Sermon Tone Analysis

At what point does anger or acting on your anger become a sin?

Why was it not a sin when Jesus flipped the tables at the Temple?

Anger is a natural feeling.

It is okay to feel angry.

Anger is an emotion of instant displeasure in response to something that is perceived to be wrong or unjust.

Feeling angry isn’t in and of itself wrong, but how we respond to our anger can get us into a lot of trouble.

Dangers of Anger

Warnings against anger

God’s demonstration of His anger

Context: The Temple is the holy place of worship in Israel.

The people had turned this holy and sacred place into a market of deception.

Selling forgiveness and atonement at a high price.

They limited the people’s opportunity to worship and turned a relationship with God into a franchise.

More than that they were setting their tables up in the court of the Gentiles.

Imagine you’re outside the family of God but you want to have a relationship with God.

You come to the only place you can go to participate and there are people selling things where you are supposed to worship.

It’s distracting.

It’s unwelcoming.

Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple doesn’t just show His view of the importance of worship but also His care for those outside the house of Israel.

Know your role

God is judge and avenger

We are ambassadors of reconciliation

Our mission as Christians is to point people to the forgiveness found in Christ

When is the right time to act in anger?

When it honors and glorifies God

How should you respond in your anger?

With justice

Peter’s actions hindered the Gospel.

Paul held him accountable for what he did.

In our anger we must stand up for what is right.

With mercy

With humility

Am I governed by the Spirit or by my feelings?

We are dead to our passions but alive in the Spirit to choose to act with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

Is it possible to act in anger and still be peaceful, patient, kind, gentle, and show self control?

Too much anger vs. not enough anger

According to Aristotle πραις = the mean between the extremes of excessive anger and no anger.

So the meek person is “angry on the right occasion and with the right people and at the right moment and for the right length of time.…

Blessed is the man who is always angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time.”

Questions to ponder

Are the things that make me angry the same as the things that make God angry?

How do I act in my anger?

Am I just?

Am I forgiving?

Do I honor God?

Am I following God’s direction or leaving room for Him to judge or am I taking matters into my own hands?

Are there people in my life that I need to ask forgiveness from or offer forgiveness to?

What is the age of accountability and how do we know we have reached that age if its different for everyone?

ACCOUNTABILITY, AGE OF Age at which God holds children accountable for their sins.

When persons come to this point, they face the inevitability of divine judgment if they fail to repent and believe the gospel.

Scripture speaks plainly of the need for sinful humans to be converted in order to have eternal life, but it does not directly address the matter of the destiny of children who die in infancy or young childhood.

Some things are clear, though.

Scripture is specific that all persons are sinners, even little ones.

“The wicked go astray from the womb; liars err from birth” (Ps.

58:3 HCSB).

“Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me” (Ps.

51:5 HCSB).

The psalmist is not saying that only certain persons are sinners from birth, nor is he saying that his mother sinned in conceiving him, but rather that all persons are sinners from their earliest days.

Jesus also makes it clear that all who are born are in need of regeneration when He informed Nicodemus, “Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6 HCSB).

People are converted when, under the convicting power of the Spirit, they repent of sin and place faith in God who saves through the atoning work of Jesus on the cross (Acts 2:38; Rom.

3:21–26).

In order to be saved, one needs to have a basic understanding of the faith and of the relationship between one’s sin and Christ’s sacrifice (Rom.

10:9–15).

This requires, of course, a certain amount of cognitive knowledge and reasoning ability, along with the convicting work of the Spirit.

Though there is no specific “age” of accountability technically speaking (for instance, age 12 or 13), there is a “time” in one’s life when he or she is accountable for sin.

What hope is there then for little ones who are too young to work out all of these issues mentally and spiritually?

Much hope, actually.

First, it is clear in the account of judgment against Israel for its failure to trust God at Kadesh-barnea that God held accountable only those who were decision makers—the children were not held responsible (Num.

14:29–31).

Though judgment in this case was only temporal and not eternal, it does illustrate a principle of mercy toward those not in a position to make such determinations.

It is not that children are innocent, but only that God is merciful, a mercy seemingly applied somewhat differently to infants than to those who are older—that is, universally.

Second, when David’s child died seven days after being born, the king informed his servants, “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sam.

12:23 NRSV).

He clearly was convinced that he would see his child after his own death.

This same king wrote in another place that he would spend eternity in the “house of Yahweh” (Ps.

23:6 NJB).

It is to that house that he believed his son would go.

If that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and one must be reborn in order to see God, how is it possible for little ones to be saved?

Again, Scripture gives no mechanism for this procedure, though it does drop hints.

John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15).

This makes it clear that the Spirit can have a relationship with someone who has no intellectual understanding of that bond.

This ought not to surprise Bible students since Jesus noted that the Spirit moves where He wills (John 3:8).

God’s Word does not present an explicit and unequivocal case for infant salvation; it is somewhat silent on the question.

Insofar as it does address the relevant issues, however, it seems clearly to imply that those who die before reaching an age of responsibility will not be condemned by God, even though they are sinners by nature and choice, but will instead be received into eternal salvation.

Dear Phillip,

If you had to choose one student, male and female, to be your favorites who would it be?