Anger

Today on Senate life with Jeannie clear there is a kind of anger that is sinful.

It comes from loving the wrong things or loving the right things out of proportion. If anger is a destructive energy released in defense of something that you love and if you're loves are out of order and your anger will be out of order as well here on life with Jeannie church in Raleigh, North Carolina. As always, I'm your host Molly with a batch one time in the Bible when Jesus got angry and he didn't hide it and then the most remarkable part. He didn't send Pastor JD is helping us see how we can be angry like Jesus to rediscovering what the Bible really says about our emotions as we continue our teaching series called smoke from a fire if you missed any of the previous messages always find them free of charge. Jeannie clear.com but for now grab your Bible and let's join Pastor JD in God in a series on some of the most controlling emotions in our lives. We are calling this series. Smoke from a fire is playing off of an analogy that the fifth century theologian St. Augustine used what he said, that are most dominating emotions are deepest emotions often function like smoke from a fire that can show us what is actually going on in our hearts first week we looked at depression. The second weekend we looked at anxiety this weekend to deal with another emotion that all of us deal with to some very degree and that is the emotion of anger anger as we know can be a very destructive emotion and one that is quite difficult to deal with in our hearts heard about an elderly couple here at the summa church you were talking one evening about the many fights that they had been in over the years of their marriage and the wife and just a moment of really humble candor said you know she said honey I just admire the way that you always respond so calmly in our flights blow up at you. I yell at you and you just responsive, how do you stay so calm when I get so irate to which the husband replied. He said oh it's easy sweetheart.

After you blow up at me. I just go and clean the toilet.

She said that work.

She said oh yeah because I use your toothbrush. When I do that so they're good ways and their bad ways that storyteller made up their good ways in their bad ways to deal with anger. We know that. I don't know anybody anybody to look back and wish that there were certain things that they could take back that they said or did in anger. I'm not one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes and I know I'm dating myself a little bit there but sample episodes were George Costanza calls up some girl and just leaves this horrendous voicemail because he so angry found out later was a mistake and I should've been angry at her and so the whole episode is in trying to get to her voicemail before she gets to its we delete the message. All of us have some kind of thing like that like to take that back was like to know the phone line pull back what I will try to say there. Maybe you sent an email to somebody that you wish you could go to cyberspace and get rid of it before they saw it. Or maybe you copied somebody on the email that you should not have been copied is that avenue you most of us can look back and see some relationship that was destroyed early damage through anger. Some of you may have lost jobs. You might even some of you going to jail because of an inability to control anger by the way, don't make the mistake of thinking that if you're not a person who is prone to violent outbursts that you got no issues with anger some of your more aggressive and how you express anger and that means you will make you mad yell at them.

Others at you when people make you mad, you have more of a passive approach. So you give that person the silent treatment of the cold shoulder you punish them by removing the blessing of your presence from them as if your God, and merely turn your face away as punishment enough. From that, you nurse the bitterness toward them. That comes out first.

Usually is sarcasm either to them or about them and then turns into some kind of emotional withdrawal from them.

Were you turn off the fountains of your emotions and you cease to care. Eventually that can turn into disdain for that person, or maybe even the entire group of people that that person represents the red Hambrick it was our pastoral counselor here wrote out a list of statements that I sold it. He said shows us that we we are probably nursing anger. We may not have admitted to ourselves. Statements like for example I'm not angry I'm just frustrated. Why can I have a bad day without it being a big deal but I guess you never make a mistake or you're being too sensitive or you know I'm sick of being the only one who says I'm sorry in this relationship for sorry to unload on you but I just needed to vent, chances are he says if you made any of these kinds of statements you're dealing with an anger issue that you never admitted to yourself and angry.

She took a minute being destructive even really subtle ways. Now our focus today is not on the best of the healthiest expressions of anger W another sermon for another day. Our focus this weekend is on what our anger reveals about the state of our hearts for the Bible begins before it teaches you how to manage her emotions before teachers use strategies to cope with them. It once you to read these emotions to understand what they reveal about what's going on in your heart right so Ephesians 4 Ephesians 4 could be written for our society alone.

Women angry society do not believe that Obama talks any talkshow at night and CNN and MSNBC. They're losing their minds on something you float a fox and they're losing their mind on the same issue just from an opposite perspective is people are queued up and ready to be angry.

Whether they're going into the classroom whether there at the workplace for driving on the freeway way people are ready to explode, which what's what makes me feel like Paul somehow had in mind. American society in the 21st century, when he wrote Ephesians 4 versus 26 to 32. Be angry. He says, but don't sin the sun go down on your anger and don't give the devil an opportunity. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Let all bitterness and anger and wrath shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice and be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. In that passage, I see first a confusing command be angry and sin not. What does that mean you'll explore that. I see Paul's answer to anger, which we will unpack also. And lastly I see some indications for how you and I can be angry in the right way, which will called how to be angry like Jesus. Okay, first confusing command be angry and do not sin, you should first note in this passage that Paul begins his instructions on anger with a command to be angry, be angry is an imperative. There are times you can and should indeed must be angry. Some of us were raised to think that any feelings of anger are wrong, but that is not a Christian idea. It is the Buddhist to teach that of the annihilation of emotion is a virtue.

Christians do not believe that rather the Bible teaches anger as a necessary component of love. Anger is a destructive energy released in defense of something that you love which might sound bad, but just think about it when you love the person that is dying of cancer you hate and are angry at the cancer that is destroying their answer, you release a destructive energy is called chemotherapy to try to rid the person you love how the cancer you hate if I love my children I hate and I am angry at things that threaten to destroy them, whether that's physical harm. Whether that is a moral cancer like dishonesty or rebellion that I see destroying their souls.

If you love the glory of God, then you will be angry at whatever diminishes that or seeks to attack it. Jesus was a person we saw angry throughout the gospel, sometimes even violently so you can walk around the Sea of tranquility. I know what you had on your your mute or flannel grandpa regroup in Sunday school Jesus with the serene local bloated face of Ric flair airflow to the background is note Superman costume on a reroute bathroom water. What you one like that. We got increase throughout the Gospels.

Mark three. For example, after he heals a man with a shriveled and he discerns that the Pharisees are only interested in catching Jesus break the Sabbath. Mark says Mark the gospel writer says that Jesus got indignantly angry with them because they were elevating religious custom over there care for the individual is anger toward them grew out of his love for him for the man in Matthew 21 Jesus gets violently angry at the religious leaders of moneychangers who basically set up shop in one part of the temple that was supposed to be for the outsider and full of vulnerable and Jesus is you taking this away and you used it for yourselves and so we make the makeshift weapon he drives them out of the temple, there's nothing in the gospel that indicates a Jesus regretted that later got the disciple together and said no magic, I'm sorry all is looking my emotions get the best of me.

I probably should use my words back there. I probably should've been more patient, no Jesus went to the cross.

Sinless, which means that his anger even when it cost him a formal web was not a sin not just to be relatively clear. Okay, I am not saying that you should drive out people with whips when you get angry right because you have neither the clarity nor the control the Jesus that will clear on that. I do not want to hear something you some email this week about you doing this and say that I gave you the idea. I'm not saying that all okay. I'm just trying to say that if you never get angry or not very much like Jesus. If you never get angry and I very much like he's at the church father John Chrysostom shortly after Augustine Ashbury to the high just a few of you know that if I'm John Chrysostom said it is true that he that is angry without cause since but he who is not angry when there is cause also sets and perhaps to even greater degree, you should be angry when you hear about the rights of others being trampled on. You should be angry when you hear stories of people being abused by people that they trusted you should be angry when you see somebody selfishness and sin, destroying their lives and the lives of people around the in the face of evil. If you are angry you are loving Jesus got angry precisely because he cared so much to be angry, be angry, Paul says, but do not sin. There is a kind of anger that is sinful. It comes from loving the wrong things or loving the right things out of proportion.

If anger is a destructive energy released in defense of something that you love then if you're loves are out of order, then your anger will be out of order as well.

St. Augustine said that the essence of being a sinner is that our loves are out of proportion. We love the wrong things and we love the right things out of proportion and what we love is messed up her anger.

What we are angry at Olga, so also it is not wrong. For example, for you to value your name and reputation. But if you love those things too much. You will get inordinately angry when your ego is insulted if you love control if you love convenience if you love comfort them when those things are attacked or they are threatened. You will get angry in response to that anger is defense and release of something that you love whenever something makes you bad you won't always ask what your anger is defending. It is for you. You energy and release of the individual somebody loves you what is it that I love that is been attack that I'm defending with my anger to, for example, when your teenager comes home late. What is driving your anger. The fact that he or she calls you lose sleep or worry is not the biggest issue emotionally. You might want to make that the biggest issue because that's how the episode affected you. But the biggest issue is their disregard for rules and what that's doing to their soul.

Is that what your anger is focused on or is your anger focus on the effect that their actions have on you if I get mad at my wife because she's texting when I'm trying to talk with her is my anger lovingly motivated because I'm concerned with the harm herself. Absorption goals are those around her. Or, and I irritated because I feel inconvenience that she's not doing what I want her to be doing right at that moment. Try to be honest about what your anger directed at at that and in that moment anybody else get mad when traffic is slowing by 40 in the car shoot all the way down that little ramp and cut in at the last possible minute right who I get righteously angry at that moment like 2 inches from the bumper economy might you not cut any writer will totally righteous and that is at a righteous anger or is that a selfish anger is. I mean, inconvenience here is why Newmont is not a living anger. I'm the one that shooting down that ramp as far as I can get my I got places to be any people should understand that they should've let me in because I got I just love to do when you get mad at work because your contributions were not recognized as your anger fueled by love of your own praise right I need you could just as angry when when credit is withheld from other people. That's the same moral corruption, but it probably didn't anger you as much because it didn't trample on your own selfish desires. The point is, our anger becomes problematic because our loves about her are out of order and that means the way that we deal with this order. Anger is by addressing the disordered loves that fuel it the way we deal with disordered anger is to deal with disordered loves first which is what Paul is going to turn his attention to so number two Paul's answer to unrighteous anger is to put on the new man, you might notice that Paul's whole discussion of anger here is no discussion of anger comes as a series of commands commands that honestly when you read them on the surface seemed impossible. For example, Paul verse 31 commands is let all bitterness, anger not shouting and slander be removed from the hello little mouse be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another to somebody who is really angry or really hurt that old. That seems like an impossible command to stop hiding his tone off and most stopping better start being happy stopping hurt. Start being compassionate and forgiving you know whenever I talk about forgiveness or anger.

These kind of things I've learned that there are three different kinds of people out there who really struggle with what I say. The first time really struggles with it is the person who knows, they ought to forgive but they just can't work up the courage and the strength to do it. The second kind of person you really struggles what I say is the person who feels like if they forgive me letting the offender off the hook and it just feels like it's minimizing the injustice and it feels wrong to them what you would be right to give that person forgiveness. The third grew the really struggles claims to have gone through the motions of forgiveness. But memories and hurt and anger keeps coming back into their art making them wonder if they've ever really forgiven it all. So the question is not what it is. Commands say the more important question I think is how you develop the ability to actually obey these commands will see that's where it helps to consider that these commands are all part of a bigger section in Ephesians. Starting in verse 24, in which Paul is telling us that we got up, put on the new man put on the new man, which means we need to begin to live in the new reality that Christ is created for us. Paul hints at two elements of this new reality that enable us to get rid of unrighteous anger. The first is at the end of verse 32 pieces forgive one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ are taking notes what you write that down in a phrase that I hope is very familiar to you.

Number one you write is that we recognize we are for sinners and only secondly you sent against that's a phrase I've explained you was first introduced to me in a marriage counseling session. The my wife and I gone to both angry at each other been married for couple years and I was angry at all the ways you disappoint me and think she wouldn't do it right and she was anger make is always of just one thing, the one doing right and so I spent a half-hour telling the counselor about my side of it and she could have our town Council, but her side of it in the end of the counselor looks at us and says a problem with both of you as a leader of you really seem to understand or believe the gospel, which is a bold thing to say to a pastor about a play okay is that you understand the gospel. He said both of you were talking as if you are righteous perfect people of the other person is sent against you. He said that's probably partially true about the latter part even syndicate. He said, but you see what lost touch with the fact that you are first and foremost a center that is been deeply forgiven by God, and only secondly or you sin against and there is nothing that your spouse is done to you. That compares at all to the way that you have done treated God and what God has forgiven you exchange the injustice mean that what that person did was not wrong and I promise you it will change your perspective to that person.

In that moment of injustice can only be very clear what I don't want you to do with that statement for several seconds, and against is to use it to beat your spouse over the head with what you complained about your tree got way worse on for you right now. Okay so person or site together would not do that again one email about that at all. It is something that you used to apply your own heart you so you know, I realize that yes, this person may have rolled me and I'm going to have to deal with that. But I realize that I am first and foremost a person deeply forgiven. I can never get over that and it just changes how I treat those who have sinned against me. It means I approach any situation deeply aware, deeply aware of how much I've been forgiven of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was that the German Christian was martyred in World War II, so they often saw this in Christians in church when they would really start to get serious about God. He said you know, especially new Christians. They would always come to a point where they got disgusted with everybody else in the church at all the hypocrisy and inconsistency known about like that you are that person okay by the way, maybe you're at home listening to this because you just can't bear to be in church with all the hypocrites and all the inconsistencies right you just only you and Jesus in your glories circle there so he said he sees a semi good news, bad news.

We get that stage good news is you're growing in Christ. We know that because you become more sensitive to sin and it bothers you said that. That's good news, bad news is the only stage one in your spiritual growth is in stage II, much more important stage is when you become more disgusted at your own sin and you are everybody else's. That states it is a stage III. The most important stage of the three is now your ready. After going through stages one and two to reenter the church. This time is not as a self-righteous Pharisee who is there to condemn everybody else but a broken center who has received grace and is ready to help others on the same grace that you have found.

It means that when you understand how deeply you been forgiven. It just changes your perspective to those who have weaknesses in sands and are sent against you. Paul gives a second element of this new reality in the verse 26 we said though the sun go down on your anger, you write this down simply as a means we resigned as judge of the universe not letting the sun go down in your wrath means I don't have to carry with me to bed.

The burden of writing all wrongs in the sun go down. I'm not thinking about it because God is the one who writes all wrongs. Not me. God's promise to do that. That means I can lay my head down to my pillow at night and I just go to sleep.

Paul only alludes to this here in Ephesians 4 with that quick little phrase or the sun that out of your anger, but it really unpacks it in another place where he talks about anger bubbling you want to get in the varsity level Bible study proposal preacher which he's got like 10 topics that he talks about and he just talks about them at different times in different letters with the same stuff you really want to see some fascinating look at where he disliked quickly introduces it one letter within really unpacks it in and out so he introduces me. Ephesians with the Romans he does, unpacks this concept took your superfast figure Bible live over to Romans 12 escrowed on Romans 12 pieces would pay nobody evil for evil, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all by the way, this is Paul's acknowledgment that sometimes is not always possible. These got in mind here that there are certain relationships that, for example, are abusive and you can't say to stay there and take it either is a time that it's no longer possible to live peaceably and you have to remove yourself from the situation.

Regardless though, he says, verse 19. Beloved, never, whether you stay whether you go, never avenge yourselves never to leave that to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feeding his thirst to give them something to drink for. By so doing you will heap burning coals on his hip. LOL of that phrase could you like. That's exactly what I wanted to do mine and I wanted to he burning holes in their heads and talk to me here what you notice is the quote is quoting from Proverbs 2521. That's a Jewish metaphor heap burning coals on their head and what Paul meant when he used that was heaping burning coals would have wanted to affects one it could wake a person up right you call hot water cold water you want to wake a person opting out of there that their slumber is like. By doing kindness you might actually change their heart and wake them up to this stupidity and the wickedness of their injustice toward you and out in that way you be overcoming evil with good.

That's one thing. The other thing that might happen is as you continue to do kindness to this person who is doing, you evil, right and they don't change God and have it is taken out seasons write down what Paul is saying is, on the day that comes when God brings vengeance.

All that kindness that you did to them is going to be like more hot coals of judgment entered on their head God to be like, really. After all, this person, did you they respond you this way. Good this way.

Go this way, but you did this and this and that to make it that much worse for them on the day of judgment. Either way, the point is, either way I don't have to care around the burden of feeling like on the ones gotta make things right because God promises to carry numbered. The good news is carrying the burden you can show grace, trying to play judge over wrongs done to us will just corrupt and build pride in us continuing our teaching series on emotions called smoke from the fire you're listening to Pastor Jenny Greer on Senate life. If you've missed any part of the study or if you'd like to share with a friend the whole series is available free of charge@jennygreer.com so Pastor Jenny last week we introduced a new resource to help us remain steadfast in her time with God no matter what is going on in our lives, called smoke from a fire that's right Molly, we have created a 10 day workbook to guide your time in reading Scripture it's different because it allows you to reflect and pray more independently do whatever difficult emotions you may be feeling and we all go through a range of emotions every day. It's not so much an in-depth unit of study like a commentary as much as it is a guide that will help you explore your your emotions like anger in the depression and anxiety and also what the Scripture says about the root causes of those every day in this study is to give you a short passage of Scripture to read and reflect on minister to give you some space and some props process what you're reading what's going on inside.

We've included a handful of devotionals on five specific emotions just to spur you along.

I think it's a great resource. I think it will really help you get in touch with what's going on inside you, because that's the place of Jesus wants to get yours today as always@jdgreer.com.

I would love to be one of these.

I think it will be a big help. So to reach out to us that thank you JD for the smoke from the fire 10 day devotional and Scripture guide when you donate today to support his ministry, give us a call right now. 35 220-866-5224. You can donate online.com I Molly benefit with us today and be sure to join us tomorrow continues our teaching and motion out right here in Senate third 19