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TEXT: Ecclesiastes 3:4
SUBJECT: Priesthood of the Believer, #3
We come this evening to the third in our series on "the priesthood of the believer". A "priest", you should recall, is occupied in giving. He serves the LORD by continually offering up sacrifices to Him. Under the Old Covenant, of course, these gifts were ceremonial: things like sheep and goats, turtledoves, and the like. But under the New Covenant, the priest is to offer something far more valuable than such things. He is to give himself entirely up to God. Last time, we saw that the first gift you should offer to God is your mind. Tonight, the second: your emotions.
If God has given you emotions, you are obliged to offer them back to Him. And that He has given them to you, that they are not a result of the Fall, is evident from the fact that our Lord Jesus was emotional. He was capable of anger and fear, sorrow and joy, hope and disappointment. He could thunder with indignation and sparkle with humor. According to the Ancient Creeds (and the Bible they represent), Jesus is as fully human as He is Divine. And part of His humanity consists of sacred emotions. The shortest verse in the Bible amply demonstrates this: "Jesus wept".
Your emotions, therefore, must be offered up to God as a sweet smelling savor. To belabor this point would seem unnecessary. Everything you have comes from God, including your emotions. But why has He given you anything? According to the "parable of the talents", in order to "receive His own with interest". Your emotions, therefore, must be enlarged, sanctified and given back to God.
But how is this accomplished? How can your emotions be laid on the altar of Divine service?
First. Your emotions must be brought under rational control. "...he who rules his spirit is better than he who takes a city". Emotions, therefore, must not rule you. You must rule them. They must be set on the right objects, expressed in the right way, and loosed at the right time. And that will require considerable self-control on your part. To burst into tears, lose your temper, or work yourself into a state of ecstasy without due forethought is an emotional sacrifice unacceptable to the God "who is not the author of confusion". Emotion has its place in religion to be sure, but it is always subordinate to the mind. If, therefore, your emotions are to be pleasing to God, you must "get a hold of yourself".
The outrageous antics of Pentecostalism, therefore, are under the Divine censure. No man was ever more "full of the Spirit" than our Lord Jesus, yet we never--not once--find Him out of control. When a man is converted, he is found, like the Gadarene demoniac, "sitting at the feet of Jesus and in his right mind".
Second. You should develop and consecrate every emotion to God. Here most Christians are a bit unbalanced. For example: One man is given to the tenderest sympathy. Another can express the holiest indignation. But few can be found capable of both. Most of us gravitate to our natural tendency, and don't give much thought or effort to the other side. But this is wrong. For our Jesus Christ is our moral example. And He could feel both. "Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites!" and "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more" were spoken by the same Man.
Here, a practical word is in order: work on the emotions with which you are the least comfortable. If you are the "easy-going" type, then work on moral indignation (Psalm 139:21). If, on the other hand, you're the "no-nonsense" sort, strict, uncompromising, and the like, then you need to work on the more tender affections. Go learn what Colossians 3:12 means: "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humility of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another..."
...If you are the "happy-go-lucky" type, then reflect on I Peter 4:7, "But the end of all things is at hand; be sober, therefore, and watch unto prayer". But, if you are the "melancholy" sort, then meditate on Psalm 130:7, "Let Israel now hope in the LORD, for with the LORD there is mercy and with the LORD there is plenteous redemption, and He shall redeem Israel from all its iniquity".
The reason that you should concentrate on those uncomfortable emotions is obvious. They are underdeveloped. But as a New Covenant Priest, you are to offer God your emotions...with interest. And, therefore, the punier feelings require special and prolonged attention.
Third. If you are to offer your emotions to God, you must set them on the appropriate objects. When Man fell into sin, his emotions were not lost. They were misdirected. And part of his redemption, is "getting them straightened out". You need to learn, therefore:
1.What to love. God (Matthew 22:37); His Word (Psalm 119:97); His House (Psalm 26:8); His people (I Peter 2:17).
2.What to hate.
a.Heresy. "Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore, I hate every false way". Spurgeon remarked that Dr. Gill was painted with his nose turned up "as though he could not bear the stench of Arminianism". Nowadays, there is a false charity extended to almost anything religious. We are to be charitable to all men. But not to the errors and heresies that lead men to perdition. To "be open to" heresy is worse than being "open" to cancer, to small pox, or to AIDS.
b.Sin in general. "Ye that love the LORD, hate evil".
c.Even "small" sins. "O how I hate vain thoughts; but your law do I love".
3.What to fear and what not to fear. Matthew 10:28.
4.What to weep over. Matthew 23:37, Romans 9:1-2.
5.What to rejoice in. "Thus says the LORD: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him who glories, glory in this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who esercises lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, says the LORD".
You are sanctifying your emotions to God, therefore, whenever you are setting them on the proper objects. Here, follow the example of Christ, and you will do very well, indeed.
Fourth. If you would offer your emotions to God, then you must moderate them. The best emotion can become excessive. When it is given undue vent, it becomes downright sinful.
a.Jesus felt grief at the death of a loved one. It is therefore, appropriate to mourn. But when this mourning becomes excessive, it becomes displeasing to the LORD. "We weep, but not as those who have no hope".
b.It is also appropriate to laugh. "When the LORD turned the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing..." But when hilarity becomes inconsistent with sobriety, then it is sinful.
c.But this brings to mind an obvious question, i.e., "What is excessive?" One man's moderation is another man's excess. The answer, though is fairly easy. "Whenever any emotion keeps you from your present duty, it is excessive".
1.If you are too heartbroken to go to church, then you are too heartbroken.
2.If you are too tickled to "give thanks", then you are too tickled.
Fifth. You are offering your emotions to God whenever they are expressed at the appropriate time. Our text is plain. "There is a time to laugh and a time to weep. A time to mourn and a time to dance".
Having heard these five rules, therefore, you ought to realize that there is no value in religious emotions, per se'. The highest joy and the bitterest tears mean nothing unless they are agreeable to God's word. And to be agreeable, they must be: self-controlled, balanced, set on the right objects, moderate, and timely. These make up the "sacrifices acceptable to God".
Therefore, I urge you offer up sanctified emotions to God. Don't be content with a merely intellectual religion. An unfelt faith is not worth having. "Taste and see that the LORD is good".
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