[Gary Petty] When Jesus came preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God, it wasn’t just a set of beliefs about the gospel of the Kingdom of God. He said, “You must become converted into the Kingdom of God.” Conversion, of course, is a process. We’ve talked about that many times.
You can convert water into steam, but just can’t put water in a pan and set it on a stove and say, “Turn. Become steam.” It becomes steam because of a process that changes it from one thing into another. You can take water and turn it into ice, but it takes a process to do that.
Conversion is a process. We talk about this process – this conversion process – and the first thing that comes to mind, of course, is when people discover the truth – discover the Ten Commandments, walk away from the Catholic Church, begin to keep the Sabbath, understand the holy days, begin to understand that when you die you don’t go to heaven or hell, begin to understand that the clean and unclean meat laws still apply – begin to understand all these elements as what we know as the truth. We begin looking at the Bible in a totally different way. For many people, they begin to read the Bible for the first time in their lives. And, of course, we begin to understand that salvation comes through Jesus Christ and we need that sacrifice. So we begin to go through the repentance process and cry out to be converted. When you’re baptized, you’re asking to be converted. I did a baptism this week and explained through the baptism counseling how that person is going to now be converted. In fact, it was Kerri Thomson. Many of you know her, because she attends a lot of the sporting events – David Thomson’s wife. So she was baptized this week. She and I have spent many hours over the last three or four, five weeks, discussing the whole conversion process.
But conversion isn’t just changing to a set of ideas – a set of beliefs. That’s part of it. You must go through that. We all must go through that. But it is, at it’s core, a change of nature. We take our damaged, corrupt human nature, and, according to what Peter said in 2 Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature. So you say, “Okay, now I must become a partaker of the divine nature.” We struggle with this. What does it mean to become a partaker of the divine nature? Well, when you were baptized and hands were laid on you, you received the divine nature. But we must now conform to that. We must be converted into the divine nature. And that’s what we’ve been talking about for the last – over a month now – as we’ve been going through – this is part five – the qualities of agape. In fact, I told Kim last week – driving home last week after services – I was so frustrated, because I felt like I had so much material I wanted to cover in the sermon that I ended up with so much that I covered nothing. There was just so much in my brain and so much notes, I couldn’t get it all out. And it was very frustrating for me, because that should have been two sermons. Because the “doesn’t seek [its] own,” we just scratched the surface of that one.
We begin to realize this is what we must be converted to. This is the character we must have. So let’s go to 1 Corinthians 13 and let’s look at the next quality on the list. In your life, every trial you have is an opportunity to learn one of these qualities. Every problem we have, everything we face is an opportunity to learn one of these qualities – or a multiple number of these qualities. As I’ve been saying, as we go through each one, you see how they’re unique and yet connected. The qualities begin, of course, in verse 4. Agape – not love, as we know it in English – but the word literally means the character of God.
1 Cor. 13:4 – Agape suffers long. It is kind, does not envy, does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked.... Is not provoked.
Now we have to stop and say, “What does that mean?” Does that mean a Christian can never experience anger? What does that mean? Is not provoked? As we’ve been going through these ideas like suffering long, and kindness, and envy, pride, rudeness, we understand that these are tied with emotions. These are thoughts and actions that are tied to emotions. We must understand that not must our actions be changed, our thoughts be changed, but we must learn to control our emotions in this context of agape. So when we talk about “is not provoked,” we begin to understand that agape also has to deal with anger.
What makes us angry? Why do we become angry? What do we do when we are angry? I mean, “is not provoked” can’t mean never experiences anger. And I’ll show you why I mean that in a minute. So what does that mean? What must I become in order to be converted, so that I can learn to control my anger?
All anger is not wrong. Now, we have to start with an understanding. Anger is a human reaction. There are times when you couldn’t stop anger happening in you. It would be as hard as stopping breathing. It is a human reaction. There are times when it’s almost spontaneous, and there’s a reason for that. All anger is not destructive. In fact, remember, in Ephesians 4:26, the apostle Paul says, “Be angry and sin not.” In other words, it’s possible to be angry, but don’t sin. Anger leads us to sin. We’ve all committed a lot of sin in our lives. We’ve all done actions that weren’t kind, that were rude. It didn’t fit the other qualities of agape because of anger. Anger motivates us to break all kinds of qualities of agape.
So we have to say, “Okay, how can I be angry and sin not?” Now anger can’t be all wrong, because God is angry. And sometimes His anger is expressed – and I don’t want to say His anger motivates Him.... God is motivated by something different than anger – that’s the whole thing about agape. His anger is expressed in a certain way. He is not motivated by His anger. You say, “Well, isn’t that the same thing?” It’s a world of difference. He is motivated by what’s good. Remember what we said agape is? Agape is always doing what is best for the other person. So His anger doesn’t motivate Him. If it did, we’d be in real trouble. Because if you were having a bad day and were in a real rebellious attitude towards God, what would He do, if He was having a bad day, and He was motivated by anger? God doesn’t have bad days. And He’s not motivated by anger. But His anger is expressed in certain ways.
Look at Psalms, chapter 7. He’s always going to do what’s best. His anger is always based on right and wrong. It’s always based on what is just. And it’s always based on what is good. And, fortunately, God’s anger is, many times, expressed in mercy. You say, “What’s that mean?” God is angry with the world and yet He sacrificed His own Son for the world. See, His anger isn’t a motivation. It is an experience of Him as a being. It is not His motivation. And there’s where you and I have trouble. Anger is a motivation for us. It drives us to do things. Now God isn’t chemical, so when He talks about His anger, I can’t relate that exactly to what...I don’t know how it’s experienced. I know how our anger is experienced. Jesus Christ does, too. Because Jesus Christ walked this earth as a human being, wired like we are. So He understands. So He says, “is not provoked.” In other words, anger doesn’t drive us – can’t motivate us – to do the wrong thing. It doesn’t say, “You don’t be angry.” It says, “You’re not provoked.” Your not driven by anger to do the wrong thing. We’ve all been there. Agape is a different motivation. Look what it says here in Psalm 7:11:
Psa. 7:11 – God is a just judge. And God is angry with the wicked every day. Now, if God is a just judge and He’s angry with the wicked every day, why isn’t God wiping humanity off the face of the earth? Because God is not motivated that way by His anger. It didn’t say, “God is an angry god and He judges the wicked every day.” It’s said, “He’s a just judge and He’s angry with the wicked.” The first statement is His justice. It’s actually God’s sense of justice that doesn’t destroy humanity. It’s His love. It’s those things combined together.
I know this sounds like a complicated concept, but I really want to make it understandable. We must understand. God experiences anger. That anger is expressed in action. It is never motivated by anger. God did not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah simply because He was angry with them. God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because they were sinners. Do you understand? Did He experience anger? Yeah. But that’s not what motivated Him.
You and I have a hard time separating that process in our own brain. Part of it is not just because of the spiritual principle involved. The brain itself...it’s very difficult for us to separate between being angry and being motivated by anger. God doesn’t have that problem. And the result is that much of the anger that we experience does not produce what God wants produced.
Prov. 29:22 – An angry man stirs up strife. We’ve all known angry people. Once again, we all experience anger, but this is an angry man. In other words, this person is just angry all the time – you know, you’ve met somebody at work, you have a relative, or somebody like that. They’re just angry all the time. So what happens? Every place they go, they’re in an argument. Every place they go, they’re in strife. They never have peace. But it also says: and a furious man abounds in transgressions. Anger will motivate us to sin, if we’re not careful.
So we have to understand the power of anger and why agape is not provoked. Doesn’t it say agape never gets angry. It’s not provoked. When we provoke somebody, we’re driving them to action. Or, when we’re provoked, you know...“Well, I was provoked to hit him!” Right? No, we’re not provoked. We’re not driven by our anger.
James 1. We’re going to go through a lot of scriptures today. I told a lot of stories the last two weeks. We get a lot of scriptures today. James 1:19 – New Testament basic statement of what we just read in the Old Testament. James says:
Jm. 1:19 – So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. So we have to understand this. He’s says it. Human anger does not produce the righteousness of God. Yet how many times in life are we motivated by anger?
I can remember one time, when Kim and I first got married, she was upset over something and she got mad. Because she was mad, I got mad. And I got on the phone and chewed some guy out over a credit card snafu, hung up the phone and thought, “Why did I just do that?” She was mad.... Now, she had the right to be mad. I say she was angry. My wife doesn’t get angry that much, but it stirred me up. Okay? The point is, her being upset – maybe that’s the better word – she got upset, I got mad, I called the guy, and, on the phone, punched him in the nose, hung up, and then thought, “Why did I do that? I don’t even know that guy. He’s not even the guy that runs the credit card company. He’s some flunky sitting there, probably, taking antacid all day long because people like me call him up and chew him out!” And then I started thinking, “What purpose did that have?” So it’s not the anger. It’s not being provoked. It’s not being driven by that anger that’s the issue. It’s not wrong to even show anger from time to time, or express anger from time to time. It’s what we do with it that’s the issue, so that we’re not provoked – we’re not motivated – by it.
One man I think about, in the Bible, that had some trouble with his anger was Moses. Moses murdered a man. Remember? He got angry with one of the Egyptian guards – killed the guy! – out of anger. You can see where Moses came down from with the Ten Commandments, saw the people committing idolatry. Should he have been angry? Yes. Was God angry? Yes. Should Moses take action? Yes. Should he break the tables of stone written by the hand of God? Nah. Understand. His anger was okay, but he was provoked. He wasn’t the one that did wrong. They were the ones that did wrong. But the bottom line is, breaking the two tables of stone was not a good idea.
So you think about the time they didn’t have any water, and God said, “Okay, go strike the rock, and I’ll bring forth some water.” And the people were griping, and complaining, and griping, and complaining, and griping. Finally, he just lost his temper, and said, “Okay, you rebels. Here we go. We’ll bring water out for you!” And he started pounding on the rock. If you read the story in Numbers 20, what God told him was, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You were supposed to say, ‘God will bring water out of the rock,’ and secondly, ‘You didn’t have to call them a bunch of rebels.’ All you had to do was walk up and say, ‘Trust God,’ tap the rock, and I was going to bring water out.” And God said, “You know, you lost your temper one last time. You’re not going into the promised land.” That’s a pretty stiff price to pay, isn’t it?
Why did He do that to Moses? Because God is cruel? Because God is mean? Because God likes to punish? No, He did it because Moses had to learn agape. One of the problems Moses had was, he got provoked. Of course, dealing with what he was dealing with, one day I would have gotten up, got on the fastest horse in Israel, got on it and rode away as fast as I could, and said, “You people find yourself out of this mess.” Right? I’d have just said, “I’m not leading you people anymore.” He stuck with them. But he had to learn not to be provoked. So he didn’t go into the promised land. He never got upset with God over that decision. At least, it was never written. Whatever upset he got, he got over. He dealt with it. Why ? Because he understood what he, God, was doing in him. He couldn’t be driven by that. He had to think clearly through the anger.
Now, what are some of our sources of anger? A main source of anger to us is any threat to our life, any threat to our well-being, or any threat to our self-image. This is why I say, “Do not be provoked doesn’t mean you can never experience anger.” If someone comes up to you and is breaking into your house – I said, “Come up to you...” – you hear them breaking the window – breaking in – and you feel a mixture of anger and fear.... You have to. If you didn’t feel anger and fear, you’d walk up and say, “Hey, how are you doing?” I mean, it’s just not logical. You have to react because your life is threatened.
Now, when your well-being is threatened..... When your boss at work tells you he’s going to fire all of you, what do you get? Angry. Because your well being is threatened. So this is normal – to have anger and worry and fear – these things get all mixed together. But here’s what is really amazing. We will have the same level of anger when our own self-image is threatened. When we feel like somebody has attacked our self-image, we will react with the same level of anger, as if they were attacking our lives. And then we will become provoked. And we will decide now, we must take action, because “I am provoked” – because my self-image.... And there’s where we get in trouble.
So those are normal sources of anger for human beings. A second source of anger is biological disposition. What I mean by that: some people are wired to experience anger more quickly than others. They’re just wired that way. I get angry really quick. It goes away. You know, I can be angry with you for thirty seconds, and a minute later, I can’t remember why I’m angry. It’s just sort of gone. I know people who are mad at somebody, and they remember ten years later. But they’re sort of wired that way. They have to work on that. Everybody has to work on.... Mine is, “Oh, I’m mad.” Punch you in the nose, and then say, “Let’s go have a beer.” That’s not a good way to handle problems. Okay? It is my normal disposition. Now I’m fifty-four years old. I’ve learned not to do that so much. I don’t do that nearly as much as I did thirty years ago. But every once in awhile, it’s like, boom! “Hey, let’s go have a beer!” “Well, you just punched me in the nose!” “Yeah, but I’m over it.” (Laughter) But they’re not! Okay?
But other people have different issues with anger. For some people, it just sits in their mind and won’t go away. They have to learn to deal with that in a different way.
But there is a disposition we have to understand – that it has to do with personality. That doesn’t mean you can justify what you do. It just means you have to understand. Sometimes anger comes from influence from our environment. Chris isn’t here, so I’ll use him as an example. When he was a little kid, he watched this cartoon one time – every day – when he came home from school. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to it, because he had been watching some show when he came home from school – Kim let him watch a half-hour of TV. It was pretty harmless. But he started talking about this show he was watching – this other show. We noticed he was having strange behavior. I mean, he was like eight years old – nine years old. And he was having this very strange behavior. He was like nervous and he was aggressive. We wondered, “What’s happening? Something happening at school?” Everything was fine. Then one day, I said, “You know, he’s not like that when he comes home from school and he’s not like that later. What’s happening? It must be that show.”
I sat and watched the show one day with him. It was the most violent cartoon I’ve ever seen. I mean, it was terrible! And I watched him change. The little guy’s mind couldn’t absorb all this stuff. And when he was done, I said, “Chris, we’re not going to watch that show anymore.” And for the first time in his life, he was sort of rebellious. He was the easiest kid in the world to raise. And all of a sudden, he said, “No, Dad, I am going to watch that show! What do you mean?” “Chris, look at how you’re acting.” Well, you can’t say that to a kid. I said, “Tell me how you feel.” “Well, I’m just mad.” “Why are you mad? Are you actually mad at me?” “Well, I’m mad because you won’t let me watch the show.” “Why?” And as we worked through it, “Well, the show makes me mad.” He had to work through it. But he did. The show made him angry. It was one of the most obvious times I’ve ever seen a human being being driven by their environment so strongly. His little brain could not process the violence he was watching. We took him off the show and within two days, he was back to his normal self. He was fine. So we never watched that show again. So our environment can drive us sometimes and we have to be very aware.
A fourth reason that we become very angry at times is repeated negative experiences. Now parents, this is especially true with our children. You can treat your child – and this is why Paul says, “Fathers, don’t provoke them to anger “ – we can treat a child so negatively for such a long period of time that they simply become angry. That anger sits inside of them and they become angry. And then, as an adult, they have all kinds of anger problems. Repeated negative experiences will do that.
In serious marriage problems, I’ll sit down with a couple sometimes and say, “But he – or she – is doing it right now.” “Yeah, but for ten years they did it wrong. So I’m so angry....” “Wait a minute. But they’re doing it right now.” Doesn’t matter. The anger is so strong, they can’t give up the anger – because of the repeated negative experiences. So sometimes we have to find out we’re angry, because we’ve had so many negative experiences, we’re just angry. That’s when we have to work through them.
Then the last, of course – the fifth source of anger – is in Ephesians 2. This is really important, because this is where uncontrolled anger takes us, even if this isn’t the source. So this can be the source of anger or it can be the gasoline that gets thrown on our own anger inside ourselves. This is why this is important. When we get to this level of anger, we cannot experience agape. We can’t live agape when we get to this level.
Eph. 2:1 – And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, which once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and – what? – we were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Provoked – easily provoked – driven by anger.
Anger is such a powerful emotion. Now, some of you may have the personality that you don’t, but most people experience anger a couple of times – numerous times – during the day. Now, you might have some days you don’t, and then the kids decide to use your makeup as paint on the wall.... Or that person you have to work with, who is naturally impossible to live with, decides to be really impossible today. Right? Or the dog really did eat your homework. And so we have to deal with these anger responses. That anger is not sin. That is what is called being human. It’s part of who we are. It’s what we do with it that counts. And that’s why this has to do with agape, because Satan will feed anger. He loves it when we stay in an angry state. He will feed it, so that we’re angry all the time. And when we’re angry all the time, it is absolutely impossible to respond to God’s Spirit. We have to understand that.
Now, here are three ways that handling anger won’t work. So, if we’re not going to be provoked, we have to understand that these won’t work.
One is uncontrolled ventilation. Right? Screaming, name-calling, sarcastic put-downs, throwing things, violence won’t work, right? It just won’t work. Uncontrolled ventilation of anger is destructive. People kill other people in those moments of totally ventilated anger. So uncontrolled ventilation won’t work.
Now, on the other side, simply repressing anger, and bottling it up, and pretending that you don’t have it won’t work either. What happens, in those cases, is...a good example is in Jonah. Jonah, chapter 4. Usually, we go to Jonah to read all the different accounts...I just want to look at one little thing here that’s important in understanding his human reaction and why he felt the way he did.
Jonah, chapter 4. Now, you remember what happens here is that he goes to Ninevah. He doesn’t want to go to Ninevah. He ends up being sent there by God anyway. He tells them to repent and they repent. What he really wanted was to see the Assyrians fry. Right? That’s what he really, really wanted. So now he’s angry. He’s angry at the Assyrians, because they repented. He was angry with them before, because they were the bad guys. Now he’s angry with the Assyrians because they repented – which tells something about anger. Anger will drive us to not let somebody repent. So, in verse 3, what happens to him? He says:
Jonah 4:3 – Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. And the LORD said, “Is it right for you to be that angry?” Now, the book of Jonah ends with what? Jonah sitting outside of Ninevah saying, “Please fry them. Please fry them.” And He doesn’t. And it ends with this depressed, angry man sitting there waiting for God to please fry these people.
Repression and bottling anger leads to a lack of forgiveness and it actually leads to depression. A lot of depression is anger that has never been worked through. And this isn’t psychology. This is just reality, folks. It’s what the Bible shows. Repression – or bottling anger – it’s there – you feel it – “Of course I’m angry!” – but you really don’t deal with it.
A third way is actually to deny it. “I’m not angry!” Oh, every man in this room has faced that one. “What’s wrong, honey?” “Nothing.” “Uh-oh.” Because I have no idea, after thirty-some years of marriage, what the next response is supposed to be. Something’s wrong. Yeah, you find out ninety-nine percent of the time, it has nothing to do with you-you know, “I’m upset because the kids didn’t call today,” or “I’m upset because I didn’t want to tell you the air conditioner broke down today.” Right? But what do we do, guys? We automatically think, “It’s gotta be me. I’ve done something wrong.” Of course, I think they do that on purpose, too, because it’s like, “Let him suffer for awhile. Then when I tell him the air conditioner broke, he won’t feel so bad.” I’m teasing.
But denial is a serious issue. When we just deny it and we are angry, other people can see it. I’ve sat down with people, and said, “Why are you so angry?” “I am not!” “Yes, you are.” “No, I”M NOT!” “But you are. And this anger is tearing you apart.” And then it’s something like, “Well, if you knew what my childhood was like...” or something like that. “So you are angry. Everybody knows it but you.”
So what is righteous anger? How do we have righteous anger, then? How do we have anger that is acceptable – that isn’t self-destructive? If we’re all going to experience anger, how do we have agape so that we’re not provoked – our anger doesn’t drive us to wrong or destructive actions? This isn’t a big issue for some of us. We struggle with this. And we have to learn not to let it drive us to destructive actions.
First of all, let’s go to Ephesians 4:26 and see how this all has to do with our character, whether we’re talking about envy, or not rude, or longsuffering, not provoked. It all has to do with how we face life. This is what conversion is at that deepest level.
Eph. 4:26 – Be angry and do not sin. Then there’s this very interesting little bit of wisdom. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. In other words, do not let it eat away at you. Let it go. It’s got to be short-lived. When we find ourselves consumed and obsessed with anger, we realize we’ve crossed the line.
Now sometimes, you say, “Well, I should be angry.” I mean, sometimes, it’s...you turn on the television news and you get angry. But you can’t live with that level of anger. You can’t hate politicians and live a happy life. There is some point you say, “I have no control over what the President of the United States does. I only have control over my relationship with God and what I do everyday with the people around me.” Now that doesn’t mean you don’t feel angry, from time to time, when you see the sin and decay of society. We should. That’s righteous anger. But you never hang on to that very long. You give it to God. You don’t let the sun go down on that wrath.
I’ve met many people that have had good marriages because they took that literally and they would not go to bed angry at each other. They agreed that they wouldn’t go to sleep angry. Now sometimes they stayed up half the night, but they had a happy marriage, because they took that in a very literal sense. “We will not go to sleep angry.” And every couple that I’ve ever talked to that has done that said, “It made our whole lives different, because you don’t wake up angry. You wake up okay, so the next day is different.”
So our first principle is understanding that righteous anger is short-lived. You actually let go of it. There is a point where you turn and do something else. You don’t hold on to that so that it obsesses you or controls you. But it’s real. It’s there. And it’s righteous. But you don’t let the sun go down on it.
The second is that a person experiencing righteous anger never allows himself to cross that line to where they are manipulated by Satan. There is a point where anger loses control. You cross a line and you’ve lost control. And you will say things, you will think things, you will do things that you would normally never do. That’s because we’re giving ourselves over to Satan’s attitude – not possessed or something like that, but his attitude. We’re surrounded by Satan’s attitude all the time. One of the core components of who he is, is he is provoked. He’s mad at God, he hates God and he is provoked. And his anger is constant and it’s intense. Look at the very next verse here – Ephesians 4:27 – because it says:
V-26 – Be angry and sin not. And do not let the sun go down on your wrath. But that’s not the end of the sentence. The next verse is the rest of the sentence:
V-27 – Nor give place to the devil – or opportunity. That can be translated opportunity. Don’t give opportunity to Satan, because if you lose it.... Have you ever said something in anger and it’s almost like it’s coming out of your mouth and you don’t want it to come out. And your brain is saying, “That’s wrong!” And then it comes out, and it’s like you’re thinking, “What idiot said that? Who in the world would say that?” But it already came out, because we go over that threshold. And when we do, we’re in real trouble.
So righteous anger is short-lived and we don’t let it cross that boundary where Satan controls us.
Number three. Righteous anger is experienced when there is a moral principle involved. Much of the time we’re angry because someone said something, or did something, or it hurt our feelings – our self-image is at stake. So we’re angry because our self-image is at stake. Part of the problem is, then, we’ll get angry, even when there is a moral principle involved, and then let our self-righteousness drive us instead of righteousness. That’s a whole other subject – how we can be driven by self-righteousness and think it’s righteousness.
So there’s a moral principle involved. And you have to know what that moral principle is. You have to be very firm in that it is a moral principle of God. And that’s a hard line to walk sometimes, because sometimes our own pride is hurt and we think, then, we’re driven by a moral principle.
A fourth is a person who has righteous anger gets angry at situations. They’re not angry all the time. So you can be angry because the guy said he would fix your car. It was two hours after he said he would fix it and then it wasn’t done right. Okay? It’s okay to feel some anger at that. Now to go burn the guy’s place down is not righteous anger. Okay? But the feeling of anger is okay. He didn’t do his word. He didn’t do the job right. That’s a moral principle. Now what are you going to do with it, though? There’s the problem. When the situation is taken care of, you let go of the anger. The older you live, the longer you realize, a lot of situations never get taken care of. So you just let them go. You just never go back to that shop. Right? You never go back and have your car done there again, because you know they’re not going to do the job right and it’s not going to be done on time. If every time you drive by the guy’s shop, you’re mad for two hours, that’s not righteous anger, because it has no meaning. It has no purpose. Let it go! “There’s that guy that messed me up that time! Get out of my way, buddy!” Now you’re mad at everybody else! Anger has a way of just spreading. It’s like a virus and we just spread it from person to person.
So there are times you realize you are angry at a situation, but you’re not an angry person. Look at Proverbs 11. See, I’m already cutting out material.
Prov. 11:23 – The desire of the righteous is only good, but the expectation of the wicked is wrath. You go into a situation expecting to be angry, and guess what you’re going to be? Angry. The expectation is wrath. So angry people expect wrath. They expect anger. They go into every place prepared for the wrath – for the anger – to take place. They can be angry before anything has actually happened.
Chapter 19, verse 19 – Proverbs 19, verse 19.
Prov. 19:19 – A man of great wrath will suffer punishment. For if you rescue him, you will have to do it again. Someone who is angry all the time keeps ending up in messes because they’re angry all the time. Their very anger creates the mess over and over and over again. Their very anger creates the mess.
So number four is, the person who has righteous anger gets angry at situations. They’re not angry all the time. If you’re angry all the time, then we have an agape problem – is not provoked – because I can guarantee you that you’re being provoked all the time. If you’re angry all the time, it doesn’t take much to provoke you, does it? It just doesn’t take much.
Fifth point. Now this is what is really hard. Okay. This is the point I really have trouble with. Righteous anger is used to energize positive actions.What do you mean, righteous anger produces positive actions? Mark, chapter 3 – perfect example – absolutely perfect example – and it’s Jesus Christ who gives it to us. Mark 3. Righteous anger produces – or energizes – positive actions. So if your anger keeps producing more and more strife, why? Now, once again, it may be that the other person will – we talk about in this agape all the time – you’re going to reach other people who will not and just refuse to not be angry. So, okay, what do I do with my anger? Well, let’s try to produce something positive. How do you produce something positive out of anger?
Mk. 3:1 – Jesus enters the synagogue again. And a man was there who had a withered hand. So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse Him. Now that’s a pretty nasty thing to do. They’re waiting around for Jesus to do something good so they can accuse Him of breaking the law. And He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Step forward.” And He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil – to save life or to kill?” Now that’s a brilliant argument. It’s a rabbinical argument that the Pharisees had all the time. They believed you should do good on the Sabbath. They believed you should save life on the Sabbath. They didn’t believe you should heal on the Sabbath, but you should save life. Of course, His argument is, “If you’re going to save life, and I save this man, you tell me what’s wrong with it.” They knew they were trapped in a logic problem, so they were silent.
V-5 – And when He had looked around at them with anger – Jesus is angry – God in the flesh is angry – being grieved – I mean, He really stresses this – Mark wants to stress this – He was grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hands,” and they all became withered hands. That’s not what it says. Because that’s what I’d have done. I know what I’d have done. “Okay, people, there you go.” I’d have withered all their hands. “You bunch of hard-hearted Pharisees!” That’s not what He did. He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out and his hand was restored as whole as the other.
His anger motivated Him, because it was also agape. You see what I mean? He wasn’t provoked. His agape motivated Him, even though He was angry with these people, to do good to this person. That’s amazing! That’s God. That’s what’s absolutely amazing. Because He could have withered all their hands. That wasn’t a problem. Do you understand? That was easy to do. Ask the Father. The Father will do it. Did they deserve it? I, personally, think they did. What’s amazing is, Jesus Christ didn’t. He healed the man who had the withered hand. That’s agape, folks. That’s a whole different way of looking at life, isn’t it? Agape will take our anger and find a way to do something good with it.
We use our anger to find a way to do something destructive with it. That’s why, before we take action when we’re angry.... There are times Kim will ask me a question and I say, “I’ll wait.” Why? Because I’m upset, or I’m angry at something, and I’m just not going to talk to anybody for a half hour. I’ll come home from some place, and someone will call and say, “Please call me. It’s an emergency.” And I know somebody didn’t die – not something like – or they’re in the hospital. I know what an emergency is. I’ll say, “I’ll wait fifteen minutes.” She’ll say, “Why?” I’ll say, “Because I’m upset from our last visit, and that person doesn’t deserve the last visit to be taken out on them.” You have to understand that we have to give ourselves time to decompress from situations before taking action. Proverb 15:18. Because, I tell you what, every time I haven’t done that, I have been really sorry because of the way I have eventually treated somebody.
Prov. 15:18 – A wrathful man stirs up strife, but he that is slow to anger delays contention. In other words, he is able, at times, to ratchet down – bring down – the conflict. And if you can’t bring down the external conflict, bring down the internal conflict. Do not be provoked. I’m not saying, “Don’t be angry,” but do not be provoked.
Don’t let others dictate your actions. That’s hard, isn’t it? Don’t let others dictate your actions. That’s never easy. It’s agape. This is the conversion process. I am so glad that God is not dictated by my actions. I don’t know about you, but I’m really, really, really glad that God’s love toward me is not dictated out of reactions to my actions, or I’d be in very bad shape. That’s agape.
Sixth point. Righteous anger never generates hatred. It never generates hatred. That’s why, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Don’t call your brother, Worthless.” He didn’t say, “Don’t go to him and say, ‘You know what? I’m angry with you.’” He didn’t say that. Anger, of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. He didn’t say, “Don’t do that.” He said, “Don’t go to him and say, ‘Worthless!’” Sermon on the Mount – Matthew, chapter 5 – “Don’t call him Raca.” That’s what that means. Going to your brother because you’re angry is fine. It’s how you do it. If you go to your brother, put him in a head-lock, drive him to the ground and punch his lights out, that’s not a good way to start. But that’s what we do so much of the time.
Then the seventh: Righteous anger doesn’t produce depression. When you find yourself becoming depressed over your anger, you realize you’ve passed into a human experience. Because God is never depressed. God grieves, but that is a totally different thing. When we find ourselves depressed over anger, we’ve crossed a threshold. We have to step back, and say, “Get rid of that anger. Let’s get rid of it for awhile. There’s enough to be angry about tomorrow. If I get rid of my anger....” “Don’t worry about it. There’ll be enough to be angry about tomorrow.” There’s always something. Is not provoked – we let it go, so we’re not controlled by it and we’re not controlled by others.
We’re in the hardest stuff we’ll ever do. I’ve never met anybody that has this agape down yet, except Jesus Christ. The rest of us are still working on it.
Now I want to finish up with how to respond with righteous anger. You say, “Last time we talked about tact.” Yes, but tact had to do with not being rude. Tact is something you do when it’s just a way of treating people. What do you do when you’re really mad? Tact doesn’t mean much when you’re really mad. See, “I’m angry. How do I deal with this?”
First of all, we must recognize that most of the anger we experience is destructive to our emotional and spiritual health and it’s destructive to other people. Okay? All you have to do is be honest about that. Even if the anger was righteous when it began, what it ends up with is so destructive so many times.
Proverbs 27:3. You’re all starting to look a little sleepy, but.... I could get angry and start pounding, but....
Prov. 27:3 – A stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but a fool’s wrath is heavier than both of them. We can’t carry that stuff around. But we fear, “If I give up the wrath, then I’m letting somebody get away with something.” No, you’re not. If you carry the wrath, you’re letting them do something to you. If you carry the anger – like a stone – you’re letting them do something to you.
So, we have to understand. Sometimes, you just take that rock and throw it off. Now, if we can use that wrath – use that anger – to bring about a positive action, that’s good. Sometimes you have to stand up against someone at work. Say your neighbor is screaming and yelling at your child, and you have to go and say, “Stop that! Don’t treat my child that way.” And you’re angry, once again, you have to learn to control it, but there is nothing wrong with that anger. You’re doing a positive action. But going over and toilet-papering your neighbor’s trees in the middle of the night is not a good way of expressing the anger. It’s not productive. It’s not positive. Calling the police about your neighbor? It may be, it may not be. You have to think that one through. If they’re overshooting your dogs, you may need to call the police. Right? But what is the motivation?
Number two. Discuss your anger with God and ask Him for help through His Spirit.
When I’m dealing, sometimes, with people who have real anger problems, I have them keep a diary of what makes them angry every day and then look for patterns. People walk around with a little book. Then get angry and they write it down. “Wow, I was angry thirty-seven times today.” “Maybe you need to just back off of that some. Why are you that angry?”
I’ve never kept a diary, but I’ve done it in my head. Why do I get angry? And I have to tell myself, “Stop it!” I’m chewing myself out about ten times a day. “Stop that! Don’t do that. That’s stupid. Why did you do that? Come on, you’re better than that. Go ask God’s forgiveness and get back on track.” I’m doing that to myself all the time. I have to, because I’m not on track all the time. I wish I was. And there are times – “Don’t do that. God help me. Why am I so angry?” You have to go ask that sometimes. Go ask for help from His Spirit. Ask for agape. Ask, “Help me not to be easily provoked.” If I’m not going to be provoked, then where’s the anger coming from? How do I make this righteous anger? Sometimes it’s turning it over to Him and letting Him do what He wants to do. Sometimes it’s turning it over to Him and saying, “Okay, I trust you. You will fix this, because I can’t.” Sometimes that’s what it comes down to – turning it over to Him and saying, “I can’t be angry God, because it’s hurting my relationship with you. It’s hurting my relationship with my friends. It’s hurting my relationship with my wife, or my husband, or my kids. I can’t do that, so I’m just giving it to you and I’m stepping back from the anger.” Sometimes we just have to do that. And if it’s a righteous anger, God’s angry, too. So let Him fix it. Because sometimes we can’t fix everything.
Number three. When first feeling anger, force yourself to take that step back – that time out – you know, the counting to ten. It sounds so silly, but counting to ten is absolutely amazing. I realized this over the years. When I write an email in anger, I let it sit twenty-four hours. What I find is, ninety percent of the time or better, it never gets sent. Or the other ten percent – it gets modified. But if I sent it right then, boy, would I be in trouble all the time. I’m learning not to write them in your little “Draft” box, because you don’t want them sent out by accident. Right? Write them as an attachment and then you don’t have that mistake happen. But nine out of ten times, I never send it. Because, after twenty-four hours, it’s like, “It isn’t worth it. It won’t help the other person. I’ll just make the situation worse.” Or, it’s amazing how many times things just take care of themselves. But it’s taking that step back.
Fourth. Meditate on what makes you angry and how to handle it better to get positive results. You say, “Oh, today I got angry with someone at work. And I chewed them out and said something mean. I shouldn’t have done it.” Instead of sitting around, beating up on yourself – because I guarantee you, two days from now, you’re going to have the same situation come up with that person or somebody else – instead of beating yourself up, think, “Next time, how do I handle that? Next time, how do I deal with the anger before it gets to that point. Next time, is that person pushing my buttons....?” You know what I mean. There are people that push your buttons. They know how to do it. They figure you out. Right? They figure you out and they push your buttons. Next time, say, “Nah.” We stop that before they ever push...they push one button: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re trying to push buttons here. We don’t go there.” Stop it before they take you there. But you have to think about it. Meditate on it. Can I produce something positive? Sometimes you can’t. But when you can, try. When you can, try to produce something positive.
Then the last point is something we’ve said over and over and over again. So I’m not even going to a scripture. I have scriptures written down, but we’ve run out of time. Because half the points we’ve gone through, learning to forgive is always one of the points. If I’m not going to be easily provoked, I have to learn to forgive. I have to learn to give up my emotional need for that person to receive payback, and turn things over to the justice of God, and hope people repent and receive mercy. When you do that, the anger goes away. Now, it doesn’t mean that you accept wrong. It doesn’t mean you now give up justice. We talked about that. But this is all part of not being provoked.
None of us are perfect Christians yet. But we are striving to become agape. That’s why we are called – to become His children. He means that literally. He is agape. Guess what we are to be? Just like Dad! Just like our elder Brother! We’re supposed to become agape. I’ve given five sermons on this. I will give our next sermon on this and our next Bible Study on this. I know I had a series of Bible Studies I started on, but I’ve scrapped them, because I want to get through this. And I still will not get through it. I’m going to ask Jim to let me have a chance to come up here and finish it in another month or two.
Now we’ve talked about conversion. We’re beginning to see what a converted person looks like. Think about it – what we’ve covered in these five sermons. A converted person is willing to suffer for a long time with others faults, sins and quirks for the good of that person. A converted person does acts of kindness to everyone he meets. Doesn’t envy, actually rejoices in the blessing of others. A converted person doesn’t parade himself or allow himself to be driven by pride. A converted person is humble, easy to entreat, willing to forgive. A converted person is concerned with not offending others and tries to be tactful. He doesn’t always have to have his own way, but has the spirit of cooperation. A converted person controls his temper and is motivated by righteous anger to do righteousness. We’re beginning to see what a converted person actually looks like. None of us reach that. And we’re sure hard on the others who don’t. Right? And, actually, we’ll cover that next time.