How to Worship Our Emotional God!
Be Sad, Mad, then Glad! Worship God!
We just got to visit out daughter and one thing very funny about her I that remember is that when she was little she was very emotional! Maybe something happened and she would cry big tears but then if I did few faces or something I could get her to laugh and she would go from crying to an instant laugh and it was so funny!
How many of you often get sad? If we are made in the image of God then all the emotions we feel, He feels, right! But what makes you sad?
Do you get sad about it when you discover there is abuse happening and you see others suffering? On our trip we saw a documentary on the abuse done to monkeys for experiments and it affected Regina, I think any type of abuse, to animals or people affects us in a bad way!
Maybe daily, or during the week you get sad about things that you suffer from in your home with misunderstandings between you and your mate or family. Or we get sad by injustices at our jobs too, right? In Atlanta before we would be sad when we would know of someone getting deported and their family was split up and their children would be without a father.
Deportation is the law for non-documented, I am not refuting what the law does, we obey the laws but the consequences in real life do provoke women and children to suffer! Our founder William Booth said, that while women and children weep as they do, he will fight! We fight to heal, save, restore, and mend broken lives!
There are so many things that will make us sad in this world because we live in a fallen world full of injustices and sin! But God wants these moments to be times in which we seek him. God wants us to share our sadness with Him.
He wants to be our comforter!
There is a type of sadness that can clean us inside too, a sadness that we discover exists because we are offending God and others by our ways.
James 4:6-10
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
God is telling us in James that he wants to see us humble, he wants to see us sad and weep, or at least give a place for it. He does not want us to be always happy, there is time to be sad, and later there is a time to be glad.
Remember, the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.” Why did he weep? He was sad because the people did not love nor seek God! He was sad because he knew of the judgment that would come over Jerusalem because of their lack of worship and recognition of God!
How do we worship an emotional God? We share in his sadness. This is the first step in getting close to God, the first requirement to worship Him is to have a humble, contrite (or sad) or broken heart.
Let’s turn to the sermon on the Mount and see what Jesus says.
Matt 5:4
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
God is there to comfort us when we weep, wither over the problems of others, or over our own problems.
Sometimes God wants us to cry not over what sadness we feel but over the sadness He feels for us because we are often so proud and not clean in His presence, we have hearts that need cleaning because we are not in love with Him wanting to be with Him in prayer and word everyday!
Today we are studying how our emotional God wants us to worship Him, or Be in His presence. We can discover that the first step God requires sadness, a weeping but then He will give us comfort and joy!
He needs us to have the right attitude of soberness to see our own sin and feel sadness that we are hurting Him by having that sin. So the first step is we must mourn over our sin.
Neh 8:9
9 And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the LORD your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.
In this verse the people of Israel had lived in sin and they, like you or most of the people around you, had not heard the law or Word of the Lord for all their lives and when they heard it they started to weep. That was a good result, because their weeping showed they were sorry for their sins, that they were convicted they needed to be closer to God.
Let’s look up Isa 61:1-3
61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;
3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.
These are the very first words Jesus taught in the temple when we began His ministry. Isaiah 61. The concept is that every person is just like Israel that sinned. We mourn and we are broken over our sins but the Lord will give us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; so He will be glorified.
The Lord is Good and He does not want us to always be sad, but it is a something He requires in order to get out spirits right. Eccl 3:4
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance
After we are sad we should become mad, angry at our selves and angry against the sin in the world so there is conviction to change. The Holy Spirit in our lives brings this change and that comes by a humbling and asking.
We should be angry enough to change our lives, that is the 2nd step in worshipping God.
It is like a man that goes out every weekend to spend his money gambling and drinking, and finally when he wakes up and sees that he works all week sweating and working hard just to spend his hard earned money in just a few hours, he gets mad at himself enough times that he finally stops being a fool.
Ps 7:11
11 God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.
If you are like God you will be angry too and angry at the sin you have in your life.
But do not confuse the anger of God, the anger that means we take the conviction to hate the evil enough to change. Recall..
James 1:19-20
19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
And 3rd and finally, we should be joyous in the presence of God! When Jesus left theis earth into heaven, he left everyone great joy!
Luke 24:51-53
51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.
52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:
53 And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen
The final result is that God wants us to have great joy in our lives!
John 16:20
20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
John 15:11
11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
In Acts, despite their problems and persecutions they were filled with joy! Acts 13:52
52 And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.
Do you want joy in your life? It doesn’t come from parties and money. It only comes from the Lord! The fruits of the Holy Spirit in us are love, joy, peace and others, but the people that are joyous are the pones that are full of our Lord!
I want you to have joy today! Maybe you do not have joy because you have not been through the process. The process is to repent, and to be sad over the sin in the world and in your life, then to be mad or convicted so that your will lines up with God’s will, and when that happens from your obedience you will have joy like you have never felt ever before!
Come feel the joy the Lord has for you today. In the faces of many people I can tell you have lived without the joy of the Lord for a long time. In Neh 8:10 we find;
for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength. Come and have strength and joy!
