Anger, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. How long your anger lasts reveals whether it's selfish anger concerned about personal vengeance or if it's loving anger concerned with the other person. If it's loving anger, you're confronting the wrong and committing it to God and trusting Him to take care of you and defend you.

If it is selfish anger, then you're going to mull over it and the sun is going to go down in your wrath and it's going to stay with you not for a night, it's going to stay with you maybe for years. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. We are so glad that you're back with us today as we conclude a timely and important message that we began yesterday on the program. You know, we seem to live in an angry society. Just turn on the evening news or any of a number of talk shows. The issues may change by the day, but the anger doesn't.

People seem just cued up and ready to explode at any moment in the classroom, at work, on Twitter and on the freeway. So how do we do it right? Let's join Pastor J.D. as he points out how we can be angry, but in the same way Jesus was angry. A very important distinction.

Let's rejoin our teaching right now for our series titled Smoke from a Fire. You see, I know for that person that wronged me, one of two things is true. Either their wrong toward me is going to be paid for by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, where all my wrongs were paid for, or this person is going to pay for those things they did to me eternally in hell. Either way, I don't have to carry around the bitterness that comes from feeling like they're just going to get away with it and my score will never be settled and my cause will never be taken up. And because of that, see, I can show grace. I don't have to carry around the burden of judgment and vengeance because there's a faithful God who promises to execute it and I can show grace, which again is just going to do one of two things to that person. It's either going to be like hot coals waking them up to the absurdity and the wickedness of their injustice, which is awesome, or it's going to just increase judgment on them in the final day. Either way, with the injustice, either way, we can make like Elsa and just let it go. I can let it go.

I don't have to deal with that anymore. By the way, one of the charges the world likes to make about Christians is that because we believe in a judging God, well, that makes us judgmental. People like Bill Maher say this, like, oh, because you believe in a God of judgment, that makes you a judge, judging evil person. Let me just quote here from Miroslav Volf, who is a survivor of the Croatian genocides.

He's now a professor at Yale. Miroslav Volf says, only a spoiled Westerner like Bill Maher, who's never actually suffered injustice, could make a statement that stupid. He says, when you have lived through genocide like I've had, and you've watched your mom and dad, brother, sister, raped, beaten, murdered, oppressed, the only thing that could keep me from going insane with rage and bitterness and just consumed with the desire for vengeance is the knowledge that there is a just God who holds vengeance in his hand and will settle all scores one day. He says, that is the only thing that releases you from bitterness. And he said, even more so, it actually gave me the ability to begin to forgive, to begin to love and to start that process of healing, right? It is believing that God holds judgment that releases you from bitterness, releases you from bitterness. When you try to take on that role of judge, see, it's going to corrupt you. That's why Paul says that letting the sun go down in your wrath just gives opportunity to the devil, right?

It's like putting on that ring in Lord of the Rings, you know? You're like, my precious anger, right? Did y'all like that imitation? That was a pretty good one. Anger is not in the original.

I added that. So my precious anger, I just nurse it. See, you weren't designed to be judge. For one, you got your own sin. And those who deserve to be judged have no right playing judge. Secondly, the reason you're not designed to play judge is when it comes to wrongs done against you, it's just impossible for you to separate personal offense and personal selfish anger from righteous and loving anger. So instead of getting vengeance, what happens is it ends up corrupting and destroying you. Trying to play judge over wrongs done will just corrupt you, which is why Paul says, turn over your anger to God as the sun goes down. And you can trust him with final judgment. Know that it will be executed and you can live free of bitterness and hate.

Now, one quick caveat before we move on because people have this question. When Paul says vengeance belongs to God, he does not mean that there should be no courts or laws or justice. In fact, Paul anticipates that objection in Romans 12 and goes on in the next chapter, Romans 13, to say that governing authorities are God's means, his first wave of protective justice on earth. On earth, he's committed the first wave of his justice to the governing authorities. We have laws and courts that are supposed to be as impartial as they can, and most are set up to try and be impartial. And y'all, I know it's not a perfect system, and I know that we got a lot of work to do in correcting it and making it more fair, but it is a system that is ordained by God, and it is God's first wave of protective justice here on earth. So he's not saying to do away with courts and government and police. What he means is that individuals should not carry the burden of obtaining ultimate justice for themselves on earth.

God will see to that, so we don't have to carry around that burden. So Paul's answer to unrighteous anger is put on the new man, which means live in light of the reality of the gospel, which means first that you embrace, embrace that Christ has forgiven you far more than you're being asked to forgive somebody else of, and then secondly, that you trust the sovereignty of God and you trust that he's got ultimate vengeance and you can leave that to him. All right, so that's Paul's answer to unrighteous anger. So now let's spend our last few minutes considering what this loving anger might look like in practice, because in this passage, Paul gives you a few hints at what loving anger is. We'll call this section number three, how to be angry like Jesus. Letter eight, we see that loving anger is redemptive, never vindictive.

It means it's directed toward the problem, not the person. Here's how Paul says it, let no corrupting talk. By the way, corrupting in Greek means tearing down. Let no tearing down talk come out of your mouths, but only in anger, when you're angry, only what is good for building up. In my angry confrontations, I'm not trying to execute vengeance. I'm not trying to tear down. I'm not trying to pay myself back.

I'm not trying to make myself feel better. My goal is building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. I want to do with others what Jesus did with me, which is remove the evil from that person while saving the person. That means you confront the person's wrong, but you're doing it without the slightest drop of malice or desire to make that person pay or to make yourself feel better or to get vengeance on them. That means that confrontation about their evil should not feel like a venting of frustration.

It should not feel like an execution of justice. It ought to feel like an invitation to restore fellowship. Jesus had the greatest analogy for this, but one that admittedly very few people, I think, really understand.

Matthew 539, he said, when somebody strikes your cheek, give them the other one. And people were like, what does that mean? Like somebody's attacking you and they're trying to kill you. And you're just like, you stand back up. You're like, I'm still standing.

You stand back down and you just keep doing this and then you can't stand anymore. No, that's not what Jesus meant. First of all, the person that is striking your cheek is not trying to kill you. In Jewish thought, the face represented the relationship. So when someone is striking your face, they are insulting the relationship. And no martial arts textbook says, if you really want to hurt somebody, go for the cheek. It means that they are threatening to destroy the relationship.

So what do you do in that moment when that person is sinned against the relationship? Well, you got three options, right? Number one, you can strike their cheek back.

That's what we all want to do. You smack me, I'll smack you back. You smack me, I'll smack you harder. We'll end this that way.

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. That's one option. That's the aggressive way of dealing with it.

The second way is passive. You offered them the same cheek, right? You're like, you kind of stand up.

You're like, all right, well, here it is. You just keep taking. You take it, you take it, you take it, you take it until you eventually just shut off all emotion for that person.

Or eventually you blow up at them. That's not what Jesus is saying either. The third option, the one he is saying is you turn the other cheek, watch, which includes a confrontation about the wrong because you struck my cheek and that can't happen. But I'm turning my other cheek, which means in the midst of confronting you about the wrong, I am re-offering to you the relationship. I'm offering to you the benefits of restored relationship. And so that confrontation doesn't feel like a venting of anger. It doesn't feel like an execution of justice. It feels like a loving confrontation where I'm trying to restore the fellowship between you and me, trying to eliminate the sin and draw close to the person.

Does that make sense? Loving anger is not vindictive. It's restorative.

It's redemptive. Letter B, loving anger is short-lived. Loving anger is short-lived.

Paul gives us a test for this one. Whether or not the sun goes down in your wrath is a test, listen, of whether your anger is selfish or loving. Whether or not the sun goes down in your wrath is a test of whether it's selfish or loving. Loving anger is always short-lived.

You confront the person for the wrong they did and then you commit the injustice to God and you let God deal with them. And then you get to go to sleep an unburdened person and the sun has not gone down in your wrath. Selfish anger, by contrast, oh, it stays with you. You lay down in your pillow and you just start mulling over the injustice and the insult and nursing the sting of that wound and replaying the conversation and what you wish you'd have said and what you might do to get that person back. And it just lays there and you simmer with that anger. When my wife and I got married, we tried to put this whole, don't let the sun go down on your anger into practice. We're like, okay, well, that means let's never go to bed until we have everything resolved.

All that did was lead to a bunch of sleepless nights, right? Because here was the problem. Here's the problem. We would try to talk about whatever the issue was, but even after we did, I would still be angry because she didn't see it my way. After pulling out the best lawyerly arguments I could come up with, she still didn't see it my way. Or if she did see it my way, I'd feel like she's not nearly sorry enough, right? Uh-huh.

That's right. She wasn't sorry enough. I didn't get that tearful confession I was looking for where she weeps at my feet and says, what an awesome husband I am and how lucky she is to actually have, because that's what I deserved and that's what I wanted, right? Right now, she is feeling the same way. Like I didn't see it or her way, or I didn't apologize enough.

I didn't feel bad enough. This verse is not talking so much about resolving all your issues before you go to bed, although that's a good thing to try. Instead, it's talking about, listen to this, the attitude you take into your disagreements. And that attitude is, I don't have to carry the burden of settling the score.

I don't even have to carry the burden of getting her to see things my way. I can confront the wrong, then I can go to bed and leave vengeance and her to God. How long your anger last reveals whether it's selfish anger concerned about personal vengeance, or if it's loving anger concerned with the other person. If it's loving anger, you're confronting the wrong and committing it to God and trusting Him to take care of you and defend you. If it is selfish anger, then you're going to mull over it and the sun is going to go down in your wrath and it's going to stay with you, not for a night.

It's going to stay with you and it's going to stay with you maybe for years. Y'all, Jesus's anger in the gospels was always short-lived. You ever notice this?

Here's the best proof of that. Matthew 21, I learned this this week. Matthew 21, after Jesus drives out the people from the temple who are buying and selling things with a whip, He was angry. Right after, literally the next verse, after He does that, the next verse, verse 14 says, and then all the lame and the sick came to Him. In other words, all the vulnerable got close to Him. Is that what happens after you're angry? Do all the lame and the sick and the vulnerable come around you?

Or that, ooh, don't get near that person, right? I mean, it means that Jesus wouldn't, He wasn't angry. The lame and the sick were like, ooh, stay away from Jesus this afternoon.

He is in a mood, right? When He left the temple, He cursed five different fig trees and they all withered right there. He passed to the food court and turned the wine back into water for everybody. He was angry. Just stay away from Jesus. Now, immediately it was done.

It was surgical. It was directed at something and immediately this love just re-consumes Him so the vulnerable flock to Him. Is that what happens right after you're angry? Which leads to the letter C, loving anger is controlled. Verse 31, when He tells us to let all bitterness and anger and wrath, shouted and slander be removed from you along with all malice. He's talking about avoiding that state where you feel consumed by anger.

Whether that comes out aggressively through shouting or passively through slander, either one of those is your passive and aggressive way of responding. Either way, you are just going to ignore that state or get rid of that state because loving anger develops slowly. The book of Proverbs says a lot about anger. In fact, I consider doing this whole sermon out of the book of Proverbs, but let me just summarize all of Proverbs' instruction about anger could pretty much be summarized as this. It doesn't counsel no anger. It counsels slow anger. Proverbs 29, 11, a fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it back. Which means when that person calls you and says, sorry, I just needed to vent. You say, proceed, fool.

Okay? Proverbs 29, 11. Chapter 16, 32, He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty. You're slow to anger.

It means you've got more power and ability to change than a mighty person with all the resources that they might use to change. Proverbs says that being quick to anger rarely has a good effect. An angry person just stirs up more conflict.

A hot-tempered person commits many other sins. Or the book of James, the New Testament equivalent to Proverbs, James says, be slow to anger. Be slow to anger. For the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God.

Whatever change you're wanting to bring in that person, almost guaranteed your anger is not going to produce that in them. What produces the righteousness of God in people is grace. And so when you give grace, that's when you produce the righteousness of God, but the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. So rather than quick and reflexive outbursts, Proverbs counsels us to respond with patience and gentleness. It says a soft answer usually turns away wrath.

A lot of times you defuse the situation when somebody's angry at you, you just speak a soft word back to them, but a harsh word just stirs up more anger. Or you got the next verse, Proverbs, 1911, it is one's glory to overlook an offense. Sometimes the best thing to do with a wrong done to you is just to let it go.

And that's your glory. And it will defuse a lot of anger. Probably 80% of the rude things that your spouse says to you in marriage, you do not need to respond to or confront. Loving anger is controlled and it is slowly developing. That's what God is like, right? I mean, throughout the Bible, He's always described as being slow to anger. Moses' great description of God, God is slow to anger. I've told you in Hebrew, the phrase that we translate slow to anger in Hebrew is literally long of nostrils, which is like confusing to people. They're like, what is being slow to anger got to do with a big nose? Well, I mean, think about it for a minute. What happens when you get angry?

Think anthropomorphically for a minute. You start to breathe, you reach out and your nose starts flaring and all of a sudden you're like a bull ready to go. But that's if you've got a little nose, but if you've got a big old nose, it takes a while for those nostrils to get flaring. You got to get more worked up, right? And what it's saying is that when it comes to anger, God's got a big old nose. God will get angry. He will get angry, but it takes a while. And that's how you should be too, because that slowly developing anger is how the righteousness of God ends up being produced in people.

So when you are angry, that means yes, you ought to close your mouth and breathe deeply through your nose and say some serenity phrase like goose from our, whatever you got to say, but you ought to let that develop slowly. You say, well, how do I know when it's better just to let it go? How do I know when I need to respond? I don't know if my laying anger is loving or selfish.

How do I know the answer to these questions? I'll tell you all that this is an emotion, maybe even more than the other two that you've really got to process in community. See, you know, when you're depressed, you know, when you're feeling anxious, but usually when you're unrighteously and destructively angry, you're the last person to know it, but other people can see it. And this is the kind of thing that a small group is supposed to be able to say, this is not helping.

This is not helping. This is the kind of thing that ought to be processed in community. So see, what Paul has done here is he's shown us the difference between selfish anger and loving anger. And he's shown us how to develop loving anger and to rid ourselves of selfish anger.

Let me close here with one final thought. I want you to think for a minute about how much better a place the world would be, how much better your life would be, your relationships would be, if this is how you approached anger. If this is how our world approached anger. Think about how much conflict and strife would be avoided. And by the way, don't just think about your own relationships, how much better they would be. You need to understand how much better your own heart would be. What God is giving us here is not an impossible command.

What he's giving us is freedom. You see, bitterness, the worst casualty of bitterness is not the person you're mad at and you're bitter at. The worst casualty is you. I've heard that keeping bitterness or keeping unforgiveness in your heart is like trying to punish somebody else by drinking a cup of poison.

It's not going to hurt them nearly as much as it's going to hurt you. Nursing bitterness and resentment gives Satan the tool that he needs, like Paul said, to destroy and corrupt your heart. A few years ago I read this book called The Bishop of Rwanda. It was about the genocide in Rwanda that took place well over a decade ago. The Hutu people in Rwanda had risen up to oppress and to murder the Tutsi people. And there was a Tutsi bishop named John Rusihana, who after the conflict had died down was appointed by the government to be a part of a council that was to bring healing and restoration to the country. And so as they're working on restoring these relationships that have been damaged by years of oppression and murder and rape and pillaging, Bishop John Rusihana did some of the most profound things on forgiveness.

He was addressing the whole nation, but in particular the Tutsi people that had been so wronged. He said one of the most destructive lies that Satan uses to destroy our lives, listen, is that we've got to wait until the person who wronged us properly repents or feels sorry enough before we will forgive them. Jesus did not do that, he said. Jesus forgave from the cross. Forgiveness, he explained, is more about releasing you from the bitterness. Getting rid of resentment and bitterness is more about your relationship with God than it is your relationship with that other person. It has to do with whether you understand that vengeance really does belong to God. I don't have to carry that burden. And whether I approach the whole question and the whole situation as somebody who's been deeply forgiven and cleansed.

When you forgive someone's injustice, you're not saying that what they did was not that bad. You're not letting them off the hook. You're just acknowledging it's not my hook that they're on. It's God's hook.

And God's hook is a whole lot more holistic and a whole lot more thorough than my hook ever would be. And that is freedom. Some of you have harbored bitterness for so long, it's eaten away your soul like a cancer. You've become just an angry person. You're angry at people you've never met. It's impossible for people to please you because you've just got these years that have been there and you feel like everybody owes you now.

A lot of what you're angry about now, it can't even find resolution anymore. I mean, parents, how do you pay back a 25-year-old son for the years that you weren't there for him? How do your parents pay you back if you were the one that was wronged in that situation?

They can't. And if them bringing proper restitution to you is the condition for you to get over your bitterness, you'll never get over it. You're a prisoner. How long are you going to be a prisoner to people that you don't even like, people who aren't even in your life anymore?

How long are you going to let people who are not in your life and maybe aren't even alive, how long are you going to let them control your life? You've got to stop living in the past. You've got to stop nursing the hurt and telling sad stories and trying to get people to hurt with you and coming to some catharsis that way, and you've got to take responsibility for your attitude. I'm not trying to minimize your pain. I'm not trying to say it wasn't that bad and just get over it.

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that some of you are captive to that bitterness, and I just want to tell you, there is a way out. And that way out has more to do with your relationship with God than it does your relationship with that person who wronged you. You're going to have to trust the sovereignty of God, the fact that vengeance belongs to Him, and then you're going to have to embrace the forgiveness of Christ, and you're going to have to rest in His judgment of the universe, and you're going to have to rest in His provision for you. Forgiveness and release of anger has more to do with this relationship, the vertical, than it does the horizontal.

Now, when you fix this one, it certainly will lead to conversations in the horizontal with those who have hurt you. Peter, I want to ask Jesus, if you've been in church, if you've ever heard this story, and Peter wants to say, Jesus, Lord, how many times do I need to forgive somebody? And then Peter suggested his own answer, seven, because seven is Jesus's favorite number, obviously. By the way, when Peter asked that, I have to wonder, like, what number was Peter on in his own mind with this person? Like, number six, he's like, just one more Jesus, and then I'm going to go Old Testament on that guy, right?

And Jesus's response, right? No, no, no, Peter, not seven, 70 times seven. 70 times seven. Now, a little Hebrew math at work here, okay? It's not that Jesus was saying, 490 is your key number at 491, then you can go Old Testament.

No. Seven was the number of completion, but 10 was also the number of completion. So Jesus was saying, I need you to forgive completely times completely, and then he threw in another seven factorial just for whatever. I need you to forgive completely times completely plus completely. In other words, Peter, it's got nothing to do with this person, how many times they wronged you.

It's got to do with me. It's got to do with you trusting me and you learning to say vengeance belongs to me, and I can respond with grace the way that Jesus responded to me. There's a way out.

There is a way out, and it's found this way. Loving anger shows grace and forgives. That's how we can be more like Jesus when the fire of anger strikes. Receive forgiveness from God and extend forgiveness to those who have hurt you. You're listening to Summit Life, the teaching ministry of pastor and author J.D.

Greer. This teaching on emotions we've been in might feel a little heavy. And in fact, for some of you, your emotions might tell you that there is nothing ahead but darkness and despair. But I want you to remember that Jesus got out of the grave, which means that He has good plans for you and your family. And ultimately, your story will end in victory and not defeat. So take heart and be encouraged.

God can be trusted, and His power and provision is all that we need. Our newest resource is a devotional workbook specifically directed at some of the more difficult emotions that we deal with—shame, anger, depression, anxiety, and envy. It's called Smoke from a Fire and is based on the teaching from this series. We'd love to get you a copy of the Smoke from a Fire 10-day devotional and Scripture guide as our way of saying thanks for your support of this ministry. You're invited to request it when you give a donation at the suggested level of $35 or more, or perhaps more importantly, become a regular giver that we call a gospel partner. Your ongoing support helps to keep this program going.

So when someone hears the good news of the gospel for the very first time through this broadcast, it's your generosity that made it possible, and we are so grateful. Give us a call right now to donate and ask for your copy of the Smoke from a Fire workbook. Call 866-335-5220. Or if it's easier, you can give and request the book online at JDGrier.com. I'm Molly Venovich. Thank you for joining us and be sure to listen tomorrow when Pastor JD continues this teaching series with the emotion of envy, right here on Summit Line with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.