Leon Fontaine - The Emotional Generation
We live in a world right now that is fascinated with emotions. It's probably the most emotional generation I've ever seen. When I look up my grandpa, my grandma, my parents, you know, and then I look at the kids growing up. And even us all of the generations together today in this world and how much this pseudo society in this new age stuff has made us all aware of our feelings. And it's kind of cute, but it is destroying relationships. And today, I wanna give you a biblical look at emotions. I wanna show you somethings they're like, for example, did you know that sin is conceived in the emotions. Today, people think that emotions, we should explore them, we should have them, we should let them go. We should let our children explore their emotions. That they should be free to express themselves. Have you ever been around someone's kids who've never been trained to harness their emotions, control their emotions?
And so you get the thrill of watching them express their emotions. You know, children are mismanagers, and so children must be managed by an outside force, parents. And as you raise those children, they must be managed by an inside force which is their will and the Spirit of God. But we live in a world where even parents don't manage their emotions. There are marriages here right now that it is a mess. You don't know where to go, because there's no conversation that gets anywhere. Because it will get emotional, and you'll talk about your emotions and how you feel. And it's like truth doesn't matter because you've got your perception and I've got my perception. There is no real truth. The Bible does not agree with that at all. And to believe that and to think that is to rage raise each generation to be at the mercy of their emotions.
When God created Adam and Eve, He said everything that He made was good. Therefore, emotions were created beautiful. They were created good, in the positive. But negative emotions all through the Word, it talks about how it destroys. It will destroy your mind, your body, your marriage. If you -, in fact, areas you don't learn to deal with, you have trained them into the next generation and your kids will. I don't care if you're 80 and your kids are 60. If you deal with things as their parent. Did you know, there's a freedom that they will see because they see mom and dad dealing with it. We teach our kids how to live. We teach them how to die. We teach them how to be married. We teach them how to handle problems, walk through storms. We must learn truth. And so this thing about feelings, this thing about emotions, that we're just allowed to have them. We've got to be careful.
In Ephesians 4:17, it says, "So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles". Here, it's talking about people without Christ which is in the futility of their mind. The more you examine your emotions, the more you examine your feelings, the more you try to process and think them through, the more mess up you're gonna get, because it's futility. What goes on in the mind, is a futility it says. And the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding. People who tried to always access their emotions, figure out their emotions, go through, where did it came from, where is it going, how come. It says here that your understanding will be darkened. You think you're discovering yourself but you're darkening your awareness of who you are and where you're going. It says here that you excluded from the life of God. What? You'll never find the joy, the peace, the beauty, the purpose, the life that God has for you from the futility of your mind.
Romans 8 says to be carnally minded is death, to be spiritually minded is life. This goes on to say you'll be excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart. They've become callous and have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. When you talk about emotions, we're talking about sensuality, from the senses, sensuality. There's a word in the Bible called, lasciviousness. I bet you've never heard it or used it. It's an old word lasciviousness. It literally means that you are just given to every emotion, every desire. You live in it. You revel in it and you just follow it out. I want to punch somebody. You gonna go punch somebody. I feel like partying. I'm gonna party. I want sex. I want food. And they just live this craziness of their emotions. This sensualness, this craziness. And it says here that your heart will be darkened and callous and hard.
Okay, I'm gonna say something, here's where we offend the first person. All right, many people think that someone who's got a hard heart is like that guy. That's emotions. That's a hard-hearted guy. Actually, what you're gonna find as we go through this quick message, that people who are given to extreme emotion, living in their emotion, this is how I feel, this is what I think, and they just lived out their emotions, to be very emotional is to be very self-centered. It's a new thought for somebody, to be very emotional is to be very self-centered. To be very emotional is to have a hard heart because you don't know how sit in somebody else's seat or stand in their shoes. You won't think from their perspective because you're too wrapped up in your emotion and it's destroying you, your marriage, you family, your home, your relationship with God.
How does God speak to you when your emotions speak to you so strongly? One of the ways they put it is you become callous, given over to sensuality, the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. When people feel like their emotions are true. When people think their emotions are right. When people feel like I should express my emotion, share my emotion. Then you don't realize how destructive that is. And when you, when we've got an entire generation in entire culture like Canada, America. We're given to such pleasure and you can do whatever you want. And it's no longer your working all day to plow with the few horses to get some food in the ground just to feed your kids. And she's got gardens and kids and your whole life is just to stay alive. And we got all this free time. We don't have all this free time. I'm working 10 hours a day. Yeah, but it used to be 15 when your fighting and hunting and planting. But then you begin to forget about words like duty. What is your duty?
The Bible's very clear about duty. It talks about moral obligations that we have. That as believers we should stand up for truth, for the things of Christ. Even in a democracy, you know, we have sayings like, "When good men do nothing, evil men thrive". So there's things we need to do to rise up and start the conversation and builds. So how do we add to the communities that we live in? You know, when it comes to the word duty, to be responsible, to be accountable, to use your power, what you've been given in a way that works. Sin is conceived in the negative emotions.
Let me show you something. I think will help some of you. You know, we live in a world where as an example, I wanna use this as an example. That, you know, the word conception is not talking about instantly having a child in your arms. It's talking about conception and then 9 months later you have a baby. So sin is conceived. It starts in the emotion. James 1:13, says, let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted from God; for God is incapable of being tempted by what is evil and He Himself tempts no one. But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by the devil. No. It's not what it says, by his own evil desire. In bracket it says lust and passions. Then the evil desire, emotion, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death. Do not be misled, my beloved brethren. There are some people I can't even have a conversation with to help them.
Sometimes when I'm walking people saying, "Just got a minute"? And I'll say, "Yeah". And they spill out a problem and I'll just say this and this. And for some of them it is like a mind-warp because I'm talking, that they wanna talk about me, me, me. And I want to talk about, what's your duty, what's your obligation, what's your purpose? Because without those, you live this unbridled life of in your emotions, how do you feel. And it is in these emotions, these times of strong feelings that sin is conceive, that ideas start there. It might be a while down the road before you walk that thing out and leave or do this. But I think if you'd understand this, it would help you to live a life thinking, that emotions are fine, just to have them and to say them and to use them and this is how I feel. No, that's sin. Let me say that again. To inflict your emotional baggage on someone else is sin. "Yeah, but she loves me".
Oh, I understand that and you're really helping her develop the fruits of the Spirit, aren't you? But it's still sin, because to have fathered in your heart is wrong. Now, why am I saying that? To make you feel guilty? No. Today, I wanna show you how to have power in your life. I wanna show you how to change everything in your world. I wanna show you something so simple that you could walk right out of habitual sin. You could walk right out of a life that is up and down. We know there are many different reasons for mental illness, genetic, and hormonal, and physical diseases. But did you know that when you study whichever of the psychology and whichever of, because there's different kinds of it. It will always include the trauma of your upbringing. It will always include what you think, what you believed. It's so, they'll go hand in hand with whatever is going on with our mental health.
And when you go to Deuteronomy chapter 28 when it lists the blessings of God and the cursings of God. Did you know, that in the curse where it talks about sickness and disease, it includes unhealthy in the mind. In other words, God wants you blessed. He wants all of your life whole. He wants you not just physically healthy. He wants your mind enjoying the world around you, lit up a great person to be around. Faith produces positive emotions. See, when a person has got God's Word and faith begins to rise up. Faith produces peace. It produces joy. In the middle of a storm, it produces a sense of knowing I'll see this thing through. This thing called faith that everybody thinks they understand. When you get to the biblical definition of it, a faith and a trust in God is it affects your emotions. It affects your thinking. It affects every part of your world faith produces.
In 1 Peter 1:6-8, it talks there about your faith and how that trials and tribulations are gonna test it. And then it says it's gonna be, it's gonna be more precious than perishable gold. But the last line verse 8 of 1 Peter 1, if you're taking notes says that you believe in Him and you exult, and you thrill with inexpressible glorious, triumphant, heavenly joy. There's a great emotion. And it didn't say when the storm was over, in the middle of it. So the thing about being a born again believer is that the world, see, the world you have to have happenings to be happy. There's gotta be something joyful in your life to have joy. There's gotta be some end to all the disruption so I can have peace.
And they look at their lives, their physical lives and until things are under control, they don't have the positive emotions. The peace, the joy, the laughter, that, you know, it's all gone while their lives a mess. But the Bible teaches us in the middle of the storm, you can smile and in confidence go on about your everyday life. In the middle of even loss, the believer is shocks the world because even heaven is there, so we never ultimately lose. There's something about God's Word and how it touches us. That we should recognize that we're different than the world. The world and all of its new age stuff and even much of psychology is trying to psychoanalyze your old man. I don't mean your dad. I mean, the old you. They're trying to resurrect him, figure him out, think through.
And the Bible says that's wrong. The Bible says Jesus died so He could die. Oh, did you know that as Christians? The old man is dead. Why am I analyzing him? Why am I letting every one of his emotions and his negative ideas? Why I'm letting all this stuff rise up? John 14:27, Jesus says this, He says, "Peace I leave with you. My own peace I give you, not as the world gives do I give it to you. Don't let your hearts be troubled". He would not say that if He didn't have the ability to do it. Don't let your heart be troubled by envy. Don't let it be troubled by greed. Don't let it be troubled by anger. Don't let it be troubled by jealousy. Don't let it be troubled by anger. All of these negative emotions, they trouble your heart. They mess with your health. They mess with your head. You were never designed to live for hours, for hours in one of those negative emotions, literally days, literally weeks, literally months.
There are people who've lived their entire lives and have never known peace because of how they were raised and what they believed. No wonder we have a world that is burning through meds and things just to numb the anxieties, the fears, the depressions that are -, and there's multiple reasons for them. This is not a lesson that's saying everything -, no. But we need to understand what God's Word can do for us. It goes on to say, do not let your hearts be troubled, in the Amplified, neither let them be afraid. Stop allowing yourself to be agitated, disturbed. Do not permit yourself to be fearful, intimidated, cowardly, and unsettled. That just describes every one of us in this world that we live in and we're all taught that it's just normal. No, it's not. For the believer, why have we set such a low standard? That we're like the world.
I thought we got saved to come out of the world. I thought we got saved to live a life that was completely different. We choose our future by choosing our thoughts and our feelings. So we must be responsible about our thoughts and about our feelings. Isaiah 26:3 says, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusts in thee". Ephesians 5:25-27, it talks there about husbands loving your wife as Christ loves the church. Then He says that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word. Sanctify means to purify from the guilt of sin. You understand that guilt is something that is good. Not shame, guilt. When you dealt with guilt properly, you ask God to forgive you. You give your life to Jesus. It changes it.
If someone never feels guilty for anything they do, you got a psychopath. You got somebody who can do anything, anywhere. Listen to 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, it says, "Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death". Now, it's 2 Corinthians 7:9-10, write in there emotions and think of the words of the makeup and you'll realize it, if we do not turn our lives over to Christ, there is no good way to deal with guilt other than shame comes and it's such suffering.
And then what many of these doctors do, if they're doing what they know is they're dealing with that person who's not born again. They're not alive in Christ. So they've got to get rid of the guilt. The only way they know to get rid of that, is to tell them they're normal. So whatever desires you have, whatever emotions you have. It doesn't matter which directions sexually, physically. Whatever beliefs, they try to normalize that person. And then as they normalized them, the guilt is at least subdued. But then it creates craziness in our world as everything is normal, everything is okay, everything is right. That's not what the Bible teaches. You gotta make a decision. Are you an old victim or a new creation? Are you gonna live out the old man's mess? Are you gonna become that new creation?
Let me quote of my dad's favorite verse. I don't know if he would say that, but I heard him preached on this verse my whole life growing up. It's so seared in my mind that I'm so excited about it. Galatians 2:20, says I've been crucified with Christ. That means killed, dead, nailed, died, last breath. "I've crucified with Christ, it's no longer I who live, but its Christ who lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness comes through the law, I gotta earn it, then Christ died in vain". You need to memorize that verse and start quoting it every day. There's a life you can have that's in Christ.
If you wanna keep going back and analyzing all your old man stuffs, emotions, upbringings. You're lonely today. You're felling sexual today. You're feeling angry today. You're feeling envious today. You're feeling like bragging today. All these emotions that it must be exhausting being in your head. Romans 7:18 says, For I know, this is the apostle Paul listen closely, "For I know that in me that is, in my flesh nothing good dwells". Then why are we psychoanalyzing him? Why are we navel-gazing trying to find ourselves? When you are dead with Christ and you're alive with Him.
In this message I want to show you where to find peace that passes all your problems. You can have peace in the storm. I want you to find joy, when there's nothing joyful in your life. I want you to be happy, when nothing's happening because the world's happiness comes from happenings. I want you to know peace and purpose. So that whatever goes on in this life, you're in anchor, your soul is anchored in Him. There's a life that the Christian haven't embraced and that is the life of Christ. They're too busy psychoanalyzing themselves and going towards all the new age books and through every emotion and feeling.
If I was to analyze every emotion going through my head in any given hour, I'd be a mess. Emotions come and go. The devil loves to also put in thought that creates emotion, how you interpret situations, how you judge others. All of these things keep us locked in an emotional makeup that God can't even speak to you because your emotions speaks stronger than anything else. Let Jesus in. You're a believer. Let Him. Rise up and have the life. Let God's Word cleanse and renew your mind. Let God's Word give you new habits. Get rid of the habitual thinking that is so destroying you and enjoy the incredible mind of Christ. In the Amplified it says, His feelings, His emotions, His purposes, let them be yours.