The ABC’s of the Christian Life (18): Following Jesus Christ Rightly (12): Dealing with Sinful Anger

Well, let's turn in our Bibles, please, to the first chapter of James.

We're closer to the end of this series than the beginning.

We've attempted to set forth the ABCs of the Christian life.

And in this section of this subject, what it is to follow Jesus Christ rightly.

And today I want to address a matter that all of us have to deal with from time to

time, some to different degrees than others.

And that is dealing with sinful anger.

Of course, we are Christians.

We're greatly blessed of God.

Oh, by the way, I might say that I failed to put today's date on these notes.

It should be the 26th, not the 19th.

And by the way, the sermon number is wrong, too.

It should be 925, not 924, I believe.

But the text is right.

James 1.

The goodness that God has bestowed upon us through Jesus Christ, of course, places a blessed privilege as well as

an obligatory duty to respond to God both in faith and in faithfulness.

Privilege and duty.

And so in our desire and effort to follow Jesus Christ rightly, we're to continually turn from our sin,

our former ways, the ways we lived prior to coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

Even as we strive to conform ourselves to the life that the Lord Jesus has so freely given us and prescribed

for us.

And so we can read a portion of Holy Scripture that addresses both of these duties,

the privilege as well as the responsibility.

Turning from sin, living under righteousness.

James 1 .16 -22.

And you see I emboldened and italicized some words there

for emphasis.

James wrote, Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren, every good and every perfect gift

is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or

shadow of turning.

He is immutable.

Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of

first fruits of his creatures.

So then, my beloved brethren, let everyone be swift to hear,

slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not

produce the righteousness of God.

Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word or

engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

But be doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

We who know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior have been brought into this state of grace, saving grace, of course, through the

will of God.

And James writes of that.

Through God's use of the word of truth that is set forth here in this passage, God caused us to be born

again.

He used the gospel, he used the word as an instrument to create life in

those who hear.

It's therefore necessary for us to listen carefully to the word of God, to be teachable.

It's brought great blessing to us by God and will continue to do so.

And so we must hear carefully.

We must be teachable.

And it's also necessary that we obey the word.

And so we are not only to listen to the word carefully, but we are to obey the word of God.

We're not only to be teachable, but we're to be responsive to what we're taught.

And we're told to lay aside the sins that once characterized us, including outbursts of anger.

And there's the theme we have.

And voicing harsh words, because this kind of activity, this kind of

action does not result in living the life of righteousness that the Lord has prescribed for us.

And so angry speech, angry attitudes is very detrimental to

the Christian life and to the cause of Christ among his people.

This work of sanctification, this process of becoming more holy, more like Jesus Christ, is of course only

possible through the grace of God.

God, the Holy Spirit enables and empowers us to do the things that he commands us.

He gives us the desire at conversion, but he doesn't give us the power that comes each and every day as we look to

Jesus to give us afresh the Holy Spirit, to enable us to do the things that he commands

us.

Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing.

And that's true of every Christian.

Paul wrote in Romans 8 .13, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

That describes a non -Christian.

It might be a Christian in name, but he's a non -Christian.

But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

And so we have to put to death sin, the deeds of the body, but notice we can only do so by the Holy

Spirit.

And if we do so, we will live.

This is the nature of the Christian life.

Those who truly believe on Jesus will obey Jesus and use the means the

Lord has presented to live before him.

And so this is the course of life that all of the Lord's people are to take as they travel onto

their promised inheritance, which is assured to them at their journeys in.

This morning, we want to address some matters respecting sin.

And so we want to talk in generalities first about sin.

And then we will become specific toward the latter end of

our consideration of this matter and address this form of sin that we all struggle with

from one degree to another when we experience anger that seems to well up within us

and seems to possess us, seems to take control of us, control our thinking and our emotions as well as

our will.

And this is not good.

We cannot produce the righteousness of God in our lives if we have these outbursts of anger

that is seen in our attitudes, our actions, and our speech.

Well, first, again, speaking of sin in generalities, let's understand that there are many different

sins from which we are to turn, that is, sins from which we are to repent.

And that's what repent means, to turn from sin onto God, onto Christ.

And we see many of these various sins set forth in the scriptures, particularly in the New Testament, in

what are commonly referred to as vice lists in Holy Scripture.

I don't know if you've heard that term before, but this is one that is commonly used.

And so the sins that we strive to eradicate from our lives comes in many forms, and there are lists of sins that are set

before us.

And I actually did a little bit of research on this, and there are quite a few verses that just begin to list

sins one right after another, and they're called vice lists.

For example, in Mark 21 and 22, the Lord Jesus said, for it is from within, from the human heart, that evil

intentions come, and here's the vice list, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice,

wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.

Paul gave a vice list in Romans 1, 29 -31, where he indicts the human race.

They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife,

deceit, craftiness, there are gossips, slanderers, God -haters, insolent, haughty,

boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless,

ruthless.

That's quite a vice list, isn't it?

1 Corinthians 6, verses 9 and 10 contains another list.

Paul is warning professing Christians here, do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of

God?

In other words, salvation.

Do not be deceived.

Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy,

drunkards, revilers, robbers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

See, true Christians cannot be characterized by these things.

They're characterized as Christians, not idolaters, not fornicators, but Christians.

And then Paul gives a rather extensive list in Ephesians 4, 17 -32.

I think because of the time, we won't read that entire passage, but let's just drop down to say verse 25.

That's in your notes, Ephesians 4, 25.

Therefore put away lying.

Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Be angry, do not sin.

See, there's a good kind of anger, and probably most of us justify our anger as though we're in that category, but

it's probably not so.

Be angry, but don't sin in doing so.

Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.

Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have

something to give him who has need.

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth.

There's the speech, perhaps coming forth due to anger, but what is good for necessary

edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

God can impart grace to other Christians through your speech.

That you, by the manner and the content of your speech to them.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed for the day of redemption.

And then here's the vice list.

Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, be put away

from you with all malice, and be kind to one another.

Here's the positive list.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God and Christ forgave you.

Several weeks ago, we considered Colossians chapter three, one through 14, and we read it then,

and there's a vice list in this passage.

We didn't give due attention to it then, but we can look at it now.

And again, for the sake of time, just drop down to verse five.

Paul wrote to these Christians, therefore put to death your members which are on the earth,

fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

And because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when

you lived in them.

But now you yourself start to put off all these.

Anger, there's the one we're going to zero in on.

Wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.

And do not lie to one another, since you put off the old man with his deeds.

The old man is your life before becoming a Christian.

You've put that off.

And you put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him, where there's

neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised.

Barbarians get the enslaved or free, but Christ is all and in all.

And so there are these vice lists, numerous sins.

And many of these lists are not, you know, complete in and of themselves, but they

are representative of sins.

And you can find different sins listed in different lists.

As we stand back, however, and look at sins and maybe a long list of sins, we can

actually discern that there are three major categories for sin.

And so if one were to collect all of the sins identified and listed in the New Testament, they could be classified into three categories.

First, there are sins that may be classified under the heading of moral impurity, sexual

sins.

And these are referred to as sins of the flesh.

Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4, for this is a will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual

immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and

honor.

Interestingly, the scriptures describe this category of sin as a sin

against one's own body.

In other words, it's selfishness that drives the immoral person.

And so we read in 1 Corinthians 6 .18, flee sexual immorality.

Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

And this is described in the scriptures as this category as the lust of the flesh.

A second category of sins in the realm of corrupt temporal values or more simply

greediness.

Covetousness.

And whereas the first category of sin has to do with one's own body,

the second category of sin has to do with our relationship with things

in the world, created things.

Greediness is a root sin.

Paul wrote to Timothy, having food and clothing with these, we shall be content.

But those who desire to be rich, in other words, long to be rich, this is what governs their thinking, their value system, their

lives, fall into temptation and a snare.

See, they're not aware of the danger.

And into many foolish and harmful lusts, see, it doesn't stand alone, which drown men in destruction

and perdition or damnation.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, like a tree growing up from a root that branches out,

from which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierce themselves through with many sorrows.

A greedy man is going to have many problems in his life if he's governed by temporal

values.

And this sin is described in the scriptures as the lust of the eye.

See, things you see outside of you, your relationship with things, rather than relationship with your own

body is under the first category.

And then the third category of sins is that of bitterness.

Bitterness is a sin that surfaces in our relationships with other people or God himself.

Some people are bitter toward God.

The sin is described in the scriptures as the pride of life.

And all three of these are found in 1 John 2, 6.

But this, the pride of life and bitterness is also described as a root sin.

A bitter person will not only be bitter, but he'll have other issues too.

Hebrews 12, Esau is the classic person that illustrates this.

Pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness

springing up cause trouble and by this many become defiled.

Lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one

morsel of food sold his birthright.

Esau was in a bad way.

If you'll notice carefully, all three categories are identified here.

He's a bitter person, but he's also a profane person.

You know, greedy with regard to things.

He had to have that bowl of porridge forsaking his birthright.

And he was also a fornicator.

He was immoral.

And so he was a problem child.

This guy had lots of problems.

But bitterness seems to be the thing that has caused many of these to be manifest in his

life.

And so these three categories may be regarded as root sins.

We may sin against God through our thoughts, through our attitudes or emotions, and through our actions, as well as through our

speech.

These are the four ways in which we can sin against God.

We can sin against God through our speech, our thoughts, our attitudes,.

And our actions.

Sometimes it's only in our sinful thoughts, but usually, commonly, sinful thoughts are

manifested in some other way.

And so sometimes our sinful thoughts are displayed in sinful attitudes, even as we

commit outward acts of sin.

These are the ways sins are manifested by us.

And sadly, many times our sin is shown forth in the words we speak.

In other words, when we sin, it may show itself in various ways.

Regarding sinful thoughts, our Lord Jesus declared, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders,

adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies.

Most of the time, Christians think of heart as the seed of the emotions, but in Scripture, really the heart

most often speaks of the entire person, but actually most frequently zeroes in on the mind, the

thinking of a person.

That's his heart.

Out of the heart he conceives things.

It's the way he thinks, and it's corrupt.

And the Lord Jesus declared this.

And so the heart should probably be understood as a sinful nature, or even the fallen mind, the corrupt mind out of which

these things emerge.

And so probably many sins we commit never show themselves openly because they're restricted to our thinking.

But we should not think that we do not really sin until they are manifested openly.

We can sin in our thought life, can't we?

In fact, we probably sin most in our thought life, I would suspect.

Not all of our sinful thoughts are shown forth in a visual

manner, in a visual way.

But the Lord Jesus said, these sinful thoughts, nevertheless, we're responsible for them.

And the Scriptures declare, the thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord, the Lord's disgusted with it.

And you can imagine, you know, we see these egregious injustice,

acts of injustice perpetrated throughout the world today.

But can you imagine if your Almighty God, and you could, and the thoughts of everyone were

immediately before you, continuously, you can understand why God

would be filled with wrath toward a fallen human race.

Those are outside of Jesus Christ.

And on the day of judgment, all of our thoughts will be assessed and judged by our Lord.

Paul wrote about the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.

We're hearing about all kinds of sins being revealed, you know, by those who have been

abused in the past, particularly out of Hollywood, but also out of Washington.

And all these horrid details that are being thrown out that really defile you, don't

they, as you're being exposed to it.

But again, the Lord sees it all.

And the Lord is not only going to judge what people do, but he's going to judge what they think on the day of judgment.

Our attitudes will also be assessed in the day of judgment.

Those who are characterized by hatred, who are contentious, jealous, envious, who are self -seeking,

who possess selfish ambition shall all be tried and damned by the judge.

We won't turn there, but it's clearly stated in Galatians 5.

Clearly our actions will be assessed, scrutinized by King Jesus on the day of judgment,

Jude wrote.

Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men talking about false teachers,

licentious teachers saying, behold, the Lord comes with 10 ,000 of his saints to execute judgment on

all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds.

Those are actions which they've committed in an ungodly way.

Paul wrote of the self -righteous, but in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you are treasuring up

for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one

according to his deeds.

It's amazing to me that most evangelicals don't see that they're going to have to stand before King Jesus one day and give an account

of their lives.

It's argued, oh, only Christians will be, have to go through a judgment.

And they'll be rewarded.

No, there's going to be a judgment of works one day in which mankind is going to be separated into two groups.

And those who are Christian are going to pass judgment because their life validates their claim that they are true

believers in Jesus.

Hypocrites, however, those who claim to be Christian, but their lives clearly demonstrate otherwise,

shall have their part appointed with the unbelievers.

But it will be a judgment of works, not because we're saved by works, that's heresy,

but we'll be judged by our works that will either validate, vindicate our claim that we're believers,

or it will negate our claim.

No, we were hypocrites.

And so this is an important matter.

And so our speech, or rather our attitudes, our thoughts, our actions,

but fourthly, our words, of course, will be scrutinized.

Every word ever spoken, mercy,

will either vindicate us or damn us on the day of judgment.

The Lord said, I say to you that for every idle word, men may speak.

You go through life and you can't help but hear these so -called idle words

are just horrendous, blasphemous, defiling.

And each and every one of them are going to be brought up before that person by King Jesus on the day of

judgment.

They'll give an account of it on the day of judgment.

And then Jesus says, for by your words, you'll be justified.

By your words, you'll be condemned.

And here justified carries the idea you'll be vindicated.

Your words are going to be examined on the day of judgment.

And your speech is going to validate your claim that you're a Christian or else

it will invalidate your claim to be a believer in Jesus.

It matters how you live, how you think, how you behave, and how you speak.

And so when we consider all these manifestations of sins and the resultant condemnation they'll bring upon us, we must

reaffirm the glorious goodness of the gospel.

Amen.

And I certainly didn't want to rehearse all these negative things about sin and leave us

hanging.

For thanks be to God, the Lord Jesus satisfied the justice of God with respect

to all the sins of all of his people, paid for in full.

It's all of grace, isn't it?

So let's consider a few of the blessed words of assurance to all those who embrace Jesus Christ.

Through faith.

As their Lord and Savior.

1 John 4 .10, in this is love, not that we love God, but they loved us and sent his son to be the

propitiation for our sins.

We were under God's wrath as we see so many places,

but that wrath was completely removed or appeased through the

death of Jesus on behalf of his people.

And so propitiation speaks of satisfying God's justice and appeasing his wrath upon us for

his sin.

And we shouldn't think that somehow God the Father was against us and Jesus, by what he did, he won God the Father over to us.

No, God the Father sent his son because he loved us and gave his son in order to

satisfy his own justice.

That he would be willing to give his son is a tremendous testimony of his love for us

sinners who believe the gospel.

Hebrews 1 .1 -4.

And I use the New American Standard Version here because I think it expresses the idea well.

And it speaks of, of course, the glory of Jesus Christ.

And then we'll drop down to verse 5.

And he, Jesus Christ, in the radiance of his glory, in the exact representation of God's nature,

upholds all things by the word of his power when he made purification of sins.

Think about that.

The Lord Jesus purified you of your sins.

He took away the condemning nature of your sin.

Now sin will still defile you and disappoint you and disappoint God and, you know, grieve the Holy Spirit.

But your sin, being in Christ, cannot condemn you.

You've been purified of sin through the death of Jesus.

And after he accomplished this,.

By the way,.

This is one of the verses that back in 1980 convinced me of the biblical teaching of

definite atonement.

Christ didn't try and save everybody when he died on the cross.

He paid for the sins of his people.

He didn't make possible everybody's salvation.

He secured salvation of all who believe on him.

And this is indicated that after he purified them of their sins through his death, he sat down

at the right hand of the majesty on high.

This is the activity of our high priest.

High priests in the Old Testament never sat down because they never accomplished the forgiveness of sins on

behalf of the people.

Jesus did.

And so he's become so much better than the angels and that he's inherited a more excellent name than they.

And so the Lord Jesus secured the purification of sins for all his people who ever lived when he died upon his cross.

If you're a Christian, he purified you through his death.

Your sins cannot condemn you.

Colossians 2, 13 and 14.

And you who were dead in your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive

together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses.

A trespass is a transgression of God's law, and they've been forgiven.

And he did it by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

The law of God damned your soul.

You in so many, many ways in your thought, your attitudes, your words and your

actions, the law of God damned your soul.

And yet the death of the Lord Jesus canceled the record of that debt.

You got a clean slate being in Jesus Christ.

Isn't that glorious?

And it's not just a cancellation of sin.

It's a crediting of positive righteousness to you.

You know, when we stand before God on the day of judgment, not only are our sins forgiven, but God is going to regard us and

treat us as if we were as righteous as Jesus Christ himself, having

obeyed his law fully and completely because his righteousness is credited to us through faith.

And that's the glory of the gospel, one of the glories of the gospel, is it not?

And then where are we?

Revelation 1, 2 through 6.

And here I use the ESV because there's a translation issue here.

From the King James,.

New King James.

John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is, who was, and from

the seven spirits who are before his throne.

That's the Holy Spirit, seven apocalyptic emblem of

completeness.

The Holy Spirit is there.

And from Jesus Christ,.

The faithful witness,.

The firstborn of the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth, to him who loves us and freed us

from our sins by his blood.

We're freed from our sins through his death.

Made as a kingdom priest to his God and father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

The King James doesn't say freed, it says washed.

Yeah, washed us from our sins.

And well -meaning but errant

advocates of the King James only and New King James only would say here the liberals in the

newer translations are trying to take the blood out of the Bible.

You know, being washed in his blood is offensive to them.

And so they changed it from released or from washed to released.

And that's not what happened.

The Greek word that's translated as washed and the Greek word that is translated as released or freed

are almost identical in appearance.

And a scribe at one point, apparently, was mistaken in

his reading and changed the Greek word slightly in spelling.

And so when it's translated into English, it reads wash instead of release.

And those were later manuscripts.

And so when John penned those words, there's no question.

He wrote the Greek word that should be translated as freed or released from our sins.

And then we have in 1 Peter 3 .18, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to

God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit.

He suffered once for sins.

And then Hebrews 9 .27, as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this a judgment.

So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many.

That would be his people.

To those who eagerly wait for him, he will appear a second time apart from sin for salvation.

Apart from sin.

We're not going to be damned for sin on the day of judgment.

We've been released, pardoned, purified.

Our debt has been paid for fully by Christ.

And so when we stand before the judge, it will be not with fear and trepidation,

but with a holy confidence and joy and boldness, because we're standing in Christ.

Amen.

That's a glorious, glorious result of the redemption that is in Jesus

Christ.

But now let's zero in on this matter of dealing with sinful anger.

And again, each of us have to deal with this personally in one degree to another.

Of the many sins from which the Lord Jesus desires to deliver us, the manifestation of sinful anger

may be included.

This is not a problem to a great degree that every Christian has, but it's common enough problem that it

would do us well to address.

And besides, someone asked me last week if I would address this.

Okay.

And that's why we're zeroing in on this one, because I did see the relevance it would be to all of us

in considering this.

Earlier, we identified three categories of sins.

There are sins of our own flesh, sins with respect to things or events, and there are

sins in our relationships with others.

Sinful anger may arise in any one of these three arenas of life.

In other words, there may be things that we personally do or fail to do that frustrate us, which may

result in sinful anger and outbursts.

We're more angry with ourselves than anything else or anyone else.

We may become angry with ourselves quite easily, perhaps.

Secondly, there are events that happen to us or perhaps fail to happen for us that may irritate us

to the point that we manifest anger.

You get some bad news about something.

You got to replace a transmission or something like that.

And so temptation arises in a certain area.

You have to be alert to it.

And third, there are certainly people who irritate us through what they do to us or what they fail to do for us

that irritate us to such a degree that we respond either publicly or privately in angry

ways that violate scriptures.

Scripture.

And so the sources of irritation to which each of us are exposed in one form or another include people,

the environment in which we live, and the attitudes and actions of our own selves.

And so anger is a common problem.

People anger us.

Things that happen to us anger us, and we get angry with our own self.

With people, it is their personality traits, perhaps their idiosyncrasies and

inconsistencies that may anger us.

Our own experiences anger us when we encounter the deficiencies, maybe the

inconveniences, the expense, the undesirable elements and pressures that the world may impose

upon us.

And we get angry with ourselves because of our own defects, our own weaknesses, illnesses, perhaps personal

deficiencies that frustrate and disappoint us.

And so you can see how easily anger can arise in so many different ways

and forms.

For some Christians, sinful anger is a very real and troublesome matter in their lives.

They seem to be angry all the time at most everything and everybody.

Sometimes that's your impression that there goes an angry woman.

And she always seems to be an angry woman,.

Or man.

It may happen.

And this sinful anger has consequences for them because anger has damaging effects on one's soul and

one's physical well -being, one's physical health.

It may adversely affect their physical health.

It certainly skews the manner in which they assess themselves and view themselves, and even the

manner in which they understand their relationship with God.

And for some, the problem may be so bad that rather than the Lord Jesus controlling and directing them, these

other things or persons that anger them are in actuality their masters.

They're fixed emotionally upon that person or those things.

And rather than fixing their hearts and minds.

Upon the Lord Jesus,.

No, they're fixed upon that person who's making their life miserable and they're angry about it.

And so this anger results in them failing to live in the way they desire a life that's truly pleasing

to God because that's what they want.

God's put that desire within their souls as Christians.

And they know if they live that way, as God prescribes, it would be best for them too.

And so people who are angry can perhaps easily resonate with the words of the apostle.

For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing.

For to will is present with me.

I want to do it.

But how to perform that which is good, I find not.

I just can't break out of this pattern I'm in.

For the good that I will to do, I want to do, I do not do it.

But the evil I don't want to do, I practice it.

I paraphrase it a little bit, of course.

And so how may we understand and address the sources of irritation that result in us committing sins of

impatience and anger, being characterized as having a judgmental spirit of others, and

perhaps speaking forth harsh, sinful, unloving words?

Well, first, realize that we commonly respond wrongly to sources of irritation that we

experience in our lives.

It's our knee -jerk reaction to respond in a wrong manner.

When we're angered,.

We often justify ourselves in our thinking.

We're right to be angry.

After all, look what he did to me.

We justify ourselves.

You can imagine Esau, who was full of bitterness.

You remember what brought that about?

Part of it?

His own mother conspired with his twin brother to cheat him out of his

inheritance.

Boy, there's a reason for bitterness if your own mother, you know, treats you in that regard.

You can imagine how Esau justified his bitterness.

So we justify ourselves.

And accompanying our self -justification is our quickness to blame other people or the falling out of

events themselves to be the source and cause of our problems.

It's outside of us.

And oftentimes, our effort to deal with anger is simply to hold it in, to bite our tongue, so to

speak.

And when we respond to our irritations in these natural but unbiblical ways, we generally

experience conflict in other aspects of our lives.

We may have conflict in our own conscience, conflict with others about us, or perhaps even conflict with our

God, for ultimately, we know God is responsible, or at least He didn't prevent this from happening to me.

And so there are some people that are angry who have become distant from God because they have ill

feelings toward God.

They're bitter toward Him.

They need to acknowledge this problem and repent of it.

By the way, I finished this up last night, and so I just happened to be, I think I went on the Drudge Report.

And lo and behold, here's this article from a British magazine

on how to keep your cool.

In other words, how to deal with anger.

And there were 10 points.

I actually included that in your notes.

Don't look at them now, but they're at the back of your notes.

Because I was, after having worked.

Through all of this,.

Here was, you know, a setting forth of the world's way to deal with anger.

And so 10 points, 9 points talked about all of the ramifications of anger and how it's not

good for anybody.

And so only the 10th point gave instruction, this is how you deal with

anger.

And their one word of instruction was don't hold it in.

In other words, their prescription was unload.

And can you imagine, you know, the families, the workplace, the churches, if

everybody just refused to hold it in and just let it go.

And that's the world's prescription in dealing with anger.

Now we're talking about something far different than that.

Well, first of all, we are to understand or we acknowledge that the Lord is the one who governs all events that

transpire in our lives.

God is sovereign, King Jesus.

Rules over all things.

We read that the Lord works all things after the counsel of his own will.

That means whatever comes into your life, he has decreed it so.

It happens in his wise disposal of your life, if you're a Christian.

And so when we complain about that, which irritates us, we're really murmuring against God who has

ordained what is transpiring in our lives.

Think about that.

When a Christian complains or becomes angry due to God's providential dealings, he is essentially accusing the Lord

of mismanagement or even malfeasance.

He hates me.

This is why this is happening.

And when we become angry over what is taking place in our lives, that anger should trigger in us the

awareness that we're really accusing our God of failure, of injustice.

If I was in control, I would have ordered my life differently and better

than what I'm experiencing.

The fact is you cannot be grateful for God's role in your life and you'll not be giving thanksgiving to God, certainly

when you believe that he's dealt with you in a wrong manner.

We're to see God's hand has overseen every aspect of our lives.

Even those things that may be most unpleasant and appear to be most unjust.

And the Bible never says everything that happens to you is good.

The Bible does say as a Christian, God brings good out of everything that happens to you.

There's a great difference between the two.

Fact is the Lord purposes to accomplish his good purposes in Christ through all that

come into our lives.

And we are to acknowledge his sovereign control.

The Lord has done it, even though it might be the direct action of the devil.

The devil had to gain permission from God to do it and God gave him permission.

We should recognize that it's a good God who only gives good gifts to his children.

And if we reaffirm that from what we read originally in James, we'll be able

to perhaps free ourselves to live responsibly and accordingly.

Consider King David.

This was brought to my attention memory just a week or two ago, who was humanly

speaking, deserving of honor and respect.

He was the King of Israel.

He was a man of God.

God had enthroned him.

But the time came when his own son Absalom fomented an insurrection against him.

And David and his small band of loyal followers had to flee Jerusalem in order to

spare being killed by his own son.

And as he left Jerusalem, a man came out who was embittered with David, who was

really in favor of David's predecessor, King Saul.

And this man began to curse David and throw rocks at him.

How did King David respond?

Well, we read the account in 2 Samuel 16, 5 -14.

And this is an important passage.

Now, when King David came to Bahurim, there was a man from the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei,

the son of Gerah, coming from there.

He came out cursing continuously as he came.

And he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David.

And all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left.

And also Shimei said thus when he cursed, come out, come out, you bloodthirsty man, you rogue.

The Lord has brought upon you all the blood of the house of Saul in whose place you have reigned.

And the Lord has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom, your son.

So now you're caught in your own evil.

Because you are a bloodthirsty man.

Those were false accusations, but they must have hurt.

Well, Abishai, one of David's mighty men, Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, said to the king, why should this dead dog

curse my Lord, the king?

Please let me go over and take off his head.

We'll put a stop to this.

But the king said, what have I to do with you?

You sons of Zeruiah?

So let him curse.

For the Lord has said to him, curse David.

Notice he saw the sovereignty of God in this.

Who then shall say, why have you done so?

He saw the providence of God.

He saw God was sovereign, even in this bad thing that was happening to him.

And David said to Abishai, to all the servants, see how my son who came from my own body seeks my life.

How much more now may this Benjamite.

Let him alone, let him curse.

For so the Lord has ordered him.

He saw that God permitted this to happen.

Now this was an evil that this man was doing, but it was in God's purposes.

And then David anticipated perhaps some positive outcome from this.

And so he said in verse 12, it may be that the Lord will look on my affliction and that the Lord will

repay me with good for his cursing this day.

And as David and his men went along the road, Shimei went along the hillside, officed him, cursed as he went, threw stones at him, kicked up

dust.

Well, the result was that David and the people that were with him grew weary.

And so they refreshed themselves.

But this is how he responded to a situation.

You talk about irritation.

I don't need this.

You know, I'm escaping to spare my life and the life of my close

adherents.

And this guy's going to treat me this way.

It would have been very easily done, put a stop to this irritation.

But he saw the sovereignty of God in this.

God will deal with it his own way in his own time.

Similarly, we are to view every form of irritation as having been filtered through the will of God.

God has purposes for these irritations, though we may never understand in this lifetime what those

specific purposes are.

And then consider the patience of Job.

Think about that.

This man did not have a lot of scripture available to him in that day.

Perhaps Job was one of the earliest books of the Bible.

He lost all of his family in one day, all of his goods one day.

He lost everything.

He lost his health.

And his wife was a source of misery to him.

How did Job respond to these irritations?

And you think he had some irritations?

It's amazing he maintained his sanity.

When all of this came upon him.

And the Lord was able to say to Satan regarding to Job, have you considered my servant Job?

There's none like him in all the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil

and still holds fast to his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy

him without cause.

So we read of Job's response to having lost everything.

Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head.

He was in misery.

Great lament.

Fell to the ground and worshiped God and said, naked I came from my mother's womb.

Naked shall I return there.

The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away.

Bless me in the name of the Lord.

In all this, Job did not sin or accuse God of wrongdoing.

He didn't murmur.

He didn't have harsh speech toward God.

He's a good example to us.

The fact is the Lord uses all that takes place in our lives in order to sanctify us, in order to

conform us unto the image of Jesus Christ.

And more often than not,.

It's the irritations and difficulties that we encounter that will result in the greatest degree

of Christian growth that you can experience.

You might pray, Lord, help me grow.

Help me understand.

Help me learn.

Help me become more holy.

Well, look out because here it comes.

I can look back at my life at an 18 -month period back in from middle of summer

1978 to December of 1979.

And I couldn't tell you the things that Mary and I were experiencing at that time.

But it was the time of greatest spiritual growth I've ever experienced in my Christian life.

That's when I came to understand the sovereignty of God.

Reading Arthur Pink's book, The Sovereignty of God.

And as I saw God working to these things to accomplish his purposes.

These are not words.

This is a reality.

We know all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

For whom God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the

firstborn among many brethren.

And when we get angry against God's providences, we do cut short that work of grace in our

souls.

And we will not grow to the degree we would have grown had we properly responded

to God's dealings.

In what ways is the Lord using our irritations to sanctify us?

Well, there's a list here I provided.

It's not original with me.

I got it from years ago.

It's a good list.

And I put it down here, not endorsing in any way Bill Gothard who put it down, although he

set forth some good things.

And so on the left column, you have the irritations that God sends us.

And in the right -hand column, the quality that God would produce in us through these things.

And so from one who is hard to love, what is God trying to do

by this person afflicting me?

Well, he's trying to produce in you genuine love based on mature insight.

You love someone not because of things they do for you or don't do to you,

but you love them for Christ's sake.

You love your enemies.

What about from circumstances of sorrow?

You're full of grief.

Well, the quality God would produce in you is continuous joy even in the midst of your pain.

It's kind of schizophrenic, but it happens.

From conditions of confusion in your life, what is God trying to do to produce inward

peace and steady confidence?

God's guiding me.

I don't have to understand.

What about irritating inconveniences so that we might develop sympathetic

flexibility in our lives?

From obvious needs of others.

Oh boy, I get this one continuously, folks.

Needy people all over the world.

I've got these two dozen orphans and they're crying every day.

I don't have food to give them.

Can you help me, please?

What does God try to produce in us?

Wise generosity.

From unwelcome responsibilities.

This is being put on me and I'm just growing weary under it.

God's attempting to produce in us consistent trustworthiness.

There's a faithful man.

He fulfills the responsibilities placed upon him.

From people who intrude upon our personal rights.

Surrender of personal rights.

That is critically important to our discussion.

I know it's late, but I really want to address that if we have time.

From temptations to wrong desires.

He's teaching us self -control.

And so these are qualities of Christ that's produced in us as we're having to deal with problems,

irritations that may result in anger, but they shouldn't.

It's through the trials that we experience that he instructs us in his ways and trains us in holiness.

And we're not going to go through that.

But the Lord chastens whom he loves that means hardship and difficulty.

That is the process by which a father is training his son in order to be a mature

man.

And this is what God is doing with all of his sons and daughters.

Drop down to page eight to number four.

We should recall in our trials that we do not deserve better treatment from the hand of God who controls our lives.

If you and I got what we deserve, it would be eternal damnation.

Would it not?

Anything less than that's blessing when you consider it.

We are to thank God for the irritations he sends to us and everything give thanks.

This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Don't just thank God for the, you know, for the abundance of an abundant harvest that you take in,

but you thank God for everything.

It's an acknowledgement that he is in control of our lives.

Six, we are to see the ones that irritate us as being sent to us by God so that we might

serve them in love.

And I've learned this principle over the years.

When somebody comes up and treats me dirty, it's probably an opening of a door

of testimony and witness to that person in order to bring them the gospel.

And do we see that opportunity though when people come to us in that way that we are able to

help them as long as we don't take up a defense, you know, and get angry, we're

free to be able to minister to them because they shouldn't be doing that, but not because

I got a right to something better, but because this isn't good for them that they are talking this way or this attitude.

And so even though it's heaping upon me, Lord, help me to serve them as

you serve me in my sin.

And C, we're to lower our expectations of others so that we do not think that they have to live according to a standard that we

have established for them.

We're to surrender our expectations, lower our expectations.

Many Christians have established expectations of their fellow believers that are really detrimental to

developing, maintaining healthy relationships.

They set up a standard of belief or behavior that must be met in order for full fellowship

to be extended to him or her.

That is not biblical.

We're to lower our expectations.

And in fact, we're only to hold forth what God expects of people rather than those standards that we ourselves have established.

In our own minds.

That we impose upon others.

And then D, middle of page nine, we're to surrender what we perceive wrongly to be our rights

for which we may expect others to honor.

This is the major key to dealing with anger, in my opinion.

The word of God does speak, of course, about a righteous anger.

Be angry and sin not.

But most of the anger we experience is unrighteous.

And most of the time when we become angry, it's due to a right that we believe we have

that somebody is not delivering to us.

In other words, the bottom line is that person is not serving me as I think he or she ought to be doing.

You're really setting yourself up as the Lord and this person has the responsibility to serve you

to your satisfaction.

And woe is that person when he or she fails to do so.

We are to develop the quality of meekness.

And meekness, by biblical definition, is the quality of a Christian who does not see himself as having a

right to be served by anyone, but rather he sees it his responsibility to serve everyone.

And if you could develop, if we could develop that attitude of meekness in our souls, we would

experience peace, an absence, or we would be able to deal with

situations that would normally tick us off and get us angry.

We would be able to deal, I'm here to serve, not to be served.

Moses was, before the Lord Jesus, was recorded to be the most meek man in all of the earth.

And the reason was he was raised in Pharaoh's court.

He had more rights and privileges to be served,.

Power,.

Resources, and he denied himself all those.

In order to be numbered.

And experience the afflictions of God's people.

He denied himself of what he was entitled to in this world by birth,

going into Pharaoh's court.

And he was a meek man.

And we read the passage in Philippians 2, if Moses was meek, consider the Lord Jesus,

eternal God, who is deserving of continuous worship from all

of his creatures.

Nevertheless, he did not claim that right, but rather denied himself

and became a man, assumed a human nature.

But not just any man,.

You and I,.

You know, we celebrate our liberty and freedom as we should, but he came in the form of a servant

and he served people rather than being served.

And he suffered death.

He didn't see life as something as a right, a right to life.

He didn't claim that.

And he suffered death.

And he didn't claim for a right to die with dignity.

He suffered the death of the cross.

Jesus Christ never claimed a single right in his entire life, but he saw it his

responsibility to glorify his father and to serve people on behalf of his father.

And Paul said, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.

This is how we are to think if we were thinking rightly and behaving rightly as Christians.

And so when things irritate us, we should examine ourselves.

What right do I think I have here that I have not yielded to God?

And on the top of page 11, as we wrap this up, I've listed some that might, we might

commonly have.

And we assume, this is the world, this is our fallen heart telling us this.

I have a right to my privacy.

Woe is anyone that takes that away from me.

I have a right to express my opinion.

I have a right to be obeyed.

Fathers, think about that.

You know, when your kids are in rebellion, I have a right to be obeyed.

Now, your son or daughter has a responsibility to obey you.

And if you love that son or daughter, you're going to teach that son or daughter to obey you.

Not because I've got a right, you know, that they obey me, but I've got a responsibility as a father

to teach them, to honor their father and mother.

It will not go well for them in this world.

And it's going to result in a whole different collection of

attitudes that are displayed and opinions displayed.

I have a right to be treated with kindness by others.

And when somebody doesn't, we write them off.

I have a right to be spoken to with courtesy, with honor.

I have a right to read or watch what I want to.

Nobody should tell me differently.

Popular one today,.

I have a right to health care.

Do we?

The fact is, folks, we were bought with a price.

We as Christians don't have any rights whatsoever.

We have wonderful privileges and blessings that have been bestowed upon us freely through Jesus Christ.

But we don't have rights to claim.

We have responsibilities to assume.

And when you get angry, it's probably because you've got some corner of your life, you're thinking

that you've carved out for yourself in this matter, I am sovereign

and they are going to serve me in this or look out for them.

That's sin.

And the Lord wants to wean us from that.

And how does he do it?

He sends irritations to us until we finally say,.

I surrender, Lord, I surrender.

And then we discover his ways were right and best all along.

And had we yielded to it long before,.

We would have saved ourselves.

A whole lot of grief.

Amen.

So may the Lord help us in this until we surrender these rights to God.

When we perceive someone or something is denying us of what we think we're entitled, we will

become angry.

But when we surrender our rights to God, acknowledging that he is free, either to grant us these things or withhold them,

even through his acts of providence, then we will experience peace in our souls.

Peace will be enjoyed by those who yield to his sovereign and wise dealings with them.

The Christian who's learned this important spiritual lesson will experience peace and joy that he had never known all

the while he had insisted on having his own way.

May the Lord deliver us from ourselves.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Thank you, Father, for your word and for the wisdom, our God, that you set forth in your word and

most beautifully displayed for us in the person of the Lord Jesus.

Father, help us to become more like him.

And so help us to respond to your acts of providence in our lives in a manner that pleases

you and will bring blessing to us and to others about us.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.