Love God
•
Love People
It’s Well with My Soul – Week 2
Bryan Jones
April 23, 2023
A. Introduction (1 Kings 17:1-4; 18:37-39; 19:2-4; James 4:17-18)
Today I want to talk to you about what it means to love God with all your
soul. Today’s title of the message is…. It’s Well with My Soul.
Last week we talked about the heart. As the operating system. The engine or
the CPU. The most important thing in our faith is that our hearts have been
changed…
Now loving God with your heart is a starting point, then you have the soul…
If the heart relates to your will, your commitment. The soul relates to our
affections or our emotions.
Soul = Our affections or emotions.
Now your soul is what expresses sorrow and joy.
But it’s possible to have our hearts changed and not to love God with our
souls. The most important part of faith is that your heart has changed… God
does that alone… but you have work to do to get emotionally healthy… that
means you have to work through the pain, past, upbringing and so on… God
won’t do it for you…
What God wants is for our emotional health or emotional integration.
When I speak about emotional integration…
That’s your soul.
Where are you on the chart? It must be spouse approved… some of your
spouses are going yep, he’s repressed.
Things that affect our souls:
1.)
Past
2.)
Pain
3.)
Pace
4.)
Parents
Reasons I think this is so important, I think Jesus was the most
emotionally intelligent and integrated person on the planet. Your emotions
and affections really do matter, and we don’t often talk about this in
church.
Now as we look at the subject of emotional health, meaning making sure we
learn to love God with our affections and emotions I want to look at
someone who struggled to do this at times a man named Elijah…
He seems to have some emotional ups and downs…
Key moments…
1 Kings 17
-
Elijah goes into hiding from King Ahab.
-
The stream where he gets water dries up.
-
He heals the widow’s son.
1 Kings 17:1 (NLT)
page 293
Now Elijah, who was from Tishbe in Gilead, told King Ahab, “As surely
as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives—the God I serve—there will be no
dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word!”
[Show map and chart] Ahab was a king in the northern kingdom… where is
Elijah…
Elijah is a part of the northern kingdom. The nation of Israel has split
into two kingdoms.
|
Northern Kingdom
|
Southern
Kingdom
|
|
Israel
10 tribes
19 Leaders
All Evil
|
Judah
2 tribes
17 Leaders
8 Good
|
(See here you have proof that God just loves the South more)
1 Kings 17:2-4 (NLT)
Then the Lord said to Elijah,
3 “Go to the east and hide by Kerith Brook
[Ravine], near where it enters the Jordan River.
4 Drink from the brook and eat what the
ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food.”
Do you know what the term Kerith Ravine means?
It means to be cut off or to be cut down. It was at the Kerith Ravine, God
was cutting him off from others to create a greater dependence on Him. It
was at the Kerith Ravine God was shaping him, molding him into a man of
God.
In the latter half of 1 Kings 17, he ends up staying with a widow and her
son dies and Elijah miraculously heals her son…
Key moments…
1 Kings 18
-
Elijah goes against the 450 prophets of Baal.
-
He predicts rain.
1 Kings 18 is like the prophet’s highlight reel. There are two key moments…
All great…
Elijah has a contest with the prophets of Baal… the Canaanites worshiped
Baal as the sun god and as the storm god—he is usually depicted holding a
lightning bolt.
So, Elijah said for the prophets of Baal to call down fire on an altar… all
day they call out and nothing happens. Then Elijah steps up to the plate
and begins to pray for God to show up...
1 King 18:37-39 (NLT)
page 295
37
“O
L
ord
, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that You, O
L
ord
, are God and that You have brought them back to Yourself.” 38 Immediately the fire of the
L
ord
flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the
stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench!
39 And when all the people saw it, they
fell face down on the ground and cried out, “The Lord—He is God! Yes,
the Lord is God!”
Then he calls down for it to rain and it does… after 3 and a half years of
drought and we know it’s 3 and a half years because James so…
James 5:17-18 (NLT)
page 977
Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no
rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years!
18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky
sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.
Key moments…
1 Kings 19
-
Jezebel.
-
God speaks to Elijah.
Jezebel is Ahab’s wife. Has anyone ever named your child Jezebel? There is
a reason… she was a wicked woman… after she hears all this news
1 Kings 19:2-4 (NLT)
page 295
2
So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah: “May the gods strike me and
even kill me if by this time tomorrow I have not killed you just as you
killed them.”3 Elijah was afraid and fled
for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his
servant there. 4 Then he went on alone into
the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom
tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said.
“Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already
died.”
Does it seem like Elijah is in a good place…? Have you ever had a moment
like this…?
Like you walk in the house, and you say, “Hey babe, I’m starving… it’s been
a long day… what’s for dinner?” and then you get that look… that evil eye
look… and then your spouse says, “Do you even care about me and what I’m
going through?” It goes from 0 to 90 quick…
Because there is something off with our emotions and affections… our soul
isn’t in a great spot.
This seems to be what’s going on… and part of the reason we know it’s not a
sin issue or a huge heart issue is notice what God gives him, a nap and a
biscuit… Praise God from whom all biscuits flow J…
It’s not well with his soul…But God in the last part begins to speak to
him… and meet with him and he begins to work through things in his soul
and become emotionally healthy or integrated.
Practical things to help:
B.
Loving God with our soul means…
1.
We have authority and vulnerability with our emotions.
(Matthew 19:13-15; 28:18; Mark 14:1-9; Luke 8:43-48)
There is a great book by a man named Andy Crouch called Strong and Weak and one of the things he says that made Jesus such
a great leader is that He had two things.
1.)
Authority (power, strength, grit)
2.)
Vulnerable (authenticity, gutlessness, approachability)
If we operate in one dimension, it can affect our emotions negatively…
If we operate only from authority, it leaves us emotionally
repressed. (don’t share)
If we operate only from vulnerability, it leaves us emotionally
volatile (emotionally enslaved)
Loving God with our soul means…
2.
We preach to our souls.
(Psalm 43:5)
Sometimes we don’t need to listen to our soul. We need to preach to our
soul… especially if we find ourselves naturally leaning to the more
vulnerable side, the more emotional side.
Psalm 43:5 (NIV)
Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.
Loving God with our soul means…
3.
We let God heal our pain.
(Deuteronomy 31:8; Psalm 42)
Some might be going, “How is God going to redeem my pain?”
God can transform your pain…
It is well with my soul.
Loving God with our soul means…
4.
We worship.
(Psalm 103:1-3)
Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all His benefits—who forgives
all your sins and heals all your diseases,
When your heart and emotions are properly tuned you will find yourself lost
in worship. You will find freedom in singing because worship is the
language of the soul.
I can often tell where my soul is by how I’m dealing with pain and how I
worship…. It’s like a barometer for my soul.
When you become emotionally healthy it starts to affect the way you
worship.
I’ll never forget I heard a mentor talking to a guy who sort of bragged
about how he was more of a head guy, and he would wait until after the
worship was over to come hear the message… and I’ll never forget his
response… he said, “oh you’re emotionally repressed…”
There is nothing more uncomfortable to some people than coming in and
lifting your voices and hands and singing from your soul…
But God wants us to worship Him with our souls! With our emotions…
So that’s how I want to close... a time of worship… How’s your soul? Is it
well?
Want to sing? Think about the words you’re singing… lift your voice. No
pressure, but maybe lift your hands and invite God into this moment…
Reprisal of Sing His Praise Again.