It is a strange timeout, it's a dangerous timeout There was a motorcyclist from here in Tulsa named Patrick Devlin. He was driving down the road mining his own business Angry a little bit angry, you know frustrated looking for an excuse. See the car Passed the car swerving around. Oh, we all know why cars were around. She was looking at her face But and he yells at her away by putting on your phone
woman driving the car a little bit angry looking for an excuse Didn't put down her phone. She hit Facebook live Got right upon his tail ran him over They ran him over According to her she was a little fender bender Put it on Facebook Her hitting someone else people are angry People are angry I was out walking, you know Whether it's been cooler at cold nip in the air. It's kind of Kind of whether that makes a man do dangerous things And I was right walking and this bicycle comes blowing by me and the sign in front of this had clearly turned to don't walk And it wasn't flashing don't walk it was straight up don't walk that lights about to turn green He just barrels out into the intersection I thought he was committing suicide and Cars all slammed on the brakes and one hit his horn and to thank him for Saving his life he clips him off People are angry Everybody is carrying around this low-level anger I understand that I've been carrying one around since about 86 Very well experienced my nickname and seminary was the angry young man And it's it's dangerous and it's terrible and it's cancerous for your soul Anger is important when it's healthy But it's deadly when we just carry it around looking for a place to let it erupt The Bible shows us that anger when it's properly used Motivates us to seek justice Motivates us to seek reconciliation motivates us to save people and help people
It it shows us how to it inspires us to protect the weak and to restore what's beautiful But much more often anger destroys it ruins families it runs friendships and it will ultimately ruin your own soul if it is not rectified What I want us to see this morning is we talked about anger is an anger that glorifies God is tempered by love And it usually ends up waiting for God's justice We're going to read about anger from song 137 and what I want to explain this song to you a little bit You'll see it as we read and it's it's odd. It's an odd song. I think it's a protest song I think it's probably the first protest song protesters always a good protest always have good music Whether it's Buffalo Springfield singing stop. Hey, what's that sound or if it's La Cray singing deep-end or Slave singing swing low sweet chariot There's all oppressed people have always sung protest songs and this may be the first one What's happened? The Babylonians have come into Israel and they captured everybody Everybody it was old enough to be a good slave. They kidnapped not Daniel Shadrach Abendigo took them all back with them in captivity everybody who was too old to be slaves They left and everybody was too young to be slaves. They would seize pulling them from their parents arms and would smash them against the rocks And now this group that was taken from the temple kidnapped taken to battle on They were telling them to sing sing us one of those songs
So this guy says I'll sing a song But he sings it in Hebrew so the guy doesn't know What he's saying And he sings oh, they want me to sing a song, but I will not sing them one of your songs He writes a song about refusing to sing And then the last verse carries a punch Please stand to read from song 137
By the waters of Babylon there we sat down and wept When we remembered Zion On the willows there we hung up our liars For there our captors required of us songs and our tormentors murk saying sing us one of the songs is Zion How long shall we sing the Lord song in a foreign land if I forget you O Jerusalem That my right hand forget its skill Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy Remember O Lord against the e to my it's the day of Jerusalem How they said lay it bare lay it bare down to its foundations Oh daughter of boot Babylon boom to be destroyed blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock This far the reading of God's word all men are like grass and all of our glories like the flowers The field the grass withers and the flowers fall but not God's word God's word stands forever. He may be seated
Let's talk about anger and bitterness anger Songs celebrate justice and call for God to bring about justice. What is righteous anger? There clearly is righteous anger because the Bible tells us in two different places Be angry but do not sin and the Bible tells us in many places that God was angry The Bible even goes so far to tell us that Jesus experienced anger. So it can't be sin to be anger angry What is it what's what's anger supposed to do? It's it's incited by injustice Anger is incited whenever someone is weak is being exploited anger is Ignited within us whenever we see injustice. There's a desire within us to to restore what is right Whenever we see beauty being defiled we should be angry when do we see Jesus angry When he walked into the temple and he was about to heal someone who had been lame from birth And all the Pharisees cared about was whether or not he was going to heal on the Sabbath made him angry or told he was deeply in passion when he stood in front of the tomb of his of his friend Lazarus He grew angry at death And the injustice of death were told that his nostrils flared When he walked into the temple and saw the house of prayer being used as a marketplace infuriated He cleansed it out Anger has got an important purpose and energizes this act It energizes meat act if it weren't for anger I would never ever confront anybody because I hate it I got you know abandonment issues and so I'm just not going to give you an excuse And I'll carry around a grudge for six decades but I won't tell you why But every now and then I'll get angry enough to actually tell you You can fix it Healthy anger Healthy anger has a desire to seek restoration Healthy anger has a desire to see you saved from yourself Healthy anger is what a parent sees when a parent is angry at the laziness within his child or the angry at the Selfishness within his child healthy anger says I'm going to hurt you a little bit right now because I want you to Turn and change. I don't want this this this trait that I'm seeing within you to destroy you so in order to save you I'm going to exhibit a little anger here Healthy anger inspires a friend to look at another friend and say you've got to confront your addiction I don't want to see you destroy it. I want to save you Healthy anger You know inspires a wife to say where have you been Why aren't you coming home from work? Healthy anger protects us And healthy anger makes us cry out for justice Healthy anger is A desire for justice and and move entire societies to to join together and to protest in a healthy way So that changes are made and so that their righteousness can reign in the land and so that justice can be for all And And where there is no justice there is ultimately no forgiveness Where there is no justice there's never going to be rest and peace That that's true of societies in general, but it is true for you as an individual I want you to understand that it's important that your anger seek justice because without justice you will never be able to forgive You're just not built that way You're not designed to just turn your face away from injustice And that's why that's why I Inspite I tell women who've been or men who've been betrayed by their spouse go get a good lawyer I don't want you to get a nice lawyer go get someone who's gonna be mean Because we need to get justice And if you get justice then you're able to forgive I've seen this in my own life And it's true from the Bible in my life Many of y'all know this story but it's worth retelling. I think um My dad left our family in the early 80s. He's just kind of quick coming home And and stayed home for 30 years he You know that old song pop it with a rolling stone and the only thing you left us was alone My dad left us several loans Three loans on the house loans on the car He was a compulsive gambler. He ran up all these debts and then he left my mom to pay him My mom never made more than a thousand dollars in a month and she had all my dad's debts to pay Well 30 years later In 2014 my dad retires and he says I want to move back home. It's only place he has any friends And he doesn't like being alone and my mom didn't want him back And so he went and found someone who would take him and so he wanted to get married He went down to the courthouse to get a marriage license That people with the courthouse have said Well mr. Jones you can't get married. You're not divorced He said what She said Well it says here you have a legal separation, but you're not ultimately divorced. You can't get remarried When he gets furious comes back to my mom. You never gave me a divorce. You're trying to block me getting married I'm almost like I don't care do whatever you want to do bring me the paper. I'll sign it. Does that mean I can put talking to you So he brings her the paper she signed that she takes it back to the courthouse Well mr. Jones, we can't accept this you were told by the courts To pay spousal support of $500 a month in 1985 And you haven't been paying it and that's Over a hundred thousand dollars of debt We can't give you this divorce until you pay it And he's furious. I'm not gonna pay it my mom's like uh whatever. I don't care I'll forgive it and my mom's lawyers said no, no, he's going to court And so he took my dad to court And my dad was made to pay it. The judge cut it in half and told him if he could pay he could pay 50,000 of it he could have his divorce and Something fascinating happened within me Something I've been praying for for 30 years finally happened I called my dad the next week And told him I want you to know I forgive you for everything you do
I had been praying that I would forgive him for decades but until justice was exacted It was as if my heart was saying no he must be punished and you're the only thing that can punish him It's like I was trying to punish him from within and I didn't have control to flip that switch and make it stop But the second I saw justice exactly. I forgive you. I really did I really do That's what righteous justice does that goes against the righteous anger or goes against the justice that we need So that we can be reconciled so that we can restore this relationship That's what righteous justice does now. We don't like righteous anger does We don't know that because we so seldom experience righteous anger I Unrighteous anger. We're very familiar with right? Unrighteous anger doesn't want relationship Unrighteous anger wants destruction Unrighteous anger isn't moved by injustice. Unrighteous anger is moved by insult injury I'm mad at you you hurt me And oftentimes unrighteous anger is moved by our own shame We are ashamed of how we acted but it's a whole lot easier to be mad at you For making me act that way Then it is for me to ask you to forgive me Makes fun come on from work
man Can't kick your balls Your kids left their toys out where you told them not to leave them a hundred times and you step on a Lego There is no pain so great as stepping on a Lego and you scream and you lose your lose your marbles And your kids are standing in front of you crying and you know that you overreacted you know this is your fault And all that shame comes in and makes you matter I wouldn't have to yell if you would clean up after yourself
Do you see how ugly that is? How gross that is We have is all the time Uh, we call itself deception um You know someone will be committing sin Someone else actually loves them enough to confront them about it Instead of saying I'm sorry and and seeking forgiveness How dare you talk about me you've been talking about me haven't you fly off Husband be sit laying in bed here's baby wakes up crying No, I know I should get I'm sorry you you know you should get up You know it's your turn to get up you don't want to get up you're tired And so you lay there and you wait for your wife to hear it And while you're waiting there, what do you do you start rehearsing to yourself? I got a last time I got to work in the morning anyway I'll bet she's awake over there pretending not to hear it And you get matter and matter and her because you're not doing what you know you all to do it happens all The time it happens. I got millions of stories. This is why Houses to get foreclosed on are always destroyed because the people who don't pay their debts are furious at the bank for exacting them I've been down there over a billion times. It's not you go there. You get it Our unrighteous anger does not seek reconciliation right motorcycle guy Not looking to be friends with the woman driving the car woman driving the car doesn't want to be friends with the motorcycle guy He wants to yell at her. She wants to run him over. It seeks desolation. It seeks destruction. I want to remove you That's what unrighteous anger does and unrighteous anger It gets fed It gets fed we just seek to nurse it instead of trying to find a healthy place to express it Instead of trying to find a healthy way to express it instead of going to prayer and asking God to bring about justice because we can't get it Ourself instead of going to the person and trying to get reconciliation. We just nurse it We love reality. I tell you I'm be honest now. I'm this is me. I'm telling you from a full experience It feels so much better to be angry than it does to be sad. Oh, it feels good That's a good it feels better And people know that They know that if they rehearse crimes to you over and over again You begin to feel more and more self-righteous And you'll stay tuned in You'll stay tuned in that's why That's the cancer of the 24-hour news cycle. I hate it If there was one thing that that I could just Get I want to put it in the church covenant if you commit to coming here You promise that you won't watch more than 30 minutes of news a day. You can't do anything about it Turn off CNBC turn off mate Rachel Mount Maddow Turn off keep keep opening turn off Blue dogs turn them off you can't do anything about it. They know if they keep you mad. You'll keep tuned in And that is a cancer to your soul and it changes you Proverbs 14 says a tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot That that unresolved anger within you just absolutely changes everything about you. It changes everything about you I went to a An addiction clinic to pick up a church member several years ago And it was interesting. He's kind of walking through the area showing me around and on every end table on every bookshelf Was book after pamphlet after book after pamphlet on anger. I didn't see a Other than the 12 steps. I didn't see a single book about addiction I said why don't these books about anger and he says that's why every one of us are in here. We drink so we don't feel our anger Everyone knows That shame anger cycle It destroys us It destroys families It destroys marriages it destroys friendships it destroys churches And yet we nurse it and that doesn't have to be that way God gives us a completely different version of angry shows us what anger ought to do and when we look at the new testament We see a God of love and a God of fury And I want us to see how the New Testament changes anger first of all The New Testament does not say stop seeking justice It doesn't say that. We think it does We think the New Testament when Jesus says love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you He is saying stop seeking justice. He is not. You know how I know that because the saints in heaven according to Revelation 8 The saints and the martyrs in heaven those who have been killed for their faith are underneath the altar of God crying out for what Vengeance A venge our blood And in Revelation 17 John depicts the the holy response of the church of the saints who are in heaven who are not even capable sending anymore and they are rejoicing and you know what they're rejoicing about look at it's an entire chapter That is the the culmination of this song Read we were rejoicing because Babylon is overflown over thrown There is no more injustice Every sin has been has been punished Every sinner has been removed And Babylon doesn't even exist by the time that revelations written John John is holding it up as an example of every Evil city every city where blood has flown and where blood has flowed into the streets It's been overthrown. There's no more injustice And that's that's the key we have to believe that that day is coming God is looking at us and he's saying I know you waited for a long time If I had punished sin and brought absolute justice a hundred years ago I would have never known you And I've loved you since beginning And so I've been patient because I was waiting on you But I promise the day is coming I promise I've seen every sin I have felt every blow and I will punish it That's important Miracle of Wolf is a he's a Croatian theologian He writes a lot about peace and And he actually is funny because he believes in peace and he teaches peace is actually a pacifist and And people assume because of that he's got a kind of a real liberal theology and he's thrown away all the You know the ancient things in the Bible and he they firm believer in hell A firm believer As a matter of fact he says that the only person the only way you could come up with the idea that that all inclusive A unconditional love is the heart of forgiveness the only way you could possibly believe that is if you lived in a very safe American suburb But if you he says if you lived in a place like I live Where you have to stand in front of people and preach the gospel in front of people who Have seen their children murdered I've seen their sisters raped Then you would know The only way you can convince people to put down their sword is to convince them that God is holding his
That's what Revelation 12 teaches right God Paul says do not take this do not avenge yourselves because it is written I Vengeance his mind say at the Lord I will repay So justice is coming and then give us the place to put our anger to put it in the future to put it with the Lord But there's more to that in the New Testament isn't there We see in the cross the place where anger finds its termination point We see in the cross where God's anger at us his anger at our sin His anger at the sin within us just like we see the sin within our children are within our friends And we get angry it God sees the sin with it us and he gets angry at it And he's poured all that wrath out upon the cross he absorbed all of that for us because he knew we couldn't absorb it ourselves And so he stands in front of us and he says I'm not angry you don't have to be scared of me Come to me Not angry I won't punish you if you'll come to me We don't want to come to him. We don't care if he's mad at us because we're mad at him And we we harbor this anger over all the stuff that that he's allowed to happen to us Why did you let my dad do that? Why did you let my mom do that? Why did you let this person that that I love die? Why did you let these people leave? Why do you take it he our anger and him keeps us away from it? And we go back to the cross and he said I know I know You want to curse me You want to spit on me you want to beat me You want to stretch out my hands and crucify me. I've done all that for you He's not saying I deserve it He's just letting us take it out on him
My mom believed that no weekend was complete without having a good cry So we had to watch a sad movie every weekend And one of the sad movies we watched several times the child was the champ The champ has been voted the saddest movie of all time and I can't recommend it to you It came out in 1979. It's about a boxer And I'm going to run the ending, but you've had 31 years 41 years you've got 41 years to watch it the boxer dies at the end And his son is very sad about that and his son he dies in the boxing ring and they carry him out They lay him on the table in the dressing room incredibly dramatic and his son comes on comes in there It starts banging on the table wake up wake up It's a little Ricky Schroder from your room and Silverstones And then he runs to the manager and he starts banging on his chest Wake him up wake him up Why did you let him die? Why don't you get him out of the rain and the manager because he's bigger Just lets him beat He just absorbs the pain And that's what the Lord is doing for us He's just absorbing that pain He says I know you hurt I know you're sad That's why I went to the cross for you pour it out on me And when all of our anger is poured out He looks at us and says now will you trust me I've seen every bruise I've seen it and that changes us You know allows us to have compassion upon those who bruised us So like Jesus we can look Jesus looks at the very people who are about to crucify him and he says Oh, I wish I could have gathered you under my wings Why wouldn't you come to me We can have compassion upon them because we're confident That if they don't turn they'll get justice but we see ourselves in them We see our sin in their sin And we want them to turn The cross extinguishes our anger it absorbs our anger It allows us to become people of love and grace Please pray with me Father heaven Thank you is not enough of a word to say to Appreciate how you have absorbed our wrath The wrath we deserve because of our sin
Father as we meditate upon the cross we pray our anger at you And ask you to absorb it Because we don't want there to be anger between me us and you anymore
So we give it to you We trust you to bring about justice
And until then we ask you to make us loving people Gracious people Friends Jesus