Anger

Intro

A couple weeks ago my family and I were in upstate ny for our vacation. We were well rested and enjoying each others company. We went to a taco restaurant for dinner one evening. We all ordered our meals and had our food. And we realized we wanted some salsa.

There was a little salsa bar in the restaurant with three different kinds of salsa and little cups to fill with the various options.

I went to the front of the restaurant with the salsa bar and there was a guy in line in front of me.

One guy.

Probably just getting salsa for his family.

He filled a couple of the cups but was maybe taking a little longer than I wanted.

So I got irritated.

Waiting.

I became annoyed.

Waiting.

He got to the third salsa and was scooping the last little bit from the bit tub into his little cup, keeping me from having any of the hot salsa

I was irate.

Lucky for both of us he finished his salsa in time before I had had enough. And he never knew the difference.

Now we probably have situations similar to this all the time. Maybe you do better than I do around salsa.

I don’t really know why I got mad at this poor guy but it revealed something in and about me.

It made me realize that no one will ask you about your anger. No one will walk into that place.

But maybe we need to.

Jesus words to us int The Sotm forced you to ask questions and causes you to face our own issues. No one else will ask you to deal with your internal conversations. Jesus will

Because we find that Jesus takes anger very seriously. Enough to attach it to murder. It is best we pay attention.

Because

Strangely, we don’t always choose the anger we feel. We just end up getting angry about things. And then we write it off as just a part of who we are. We just need to blow off steam, we are a bit hot headed.

If you call yourself a Christian this morning, you cannot get away with, I just needed to blow off some steam. Our passage today doesn’t let us.

Anger is a normative part of the human experience. Jesus isn’t saying, don’t feel anger. He’s saying don’t use your anger as a weapon. Anger is always a secondary emotion. You are never just angry. You are always secondarily angry. You may be primarily sad or upset or disappointed. And anger shoots up into our lives and causes us to do things we would later regret.

Anger itself is not sin. Jesus was angry and did not sin. But, anger makes it really easy to sin.

Because of two connected ideas

Anger points at something

Anger constricts everything

Anger does not add anything to you, it just constricts the issues in front of you. When things get squeezed, when there is anger at play, it is easy for things to go sour real quick.

And it points at something. You are never just angry. You are angry at something. Jesus is not saying don’t be angry. He is saying stop pointing your anger and words at each other.

That’s why Jesus doesn’t mess around in how He talks about anger in our passage this morning. Because of what it can do it can get problematic very quickly.

I know how problematic it can get because I can’t even get salsa without Jesus. The SOTM is a constant reminder how good it is to follow Christ because we are constantly driven back to seeing our need revealed and our need met in Him.

Big Idea

Anger constricts. Reconciliation expands. Jesus offers a better way.

Matthew 5:21–22 ESV

“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.

Pay attention to what Jesus says. He is not changing but fullfilling the law.

When we hear the words, “I say to you,” one we should probably pay attention. And, Jesus is not changing the law, He is showing us what righteousness looks like in Him.

Jesus is showing us what the Jewish law says. He is pointing to the 10 commandments. Do not murder. If you do you will be liable for judgement.

But Jesus is looking for perfection, for wholeheartedness. He knows that the internal drives the external actions. It is one thing to have not murdered. But honestly that is a pretty low bar.

We will quickly look for the most loopholes and the least action.

What do I have to do? Not murder? Got it? But I can maim, take, yell, shout, scream and call names? Ok.

Our interpretation of the law is often pretty loose. And it is often a description of how much we can get away with. I can do everything but murder? Got it.

So Jesus gets specific. He gets granular about it. And to do that He doesn’t just say, don’t hurt people, HE goes further.

He gets internal.

And for the Christian we have to get used to Jesus rearranging the furniture of our hearts. This is what the SOTM does.

And His Commands test the durability of our hearts. What are they made of. Great that you haven’t murdered anyone,

But how have you spoken about your neighbor?

About your co worker?

About that family member that is particularly difficult

That person who votes for who know who

Or even, you know who.

What we say matters. Jesus says calling people fool or who hold anger or who insults will be liable to judgement themselves. And Jesus isn’t progressing to worse and worse ways of talking to people. He is just saying that the way we speak about people can have the same kind of consequences that murder does.

That is why Jesus couples anger with murder. Not because you will automatically murder someone but that anger is the gateway drug to hurting another. And it is because anger constricts

Anger constricts. That is all it can do

Anger constricts because it is a focusing agent. Not all anger is bad or sin. Anger is necessary for human action. There should be some things that anger us.

But every time anger enters into your experience it is like a 16 with their permit first learning how to drive a car.

They have to learn how to maneuver a 2 ton metal capsule full of an explosive chemical that can accelerate faster than any human can run. It is unwieldy at best.

When you get angry you become unwieldy. You are a newly minted drives flooring the gas pedal. You cannot navigate your anger well.

It is meant for focus and for action. It has a use, we just love to misuse it.

Anger limits in every way. It will disrupt our relatiuonships, our lives, our work, our peace of mind, and as Jesus will tell us, our worship.

Anger constricts worship

When anger takes the center stage, really the only one we end up worshiping, because it is constricting, is ourselves. We may be angry about something but when we exhibit anger and it constricts, the focus ends up on us. And we shout and yell at others because they have gotten in our way.

You cannot worship in this state. Jesus shows us the serverity of it.

Look at what Jesus says about this.

Matthew 5:23–24 ESV

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Jesus is even saying that anger constricts worship. So much so that if you have something against your brother or sister. He says deal with that first.

Leave your gift and then come back and worship. Jesus ties intricately how we treat one another with how we love God.

And this act is the act of reconciliation. First be reconciled.

If anger constricts, reconciliation expands.

Reconciliation Expands.

There is no limit to what it can do. Reconciliation brings back what was broken. Reconciliation is the superglue of human relationships. It doesn’t just put the pieces together. It actually binds us back. It builds back relationships when we let God reconcile

Reconciliation is the cornerstone of worship.

And without the act of reconciliation we would not be able to worship. Primarily because God has reconciled Himself to us in Christ. But also reconciling with one another restores worship to God. Reconciliation matters so much that this passage focuses entirely on the haste of it. Jesus tells us if you are going to be hasty, don’t be hasty toward anger. Be hasty toward reconciliation.

Jesus pairs these two areas very specifically.

Reconciliation is the remembrance that we are not center of the universe God is and we work by His rules. We humble ourselves and make things right.

Reconciliation reminds us what is good about that person and what we share with them. It shows us what we have as we move forward into the future.

Run, don’t walk, toward reconciliation

Matthew 5:25–26 ESV

Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

This message gets repeated throughout the SOTM because Jesus is telling us what the good life is like.

It is like the activity that God imposes on us.

What does God ask of us.

To be reconciled.

Come to terms quickly.

Christ came to terms with us. While we were on the road to court, Christ reconciled. He called to come to Him through HIm.

He came to terms with us.

Before anything else happens, we can be reconciled. This is why the SOTM is not just about moral behavior. It points way past that. It points to the very trajectory of God’s action in the world.

Ephesians 2:4–7 ESV

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

When we reconcile we are playing and replaying God’s activity in the world.

Anger will always want to take more than is offered. Reconciliation will always offer more than has been taken.

- If we have been reconciled, we can then reconcile.

- We don’t have to live fractured.

- Do not delay in coming to terms. Not your terms. God’s terms.

So today, to deal with your anger.

First, bring it to God. If you are angry, tell Him. Place it before the cross.

Second, tell someone else. Talk through your anger with someone who is safe.

Third. Run to reconcile. Don’t walk, run. Come to terms.