Jeff Durbin: Wisdom and Anger

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If you would open your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 14, book of Proverbs chapter 14.

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We're back in our wisdom from above series. It's an expositional working through this book on divine wisdom.

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It is challenging, convicting, encouraging, and it is transforming.

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Scripture says to be renewed in your mind and this is one of those series where I think we need to take that so seriously, do the internal critique of ourselves, let divine wisdom wash over us, challenge us.

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And so a number of scriptures today, there's actually a number that relate directly to this in the book of Proverbs, but Proverbs chapter 14, verse 17, and Proverbs 14, 29,

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Proverbs 15, 18, and Proverbs 16, 32. Hear now the word of the living and the true

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God. Proverbs 14, 17. A man of quick temper acts foolishly and a man of evil devices is hated.

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Verse 29. Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.

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15, 18. A hot -tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.

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And finally, 16, 32. Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

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Thus far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray together. Father, we are so thankful that you love us.

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We're so thankful that you've saved us in Jesus Christ. Lord, you, as the just and righteous holy

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God, are filled with righteous anger and righteous indignation.

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And Lord, you dealt with your righteous anger against us and our life of sin and rebellion.

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At the cross, it was your love that covered our sins. And so Lord, as we open your word today, your wisdom, we pray,

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God, that you would heal us individually. Sanctify us in our walk with you.

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Sanctify us in our marriages. Sanctify us with one another. Help us, Lord, to put to death unrighteous anger, sinful anger within ourselves.

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Many of us have dealt with that our entire Christian life. It's never been killed by us.

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And so I pray that by your spirit today that you would work through an unworthy preacher and teacher in your people's lives to do what only you can do through your word and spirit, to draw us nearer to you and to make us more like Christ.

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Help us also, Father, to have a righteous anger and indignation that you call us to have and help us to know the difference.

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Please, Lord, get the teacher out of the way. Allow people to forget me and remember you in your word today, in Jesus' name, amen.

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So the difference, again, highlighting as much as I can, the difference between knowledge and wisdom in Scripture, knowing a lot of things, a lot of true things.

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We can be really good at that, knowing how to articulate important doctrines from the Christian faith, knowing how to defend the

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Christian faith, where the Bible comes from. We can be great apologists, great theologians, really great.

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And we can be knowledgeable what? Fools, knowledgeable fools. We can know a lot of things and have no skills, no wisdom on how to actually live out the

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Christian life, live out divine wisdom. You could be a husband who knows his

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Bible and still be the scoffer and the angry and the wrathful husband.

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You could be a wife who knows her Bible and still be the gossip and the slanderer and the person who can't control their tongue.

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We can be just like that. We can choose to be knowledgeable fools, know a lot of things, but never know how to actually live this out.

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And the beauty of wisdom, I'm reminding us now on our first day back, the beauty of wisdom, read the first eight chapters of this precious, amazing divine revelation, is that wisdom promises.

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It promises blessing. It promises glory. It promises skill. There is goodness and joy and peace and satisfaction.

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There is a treasure here in wisdom that is greater than silver and gold. All the treasure in the world cannot compete with the treasure that you get from wisdom, amen?

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And so that's why it's worth pursuing. Is your life broken? Is your marriage collapsing? Are you in conflict constantly?

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Do you lack joy and pleasure and peace? Well, you can be in that state, in that kind of a broken state as a follower of Christ and know how to perfectly communicate the doctrine of the

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Trinity as much as is possible with us as creatures. You can fully define the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

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You can do the solas. You could be able to defend sola scriptura, all those things, and your life is still a mess.

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You're a great theologian, but you're a fool. You're not wise. You wonder why your life is the way that it is.

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The answer is, obviously we need to know Jesus, but we need to be sanctified. We need to be a wise people.

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We need to walk in wisdom. And so today we're in a particular section of Proverbs that I think we all have to deal with in ourselves.

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I don't think there's any person in this room or in the hearing of this message that can say that I have never dealt with unrighteous anger.

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And a person in this room who maybe even today didn't have a blow up or a hot temper moment or you're just festering right now, angry, thinking about a slight or a wound or a sin against you.

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Maybe the person who sinned against you is sitting right next to you right now. You both know what I'm talking about.

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Maybe you had a night last night, a conflict, and you're still thinking about it. You're festering. Let me make it worse.

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Let's talk about it. Let me show, okay. You know what I'm talking about. You walk into church. You got the

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God face on. All is well with the world. I'm good. I love Jesus. Hey brother, good to see you. Love you sister.

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Things are great. And inside, you're just filled with this hot rage.

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And just in a moment, just the smallest prick is gonna pop that and it's gonna come pouring out.

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And so that's what we need to talk about today. But as we get to this question of anger, I think it's important because oftentimes

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Christians, and you know, we've talked about this a lot. We can't think in categories. And so you'll see in the book of Proverbs, in divine wisdom, the writer of Proverbs is dissing completely anger.

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And it's just sort of just listed as anger. So in 14, 17, a man of quick temper acts foolishly and a man of evil devices is hated.

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The next one, 29 says, whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.

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And so it's just defined as anger. But I think oftentimes because we can't think in categories as Christians, people will oftentimes come to scriptures that are condemning anger and they think, well, that must mean that I need to put on a happy face.

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I need to smile all the time through these bright teeth and be happy and joyful and have light in my eyes.

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And I just can't ever have anger. But that's, I think, it's not an appropriate way to look at scripture if we can't think in the proper categories, because scripture talks about both ways.

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Righteous anger that you ought to have, you're morally obligated to have, you are supposed to be angry.

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And scripture says, actually be angry, but do not sin. And then it also says over here that this angry person is a fool, it is folly.

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The angry person is the one who brings discord. And so scripture talks about both ways, a righteous sort of anger, a righteous form of anger that you are obligated to have as a child of God, you ought to have it, you ought to actually pursue having more of a righteous anger.

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Maybe we should have a lot more of it when we think about the evil that's going on out there, the things that are going on in the streets out there, we have to actually work on cultivating a righteous anger so we have a righteous response against it.

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Oftentimes, there is so much evil out there, we are not righteously angry so we don't actually respond to it.

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And that's a moral failing not to be righteously indignant or angry. But on the other hand, we have all of us,

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I think inside of us, sinful anger at times. We are the fools, we are the ones that are quick to anger, we're hot tempered, we bring discord, we have unrighteous anger.

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We're not looking for resolution, we're not looking for justice, we're looking to feed it. It feels good to blow up, where it's rehearsed, it's practiced, we actually enjoy it.

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And scripture condemns that kind of practice, that kind of sinful, angry practice.

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And so it's a fictitious view that we're because being angry is a sin at times, we're to be all smiles and never angry.

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But we also need to think about the other part of this in terms of, well, that's wrong, I need to think about both lanes, righteous anger, righteous indignation and sinful anger or unrighteous anger.

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But we need to think as we go through this, because people hear, oh, righteous indignation,

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I'll cultivate that, I'm gonna pursue that and we know why we're doing it, it's because we like to be angry, sinfully angry and you think the pastor is now giving you permission.

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And so let me take your legs off if you think I'm giving you permission to fester and be a hothead and to blow up.

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Scripture has a lot to say about the sinfulness of anger, but I wanna think specifically today or address specifically what the

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Lord Jesus says about the danger of unrighteous or sinful anger.

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Because again, we're given permission now to be righteously indignant and so I'll cultivate that, we need to think about the danger of unrighteous anger or sinful anger.

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Go to your Bibles to Matthew 5, the Lord Jesus. Matthew 5, you know the section, famous section,

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Sermon on the Mount, most popular sermon in the history of the world that will never be eclipsed.

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Matthew 5, verse 21, the

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Lord Jesus is dealing, not abrogating the law of God, but dealing with their sinful misinterpretations or abuses of the word of God.

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And so here in this section, verse 21, the Lord Jesus says, "'You've heard that it was said to those of old, "'You shall not murder, "'and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.

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"'But I say to you that everyone who is angry "'with his brother will be liable to judgment.

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"'Whoever insults his brother will be liable "'to the council and whoever says you fool "'will be liable to the hell of fire.'"

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So how important is it that we get this right? We need to consider the Lord Jesus gives a specific warning to the people of God.

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If you are angry, sinfully angry in your heart towards your brother, it is in the category of murder.

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It's what precedes murder. Sinful, unrighteous anger precedes murder.

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And Jesus says that you are in danger of hell. This kind of sin, this kind of sin from within, that inside, internal heart sin is worthy of eternal death,

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Jesus says. So Jesus says, it's this important, verse 23, he says, so, because hell is the destination for this sin, because that's where you go if you cultivate this sin, live in this sin, if it's unrepentant, you don't know

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God, you are an angry person, you have hatred in your heart, you are murdering in your heart all day.

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Jesus says, so, if you're 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.

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You will first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. 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 into prison.

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Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you've paid the last penny. And so the warning here, as we try to understand what scripture says about anger in both ways, righteous anger and unrighteous anger, the warning is unrighteous or sinful anger is a sin for which people will go to hell forever.

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That's how serious this sin is. And God has a lot to say throughout his word about the sinfulness of anger.

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And so we need to think about the different categories of anger so that we interpret this properly and we can be transformed by it.

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Anger is a required righteous response in certain instances.

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Anger is a required response. You're morally, morally culpable. You must respond with anger, righteous anger in certain circumstances.

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To demonstrate that in terms of, is it right to be angry? Should we be angry? Should we cultivate that within us, that righteous anger?

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Let's think about a few scriptures or a few verses from God's word in terms of God being angry. God is the standard of righteousness, amen?

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He's the standard of what is holy, what is good, what is true. And so we can't say anger is always wrong because if that's the case, if we take that position, then we're gonna indict

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God's character because scripture speaks clearly and freely about the anger and the wrath of God.

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Romans 118, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

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John 3, 36, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.

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Praise God. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

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Ezekiel 25, 17, I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes.

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Then they will know that I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon them.

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Nahum 1, verses two through six, the Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful.

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The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power.

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And the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

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He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the rivers, Bashan and Carmel wither.

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The bloom of Lebanon withers. The mountains quake before him, the hills melt.

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The earth heaves before him. The world and all who dwell in it, who can stand before his indignation?

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Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.

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Psalm 711, God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day.

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These are the words of God. Psalm 75, eight, for in the hand of the Lord, there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

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Hebrews 10, 31, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God. There's no question that there is a righteous indignation, a hot wrath from a vengeful

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God, a God who has vengeance and destroys as a result of his righteous indignation.

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God is angry with evil every single day and if we think that God isn't angry and if we think that his wrath is not that big of a deal, then just consider the cross itself.

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What did it take to save you and I from our sins? What did it take for God to wash away your debt of sin?

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What did it take for God to bring you to peace with him? It was that cross. It took the second person of the

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Trinity, God the Son, to enter into the world and live the life that you and I have failed, the perfection of the law in one human, perfect human being and then

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Jesus goes to that cross. Why? Not simply because God loves you, because God is angry with you, because God is angry with your rebellion, because God is angry with your hatred of him and his law, because God is angry with your lawlessness and so you must think about both things, the cross demonstrates the intense, eternal wrath of God against sin, but it was the love of God poured out and at that cross that actually accomplishes our redemption.

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That cross speaks to the hatred of sin that God has and his wrath and anger.

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Now thinking more about righteous anger and we need to think about it properly as we think about putting to death sinful anger in our lives, go to Mark chapter three briefly.

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Mark three. Here's a moment where if we were to have a false view, a misinterpretation of anger in scripture and think we're supposed to just walk around happy and smiling all the time, never being angry, then we have a problem because the perfect humanity was in Jesus Christ and in Matthew, sorry,

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Mark. In Mark chapter three, starting in verse one, the text says, again, he entered the synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand and they watched

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Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him and he said to the man with the withered hand, come here, and he said to them, is it lawful on the

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Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill? He knew what they were thinking.

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He knew their thoughts from afar. He knew what they were trying to do, trip them up, catch them, destroy them.

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They were silent. They should have answered the question. It's obvious.

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It's not ultimately a trick question, it's a direct question. You guys are thinking evil thoughts.

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So let me ask you a question. It should be obvious. And so he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, stretch out your hand.

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He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the

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Herodians against him how to destroy him. So God is angry, Jesus was angry, but when you think about it in terms of, okay, how does that shake out?

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What does that mean? God is angry, he's wrathful, but it's righteous and good and holy and pure.

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And we need to cultivate that kind of divine anger in ourselves as believers.

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God's anger in scripture, his wrath against a people, his wrath against sin is his settled opposition against evil.

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God's wrath and God's anger is not like ours often is. When God is spoken of as actually executing vengeance and returning now the evil and actually letting it fall on them and judging a people,

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God's wrath is his settled, holy opposition against evil.

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His settled opposition against evil. It is not out of control. God's wrath comes after a lot of patience, amen?

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That's one thing you see in scripture all the time. It was in one of the verses we just read together. It speaks about God's vengeance, about God's pouring out of his wrath, of his righteous indignation.

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And then it mentions also his patience, his long suffering. God is a patient God.

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He endures with mankind, he endures with us. But when God responds, it is with holy and righteous settled opposition against evil.

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I think I was trying to think of ways to express the kind of mentality as a human we would have in this.

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And there's, I think, a number of ways we can do this. But I was thinking about over the last couple of years, you all know that somehow the

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Lord had us connected to the Navy SEALs. He used us. We had a private meeting with Navy SEALs on the

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East Coast. God used us to help put the word out what the Navy SEALs were going through.

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Many of them were refusing to take the vaccine and they were being persecuted for it. They were being threatened with jail.

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They were being threatened with a lot of things, having to pay the government back for their training. It was really a difficult time for them.

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And so they asked me to break the story about what was going on with them. And that actually slowed the process.

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We were able to defend many of them. We started an organization to protect them. And so I got to see and be around a lot of these

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Navy SEALs, active duty. And it really is incredible. As a little boy, I grew up idolizing the

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Navy SEALs. I thought they were modern day ninjas and the most amazing thing ever. And so now being around them,

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I got to actually communicate with them and spend time with them. And one of the things that was striking is that when you are with Navy SEALs, these are like the world's best warriors that have been developed.

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I mean, we have great special ops communities. People would want to dispute this. But you think about where we've come in terms of being warriors and the technology and the skillset.

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Navy SEALs are like the best top tier kind of warriors we've ever developed.

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They are trained killers. That's what they do. What do Navy SEALs specialize in?

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Bringing death to the enemy. And they're supposed to do it proficiently. They're supposed to do it as experts.

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They're supposed to do it as professionals. And being around them, it's interesting. Coming to the room, it was very intimidating.

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Being surrounded by SEALs from multiple SEAL teams from DEVGRU, SEAL Team Six, these guys are intimidating, to be honest.

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But one of the things that you get when you're in a room with all these active duty Navy SEALs is as we were spending all day with them trying to figure out how we can help them and put the word out, these guys are just thinking about strategy and tactics.

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They're writing everything down on the board. And these guys are like the world's best killers, but they're so professional and humble.

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And I'll tell you one thing, I can't mention his name. I'm just not able to do it. While we were there, these

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Navy SEALs, these guys that are very intimidating to me, kept talking about this very famous legendary

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Navy SEAL who was also refusing the vaccine mandate and he was gonna show up.

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And they would go from very professional and very warrior -like to giddy talking about him.

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They were like, ooh, he's coming, he's coming. He's gonna show up in a little bit, right? And so they're all professional, chest out, strong warriors, very focused.

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And this guy comes walking in, he's not a very big guy at all. If you saw him on the street, you'd be like, oh, he's a fit guy, but not intimidating, actually kind of small, smaller than me.

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He walks in the room and these big sort of inflated, strong Navy SEAL men, when they see him come in, all their shoulders drop down, they all heads go down.

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All of them look over at him, they were like this. And every time he opened his mouth in the room, if he was to speak throughout the day, everybody in the room shut up, their shoulders dropped down and they would all just sort of look over with their heads down like puppies towards this guy.

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He's a legend and a killer. I was like, well, what's so big about this guy?

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They'd say, he's killed more people than smallpox. I was like, okay, that's intimidating.

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But when he came to see me, he's a believer, he's hugging all over me and like, you know, smooching on me, not really, but you know, he's like, he's a puppy, he was a puppy.

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He was this soft, humble, gentle, gentle man. And they were like, you don't understand.

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If there was like an operation that nobody can do, they would send him in by himself to take them out.

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And he'd come walking back 72 hours out of the desert, like, hey guys, what's up? That's a person you go, he seems so humble and so gracious and so soft, and yet he is a killer.

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He delivers death to the enemy, but he was this very gracious, soft -spoken, controlled man.

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And I was listening to an interview, thinking about warriors and in terms of justice being dealt out to evil from a human perspective.

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I was listening to an interview, one of my favorites, with one of the legendary Navy SEALs named D .J. Shipley. And he mentioned that when he went from the

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SEAL teams regular to DEVGRU, which is like the top, top of the top, he said when they went out on their first missions, he said he would see other men doing things that seemed absolutely superhuman.

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Things that were like, this isn't humanly possible. Like something like out of a movie. These guys, he's on the team now, he's doing operations, and they're doing things like it's out of a movie.

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And he said that his first time coming out of that, they got back to debrief and he'd go, he said they were all acting totally normal and totally calm, like nothing had just happened.

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And he was like, are we gonna talk about the superhuman things that just happened out there?

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And he said immediately, they smacked his hands. They said, you know, when you get to the end zone, act like you've been there before.

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So he's thinking like, you know, we just delivered all this like crazy, powerful justice to the enemy.

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Are we not gonna just talk about this? We just gonna pretend like that didn't happen? And they were settled. They said, that's what we do.

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That's our job. We deliver justice. We're supposed to do it well. So let's move on.

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Let's get to the next thing. This is what we do. It's what we're supposed to do. I found that very interesting in terms of a settled opposition to evil, even in thinking in terms of where justice has to be delivered, there is a righteous response, righteous justice, even to the point of taking a human being's life is the right thing to do.

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How is it supposed to be done? How's it supposed to be done? So I was thinking, well, that's gotta be the farthest extreme for us.

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There's this famous clip online. I highly encourage you to go watch it. It'll make the men very excited.

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I showed my son last night and he was like, and that's why I wanna do that stuff. It's like a man moment.

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It truly, truly is. It's in Afghanistan, 2009. It's a speech given by Navy SEAL senior chief,

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Jason Gardner. They were about to enter into a massive, huge firefight. It's nighttime.

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It's like green and all the faces of the Navy SEALs surrounding this chief are all blurred out, but he's on it.

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It's his speech he's giving to the team before they go deliver hot justice to the enemy.

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So that's the farthest end of the extreme, right? That's righteous anger. That's a response of justice. That is the strong arm of death coming against another human being.

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And so if you go online, Navy SEAL senior chief, Jason Gardner giving a speech before a huge firefight in Afghanistan, men, you will love it.

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You will love it. They're about to go deliver death to the enemy. Righteous indignation, righteous response.

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And here's what he says. He says, tonight, we'll do something we've done many times before.

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We'll set foot in a place that the enemy can't fathom us being and clearly doesn't expect us, deep in his backyard.

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We're gonna secure his property, his weapons, and his drugs. And at daybreak, we'll draw a line in the sand and say bring that weak stuff.

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A cowardly foe who intimidates and bullies an unarmed populace. Tomorrow, tomorrow the hunter is gonna become the hunted.

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And every sporadic burst of PKM will be answered with accurate small arms and sniper fire.

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Every blast from an RPG will be silenced by a 30 millimeter cannon. Every spotter folded in place by the white hot justice of 762.

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And then, we'll have a sandwich. And listen to the hysterical jabberings over the

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ICOM. Then when the sun sets and we've killed all who opposed us, we'll disappear into rumor and fear.

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That's how this warrior who's coming to deliver vengeance to bring justice to the enemy is speaking to the other warriors in terms of a settled opposition against evil.

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There's another way to look at this in terms of even on the farthest extreme in human experience. A righteous response, a war, a conflict.

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I don't have to describe the stories that you can describe because you've seen it on the news of people who engage in warfare and it is a wicked, sinful, evil response.

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It is not measured. Thank God for the Christian worldview in terms of the

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Christian worldview developed something called the just war theory. That yeah, there are times where you must be angry as a nation and you have to respond with a righteous response where you even deliver death to the enemy.

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There's that kind of vengeance. But because of the word of God and the Christian worldview and the difference between righteous indignation and sinful indignation, as a

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Christian says, it must be just, it must be measured. You cannot just clobber a town and destroy women and children and innocent victims.

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That comes from the Christian worldview. Think about what we saw just in the last couple of years. What took place not long ago in Israel was that righteous indignation, righteous evil when they parachute in and they kill civilians, they rape and they murder.

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That is not just, that is not measured. Even if there's a conflict between nations from the

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Christian perspective, there is righteous indignation and measured response and there is sinful evil indignation.

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There's the difference. And so that's the farthest end of the extreme in terms of when we think about what is righteous indignation.

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It must be settled opposition against evil. There are different categories when we think about this.

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Categories of thought. We have to think about different lanes. Like for example, let's try this.

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I'll ask a question. Are we to protect according to God's law, are we to protect and preserve human life?

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Yes. I'll ask it again. Are we to protect and preserve human life? Yes. Well, actually the answer is yes and no.

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Yes, according to scripture. Yes, that is the principle and no. You might be saying, what do you mean and no?

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We're a church that defends life and we defend life from fertilization to natural death and that we're putting in bills of equal protection.

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That's what we say. All human life is equally valuable. All human life deserves to be equally protected.

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All human life is sacred. That's what we say. But actually, if we can think in categories, biblical categories in a fallen world, we can hold both things.

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We are to, according to God's word, protect and preserve human life, but we are also morally obligated.

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We are morally obligated before God to end human life in certain circumstances.

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We have to before God. It is what God commands of us. And he actually says in his law that when you are required to take a human being's life because of, say, murder, your eye shall not pity that person.

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You are to be concerned with the victim and justice and not pitying the person who killed that person.

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You are obligated, the state, to take human life. So see the category? Protect and preserve human life.

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Take human life. Might be saying, well, like what? Well, let's take an example like Ted Bundy.

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Should Ted Bundy have been killed? Absolutely, before God morally obligated.

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How about Ridgway, the Green River Killer? Yes? Absolutely.

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And so you can see in scripture, you have different categories of thought because it's a fallen world. And so we need to think about anger in terms of two lanes, two categories.

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Righteous anger, settled opposition against evil, seeking an end to it and actually ending in peace, and unrighteous anger that are more outbursts and venom and vile and festering and hatred.

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Righteous anger sometimes leads to righteous violence. Righteous anger sometimes leads to righteous violence.

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You can, all men in here right now already know exactly what I'm gonna say. Righteous anger, righteous violence.

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Someone breaks in your home, it's midnight, you hear the alarm going off, you're running around the house, hopefully with your weapon, gentlemen, and you see that window peeled open and someone crawling through.

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You better be righteously angry. You better be working to preserve the human lives that are in your home, including your own, because you are there to protect and provide for your family.

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And you better respond with a righteous response that ends that life, amen? So a couple guys in here said amen.

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Do you know what church you're in right now? We'll go to the law of God. You'll see that God actually commands that you can do that.

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If someone breaks in to harm you or your family or take human life, you must respond with righteous anger that ends in a righteous sort of violence, amen?

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Amen. I'm gonna need to be louder next time, guys. By the way, the story

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I just told you happened to me. About a, Saylor, what was it, a year and a half ago? Something like that, two years ago.

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I was in my room, alarm goes off at midnight, I run out, Saylor and Zoe, Zach's daughter, are sitting on the couch, and it's midnight.

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I'm like, did you guys do that? They said no, I run to the back of the house, and I hear some noise coming out of the room, and somebody was crawling through my window at midnight, still coming in with the alarm going off, but they saw me come to the door with a gun, and then they shot off.

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Almost had an opportunity for some righteous violence, okay? Sometimes there's righteous indignation that ends in righteous sort of violence.

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War can be like that sometimes. You can give a number of examples. I am not in any way gonna condone all the warfare our nation has been in in the last generation.

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Some of it has been wicked and sinful and wrong from biblical standards, but you could take an example like Pearl Harbor. Did it require a righteous response?

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Righteous violence as a response. You attacked, you took human life, we must, according to a biblical worldview, respond righteously.

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Now, I say that to be clear about that response. It needed to be righteous and measured, according to the

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Christian worldview. Righteous anger sometimes leads to righteous violence. Righteous anger can lead to excommunication.

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Just think what the Lord commands in terms of church discipline. What's going on there in church discipline?

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Are we all just smiling and happy, like, well, we gotta confront some sin right now, like we're fine and we're happy and at peace, we're joyful.

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No, actually, what's embedded in church discipline? Matthew 18, what Paul commands in Corinthians, put this person out of the church.

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What's actually underneath that? Righteous anger. It is.

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It should be there. Righteous anger is inside there. It's embedded in church discipline.

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It leads to excommunication. Let's give an example so we can put some flesh on it. Think about it. The man who abandons his wife.

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He's got a wife, maybe some children. He disappears to go shack up with some other woman.

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Now he's abandoned his family. He's no longer providing for his children. He's living in sin after professing faith in Jesus and being among us for a long time.

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Should we be righteously angry over that? Yes. As a matter of fact, it's required of us.

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It's obligated that we are angry over what his sin has done to bring shame to Christ's name.

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We are righteously angry over what he's done to the sister that we love, these kids that we love.

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We are righteously angry that he's violated God's law. And so it is actually a righteous sort of anger underneath excommunication, putting somebody outside of the body.

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That is a good and righteous God glorifying thing. But what is church discipline end in?

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What's the goal of church discipline? There is righteous anger there, but it's a righteous anger that is ordered and measured.

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It's clear. And what's the goal of that righteous anger against that sin? What's the goal of church discipline?

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What's the goal every time? Restoration. It's not hating this person who sinned.

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It's not trying to abuse them. It's being angry over the sin, but pleading with the sinner to turn back to God.

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The goal of excommunication with righteous anger is restoration, reconciliation, and peace.

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So even in church discipline, that righteous anger is a settled opposition against evil.

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It seeks to actually overcome it and end in peace. How about in the home?

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A father's discipline. A father's discipline of their child. Is there righteous anger allowed in the home?

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Okay, good, okay. Yes. A righteous anger against sin in the home.

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Say for example, father walks in and sees the two children in the room. One child wants something, the other child won't give it, and so the bigger child punches the child in the face.

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Has that ever happened in a Christian home? No. You're dealing with little sinners.

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By the way, they are sinful. People who deny original sin, I'm like, I have two new babies in my home right now, and trust me, they are originally sinful, for real.

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Like Nora, she's too young to even hear this right now, so I can talk all that I want about this.

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Nora, two days ago, she looks like a little pixie. She's tiny, beautiful little face, beautiful little blue eyes.

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She is so precious and so amazing, and in the last two days, she's discovered that if she doesn't get what she wants, she will try to bite you.

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This little not original sinner has discovered that she's not happy with what you're doing, and so she tried to bite me.

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When she did it first, I was like, is she just like trying to lay on me or something? And Candy goes, no, I think she's trying to bite you.

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I was like, no, she's not trying to bite me. And then this morning, August did something to set her off, hot temper, blew up, and she, rah, tried to bite him.

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She's won. It's like, what's Vody say? It's like God, he builds them first small so that they won't kill you.

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But a father's discipline. There better be righteous anger against the violation of God's law.

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The children are sinning, the child is lying, the father has a righteous anger against the sin, but how do you know it's righteous and not unrighteous?

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Because how the father tries to resolve it, if he boils over and blows up and spews venom and loses his mind, that is sinful.

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But righteous anger can be angry at the sin, but it seeks a resolution. It seeks correction and peace, ultimately in the life of the child and in the home.

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That is a righteous anger, and it leads to discipline and correction.

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Righteous anger seeks justice. Mark it down, righteous anger, in order to be seen truly as righteous, when there is a victim, a sin, a crime, that righteous anger seeks justice

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God's way. Why does scripture condemn mob justice? Why is mob justice such a grievous sin in God's law?

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How come God calls people to not take justice into their own hands? Isn't it obvious?

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Because if you were violated, you're the victim of the crime, maybe it was your family member, maybe it was rape against a sister or a mother.

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How do you think the mob is gonna handle that if they get their hands on the perpetrator? With justice, do you think?

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No, history is replete with examples of when the mob gets their angry hands on the perpetrator, they tear them apart.

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It's not justice, it's seeking destruction. Righteous anger seeks justice.

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It is ordered, it is measured, it seeks justice in God's way, but it can still be there.

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You can still hate the sin and be genuinely angry with the sin. Now, let's talk about sinful anger.

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Sinful anger. Scripture says here in these two places, sinful, people with sinful anger are fools.

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Let's take it in. Sinful anger will send you to hell and being a sinfully angry person, if that's your disposition, if that's just your makeup, right?

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You say that to yourself, that's just the way I am, hot -tempered guy, just, you know, I get angry at times, I blow up,

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I know it's not great, I need to put this sin to death, and it's just sort of, just the way I am. I was born, you know, in a family that just sort of said these things and blew up like this.

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It's just sort of my makeup, it's how I am. Well, Scripture says if you're a person with sinful anger, you're a hothead, you're quick with your temper.

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Scripture says you are a fool. You're a fool, you're not wise.

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You don't look like Jesus, you look like a fool. A person here is described as having a quick temper and a fool, they boil over.

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A person who is not slow to anger, a person who immediately bursts out just destruction all around them at the first prick is a person like the balloon, right?

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There's a slight, there's an offense, and hey, look, maybe it's even real. That can happen.

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No one's saying that if you're an angry person, simply an angry person that, you know, nobody's really sinning against you, they probably are.

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You might be the husband in the marriage who's just quick -tempered, hot -tempered, you blow up. Nobody's saying that your wife isn't the cause of some of that, that she's not agitating, she's not poking at you, she's not insulting you.

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That may be true, but your anger, your response to it is the sinful parts. You're like a balloon filled to max, it's about to burst.

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It's making that weird noise when you rub your fingers over the edges of it, it's just about to burst, it's barely hanging on.

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The latex is stretched to the max, right? And you can take a small pin, just a tiny offense, just a little point, just a little prick.

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You touch it and what happens? What happens? The balloon bursts, why?

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Because it was filled to the max, it was already in there. It was already filled up, it was already hot, it was already blown up and all it took was the smallest thing and then, bam!

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Everybody around is shocked. Everybody else around is scared because of that kind of hot temper.

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And scripture says, if that's how you are, you are a fool. Dr. Bonson, when he was speaking on this, talked about three categories of sinful anger.

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I thought this was very helpful. He talks about three categories of sinful anger. One, anger can be sinful in its commencement.

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Anger can be sinful in its communication. Anger can be sinful in its culmination.

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And here's how he broke it down. One, sinful anger in its commencements. What's that look like in terms of it's in there, it's sinful, and it starts.

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Oftentimes, this is because the person is self -centered. Their response with the anger is unjustified.

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Self -centered, unjustified. Now, pastors, we get to see this, unfortunately, a lot.

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Unfortunately, a lot. Oftentimes, people will come to pastors and say, you know, pastor,

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I love your teaching, great pastor. And I'm just so thankful for your teaching. I've grown so much, and I love you so much.

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I'm so grateful for you. And, you know, I'm gonna thank you for that. Praise God. Don't put me in a super crazy spiritual category.

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I'm just your brother. Please don't act weird about it. Like, you know, I'm gonna fail you someday. But like, oh, you're the best pastor ever.

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And then a couple of weeks later, there's a conflict between husband and wife. And so they come in, and they sit down before the pastors.

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And nobody in this room, this has never happened before. This has never happened with anybody in here. They sit down before the pastors, and everything's fine.

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And they love their pastors. Pastors are doing great, doing well by them. But then all of a sudden, the pastor discovers, in the midst of a conversation about the difficulties in the conflict, oh, wait,

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I think I see a problem. Brother, I think the problem here is in how you responded to your wife with sinful anger, or you're being authoritarian, or you're being abusive in your speech.

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And, you know, Christ calls you to be gentle to her as a weaker vessel. And it's amazing to see the switch happen right in the eyes.

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To go in from, I love my pastor, you're the greatest pastor, the greatest teacher. And as soon as you confront even mildly the smallest sin, which they came to you to ask for that, all of a sudden, there is this immediate response of, you're the worst pastor ever.

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I'm gonna call together a faction of people that are gonna destroy this church and burn it to the ground. Yeah, that's happened.

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It has literally happened where the pastor goes, you know, sister, if you go on slandering your husband to everybody around you in this church body, and you continue to speak about your husband in this vile, venomous way, this will never heal, you can't reconcile.

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You gotta be gentle. You gotta commit to guarding your tongue. You can't vilify your husband to everyone in the church.

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And then the switch happens. The switch, you can see it in the eyes. He literally watched it in the eyes.

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Anger, hostility that this man would dare point to any sin in my life.

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And so it could be like that. Sinful anger is sinful in its commencement because it's unjustified.

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You have a prideful person. They don't like to be critiqued. They don't wanna be called out on anything. And so this vile, hatred, evil, angry response comes out because we're quickly provoked because we are prideful and we are scoffers.

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What's a scoffer? We've been there already in Proverbs. What's a scoffer? Oh no, let's start this series over again.

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Okay, what's a scoffer? What's the definition? It's an unteachable person. A scoffer, according to the book of Proverbs, is an unteachable person.

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It is the prideful and unteachable disposition that leads to this commencement of anger and outburst in my life.

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I can't be taught. I can't be wrong. And so I have an outburst.

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I am quick -tempered. I cannot be confronted. I couldn't possibly be told that I'm the one in the wrong here.

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And so again, Vonson points out, sinful anger is sinful in its commencement. It's unjustified.

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It's quickly provoked. The second, sinful anger in its communication.

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And I think all of us, if we're honest, we know this.

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We know it in terms of what's come out of our mouths and what we've heard from others towards us.

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It's communication. It's sinful in its communication. We lose our temper. We're out of control.

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You know that it is not righteous indignation. It is not righteous anger by what proceeds from your mouth.

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By what proceeds from your mouth. If it is righteous, it seeks resolution.

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It seeks peace. But if it is unrighteous, you will see it in how it speaks.

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In how it speaks. Unrighteous anger communicates out of control.

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It is destructive. It is undisciplined. It does not seek peace.

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It does not seek wholeness. It does not seek order. Sinful anger is destructive and undisciplined.

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It is venomous. It comes with vile accusations. It's the kind of things that flow out of your mouth and the next day you're on your knees begging for forgiveness for what you just said.

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It doesn't think ahead of time. It is totally disordered. It has no discipline. It has no purpose other than to destroy and to wound.

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If that is you, you must repent of that kind of anger. It is not from God.

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And it is the kind of anger that leads people to hell. Bonson points out finally, the culmination of sinful anger.

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You'll see it in its culmination. How does it end? What's it look like? What's the climax?

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The culmination of sinful anger isn't to see it end and be cleared and ordered and brought to peace.

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The culmination of sinful anger, you'll know it's in you because you are bitter. You're bitter.

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It's still there. It's hanging out. We already had this sermon a couple of weeks ago, didn't we? Remember that? Let no root of bitterness, right?

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The roots are there. They're underneath. They're crawling across your yard. They're all over your body. No one else sees it, right?

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It's just a little thing standing up above the surface. No one else really knows it's there, but you know. You know.

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And that sinful anger is feeding those roots daily. You're remembering the slight. You're remembering the details.

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You're growing in your hostility towards it. You know, sorry, my friend Douglas Wilson brings up a good point in terms of bitterness.

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You know if a person is bitter about something in the past when they remember every single detail.

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They could tell you when, who was present, the color of their shirts, what was going on, something that happened 15 years ago.

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They could tell you exactly who said what. They could tell you all the details. They can go on for an hour describing everything surrounding it comprehensively.

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You know they're still bitter because they've been feasting on that for the longest time.

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You know that there has been forgiveness and a putting away of wrath and anger when they don't remember anymore.

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They haven't been thinking about it. They haven't fed those roots. It's something to put out of the mind. They're saying, I have to really think about what did happen, all the details.

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And so the culmination of sinful anger is bitterness and ultimately violence, violence.

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Quickly go to Genesis three as the example. Sorry, Genesis four.

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Genesis four, verse one.

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Now Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bore Cain saying, I've gotten a man with the help of the

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Lord. And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain a worker of the grounds.

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In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground and Abel also brought to the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.

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And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard.

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So Cain was very angry and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, why are you angry?

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And why is your face fallen? What's that mean? I can see your face. Your anger, you're wearing it on your face.

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Why is your face like that? If you do well, will you not be accepted?

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And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.

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Here's God giving him instruction. Here's how you can get over this. Here's how to overcome this.

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And what is going on in Cain is anger, sinful, hostile anger.

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And so what takes place next? You know, Cain spoke to Abel, his brother. And when they were talking, Cain said, when they were in the field,

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Cain rose up against his brother, Abel, and killed him. And so Bonson's point in terms of sinful, unrighteous anger is what it leads to.

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It leads to the bitterness. It leads to the violence. And Bonson says, an angry person is a violent person.

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A violent person is a murderer. An angry person is a violent person.

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A violent person is a murderer. How do you see sinful anger growing up in your life?

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You'll see it in the grudges. You'll see it in the bitterness. You'll see it in the animosity.

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You'll see it in the vile conversation, the vile accusations, even between husbands and wives, wives and husbands, the cursing, the venom, the spewing forth of hate, the actually getting to the place, maybe in a marital conflict where you say things like,

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I hate you, or I want a divorce. Mark it down. You are an angry person, and it is not from God.

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It is the source of the lack of peace in your home and your life. Sinful anger lends itself towards slander and gossip.

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Sinful anger creates chaos and discord. Righteous anger seeks resolution, correction, and peace.

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So here's a test for us all in terms of thinking about, am

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I a scoffer? Am I a prideful person? Am I hot -tempered? Am I the fool that's being described?

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Am I the person that actually, because I'm angry, simply angry, I bring the discord? I bring the disunity?

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Here's the challenge to each of us in terms of if you're simply angry, can you be critiqued?

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Can you be critiqued? Let's say that you're in a fight.

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All right, put it in a better term. Let's say you're in a fight. Let's say you're in a fight, an argument with another

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Christian sister or Christian brother, or let's say you're in a fight with your wife or your husband.

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Take off the God face. Quit pretending like you don't have conflict in your home. That's one of the most devastating things you could do because you can't get help for it.

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So stop pretending. And let's say we're in a fight with our spouse. In that argument, you both may have complaints against the other.

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In the conflict with a brother or sister, your friends, you both might have complaints and accusations against the other.

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But let's test to see if you have simple anger or if you're prideful and a scoffer. In the midst of the conflict where you actually have charges against them and they have charges against you, are you just trying to win the fight?

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Or can you be critiqued even in the midst of having a valid challenge against them?

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Can you be critiqued? Can you be criticized? Can you be confronted?

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Or is it your practice when you are being challenged even lovingly and gently by somebody, do you immediately while they're speaking find a way to defend, fight back, and accuse them also?

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Mark it down. If that's your practice, you are dealing with simple anger.

01:00:31

Because if your first response in a conflict is to start firing arrows back and to find a way to defend yourself and to go, oh yeah, well, you did this to me.

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But remember when, remember this time? Remember this time over here? Yeah, I know you're accusing me right now, but do you remember what you did over here?

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Sinful, angry response. The person who is not a scoffer and who is humble and wants to quiet a conflict and to remove the anger is willing to hear the maybe legitimate charges against themselves, even in the midst of conflict.

01:01:08

Sure, I'll take responsibility for my sin. You're right, I did do that. I did do that, yes.

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I'm genuinely sorry, please forgive me for that. You're right, totally right. I wronged you, I wanna make it right.

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Please forgive me, I hurt you. You know, you can do that, brothers and sisters, and bring quiet to an argument.

01:01:27

A soft answer turns away wrath, amen? That's in the next chapter. A soft answer turns away wrath.

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It is possible in a conflict to while you're in the midst of trying to work it out, you even may be righteously angry, justifiably about something, but in the midst of the conflict, be willing to listen and not be hot -tempered.

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Don't be a fool. Be willing to actually not be a scoffer, to be teachable, to hear the person out, to think the best of them.

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Because a righteous anger, if it's really in you, if you've truly been offended, it will lead to order.

01:02:01

It will lead to peace and reconciliation. That's the goal of righteous anger.

01:02:08

Ask questions of ourselves. Is it possible for you to be wrong? Is it possible for you to be wrong?

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Husbands, you need to get this right, brothers. You gotta get it right. Is it possible for you to be wrong?

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Or do you simply say, I'm the man of the house. I'm the head of this house. I'm the spiritual leader of this home.

01:02:28

And so I'm gonna tell everyone how it is. And your wife is coming to you gently over time, and she's trying to say,

01:02:34

I think this is a failure. I think we need to think about these things too. And your response is immediately to just puff your chest, respond with anger, to be heated, to start insulting back.

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Brothers, repent of that. Be humble. Quiet the home. Take away the sinful anger.

01:02:51

If you're righteously angry, it looks like order. It looks disciplined. It looks measured.

01:02:58

So can you take responsibility for a failing? Or are you too prideful and too much of a scoffer?

01:03:04

Are you unteachable? Now, again, think about this in terms of a conflict between two people.

01:03:09

You both may be angry, and you both, get this, may be right.

01:03:16

You know what's amazing about marriage counseling as a pastor? It's like 99 .9 % of marriage counseling as a pastor is two people that are both right and they are both wrong.

01:03:32

Husbands and wives, amen, yes? There's a couple of you like, no, you're probably the problem.

01:03:41

You have to walk into it recognizing you're both sinners. You're both failing. You're both wrong.

01:03:46

And you are right. And you are right. So both of you take responsibility for your own sin.

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Start confessing your sins to each other. Admit you're both wrong. Be humble. Be repentant.

01:03:58

Put to death your bitterness. Put to death your anger. Put it all away from you. Come together confessing your sin, amen?

01:04:05

You want joy in a relationship? Come into it like that. Put away your anger, the sinful response, and the pride.

01:04:15

Righteous anger, wise anger, subdues the unrighteous anger.

01:04:23

It seeks peace. Quickly, I read it already. Proverbs 15, 18.

01:04:30

Let's do it quickly again. 15, 18. A hot -tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.

01:04:41

We've already worked through this. I think we're all getting it, right? Hot -tempered man, you're the source of division.

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You're the source of the strife. That anger is actually bringing the consequences all around you.

01:04:54

It's why things are falling apart, because you have a sinful anger issue. You are hot -tempered.

01:05:00

It is bringing the discord and the strife in your life. You want peace? Put it to death. Whoever is slow to anger quiets the contention.

01:05:09

Bonson makes a good point on this. I thought it was compelling, because I have seen it, for sure.

01:05:17

He said, it's interesting how sinful anger can oftentimes actually be the thing that leads to the adultery.

01:05:25

I've seen that, for sure. The sinful anger is the thing that led to the adulterous relationship.

01:05:31

It's not an excuse for it, in terms of blame for the other person, but it's a sinful anger, oftentimes, that led the guy to do what he did.

01:05:40

He was responding in anger, and so he acted out in anger. It may not have been because things weren't being fulfilled.

01:05:47

He just did it because he was angry, and it's gone the other way as well. She's angry with him, so she responds with adultery.

01:05:54

I thought that was compelling. Anger, sinful anger is a source of factions.

01:06:00

Why do people build factions? Why do people build teams? Think about it, right?

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You've got a conflict between two people, and all of a sudden, a week later, you've got a faction. This whole thing's growing up as a team, but the conflict was between these two parties.

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So how do we get from the two parties to the large gathering? How do we get there? Answer, sinful anger.

01:06:24

Sinful anger. One person was so angry at the other person, instead of doing it in a biblical way, in a righteous way, in a

01:06:31

God -honored way, in a way that brought order, peace, reconciliation, God's way, that person went and did what?

01:06:38

They called a gathering, they called a meeting. And what'd they do? They tried to get everybody else to be as angry with the other party as they could.

01:06:48

So the source of factions is actually sinful anger. If you are righteously angry against some sin or slight, how would you do it?

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Quietly. How would you do it? Orderly. How would you do it?

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In a way that honors Christ and protects the body and doesn't bring disunity and disorder.

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The person who is the head of a faction or involved in a faction is a sinfully angry person because that anger is not ordered.

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It is not measured. It actually brings the disunity. Sinful anger, as the text says, is often the source of the slander.

01:07:32

It's the source of gossip. Wives, please listen to this. If you have a conflict with your husband, here's one of the ways to identify sinful anger and not righteous anger.

01:07:44

This will happen often. You guys have experienced this, I'm sure many of you. You'll have a wife who has a conflict, maybe just sort of standard fair conflict with the husband.

01:07:53

They're being sanctified. They're growing. They're doing well, but they have a conflict. And that sister is angry.

01:08:00

And so what does she do? She goes to meet up with her other sister in Christ. And what does she start doing?

01:08:05

She starts venting. She starts talking about her husband. And sometimes he's a real jerk.

01:08:13

He doesn't really do all that I ask around the house. And oftentimes I feel maybe neglected by him.

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And sometimes he's mean -spirited. And he's not a gentle man. And now she's just spitting venom about the husband to this woman or to a group of women.

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And then, okay, she gets it off her chest. All that venom came out. All the anger comes out. It spills out of her.

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And then she goes home that night and the husband's, God really spoke to me today through his word. And he worked on my heart.

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And I'm so sorry. I did speak to you in a wrong way. And I want him to change this in my heart and my mind.

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And I just love you so much. You're the best thing that ever happened to me. And I just want to be a good husband to you. And now she's just melting and she feels great and praise the

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Lord for this wonderful man of God and see how the Holy Spirit works in him. All these things. Now it's healed.

01:09:04

Because she was so sinfully angry though, now she goes back the next day to that gathering of women.

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She just vilified her husband and talked about what a pilly is and what a jerky is and what a terrible spiritual leader is.

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And the girls are going, is he still awful last night? Was he still terrible?

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Is he still mean spirited? Is he still the same jerk? And she goes, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Actually, he's wonderful.

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Actually, he's repentant and he's amazing. And what'd you do? You did that.

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You destroyed your husband's reputation. You spoke about him with venom to people now where that's spread.

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How do they now view the husband when he walks into the church? How do they view him now?

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There's that lowlife. There's that terrible man. There's that awful husband.

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Why? Because you were sinfully angry and you spit venom and vilified your husband.

01:10:03

Ladies, you feeling this? Nobody's talking back to me right now. Have you ever been in those situations, ladies?

01:10:14

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying it's a feature of every woman, but I think most women walking with Christ will have an encounter like that at some point in their lives.

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Or maybe you've been the sister in Christ who did it. Don't vilify your husband. Don't pour out wrath to everyone around.

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Quiet it. If it's righteous, do it in a way that is gentle and healing and brings order.

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Or if it's righteous, what are you gonna do? Go to your pastors. Have your pastors come in to help mediate.

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Why? You're closing it. You're quieting the contention. You're not allowing it to blow up and build strife and difficulty.

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If you live like that, your anger will ruin it. Now, quickly,

01:11:01

I'll just say in Proverbs 16, go there. This is, I think, a little easier.

01:11:08

Most of these say exactly the same thing, but I like this one. Proverbs 16, 32.

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Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.

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It's good to be a man. Amen? It's good to be a man. My friend, Michael Foster, wrote a book like that.

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It's good to be a man. I like the book. I don't think you need to go past the title page, right? It's good to be a man. Amen. Good, it's good to be a man.

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And I think today we have a problem where because being a man has been so vilified in our culture, it's so attacked, masculinity is so attacked that we have a lot of men who are malicoy and effeminate.

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They are going the wrong direction. That's sinful and wrong, but you also have a response that's sort of lopsided the other direction.

01:12:01

Men are so attacked, masculinity is so attacked that even within the Christian church, men go sort of overboard, right?

01:12:09

Let me give you an example. It's good to be a man. Amen? It's good to be a protector.

01:12:14

It's good to be a fighter. It's good to be a defender. I actually strongly encourage all the men in here to get in shape, to be strong, to learn to fight, learn to defend your family.

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Men should be warriors. I think that. I believe that. You should learn to fight, learn to defend your family.

01:12:35

You should be at least a basic level warrior. But there's a lopsided response to the attack on masculinity and being mighty and being a warrior, where a lot of even

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Christian men will go off the cliff the other way and make masculinity and being a man and being mighty about being the gym bro, right?

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Like, what do you lift, bro? That's it, right? Or you buy stock and protein powders.

01:13:06

Your living room stinks. Some of you got that because you do the protein powders.

01:13:15

A lopsided view, where in response to the attack on masculinity, Christian men will be mostly focused on strength and getting ripped and getting big and getting gains.

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They're focused on learning to fight. And that's what really makes you a man. And the Crusades were awesome.

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War, man, fight, gym. Be careful. Be careful, brothers.

01:13:43

I say this as somebody who's a trained fighter. I just trained today. After one year,

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I don't want people to think I'm dissing on this. In a year's time, just on punches alone, I'll throw 100 ,000 punches, a third of those with weights and resistance.

01:13:59

I love to fight. I love to train to fight. I love to kick my son, Stellar, in the head. I can beat him to this day.

01:14:06

He's a boxer. He'll never win. Trust me. So look,

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I'm saying this as a man who loves the idea of martial arts and training and fighting. I'm just saying, be careful.

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Because this verse from God's word says, whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit, the new takes the city.

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You want to be mighty? Truly mighty? You need to be the kind of man that can control your temper and your spirits.

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That's better than the warrior who can take an entire city. You want to be in God's eyes, that truly ripped warrior?

01:14:39

Be a person that can control your temper as a man. You don't blow up. You don't have the outburst.

01:14:44

It's a settled opposition against evil. Scripture talks about both lanes. Again, the Christian life is about balance and categories.

01:14:52

You know the verse. 1 Timothy 4, 7 through 8, you don't need to go to it now. It's the verse that says, bodily exercise profits a little.

01:15:01

But godliness is of great gain. So a lot of people go the weird ways with that. Someone goes, well, it only profits a little, so I don't need to do it.

01:15:10

Because it's only a little bit of profit. That's not the point Paul is making. He's not dissing physical exercise, saying it's only a little bit good.

01:15:18

People are holding their bellies like, see, it's just a little good. I focus on godliness.

01:15:25

I focus on godliness over here. Sorry. I was trying to think of a way to express that, and I think

01:15:38

I nailed it. People are so unbalanced. Physical training,

01:15:44

Paul is saying, is good. It's good for you. But it's the godliness that is the greater value.

01:15:51

Godliness is the greater value. And here's the same thing. Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules the spirit than he who takes a city.

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Yeah, it's impressive for a warrior to take a city. Sure. It's more impressive to God that you control your temper. It's more impressive that you control your temper.

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So do your lifts, bro. Do them, but work on your godly character and putting to death the anger in your life.

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Sinful anger will send you to hell. Righteous anger is settled opposition to evil that seeks its end and ultimate peace, not festering in it.

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And brothers and sisters, you want to put to death anger in your life that is unrighteous. Love covers a multitude of sins.

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Let love cover it. Let love cover it. Love will put anger to death.

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It's how God, here it is, settled his anger against us. Was God's anger, was his anger right against us?

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Was it just? Was it holy? Was it good? Yeah. And how did

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God deal with that righteous anger? With his love in the cross.

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There's the intersection. So brothers and sisters, let's put to death anger among us.

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Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word, your truth. I pray that this would be something that blesses your church and the world.