Transforming Desires for Emotional Health and Joy
May 05, 2025
Devotional
Sermon Summary
Bible Study Guide
Sermon Clips
Isn't it true that we want to see our children and others that we love, we just want to see them happy, as happy as they possibly can be. We want to see them experience the best life possible. This series is essentially this, that the Father that loves us, that knows us, that's watched every second of our lives, who is for us, with us, wants to make himself available, wants so much so that we, his children, even in this difficult world with all of his challenges, that we would be as happy as possible, that we would be emotionally as healthy, and we would have kingdom emotions, peace, love, joy, things like that. [00:00:09] (40 seconds)
They don't have any stress. They don't have any worry. They don't have any anxiety. They don't have any feelings of insecurity or inferiority. They never, ever feel unwanted or unattractive or unrespected. They never feel unloved. They're never lonely. They're never angry. They're never bitter. They're never unforgiving. I could just go on and on and on. We'd be shocked at how different it is to be them inside. And this is a good place for us to start. Who are you? Who am I? Who are we inside? Who are we inside? [00:01:37] (35 seconds)
Because what the Lord wants to do in this series is to show us that there is a process that he's given to us in his word. He wants us to enter into this process whereby we can, notice this word, progressively, it's a process, progressively experience right now in this difficult world more of these kingdom emotions, more love, more peace, more joy, and all the fruits that come from that. So that's the overarching purpose of this series, kingdom emotions. God wants us to experience kingdom emotions progressively even now, and we can. [00:02:11] (35 seconds)
But if I looked at you and I believed, and it doesn't matter what was true, it's what I believe is true. If I believe you want to stone me, I'm going to feel uncomfortable emotions. But if I look at you and I believe, no, these are people that are here anticipating hearing from God through me, well then I'm excited to be a part of, you know, what's going on here. So your and my observation but then interpretation of events triggers our emotions. Now what this means is that sometimes we may be very positive emotionally and it may not be accurate. We maybe should not be and sometimes we might be very negative emotionally and again we should not be. We have to have an accurate assessment of our circumstances. [00:04:41] (41 seconds)
Psychological needs, we want to feel valuable, significant, like our lives matter. We want to feel secure, we want to feel satisfied that the things that we need and want, that there's some validity to them and they can be supplied. Spiritual, we want meaning, we want purpose, we want peace, we want immortality. By the way, without the spiritual desires being realizable, we flounder in life. We start chasing the five Ps. Anybody remember what the five Ps are? I repeated them enough, you're probably ad nauseum, but the five Ps, we pursue, we pursue, first of all, pleasures of all sorts. We say, I don't know why I'm here, I don't know what the meaning of life is, so I'm just going to get all the pleasure I can while I can. Secondly, we pursue possessions. Newer, nicer, bigger, better. I feel good when I go on a shopping spree. It makes me feel altered inside. My mood changes. So we go pleasures, possessions. Then we go popularity. I want people to like me. I want everybody to like me. I want lots of likes. I want lots of people following me. And then we go from there to prestige. I achieved. I'm a big shot. I've accomplished this. Look at me. Look what I have. Look what I've done. And then from there, we go to the pinnacle, power. I want to control. I want to control as many things as often as I can everywhere. I want people doing what I want done. [00:09:09] (78 seconds)
And he showers compassion on all of his creation. He is tenderhearted and sympathetic to everything. You ever think about how complex our world is and the ecosystem and so forth? And now everything helps each other and unselfishly gives to each other, even in the plant world and so forth. This is kind of an example of God's desires for goodness and tenderness and unselfish dedication and servanthood throughout his creation. [00:13:36] (30 seconds)
God our Savior who wants, or we could say desires, He wants, or desires all people to what? To be saved. And that evidently means, and to come to a knowledge of what? Now here's the thing, we church people, we read this, and we say, okay, what that's saying is that God wants everybody to go to heaven. Yeah, but it means more than that. It's saying He wants us to come to the knowledge of the truth, to come to the knowledge of the truth in God's mind to be saved. So what does He tell me? It's to know where did we come from? Why are we as we are? What image are we made in? What are we here for? What is our purpose? What is our design? What are the laws of our being? [00:14:29] (41 seconds)
What is our destiny ultimately? What did God create us for? Where's human history? Where is all history going? So to come to the knowledge of the truth, it is a knowledge about God, His plans, His purposes, His eternal purposes for us, who we are, how we're designed, and so forth. It means so much more than just, okay, At the end of life, when the last heartbeat comes, I go up instead of down on the elevator. Yet that's the way we minimize this to our own hurt, frankly. [00:15:11] (26 seconds)
Because some of you, you know what it means. And some of you, you have some of the wackiest ideas about what it means. And I would just love to see the screens go up and see all the difference. But it's not your fault. It's just that you've never been taught or you've been taught or you've been mistaught. But repentance, if you take the original word, the New Testament was written in Greek, Koine Greek, common Greek. It is the word metanoia. And it simply means I'm changing my mind about something. And I'm, because of changing my mind, I'm seeing it differently. I am now going to go in a different direction. It is not just feeling sorry for something. That might occur. That's certainly a potential. But it means that, man, the lights went on. I get it. Now I see it. I'm going this way from now. I don't know where you're going. You do what you want. But I'm going this way. [00:16:31] (48 seconds)
I'm going somewhere, I promise you. I promise you, I'm going somewhere with this. Well, what if, what if to get our desires aligned with God's, to get our bad desires corralled and detached sufficiently, what if we needed to become, go with me on this one, cross -eyed? Cross -eyed. Jesus said, anybody that's going to follow me needs to deny themselves daily, take up their, what's the word? Cross and follow me. What if I need to look at everything in life through the cross of Christ? We're the best person in the universe. So desperately wanted to rescue me and you from sin, the stuff that wrecks us, that wrecks everybody around us. He so desperately wanted to deter us from that, to rescue us from it, that he went to the cross to try to give us the alarm. This will kill you. It never works. It never can work. [00:36:49] (66 seconds)
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They don't have any stress. They don't have any worry. They don't have any anxiety. They don't have any feelings of insecurity or inferiority. They never, ever feel unwanted or unattractive or unrespected. They never feel unloved. They're never lonely. They're never angry. They're never bitter. They're never unforgiving. I could just go on and on and on. We'd be shocked at how different it is to be them inside. And this is a good place for us to start. Who are you? Who am I? Who are we inside? Who are we inside? [00:01:37] (35 seconds)
Because what the Lord wants to do in this series is to show us that there is a process that he's given to us in his word. He wants us to enter into this process whereby we can, notice this word, progressively, it's a process, progressively experience right now in this difficult world more of these kingdom emotions, more love, more peace, more joy, and all the fruits that come from that. So that's the overarching purpose of this series, kingdom emotions. God wants us to experience kingdom emotions progressively even now, and we can. [00:02:11] (35 seconds)
But if I looked at you and I believed, and it doesn't matter what was true, it's what I believe is true. If I believe you want to stone me, I'm going to feel uncomfortable emotions. But if I look at you and I believe, no, these are people that are here anticipating hearing from God through me, well then I'm excited to be a part of, you know, what's going on here. So your and my observation but then interpretation of events triggers our emotions. Now what this means is that sometimes we may be very positive emotionally and it may not be accurate. We maybe should not be and sometimes we might be very negative emotionally and again we should not be. We have to have an accurate assessment of our circumstances. [00:04:41] (41 seconds)
Psychological needs, we want to feel valuable, significant, like our lives matter. We want to feel secure, we want to feel satisfied that the things that we need and want, that there's some validity to them and they can be supplied. Spiritual, we want meaning, we want purpose, we want peace, we want immortality. By the way, without the spiritual desires being realizable, we flounder in life. We start chasing the five Ps. Anybody remember what the five Ps are? I repeated them enough, you're probably ad nauseum, but the five Ps, we pursue, we pursue, first of all, pleasures of all sorts. We say, I don't know why I'm here, I don't know what the meaning of life is, so I'm just going to get all the pleasure I can while I can. Secondly, we pursue possessions. Newer, nicer, bigger, better. I feel good when I go on a shopping spree. It makes me feel altered inside. My mood changes. So we go pleasures, possessions. Then we go popularity. I want people to like me. I want everybody to like me. I want lots of likes. I want lots of people following me. And then we go from there to prestige. I achieved. I'm a big shot. I've accomplished this. Look at me. Look what I have. Look what I've done. And then from there, we go to the pinnacle, power. I want to control. I want to control as many things as often as I can everywhere. I want people doing what I want done. [00:09:09] (78 seconds)
And he showers compassion on all of his creation. He is tenderhearted and sympathetic to everything. You ever think about how complex our world is and the ecosystem and so forth? And now everything helps each other and unselfishly gives to each other, even in the plant world and so forth. This is kind of an example of God's desires for goodness and tenderness and unselfish dedication and servanthood throughout his creation. [00:13:36] (30 seconds)
God our Savior who wants, or we could say desires, He wants, or desires all people to what? To be saved. And that evidently means, and to come to a knowledge of what? Now here's the thing, we church people, we read this, and we say, okay, what that's saying is that God wants everybody to go to heaven. Yeah, but it means more than that. It's saying He wants us to come to the knowledge of the truth, to come to the knowledge of the truth in God's mind to be saved. So what does He tell me? It's to know where did we come from? Why are we as we are? What image are we made in? What are we here for? What is our purpose? What is our design? What are the laws of our being? [00:14:29] (41 seconds)
What is our destiny ultimately? What did God create us for? Where's human history? Where is all history going? So to come to the knowledge of the truth, it is a knowledge about God, His plans, His purposes, His eternal purposes for us, who we are, how we're designed, and so forth. It means so much more than just, okay, At the end of life, when the last heartbeat comes, I go up instead of down on the elevator. Yet that's the way we minimize this to our own hurt, frankly. [00:15:11] (26 seconds)
Because some of you, you know what it means. And some of you, you have some of the wackiest ideas about what it means. And I would just love to see the screens go up and see all the difference. But it's not your fault. It's just that you've never been taught or you've been taught or you've been mistaught. But repentance, if you take the original word, the New Testament was written in Greek, Koine Greek, common Greek. It is the word metanoia. And it simply means I'm changing my mind about something. And I'm, because of changing my mind, I'm seeing it differently. I am now going to go in a different direction. It is not just feeling sorry for something. That might occur. That's certainly a potential. But it means that, man, the lights went on. I get it. Now I see it. I'm going this way from now. I don't know where you're going. You do what you want. But I'm going this way. [00:16:31] (48 seconds)
I'm going somewhere, I promise you. I promise you, I'm going somewhere with this. Well, what if, what if to get our desires aligned with God's, to get our bad desires corralled and detached sufficiently, what if we needed to become, go with me on this one, cross -eyed? Cross -eyed. Jesus said, anybody that's going to follow me needs to deny themselves daily, take up their, what's the word? Cross and follow me. What if I need to look at everything in life through the cross of Christ? We're the best person in the universe. So desperately wanted to rescue me and you from sin, the stuff that wrecks us, that wrecks everybody around us. He so desperately wanted to deter us from that, to rescue us from it, that he went to the cross to try to give us the alarm. This will kill you. It never works. It never can work. [00:36:49] (66 seconds)
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