Emotional Conflict: On the Way to Christ Being Magnified In and Through Us
November 18, 2018      |     By: Sam McVay, Jr.      |      Category: Sermons      |      Location: El Dorado
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There is much struggle and shame in the body of Christ over emotional distress experienced in our walk with Christ.

The Bible is not silent on this issue.

David, Job, Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah, and others dealt with deep emotional struggles such as despair, discouragement, depression, and anxiety.

Paul’s almost inconceivable journey with bodily suffering and troubled relationships involved multiple manifestations of emotional suffering.

2 Corinthians makes reference to Paul’s Emotional Suffering:
1) 2 Corinthians 1:8-9
2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (ESV)
8 “For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.

2) 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
2 Corinthians 4:8-9 (ESV)
8 “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;”

3) 2 Corinthians 5:4
2 Corinthians 5:4 (ESV)
4 “For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”

4) 2 Corinthians 11:28
2 Corinthians 11:28 (ESV)
28 “And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

5) 2 Corinthians 12:7
2 Corinthians 12:7 (ESV)
7 “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass (torment) me, to keep me from becoming conceited.”

Psalm 42: A God lover’s struggle with Downcast-ness

Why Are You Cast Down, O My Soul?
To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.
Psalms 42:1-11

Psalms 42:1-11 (ESV)
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation
6 and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock: “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, “Where is your God?”
11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.


Encouragements for Endurance:
1) You are in good company:
David, Job, Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah, and others dearly with deep emotional struggles with despair, discouragement, depression, and anxiety.

Jesus shared in deep emotional pain also: Isaiah 53:3

Isaiah 53:3 (ESV)
3 “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

2) Two things at Once: Philippians 4:4; Romans 9:1-3; 2 Corinthians 6:10
Philippians 4:4 (ESV)
4 “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.”

Romans 9:1-3 ESV
1 “I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—
2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

Which is it?
2 Corinthians 6:10 (ESV)
10 “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing...”

3) Talk to yourself instead of always listening to yourself.
“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?

Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc.

Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts
talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So, he stands up and says, “Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you.”

~ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

4) Your Emotional Conflict has a, “Shelf Life.”
Psalms 30:5 (ESV)
5 For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

5) The Redemptive purpose of Emotional Conflict is a Spirit-directed process of increased faith and satisfaction with Jesus.
2 Corinthians 1:9 (ESV)
9 “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

Philippians 1:21 (ESV)
21 “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”