Today, we continue the sermon series “All the Feels: How God Created Me.” As I explained last week, this series will explore the connection between faith and emotions, helping us better understand our emotions and find ways to draw strength and wisdom from Scripture.
For this, we are also using the movie Inside Out from Pixar as we navigate the different emotions we experience as humans. For those who haven’t seen it, “Inside Out” is an animated film that delves into the mind of a young girl named Riley, where five emotions—Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust—navigate her through life’s challenges. Today, our focus is on the second emotion: Sadness.
Have you ever been sad? I am sure that all of us have experienced sadness. Sadness touches every stage of life. For children, it can arise from the loss of a beloved pet or the pain of being bullied at school. Young people might feel profound sadness from the breakup of close friendships or the pressure of academic demands. Families face deep sorrow through divorce or financial struggles that strain relationships and daily life. In marriages, infertility and emotional distance can lead to significant grief and a sense of loss. Older adults often encounter sadness through the loss of independence and the bereavement of loved ones. Across all ages, health problems, moving to new places, and unemployment bring their own forms of sorrow.
For me, many of my own experiences with sadness centered around loss. For example, I have felt sadness when losing friends or loved ones. The loss of health in people I care about, particularly my children, when they have been sick, and there is nothing I can do but follow the doctor’s instructions and wait for them to get better. That makes me painfully very sad. How about saying goodbye to someone you care about, even if temporary, or letting someone go is also a source of sadness. I remember meeting Evelyn and how I felt about her, but she did not feel the same way about me right away. I decided to let her go at some point, which made me very sad. But she did not go too far; thank God!
Sadness is a universal human emotion. Unfortunately, many people think that sadness is a weakness and should not be felt by a person of faith. “If you experience sadness, you must not dwell on it but move on as quickly as possible. If you are sad, it is because you lack faith, hope, and trust in God.” People often believe we should reject or avoid sadness. But is that really true? Is sadness actually harmful to us?
The Bible doesn’t have much to say about sadness, as such. Rather, it tends to focus on sorrow resulting from grief, sorrowful regret, agony, suffering, and pain. The concept is found in the Scriptures under a variety of circumstances. In Genesis 6:6-8, we see that God feels grief over the sinfulness of humanity. In Genesis 26, Isaac and Rebekah experienced grief when their son Esau married a woman they did not approve of. In Judges 10, we read how God mourned the misery Israel brought upon itself by evil behavior. In 1 Samuel 1, Hannah was so sad because she had no son that she appeared to be drunk while praying. There is even a Book of Lamentations devoted to the expression of grief.
These Scriptures are not simply explaining a human condition, but rather, the very essence of God as a person who also grieves for humanity. So, if it is not clear already, let me speak very plainly: grief and sadness are not wrong. God himself grieves! But at the same time, sadness is not what God desires for us. Jesus’ mission on earth aims to ultimately remove all sadness from our hearts, as it says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). By conquering sin, and turning our hearts back to God, Jesus removes the root cause of all sadness. However, in the meantime, sadness and grief will remain a genuine part of our human experience.
Jesus spoke to this when he said in John 16:20-22,
Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
In this text, Jesus prepares his disciples for the grief they will soon experience due to his crucifixion. He acknowledges their upcoming sorrow but promises it will be temporary and turn into joy. Just as a woman’s labor pains are intense but temporary and then turn into joy as she welcomes her baby, our periods of sadness and grief have an endpoint, too. This means that our current struggles are not the end of our story. God will transform them into joy.
The significance of the passage is that Jesus acknowledges that our emotional struggles are real and important, understanding and empathizing with our pain. While sadness is part of our human experience, we have hope in God’s promise that all sadness will be wiped away one day, as Jesus said, “But I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
Why is there sadness if it is meant to be turned into joy? Why wait until “someday”? Think of what makes God sad: when we turn away from him, that makes God sad; when we behave in harmful and destructive ways to others and ourselves, that makes God sad; when we are broken and grieving loss, that makes God sad and joins us in our pain. God feels all these things because he loves and cares about us and is connected to us. In similar ways, we, too, are connected to each other and the world. In this sense, sadness is a response to a broken, imperfect, conflicting, and challenging world and situations of loss and hurt.
This is what happened to Riley in the movie Inside Out. She was so overwhelmed with sadness after being uprooted from her home, friends, school, and hockey team in Minnesota, leaving behind the place where all her happy memories were made as her family moved to San Francisco due to her father’s job. Let’s watch this moment towards the end of the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2CJ46XkwxA
I am not crying; you are. What’s happening here? Riley was born with Joy as her dominant emotion. However, now in a new city with unfamiliar surroundings, emotions like Sadness, Fear, and Anger begin to dominate Riley’s life, despite Joy’s efforts to maintain balance. Riley struggles with feelings of isolation and disconnection from her parents and everyone around her.
Through this journey, Joy learns a vital lesson. She always believed her role was to keep Riley happy by suppressing the other emotions. For example, at some point in the movie, Riley’s mom tells her, “You have always been our happy girl. If you could just keep smiling, we can help Dad figure everything out.” This mirrors societal expectations that we should always appear happy and that other emotions are less acceptable. We frequently hide our true emotions, saying “I’m fine” when asked how we are, instead of honestly admitting, “I’m sad” or “I’m really angry.”
Thankfully, as we saw in the video, Joy eventually realizes that Riley’s other emotions are essential and have their place and time. Sadness becomes the true hero when Riley confesses to her parents, “You need me to be happy, but I want to go home.” Her parents then share their own sadness about leaving Minnesota. This leads to a new memory for Riley, blending joy and sadness, symbolizing the complexity of human emotions.
Have you ever felt like you couldn’t show your true feelings? Like expressing your real emotions wasn’t acceptable? I understand. More often than not, we feel the pressure to put on a brave face and say we are “fine,” even when we are hurting inside. Of course, we can’t just talk and confide with anyone about our feelings, but we can’t go without talking about them with someone, either.
This is not unique to anyone in particular; all of us experience this repression of our emotions to some extent. However, as we have observed already, the Bible embraces the full range of human emotions. Consider Psalm 55: 2-3, which says, “I am troubled in my complaint. I am distraught by the noise of the enemy.” Many psalms express these emotions, from anger and fear to frustration and joy. As followers of Christ, we have reasons to be joyful because of our hope in Jesus. Yet, by living in a world that constantly stirs various emotions, we will experience a range of them, like sadness.
Think about how Jesus responded emotionally when his friend Lazarus died. Although Jesus knew he would raise Lazarus, he was deeply moved and wept upon seeing the sorrow of Mary and the others (John 11:33-35). This moment shows Jesus experiencing profound sadness, illustrating that even the Son of God felt and expressed deep emotions.
My friends, we should not be ashamed of our emotions or apologize for them. They allow us to fully experience life, with all its highs and lows. Riley’s breakthrough came when she shared her difficult emotions with her parents, prompting them to open up as well. In their shared grief, they found joy. And that is the lesson today.
Have you expressed your feelings to God? Have you shared them with someone else? You are not alone in your journey. We are walking this path with you, and so is Jesus, who understands anger, disgust, sadness, and fear. He knows your struggles.
I pray that in the midst of your difficult emotions, you trust that something new is growing inside you, something that will bring back your joy and reconnect you with God and the people you care about. It may not happen immediately, but with the support of friends, family, and church, it will happen. Jesus assures us, “You will have pain, but your pain will turn to joy.” Thanks be to God.
