Proverbs: Emotions

Good morning. How we doing? It's great to be with you this morning. If you are visiting

and you're not aware, just like SeaWorld has splash zones, we have fan zones. If you are

finding the heat distracting, you can move to one of the areas on the side where you

will feel a little more fan if that will help you stay awake during our time in the Word

together. I want to encourage you that. And there's always water in the back as well in

the water fountain. So just wanted to point that out to you. Thank you for your prayers

for our families. We were away for the last four weeks. We had a good and restful time

together and are glad to be back with you. My kids come back tomorrow. They've spent the

week with Nan and Pappy going to Dutch Wonderland. So it's been a good week. So it's good to be

back with you this morning. I'm going to go ahead and pray for us as we look into God's

Word. Lord, we thank you this morning for your Word and how rich it is. Lord, how it is useful

for teaching and training, for instruction, for guidance, for correction. Lord, how it is

like a sharp sword that pierces to the depths of our being. Lord, I pray this morning that

your Word would speak to us. Lord, I pray for your Spirit's power that I might speak your

words. Lord, that what I speak would be useful to all of us, that we might know your ways more

and know your Son, Jesus, and His salvation more in the midst of that. Lord, be with us, we pray,

in Jesus' name. Amen. Jesus was the most complete and healthy emotional human being who has ever lived.

What do you think of that statement? You think it's true?

Fascinatingly, almost 100 years ago, theologian B.B. Warfield wrote an essay published in 1912

called The Emotional Life of Our Lord, where he felt the need to explain and defend what the

Scriptures actually said about Jesus' emotional life. And as he lays out this argument, he actually

began by saying, this is the problem that we've seen all the way back from the early church to today.

in understanding what an emotional life looks like in God's creative world, and specifically in the

person of Jesus. So he said, on one hand, there was a school in the early church that believed that

moral perfection was found in the Greek word that we might translate apathy, the lack of feeling,

suppressing or denying or rejecting our feelings as being less than divine.

And the other one, as Warfield says it, is that so that Jesus could identify with us and redeem us,

there was a school in the church that would want to attribute to Jesus every human pathos,

every deep feeling of our heart. He goes on and says both tendencies are still operative.

In our thoughts about Jesus, there's a tendency to, in the interest of magnifying the dignity of Jesus

to minimize his emotional life, and in the interest of fully embracing his humanity,

to magnify his emotional life. And he goes on to say this,

The one tendency may run some risk of giving us a somewhat cold and remote Jesus,

whom we can scarcely believe to be able to sympathize with us in all our infirmities.

The other may possibly be in danger of offering us a Jesus so crassly human

as scarcely to command our highest reverence.

It's a fascinating article. I recommend you read it. You can find it on the internet.

B.B. Warfield, The Emotional Life of Our Lord. But it provoked me this week,

as we're thinking this week, about human emotions and what the Proverbs have to do with human emotions.

And in reflecting on this, I thought, not only has the church wrestled with this,

but maybe you, like me, have wrestled with it as well.

I don't always know what to do with my emotions and the place that they're supposed to take in my life.

There are times when I want desperately to stuff my emotions.

I remember distinctly somewhere in junior high, well, not distinctly because it was vague,

but somewhere in junior high or high school, realizing that when I wanted things

and I didn't get them, I was disappointed and that made me sad.

And I decided the best way to deal with that is to no longer want anything

because then I won't ever be dismayed at that loss.

I have found that to be a pattern that I continue to struggle with even in my life today.

Some of us just really desperately want to dismiss our emotions

because we find them highly inconvenient.

It's very inefficient to have to feel things and to process them and to deal with them.

And we just wish we didn't have to do that.

There are others of us who think feelings are insignificant.

The world is based on reality and reality is based on fact and feelings just get in the way.

And the funny thing is there's actually a Christian version of this as well.

The Christian version of it is in the church, the truth is paramount.

Okay?

That sounds right and good.

And God calls us to respond to Him in belief and faith.

That is, taking hold of that truth and believing that it's right and letting that define our reality.

Okay, this sounds good.

But then there can be this entailment of that which says feelings don't matter.

Feelings are unimportant.

As a matter of fact, feelings are an impediment to godliness and to actually growing in Christian maturity.

Maybe some of you have experienced that.

Maybe some of you still think that today.

Okay.

So that's one end, one side of the road that we fall off.

The other side of the road that we fall off is that, and maybe this is more common in our culture today,

but we think that emotions are everything.

We glorify them.

We absolutize them.

We love authenticity.

He's so authentic.

He just says whatever he feels.

I connect with him so deeply.

It's so great that I can do that.

And you know what?

There's something really good about that.

There's something good in that authenticity.

There's something right about people being human and being able to express their emotions.

But often it falls into this logic of if I feel it, then it must be true and real,

and then it defines my life.

And interestingly, again, there's a Christian version of this.

I know Jesus died on the cross for my sins, but I don't feel it today.

And so I don't think it's real.

I don't think it's true.

And I want to acknowledge there's a crisis there.

Some of you may be wrestling with deep waters in terms of what happens when our feelings and the truth that we see in God's Word don't match up.

But this tendency is to make ultimately our emotional state primary and determinative and controlling in our Christian lives.

And there are whole parts of the church that say, well, you don't love Jesus if you're not feeling it today.

And I think it overemphasizes the role of emotions in our lives.

And I say that partly because I think, as we'll see in the book of Proverbs, emotions are a part of how God has created human beings.

It is, in fact, a part of what it means to be made in God's image.

And as we've talked about before, the book of Proverbs is a book about wisdom.

Wisdom being how ought we as human beings live along the grain or with the grain of God's created order.

How are we to live in line with how God has made us to be?

And interestingly, Proverbs has some very profound things to say about our emotional life.

And that's what we're going to look at this morning.

As we are continuing in this series, you may remember we're sort of in the topical part.

We're doing the second half of Proverbs.

And so there's no passage for you to turn to this morning.

You can turn to Proverbs 13.12 if you want to because that will be a good starting point for us.

But I want to affirm three things that Proverbs says about our emotional life.

And then at the end of those three things, I want to help us think about how do we move towards it in Christ.

The first thing that Proverbs tells us is that it affirms the emotional realities of human life.

It says these things are real.

So Proverbs 13.12, hope deferred makes a heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

Proverbs 12.25, anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.

Proverbs 15.13, a glad heart makes a cheerful face, but by sorrow the heart of a spirit is crushed.

Proverbs 17.22, a joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

And Proverbs 14.30, a tranquil, or if you look at the footnote, a healthy, a healthy heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot.

This is a collection of Proverbs from this second half that is affirming the dynamics that human beings feel emotions.

We feel hope and desire.

We are weighed down or we are glad.

We are cheerful or we are crushed.

We are, again, joyful or crushed.

It uses these words over and over again.

And do you see how it doesn't just affirm that they happen, but that they affect us in the depth of our being?

He uses interchangeably our heart and our bones and our soul and our spirit as not technically as sometimes it's described in other parts of Scripture to try to divvy up exactly how human beings are made and that sort of thing.

But I think in the Proverbs, it's all talking about the inner life of our human existence that we all acknowledge and say, yes, that is real.

And what it says is not only do these emotions exist, but they affect us.

They make a difference at the very core of our being.

And this is why hope deferred, hope that you long for but you're not yet getting, can make your heart sick.

Do you know that longing?

Longing for a loved one to return from a trip?

Longing to hear the good news after the surgery?

Longing to get that promotion, that job that you've applied for?

The hopes deferred make our hearts sick.

We worry.

We're anxious.

We're weighed down.

We're unsettled.

But when a desire is fulfilled, it's a tree of life to our soul.

When things that we hope for actually become real, it puts a bounce in our step and a sparkle in our eye and a gladness as we interact with others, doesn't it?

This is what Proverbs is affirming.

And it's affirming that when we feel positive emotions, it generally does good to us.

When we feel negative emotions, it weighs upon us.

They're hard for us.

These Proverbs are all descriptive.

They're all in the category of the Proverbs that say, this is kind of how people generally work.

They're not promises, nor are they prescriptions.

But they're descriptive, saying this is how we usually work.

And at the end of it, it's saying, emotions are important.

God sees that emotions are an important part of the human life.

And the way of wisdom is thinking through what is it to walk in a way of wisdom in our emotional life.

As a thought exercise, let me post to you, what happens if we want to follow this side of the path, falling off the path, and we say, let's deny our emotions.

Have you ever been in a conflict with someone, and you said, I think you're mad.

And they say, I'm not mad.

You say, no, I think you are.

No, I'm not.

Don't tell me I'm mad.

Has that ever happened to you?

Have you ever done that to someone else?

And what happens?

Your inability to acknowledge it means that that anger gets expressed on the edges.

You can't actually sit on it and not have anger.

But rather than having it come out in a healthy way, in an intentional way, in a constructive way, that anger is expressed.

It leaks out the edges of our lives, doesn't it?

Passive aggressiveness.

Passive aggressiveness.

Criticism.

Withdrawal.

All sorts of ways that we get angry.

When we deny it, it does great harm to us.

Sometimes denial of emotions can crush the spirits of others.

Well, you shouldn't be depressed.

Why are you depressed?

Don't be sad.

Cheer up.

Buck up.

It's not that bad.

Come on.

When you're in the middle of grief.

When you're walking through loss.

Those words aren't helpful.

In fact, they can often be crushing.

They deny the reality of your heart.

Bearing the weight of the loss and the grief that you're walking through.

Can be very destructive in that way too.

Thirdly, denial of our emotional life will distance us from God.

Because we serve a God who has a rich, sinless, emotional life.

He is angry with our sin.

He is jealous for our singular devotion.

He rejoices at the return of a prodigal child.

He sings over his beloved children.

He is merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness.

And if we think that we, as beings created in the image of God,

can have a relationship with the creator God and deny emotions,

we will be very poor people indeed.

And our relationship with God will be very poor because of it.

So Proverbs, first of all, simply affirms the reality and importance of our emotional life.

But it does more than that.

Proverbs affirms our emotional complexity.

Let me give you some of the, these are some of the ones that you wade into

that are striking as you read through Proverbs.

Proverbs, first of all, just Proverbs 25, chapter 20, verse 5 says,

The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.

Proverbs 20, 27, the spirit or the breath of a man is the lamp of the Lord,

searching all his innermost parts.

Proverbs 27, 19, as water, as in water, face reflects face, so the heart of a man reflects the man.

These are pretty opaque Proverbs.

But I believe that what he's getting at in the core of them is to say,

human beings are deep.

We're deep people.

There's a lot going on in our emotional life is a critical part of it.

This life of our heart, the life of our soul is important and significant.

A part of us actually being created in the image of God.

Not only is our emotional life deep, but it's very personal.

Proverbs 14, 10 says,

The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy.

Isn't that interesting?

Have you ever had someone come up to you and say,

I know how you feel?

This proverb says, no, no you don't.

And it's not just in sad things or hard things.

It's in good things too.

Both joy and bitterness.

Each human heart experiences emotions in a unique way,

according to this proverb.

And it points to the complexity of the emotional life that God has given us.

Now the good news is that we do have a Lord who knows all things.

And we have a Lord who has this infinite emotional capacity.

And so he is able to know what we feel,

even when no one else does.

And so I have often found it better to say,

I don't know all that you're feeling,

but I care about you.

That's usually enough.

Sometimes there's shared loss,

and there's a deep understanding.

But you know, that takes us back to the first ones,

about how deep our emotional life is.

You often don't have to say it,

because there's just an understanding.

It's fascinating to me that the scriptures tell us

to mourn with those who mourn,

and rejoice with those who rejoice.

What a wonderful thing it is.

Maybe you've had people who come.

Without words, they well up with tears

as they look at you in your pain,

in your loss and sorrow.

Or on the other side,

something good happens,

and your friend breaks out with the widest grin you've ever seen,

and gives whoops of joy.

Because of the good thing that's happened to you.

It is a wonderful thing

that we have this depth of ability to connect,

and yet we always need to be dangerous.

We have to be aware of the danger

that we don't always understand,

and we don't always know

the complexity of what someone else is feeling.

And so we have Proverbs 25, 20.

Whoever sings songs to a heavy heart

is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day,

and like vinegar on soda.

When you have a friend who has a heavy heart that day,

to sing them songs of joy

is like taking off their winter parka

when it's 25 degrees out.

It makes them colder.

Or, like vinegar and soda,

it creates a reaction that explodes.

Maybe you've stepped on that landmine.

Maybe you've been the landmine.

Proverbs affirms,

it's complicated.

It's difficult.

And with great compassion and care,

and probably with imperfection,

we need to recognize

how complex our emotional life is.

And this leads us to the last proverb

in this section.

Proverbs 14, 13.

Even in laughter the heart may ache,

and the end of joy may be grief.

So even when you think you're seeing

what someone is feeling,

according to this proverb,

there may be something else alongside of it

that's actually the opposite.

Maybe you've experienced that.

Joy and sorrow mixed together.

It's far more common than we tend to want or think.

So our emotional life is complex and multilayered.

Joy can include sorrow.

Grief can include laughter.

So what do we do with this?

How do we understand?

How do we respond to this?

Well, I think one of the things to recognize

is that our emotional life is shaped

just like all of the rest of our created world

and order is shaped.

It's shaped by a framework

that I hope you guys have in your mind

of sort of the created redemption,

the redemptive history arc of the Bible, right?

So we have creation, fall, redemption, and glory.

And everything we experience in life

maps onto this huge arc

of what God is doing in the world.

And our emotions are like that too.

When God created the world,

He had an emotional life.

He created us with an emotional life.

Yet there was no sin.

And I will venture to say

that we really don't understand

what that looks like very well.

That that is far, far, far further

from our experience than we ever dare admit.

And then the fall came in.

And with the fall came two things.

One, the emotions that we have become corrupted.

And secondly, there are new kinds of emotions

like sorrow.

I haven't quite worked this out biblically.

Did God grieve before the fall?

If He's outside of time, He did.

But did Adam and Eve grieve before the fall?

Doesn't seem like it.

There are some right emotions

that came after the fall

that are part of a fallen world.

In redemption, then,

God comes and gives us a new life in Christ

whereby our emotions can be redeemed

out of the sinful patterns

that we tend to express them in.

And glory promises us a day

where our emotions will find

their greatest fulfillment and expression

without sin.

And interestingly,

there will be no more tears.

God will wipe away every tear.

And there will be no more sickness

or sorrow.

So run this through something like jealousy.

If I asked you if jealousy was a good emotion,

would you say it was good or bad?

Bad, right?

Commonly, it's bad.

You know why?

Because humanly, it's almost always bad.

It's almost always selfish.

I am jealous because you have something

that I want

or you are taking something

that I think is mine

and I didn't choose to share it.

And so I am jealous.

I am jealous.

I am jealous that you have something

that I want

or you have taken something

that I want.

And it's all about us.

Right?

So that's how we often experience

in our fallen reality.

But then Deuteronomy 4 comes in

and says to us

that God is a jealous God.

And we think,

because we've read Greek mythology,

what, is the God of the Bible

just like all like Zeus and Hera

who just, you know,

really were no better

than the rest of us

and weren't really worth our worship?

Is that what the God of the Bible is like?

And we realize,

no, that's not true at all.

That God has a right jealousy.

That He has a jealousy

that His creation

would respond to Him properly

as their creator.

That we, as His creation,

would respond to Him

with love and devotion and worship.

Because that is the,

that is the reality

of our relationship with Him.

And He is jealous

out of His love for us

to relate to us rightly.

He is jealous

that we might not run

and give that love and devotion

to anything else.

It is a right,

by analogy,

in the human life,

it is a right analogy

for a husband

to be jealous

for his wife's affection.

For a wife to be jealous

for her husband's affection.

That they don't run off

and go sleep with other people

and have,

and run off

and spend their emotional loyalties

and energies

in other directions.

It is right for a parent

to be jealous

for the protection of their kids

and to not simply entrust them

to others

who may harm them.

There are places

in human emotion

where there is a right jealousy.

Then we can taste it

and see

what a redeemed jealousy

might look like

in our human life.

So all that to say,

this framework

can be very helpful

as we run other things through it.

What about anger?

Is anger good or bad?

What about love?

Is love good or bad?

What about joy and pleasure?

Is that good or bad?

If you think about it,

it is complex

and in all of these things

there is potential

for both good and bad

in the way

that we humanly express it.

So let's make sure

that we embrace that

in our lives

and in our understanding of it.

Christianity is not

a flat,

happy, happy,

Pollyanna,

we should all be happy

every day

because Jesus loves us

and died for our sins.

The truth is true

but the response

is insufficient

to reflect our human reality

and the dynamics of redemption.

So Proverbs affirms

the reality of our emotional life.

It affirms the complexity

of our emotional life

and then thirdly,

Proverbs highly values

self-control

in our emotional life.

I know when Pastor Nick

preached on anger

a couple of weeks ago,

he touched on this

but it's such a strong theme

in Proverbs

I thought it was worth

coming back to again.

There are great Proverbs

about this.

Proverbs 16, 32

Whoever is slow to anger

is better than the mighty

and he who rules his spirit

than he who takes a city.

Proverbs 17, 27

Whoever restrains his words

have knowledge

and he who has a cool spirit

is a man of understanding.

This one I think

is profound and scary to us.

A man without

Proverbs 25, 28

A man without self-control

is like a city broken into

and left without walls.

What means by that is

he is defenseless and vulnerable

because he lacks self-control.

Proverbs 29, 11

probably summarizes

the proverbial viewpoint

on control and spirits

and our emotions

by saying this

29, 11

A fool gives full vent

to his spirit

but a wise man

quietly holds it back.

The other week

I confess I was watching

You've Got Mail.

If you haven't seen

You've Got Mail

it's an oldie

but it's a decent goodie.

Tom Hanks

and Meg Ryan

and one of the interesting

things is

so Tom Hanks

is this powerful

book broker

and she's this little

shop owner

and they have this

complex relationship

but when she first

meets him

and finds out

who he is

she hates him

and she wants

and she watches him

be really arrogant

at a dinner party

and she so much

wants to zing him.

She so much

wants to just

give full vent

to what she's feeling

about what a terrible

human being he is

and then later on

she actually

is able to do that

and she's actually

able to do it

and she regrets it

immediately.

She finds out

that being able

to just let it go

is actually destructive

which brings me to

the other thing

I want to talk about

let it go

let it go

can't hold it back

anymore

let it go

let it go

turn away

and slam the door

I don't care

what they're going

to say

let the storm

range on

the cold

never bothered me

anyway.

The song

is often sung

on YouTube

at least

by preteen girls

as a song

of empowerment

and a song

of feeling

finally free

to be

to be

who I really

am

but the interesting

thing about it

is that in the story

all she does

is destruction

when she lets it go

she destroys

her family

she destroys

her kingdom

and

interestingly

and surprisingly

for Disney

there's actually

a redemptive theme

where

she is saved

by the self-sacrifice

of her sister

that's another story

it's a cool thing

but the point

here is that

we live in a culture

today

where we think

that self-control

is repression

where we think

that self-control

is lacking

authenticity

and the Bible

is very clear

that that is not

true

because we are

human beings

made in the image

of God

and yet corrupted

by the fall

and even for Christians

as we have the Holy Spirit

in us

we are not able

to express

our emotions

perfectly

in every circumstance

that's not a newsflash

I'm sure you're surprised about

and so

the Apostle Paul

tells us

that one of the fruit

of the Spirit

is self-control

it is something

that we are able

to grow in

so that we can

feel the emotions

that are real

in our heart

and in our circumstances

and yet

at the end of the day

let the truth

of God's Word

and the power

of the Holy Spirit

shape and control

how we respond

so that our feelings

are driven by truth

so that

we need to seek

to know the Word of God

so that they can shape

how we understand

our emotions

our emotions

should be governed

by love

so that

as we express

our emotions

we are not simply

thinking of

how do I express myself

but how do I care

about the other person

in the process

of my expression

my emotions

need to be

expressed

most fundamentally

with a view

towards pleasing God

and governed

by a desire

for godliness

God

may my emotional life

grow

in increasingly

in increasing way

to reflect

you

and your emotions

so joy

in a godly pattern

of this

a godly expression

is not selfish

pleasure seeking

but enjoying

but receiving

from God

good things

and responding right

sorrow

is not self-pity

but an honest

recognition

of loss

in the world

anger

is not an

uncontrolled

outburst

but a focused

rejection

of evil

and wrong

hope

is not wishful

optimism

but trust

in the future

work of a good

God

and so on

and so forth

temper long

man

whose

commentary

on

proverbs

is

I highly

recommend

to you

says this

about

this topic

it is not

that the wise

are emotionless

or that they

don't express

anger

or disappointment

but they do

so in a way

that is appropriate

to the context

they don't blow up

in anger

though they may

get very angry

moderate expressions

of emotions

allow the wise

to think

and strategize

emotions

don't cloud

their thinking

another way

to put this

is that the wise

are patient

whereas fools

are impatient

I found that

a very insightful

quote

to think through

so proverbs

says these things

it doesn't

we haven't covered

everything about

our emotional life

this morning

about what it means

to be a Christian

in our emotional life

but proverbs

says these things

they are real

they are deep

and complex

and they ought

to be subject

to healthy

self-control

so that their

expressions

are

constructive

and positive

rather than

destructive

and negative

and so

the writer

of proverbs

says this

I found this

if you remember

proverbs is a series

of one of the

frameworks

and the literary

forms that they use

is a father

talking to his son

about how to walk

in the way of wisdom

and he says this

my son

if your heart

is wise

my heart

too

will be glad

my innermost

being will exult

when your lips

speak what is right

let not your heart

envy sinners

but continue

in the fear

of the Lord

all the day

and I just thought

it was interesting

because in this

little passage

you see

the complexity

of emotions

he's exhorting

his son

follow the way

of wisdom

because it will

be good

don't fall

into envy

but fear

the Lord

affirming

even in that

this is how

the emotions

are going to

affect your life

in pursuing

godliness

but then he also

says but your

godliness is going

to affect me

your response

is going to

do things

in my emotional

life

it's going to

bring me joy

my innermost

being will exult

when I see you

doing these

things

and so it

leaves us

with the final

question

which is how

do we

pursue this

what is it

what is it

that we can

do to pursue

growth and

understanding

a healthy

emotional

life

and friends

it is not

rocket science

it is the

answer we have

seen over and

over again

in Proverbs

and in fact

is the answer

over and over

again in the

scriptures

we need to

look to Jesus

Christ

because Jesus

Christ

embodied the

fullness of

perfect humanity

and so when we

look to Jesus

what do we find

we find one

who looked with

compassion

said woman

does no one

condemn you

we see him

who with holy

rage made a

whip and drove

the merchants

out of the

temple

we see him

wearily lamenting

about his best

friends have I

been with you

so long

we still don't

understand

he who wept

with his friends

at the tomb

of their brother

and shook

with anger

against the

ravages of

death

he who was a

man of sorrows

acquainted with

grief

who for the

joy set before

him

endured the

cross

despising the

shame

if we want

to know how

we walk in

wisdom we look

to Jesus

who is the

embodiment of

wisdom himself

we look to him

to see his

complexity and the

reality of his

emotions

we see that in his

humanity he

identified with us

we see in his

perfection an

example of how to

do it well

and most

amazingly we see

that in him

doing these

things for us

we see his

emotions expressed

uniquely at

times in his

redemptive work

for us

my God

my God my

God why have

you forsaken

me

father forgive

them they don't

know what they're

doing

the God of the

Bible shows us

what emotions look

like because he's

created us to know

him and that our

emotions would be a

part of our of our

life and our

glorifying of him

and when we behold

Jesus and when we

believe that what

Jesus has done can

redeem us out of all

of our petty and

broken and fallen and

foolish emotion

all of our denial of

it all of our

selfish expression of

it

when we behold him

and when we believe

and trust in him

this is where we find

then the life that God

has for us

the way of wisdom

the way of

godliness

let's pray together

lord we have touched

on many things this

morning and lord we

acknowledge that we

are fearfully and

wonderfully made and

that you have knit us

together

lord we pray that you

will help us to grow

mind and body and

soul and emotion and

will and affection

and knowledge and

understanding

lord in all of the

complexity of how you

have made us as human

beings lord may we

reflect and know you

more and specifically

lord may we know how

to lord live out our

emotional life in a way

that brings glory to you

lord help us to be more

like Jesus help us to

reflect Jesus in how we

live and lord help us to

depend on Jesus to exercise

self-control and see

transformation where we

cannot do it ourselves

we pray all these things

in Jesus name

amen

amen