God’s Emotional Matrix
1. The sermons over the last few weeks have really stretched us.
2. We mentioned the purpose for all creation, to glorify God. Creation does this by SHOWCASING what is special about God.
3. We cannot develop God’s special qualities, because they are already perfect. All events and situations do is to display those qualities which already exist and have existed from all eternity.
4. God, as revealed in the Bible, is under attack not only by unbelievers but also by people who claim to believe the Bible.
5. Here, for example, is an attack upon God’s immutability…His unchageableness… from an evangelical scholar:
6. How do we answer his suggestion that God was somehow deepened by the cross?
7. The answer: God knew of the cross, including the feelings the cross would elicit. God knows all that will happen and all that could happen.
8. Steve Inman pointed out this verse: I Samuel 23:10-13:
David said, "O LORD, God of Israel, your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to Keilah and destroy the town on account of me. Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me to him? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O LORD, God of Israel, tell your servant." And the LORD said, "He will." Again David asked, "Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me and my men to Saul?" And the LORD said, "They will." So David and his men, about six hundred in number, left Keilah and kept moving from place to place. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he did not go there.
9. God’s experiences do NOT change His emotional makeup, they merely highlight His emotions.
10. Since all creation exists to highlight what is special about God, one thing creation will do is to highlight the many emotions of God.
MAIN IDEA: If we let the Bible speak for itself, we find a God Who is often different than the God many Christians present, a God with a complicated emotional matrix.
Today, I would like for us to (1) Consider the Immensity of God’s Emotional Matrix, (2) Discover Some Surprising Realities About the Range of God’s Emotions, (3) Contemplate How God’s Range of Emotions is to Be Reflected in the Believer.
I. Consider the Immensity of God’s Emotions
1. Have you ever felt emotionally depleted? After a funeral/tragedy, divorce, prodigal child, severe depression….
2. God’s emotions are never depleted, nor do they wear on Him
3. Our emotions are often tainted by sin: How often do we experience a holy hatred, for example.
4. God hears of the prayers of millions of Christians at the same time; of course, God is not subject to time, but you get the point…
(1) Every believer can claim and effectively practice Hebrews 4:15-16, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
(2) God feels our pain when we share it with Him; He celebrates our joys when we share them with Him; He glories in our prayers of thanksgiving and He inhabits the praise of His people…millions of them, all at once; He understands and feels with us….
(3) On the one hand, He burns with wrath: Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
(4) On the other, sympathy and compassion: Psalms 86:15 But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
II. The Surprising Reality About the Range of God’s Emotions
1. He loves the world (John 3:16)
2. He demonstrate His love for us (Romans 5:8)
3. In one sense, God clearly loves sinners, yet in another, He hates them
(1) Psalm 5:4-5 “You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong. You destroy those who tell lies; bloodthirsty and deceitful men the LORD abhors.
NIV Jeremiah 12:7-8, “I will forsake my house, abandon my inheritance; I will give the one I love into the hands of her enemies. My inheritance has become to me like a lion in the forest. She roars at me; therefore I hate her.”
NIV Leviticus 26:30, “I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you.”
4. In one sense, God takes no pleasure in judging the unrepentant; in another sense, He does
(1) Ezekiel 18:32 “For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!”
(2) Deuteronomy 28:63, “Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.”
5. In judging the lost, God demonstrates His wrath and power
(1) Romans 9:22-24, “ What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction?”
(2) Proverbs 16:4, “The LORD works out everything for his own ends-- even the wicked for a day of disaster.”
6. In forgiving the believer, God demonstrates His mercy and grace
(1) Rom. 9:23-24, “What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory-- even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?”
(2) Everything glorifies an aspect of God’s nature. When God judges the unsaved, His justice and holiness are exalted. When He forgives the believer, His grace, mercy, and love are highlighted. But make no mistake about it: all of God’s creation will bring glory to some aspect of His nature.
7. When we share Christ, He is glorified in one way or another: 2 Cor. 2:15-16, “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.”
8. Since God is infinite, He was experiencing grief when the Lamb of God was hanging on the cross, joy for the those who would be redeemed, satisfied with the atoning work being accomplished, pleased to bruise the Son (Isaiah 53:10 “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him), forgiveness for those who knew not what they were doing, and rage when He sent an earthquake, all at the same time!
III. How God’s Infinite Range of Emotions Is Pictured In Our Finite Emotions
1. Limited not only because we are creatures, but because we have sinful hearts which are deceitful and desperately wicked!
2. But we see some of it. Consider Rom. 12:17-21, “ Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.
On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
3. It means we can love a person in one sense and hate them in another, or be happy and sad at the same time
4. But because of our sin natures, our emotional appeal sometimes dominates wisdom, Scripture, and conscience….
5. I believe James 1:14 is targeting the emotions: “but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.
Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”
6. The lure to sin in the Garden, I believe, was greatly enhanced by emotion…we should decide with our renewed minds and feel with our emotions, not the other way around…
CONCLUSION
1. This current series is taking us on to Holy Ground.
2. But a correct view of God is the foundation for all our beliefs.
3. The God I presented to you this morning may not be the God you had on your mind when you walked in here this morning.
4. I hope all of us will examine the Scriptures to see if what I am saying is right. And, if so, may we all have the courage and conviction to leave behind the God of popular Christianity and embrace the God of Scripture: the genuine God Who exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The God Who is infinite, immutable, and whose emotional side is so complex that we must accept it by faith for it is beyond our understanding.
