ACBC Counseling Exam 3 - A Biblical Theology of Emotions
00:00:00.000 | of Intermediate Biblical Counseling.
00:00:02.120 | It's a great joy to meet together with you
00:00:05.140 | on this online class.
00:00:07.080 | And we trust that you're doing well in the Lord
00:00:09.480 | and that you're rejoicing in the goodness
00:00:11.720 | of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
00:00:14.520 | We are here on a Valentine's Day
00:00:17.320 | and my wife is here with me and we're broadcasting live
00:00:21.720 | and just a joy to meet with you all.
00:00:25.540 | We hope that you've been enriched
00:00:27.520 | and blessed by the study of God's word.
00:00:29.760 | And tonight we're gonna be looking at a very important topic
00:00:34.000 | and that is a biblical theology of emotions.
00:00:38.240 | This is one of the harder exam questions
00:00:41.920 | in the counseling exams of ACBC training.
00:00:46.800 | It is one of the questions that does not have
00:00:49.540 | a corresponding lecture in the year one training.
00:00:53.480 | And it is also a topic that really requires
00:00:57.320 | some thought and reflection both from
00:01:00.200 | what the scriptures teach and also from our ministry
00:01:03.900 | to people every day in the church.
00:01:07.120 | And I do pray that our study tonight will help us
00:01:10.420 | to think through a much needed subject
00:01:13.640 | in the biblical counseling training
00:01:15.760 | and then just a subject that's necessary
00:01:18.940 | for each of us to think through in our own lives.
00:01:21.520 | What is the place of emotions
00:01:24.220 | in the Christian's spiritual life?
00:01:28.520 | It's a subject that hasn't received the treatment
00:01:31.120 | that it ought to or the focus that it ought to in the church
00:01:36.120 | and I hope tonight's session will be a small pebble
00:01:40.480 | in a giant ocean that will perhaps move us toward
00:01:45.480 | a step further in our understanding of this important topic.
00:01:49.080 | So tonight we're looking at a biblical theology of emotions
00:01:53.800 | and I'm so glad that you've joined us for this time.
00:01:58.800 | Just a brief word before I open in prayer.
00:02:03.380 | I was reflecting on this importance of this subject,
00:02:07.360 | biblical theology of emotions.
00:02:09.460 | An important topic for the simple reason
00:02:13.280 | that we all have emotions.
00:02:15.800 | I trust you will agree with that.
00:02:18.480 | Some of us may be more prone to expressing intense emotions
00:02:24.000 | than others.
00:02:24.840 | Some of us are more reserved in our emotional expressions
00:02:29.840 | but all of us have emotions, emotions of joy,
00:02:34.720 | emotions of grief, emotions of affection,
00:02:39.640 | even emotions of relief, of gladness,
00:02:43.920 | of disillusionment, disappointment.
00:02:46.440 | Consider that anger, hatred, bitterness, resentment,
00:02:53.740 | fear, anxiety, and worry can all to some degree
00:02:58.620 | be classified under the category of emotions,
00:03:03.620 | which means that a number of counseling issues
00:03:06.060 | do relate to the emotional life of our counselees.
00:03:10.420 | You and I know that people make emotional decisions.
00:03:15.220 | That's why they say never go to the grocery store
00:03:18.460 | when you're hungry.
00:03:20.100 | You will make an emotional decision,
00:03:23.740 | not a rational decision.
00:03:26.040 | And we also know that there are some counseling meetings,
00:03:30.760 | many counseling meetings that do get very emotional.
00:03:35.760 | And you wanna be equipped to know how to handle
00:03:39.220 | those expressions of emotion in counseling ministry.
00:03:44.220 | And then just not even how it relates to counseling ministry
00:03:48.920 | but just processing the everyday events of life.
00:03:53.860 | I believe that the Christian life
00:03:56.660 | is a life that is filled with emotions.
00:04:00.380 | Paul described it as sorrowful,
00:04:03.220 | yet always rejoicing in 2 Corinthians 6, verse 10.
00:04:08.220 | We rejoice with those who rejoice
00:04:11.780 | and we weep with those who weep.
00:04:15.980 | And sometimes you feel like you're on
00:04:19.160 | an emotional rollercoaster in the Christian life.
00:04:21.760 | I know I feel that way as a pastor.
00:04:25.160 | I was sharing just this past Wednesday
00:04:27.200 | at our church staff meeting,
00:04:29.440 | that I feel something of the emotional rollercoaster
00:04:33.920 | of pastoral ministry.
00:04:36.320 | On one hand, you're rejoicing with a couple
00:04:38.760 | over the birth of their baby,
00:04:41.420 | or you're rejoicing with a couple at a wedding
00:04:46.420 | or a birthday, and on the other hand,
00:04:50.140 | you are weeping at a funeral or in a hospital.
00:04:55.140 | You're just rejoicing and you're weeping.
00:04:58.200 | And sometimes those emotional highs and emotional lows,
00:05:02.140 | if you will, come within 24 hours of each other.
00:05:06.200 | And it's just the Christian life
00:05:08.500 | that if you're rejoicing with those who rejoice
00:05:11.920 | and weeping with those who weep,
00:05:13.500 | then there is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster
00:05:18.460 | in church ministry.
00:05:19.840 | And my former professor at the Master Seminary,
00:05:24.840 | who's also a pastor here in Riverside,
00:05:28.340 | Milton Vincent, used to say to us,
00:05:31.420 | "Embrace the emotional rollercoaster of being a pastor."
00:05:36.900 | That is the stuff of life.
00:05:38.620 | That's what it means to be most fully alive
00:05:42.100 | is to be experiencing these emotions
00:05:46.180 | alongside those whom you love in the church.
00:05:51.180 | And that is indeed so much of life
00:05:55.020 | is just experiencing emotions.
00:05:58.860 | So we need a category for that.
00:06:01.740 | We need to understand what the Bible says about emotions.
00:06:06.280 | We need to understand something of the complexity
00:06:09.320 | of the emotional life of the Christian,
00:06:13.320 | sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
00:06:15.980 | Paul said, which means that the emotional life
00:06:20.500 | of the Christian is not a single note.
00:06:23.620 | It's not staccato.
00:06:25.560 | If it was a piano piece,
00:06:27.100 | it would not just be one chord being played over and over.
00:06:31.300 | But the Christian's emotional life is a little bit more
00:06:35.580 | like a symphony where there are various melodies
00:06:40.580 | and themes being played interwoven
00:06:44.180 | and all moving toward a beautiful melody
00:06:49.180 | in the end as the Lord orchestrates
00:06:51.740 | all of these things in our lives.
00:06:54.100 | So this indeed is just so much of life.
00:06:56.620 | And I hope that this teaching will help us
00:07:00.300 | handle that in a biblical manner.
00:07:02.660 | So let's pray together.
00:07:03.860 | Let us devote our time to the Lord
00:07:06.020 | and ask God to bless our time.
00:07:07.460 | Father, thank you so much for our time around your word
00:07:10.740 | and for each of the brothers and sisters in Christ
00:07:14.540 | who have joined us in this online class.
00:07:18.140 | We thank you for Christ and his shed blood
00:07:21.500 | and his glorious resurrection from the grave.
00:07:24.660 | And we thank you for the Spirit's work in our lives
00:07:27.740 | to make us more like your son.
00:07:32.140 | We thank you that Jesus experienced genuine human emotions
00:07:37.140 | in his earthly incarnation.
00:07:41.200 | He was the perfect man, and yet he experienced emotions.
00:07:46.200 | He wept at the grave site of Lazarus.
00:07:52.140 | He was a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief,
00:07:56.540 | and yet he also obeyed you, the Father,
00:08:01.840 | for the joy that was set before him.
00:08:04.540 | And we just pray that we might learn to handle this topic
00:08:09.500 | in a wise manner.
00:08:10.640 | Give us wisdom, Lord.
00:08:13.020 | Help us to not be overly simplistic
00:08:17.020 | in our handling of this topic.
00:08:19.840 | Make us wise counselors, we pray,
00:08:22.420 | that we might be able to come alongside others
00:08:24.760 | and give help and hope to those in need.
00:08:27.420 | So we pray all this in Jesus' name.
00:08:29.900 | Amen.
00:08:31.740 | - Okay, we are looking at counseling exam number three
00:08:36.220 | tonight, and the question is this.
00:08:38.420 | Provide a biblical theology of emotions.
00:08:42.040 | What role should a counselor allow emotions
00:08:44.900 | to play in counseling?
00:08:47.460 | How can one tell the difference between sinful emotions
00:08:50.580 | and righteous emotions?
00:08:52.940 | And how would you use scripture
00:08:54.660 | to help a counselee change improper emotions?
00:08:59.300 | So that is a bit of a handful of a question there.
00:09:02.220 | As you can see, you could break that question down
00:09:05.660 | into four parts.
00:09:08.420 | What is a biblical theology of emotions?
00:09:10.620 | Which, just explaining that part of the exam
00:09:14.900 | will take a large portion of your essay.
00:09:19.620 | What role should a counselor allow emotions
00:09:22.500 | to play in counseling?
00:09:25.060 | And so how would you handle emotions in a counseling session
00:09:30.060 | talking through the difference between sinful emotions
00:09:34.260 | and righteous emotions?
00:09:35.740 | We'll talk a little bit about that in our session tonight.
00:09:39.320 | And then how would you use scripture
00:09:41.900 | to help a counselee change improper emotions?
00:09:45.820 | That's really a four-part question.
00:09:49.160 | You can go about it in a number of different ways,
00:09:51.940 | but I would say that the first part,
00:09:54.820 | providing a biblical theology of emotions
00:09:58.540 | should take at least a half to two-thirds of your essay,
00:10:03.540 | and just walking through some of the points
00:10:06.160 | that we'll look at tonight.
00:10:07.840 | And then the rest of the essay can move
00:10:10.980 | toward some application points that are highlighted
00:10:14.940 | by the next three parts of the question.
00:10:16.820 | So just trying to break down this question.
00:10:19.220 | There's a lot there.
00:10:20.180 | It's really a four-part question,
00:10:22.120 | but the first part of the question
00:10:24.560 | providing a biblical theology of emotion
00:10:27.100 | should occupy a large portion of your time and attention.
00:10:32.100 | As I mentioned, this is one of the harder questions
00:10:37.380 | in the year two training
00:10:38.760 | because we have not had a lecture on this in year one,
00:10:42.520 | but it is a subject that is very important.
00:10:47.060 | So if you look at page one of your handout,
00:10:50.180 | I have some recommended resources for you to look at there.
00:10:54.400 | We have, first of all, Sam Williams,
00:10:57.480 | an excellent article toward a theology of emotions,
00:11:01.040 | which was printed in the Southern Baptist
00:11:04.720 | Journal of Theology,
00:11:06.000 | and that's available online for free.
00:11:08.080 | I've emailed that to you in a Dropbox handout.
00:11:12.240 | You can star that resource.
00:11:14.760 | That really is the one resource that if you learn
00:11:18.560 | and if you master,
00:11:20.880 | you really shouldn't need much more
00:11:23.020 | than that article in writing this essay.
00:11:26.020 | Dr. Williams is a biblical counseling professor
00:11:30.160 | at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary,
00:11:33.520 | and he has written a very good essay on that topic.
00:11:37.520 | I wanna commend that to you.
00:11:39.800 | He does spend a lot of time in that article
00:11:43.800 | trying to make the distinctions between feelings,
00:11:47.360 | affections, and emotions.
00:11:50.540 | Just don't get bogged down in that discussion.
00:11:52.880 | I think that's a necessary discussion,
00:11:55.960 | but not one that is really pertinent
00:12:00.040 | or at the heart of the essay that you're writing.
00:12:03.340 | So don't get lost in the discussion
00:12:05.720 | of trying to distinguish feelings,
00:12:07.420 | affections, and emotions.
00:12:09.280 | You can take that under the broad category of emotions
00:12:14.280 | and look to the rest of the article
00:12:17.920 | for some help on this topic.
00:12:20.520 | Just an excellent work.
00:12:21.860 | I wanna commend that to you.
00:12:23.400 | I've given you Jeff Forey's chapter
00:12:26.600 | in the book "Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling"
00:12:28.680 | as a reference.
00:12:29.520 | That's chapter 27 in that book.
00:12:32.640 | The chapter is entitled
00:12:34.240 | "A Biblical Understanding and Treatment of Emotions."
00:12:38.060 | If you need one chapter
00:12:40.400 | that does an overview of this subject,
00:12:42.880 | I would recommend Jeff Forey's chapter
00:12:45.680 | in "Christ-Centered Biblical Counseling."
00:12:50.920 | And then you have really an excellent work
00:12:52.800 | I would highly recommend
00:12:54.380 | if you want further study on this topic.
00:12:57.660 | Dr. Brian Borgman is a pastor in Nevada.
00:13:02.660 | I believe he pastors near Las Vegas,
00:13:06.540 | and I have listened to his material for years.
00:13:09.540 | He is an excellent and faithful,
00:13:12.020 | diligent student of scripture,
00:13:15.300 | and he has spoken at a few biblical counseling conferences.
00:13:19.420 | You'll find some of his materials
00:13:21.900 | up at the ibcd.org website.
00:13:26.360 | And just everything he does is very well done.
00:13:30.420 | So I commend his teaching ministry to you.
00:13:33.620 | And he has a book out that's entitled
00:13:35.580 | "Feelings and Faith, Cultivating Godly Emotions
00:13:39.820 | in the Christian Life."
00:13:42.660 | I would encourage you to make the study of emotions
00:13:46.820 | a lifelong study,
00:13:48.940 | and that's one book that you will want to read
00:13:52.740 | and seek to learn more from,
00:13:56.340 | "Feelings and Faith, Cultivating Godly Emotions."
00:14:00.940 | By the way, Dr. Borgman does have, I think,
00:14:05.340 | a few lectures on the subject of emotions.
00:14:09.380 | If you want to listen to it on audio,
00:14:11.700 | he has a few lectures at the ibcd.org website.
00:14:15.540 | You can look that up under resources
00:14:18.360 | and do a search on his name and find that there.
00:14:21.780 | Wayne Grudem has a couple of good sections
00:14:26.100 | in "Systematic Theology"
00:14:27.300 | that relates to the subject of emotions,
00:14:29.460 | especially the two pages
00:14:31.760 | on the subject of God's impassibility.
00:14:35.380 | You will want to have a basic understanding
00:14:38.580 | of what the doctrine of,
00:14:40.860 | or the teaching of impassibility holds,
00:14:43.980 | and then why Grudem does not affirm
00:14:48.060 | the teaching on God's impassibility.
00:14:51.780 | I do not affirm that teaching as well.
00:14:54.600 | The doctrine of impassibility basically teaches
00:14:57.960 | that God is not subject to passions or emotions,
00:15:01.680 | that emotions you see in scriptures
00:15:04.840 | are not genuine emotions,
00:15:06.200 | but they are anthropomorphisms.
00:15:09.620 | They are descriptions of God in a human analogy,
00:15:14.620 | but they are not describing genuine emotions.
00:15:17.520 | And Grudem talks about in those two pages
00:15:19.600 | of how he does not affirm God's,
00:15:22.820 | the teaching that God is God's impassibility.
00:15:26.680 | And so you just want to be aware of that discussion.
00:15:28.780 | I think it relates to the subject of emotions,
00:15:31.680 | as we'll see a little bit more tonight.
00:15:33.760 | Those are two pages that you'll want to read
00:15:36.200 | and just have a basic working knowledge of.
00:15:39.920 | My dear wife, Mina, wrote a very good essay
00:15:44.800 | on the subject of emotions.
00:15:46.820 | It's entitled "A Biblical Understanding of Emotions."
00:15:49.320 | This is from her training
00:15:50.520 | on the Master's of Biblical Counseling program
00:15:54.760 | at the Master's University.
00:15:56.900 | And that is an unpublished document,
00:15:58.960 | but I have put that in your hands in the Dropbox link.
00:16:02.900 | A very good summary of the subject of emotions
00:16:06.180 | with some good applications for counselors.
00:16:09.980 | So please do use that resource.
00:16:13.020 | We've made that available to you.
00:16:15.660 | And then some articles, B.B. Warfield's
00:16:18.520 | "The Emotional Life of Our Lord"
00:16:20.460 | is helpful in thinking through the subject of emotions
00:16:24.940 | in relation to the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
00:16:29.380 | We see in the life of Christ in the gospel records
00:16:31.940 | that Jesus wept, Jesus felt compassion,
00:16:35.460 | Jesus felt righteous anger,
00:16:38.320 | Jesus' sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.
00:16:42.700 | So if Jesus was and is the perfect man
00:16:47.060 | and he expressed and experienced genuine emotion,
00:16:52.580 | then we have to conclude that emotions
00:16:55.660 | in and of themselves are not sinful.
00:16:59.660 | Jesus was not like a Vulcan in the Star Trek TV show.
00:17:04.100 | He was not just pure logic.
00:17:07.820 | He experienced genuine emotions,
00:17:10.140 | but those emotions were appropriate
00:17:12.480 | to the context in which he was in.
00:17:17.280 | Think about it, Jesus Christ, the perfect man,
00:17:21.660 | had a full emotional life
00:17:25.140 | that was perfectly holy and righteous.
00:17:28.620 | And B.B. Warfield talks through that in his article,
00:17:32.380 | "The Emotional Life of Our Lord,"
00:17:34.140 | and that is available for free on the World Wide Web.
00:17:38.100 | David Powelson has a couple of good articles on this topic.
00:17:43.020 | Anything by David Powelson is worth reading
00:17:45.540 | and thinking through.
00:17:47.160 | And in fact, in one of his articles,
00:17:49.260 | he pleads for more people to write on this subject.
00:17:53.580 | He says, "We just need more publications.
00:17:55.900 | "We need more people to think about what the Bible says
00:17:59.180 | "about emotions and then apply that wisely
00:18:02.780 | "and skillfully to the Christian life."
00:18:06.300 | And he has done a great job in setting us up for this study.
00:18:11.300 | And then a last subject or last article
00:18:15.260 | that I've placed in the Dropbox is Bruce Ware's article
00:18:19.180 | from back in 1986, where he contends from scripture
00:18:23.380 | that God is a personal being with genuine emotions.
00:18:27.220 | That article is a little academic,
00:18:30.100 | but it's well worth your time if you wanna be read
00:18:32.520 | and be challenged a little bit on this subject.
00:18:35.860 | He holds to the view that the biblical descriptions
00:18:40.620 | of God rejoicing, God being grieved,
00:18:45.620 | God having compassion,
00:18:48.620 | that these are not mere anthropomorphisms.
00:18:51.500 | They're not just human analogies.
00:18:53.860 | They are describing real emotions that God is experiencing.
00:18:58.860 | And you can look through his article
00:19:04.300 | for some further discussion on that subject,
00:19:06.480 | but it's well worth your time.
00:19:07.920 | And if you want more of an academic defense
00:19:11.580 | of the truth that God is a person with genuine emotions,
00:19:15.760 | you might want to work through that journal article.
00:19:18.820 | So just a number of good resources.
00:19:20.580 | You don't need to read them all.
00:19:21.700 | I just wanna give you a sense of the breadth of this subject
00:19:26.700 | and whet your appetite for further study.
00:19:31.400 | If you want one resource, please read Sam Williams' work
00:19:36.400 | on "Toward a Theology of Emotion,"
00:19:39.780 | and then the rest can be supplementary reading.
00:19:43.060 | But again, a lifetime of learning awaits us on this subject,
00:19:47.540 | and I hope that this will be a good introduction
00:19:51.060 | to the topic.
00:19:52.580 | With that said, let me move to page two of your class notes.
00:19:55.860 | And again, let me prime the pump
00:19:57.980 | in emphasizing the importance of this topic.
00:20:02.160 | Sam Williams writes this,
00:20:04.540 | "Whether we are conscious of it or not,
00:20:06.340 | we have theories and operating principles about emotion.
00:20:09.820 | It should be no surprise that when scripture
00:20:12.420 | does not inform our thinking,
00:20:14.260 | especially about a matter such as emotion,
00:20:16.460 | which is so much a part of the nature of persons,
00:20:19.540 | something else will.
00:20:20.800 | Unfortunately, contemporary evangelicals
00:20:24.580 | have paid little attention to the development of a theology
00:20:28.940 | or biblical anthropology of the emotions,
00:20:31.460 | affections, and feelings.
00:20:34.300 | As a result, when the emotions are addressed,
00:20:37.140 | personal opinion, denominational or cultural prejudices,
00:20:41.500 | and pop psychology are the dominant voices.
00:20:45.000 | Even worse, these voices are rarely questioned
00:20:48.340 | or justified with biblical warrant.
00:20:50.180 | We seem to function as if scripture
00:20:51.980 | is silent on these matters."
00:20:55.240 | I think this is true and a helpful observation.
00:21:00.240 | I can't tell you how many times as a pastor
00:21:03.900 | that a Christian has talked to me in the church
00:21:07.060 | and expressed sorrow or grief or pain or disappointment,
00:21:13.020 | and then appear to feel guilty over the emotions
00:21:17.680 | that they were experiencing.
00:21:19.120 | As if to say, "I'm a Christian,
00:21:22.760 | and I believe the word of God,
00:21:24.160 | and so I shouldn't be experiencing these emotions.
00:21:28.660 | I should be able to get over this.
00:21:30.320 | I should be able to move past this.
00:21:33.360 | I shouldn't be feeling these emotions."
00:21:36.920 | And it's my privilege as a pastor
00:21:39.160 | to reassure this beloved Christian
00:21:44.100 | that what you are feeling is normal.
00:21:47.180 | We are emotional beings.
00:21:49.860 | You shouldn't feel guilty over feeling genuine emotions.
00:21:54.860 | If Jesus felt sorrow, then so should we at certain points.
00:22:01.380 | In fact, it would be sinful not to feel sorrow
00:22:05.340 | or to feel grief or pain in certain situations.
00:22:10.340 | I've also counseled in situations
00:22:15.080 | where the counseling issue is an absence of emotion.
00:22:20.080 | Just a dear believer in Christ saying,
00:22:25.160 | "Pastor, I haven't felt emotion about Jesus
00:22:28.480 | or about worship or about the Bible or my spiritual life.
00:22:33.240 | I haven't felt emotion in months or even years.
00:22:37.420 | I'm an emotional blank.
00:22:39.080 | I know I should be feeling something
00:22:41.640 | when I read the Bible or when I pray
00:22:43.520 | or when I join in Sunday morning worship service
00:22:46.380 | and sing these songs, but I feel nothing.
00:22:49.400 | Can you help me think through this topic?"
00:22:54.060 | And that is a more common struggle than you might think.
00:22:57.480 | It's a real struggle for people in the church.
00:23:01.200 | And so we just need to wisely think through this topic.
00:23:05.960 | And I think the lack, as Williams calls it,
00:23:09.080 | the lack of a development of a theology of the emotions
00:23:13.560 | is not helpful for us in ministering to real people.
00:23:18.560 | I've also observed that Christians
00:23:23.140 | want to move straight to the emotion of joy.
00:23:26.500 | It's almost as if we're uncomfortable
00:23:29.640 | with sorrow or we're uncomfortable with righteous anger
00:23:33.800 | or even the emotion of jealousy,
00:23:36.080 | the emotion of compassion, mercy,
00:23:39.280 | feeling the pain of others.
00:23:41.640 | We are uncomfortable with these other aspects
00:23:46.000 | of the emotional life of the Christian.
00:23:48.840 | And we want to shortcut that process
00:23:51.280 | and move straight to joy.
00:23:55.040 | And I have even been in situations
00:24:00.040 | where I've thought that it's appropriate
00:24:04.800 | for us to feel a little more complexity of emotions
00:24:08.100 | and just hit the simple note of,
00:24:10.240 | you just need to have pure joy all the time
00:24:13.480 | really doesn't capture the full teaching
00:24:16.480 | of what scripture says on this topic.
00:24:19.540 | David Powelson, as I mentioned,
00:24:23.880 | has called for further reflection on the study.
00:24:26.080 | He says, "There is no fundamental disconnect
00:24:28.040 | "between the emotional life of our Lord
00:24:30.840 | "and the emotional lives of every believer
00:24:32.620 | "and unbeliever in the Lord
00:24:34.960 | "before whom every knee must someday bow."
00:24:39.320 | He's saying there that if God is a person
00:24:42.520 | with genuine emotions, if Jesus Christ,
00:24:44.640 | the perfect man had perfect emotions,
00:24:49.640 | then so we must understand and embrace the fact
00:24:52.140 | that we are emotional beings.
00:24:56.320 | He continues that every careless word is weighed.
00:24:59.400 | Religious affections are a subset of affections in general
00:25:04.240 | and all affections are religious.
00:25:08.440 | All human creatures worship, love, trust, fear,
00:25:13.440 | believe, take refuge, value, hope, and seek
00:25:16.980 | in either the right way or the wrong way.
00:25:19.760 | All human creatures get angry, joyful, sorrowful,
00:25:23.840 | guilty, jealous, fearful, loving, anxious, driven,
00:25:28.400 | confident, despondent, amorous, or hopeful
00:25:32.200 | in either the right way or the wrong way.
00:25:35.580 | Fire and smoke cannot be separated.
00:25:39.120 | The study of wetness and the study of water
00:25:42.200 | cannot be kept apart.
00:25:43.360 | Causes cannot be dismembered from effects.
00:25:47.240 | Human life is about God and Christ
00:25:49.400 | and dare we say the converse,
00:25:51.520 | God and Christ is about human life.
00:25:55.380 | So you get the idea.
00:25:57.360 | When you read Palestine, you get challenged
00:25:59.560 | to think through the fullness of what the Bible says
00:26:04.080 | on a certain subject.
00:26:04.980 | He has a way of poking us and prodding us
00:26:07.680 | into thinking that maybe you haven't thought
00:26:10.840 | through this subject in its full complexity
00:26:14.360 | and that all is a very hopeful and helpful prodding.
00:26:18.980 | What he's saying here is that we must think theologically
00:26:22.920 | about our emotions.
00:26:26.080 | We must understand the incarnation
00:26:28.820 | and the emotional life of Christ
00:26:31.720 | and then tie that understanding
00:26:34.520 | into our own experience of emotion.
00:26:37.920 | And then Brian Borgman says this,
00:26:39.560 | "It is only when we gain a biblical perspective
00:26:43.360 | "on this significant part of our humanity
00:26:45.500 | "that we can begin to grow
00:26:48.320 | "and put the mind and the emotions
00:26:50.040 | "and the will in the right positions.
00:26:51.920 | "As we learn to understand
00:26:53.080 | "and handle our emotions biblically,
00:26:56.240 | "we begin to mature in new ways.
00:26:59.700 | "My pastoral experience has taught me
00:27:03.200 | "that a biblical understanding of the emotions
00:27:05.860 | "and the application of these truths
00:27:07.580 | "can become a virtual greenhouse
00:27:12.580 | "for spiritual growth and maturity."
00:27:17.680 | I love that statement.
00:27:19.560 | And I'm going to get emotional
00:27:21.560 | speaking on this subject of emotions
00:27:24.440 | because I think that is why this topic is so important
00:27:28.000 | and so crucial for biblical counselors
00:27:31.820 | to understand this topic.
00:27:33.860 | When you handle the subject of emotions biblically,
00:27:38.560 | wisely, pastorally, carefully,
00:27:42.640 | and then relate to your counselees with wisdom
00:27:46.440 | and with grace,
00:27:47.740 | what you do is you provide for them
00:27:49.880 | what Borgman calls a spiritual greenhouse
00:27:52.760 | where they can actually begin to grow in ways
00:27:57.640 | that they had not experienced previously
00:28:02.600 | in their Christian life.
00:28:06.000 | I think one work that has helped me so much
00:28:08.240 | to think through the subject of emotions
00:28:10.160 | was the landmark work by John Piper, "Desiring God,"
00:28:14.600 | which is in itself a reflection
00:28:18.080 | on the work of Jonathan Edwards,
00:28:20.320 | "The Religious Affections,"
00:28:21.520 | just talking about the place of affection
00:28:24.680 | or emotion in the Christian life.
00:28:27.440 | And I remember as a new Christian
00:28:29.000 | hearing John Piper preach on the subject
00:28:32.640 | of the religious affections for the very first time,
00:28:35.160 | and I had never heard someone emphasize
00:28:38.960 | the importance of affection and emotion
00:28:42.000 | and desiring the Lord and eating of God's word
00:28:46.280 | in a way where your full heart and affections
00:28:49.120 | and emotions are engaged in that study.
00:28:52.080 | I had never seen that subject emphasized before.
00:28:56.080 | And I do remember growing in ways
00:28:58.440 | that I had not previously
00:28:59.700 | when I began to understand what the Bible said
00:29:02.500 | on this topic, that the joy and grief
00:29:07.040 | and compassion and mercy and even jealousy,
00:29:10.480 | as Paul talks about his jealousy for the church,
00:29:13.680 | that they would be presented to Christ
00:29:15.880 | in purity and in fidelity,
00:29:18.920 | that all of that understanding
00:29:21.360 | of the emotional life of the Christian
00:29:22.880 | did begin to pay dividends in my spiritual life,
00:29:26.200 | and I pray that that would continue.
00:29:27.960 | And I think that's what Borgman's teaching here,
00:29:30.480 | that when you handle the subject wisely and biblically,
00:29:34.400 | you open up new avenues for a counselee
00:29:38.520 | and even your own life for you to grow in Christ.
00:29:42.680 | And I think that's why this topic is so important.
00:29:47.280 | By the way, if you meet Brian Borgman,
00:29:49.320 | he's not what you call a touchy-feely guy.
00:29:51.500 | You might think that, oh, reading that,
00:29:52.760 | he's one of these guys who's always just like
00:29:54.760 | really emotional all the time and touchy-feely.
00:29:58.160 | And you find, this guy's a straight shooter.
00:30:00.160 | He is one of the most faithful biblical expositors
00:30:04.840 | and teachers that I have listened to,
00:30:09.320 | and he just isn't the personality type
00:30:11.480 | that you might think,
00:30:12.840 | but he's just being straight with the word of God
00:30:14.920 | and saying, if we wanna be faithful with the word of God,
00:30:17.600 | we have to understand what the Bible says about emotion.
00:30:22.600 | Moving on here, dear friends,
00:30:25.920 | have you noticed that the Bible is not hesitant
00:30:28.000 | to address our emotional lives?
00:30:30.560 | Christ claims authority over our emotions,
00:30:33.240 | and the Bible has no problems with calling us
00:30:36.400 | to have godly emotions in the Lord.
00:30:40.720 | Psalm 66, verse one.
00:30:42.160 | "Shout for joy to God, all the earth.
00:30:44.320 | "Sing the glory of his name.
00:30:46.780 | "Give to him glorious praise.
00:30:49.340 | "Say to God, how awesome are your deeds.
00:30:51.200 | "So great is your power
00:30:53.780 | "that your enemies come cringing to you.
00:30:55.820 | "All the earth worships you and sings praises to you.
00:30:59.060 | "They sing praises to your name."
00:31:01.240 | This is a call not only to engage in worship,
00:31:04.260 | but to experience the emotions
00:31:06.580 | that are appropriate to worship,
00:31:08.680 | which is the joyful celebration of the greatness of God.
00:31:14.580 | We are to joyfully sing the praises of his name.
00:31:20.440 | We'll talk about this a little bit,
00:31:21.880 | but part of the distortion of sin in our lives
00:31:24.160 | is that we rejoice in things we ought to be sorrowful over.
00:31:28.080 | We are sorrowful things that we ought to rejoice in.
00:31:31.880 | And so our emotional lives are kind of twisted
00:31:35.240 | where we're finding joy in things we ought to grieve over.
00:31:39.220 | And as scripture says in our society,
00:31:41.800 | we glory in our shame.
00:31:44.880 | And another way that you see
00:31:47.240 | that our emotional lives are affected by sin
00:31:50.480 | is that we don't feel the intensity of emotions
00:31:53.720 | that are appropriate to the subject at hand.
00:31:57.360 | We have large emotions about things
00:31:59.800 | we should have small emotion over,
00:32:03.500 | and we have very small emotion over things
00:32:08.060 | that we ought to experience lots of emotion over.
00:32:10.560 | We get so excited about the Super Bowl,
00:32:16.920 | or the NBA finals,
00:32:18.960 | or our team winning a certain championship,
00:32:21.660 | or the Olympics.
00:32:23.960 | And it's fine to rejoice in those things,
00:32:26.240 | but they are limited achievements.
00:32:30.840 | The problem is not that we find joy
00:32:33.740 | in these types of things,
00:32:36.160 | it's that we have so much emotion
00:32:38.240 | over things that are of limited value,
00:32:39.920 | and we have such small emotion
00:32:42.400 | over things that have ultimate value.
00:32:45.360 | And I think the Psalms are calling for the exact reverse.
00:32:51.440 | Shout for joy to God, all the earth.
00:32:54.920 | Sing the glory of his name.
00:32:56.400 | Have you ever been there where sometimes
00:32:58.080 | I'm in a Sunday morning worship service,
00:33:00.220 | and I'm praying,
00:33:01.060 | Lord, help me to experience the appropriate emotions
00:33:06.060 | that would respond to the truth
00:33:07.920 | that we're talking about,
00:33:09.400 | or to engage in the singing of the church.
00:33:13.480 | I ought to feel some emotions.
00:33:15.360 | And I do get concerned in my own spiritual life,
00:33:18.260 | if I can go weeks and Sunday after Sunday,
00:33:22.840 | and come to worship service and not feel any emotion,
00:33:27.840 | then I start to get concerned over the state of my soul.
00:33:31.660 | I don't think that we are emotional experiences
00:33:37.760 | or the end all be all in the Christian life.
00:33:44.040 | I'm not advocating from some point of view
00:33:47.440 | that says you need to whip yourself
00:33:48.920 | into an emotional frenzy
00:33:50.280 | in order to have a genuine worship experience.
00:33:53.640 | We know that that's not true.
00:33:55.780 | But if I can feel zero emotion,
00:34:00.380 | week after week after week,
00:34:03.680 | after the truth of God is being proclaimed in my life,
00:34:07.920 | and the glory of God and the glory of Christ
00:34:10.040 | is being taught and proclaimed and being prayed over,
00:34:13.440 | and I can feel nothing for weeks.
00:34:15.760 | And I get very concerned about
00:34:17.660 | what's going on with my soul.
00:34:20.560 | That there is a place for emotion in life and worship.
00:34:26.960 | And you see that in Psalm 66, verse one.
00:34:30.920 | Psalm 100, verse one,
00:34:34.420 | "Make a joyful noise, the Lord all the earth,
00:34:36.520 | "serve the Lord with gladness,
00:34:39.020 | "come into his presence with singing,
00:34:40.640 | "know that the Lord, he is God.
00:34:42.900 | "It is he who made us and we are his.
00:34:45.660 | "We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.
00:34:49.260 | "Enter his gates with thanksgiving
00:34:50.740 | "and his courts with praise, give thanks to him.
00:34:53.820 | "Bless his name for the Lord is good.
00:34:56.580 | "His steadfast love endures forever
00:34:58.420 | "and his faithfulness to all generations."
00:35:03.060 | It's hard to read that passage
00:35:06.800 | without responding with emotion,
00:35:09.660 | to know that the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever,
00:35:12.740 | to know that you are loved eternally
00:35:16.220 | and that God's loving kindness will never leave you.
00:35:21.940 | And so we're called not only to sing with joy,
00:35:24.100 | we're called to serve with joy.
00:35:27.440 | And then you have in the scriptures,
00:35:31.220 | the emotion of sorrow being demonstrated
00:35:35.020 | by godly men like the prophet Jeremiah,
00:35:38.460 | who ministered in the days before Judah's captivity.
00:35:42.460 | Jerusalem was about to be conquered
00:35:46.420 | by the Babylonian empire
00:35:48.700 | and the people will be taken captive.
00:35:51.460 | The temple will be destroyed.
00:35:54.060 | Jeremiah sees the impending captivity of his people.
00:35:56.740 | And he says in Jeremiah four, verse 19,
00:35:59.220 | "My anguish, my anguish, I writhe in pain
00:36:01.840 | "or the walls of my heart.
00:36:03.220 | "My heart is beating wildly.
00:36:04.720 | "I cannot keep silent for I hear the sound of the trumpet,
00:36:07.280 | "the alarm of war."
00:36:09.460 | Friends, these are emotions
00:36:14.460 | that are appropriate to the circumstances.
00:36:19.300 | Would you agree
00:36:20.420 | that it is wrong to laugh out loud
00:36:28.260 | at the saddest part of a funeral service?
00:36:32.340 | Would you agree that that would be a wrong emotion,
00:36:36.680 | that that would be even sinful
00:36:39.300 | to express that type of emotion
00:36:41.980 | in the context in which you are in?
00:36:44.460 | Would you agree at the same time
00:36:47.100 | that it would be wrong to weep with sorrow
00:36:50.300 | and put ashes over your head at someone's wedding?
00:36:54.260 | It is not that joy is always right or sorrow is always wrong.
00:37:01.140 | It is that our emotions are meant to respond
00:37:05.460 | to the circumstances we find ourselves in.
00:37:09.580 | And Jeremiah would have been wrong
00:37:13.460 | to look at the impending doom of his people,
00:37:17.420 | the exile of his people into Babylon
00:37:20.420 | and to feel no emotion, to feel indifference,
00:37:24.980 | to not weep at the events which were about to take place
00:37:29.980 | would have been wrong for Jeremiah.
00:37:33.300 | So he talks, he has an appropriate emotion
00:37:36.780 | in the context of what he was dealing with
00:37:39.180 | and he feels anguish.
00:37:41.300 | When a counselee is weeping in front of me
00:37:49.060 | because of the burden of his sin
00:37:51.820 | or because of the consequences of his sin,
00:37:56.380 | because of the devastation of what has happened
00:38:00.340 | that due to his sin,
00:38:01.460 | he has lost a number of things that is precious to him
00:38:06.980 | that is not the right time for me to crack a joke.
00:38:09.620 | That is not the right time for me
00:38:13.820 | to make light of the situation.
00:38:16.860 | We need emotions that are appropriate to the circumstances.
00:38:24.420 | And even Paul felt this sorrow in his emotional life
00:38:31.380 | where he said in Romans 9 verse one,
00:38:33.660 | I'm speaking the truth in Christ, I'm not lying.
00:38:36.060 | My conscience bears to be witnessed
00:38:37.580 | in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow
00:38:40.740 | and unceasing anguish in my heart.
00:38:42.780 | He lamented over the unbelief of the people of Israel.
00:38:47.780 | I feel this burden and I think I'm justified biblically
00:38:54.300 | to feel this burden of so many beloved church members
00:38:59.300 | who have unsaved family members
00:39:01.540 | or maybe even unsaved children
00:39:04.380 | and even just week after week, they come and they ask,
00:39:06.900 | can you pray for my loved one?
00:39:09.420 | That my loved one would be saved and know Christ.
00:39:12.460 | And I would be wrong as a pastor not to feel that burden,
00:39:20.300 | not to feel indifference or to not respond
00:39:24.740 | with some type of emotion to the burdens
00:39:27.380 | that people are carrying in the church.
00:39:33.180 | And so this was Paul.
00:39:34.940 | I have great sorrow, unceasing anguish in my heart.
00:39:39.060 | This is the same Paul who said to the Philippian church,
00:39:42.060 | rejoice in the Lord always.
00:39:43.380 | And again, I say rejoice.
00:39:45.460 | There was a complexity to even Paul's emotional life
00:39:51.660 | where he could say both things at the same time
00:39:55.300 | that we should exalt in the hope of the glory of God.
00:40:01.260 | At the same time, we feel this great burden
00:40:04.500 | that loved ones we know are saved.
00:40:07.940 | So the Bible has no problems addressing our emotions.
00:40:14.700 | If you look at page three of your handout,
00:40:16.980 | let me walk through a biblical theology of emotions.
00:40:21.980 | And these would just be some points
00:40:24.820 | you will want to highlight.
00:40:27.860 | As you talk through a biblical theology of emotions.
00:40:31.500 | So how do we summarize just the breadth
00:40:35.020 | of what scripture says on this subject?
00:40:38.060 | And let's talk through some theological foundations
00:40:41.700 | for understanding our emotions.
00:40:44.460 | We begin with a simple observation in letter A
00:40:47.180 | that God is a personal being with genuine emotions.
00:40:52.180 | God is a personal being with emotions.
00:40:56.460 | A number of passages clearly demonstrate this.
00:41:00.180 | Genesis six, verse five.
00:41:02.220 | The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth
00:41:05.500 | and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart
00:41:08.800 | was only evil continually.
00:41:11.540 | And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth
00:41:13.860 | and it grieved him to his heart.
00:41:17.780 | You will note here that grief is an appropriate response
00:41:23.060 | to the sinfulness of this world.
00:41:26.500 | The grief of God described in this passage
00:41:32.660 | is absolutely and perfectly holy.
00:41:37.500 | And so we see that grief over people's sin
00:41:44.140 | is an appropriate response
00:41:48.440 | and that God grieved over the sinfulness of man.
00:41:52.380 | Exodus 20, verse five, part of the 10 commandments.
00:41:56.180 | You shall not bow down to them or serve them
00:41:58.080 | for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God
00:42:00.220 | visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children
00:42:03.100 | to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.
00:42:06.620 | You say, well, isn't jealousy bad?
00:42:09.460 | Isn't jealousy wrong?
00:42:10.980 | Well, it depends on the context, doesn't it?
00:42:13.420 | Is it wrong for a husband to be jealous
00:42:18.980 | for his wife's affections?
00:42:22.140 | We would say it's not wrong for a husband to be jealous
00:42:26.760 | that his wife love him and him alone.
00:42:31.260 | If you were to go into a marriage counseling situation,
00:42:35.540 | and let's say in this counseling situation,
00:42:37.820 | the wife is being unfaithful, she is in adultery,
00:42:42.020 | and you're talking in this counseling session
00:42:44.340 | and you find that the husband, he doesn't care,
00:42:47.060 | he has no emotions, he feels no jealousy,
00:42:50.980 | he's indifferent to her unfaithfulness,
00:42:53.200 | you would say there is something wrong
00:42:55.280 | with this husband's response.
00:42:57.180 | He ought to be feeling some kind of emotion
00:42:59.700 | because he ought to be jealous for his wife's affections.
00:43:03.960 | That is an appropriate emotion to be feeling
00:43:07.860 | due to the exclusivity of the marriage relationship.
00:43:12.860 | So jealousy can be appropriate.
00:43:15.180 | And here the Lord says, I am a jealous God,
00:43:19.420 | that God does not tolerate his people
00:43:22.860 | dividing their affections between the true worship
00:43:26.740 | of the Lord and the worship of idols.
00:43:28.980 | And we see that throughout both the Old Testament
00:43:32.300 | and New Testament.
00:43:33.800 | I love Isaiah 49 verse 15.
00:43:38.500 | The Lord says, can a woman forget her nursing child
00:43:41.260 | that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
00:43:47.380 | Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
00:43:52.220 | What mother does not feel this way towards her children?
00:43:57.420 | When they hurt, she hurts.
00:44:02.900 | When they are in pain, she is in pain.
00:44:06.240 | We have seen this type of motherhood
00:44:11.180 | demonstrated in so many different ways.
00:44:14.260 | And the Lord says, this is what my love is like
00:44:18.220 | for my people.
00:44:19.280 | Can a woman forget her nursing child?
00:44:26.020 | So the Lord has moved with compassion
00:44:28.940 | for those who are his.
00:44:33.060 | Isaiah 62 verse five, for as a young man
00:44:35.300 | marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you.
00:44:38.100 | And as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
00:44:40.620 | so shall your God rejoice over you.
00:44:45.020 | Just think about that.
00:44:46.100 | Every time you go to a wedding,
00:44:47.460 | you see the groom's face light up with excitement
00:44:52.460 | as his bride walks down the aisle.
00:44:55.780 | So the Lord says, that is the description
00:44:58.140 | of my joy over my people.
00:45:02.780 | Just amazing description of the emotions
00:45:06.460 | of the Lord, Zephaniah three verse 17.
00:45:08.820 | The Lord your God is in your midst,
00:45:10.820 | a mighty one who will save.
00:45:13.420 | He will rejoice over you with gladness.
00:45:17.460 | He will quiet you by his love.
00:45:19.500 | He will exalt over you with loud singing.
00:45:22.720 | The Lord is challenging me in his word,
00:45:26.620 | and I believe he would challenge all of us as well,
00:45:30.940 | because I think my default understanding
00:45:32.880 | of my relationship with the Lord is sort of that,
00:45:36.900 | because of Jesus, he kind of barely tolerates me.
00:45:41.900 | He won't cast me out, but when I come to him,
00:45:46.700 | he says, okay, you can have a relationship with me,
00:45:50.540 | but a sort of like a displeased father
00:45:54.620 | who allows his son into the home,
00:45:58.540 | but does not have the warm embrace
00:46:00.820 | that's being described in these texts.
00:46:03.660 | And the Lord has been challenging me
00:46:05.060 | that that is not how he relates to his people,
00:46:09.800 | that he is filled with compassion and mercy,
00:46:16.140 | and he rejoices over his people.
00:46:20.620 | And that's the Old Testament description
00:46:22.460 | of the emotions of the Lord.
00:46:25.360 | You get to the gospel records,
00:46:26.680 | you see the full emotional life of Christ.
00:46:29.980 | We don't have time to fully develop this,
00:46:32.620 | but perfect humanity, perfect deity joined in one person,
00:46:36.420 | the Lord Jesus Christ.
00:46:37.860 | And you see the emotions of Christ
00:46:41.180 | in his earthly incarnation,
00:46:42.520 | that he was grieved at the hardness of the heart
00:46:44.660 | of the people in Mark 3, verse 5.
00:46:46.900 | He had compassion upon the crowd in Mark 6, verse 34.
00:46:51.900 | We see the emotions of the Holy Spirit
00:46:56.700 | in Ephesians 4, verse 30.
00:46:58.900 | Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God
00:47:01.520 | by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
00:47:04.800 | So the issue is that some have said
00:47:07.580 | that these portrayals of the emotions of God
00:47:09.700 | are merely anthropomorphisms.
00:47:12.360 | The term anthropomorphic simply means language
00:47:16.900 | which describes God in human terms.
00:47:19.180 | So for example, in the Old Testament,
00:47:21.860 | the scriptures describe the Lord having hands,
00:47:25.100 | eyes, ears, and mouth,
00:47:27.380 | and that is before the incarnation of Christ.
00:47:31.100 | So those descriptions cannot refer to God's physical body.
00:47:35.060 | God is spirit, John 4, verse 24 says.
00:47:39.320 | And so the Lord does not literally have hands, eyes, ears,
00:47:44.080 | and a mouth, but that language describes God in human terms.
00:47:48.480 | They are anthropomorphisms.
00:47:51.360 | They describe God in human terms
00:47:53.280 | so that we might better understand him.
00:47:55.500 | And some have said that these descriptions
00:47:58.400 | of the emotions of God are merely anthropomorphisms,
00:48:03.400 | that God doesn't really have emotions,
00:48:05.920 | but this is just language that helps us understand God.
00:48:10.920 | And again, Bruce Ware's article
00:48:13.820 | in the Journal of Evangelical Theology Society,
00:48:18.820 | Theological Society, does an academic treatment of the fact
00:48:25.600 | that these texts really should be taken at face value
00:48:28.880 | when they describe genuine emotions.
00:48:33.100 | Brian Borgman has said this,
00:48:35.820 | that the unambiguous biblical portrayal of God
00:48:38.520 | is that he has absolute capacity to feel
00:48:42.220 | and has perfectly holy emotions.
00:48:45.020 | In the history of systematic theology,
00:48:47.860 | the mind and will of God have often been the focus,
00:48:50.440 | but the Bible speaks of God's heart,
00:48:52.640 | his emotions and feelings.
00:48:54.960 | Some circles deny that God actually has emotions.
00:48:58.760 | This is called the doctrine of divine impassibility.
00:49:02.000 | However, the sheer weight of biblical evidence
00:49:04.360 | demands that we see God as a being
00:49:06.680 | who has real emotions and feels intensely.
00:49:11.000 | So Borgman as well does not affirm
00:49:13.820 | the teaching of impassibility,
00:49:16.900 | neither does Grudem and neither do I.
00:49:22.120 | God has real emotions, perfectly holy.
00:49:27.100 | When the Lord feels jealousy, it is holy emotion.
00:49:33.340 | When the Lord feels joy, it is holy joy.
00:49:36.980 | As I mentioned, because of our sin,
00:49:41.540 | we rejoice in things we have no business rejoicing over.
00:49:46.140 | We celebrate the things that we ought to grieve in
00:49:52.160 | We find trivial things to be fascinating
00:49:55.320 | and we find ultimate and glorious things to be quite boring.
00:50:00.320 | That is because of the effect of sin on our emotions
00:50:05.600 | and these things ought not to be so,
00:50:08.080 | but God always has perfectly holy emotions.
00:50:14.240 | Just one quote there by Greg Nichols.
00:50:16.240 | He has an article that is posted on the blog there,
00:50:21.240 | but he is quoted by Borgman in the work "Feelings and Faith".
00:50:27.080 | And he says that God's emotivity,
00:50:30.120 | which is just a noun meaning
00:50:31.760 | the capacity of having emotions.
00:50:34.220 | God's emotivity is his supreme capacity
00:50:36.980 | to act responsibly and cessationally
00:50:39.840 | to feel pure and principled affections of love and hate,
00:50:43.520 | joy and grief, pleasure and anger and peace
00:50:46.520 | in accord with his supreme spiritual and simple being
00:50:50.480 | and impeccable virtue.
00:50:53.140 | And there's some other statements there
00:50:56.680 | that I will commend to you.
00:50:58.200 | Let me move to page number four for the sake of time here,
00:51:03.200 | letter B, as we have covered that God is a personal being
00:51:07.800 | with emotions, we also see here that man is made
00:51:11.720 | in the image of God.
00:51:13.620 | Four key passages there, Genesis 1, 27,
00:51:18.960 | also Genesis 5 and Genesis 9 and James chapter 3.
00:51:23.960 | But those passages teach us that man is made
00:51:27.760 | in the likeness of God.
00:51:29.040 | So if God is a personal being with genuine emotions,
00:51:33.120 | we are made in the image and likeness of God,
00:51:35.400 | therefore we are emotional beings as well.
00:51:41.320 | And there is nothing intrinsically wrong with our emotions.
00:51:46.320 | So we make the note there that stoicism
00:51:52.240 | is not the highest ideal for a Christian.
00:51:56.120 | Stoicism is the idea that the highest good is seen
00:52:00.680 | in the endurance of pain and hardship
00:52:02.560 | without a display of emotions.
00:52:05.700 | We want to just make the biblical statement here
00:52:09.040 | that for the Christian stoicism is not the highest ideal.
00:52:14.040 | John MacArthur talks about this,
00:52:19.580 | I believe in one of his blog posts,
00:52:21.720 | but he talks about the idea that stoicism teaches
00:52:26.120 | that you wanna come to the point of total indifference.
00:52:29.040 | You just basically wanna say, I don't care about anything.
00:52:32.760 | You just go through your life saying,
00:52:35.960 | I don't care about this, I don't care about that,
00:52:37.720 | you're just unmoved with emotion.
00:52:40.960 | And we believe that stoicism is not the ideal.
00:52:45.960 | Man and his capacity for emotions was declared
00:52:53.120 | to be very good in Genesis chapter one.
00:52:58.120 | And the richness of biblical language testifies
00:53:03.840 | to the central place emotions have
00:53:06.080 | in a person's spiritual life.
00:53:09.540 | Just a note here on skipping the Lamentations passage
00:53:15.160 | for a moment at the bottom of your handout there.
00:53:16.980 | It's almost a shame to do that,
00:53:18.180 | but I'm gonna be pressed for time here.
00:53:22.880 | Skipping to 2 Corinthians 11 verse two on your handout,
00:53:28.200 | and just noting Paul's emotions
00:53:31.980 | for the people he ministered to.
00:53:34.460 | Don't be afraid of this.
00:53:35.820 | As a counselor, you will have genuine emotions
00:53:38.820 | for the people you counsel.
00:53:40.540 | And don't be afraid of that.
00:53:42.860 | 2 Corinthians 11 verse two.
00:53:44.380 | I feel a divine jealousy for you
00:53:49.020 | since I betrothed you to one husband
00:53:52.020 | to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
00:53:55.100 | Don't be afraid of the words to feel.
00:54:00.580 | Those are biblical words as you see in this text.
00:54:04.880 | Don't be afraid to feel that in your heart,
00:54:09.540 | how you want this person you're walking with
00:54:12.580 | to overcome their sin.
00:54:14.140 | You want them to be holy.
00:54:15.720 | You want them to love Christ.
00:54:19.100 | Don't be afraid to express that
00:54:21.760 | to the people you minister to.
00:54:24.180 | And when believers went astray,
00:54:26.300 | Paul felt that in his heart.
00:54:27.960 | You hear him say in the book of Galatians,
00:54:31.040 | so foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you.
00:54:33.440 | You even hear him say in that epistle
00:54:36.360 | that I'm perplexed about you.
00:54:38.380 | That he felt emotions that were appropriate
00:54:42.940 | to the situation that the people going astray
00:54:46.520 | from fidelity to Christ was met with genuine emotion
00:54:51.520 | from the apostle Paul.
00:54:56.700 | And as I mentioned, I feel some of that
00:55:00.660 | and I have to as a pastor.
00:55:03.660 | Just joy whenever you hear somebody grow
00:55:08.180 | that this person grew or this person came to Christ
00:55:11.900 | and then perplexity, pain over hearing of someone
00:55:17.820 | go astray or maybe a marriage that is,
00:55:23.120 | needs reconciliation or a child who is rebellious.
00:55:27.280 | I think that's just New Testament ministry.
00:55:30.660 | Let me move to page five of your handout.
00:55:34.260 | Letter C, and this is again under the category
00:55:36.940 | of a biblical theology of emotions.
00:55:39.540 | We note that the image of God was distorted at the fall.
00:55:43.440 | So the bottom line is this.
00:55:46.540 | I'll get right to the chase here.
00:55:49.180 | The fall of man into sin in Genesis chapter three
00:55:52.380 | does not remove our capacity to feel emotion.
00:55:57.000 | We're still emotional beings.
00:55:59.220 | It does not erase the image of God,
00:56:02.340 | which is stamped on our souls.
00:56:04.040 | What the fall of man into sin did
00:56:07.940 | is not remove the image of God in us,
00:56:10.480 | but the fall distorted that image.
00:56:13.660 | We still have emotion, but our emotional life is twisted.
00:56:18.580 | Our emotions are misplaced.
00:56:20.580 | Our emotions do not rightly correspond to the context
00:56:24.920 | that we are in due to our sin.
00:56:28.020 | We get really excited about a piece of chicken
00:56:31.020 | at a restaurant.
00:56:32.700 | Oh, this chicken is so good.
00:56:35.100 | It's so glorious.
00:56:36.940 | And we are emotionally disengaged
00:56:39.620 | when it comes to the glories of God in Christ
00:56:42.820 | as found in the scriptures.
00:56:47.900 | That is the distortion of the image of God in us.
00:56:52.900 | We still have emotions,
00:56:54.480 | but those emotions register in all the wrong ways.
00:56:59.480 | As Jeff Forey has written immediately
00:57:04.260 | upon eating the forbidden fruit,
00:57:05.780 | Adam and Eve experienced the fallout of disobedience,
00:57:09.460 | embarrassment, shame, vulnerability, fear,
00:57:12.980 | even a form of irritation.
00:57:14.540 | God's design remains,
00:57:15.780 | but it is experienced in a twisted and painful way,
00:57:19.820 | which is conveyed by the new emotional experiences
00:57:22.740 | Adam and Eve had after their sin.
00:57:26.240 | Before the fall,
00:57:27.380 | emotions would have functioned in ways
00:57:29.020 | that supported God honoring living.
00:57:30.920 | Since the fall, they have functioned in ways
00:57:32.960 | that reflect sinner's desire to be independent of God.
00:57:37.500 | The Puritan Thomas Boston put it even more plainly.
00:57:41.260 | He said the natural man's affections
00:57:44.140 | are wretchedly misplaced.
00:57:46.340 | He is a spiritual monster.
00:57:49.700 | His heart is where his feet should be fixed on the earth.
00:57:52.500 | His heels are lifted up against heaven,
00:57:55.720 | which his heart should be set on.
00:57:58.420 | His face is towards hell, his back towards heaven,
00:58:01.740 | and therefore God calls him to turn.
00:58:03.420 | And here it is.
00:58:05.020 | Friends, this is the description of America today.
00:58:08.420 | Boston says he loves what he should hate
00:58:13.460 | and hates what he should love.
00:58:16.360 | Joys in what he ought to mourn for
00:58:21.180 | and mourns for what he should rejoice in.
00:58:24.380 | Glories in his shame and is ashamed of his glory,
00:58:29.780 | abhors what he should desire
00:58:32.300 | and desires what he should abhor.
00:58:36.320 | That is most of cable TV today, I'm afraid to say.
00:58:43.920 | And that's many commercials at the very least.
00:58:48.920 | You know what they say, buy this car,
00:58:53.440 | use the shampoo, go to this restaurant,
00:58:55.520 | and you will experience ultimate joy and satisfaction.
00:58:58.900 | When the truth is that only Christ
00:59:06.360 | will give that type of joy and satisfaction.
00:59:12.840 | We love what we should hate.
00:59:14.320 | We hate what we should love.
00:59:16.000 | We find ultimate joy over things of limited value,
00:59:20.680 | or we seek that ultimate joy,
00:59:22.600 | and we find ourselves to be disappointed.
00:59:24.660 | Borgman says, like a Picasso painting,
00:59:28.680 | all our parts are distorted out of place,
00:59:31.700 | backwards and usually dark.
00:59:33.680 | The biblical portrait of us
00:59:35.920 | and our fallen state is unflattering.
00:59:38.020 | The proper relationship of the emotions,
00:59:40.040 | the will into the mind is twisted.
00:59:42.400 | It is out of order and out of proportion.
00:59:44.620 | We resemble a circuit board that at one time
00:59:47.500 | functioned properly and reliably
00:59:49.560 | with all the components perfectly integrated.
00:59:52.140 | But since the fall, instead of our charges
00:59:56.360 | following the right paths,
00:59:57.420 | they deviate because of sin
00:59:58.680 | and cause serious malfunctions.
01:00:00.600 | The sad reality is that we are serious train wrecks.
01:00:03.960 | Our emotions can be downright toxic.
01:00:12.120 | I think of several times when I've done marital counseling.
01:00:15.160 | The wife is there in tears,
01:00:19.960 | weeping over the hurt and over the pain
01:00:24.160 | that's been experienced in the marriage.
01:00:27.820 | The husband is there emotionally unmoved, callous
01:00:33.760 | for the pain of his wife.
01:00:37.400 | And I just wanna see, don't you see your wife?
01:00:41.800 | Don't you see her in tears here?
01:00:46.240 | I'm not saying who's right, I'm not saying who's wrong,
01:00:49.300 | but can't you just start by acknowledging her pain?
01:00:52.820 | But you see friends, sin blinds the mind.
01:00:59.040 | Sin distorts the emotions.
01:01:04.240 | It is sin that causes that husband to be so wrapped up
01:01:08.320 | in his own thoughts, in his own world,
01:01:13.200 | that he cannot register the proper emotions
01:01:16.080 | that are appropriate to his wife being in so much pain.
01:01:20.160 | That husband ought to feel something and he feels nothing.
01:01:24.620 | And so that is the effect of sin upon our emotions,
01:01:32.040 | that the image of God was distorted at the fall.
01:01:35.960 | We're still emotional beings,
01:01:37.460 | but we do not feel as we ought to feel.
01:01:41.960 | So what is the hope for fallen individuals?
01:01:44.440 | Well, letter D is that in Christ, we are as Forrey writes,
01:01:49.440 | redeemed emotional beings who can pursue
01:01:55.160 | and cultivate godly emotions.
01:01:57.320 | Praise the Lord for that.
01:01:59.400 | We are saved through the blood of Christ and in Christ,
01:02:04.840 | through his life, death and resurrection,
01:02:07.280 | the image of God is being restored in us.
01:02:10.280 | We are progressively being conformed
01:02:11.860 | to the likeness of Christ.
01:02:14.180 | And as we become more like Christ,
01:02:16.420 | our emotional lives are transformed.
01:02:19.800 | We begin to experience godly emotion.
01:02:25.080 | Emotions can be classified as righteous
01:02:29.980 | or unrighteous in scripture.
01:02:31.960 | Joy is commanded as a righteous emotion
01:02:35.580 | in Philippians 4, verse four, but joy is unrighteous
01:02:38.560 | when you rejoice in evil, 1 Corinthians 13, verse six.
01:02:42.840 | Sorrow is righteous when we grieve over sin,
01:02:47.820 | James 4, verse nine.
01:02:49.460 | However, sorrow is not righteous when we grieve
01:02:53.220 | as those who have no hope, 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13.
01:02:57.980 | Believers are commanded to have compassion
01:03:03.540 | toward one another, Colossians 3, verse 12.
01:03:06.100 | We are called to move with feeling
01:03:11.680 | toward others in the body of Christ.
01:03:14.960 | And to close one's heart to another believer
01:03:18.160 | is unrighteous and outside the will of God.
01:03:21.420 | So we are redeemed emotional beings
01:03:25.220 | who can pursue and cultivate godly emotions,
01:03:27.720 | joy, sorrow, jealousy, fear, hope, compassion,
01:03:31.880 | grief, and pain, all of these emotions are restored in us
01:03:36.880 | and they register rightly and appropriately
01:03:40.760 | as we are made to be more like Christ.
01:03:44.540 | So let me end on the last page here
01:03:52.360 | with some practical applications for counseling.
01:03:56.920 | And I'm just gonna take five minutes and walk through this.
01:04:01.520 | This is just fresh for my own thinking.
01:04:03.960 | I just reflected on this topic
01:04:05.800 | and just want to continue to learn and grow
01:04:10.120 | and become a better Christian, become a better counselor,
01:04:13.680 | but just some practical ways that we can apply this teaching
01:04:17.320 | in our lives and ministry.
01:04:18.800 | I would encourage you, first of all,
01:04:20.240 | to become emotionally wise.
01:04:23.380 | Ask God for wisdom.
01:04:29.040 | Develop a robust understanding
01:04:31.280 | of the biblical teaching on emotions
01:04:33.680 | and then ask God for wisdom and applying that
01:04:38.080 | to your ministry with people.
01:04:40.060 | Sometimes you really have to be discerning
01:04:45.680 | and just understanding what is this counseling going through
01:04:48.880 | and what are the emotions that this person is experiencing.
01:04:53.920 | Just being sensitive to that is helpful
01:04:57.600 | in counseling ministry.
01:05:00.040 | Number two, grow in your ability to rejoice
01:05:05.280 | with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.
01:05:07.840 | I understand that's easier for some than for others.
01:05:10.980 | I understand that some of us are just more wired
01:05:17.320 | to be compassionate and to experience emotions with others
01:05:21.480 | and others of us are just more emotionally reserved,
01:05:24.600 | but ultimately I would just plead with all of us
01:05:27.240 | that learning to enter into the emotional life
01:05:30.640 | of other people is a matter of being more like Christ.
01:05:34.580 | It is not whether you have a certain personality
01:05:38.480 | or you have another personality.
01:05:40.520 | Being compassionate is becoming more like Christ.
01:05:43.800 | Being merciful is being like Christ.
01:05:46.620 | And so let Christ-likeness be the standard
01:05:51.720 | and wherever you are in terms of how God has made you,
01:05:56.800 | ask God to help you to become more like Christ.
01:05:59.600 | I've prayed this in my own life as a counselor.
01:06:03.300 | Lord, I should be feeling sorrow and I'm not, help me.
01:06:09.520 | Give me emotions that are appropriate to this person's pain
01:06:15.040 | or I ought to be feeling joy and I'm not.
01:06:17.600 | Help me, give me emotions
01:06:20.400 | that are appropriate to this situation.
01:06:23.300 | Number three, as Milton Vincent has said,
01:06:26.900 | embrace the emotional rollercoaster.
01:06:29.460 | It is the stuff of life.
01:06:31.900 | You are most alive, you're most fully alive
01:06:35.000 | when you are engaged in the joys and the sorrows of others.
01:06:40.000 | And so don't be afraid of this.
01:06:43.520 | It's New Testament ministry.
01:06:47.940 | Number four, take special care in developing
01:06:51.020 | a biblical understanding of grieving and sorrow.
01:06:54.260 | I just wanna plead with this in the church.
01:06:58.760 | Don't be in a hurry to move people past their sorrow.
01:07:02.700 | Seasons of sorrow can be long and it is true.
01:07:06.380 | There's a balance to this.
01:07:07.500 | We are not to grieve as those who have no hope,
01:07:09.900 | but there is an appropriate emotion of sorrow.
01:07:14.900 | And so learn the language of lament
01:07:19.060 | as taught and modeled in the Psalms.
01:07:21.620 | I think of Proverbs 25, verse 20,
01:07:23.500 | which says whoever sings songs to a heavy heart
01:07:26.300 | is like one who takes off a garment on a cold day
01:07:28.940 | and like vinegar on soda.
01:07:30.860 | Counseling comes to you and pours out his or her heart
01:07:37.420 | and just going through a very difficult and distressing time
01:07:41.200 | and the only thing you give them
01:07:42.580 | is rejoicing the Lord always.
01:07:44.780 | And again, I say rejoice.
01:07:46.420 | And if you don't do that,
01:07:47.380 | then you're on disobedience to the word of God
01:07:49.740 | and so you need to repent.
01:07:51.420 | Well, that's a very simplistic approach
01:07:54.660 | to that person's emotions.
01:07:56.140 | I believe we have more to say
01:07:57.700 | to capture the full teaching of the Bible on this subject.
01:08:03.580 | Number five, study the heart.
01:08:09.260 | Emotions are tied to the intellect, will and desire.
01:08:13.020 | As biblical counselors,
01:08:14.060 | we wanna become versed in how the Bible describes
01:08:19.060 | the dynamics of the heart.
01:08:21.220 | Ultimately, emotions are tied to a life of worship.
01:08:24.180 | And so become wise in seeing how emotions
01:08:27.540 | are tied to the issues of the heart.
01:08:29.540 | And then lastly, rejoice that when we are glorified,
01:08:34.540 | we will experience perfect emotions
01:08:37.140 | which are in line with the will of God.
01:08:39.580 | I'm so glad, dear friends,
01:08:42.060 | that what happens in our glorification
01:08:44.140 | when we go to heaven and we see Christ
01:08:46.820 | and we worship the lamb forever and ever
01:08:49.220 | is that God does not take us
01:08:51.540 | and he makes us into perfect Stoics
01:08:56.020 | who with Vulcan-like logic
01:09:00.420 | think with perfect rationality
01:09:04.820 | but feel nothing in heaven.
01:09:08.380 | I'm just so glad that that's not what the Bible says
01:09:11.300 | about heaven,
01:09:12.260 | but that we will have the image of God fully restored in us
01:09:18.740 | as we are perfectly made to be like Christ.
01:09:23.220 | And therefore we will experience perfect emotions
01:09:27.500 | that are holy and righteous
01:09:31.020 | and that respond with perfect clarity
01:09:34.860 | and the right intensity to those things
01:09:38.540 | which are most glorious and most perfect.
01:09:42.900 | This is the glorious hope that we have as believers.
01:09:49.500 | And so I just commend this study to you.
01:09:54.420 | I pray that this teaching will just be the beginning
01:09:58.580 | of a lifetime of learning on this subject.
01:10:03.060 | I pray that you and I will become wise in this area.
01:10:08.660 | Both understanding how to handle our own emotions
01:10:12.460 | and then learning to minister to others
01:10:17.460 | who are experiencing the emotions of life.
01:10:20.860 | And we pray that God will give you a wonderful
01:10:24.180 | and rich ministry as you apply these teachings
01:10:27.500 | to your relationships in the body of Christ.
01:10:30.380 | Thank you so much for joining us tonight.
01:10:33.060 | It's been a joy to walk through this subject with you.
01:10:35.620 | Please do avail yourself of those resources.
01:10:40.500 | Sam Williams' work.
01:10:42.420 | Do take a look at the work that my wife,
01:10:45.740 | my dear wife wrote on the subject of emotions.
01:10:48.140 | I think she has done a good job of summarizing
01:10:52.620 | much of this teaching in a clear way.
01:10:56.180 | And may God bless the study of your word this week.
01:11:00.820 | I do have, I wanna make an announcement
01:11:03.340 | about just the class scheduling.
01:11:06.580 | My wife and I will be on vacation for a week.
01:11:10.220 | We're just gonna enjoy some time together.
01:11:14.100 | And so fortunately for us,
01:11:17.620 | and then maybe unfortunately for this class,
01:11:20.380 | our vacation's gonna start on Sunday and then end on Sunday.
01:11:23.340 | So I will be unavailable to teach this class
01:11:26.660 | for the next two Sundays.
01:11:28.180 | So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take
01:11:29.820 | the next two Sundays off from a meeting together
01:11:33.820 | in this class.
01:11:35.100 | And we are gonna resume class on the first Sunday of March.
01:11:40.100 | So that's March 7th.
01:11:41.940 | That'll give you two weeks to get caught up.
01:11:44.420 | If you're a little bit behind or writing the essays,
01:11:48.700 | we hope to get you caught up by March 7th
01:11:51.300 | on essay number three.
01:11:52.700 | And we'll give you some time to reflect and study,
01:11:55.300 | especially on the subject of emotions.
01:11:57.900 | And then we will resume class on March 7th,
01:12:01.180 | same time at five o'clock p.m.
01:12:04.300 | And we do look forward to that time.
01:12:06.860 | So thank you so much for joining us tonight.
01:12:08.900 | Let me close this in a word of prayer.
01:12:10.980 | Father, thank you for the study.
01:12:12.700 | Bless it to our lives and help us to learn and to grow wise
01:12:18.820 | in light of the truths we've looked at tonight.
01:12:22.380 | Bless all my brothers and sisters here
01:12:24.100 | and gather us back together on March 7th
01:12:27.340 | as we continue to study your word.
01:12:29.460 | And we pray all this in Jesus name, amen.