Sept. 15, 2002

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon: What Are You Doing With Your Anger?

We are continuing to work through that list in Galatians 5, what St. Paul called the "works of the sinful nature." We have already covered sexual immorality, and idolatry and witchcraft. Today we look at another aspect of the out-of-control will. St. Paul uses 4 words to focus our attention to a very large and dangerous subject: hatred, discord, jealousy and fits of rage.

hatred,

Greek: “echthra”- enmity, hatred

discord,

Greek: “eris”- strife, debate, contention, variance

jealousy,

Greek: “zelos” -zeal, envying, indignation, envy, fervent mind, jealousy, emulation

1) excitement of mind, ardour, fervour of spirit

1a) zeal, ardour in embracing, pursuing, defending anything

1a1) zeal in behalf of, for a person or thing

1a2) the fierceness of indignation, punitive zeal

1b) an envious and contentious rivalry, jealousy

fits of rage,

Greek: “thumos” - wrath, fierceness, indignation

passion, angry, heat, anger boiling up and soon subsiding again

Having just observed the one year anniversary of Sept. 11, there couldn't be a better time to talk about the danger of out of control anger. We have seen in New York, and at the Pentagon, as in Oklahoma City what hatred can drive a person to do. We have seen in Sudan a government so jealous of the oil underneath the land that it is willing to destroy the people who live on the land. We have seen between the Israelis and the Palestinians a rage so fierce, a hatred so out of control, that life has become a nightmare of constant fear and endless reprisals. To entertain the kind of thoughts that are described here truly is deadly. And I will begin by stating that for a Christian, to entertain thoughts of hatred that wish another person dead is strictly forbidden. And to underscore the seriousness of getting control of our tempers, let me jump ahead to the end of this passage in Galatians that we have been studying. After listing the "works of the sinful nature", Paul's conclusion is, "I warn you, as I have warned you before, that those who live this way will not inherit the kingdom of God." This is serious business with serious consequences!

Of course, not all anger is bad. There are things that should anger us. If you are never angry about anything in this world of injustice and brutality, there is something wrong with you. Ephesians 4:26

“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."

Now be careful about quoting this verse to justify your anger, or to excuse your bad temper, because the word that St. Paul uses in this verse is a different word than the four words we were just looking at in Galatians. Here, the word is "orgizo", meaning to be provoked, or to become agitated. The meaning is clear. It is all right to admit that there are things that agitate you, upset you, provoke you, but do not let your agitation become a boiling rage. St. Paul even puts a specific time deadline on it: "Do not let the sun go down on your anger." What would the world be like if everyone practiced this teaching, and people would not allow unresolved anger to last more than a single afternoon. How many murders would be prevented, marriages restored, friendships saved, if we never allowed ourselves to carry over any unresolved anger for more than a single day?

Think about it. How many times have you violated that scripture? How many times have you gotten angry with someone about something, and you let the anger linger in your heart. You told yourself you were justified in feeling angry, you had a right to be angry, so you did nothing to stop it. And over time the anger grew, and grew, until there was a huge desert of scorched earth between you and the other person, a desert that became more and more difficult to get across. Sound familiar? What do you do now?

You take a deep drink of water- the water of the Holy Spirit, and you launch out across that desert with a determination to get to the person on the other side, even if it means humbling yourself, confessing your own wrongdoing in fueling this rage.

Question: Is there ever a good reason to hate? Is there anything that a Christian is supposed to hate? ................. Yes.

Romans 12:9

"Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good." I just had a discussion about this recently. What do we mean by "hate"? We often hear the saying, "Hate the sin, love the sinner." Do we mean a revulsion to something, the way a child hates spinach? Or do we mean a desire to destroy something, like a terrorist on the rampage? The specific word that St. Paul used in that passage about hating what is evil is a word that means "to dislike, to abhor, to be in horror of."

You notice that what St. Paul said was to hate "what" is evil, not to hate an evil person. This is a difficult thing for most of us to sort out. If we are to hate the sin and love the sinner, exactly where do you draw the line between the person and the act?

For example, I could say that I hate the practice of abortion. I see the destruction of lives, the degradation of motherhood, brought about by the absence of fatherhood. It makes me very angry to see people calling themselves doctors when their whole career has been built on death.

But do you remember the man - actually he was a church pastor - who went into an abortion clinic and killed some people who worked there? Do you remember? I felt a strange conflict about that man's action. Although I agree with him in my feelings about abortion, I cannot under any circumstances justify what he did.

If you are angry about the practice of abortion, genuinely angry, then what you should do is write your congressman and tell him so. If enough people would do that, the law would change. And don't tell me it's the courts who did this. Yes, it was a series of judges in courts who gradually took "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" out of the bill of rights, but remember that judges are appointed by congress, and if congress saw that the people did not want abortion to be legal, you can bet your life they would stop appointing the kind of judges who have so grossly misinterpreted the Constitution.

Another thing you could do is volunteer to work at an abortion alternative clinic. Commit yourself to offering these women an appealing alternative.

Question: Are you letting your anger fester until it finds someone else to blame for whatever it is you're angry about, or are you channeling your anger in a positive direction that requires you to take some responsibility for a solution?

Let me be specific. If Timothy McVeigh truly felt that the government was out of control and that changes needed to be made, then he should have run for public office. He should have committed himself to making a positive difference. Get involved and make a difference. What did he accomplish by blowing up an office building, including a day care center full of little kids? Exactly the opposite of what he supposedly wanted to accomplish. The government that he accused of be secretive, paranoid and more concerned with its own security than the welfare of the people is now more secretive and defensive than ever. Which is exactly the point which the Bible continually makes in warning us about uncontrolled anger.

Venting your rage against another person only reinforces the very behavior in them that made you angry in the first place.

You've probably heard it said that it is a healthy thing to vent your emotions, especially anger, and that letting your anger out is a good way to release your pent up hostility and find release. I've even heard it suggested that throwing a raging fit is a good way to relieve high blood pressure, that once you release that energy, then your body will return to normal. NOT SO! Not long ago a study was done by psychologists who were interested in seeing if this was true. What they found was shocking. The study showed that people who give in to fits of rage had a higher rate of high blood pressure, nervous disorders and heart disease than people who learned to control their anger. They learned exactly what the Bible has been telling us for thousands of years, that when anger turns to rage, it becomes like a fire that will only grow more violent the more you feed it, and will eventually consume a person entirely unless it is brought under control.

The problem with your unresolved anger is that it will eventually turn against God. After all, if God is the ruler of creation, and nothing can happen to us without God knowing about it and allowing it, then whatever it is we are mad about, it must be God's fault, right? There is no other answer you can come up with. And if you are angry with God, there are two things you need to do. First, don't deny it. Confess it. There's no point trying to hide it or deny it because God already knows about it anyway.

Second, don't hold onto it. Let it go. Being angry with God will destroy you. When you're angry with God you can't pray, you can't worship, you can't receive revelation. All you can do is be angry, and what good is that?

Anger was one of the last things I came to terms with in my own life. Growing up, I found plenty to be angry about. I was angry that Dad was an alcoholic. Mom had to overcompensate, trying to make up for the things Dad wasn't doing, and I was angry about that. I was angry that I didn't have the kinds of things other kids had. I was angry that other kids picked on me the way kids do. I was angry when people ignored me, and then when they showed an interest in something I was doing I got defensive, and I was angry that they were prying into my personal business. In short, anger became a way of life.

My best friend was an equally angry person. We fed off of each other's bad side. We could be extremely critical and sarcastic, always making fun of anything that seemed unusual about other people. Putting other people down was the only way we knew to make ourselves feel better. You see, it's easier to laugh at someone else's problems than cry about your own.

Forgiveness was literally my salvation. Not long after I became a serious Christian, I began to realize that my anger had to go. The parable of the unforgiving servant would not leave me alone. I heard Jesus talking about a man whose master forgave him for an overwhelming debt, millions of dollars. But that man, after being forgiven so much, then goes to another man who owes him a small amount and refuses to forgive the man, but has him thrown in jail. The ominous words of the master should give all of us pause. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. ³³ Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ ³⁴ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

³⁵ “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

Wow! What a warning. God's wrath is kindled by our unforgiveness.

I spoke a moment ago of the water of the Holy Spirit that you need to put out the fire of rage and hatred. That Holy Spirit water has a name. It is called forgiveness. You don't have to let jealousy, rage and hatred burn your home down around you. If you are a Christian, you have a fire hose ready to deliver all the saving, healing water you need. The water flows from the cross. When you stop and remember how you have been forgiven, you cannot continue to let anger fester and grow.

That is what St. Paul meant for us to see. Hatred, strife, jealousy and rage are not sustainable at the cross of Christ, and it is at the cross that the kingdom of God is established in us. If you want to see the kingdom of God, you have to come to the cross and ask Jesus for it. And in that place, you can let go of your bitterness and rage.