Introduction

Imagine you were sailing on one of those old-timey ships that brought our forefathers to this great continent. You know, the type with a mast or two, sails, a big wheel for the captain to steer, and a crow’s nest at the top, complete with rigging, cannons, and so on. You’re having a decent time, but you’re there because you have a destination you are trying to arrive at.

Now, let’s say that while you saw your captain doing all the regular captainy things, you also noticed that when there were strong gusts of wind, he would let the wheel slip. You noticed this same phenomenon several times over a few weeks, and in each instance, the ship would go off course, but only briefly, and eventually, he would correct. If that was all there was to it, you might have been able to let it go, but during intense storms, you would emerge from underneath the deck, not only green around the gills but also finding you were miles off course and had been set back by a day or more, and that unnecessarily. Either the captain wasn’t strong enough to keep the ship on course, or he didn’t mind letting the wind blow him where it wished.

Our Sentimental Age

When we stack up the problems that we are currently facing as a society, and specifically within the church, one of the key cracks in our foundation is sentimentality. We are driven along by our emotions. It is our great Achilles heel. We’re fine following the facts – we’ll get out the sexton and pay attention to the stars and follow our course. But as soon as a strong wind of emotional images, music, speeches, appeals, or anything else swells our way, we’re driven along like your kid’s helium balloon in the parking lot after the birthday party. We may put up a valiant fight, but it’s all over as soon as we’re hit in the feels. That is sentimentality – feelings over the truth.

The problem with this is, of course, that getting hit in the feels is not a target the size of your Achilles tendon. Aiming at someone’s emotions is more often like throwing a rock in Kansas in the middle of August and trying to hit corn. It’s really not hard if you know how to throw. It would be harder not to hit corn. Going back to our ship and weak captain, the storms are increasing. Many of them are manufactured by the mainstream/social media weather machine, but they’re coming, and if we’re slacken at the wheel, we will continue to be blown off course.

Some Examples

Consider, for instance, any major news blow-up in the past eight or nine years. A small video clip is shown, and everyone is immediately outraged. But then the full video is shown, the context is explained, and it turns out it was exactly the opposite of what the talking heads wanted us to think. That initial jerk to light our hair on fire is sentimentality—not caring about the facts and being blown along by the wind of emotion.

Certain Covid policies were particularly egregious. When you were required to wear a mask to your seat at the restaurant but not at your seat, and everyone at the bar was shoulder-to-shoulder without masks, you might have wondered, what gives? The answer is sentimentality. The powers that be can make their constituency feel better by telling them that they have policies in place, even though those policies have zero effectiveness. Sure, they patched the hole in the hull of the ship. They used a screen door to do it, but they did it.

Sentimentality is why many of our cultural spokesmen on contested issues have become children. You don’t want to make the children sad, do you? Sentimentality is you being told you can’t have an opinion about babies being murdered in their mother’s womb because you’re not a woman. However, sentimentality has gone so far as to say that you can be a woman simply if you feel like one.

The church isn’t immune to this problem either. Pastors have figured out they can feed their flock with cheese puff sentimentality. They can preach sermons devoid of the Bible, and people will receive them gladly because of slick delivery. In some instances, the preacher might even get the text right, but the centerpiece of the sermon isn’t the truth of the text expounded and applied but an emotional story. Puddles in parking lots are usually deeper than the songs they sing. They look nothing like the Psalms or hymns of Scripture and instead rely on a catchy chord progression, clichés borrowed from the world, and the sixth time through the refrain.

When this is the case, the church’s taste buds will be continually trained towards sappy emotionalism and away from the meat of God’s word. It’s like taking your child’s order, so you feed them macaroni and cheese for every meal. You can’t be surprised when they grow up weak and sickly and never learn to enjoy steak and potatoes.

On this diet, a church will hang on to unbiblical traditions, reject doctrines because they don’t seem fair, and avoid practicing church discipline because it doesn’t feel nice. Rather than Sola Scriptura, they have Sola Sentimentality.

Worst of all, a church like this will be easily steered. It will succumb to the same winds as the rest of society. With no mooring, it will drift out into error. Whoever is manufacturing the current emotional hurricane will push that church where they want it to go.

The Remedy to Sentimentality

The remedy to sentimentality is not to do our best impersonation of a Christian Spock. The Lord made us with hearts. You cannot remove your emotions from the equation, and, in fact, they are indispensable. It will be no good for the Church if it sees abortion as murder but does not hate it. If we know that sinners apart from Christ are perishing but don’t grieve. If we sing theologically rich hymns with no thrill in our souls.

We absolutely need our emotions. The ship needs the wind. The answer to all of this is that our feelings must be informed by and tethered to the truth of God’s Word. We need the firm hand of Scripture to keep us on course.

The Apostle Paul says in Philippians 1:9-11, “9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

Christian maturity means love will grow. Affections and emotions will grow, but they’ll grow “with knowledge and all discernment.” And they’ll grow that way, not for the world’s ends, but for “approving what’s excellent” and being “pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”

The world says follow your heart, but Scripture says you should guard it (Proverbs 4:23). Your emotions aren’t a lamp to your feet and a light to your path; God’s Word is (Psalms 119:105).

So, scriptural knowledge and discernment needs to be present, informing our emotions so that what our hearts feel is true. We must feel rightly, at the right time, for the right reasons, and to the right degree.

Sometimes our hearts are sleepy, and we’ll need the Word’s alarm clock to wake them up. There will be times when they’re discouraged, and we’ll need the healing balm of the Scriptures to bring relief. There will be times when we’ll swell with pride and need the Word to take us down a few pegs. There will be times when our feelings will scream at us and we’ll need to, with the truth of God’s word, tell them to kindly shut up. That is Christian maturity. When Christians renew their minds with the Word (Rom 12:1-2), one of the products will be transformed hearts.

So, beware of the sudden rush of wind in your sails. Satan’s arrows are trained at your feels. The world says that indiscriminately following your heart is freedom, but it’s the sort of freedom you see in the old western when the cowboy’s foot is caught in the stirrup, and his horse is dragging him behind in a dead sprint. That’s not freedom. That’s slavery. The good news is that there’s a way out that doesn’t involve shooting the horse. There’s a way for your emotions to have all their strength and vigor while you still have the reigns and stay in the saddle. There’s a way for the wind to fill your sails and for it to be glorious and get you where you’re supposed to go. The answer is to repent and believe in Jesus Christ. Submit everything to His Lordship, heart included. Pray and read the Word, and let Jesus grow your love with knowledge and all discernment.

“31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” – John 8:31–32