Welcome Back And Easter Joy

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode of the Midweek Podcast, brought to you by a Fresh Wind Church. Each week our team brings you new content to help you take steps towards Jesus and discover more in Christ. Today's episode is hosted by Pastor Ryan.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Well, hey, welcome back to the Midweek Podcast. Pastor Ryan joined as always with Pastor Tim. And uh Tim, we're back after um, I think it ended up being about a two-week break following Easter and then uh a little bit of vacation time. Um, and so we're we're back, excited to be with you all. And before we jump into the podcast, um man, how awesome was Easter?

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Uh it was it was crazy. We rocked the house on Easter. If you were there, uh, we were trying to blow up the building. We had a great time celebrating the resurrection.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

That is uh one day we we do go pretty hard. Uh had a lady, she's like, it was a little loud, which I listen, full disclosure, I wasn't asking for it to be that loud. I I'm up front underneath the speaker. I have no idea how loud it really is. Uh but listen, it was a little loud. I really enjoyed it. A little loud. I said, come back next week. It's usually not quite as loud.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Yeah, I I think everybody had a great time. It was exciting. I love the way we do Easter here. Um, it's definitely not another Sunday.

Baptism And What Is Coming Next

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, yeah. It's it's a big deal, and rightfully so. Man, that's the that's the day that changed everything. Um, Jesus walking out of the out of the grave, and uh, because he he lives, we can live too. Um, I was I was fired up to preach that day, and um, I was I was praying the Lord would send us a bunch of people, and uh He did. He did, man. Another record-breaking Easter attendance day. Um, and Lord backed the place out, man. Both services. Uh so that was exciting. Um, and I know we got some exciting things coming up. We got a baptism uh right around the corner. We already have people signing up for that. And so if you haven't uh taken that step yet, want to encourage you to sign up for baptism. Um man, apart from Easter, those are probably my favorite Sundays. Yeah, they're great. Um, even now with two services when you gotta get in the water, you're soaking wet, you gotta run and change so you can come back and preach, and then you gotta do it again for the second service, get wet all over again. Even then, it's still man, there's nothing quite like it's worth it. Yeah, it's worth it. Seeing people take that step and uh be raised to new life in Christ. And um yeah, uh Mother's Day, Father's Day, we got a uh Father's Day camp out, uh, I think that we we got in the works. Yeah. Um, so lots of exciting and VBS, man. I almost miss VBS. Tons of stuff coming up, and so um it's man, as awesome as Easter was, and it was awesome. Um, a lot coming up on the calendar to look forward to. And um, man, just excited about what God is doing here and excited to have you all along for the journey. Um, I, you know, a couple weeks ago we were uh in this series. I, you know, we had it was in the shop and I told people they had some homework to do and they had to listen to the podcast. I didn't have time to talk through everything. Um, and I want you to know uh we saw it, uh huge spike in uh listeners uh over those couple sermons. Um and so super appreciative, uh appreciative of y'all jumping in here, listening to that, and hoping uh and really praying that God would use uh those discussions on the podcast to help you, you know, gain, I don't know, a little bit deeper insight into what we're talking about on Sunday mornings. But more importantly, what on the midweek podcast, we really want to help you apply what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Make it work in your life.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah. Take it from this theoretical thing, maybe that you hear on a Sunday morning and you're like, okay, yep, got it. That that all makes sense. What do I do with it? Right. That's what we want to help you with uh on the midweek podcast.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Especially for this new series that we're in, uh You're not the boss of me. Um, this is a uh one of those subjects where uh you're talking about uh strongholds, um emotions, all these things that um affect our life every day, and we learn to maintain them, and basically we learn from our parents what they did and then what their parents did, depending on if they did it well or bad, if they did it bad, you might go opposite of what they did, and sometimes uh you double down on what they did, you know. Um, but I think the scripture gives us um a real uh plan for us to deal with our emotions, because uh, like I said on uh the week before uh Sunday, and what you said on Sunday is that emotions are real, they're not fake. You can't you feel it, but they're not always true, and that's the problem. And that's how uh you know our adversary is always trying to get us uh worked up in our emotions about something that's not true, and that that becomes uh a part of our life, and every time we come up against that untruth again, there's all these emotions there that you gotta dig through and uh before you can get to the truth. In uh 1 Corinthians chapter 13 Paul says um love always rejoices when truth wins out. So true love. And uh sometimes it's a battle to get to the truth, but that's what love costs is that battle.

Emotions Are Servants Not Bosses

SPEAKER_01 5:49

So emotions definitely have uh a way of dragging us around, man. And I the whole kind of premise for this, you're not the boss of me, um, is we want you to to take charge of this. Um because a lot of us we've like you were just alluding to, we've become accustomed to this. This is just life, you know. Um we've we've kind of given up the fight sometimes and just say, well, I you know, I'm an anxious person, or um guilt. Uh some of us we've lived with guilt for so long that we don't even we don't even really think about it anymore. It's just that's in the background of our life every day, the default, you know. And this is a series to wake us up and say, Man, you you don't have to live this way. No, you don't. Um now it's gonna take, like you're saying, there's a fight here. You gotta, there's some some hard work that's gonna have to be done, but these things don't have to be the boss of you. Um, and so uh it's it's really a wake-up call. You're not the boss of me. And you know, each week we're kind of going through this uh the series tagline is emotions make great servants, but terrible bosses, right? Um, and it's true, man. Emotions, you know, when you uh take a bite of that pecan cheese pie from um uh mama joe's the emotion in that moment is great. I tell you, that that pie comes up a lot on this podcast. Uh it's it'll change your life, I'll tell you that. But then, you know, then there's other emotions that come in and and they're destructive. Um my daughter Ellie, uh, so we're in this emotion series, but she she this is she told me this is how she deals with pain, like in when she's playing soccer or whatever, you know, she gets kicked in the foot or whatever. She goes, I just tell myself pain's not real, it's just a feeling, just like any other feeling. It's not real. Like, okay, problem is we still feel it, right? Um, and so these things they're real, and we're saying, man, we can't deny the fact that we feel these things, we feel anxious, we feel guilt, you know, we we we feel it, but just because we feel that thing doesn't mean it's true, and it doesn't have to boss you around. And so, what are the steps that we're gonna take to kind of take control of those things?

The World Knows How To Manipulate

SPEAKER_02 8:14

And these things, these feelings are a gift from God. Uh live life without emotions. How boring would that be? Yeah, that's a good point. You know, and uh so we wanna we wanna feel our emotions to the utmost. We want them all. And uh we want uh when we feel joy, we we want to feel as much joy as we can. And when we're grieving, we want to grieve hard. I mean, if you don't grieve, uh you'll grieve for a long time. If you're just gonna let it out and leak it out a little bit, man, just go all out and grieve. The thing is, though, you put up those walls so that we feel our emotions aligned with truth and not our emotions that are aligned with falsehood. Now, here's the problem. Our entire world has figured this out. They have figured out how to lead you around by your emotions. That's why the malls, the cookie shops in the malls pump all that cookie cooking air in the air, you know. Um, that's why when you walk up to uh a department store and uh see the mannequins or whatever that um are looking good in the window or whatever, they're trying to get your emotions up. And so everybody's trying to sell you stuff, everybody is trying to play with your emotions. That goes with politics, that goes with YouTube and X and uh Instagram. Everybody is looking to flip a switch on you and uh so they can control how you think. And that should make you mad, that should make you angry, and it it should uh teach you to move in a direction to where uh that you are not one of those guys that they can manipulate through your emotions. So one of the things when we're talking about building walls for your emotions to uh travel down is you want your emotions trapped in a uh circle or a hallway, I called it the first Sunday, of truth. And I think you did a great job on Sunday is building some walls against guilt and anxiety. And even though guilt and anxiety kind of team up on you, um you just you get anxious when you feel guilty, you're waiting for whatever that is to be revealed or whatever, and we live in guilt and anxiety, and we don't even know it. We we don't name it, and uh that's one of the problems we have, and I love the way you you put those walls down on guilt and you put those walls down in anxiety, and then we know because we took you took the time for all of us to lay those walls down. Now, when we feel guilty, it bangs right up against uh Romans chapter 8, verse 1. Right. Wait, there's no condemnation in you. Were you guilty? Yes, you were. Will you have to pay? No, that price has been paid on the cross. And you you can't you can't get past that. Well, I want to feel guilty. Well, no, you don't get to feel guilty because Jesus took your price. As soon as you feel guilty for that, you're saying your price wasn't good enough. What you paid was not good enough, Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

I need to pay too.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Right. And then on the anxiety side, um, we built walls saying that anxiety's not for you. You're supposed to give it to me. And uh so you need to hurl it at Jesus, I think that's how you described it. And um, so what we did on Sunday was build walls that these two emotions that we deal with a lot, even though we don't name them, get trapped inside. Right. And uh these truths. And then it's okay to deal with these things, you know? It's okay to talk about it because you're always gonna be bumping into the walls. It can't get into other areas of your life and affect your relationship with your wife or your kids or all those things because you're before you can get there, they hit the wall.

Building Truth Walls For Guilt

SPEAKER_01 12:39

We know, even after a series like this, the emotions gonna come, right? There's gonna come a moment where you feel guilty. There's gonna come a moment when anxiety starts to creep in. We know that. But what we're saying is you build these walls up and it it keeps it in place. It can't take over your your marriage, it can't influence how how you raise your kids because it bumps up against the truth of God's word. And so, yeah, on Sunday, you know, I did a lot of hard work trying to get us ready for for guilt and anxiety, but you need to whatever it is for you, you know, maybe you say, I don't really struggle with guilt and anxiety. Well, what's the one that you struggle with to build walls around those things? Um the problem is, and man, you've you have hammered this home. Um But we we tend to build walls not out of truth but out of our emotion, right?

Building Truth Walls For Anxiety

When A Lie Shapes Lasting Anger

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Right, and I think that's what um it's one of the tricks of Satan is to is to build walls of emotion around things, and they're usually untrue. And uh when you once you believe a lie, um I believe that Satan starts to build emotional walls around that. So you can't even be approached on on whatever that is. If someone says, hey, you know what, you're saying this, you're acting like this, but that's not truth. And uh I came up with an illustration a long time ago, and this is this is a tough one for people to hear. Um, but this is being tough. This this part of Christianity, what we're doing here, um, you're doing already. You're going to church, you're going to your life group, you're reading through the Bible, you're doing your daily devotion. You are uh immersing yourself in truth, uh whether you know it or not. And you're building, you're you're bringing into your mind and into your heart the building blocks of these walls. You just haven't built the wall yet for that specific thing. So every time you come to church, every time you read your Bible, you are you're bringing in the building blocks of truth. And um if you've been going to church for very long, you got plenty of building blocks in there, you just need to put them together. And uh these these things um happen to us, and it's like it's like when back I don't know, I am so old now. Thirty years ago, they would say, uh, okay, you need to exercise for twenty minutes three times a week, you know, and that'll that'll make these big changes in your life. And we all kind of rolled our eyes, like, all right, 20 minutes three times a week, right. Um that's not gonna do much. And we're right, that's not gonna do much. But that's what we're doing when we're going to church, we're being faithful, and uh we're receiving God's word. Um, we're just we're just doing that 20 minutes three times a week. If you really want to get serious about your loyalty to Jesus and serious about transformation in your life, then you're gonna have to pick up the pace a little bit, and that's what we're talking about right here, is grabbing a hold of yourself and saying, you are not gonna act like that anymore. And uh, so it's tough. It's more than 20 minutes three times a week. It's it's gonna be a wrestling match. And if you just look at how much you studied for that sermon last week, that is what we all have to do to get ready to combat these emotions and lock them in the hallways that they belong in. It takes a little study, it takes a little time, and uh, but the Lord has made that available to you uh in his word. So we need to do that. So here's the here's the illustration. So there's a little church in the Midwest somewhere, and um this deacon gets a call uh late one night and says, Um The pastor sexually assaulted my daughter last night at church. And he's like, What? And it's it becomes this um huge thing. And right away his wife says, I didn't like that guy anyways, I didn't trust him. Yeah, you're probably right. I should've, you know, we should have never brought him in. Um and then they get the deacon board together and they say, What are we gonna do? Well, we need to call the cops, and they call the cops, and and then Sunday rolls around and pastor gets up there and preaches like normal, nobody says anything. Now the whole church knows and they're talking and they're having meetings without the pastor. What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? Well, I know I know the police chief. I'll get him in and and see why he hasn't been arrested. Okay, we'll have another meeting and we'll all come and and man, they're furious. I knew we shouldn't have trusted this guy, I knew uh man, and uh he just gets up there and he's so arrogant and and he's this monster that we've all let in here, you know. How could God turn his back on us like this? So they bring the police chief in and he stands up there. We want to know why the pastor hasn't been arrested. For what? Well he was accused of of doing this. Yeah, he was accused, but he wasn't in the country. He has an alibi. His passport uh was stamped, and uh he was in Mexico, there's pictures of him in Mexico, and he came back to the United States on this day, and when this was supposed to have happened, he wasn't here. Now you can just imagine yourself at that meeting. But let me tell you what will happen 100% of the time. They will get rid of that pastor anyways because they built their hatred, their resentment against that pastor on a lie. And you just can't just say, Okay, that's not true. I'm okay now. That's just not how we work, and that's how that's why this is so important that you get your emotions in the hallway and that they respond to truth and not overpower it and beat it down. Um so what usually happens is um they're all shocked, but in a few months they get rid of the pastor anyways, because they never really liked him. Well, that's a lie. And that's you know, and I use that illustration because um it's just something that we see happening all the time. You find out something about somebody, it might be gossip, but when you find out it's a lie, you have all these emotions around it that you don't know what to do with. And uh so what do what do you do? I mean, that's a lot of work. You know, love your neighbor as yourself, pray for your enemies, because you've made that person your enemy now. Um all kinds of different scripture that you gotta pull up to to salvage that relationship. And what do we usually do? We don't do that work, and we just say, I'm just gonna write them off, even though I don't know if it's true, but man, it feels true, right? So emotions can get us really tied up. And this, man, I I love this uh series because it's time to grab a hold of those things, wrestle them down, and say, You serve me. Right, right. I don't serve you. Yep. And it's very, very important in the Christian life. And uh, I know sometimes it feels like that. We're like, man, this is just a lot of stuff. It is a lot of stuff. It is a lot of stuff, but you are not alone. Like I said, you are already um um got the got the blocks that you need to build these walls in the storehouse. You've read those scriptures. Um, you probably, when you deal with something, you got a scripture that kind of comes to mind because the Holy Spirit is like, hey, use this. You know?

Legos, Scripture, And Real Practice

SPEAKER_01 21:28

It makes me, you know. Got four kids, they've all gone through the Lego stage, right? Um, want Legos, want Legos, want Legos, want Legos. Um and you're like, that's great until you go to the store to buy Legos, and you're like, how much they want for that plastic block. But what eventually happens, right, is you buy all these Lego sets and they all end up not in separate boxes, but in one giant container of all the Legos mixed in. Um when you go to church and you listen to a sermon. Or you listen to a podcast like this one, you go to Life Group and you're reading a book. If you look at it kind of like, man, each time I'm doing that, every time I open up God's word to read through the Bible, whatever it is, I'm getting a Lego block, right? How I don't even know the word not miserable. How uh oh man regretful. That's not the word I want either. But to just leave all of these blocks that we've been given in the container. And we could have been building walls out of them. Walls of truth. I mean, these blocks are God's word. This is what you're hearing. And you could be building blocks, all these walls out of these blocks, and instead they're laying in a container, and you're not doing anything with it. And so, yeah, something comes up, and and you might be just like you're trying to build that one thing, like, oh, I remember that one Lego, and you got to go dig through the box to try to find that one little Lego that fits perfectly. Right. Well, yeah, I mean, you kind of got a recollection of what's in there, right? Oh, there's a verse about that, oh, I'm not sure where's it at, and you got to go try to remember what that verse said and put it in Google. You could take that approach, or you could start getting the directions back out, sorting the blocks, and start building some walls of truth around these emotions so that they don't control you anymore. They don't have to be your boss. And unfortunately, um I think too many of us we've we've left all those pieces just uh a pile in this container in the closet. Um, and we try to pull it out when we need it. But man, it it can be so much more in your life. Um if if you'll take the time to sort through it all and start building up these blocks to say, man, what does God's word really say about guilt? And you go and you find you find the stories, you find the verses, you find the passages, you know, you get into the concordance in your Bible, or you know, you use a Bible software like Logos or a website like Blue Letter Bible, um Bible Gateway is another one. You know, you jump on there and you you type those words in, okay. What does the Bible say about this? And not even what is what did my pastor say? Or or what does that famous pastor over there say in that YouTube video? All that's great, but what does God's word actually say? Type that word in and go look and start to build a wall around these things so that when guilt comes up, it runs smack dab into therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

It's pretty exciting when you think about it. Uh, we've been doing this for 2,000 years. Um, Bibles came out and they had Bible dictionaries in the back. So you would look up worry, you know, in the back, and you would find it. Uh it'd have a list of scriptures that just has the word worry in it. You don't know what it's going to say about worry until you get there. Um so we would we would look those up. Now you can you can type in what's the Bible say about worry? And uh they'll give you three scriptures, then you can say, give me 80 verses about worry, and it will give you 80 verses about worry. And you can begin to take those blocks that you know and build a wall against worry, or well, worry and anxiety is what we're talking about Sunday, but it can be anger, it can be lust, it can be um depression, uh, unworthiness, all those things. What right what does God say about me being unworthy? And suddenly you got all these verses saying that He gave His life for you, you know, and you begin to build these blocks, and those are blocks, everything I just said, you already know the truth about that. You just never looked at it that way and built a hallway for that emotion, right? And this is so important, and I you know, we never even started on the script that we had for this podcast. I don't even know how we're gonna get back. But this is so important for our church community, this is so important for fresh wind, because when you are um being controlled by emotion, you build this wall and it works for you. That is there and available for the next Christian coming down, and you say, Hey, let's get in your box of Legos over here, and I'll show you the ones that I pulled out and how I built my wall because my emotion kind of had this flavor, and the Lord led me to this verse, and uh I've been able to bump up against that thing every time I feel that way. Let me show you how to do that, and that's exactly what Paul is talking about in uh 2 Corinthians chapter 1, when he says, Praise to be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. And it's so important in the Christian community that we fight these things because someone, and it might even be your own kids, will be dealing with this somewhere down, and you can say, This is what I did, and this is how I built it. Or I heard this sermon and it led me to this and this and this, and now um when I feel that way, that feeling is surrounded by the truth of God, and I have to acknowledge it. But if you don't do the hard work, which is more than 20 minutes a day, three times a week, um, you're gonna have to attack these things. And if you don't want to be someone who's ruled by their emotions, you're gonna have to get serious about it.

unknown 28:04

Yeah.

Share Your Walls And Help Others

SPEAKER_01 28:05

What a shame it would be to leave all those blocks sitting in the container, man. Um and not that God can't pull them out every now and then and just throw them at you. Hey, you need this one right now. But I man, we would be we'd be so much freer um if we would just take the time. It's the same thing, you know, when you you go to the garage, you start cleaning up your tool bench and you put everything where it goes, and it takes you two, three hours to get everything sorted just right. You're out there, feels like for days, you know. But then the next time you need that hammer or that screwdriver or that one bit, you know, right where it's at. Right, where it's at. You know, it's gonna take some hard work to sort through this this box of Legos and some maintenance. Yep. But you you you put in the time, and all of a sudden you can start constructing these walls. Um, you know, you mentioned a sermon, and I think I've talked about this on the podcast. I know I think I was talking to Dominique. She said she went back from the beginning. She said, I was kind of late to the midweek podcast. So I went back to the beginning uh on the days that you know the midweek podcast isn't released. She's been going back listening all the way from episode one. Uh so this is golly, six years now worth of podcast. Um, she's like, You share this one story a lot. I'm gonna have to get new content. The the bane of every pastor, right? But uh man, years ago I listened to this sermon called God's Will is Whatever, and I think it was by Steven Furtick. Um, and just it became a wall for me because the way I grew up, I thought God's will was this one specific thing, and if I missed it, yep, I missed out on God's plan for my life and I've wasted it. My life is gonna amount to nothing. Why even live for him at this point? Right, and that's the fear I lived in every day, and then I heard that sermon, God's Will is whatever. And I started going back and looking up scripture. Man, is that true? Could could it be more about who I'm becoming than what I do? And and I man, and it became true. It was just there, all over the pages of scripture. I'm like, how have I not seen it? And now it's this wall for me. And every time the enemy says, Man, you should be so much further along. Oh man, you've never you you're never gonna amount to the person God really wanted you to be. Um it runs right, man. God's will for me is is whatever. And if I'm becoming the person that he wants me to be, it doesn't matter how many people show up to this church, it doesn't matter how many people follow me on Facebook or X or whatever. I'm not even on those things, really. Or even listen to this button, or even listen to this podcast. It's about me becoming the person God created me to be. And so God's will is whatever. It it doesn't matter, and so that's one of those things that we're talking about. You can build a wall around these things that that your emotions have to bump up against and they can't take over anymore. As soon as it hits that wall, the truth has to be stronger, but you've got to get those Legos out of the container and start building some walls. Um, as a church, we try to give you a lot of Legos through the podcast, through our sermons, through discovery classes and life groups and the Forge Bible study, ladies' Bible study. There's all these opportunities, uh, conferences that we do to give you some Legos, and then you have to be responsible to start taking those Legos because you know, yeah, this series on is on guilt and emotions and anxiety, whatever. But then, you know, a couple years ago we talked about this same sort of idea over here, we talked about that verse over here. Well, now you've got to start taking all of that and building a wall out of it, right? Um and so, yeah, is it gonna happen overnight? No, but if you put in a couple hours on on one of these emotions that you've really been struggling with, you could have a pretty good wall.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

That's true. And uh it won't take you long either because there's somebody who's right there handing you bricks, and his name is the Holy Spirit, right? And he is like, I want this wall as much as you do because I want to express myself through you. That's and I don't want to be ran around by your emotions. Yeah, you know, every time we get into something, you get angry or you get sad, and then you know, we don't do nothing. So he's like, Let's go, right? Let's build some walls so we can so we can do what what you know what I want to do through you, and it's very important. I think the biggest problems in this subject matter that we're dealing with right now is since we're dealing with emotions and feelings, we feel like we should be combating our bad feelings with good feelings. And uh that's like you have a big flood and you're like, let's get some water. That'll that'll really help us here, you know. Uh, you don't fight feelings with feelings, you fight feelings with truth, objective truth. That's good. And we get that out of the word of God, and and so that way our feelings don't have to be um struggled with. We don't have to keep a cap on them, you know. How everybody's just I'm just trying to be in between, and you know, I don't want to run hot and I don't want to run cold, and I I don't I don't want to be a monster with my emotions, and at the same time, you know, I don't want to be uh dead in my emotions. I gotta just kind of maintain, and that's what every psychologist is trying to get you to do. That's exactly what they come on, you're just you're too high here. You know, uh remember how your mom treats you here, and you can meditate on that, and that'll bring you down, and or this will bring you up. And it's like, no, no, no, don't fight feelings with feelings, fight feelings with truth. Yeah, and uh when you do that, then you can feel them, you can embrace them because they're wrapped in truth, and then you can live a life that is abundantly full, like the life that Jesus wants you to have. Uh you can express joy, you can uh you can express sadness, but you know that when you do you're leading that emotion, it's not leading you, you're the boss of your emotions, right?

Fight Feelings With Objective Truth

SPEAKER_01 34:29

And that is so important. We are created in the image of God, and he's an emotional being, man. He feels these things. Um, he sings over his people. I mean, imagine the joy he must have that when he looks at us, he sings. Um there's times he gets angry, you know. Read the Bible, there's times he's ticked. Um Jesus, when when his friend Lazarus died, says he wept. Right. I mean, you wouldn't talk about grief. Um and and just let's pause there for a minute.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

He wept. He not only wept for Lazarus because he died, but he wept for the people because they couldn't see the truth about who Jesus was. And Martha's like, um, I know Lazarus will be resurrected in the last time in the last day, and Jesus just flat out said, I am, I am the resurrection. Don't you see that? And it made him weep.

unknown 35:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

And he embraced that grief and everything, but at the same time, he knew he was gonna call him out of the tomb.

unknown 35:44

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

And and you would think, well, well, he he knew he's gonna do it, so it probably really didn't affect him that much that he died. He knew he was gonna die, and they said he was sick and he wouldn't go, and then he died, and then he went. So we all know that he knew everything that was gonna happen at this time. I get it, but he still was able to feel it all and still stand in truth, and that's who we want to be, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:12

You were created to feel, you were created to have emotions, and so this series is not saying emotions are a bad thing. Um, they they bring so much excitement to life, you know, passion, passion to life. Um, like you said earlier, man, how boring it would be if we were all just emotionless beast wandering around. Um, it it's it's what makes life so exciting. Um but man, we have we have mishandled it for so long that now these things control us. And I I was talking about, you know, you know, when dad's had a bad day at work, uh, as soon as he comes home, boom, you know, he's angry. That's a guy who's who's lost control of his emotions. Um and and we think I'm just being a man. No, you're being a baby.

unknown 37:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

This is what children do, you know, right? Children throw fits. Um, this isn't what a man does. You you've lost control. And listen, I've been there, you know. Um, I know what it's like to lose your temper and lose your cool and let the emotions take over. Um, and we're saying, man, let's let's put in the hard work so that we don't have to live life that way anymore. It doesn't have to be this way. We've just kind of bought the lie, this is how it's always gonna be. And it doesn't have to be. You can be free from these things. Um, but we got to build these walls.

Jesus Feels Deeply Without Losing Truth

SPEAKER_02 37:40

And I think uh what's exciting about doing the hard work and and doing this and tearing down um these strongholds that we have in our life, which is just a stronghold, a good definition, is a lie that you believe uh that uh is surrounded by emotion, and that emotion tries to protect that lie. And those are difficult to tear out, and sometimes we we have to just tear them down in the name of Jesus and say, I am not gonna feel guilty anymore. He carried my guilt, I'm loyal to Jesus and what he did for me, and I will not nail him back up on the cross over this thing that he said I'm free from. So, and that's a that's a lot of truth that um is kind of shocks you out of those uh type of situations. But sometimes we we build these walls, and the great thing about having them built in truth is that they'll apply sometimes to another thing that you're um dealing with. So let's take that guilty wall. Um there's now no condemnation. Um not only did he uh forgive me, not only did he pay my price, but he gave me heaven. And uh he just turned around and and blessed me like crazy, and I didn't do nothing but be guilty. Right? I didn't do nothing. So then you're dealing with um this performance-based Christianity where you're like, I I need to perform, I need to um it feels righteous for me to be, you know, the good guy, the whatever, and this is what God wants me to do. He wants me to to work hard and and be righteous. Well, then that feeling, which is uh, we would all say that's a a good feeling to have, is you know, I want to I want to work hard for Jesus and and be righteous for him, but it runs into that same wall on the other side saying, no, no, no, no, no. He gave you his righteousness, he already gave it to you. You're just living up to who you are. It's not about your performance. You don't have to perform for me. I already took care of it all. Be free. I I freed you for freedom's sake.

unknown 40:17

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

I didn't free you so you can perform for me. So you here's you you've built this wall against guilt that becomes on the other side of the wall, becomes a wall from this uh I gotta be good for Jesus thing.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Right, you know, performance-driven Christianity.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

Right, to earn my place or or whatever. And so now you built one wall, and now you got two. And I and I love uh this almost applies to everything you talk about, you know. So uh you talk about lust. Um so you build a wall against lust, and you you like I said that Sunday is you you you build it to where it always ends with your spouse at the end of that hallway, you know. But then you get to the end of that hallway and she's like, Don't even look at me. So don't even look at me like that, the way you treated me yesterday, and da da da. So now you got a wall that you've built against lust that leads you back to your wife, but on the other side of that wall, suddenly you got uh you need to love her like Christ loves the church. Of course she don't want to be with you. You treat her like garbage all the time. You built this wall against lust that can't fulfill you because you haven't built this other wall. So it just leads you to build the house, right? On the solid rock, the truth of scripture. And they all start um coming together, uh, and they they all snap together. They're all little blocks, uh little Legos that snap together, and we we need to start building some of that in our lives.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

And they will they will start connecting, and then you'll you'll have a house that truth built instead of emotion, and a house where you're free to to walk around and enjoy it, you know, you're protected from the elements. Um and that's man, if you get anything out of this series, that's what we want for you is to live in freedom, to live in joy. And and you think, well, man, this all sounds like too much work. I'm never gonna have time for freedom and joy if I got to do all this work. You don't have time not to do this work.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

Amen.

Strongholds, Performance, Lust, And Freedom

SPEAKER_01 42:39

Otherwise, you go on living the same way, trapped in the same guilt, the same regret, the same anger, the same bitterness and unforgiveness. And take the time. Set yourself up to put these walls up, and you can live free. Jesus, like you said, for freedom, he set us free. That's what he wants. That's what we want for you as your pastors. Do the hard work. And when you get stuck and you're like, man, I I don't know. Send Tim and I an email. Right. Hey, I'm I'm struggling with this thing. What are some verses? And if you go to Google and you can't find them, let us know. We'll we'll send you some verses. Um, we'll we'll help give you some more Legos to build.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

We might even know someone who's gone through that same thing and is ready to show you how they did it.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Yep, here's the blueprints for the wall. I got it right here. Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:30

Oh, built that one a long time ago. So let me get it out of the filing cabinet. So it's uh, and you have so many resources. You know, what does um your favorite pastor preach about this situation? And you can bring it up and watch it on YouTube. And then you know he mentions of some verses. Take those verses and write them down and say, This is how I'm going to structure my wall against this thing. And thank you, Lord Jesus, for everything that you do for your Church that we have this available. There's a lot of churches in the world today that don't have those things available. And they're just barely getting by. But let's use the Word of God. Let's use the preachers we have access to. Let's use our brothers and sisters in Christ and build some walls so we can live.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

You know, here's another resource for you. We don't we don't mention it really enough around here, but we it's a subscription that we pay for for all of you, is uh RightNow Media. Absolutely. And if you go to the Freshwind app, you click on the raise tab, I think under Discipleship Resources or something, you can create a Right Now Media account. And there's man, I won't I used to be over 10,000. I think it's over 20 or 25,000 uh videos on there now. I think it's over 45 now. Over 45. So on any of these topics, I mean if you're struggling with guilt, struggling with your finances, you're struggling with lust, you're struggling with porn, whatever, you can go there, there's a study for it, you can watch the study, and don't just watch it with the mental ascent. And this is what I know week one, you were trying to say, I tried to bring it up yesterday. It's not enough to say, yeah, I struggle with that, and do nothing. Right. The mental ascent isn't gonna to fix this. You've got to start taking those things and applying it. And so, what are those verses that they're talking about in that study? And you can write down so right now, media, another great uh resource. It's free for you. Church pays for the subscription. All you've got to do is go to the app, sign up for your account, um, and you can start watching those.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

And if you're looking for cartoons for the kids that you don't have to worry about, they got a bunch of those too.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

Yep, yep, whole kids section. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

So um, so let me say all this to say this. Um, this is gonna be tough for you if you're not sick of it first.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

What does Dave Ramsey say? I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Right.

Practical Help And RightNow Media

SPEAKER_02 46:02

I think uh I think we need to understand that there's some people out there who love their sadness, they love their hurt, they love their anger, they love their rage. And um there's something in it that's um scratching an itch for 'em somewhere, some down deep. So one of the things that we have to understand is that we want to have the mind of God in these things. And the Lord wants you to give his mind um to you, and he wants you to desire what he wants. And he's working in you every day to produce that. So when you get to the point where you're like, I don't want to work on that, I kind of like how I am in that area, you know, or I like my hurt, I like I like my bitterness, and I like these emotions, and I don't want to give them up. Well, if the Holy Spirit has called you and say, Hey, that's out of control, then the first thing you need is is Lord, give me the desire to fix this. And He will. He will make you sick of it. Make you sick of being led around by your nose. And uh then uh you can start building these walls. But it's hard to build walls with no um motivation. You know, no, but I really like that and I don't really want to build a wall, I don't want to know how bad I'm actually doing, you know. Uh so um, but if you're if you're in that position, I just wanted to uh bring it up here at the end, is just to say, ask the Lord to give you the desire to be like him in this emotion that that uh that you like and you don't want to give up. So um that's important too. But don't give up on your brothers and sisters, guys. That's what uh life groups are about, and you can just say my work makes me out of control and I'm so anxious and whatever. What have you guys done that helped you? And uh and let's let's carry each other's burdens, as as Paul said. Um let's let's figure this out together. And uh maybe the wall you begin building at uh Life Group that week is a wall that someone in your life group group needs to start building and they didn't know they needed to do it. So um let's be good to each other in that.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Well, we uh we missed the script for this podcast altogether. Uh so you might have to come back next week and see if we can get ourselves back on track. But I think this is an important principle. Um and and we're trying to allude to it, I think, in in the first two weeks of this series, but we wanted to really nail this down for you. Um this is this is graduate level Christianity. Right. We're we're moving past milk here. Um and and we're doing some of the hard things to say, man, God, if I'm gonna be who you've really created me to be, I can't allow these things to take over and and take charge anymore. I've I want them to serve me. I want to experience life and emotions the way that you intended. Um, but that means I gotta be the boss of them. That's right. And I'm not I'm not gonna allow this to happen anymore. So uh let's grab some of these emotions, guilt and anxiety this week, let them know they're not the boss, and uh start building some walls.

Ask God For Desire To Change

SPEAKER_02 49:44

We should plug next week too. So Ryan taught Sunday, and this is very important, it was something that we discussed when we were uh putting together this series, because a lot of people have talked on this, but they don't um they don't really go in depth. And the reason we put guilt and anxiety together is because they get stuck in a loop, like Ryan said on Sunday. They they help each other. So if you build uh a wall against guilt and you don't do anything about the anxiety that guilt produces, then suddenly you you only have one wall. So you're not in the hallway anymore, right? So um we're gonna do that again for you this Sunday with fear and envy. So I want you to think about it this week. What how does fear and envy start a loop? And um, and I think I think it's gonna it'll blow your mind. So a lot of times, a lot of times when you're dealing with this one emotion, it's got some hooks in another one, and you gotta be ready to to figure that out. But we we wanted to do these uh complicated ones for you so you can learn how to do them on your own. So fear and envy coming up this week.

Next Week Fear And Envy

SPEAKER_01 51:03

Yep. And we're obviously, yeah, we're you know, only got two weeks left. We're not gonna cover all the emotions uh.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

No, no, but we just want you we want you guys to know how to apply this truth, which is uh wall up your emotions with truth. And we want you to apply it to your life, and so we're gonna we're just showing you some examples on how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

Some of the more complicated ones, and to see how these things sometimes you know cross over a little bit. And we think it's this thing, but it might actually be this thing. And so uh, if you're not experiencing freedom, well, you might not be addressing the root cause of it, you know. Right. Um, you're just putting a bayonet over something, and we we gotta get down there and see what's really going on here. So uh yeah, definitely come back uh for the next two weeks. Um, and then hopefully the principles you learn through the sermons, through the podcast, uh, we'll give you the resources and the tools you need to start building walls around the other emotions um that you have. So, Pastor Tim, will you pray for us?

Prayer, Feedback, And Support

SPEAKER_02 52:01

Lord, I want to thank you for your Holy Spirit, which none of this can be done without him. And uh thank you that he's there um with his work apron on, ready to build some walls uh around our emotions, not to stop them, but so that we can we can enjoy them. And Father, I pray that um your uh your people will listen to this podcast and understand uh what their pastors are trying to do here. They're trying to to get them to grab a hold of themselves and say, You are not gonna live this way anymore. And this is the tough stuff of trying to become more like you, is not just giving mental assent to what the Bible says, but actually bringing uh the words of God alive in our life and uh letting them do some of this hard work that we're trying to um we're trying to stop a flood with more water. Stop a feeling with another feeling. And Lord, uh that's not how you you designed us. So, Father, I pray that uh your Holy Spirit will do a great work in our church through this, and that for the rest of the rest of the lives of everyone who who uh hears this series of sermons, we'll begin to get some blocks out of the box and uh build some walls so they can be free. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Thanks again for joining us for this episode of the Midweek Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know how God is using this resource in your life or send any podcast questions or topic ideas to podcast at a freshwind.org. If you would like to support this ministry financially and help us continue offering you resources that equip you to discover more in Christ, simply text any amount to the number 84321. We're so grateful for your support. Make sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the Midweek Podcast. Be blessed and have a great week.