Fact, Effects, Implications of the Emotions of Jesus

Introduction: The Fact, Effects, and Implications of Jesus's Emotions

0:02 The following message was delivered at the 1991 Reformed Baptist Singles Conference. Now in this session we shall examine the fact and the effects and implications of the emotions of Jesus. And the way we're going to do it is, first of all, to consider some biblical examples of the various emotions which our Lord experienced. And we're going to look at just five of the emotions that Jesus experienced only as a sampling.

0:38 This is by no means an exhaustive treatment. And then secondly, we want to make some observations regarding the recorded emotions of our Lord. Having looked at those emotions as they are described, we then want to back off and see if there are some common denominators that we can use to describe the emotions of our Lord. With respect to those emotions.

1:03 And then thirdly, to make some practical applications to us in the regulation of our own emotional constitution as the children of God. First of all then, some biblical examples of the various emotions which our Lord experienced. And the first that we shall consider is what I am describing as the emotion of a deep emotional experience. A deep and disruptive compassion.

Emotion 1: Deep and Disruptive Compassion

1:33 The emotion of a deep and disruptive compassion. In Matthew 9 and verse 36, a well-known missionary passage, it is said of our Lord that when he beheld the vast multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them because they were distressed and distraught. And scattered as sheep, not having a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the labors are few.

2:11 Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he send forth labors into his harvest. Now I have described this emotion as a deep and disruptive compassion because the Greek verb used literally means to have the love of God. To have the viscera stirred or drawn out. And we've come much closer to the Bible in our day when we say that thing really got to my gut.

2:42 We're coming back into the earthiness of the biblical language. For the Greek word literally means to have the viscera, one's deepest internal vital organs, disrupted and stirred and moved. And so I have called it an emotion. An emotion of a deep and disruptive compassion.

3:05 It wasn't a feeling of just a little bit of gush of pity. That does not do justice to the Greek verb. That's why people have translated it moved with compassion. That's an effort to translate one Greek word.

3:23 It was a feeling of compassion that moved. It was both deep and disruptive. When it took hold of him, it possessed his mind and his spirit and it led him to action. Then said he to his disciples, having experienced this deep disruptive emotion of compassion, it moved him to an appropriate action, commanding them to pray that the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers into his harvest.

4:00 Similarly, in Matthew chapter twenty and verse thirty-four,

4:11 we have another use of the same Greek word.

4:16 They are going out of the city of Jericho and two blind men, verse thirty, are sitting by the wayside. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, saying, Lord, have mercy on us, thou son of David. And the multitude rebuked them that they should hold their peace. Shut up, you guys.

4:36 He's got. You've got no time for a couple of blind beggars. You're going to stand in the way of the mission of this great teacher and preacher, Jesus of Nazareth. But it didn't in any way move them.

4:49 It's as they cried out the more, saying, Lord, have mercy on us, thou son of David. And some of the most beautiful words in the Bible, and Jesus stood still. This earnest cry for mercy stopped the son of God in his tracks. And he stood still and called them and said, What do you want me to do to you?

5:13 And they said, Lord, that our eyes may be opened. Now notice, and Jesus, here's our Greek verb again, being moved with compassion, looking upon these men according to reality, empathizing with what it must mean to try to make it in this life in total blindness, not beholding. In the brightness of the sun, the aesthetic beauty of God's world, the satisfying beauty of the face of wife and loved one and children, this got to our Lord's gut. He wasn't simply out to prove he was Messiah and say, here's another chance to tick off a messianic credential and heal them. No. The healing that he did was preceded by this deep, disruptive compassion. Being moved.

6:09 Moved with compassion. He touched their eyes and straightway they received their sight and followed him. A couple of other instances of this same emotion. Mark chapter 1.

6:25 Mark chapter 1 and in verse 41.

6:31 And there cometh a leper, one of these who was cast out from normal social intercourse with God's people. Could not go up to the temple. Could not. Sent himself before the priest unless there were evidence he had been cleansed of his leprosy.

6:49 Wherever he went, had to put his finger upon his lip crying unclean, unclean, unclean. Lest any come near him and touch him and be rendered ceremonially unclean. Remember, all that's packed into the little biblical statement, there comes to him a leper. A man who knew all of that experience.

7:10 And this leper began to beseech him. And kneeling down to him and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And as Jesus looked upon the leper again, he didn't see this as an opportunity to prove his messianic identity. He didn't see it as an occasion to do something that would increase his fame.

7:32 No, the motive that took hold of him was this. Being moved with compassion. Feeling this deep disruptive emotion. Of empathy and entering in with his whole inner being to the plight of this man.

7:50 He stretched forth his hand and did something no good Jew would do. He wouldn't touch a leper. Stretched forth his hand breaking through ceremonial custom. And he touched him and said unto him, I will be thou made clean.

8:08 Now this verb is used in two instances with respect to, to other people experiencing the same emotion. And it may help you to realize that this is not something that is exclusive to our Lord Jesus. It is a human emotion and it is possible for ordinary human beings to experience it. It's the word used in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

8:34 In Luke 10.33 It was the Samaritan who saw the man beat up lying there half dead on the road to Jericho of whom it is said he had compassion upon him. The Levite walked by on the other side. He saw the situation but there was no evidence that it got to his gut.

8:56 He could walk by, give a good description of it, perhaps even tell someone out, someone else that there's great need down the road, but it didn't get to him. But the Samaritan when he saw it got to him. And it's the same word used of the father of the, when he saw his returning son in his tattered clothing and no doubt in the other marks of the sinful lifestyle he had been living. It says in Luke 15.20 while he was yet a great way off his father saw him and had, here's our verb, compassion upon him. He was moved in the depths of his being this emotion of deep disruptive compassion. This is one of the emotions most described of our prophet. Blessed Lord.

Emotion 2: Deep Exuberant Joy

9:43 But then secondly, we have a description of the emotion of deep exuberant joy. Now there's a false conception of our Lord Jesus based upon an imbalanced understanding of the term he is a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Where is that phrase found? Do you know?

10:07 Isaiah 53 in conjunction with the sufferings of the servant of Jehovah he's called a man of sorrow. He's called a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Now some people have taken that and said well that then was the dominant quality and since it's never recorded that he laughed Jesus must have had a fundamentally somber dark side to the overall hue of his personality. That is nonsense.

10:34 And it's nonsense for a number of reasons for though there is no record he ever laughed there's no record he ever burped either.

10:43 That proves that the Lord never belched that the Mary put him over the shoulder and that's not true. He didn't burp him after his feeding he didn't burp. Horse nuts ludicrous the argument from silence holds no weight whatsoever. And there is a marvelous description in the 10th chapter of Luke where our Lord experienced the emotion of deep exuberant joy and then we're going to look at several passages in which he indicates that deep joy was the baseline of his own inner peace.

11:20 And then some collateral evidence that indeed he was fundamentally a joyful man. In Luke chapter 10 and verse 21 we read this in that same hour that's the hour when the 70 whom he had commissioned to go out and to cast out demons to raise the dead to preach the gospel of the kingdom they come back and they tell him Lord we've been successful and Jesus you're the one who's going to save us and we're going to give you the glory of the Lord and we're going to give you the glory of the Lord and we're going to give you the glory of the Lord as to their relative occasions of joy and they are to rejoice not so much that the spirits are subject to them but that their names are written in heaven but as he contemplates the success of their mission as it were the first fruits of what he as redeemer will do in delivering men from the tyranny of sin and bringing them out into the glorious liberty of his own saving grace it says in that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and that rejoicing gave birth to this exuberant praise and he said I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding and didst reveal them unto babes Paul said the kingdom of God is not eating

12:50 and drinking but it is the kingdom of God but righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit our Lord at this point experienced an abounding measure of exuberant joy in that same hour he rejoiced in the Spirit and then that joy was the baseline one of the major constituents of his overall state of soul is clearly indicated in such passages that he was in the Holy Spirit in the Holy Spirit John 15 11 17 13 in the upper room discourse our Lord speaking to his own knowing that he's going to leave them and that their initial response to this is grief and sadness he's seeking to cheer them up cheer them up by the realities of the coming of the Holy Spirit the privilege of answered prayer in his name the privilege of experiencing their vital union with him by the Holy Spirit in a way that they could not know while he was yet with them and we read in verses 10 and 11 if you keep my commandments you shall abide in my love even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love these things have I spoken unto you that my joy may be in you

14:20 and that your joy may be may be made full now my thesis is this if Jesus did not have as a fundamental character of his emotional life a deep settled joy how could he say to his disciples I'm telling you all of this to the end that something you've never seen and never known in looking at me may be in you and be full it would have been nonsense if our Lord had not manifested in his overall demeanor joy in pursuit of the will of God joy and brightness in his social interactions with others they would not have begun to understand what he's talking about in this setting he says because I've told you these things sorrow has filled your hearts you guys are a bunch of glum chums I tell you this and your faces are long but I'm telling you these things that my joy might be in you and that your joy might be full see the similar emphasis in his high priestly prayer in John 17 and verse 13 he's praying to his father and he says but now I come to thee and these things I speak in the world that they may have

15:48 my joy made full in themselves he's saying I'm praying these things that my joy that my very joy may be made full in them and when we turn to the book of Acts and read the account of the outworking of some of the answer to this prayer in the coming of the Holy Spirit and the religious climate of the saints in the book of Acts it is dominant with holy joy and the disciple was not above his master he did not enjoy the emotion of exuberant joy beyond their Lord and he said and then of course it was the very enticement of a greater joy that caused him to choose the way of the cross and cling to it according to Hebrews 12 2 who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising its shame and is set down at the right hand of the Father on high it was the realization of an even greater joy that was to our Lord a holy enticement a motivation to come to cling to the way of obedience even though it cut a swath through Gethsemane and Golgotha these I say are explicit texts which indicate that our Lord was no stranger to the emotion of a deep exuberant joy but now the inferential

17:17 evidence is abundant did little children feel at home around our Lord obviously they did when he wanted to use one for an illustration all he had to say is hey little baby come on and come here kids don't feel at home around somber sour doer people I've heard of some of my dear Dutch friends that when the Domini used to come up the front steps they'd hide out in the bushes in the back they'd run out the back door because the Domini in his black suit and in his turned collar was the picture of austerity proper dignified serious religion scared the liver out of the kids the sorrows and acquainted with grief in the way some people paint him in their verbal pictures not to speak of their so-called artwork you would not have found him at home with children and children at home with him children only at home with a basically joyful man or woman wherever you see kids following a man like he's the Pied Piper there you'll see a basically joyful man and little children felt at home with our Lord he could call them into his midst to use them for illustrations he obviously studied them at one point he says you know you're like kids playing in the marketplace can you imagine the Lord seeing a group of kids and one of them

18:45 hey let's and some of them saying nah we don't feel like it we feel too happy we want to dance and someone says okay let's play the Cinderella and the ball nah we want to play funeral the Lord had seen kids doing this let's do this nah let's do that and he said you're just like children in the marketplace you think the Lord could have looked at kids like that and not laughed no he uses an illustration he said John the Baptist comes along wearing funny clothes and eating a funny diet and you say he's got a demon you can't listen to him son of man comes along wearing ordinary clothes going to your feasts belting down all five courses and even finishing it off with a glass of wine and you all say a glutton in a wine who wants to listen to him he said just like kids in the marketplace John's too austere Jesus is too ordinary well how did he get that illustration by studying children and no man can study children and not learn to develop a good sense of humor you just can't do it I've never known a time when I wasn't around kids second oldest of ten kids have been a part of my life from as long as I can remember anything and now that continues into the role of a grandfather in a church where people have kids like old time Catholics imitate only to someone who is fundamentally

Emotion 3: Deep Grief and Sorrow

20:13 a joyful man a joyful woman our Lord experienced as an emotion that manifested itself in his bearing and demeanor his words and actions not only that emotion of deep and disruptive compassion but the emotion of deep and exuberant joy but then he also manifested the emotion of deep grief and sorrow of deep grief and sorrow and again one is just pressed to know how to select the right passages but I've selected several and I'm going to that came to my mind more immediately we find in Luke 19 in verse 41 one of the most moving pictures of our Lord's grief and sorrow in action in Luke 19 he's coming to Jerusalem for the last time he's coming to die and he knows that the judgment of God that will come upon that city for its final act of apostasy and rejecting its Messiah will be that in a few years the Roman army will come not one stone will be left upon another it will be days in which it will be said blessed is the womb that never bear and the breast that never gave suck he knows what's going to happen and we read in Luke 19 41 and when he drew nigh he saw the city

21:40 and our English translations are weak here and wept over it the Greek verb here is clio and the Greek verb and it does not refer to the more mild restrained sobbing or weeping but it's the same word used several times in the Gospels Luke 22 62 another parallel passage or a passage in which it is used of the professional wailers it's used of the word when Peter went out and it's translated there wept bitterly it speaks of uncontrollable sobbing we could translate it wailing you ever know what it is to wail when you cry from the soles of your feet to the top of your head and you're convulsed with weeping you know what that is when you weep yourself dry the last time I did it's when my one of my daughters was taken off after she was married it was the strangest experience all through the wedding I held together pretty well and they went off on a honeymoon everything was fine but the day Gord drove off with my Heidi to take her up to Canada I got inside the house and it was the strangest thing the fountains of the depot opened up no one was home and I began to weep my whole body began to shake and for 15 minutes I wailed

23:08 I wailed strangest emotion couldn't figure it out and I figured well the only way to get it out was let it out so when I thought it was all out I said now the best thing to do is not sit here and pity myself and I said if I could get back to work so I got back to work went upstairs to my study and I had some phone calls to make and the first was to one of my fellow elders his wife answered the phone I said hello Gene how are you? fine, how are you? I said I'm and after doing that for a couple of times I called up one of my fellow elders and said look I fully intend to do my duty and leave the prayer meeting tonight but be ready to bail me out if someone asks me at the door how I'm doing I said it just may all open up again I said it's something I can't understand apparently in the deep subterranean depths there was something that was affected by the whole process of the final letting go knowing that she was leaving and was cleaving to her beloved and that our relationship would never never again have certain dimensions God would not want it to have them now we're still very very close but there's a dimension that must be changed when they leave and cleave the wailing that uncontrollable wailing that's spoken of our Lord he wailed over the city and between his sobs

24:37 he said if thou hadst known in this day even thou the things that belong to thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes the days will come upon thee days he says when they shall dash thee to the ground and thy children with thee he perceived the coming judgment of God and he experienced a deep emotion of grief and sorrow and you men listen to me he didn't go off in a corner and say for people to see a man weep let alone uncontrollably wailing what will my disciples think if they see me losing control that's not macho you men have been brought up in a society that is raked of the commodity of manifested grief and sorrow and don't let society continue to rape you it is not unmanly to weep even to wail and to do so uncontrollable before the very people you are leading he did this in the presence of his disciples and I hate a society that has raised a generation of men who think it's unmanly to weep and it's un-macho to let another man see you weeping

26:04 it's not biblical it's not biblical it's not Christ-like he showed the emotion of deep grief and sorrow now he showed it in a different dimension by the grave side of Lazarus in Luke and John chapter 11 and here's where there are beautiful nuances that come through in the original that are not found in the English translations when he draws near to the grave side of Lazarus that family that he dearly loved the family at birth that he loved the family at Bethany Mary, Martha, Lazarus we read in verse 35 of John 11 the family at Bethany Mary, Martha, Lazarus we read in verse 35 of John 11 Jesus wept the Jews therefore said behold how he loved him here the word for weep is not clio but it's dacruo the word for weep it means a more restrained sobbing Jesus sobbed but now the point is this he sobbed in a public place he sobbed in a public setting so that others beholding him sobbing

27:31 eased from his tears to the unseen affection of his heart and they said behold how he loved him behold how he loved him we find in Mark 14 34 another graphic description of our Lord's ability to experience the emotion of deep grief and sorrow and this is one of those passages that one almost feels unclean to try to comment upon it as our Lord enters the Gethsemane experience verse 33 of Mark 14 he taketh with him Peter and James and John and began to be greatly amazed we'd say blown out of his mind that would be the current idiom for the Greek verb he began to experience a tremendous mental disruption as the realities of the cross are etched out in clearer outline than ever before he began to be sore amazed greatly amazed and sore troubled and he saith unto them my soul is exceeding sorrowful listen to this listen to the words even unto the point of death he said I'm experiencing a sorrow

29:00 which if it has its ultimate end will literally crush the life out of me that that is the proper meaning is established by Hebrews 5 where it says who in the days of his flesh cried with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to say that he was able to say that he was able to say save him from death and he was heard in that he feared and from what death was he saved not the death of the cross but a death in Gethsemane in which the very shadow of the cross would have killed him with sorrow what I want to make is that when he felt that emotion overtaking him he did not put on the stiff upper lip he not only opened his soul to that emotion he acknowledged his presence to his fellow creatures and he said I'm undergoing a sorrow that will crush me to death if there is no intervention the emotion of deep grief and deep sorrow but then quickly notice fourthly the emotion of deep agitation and anger now one of the great difficulties is that you and I are rarely angry but what I'm doing is that I'm our anger is tainted

Emotion 4: Deep Agitation and Anger

30:29 if not altogether stained and polluted by sin we become angry when our own will is crossed and our own pride is blunted and when our own purposes are crossed but our Lord was never petulant our Lord in that sense was never vengeful wanting to get even even those who put him on the cross he said Father forgive them they know not what they do my disposition is not vengeance but it's forgiveness except for the sin and for the sin that they have committed to them but nonetheless he did know the emotion of deep agitation and anger turn to Mark chapter 3 and verse 5 an amazing passage Mark chapter 3 and verse 5 it's in one of those many instances where the Pharisees are gathered around the Lord looking to pick fault with him watching him whether he'd heal on the Sabbath that they might accuse him verse 2 and the Lord sticks it to them and he says I'm not going to he's not about to be bullied by their prejudice and then we read in verse 5 and when he had looked round about on them with anger being grieved at the hardening of their heart he said unto the man now what's interesting about this passage and in the article I referred to earlier I referred to again B.B. Warfield's article The Emotional Life of Our Lord in his collection

31:57 of essays The Person and Work of Christ Warfield rightly notes that the grief at the hardness of their heart was something inward the grief as he saw their hardness of heart was inward but the grief became so pervasive as he saw their hardness in the light of all of their privilege and the incarnate God is in their midst manifesting the credentials of Messiah by his miracles and his and by the life that he lives that grief spills over into an anger that is no longer merely internalized but it flashes in his eyes it says he looked round about them with anger the very eyes that could see a leper and ooze compassion could see the dead body of that widow's son eyes that could see could look out with compassion eyes that spilled out tears or would spill out tears by the grave side of Lazarus would pour them out over Jerusalem their eyes that now flash and dance with the pure and holy fire of righteous anger he looked round about them with anger you mean Jesus was willing for people to see him evidently angry yes

33:27 yes the man or woman who lacks the capacity to be angry at what he ought to be angry is ungodly he is not like God for no one can love with a love that has any significance who cannot have anger with that which is the opposite to that love one of the inevitable accompaniments of true love on the one hand is anger and on the other is jealousy and that's why God is both an angry and a jealous as well as a loving God a guy who says yeah I think I'd like that woman for my wife but I don't care if everybody else dates her get off it buddy my heart said honor you keep your hands off and keep your distance or you won't have trouble if it's true love it'll burn with jealousy just as God's love burns with jealousy so our Lord experienced deep agitation and it manifested itself in his look we find something hardly know what to call it something akin to a mild anger and annoyance in Mark 10 verse 14 how honest the gospel writers are about our Lord it's in a situation where they're bringing little children and the disciples

34:56 are rebuking the people they say look he's got no time to be putting his hands on children and pronouncing a blessing on them they weren't bringing them to Jesus to either sprinkle them or dunk them or dedicate them they were bringing them to Jesus that he should touch them that is pronounce a blessing upon them and pray over them but when Jesus sought he was moved with indignation there was a perturbation there was a disruption tinged with anger in his soul he was moved with indignation the same Jesus moved with compassion is now moved with indignation and said suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for if such is the kingdom of God and then in John 11 verses 33 and 38 and here I can only commend to you Warfield's comments because time just runs away with feet too fast for us John chapter 11 when our Lord goes to the grave side of Lazarus some strange things are said of what could be observed in our Lord's very bodily actions John 11 in verse 33 when Jesus therefore saw her weeping that is Mary weeping upon the occasion of the death of her brother and the Jews also wailing there's the different word used again

36:24 the word for Clio for uncontrolled wailing who came with her he groaned in the spirit or notice the marginal reading was moved with indignation in the spirit and agitated himself what a strange combination of ideas he sees what death has done and the grief and the pain and the heartache it has brought and knowing that he has come as the resurrection and the life come to strip the devil of his horrible influence the one who introduced death by the seduction of our first parents our Lord is stirred with a holy indignation and indignation and disruption that's almost untranslatable and the marginal rendering of the old 1901 comes closer to the original he was moved with indignation and he was disturbed and troubled or agitated himself and then verse 38 Jesus therefore again groaning in himself being moved with indignation in himself cometh to the tomb and he will be Jesus is angry at what death has done and he's coming to take out of the jaws of death his friend Lazarus

Emotion 5: Consuming Zeal

37:54 knowing that behind death is the devil and he doesn't enter this in a dispassionate cool calculated way but with the emotion of deep agitation and anger throbbing within his breast well then had we time we could look at the fifth but I'll only mention it in a minute I'll give you the reference the emotion of consuming zeal consuming flaming zeal and the incidence of course is John 13 and following in the cleansing of the temple where Jesus had you just been dropped out of a helicopter the moment before he started to drive out the animals and overturn the changers tables you would have said a madman has been let loose but the disciples later on remembered the text zeal for thy house hath eaten me up he's experiencing a zeal for God's honor that which should be a house of prayer for all people where Gentiles should come and know that Jehovah is the God of the nations they had turned it into a stinking marketplace and the Lord is so angry that like a madman he overthrows the tables and the money goes clunking down upon the stones of that floor and one can imagine the sound of the cattle as they mooed and bleated while he wrapped

Observation 1: Jesus's Emotions Were Always Righteous

39:22 them on the rump with his scourge of cords flaming zeal anyone who's got the idea of a plastic Jesus never read his Bible that's just a sampling that's only a sampling my brothers and sisters and I urge you as you read the gospel records say oh Lord help me to see you in the fullness the richness the whole balanced spectrum of your emotional life as it's revealed in the scriptures those are just some biblical examples now what I want to do is to make some observations about these and this may be as far as we get and the third point would be expanded tonight anyway on some of the practical implications but let's make some observations regarding these recorded emotions of our Lord and very quickly now in the fifteen minutes remaining to me four observations number one these emotions were always righteous they were always righteous and the reason they were righteous is that they were never based on a selfish petulant response to something done to Jesus see many of our strong emotions are unrighteous and wicked because they're based upon a petulant selfish response to something done to

40:51 us and furthermore they were righteous because they were always based upon a perception of reality Jesus always did what he told us to do in John 7 24 judge not according to appearance but judge righteous judgment whenever it is said that Jesus was moved with compassion why was he moved with compassion because he perceived reality as it was he saw the boy was dead and the boy and the widow had a broken heart this wasn't some kind of play some kind of charade he saw the true state of the people like sheep without a shepherd distressed and scattered and the official religious teachers doing nothing but saying rabbi ben ezra says and rabbi who says this and rabbi the other says this and they were not being given the bread of life and he said they are like distressed ill fed on garbage sheep scattered dispersed ill fed disease ridden and because he perceived reality he was moved you check out every one of these instances whether it's the emotion of deep disruptive compassion this deep exuberant joy deep grief and sorrow deep agitation and anger the emotion of flaming zeal it was always

42:21 a righteous emotion because it was not a selfish response to some wrong done to Jesus nor was it a reaction based upon misconception now you want to be like Christ in your emotional life then the minute you begin to feel anything strongly ask yourself oh lord search my heart am I responding this way out of some inbred unmortified sinful tendency in my heart oh lord am I responding as I am according to truth and reality or am I getting angry because of hearsay that's come into my ears am I getting angry based upon gossip am I getting upset because of something that is true and real and factual you and I would save ourselves a host of sinful emotions if we'd only take the time to get the facts about the situation that's about to get us ticked off get us excited don't trust your girlfriend's word that a certain guy looked at you with a very special look four times this weekend wait till he looks at you that way and interprets

43:50 the look with his own words then you get excited that's how practical it is why have your emotions excited over a wispy cloud of nothing only to be dashed into discouragement and then have a pity party it's your own fault you never had any right to get excited because your girlfriend said he looked at you four times at the dinner table from across the room she was hoping it was you but he was really looking at the gal next to you of course none of us do anything like that that's just people from my generation you see seriously in our lord all of these emotions from the deepest compassion to the most intense fiery glow of anger in his eye they were always righteous because they were based upon a response rooted not in selfishness or in wounded self-interest but in the honor of god the glory of god the good of men opposition to sin all of these things and they were always based upon reality secondly they were allowed to take hold of his soul now that's very interesting when the gospel writers described the emotion of compassion

Observation 2: Jesus Allowed Emotions to Take Hold of His Soul

45:19 when jesus began to feel his gut stir he didn't say men don't eat quiche men don't feel deeply that they may convulse with weeping jesus had no such false standard he perceived reality that began to stir a noble god-like emotion he let that emotion take hold of his soul he didn't batter it down he didn't try to shove it out he didn't try to stomp on it he let that emotion take hold of his soul now for some of you that will be nothing less than radical because you were brought up in a home where the whole climate of that home whether explicitly or implicitly was one in which emotions are never to have a prominent place in this home we're all to be stoical you can feel the deepest thing but don't let the feeling percolate through the soul and manifest itself in the tear ducts stiff upper lip always got your act together may i say it reverently jesus didn't give the impression that he

46:48 always had his act together he said i'm experiencing a sorrow that's going to kill me please help me you talk about being vulnerable and that's the problem some of you don't want to be vulnerable you've got plate steel over what you really are and that's why some of you are getting nowhere in any kind of interpersonal relationship with those of the opposite sex because if there's anything true of a relationship that makes a sound basis for marriage it's the willingness to be vulnerable to know and to be known yeah but if someone really knows me what they'll see is ugly yes for the faith they're given a God given love they'll love you in spite of the ugliness risky for our Lord to be found sobbing to be found with anger flashing in his eyes risky to be consumed with such zeal that he looks like a madman throwing over tables and driving cattle out of the temple but he let those holy emotions possess him he didn't squelch them he didn't beat them down he didn't tell them they were not befitting him he didn't he didn't the holy son of God

Observation 3: Jesus Gave Emotions Appropriate Expression

48:15 we all with open face beholdings in a mirror of the glory of the Lord transformed into the same image God wants to make us emotional beings who will allow holy sanctified emotions to take hold of our souls thirdly they were always given an appropriate expression they not only took hold of his soul but then they were given an appropriate expression to say it reverently Jesus didn't throw curves in the expression of his emotions he threw straight fastballs with no rise no dip no twist on the end when he was deeply grieved he allowed that grief to express itself in tears when he was angry the anger flashed in his eyes when he was full of joy the exuberance was upon his countenance he rejoiced he exulted in the spirit and so we find in our blessed lord a marvelous discernible expression of the emotions and that's the only way the gospel writers know it they didn't play psychologists and try to dig behind his actions into the psychological complex that produced them they could only comment

49:44 upon the emotion when it was registering at a place and in a way and at a level that they could discern it with their eyes so when they saw the flashing anger in the eye and saw the hardness of heart they realized being grieved for their hardness of heart he looked round about him with anger when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion towards them and that's part of the problem many of us were not trained in our childhood the proper way to express god-given emotions when you were angry about something you had a right to be angry about what were you told to do go to your room bang your head on the wall you weren't told how to give proper vent to that anger when you felt deep compassion when you felt exuberant joy if you ever came into the house said I feel so happy I could dance the bible is unembarrassed to describe David as dancing before the lord he didn't institute the holy dance at the temple these people have tried to justify dancing as part of the worship on the basis

51:13 of David's experience or the women who came out after the exodus it's sheer nonsense this was an unusual occasion when David is king in Israel representing the joy of the people dances before the returning ark and thank god there was no one there that had a bad theology of the emotions to tell him he shouldn't do it he had a narrow-eyed wife up in the window who was thinking it and when she opened her mouth god shut her womb to show her what he thought about it Mikal said you've shamed yourself today David said you ain't seen nothing I should be yet more vile and it said god closed up her womb god says I smile you better not frown when I smile many of you weren't brought up in homes like that you were brought up in emotionally stifled homes and here you are in your adult years and you need to cry to god that god would untie you in all of those areas that you might be able to give an appropriate expression to the valid sanctified emotions that have taken hold of your soul based upon righteous catalysts within your soul but then the fourth thing and this has struck me in my preparation I don't think I ever saw it before that Jesus emotions always led to suitable action not only to appropriate expressions but suitable actions

Observation 4: Jesus's Emotions Always Led to Suitable Action

52:42 in other words he never sat down and soaked in a hot tub of his intense emotions he let the emotions cut a channel of action when he was moved with compassion for the multitudes what did he do he knew he couldn't reach them all so he turned to his disciples and said pray lord of the harvest to send forth labors into the harvest when he was moved with compassion before the widow and her dead son what did he do he did what Messiah could do he had the power to raise the dead so he took the lad by the hand and raised him up and when the leper said if you will you can cleanse me he said I will be thou clean he never sat in a hot tub of an intense emotion whether of anger or of love and compassion he did not sit in the hot tub of an intense emotion he let it become the speech action that would express the will of the heart that's the problem with some of you right there you sit in the hot tub of your emotions and if it's an emotion of delight and joy what do you do well you just sit and enjoy it you don't know what

54:11 God says any among you Mary what does he say you know what God says in James chapter 5 when he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit thank thee Father Lord of heaven and earth appropriate action followed the emotions when there was anger he didn't simply look around and say I'm ticked off at you birds he did something to show them the fallacy of their horrible hard-hearted negative assessment of his healing on the Sabbath and when he stood by the graveside of Lazarus and shuddered and felt this vehement hatred to the king of terrors and to the master of that king of terrors the devil he did something he said Lazarus come forth and he came forth these four things are observations that I believe form the common denominators of the recorded emotional expressions of our Lord always righteous allowed to take hold of his soul they were given an appropriate expression and they left to a suitable action and I'm convinced that we are not going to see

Conclusion: Cultivating Christ-like Emotions for Kingdom Advancement

55:39 a wholesome full-orbed biblical Christianity merely by having a proper creed now we got to start with the right creed the proper doctrine of God and of Christ and of sin and of grace and of the church and all the rest and we're not going to see great exploits done we need men and women who know how to feel deeply whose feelings are rooted in biblical realities who are unashamed to express those feelings and then to channel them into God given conduits of holy activity where are the men filled with the burning zeal of Jesus who long to see the existing so-called temples of God cleansed of all of the horrible horrible chicanery imported into the church don't you burn with zeal when in the name of biblical Christianity so much nonsense is perpetrated in the house of God when the cattle of man centered and flesh centered programs dominate don't you long to be consumed with a zeal that will cut not a fanatic's course and go into the local liberal church with a 30-06 and shoot the preacher and all the deacons and threaten to shoot anybody else who stays in there before you vomit

57:08 no that's the action of a fanatic that's not the action of the Lord Jesus but oh how desperately do we need a generation of men and women who are prepared to assess their emotions as to their righteousness before they give vent to them and when convinced of their righteousness independence upon the Holy Spirit do not seek to neuter them and cut the throat of them but allow the soul to be possessed by them and then express them in an appropriate way and then harness them to noble actions for the advancement of the kingdom of God