do know anything that was the worst experience he ever had in his life?

Feelings said don't do that at all.

And that's the key to being courageous. Don't we all want to be that guy? Man, don't you want to be the hero that steps up? This is how. Don't let feelings control it. And you know what? Jesus showed us that. You know Jesus already showed us that.

We're gonna take communion right at the end after we sing a song here in a sec. And and and and Jesus the night that he did the last supper, the reason we take communion is remembering what he told us to remember. He got his disciples together. He knew he was dying the next day. He'd been telling this a million times. This is one last moment. He's kinda feeling the pressure, feeling the weight of it. And and and you know, he didn't just feel it like because he's gonna go die a horrible death and he's God that's coming to save us. He did it all as a man too. Jesus is God who became a man.

He didn't just put on a Halloween costume.

He felt all these feelings, the desire to feel something, and then wanna declare everything we're describing here, Jesus felt just like you and me. So that night, he may have been God, which is actually made it worse on him being man because he knew exactly what was gonna happen the next day. He knew what it's gonna feel like. He knew what he was doing and what was happening. But as a man, he had experienced it with all the emotions.

It was overwhelming to him, and he wanted to be with his closest friends. It was like his small group. Imagine if you get your small group together, you're like, I wanna break this bread and say, here's what I'm about to do. I'm gonna my body's gonna be broken.

My blood's gonna be spilt all for you, and I'm gonna rescue you. But I want you to do this and remembers me. There's a reason. You need to remember this moment to remember how you deal with feelings.

And imagine if he's in this moment trying to share this, they still don't get it. And imagine if it was your small group and someone in the middle of you saying, think I'm gonna get crucified tomorrow. And and he knew.

And you might be sharing, it's brutal. It's gonna be the worst day I've ever experienced. And one of the people's small group gets up and goes, you know what? I'm gonna go betray you and leaves. Awkward. Then you finish the meal and you go off to pray because you are so distraught.

He takes them to the Garden Of Gethsemane. He goes, I need you to pray with me. The Bible writer that these these guys that were there later wrote, and they described that they knew he was different. He was overwhelmed. He was distraught.

And they still sat there and he goes, just pray with me. And you know what they did? They went to sleep. Could you imagine that in your small group? You say you're gonna get crucified. You need people to pray. One goes, I'm gonna go betray you. The other 11 that stay go immediately fall asleep on the couches.

That's a bad small group. You'd probably wanna go to find my circle and find another small group. He had to deal with that as a man, not just God.

Think of the betrayal. You ever felt like, my friends hoes me. My friends like, are you kidding? You don't think Jesus understands that? Peter, the guy, he's like, he's gonna be the leader of this group, and I know he's gonna betray me. He's gonna turn on me to deny me three times.

But what does he do? They fall asleep and he goes and prays. And you know what? As a man, he's honest. He shares his feelings. Father, if it is your will, if it's possible, may this cup pass from me. You know what he just said as a man? I'd rather not go to the cross tomorrow.

It's not gonna be pleasant. It's not gonna feel good. And you know what? And if he was like you and me that we live feeling right, he would say, and that's why I'm not gonna do it. And why would God ever expect me to go through that?

He says the question, but then he adds the punctuation of the exclamation in his next line declaring the truth. But not my will, thy will be done. Jesus is the way, the truth, and life, not in just the way to have salvation. He's actually showing us the way to live as a man and a woman.

This is what we do in our world. Diagnose your feelings, don't just let them direct you. Be honest with him. He wants to hear. He wants you to open up your heart. He wants you to be honest where you are. It's okay. But He wants you to dig deeper and go, what's driving that?

And then the answer is to declare the truth. Step into the truth despite the feelings. Don't let the fear stop you. Because otherwise, we will drift and miss what God has for us and and just be up and down in a cycle our whole life. I know this because when when I was living at the beach

back in the day, I had a friend that had these Sea Doos. You know what a Sea Doos is? It's like imagine a jet ski on steroids. It's a Harley Davidson for the water.

Big, huge. And and he didn't like being out in the middle of the day. So he'd go in the morning on his seat because he'd call me, hey, meet me at the dock at at at the harbor at noon, and he go, take it out for a couple hours. I'll meet you back here. I didn't have to fill with gas. I just jumped on and went, and it was a blast.

And it was so fun because out on the ocean is so much better than a lake. And you're not worried about drunk drivers and kids on, like, floaties out there. You're just out in the ocean, man. It was fun. You get on this thing. I mean, it's literally like a motorcycle on the water. You're like

and if you turn into where there's waves, you're like

And then what I like to do is I like to explore. So I decided to go out past Dana Point, that back past the point. And when you get out to the point, no more beach. It's just cliff, no houses. So as I'm going out there, I'm all alone. There's no one around. And I'm like just cruising, having fun.

I'm not moving anymore. I'm just kinda drifted. I'm like, this is concerning and starting to get nauseating. And I'm like, oh, no. I'm stuck. There's nobody around. I'm about a quarter mile off of the actual shore, but there's no shore to get to anyways. And I look in the water, and I realize what happened.

There was kelp beds along here. And my intake valve sucked in the kelp and clogged it, so there's no outflow, which is what makes the jet ski go and take off. I'm just floating. And I'm like, ugh. And as I'm floating, I'm noticing I'm getting further away from shore. And I knew the truth.

The truth was I gotta jump in the water and stick my arm up this intake thing and pull out what's blocking it.

But my feelings said, if I do that Jaws is gonna bite me in half. Because I watched that movie as a boy. And and it was a real feeling. I I you see and you're like, well you went down there and said, I had this weird compartmentalization

as a guy. I had no problem being on the water. I just never wanted to be in the water. And now I'm in this moment that the only way I can stop drifting and actually get somewhere and and not die is I need to jump in and clear out the clog. But I really didn't wanna do that.

And I'm telling you, I sat there for twenty minutes floating further away, and I started noticing. And you know what? When you get stuck on feelings,

you start to think the answer is something else that's ridiculous. That's why you question God. Why don't you just do that, God? Why didn't you do this? I go I started thinking, if I just keep drifting, I'm gonna float into one of the shipping lanes,

and then maybe a boat will pick me up. I thought if I wait long enough, every now and then those helicopters that come by that are the for the coast guard, you know, the the the whatever, and they'll see me and I'll wave at them. Or I've read stories that kindly dolphins have saved people's lives.

And maybe two will ride up and I'll grab their dorsal fins and they'll just pull me back to shore. I'd those thoughts actually go through your head. I mean, the dolphin was a little bit ridiculous. The other two actually thought about because I was like, I can't jump in the water. That is how strong feelings can be.

And there's usually a little truth in that. There are sharks in the water. There are things in the water. It is dangerous. It is it is that. That's true. But if you looked at the percentage, the real facts, it's like, come on. This is stupid. I just need to jump in there and do that. Why did I choose to drift?

How many of us are you drifting right now? Because you need to let God help you dive into what he's asked you to do and clear out the intake valve of your heart. But we don't wanna do that. I finally did. But I'm gonna tell you, don't think any human being has ever done it faster than I did.

I don't even think I got wet I did it so fast. But here I am, Still in two pieces or one piece. Didn't wanna be in two pieces.

Think about it. If if if a feeling can get to that level on something like that, be honest about where you're drifting because you just can't dive in where God wants you to dive in. And it might be a couple things. Can I just make a suggestion? Do the scariest hardest one first. Because you know why?

If you got a list, what happens if you do the hardest one first? The rest is easy. The rest is easy. So what do you need to do? We're gonna sing a song and then just finish with communion. But the song we're gonna sing right now, it is it is a song that our team wrote that's out of Psalm 42.

And maybe if you just need to the thing you need to do right now is just truly choose to worship in this moment, great. But if you have something else that you're just feeling a feeling and you haven't done this these steps, you haven't diagnosed it, feel free to just sit and reflect and do the work. Start diagnosing

what it is that why do you feel this way? Why do you question God's truth and keep running from it? Why are you drifting? Dive in and decide what you're gonna declare. And then I'm gonna come out and we're just gonna finish with communion. Because what communion is really about is I can take those feelings

and the ones that are holding me back, and I can set them at the cross and then take Jesus' hand. That's what we're gonna do.

Amen.

You see, at the last supper, when Jesus broke that bread and said, this is my body broken for you, Took the cup and said, this is my blood spilt for you for forgiveness. He wasn't just talking about a ticket to heaven. He was talking about life eternal, but life the way it's supposed to be as well.

He felt all the feels like you and me, and we can take hope in that that when he challenges us to to diagnose and then declare, is because that's what he did. He shows us the way.

And that's why we can always have these moments where we take the stuff out because we don't get it right. We we blow it all the time. At least I do. But this moment is just a simple moment to take it back, lay those feelings even. Lay the sin. But sometimes if it's a feeling you're stuck on, don't idolize it.

Don't ignore it.

Lay it at the foot of the cross and take Jesus' hand for real life. And it's for that and so much more is why He broke that bread and said, Take and eat.

That's why He then took the cup and said, Drink.

Lord, my prayer is simple. For me, for everyone in this room, anyone watching.

Help us to really use and see feelings for what they are. Help us to use them to direct and dig in and diagnose what's really going on in our hearts. But then declare the truth of who you are and what you've called into our lives to be true and help us to step into that, to dive into that with you. Thank

you that you did that for us, that you dove into our mess, You dove into the fields. You dove into this world to unclog our intake valves and get us moving into life again. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Hey. As you get ready to go, if you need to pray with someone, we have our prayer room over here.

But other than that, just know this, that you have a great day and that I love you, God loves you more, and go Cardinals. Thank you for joining us online for service today. Be sure to follow us on our social media to stay connected.