Love is not selfishly angered

Sermon Transcript

INTRODUCTION

“She has an anger problem.” It’s what the husband says without saying it when he recounts a conflict that he and his wife recently had as they begin their first session of marriage counseling. The husband calmly and without a hint of emotion recounts his wife standing nose to nose with him, screaming in his face, of course, for no reason. “I don’t have an anger problem.” It’s what the wife says without saying it as she describes all of her husband’s manipulative, cruel, yet calm words, which made her yell. “He is the one with an anger problem,” she says. He’s shocked at the idea, after all, he never raises his voice or loses his temper. It’s two people repeating in drastically different tones the motto of each of us angry people: “I’m not angry. I don’t have a problem with anger; they’re the problem; they make me angry.” Biblical counselor Ed Welch is right, anger has many different faces and tones (cold, hot, covert), but anger always specializes in indicting others, but is unskilled at both self-indictment and love.

I bring up anger because Citylight Church is giving particular attention to strengthening our gospel culture this ministry year. A gospel culture is a church that makes the doctrine of the gospel visible through our culture; our relationships and life together. And at the heart of a gospel culture growing strong is a people learning to love one another as Christ has loves us. Anger and irritability are skilled at indicting others, but unskilled in the love required to cultivate a gospel culture. That’s where the Apostle Paul takes us next in our journey through 1 Corinthians 13. In the middle of verse 5 we read: it [love] is not irritable. That brings us to the big idea of our brief passage: love is not selfishly angered. I say selfishly angered because the sinless Lord Jesus Christ did get angry for the glory of God when he overturned money changer’s tables in the temple out of zeal for his Father’s glory. But Jesus was never irritable; he never got angry over a personal slight or wrong done to himself. Love is not selfishly angered. To address the first rising of anger in the heart and learn to love as Jesus has loved us, we are going to look at selfish anger from three angles this morning: 1. The anatomy of selfish anger. 2. The ugliness of selfish anger. 3. The hope for selfish anger.

THE ANATOMY OF SELFISH ANGER

Shake water bottle. Why did water just come out of that bottle? You might say it’s because I took the cap off of it and poured it out, but there is a more fundamental reason; water was in there in the first place. Perhaps the greatest misconception when it comes to anger is that other people make us angry. But the Bible says that anger is inside of us, it’s in there, and our circumstances simply pour it out. James 4:1-2 in the New Testament, provides us with an anatomy of the selfish anger that is within us: What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. The anatomy of selfish anger can be put in an equation: over-desire + barrier = selfish anger. James tells us is that desire is anger in embryonic form . We desire love, respect, control, community, comfort, advancement, a little help around the house – the list could be endless. Most desires are in and of themselves fine. But then they become over-desires or what James 4:1 calls coveting, passions or lusts. Desires become over-desires when they become demands that we simply will not be content without. And when our over-desires meet a barrier – when we desire and do not have – anger pours out. Loving as Jesus loves begins with the simple confession: no one makes me angry. Like the water in the bottle, anger is in there. The anatomy of anger, where it begins, is in the over-desires of our hearts. Over-desire + barrier = selfish anger. Let’s try to get at the anatomy of our anger…

Question: what are your strongest desires? Since the context of 1 Corinthians 13 is love in the church, what are your strongest desires for our church and your experience of it? It’s when those over-desires become demands that selfish anger, rather than love, pours out in our church. For example, many of us desire a rich experience community in our church. Good desire. But in our worldliness, that desire becomes a discontented demand. We demand deeper community, more hospitable community, more life-stage specific community, more geographically proximate community, more theologically rigorous or personally raw community faster than it is coming, anger shakes out. We become bitter at individuals in our CG for not taking biblical community as seriously as we do, or we become angry at “the church” for not providing more avenues for community. Suddenly, our over-desire for gospel-culture now and on my terms becomes the occasion for gospel-culture killing selfish anger. Over-desire + barrier = selfish anger. The first step toward loving as Jesus loves is the confession: no one makes me angry; it’s in there. Now, anger is exhilarating and satisfying. Selfish anger provides us with the thrill of strength when we shout someone into their place, manipulate them under our control, or remain bitter at them in our superior righteousness. So, before we can be sufficiently motivated to receive the hope for anger, we have to see not only the anatomy of it, but, secondly…

THE UGLINESS OF SELFISH ANGER

Selfish anger is ugly in its nature and occasion.

Selfish anger is ugly in its nature. Selfish anger is by nature bitter and unproductive. Love, in its nature, is good-willed; it’s when others are dear to us in our hearts. Godly anger, or zeal, is when God and others are dear enough to us that we’ll allow our lives to be rung out like a wet towel for God’s glory and the practical good of others. But selfish anger is by nature bitter and unproductive. Selfish anger doesn’t want to get its hands dirty praying, working, and helping bring about change at home, in your CG, in our church, or out in the world. Selfish anger prefers the safety of bitterness over the productivity of love. How different this is from the way of Christ. Selfish anger says, “I won’t lift a finger, after all, this is your fault. You come to me and maybe we’ll talk.” Christ says, “it’s all your fault, but I’ll come to you, I’ll bridge the gap, I’ll carry the cross, I’ll pay it all to reconcile even though it’s all your fault.” How ugly the bitter and unproductive nature of selfish anger is for people who have experienced such grace!

Selfish anger is also ugly in its occasion. Think about the occasions when you get irritated. Have you ever noticed how often you’re angry at people for things that really aren’t their fault? We get angry at a child because they can’t yet move at the pace of an adult. We get irritated at someone in CG for not being as theologically sound as we are with all our education. We get irritated at a co-worker or spouse because they don’t share our strengths. It’s an ugly occasion for anger because we’re really mad at God for making our child a child or our spouse different from us. Not only do we become angry when no one is really at fault we also tend to become angry over trivial matters that aren’t that important. The God who has called us from death into his glorious kingdom has not lavished his grace on you so that you can be constantly annoyed about the volume at which someone chews, the pace at which they respond to your texts, the way they do or don’t greet you, or the tone in their voice. We are irritated by trivial matters and personal slights when God calls us “son” or “daughter.” It’s madness and way out of measure for people who have been forgiven an infinite debt. Friends, do you see it? Do you see the anatomy of anger in your over-desires? Do you see the ugliness of your anger as it rises above the surface? Do you long for the more excellent way of love? Then you’re ready for…

THE HOPE FOR SELFISH ANGER

In a gospel culture growing strong, we look to the gospel for hope in the midst of our problems. What do I do when I feel selfish anger rising? One of my favorite summaries of the gospel has a lot to say. 1 Peter 2:22-24: 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. In these verses we receive two gospel-truths that we can stand in and will temper our selfish anger.

First, God is not angry with you anymore. In verse 22-23, we learn that Jesus committed no sinned. Jesus’ desires were never out of bounds or out of balance. When he was wronged and reviled, anger and irritation never poured out of him. He entrusted himself to God and kept loving. It’s stunning and it’s indicting! When we desire and do not have, we devour each other in our minds, by our words, and with our hands. When life doesn’t go according to our desires, we shake our fist at God and tear each other apart with cold, hot, or covert anger. We deserve God’s perfect, just, and holy wrath for all of our selfish wrath. But then verse 24! Glorious news! Jesus, who had no sin, bore our sins when he died upon the cross. Jesus bore the perfect and eternal wrath of God for sins upon himself on the cross to give us a whole new identity; dead to sin and alive to God. That means that if you’re in Christ, God isn’t made at you anymore. There is nothing more practical for tempering your rising anger than living in this gospel-truth: God isn’t mad at you! Not only is he not angry at you, he could not love you any more than he does now because he loves you in His Son and he’ll never stop loving you. Why does this truth temper anger so well? Let’s use a lesser example; marriage. Marriage is powerful. When your spouse is angry or disappointed in you, it doesn’t matter who else is happy with you, you’re weak and vulnerable to anger. On the contrary, when your spouse loves you and likes you and you truly feel that they are for you, everything else in life can be going wrong and you’ll still be soaring. How much more will you soar above the irritants, setbacks, and provocations that are part of life in a fallen world when you live in the reality that God loves you and he doesn’t have one ounce of anger for you anymore. When you live in the reality that in Christ, God is for you, you’ll begin to become meek rather than demanding your desires, you’ll become generous rather than needing to make everything go your way, and you’ll be gentle rather than throwing your weight around. Friend, if God’s not angry at you anymore, but loves you forever, then do you really need to be angry for yourself? Live in this gospel-truth every day. Preach it to yourself and watch anger die.

Secondly, entrust your anger to God. Selfish anger is powerful. It makes you feel stuck. But there is hope in a dynamic, daily, even moment-by-moment living relationship with Almighty God. You can entrust your anger to God because the gospel says that he’s your Father who loves you, he’s already made you clean and he judges the affairs of your life justly. Specifically, you can entrust the very foundation of your anger to him; your desires to him. Desire is anger in embryonic form. You can entrust your desires for community, comfort, recognition, advancement, or a season when you don’t need to wear a mask to Him, all the while saying “not my will but yours” because he’ll be just and perfect in what he gives you. When we all entrust our good desires to God, we become a community marked by contentment rather than demanding. We become a safe place to express our desires with honesty because we are content and at peace enough to not get our way and be ok. Since your Father judges justly, you can live a life of entrusting your desires to God, all the while saying, “not my will, but yours be done.” A gospel-culture has a growing, even defiant contentment to it. “Not my will but yours be done!” You can entrust your desires to God and you can entrust the moment by moment irritants of life to God. He will judge justly, he’ll right every wrong, so you can entrust yourself to God and keep loving with Christ-like gentleness. Jesus is gentle and lowly with sinners like us so that we can be gentle and lowly with one another. That’s a gospel-culture.

Ideas for close:
• Erik Fitzgerald