[2023.8.17] The Basin: Your Emotions Aren't In Charge

We have a choice to make today. Boom. Corrupted, created, old self, new self. Deceitful desires, divinity within. What choice am I making today? The beauty of it is, which one of me? You know, when you find yourself struggling and going, all right, well, there's a part of me that wants to do the worst thing in the world, say the worst thing in the world, be the worst thing in the world, be lazy, not do anything that God is calling me to do. There's another part of me that really does want to do what God wants me to do. Which one is really me. And then a lot of times we just settle for the lower one. Oh, that's really me. That's just me being me. I'm just being me. That's that elevation of authenticity where we're like, the me that I am right now is the me that I'm going to be and nobody's going to change me. And we start living out the advice in our fifth grade yearbook. Never change, never raise hell. Over the summer, we elevate our self and we put ourselves in our current state as being the ideal. And that's not what the scripture said. It said we want to be like God. And even more specifically, that we were created to be like God. So which one's really me? Ding, ding, ding. One is being corrupted by deceitful desires. One was created to be like God. And when you think about all of the Bible stories, Old Testament, and all the scriptures, New Testament, that reinforce this, you can't get away from it. That God has things in mind for us, whether they be gifts that he wants to give us or things he wants to do through us. And our decision to live into that or not to live into that does play a part. Plays a big part. And so I decided today to put on these workout clothes and go work out. It was a decision. Nobody dressed me. I didn't sleep in these clothes. I could have. Maybe that's a strategy in the future, going forward, but a decision today, and will I decide it again tomorrow? I hope so. It's a pattern. I think I will. I will. How am I going to decide that? Well, I decided that I'm going to work out on these certain days, physical exercise, and that's what I'm going to do. If I wake up tomorrow and go, do I feel like working out? My shoulder is going to say no. You feel that? You feel that right there, that you need to. You need a day off. And sometimes you do, but, you know, my lower back is going to be like, we're still tight from chest day. We can't do leg day. Leg day tomorrow. Oh, my God. I just realized that I have leg day tomorrow. So how am I going to decide tomorrow morning whether or not to put on these clothes and go in that workout room and do that workout again? How am I going to decide? Well, I do it based on my priorities, what I want most, or by my feelings and my emotions, what I want now. Because what I want now, another 30 minutes of sleep. What I want now, anything but that squat rack. Oh, God, I hope we don't have any Bulgarian split squat nonsense tomorrow on, like, day. See, like right now, even thinking about it makes me go, I better commit to put on these clothes tomorrow and go through that consistent routine tomorrow. I'm not going to do it. What in the world are you talking about right now, Pastor Steven? Simple. I'm talking about the place that your emotions have in your decisions. Emotions have a place. We got to pay attention to how we feel. How else would we know when to rest? We got to pay attention to how we feel. How else would we know what God is leading us to do? We kind of have to feel it, right? There has to be a sense that we get. How else would we know how to let love in if we didn't feel? Feelings have a place. Emotions have a place. But I want to make the case to you that they don't belong on the throne of our life. Emotions have a place, and that place is not the throne. Okay? Jesus is on the throne. Christ is on the throne. Practically speaking, that means that what he speaks, what he wants, the bigger picture of where he's taking my life and how he wants to use me and what I believe by faith, he's called me to do, even though I don't always feel that that belongs on the throne, not my feelings. You're like, that's obvious, isn't it? No, we don't live like that. We put our feelings on the throne. We want to go off. We go off. We want to skip. We skip. And some people are better at this than others. You know, some people are good at pushing through. People are good at holding back. But I know we all have places we can grow in this, where we don't always feel like saying something encouraging to someone because it's kind of embarrassing. But if God wants me to say something encouraging to somebody, I should say it. Sometimes we feel like doing something super sinful to feel relief in a moment, just giving into temptation. It's not that bad. I have those moments too. And sometimes I give in and sometimes I resist. But the moments that I give in, it's usually because I put my feelings or emotions or desires. That's where I wanted to get. I'm glad I remembered this. Deceitful desires. That's how we get corrupted. And you know what's funny about a deceitful desire? You don't know is deceitful, or else it wouldn't be deceitful, would it? You don't know you're being deceived, or else you're not being deceived. If you know you're being deceived, then you're not being deceived. You're just deciding to do something. But if you're being deceived by the desire, what does that mean? That means I think I want this. I've been many times in my life pummeled and punished by the consequences of things I thought I wanted. I know you have too. The call to maturity in Christ and the call to grow up in him and let more and more of his grace permeate our lives is Psalm 37. 4. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Who will? He will. That does not mean he gives you everything you want. That would be a way to read that verse. He will give you the desires of your heart. Oh, awesome. Let me give you my list. God, this is what I want. He will instill the desires so he can fulfill the desires. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. That's the process we have to go through of putting off and putting on. So like I said a few days ago, the tricks of the trade, I used that phrase, which can mean like, you know, you use some high pressure sales technique to get somebody to buy something if you're a salesman, or you kind of cut corners if you're building something and sell it as one thing when it's really another. But they'll never know. The enemy has tricks of the trade. He tries to get you to trade things that matter most for things that meet now needs. Now needs. I want to feel better. I want to forget. I want to get out of this, go crazy. Boom. And then we do things and we put on the old self. Then we think we want relief, but we really want freedom. And so we don't get freedom, we get slavery. Deceitful desires. You have some, I have some. Could be going after certain people's approval and then finding out, wait, they're. They're screwed up. They're more screwed up than I AM sms. Oh, man. I hope this. This teaching doesn't sound dark or condemning. Because the choice we have is we can put on the righteousness of Christ, and we do that daily. Isn't it interesting that the default setting here isn't that you have Christ on? That's what I thought it would be. Keep Christ on, keep the new self on. Don't take it off and put on the old self. No, it starts with putting off, which means that many days and many situations that I face, my default reaction is not going to be the best one. Remember how Jacob and Esau were fighting in the womb, and when it came time for Rebekah to give birth, they were fighting. I remember Jacob tried to come out first. He was grabbing Esau's heel, and so they named him Trickster. That's what Jacob means then. Verse 27. This is the verse that I've been thinking about. Verse 27. Genesis 25:27. I found it. The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter. And what's funny about that is it's describing physical growth. They grew up. That's describing the fact that they matured physically. But watch this. What happens a lot of times is we grow in our bodies and we even grow in our skills and our interest. He's a skillful hunter, right? He's good at hunting. But there's some growth that doesn't happen on the inside of Esau. And this is the story I'll read before I close. It's that he grew up, both of the boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents. Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. Once, when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, quick, let me have some of that red stew. I'm famished. That's why he's called Edom. Edom means red. The Israelites would have challenges with the Edomites throughout their history. Jacob replied, first sell me your birthright. Look, I'm about to die. Esau said, what good is the birthright to me? Verse 33. Jacob said, Swear to me first. So he swore an oath, selling his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright. Wait a minute. That's not what he did. He ate stew. He didn't despise his birthright. He didn't say, I hate my birthright. You can have it. But the net effect of it was that he valued something now more. What did he value now more satisfying his physical hunger. And I've been there before where, like, physically I was anxious and I wanted to stop feeling anxious or physically I was bored and I wanted to not feel bored. Physically, I was lonely. I didn't want to feel lonely. So I just go to stuff. Physically, I was scared. So I've wanted not to be scared. I reach for things that are like stew. I know stew is not a bad thing, but sometimes I reach for things that are worse than that. What it shows me about Esau in this moment is that his emotions were on the throne. He had a deceitful desire. This desire was not bad. I want to eat. But the deceit was in that he was more focused on what he wanted to eat than who he was called to be. That's it. What he wanted to eat versus who he's called to be. Because when you hear the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it was meant to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Esau because he was the firstborn. But it wasn't. It wasn't. And therefore Jacob ended up taking the place of Esau. Esau was still blessed in his own way, but it was costly. This isn't a message to say, hey, that for the mistakes that you've made and the bad trades that you've made, you can't make a comeback. Because, yeah, Esau never got that blessing back, but he was still blessed. The decision today isn't, like, about something that we gave up in the past, whether that's yesterday or five minutes ago or years ago. The decision is about what to do going forward. And the question is, deceitful desires will corrupt you. You won't even know it's happening because you're being deceived. But this new attitude that we have available in Christ as we daily exchange what we think, what we want, what we feel for what he says, walk by faith, not by sight. This new way of being, this new way of living in the world is available to us. And the fact is, this is who we really are. This is who we really are. This is that other stuff that the world puts on top of us. But God created you to do good works, to be his masterpiece, to be his poem. And I want you to experience that as much as possible. And I want to experience that more in my life. God help us today to dethrone our emotions to give them place in our lives but not first place you have first place and when it comes to nevertheless moment in our life where we don't want to drink the cup but we need to we don't want to make the change but we need to we don't want to say no but we need to help us depend on your spirit not our willpower for that because we're going to end up like Esau if we just try to do it in our own strength but because you're in us we have what it takes we have what it takes to be a new creation because that's who we are In Jesus name amen. Bless you. Hey thanks for stopping by my YouTube channel. I hope you were blessed today if you were share this with somebody like and subscribe and leave me a comment let me know where you're watching from what we can pray for you about. Hope to see you back here again really soon.