Transcript
Good afternoon, brethren.
Let’s turn right over to Ecclesiastes chapter six. We’re going to open the sermon with a verse. So, you’re getting settled and ready, so you’re turning in your Bibles. Consider that the world understands there’s a void that needs to be filled in their lives. Recently spoke with one of the newer members in the Church, one of the new brethren. And one of the things that he and I were discussing was how there was this void, this void that simply can’t be filled with the physical things in this life.
And he is convinced and convicted now that void is being filled, which is wonderful to hear being in God’s Church. But you’re probably over in Ecclesiastes chapter six by now, and this verse speaks to that void. That void, that emptiness that we all have. Ecclesiastes chapter six in verse seven says this, “All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.” Nothing that we do physically speaking in life can fill the void. So, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t try to fill the void. They try to in every way they possibly can.
Doing the best that they can with what they know, not being able to fill it with the truth, which is really the only thing that is able to fill the void. So, what do they do? What does the world do to fill this void? Well, they seek to do things that evoke big emotions. Why is that? Now, the thing is, is when people are trying to fill this void, they do understand that it can be filled by with God, that God can fill this void. But where they err is that they try to fill this void using big emotions, associating and/or thinking that those emotions are drawing them closer to God.
They mistakenly conflate having these emotions which are intangible. They’re sort of amorphous. Emotions are not something physical like this lectern. Emotions are intangible, but they mistakenly conflate having emotions with filling a spiritual void. What do I mean by this? Many religions today explain away powerful biblical principles as being mere emotions. Think about this. Think about faith. How does the world see faith? Just believe in Jesus is sort of their thing. Have a nice warm feeling in your tummy and you now have faith.
When really the Bible describes faith as in Hebrews eleven, it says, it’s the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen. Faith involves actual proof, facts, hard facts that you can latch onto. And only when you see those facts can you have true and actual faith. It’s not just an emotion or a feeling. Ooh, I feel really good that I now believe in Jesus, and I’ve turned my life to Jesus. Now, it’s not that simple. Turning your life to Jesus involves facts, proof, evidence, not just a feeling.
How about love? Obviously, this involves many feelings. The world really conflates this with just having straight-up emotions because we all know that you can have love toward other people, and there it is involved in emotions. But the love of God is different in the sense that God defines the love of God as keeping his commandments. The world sees love as just having love, whatever that means. It’s a feeling in their heart. But the love of God is very different. It involves truth, holding to the commandments that God has given us, and obeying him. It’s much bigger than just a feeling.
They even spiritualize away baptism. They say baptism, “Oh, it’s not really needed. Having the Holy Spirit is just a feeling in your heart.” It’s all boiled down to feelings. A lot of churches in the world, not all, but many of them take big biblical principles and dumb them down to just having feelings. Think about the Pentecostal church and speaking in tongues, very emotionally driven. When people start speaking in these tongues, their adrenaline starts pumping and they get excited.
They think God is now working with me and I’m doing something that’s outside of my abilities as a human being, but, really, it’s just demons playing with people, and it plays with their emotions. People get emotionally involved, deeply emotionally involved in the Pentecostal church. In a sense, they can get high off the feeling of being out of control. You can even look at the services of churches around the world.
There are some more conservative churches like the Catholics or others who don’t do this type of thing, but you look at more modern-day churches, a lot of them use lights, big music and bands, drum sets, everything. Big, full bands on the stage. Yelling, people in the audience are yelling, people in front of the room are yelling. They’re running around and preaching. Maybe they’re not even preaching. They’re just running around oftentimes. Loud noises and there’s giant audiences and big rooms, big open spaces. All of that is to attract people from an emotional perspective.
They want you to come to almost just have a big social and get you emotionally involved so it makes you feel like you’re close to Christ. They’re intended to draw people in, emotionally making them feel like they’re closer to God rather than drawing them in with a powerful truth of God’s Word. This concept of emotions goes far beyond religion. We’ve seen it, of course, in religions of today. But when you think about the ads that you see in today’s world or the shows or movies or even some of the devices that people are selling or the services that people are selling, the way that they sell it to you is they play to your emotions.
They try to evoke an emotion from you that causes you to then go buy that product, buy that service, etcetera. Maybe they want to evoke fear, the emotion of fear in you, causing you to buy a certain product that can alleviate that fear. Think about all the quick fix health pills that are out there nowadays. They want you to be fearful of the disease that you might have so they try to play off of that fear and say, “Well, here’s a solution for you, you can take this pill. It’ll fix all your problems.”
They understand how emotional people can be. Maybe they want to try to evoke joy causing you to decide to take a vacation and spend all your money at their resort. The more joy that they can evoke through that commercial, the more likely you’re going to fall for that, that emotional plea and go take a vacation and spend all your money at that resort. Maybe they want to give you an adrenaline rush. Maybe it’s a game that they’re promoting. They want to give you an adrenaline rush for playing their game, making you want to come back and do more and more and more and more and more.
The world plays off of emotions. Companies worldwide understand human nature tends to be emotionally immature, easily persuadable with their emotions. They operate knowing that people are unable to effectively control their impulses. They play off of this, hoping their self-control isn’t strong enough to succumb to their emotional poise. It’s really almost diabolical in some regards, but that’s the way that the world runs. That’s the way that the world runs. That’s the way the world operates.
Emotional immaturity is this. This is what we’re going to discuss today. Emotional maturity. But emotional immaturity is this. It’s to allow your emotions to control you rather than you controlling your emotions. And we’ve seen this since the Garden of Eden. Let’s turn back to Genesis chapter three. Genesis three, verse one. How did Satan get Eve and then Adam? How did Satan really get to them? Let’s read in verse one, chapter three.
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast in the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, ‘Yes, has God said, you shall not eat of the tree of the garden?’ And the woman said unto the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat thereof, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ The serpent said unto the woman, ‘You shall not surely die: For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food...” she started to lust after it. Oh, that looks desirable. Satan was playing to her emotions. “And that it was pleasant to the eyes, a tree to be desired to make one wise...” She started to think about, “Oh, I really would like to have wisdom.” She started to get covetous. “...she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” So, the fig leaves, and we all know the story from then on.
But evil out of the excitement, think about the excitement that it might be, “Oh, what happens if I do take that apple?” Your heart starts to pump a little bit. You’re getting excited. That’s an emotion. Satan was playing to those emotions that covetousness brought. Covetousness draws out emotions in us. That’s why these ads online and on the TV and everywhere around us. They play to your emotions because they know that emotions will draw you to become covetous. Eve allowed the excitement of covetousness to take hold, and the course of history was changed from that moment forward.
So today, we’re going to talk about emotional maturity. How do we become emotionally mature? It’s really a fascinating thing, and by the end of this sermon, it’s going to take a turn that you and I, frankly, studying this, I did not expect. I did not expect this message to be what it ended up being today. So, let’s understand more about emotional maturity before getting into how to become emotionally mature. I’m going to read a quick passage from our article on emotional maturity. Online Mr. Pack wrote this many years ago.
“Most people are never actively taught to grow up emotionally. They’re never taught to develop and maintain emotional maturity, learning to keep a grip on every kind of human emotion.” That’s what it is. It’s keeping a grip on your emotions. Letting you controlling the emotions, not letting the emotions control you. Simple. Again, learning to keep a grip on every kind of human emotion, including rage, jealousy, resentment, vanity, fear, hatred, impatience, and many more. In truth, all of these are impulses, flowing from emotions, which need to be actively controlled.
Now really, what’s the best way to teach emotional maturity is to do it from childhood. If you have the opportunity as a parent in God’s Church to train your children how to become emotionally stable from being a young person, it will pay dividends later on in life. But many of us didn’t have that blessing. You know, I’ve got a little daughter, you’ve heard me talk about her, but we’ve tried the best we can when she’s little now to teach her to try to begin to control her emotions a little bit. As any one-and-a-half, two-year-old would do, she can get very emotional very quickly.
She wants to go outside, and she sees the garage door closing and she starts to just start bawling because she wants to go outside. That’s a classic example of emotional immaturity. She’s just a baby, so she doesn’t know any better, but it’s incumbent on us to train her, so it’s funny. We’ve taught her this concept of being calm, and when she’ll get upset, we’ll say, “Elena, calm, calm.” Now when she starts to whine or something, we’ll say, Elena, calm, and she’ll go calm. She’ll just take her arm like this and go like this, but it’s really funny.
Sometimes when she’s in an outburst of tears, she’s crying profusely just uncontrollably, and all of a sudden, she just goes, calm. She doesn’t know how to control it, but she’s doing the best that she can. She’s young, she’s a baby. She’s just learning, but the whole point is, brethren, I didn’t have the opportunity and probably a lot of us didn’t have the opportunity.
Our parents did the absolute best that they could, but it’s hard to teach children from a young age emotional maturity or teach them how to control their emotions or accept and understand their emotions. It’s difficult. We live in an age where children are allowed to run rampant without repercussions. I was just getting a bite to eat yesterday out at a restaurant Chick-fil-A and there was a kid in there.
He was probably five or six or seven years old and just crying out in the middle of the restaurant. It didn’t look like anybody else was phased, but I guarantee you in their minds they’re thinking, “What’s going on?” At least I did. I was thinking, “What is going on over there?” Children today just… they run rampant with their emotions, and they’re not really taught how to control their emotions. Some of them are, I’m not saying this is a blanket statement for all mankind, but a lot of children today grow up believing it’s okay to express their anger and their rage uncontrollably.
Turn over to First Corinthians chapter nine. We’ll pick it up in verse twenty-four. First Corinthians nine twenty-four says this. “Know you not that they which run, and race run all but one receives the prize, so run that you may obtain. And every man that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things.” Now, they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible crown.
Those that run in a race, they strive for the mastery, they strive to become first in the race or whatever. They have to be temperate in all things. They have to do everything they possibly can to train effectively to control themselves in every way they possibly can. Learn how to control their breathing, learn how to control their pace. They have to become temperate or self-controlled in every regard in order to win the race. They have to be the best at everything. They have to be the best at controlling their water intake and making sure that they’ve done all of the preparation that they need.
They have to be the best at everything, controlled and temperate in everything that they do in order to win. People in the world know this. Any successful person in the world, whether it be in the field of sports like we just talked about somebody in a race or in basketball or football. You think about what it takes in order to become an elite athlete at any sport. They have to be highly self-controlled. They have to have control over every muscle in their body. Everything that they do has to be controlled. Their food intake, their sleep, everything factors into their ability to be the best at that sport.
But the same is true for successful people in business, successful people in music since successful people, in general, understand this principle that you must be temperate, self-controlled in all things. Now, of course, successful people understand part of all things is your emotions. You have to control your emotions. You can’t have a successful CEO just start sobbing in the middle of a business meeting or something because he just can’t.
It’s too overwhelming. The budget isn’t looking the way that I would like it to look. So, he just starts crying right there in front of everybody. Or he gets enraged, angry, and starts throwing things around the room. That person isn’t going to succeed in life. They have no ability to be temperate or controlled in their emotions. So again, successful people in the world understand this, this concept. They have to control their emotions. But many of us, brethren, you know, we’re the weak of the world. God didn’t call, per First Corinthians, He didn’t call the wise and the mighty and the noble.
Theoretically, the great successful people of this world. He didn’t call them into the Church, into the truth. He called the weak, the foolish, the base, the despised, the things that are not those kinds of people. Like all of us. We are those kinds of people. And generally speaking, we didn’t grow up with families that maybe necessarily taught us to be highly emotionally controlled as a child so that we could grow up and be a highly successful person and be able to control our emotions in every regard. That’s not necessarily who we are. Maybe some of us did, maybe some of us didn’t.
It’s going to be a mixture. And maybe many of us didn’t grow up in the Church because if we grew up in the Church, you have a whole lot better shot at having grown up to become more emotionally mature because you’re taught God’s ways from a young child. But many of us didn’t grow up in the Church either. So maybe we’ve never learned how to properly or effectively control our emotions from a young age. But let’s turn over to Colossians chapter three, just a few pages over. Colossians chapter three.
Regardless of our background, this is what God wants us to do. God looks at all of us and says, I’ve called you out of this circumstance and you out of that circumstance, and I understand what circumstance I called you out of. I understand that maybe you might have been a little bit more emotionally mature growing up, and you may not have been. But regardless of where we are coming into God’s Church and His truth, here’s what God wants us to do. Colossians chapter three and verse five says this, “Mortify...” Put to death, put to death. “...therefore, the members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanliness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, covetousness, which is idolatry.”
These are very emotional words and phrases. “For which things sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience in the which you also walked in some time when you lived in them.” We all walked in error in our lives. “But now you also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth, lie not one to another, see that you have put off the old man with his deeds.” Get rid of the old you, the old man, with all of the bad things that were associated with him.
“And put on the new man, which is renewed or being remolded in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” We’re supposed to put off our old man regardless of what background we came from. God calls us to become a new person. The new man, shaped and formed after God himself. And God isn’t just talking about we’re supposed to look like God. Well, God made us in his image. That’s of course true, but He’s saying, we’re supposed to shape our character, including how we control our emotions after him.
We’re supposed to be a new man emotionally as well. Galatians chapter five, a few pages back. Galatians five and verse twenty-two. So how do we become this new man? What do we do? What practical steps can we take? Well, one thing that is highly encouraging is here in Galatians five, it says, verse twenty-two, “Having God’s Spirit produces the following fruits, love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. Against such there is no law.”
So, think about this. Think about what we just read. Simply having God’s Spirit just by getting baptized. Okay. And I’ll get to those who aren’t baptized yet. Just by having God’s Spirit through baptism gives us a level of temperance, which is a fruit of the spirit. Just like a tree produces fruit. By having God’s Spirit, we produce fruit automatically by having God’s Spirit in us. Now, we have to exercise it, and you understand we can’t just let it slip out of us. Okay. We have to renew God’s Spirit, but if we have God’s Spirit in us, by definition, the fruit of temperance will come. The fruit of self-control will come.
And will be already a step above those in the world. Just by having God’s Spirit in us, because we now have God working in us. It’s not just us working on our own any longer. It’s God working in us, producing temperance. Now, that’s something that the world does not understand, nor can they access. And of course, having self-control or temperance includes control of our emotions. So just sitting here in the audience, if you’re baptized member, by having God’s Spirit, you’re already down the path toward having emotional maturity because God has built in you this ability to have self-control or temperance.
But maybe you’re thinking, well, I don’t have God’s Spirit yet, I’m just a prospective member, I’m a prospective member working toward baptism, or maybe I’m a teen in God’s Church. I’m just a child, I don’t have God’s Spirit yet in me.
Turn over to John chapter fourteen. John fourteen and verse twelve. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he that believes on me, the works that I do he shall do also; and greater works than me shall he do; because I go to my Father.” Remember, Christ said that we’ll do greater works even. We can do great works just as much as Christ. “Whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you shall ask anything in my name, I’ll do it.” Okay. So, if we want to have emotional maturity, ask it of God, and God will do it, He’ll build it in you. But I haven’t lost sight of the question, what about those of us who haven’t received God’s Spirit in us yet?
“If you say, love me, keep my commandments...” Verse fifteen. Verse sixteen, “And I’ll pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter...” The spirit of God, that’s what the comforter is. “...that he may abide with you forever; even the spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows it: but you know it; for it dwells with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” So, for those of us who are not yet baptized, Christ said, “God’s Spirit works now with us.”
So, it’s not like you’re just cooked and lost and there’s nothing you can do until you’re baptized. No, God’s Spirit is working with you. That’s how He’s able to call you. That’s why he was able to draw you into the truth because his spirit is already working with you. Yes, it’ll be in you, but he’s going to answer your prayers just the same as somebody who’s been baptized. Don’t fret if you’re “unconverted” so far. God’s Spirit is working with you so you too can build emotional maturity using God’s Spirit with you.
I’m going to read another quote from the article on emotional maturity. The subhead is titled All Important Self Control. God’s Word states he that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that’s broken down and without walls. Proverbs twenty-five and verse twenty-eight. You can write that down. Proverbs twenty-five, twenty-eight says, “He that has no rule over his own spirit is like a city that’s broken down, and without walls.”
If we don’t have self-control, the ability to control our emotions, where we would fall into this category of not having rule over our spirit, would then be like the city of Jericho, for example, after the walls fell down—vulnerable, easily infiltrated. We’re like a city that has broken down walls. The article continues and says, “What a deplorable and tragic condition for anyone to fall into...” Truly is. “...and yet to one degree or another, this is the condition of most people.”
The obvious point in this passage is that a city without walls is defenseless. Jericho only had power in so far as its wall stood up, but as soon as God destroyed the walls and they fell down, they were completely defenseless, unable to defend themselves against the Israelites. “It cannot protect itself...” The article continues. “...it’s subject to being overrun by invading armies, bandits or animals, and so it is with people whose emotions are able to overrun them. They lack the wall of emotional maturity.”
That’s what emotional maturity is. It’s like having a big wall around your city, to protect them from feelings, impulses and emotions and moods, which are merely emotions extended over a long duration because the person is unable to “pull himself together” or “snap out of it.” Think about this, rudeness, anger, emotional outbursts, envy and resentment, unforgiving attitudes, self-pity, sulking, hatred, harboring of bitterness and covetousness, and many other wrong attitudes come and go at will in a weak, defenseless person.
We just read a few emotions and we understand that self-control is crucial, critical to being able to begin to control your emotions, to become emotionally mature. We just read a few emotions that we should strive to never show. Emotions come in three categories, those that we should never have or strive to never have. That doesn’t mean we will never have them. Emotions that are okay to have sometimes and not okay to have other times. That, we’re going to get into that one because that one’s a little bit confusing. Then there’s emotions that are good to try to have all the time. Those are the three different categories.
Emotions that we should strive never to have, emotions that we should strive always to have, and finally, emotions that fall in the middle. Sometimes they’re good and sometimes they’re bad. It depends on the time and place. We’re going to get into that. Let’s just first cover a couple emotions that we should strive never to have. This is just a quick list. We’re not really going to get into it because they’re obvious. Should strive never to have wrath or rage.
Think about your life. When is it ever good, when does it ever benefit anything to show wrath or rage toward anybody? Just play that out in your mind. Is there ever a circumstance in life when it’s okay to just go slit someone’s tire or have road rage and ram their car off the road? Or somebody took the last item off the grocery shelf, so then you take your shopping cart and you hit their Achilles’ heels. That never good. You don’t want to do that. When is there ever a time in life? Now, God says that he can be angry at times, very angry, involving wrath. And we know that there’s an entire day called the Day of Wrath, vengeance, and so forth. But remember, “Vengeance is mine,” God says. We’re not supposed to be vengeful, showing rage and wrath and that kind of anger.
We’ll get into the word anger in a minute. Anger is different. Anger falls into that middle category that we’re going to get into, but right now we’re talking about wrath and rage, vengeance, things that are not acceptable for a Christian to do at any time. How about anxiety? You think about anxiety. God says, “Be anxious for nothing.” We’re not supposed to be. When in life does having anxiety help anything? If anything, it just causes more problems. It stresses us out further.
It actually, having anxiety could put us into a depressive mood, which could then ultimately cause us to put off even longer the thing that’s causing us the anxiety to begin with. Like if we’re just overwhelmed with the work at our house, for example, we could have anxiety over it. And rather than doing the work and getting it done, we have anxiety, and we may become depressed and overwhelmed by it. And then all we can think about is our depression, and then it exacerbates the problem. It doesn’t help anything. Anxiety is something we should strive never to have.
How about pride? Pride. Pride is not good. It’s something that pretty much only leads to a fall as the Bible says. Where in life is it good to have pride? The world uses the term “pride” or “being proud.” They say, “Oh, I’m proud of you for doing that,” and/or “I’m proud that I was able to do that.” It’s a little bit different. Pride here is talking about seeing yourself in a grandiose way. I’m prideful of the thing that I’ve done. You’re self-aggrandizing yourself. There’s no circumstance in life when pride is ever a good thing.
Envy, much the same, not good to have envy. And finally, bitterness. If we find ourselves bitter toward other people, holding that root of bitterness, as the Bible says, holding a grudge, that’s something that is never okay, ever. What that means, brethren, is that we’re not forgiving other people. If we have that, we’re not forgiving other people. And then in turn, God says that if you don’t forgive other people, I’m not going to forgive you. So that’s a very dangerous thing to fall into is bitterness. But it’s an emotion, and it’s something that we have to very closely manage and control.
We can’t allow a root of bitterness to sink in and take root. Very, very dangerous. While there are emotions that are never okay to allow to rise to the surface, there are some that are okay to express sometimes. Think about this. In these cases, God’s Word makes clear where and how to draw the line. We’re just going to go through a few of them here before we get into the final big point that really is the main thrust of the message. How do we truly grow in emotional maturity?
But before we do that, let’s just cover a few of these middle ground emotions that are good sometimes and bad other times, God wants us to know when to use them. Here’s the first one, anger and frustration. You can turn over to Proverbs chapter fourteen. Proverbs fourteen. God says that it’s okay to be angry sometimes and not okay to be angry other times.
Fourteen, Proverbs fourteen and verse seventeen. “He that is soon angry deals foolishly. And a man of wicked devices is hated.” So clearly here, God is not condemning being angry all the time. He’s not saying “he that is angry ever deals foolishly.” He says he that is soon angry. There’s a difference between being angry right away or holding off your anger and making sure that you have all the facts involved.
You know, God says that we’re supposed to be slow to wrath. We’re not supposed to jump to conclusions and just act out and lash out in anger right away. If we find that something is frustrating us, something is causing us a little bit of internal, you know, our heat is increasing, and you can tell our blood is starting to boil on the inside a little bit, what do we do? God says, “Don’t be soon angry.” Be slow to wrath. Don’t allow anger to immediately take hold of you and lash out. That’s not to say that something... there’s a lot of things in this life that can cause us to become angry very easily.
People do terrible things to other people. When I look at the news, I pretty much get angry every single day. I look at what’s happening, I look at the injustices that are taking place around the world, I look at the people that are being killed, I look at all the horrible things and I actually get angry about it. It’s not wrong to be angry. It’s just that we must know when and where and how to be angry. But I can’t go to Giant Eagle or any other store around here and just somebody does something wrong to me. I can’t just burst out in the middle of the store aisle and get angry at them. That’s fighting this verse.
So, brethren, the point of this message isn’t to get into the specific instances of how to control your anger specifically or how to control other kinds of emotions. This is a broad message that at the end, again like I said, it’s going to take a fascinating turn and you’re going to truly understand better than maybe ever before the root of how to control your anger or not just anger, all of your emotions. It’s an unbelievable discovery that we’re going to go through. But the Bible says in Proverbs twenty-two and verse twenty-four, you can turn over there a couple pages regarding anger. Twenty-two verse twenty-four says this, “Make no friendship with an angry man and with a furious man, you shall not go, lest you learn his ways and get a snare to your soul.”
If we spend time with angry people, maybe we’ve encountered angry people in our lives, but if we spend time with angry people, what’s going to happen is their anger is going to rub off on you, not the other way around. That’s what the Bible says. Maybe you’ve experienced that in your own personal life, and you’ve seen, maybe it necessarily didn’t happen to you, but maybe you’ve seen other people where you’ve seen an angry person spend too much time with somebody else that generally speaking wasn’t angry, and then you saw that person turn angry.
That’s how it works. That anger, it’sek a destructive thing at times; but if we spend too much time with people that are angry, we can have that emotion boil up in ourselves much more easily. Proverbs twenty-nine, a couple of chapters over, twenty-nine and verse twenty-two, “An angry man stirs up strife and a furious man abounds in transgression.” Again, there are times and places to allow anger to come through, but generally speaking, it’s best to try and withhold it. Temper yourself, temper the anger. Don’t be soon angry. Don’t allow it to just boil out. Think about what’s going on.
I’ve had this thought before, I’ve done this before where I’ve looked at somebody who did something wrong to me, and I thought to myself, “This is how I’m going to address it with them.” I got angry in my mind. I got angry. How dare they do this? Then I played through the conversation in my mind of how I was going to let him have it. How dare he do this to me? Then after that, I played in my mind the conversation afterwards of me going up and apologizing, realizing that I was being ridiculous and angry.
Then I thought, “Wow, I don’t want to have that initial conversation, because I don’t want to have the second conversation.” I thought of both of those conversations in my mind and said, “I walked myself back off the ledge.” Brethren, anger is something that... people can do things to us that causes a lot of frustration, but how do we manage it? Do we allow it to just... what would’ve happened if I just went up and said what was on my mind right away to that person? Wouldn’t have been good. I would’ve had to then come back and apologize, because I knew it was too emotional.
I knew that it was out of anger. I knew that it wasn’t the right thing to do. So instead, I handled it according to how I should have handled it, which is not do that. Talk nicely to him or her, or whoever it is that we’re talking with. Brethren, it’s really emotional maturity and anger. Anger is a funny subject to get into. We don’t need to spend any more time on it now, but let’s just get into the second point here. Jealousy, jealousy, covetousness, and lust. These are all very similar.
Jealousy, covetousness and lust. Turn over to First Kings chapter nine. This is another emotion, or these are more emotions that are okay to have at certain times, and not okay at other times. Jealousy, covetousness, and lust. First Kings chapter nineteen and verse nine, we’ll read. This is the account of Elijah. First Kings nineteen and verse nine, we’ll read. “And he came there to a cave and lodged there. And behold the word of the Lord came to him and said unto him, ‘What do you hear, Elijah?’
And he said, ‘I have been very jealous for the God, for the Lord God of hosts. For the children of Israel have forsaken the covenant. Thrown down your altars, slaying your prophets with the sword, and even I only am left. And they seek my life to take it away.’” Elijah was feeling a lot of emotions at this time. He was probably feeling a certain level of anger toward his fellow people, who were trying to take his life, but he also felt jealousy on behalf of God. He felt jealous on behalf of God, because they had turned away from Him, from God.
This account and others show it’s okay to be jealous on behalf of God. God Himself says, He’s a jealous God many times, but jealousy is wrong, and we see that we have... see what others have and want it ourselves. That’s where covetousness comes in. If we become jealous of somebody else in the human sense, I’m jealous that that person has this talent or I’m jealous that that person has this thing. Could be anything in life. Could be a house, could be a car, it could be anything.
Jealousy comes in and covetousness comes in. The tenth commandment, you want your neighbor’s wife, you want your neighbor’s stuff. Those are not good. Jealousy and covetousness and lust, all of that is not good. It is okay to covet earnestly the best gifts, as it says in First Corinthians chapter twelve. Turn over there. It is okay to covet certain things. It’s okay to lust after or covet certain things. Just not the wrong things, and that’s where we have to know the difference. Covetousness is not always a bad thing. First Corinthians chapter twelve and verse twenty-nine. “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?” Not all of us fall into any of these categories, but God says that we can covet earnestly the best gifts and yet show I unto you a more excellent way. God wants us to covet the gifts that God is willing to give us. It’s okay to want to have more gifts from God. They’ll help us to build those gifts and use them to edify the brethren and help the Church, help your fellow brethren, and so forth.
It’s good to have those gifts. It’s good to covet them and to want them. So, covetousness is a funny middle-ground thing. It’s okay at times and it’s not okay at times. Same with jealousy and lust. How about hatred? Hatred, you might think. Hatred, that seems like it should always be off-limits. Well, not really. Turn over to Amos chapter five. Amos chapter five and verse fifteen, what does God say we are allowed to hate? Amos five and verse fifteen says this, let’s pick it up in fourteen.
“Seek good and not evil that you may live, and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you as you have spoken. Hate the evil and love the good and establish judgment in the gate. It may be that the Lord, God of hosts, will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.” God says that we should hate evil. It’s okay to hate certain things. I look out and I see a lot of evil in this world. I hate the evil that I see. I want no part of it. But hatred toward people is wrong. You might look at something somebody does and hate the act, but that doesn’t mean that we should hate the person. We can hate evil. We can hate the evil way people act or the terrible things that they say, but hating the person is not the right thing to do.
Luke chapter six proves that. Luke chapter six and verse twenty-seven. Luke six and verse twenty-seven, “But I say unto you which hear, love your enemies. Do good to them which hate you. Bless them that curse you and pray for them that despitefully use you.” God doesn’t want us to hate other people, but that doesn’t mean that we are supposed to hate, supposed to like the things that they do. In fact, God says we’re supposed to hate evil. So, we’re not supposed to hate the person, but we are supposed to hate the things that they do if it’s evil.
That’s an interesting balance that we have to ride. And the last one we’ll get into here that’s sort of in the middle, well, there’s one more after this, but Luke chapter twelve and verse four. Fear. Luke twelve and verse four. There are things we must not fear in this life, while simultaneously there are things that we have to fear. And this verse lays them both out. Let’s read it in Luke twelve, verse four. “And I say to you, my friends, be not afraid, don’t fear them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.” Don’t fear the consequences of this world, the people that are out there. God will protect you.
“But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear. Fear Him which after He has killed has power to cast into hell. Gehenna.” Yes, I say unto you, fear Him. So we’re not supposed to fear people in the world, while simultaneously we are supposed to fear God. There’s a time and a place for all kinds of emotions. Even positive emotions we have to learn to control, like joy and love. Think about joy. Joy can be expressed much of the time.
We often think, “I want to be as joyful as I possibly can all the time.” But it’s not seemly to be joyful at a funeral, is it? You wouldn’t want to be joyful. Have you ever been in a conversation where it’s a serious conversation and you get something funny in your head and you can’t hold back a laughter? And it’s like that... It’s one of the hardest battles in your mind when you’re sitting there in a serious conversation, and you think of something funny. And I personally, I’m the kind of person that wears his emotions on his shirt sleeves. I’m like an open book. If I think something is funny, it’s almost impossible for me to hold back a laughter. It’s very difficult for me.
I have to really work at that sometimes. If something is... If it’s not the right time to be joyful, I don’t want to be joyful. There are wrong times to be joyful. Ecclesiastes chapter three. We heard Dr. Viljoen say this the other day at the new moon study, but we’ll turn over there and read it one more time. There’s a time and place for everything, brethren. Ecclesiastes chapter three and verse one. “To everything there’s a season and a time to every purpose under heaven, a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck up that which was planted, a time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up…”
There’s a time for these emotions too. “…A time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones, and gather stones together, a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” Think of the emotions involved in that. The emotions involved in knowing when it’s time to embrace and when it’s not time to embrace.
A time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to cast away, a time to rend, and time to sow, and a time to keep silence, and a time to speak, a time to love, and a time to hate. We just learned about that. There’s a right time to hate and a wrong time to hate. There’s a right time to love and a wrong time to love, a time of war, and a time of peace, and so forth.
So let’s get into the whole purpose of this message. How do we build this emotional maturity? How do we build it? This is the main focus for the rest of the message. Now that we understand what is emotional maturity, we understand the kinds of emotions that we have to try never to have, the kinds of emotions that are in the middle where we have to be. We have to ride the line. We have to be balanced, knowing when to allow anger, when to allow frustration, when to allow jealousy or covetousness in or to keep them out. But let’s get into a number of signs. We’re going to go through an exercise here, and it will illustrate perfectly where we’re going to go.
Let’s get into a number of signs that would indicate whether or not we are emotionally immature. In other words, these are signs that show that we lack control of our emotions. I’m going to go fairly slowly through it, but you’ll understand why. The first sign is if you find yourself offending people often, it’s a sign that you’re emotionally immature. Do you find yourself, do we find ourselves offending people regularly? Everyone is going to offend somebody at some point. What I’m talking about is, is it a habitual thing? Is it a regular thing? Do you see that when you talk with people, they get offended on a regular basis at the things that you’re saying?
It’s a sign that you’re actually emotionally immature. We’ll get into why. If you find yourself getting offended often, it’s a sign that you’re emotionally immature. When people talk to you, do you say, “How dare they say that to me? I’m offended.” Why would you say? Again, we can all be offended at times. I’m not talking about here and there getting offended. We can all be offended at times, but do we find ourselves regularly offended? It’s a sign that we’re emotionally immature.
Do you find yourself getting into arguments or debates with people more often than not? If you just can’t let something go, you have to let this other person know, no, no, no, I got to tell you my point of view on this. I’m going to be debating you. I’m going to debate you on this and argue with you on this, rather than just letting it go?
If you find yourself getting into arguments, that is a sign of emotional immaturity. We’ll go over why. If you hold grudges or don’t forgive other people, well, we heard about that. That’s from earlier on. That’s something that we should never allow in. But if for some reason it has crept in and we see that we’re constantly irritated with this person, or we just don’t want to be around them, or we holding a grudge against them, or they did something to you, and you just won’t forgive them for it, that’s a sign that you’re emotionally immature.
If you lash out at others or are sharp, quickly sharp toward other people, it’s a sign of emotional immaturity. Finally, if you’re quick to pass judgment, you think, “That person, they won’t make it. They’re not good at this,” you’re just very quick to pass judgment, and you don’t give the benefit of the doubt, or you don’t take the time to gather all the facts of a matter, you’re just quick to pass judgment, it’s a sign of emotional immaturity.
There’s many, many, many other signs, but there is a common resolution to all of these. We just went through a vast range of emotions, did we not? Being offended, offending other people, getting into arguments, holding grudges, lashing out, being quick to pass judgment. And there’s a whole host of others. There’s a minister back at Worldwide who made a notebook, and he listed out a number of other things too back in Worldwide of symptoms of emotional immaturity.
I can just read through them quick. Being moody and depressed too much of the time, crying, pouting, losing temper, screaming over trivial matters, getting irritated and insolent when you don’t get your way, being demanding of other people, and feeling that they should cater to your desires and needs first, failing to say no to yourself. These are all signs of emotional immaturity. Giving into your desires and wants without restraint.
Allowing that covetousness, allowing that lust, allowing your emotions to be played with by those ads on TV and just getting all the stuff that you want because you’re emotionally immature. Failing to reason out of a situation or problem from beginning to end before making a decision. Being easily influenced by others. Reacting emotionally or falling apart in an emergency.
That’s an interesting one. Finding fault with everything and everybody instead of trying to get along with people. If you’re constantly picking at other people, oh, this person always does this. I don’t like that. Oh, I don’t like this thing about this person over here. If you’re constantly picking at other people, their imperfections, it’s a sign of emotional immaturity. Using the excuse that since you’re a woman, this one is interesting, and therefore more emotional (especially at certain times of the month), okay, don’t need to go any further.
You don’t have to keep your emotions in toe, okay? Failing to take the blame or being too stubborn to admit it when you’re wrong. And then there’s other general manifestations of emotional immaturity, insensitive and inconsiderate, overly concerned with your health, moody, changeable, unstable, easily offended, so on and so forth. You get the point. But while these issues that we just listed are many, and they greatly vary among the kinds of emotions involved, there is a common resolution that applies to them all.
And here it is. I’m going to tell you what it is, and then we’re going to go back through those first six examples that I listed. And we’re going to show exactly how this is true. The way to build emotional maturity is to first focus on others and not yourself. That’s it. You might be thinking, what? How does that help me build emotional maturity, focusing on others, thinking about others instead of myself? This is the same principle Mr. Armstrong always taught of holding to the trunk of the tree, living the way of give versus the way of get. It’s just that simple. If you want to become a more emotionally stable, emotionally mature person, begin living the way of give instead of the way of get.
Now, how do these two things correlate? Why is it that living the way of give or being outwardly focused on other people is going to fix emotional immaturity that I have? Let’s go through the examples that I laid out before, the first six signs that I explained, that prove that we are emotionally immature. Let’s say we find ourselves offending people often. If we find ourselves offending people often, the things that we say are offensive and other people get offended by it regularly, what that says is that you’re not concerned with how your words affect other people.
I don’t care about how it is that I say what I’m going to say to you, I’m just going to say it. I’m not concerned with how you’ll receive it. I don’t care if you get offended at it. That is a selfish focused mindset. Let’s flip it on its head. If we have outward concern for that person and we’re thinking about how what we’re going to say might be received, it will totally change and transform what you say and how you say it.
The things that we say may not be offensive. We may say something very similar to what we would’ve initially said that was offensive, but by adding a little oil and a honey, saying it in a different way, thinking about how it will be received on their end, you may be able to still get the point across while at the same time not offending them at all. Think about that. Living the give way of life, change that conversation and it altered how the emotions were handled in it. It’s a fascinating thing to consider.
Brethren, I’m telling you, we’ve just been through one example, we’re going to go through another five here, the rest of the five examples. It applies across the board. If you decide in your life, I’m going to live the give way of life more, I’m going to think more about other people, I’m going to think more about what I’m saying, how it’s going to be received, I’m going to think more about them instead of me, it will utterly change your emotional maturity levels.
How about if you find yourself getting offended often? What does that mean? If you’re the kind of person that everything that everybody says to you is offensive, it’s because you’re focused on why others aren’t more focused on your feelings. If you get offended in a conversation, you could be thinking to yourself, why don’t they just consider me more often? Why don’t they think about how what they’re saying is offensive to me?
I don’t like the way that they’re talking to me, they shouldn’t talk to me like that, and I get offended. You’re focused on yourself. You’re not thinking outwardly, you’re not thinking about the other person. If we become offended often, the greatest reason we are offended is because we’re thinking about ourselves, we’re thinking inwardly, not outwardly. How about if we get into debates or arguments regularly?
If we always or regularly argue with people, that means that we regularly want other people to know that our way-- I think my way is the best way. If I’m arguing with you about something, anything, the reason I’m arguing with you to begin with is because I think that I’ve got a better solution to the problem. And maybe sometimes that might be true, but if you find yourselves in an argument regularly, it means that you more often than not think that your way is right. You’re thinking selfishly, you’re thinking inwardly as opposed to outwardly.
If you hold grudges or don’t forgive other people, it’s a symptom of selfishness. You personally, I personally don’t want to forgive that person. I don’t want to let go of my bitterness toward them. I just can’t get over what they did to me. That’s a sign that you’re thinking too much about yourself. You need to let that go. Just by thinking of other people, that will just automatically start to go away. Forgive them.
If we find ourselves lashing out at others or being sharp, again, that comes back to, it’s similar to offending people. If we lash out at others, or we’re sharp with other people, we’re not concerning ourselves with the things that we’re saying to them. We’re just simply concerning ourselves with getting that burst of emotion out of us. So in turn, it will deeply offend them, or it will hurt them.
And finally, if we’re quick to pass judgment, it’s a sign of emotional immaturity. When we judge other people, we tend to judge other people according to our standards. We say, “This person doesn’t meet our standards, so I’m going to judge them quickly. They don’t meet the right standards.” It’s thinking selfishly, it’s thinking inwardly again, rather than thinking outwardly toward the other person.
And I could take you through the whole list of emotions that we just went through in that notebook from the Worldwide minister and apply this same principle to every single one of those as well. Who knew that the path toward controlling our emotions simply boils down to this basic principle in life of living the give way of life? Let’s go through the book of Jonah very quickly, Jonah.
Wow, what an amazing, perfect example of emotional immaturity and how, think about as we’re reading through this, had Jonah just applied this one principle of thinking outwardly as opposed to thinking inwardly and selfishly, it would’ve made God’s job and Jonah’s job, frankly, much easier, would’ve been much easier for everybody, would’ve made these guys on the boat, who had to throw him off, would’ve made their lives a whole lot easier had he just been, from the beginning, thinking outwardly as opposed to thinking inwardly, but instead he didn’t.
So let’s just spot very quickly through a number of these verses and show, I’m going to show you the verses that show Jonah’s emotions. The emotions that he have are all selfish. You’ll see. And if he just simply flipped it to be selfless instead of selfish, none of these problems would’ve occurred. That’s it. So, verse one, “Now, the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai saying, rise and go to Nineveh, that great city and cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me.
“But Jonah rose up to flee…” He didn’t want to do it. So he, like a petulant child, ran away, just fled the scene, “…fled to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, went down to Joppa and he found a ship going to Tarshish, and he paid, he even paid money. He not only fled from God, but he paid money to get onto this ship so that he could get away from God as far as he could in Nineveh. And then he fell asleep in the boat. And we all know the story.
And we come down to verse ten. And these men on the boat are asking Jonah to wake up because he fell asleep and the boat is shaking terribly because the ocean is bad, the sea is bad. And the men on the boat were exceedingly afraid in verse ten and said unto him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord because he had told them.
In verse twelve, “And he said unto them, ‘Take me up and cast me forth into the sea.’” And so they did. And we all know that the fish ate Jonah. And then chapter two, verse one, “Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord God out of the fish’s belly. And he said, ‘I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me.’”
So Jonah is not that pleased that he’s in this belly of the fish for as long as he was. So he prayed to get out and God let him out. Fish spat him out and so forth. And we know that we come to chapter three and God says in verse one, “The word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time saying, ‘Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid you.’”
God didn’t want to have to destroy Nineveh. That’s why He sent a prophet there to warn them that their destruction was imminent, and if they repented, God wouldn’t destroy them. So from Jonah’s perspective, he’s thinking, “I want Nineveh to be destroyed.” He’s thinking selfishly. He’s not thinking about the vast numbers of people, including children, that are in Nineveh that God is going to be destroying in the very near term. He would rather flee, fall asleep on a boat, get eaten by a fish, and so on and so forth, than to warn all of these people of the destruction that God is going to bring.
He was only thinking selfishly. Had he just simply thought about them instead of himself, thought about the individual people in that city and their lives, and they had families. Sure, they had been evil, as it says. In verse two, it says that God says that, “Their wickedness has come up before me.” Sure, they were evil people, but we know from the account in chapter three it says that all of Nineveh repented, or a lot of the people in Nineveh repented when Jonah finally did decide to go warn them.
So we all know the rest of the account. He goes on, and after warning them even, he was so self-pitied and sad that he had done this because he was just pouting. Just what a selfish attitude he had throughout this whole thing, this whole event. And brethren, simply put, had he just thought about the Ninevites, and even in verse eleven, I think, it says God says that, “Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city wherein there are more than six score thousand persons?”
Six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left. Six score thousand people are just talking about the children, brethren. There’s that many children in Nineveh. Had he just thought about the children alone, it would’ve changed the course of this book, but he didn’t because God wanted to show us a lesson in emotional maturity, and how being selfless, how living the give way of life will completely change your emotional maturity.
Turn over to First Corinthians chapter thirteen. So we come to a close here. First Corinthians chapter thirteen. We’ll read in verse four. First Corinthians thirteen and verse four says this, “Charity or love...” Having the love of God. Love of God involves keeping the commandments, and the keeping of the commandments involve outward concern toward other people. When God says we’re not supposed to steal, it’s not just that it’s wrong, it’s that it’s having a love toward your fellow person not to take things from them.
By keeping that commandment, you’re thinking about the other person. You’re not thinking about yourself. Stealing is thinking about yourself. Not stealing is thinking about the other person. So by definition, having the love of God is to think outwardly toward other people. So let’s read about the love of God. “Love suffers long.” Everything we’re about to read are things that are associated with and flow off of having the love of God. And guess what, brethren, they’re all tactics, ways that you can apply to help you become more emotionally mature.
“Love suffers long.” If have somebody that repeatedly angers me, rather than being soon angry like the Bible warns against, I can apply the love of God and suffer long. Think about maybe they’ve got something going on in their lives that’s causing them to get upset with me or whatever, and lash out, but it’s on me to show the love of God. To suffer long. And it’s kind. Love is kind.
“Love envies not,” it doesn’t have that emotion of envy that we said to begin the message, is something we should never have. “Love vaunts not itself.” Meaning it’s not rash, it doesn’t make rash decisions or rash judgments or act quickly in haste. “It’s not puffed up.” Love is not puffed up. There’s no pride in the love of God. Remember, pride is something we should never have. Love does not behave itself unseemly. “Love seeks not her own.” Seeks not her own, brethren. “Looks on the things of others. Love is not easily provoked and thinks no evil. Love rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.”
You want to see a definition of how to become emotionally mature? Never forget First Corinthians chapter thirteen and verses four through seven. Never forget this. If you take one thing from this message, remember these simple four verses, First Corinthians thirteen, four to seven. Because if we do, we’ll have the love of God and we’ll be able to think outwardly toward all other people, and it will help us bear along, it will help us focus on the truth, it will help us to not envy, help us to be kind. All of these things. Again, love rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. And love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
God says that simply having love produces the ability to control our emotions in all kinds of ways. And brethren, that’s done by thinking outwardly. So in conclusion, let’s consider where we are with our emotional maturity. Think about the kinds of emotions that we might be exhibiting now. Do any of our emotions fall into the category of we should never have them? As for the emotions that we should have or shouldn’t have at times, where do we fall with those?
And brethren, let’s take to heart the greatest point that we learned from today’s message. That living the give way of life, stay focused on the trunk of the tree. And if we live the give way of life, live selflessly, not thinking of ourselves but thinking of others, we will build emotional maturity.
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