It's good to see everyone here. This morning got a good crowd
and good to see people that have not been able to be with us for
some time and our visitors as well.
We're glad that you're here and I hope and pray that be able to
say something this morning that will benefit us in some way.
You know, the world we live in today is different than it's
ever been. It just seems like to me that a
lot of what goes on in the world today is based on emotion.
How people react to certain things in the things that they
do is not based on really truth or what is true, but how people
feel about things? The word emotion is, the
definition of emotion is a mental state that arises
spontaneously rather than through conscious effort.
And is often accompanied by physiological changes or a
feeling the emotions of Joy sorrow, reverence hate and love.
We all understand that that we have emotions.
God designed us, that way to have emotions.
These emotions, we just mentioned all of Sir, probably
experienced all of these different types of motions and
maybe others. The emotionalism though Merriam
Webster says is a tendency to regard things emotionally.
Undo Indulgence in or display of emotion, or unwarranted
expression or display of emotion people, that react emotionally,
to whatever it is in life. Emotionalism is when a person
has an inclination to rely on or place too much value on emotion
when dealing with issues or confrontations as opposed to
resorting to reason, When dealing with reality.
You ever been around someone, that just responded.
Overreacted and things of that out of how they felt about
things emotionalism in the church is a reaction that's
based on a human sentiment or feeling it's void of true
worship. And doesn't have any real
substance when we dig a little deeper into emotionalism, the
measure, for what is true or is real becomes how I feel about
it? And a lot of the religious world
today. This is the way that they base,
their religion is not on truth, but it's based on feelings, it's
based on how they feel about it and how they feel that it would
benefit them or benefit a church, or a congregation, or
some religious entity. And so, they base their worship.
They base their belief on feelings, and sometimes feelings
alone and leave scriptures. Out of it.
So if I feel excited about a thing, this thing or that thing,
then that thing becomes good to me, if I am not excited about
it. Then, that thing is not
important to me, and so, this is the way that the world sometimes
does make their decisions when it comes to religion, is they
even make up their own Doctrine and their whole judgment is
based upon how this makes me feel, or how does Scripture make
me feel when I read it. And I, I don't like it.
And then judge its value to our life and our Christian walk
based on feeling. If we feel good about it, then
we must it must be good. If we feel bad about it it must
be bad. Is the way that a lot of people
base their thought process on this.
Now, that doesn't mean that because scripture can make us
emotional. But it's wrong.
That's not what we're saying. Absolutely not.
When we read scripture, it should make us emotional.
It should prick our hearts. It may make us sad or do the
point of even bringing tears to our eyes and might cause us to
even obey, God the emotion of obedience, and, and sorrow, and
fear, and trust, and faith. And all these things that bring
about all the thought process within our minds that cause us
to to, to react upon the Ins that God has given us.
So emotions are very important part of our life, but emotions
must not rule over our intellect or our thought process and what
is true, and what is good and proper and make good and proper
choices based upon scriptural guidance, many talk about the
lack of emotion in our worship. Sometimes we've seen this or
maybe experienced it, we see other people may be enjoying
what they would consider a worship, and where there's a lot
of excitement and a lot of Pomp and Circumstance and a lot of
everything, just everything just stirred up and they think well,
why can't we have that? I can't wait.
Well, there's nothing wrong with emotion in worship.
Nothing. But when it becomes
emotionalism, that's when we have to be careful.
Can we have emotion without giving in to emotionalism?
I believe we must Emotions have a scriptural role in the life of
the Christian, but when emotions become emotionalism, we have to
be careful. How can we have emotion without
emotionalism? Well, we want to realize that
there are two extremes. emotionalism that better felt
than told sort of religion or people depend more on what they
feel in their art, rather than what the Bible has to say about
something where worship is characterized by unrestrained
outbreaks we seen pictures, we may be seen the video or
something like that, where there have been those that get done,
jump up and run around the room and fall down in the aisles and
roll over and this and that and and all those different kinds of
things. That's emotionalism.
And we have to be careful about that.
This emotionalism goes against scriptural admonition for
worship to be done. Decently and orderly as 1st
Corinthians. 14 and verse 40 and there's a warning.
Also for us to not trust in our own heart, Proverbs 28 and verse
26. You see when we trust in our own
heart. How we feel about things.
We get it wrong. How many times have we thought
that we were absolutely correct in something.
There was no Shadow of Doubt. In our mind, we had no concern
about where we were going or what we are doing and then found
out later that we were wrong. See, when we trust in our
feelings, sometimes we get it wrong, when we trust in the
truth, we can always know that we get it right. so, These folks
that rely and base their life on emotions and feelings are the
ones that continue to make poor choices in life.
Remember times when you've done something or said something, or
you've bought something and you did that out of emotion, instead
of stopping and thinking it out and then reacting to it.
But we jump in with all feet. And then realize that we made a
mistake. Sometimes we don't make the good
decisions, do we buy things that we shouldn't buy?
And then we get ourselves in trouble or we say something, we
shouldn't have said, because we're angry at the time when we
should have stopped and tasted our words before we spoke But we
also have to be careful about formalism is well, religious
formalism is an emphasis on the ritual.
The thing, the way we do things and in other words truth and the
emphasis is only on the truth and then and maybe even
traditional and staying with only the way that we've done
things all this time. and then they'll all the spirit is gone
out of it but we make sure we get it all right, according to
truth but we forget about the spirit We forget about putting
our heart and our soul into our service into our worship.
I wonder if we were to hand out papers this morning.
How many of us could write down the names of the songs?
We sang this morning and what they meant.
The Brethren selected, those songs based upon worshiping and
remembering our Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ.
How much were we into those songs?
We got we sang them, right? We hit all the right notes.
We got him on the right key. We said all the words correctly,
we got all the rest's, right? We got all the dotted quarter
notes, right? And everything like that
formalism, but did we have enhanced spirit in it?
Was there any spirit and reading those words to the point that it
caused us to be emotional about our service to God.
So the result of that is sometimes, you said dead
worship, almost no spirit in it. Where there's a lack of
heartfelt religion. And I believe this is contrary
to what Jesus taught us. Jesus condemned to religion in
which a person's heart, is far removed from God.
Matthew 15 verse 7, through 8 Hypocrites.
Well did Isaiah prophesy about you saying these people draw
near to me with their mouth. And honor me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me. Did we get it?
All right, and therefore it's good and acceptable to God is
that all that matters that we got it.
All right and left all the spirit out of it.
Jesus also said, Matthew, 22. And verse 37. 38.
You shall love the Lord. Your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
Did we give our all this morning?
I hope we did. I hope we were worried emotional
in our service so far this morning.
There's a tendency for us to go from one extreme to the other.
If it's if we get too close to, to being emotional than we
sometimes want to back away from that because we don't want to be
classified as he emotionalism and I understand that we all
understand that. But I think God wants us to be
emotional and spirit as well as truth.
Emotion has a proper place. Emotion is necessary in the
Christian Life. There is the emotion of Love
1st, Peter 4, and verse 8. And above all things have
fervent love for one another for love will cover a multitude of
sins. Love is an emotion.
Love is also a behavior, but the emotion, in our heart causes us
to obey causes us to do things based on what the scriptures
teach us. And how we treat each other as
well. There's the emotion of Hope,
Romans 12 and verse 12 rejoice in Hope.
Rejoice Joy is And hope is an emotion patient in Tribulation
continuing. Steadfastly in prayer, there's
emotion, enjoy Philippians 4, verse, 4, rejoice in the lord
always, again, I say rejoice, When we come here to, praise God
and honor him and worship him and adore him and sing praises
to Him. We ought to have joy in our
hearts Be Joyful. We don't come in here.
Use act like we're just going to get this over with and a
sit-down. Can we get through the songs?
Can we get through the prayer? Can we get through the lesson?
Can we get through all this? So I can get on with my life?
Is that the way we're living our Christian Life and there's no
joy whatsoever in our worship to our god.
Something's wrong. If that's the case.
There's something wrong. If we are not joyed to be here
this morning, Rejoice. in the lord, always, there's the
emotion of Sorrow, second Corinthians, 7, verse 10, for
Godly sorrow, produces repentance, leading to
Salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world,
produces death, Emotional sorrow causes us to do certain things.
There's nothing wrong with sorrow.
It's nothing wrong with being sad.
There's also the emotion of hate Proverbs 8 and verse 13.
The fear of the Lord is to hate evil pride and arrogance.
And the evil way and the perverse mouth.
I hate Do we hate evil and joyful?
Joy and rejoice, and things that are good and pleasant and godly.
There's the emotion of fear, Matthew, 10 and verse 28 and do
not fear Those Who Kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.
But rather fear Him, who is able to destroy both soul and Body in
hell. So there's a place for emotion
in the life of the Christian emotion.
Must be a product of the word of God.
Scripturally motion must be rooted in the truth.
And faith, faith causes us. Faith comes by hearing and
hearing the word of God. God.
So we will read our Bible. It takes intellect to read it
and understand what the word is, and it can cause us to be
emotional. Absolutely, When read about
God's love, we should be moved to love others in the same way.
Notice first, John four and verses 9 through 11.
And this the love of God was manifested toward us, that that
God has sent his only begotten son into the world, that we
might live through him in. This is love not that, we loved
God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the
propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God.
So, loved us, we also Also ought to love one another.
So our love Is a product of the word of God because we're
commanded to love one another and treat.
Each other treat each other with respect and love.
Brotherly love. And Care concern, all of those
things. When we read the promises
waiting for us, it should cause us to be hopeful for those
promises 1st. Peter 10, verses 3 and 4 and
verse 13, blessed. Be the Son of God and father of
our Lord. Jesus Christ who according to
His, abundant Mercy, has begotten us again to a Living
Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
From the dead to an inheritance Incorruptible and undefiled and
that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
What did I do? I went too far.
Sorry, therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober and
rest. Your hope fully upon the grace
that is to be brought to you in the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Our reading the scriptures should give us hope that emotion
that gets us looking towards something that is so much better
than what we have in this world. Well I'll tell you the longer
its life goes on, alright, hope for have it.
I hope you do, too. This world is going in the
direction. We've never seen it before in
our lifetimes. We've warned about it.
We didn't know if we would ever experience it.
I'm concerned about what our grandkids are going to be
putting up with in 10 15 years from now.
What kind of world will be here if the Lord doesn't come again,
but we have a hope. That set for us, we have a hope
that's beyond what this world is giving us right now.
I'm joyful about that. If you don't have a hope,
something's wrong. If you don't have that emotion
of Hope and Faith In Your Heart, something's wrong in your life.
If we're always complaining about the world, we live in and
we can't find anything good about it which God didn't
promise US. That But he promised us a world.
That has everything good about it.
Put our hope and our faith and our trust in God.
To look to that. Heavenly hope and forget about
the stuff here. It's only temporary.
It doesn't last. And we shouldn't care.
Because we have a hope in heaven.
And we should be able to rejoice in that Romans 5 and verses 10
through 11 for if when the end there were, we were enemies.
We were reconciled to God through the death of his son,
much more having been reconciled.
We shall be saved by his life and not only that, but we also
rejoice in God through our Lord, Jesus Christ through whom we
have now received the reconciliation rejoice, in that
When we rebuke by the word of God, that produces also sorrow
Paul speaking to the Corinthian Brethren and second Corinthians
7 verse 8 for even if I made you sorry with my letter I do not
regret it though. I did regret it for.
I perceive that the same epistle made you sorry they'll only for
a while. You know, we're sorry, sometimes
about the choices that we make in life.
Fix it. We're not perfect.
But God's been God has made a plan for us to be able to fix
it. If you got problems your life,
fix it. And bring that Joy back to your
life and that hope back to your life and quit being sorrowful
all the time. Reading the scriptures also were
moved to fear. Proverbs 1, verse 7, the fear of
the Lord is the beginning of knowledge but fools despise
wisdom and instruction. You know, other preachers and
teachers have stood here in this pulpit and preach their heart
out to the audience. And I've sometimes, as well as
you bring brought, maybe even to tears emotionally by what is
being taught? We've seen preachers and I know
I sometimes get emotional myself.
That will sometimes get very emotional in the pulpit.
I've heard people criticized for that happening.
It's nothing wrong with it. We're human beings.
We have emotions. God gave us emotions.
We need to be emotional. We need to be emotional about
our service. We need to be emotional about
our worship. We need to be emotional better,
Christian Life. But that doesn't, that isn't the
main point? That we base all of our
Christian Living On Emotion. Then that becomes emotionalism.
And that's wrong. We've seen this happen.
With people. A word is said something said in
the sermon and they're gone. They're gone, they're not coming
back. Living their life based on
emotion, not the truth. Somebody got their feelings hurt
or whatever and they leave and don't come back to the church
Basin or life. I'll be motion.
They know the services that the word of God is true.
Sometimes good judgment isn't using used by, and I've done it
as well. Not use good judgment in the
way. I've said things in the Pulpit,
sometimes not intending to hurt people, but sometimes things are
said, and it might hurt our feelings.
That's not the reason to give up living the Christian Life, If it
is your living your life based on feelings and not truth.
So how does one avoid emotionalism?
One way is to remember that emotion becomes emotionalism
when it becomes the main goal and we see this happening, we
see it on the television. We see it in these big, mega
churches and things of that nature that the goal is emotion.
To stir the audience up. We see emotion, we've seen
emotion within the last year, or two, or however, many times it
is, we see this herd mentality, we see this, this mob mentality
people would not do certain things, but they get so
emotionally involved and get so stirred up that they will storm
the capital. They get so involved in this,
Mob mentality, that they'll burn buildings down and root Riot and
loot. For normally, maybe they
wouldn't. That's emotionalism.
It's not based on truth. It's not bracelet watch, right?
So, we have to be careful that emotionalism or motion is not
the main goal of our service to God.
When people stress, emotion for emotion sake, when people forget
that, God gave us emotions for a purpose to motivate us to
produce the proper fruit. The goal is not the emotions but
the fruit that is intended to be produced hearing believing
repenting confessing and being baptized into Christ.
Also motion emotional emotion becomes emotionalism when it
becomes is not. It's not based on God's word
when one is led by, how they feel about it, or not?
What is truth? Remember the warning Proverbs
28:26 about trusting in our own heart, it becomes emotionalism
when emotion is the basis of your faith.
When we follow feelings to dictate what we believe?
Such as when a person refuses to obey, when we read scripture.
Because it feels we feel different about it than what the
scripture says. Or when one tries to change the
meaning of a scripture because it's not they don't feel good
about it. It's a little too close to home.
Doesn't make me feel good and, you know, we're living in a
world of feel good all the time. Because we have to feel good
about everything in life. And so when we read the word of
God and it doesn't make us feel good.
Then there's something there must be something wrong with the
word of God. You see?
So that's the basis of your faith.
There's a problem. So, in our conclusion, the
ability to feel and express emotions as a wonderful gift of
God. That's given to us.
Absolutely. It allows us to respond to the
truth. Found in God's word.
And hopefully, when we read God's word, it causes us to
react to that word. And motivates us to grow in
Christ and motivates us to grow in our service.
It motivates us to grow in our worship.
It motivates us to do all kinds of things to add to our faith.
But we need to avoid both extremes formalism as well as
emotionalism, the lesson is yours.
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