There's a glorious day. Amen. It's a glorious day because Christ
is risen. It's a glorious day because God
is on the throne. It is a glorious day because
Christ is. And that's enough. Have you noticed
as God calls himself the I am? There is nothing after that.
He is. And there is nothing else that
needs to be. We don't have to define him. He just is. And all
that God is, is enough for all of us. And in this life, we have tons
of things that we have to consider each day. We have problems that
we have to solve every moment that we're alive. Every function
of our brain revolves around this world that we live in and
how we're going to live through it and in it and around it. And
all of the problems that life has to offer, Things that most of us would
consider to be a horrible reality. A definite, please don't give
me that God, in our lives. What are those things for you
today? Are those things that you are experiencing? Things
that you wish had never come in your life? Had never come
to you? Are the stress and the trials
of life the things that you just pray that God would remove? Are
you embracing those pains? Are you embracing that suffering?
Are you embracing the very gifts of God? Many years ago, not many, several
years ago, I found myself in a severe depression. Many of
you know that. I don't talk a lot about it.
But as I continue to write on that journey and fill up pages
about how I felt and what I thought, I've come to a hard, firm conclusion
about that time in my life, that it was a gift from God. That
God not only gifted me depression, but He gave it to me for His
glory, for His purpose. And if I could experience the
overjoyed grace of God, I would be in depression every day of
my life, the way I did during that season of my life. For when
we are at the end of our own ropes and the end of our own
lives and the end of our own selves, it is there that grace
is most powerful. It is there that faith alone
builds up in us hope. And it's the only time we see
it. When we suffer, we have an opportunity to rejoice through
suffering. When things are good, even pagans rejoice. So without suffering, there is
no difference in the body of Christ and the world around us.
There might be something in your heart today and in your life
that you just pray that God would remove, sort of like Paul's thorn.
Please take it. And Jesus came and said, I am
enough for you. My grace is sufficient. Endure, saints. Endure in the
suffering of this life, for it is the one guarantee that you
do have while you still have life in your body, that you will
be one who experiences the pain that Christ experienced. But
you also have the confident assurance that the glory that comes after
the suffering is also the glory that Christ receives, which is
glorification, which is eternal life, who is Christ, which is
absolute, eternal rest from pain, from sorrow, from sadness and
from death. Of all the issues that we think
of being horrible in our life, the one issue that very few of
us really contemplate much is the sin that we have. We often
pray, God, take this away, take this away, take this away. Please
help me through this situation. But how often do we pray, God,
take away this sin? And if we do pray for God to
take away our sin, we're very careful. At how we pray about
what sins we ask God to remove. God, please take away this desire. Take away this temptation, take
away this attitude, if you will, take away these addictions. You know, there's one sin. That
often we overlook, I mean, we see the blatant things, the lying.
The stealing. The pride. The adultery. The idolatry. But we often overlook issues
in our lives that seem to be normal, especially in regard
to what goes on in our hearts. Some of us sit here today and
we are OK with God. We're OK with God because we've
been in church long enough. We're OK with God because we
don't live as the heathen lives. And we're pretty good people.
France, we're not good people. We're not good people. And if we think we're good people,
we have missed the gospel completely. For the very nature of the gospel
begins and ends with God. And his intrinsic worth is his
holiness, it's who he is, it's not what he does. God doesn't
do holiness. He is holiness. And so when we
think we measure to that greatness, we do as Satan did and said,
I will ascend to the throne. Of the most high. I will be like
Elohim. Friends, that is not the heart
of goodness. The heart of wickedness. Now,
very few of us would say we want to be like God or that we are
like God, but when we sit at peace in our hearts with our
sin, we are saying just that. For only Christ, the living God,
is the righteousness of this world. And the gospel says that
only Christ's righteousness pleases God, that if we live holy lives
and we do all these righteous acts, that they are as a minstrel
rag to the face of God. It's what the Old Testament teaches. For there is no right work of
man that can place him in the right standing with God. There
is no work of man, no matter how loving and compassionate
that it is, that will put him in the favor of God. There is
no right way of thinking for man that God will be pleased with. Today, I prayerfully want us
to look at one of the most grievous and heinous sins known to man.
This sin creeps into our lives and it destroys us. from the
inside out. It destroys relationships. It
destroys automobiles. It breaks down walls and it ruins
lawns. It kills animals. And it causes
depression. It reveals war and eliminates
nations. This sin is the sin that causes
most of the violence we see today around the world. It grieves. It belittles, it judges, and
it condemns. This sin provokes and retaliates
and instigates. This sin is the one sin that
if the world could avoid, it would live a little bit longer
and avoid a lot of strife. This sin is the sin of anger. This sin has a root in every
heart that hears my voice today. a bitter seed that has been planted
by our Father Adam. And it is always there, waiting
to sprout. And for some, it just germinates.
But for others, it becomes like a mighty oak with deep roots
and branches exposing the very rawness of our heart. And it
produces a large crop with wild weeds and a trunk that invades
the very space in which we occupy. Anger is the deadliest of sin
and is the most destructive thing in the life of every human. I
believe it is more dangerous than addiction to drugs and alcohol.
I believe it is more dangerous than pornography or illicit sex
or seduction. I believe it is more dangerous
than these things. Anger is controlling. And it devises ways for us to
go. It devises paths for us to take. It redeems itself. And it paves
over the bodies of its victims with apathy. Anger is the frustration in all
that comes to life when our flesh becomes blind to the gospel of
Jesus Christ. And I understand that Many of
you, as you hear this message today, you'll want to jump into
working this out for yourself. You'll want to jump into this
idea of, I must do something about my anger. Many of you will
feel that way. Many of you will stop me at the
door. You'll send me emails. You'll text me. You'll call me. You'll
come by. And you'll struggle, and with tears down your face,
you'll say, I have to do something about my anger. Hold me accountable
for my anger. Pray for me and my anger. Friends, there is no hope for
your anger outside of Christ. There's no hope for your temper.
There's no hope for your hatred. There's no hope for your selfishness.
There's no hope for any of that. There's no hope for your pride.
Outside of Christ, He is your only hope. Yes, some of you may
need to take a class to learn how to communicate, to learn
how to think. Anger management, if you will. But that in itself
will not help you. Only Christ will help you. Some of you might
need counseling to learn to deal with what causes your anger.
And that's good and it will help you, but it will not help you
in lieu of Christ. Christ is your only hope. The gospel is
your only hope. Because when you contemplate
the gospel, the anger in your heart melts away. It does every
time. If it doesn't, something's wrong. Something's wrong with your picture
of the gospel. Maybe it's not a gospel at all, but another
gospel. As Paul says in Galatians. Faith in God to move this sin
out of the foundations of our heart is required for it to come
out. Do not think that mere human diligence and self-reliance can
motivate or remove sin. As a matter of fact, self-reliance
is the cause of most anger anyway. We must believe in Christ alone
for salvation. And that's not a one-time thing.
It's an ongoing, eternal belief forever. Right now, are you believing?
How about now? How about now? Are you trusting
in Christ? Turn to Proverbs chapter 16. There's a little text there in
verse 25. And I'm not going to read all
of that text, but I'm going to read verse 25 and verse 32. I
started out with all of it and then I had to cut it. So I'm going to read verse 25,
then I'm going to read verse 32. Verse 25 of Proverbs 16 says
this, There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is
the way to death. Verse 32, Whoever is slow to
anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than
he who takes a city. Let me start with this church.
There are many philosophies on how we deal with sin. But I will
tell you that most philosophies on how we deal with sin and the
wisdom of man always results in justifying our actions and
our feelings. Most of us feel justified in our anger. Most
of us feel justified in our frustration. Most of us feel justified in
our pride. Most of us feel like we know the right way. And if
you cannot prove, not pretext, but contextually, in the Word
of God that your way is His way, you're wrong. I don't care how
long you believed it, or how firm it is for you as truth. If it is not proven holistically
through the Scripture, The way that you are walking, the way
that you are thinking, the way that you are living, the way
that you have your philosophies molded, your theology, your worship,
it is not right. And friends, I will tell you
what this passage said. In its end is the way to death. Its end is death. This is the wisdom of man. The
way that seems right, It's what we've always known. It's what
we've always thought. This, the Scripture calls the
folly of the mind, the foolishness of the natural man, the natural
man that cannot submit to God, cannot see God, cannot know God.
And it will not. It is hostile to God, the mind
of the flesh, the wisdom of man. It is thinking that we have the
right way. It is thinking that we have the
right answer when it is outside the Scripture. It is pulling
to those things that we've held to dearly for years or even weeks
or even moments. Maybe it's an understanding of
something that you came to or a conclusion you came to just
today. Are you testing that spirit? We'll never get out of First
John Church. Are you testing that spirit? Are you testing
the spirit of your learning, of your teaching, of your heart? Is it the spirit of God? or the
spirit of the devil. I start here today in verse 25
because many of us in the room feel we have anger in check.
We really do. And that would be a way that seems right to
a man. When we think we have anger in check, you may say,
well, I haven't lost my temper in a long time. Who said temper? Have you lost it in your mind? Have the same feelings boil up
in your heart? Losing your temper is a whole
other sin. It's the fruit of anger. It's not anger. It's the expression of anger.
Anger is the heart. And I stand before you today
with someone who always struggles with it every second of my life. There is always the enticement,
as we talked about today in Sunday School, for anger. Just by, if you're willing, if
I show of hands, how many of you struggle with that same thing?
You get angry about stuff. Most every man in here. Some of you
ladies. Things make us angry. Thirty-eight
years ago, yesterday, Roe v. Wade, abortions became legal. Just in the last ten days, we've
heard about an abortion clinic who were not only doing late-term
abortions illegally, but deceiving people and thinking they were
earlier. And then delivering babies completely and killing
them in the room. Abortion itself should anger
us, that should infuriate us. Should we not be angry about
that? So what's wrong with anger? Well, it's what we're angry at. Poor English, but that's the
only way I'm going to say it. The object of our anger, the
expression, where is that anger pointing? Most of our anger points
at ourselves, points to the cause. We are offended by our own desires. What we wanted is not what we
got, so I'm angry. What I think has been disturbed
and I'm angry. What I know is being dismantled
and I'm angry. Folks, you better dismantle your
idols. John Bloom wrote an article a
few months back about Zacchaeus. And he did a what-if conversation. Zacchaeus went to a man named
Judah and gave him four times the money he'd stole. And he
uses that phrase, I'm dismembering my idols. We think we have anger in check,
and some might. Some of us might have anger in
check, but I caution us. I caution us to be careful not
to get comfortable in our view of our own hearts. And I caution
us to make sure that we truly understand that anger is waiting
to knock. Every day. Every second. Because it's not the expression
of that anger. What did we learn last week? The haughty eyes of
the worthless man. The worthless man. That's what
Proverbs says. It's the one with haughty eyes.
Wicked hands and wicked feet and wicked tongue. Defisiveness. Well, that's not what I want,
so I'm not going to engage. That's not what I like, so I'm
not going to do. That's not what I believe, so I'm not going to
listen. You ever had your children do that? We do it every day. Some of us
are doing it right now. Going, I don't really need to
listen to this. And we're becoming angry just by the tone of what
I'm saying. We're becoming angry. Friends,
a person that's controlled by the Spirit of God is not angered
that way. He or she is not angered that
way. The people who are controlled by the Spirit of God have self-control.
They are humble servants. They lay down their desires for
the betterment of the flock. See, that's one of the biggest
problems in America's church is we think the church is about
me. Myself and I. If you're not part of the body,
you're nobody. There's no one man. There's no
one man church. And so when we decide we want
what we want in our lives for the betterment of ourselves,
for our own desire, or even, well, I think I know what's best
for him. So I want to fight for him. That's wrong. It's sinful.
It's anger. That's what motivates us to do
these things. Scripture teaches that acting
in anger is a lack of self-control. Now you understand my caveat
a little bit more. Some of us are already going, OK, I'm going
to get that. I'm going to put that in my belt. I'm going to buy that
tool kit and I'm going to work on that. I'm going to buy that
self-control pill. It's called the Bible. Eat it. It's called accountability and
community and fellowship and quinonea, the Greek word life
together, all things in common. Who are you intimately involved
with, who are you spilling your soul to in the church? Nobody,
then you're missing out on the whole purpose of being here.
This is the culmination of our week together, not the start
of it, not the not the what could be if you look at it that way.
But it's it's it's one of the things we do. We've come together
after a week long, awesome time of being in worship together. Intimacy together. This is not an organization that
you join, it's the people that you promise to. That's why we
hold so harsh to the covenant. We beg and we plead and we pray. Please be a person of integrity. You committed to this, now do
it. Be it. Fight for it. But a bunch of
us, we like to lie. Yeah, I'll do that. It's like
the man who says one thing and does another. Yeah, I'll do that.
I promise to do these things before God. And before you, I
promise to do that." And then we go to bed at night and say,
well, at least I've got my membership. I don't have to worry about it
now. A lot of us look at marriage that way. And in February, the Proverbs
is going to take us into that cavernous struggle. Some of us look at church membership
that way. Some of us look at marriage that way. Some of us look at
relationships. Some of us look at our jobs that way. They owe me. I don't owe you anything. You're a slave. And they pay
you. And you don't deserve it. See,
that's not an American dream. I earned that wage. I have a
right. Nobody has a right in God's economy. No, you know what?
That's a lie. We have a right to be condemned.
We have a right to death and hell. Anything else is grace. Anything else is grace. The very
breath that you just wasted is grace. But you didn't waste it,
did you? Your body needed it. And if God hadn't given it to
you, you wouldn't be here to hear the rest of this sermon. Why are we angry? Why do we have such frustration
in our hearts so often about the smallest of things? And really,
isn't that the way it is? I mean, yeah, I'm angry about abortion.
I'm angry about the fact that second graders are in there doing
lucid acts at a public school in Oakland. I'm angry. that people
sell their children to sex slaves. I'm angry about it, but I'm really
angry because I wanted McDonald's and they're closed. You know,
sometimes that's what our anger is. We get upset about the smallest
things. Well, I'm leaving this church because I don't like red
carpet. I want blue carpet. Remember that story I told you
a few years back about the red door Baptist church and the green
door Baptist church, same city, right across the street? They
wanted to repaint. And the brother that donated
the paint painted the door red. That's what he had. Well, the
devil is red, so we're not going to have a red door in the church.
We're going to split and go over here and paint our door green. That's petty, but that's about
as petty as most of what frustrates us. And so the way that seems
right often is a lack of self-control. Many things in life causes one
to lose control, but there is really only one foundation of
this. Loss of control. And that's unbelief. Anger is
a root of unbelief. Selfishness is a root of unbelief.
Unbelief. Now, that doesn't mean that if
you have struggled with it, I don't mean unbelief as in rejection
of the Gospel, but I mean, are you believing today? Jesus says
when He speaks about belief in Him to have eternal life, it
is in a future continual tense. It's a constant going, an everyday,
always, Going, present, always. You are believing in Christ.
There's no believed. I once believed. That's not salvation. That's a decision. And decisions
don't save. God saves. and whom God says
they believe always continually. But there are moments in our
life in weakness when we are not in the Word, when temptation
comes, when our hearts swell up and that root germinates and
we begin to see that anger. We are given the opportunity
by the Spirit of God. The more we're in the Word, the
longer we have as a fuse. I really believe that. As a matter
of fact, I shared with some brothers not too long ago that most of
the time in my life, If I get angry, I have sat and thought
about it. And then I act in anger. Because I want to. Whereas when
you're younger, you just act. You just go crazy. Because that's
sort of the way it is. But as we grow in the Word, we
have sort of like a buffer. The Spirit of God goes, wait
a minute. Are you really going to lose your temper? Are you
really going to feel hurt because of what they said? Are you really
going to get upset with your children because they didn't
pick up their shoes? Are you really going to be upset
with your wife because she doesn't want to eat at Subway? Are you
really going to... You know what I mean? Ever going to lunch? You know what my family says?
Please, not Subway. Except Katie. She loves it. Rock
on. Please not Subway. I think I
could take a meat out of the trash can and they'd be happy. But we get frustrated
with that, don't we? We get angry. Little things cause
us to be... And we see somebody says something,
somebody says hi, or maybe somebody's having a really bad day, and
they walk by, and then we say, well, they didn't even look at
me. Selfish, intrinsic, egocentric pride. And it causes anger. You know why? Because in that
moment, we think we're more important than they are, And that's unbelief. That's a moment of unbelief.
It doesn't mean we've rejected the gospel. It could be. Unbelievers
live in a constant state of unbelief. Believers fight. And they don't
snuggle with sin. And they don't snuggle with anger.
They don't say, like so many people have told me, well, that's
just your temperament. Because the Scripture teaches
that my temperament's been put to death. And that God's given
me a new heart. And so if God's given me a new
heart, Why does the old one still run my life? That's a whole other sermon.
But the way that seems right to man, this way can become a
struggle for us. It is the struggle that we have
been so long in the habits that we have. We've been so long embedded
into the trudge or the, what do you call that, the trench.
And we've been in this trench, we've been marching along for
so long that these things oftentimes are not even visible to us. Everybody
else can see us. And, oh, boy, there comes bad
man. There he comes. They see it.
You see the anger. You can see it. You know what's amazing?
I can sense frustration and anger in people's face. If I know you
for at least a few days, if I've had at least a couple of hours
to talk with you and see you express yourself in a verbal
way, I can tell when you're angry. You can't hide that. Now see,
Brother Tony's back there saying amen, but if he's angry, he's
still smiling. So I don't know what the world... So you have
to watch out. If he comes up to you smiling,
you just have to wait for just a second. See if he's going to
hug you or squeeze you to death. But we've had these habits, and
sometimes the way that seems right to man is habitual. Sometimes
it's tradition. Sometimes it's justified in our
own hearts. But it always ends in death,
the proverb says. In this section of Proverbs,
we see death as the end result of anger. It is the destroyer
of all things, and it is rooted in self-exaltation and fleshly
wisdom, and is the fruit of having no, honestly, fear of the Lord,
which is the whole introduction to these Proverbs. No fear of the Lord. And the
wisdom of the world ends in death. There is a way that seems right,
but it ends in death. This means that all of our thoughts,
and all of our wisdom that we communicate to ourselves each
day are paths to death if they are not rooted and grounded in
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let me say that again. Everything
that we think and teach ourselves, because we teach ourselves something
every day. Some of us are teaching ourselves something right now.
We are affirming in our minds or rejecting in our minds what
we are hearing. We are affirming in our hearts
that we need to Pray that God will help us. We are coming to
the conclusion of repenting of a sin in our lives that we've
been confronted with, or some of us are trying to still struggle
to see if we even have a sin. We are teaching ourselves, and
what we teach ourselves and what we believe, if it is not rooted
in the Word of God, in the Gospel, then it is not of God, and it
is of the flesh, and it is worldly wisdom, which leads to what?
Death. It leads to death. So when we justify our anger,
what we do is we foolishly try to prepare our own minds. And
this is our this is a scheme of the enemy. It's a scheme,
it's a trick, and friends, if you don't know about the enemy,
he's sharper than us. He's wiser than us in the world. He's more
intelligent than we are. But he's a fool's fool. For everything he owns, everything
he thinks he's got control of is passing away. The whole world,
the wisdom of the world, 1 Corinthians 1. The world and all of its treasures
and its hopes and its lusts and its desires in 1 John 2. It's
all passing away. It's dead. We have living affections
for dying things as people. And what God does in regenerating
the man and the woman, the child, is He brings to life what was
dead, and then our affections are turned from the world that
is dead, dying, to Him that is life, living. And that's called
regeneration. That's called salvation. That
turning is called repentance. It can't happen unless God grants
it, for one. Paul teaches that very clearly
in Romans 1. Very clearly, actually everywhere,
God grants repentance. He actually uses that same language
with Timothy. We pray that even those people
who have hurt us, Demas, remember that guy? In love with this present
world, has deserted me. I'm in prison for the gospel
and I'm trying to bring you all to maturity and Demas runs off,
leaves me hanging. Can you please bring my coat?
I'm cold. There's a lot more in between that, but it's hurting. And Paul says, ah, we should
pray for them. We should pray that God would
grant them repentance, that they may come to faith and trust in
Christ, that they would believe in the gospel so that they may
be made alive and stop loving the world. That's how John can
so emphatically, by the way, the youngest disciple and the
one whom Jesus loved, intimate relationship, the only disciple
at the cross, the only one. He says, do not love the world. For if you love the world, these
are his words, the love of the Father is not in you. Why? Because in the love of the
Father is given to us. We love the Father. We struggle
with the world. It catches our eyes. We walk
this path and we see all this stuff. That's called temptation.
And sometimes we fail. Sometimes we sin. Sometimes we
kick the door of temptation and walk straight in and go, ah,
this is great. But we are convicted by God. And friends, I think one of the
biggest things is the anger that we deal with. The anger that
pulls out of our heart. It is a scheme. The enemy has
played us into his hands when we think we have our temperament
and our anger and our selfishness. And check, the root of anger
is sin. It is the flesh. The Scripture teaches to be angry,
but sin not. Be angry, but sin not. And so
you're thinking, well, what is right anger? What is right anger? Well, Jesus produced righteous
anger. He produced it at the Pharisees. For those of you who
have been in our John study on Sunday nights, you see it. You
see not only anger, but you see very sarcastic remarks. You see
things not belittling, but very bold. And He's God. You see Him
cleanse the temple. You see Him destroy their livelihood,
ruin their ability to make money. So if I'm angry, then I can act
like Jesus, right? No. It really depends on why we act
and where we place our anger. Anger begins in the heart. The
temper brews in the mind. And for some people, it flows
out of our mouths and of our hands. No matter what we say
or do, the sin has been born. Anger and sin not. Anger and
sin not. What was Jesus angry over? He
was angry. He was furious with sin. He will
always be furious with sin. But he never hated the people
who were sinning. For it is on the cross where
he said, forgive them for what they're doing to me. Forgive
them that they are hanging me on a tree like a criminal. Forgive
them that they wrongly accused me. Forgive them. They don't
know what they're doing. They're blind, Father. Forgive
them! Wow! Of all the people in all the
world, of all the universe, in all of history, Jesus the Christ
has a reason to be angry at all of us, and He isn't. But yet He got up willingly and
laid His life down, and then said, Forgive them? That's absurd. And when we say it's about the
gospel, that's what I'm talking about. The gospel stops us in
our anger. We deserve eternally the cross.
And Christ took it. And God is eternally angry at
sin. Jesus is not over His anger towards
sin. And what's amazing is you want to see how God feels about
sin? Look at the cross. You realize that's That's the
reason Christ was sacrificed. Sin. Sin. God's anger towards sin is unquenchable
if He has to pour out His wrath on humanity. God's wrath towards
sin was taken out of the Son for all who believe. God is angry
over sin because He is right and He is just. That's why it's
so easy for us to just go, you know, I understand why you did
that. Because we're not just and we're not right. Because
deep down in our hearts, we can actually agree with some things
because we can put ourselves, we can empathize with people
because we know what they're going through. And we can say,
you know, I know that what you did was wrong and how you acted
was improper and sinful, but I understand. But God can't do
that. If He could do that, if He could
just let sin go, He would not be God. I want you to hear this.
I say it probably every other week. If God could just excuse
sin, let it go, He would be evil. And so for God to be able to
forgive me of my sin, He had to take perfect and kill it.
And get His anger out. Get His justice out. Get His
wrath out. And that's what He did with Christ.
He killed perfect. He killed sinless. He who had
no sin, knew no sin, became sin, and then God poured his judgment
out on Christ. So when we respond and we see
anger in our hearts, we should only be angry over sin. But how often does sin really
anger us? And when it does, do we anger? Are we angry towards
sin? Do we go to the gospel as the help for that anger? You
see? Or do we try to be God and make
justice in our own hearts? Anger seems to be powerful. Anger
seems to be manly. Anger seems to be strong. But
it's actually weak. And for you men, it's a sissified
way of acting. It's pathetic, really. It's pansyism. Whatever that means. I hope that's not a real word. I mean, anyone who's big and
loud and boisterous, they can get their point across. They
can move a mountain or a chair or a wall. They can be real stern. Anger, anybody can make a fuss. Sort of like a bull in a pen,
right? Big, mean. Snort, weighs 2,000 pounds. People
get in there and he runs them out, steps all over them, throws
them out of the ring. He's still in a pen. He's still in a pen. And the
owner, if he gets too crazy, will just shoot him. Put him
down. And he makes boots out of him.
And belts. So he's nothing but leather in
a pen. And that's what anger is, especially for the angry
man. And the things that anger does, the places that anger hurts
and harms, anger hurts our homes with our children, with our wives
and our husbands, when we are angered, really, when we're bothered,
something's wrong with us. A soft answer, Proverbs 51 says,
turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. And Paul
exhorts and commands in Ephesians chapter six, children, obey your
parents to the Lord for this is right. And fathers, do not
provoke your children to anger. Do not provoke them to anger. When we do that, we are sinning
before God, no matter what they say. No matter what they do,
when we provoke them to anger, when we make them more hostile
toward us, we are provoking them to anger. When we make them hate
God, because that's who they see, bring them up in the discipline
and instruction of the Lord. So anger hurts our hearts, I
mean our homes, and it drives our homes into the ground, and
it drives our hearts. See, it's our affections that
drive us to anger. When what we love is not what
we love, we get angry. When what we want is not what
we have, we get angry. Anger over our desires is of
the Antichrist, honestly. And the Proverbs says to make
no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful
man. No friendship. Don't hang out
with him. Don't talk with them. Don't eat
with them. Don't return their phone calls. Don't answer their
phone calls. Don't answer the door. Don't send them cards. Pray for them and stay out of
their way like that bull in the pen. Don't go in his pen. And it hurts our homes and our
hearts and our heads. We think highly of ourselves.
We feel that we are more important than others. We are better than
they are. We should not have to subject ourselves to them
and to their minuscule and small-minded mentality. That's a lot of redundancy
there. Whoever is slow to anger has
great understanding. And he who has hasty temper exalts
foolishness. Proverbs 14, 29. It hurts our
hands, what we do. We move around. We act up. We
hit. We strike. We get our point across.
We show the world around us just what they will receive if they
do not submit to our desires. We get in our cars and we speed
away. We shake our fists in the air. We put our fingers in people's
face. We write ugly emails. We send nasty letters. Our hands
are the fruit of our hearts. And when anger rules our hearts,
it's just sin abounds. And it ruins our holiness. But
in some sense we think, we honestly think that we are right with
God and therefore have the power to charge angrily through this
life so to show everybody the holiness of God is nothing to
take lightly. And we can do all that we do
because honestly in our minds we are God. A man of wrath stirs up strife.
And one given to anger causes much transgression. You hear
what I said? stirs up strife, stirs up trouble, stirs up calamity,
stirs up death, and it causes much sin. It causes much transgression. Not only are you responsible
for the sin of your own anger, then you pour out into other people's
lives the temptation to become angry as well. And if you've
never been in a shouting match between two angry people, you've
not missed anything. You lose your voice. You lose
your heart. Lose your head. Domestic disputes on the rise
every day in America over dumb stuff. It hurts our humility. There
is no humility in the angry man. I'll submit and be kind when
these people hear what I have to say. I'll lay my life down
only when they know that I'm right. Then I'll be humble. See,
when I say it like that, when I was writing some of this stuff,
I think this is hilarious. It's like stand up comedy. But what
makes it funny is that we all know somebody who likes it. And
what makes it even funnier is that most of us are talking about
ourselves. My words and thoughts and feelings
matter and they will hear them, they will see them, they will
feel them. It hurts our hope. We start putting our hope in
our ability to juggle things and push things through. For
pressing milk produces courage, pressing the nose produces blood,
and pressing anger produces strife. That's Proverbs 30, 33. Where's your hope? When we're
angry, our hope isn't in Christ, our hope is in ourselves, in
self-reliance. And honestly, what happens when anger really
takes place, and anger rules our hearts and we don't have
self-control, even if it's not expressed, if it's just there,
if it's just a root of bitterness, a root of deceit, a root of unforgiveness,
you're being deceived. You think you've got it, but
you're not. And we all are there at certain times in life. We
must be diligent to constantly pray for God to reveal to us
the sins in our hearts. Because there is no true intimacy. What
happens, it's not heaven, it's hell. We live in a mortal hell. We live in an earthly hell. We're
constantly worried. We walk on eggshells at home.
We're not sure if we're going to come in church and get to
a confrontation because the person that said that to us last week might
be there. We don't want to go to work because the guy that
was working with us, you know, we feel like he's trying to get
our job. We don't want any more kids because
the ones we have, they're just enough. Always making a mess. You see how that it just it's
that's not joy and not having joy is a sin before God. Rejoice
in the Lord always and again, I say rejoice. See, that's not
a suggestion. It is a command of God, it is
the root foundational command of God, be holy and rejoice. That is it. And the people of
God who don't have joy in their heart are living in hell. And
they're living in continual rebellion against Him. And friends, I have
been there. I'm not preaching to you. I'm
sharing it with you. There's a big difference in planned
pulpits, in prepared pulpits, and personal pulpits. Alliteration comes too easy. As we'll see in future weeks,
anger and lack of self-control ruins our relationships. It's
a killer. It ruins our spouses, our children,
our friends. We have anger toward the authorities
in our lives, toward the government. It disqualifies us from many
things. Anger and lack of self-control disqualify us from being a godly
influence in anybody's life. Because you're not supposed to
even relate to the angry man. How can He lead you into righteousness?
It disqualifies us from being a teacher of the Word of God.
Even in a Sunday school, even with our neighbor, how dare we
pick up the Bible and speak godly things when in our hearts is
bitter rage and pride and arrogance? How dare we go and look at the
speck in my brother's eye when there's a plank in our own? There's
a lot of contextualized misnomers out of that text. But I'm going
to tell you, I think this is one of the areas we can test
ourselves in. It disqualifies us from being a godly wife or
a godly husband. You don't know who I live with.
It doesn't matter who you live with. God lives with you. Christ died in
your place. He forgave you when you should
not have been forgiven, so that you may forgive others now and
feel good doing that. It disqualifies you from being
a Christ-like parent. It disqualifies you from being
a pastor. It disqualifies you from being
a servant to men and a servant to God. It disqualifies you from
being respected by anyone. One of the most horrible things
that I ever did in my ministry is to hammer my hand on a table
in a meeting because of grievous sin amongst the people. And one of my closest brothers
in the Lord, when I hit that table like that, it scared him. It scared him. Because that expression
of anger put in his heart that I might not be ruled by the Holy
Spirit of God. I regret that deeply. A good
brother in the Lord. It disqualifies us from being
loved. People don't love an angry man,
an angry woman. They fear them. And not with
a good fear. They shrink back. And they're
afraid not to love. Because anger demands love. But whoever is slow to anger
is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit than
he who takes a city. The slow and the humble are more
powerful than the quick and the strong. Paul says that. For the weakness of God is greater
than the strength of man. The foolishness of God is greater
than the wisdom of man. God uses the weak things of this world
to overcome the strong. The foolish things of this world
to profound the wise. Where is your soothsayer? Where is the
wise? Where are your strong men? None of you are of noble birth.
None of us are of noble birth. None of us are Jesus. None of
us are divine. We all depend upon His grace
alone to save us from our sins and our unbelief and from our
anger and our wrath and our selfish desires and all the things that
come with the flesh. And by faith alone are we saved
and made right. And we still battle. Last week's
message. If you didn't hear last week's
message, go back and listen to it, please. I don't preach. so that I have
something to fill up the time. I am teaching and hoping and
praying that God will use this pulpit and this church and the
teaching of this ministry to move you into maturity, that
you may look like Jesus more today than you did yesterday.
And that you would be in love with Him more than you ever have
been. And that when the world divides, you stand strong in
faith alone in Christ, for He is your survivor, He is your
victor, He is your everything. He who rules his spirit, his
own spirit. That doesn't mean govern in the
sense of being the Lord of, but it means keeps in check. Makes a clear and obvious understanding
and picture. Takes a constant evaluation and
puts it in check. I know I have this sin in my
life. God, I trust in You. You alone are going to help me
overcome it. And if I don't submit to Your will, it will not happen. And what is the will of God?
To believe in Jesus Christ. God, I believe that You are bigger
than my fear, my anger, my hatred, my rage. In other words, he who
has self-control is greater than the mighty man who comes and
takes over a city by force. John deals with them with the
same idea. Everyone who thus hopes in Him
purifies himself as he is pure. We have a responsibility to really
evaluate ourselves for who we really are. And the angry person should be
left alone. One of the main reasons is because he will rub off on
you. Proverbs 22, 25 says, Well, make no friendship with a man
given to anger, nor go with a raffle man, the second part of that,
lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare. Isn't that
the way it works? You know, you're sitting at a
restaurant, somebody gets in a fight at the bar, and the people
who don't even know them are fighting. A dog in that yard sees a dog
in this yard, and they get to fighting, and every dog in the
neighborhood's fighting. Somebody gets upset in the house, and
the court's word said, then everybody's crying and screaming. Somebody is frustrated in their
lives, somebody's frustrated with their friends, somebody's
frustrated in the church, and then when they share it with this
one, and then they start hanging out, the next thing you know, it's a big divide.
How satanic? But our effort is not in the
flesh, but of faith through the grace of God. We have a tricky
situation at times when we read the Word. We're so eager to change
ourselves that we forget just what it means to be a person
of faith. We put on our diligence, which gets us into sin in the
first place. Self-reliance. And I'm not shirking responsibility.
I'm not saying we sit and do nothing. We make war against
sin, and the way we make war, Ephesians 6 teaches us clearly
how we do that. We rest in the confidence of
God's sufficient power. And we trust in Him. We stand
firm against the schemes of the evil one. It didn't say fight,
it said stand. And in Galatians, Paul says,
I say, walk by the Spirit. And you will not gratify the
desires of the flesh. I believe anger is the desire of the flesh.
For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the
desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed
to each other. To keep you from doing the things
you want to do, which as a believer is to glorify God in all things.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now
the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity,
sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits
of angers, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness,
orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before,
that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom
of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against
such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ
Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Period. God's love is the answer for
your anger today, friends. And I'm not talking about an
emotional good feeling. I'm talking about an absolute action, an
act that God has done. He came and died so that you
might live. And by faith alone, you receive
that proclamation of hope. You can't earn it. You can't
come to it. You just have to believe it.
You have to receive it in the sense of you opening your heart
and mind now. In the sense of you making some
kind of a point to deal with it, no, by faith, we trust. In Christ alone, God, I can do
nothing. I struggle and I worry and I'm
angry and I hate things. My life is a mess. I'm living
at the end of my rope. I have nothing else to do. Oh,
God, have mercy. And that is what saves you. That's
the result of God putting faith in you. We are not witches. We don't
believe we can do something and move God on our behalf. He's
not a puppet. But we are free from the law
when the Spirit of God comes in. We sing that song every few
months. Free from the law or happy conditions. It's one of
my favorite. One of my least favorite tunes. One of my favorite
songs. Because only by the grace of
God are we able to walk free. And Jesus says that when the
Son sets you free, you are free indeed. God has loved you more than you
love yourself. He became sin so that you could
be free, church. God's love for you forgives you, so you can
forgive others. God's love for you frees you,
so you can lay down your life and your affections for others, because your affections
and your life now belong to Him. Therefore, having put away falsehoods,
let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for
we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not
let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the
devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor
doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something
to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupt talk come out
of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as
fits the occasion. Listen to this, that it may give
grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit
of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let
all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander
be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another,
tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God Christ forgave
you. Therefore, be imitators of God
as beloved children. And walk in love as Christ loved
us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice
to God." So, church, we, as God's people, are empowered. We are empowered to be able to
forgive, to be able to love. We must trust alone in Christ
and the gospel that He is and the message that He brings so
that we may have life. Would you pray with me? Father, we thank You for this
opportunity. We thank You for the love that You've given us.
We thank You for Christ, for the gospel, Lord, we praise You
that we can be free. Be free of our sin, be free of
our anger, be free and have self-control. Not in our own doing, but God,
in Your doing. You've given us the ability,
not to be perfect, but Father, to continue fighting
the good fight. To continue running that race. And so Lord, this morning we
come in a sense of awe. a sense of reverent fear, a sense
of understanding, knowing that it is the gospel of Christ that
is sufficient for us. Your grace alone is all we need. Help us to evaluate our hearts
and examine ourselves to see if we're in the faith. Help us
to see in those seasons of unbelief that maybe we need to share that
with people, to be accountable, to be encouraged, to be discipled.
It is through our continual growing together in your Word, Lord,
that gives us the power to overcome. Father, it is our faith in You,
for You are faithful. Father, there may be some at
the sound of this message today who have no faith at all in You,
who have this mental understanding and this knowledge and have this
wisdom that comes from their own mind, but Lord, they've not
been transformed by Your saving power. Father, in the name of
Jesus, if it is Your will, God, would You save them. Would You
bring them to the light? Would You bring them to the hope
that comes only in Christ? May they truly see and believe
and receive Your grace. So, Father, we thank You for
just Your great love. We cannot thank You enough for
everything. We could just say thank You 50,000 times and never
get it out enough. May our lives be a thank You.
May our hearts be tuned to You and our affections be turned
to You. as we run this race and fight this war together for Your
glory. In the name of Your Son, Christ,
we pray. Amen.