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Notes
Transcript
Winning victories and losing defeats
Big Idea: The normal way we show off Christ’s victory with one another is by not letting anger divide us but instead by being committed to not sin.
Big Idea: The normal way we show off Christ’s victory with one another is by not letting anger divide us but instead by being committed to not sin.
This is normal or default Christianity.
Don’t let the sun go down.
Don’t let the sun go down.
Don’t nurse your grievances. Don’t stew your anger into bitterness.
Change between Jews and Gentiles
The problem of anger in our society… Plastic life…Plastic selves…Digital environment that nurses outrage…to produce what we want.
What to do with your anger if you feel you can’t speak? You can always talk to God and ask for wisdom.
Don’t give an opportunity to the devil
Don’t give an opportunity to the devil
Membership
Jews and Gentiles
The Devil’s Strategems - Divide and Conquer
We are called to be reconcilers in the Gospel - to put everything under Christ even things that make us angry.
Why? Because we know Christ’s love and Christ’s victory is ultimate - the ultimate victory and the steadfast inheritance that we have… We experience the height and breadth of Christ’s love when we resist the devil and do good in the midst of anger. The biggest temptation anger brings is to not trust and delight in God’s justice and God’s plan.
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
How do we get a taste of eternity? The need for Sabbath rest
13 “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; 14 then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Be angry and do not sin.
Be angry and do not sin.
4 Don’t sin by letting anger control you. Think about it overnight and remain silent. Interlude 5 Offer sacrifices in the right spirit, and trust the Lord.
1 Woe to those who devise wickedness and work evil on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in the power of their hand.
19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20 To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Finding a common authority - Listening to your authority about how to do justice
While rehabilitating, I often did exercises that hurt because I knew that working through the soreness would allow my foot to regain its usefulness. On the other hand, the surgeon warned against bicycling, mountain climbing, running, and other activities that might endanger the healing process. Basically, anything that sounded fun, he vetoed.
On one visit I tried to talk him into granting me a premature golf match. "Some friends get together once a year. It's important to me. I've been practicing my swing, and if I use only my upper body and keep my legs and hips very still, could I join them?"
Without a flicker of hesitation, my doctor replied, "It would make me very unhappy if you played golf within the next two months."
"I thought you were a golfer," I said, appealing to his sympathies.
"I am. That's how I know you can't swing without rolling that foot inward and putting weight on the parts that are trying to heal."
The point was obvious. My doctor has nothing against my playing golf; as a fellow golfer, he sympathizes with me. But he has my best interests at heart. It will indeed make him unhappy if I do something prematurely that might damage my long-term recovery. He wants me to play golf next year, and the next, and the rest of my life, and for that reason he could not sanction a match too soon after my surgery.
As we talked, I began to appreciate my doctor's odd choice of words. If he had issued an edict —"No golf!"— I might have stubbornly rebelled. He left me the free choice and expressed the consequences in a most personal way: Disobedience would grieve him, for his job was to restore my health.
The role of a doctor may be the most revealing image in thinking about God and sin. What a doctor does for me physically—guide me toward health—God does for me spiritually. I am learning to view sins not as an arbitrary list of rules drawn up by a cranky Judge, but rather as a list of dangers that must be avoided at all costs—for our own sakes.
Source:
Philip Yancey, "Doctor's Orders,"Christianity Today (12-6-99)
Talking to people - You’ve hurt me.
Waiting on God
Dealing with Wicked People
10 The soul of the wicked desires evil; his neighbor finds no mercy in his eyes.
7 A righteous man knows the rights of the poor; a wicked man does not understand such knowledge.
29 A wicked man puts on a bold face, but the upright gives thought to his ways.