Cultivation of a Christ-Like Emotional Life

Driving home: Repent of it! It's wicked! It's evil! It's believing the devil's original lie that God's a meanie.

Martin uses the example of a thought like 'God gave me a raw deal' to illustrate an un-Christ-like emotion of bitterness towards God, which must be immediately repented of.

the moment there registers in your consciousness a spirit of bitterness towards God or towards man. God gave me a rod. The moment...

4:50 - 5:05 Read in full sermon

The point: The moment any un-Christ-like emotion registers, go to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness, pleading the blood of Christ.

A scenario of being cut off in traffic and feeling a desire to 'bash them' is used to illustrate the need for immediate repentance of un-Christ-like anger, pleading Christ's cleansing blood.

You and I must cultivate that spiritual discipline that the moment any unchristlike emotion registers in our consciousness, whether we're driving down the street and someone goes right through a stop sign carelessly and recklessly, cuts us off, we slam on the brakes and there rises up a spirit that wants to bash them then and there. Say, oh Lord Jesus, you wouldn't have felt that way. Cleanse me in your precious blood. Eyes wide open, milliseconds after you feel it, go to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness.

7:35 - 8:10 Read in full sermon

The point: The moment any un-Christ-like emotion registers, go to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness, pleading the blood of Christ.

The example of a boss making unconscionable demands and the resulting 'spirit of bitterness and wrath' is used to show the need for immediate repentance and cleansing from resentment.

You get into work and the boss makes demands that are absolutely unconscionable and even beyond your contractual arrangement. You don't go into the ladies' room, you don't go into the ladies' room, you don't go into the ladies' room, you don't go into the ladies' room in a huff and there watch the steam come out of your ears. You say, oh Lord, this spirit of bitterness and wrath is wrong. It's registering on my consciousness.

8:13 - 8:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Cultivate the discipline of pleading for the Holy Spirit to form Christ-like emotions within you.

A person who is 'like sandpaper' and 'rubs you raw' is used to illustrate the natural lack of patience and love for difficult individuals, highlighting the need for the Spirit to form Christ-like emotions.

In that place of business, there's that person who is like sandpaper in his or her disposition. Every time they're around you, they rub you raw. You simply don't have enough natural patience to have anything toward them but a tolerable, truly distant civility. You're not going to have genuine yearnings for their salvation.

12:27 - 12:51 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second counsel is to plead for the Holy Spirit to form Christ-like emotions, recognizing that virtues like love, joy, and long-suffering are the fruit of the Spirit, not…

The phrase 'love suffers long' is expounded to mean that God places believers with people who cause suffering, challenging unrealistic expectations about marriage and relationships.

Love suffers long. That means God's going to put you with people that make you suffer. What's long-suffering but suffering for a long time? I don't understand a word if it ain't that.

13:30 - 13:40 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second counsel is to plead for the Holy Spirit to form Christ-like emotions, recognizing that virtues like love, joy, and long-suffering are the fruit of the Spirit, not…

Martin states that one doesn't truly know what a rotten sinner they are until they get married, using this to illustrate how marriage draws out sin and drives one to Christ for more grace.

And in heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage. You've got it all messed up. You don't know what a rotten sinner you are until you get married. Then you can find out what a great Savior Christ is.

14:28 - 14:44 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The third counsel is to determine that emotions do not determine reality, but God's Word does. Christ's temptation and crucifixion are presented as supreme examples of…

Christ being driven into the wilderness immediately after His baptism and the Father's affirmation is used to show that His feelings (of weariness, struggle) did not determine the reality of His Father's pleasure.

How in the world He put the two things together. I'm well pleased with my Son. I drive Him into the wilderness to come into hand-to-hand combat with all the distilled essence of evil and wickedness the devil hints. I tell you, if Jesus was to judge His Father's heart from His feelings, He'd have had hard thoughts about His Father.

17:50 - 18:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn to regulate your emotional mood swings by the Word of God, especially during hormonal changes, by looking up and affirming God's unchanging promises.

The experience of women with severe PMS and hormonal changes is used to illustrate how strong feelings can distort perception, emphasizing the need to anchor reality in God's unchanging Word and promises.

And for those of you with more radical mood swings you dear women in terms of the way God's made you with your hormonal changes monthly and then coming at that difficult period in your life and it's no laughing matter for some of you who have severe PMS it is severe. I've counseled with women. The whole world seems to stand on its end but remember in the midst of all of those funky, freaky, uncontrollable feelings God hasn't twitched one inch from His throne and He's not retracted one promise and you can look up and say oh God even though I can't feel it like I can after my hormones get straig...

25:31 - 26:55 Read in full sermon

The point: Determine to live so that your emotions do not determine your path of duty.

Christ's agony in Gethsemane, where He sweat blood and prayed for the cup to be removed, is presented as the ultimate example of His emotions not determining His path of duty, but rather His Father's will.

He was under a holy compulsion pressing him to the cross. He says I'm hedged in the old English words hedged in. He said I have a baptism to undergo and I'm pressured and hedged up it is accomplished. I'm moving not with reluctant half steps to the cross, but with determined full steps, wide-eyed. I walk to the place of my destiny. And when he gets in Gethsemane, what it would actually mean to undergo the realities of that destiny, the cup of the Father's wrath and abandonment in the darkened heavens and the tasting of the wrath of God was put to his lips and it was more than he could bear. It...

30:06 - 31:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not enter romantic relations until you have sorted out the issue of emotions not determining your path of duty.

A scenario of a man being emotionally drawn to a woman who is not spiritually minded is used to illustrate the need to prioritize God's will and biblical principles over emotional affinity in dating and marriage.

You want to be Christ-like? That's it. When you come to the place where you don't deny your feelings exist. I've gotten to know her. I have no reason to believe she's spiritually minded. She's got things in her eyeball. She's got ambitions that are contrary to spiritual mindedness and to a hope that will be established upon kingdom principles and seek first the kingdom. But, O God, nevertheless, my emotional affinity to her is not going to be the rule of my life, but my commitment to do your will. And, O God, I've told you, I will not marry a woman who will not be a helper, that I'll love loos...

33:41 - 34:44 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not enter romantic relations until you have sorted out the issue of emotions not determining your path of duty.

A scenario of a woman yearning for a man who does not follow God with a perfect heart is used to illustrate the need to prioritize God's will over strong emotions in dating.

and you say, O God, if I give up this one, it may not be another one. But, O God, I've seen, I've seen, I've seen character traits, and I've addressed them. I'm not looking for the perfect man, but I am looking for a man who's following you with a perfect heart, for a man who wants to follow you, who's willing to receive my admonitions, willing to let me be a helper answering to his needs. He's got to argue me down every time I try to point out a fault from the word of God, and he's got a better way with words than I do. And, O God, though everything in me longs for him and yearns for him, he'...

35:12 - 36:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not enter romantic relations until you have sorted out the issue of emotions not determining your path of duty.

Infatuation is described as irrational and morally neutral, not an indication of God's will, challenging the idea that strong feelings are necessary for a relationship to be God-ordained.

You could get infatuated with a very devil. Not have a twitch of emotion with a godly saint who is God's gift to you. In the beginning.

36:28 - 36:40 Read in full sermon

The point: Men, pursue godly young women with holy moxie and tenacious pursuit, rather than waiting for them to 'plop into your arms.'

Martin shares a personal anecdote, stating that if he were younger, he would aggressively pursue godly young women, challenging the passivity of men in his generation regarding marriage.

I'm telling you, and I say this with my wife here, and she understands the spirit in which I say it, because she and I could be mother and father to three quarters of you, and big brother and sister to the rest of you. I've said, if I were 25 years younger, and in most of the churches that you represent, there'd be one of you. One of you wouldn't have a chance. One of you. It wouldn't be long before one of you would be tracked down and wedded and bedded and married. I don't understand it. You men, are you all fuckers? And plop into your arms when you show an interest? Don't you feel

38:56 - 39:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Determine to live with your emotions under the control of the Holy Spirit, exercising prayerful, godly self-control.

The account of God forbidding Ezekiel to openly mourn his wife's death is used as a powerful example of Spirit-wrought self-control over intense grief for a higher purpose.

That sounds like double talk. If so, that's Bible talk. I'm sorry, that's what God has said. I can do through Him who strengthens me. The fruit of this control. Work out your own salvation. God works in you, to will and to work for His good pleasure. And what I'm saying in this fifth counsel is determined to live with your emotions, under the control of the Spirit. That means under prayerful, godly self-control. That's the Ezekiel 24 example. Isn't that a beautiful example of it? Here's a man still so in love with his wife, though no spring chicken, God says she's still the desire of his eyes....

43:33 - 44:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, controlling your emotional state to align with the needs of your fellow believers.

Martin mentions asking couples about their pet names as an indicator of marital health, illustrating God's interest in the tender aspects of marriage.

Still the darling of his heart. He still had pet names for her. It's one of the biggest indications of the health of a marriage longer than 10, 12, 15 years. I asked the couples, what are your pet names?

45:25 - 45:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, controlling your emotional state to align with the needs of your fellow believers.

A scenario where one is 'down in the dumps' but meets a joyful brother is used to illustrate the self-control needed to 'rejoice with those who rejoice' despite one's own feelings.

You get up one morning, you're walking down the street, and you feel like you get the world on your back.

46:32 - 46:36 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The fifth counsel is to live with emotions under the control of the Holy Spirit, which is self-control. Ezekiel's mourning for his wife and the command to rejoice with those who…

A scenario where a joyful brother encounters another brother facing severe trials is used to illustrate the self-control needed to 'weep with those who weep,' laying aside one's own joy to empathize.

It's warm and glowing with rejoicing. And before long, what are you doing? You're rejoicing with him who rejoices. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control. Next morning, your brother comes down the street. He's still on cloud nine rejoicing. You're still with your juniper tree. And today, he says, My brother, you didn't look so well yesterday. You're not looking so good this morning either. My brother, there's an awful lot I want to share with you that God's done for me that's made me so full of joy and thankfulness. But tell me, what's eating at you? And lo and behold, it's not just some wisp...

47:45 - 48:44 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But to think that I will grow in my capacity to feel and then every bit of that capacity will be filled up with nothing but holy feelings.

Martin quotes A.W. Tozer (or refers to his teaching) on the concept of continued growth in capacity for holy feelings and love in heaven, which excites him about eternity.

determined to live in the hope of a perfected emotional life in heaven because there and only there will we see him as he is and will perfectly love him, perfectly love all of his saints. We'll have perfect communication perfect affinity of spirit and God never wants us to get too comfortable down here. So have a realistic expectation fused to this determination to live in the light of that hope. Not only of a perfected ethical life so that I'll never break the law of God with my words and deeds, but a perfect emotional life. I'll never feel a feeling that won't please God. And every feeling I...

52:56 - 54:08 Read in full sermon