Before service I felt like the Lord wanted me to bring this up this morning.
There's a... oh, how would you say like a teaching or a feeling that goes through churches, that we need to sing more masculine songs.
The songs are geared more for women and they're more emotional and, you know, that realm.
So I want to explain that a little bit.
If you go back to Revelation 2 where this song First Love comes out of, Jesus didn't say, women you need to return to your first love.
He said church. That's men and women. Need to return to the first love.
The thing that gets in the way for guys is our culture.
Our culture has trained us to be non-emotional as guys.
Either we're happy or we're angry.
And that's about all we recognize.
We miss all the myriad of emotions in between that we were designed to live in.
We were designed to express.
When you're singing to Jesus, you know, I've had guys say, well, you know, I can't see myself having physical relations with Jesus.
He's a guy. I'm a guy.
Yeah, see, that's cultural because we've been taught in America that love is sex.
And if you love someone, you're going to have sex with them.
That is so totally messed up.
To love someone is to express your deepest emotion, which runs into the second block as men in America.
We can't identify emotion.
Even when, you know, even when I'm in counseling with guys and they say, I'm just angry.
Well, anger is a secondary emotion.
There's another emotion underneath it that's spurring that.
What are you angry about?
Give me not the thinking. Give me the emotion.
What are you feeling that's making you angry?
They can't find it.
Is it betrayal? Is it abandonment? Do you feel lonely? Do you feel taken advantage of?
Do you feel like people are not paying attention to you? Do you feel unheard?
What are you feeling that you're angry about?
They can't identify it.
That's a cultural training problem.
We've been trained not to live in that realm of emotion as men.
And that's what your wife is complaining about when she says, it doesn't feel like you love me.
She's wanting you to engage emotionally with her and share what you're feeling.
Learn to identify what you're feeling.
You come home from work, you're angry. She says, why are you angry?
I don't know, I'm just angry. Well, that's a truckload of information right there.
It's just like, well, that didn't help anything.
What happened? There's an emotion under the anger.
What is it? Let's talk about it.
I don't know, I'll get over it.
Honey, I feel like you don't love me. Of course I love you.
Well, see, our whole culture has messed the whole thing up.
When we say we love God, it has nothing to do with sexual.
When you say you love your wife, the first thing shouldn't be sexual.
The first thing should be love.
And love is taking of yourself and expressing it and pouring it into the other person.
Here is who I am. Here is what I'm feeling. Here is what I want.
Here are my dreams. Here are my goals. Here are my desires.
Here are my frustrations. I want to just pour it into you and they pour back.
That's what Jesus is looking for.
He's looking for us to open ourselves up as men
and learn to express our emotion and build it and build it and grow in it.
Can you sing that song right from the beginning again?
Love
And in your presence I can help
but fall down at your feet
Save your
Oh beautiful, save your
You became the sacrifice
So I could be set free
Take all I have
It's all yours anyway
I know it's not much
God, it's my everything
I pour my oil
I pour my first love
You are my first love
I don't care who's in this room
It's my eyes are fixed on you
Take all I have
It's all yours anyway
I know it's not much, but God is my everything, I pour my oil on, I pour my oil on.
Does it matter the cost? Is Jesus your worthy of every slice of?
Here is my offering, I pour my oil on this room.
Oh, I don't care.