Slothful anger
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please stand for the reading of Gods Word
This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;
for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.
we have here the blueprint for the next three messages
please be seated
be Slow to speek
be Quick to hear
and this week we will talk about being slow to anger.
I like how the HCSB starts this passage off, instead of saying “This you know, my beloved brethren” like the nasb says. it translates this passage as saying “My dearly loved brothers, understand this:” these three things are not something that James expects us to have already have been doing! these are things that are not natural for us to do. we typically are quick to speak and talk about what we want to, instead of what anyone else wants to. then we quickly become angry when we are slighted a little bit. if you think about it how much does it really take to push your buttons? and as far as listening is concerned i would like to read a excerpt of the song the sound of silence
“And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence”
“People Hearing without listening” what does that mean? have you ever found yourself in a conversation that you are just waiting to say something? the only thing that you are listening to is if they have finished talking, you haven’t heard what they are saying, just that they were saying something. you are only listing to the sound of their voice, nit the content of their words. and as for us husbands we have a even bigger problem when it comes to hearing our wives, isn’t that true?
The Holy Bible: Holman Christian standard version. (2009). (). Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers.
I catch myself doing all of these things all the time, but not as often as I do them. so I would like to ask for your forgiveness for not listening to you for talking at and over you and for getting angry when I didn’t get my way
On Anger
On Anger
now i used to think that I had a good handle on my anger and when I was younger I rarely got angry,.... let me rephrase that, from late middle school through high school and on through my collage age i didn’t feel much anger, but I’m sure even mister rogers got angry at his 2 year olds. as have I, no one gets under my skin quicker than my son, but I live him more than anyone on earth other than Daisy.
now what reason does James give us for not rushing into anger?
for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
what is ment by achieve? in a few translations this word ergazomai in the greek means;
1. work, labor expending effort
2. do business,
3. perform, do implying effort or work
4. bring about.
other translations have this word as accomplish, but I like how the NIV has it. it says
Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.
because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
James’s goal is to turn us into perfect men and women of God! that has been his goal up until now and it will be to the end of the book and here we see this again. God’s righteousness is not produced by anger, I would go so far as to say that, His righteousness in us and His righteousness shown through us is clouded over like a cloud in front of the sun. our anger is keeping us from doing what He wants and worse.
What does Jesus Have to say on this?
“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’
“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.
“Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
“Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.
“Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.
Jesus takes anger all the way back to the 6th commandment ““You shall not murder.” we arnt going to get too deep into this passage because that is a sermon in and of its self, but we can easily say that Jesus has a STRONG opinion about anger! he says that to Him it can be equivalent to murder and it also effects your relationship with Him in that He says to “first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.” anger is a big deal!!
13 “You shall not murder.
“But..” I can hear you say “what about that time Jesus drove people out of the temple or where it says “be angry, but do not sin”??”
if we were to compare Jesus in the temple to all of the times that God was angry with the Israelites it matches up in fact Jesus was, if anything, mild in the temple. compaired to how God dealt with the Israelites.
now the ephesians passage first we need to read it in context
Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.
Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
and do not give the devil an opportunity.
He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.
Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
and do not give the devil an opportunity.
He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.
Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
this passage in parts is very similar to our passage in James, but before we get to that part of the passage let us deal with the Anger verse 26
27and do not give the devil an opportunity.
according to Ephesians: An Intro and Commentary. it has this to say about this verse
28He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.
29Let no aunwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.
30Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
31Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
32Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
Ephesians: An Introduction and Commentary b. Truth and Love to Replace Falsehood and Bitterness (4:25–5:2)
There is anger which is righteous anger, such as we see in our Lord himself (e.g. Mark 3:5; John 2:13–17); but his anger never led to sin, because his emotions were kept under perfect control. Christians must be sure that their anger is that of righteous indignation, and not just an expression of personal provocation or wounded pride. It must have no sinful motives, nor be allowed to lead to sin in any way.
Moreover, the apostle, with his sure knowledge of human nature, is aware that what begins as righteous anger ‘against sins’ very easily becomes perverted and soured and ‘is turned against our brethren’ (Calvin)
20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
so yes there are things that make us angry and rightly so! things like; taking advantage of the innocent, children, widows and orphans. injustice
these things will make us angry because they violate Gods laws they also make Him angry, but we cannot dwell on these things! either fix the issue now or give it to God in prayer. actually giving it to Him should be your first step because He is the only one who can actually fix it! then after praying it over completely, not a 2 minute prayer, if you can fix the issue do so.
also I would caution you do never do something when you are angry, never! anger clouds our judgment and causes us to over react, it is also not just or logical.
when I got my daily spankings as a child there was a constant pattern, dad would always have me stand by his bed and think about what I had done. and while he did want me to do that it wasn’t the real reason that I was there. I didn’t learn this until I had a child, but what was really happening was that Dad was cooling down and making sure that my discipline was just and earned, that He was not punishing me out of anger because that would be abuse, not discipline. I now do the same with my son I love him and need to discipline him, but I never want to hurt him.
in the same way we should always take time to cool down before reacting to something in anger as Ben Franklin said “Whatever is begun in anger, ends in shame!”
if we look at verses 31 and 32 here
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.
you can see the parallels to James. Anger, Clamor and Slander. slander is bad speech, clamor noise and general unruliness, and anger, also the do! do be kind, do be tender hearted, do forgive each other.
if you can do the do’s than you don’t have to worry about the don’ts because the don’ts will take care of themselves!
lets go back to James
Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.
again if we can receive the word of God we should naturally put aside the filthy wickedness that the world offers.
now in this verse receive stands out as a very important word, if we know how to receive the word we can put this passage to work in our lives. so how do we receive? well first what would you call yourself if you were one who receives? yes a receiver now there are many things that are called receivers in this day and age. you can have a Audio Visual receiver that takes all of the signals from the cable box and dvd player and cd player and radio and properly routes the information to where it should go, there is a wide receiver whose job is to run a precise route in a hostile area while watching the Quarterback and when the QB throws him the ball the receiver needs to catch the ball what ever else may happen he catches the ball. and last the radio receiver did you know that right now in this room all kinds of music is being played and all kinds of topics are being discussed and talked about, but we cant hear them unless we are tuned into that frequency, we likewise cant recieve the word if we arnt reading it we cant receive the word if we arnt tuned in focused on and paying attention to the word!
we can receive the word through audio or by reading it we need to discuss it dig in to it meditate on it make it part of your day and your family’s day. how much news do you recieve? sports? Games? Music? how much bible do you receive?
lets pray