Anger In Proverbs, Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. He said, Now Americans hate each other. They view the worst people in the whole world are those people on the other side of that aisle. They're the worst.

I hate you. We're being taught that. Depending on what TV station or radio station you listen to, you're taught that every day. We're hating.

That's an interesting thing. That's how we've been taught. Jesus says, You've been taught this. He said, But I say to you, now this is Jesus speaking, Love your enemies. The Son of God says to you, You love your enemies. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Look at chapter 30 with me. And verse 33. Beautiful analogy.

Solomon writes in 33. For the churning of milk produces butter. I love the second one. The pressing of the nose will bring forth blood. If I just put my thumb on your nose and keep pressing long enough, I'd get some blood out of there. He says, So the churning of anger produces strife. Anger makes things worse. Worse for the people you're angry at and worse for you. It makes things worse. It doesn't make things better. That's what God's saying.

You can't do it that way. There is spiritual benefit, but only in expressing anger the right way. There are dangerous consequences that can be mishandled. But most importantly, what I want to say this morning is this. This is very important to be able to express anger correctly.

Or even to have anger correctly. You have to see life. The way God does. You have to see life the way God is. And I'm going to tell you, if you're like me or almost everyone I know, you don't do this. You don't see life the way God says it.

I'll be able to illustrate that. I want to go to the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew Chapter 5. And the part I want to get to is verse 43, but I'm going to start in verse 38. Because you need to be honest with yourself as we look at these verses. Jesus says, and don't miss that, it's red letter if you have a red letter Bible, Jesus is talking.

The Son of God. This isn't Bill's opinion. He said, you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. They all heard that. You ever heard that? Yeah. We like that, don't we?

I mean, partially. What is that verse? Justice. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. We like justice, don't we?

Unless it's about us. What if God treated you with justice? What if the Holy God treated you with justice?

How you'd be doing, well, you wouldn't be here. The wages of sin is what? Death. All sin will fall short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, no, not one. Paul also said, if you violate one part of the law, you're guilty of the whole thing. So, do you want justice from God in your life?

No. What do you want? Grace, forgiveness, that's what I want. But for other people, I want justice.

You see how this works. Jesus is just setting them up. So, Jesus says, look, you don't understand something. There's a way human beings look at life in this world, but it's not the way I look at life. It's not at all the way I look at life.

I look at life differently. So, notice what he says next. But, strong contrast, I say to you, do not resist an evil person.

What? Do not resist an evil person? You mean someone that's going to propagate evil on me? Jesus said, don't do that. Oh, he has a reason. You'll see as he goes on.

He said, here we go, whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other also to him. Is that what you do? Go ahead.

What's your nature? How about if they cast an insult to you? What if they condemn you?

What if they accuse you of something that's not true? Are you going to let them do that? You're going to get angry. So, you're going to get angry?

See, Jesus said, no, just turn your other cheek. Now, does that sound natural to you? It isn't, is it? It's not the way we're built. I don't think that way. You don't think that way in my flesh. No way.

I'm not going to start a problem, but I'm not going to let you push me around. If anyone wants to sue you to take your shirt, let them have your coat also. Now, that's just plain bad business, isn't it? That's just bad business. Yeah, no way.

There's no way I'm going to do that. You're talking about being a sap. No, he's talking about being gracious and loving. Wow. He said, whoever forces you to go one mile, you go with them two.

Now, this is funny because it's impregnated with meaning. Once Rome took over Judea, Roman soldiers had a garrison there. When Roman soldiers would move from one place to the other in Judea, for example, if you were a Jew and they spotted you, he could drag you over to him and say, you carry all my equipment for the next mile. Now, remember, there are despicable Romans. There are Gentiles. They're not God's people.

They've conquered Judea. And a Roman soldier tells you to carry his gear for a mile. And here's Jesus' answer.

You tell him you'll carry it too. Is that how you see life? Someone's going to perpetrate an injustice in you, and you say, you can go ahead and do that.

Come on, be honest. That's not how you see life. You see it differently. It's one of the reasons you're angry all the time. He says to you, you go to give to him who ask of you. Do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. This is like unmerited favor, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. It's like grace. It's the reason you're going to go to heaven. You didn't deserve anything.

You didn't do anything. Paul says while we were at enmity, God's enemies, Christ came and died for us. Because we deserved it. We didn't deserve any of it.

For God so loved the world, that's us, that he sent his only begotten son. Does that sound fair to you? You see what I mean? On the receiving end, it sounds good, doesn't it? But on the giving end, no way, absolutely no way am I going to do that.

I'm not going to do that. So we get then to verse 43. You have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. They were taught that by the religious leaders. The Jews were extreme separatists. And so to people who were gentile, unbelievers, they were called the filthy goyim, the filthy people group.

The Jews wanted nothing to do with them. They condemned them constantly. And they were taught that. They were taught that. They had a hatred for those people. Jesus said, I know that's how you were taught. The world will teach you to hate.

It's teaching us right now. I read an article not long ago, and the fellow that was writing the article said that Christians, he said, like almost all people, and he was talking from an American point of view, not necessarily a Christian point of view, I'll use Americans. Americans used to hate, selectively as a group, Nazis, people who murdered other people and tried to take other countries. They hated them. He said then they learned to hate communism, an anti-God socialistic communist idea. They hated that. He said now Americans hate each other. They view the worst people in the whole world are those people on the other side of that aisle. They're the worst.

I hate you. We're being taught that. Depending on what TV station or radio station you listen to, you're taught that every day. We're hating.

That's an interesting thing. That's how we've been taught. Jesus says, you've been taught this. He said, but I say to you, now this is Jesus speaking, love your enemies. Either way, it's an imperative mood. It's commanded. The Son of God says to you, you love your enemies. Now, you don't like that word, do you? Shouldn't it be said I tolerate?

He said no. You love your enemies. By the way, just like I loved you when you were my enemy. You love your enemies. Now watch and pray for those who persecute you.

Now the enemy's gone a little bit further. I am to pray for those not who aren't believers. I'm to pray for those who persecute me. I should be praying for those. Do you do that?

Do you do that at all? It's a way we think. We don't think like Jesus at all here. I can remember some time ago, I was teaching on this and I talked to a person and he was talking to me and he was saying how important it is that we pray for the president. And it was the current president and I said, boy, you're right, we need to pray. And I said to him, can I ask you a question?

How often did you pray for the previous president? Not at all. What? Not at all.

Why? You don't care what Jesus said at all? You see how this works? How's your worldview? Are you viewing the world the way the culture views the world? Or are you viewing the world the way the Lord Jesus Christ views the world?

You see, it's your worldview that causes all this anger. So he says, pray for those who persecute you. I came on this verse sort of in a strange way. Velma had received a text from someone in the church. And when she received a text, it was about another person who had basically said, look, I can pray that the people on the enemy side will call the enemy side in.

I can pray for them to come to Christ, but that's it. I can't go further than that. So Velma and I will start looking for a text that will try to address it.

And this is the text we were led to. You see, because that makes sense to me. I like everyone. Who wouldn't want everyone in the country to become a Christian?

See, I like that. Jesus isn't talking about that. He's talking about enemies who persecute you. He's like, whoa, that's really bad. He says, so that, now watch this, you may be sons of your father who's in heaven.

What's he telling us? You want to prove you're a child of God? You want something that proves you're a child of God. You love your enemies and you pray for those who persecute you. If you do that, you prove your mind. Do you do that? See, do you do that?

Or do you find yourself filled with anger? That's the point. See, the Lord's view of life is completely different than our cultural view and likely different than your view and mine.

It's just terrible. I've been thinking about it from this point of view. Instead, I'd address this and I'll address it now. I've heard this before. Christians often love to use this term. Remember, when you're angry, you always justify it to yourself. I have a good reason. Almost in every case, you don't.

I'm just telling you, you don't. But we love this term, righteous indignation. Righteous indignation. What I have here is righteous indignation.

Okay, where do you get that? Jesus. Was Jesus ever angry? Yes. A lot? Nope. But was he angry?

Oh, yes. I'll give you the two incidences. One, they desecrated the temple of God. That's what he was angry. Who desecrated it? The Jews, his people. The one he came to was Messiah from. He desecrated the temple and Jesus chased out the money changers. And he was angry. Did he ever get angry at anybody else? Yes. Pharisees.

Why? He said, you have stolen the kingdom of heaven. You have stolen the kingdom of heaven. You have stolen the people of God with Jewish religionism. You stole it. Did he have harsh words for those?

Yes. But notice, he's their Messiah. That's his people.

And he's very, very upset. Now, show me in the Bible when Jesus was angry at someone else. Show me how much anger did he show the Romans?

He should have showed them anger, right? They're pagans. They conquered Judea. They took it over. They were unbelievably immoral people.

They believed in every possible sexual perversion that exists. Show me where Jesus was angry at them. He never was.

He never was. He said, I see life differently. Remember, even when Pilate wanted to see it in the same, and he talked about, are you a king? And what's your kingdom? Where's your kingdom? And Jesus said, what?

My kingdom is not of this world. He said, if it were, wow, my followers would rise up, and an uprising would have, I'd do, but no. He never showed that. Well, how about then when they personally insulted him? No. How about when they spit on him? No. How about when they slapped him and beat him? No.

How about when they scourged him? No. No anger. None. How about when they crucified him? No.

None. In fact, his first words on the cross, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Wow. But when people say anything bad about us, we're angry. I'll say bad things about you.

I'm angry. That doesn't come from Jesus Christ at all. That comes from you. That comes from me.

That comes from my own flesh, my own heart. Jesus said, you have to be careful. He went on and he said, for he who causes his son, his son to rise on the evil and the good, sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. What he means in verse 45 is, look, everyone gets God's grace. Your enemies and your friends, inside or outside, the idea of believers. It rains for everybody.

That's the world. He said, if you love those who love you, I love this, what reward do you have? He said, don't tax gatherers do the same.

It's great. Outside of prostitutes, what's the worst thing you could be in Israel? Tax gatherer.

How did the Jews view tax gatherers? As the worst. That they're betrayers of their people.

They're the worst. He said, yeah. He said, but you know what?

Remember when Matthew got saved, he had a party, right? And who came? The tax gatherers.

Why? They love each other. Tax gatherers love tax gatherers. That's what Jesus is saying. He said, well, why would I give you a reward because you love all the other people that are just like you?

There's not a reward in that. We all love people. He said, that's the way Gentiles are. Everyone has a people group that they love. I'm sure there are Satanists in this country right now, as a group, love each other. They're of the devil.

But they love each other. Jesus said, what reward do you get for that? He said, if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Don't even Gentiles do the same? They just love my brothers and sisters in Christ.

And we should. I'm not saying that. But at the exclusion of everyone else, with everyone else, I hate them and I'm angry.

Because you don't have a right to do that. He said, therefore, you are to be teleos, that word, perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect, complete or mature. You're to be like God.

What's he telling me in that verse? Bill, you need to see life the way I see life. You need to see people the way I see people, not the way you see people. The way you see people will fill you with anger and rage. The way I see people will fill you with love and grace. That's what Jesus is telling us.

You see, that's what he is making clear to us. There are dangerous consequences to mishandle anger. There's spiritual benefit in expressing anger correctly and to handle anger correctly.

We have to see it as God sees life. Now, for us, beside all the normal things that can make us angry, let's be honest. We're living in a day and age right now this last year where we've got some big things to be angry about. There's anger all over. It saturates our country.

It's just full of rage and anger. There's not too much we can do about that. But it shouldn't include us.

That should not include us. You see, Jesus can't be clear. You love your enemy. You pray for those who persecute you.

You see, I think what happens to us, just like when Cain, now we're going way back, he killed his brother. He justified it. Remember what God asked him? Why are you angry? Maybe God's asking you and me the same question. Why are you angry? So my prayer for you is to search your own heart and ask yourself the question, why am I angry? God, will you deal with the anger in my life? Not someone else's. In the weeks ahead we'll discover different ways to deal with anger.

But this is fundamental. Who are you going to listen to? Your heart? This world? Or your Lord? Let's pray. Father, we live in turbulent times.

And I'm afraid to say that it's produced anger everywhere. I pray, Father, as your children, that we prove that we belong to you, not because we're angry, but because we're loving. Not because we're judgmental, but because we are forgiving and gracious. Father, I pray for us that the Church of Jesus Christ could be known in our country as those who love and those who forgive, those who follow the words of their Lord. We must start individually with each and every one of us.

That's my prayer. That each of us react to what your word tells us this morning for our good and for your glory in Christ's name. 1 Place.com And you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. ... ... ...