Stability // Stop Building Your Life on Your Feelings

in Mark chapter 5 this morning.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

And I don't know about you guys, but I really like to travel.

Any of you guys like to travel.

Travelers okay, that's decent.

I really like experiencing new things, experiencing new places.

In fact, I'm kind of curious how many of you have ever traveled internationally, you've traveled outside of the country?

Okay, quite a bit of you guys have.

I'm curious has anybody ever been to Dubai, in the Middle East?

Anybody ever?

Oh, you've been to Dubai, mike's been to Dubai.

That's awesome, you guys have been to Dubai.

So then you guys probably know and Dubai is the world's tallest building.

Anybody know what the world's tallest building is called?

It's called the world's tallest building.

That's what it's called.

You're right, it's called the Burj Khalifa and it's actually 163 stories tall.

If it was in the San Francisco skyline, this is what it would look like.

This thing is unbelievable.

It's got the world's fastest elevator.

It goes up 40 miles an hour.

It's like a roller coaster.

It's got the world's tallest swimming pool on the 76th floor.

Can you imagine In a building so tall?

You know it's got to have a really, really deep and strong foundation.

In fact, I found this so fascinating the Burj Khalifa.

The foundation goes down 164 feet into the earth.

58,900 cubic yards of concrete are in the foundation.

I have no idea what that means, but I think it's a lot.

Okay, the concrete is 110,000 plus tons.

That's a lot.

You got to have a strong foundation to have such a tall building.

Now can you imagine the devastating effects if that building didn't have a very strong foundation?

What if it was built on sand or clay?

It literally would be tragic.

And it caused me to think.

Would be tragic and it caused me to think what kind of foundation are we building our lives on?

It's easy for us to say, yeah, of course, the vertical leaf, 163 stories, 40 mile an hour elevator.

Yeah, it needs to have a deep, strong foundation.

But don't our lives need to have a deep, strong foundation?

But don't our lives need to have a deep, strong foundation?

We've been in this series talking about emotions and the really important role that emotions play in our faith and how valuable they are.

But there can be a temptation that can be literally devastating for your life and for your future when it comes to emotions, and the temptation is building your life on the foundation of your emotions.

In fact, we don't do a lot of message titles here, but we have a message title today and it's a strong one, but it's an important one.

Here it is Stop building your life on your feelings.

Stop building your life on your feelings.

Now I want to illustrate this, and some of you guys see this and you are wondering hmm, what is this all about?

Well, we have some different boxes that represent different things in our life.

The first thing represents our what's this word?

This word is our feeling, and everybody has feelings.

Yes, even you, tough dude, you have feelings too.

We also have our what's this word.

We have our belief.

Every person has beliefs.

Even if you say I don't believe in anything that right, there is a belief, anything that right, there is a belief.

We all have beliefs.

And then what we have over here is we have what's this word, we all have Truth.

Now, sometimes what we do and this is, for some of us, this is why we really really struggle in our life is because what we do is we choose to build our life on the foundation of our feelings.

So what we do is we let how we feel, however, that is, determine what we believe what we believe about ourselves, what we believe about the world, what we believe about God and we let what we believe, we let what we feel determine what we believe and then, based on that, then we in our own mind say well, then I get to determine what truth is.

So we say this is how I feel, which determines how I believe.

And then what we do is we try to put together our own form of truth.

Now, here's the problem.

It's not very stable.

I mean, imagine, like literally, I probably I didn't try this.

Maybe I should try this right now.

I bet if I just blew it, I could blow it over.

You guys want to see it.

Let's bet if I just blew it I could blow it over.

You guys want to see it.

Let's see if I can blow it.

Let me get a good breath One more time.

Boom, that's right, thank you.

Here's what all of us know when it comes to our feelings is our feelings change, don't they?

How about this?

Have you ever done something following your feelings?

And you look back and you're like what was I thinking?

Why did I do that?

Why did I date them?

Why did I buy that?

Why did I move there?

And here's the thing is that the world that we live in, our world says the path to freedom is following our feelings, but a life built on feelings is unstable and it's bound to fall apart.

And here's what every person here needs, whether you're a follower of Jesus or you're not yet a follower of Jesus.

This is what you need in your life.

You need a stable foundation that you can build your life on.

You need something that you can anchor your heart and you can anchor your soul to.

Here's the reality.

Feelings are all over the place.

They are not stable enough to build your life on People in general.

People are not dependable for you to build your life on the cultural narratives and things that's culturally popular and politically correct.

Those things are not strong enough to build your life on.

Those things are always changing and what can happen is we build our lives on things that are not stable and they're bound to fall apart.

Here's what I want us to do today.

I want us to go to Scripture in Mark 5, and we're going to see somebody that experienced strong emotions, like we all do at times.

We're going to see an incredibly strong, brave woman that did something incredibly difficult.

She chose to build her life on the foundation of the truth of who Jesus is of the truth, of who Jesus is, and because of that, she experienced healing and wholeness and strength, because her foundation was one of Jesus.

Here's the reality, friend.

Truth is not just what we think.

Truth is.

Truth is the person of Jesus and truth is this book.

Jesus and truth is this book.

This is the foundation.

And because there was a woman that said I'm going to build my life on truth, it literally changed the trajectory of her life.

And I want to say something, and I don't say this lightly, but what we are going to learn from this woman today if you will apply it to your life and you will do what she did, your life will literally be changed.

So let's lean in this morning.

Let's look at Mark, chapter 5, and what God's word has to say about this, and if you're ready for the word, would you say amen.

Mark 5 · chapter mention

Mark 5, 24,.

It says this.

It says so.

Jesus went with him and a large crowd was following and pressing against him.

Jesus had just gone viral y'all.

Everybody's like Jesus.

He's walking and there's a large crowd they're like pressing against him.

Jesus is walking, people are leaning against him.

People are pulling out their cell phones like taking selfies.

They're like I got a good picture of Jesus.

Jesus, can we get a picture Jesus?

They were pressing against him.

Then, in verse 12, there was a woman suffering from bleeding for 12 years.

She had endured much under many doctors.

She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all.

On the contrary, she became worse.

This woman experienced a constant bleeding for 12 years.

On top of the physical pain and suffering, there were cultural implications as well.

This woman had to live in isolation for 12 years, away from people.

Nobody could touch her.

She couldn't touch anybody because they would be considered culturally unclean.

She couldn't be around people.

She also had spent all of her money on doctor after doctor after doctor, only to be disappointed and disappointed, and disappointed again, hoping that this doctor has the medicine, has the treatment that can heal her.

Can you imagine just hoping this doctor's going to have the answer?

Nope, this doctor.

No, she's culturally outcasted from people, nobody.

She's been disappointed in life.

She's been let down.

She has no money.

She has spent everything she had.

Now she's destitute.

She has no money.

Imagine how she felt.

Imagine where she is emotionally in this moment.

But something happened.

In verse 27, it says, having heard everybody say the word, heard, ready Heard Heard.

Who'd she hear about?

She heard about Jesus.

She came behind him in the crowd and touched his robe.

Somebody had made Jesus known to her.

Somebody had told her Jesus the Messiah, the one that can forgive sin, the one that was prophesied about in the Old Testament, the one who's the answer.

He is here, this is him.

This is the truth.

This is the truth.

And this woman said if Jesus is the truth, if he's the Messiah, then watch verse 28, what she says.

She says if I can just touch his robes, I'll be made well.

This is the truth of who he is.

So this is what I believe, based off of the truth that if I just touch his robe, I'll be made well.

And look what happened in verse 29.

It says instantly, her flow of blood ceased and she sensed in her body that she was cured of her affliction.

Immediately, this woman was healed.

Immediately, her life was forever changed.

Immediately, she was able to experience the feeling of healing that she had not felt for 12 years.

At once.

It says in verse 30, jesus realized in himself that the power had gone out from him.

He turned around in the crowd and said who touched my robes?

Who touched me?

His disciples said to him you see the crowd pressing against you and you say who touched me?

I mean, y'all think about this.

There's people everywhere, a bunch of people.

His disciples said to him yeah, you see the crowd.

You see the crowd.

You say who touched me?

Verse 32.

So he was looking around and seeing who had done this.

Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came with fear and, trembling, fell down before him and told the whole truth in front of everybody.

This is an incredible act of courage.

And what was Jesus' response in verse 34?

His response was this Outcast, you shouldn't be touching.

No.

What was his response, daughter?

He said to her your faith has made you well.

Go in peace and be freed from your affliction.

He doesn't rebuke her.

He defines her as daughter.

This is relational.

He doesn't say you're unclean.

He doesn't say all these things that she had lived with her entire life.

He doesn't say that.

He says I accept you, I love you and because of your faith in me, this truth is that you're a daughter and Jesus gave her everything she was looking for.

And you know why this happened.

You know why this woman experienced this Because, number one, she decided to build her life on truth.

She decided to build her life on truth.

This woman no doubt had feelings of fear and insecurity.

That is how this woman felt.

She hadn't been around people for 12 years, she had been rejected, she had been outcasted.

And this woman had all types of feelings.

This woman could have said I feel some type of way, so I believe that it's just too hard to get to Jesus, like there's just too many people, there's just too many things happening, I believe, because I feel that I can't get to him.

And then she could have said and the truth is that I'll never be healed.

That's what she could have thought if she had built her life on her feelings.

And this woman had some obstacles.

In fact, these are obstacles that all of us had.

This woman's first obstacle was her past.

Her sickness, like that, was a major obstacle.

This woman's second obstacle was people.

Because if people found out that she was the woman that was quote-unquote unclean, she would have been called out and outcasted.

And on top of that, this woman just had the pressure of the world on her.

Because if you've ever experienced social anxiety, you can only imagine, after being isolated for 12 years coming out, the social anxiety that would have come with that.

On top of that, there were family implications that her family would have been outcasted, because this woman and that family came around people.

She felt the pressure of her past, she felt the pressure of all of these different things, but this woman did not let her feelings define what she was going to do.

She didn't build her life on feelings.

And can I remind you this about feelings?

This about feelings is that feelings make great companions but terrible drivers For many of us.

There's a gap in our spiritual lives and our Christian life is like a roller coaster.

It's like up, up, up, up, up, up, up up.

This is why.

This is why Because so often we let our feelings be in the driver's seat of our life.

And feelings are great, like they add to our lives, they let us enjoy wonderful experiences, but if they're the driver of our lives, a wreck is coming around the corner.

And what this woman didn't do is this woman number two didn't let the obstacles that she was facing keep her from truth.

She didn't let her past, she didn't let people, she didn't let pressure keep her from Jesus.

I think for some of us, we let our past keep us from building our life on the truth of Jesus.

We let our past keep us from wholeheartedly following Jesus and this is what we think God will never forgive me.

We think we think I'm damaged goods.

This is how we feel.

So then we think, well, I can't really do this because of my past.

Can I just remind y'all about some of the characters in Scripture.

You talk about a rough resume.

Let me tell you what they put their resume here.

They're not pastor in First Christian Church resume.

Let me tell you what they put their resume here.

They're not pastor in First Christian Church.

Murderers, adulterers, deniers, rebellious people I mean, they had some type of a resume, but God used them and you know that God can use you too.

You and your past, you and your challenges, you and your issues.

This is the truth that God can use you.

So if God can use you and God can use anybody we have to believe that all I have to do is make myself available for God to use me.

That's all I have to do.

I don't have to go to seminary, I don't have to memorize the entire book of Philippians, I don't have to do all this.

This is what I do.

I just say God, I'm available because your word says to use anybody.

And then when we do that, this is what happens.

We get to experience the feeling of God using us.

We get to experience the feeling of being on a serve team here and helping people take steps in their faith.

We get to experience the feeling of when somebody comes in and they're like man, that welcome team.

That's the reason why I'm here.

It's like I was on the welcome team.

Look what I got to be a part of.

You get to experience the feeling of seeing some of these kids and teenagers getting baptized and you were a part of their spiritual development in kingdom kids and in preschool and in youth group.

You get to experience the feeling of being used by God.

But that only happens when you say I'm going to build my life on truth.

I'm not going to build my life on the feeling of my past.

For some of us.

Sometimes we have the obstacle of people.

Sometimes we look at our family tree and our family lineage and it's like, nate, if only you knew my family, you would know there's no way God can use me.

If only you knew my family lineage.

And let me just tell you this is rough, but can I just say you can be the one that can change the trajectory of your family.

Yeah, you can be the one that can influence your family from Christ for Christ when other people in your family are not following Christ.

Can I say you can be the difference that your family needs, but you have to not let the obstacle of your family and those things get in the way of you doing what God wants you to do and you building your life on truth.

For some of us, the people is our friend group.

We have friends group, we have our friend group that have a ton of influence on us and the reality is, for some of us in our friends group they are pulling us away.

They are not pushing us towards Christ and it's an obstacle For some of us in our lives.

What can happen is we can let the pressure of the world keep us from building our life on him.

For some of us, we feel the pressure of life and money and bills and feeding the family and all this stuff and you just feel all this pressure and you think when things calm down then I'll get serious about my faith.

When I don't feel so much pressure, can I just say pressure is just part of life.

Sometimes we feel the pressure of the cultural narratives of the world.

It's like this is what the world says.

The world says you should believe this.

If you don't believe this, then you're a bigot and're a problem, and you're this when God's truth contradicts that.

And we can't let the pressure of what the world tells us to believe, because the world is not going to tell the church and the body of Christ how they should live and where they should go and what God wants them to do, because we have the word of God.

Sometimes hey, that wasn't in my notes, y'all, that just wasn't in my notes Sometimes we have all these things that are keeping us away from truth.

This is what John Piper says in his book about feelings and this is so worth noting.

In his book Finally Alive, he says my feelings are not God.

God is God.

My feelings do not define truth.

God's word defines truth.

My feelings are echoes and responses to what my mind perceives and sometimes my feelings are out of sync with the truth.

When that happens and it happens every day I try not to bend the truth to justify my imperfect feelings, but plead with God to transform my feelings so that they are in sync with the truth.

We build our life on truth and we let truth inform our beliefs.

And we let truth inform our beliefs.

And, based on our beliefs that come from our truth, we then have feelings, and the foundation has to be the truth of who Jesus is and God's word.

And the word says when we know the truth, the truth will set us free.

And here's the third part of this and this is probably the most important thing of any of them is that she received healing number three only because only because she built her life on truth, on who Jesus said that she was.

Your faith has made you well.

It's kind of like this my sister used to work at Jamba Juice when she was a teenager.

Any of y'all ever had a Jamba Juice before?

Oh my God, heaven in a cup.

Oh my goodness, heaven is a cup.

Now this is back in the day.

This is before you had to take out a loan to buy a Jamba Juice.

You know you had $5, you could get you something.

Now I mean, you walk in with $5, you can't even get a sample for crying out loud.

I remember my sister came home from work one day and she said I got to tell you something.

She said Jamba Juice has a secret menu.

Now I had had a lot of Jamba Juices in my life up to that point but I had never heard they have a secret menu.

She said they got a secret menu.

She said they got this thing called now I think this is on the real menu now, but back in the day it wasn't.

She's like they got this thing called the white gummy worm and called the pink starburst smoothie.

I'm like pink starburst, I like starburst, Pink starburst, my favorite starburst.

And I said so you're telling me I go into Jamba Juice and these things are not on the menu.

But I just tell the person.

I just say give me this smoothie and they will make this smoothie for me.

She says that's exactly what I'm telling you.

I said I know the secret now.

So I walked into Jamba Juice the next time.

I looked up at that menu.

I said I don't want any of those.

I said give me a pink Starburst menu.

I said I don't want any of those.

I said give me a pink Starburst.

Now let me just say my Jamba Juice experience completely changed after I learned that there's a secret menu, after I learned that there was something more than just what I saw.

And when I understood there was more than just what I saw, that it changed things for me, some of us, in our spiritual lives we are limited because it's only what we can see and what we can understand and what makes sense to us and what's rational to us and what we can formulate, and we miss out on what God can do in and through our lives.

We miss out on the miracles that God wants to do.

We miss out on how the Holy Spirit can transform our lives and work in our lives in a great and mighty way.

And what happens is sometimes we say I can't build my life on truth because of all of these other things.

But can I say, if you will choose to build your life on truth, you will see that God is a God of the impossible.

You will see that God's power can work in your life.

You will see that God's power, that his strength is made perfect in your weakness and some of you, in your mind you're like man.

God can never use me.

Can I just say I'm looking at people right now.

You could be leaders at First Christian Church.

Never use me.

Can I just say I'm looking at people right now.

You could be leaders at First Christian Church.

You could be group coordinators.

You could be group leaders.

You could be ministry coordinators.

You could be ministry leaders.

As God is growing this church, can I just say the harvest is plenteous but the workers are few and God can use his people.

God can use us.

But what we have to do is we have to say I'm going to build my life on truth.

Like I'm not going to be satisfied with the regular menu when God says I have more for you, some of us have to say I'm not going to anymore accept a lukewarm faith.

It's time to get serious and passionate about Jesus, because what God wants to do is God wants to do the impossible through you.

This is what you have to do.

You have to say, hey, I'm going to build my life on truth, on who Jesus is, on what the Word of God says.

So here's my question this morning for each of us Will you choose?

Will you decide to build your life on truth, even when it's hard, because it will be, even when nobody else is doing it, because they won't.

Even when it's not popular, because it won't be?

Will you decide for you to build your life on truth.

And this is why you should, because the truth will set you free.

Jesus says yep.

Jesus says you will know the truth and the truth will set you free yes, you.

But today, for some of us, is a day of decision.

For us to say I'm not building my life on this anymore.

This is way too unstable.

But what I'm doing, I'm building my life on truth.

Let's bow our heads.