Signs // When the Impossible becomes Possible

If you're joining us for the first time in a little while, called At the Movies, and here's what we're doing.

We're seeing how popular movies took truth from scripture and we've talked about two movies already.

And can somebody tell me over the last two weeks what are one of the two movies that we have mentioned?

Avengers, avengers Endgame.

Hey, it's funny, during the first service that was the first thing that everybody said Avengers Endgame.

Right, Are there Avengers people in the room?

Avengers Endgame people in the room.

Okay, you guys are not quite as loud and boisterous at 845.

I thought we were about to have revival in here or something.

Right, avengers Endgame.

And then last week or two weeks ago, we talked about the movie Remember the Titans.

And today, what we're going to see?

We're going to see the spiritual truth about emotions that the movie Inside Out adopted.

Let's do this.

Let's watch a quick movie clip from Inside Out and then we'll get into it.

So how was the first day of school?

It was fine, I guess I don't know.

Do you ever look at someone and wonder what is going on inside their head?

Did you guys pick up on that?

Sure, did Something's wrong.

We're going to find out what's happening, but we'll need support.

Signal the husband, ahem, with a nice pass over the ridge, comes across, set right, uh-oh, she's looking at us.

What did she say?

Wha-oh, sorry, sir, no one was listening.

Is it garbage night?

Uh, we left the toilet seat up.

What.

What is it woman?

What?

Signal him again.

Left the toilet seat up.

What, what is it woman?

What?

Signal him again.

Ah, so, riley, how was school For this?

We gave up that Brazilian helicopter pilot.

How many of you can relate?

Don't raise your hand, please, please, don't raise your hand.

But can we be honest enough Because this is church service best place to be honest that sometimes our minds and our emotions can be all over the place?

She says how many of you can we just, who will be honest in the room, raise your hand and say sometimes our minds and emotions, yes, yes, that's right, right, they can be all over the place, and a lot of us.

The weird thing about emotions is, even though all of us have them and Scripture talks about them, a lot of us we got no idea how to even handle them, especially when emotions are uncomfortable.

I asked a question this week on my social media.

I was like what do people do when they're emotional when they have uncomfortable emotions.

And there was like so many comments and comments on Facebook and responses on Instagram and all this stuff.

I haven't even had a chance to comment on all of them because there's so many thoughts about what people do when they have strong emotions.

Now, some of us are like, actually, nate, that's not me, I'm not that emotional, I'm more logical and facts-based and I'm not like those emotional people.

I'm more sensible.

I kind of used to identify myself.

I'm like I'm more logical, I'm more facts-based.

But then football season got started.

By the way, can we just take a moment, how many of you are excited football season's getting started?

Yes, let's go Go Niners, you know, go Niners.

Cowboys, oh my gosh, pray for him and pray for Dak Prescott.

Okay, and I used to watch football.

I still watch football.

Guys.

A few things get me excited, like a 49ers playoff game and I'd be watching the playoff game and that'd be great, we'd be winning, and then we'd get to that game in February.

Yeah, that's at Super Bowl.

That guy from Kansas City don't say his name, don't say his name.

He wears number 15, you know what I mean and he's dominating us and I'm like yelling at the TV, like expecting the players to hear me, like somebody cover that guy, like come on, get Travis Kelsey.

How is Travis Kelsey open Again?

You already know Patrick.

I said his name.

You already know.

He's going to pass it to him.

Can you please do something about it?

And I'm like, wait, wait.

It's not very logical for me to talk to the TV right now, like this doesn't make any sense, doesn't make any sense.

And here's how it comes to.

The reality for me is that because I was so concerned that I would be controlled by my emotions and I had like negative connotations towards emotions and honestly, I saw people that were like super emotional.

I'm like I don't want to be like that.

The easy thing for me would be just to back up and be like I'm not emotional at all.

I don't even have any emotions.

On top of this, I don't know about your family growing up, but in my family growing up we didn't talk about this stuff.

Nobody's got time for like warm, fuzzy feelings.

Why do we do that?

I mean I don't want to watch some like romantic comedy or some like lifetime movie like well, you know, too emotional.

And here's what I didn't realize is because I was made in God's image and God has emotions, and God has feelings that when I tried to disconnect myself and act like I didn't have them, what I was doing was I was forgetting what it means to be made in the image of God, and I was forgetting and neglecting part of my humanity.

Here's the truth.

Everyone experiences emotions, but many of us are still learning how to navigate them.

Everyone experiences emotions, many of us.

We're still learning how to navigate them.

Now, do we want to be controlled by them?

Of course we don't.

But do we want to suppress them and be like no, they, they're not even there, I don't have them.

I'm just gonna care for everybody else and take care of everything.

When people ask me how are you doing, I'm gonna say I'm fine, we can't do that because they'll eventually come out and then it's gonna be really ugly.

So what do we do as followers of jesus?

We open up the pages of Scripture and we say what do we do about something that God says?

We don't run to Google, we don't run to TikTok, we don't run to ChatGPT.

We open up Scripture and we say what does God say about this?

This actually takes us to a place in Scripture where there's an event happening that is very traumatic.

People are in a lot of pain, people are having some serious emotions that are all over the place and for some of you, this might surprise you, but jesus actually expresses strong emotion, and when other people express strong emotion, jesus doesn't reject them or doesn't tell them put yourself together, what's wrong with you, suck it up.

Somebody has it worse than you.

He doesn't do that.

He received that person.

And here's what we're going to see from scripture, and this is we've said this before.

We're going to see emotional maturity, and here's what we're going to see from scripture, and this is we've said this before we're going to see emotional maturity, and here's what emotional maturity is it's the ability to feel what you feel without judging yourself, but not allowing those emotions to control you.

Let's pick it up in john, chapter 11, where we step step onto a very emotionally intense scene.

John 11 · chapter mention

If you're ready for it, would you say amen?

John, chapter 11, verse number 17,.

John 11 · chapter mention

It says Jesus arrived.

He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for days, days.

Lazarus is a friend of Jesus.

His friend is dead because dead people are in tombs.

Never seen a live person in a tomb for four days.

His friend is dead.

Lazarus has a family.

He has sisters.

Lazarus is young.

This is a premature death.

He walks on the scene and Lazarus had been dead.

Verse 18,.

Where did this happen?

It happened in Bethany.

Bethany was near Jerusalem, less than two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Mary and Martha to comfort them about their brother Lazarus.

Two sisters, martha, mary.

As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house.

Seated in the house.

Then Martha said to Jesus Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

Now some of us know what Jesus is going to do in this situation.

Some of us know Jesus is eventually going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

To raise Lazarus from the dead.

But Martha didn't know that Martha's sitting there.

Like Jesus, my brother is dead right now.

And if you wouldn't have taken your good old sweet time to get here because he took his time to get here, reading earlier in the text if you would have been here sooner, this wouldn't have happened.

And here's something that goes without saying about this text it's right.

Here there's a really big problem.

There's a really big problem.

Lazarus is dead.

This is traumatic, this is horrific, and here's the reality about big problems, and we all know this.

It's big problems often produce big emotions.

Big problems often produce big emotions.

Martha comes to Jesus expressing how she feels Jesus doesn't rebuke her for these big emotions and when you have problems, you know, sometimes it can cause emotions.

In fact, I want us to have an unofficial church survey.

I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to raise your hand and keep your hand up.

If this is you, okay.

Who in the room has ever had a problem and it has produced at least a little bit of anxiety or worry in your life?

Okay, keep your hand up.

Who's ever had a problem and it produced some anger, like mm.

What about sadness?

Okay, you can put your hands down.

Guess what I just learned?

All of us have experienced problems that have produced emotions.

You know why?

Because you're human.

If you didn't raise your hand, I'd be like uh, uh, we all have these, and Martha has these too.

And when she comes to Jesus, she doesn't say Jesus, I'm good, I'm fine, no, no, no.

She says where are you at?

What's going on?

And look what else she does in verse 22.

She says yet even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, god will give you.

Don't miss this.

Martha expresses her emotions to God and Martha also holds on to truth at the exact same time.

Sometimes we think I can't have real emotions because I just need to hold on to what's true.

I know this is true, but you know what else is possible.

This can be true and we can have real emotions at the exact same time.

Martha says this is how I'm feeling, but also I know that whatever you ask, god will give you.

We read in the book of Psalms which, by the way, if you're going through a hard time, the book of Psalms is an unbelievable book.

We read in the book of Psalms where there's all these laments the psalmist gives to God.

In fact, 40% of the Psalms are laments.

What are laments?

Laments are grieving and sadness expressed to God.

In the Old Testament, when people were grieving, you know what they would do.

They would sit down for seven days and they wouldn't say a word.

It was called Shiva.

It was how people grieved.

It was how people processed.

Martha here is expressing how she feels to Jesus, and Jesus does not rebuke her.

Can I say this?

It is possible to have very real emotions and, at the same time, hold on to very real truth.

Look what Jesus said to her in response to what she says In verse 23,.

He says your brother will rise again.

Jesus told her Now Martha, verse 24, she's kind of confused by this.

She says I know that he will rise again.

Jesus told her Now, martha, verse 24, she's kind of confused by this.

She says I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.

Like I know, one day he's going to rise again.

Jesus said to her I am the resurrection and the life.

The one who believes that word belief means trust the one who trusts in me, even if he dies, will live.

Everyone who lives and believes and trusts in me will never die.

Do you believe this?

Jesus here is not just talking about a physical death.

He's not saying that we won't die physically, because our statistics show 10 out of 10 people die physically.

I don't know if, like you know, doesn't surprise me.

We all die physically.

This here is talking about a spiritual death, a separation from God for all eternity in a very real place the scripture calls hell.

That's what scripture talks about, which, by the way.

At First Christian Church.

We are a scripture teaching church and we want to teach whatever the scripture says, whether it's popular or whether it's unpopular.

And Jesus says this.

He says listen, if you will trust in me, if you will trust in me, you will not spiritually die.

You will have eternal life.

John, chapter three, talks about this.

He doesn't say in this text well, if you'll just trust in yourself and all of your good works and if you'll just trust in the fact that you went to vacation Bible school when you were a kid, you're good.

No, it's trusting in Jesus, it's not the you know.

If you'll just man your grandmama, she went to church and she was a godly person.

So you're good, you're in.

No, no.

No.

It's a personal decision that we have to personally make to trust in Christ, to believe in him.

He is the resurrection in the life.

And when he says that I am the resurrection in the life, this is just one of seven.

I am statements in the book of John showing who Jesus is, that he's the Messiah, that he's the Son of God.

He says he's the way, he's the truth, he's the life.

He says he's the good shepherd.

He says he's the vine.

He says he's the bread of life.

This is who Jesus is, and what's going to happen is Jesus is going to do a mighty work here to show who he is.

In the midst of all of this emotional pain, martha responds by saying yes, lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God who comes into the world.

Having said this, she went back quickly and went to meet him.

Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.

The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw that Mary got up quickly and went out.

They followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there.

And as soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.

Sound familiar.

When Jesus verse 33, saw her crying and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.

Where have you put him?

Verse 34, he asked Lord.

They told him come and see.

And then verse 35, shortest verse in all of scripture.

Verse 35 is very simple.

It's just two words.

Can we say it together.

Jesus wept, hold on.

Jesus knew that he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead.

This was going to happen.

He's Jesus.

He knew he was going to do this, but he still wept, he still expressed emotion, he still grieved with these people.

And here's something that we see happening in this text.

We see people processing emotion, we see the importance of processing your emotions.

We don't have the verses here, but in the text what's happening?

Martha's weeping, mary's sad, jesus is weeping, the Jews are crying.

Everybody's going through it right now.

Why?

Because it's hard, because things are difficult.

Now, for most of us, when we go through hard stuff and all of us go through hard stuff I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I think for most of us it's hard to admit that we're going through hard stuff and we're kind of struggling a little bit.

Here's what's easier.

What's easier is to show up to a church service like this.

Somebody says hey, brother, how are you?

I'm blessed and highly favored, great, how are things going?

God is good all the time and all the time, all the time and all the time.

You already know the right answer and you can say the right things, but you know, internally, you're emotionally numb and spiritually dry and exhausted and it's almost like we know how to wear the mask.

We know when we're going through hard things like Martha's going through.

We know how to just show up and be like I'm good.

We know how to show up and say this at this time and maybe serve in this way and look this part and do this thing right here because that's just what we do, and do this thing right here because that's just what we do.

But can I give somebody permission this morning that if Jesus processed hard stuff, you're allowed to process hard stuff too.

You're allowed to.

If Jesus wept and emotionally went through some things, you're allowed to do that too.

You can process your pain with God.

You can share how things feel.

That's okay to do that.

You can admit that everything is not amazing and up and to the right and poppies and daisies and lollies.

Sometimes things are just really difficult and I think, as followers of Jesus, what's so hard for us?

One of the things that's hard for us is we almost feel like if we say we're struggling, it's almost like we're not trusting God or something.

Or if we say that we're struggling like we don't want to put our stuff on somebody else.

No, friends, we're a family.

You're human.

You can admit that you're struggling and you can process your stuff.

Now, here's the reality.

Even though it's hard, a lot of us are like it's hard so I'm not going to do that.

Okay, I understand, I get some of the stuff.

I'm not going to process this, I'm just going to, I'm going to bury it.

I'm going to like mentally check out, I'm going to take care of everybody else.

I'll make sure, oh, you're good, oh, you're okay, oh, yeah, you're fine, okay, okay, yeah, everybody else is okay.

I'm going to care for everybody else.

This is what's going to happen At some point.

We actually, scientifically, we have the.

There are physical effects that happen to our lives because we don't address spiritual and emotional things in our life.

So literally it has negative effects on our health.

We can have physical symptoms like heart disease and chronic pain and increased cortisol, and the list goes on and on and on of things that are a result from undealt with emotional things and spiritual things, and we can be so quick to be like man.

I just I'm going to go to the doctor.

Doctor, give me a pill to fix this, when the root might just be that we have bitterness and we will not forgive somebody.

And I'm not saying medicine's bad.

There's a place for medicine.

I'm not saying any of that.

Don't hear me.

Y'all know what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is sometimes we have physical symptoms for emotional things that we refuse to process.

But Jesus says listen, listen, you can come to me and you can process your stuff.

You can process your pain, you can process your trauma.

You can come to me just as you are.

You can take the mask off and I will accept you just as you are.

And, guys, when we process our emotions, god can heal us.

The Jews saw Mary and Martha and Jesus doing this and look at their response in verse 36.

They looked at him.

So the Jews said see how he loved him.

Some of them said couldn't he who opened the blind man's eyes also have kept this man from dying?

They naturally were doubting, like, if he opened the blind man's eye, why couldn't he have healed this guy?

Verse 38,.

Then Jesus deeply moved, again Moved.

This is in his spirit, this is emotions.

He came to the tomb.

It was a cave and a stone was lying against it.

Verse 39.

Jesus says remove the stone.

Martha, the dead man's sister, told him Lord, there's already a stench, because he's been in there, he's been dead for four days.

He already stinks.

Jesus said to him didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?

So they removed the stone.

Then Jesus raised his eyes and said Father, I thank you that you heard me.

I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here, I said this so that they may believe that you sent me.

After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice Lazarus, come out.

And the dead man came out, bound, hand and foot, with the linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth.

And Jesus said to them unwrap him and let him go.

And because of this, many people would believe in Jesus, many people would trust Jesus to be their Lord, to follow him.

Because of this miracle that happened and in this text, I think it's really important that we look and see how these people process their emotions, how these people process all of this and what led to this resurrection.

So this is how I want us to end.

I want us to talk about this how do we process our emotions?

Number three, first of all, that's what we got to do, and this might be the hardest thing.

All is what we got to do and this might be the hardest thing is we got to be honest with ourself.

So in the text, mary and Martha were super real about where they were.

Martha doesn't go to Jesus and Martha doesn't say Jesus, lazarus is dead Good, though Other people actually have it worse than me.

So some people don't have any brothers or some.

She doesn't do that.

This is what she does.

She says Jesus, this is where I am.

She was honest and some of us in the room.

Can we just be honest with where we are?

We can never be healthy until we're first honest.

We can never be spiritually, emotionally healthy until we're first honest with ourselves.

This is not easy.

You can be honest with yourself.

Number two we have to challenge our distorted thinking and we live in a crazy world.

We have our backgrounds, we have our experiences, we have all this stuff and what can happen, and we don't even realize it.

But we can have this thinking about things that prevent us from experiencing healing.

In fact, I just I want to take a moment.

I want to call out some thinking that some of us have like, just like in the name of Jesus that's preventing us from taking steps to healing.

For some of us, this is what we think.

We think if I'm honest, I'll be rejected or judged.

If I'm honest, somebody's going to judge me.

We think I have to look good on the outside, because what people think about me determines my identity.

So what I have to do is I have to wear a mask, I have to act like I have myself together.

And can I just say pastors are the worst at this.

I have to act because what you guys think about me determines who I am.

You guys have to think that I'm holy and righteous and I never have any mistakes.

Blah, blah, blah, hogwash, as old preacher used to say.

Hogwash, listen, listen, guys.

That's a lie.

Some of us believe how about this one?

I need to achieve and be successful to bring honor to my family name.

Some of us growing up we heard it you have to be this, you have to do this, you have to be successful.

Everybody in our family, this is what they do, and if you don't do this, you're just a failure.

Maybe it was spoken, but most likely it was unspoken.

Some of us we think I just need to get over it, because others have it worse.

Sure, others do, but sometimes you just can't get over stuff.

It's just too much.

Instead, can I encourage us to consider what the gospel declares about us, about you One?

You can be honest, because God will not reject you and loves you completely.

Your identity is not determined by people's opinion of you, but by who God says that you are.

Let that free your soul.

Jesus achieved everything on your behalf, and success in life is defined simply by being obedient to God.

It's not by how much money you have, it's not by where you live, it's not by what people think about you.

By obedience and you are made in God's image and because of that you have emotions and you have feelings.

And maybe for the first time in your life, I want you to hear something from me.

Your feelings matter, your needs matter, and what we have to do is we have to challenge our distorted thinking in the name of Jesus, because this distorted thinking is keeping us from experiencing the spiritual, emotional healing that is promised in Jesus.

And we sing these incredible songs and Mason does a great job planning all this stuff out.

We sing these songs of the faith, but secretly we could be holding on to this distorted thinking that's preventing us from experiencing the power and promises of Jesus in our life.

And this is why we say the gospel doesn't just save us, it shapes us, it strengthens us, it guides us and when we challenge our distorted thinking, it allows us.

Number three to run to Jesus.

Run to Jesus.

Number three Listen, guys, he's merciful.

Jesus is gracious.

First, peter five says you can cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Isaiah 40 says he gives strength to the weary.

Psalm 27 says he is the light of life.

Whom shall we fear?

You can run to him.

The number four how do we process these emotions?

We get a little vulnerable with some safe and godly people.

This is the hard one.

Distorted thinking prevents us from having healing and having vulnerable conversations with people because we thought I can't, because I can't talk about this, guys.

James says that we need to confess our sins one to another so we can be healed.

Not that somebody else has the power to forgive us of our sin.

Only God can do that.

But when we are vulnerable with people, it has healing effects in our life.

It's interesting as doctors have studied the human brain, they've learned that your brain chemistry actually changes negatively in response to a traumatic event.

For some of us, that's not a surprise.

What's also fascinating is research, and doctors have discovered that as we share our story in safe, connected relationships, it actually heals the brain and brings things that are broken.

It brings them back together.

Y'all this is science, and while there are things that should only be shared in a counselor's office, there are things that we should share within a godly community with other people.

This is why we say that we are a family here.

This is why we say that we are a family here.

This is why we say that we are better than me.

Guys, the church is not y'all just coming here and listening to me talk for 30 minutes on Sunday morning.

Man, that's not a very good church.

The church is all of us doing life together.

It's all of us burying one another's burdens.

It's people praying for each other.

This is why we talk about connect.

It's all of us burying one another's burdens.

It's people praying for each other.

This is why we talk about Connect.

That's happening next Sunday.

We want you to be a part.

We want you to be a part of a loving church family.

This is why we have groups and my goodness we had.

I think we had 20 groups last semester.

Why did we do this?

Because life is better when it's spent with other followers of Jesus, is better when it's spent with other followers of Jesus and there's healing power in that and there's strength in that and there's grace in that.

And we are going to be a church where we're not just trying to be attractional, we're not trying to get y'all to come to a show on Sunday morning.

We're going to let this be our guide.

And a New Testament church is a church where there's love one for another, where there's honor one for another, where there's honor one for another, where there's care one for another.

This is who we want to be and this is what I invite you to do to say I want to be a part of what God's doing.

I want to pray for each other and care for each other.

Why?

So you can be healed.

That's our heart.

We got a men's retreat coming up in October.

It's going to be incredible.

I'm like bros, like y'all should go to that.

There's healing power in that.

Here's how I want us to end the service.

We're going to do a little different than we typically do.

We're going to end by singing a song.

It's an old song.

I don't know if y'all like old songs.

I like some old songs.

We're singing an old worship song.

It's gonna be called Lord, I Give you my Heart.

This is what I want us to do.

I want us to sing and, in our heart, express everything to the Lord and say Lord, I am giving this to you, whatever it is on my heart, wherever my pain is, wherever I am.

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