Fruit of the Spirit: Patience (pt 2) – Overcoming Anger

This transcript is from a sermon by Tim Keller on the topic of patience and dealing with anger from a Christian perspective. Keller discusses the biblical understanding of anger, explaining that anger itself is not sinful, but how it is expressed and channeled can be sinful. He provides examples of righteous anger, such as Jesus’ anger at the Pharisees for twisting God’s law, and contrasts it with sinful anger that stems from defending one’s ego, pride, or idolatrous goals. Keller emphasizes the importance of understanding the root causes of anger, channeling it constructively to address problems rather than attacking people, and ultimately forgiving through the power of the cross. He encourages listeners to find their identity in Christ rather than in their gifts or accomplishments, which can lead to hostility and bitterness. The sermon aims to help Christians grow in patience by learning to deal with anger in a godly manner.

Introduction:  Keller introduces the topic of patience and its connection to anger and forgiveness, explaining that the biblical concept of patience involves knowing how to deal with anger properly. He sets the context by reading a passage from 1 John 3:11-20, which discusses the importance of love and not harboring hatred or bitterness.

Anger and Its Nature:  Keller delves into the nature of anger, stating that anger itself is not sinful, as evidenced by God’s righteous anger against sin and Jesus’ anger at the Pharisees for misusing God’s law. He explains that anger is an energy released to defend something and destroy something that threatens it. However, anger usually becomes sinful when it is used to defend one’s ego, pride, or idolatrous goals, leading to the destruction of people rather than addressing the root problem.

Dealing with Anger: Keller provides four steps to deal with anger: 1) Admit your anger, as anger often hides itself as a ‘root of bitterness.’ 2) Understand your anger by asking what you are defending and identifying if it is your ego, pride, or idolatrous goals. 3) Channel your anger constructively by attacking the problem, not the person, and using the energy of anger to address the issue rather than lashing out. 4) Forgive through the power of the cross, as remembering God’s forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice destroys hostility and bitterness.

The Cross and Forgiveness: Keller emphasizes that the cross of Christ is the only way to truly forgive and overcome hostility. He explains that when people take their identity from their gifts, accomplishments, or morality, pride turns those gifts into hostility and superiority over others. However, finding one’s identity in the cross of Christ and God’s grace destroys hostility, as it reminds us that we are all sinners saved by grace alone. Keller shares examples of how the cross has reconciled longstanding feuds, such as the Hatfields and McCoys.

Action Items

• Admit your anger and recognize when it is hiding as a ‘root of bitterness.’
• Understand the root cause of your anger by asking what you are defending – is it your ego, pride, or idolatrous goals?
• Channel your anger constructively by attacking the problem, not the person, and using the energy of anger to address the issue rather than lashing out.
• Forgive through the power of the cross, remembering that you are a sinner saved by grace, which destroys hostility and bitterness.
• Find your identity in the cross of Christ and God’s grace, rather than in your gifts, accomplishments, or morality, which can lead to hostility and superiority over others.

First John chapter 3 verses 11 to 20. This is the message you heard from the beginning. We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one, and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brothers were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possession and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence. Whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. everything. This ends the reading of God’s word.

Now I think that the reason I stayed with patience one more week is partly because as I was thinking about patience last week, began to realize that there’s some things that we have to cover under this heading that the Spirit, which is what we’re doing in this series, we’re looking at all the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and patience has more than anything to do, more than any of the other fruit to do with anger and forgiveness. And it doesn’t come up anywhere else and we’ve got to talk about it. There’s a sense in which when the Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is patience, it’s saying that a Christian is somebody at last. who knows how to deal with anger. Now some people look temperamentally to be angry, and some of us look awfully calm, but the fact is that anger can tear your life apart, whether it’s ventilated or repressed, whether you’re a person who just has learned to be incredibly controlled.

We recently, my wife and I recently had some very, very late hour in bed, and had a long discussion about me and anger. And the big question was why I don’t. And my wife and I began to realize that we were talking, that we tend to, she’ll express her anger, and I never, ever will. And to some degree we compensate for each other. The more angry she gets, the more I gotta say, now dear, everything will be just fine. And the more I do that, the more she says, somebody has gotta be real here. And we’re both, we’re both not handling it. Being controlled, being unbelievably controlled, never, ever, ever blowing up, does not mean you’re patient, as I’m gonna try to show you here. Because the Bible tells us that a patient person is somebody, at last, who knows how to deal with anger. That’s what patience is. Somebody who knows how to forgive, somebody who knows how to deal with anger. That’s what it’s about.

Now, biblically, this ability to deal with anger, to pray for your enemies, to forgive people, to pray for your oppressors, to repay evil with good, and all that is an essential sign of Christianity. Almost everybody realizes this. It’s the Christians who are praying for people when they were being led into the lion’s den, right? During the early Christians, during the early Roman Empire, when they were thrown to the lions, they were there singing. hymns and praying God’s forgiveness on their captors and on their oppressors. And as the lions came and tore their throats out while they were praying for forgiveness, people in the stands said, hmm, this is pretty unusual. This is pretty strange. Way, way back, the ability of Christians to deal with their anger, really deal with it, really release it, really remove it has been a sign of real Christian faith. It actually goes back further than that. When a person we all know said, Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing. Father, forgive them.

Now, patience and kindness are pretty linked up. In fact, the passage I just read to you shows you in verses 11 to 15. It talks about how important it is for you to control your anger because murder, essentially, is what anger is. You know, anger is a scary thing. Almost all murders. come from, they start with anger. Almost all wars start with anger, almost all riots start with anger. Anger is a tremendously dangerous emotion. And we see here, we’re talking about Cain, who couldn’t control his anger against his brother and it led to murder. And almost immediately, here John is able to move from patience to kindness and talk in verse 16 to 20 about kindness, about deeds of generosity. Now I should be just getting into kindness and I just decided it was too important to leave the anger subject. So we have here on the front of your handout a brief course on anger. Very brief and I would like to call your attention to a sub, how do I say it, a sub passage tonight and that’s Ephesians 4 and if God wills we’ll get back to 1st John 3 on the other hand if we find that this subject goes on too long. We may never get the kindness tonight and Glenn may have a terrible entire week this week so we’re really not sure what will happen.

But if you turn with me to Ephesians 4, Ephesians 4, this passage verse 26 to 30 is just about in my mind and my understanding, the most complete little passage on anger we have in the Bible and it goes like this, chapter 4 verse 26. In your anger do not sin, do not let the sun go down while you are still angry and do not give the devil a foothold. He who has been stealing must steal no longer but must work doing something useful with his own hands that he may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed on the day of redemption. Let me finish. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger brawling and slander along with every form of malice, be kind and compassionate to one another for giving each other, just as Christ in God forgave you, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Now notice three things. Number one, verse 26, we’re told here that anger in itself is not a sin. Very important to understand or you will never deal with anger in a healthy way. Verse 26 says, in your anger, do not sin. Paul doesn’t say, don’t sin, so don’t be angry. He says, in your anger, do not sin. Now, anger, I put down here, is the nuclear energy of the heart. Like nuclear energy, it’s an extremely dangerous emotion. Also like nuclear energy, if it’s really, really dealt with properly, if you can dispose of the waste properly, if you can make sure that it’s properly harnessed, it can do an amazing amount of good. The reason we know that anger is not sinful in itself, not just because of what Paul said here, but because God’s angry. Jesus was angry, and since they’re perfect and moral and holy, they can’t possibly be necessarily wrong to be angry. So anger in itself isn’t a sin.

Instead, think of this. In the Bible, there are two things. Anger is energy for tearing things up. And anger occurs in defense of something and to destroy something. You get angry when there is something that deep down inside you believe is threatened, something worth defending, something that’s threatened, and then you release anger toward that which you believe is threatening the thing. So anger is energy released to defend something and to destroy something. And if you want to understand your particular anger at a given moment, you have to say, what am I defending and what do I want to destroy? It’s not that easy to always understand it. Anger doesn’t necessarily immediately tell you where it’s coming from and where it’s going. But all anger has got some place it’s going and some place it’s coming from.

Now, it’s helpful to keep in mind, by the way, there’s two words in the Bible often used for anger. There’s the word, tumose, which actually means an explosion, a quick emotional blaze. And there’s the word, or gay, which means settled opposition, working against something, undermining it, seeking for someone or something’s downfall. And usually in the Bible, the word or gay has to do with God’s wrath. There’s nothing in the Bible that indicates God losing his temper. Instead, the Bible is constantly talking about his anger. And his anger is released in defense of something good and his anger destroys things righteously.

Now, it’s not that easy to get good examples. And in a minute, I’ll tell you why. It’s not that easy to find great examples of godly anger. They’re not around. One great example of it is in Mark chapter 3, where Jesus Christ gets to the end of the world. angry we’re told. He’s furious. It’s one of those places where Jesus wants to heal somebody, do something nice for somebody on the Sabbath. And the Pharisees are there saying, you can’t do this on the Sabbath. You can’t heal this man on the Sabbath. The Sabbath, you’re not allowed to do anything on the Sabbath. And Jesus Christ gets furious. What’s he angry at? He’s angry at how God’s law is being twisted. He’s angry at the twisting of the Word of God. He’s angry at actually the law of God is being misused. And so the integrity of the law of God is at stake. How does he deal with his anger? He looks at the Pharisees and he heals the man. He breaks right through the bias. He says, you’re biased. He says, you’re twisting of this is wrong. And he channels his anger. He uses his anger. And what he does with his anger is he heals somebody. A pretty interesting idea. A pretty great example of how Jesus Christ takes mercy and anger together. He lets both his mercy and his anger flow together and he uses that anger to channel what he’s doing To give power to what he’s doing God is the same way the most odd thing about God is That his anger is constantly against evil is or gay is constantly against evil and we’re told that God’s God invented the cross in which Jesus Christ died for our sins out of his anger Because he hates sin and therefore he has to deal with it He has to pour his wrath and his opposition out on it and yet he wanted to do it in such a way that didn’t destroy Sinners he would how can he deal with the sin and channel his anger in such an important and careful way So it didn’t destroy us, but destroys the evil and destroys the sin without destroying us How could he do that on the cross and again? You see something very strange at least to our experience and that is God’s mercy and his love led him to the cross It was his love that gave him the the impulse to invent the cross and have Jesus plan the cross But his anger did too his anger and his love both Come together on the cross there. He’s able to save us and pour out his wrath on sinners at the same time Without killing us now That is a pretty interesting example and that shows you that anger doesn’t have to be sinful It’s not sinful and in a way I’ve tried to say in the past anger is not the opposite of love You love somebody you get angry at that which is destroying them you even get angry at them for destroying themselves, don’t you? Of course you do and a lack of anger shows a lack of love So anger in itself is not sinful.

However Having said that look at verse 29 and 31 the second thing I’d want to say is Anger usually is sinful Having said that anger doesn’t have to be sinful it usually is You see verse 29 do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth Now that word, unwholesome, literally means distinct, to be putrid, to decay. You know what something is like after it’s been decaying? Something that used to be alive dies and you put it in a box and take it out in a day or two and see what it smells like. It’s rancid. It’s becoming acidic. Let no putrid, rancid, acidic talk come out of your mouth. That’s usually what anger does. Or look down at verse 31. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling and slander along with every form of malice. Now you see, usually what anger does, the way it’s used in our lives, is it’s released to defend our ego and we release it to destroy people. That’s the normal way that anger operates. Generally speaking, we’re defending our ego or Our idolatrous goals, things that we feel like we’ve got to have, that’s what gets us angry. Something that really sets us up on the throne of our own lives is what gets us angry if that is threatened. And therefore, anger is sinful when it defends the wrong thing and when it tries to destroy people who are getting in the way.

Now, let me give you some examples. This isn’t that easy right off the sea. For example, I remember once talking to a woman and I may have used this person as an illustration quite a while ago. I would have done it in the fall, I think. But it works here too. Here’s a woman who is very, very, very angry against her husband, very, very bitter against her husband. And the main reason was because he was being a poor father. And when we used to talk about it, I found out that she had a couple of children and her oldest son in particular, who was an adolescent, was very rebellious and the guidance counselor and her friends and everybody who knew anything said, your husband’s got to be spending more time with this guy, with his kid. Well, the husband said, yeah, yeah, yeah, never really got to it, never seemed to really get a grip on his heart. And he just didn’t do it. And as a result, this wife, this woman was extremely bitter, extremely angry. And there’s a number of things you can do with people who are angry. One of them is to just say, look, you know you should forgive him. Don’t hold this against him and just give a certain amount of emotional support. And sometimes that’s all it takes. But very often, it’s not. It wasn’t enough in this case. And then you can sit down and work harder and you begin to realize, we began to realize after a while, that her bitterness was due to something pretty deep -seated. It was one day in which we talked and what came out was, she said, I said, well, what would really happen to you if in God’s wisdom, your oldest son really does leave the way he says he’s going to leave? Or your son really does do something very, very crazy and silly. What happens in that case? you could face it with God’s help.” And she says, no. She says, I’m out of there. I out of where. She says, probably out of the Christian faith that that happened. And I asked what that meant. She says, this is the one thing, the one thing, the one thing I ask of God. He doesn’t have to give me anything else. He doesn’t have to, he doesn’t have to give me health. Health is important, but not like this. He says, this is even really more important than my marriage, which was very interesting for her to say. It’s even more important than my marriage, but I cannot have my children go down the drain. Absolutely not. We talked about it and we began to realize what she was saying. She was saying, there’s lots of things are important. This is the one non -negotiable. It’s so non -negotiable that even God’s will is not as important as this. And it’s so non -negotiable. Do you understand? That if God doesn’t give this to me, I cannot be happy. It is an absolutely necessary thing. And so what she was saying is, This and this alone really makes or breaks my life. How my children do? If God doesn’t help me get there, then I may even abandon him. And at that point, I had to say, there is no solution for your anger. There’s no solution for your bitterness. It’s going to keep consuming you. It’s going to consume you forever and it won’t matter what you do to him.

You know, there’s a place where C .S. Lewis says that at first, at first the Germans killed the Jews because they hated them, and then after a while they hated the Jews because they’d killed them. And what he meant to say is, when you mistreat somebody out of anger, it doesn’t make the anger better, does it? You get more angry at them, even as you mistreat them, it feeds the anger. It doesn’t make it any better. To give in to hate and to start to pummel somebody or to do things wrong to them, it doesn’t actually get rid of it. You get more and more consumed all the time. And when that happens, when that happens, you’re on a roller coaster down forever. And I had to say to her, do you realize that you’re in the position where you will never ever, ever have any possible solution to your anger? You’ll be bitter forever. It’s going to get worse and worse. You’ll be in total bondage to it. She said, why? And I realized because the thing you are defending is your real God. Your real God is, I’ve got to have my children happy. That’s more important to me than anything else. It was an idol in her life. And because of that, the thing that was threatening her God was her husband. And she had to destroy him. Unless she began to realize, wait a minute, wait a minute. The only thing that’s really important is that I please God. Seek first his kingdom and all other things will be added unto you. Everything else that I need, I will get if I seek him first. If you demote the well -being of your children from the status of God, then you’ll be able to deal with a person who is threatening their condition. And only then will you be able to deal with your anger. She was trying to destroy her husband because he was threatening her God. Unless you understand what you’re defending, You can never deal with your anger.

And listen, in a sense it’s fairly simple. Next time you really get angry, say, what am I defending? It’s usually your pride, it’s usually your reputation, it’s usually your face. I’m losing face, you see. And this is too important to me. It’s very important to you. The only possible way for you to deal with that anger is to deflate yourself and to say, is this really so important? Is this really the end all and be all? What could be more important than to please God? Is this really the thing that I should be focusing all my life on? And when that happens, you are able to begin to deal with your anger. So anger I put down here is usually sinful since we release it to destroy people. Those who threaten our God, either our ego or our idolatrous goals. And one of the biggest problems, and I’ll as we keep on moving, one of the biggest problems with anger in a Christian is that when you really take a look at your heart, you’ll realize that most of the time when we get angry, you have both good and bad motives for it. Dog on it, it would be so much simpler, if you could just say, yes, this anger is absolutely sinful, absolutely wrong, based on idolatrous goals, yes. Or say, this anger is absolutely righteous, the trouble is it’s almost always both. And then you really feel like you’re stuck. No, you’re not. And I’m gonna show you what to do about it. But in a sense, you have to realize your motives are always impure. They’re always mixed. What you have to do is strengthen the good ones and try to refine and comb out and deal with the bad ones. And that’s the only way to proceed.

Now, what would you say you do with anger? And here’s my suggestion. You have to deal with anger in order to be patient. In order to deal with patience, you have to deal with it. And here’s what? One, two, three, four, four things.

Number one, they’re all listed here. One, first of all, admit your anger. Now, that may be simple. And in fact, it may even sound psychobabaly. I mean, everybody says admit your anger, you know, get it out. And I want to show you in a minute that just ventilating your anger can be the worst possible thing. But to admit your anger simply means recognize the fact that anger tends to hide itself. There’s a place in Hebrews chapter 12 where it says, Don’t let a root of bitterness spring up and defile you. That’s an interesting phrase. A root of bitterness. There’s some plants that exist as roots. Right? Pretty much all together. You know, most of the potato, I think, grows underneath. Can you see the potato above? Not hardly, but the point, I’m not a farmer here. Anybody here from Idaho, tell me about it. But can you see anything of it? Can you see any of the potato? You’re from Idaho? You can? Oh, good. But most of it’s underneath? Thank you. Just a little bit, right. A plant? When the Bible says anger is a root like a potato, what it’s trying to say is anger has a tendency to hide most of itself. You don’t know it’s there and it springs up and defiles you. It springs up and destroys you. And all along you think, no, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not. And therefore it’s pretty important.

Charles, Chuck Swindall tells a story about a man he met who had been a prisoner of war in World War II. And he still lives in California, but he just hates Asian people. And as a result of that experience, and after Chuck talked to him for a while later on, he reflected that the man was more in prison now than he ever was when he was there. And I don’t know how many times I had to tell people, when you stay bitter at somebody, you’ve lost. See, if you’re really mad and you stay mad at somebody and you stay bitter at somebody, that’s the most, the only way that person who you’re so angry with can still control you, can still hurt you. I mean, I can even think about the guy that one time we tried to, oh, I forget, a couple of his kids came to Vacation Bible School at our church in Virginia, and somebody came on by and just from our church after Vacation Bible School was over and just said to him in a very polite way. Incidentally, there’s people that come right by here, and if you’d like to send your children to church or Sunday school, we’d be happy to give them rides. And he looked at this person, I forget who, I can’t remember who it was, somebody in the church told this story, and he looked at him and said, that person and he said, no, I am not going to send my children to church in sunny school. My father made me go to church in sunny school every day, every Sunday for years and years. I hated it. He pushed me into it and I’m not going to send my children. And look at that. What do we got there? Here’s a man who’s being controlled. His child -wring practices are still under the influence of the man that he hates. Right? I mean bitterness is the one way you stay under control of the person you dislike so much. It only hurts you. You stay in prison and therefore you have to, you have to fess up, you have to recognize as I put down here, anger imprisons you and actually gives the victory to the one you’re angry with now. So admit it. Number one.

Number two, you’ve got to understand it. You’ve got to understand it. Now that means ask yourself, what am I defending? What am I defending? Ordinarily, whenever I ask myself that. And by the way, I can’t usually stop myself when I’m really angry, and, you know, not usually. But, see, for example, when I get too angry at my children, almost always I’m saying, I’m angry because, why? I’m angry because I told you to do something, and you said you would do it, and now you haven’t done it. So I’m angry at, I’m defending righteousness. Well, you know, when I get angry, because my children have just broken the law, and they have just been duplicitous, and when I’m angry because I feel like I’m defending truth and justice, you see, I stand to control. I stand to a lot of control. But when I’m really pretty mean, when I’m really saying some harsh things, when I’m really, my eyes are popping out and that kind of thing, what’s really happening is I’m defending my schedule. These kids, there’s something I dearly wanted to listen to, something I dearly wanted to do. I had a little schedule in my head, and they have ruined it. And as a result, I’m defending my, I’m full of self pity, I’m defending my schedule. I’m defending my, my own nice little vision of how I was going to spend my afternoon, and they ruined it. And you know, my kids can tell when basically I’m just defending my own schedule, I’m defending my own little fantasy life of what I wanted my afternoon to be like. They recognize that. Doesn’t mean what they’ve done was right, but I can recognize, ordinarily, when you get angry, what are you defending? What are you really defending? Is it your pride? Is it your ego? I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget reading. I put it down here. Some years ago, when I was quite angry with a particular person at the time, Jeremiah 45 verse five, it’s a place where God comes to someone and says, just these words, seekest thou great things for thyself. Seek them not. And I can’t quite remember why, but I read those things, and that, I read those, those words. words and those words just fell on my soul and I’ve really never been the same since then. No matter how angry I am, if there’s any bit of selfishness, self -righteousness in my anger, if what I’m really defending is a kind of my own glory, my own image, my own reputation, which is really mostly the main reason I get angry. If I just think of those words, my anger goes down like somebody just pricked a balloon, just somebody stuck a, you know, punctured the inner tube. Seekest thou great things for thyself, and that’s usually why I’m angry. I’m seeking great things for myself. Seekest thou great things for thyself, seek them not. And down it goes, at least for me. Now, that’s my verse that’s radioactive. It’s a verse that God gave me that’s radioactive. That means I think of that and I say, oh my gosh, that’s why I’m angry. I’m seeking great things for myself. What kind of fool am I? How can I do this? And down it goes, you better find your own or you’ll never deal with your anger. You’ll never be able to deal with it. You’ll never grow in patience. So, number two, be understanding.

Thirdly, channel it. That’s what God does. That’s what Jesus does. Anger is energy. And you will not become a patient person if you just stuff it. And it’s really interesting because here in the verses you see what Jay Adams, a fellow that used to teach at Westminster Seminary, says, are two opposite and equal mistakes people make with anger. On the one hand, we’re told, don’t blow up. In verse 31, get rid of bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander in every form of malice. But in verse 27, it says, do not let the sun go down while you’re angry. And then verse 29 says, don’t let unwholesome, that’s angry talking out of your mouth, but it doesn’t say clam up. It says, only say that which is helpful for building up others according to their needs. And what Jay Adams used to say, and it’s a very helpful little proverb, don’t blow up or don’t clam up. Blowing up means you release your anger out to destroy people. Clamming up means you keep it on inside so it just destroys you. You can release your anger to try to tear people up or you can keep it inside where it tears you up. And both of them are wrong. Don’t let the sun go down and your anger means don’t stuff it, but what? Attack the problem, not the person. Take your anger and let it attack, help you attack the problem, not the person. That’s what we’re told here in verse 29. Instead of just clamming up and saying, okay, I won’t say anything about it, instead of blowing up and using unwholesome, rancid, putrid, acidic words, instead say, what can deal with the issue? How can I deal with a problem? It’s a big difference, a huge difference. Now let’s just say, and it hasn’t happened in a long, long time, let’s just say I’ve forgotten my wife’s inner There’s two ways you can deal with it. It happens to be my anniversary too, fortunately. We felt that in the interest of good stewardship over the years, it would be better for us to get married on the same day so that we wouldn’t have to celebrate two different days. So we forget our anniversary. There’s two ways my wife can deal with that. And she’s done it both ways. The first way is you can sit down and say, you know something? You’re pretty good at remembering people, remembering appointments with people from the church. You’re pretty good at organizing your time. You’re pretty good at remembering a lot of details. You don’t remember them all, but you keep an awful lot in your head. You really work pretty hard of it. But when it comes to me, when it comes to the children, when it comes to the family things, oh no, not down on the calendar. It’s not got a high enough priority. When are you going to start to treat us? in a way that’s commensurate with the way in which you treat the family. And all you are is a driven person who’s just concerned about your own ego. I’ve had it. And there’s another way to do it. And that way is, you’re busy. I hate to bring this up. I’ve been pretty hurt. You did it again. Did it two years ago? You did it again. I’m really hurt. I’ve been very angry. But I also want to know what can I do to help? Because you see, if this just keeps up, I know that I’m going to lose control. You’re going to feel bad. Would it be okay if I got you a special calendar and that you and I worked on it together and that I constantly reminded you about it? Could we do something about it? Because if not, you know this is just going to be a root of bitterness. Now what she’s doing is very careful difference, is a very, very careful difference. She’s attacking the problem. She’s dealing with the issue, my forgetfulness. She’s being honest about it. But you notice she has not said, hasn’t done any ad hominem arguments. You’re so forgetful. You’re so selfish. Your priorities are all screwed up. Instead she’s saying, you got a problem here. This is the problem. I have a suggestion. It’s a serious problem. It’s affected me. I am upset. A small but incredibly significant difference. Because the first way, there is no way I am going to be able to respond to the issue. I’m not going to be able to talk about the issue. All I’m going to be able to do is probably attack back. I’m going to say, oh yeah, well you don’t have your house in order so much. What about, because I feel like, what? What’s happened is she’s come after me. In the second way, I still may blow up. I still may be upset, but she’s really left the door open. Do you see? Attacking the problem, not the person. Don’t blow up. Don’t clam up. But channel it. Anger is energy. It has to be dealt with. Or you’re not really patient. And lastly, forgive it. I guess we don’t get the kindness. Looks like we’re going to have a bad week. This is the last thing we’re going to say, but this is very important. Look, look, look. Be kind and compassionate to one another for giving each other, just as God, just as in Christ, God forgave you.

There’s a place in Ephesians chapter 2 where Jesus Christ says the only way that God could deal with hostility between people is through the cross. And he says in Ephesians chapter 2, he says, For he is our peace, he made one new man out of two reconciling us to God by the cross, putting to death our hostility. For he is our peace, he made one new man out of two, reconciling both to God by the cross, putting to death our hostility. Now in that case, Paul is talking about the hostility between Jew and Gentile. Very interesting. Listen, he’s using a case study and he shows how… Pride takes gifts and creates hostility. In that particular passage, he talks about the hostility that the Jews had for the Gentiles because of all their gifts. Now listen, what Paul points out is the Jews were mightily blessed. They had the law, they had the prophets, they had the ceremony, and actually they were the most illuminated by God of all the peoples on the face of the earth. And what they should have been doing with those gifts is take those gifts and use those gifts to serve other people and to draw them closer to the Gentiles. Instead, what Pride did was it took the gift and it turned it into hostility and turned it into anger. And had the Jews look it down their nose at everybody saying, why should we deal with these Gentile dogs? They don’t know what we know. Now Paul is not picking on the Jews because it’s a case study and every single one of us are also guilty of it. It depends on what your gift is. Look, if you’ve ever been around gifted children, gifted youth, kids that go to the smart schools and kids that go to the accelerated classes and all that, stick around, just listen and you’ll see what their attitude is toward ordinary people. The Hoy Palloy, the great unwashed. All the people that are just obviously such boars. You’ll see what they think. They had a gift from God and Pride took it and turned it into hostility.

Let me give you another interesting example. Women. Women are more adaptable than men in general. How do I know that? The studies show before men and women are even able to be dealt with and people, you know, throwing, you know, the boys throwing the blue booties and the girls throwing the pink booties. Even in the very, very earliest stages, girl babies, when they get near an object, studies are shown, they have a tendency to go around it while the boy babies kind of in a stupid way to try to push their way right through us. Now, you know why you’re laughing? is that it’s absolutely rings true. Absolutely rings true. From the very beginning, women have the ability to adapt in a way that men don’t. It’s a gift. It’s a gender gift. And as a result, what do women do with it? In many, many, many cases, women use that gift to make themselves feel superior and to laugh at the male ego. Absolutely, sure. It’s all right. And you see, the trouble is, men do have that male ego, which basically comes from an inability to adapt to new situations, to be rigid, to be legalistic, to be unable to adapt. The gift that kids are right about a lot of stupid things that people do, the Jews are right about the unwashed pagans. But the fact is that gifts, strengths, in our natural state, our pride comes and turns those things into hostility. And Paul comes along and says, the cross and only the cross can change that how? Because Paul says in Galatians 6, in the cross of God, Christ I glory. In the cross of Christ I glory. And don’t forget, I keep saying again and again all the time, glory means weight. And what Paul means is, if you take your identity from your gifts, if the most important things in your life are your children, or your accomplishments, or your adaptability, or your gifts, your intelligence, or even your morality and your religiousness, if you take your identity from those things, there’ll be nothing but hostility. You’ll be superior.

I remember when I was in college and I was depressed, I went to a psychologist, and the psychologist sat down and said, your problem is you have a low self -esteem. I said, okay, what should I do about it? He says, what are you good at? What are you trying to be good at right now? At the time, I was trying to be very good as a trumpet player. I said, well, I like to play the trumpet. He looked at me and he said, now every time you start to get depressed, I want you to imagine yourself playing a trumpet solo in front of a packed house and bring down the house. And I did that. And you know what? It makes you feel good at first. And then you suddenly begin to realize, what if you don’t make it? What if you never actually get there? What if you find that you’re fantasized about something that is so far away because you’re just not good enough to bring down the house? If you do ever bring down the house, you’ll be able to say, I have made it and there’ll be hostility because God will, because your natural mind, your pride will take your gift and make you look down your nose at all the Philistines around you who aren’t as artistic and as talented as you. Or if you don’t ever get there, you’ll feel all of your life full of envy and resentment. You’re on a roller coaster ride because the thing that you give the most weight in your life is creating hostility. But if in the cross of Christ you glory, if you see that the only reason that you have a relationship to God is because of what Jesus did on the cross, if you know that that is the thing that I take my identity from, that’s the thing that really has the greatest weight in my life. That also is the thing that I take my identity from. says that destroys hostility between people. You cannot, you cannot, you cannot stay bitter at somebody else. If you remember that you’re sinner saved by grace and sheer grace alone, it can’t be done. You can’t think about the fact that you’re sinner saved simply by grace, forgiven by God freely, and still stay bitter at somebody else. It can’t be done. You can’t think about it at the same time.

You know, one of the greatest stories that I’ve ever read was how the Hatfields and McCoys, you remember the Hatfields and the McCoys? Those two families in Kentucky that, that for a generation or two kept fighting against each other because when one person would get killed, then they’d have to go and revenge there, and they would kill somebody, they’d have to revenge theirs and so on. And finally what happened was at one Hatfield, one McCoy became Christians. And they made up. You know why? Because in their life, the Cross had more weight than their bloody record. It no longer drove their lives. Nothing drove their lives except the Cross.

You want to deal with anger? Yeah, you have to do all the little things that I just told you about. You have to admit it. You have to understand it. You have to channel it. But you also have to forgive. And the only way to forgive it, the only way to get rid of the hostility is through the cross of Christ. Are you ready to do that? Can you do that? Then, and only then, can you be patient. And only if you’re patient will you have that emotional health. You won’t be blowing up. You won’t be clamming up. And frankly, it probably means that people will be just as amazed at you as those folks were in the stands when they watched the Christians being killed by the lions and praying, Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. You can have that same remarkable impact. You can have that same freedom if you see what God has done in Christ for you. Forgive it.

1. Admit it.
2. Understand it.
3. Channel it.
4. Forgive it.

Let’s pray

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