Alright, can you please take your Bibles? You should be there in Colossians chapter 3.
Colossians chapter 3. And look at verse number 2. Colossians chapter 3, verse number 2.
It says, set your affection, so I want you to notice that word affection there. Set your
affection on things above and not on things on the earth. So you notice that, you know,
we all have affections. We all have, we would say the word feelings or the term we often use
is the word emotions, okay? And it says to make sure that, you know, we put our emotions,
our affections, our feelings in the right place. That we obviously in this passage,
this verse, on the things above, on the heavenly things, the spiritual things rather than putting
all our feelings and emotions on this earth alone. Drop down to verse number 5. It says,
mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth. Remember we're not to have our affections
on the earth. What kind of things comes out upon this earth? Fornication, uncleanness. Notice the
next word, inordinate affection. Inordinate affection, evil concupiscence and covetousness
which is idolatry. Now what does it mean to have inordinate affection? Obviously,
all these things that are listed here and you're going on in the list, these are all wrong things
to have, okay? These are sins that we ought not to commit upon this earth, sins that we ought to
overcome on this earth. But it says inordinate affection, inordinate. What does that mean?
Well think about the word inordinate, you know? Now we've got the prefix in there and that's a
negative prefix, inordinate. Now think of the next word, ordinate. That sounds like order, right?
So it's contrary to things that are in order, all right? You know, we would use the word
disorderly. We don't want to really use inordinate. We would use the word disorderly, okay? So when we
talk about our affections, inordinate affections, our affection, when we think about something being
in order, we believe, you know, we understand that being in the right place, in the right
framework, right? Inordinate affection is the opposite. It's your emotions, it's your feelings,
it's your affections, all over the place, okay? Not within certain boundaries, not in order,
okay? And we would, the word inordinate, if you just looked it up in the dictionary,
it means large, excessive or unrestrained. Obviously it's not in order. It's unrestrained.
It's breaking out of those boundaries. And so what we read there in verse number five,
inordinate affection is something that we are to overcome. So when we think about that,
when it comes to our feelings or our emotions, when you have excessive, out of control,
out of, you know, unrestrained affections, this is something that God wants us to fix in our lives.
And so the title for the sermon this morning, brethren, is learn to control your emotions.
Learn to control your emotions. Now when it comes to children, it's very easy for children to lose
their temper. You know, little babies, they start to cry about every little thing, right?
You know, a little child takes another child's toy, and they're balling their eyes out. It's
like the end of the world as far as their emotions go. Obviously, if I took something that you wanted
to have, and I took it off you, you get a little bit upset, but you're not going to start balling
your eyes about it, right? It's not going to be the end of the world for you. But you know,
this is something that children need to learn as they mature, as they grow. Not only are they
growing physically, not only are they growing with knowledge, but they also need to learn how
to control their emotions. This is why it's important sometimes for parents to just pull
out that rod, that rod of discipline sometimes when your children are having temper tantrums,
you know, they're losing it, you're taking them to the shops, and they want something at the shops,
and you say no, and they start to lose it. Brethren, you got to teach them. And sometimes
many of the ways that you can, the only way to teach children is to take out that rod, is to
take out that belt and correct them, okay? This is part of the learning process. God wants us to
learn to control our emotions. Now, when it comes to the term emotion, I looked up the definition,
I looked up many different definitions for the word emotion, and this definition is the one that
I liked the most. Let me read it to you. It was from dictionary.com, but the definition is an
effective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like is experienced.
It said an effective state of consciousness. Now it keeps going. It says as distinguished
from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness, okay? So it's different from
cognitive or volitional states of consciousness. So that goes over my head a little bit. Let me
explain a little bit to you, okay? When we talk about volitional, you know, we talk about,
you know, that's where kind of the word voluntary comes from, volitional. It's kind of like you make
decisions or you do certain things just because you want to, just because, you know, it's your
preference. You know, you might be making a decision, where do I go for lunch today,
and you say, well, I prefer having a bit of Indian today or something, right? I prefer having some
Mexican. It's just your wants. It's just your personal preferences. You make certain decisions
just because you want to, all right? There's nothing wrong with that in of itself. You're
acting upon your own will, all right? No one's holding a gun at your head. You know, it's your
own will, it's your own preference. That would be volitional state of consciousness, okay?
So when we talk about these different areas, these are decision makers for us, you know,
or responses to certain situations that we would then make a decision and move forward with that
decision. So you've got these different things. You've just got what I want to do, my personal
preference. When we talk about your cognitive state of consciousness, cognitive, that talks
about your intellect, okay? Your intellect. It's a decision based on reasoning, on logic,
on learning, on experience, okay? It may not be what you want, but you know it's the best thing
to do because of, you know, it's going to have the best outcome based on what you've learned and
what you've understood. You know, it's not your personal will. You may have to give up your will
to make a cognitive decision, right? It's just the best. It makes sense. You know, you've reasoned
out, even though it's not necessarily what you want to do, it's the best decision to make. And
then we have, well, we talk about emotions when it comes to that. Well, as I read there,
it says an affective state of consciousness. Now, when we look at Colossians chapter three,
we look at emotions being referred to as affections. That's where the same kind of idea
went, right? It's the affective state of consciousness. These are decisions that are
driven by feelings, by your instincts, by your mood, by your emotions. You know, many times
you're going to make decisions because of your emotions and there's nothing wrong with that in
and of itself. You know, the best decisions to make is to take all three elements of your state
of consciousness, okay, what you want, you know, your rational self and also your emotions and
make a decision based on all these things. That's perfectly fine, okay? There's nothing wrong with
making decisions because of emotions. For example, I might be fearful, that's an emotion, I might be
fearful that a child of mine might burn themselves in the kitchen. I might be fearful that a child
of mine might go to the kitchen drawer and pull out a knife and hurt themselves and so I'll make
a decision. I'll say, look child, you know, whatever your name is, you know, you're not allowed
in the kitchen, right? I mean, that would be a decision made emotionally but then it's also
intellect, right? I mean, it makes sense. You know, you're bringing forth a few different ideas there
as to make certain decisions in your life. Let me give you a list of emotions as well. I've gone
through online just looking at different lists of emotions. You know, a lot of us believe love
is an emotion but it's not really an emotion, okay? It may contain emotions but see, a lot of
people make the wrong decision when it comes to love because they feel all butterly, you know,
butterflies and wonderful for a moment with that person. I love them and then you lose those
feelings and it's like, well, do I love them anymore? You know, love is not just these feelings
of emotions, okay? You know, when you get married, yeah, you know, I hope you marry the woman that
you love or for a lady, the man that you love, okay? But there's going to be times in your life
in your marriage that you're not going to necessarily feel love but you're still to love
your spouse. Whether you feel those emotions or not, you know, love is more of an action but it
can of course carry emotions and, you know, some lists of emotions are obviously happiness,
the thought of caring that could draw out love as well, depression, inadequate, feeling inadequate,
you know, amongst others, as I said, fear, confusion, hurt, anger, loneliness, remorse,
you know, and under these categories, you can have many other emotions. If you think about
all the different types of emotions someone can feel, you can usually fit them under one of these
categories, okay? Now, what I really want to teach about today is not that you shouldn't feel any
emotions. You know, I've been told many times that you have no emotions. That's not true.
We all feel emotions or someone might say to you, you're overly emotional. Again, there's nothing
necessarily wrong with being overly emotional, okay? I mean, there are times to be overly
emotional, right? I mean, if my wife passed away, you know, don't you think it'd be a bit weird if
I'm not like very sad about that, you know? There's times to sometimes express emotion
to a high degree but as I said to you, it's not about stopping emotions. It's about learning how
to control your emotions and unfortunately, we live in a society that has not learned this basic
truth, you know, where, you know, we have a generation of children being brought up where
basically, they get what they feel like, okay? And people, you know, parents are just too afraid
to discipline their children. Parents are too afraid to direct their children and teach them
to have their right emotional state. You know, mothers react to children when they cry and
they yell out and they demand certain things rather than teaching their children how to
control those things. So you're not screaming out and demanding things when it's not appropriate.
So there's nothing wrong or sinful about an emotion in of itself, okay? You know, the main
reason, you're still in Colossians, I hope. Look at Colossians chapter three, drop down to verse
number six. It says here, for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of
disobedience. So what do we learn there in verse number six? That God feels emotions. God can feel
wrath. God can feel anger. We know God feels all these things, right? You know, God can be hurt.
You know, by our actions, we can definitely hurt the Lord God, you know. The Lord feels joy,
you know. The Lord feels many emotions. You know, God created us to be emotional beings. You know,
he's given us that instinct, those feelings, that inner thought within us to make the right
decisions at the right times, okay? Drop down to verse number eight, please. Drop down to verse
number eight. It says, but now ye also put off all these anger, wrath. Now some people think anger or
wrath are sinful, but again, what do we see in verse number six? The wrath of God, okay? So is
anger and wrath sinful? No, but if you're angry about the wrong things, if you're quick to anger,
we'll soon see some of the passages about this, then obviously that's sinful, okay? There are
times to get angry and there are times to not get angry. There are things that, you know, God hates
and they're at the right time. Obviously, if you love what God hates, that would be, you know,
expressing your emotions in the wrong way. You know, we understand that we also hate the things
that God hates. We understand that we ought to love the things that God loves. When you have
the right balance of these things, there's nothing wrong with those emotions that come out
in that situation, okay? So again, verse number eight, it says, but now ye also put off these
anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy. Feel free communication out of your mouth. Drop down to
verse number 12, please. Drop down to verse number 12. And of course, I'm not going to, I'm not
preaching through this whole chapter in any great depth. I'm just trying to show you that Colossians
chapter three is a great chapter about emotions, okay? We learn that God has emotions. Of course
He does, okay? Nothing sinful with emotions in of themselves. Verse number 12, put on therefore
as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness,
longsuffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel
against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. Look at verse 14, and above all these things
put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And what series am I going through? I'm going
through the perfect man series, all right? And so you notice that verse number 14 speaks about
this bond of perfectness. This bond is the unity of the brethren, okay? The apostle Paul here is
teaching the Colossian church how to be united. What is this bond? What's going to keep us
together? Hey, what's going to keep New Life Baptist Church together? It's the bond of
perfectness, which is charity, okay? And I said, you know, love in of itself is not emotion, but
yes, it is driven by emotion many times, okay? Or it produces emotions. And having the right
emotions, having the right mindset, which drives us to love one another, is what's going to help
our church remain united together, loving, being able to forgive one another, because sometimes
we're going to rub each other the wrong way. Sometimes we're going to disagree. Sometimes
we're going to have little conflicts here and there, brethren, okay? But we want to have this
bond of perfectness, charity, making sure that our emotions are in check, and we're using them
in the right way, okay? Let's keep going there in Colossians. Drop down to verse number 18.
You know, obviously we know these passages, but I just want you to think about it from an
affection point of view, from a feeling, an emotional side of things. Verse number 18,
wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord. Now the feminist movement,
they hate this verse, don't they? Wives, submit yourselves. This is what God commands. This is
the Bible. This is the teaching of God. Now why would God have to tell wives, submit yourselves
to your husbands? Because automatically, within every human being, whether you're a man or woman,
especially in this sense, for a woman, you're going to have those rebellious thoughts. You're
not going to want to submit under your husband at certain times, okay? You may not, as a wife,
you may not feel like submitting, all right? You may not have those feelings, I don't feel
like submitting to him at this point in time. Well, what did we learn about the definition of
emotions? It's the affective state of consciousness. You know what, whether you're feeling like
submitting or not is irrelevant, you know? What else did we learn? The volitional state
of consciousness, whether you want to. Well, I don't want to submit. Well, it doesn't matter
whether you want to submit. It doesn't matter if you feel like submitting, okay? This would come
into the cognitive state of emotion, okay? The rationale. Well, God tells me this is what I have
to do. God tells me the best leader in the family is my husband, okay? He's going to be the one that
goes out and takes care of the family needs. He goes out and works a job, make sure we have
all that we need. You know, according to God, the man, the husband is going to be the best leader,
and whether I feel like or not, whether I want to or not, I'm going to have to set those decisions
aside and I'm going to just trust what God says. You know, many times we make decisions,
it's not our will. We just have to submit ourselves to God's will. God, what do you have
for my life? And for the lady here, the basic idea is this, ladies, is that when it comes to
your husband, you know, the reason God has this for us, sometimes you make decisions because of
your emotions, you know, and if you're not submitting to your husband because of your
emotions, then your emotions are not in check, okay? You've not learned to control your emotions.
If it's what you want or you desire, you know what, life is not about what you want or desire.
You know, life is truly about serving others. You know, am I the head of my wife? Absolutely. Am I
the leader of my home? Yes. Am I the main breadwinner? Do I make the most important
decisions for my family? Of course I do, but I don't do it just for myself. What do I want?
You know, I'm often, most often thinking, what's going to be best for my wife? What's going to be
best for my children? What is it, God, that you want me to do with my life? And you know what,
being a pastor of New Life Baptist Church and being a pastor down in Sydney or Blessed Baptist
Church, I'm often asking the question, what's best for this church? You know, it's not what do I
want? Well, you know, I've grown out of that. I'm no longer that little two-year-old, you know,
having tantrums. I want what I want all the time. And as we grow and mature, we learn to make,
control those emotions, you know. We don't make decisions just because of emotions. And ladies,
you know, the teaching here is that sometimes you won't want to submit because you don't feel like
it or you don't want to. It doesn't matter. You know, you got to base that decision on your
cognitive state of consciousness, which is your rationale. I read this in God's word. I know what
God says. God knows more from what is better for me than what I know. You know, God knows better
than what the feminist movement says. Therefore, I'm going to go with what God says, regardless
if you understand it. Okay. You understand that God knows better than you do. And you say, well,
pastor Kevin, you always preach against the ladies. No, I don't. Here's the next thing for
the men. Next verse, number 19, Colossians chapter three, verse number 19. Husbands,
love your wives. Again, why does God have to write this in the Bible? Because many times husbands
forget to love their wives. That's why. Okay. Instead, what you do, husbands, and be not bitter
against them. Sometimes husbands, your natural response would become to become bitter toward
your wives. Hey, you're now expressing the wrong emotions. All right. You know what,
even if your wife lets you down, you know, even if your wife doesn't meet up to the expectations
that you want to, you're still commanded to love your wife. I don't feel like loving my wife.
Doesn't matter what you feel like. Okay. This is not about what does my emotion, I've got to be
driven by. No, you've got to control your emotions. And if you're bitter against your wife, you need
to overcome that bitterness. You know, your wives are going to fail you. Husbands and husbands,
you failed your wives many times. And your children are going to fail you. And your pastor
sometimes is going to fail you. And your brothers and sisters and the Lord are sometimes going to
fail you. You're going to just be bitter for the rest of your life. God does not want that. You
know, God does not want that in a marriage. It's going to destroy your marriage if you're holding
grudges, if you're holding bitterness toward your wife. You know, it doesn't matter. I feel bitter.
All right. Well, control your emotions. God says, don't be bitter against them. God says,
love your wives. Go and show your wife, go and tell your wife that you love her. You know, and
this is why it's so good, men, even if you don't feel like it, even if your cognitive reasoning
says, you know what, buying these $20 worth of flowers makes no sense whatsoever because they're
going to die tomorrow. Or sometimes it's worth just going and get that and showing your wife
some love and saying, here you go, honey, here are some flowers. Doesn't make sense to me,
but I know this is an expression of my love towards you. Okay, I'm going to control my
emotions, you know, and I'm just going to do what God says that I need to do. Drop down to verse
number 21. It says, fathers, provoke not your children to anger. Now, some people misunderstand
that. Obviously, fathers, again, why is this here? Because we often will provoke our children
to anger. You know, we won't show the necessary tenderness sometimes to our children. We expect
more. You know, when it comes to my boys, you know, and we have some boys in this church as
well. You know, if I see some of the boys in this church muck up at church, you know, it kind of
annoys me a little bit, but if it's my children, it's going to annoy me a lot more, right?
Obviously, with my own children, I'm going to be less patient with them sometimes, right? Because
I have a greater expectation, of course, and you know, we've got to be careful as fathers to not
provoke our children to wrath. Now, some people read this and say, well, every time my child gets
angry, I'm just going to give in to their anger because I'm not trying to make them angry. No,
you just make them more angry. They'll learn through life that to get my way, I just become
angry. I just have a tantrum and I'll get my way. That's not what it's just teaching, okay? Let's
keep going there. Fathers provoke their children to anger, lest they be discouraged. You know,
discouragement, that is also an emotion, okay? And if fathers, if we're not tender with our children,
if we don't teach our children the right methods, they can become discouraged. They can not have any
motivation in life, you know, that they feel like I don't measure up to dad's standards and why am
I going to try? You know, I've had those feelings in my life, you know, and I'm sure my parents are
listening right now. Listen, I don't hold any bitterness, but let me just give you an example.
I remember once, you know, I was in my math class and I passed my math test and I had the top grade
in my class. I can't remember what it was, maybe 96% or something, okay? I had the top grade and
I took it to my dad and look, I love my dad, please, you know, don't misunderstand, all right?
But, you know, I took it to my dad and he goes, yeah, but why wasn't it 100%? You know, I was like,
dad, I'm the top of my class here, you know, instead of being focused on the 96%, my dad was
like, well, 4%, you know, I mean, and I, you know, honestly, as a child, I just felt, then why try?
Like, like, if it doesn't mean anything, then why try, you know, and so, you know, fathers, we've got
to be careful, you know, and, you know, we've all done this, we've all, you know, driven our children
to anger and, and discourage them and we don't realise that necessarily, but what are we trying
to teach our children? We're trying to teach them to control their emotions as well, okay, and so
this isn't just, okay, every time you try to get angry, let them have what they want. No, teach your
children to not get angry. That's the whole point. Raise your children in the nurture and admonition
of the Lord. Drop down to verse number 22, please. Look at this. Servants, obey in all things your
masters. This is your employer-employee or employee-employer relationship, okay.
Obey all things. I don't feel like it. It doesn't matter what you feel like, okay. That's what the
Bible says. Obey your masters according to the flesh, not with thy service as men pleasers,
all right, and I love the next part, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. Men, when you go to work,
you ought to fear God when you step into that workplace. You ought to say, God is expecting me
to work the best I can for these hours that I've been hired. I'm serving the Lord God. Now, is fear
a sin? Well, of course not because the Bible says that we ought to fear God. Now, should we fear man?
No. If you're fearing man, that's obviously sinful, but the emotion in of itself is not sinful
because the Bible tells us to fear God. We ought to tremble at the Lord God. We ought to be seeking
to please him. We know that if we are disobedient children of God, that he'll step in and chastise
us. He'll correct us when we do wrong. Hey, we ought to fear that chastisement. We ought to fear
that judgment. I'm not talking about salvation. Salvation has been paid for in Jesus Christ,
but we ought to have a good, healthy fear of God in our day-to-day jobs that we do,
and for ladies, it's your household or whatever it is that you do. For men, when you go out to work,
fear God when you step into your workplace. So you can see this is definitely about our affections,
having our affections in the right place. Nothing wrong with fear as long as you fear the right
person, which is the Lord God. Now, let's keep going there. Can you please turn? I think I'm out
of, yeah, sorry, Colossians. Alright, so we can move away from Colossians. Please turn to the
book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 15. Proverbs chapter 15, please. We obviously know the book of
Proverbs is the book of wisdom, so I always like to turn to the book of Proverbs quite often when
I preach, just to get some thoughts around, you know, what does God truly have to say about this?
You know, if we want to learn and grow and we understand, you know, we need to control our
emotions, what does God have to say about our emotions or if we lose control? Let's look at
Proverbs 15, please, verse number 18. Proverbs chapter 15 and verse number 18. Now, this is the
question about anger and wrath. Is it wrong to get angry? Is it a sin? A lot of pastors teach,
a lot of churches teach that anger is sinful. Let's see what the Bible says here in Proverbs
15 verse 18. A wrathful man stirs up strife. The Bible says, if you're a wrathful man,
you know, you're known as someone that loses his temper and gets angry, you're going to cause
strife. You're always going to have problems around you. You're always going to have conflicts
around you. Alright, so maybe Pastor Kevin, maybe anger is sinful. No, what's the next part of the
verse say? But he that is slow to anger appease of strife. So it's fine to get angry, but the Bible
says be slow to get angry. Okay, you know, in other words, control that part of your emotion.
We know that anger is something that is so easy to spark, you know, if you're just having a bad
day and something doesn't go your way or someone cuts you off in the traffic and you've got the
road rage. No, the Bible says be slow to anger. You might be fast on the streets, but when it
comes to someone cutting you off, you got to be slow to anger. Okay, and it says being slow to
anger appease of strife. It helps not create strife. Okay, when people see you in control
of your emotions, when maybe they expected you to lose it, you know, it's going to cause some peace
and harmony, you know, be able to reconcile things and get things, you know, sorted between people
rather than being all conflicts and strife everywhere you go. So again, is anger or wrath
sinful? No. Can it be sinful? Yes, if it's applied the wrong way, if you're quick to anger. But hey,
if you apply it in the right way, hey, we ought to get angry about certain things. We ought to be
angry about our sins. You know, the reason I go and discipline my children is I get angry when
they're disobedient to mum and dad. When they've done something wrong, I get angry. But listen,
I don't go and discipline my kids out of anger. Okay, I'm not just like, all right,
let's just fix this up right now. I'm like, look, I get angry that they've committed such a sin.
But then I know the right purpose, what God teaches is then to teach my children to chastise
my children so they don't make the same mistake again. You know, we don't want to be parents that
lose our temper every time our children just do something wrong. Yes, discipline is correct,
but we ought to train them, teach them. Why was that wrong? You know, what should you have done
in this situation? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Can you please go to Proverbs 27 now,
Proverbs 27 verse number 19. Proverbs 27 and verse number 19. I like this verse.
Proverbs 27 verse number 19. The Bible says, as in water, face answerth to face.
So the heart of man to man. What is that saying? Well, what I was saying here, if you look into
the water, it's going to show your face. You'll be able to see your face through the water. You
know, sometimes, many times it acts like a mirror in that sense. Okay. When the same way that the
water can show your face and act as a mirror, it says, so the heart of man to man. You know,
when you talk about our emotions and feelings, we often talk about that coming out of our hearts.
And you know, when we're out of control, we wear our emotions on our sleeves and we lose it at
certain times. It just shows other men, the kind of person that you are. You know, if you're out
of control in your emotional states, it's going to tell other people, this person has no stability.
This person is probably out of control in other places in his life. Hey, but if they see that
you've got control of your heart, control of your emotions, of your affections, what's that
going to tell other men, other people that look at you? They're going to say, hey, this person's
in control. This person's stable. Hey, this is somebody that I can trust. Okay. This is someone
that I can share my concerns and worries to potentially because of how they demonstrate
their emotions. You know, there are people that think, you know, you know, being a hot tempered
or having their emotions on the sleeve, you know, shows people how strong they are. It actually
shows you how weak you are because you're lacking self-control. You've got inordinate affections
and not in its proper boundaries. It's not in its proper place. You think you're showing yourself to
be strong, but everyone else around you knows this person's very weak. This person is very unstable
and they're not going to trust you. Okay. So be careful of your emotions. Bible's teaching us,
it's like a mirror. It tells other people the kind of person that you are. All right. Please
turn to another proverb. Proverbs chapter 25. Proverbs chapter 25, please. And verse number 28.
Proverbs chapter 25 and verse number 28.
Proverbs 25 verse 28. The Bible says, he that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city
that is broken down and without walls. Okay. Hey, if we don't control, if we don't have rule
over our spirits or over our emotional, that's what Bible space is teaching, right?
Our feelings, our affections. If we don't control this, if we haven't got it in his proper boundaries,
brethren, the Bible says we're like a city that is broken down and without walls. I mean,
think about that. Okay. Your life, God says your life is like a broken down city, no walls. So,
you know, in what sense? Well, if you can't control your emotions, it's going to lead to
your family being broken. You know, divorce and things like that. Okay. Or, you know,
just damaging the relationships in your family. You're going to break it down if you can't control
your emotions. Your finances potentially could be broken because of your emotions. You know,
making bad decisions because of your emotional state. You know, your reputation will be broken.
You know, your productivity. You know, you producing whatever you need to produce, whether
it's in the workplace or whatever job or hobbies that you're trying to do. Hey, that's going to be
broken down because when you're emotionally out of control, you're not going to put your best work
forward, are you? You know, you're not going to be able to think clearly. You're not going to have
the focus to be productive in your state. You know, these are different areas of your life
that will be broken down like a broken city, but not just a broken city. It says, and without walls,
without walls. Of course, we think about walls, we think about boundaries. Okay. We're trying to rule
our emotions, our feelings within walls, within boundaries. Control your emotions is a title for
the sermon this morning. And when you think about a city, especially in the time of the Bible,
without walls, we're basically saying this is a city without strength or defense. Because the
walls were the primary method of defense against an invading army or something like that. Okay.
And so what? You're saying that, like I said, someone that is overly emotional,
doesn't show their strength, it shows their weakness. It shows they haven't got the defense.
They haven't got those walls built up in their life. You know, it basically says you're easy
to cave in. You know, your walls are broken. It's easy for you when you're highly emotional
to get into sins, to do things that are wrong. You know, and this is, I won't go into it now,
but you know, you just again, make those wrong decisions in life. You haven't got that defense.
You'll be influenced by the wicked world. You know, again, the walls are there to protect an
invading army. You know, as Christians, we ought to be people with certain boundaries and defense.
We know we live in a wicked world. We know we live in a very influential world, trying to turn
our hearts away from the Lord, trying to turn our children away from church and Jesus Christ
and the Bible. And we need to set up these walls of defense, you know, have the right
emotional state. Otherwise you're going to be easily influenced by a wicked world. Okay.
And so Proverbs 25. Yeah, I love that. Verse 28. You know, if you don't rule your own spirit,
you're like a city that is broken down and without walls. So hope you can see the importance.
You know, yes, emotions are great. Thank God we have emotions. It helps us make good decisions
in life, as long as they are in control, as long as they are within the right boundaries. Okay.
But when we, when they're not in control, we're going to be a broken down city. It can hurt our
lives, hurt our relationships, et cetera, et cetera. All right. Can you please turn to,
where can I get to turn to? Turn to Psalm 23, please. Turn to Psalm 23. Let me give you some
other reasons that we ought to control our emotions. You turn to Psalm 23.
Another reason why we ought to learn to control our emotions is because if we don't, brethren,
we can grieve God. We can cause God grief because we've got the wrong emotional state. You know,
one verse that we think about quite often is Ephesians 4.30, which says,
And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
Brethren, not only is our body purchased by God, not only does our body belong to God,
but so does everything that takes place in this body. It's our emotional state, our feelings.
Okay. Sometimes we think our feelings, they're just, they're just mine. Nobody really knows
what I'm feeling. Yeah, but don't forget the Holy Ghost is, indwells your body. The Holy Ghost knows
what you're going through. You know why? And if your emotions are out of control,
or you're experiencing emotions in the wrong state, which is contrary to God's word,
you're going to cause grief to the Holy Spirit of God. He owns you. Your body is a temple for
the Holy Ghost. We ought to be mindful about what we do in this body, but also what's within this
heart, what's within this mind, you know, or we're going to cause grief to the Holy Spirit.
The second reason why you ought to control your emotions, in fact, the second reason that I've
got here is the main reason why I learned to control my emotions. Now, I'm never going to
say that I never lose a bit of control sometimes. Okay. I'm not going to say that, but generally
speaking, people, like I said to you, people often say to me, you've got no emotions, but I do.
I just, I've learned how to control them. All right. I just, I'm not going to become very
overwhelmed about certain things when I know I need to make an important decision. Okay.
But it was this in Psalm 23 verse 4. Psalm 23 verse 4. It says, yea, we know this Psalm very
well. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Beautiful words. But look at verse
number five. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my
head with oil, my cup runneth over. You know, one thing that growing up, especially as a teenager,
you know, we all have, we all have bullies or, and sometimes you're a bully yourself,
and maybe that's why you get a bully in return. Who knows? Okay. But we always, we tend to
sometimes develop conflicts. We meet people that don't like us and maybe we don't like them,
et cetera, et cetera. Again, it's a part of learning and growing, right? And I remember
just as a child, not wanting to give my enemies any satisfaction, where they might do something
that I don't like. And sometimes people don't, they don't really just want to destroy you or
hurt you. They just want to get an emotional response out of you. And they rejoice when they
get their emotional response out of you. Even though I've seen this in the workplace, you know,
people just push your buttons. You know, they're trying to find where's that thin skin. All right.
And they're trying to push it, trying to get you upset and frustrated because you're not doing
things the way they want or whatever. You're just a Christian. You know, you're just a hard worker
and maybe you're showing them to be poor workers or something and they don't like you, right?
I mean, that's just the world. People aren't going to like you. That's just how it is.
And I realised, you know, just growing up, I never want to give my enemies any satisfaction,
where if they do something wrong toward me, I'm not even going to show them any emotion.
I'm not going to show them any reaction. I don't want to give them, even though it bothers me deep
down, I want to get revenge, but I'm not going to show them that. Who cares? You know, that's
honestly, like people do something to me, whatever. Who cares? You know, like, and even though it did
bother me inside, this is part of the learning process growing, right? Learning how to control
those emotions, even though you're burning within. I didn't want to give my enemies any satisfaction
and even better than not giving your enemies any satisfaction from an emotional response,
even better is being blessed by God in the presence of your enemies. Where your enemies,
as I said in verse number five, they'll prepare us a table before me. Where, you know, your enemies
are trying to hurt you and they're waiting for that response and what do they see? They see the
blessings of God in your life. They see God preparing a table, a banquet, a feast, a celebration
for you. You know, the Lord God anoints your head with oil. Your cup runs over you. You're overly
blessed and your enemies are like, what in the world? We're trying to destroy this person
and they're having a great life. That's even better. That's a good way to rub
things in your enemy's face, right? When they see you doing well and it's a law that steps in
that blesses you. Please go to another Psalm. Psalm chapter 35, please. Psalm 35 verse 19.
Psalm 35 verse 19. And there are many Psalms like this. I just pointed some of these out,
you know, and Psalm 35 verse 19 says, let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice
over me. Neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. That's exactly it. I'm
like the Psalmist. God, these enemies, they're annoying me. These, you know, these bullies or
whatever it is, right? These coworkers, they're trying to make me angry and upset. They're trying
to cause me to quit my job. They're trying to make me to fail, Lord, but you know what? I don't want
to give them anything. I'm just going to go buy a business and I'm just going to ignore them and
they're going to be like wasting their time trying to get that response out of me. I'm not going to
give them what they want. That's how I'm going to get back to my enemies. I'm not going to give
them what they want. And when you read the Psalms, you'll notice this over and over again, the same
desire from the Psalmist. You know, please don't allow my enemies to wrongly rejoice over me.
Why would an enemy rejoice over you? Because they got the response they wanted. And many times it's
just that emotional response to lose control, you know, to help, to make you lose focus on what
you're trying to achieve in the first place. So that was my, I'm just sharing with you, that's
my primary reason why I learned that I need to learn how to control my emotions. I just can't
wear my emotions on my sleeve. I give my enemies too much joy when I do that. Therefore, I'm going
to stop that part of my life. Another reason, of course, I'll just quickly read to you from,
can you please go to, no actually, please go to 2 Corinthians please. Please turn to the book of
2 Corinthians. Another reason why you ought to control your emotions, as I already kind of
covered, it hurts relationships. You can really hurt relationships, you know, if you just wear
your emotions on your sleeve, okay. And one of the verses that I love in the Bible is Ephesians 4 26.
It says, be ye angry. Hey, the Bible is commanding us to be angry. If you don't know that,
maybe you should turn to Ephesians 4. Only if you don't trust me, okay. Ephesians 4 26 says,
be ye angry. Then it says, and sin not. So it's possible to get angry, but not to sin. That's the
commandment, okay. God doesn't want us to get angry and then out of that anger commit some sin,
yeah. God says, okay, if you're going to get angry, that's fine, not a problem, it's your
emotion, but sin not. Then it says, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Then it says in verse
27, neither give place to the devil, all right. So listen, there are going to be times that you
get angry and you're going to get angry righteously. You're going to get full of wrath,
okay. God does not want us to then get out of control and go and lose focus and make some
stupid decision that's going to cause sin. No, the Lord God has a very clear commandment for us.
Before the sun goes down, you've got to appease that anger, okay. Let not the sun go down upon
your wrath. And for those that are married, there are going to be times that you're going to get
angry at your spouse, aren't you? It happens, you know, we don't always agree. We don't always see
eye to eye. But you know what, before the sun goes down, you better go and forgive your spouse.
You ought to say, you know what, I'm not going to give into that bitterness. You know what,
we're going to put that aside for today, right. The sun's coming down, I'm going to make sure
that we go and make peace. I'm going to make peace between myself and my wife or a woman
between her husband, okay, and herself. We need to make peace, you know, and this is what God
commands. If you're still holding a grudge next morning, you've disobeyed the Lord. You've gotten
angry and you have sinned. God says, be angry and sin not, okay. Then it said in verse 27,
neither give place to the devil. So this is the problem. If you allow your anger to go to the
next day, you're giving place to the devil. The devil sees those broken down walls. You're not in
control of your emotions anymore. To control your emotions at that point is to make sure you make
peace before the sun goes down, okay. You wait the next day, you've given the devil an opening,
an opening to come and hurt and destroy your marriage. We need to make sure we control our
emotions. It'll hurt relationships. And finally, the next point that I have, the reason why you
want to control your emotions is because it'll cause you to make decisions that you'll later
regret. I'm sure we've all done that. I'm sure we've all made certain decisions in our lives
that we regret and we look back and we just made it because we lost our control of our emotions,
okay. Just make it to make stupid decisions. And, you know, I remember in the workplace again,
these are, again, growing and learning where, you know, you'd get upset about certain things.
You'd get emotional about certain things and my manager taught me and said, look,
that's fine but when you make a decision, especially in a workplace, okay, you cannot
make a decision based on emotions, okay. It has to be cognitive when you make a decision. It's
got to be logical. It's got to be reasonable. It's got to be, you know, in a workplace when
you're working with other employees, you've got to be able to communicate the sense of making that
decision. You can't go to your workplace and say, all right, guys, you know, I'm making this
decision, I'm making this change because I'm upset. You're not going to convince anybody.
No one's going to get on board with your decision but if you're able to use the cognitive
sense, conscious self that you have and you show the reasoning, you show the logic,
then you're able to show people why certain things need to change, okay. And so there are different
places for, you know, to make decisions in the right place but, again, you don't want to make
a decision based on emotion, you know, if you're overly emotional because you'll later regret it,
okay. I'm not saying never make a decision based on emotions. If your emotions are in control,
if your emotions are in check, yes, it's fine to make decisions on that, okay, but when they're
out of control, do not make decisions. You know, if they're out of control, don't discipline your
children while you're emotionally out of control. Get into another room if you need to in the house,
cool down, calm down, think about what's taking place, think about what the corrective action
should be, then go and sort it out, okay. You don't want to make decisions that you'll later regret.
Now you're there in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, 2 Corinthians chapter 6,
and I just want to show you that, you know, even when it comes to the Apostle Paul,
you know, we've gone through the books of Corinthians as a church before, we've gone
through 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, we know that the Corinthian church was really messed up,
you know, sometimes people say, oh, but this church has this problem, this church has that
problem. Yeah, have you read the book of Corinthians? I mean, look, if the Lord God
is still encouraging the Corinthian church to move on and recover and push on and serve the
Lord, then, you know, there's no reason to just give up on some church because they've got this
wrong or that wrong. I mean, many times people bring up issues with me about churches and they
just think, man, read the Bible, look at all the problems that were in those churches, you know,
they're like, it's not worth sometimes the arguments and conflicts that you create because
of this or that situation, okay. But anyway, you've got the Apostle Paul, he's speaking and
correcting this Corinthian church, he calls them babes in Christ, he calls them carnal,
you know, he says that you're, you know, you just love men, you're not people that are trying to
serve Jesus Christ, right, you know, they were like, I'm of Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of,
who else? Cephas, you know, they're just men followers, they've got their favourite preachers
and I just got to listen to that, one favourite preacher, no one else. And Paul's just calling
them out for their immaturity and of course, you know, that's going to create tension from
the, and sometimes when I preach sermons, right, and I step on your toes, I don't intend to step
on your toes, I mean, just preach the Bible, but sometimes when you're preaching the Word of God,
the Bible's a mirror as well, it's going to, you know, slap your face a little bit,
it's going to step on your toes and you're going to feel a bit uncomfortable and you're going to
get emotional and upset, right. And it can cause tension, I've really experienced that,
I've very experienced that sometimes just preaching God's Word just causes tension,
you know, you don't want to, it just does and that's what, you know, what the Apostle Paul
is going through, he's just trying to correct this church, he obviously loves the church,
obviously he wants them to do well, he wants them to serve God and earn the great rewards in heaven,
but there's tension and when you look at 2 Corinthians 6 verse 11,
2 Corinthians 6 verse 11, Paul says to the Corinthian church,
oh ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged, he says look,
Corinthian church, you know, our heart is enlarged, right, we love you that much,
right, well you know, I know I've said some harsh things towards you, but really we just love the
church, you know, we care about you, we just want you to go on and serve God, but then look at
verse number 12, ye are not straightened in us, but ye are straightened in your own bowels,
the word straighten there is the word narrow, okay, he's saying look, my heart is enlarged,
he says your heart towards me, it's not enlarged, it's very narrow, there's tension there,
okay, they haven't really enjoyed, you know, what they've been hearing from the Apostle Paul,
and you know, the idea that it's in your bowels is the other idea of, you know, your heart,
your emotions, right, we often talk about our emotions coming from within, and that's what
he's saying, it's like, you know, you've got this tension, you know, you don't really love us the
way we love you in return, then he says in verse number 13, now for a recompense in the same,
I speak as unto my children, be ye also enlarged, he says, look, you know, I'm correcting you,
I'm speaking to you like you're my own children, think about how much a parent ought to love their
own children, the Apostle Paul says, look, I love you like my own children, you know, my heart is
enlarged for you, and you know what, in return, your heart ought to be enlarged for me as well,
even those there's tension, and brethren, this is the reality of life, you will have tension,
you will have conflicts, you will have little arguments with your brothers and sisters in the
Lord, you're going to have arguments with your family members, etc, etc, make sure your heart
remains enlarged, you know what, if you truly want to just help somebody, if you truly just want to
give your opinion for the benefit of others, keep your heart enlarged, don't narrow it down,
even though there's a bit of conflict, keep it open, keep your emotions out there, showing people
that you care for them, that you truly just want to see the best for them, but when you shut down,
okay, what's that showing, that you don't want to reconcile, you don't want to learn, you don't
want to grow, you don't want to see it from someone else's point of view, okay, and I just
love it when I see these tensions, because then I can say, oh man, yeah, that's happened for me,
or that's happened, you can say that's happened with me, you know, I've tried to reach out to
somebody else, I love them, I just want them to do the best, you know, but I've offended them,
just by trying to be a help, you know, and it happens, you offend people, okay,
okay, you've probably been offended, okay, and you know what, when you get offended,
you know, what's our millennial generation, oh, I've been offended, right, someone has done me
wrong, I'm so upset and angry and upset, you shouldn't have offended me, grow up, you're
going to get offended, you're going to get offended, all right, and then you stop and say, why am I
offended, maybe my brother loves me, maybe my brother has said something that's going to help
me and benefit me and I just didn't like it, but actually his heart is enlarged, he's trying to
show me leadership and trying to be a support toward me, but I just didn't like what he had
to say and I got offended, so what if you got offended, big deal, just because you got offended
doesn't mean someone has sinned against you, now sometimes someone has sinned against you, you
might get offended because they've sinned against you, but many times what I've seen at least is
that people get offended because no one has sinned against them, they just didn't like someone else's
opinion, we've all got opinions, you know, and we're not always going to be the same, you know,
I'm not trying to develop a church where we have the exact same opinions, I hope we develop a
church that has the same goals, I hope we develop a church that has the same love for God and desire
for God, but you know what, there are many ways of doing things, if I'm trying to teach you have
the same opinion as me, do everything exactly like me, brethren, I'm not leading you to Jesus Christ,
I'm leading you to be a follower of Kevin Sepulveda, I do not want a cult following,
I don't want everybody to raise their children the way I raised my children, I don't want all the men
to be like me, I don't want all the ladies to be like my wife, okay, we all have different ways of
doing things, this has been a big part of the Perfect Man series, as long as it's consistent
with God's Word and we're looking at our emotions, our affections today, as long as your affections
and emotions are within boundaries, they're in control, you're not out of control, brethren,
if your emotions are out of control, give nobody advice, okay, don't give anybody an advice,
go and cool down, go and calm down and then go and deal with that situation.
Alright brethren, let me just end on this point, well actually I've got little things here,
just three things that I think is going to help you have a better control of your emotions,
okay, now I don't know, maybe you can say to me, I have sometimes, I lose control of my emotions,
I get overly emotional, I get overly offended, I get overly worried, I become overly fearful,
et cetera, et cetera, over the wrong things, what can I do to help me? Number one, and this is
basic, know the Bible, know the Bible, know what God has to say, know what God loves,
learn to love what God loves, know what God hates, learn to love, sorry, learn to hate the things
that God hates, learn what God gets angry about, don't do then, once you know what God gets angry
about, don't do those things that will get God angry towards you, know the Bible, okay, emotions
are not wrong, but what you want to do is see how does God look at certain emotions, fear is not
wrong, but don't fear man, fear God, okay, have the right place where you're going to put those
emotions, anger is not wrong, but being quick to anger is wrong, being slow to anger is fine,
okay, you have to know what the Bible says so you can be in check with your emotions, alright,
number two, and I think this is a problem that a lot of people suffer with, I know because people
tell me all the time, you have to get enough sleep, get enough sleep, Brevin if you don't get enough
sleep, you're not going to be in your best emotional state, you know this, you know if you
don't get enough sleep, you know, you're discouraged, you're lacking energy, you're going to be a little
bit more negative in your life, you're not going to be effective, you're going to lose focus and
concentration and when you start to feel all those effects on your body, you're going to start
placing your emotions in the wrong place, you're going to be quick to anger, right, if you haven't
got enough sleep and something's upset you, you're going to get angry very quickly, sleep is such an
important part of our life, the Bible says in Psalm 127 verse 1, except the Lord build the house,
they labour in vain that build it, except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain,
so sometimes we say, well I've got to remain awake but listen, yeah okay, yeah that's fine,
we do, we need to be awake as well but you know what, the Lord, if the Lord's not going to keep
it, there's no point of being awake, you need to get your sleep, verse number two it says,
it is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he
giveth his beloved sleep, you know what, when you stay up late, you know what, you're going to get
into the bad habit of eating the breads of sorrows, I'm so depressed, life is so sad,
I'm not happy with my life, I don't have any friends, no one likes me, you know I'm despised
and this and that, you're going to just get overwhelmed with emotions, God says look get some
rest, get some sleep, you know God gives out the beloved sleep, let God watch the city sometimes,
you don't always have to be the one awake, what's happening, what's happening, what's, just go and
leave it in God's hands, all right, you know you become fearful and worried and you're like oh
what's going on, what's going on, covid, the restrictions, borders, stress, stress, stress,
just sleep in God's hands, okay, there's no point of you being the watchman and I better update my
brethren right now, oh man, there's an update on the, what, it's, now they want a second booster,
better send it quickly to the church chat, second booster guys, get ready for it, just go get some
sleep, relax, calm down, all right, just don't wake up, just leave it in God's hand, you go get some
sleep, okay, hey God, I don't know what's going on in this world, it's crazy, Lord I'm going to
leave in your hands, I can't, I can't protect the city, if you want to protect the Lord, you do it,
I'm going to get some sleep, okay, leave it in God's hands, get enough sleep and lastly the next
one that I have is give space for grief and mourning, give space for grief and mourning,
obviously when you're experiencing great grief or mourning, you've lost a loved one for example,
you are going to be hypersensitive, you are going to be very, very emotional, those are the times
that you don't want to be making any decisions in life, those are the times that you need to take
some time out, okay, if you work a job, ask, you know, if you lost someone that you care about,
ask your boss for some leave, you know, get a week off, get two weeks off, whatever you need to,
okay, because you're going to be unproductive, you're going to be very emotional about every
little thing that happens and there's nothing wrong with mourning, there's nothing wrong with grief,
very familiar passage to a lot of you, Ecclesiastes chapter 3 verse 1,
to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven,
then it says in verse number 4, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to
dance, brethren there's a time to weep, there's a time to mourn, these are not wrong or sinful
emotions, okay, but you've got to give it time, you've got to give it time and people mourn or
weep over a sad situation differently to others, we're not all alike, some people need more time
than others, some people just respond differently, you know, when someone's going through mourning,
don't tell them, hey you shouldn't be mourning like that, you're getting too emotional, just let
them, they need to get it off their chest, they need to get those emotions out, you've got to
give them that time to mourn and to weep, you know, if you find yourself in a very sensitive
situation, a very time where you're just weeping and mourning, you need to take time out, that's
fine, there's a time for that, go and relax, go and rest, don't do anything else because if you
go and do something else, even if you go for a drive, you can cause some major, you can do some
major mistakes in your life, okay, you can cause some major damage, make sure you give space for
time and mourning, now brethren if there's someone in our church that's going through a time of
weeping or mourning, the bible says in Romans 12 15, rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep
with them that weep, brethren when someone's going through great mourning in our church,
don't go up to them, slap on the back, ah get over it, no, you know what, yeah we'd like to see them
get over it, of course we want that to be the end product, but if it's premature, okay, they're
going to be at a highly emotional state and they're not going to be effective, they're not going to be
productive, they're not going to be useful, they're going, you're just helping them make wrong
decisions in their life, you know what, when someone's weeping or mourning in our church, we come
alongside them and we weep with them, we mourn with them, say brother I don't know exactly what
you're going through, but you know I'm here for you, I'm praying for you, you know if there's
anything that I can do, please let me know, don't just slap on the back, ah get over it brother,
you know you'll be fine tomorrow, you've got to give space for grief and mourning, all right
brethren in conclusion, in conclusion, when you are experiencing emotions, okay, and you know again
why are your emotions there, emotions are there to help us make a good decision, to respond in
a certain way, but we don't want to respond when our emotions are in check, so in conclusion,
number one, when you're going through an emotional time, ask yourself the question, what am I feeling,
what kind of emotion am I feeling, okay, number two, the next question is, and this comes with
knowing your bible well, number two is why am I feeling this way, why am I feeling this way,
again let's take the example of being offended, oh I'm offended, okay you're offended, all right
fine, why are you offended, oh because brother so-and-so has a different opinion to me about this
or that, well that's your problem, now if brother so-and-so has sinned against you, if they've
trespassed against you, then man that's an issue you need to deal with with them, but listen if
you just got thin skin, you got to figure out, man I'm feeling very emotional because I've just
got thin skin, well learn to get some thicker skin, okay, develop that part of your life instead
of getting angry at your brother who offended you because he loves you, okay, go and get some thick
skin, all right, I mean but hey maybe he did trespass against you, maybe he has done some grave
sin against you, well now you need to go and sort that out with them, absolutely, but you need to
figure out why am I feeling this way, again there's nothing wrong with the feeling, but figure out why
am I feeling this way, so you can make the best decisions moving forward, next question is how
should I be feeling, should I be feeling this way, should I be offended, right, should I be upset
about this, maybe I shouldn't, maybe there's no reason for me to be upset about this, okay, how
should I be feeling, again that comes with the bible knowledge because you know with whether
your feelings are aligned with God's word or whether they're not, all right, and lastly
first point number four is what is the correct action to take, once you figure it out, okay I'm
feeling this way, you know, yes I'm lined up with God's word here, I am feeling the right emotions
toward the right thing, whatever that is, then what is now the correct action to take, you know what,
if you just put these four things into practice, it's going to go a long way to helping you control
your emotions, learn to control your emotions was the title for the sermon this morning, let me just
go through those four things, those four final things once again, ask yourself the question
what am I feeling, what emotion am I feeling, number two why am I feeling this way, number three
how should I be feeling and number four what is the correct action to take, all right Brevin let's pray.