God is Slow to Anger?

Welcome, Prayer, Intro

Good Morning Church! How is everyone doing this morning? I am excited to continue our series on the Character of God.!

Prayer- Yahweh, we come before you with a variety of emotions and experiences. Yet, you invite us into your house to be in your presence with our church family. We come this morning with a desire to know you deeper. To understand your Character in a deeper way. To love you more and see your beauty anew. May we encounter Christ in such a way that others see you in us more when we leave than when we first came. AMEN.

Introduction: Today we are going to talk about God being slow to Anger. In order to really understand God’s slowness to anger, we have to understand God’s anger!

Me: I grew up learning that God gets angry at sin, which is true, but what I also learned is that God can get angry at whatever he wants because He is God.

God is always angry because there’s always sin = always mad at me.

Questions and Image

Questions:

What is your view on Anger? is it bad or Good? What is your experiences with anger?

What are some stories from the Bible that come to mind when you think about God’s anger?

Why do you think God gets angry?

Image of God being slow to anger!

We are not going to learn any hebrew words today, but we are going to learn how the Bible describes anger

In Hebrew when someone is described as angry they use either “Hot” or “Nose” or “Hot Nose”

Think about when you are really angry you might feel hot and turn read right?

The expression for “Slow” to anger in the Bible is to be long nosed- Slow to anger is literally long of double nostril.

This mean it takes a really long time for God’s nose to get hot.

Do we think God is slow to anger? Do we think that every-time God passes judgement he is angry?

Transition: Today, We are going to look at God’s anger in the Bible, We are going to look at three stories. One story that people often think God is angry, but He is not and then the next two stories will be the first and second time gets angry, but before we move forward, I would like to invite Brian up to read the scripture text for this morning. Genesis 6 :5-22

God’s Anger in the Bible

God isn't angry in the Flood

I grew up thinking this story was about how humanity was so bad, God just decided to start over. I have never actually figured out what to do with the flood story.

So when Issac asked me several years ago, “Pastor Joe, why does the Bible say We arent supposed to kill people, but God killed everyone in the flood”

My response at the time was, “Thats a great question Issac, God’s judgement looks different in the OT than it does now”

This morning, I hope to come to a better more biblically rooted answer.

God was not angry when he caused the flood to happen

Gen 6:5-6 (Slide) here we see that God had regret and heartbreak, not anger.

In our english translations we miss a few important things from this story.

Tim Makie’s Translation:

Genesis 6:11-13 (Slide)

The land was ruined before God, and the land was filled with violence. So God saw the land, and look! It was ruined. For all fleshed has caused the ruin of its way upon the land. So God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come up before me because the land is filled with violence because of them. And look! I am going to cause their ruin with the land.

God is undoing what He does in creation- God sees that humanity is ruining the land with their violence, so God says he will cause humanity’s ruin with the land. God’s decision is connected with the disaster humans are bringing on themselves.

Scholar Daniel Hawk Explains it this way:

the plain sense of the Hebrew text conveys something very different from most English translations, which are perhaps influenced by the view of an angry, punitive deity…. The flood was an ancient symbol of destruction and disorder, and so is a fitting medium for the dissolution of creation as it overwhelms every boundary and returns creation to the primordial undifferentiated ‘deep’ that existed before Yahweh spoke boundaries into being…. We are left with the sense that God is not so much sending the flood to punish the world as much as facilitating, through the flood, the inevitable descent into chaos caused by human destructiveness and violence. (Slide)

Let’s put this in simple terms

In the beginning God created- He separated the waters, created dry land, made adam and Eve in the garden.

In Turn, Adam and Eve didnt want to live by God’s way of life in the Garden, they wanted to define good and evil themselves.

What did God do? - put them out of garden

Big Picture: God created the world a certain way, Humanity began to do evil and destroy what God had once called Good. “The earth was corrupt and full of violence”

God’s response, “You dont want to live in the world I created, Let me undo what I did”

What happens when God removes his hand from creation- it goes back to how it was before, chaotic waters!

Does this make sense?

Illustration:

Transition: Yet, God does get angry, but I think we should really look into what God does when He is angry and why He gets angry!

The First time God gets angry

Can anyone Guess the first time God gets angry in the Bible? Answer: its 54 chapters into the Bible!

Exodus 4:10-14 (Edited Slide)

God only gets angry after Moses has argued with Him Five times.

How many times does it take you to get angry when someone argues with you when you ask them to do something? (Think about your kids or co-workers)

Let’s look at how God responds- Does He kill Moses? Start a flood? lash out and destroy something?

No! He offers an alternative- gives a suggestion!

Exodus 4:14-15 (Edited Slide)

What we learn from this story.

God is slow to anger with Moses (at least by my standards)

When God does angry he does not seem to lash out abusively

He ends up giving Moses what He wants by using his brother Aaron.

The Second time God gets angry - Any Guesses here?

Exodus 15:4-8 (Slide)

This is a song recounting the events at the Red Sea.

Quick Recap: Israel escapes from Eygpt, Pharoah chases after them, God puts a big pillar of fire! There is an army behind them, Choatic waters in front of them!

They cry out and what does God do? Separates the waters. The people walk through.

Pharoh charges into the waters, God removes his hand from holding up the waters (Sound Familiar?)

Pharaoh and his army drowns.

Questions:

Is God slow to anger here?

Is this really fair to Pharoah and his army?

God’s patience with Pharoah?

List all the things that Pharoah did. Babies, genocide, slavery, cruelty (Pharoah is the most evil dude in the bible thus far!)

Did Pharaoh have warnings? 10 Plauges

My personal favorite: The flaming stop sign.

How do we feel about a God that would sit back and watch all of that and do nothing? Is that the kind of relationship with someone?

Pharoah rejects God and God gives him what he wants- Lets see what happens when you try to cross this sea without me- death!

What do we learn from this story?

God is far more patient with people who dont know Him

5 times until He gets angry with Moses

10 + Times until he gets angry with Pharoh

God’s anger is a response to violence and injustice.

He doesnt just snap when you do one little thing wrong

He is very slow to anger even with the most vile people!

God waits hundreds of years before allowing the flood to destroy the earth.

God gives Pharoh more than 10 times to stop challenging Him.

Think about your own life: God is slow to anger with me, Think about all that we have done

personally and corporately

Application: What do we learn? What Changes now?

What we learn about God’s anger?

What preloaded ideas do we have about anger and assign to God?

When we think about God getting angry what comes to mind and where do those images come from?

What if they come from other things: view of parents, others, or from media like movies and shows?

What if we project them onto God?

God’s anger is like fire

Fire is destructive: it consumes everything in its path.

Fire is also a source of heat and comfort.

It’s not always connected to his judgement!

There are plenty of times where God judges but its not always out of anger that He does so!

God’s judgement is often to give people over to the inevitable consequences of their actions

Flood

Pharoh

You and Me

Other stories (Look at more of these later!)

Anger is not a basic attribute of God, but its a consistent pattern of God’s behavior in response to Evil

Response to Injustice, Evil, and Violence

Do we really want a God that is indifferent? Do we want a God that see’s the mess of this world and isnt moved by it?

Think about if this was your spouse: Would you want a spouse who saw.... and did nothing?

Thus, We want a God who feels anger amen?

God has a long nose!

God truly is slow to anger

What does this Change?

Our understanding of God.

Our fear of God- He is not going to zap you or just because you do something wrong and something bad comes of it doesn't necessarily mean God’s angry.

How we look at the Bible!

Challenge: Look at stories in the Bible with God’s anger and ask yourself the following:

Why is God angry in this passage?

What did the people do/ ask for to make Him angry?

What is God’s response?

Email me passages where you struggle with God’s anger and we will explore them in sunday school next week!

Prayer:

Would you pray with me?

God thank you that you are in fact slow to anger. God we confess, we dont always understand you. We dont always understand your anger, but Father open up our eyes to see the world as you do! Help us see your anger as a response to injustice, violence and evil. Move us to be moved as you are. Help us to share your love with others this week!

Benediction:

My prayer is this: that he will lay out all the riches of his glory to give you strength and power, through his spirit, in your inner being; 17 that the king may make his home in your hearts, through faith; that love may be your root, your firm foundation; 18 and that you may be strong enough (with all God’s holy ones) to grasp the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the king’s love – though actually it’s so deep that nobody can really know it! So may God fill you with all his fullness.

May We seek to always know God more and Make Him more known to others in the way we live and love!

Go in Peace!