Listen To Your Heart: In determining what to do, for many the key question is “what do you feel like you should do?”
- We are encouraged to “follow our heart” by listening to our emotions and doing what they’re telling us to do.
- This presumes that whatever our heart is telling us to do is an intrinsically good thing. This is usually based on our feelings.
- Are our feelings always something that are a good thing to act on? No.
- For instance, I was reading a book the other day and the author was sharing that we now have the ability to create an email program that would screen for anger. It could be set up so that if it detected angry words in the email it would automatically hold the email for 24 hours and then ask the sender if he still wanted to send it. The idea there is that often we’ll write things in the heat of the moment that we later regret. The goal of this program would be to give enough space to avoid that problem.
- That so many have sent an email in anger is why such a program could be useful. It felt good to click “Send” in the heat of anger, but often the decision seems less wise in morning’s light.
- The first question we usually ask when someone is unsure what to do is, “What do you feel like you should do?” or “How do you feel about it?”
- Picking kids up from Sunday School, the first question parents ask is, “Did you have fun?” (which is about the emotional response to the class). Only then will we ask, “What did you learn?”
- It’s not that we don’t have any place for thought – it’s just that it’s often a secondary place.
- For many, emotions cannot be questioned – they simply must be obeyed. There’s not even a debate – it’s just a given.
- It’s like that scene on Seinfeld where George’s fiancée starts crying and he immediately gives in. Later, he says it was like she was on fire – he just wanted to put her out.
- Emotional decisions get to go right on through – no security check.
- Feelings move us and we enjoy being moved.
- Some will even complain after their decision blows up in their face: “Why didn’t God honor my decision to ‘follow my heart’?”
- Their presumption is that following their emotions is always a good idea.
Why That Doesn’t Work: Often what “feels right” goes against what is right.
- There are obviously a whole host of emotions that we could use as examples, but in our passages this morning we see fear as the recurring emotion, so we’re going to concentrate on it.
- Let’s look at three examples within this larger story. In all three cases, they knew what was right:
a. Pilate.
- How do we know he knew what the right thing to do was?
- There’s his assessment of the situation (Matthew 27:18, 23, 24). He clearly knows that Jesus is innocent.
- There’s the warning from his wife (Matthew 27:19). He gets outside confirmation (both from a person he trusts and from a heavenly vision she’s received).
- He chooses a notorious criminal as the other released-prisoner option, hoping to make the alternate choice so bad that they’ll have to choose Christ (Matthew 27:16). I believe he chose someone “notorious” in order to stack the deck toward the crowd releasing Jesus. This is Pilate’s attempt at a compromise solution – he’s not releasing the prisoner, so the religious leaders can’t be mad at him, but it keeps him from having to condemn Jesus.
- He was influenced both by his internal fear for his position as well as his external fear from the mob.
b. Peter.
- Peter was willing to draw his sword for Jesus against overwhelming odds (Matthew 26:51). Further, Peter adamantly declares that he will never deny Jesus (Matthew 26:35).
c. The mob.
- Jesus has done nothing to deserve this condemnation (Matthew 26:55). They aren’t mad over anything in particular – they’re just mad because they’ve been primed. Further, just days before they were praising Jesus as the “Son of David” during the Triumphal Entry (Matthew 21:1-11).
- This is not as strong as the previous two examples. It might be better said that they didn’t care what was right.
- So, the problem is not that they didn’t know the right thing to do.
- Pilate, the mob, and Peter all knew the right thing to do.
- It wasn’t ignorance that led them to do what they did. It was allowing emotion to rule their hearts that caused the disaster.
- Although we like to act as though our emotions are a true compass, the truth is that our emotions are often off because we are sinful and self-centered creatures.
- People give humanity way too much credit when we believe that everyone has a good heart and that goodness will come out if we just listen to our heart.
- Our emotions often point us toward doing sinful things:
a. Feelings of love that lead us having sex before we get married.
b. Feelings of jealousy that lead us to destroy relationships with those we say we love most.
- Our emotions often point us toward doing self-centered things:
a. Feelings of peace that lead us avoiding confronting a colleague.
b. Feelings of happiness that lead us to continue to spend inordinate amounts of time playing a video game.
- Let’s talk about one way that this can be especially dangerous. It happens when your feelings are accompanied by one key fact.
- I’m going to call this the “What if?” factor. It allows an emotion to take on a greater power.
a. Pilate.
- The one key fact: In Pilate’s case, he knew that violent unrest could cost him his position, so he wanted to do all that he could to maintain the peace.
- I.e.: “I know releasing Jesus is the right thing to do, but what if I let Jesus go and I lose everything as a result?”
- In his mind, the emotion of fear is heightened by the fact that his failure to put down this unrest could be the end of his rule.
b. Peter.
- Matthew 26:47.
- The one key fact: Being affiliated with Jesus in that moment could cost him his life.
- I.e.: “What if I admit to being a disciple and this crowd turns on me?”
- Fear makes Peter deny Christ.
- We speak of being “carried away” by our emotions.
- This means that we’re letting the emotion call the shots and we’re just going along for the ride.
- This is something that is not merely tolerated, but is sought.
- In v. 23, the crowd has come to substitute volume for thoughtfulness.
- An example of this is our moods. We will get, often for no apparent reason, in a mood – depressed, angry, sullen, lazy. And we act as though there’s nothing we can do about it. It just controls us and we have to ride it out.
- Emotions make a great caboose, but a terrible locomotive.
- When we put our emotions in charge and let them call the shots (i.e. make them the locomotive), we are likely to end up in trouble.
- They do, however, make a good caboose. They will come along when we have something more substantial leading. And we do want them to come along because we do want to feel, we want to be moved. We just don’t want those feelings to send us down questionable roads.
- Often we pursue the feeling instead of the condition.
- For instance, true peace in relationships comes from confronting difficult issues, not sweeping them under the rug. Having the condition of peace may require that we forego feelings of peace for a short time.
- Another example: a woman wants the feeling of “being in love,” so she gives into her boyfriend’s sexual advances in order to continue to relationship. Sadly, a real loving relationship requires two people who love and respect each other, not who make selfish demands on each other, as the boyfriend is. In order to get to the condition of love, she might have to temporarily forego feelings of love.
- Pursue the condition and let the feelings take care of themselves.
- Doing what your emotions tell you to do is sure long-term path to defeat.
- Sometimes doing what they say may turn out alright, but over the long haul it will inevitably lead to a mess. Spiritual defeat will come our way.
A Better Way: Make your decisions based on who you want to be, not what you feel like.
- Galatians 5:24.
- Jesus in Gethsemane provides a pointed counterbalance to what we’ve seen so far.
- He is clearly dealing with fear (Matthew 26:39, 42, 44). Unlike some of the portraits of Christ that show Him serenely bowing in the Garden, the Bible pictures Him under severe duress. It shows Him throwing Himself down upon the ground in prayer. It shows Him sweating drops of blood. And, in this passage, it shows Him begging three times that there might be another way out of this.
- Why would He fear? Because beyond the agonizing physical pain of crucifixion, the spiritual weight of the sin of the world was going to be put upon Him. What a dark, horrible thing. The fact that it was necessary doesn’t make it less daunting.
- His emotions in the moment said one thing clearly: “Run! Save yourself!” Yet Jesus does the right thing: “Not My will but Your will be done.” He doesn’t let His emotion of fear rule Him.
- Fear makes Him want to flee, but He stays in there to do what is right.
- Going back to point I made earlier about the difference between the feeling and condition, I’m reminded as I look at what Jesus does here in the Garden that in Hebrews 12:2 it says: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
- When it speaks of “the joy set before Him,” does it mean that it was a joyful thing to be nailed to the cross? Of course not. It was a horrific experience – there was not an ounce of joy in it.
- But sacrificing Himself on the cross was necessary for our sin to be forgiven. The incredible joy that comes to Him now as millions turn to Him for salvation is a joy that makes the pain of the cross more than worth it.
- To get to that condition of joy required that He first go through a time completely devoid of the feeling of joy.
- With it being Palm Sunday, I also think of the Triumphal Entry.
- In Matthew 21:9, we see the crowds shouting their praise to Jesus. It is an emotional scene. Yet many of these same throats will be screaming for His death within a week.
- It’s a testimony to how fleeting emotions – even positive emotions - can be.
- As the Word says in John 2:24-25, Jesus didn’t trust Himself to men because “He knew what was in man.”
- Sometimes we don’t do the right thing because we “don’t feel like it.”
- When we say that, we make it sound like that’s a perfectly legitimate excuse. It’s not. It’s more like the pathetic tantrum from a child. Who cares if you don’t feel like doing it - do it anyway.
- Self-control is doing what you don’t feel like doing.
- It’s much easier to do things when our feelings are there to push us along. Having self-control means that we do what is in our best long-term interest even when it is not what we feel like doing in the short-term.
- Hollywood is renowned for the ever-present “follow-your heart” storylines. Of course, in the movies when people follow their heart, it always turns out to be the right thing to have done. It always leads to romantic joy.
- Giving into our feelings offers a short-term “high” in exchange for a long-term price tag.
- I don’t want to underestimate how good it feels to have those feelings washing over us. It’s just that those feelings come at a high price.
- The path to spiritual victory requires control of our emotions.
- While spiritual warfare can certainly be an impediment to our spiritual progress, often the problem lies within us. Pursuing what our feelings are telling us to do can be a path into spiritual defeat.
