Sermon Tone Analysis

Wednesday, October 26, 2022 Commands of Christ – 28d

Have you looked the handout over yet?

Does any of it make sense?

Your response to the handout: Anger: Facing the fire within

Even when just, our anger should be mitigated by a due consideration of the circumstances of the offence and the state of mind of the offender; of the folly and ill-results of this passion; of the claims of the gospel, and of our own need of forgiveness from others, but especially from God, Matthew 6:15.

Open: Last week we dealt with a Biblical account on the unrighteous anger of Cain.

NEXT week we deal with the outcomes of the righteous anger of Moses.

But, THIS week, let’s start by asking: do you have any counsel for Abel about how to deal with an angry Cain?

If he had known about it (anger is often a public spectacle), how could/should he have dealt with it?

Remember, last week?

We tend to …

5.

The normalization of vengeful responses.

A quick scan of Twitter responses reveals that it is not unusual for responses not just to debate, rebuke, or confront, but to harm.

A person who is hurt by a post responds in a way that is calculated to hurt in return, to damage a person’s reputation, or even to attempt to end someone’s career.

(I would say: The same is often true of in-person responses.)

Here’s what we need to remember:

vengeful anger is always the result of some person trying to do God’s job.

There is only one judge of the heart.

There is only one who is able to mete out perfectly holy and just judgment.

This article is adapted from Reactivity: How the Gospel Transforms Our Actions and Reactions by Paul David Tripp.

The Works of the Flesh vs.

The Fruit of the Spirit: Galatians 5:16-25 esp.

Vs.20

READ: Exodus 2:9-15

 What did Moses observe about the conditions of his own people?

(2:11)

 *How did Moses deliver his version of justice, and what happened as a result?

(2:12-14)

 *Why did Moses flee Egypt, and where did he go?

(2:15)

6.

Why did Moses flee to Midian (Exodus 2:11-15)?

(He was 40 years old at the time.)

 *What was right or wrong about Moses’ murdering the Egyptian slave master?

 *What makes it right or wrong to take justice into our own hands?

 What is it like to be caught for doing something wrong?

9. What kind of a person does Moses show himself to be in this chapter?

Adult Questions for LESSONMaker.

From: Adult Questions for LESSONMaker.

LifeGuide Bible Studies - Exodus: Learning to Trust God.

Demand #18

Do Not Be Angry— Trust God’s Providence

You have heard that it was said to those of old, “You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.”

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, “You fool!” will be liable to the hell of fire.—Matt.

5:21–22

Again and again we have seen that Jesus demands what we, by ourselves, cannot do.

Sometimes, as with the command to love or to believe, we try to make his demands doable by defining them as mere external acts or mere decisions of the will.

We think these are more in our control than our emotions are.

Perhaps.

But when it comes to anger, Jesus explicitly does the opposite of what we try to do in making his commands more external and more doable.

He is saying that the external act of murder is wrong and, more radically, that the internal experience of anger behind it is wrong.

So he demands (along with the Law of Moses) that we not do the external act of murder, but goes further and demands that we not feel the internal emotion of anger that lies behind the act.

No One Decides to Get Angry

We can feel how radical this is if we stop to ponder that no one decides to get angry.

We don’t see an outrageous act of heartless cruelty and injustice and then ponder whether anger would be a good response and then, after consideration, choose to start feeling the proper level of anger.

Nobody lives that way.

Anger happens.

It’s spontaneous.

It is not a rational choice.

It is an unpremeditated experience.

Something happens, and anger rises in our heart.

What makes it rise when it does, and with the strength and duration it rises, is a combination of the evil we observe and the condition of our mind and heart.

Jesus’ demand, therefore, is not that we master the expressions of our anger with self-control, though that is often what duty requires.

His demand is that there be a change in our condition.

He is calling for a deep inward transformation of mind and heart that does not give rise to the anger we should not have.

He described this change in different ways: for example, new birth (Demand #1) and repentance (Demand #2) and faith (Demand #4).

Therefore, what we say in this chapter about the command not to be angry is rooted in the other teachings of Jesus.

He is not interested in mere psychological and emotional changes.

He is interested in newborn disciples who live by faith in his saving work and present help.

He shed his blood; we experience forgiveness (Matt.

26:28).

He paid the ransom; weare freed from the condemnation and bondage of sin (Mark 10:45; John 8:32).

He brought the kingdom of God; we experience God’s transforming rule (Luke 11:20).

He is the vine; we are the branches.

Without him we can do nothing (John 15:5).

That includes obeying the command not to be angry.

What Is Anger?

As with all emotions, which exist before words and independently of words, anger is hard to define with words.

But we should try because evidently there are different experiences called anger, some of which are sinful and some of which are not.

For example, in Mark 3:5 Jesus himself is angered by religious leaders who do not want him to heal a man on the Sabbath.

“He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart.”

And Jesus repeatedly referred to God’sanger either directly as the wrath of God in judgment (John 3:36; Luke 21:23) or indirectly in parables (Matt.

18:34; 22:7; Luke 14:21).

A standard English dictionary defines anger as “a strong feeling of displeasure and usually antagonism.”

The reason the phrase “a strong feeling of displeasure” can’t stand by itself is that we don’t think of really bad tasting food as awakening anger, even though there may be strong displeasure.

That displeasure needs another component before it is experienced as anger.

If someone keeps feeding us terrible food, and we sense that they are doing it intentionally, then we may get angry.

Anger seems to be a more or less strong displeasure about something that is happening willfully and, we feel, should not be happening.

Of course, we do sometimes get angry when that is not the case.

If we trip over a root, we may turn around and kick the root in anger.

If we bump our head on the kitchen cabinet, we may smack the cabinet door in anger.

But in our best moments we look at those reactions as foolish.

We intuitively sense that we are imputing willfulness to the root and the cabinet, as if they did something to us on purpose.

This is why the young Jonathan Edwards resolved not to get angry at inanimate objects.

His Resolution #15 said, “Resolved, Never to suffer the least motions of anger towards irrational beings.”

Therefore, the difference between anger and other emotions of displeasure is that anger involves strong displeasure with something that is happening intentionally that we think should not be happening.

Jesus’ Anger and Ours

If Jesus, as the ideal human being, could feel and express anger, we are compelled to ask what he is prohibiting in Matthew 5:22 when he said, “Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”

In his human perfection he wove a whip and turned over the tables of the money-changers in the temple (John 2:15; Matt.

21:12).

He felt anger and grief in the synagogue (Mark 3:5).

He called the scribes and Pharisees children of hell (Matt.

23:15) and “blind fools” (Matt.

23:17) and “whitewashed tombs” (Matt.

23:27).

I do not assume that Jesus alone is permitted to experience anger because he is the Son of God and that no other humans may.

The Bible that he read and affirmed (John 10:35; Matt.

5:18) described the anger of holy men of old (Exod.