Post by StationAdministration on Apr 10, 2006 15:51:57 GMT
I know that when I left my church I experienced an intense time of grief. There was righteous anger that boiled up from time to time. It was the unchecked and sinful anger that has got me into trouble whenever it manifested. Also understanding and working through my good and bad anger has been helpful.
This sermon by John Piper encoraged me again today.
www.soundofgrace.com/piper84/121684m.htm
Here area few highlights:
The emotional life of God and his children is very complex. The inner workings of God's heart and the hearts of his saints are not simple.
For example, Exodus 34:6 says that God is "slow to anger" and Psalm 103:9 says that God "will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever." Yet Ps. 7:11 says that "God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation (or anger) every day." In other words, every day God's anger is rising slowly toward some, decreasing toward others, and sustained in fury toward others. In his infinite complexity God experiences the absence, the rise, the presence and the fall of anger simultaneously.
____________________________________________________
It's not surprising then that the hearts of God's children should be complex, and that God's instructions to us about anger should require great spiritual sensitivity.
____________________________________________________
The new creation is not the negation of choice, it's the transformation of the heart that makes choices. The moral choices which you face as a new creature in Christ are just as real and crucial as the choices you faced before you were born again (i.e., created in Christ Jesus). The difference is that your character, your nature, your heart, your will have been radically changed. The source of choice, the root of your choosing is now. There is a new nature within.
____________________________________________________
. . . we fail to understand Ephesians 4:22-24 we will surely go astray in what follows about anger. The practical, nitty gritty, day to day living of the Christian life is the experience of a miracle. If it were not, then all our moral choices and all our pursuit of holiness would be done in our own strength; it would signify our own merit and it would redound to our own glory. And the whole purpose of God to be glorified in his creatures would fall. So there are immense things at stake in the ordinary issues of truth-telling, and anger, and stealing which Paul deals with now in verses 25-28. We will restrict ourselves to the problem of anger.
Verses 26-27: "Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil." Keep in mind that the general admonition is put off the old nature and put on the new. Now the specific example of that is getting rid of bad anger and only having good anger. In other words, when you are born again you are given a new nature, you become a new creature; and Paul says here that your newness will show itself in the way you experience anger.
Verse 26 makes at least two assertions about anger: 1) There is a time to get angry; 2) the time to stay angry is short. Or: there are good grounds for getting angry but no grounds for holding grudges. "Do not let the sun go down on your anger" means, "Let the day of your anger be the day of your reconciliation" (Estius). And if reconciliation is impossible, even so, do not stroke your wound, or cherish revenge or hold a grudge. For Satan seeks a gap called grudge, and if he finds it, he will enter and ruin life with all manner of bitterness.
Let's take these two points one at a time: 1) There is a time to get angry, and 2) the time to stay angry is short.
First, there is a time to get angry. "Be angry but do not sin." Not all anger is wrong for man. But some anger is clearly wrong. Verse 31 says, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger … be put away from you." What's the difference between good anger and bad anger?
I would suggest two things that characterize good anger: 1) it is based on God and 2) it is mingled with grief. James 1:19-20 says, "Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of men does not work the righteousness of God." In other words, we should be slow to anger because the anger which rises quickly is very likely to be mere human anger which will not accomplish God's righteousness. But if we are slow to anger, if we rule our spirit and consider the matter carefully, then our anger, if it comes, may be the very anger of God. That is, our anger may be owing to the fact that God's character is dishonored not ours, and God's aims are resisted not just ours. In short, good anger is based on God not just ourselves. Its target is sin against God, not just assaults on us.
The second thing that characterizes good anger is that it is mingled with grief. The one instance where Jesus is said to get angry is Mark 3:5. Jesus was in the synagogue on the Sabbath about to heal a man's withered hand. The Pharisees were adamantly opposed. It says, "Jesus looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart." [/url][/i]
This sermon by John Piper encoraged me again today.
www.soundofgrace.com/piper84/121684m.htm
Here area few highlights:
The emotional life of God and his children is very complex. The inner workings of God's heart and the hearts of his saints are not simple.
For example, Exodus 34:6 says that God is "slow to anger" and Psalm 103:9 says that God "will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever." Yet Ps. 7:11 says that "God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation (or anger) every day." In other words, every day God's anger is rising slowly toward some, decreasing toward others, and sustained in fury toward others. In his infinite complexity God experiences the absence, the rise, the presence and the fall of anger simultaneously.
____________________________________________________
It's not surprising then that the hearts of God's children should be complex, and that God's instructions to us about anger should require great spiritual sensitivity.
____________________________________________________
The new creation is not the negation of choice, it's the transformation of the heart that makes choices. The moral choices which you face as a new creature in Christ are just as real and crucial as the choices you faced before you were born again (i.e., created in Christ Jesus). The difference is that your character, your nature, your heart, your will have been radically changed. The source of choice, the root of your choosing is now. There is a new nature within.
____________________________________________________
. . . we fail to understand Ephesians 4:22-24 we will surely go astray in what follows about anger. The practical, nitty gritty, day to day living of the Christian life is the experience of a miracle. If it were not, then all our moral choices and all our pursuit of holiness would be done in our own strength; it would signify our own merit and it would redound to our own glory. And the whole purpose of God to be glorified in his creatures would fall. So there are immense things at stake in the ordinary issues of truth-telling, and anger, and stealing which Paul deals with now in verses 25-28. We will restrict ourselves to the problem of anger.
Verses 26-27: "Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil." Keep in mind that the general admonition is put off the old nature and put on the new. Now the specific example of that is getting rid of bad anger and only having good anger. In other words, when you are born again you are given a new nature, you become a new creature; and Paul says here that your newness will show itself in the way you experience anger.
Verse 26 makes at least two assertions about anger: 1) There is a time to get angry; 2) the time to stay angry is short. Or: there are good grounds for getting angry but no grounds for holding grudges. "Do not let the sun go down on your anger" means, "Let the day of your anger be the day of your reconciliation" (Estius). And if reconciliation is impossible, even so, do not stroke your wound, or cherish revenge or hold a grudge. For Satan seeks a gap called grudge, and if he finds it, he will enter and ruin life with all manner of bitterness.
Let's take these two points one at a time: 1) There is a time to get angry, and 2) the time to stay angry is short.
First, there is a time to get angry. "Be angry but do not sin." Not all anger is wrong for man. But some anger is clearly wrong. Verse 31 says, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger … be put away from you." What's the difference between good anger and bad anger?
I would suggest two things that characterize good anger: 1) it is based on God and 2) it is mingled with grief. James 1:19-20 says, "Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of men does not work the righteousness of God." In other words, we should be slow to anger because the anger which rises quickly is very likely to be mere human anger which will not accomplish God's righteousness. But if we are slow to anger, if we rule our spirit and consider the matter carefully, then our anger, if it comes, may be the very anger of God. That is, our anger may be owing to the fact that God's character is dishonored not ours, and God's aims are resisted not just ours. In short, good anger is based on God not just ourselves. Its target is sin against God, not just assaults on us.
The second thing that characterizes good anger is that it is mingled with grief. The one instance where Jesus is said to get angry is Mark 3:5. Jesus was in the synagogue on the Sabbath about to heal a man's withered hand. The Pharisees were adamantly opposed. It says, "Jesus looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart." [/url][/i]