Emotions as Warning Signs – Part I

Most Christians won’t be surprised to hear that our hearts are not inclined to easily and naturally trust in God. In recent years, I have been much more aware of the anti-faith protective posture of my heart which leads me away from trusting in God but instead relying on my own independent resources. When I pay attention to my heart attitudes and emotions and realize that they are SIGNS that there is something going on deep inside of me, I can confess, repent and trust God.

An event that triggered me to pay more attention was when a helpful old friend reported back to me after asking to borrow my car that every warning light was on glowing on my dashboard. I had grown accustomed and even comfortable with these warning lights and over time I had even forgotten about them. My friend being forced to drive MY car was not accustomed to these warning lights and was quite alarmed by them. Like a good pastor, I thought, “there’s an illustration here.”  I had often thought that our emotions and heart attitudes are signs or warning lights that show that there is something going on “under the hood” so to speak. But like with my car, I chose to ignore the warning lights in my own life and kept pressing on.

Tomorrow I will begin to unpack some common heart attitudes and emotions like anger, anxiety, boredom, laziness, indifference, cynicism, despondency, and discouragement. The goal is to reveal what these attitudes and emotions can tell us about what’s going on deep down under the hood.

A life that welcomes sinners is a calling to an openness and comfort around sinners like a doctor has around sick people

When you get really sick, besides your mother, who comes to mind? … The Doctor! Doctors are identified with sick people and no one chooses a Doctor who is visibly uncomfortable around sick people. I was a pre-Med. major for about six months in college until I realized that the sight of blood made me nauseous and feint so I moved on to a different career path. I would not have been a good doctor because I am not completely comfortable being around sick, contagious people.

After being criticized by the Serious Religious Insiders of His day for eating and drinking with sinners, the Lord gives them a tongue-in-cheek response, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Although today insurance companies categorize the pre-scheduled doctor visits of babies as “well visits,” it is quite rare for someone to go to the doctor when she is feeling well. The sick need a doctor, the healthy don’t. Even when I truly am sick, I go to the doctor as a last resort. There’s something humiliating about having to admit that you’re not fit and being forced to identify yourself with all of those “really sick” people in the waiting room. But we shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus, The Great Physician, should bring His home remedy of the gospel to those who are sick as sinners.

Jesus ironically refers to the Serious Religious Insiders in the scene,”the Well.”  Of course this is how they considered themselves. They were, as one commentator calls them,  “Disgustingly Healthy,” perhaps with the fitness of an anorexic. These people were offended by the sick and the sinners because they claimed a wellness and righteousness for themselves. From their perspective, they’ve never been sick nor do they see their need for the remedy that Jesus offers. Their false sense of spiritual health caused them to despise the sick and be repulsed by the sight of them but a doctor ought to be affected differently by the presence of the sick.

Jesus came not to call the righteous, the self-diagnosed healthy, but sinners, those who will confess their incurable sickness. We find Jesus in the gospels gathering from the worst of the religious outsiders to build His Kingdom. Jesus method gives His followers a freedom from separatism and segregation. The Self-diagnosed Healthy Religious Insiders way was “Salvation by Separation from Sinners” but Jesus’ way is “Salvation by identification with Sinners.” The Gospel reminds us that We are the unhealthy, we are sinners, we are not so healthy, we are not so good. It reminds us that we ARE WRONG PEOPLE who met Jesus and He is Making us right. After Jesus meets a sinner, that sinner enters into a lifelong process that turns that sinner’s life RIGHTSIDE UP.  Because we are sinners we can lead a life that welcomes other sinners. This is a calling to an openness and comfort around sinners like a doctor has around sick people.

 

A life that welcomes sinners will be criticized by the self-righteous establishment

Do you love a good controversy? Well, Jesus was the instigator of several controversies during his 3 years of ministry on the earth including the strong disagreement over the people with whom he chose to eat. The Religiously Serious leaders of the day (the people  who you may have expected to be closer to Jesus because they were serious about the Bible) grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” One commentator calls this group of religious insiders as “The Disgustingly Healthy” while I would say they were as fit as an Anorexic.  These Biblically Serious leaders try to get the disciples to revolt against Jesus with challenges like, “what kind of master do you have that leads you into parties like this? He should be leading you into a holy life.
(of course he was) He is leading you astray into relationships with the wicked.”

Jesus was charged with being a friend of sinners, a glutton and even a drunkard on occasion. To those who espoused teetotalism, Jesus wasn’t outwardly spiritual enough and He was too social to be holy. In the three year ministry of Christ the four gospels record 52 days. In those 52 days of the ministry of Christ he was accused 6 times of being a friend of sinners.  That’s almost once per week. The Question for you and for me is….  How often does that happen to you? How often has your compassion for lost people been accused by the Biblically Serious  as compromise?

The Pharisees looked at spiritual maturity as a withdrawal from sinful community but Jesus saw maturity as immersion into and redemption of a sinful community. Christ opposes the Pharisees and those like them because they never saw themselves as sick in the first place. When you hang out with sinners, this freedom that Jesus gives will be  contested by some religious people.

If a Christian is hanging out with the wrong people for the right reasons, his actions should be celebrated by the church, not condemned. Of course, this is not an endorsement for teens and college students to engage in “missionary dating” because romantic feelings always confuse our motives. Christians should always make sure that in any relationship with those who don’t yet know Christ, that we are the ones who are setting the spiritual temperature of the relationship. We want to be thermostats not thermometers, setting the temperature instead of merely responding to it. But a life that welcomes sinners will be criticized by the self-righteous establishment.

A life that welcomes sinners overflows into the desire to invite your non-religious friends to party with Jesus

Last night I asked a large group of friends to describe the best party they had ever attended. Eyes lit up as men told stories of great wedding receptions and even a yacht party on the open sea that lasted five days with all expenses paid. Well surprisingly, the best party Jesus ever attended on the earth was at a Tax Collector’s house. Soon after Jesus unshackled Matthew’s heart with the words, “Follow Me,” he made a great feast for Jesus in his house and invited a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.  Nothing kept Matthew from following Christ and freely using his house and property to serve Christ seamlessly. As a brand new convert, Matthew’s first experience with evangelism was in the context of a great banquet reception with a huge spread of food and drink where he spared no expense to celebrate his Savior and introduce Christ to his friends.

Matthew’s guest list included his infamously disreputable co-workers, other non-categorized sinners, Jesus and the Apostles. (The Religiously Serious folks weren’t invited but loitered outside of the door to the house grumbling and criticizing.) Having experienced the irresistible, unparalleled, conquering love and acceptance of Jesus  Matthew celebrates by hosting a party to introduce his co-workers and social friends to this Love. When your eyes were blind and you’re given sight; when you’ve been in shackles and you’ve been set free; when you’ve experienced the undeserved love, overwhelming compassion and tender mercy of Jesus, you can’t help but overflow to those around you. A life that welcomes sinners overflows into the desire to invite your non-religious friends to party with Jesus.

A life that welcomes sinners begins with an experience of Christ’s undeserved love & generosity

Often we encounter Jesus in the gospels walking around in “secular space” associating with people of questionable character. One day he went out and met a tax collector named Matthew or Levi (likely his original Hebrew name) sitting at the tax booth, a place infamously known for plundering and unjust transactions. Because Roman Tax Collectors often became quite wealthy, the jobs were often given to the highest bidder so Matthew likely bribed a government official to land his lucrative job. Tax collectors from Jewish families were little-esteemed in first century Jerusalem not only because they were noted swindlers but because they were considered traitors working for the Roman Government who were oppressing the Jewish people. Barclay says, “By Jewish law a tax-gatherer was debarred from synagogue classed together with unclean things, robbers and murderers.” So Matthew was not a nice guy that Jesus made a little nicer. He was a bad guy, a sinner, a stray, a prodigal, and a religious outsider.

The choice of Matthew into the family of God and into the inner circle of Apostles was a shocking and surprising instance of grace. There was likely not another man in Jerusalem at the time who was further away from the mainline church than Matthew. He was an outsider! So Jesus’ calling of Matthew in the middle of his work day is an example of Christ’s preference for outsiders and strays; Jesus showing us that His Kingdom will be about Outsiders becoming Insiders to cast down the wisdom of the world and to challenge the self-righteous religiously-serious people of His day.

For Jesus to call a Tax Collector was an example of His undeserved goodness and a reminder to us that the calling of God is not dependent on the merits of our own spiritual resumes but purely 100% on His Kindness. Calvin comments, “Jesus teaches that our calling completely depends not on the merits of our own righteousness but on His sheer generosity.” So if you think you are deserving, you’ve completely missed the gospel. The Apostle Paul, once among the Strict Subscriptionists of his day said of himself, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am #1. So don’t just think of Matthew as a stranger with whom you have nothing in common. We are Matthew! And as we will see, Matthew’s life will become one that welcomes others sinners, the type of life that begins with an experience of Christ’s undeserved love and generosity.

Coming to Jesus with child-like qualities

William Hendrikson illustrates how a child thinks:
A merchant had a pile of gold coins outside his windowsill with a sign, “Take One.”
All day long people passed by thinking, “this guy can’t fool me.” Evening fell and the owner was about to remove the pile. But just before he did, a child came by, read the sign and calmly and without the least hesitancy, took one.”

Jesus wants us to come to Him with child-like qualities. He says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” When we receive the kingdom of God like a little child, we receive it with complete genuine, trustful humility.  Of course Jesus is not referring to the innocence of children, as he he has made strong remarks about the darkness and sinfulness of the human heart. Nowhere in the Bible are children referred to as “innocent” people who only develop sin and evil later in life. Instead, coming to Jesus with child-like qualities means coming to Him with the weakness, vulnerability and dependence of a little child.

Moreover, children are not good at hiding their flaws and feelings, they trust and are not suspicious. So to receive the kingdom “as a little child” we are to be completely honest about our flaws and feelings, approaching God through Christ with qualities such as dependency, trust, and inquisitiveness. Like a child, we must come to Him with a heart that believes everything, seeking his favor as a gift.

When Jesus welcomed the little children into His presence, He was insisting on a paradigm shift in thinking related to the VIPs in the Kingdom of God.

One of the highlights of our year living in Uppsala, Sweden was being invited to participate in an event for the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden. The Swedes rolled out the red carpet for the Ambassador and treated him like a V.I.P.  A red carpet has been traditionally used to mark the path taken by kings, queens and other heads of state on ceremonial and formal occasions though today virtually any two-bit celebrity can receive red carpet treatment. When Jesus welcomed the little children into His presence, He was insisting on a paradigm shift in thinking related to the VIPs in the Kingdom of God. He said, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”

Jesus owned the little ones as members of His church and they should be treated as insiders not as outsiders. The King is making sure that we know that little ones are admitted into His Kingdom with all the privileges. They are part of the visible church.
They are VIPs who are welcomed around the throne of grace and we should roll out the red carpet for them.

He doesn’t regard them as “little heathen” or “reprobate” who were living outside of the realm of salvation until by an act of their own they would “join the church.”  The Apostle Paul confirms this idea in 1 Cor. 7:14 that the children of believers are holy, they are Holy Seed. During his sermon at Pentecost, Peter likely recalled this memorable event when he said,  “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

As they grow older, parents should do everything in their power to bring their children to the point of voluntarily receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior so that they would say with their own heart and mouth, “ME TOO!”  But can you imagine the impact on the little ones who met Jesus, particularly as their parents would be able to tell them when they were grown, “When you were a baby, Jesus took you into his arms and blessed you!  Even then you were the object of his love!” Believers of any age can know this too, that He set His love and affection on YOU even before He spoke the creation into existence.

The Most Familiar Scene in the Gospels

It is perhaps the most familiar scene in the gospels; the scene when Jesus took the little children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. Through his prayer and blessing His heart of love and compassion goes out to the little ones. Every child with equal importance and attention. To those present, this certainly would have been quite an impressive, comforting and memorable scene where we encounter the Son of God, the Highest Prophet, and Our Great High Priest as warm, inviting and accommodating.
He not only takes them into his arms with a full embrace, he prays for them, blesses them and imparts Grace to them. He doesn’t refuse them from his company and he doesn’t exclude them from his grace. And his touch was oh so tender. The calloused hands of the carpenter’s son were not soft and smooth but  strong and His manner was so gentle and affectionate. He is a lamb-like lion.

Jesus was the kind of god-man whose tender and kind disposition attracted little children. In crowds, Jesus regularly took notice of the children. When he wanted a child for an illustration it seemed that there was always one present and willing to cooperate. There were even perhaps thousands of children present at his miraculous feeding events. Jesus loved the little children and they felt perfectly at ease with him. This should encourage little people to follow after Him but also encourage big people who are aware of their own weakness, helplessness and childishness.

Is. 40:11- He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

The gospel should make us sing!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there is a veritable plethora of singing competitions on network television these days. I like to sing too; in the car, in the shower, mostly alone but sometimes to newborn babies and to sweet folks during their last remaining days on this side of heaven. I do sing in church, but only in unison with hundreds of others so that I can’t be heard above them. What makes you sing? What moves you to the core of your being that you burst out into song?

There’s an obscure old man in the Gospels named Simeon who waited his whole life to see Jesus. When he finally takes the baby Jesus into his arms he can’t control his emotions so he bursts into song!  Now there are few things that move men to speak poetically or sing (especially old men). We know that Adam was moved to speak poetry when he met Eve. This is understandable because we know that it was the first time he had ever seen a women and she had yet to shop for clothes. But after a lifetime of waiting for his one wish to be fulfilled, Simeon speaks the most beautiful words regarding his Savior. We call it Simeon’s Song:

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.” – (Luke 2:29-32)

This is a man whose hope was set on the promise he had to see His Savior with his own eyes! When you are dead in transgressions and sins, without God, without hope in this world and the glorious light of the gospel breaks into your heart and you experience the Father stand up from his throne with arms wide open and you hear him call out your name and his irresistible grace draws you toward him and your eyes are opened to see your salvation accomplished through the work of the Son, what do you do?…………  You sing! You sing like Simeon. The Gospel should make us sing!

Game Shows or Soap Operas?

When I was a kid I remember being fascinated by TV Game Shows. Maybe it was because we weren’t wired for cable TV until I was 12 years old and thus had to settle for 5 channels and limited choices during hot summer days like “The Price is Right” or “The Young and the Restless.” Although I was Young,  the characters in the Soap Opera seemed chronically Restless so it was hard to connect to the story lines. The Game Shows always featured winners and losers but nobody went home as a total loser because the host would always comfort them with “lovely consolation prizes.” Having no idea what “consolation” was, I understood the context of “the consolation prize:”  “You lost everything, you really stink at this game and just so you don’t go away completely depressed, to minimize your grief and sadness, we have some prizes to make you happy again.” And that’s not a bad way to think about consolation.

In the book, The Shack, the author wrote about “the Great Sadness,” a time in his life when a tragic event caused a great disconsolation, a grief that was yet to be consoled. His invitation was to meet the Lord in the shack of  his pain so that the Lord could console his earthly sadness. Earthly sadness can come from the tragic circumstances of life, painful relationships or self-inflicted by our own sin. Regardless of its point of origination, all Christians at some point in their lives will suffer sadness on the earth. The Lord allows disconsolation so that He can be our consolation.

Today, we are better than ever about burying and over-medicating our sadness. When we do this, we miss out on God’s Consoling Grace. So what is your Great Sadness? What does the Lord need to console in you? The Gospel gives you the courage to engage your sadness so that Christ can be your consolation, your hope for happiness and healing. Meditate, if you will, on the lyrics from an old hymn by Thom­as Moore (1816):

Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure!
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure.

Here see the bread of life, see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above.
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.