1034. The Blessings and Danger of Anger (Part 2) | The Connecting Podcast Ep. 051

[Music] Welcome to the Paul Trip podcast where Pastor and best-selling author Paul David Trip connects the transforming power of Jesus Christ every day life. In this month's episode of the Connecting Podcast, Paul and Shelby Abbott continue their conversation on the blessings and danger of anger, part two. If you miss part one, you can find it on episode 50 of the Connecting Podcast. This will be the final episode of this version of the Connecting Podcast for a little while, but don't worry, we'll be back in a few months with a new format and more conversations to come. In the meantime, we encourage you to explore the archives and catch up on any of the previous 50 episodes you may have missed, featuring Paul with special guests or with Shelby discussing topics like grace, faith, and evangelism. Visit PaulTrip.com/connecting to listen to all 50 episodes of the Connecting Podcast. Now here's Paul with Shelby with episode 51, the blessings and danger of anger, part two. [Music] Hey, Paul. Hey. Here we are again. Here we are again. Getting ready to talk about anger for our second time. And I am excited to talk about this because we're going to talk about something that might be surprising for some people, but it also might be comforting as well. The blessings and the danger of anger, we're going to start with Jesus. Well, I want to rehearse a little bit of our last podcast because we introduced the topic of anger. And one of the things that we saw was that the anger of God is an extension of His love, His holiness, and His justice. Because God loves us, He's angry. Because He's holy, He's angry. Because He's just He's angry. This means you have to be hugely thankful that the one who sits on the throne of the universe is capable of anger. Because without that anger, there would not be justice and there would not be mercy. Good. And that means for us there would be no hope. Now, when it comes to the anger of Jesus, I can remember hearing this so many times in counseling people, they would say, "Well, when I struggle, I can't run to that angry God in the Old Testament. I run to Jesus." And I always thought that misunderstands God's anger, but it misunderstands who Jesus is, too. And so I think it's important for us to say, because Jesus is part of the Godhead, He reflects the same kind of holy anger that God the Father reflects. They are not different in character. If you understand, if your theology makes you understand that Jesus is somehow different in character than God the Father, then you don't really know the Jesus of Scripture. Yeah, that's really important to understand that whenever you see the characteristic of anger in the Old Testament, if you believe in the Trinity, Jesus is right there the whole time. So to say that it's separate and that they're mutually exclusive is not good theology at all. Well, it's biblical irrationality. And Jesus, he marriom, for is that best saying, "If you see me, you see the Father." Exactly. I am the Father of one. Yes. So let's look at Mark 3. If you would just read there one through six. Again, he, being Jesus, entered the synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched 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 Sabbath to do good or to do harm or to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him how to destroy him. There's a couple of interesting things in this passage. Once we, first we see the occasion, the reason for the anger of Jesus. But we also get to see the reason for the unrighteous anger of the Pharisees. And so in this particular passage, we have the perfectly holy anger of Jesus and the unrighteous sinful anger of the Pharisees. Jesus is going to heal a man on the Sabbath. And right away the Pharisees jump in and say, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save a life or to kill it?" And immediately Jesus is angry. Now, it's very clear from the passage that the anger of Jesus isn't that kind of personal anger that we experience, like somebody's driving too slow in front of us. Or somebody has the courage to disagree with us. Or our children are making noise when we want to watch something on television or all those selfish place of anger that puts us in the middle of our world makes life all about us. That's the nature of sinful anger. The anger is always selfish in cause. Jesus is angry because of the shocking distortion of understanding of the Sabbath, the shocking legalism of the Pharisees and the shocking lack of love for this poor crippled man. So it's important to define the terms because a lot of times we graft on our own personal definitions and we see Jesus experiencing that we think he must be thinking and doing and feeling the same things that I'm doing. And it's not the same case. Now, this one who's speaking is important to understand is Lord of the Sabbath. This interpretation of the Sabbath is deeply troubling to him because he knows that Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And so if you have a God word understanding of the Sabbath, rather than priding yourself in being a law keeper, you would know that what Jesus is about to do is absolutely consistent with God's design for the Sabbath. And so Jesus is angry that these guys are taking God's holy law which was made for our good and turning into something that is harmful and abusive. Which on the surface can look like activity wise, the exact same thing, but their hearts are just in a really bad place. And we know that these men, these Pharisees prided themselves in their keeping of the law. And we're going to Christ is going to go after that in other patches that we see. So Jesus is now indignant because of the misuse, the abusive, unloving misuse of God's holy law. This is so convicting for me. I wonder how much of my anger is because God's honor, God's law, God's glory, God's kingdom is being distorted or not honored. And would that all of my anger was about God's kingdom instead of yourself. The bulk of my anger is about my little claustrophobic kingdom of one. And so would that God would grace me with the ability to be anger, angry this way when I'm grieved, what am I grieved about? I'm grieved because I go to the market and they don't have the thing that I'd set my heart on. I mean, just stupid and consequential things that upset me. Recently, I'm looking at my drawer for pair of socks. And I say, "Lewala, it drives me crazy that I can never find my socks." There it is. Who do I think I am? Clostrophilic kingdom of one. And so, this passage is meant to be not only a revelation of the nature of the anger of Jesus, but a mirror into which we can look. Yes. And I wish this was the stuff that made me mad. Yeah. If we took the time to actually dive in here and look that what the Pharisees are doing are trying to catch him, to see whether or not he will heal on the Sabbath. They're focused on the Sabbath and keeping the rules as opposed to whether or not he can heal. They're even looking past the miracle, the fact that Jesus is God performing a miracle. They're like, "Is he going to do it on the Sabbath?" No wonder he was angry. If only I could be angry about those kind of things, too. Well, there's another connection here. And it's that the Pharisees' anger was a result of the hardness of their hearts. And in their hardness of the hearts, they lacked love for this man, which would have meant they would say to Jesus, "Go for it. Do this." What a lovely thing to do on the Sabbath. Yeah. Love would outweigh the rulekeeping. So, Mirigan, my anger, my everyday anger, is connected to the hardness of my heart. For example, if I would say something in a moment of irritation, nasty to Lauella, that's hardness of heart. Because if I loved her, the way I should love her, that would malify that anger. And I wouldn't express this angry thing I'm about to express. Now, I don't want to think of myself as having a heart of heart and heart. In fact, there are Christians who think that no Christian can ever have a heart heart. Except, Hebrews 3 talks about the possibility of us having a heart and heart, believers. Except, except that. The passage is written to brothers, Christians. So, it's very easy in this passage to look at and say, "Well, I'm on the Jesus side of this equation when actually you actually live on the Pharisee side more, that often your anger is not about God's kingdom. It's about your kingdom. Often your anger is not because you have a soft, sensitive heart like Jesus did, but you have a heart heart. And if love ruled that heart, you wouldn't be angry in the ways you are." Come on, when you're a parent and you're stopping now the hallway about ready to yell at your kids, you have personalized something that is not personal because your life is all about you. Your children didn't get together and say, "Tonight at 750, let's fight. It will drive dad crazy." Or, let's, let's don't think my kids might be doing that. I don't think they are. No, no, I'm just kidding. Let's dump crumbs on the counter and just walk away. Right. Yeah, yeah. Momma freak out. Yeah. I mean, come on. Yeah. What kind of weird view of life is there? But that's what we do. And so, not only the beauty of the way Scripture works is not only do we see Jesus and all His beauty, but the beauty of Jesus exposes the ugliness in us. I think I'm more often the Pharisee than I am the Jesus figure. Yeah. It's easy for us to look at Scripture and go, "I relate to the hero here. I would relate to the Jesus side of this, but you're always the villain. If you could picture yourself in the worst part of whoever's represented here, that's usually my heart." And one of the things that's been enormously helpful for me, and you have said this, I don't know how many times, but you're so great at, it turns, it turns a phrase is an epithee little things to help. And it's really helped me is the fire you're in or lawyer. Because when I get angry often, it has to do with defending my own thoughts, words, actions, and that kind of thing. And there have been moments in the middle of that anger welling up in my chest as I'm talking with my wife where I go, I hear Paul Trip go, fire in or lawyer, and it actually legitimately helps. So that's one of the things I've really appreciated about you. You've encapsulated this idea of say, "Hey, let's not make it all about you in a few short words that's fire your inner lawyer." And I've actually shared that with other people as well, say, "Hey, as you're thinking about going into your marriage counseling session later on today, fire your inner lawyer." And I think that's been enormously helpful for a lot of people. A companion to that is just praying for a soft heart. Yeah. You know, if I think about, let's say it's 10 o'clock, Louis has had a long busy day, she's tired. A soft heart would say, "I'm not going to complain to her about something inconsequential." Something that in the scheme of what's important doesn't make any difference at all. Then she goes to bed, rattled emotionally, not feeling loved and appreciated. That's hard, hard stuff. And part of the dynamic of a hard heart is it doesn't look into the experience of another person and say, "What does it look like to love that person in this situation?" This, these Pharisees had for one moment put themselves in the position of that man with a withered hand, what would they want Jesus to do? Yeah. It's like so obvious. Yeah. It's just a lack of empathy. And Jesus, because he has that kind of heart, he's the definition of love, saw through all of the legalisms and saw this man. And saw their motivations, their heart, what was going on in their thoughts, was able to cut through that and extend love, extend empathy. In the process, be angry. Because I notice when it says here in verse 5, and he looked around at them with anger, Mama grieved at their hardness of heart. So there was anger and grief that were combined with one another because of their hard hearts. Well, what we've just seen is exactly what the Old Testament presents to us, that the anger of Jesus is the result of this love. He's angry this month because he loves this man. He's not angry because the Pharisees are arguing with him, all those, all the stuff that would make us mad, he's angry because he loves this man. Yeah. And I think about when anybody has ever threatened or even come close to injuring one of my daughters, I get angry at the fact that they might be hurt, injured, emotionally rattled, like you said, with Uwella. And that anger, if you trace it back, it's a direct result of my love for my kids. If I didn't have love for them, I wouldn't be angry if someone threatened them or they were in danger or whatever. But because I love them, I am angry. I think that's been a helpful way of me thinking about it too of what God's anger is like. And we unpacked that a lot in the first episode of going through anger and the dangers and the blessings of that. So it's helpful to understand that anger is tied in many ways, can be tied to love, especially when we're talking about God. So let's move forward and mark to mark 10. Okay. Just read, Shelby, 13 through 16 there. And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant, there's that word, indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me. Do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God." Truly, I say to you. you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. There's a picture of love. Well, it's a picture of love, surely. But we're called to defend the Fathers and Widows that's called justice. The Bible calls us to defend those who are unable to defend themselves. And this is what Jesus is doing here. Again, this time it's not the Pharisees, it's disciples. They get it wrong that somehow children aren't worthy to come to Jesus. And because a children aren't able to defend themselves, Jesus defends them. And he's angry that the disciples would have such a response. He says, let the children come to me, do not hinder them for such belongs to the kingdom of God. What a statement. Powerful. Again, we're seeing the same connections that are made in the Old Testament. This is Jesus rising and holy justice and say, no, this is wrong. These ones aren't able to defend themselves. I will defend them. And it's an unjust understanding of who's worthy to be in God's kingdom. Yeah. They're not just ushering them away. It says they rebuked them. The disciples rebuked them. So what are you hearing there? Once again, we've got sinful human anger. That's the disciples. How dare you? And the holy righteous anger of Jesus, defending these little ones who can't defend themselves. Now, again, we've got to look into the mirror because we're called a Christ-like living. How much of my anger is the product of justice? A heart for what is right justice has a heart to right wrongs. That's what justice is. Not often. I mean, how many of us even think that way about our anger? Yeah. When I'm angry, yeah, I'm trying to process that right now. My anger is usually always about me. I can't think of any examples other than, like I said, protecting my kids when I'm angry about that. But most of the time it has to do with me. It has to all about my little kingdom, my wants, my needs, my desires. And if someone gets in the way of that, that's where my anger flares up. But not for justice purposes. I'm trying to think of examples in my life and I can't. It's sad. No. There are occasions. I mean, I've had occasions when I'm really angry at something our children did when they were still at home. And Lewella would step in and say, you're not ready to deal with this yet. That's justice. Because if I went forward, what I would do would be harmful to my children. And so that's an example of a she jumps in with a righteous concern and stops me from doing something that would be harmful for our children. But we can be so without that kind of anger in our lives. Yeah. This specifically, I think it might be worth very briefly going over why children were viewed the way that they were viewed in that culture. And why would the disciples rebuke children? Because today, I can't fathom that in our culture today of like, if Jesus were here, telling kids to get away from him because it got more important things to do, it just doesn't seem culturally appropriate right now. What was going on in the time that would have made the disciples rebuke people bringing children to him? Yeah. Well, without a lengthy conversation about New Testament culture, one of the things I could say is the church has been church of Jesus Christ that we now live in is blessed by passages like this. So we believe in welcoming children into the community of faith. We believe in cataclysm teaching our children young. So much of the attention of the church is to bring it up children in the nurture and the Lord welcoming them. Our preacher at 10th makes he is brilliant at drawing children into a sermon. And I mentioned that that he does it during the sermon, not separately. Yeah, he, it's just so so sweet. So that was not the place of children in New Testament culture. If they had any rights, it was through their parents. And I think Jesus understood that. And so what's happening with the disciples is they're dragging a cultural understanding of children into their work as disciples of Jesus. And Jesus saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not the culture of my kingdom. Yes. Describing value to people who have been deemed lesser than or invaluable than more important things in Jesus wipes that slate clean and says, no, no, no, no, yeah, the kids are just as important here. We know, we know the reason for that is that from the womb, they are beings made in the image of God. Yes. That means they have dignity and value in the sight of God. And that value doesn't have to be earned. The value is not a result of adulthood or a societal station. It's theological word is this ontological. It's it's from creation. Yeah. That's good. That's basically what I wanted to hear you unpack for you. Yeah. Thank you. And so it's unjust for them to be treated away. It's sort of like when I walk by a homeless person. I may be overwhelmed with any ability. I have to change that person's condition. And that may bother me. That's categorically different than despising that person and saying to the person next to me something terrible about them or pushing them out of the way or whatever. And we we should mirror the justice of our Lord. I think that's why many churches, for example, have deaconal funds. Because we want to have mercy for those who are in conditions where they're not able to help themselves. Mercy and justice go together. So again, we're seeing we see Jesus respond to the Pharisees out of love. He's angry because of love. Here is angry because of justice. Let's let's look at John to 13 through 17. The Passover of the Jews was at hand. And Jesus went up to Jerusalem in the temple of Jesus. he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away, do not make my father's house a house of trade. His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zil for your house will consume me." So if you were looking at this passage, Shelby, and you wanted to explain to someone, what the reason for the anger of Jesus here is, how would you characterize it? Yeah, you put me on the spot here. I'm here to learn from you, not the other way around. But I would think that there's a misuse of the worship of God. There's an intentional selfishness that's happening here of people trying to benefit off the sacrifices that other need to make to God. So they're doing it in a way. They're turning God's place of prayer and a place of worship of him into something that's solely beneficial for them. And that makes Jesus mad and dignit. As a better word to use, to the point that he's flipping tables, ushering people out, making a whip, which takes time, trying to drive people out in order to restore the purpose for what this area of the temple was for. How wrong am I? No, I think you're right. I think there's two things that I would say about this. Holy Jesus, perfectly holy Jesus, could not walk away from the desecration of this Father's Temple. I mean, if there's any place on earth, that would be treated with holy honor, it would be the temple. Reference and respect, yeah. Yeah. And so this is the holy heart of Jesus being revealed for us. Yeah. This is the honor of God Almighty here. And it's beautiful. It's because of his purity of heart. Because any desecration of the things of God is heartbreaking to him that Jesus responds in such anger. Again, oh God, give me this kind of purity of heart. Give me this kind of holiness of life that desecrations of you and what you say is right and true and good and beautiful are grieving to me and produce anger in me. No, I think it's easy in an unholy world to make peace with unholiness and to let it into our lives. And well, once grieved us, doesn't grieve us anymore. Well, once made us angry, angry, doesn't make us angry anymore. My dad had a letter from A. W. Tojler. I got personal letter. Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah, because he had corresponded with him and he then was talking about the entrance of television into the world. It was the mid-50s and television still fairly new thing. And his concern was that it would expose Christian families to things they've never been exposed to. And it would begin to to morally dull the children of God. I can never read that letter in thinking, I have it, my files. What a profit. Seriously. He knew nothing of what was going to happen. He knew nothing of streaming services of cell phones of the fact that we have unholy things pushed at us constantly. And you can keep changing, lowering the bar of what's acceptable. Yeah. Well, once made you angry, now it makes you frustrated or then eventually makes you like, yeah, apathetic, bored, the things of God. And zeal is no longer a part of what you're experiencing when you see unholyness in. And Jesus sees this and zeal for God's house has consumed him. How does it consume me? Is that a good diagnostic question? Zeal for God's things angry zeal for God's things is a sure indication of a pure and holy heart. The only way that ever happens. So three passages we've connected the end of Jesus to his love, his justice, his holiness. All those themes in the Old Testament are now being portrayed by Jesus. This means there's character logical continuity between God the Father and God the Son. It's really important to understand. It's just it's not angry God in the Old Testament, loving God in the New Testament. It's the same God. Yeah. And again, you got to get into this passage and understand when Jesus is so moved by the desecration of temple, what is that about? When someone has zeal for the de. the desecration of something that God names as holy, that means that person has to have that pure and holy heart. So it is an indication of that heart in Jesus. There's other thing that I think is important to mention. Most people who have studied the temple and studied where this market was set up. Believe it was in the outer court of the temple. The outer court of the temple was the only place Gentiles were allowed in. They couldn't go any further. And so we're seeing also depicted is Christ's heart of mercy. We know way back in the Old Testament that the attention of the redeeming grace of God was a spread beyond the Jews to Gentiles and yes, even to the outermost parts of the earth. These money changers don't care about the plan of purpose of God. They don't care about who's in and who's out. And they gladly remove the Gentiles to set up their money making business. This is the opposite of you are blessed to be a blessing. You are now doing the opposite of that. You are physically and spiritually in the way of allowing Gentiles to be able to have access to God. And no wonder Jesus was angry, especially because the gospel is intended to go beyond the Jews to the Gentiles. And so the court of the Gentiles, if it's being clogged up, jammed up with people who are trying to make money, you're preventing people access to God. And Jesus is the embodiment of access to God. Well, and what you have here, this is the way to understand this is your violation of the two great commands in one passage. Love God of all of all else. You wouldn't desecrate this temple. Love your neighbor as yourself. You wouldn't get in the way of the closest the Gentiles could get to the worship in the temple. Two great commands violated. If Jesus could watch the violation of God's two great commands, there's no holiness in him. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I don't, I just think it's, this is why I love stopping these passes because I can, I think you can look at this and not understand the reason Jesus is angry is because the two great commands are being violated. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the summary of all God requires of us. Love me above all else and love your neighbors yourself. If you love God above all else, you'll keep the first four of the commands. And if you love your neighbors yourself, you'll keep the last six. There it is. And you're seeing both those violated in one incident. Yeah. Now that makes sense. But yeah, it takes intentional time to pause and reflect on the connection between this, the significance of what's going on here. And it's just just a story where Jesus gets mad. Because if you gloss over this, if you read it quickly, you're like, okay, I don't understand Jesus is angry here for some reason. And you might jump to conclusions that aren't accurate at all. So let's, let's make a very modern current application of this again and again, Christians anger against other Christians, on social media is justified by this passage. Well, Jesus turned over the tables. Yeah. He did it because the two great commands are being violated. If I would ask myself, is this person I'm angry at are the inviolation of the command to honor God, love God above all else and love their neighbors or sell most often my answer would be no. They disagree with me on some issue of theology or biblical interpretation. But they're not standing against love of God or love of neighbor. Yeah. Again, the action looks similar on the outside, but what's the heart motivation going on in the inside? If the motivation is not about loving the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself, it's about you. It's putting you is your anger. A godly anger, a god word anger or is it a personal anger and a lot of times it's a personal anger. I have literally seen clips of people giving sermons talking about politics. And flipping literally flipping tables in the middle of sermons and saying it was okay for Jesus to do it and we it's okay for us to be angry at this and people applauding during the sermon. I'm like this is the motivation is purely selfish here has nothing to do with God or the love of other people. Next we said. Yeah. And we know that in Jesus too, Peter says when he was threatened he uttered no threats, but he committed himself to his heavenly Father judges all things justly. Yeah. Same Jesus. Yeah. And those situations didn't turn over any tables. Yeah. Yeah. This is the holy heart of our Messiah. It's so beautiful. Yeah. Angry because the violation of gods command to love him above all else and love your neighbors yourself. And both of those things are being violated by these these businessmen. Again, oh, give me grace. Yeah. That my anger is rooted in my love for for God and love for neighbor and not the opposite. Yeah. And we have to be careful there to because it's like you said on social media, I've seen so many. I mean, there are people who make their entire career out of going on YouTube and criticizing other people criticizing other believers. They would call them to question their salvation and they would call them wolves and sheep's clothing, but they would look at something like this and justify how they act. And there's always that like even if I agree with them, I'm kind of like, yeah, but the way that you're doing this seems like you're driven more by a personal anger than a love for God. And we need it. And may we take that flip it around and examine ourselves because how often is my anger motivated by the love of God and love of people? It's just not it's motivated by love for self. Well, you get it here too, Jesus. Jesus wasn't desiring to bodily harm to these people. He wasn't going to say a bunch of horrible things. He stayed on subject to his father's house. How often are you able to stay on subject in the middle of an argument? Wow. Yeah, we flail. We scramble all the time. And it's if you get accused of something, well, you did this or well, you did this or this situation made me do this. And yeah, we don't stay on subject at all. And then we justify it by looking at this and say, well, Jesus was able to get angry too. And yeah, apples and oranges. Okay. Luke 11, I'm going to ask you to read a rather lengthy passage scripture. This is one of the most inflammatory, accusatory statements that Christ, Christ made 11, what verses 37 through 54. Okay. This is entitled woes to the Pharisees and lawyers. Well, Jesus was speaking of Pharisee asked him to die with him. So he went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, okay, let's just let's just get the scene here. Yeah, astonished. It's a strong word. Been invited over to somebody's house for dinner. Just keep keep this is a dinner conversation. Go ahead. Yeah. And the Lord said to him, now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. It's a good opening line for dinner. You fools did not he who made the outside make the inside also, but give as alms those things that are within and behold, everything is clean for you, but woe to you Pharisees for you tithe mint and rue and every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others woe to you Pharisees for you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces woe to you for you are like unmarked graves and people walk over them without knowing it. One of the lawyers answered him, teacher, in saying these things, you insult us also. And he said woe to you lawyers also for you load people with burdens hard to bear and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers woe to you for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers. They killed them and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles some of whom they will kill and persecute so that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation from the blood of able to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you it will be required of this generation woe to you lawyers for you have taken away the key to of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. And oh sorry, as he went away from there the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say. This uh and away this this a moment is shocking to us because by our standards what Jesus is doing here is an impolite, a out of place. And it doesn't go in the category of nice. Yeah. Yet this is holy Jesus. Clearly these are the words of an angry man. And they're accusatory and judgmental. And the listeners know that because they say you're insulting us. Well, the teacher, you're insulting us. Because we have to ask again, what is the reason for this deep-seated anger of Jesus? And wow, he has no trouble going after them. Well, what has happened is the Pharisees, scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees who are the religious leaders of the day have bought into and are promoting a righteousness that's not true righteousness. You know this when Jesus says you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. Think of this. Think if you have dirty dishes, you have a dirty bowl and you just clean the outside of the bowl and you put it in the cupboard. Makes no sense at all. Then Jesus, Matthew 23 records this. Jesus says first clean the inside of the dish and the outside will become clean. You can't do that with your dishes at home. What he's charging these guys with, you got to understand the metaphor is this was not a heart religion. This was externalism. This was performative behaviorism that had nothing to do with the true character and true condition of these men. It's a complete distortion of everything God unleashed his grace to produce in us. They were promoting this false religion as true religion and laying that burden on others. We know that the promise of the new covenant work of Jesus is I will give them a new heart because the heart is the control center of your personhood. Your body will only ever go where your heart has gone first. So redeeming grace is about the reclamation of our hearts and the transformation of our hearts. You can feel my energies I'm talking. This is reprehensible religiosity. This form of religion sends people to hell. No wonder he's angry. It's horrible. It couldn't be worse because it's false religion, damning false religion, masquerading as true religion. It is absolutely wolves and sheep's clothing. There's a theologian who once said that he needed to be not necessarily rescued from a lot of sinful behavior but needed to be rescued from his damnable good works. That phrase is stuck with me quite a bit. My damnable good works. What are my good things that I do that I think will give me access to God give me access to a better life give me access to whatever blessings God is willing to give me but actually my good deeds stand in the way of God's grace. That's something that kind of is difficult to register for a lot of Christians especially if we've been raised in environment where church is like you do these things you behave this way you say these things you act in a certain manner that's in line with what religion is supposed to do and yet their hearts can be totally dark on the inside. Absolutely. Jesus who is the going to be the final sacrificial lamb the means by which grace redeeming reconciling justifying sanctifying grace will flow to all those who believe couldn't possibly be in this situation and not be angry. Because this is an absolute distortion of what God is after in us and what true righteousness looks like. Now the thing that we have to talk about is this is inside of the two church these these were old testament experts these were experts and all the scriptures that were available to them these were people who. Gave and attended worship and. New God's law and so here's the warning it's so important to talk about this that the greatest danger to the church is always found inside of the church not out of it yeah. It's what caused Martin Luther to nail those 95 thesis he wasn't he wasn't attacking the surrounding culture it was concerned about the distortions of the gospel within inside inside of the church. And that migration away from arrest in the righteousness of Christ to arrest in my own righteousness pride in what I could have never achieved or produced on my own taking credit for what only God could do. Paul says if what we have we have received then why then should we boast yeah it was a gift yeah. So when you read when we read these passages what the Pharisees have done to biblical faith should make us angry too yeah. When we take it lightly we're missing the point we're missing what's actually going on and again this is this is often something that we have trouble flipping around and looking at ourselves but we need to allow this to be a mirror to us where where am I the Pharisee in the lawyer in this where where's my heart bent where's an inclined to go as a Pharisee or a lawyer and where do I need to hear the gracious words of Jesus say whoa to me. Well let's use the metaphor the word picture where am I cleaning the outside of the cup yeah so I look good in front of people so I'm extensively doing the right things but inside is unclean that's really convicting yeah and the warning here. This is where the spiritual warfare aspect of this comes in the enemy of our souls will gladly give us biblical literacy theological knowledge money in the offering church attendance episodic moments of ministry if he can claim and rule our hearts yeah. Give you religion give you that yeah as long as your hearts are engaged with it in fact I would say that formal religion is one of his most effective tools wow. Now that might rub a lot of people the wrong way because if all you have is formal religion you name yourself as okay. when you may be far from. Okay, it's like child race and Christian family. The thing is, okay, because it's part of a Christian family. Yep. Yep. That's outside of the cup stuff. Yep. It took me a while to understand that, too. You cannot piggyback off of the faith of other people as a child, as a young person, too. This is in particular scary to me because I am bent toward being a Pharisee. I relied on that most of my life. I didn't become a Christian until I was 19. Even when I became a Christian at 19, I thought, "I've already done so much. I've already learned so much. I've already studied so much. I can't go back to the beginning again." By the grace of God, He gently tapped me on the shoulder and said, "That's pride." That's the very thing that I came to rescue you from, was from yourself. There are a lot of self-righteous, religious people who need to examine things, passages like this, because Jesus is just like with the Pharisees and the lawyers. He's trying to get after your heart. He wants your heart. So we should be deeply and eternally grateful that God chose for our children to be raised in a family of faith, raised in the context of the community of the church. But we should be deeply concerned that our children were raised in a family of faith and raised in the context of the church. Right. I understand what you mean. There's an enemy who would like to deceive them into thinking that's all that's necessary. And how many times you've heard people who have raised the Christian homes who later in life come to know the Lord because they were lulled to spiritual sleep because of outside of the cup stuff. Yeah. When I became a Christian, the night I became a Christian, I was at a crew large group event and they were sharing the gospel from up front. Two students were sharing the gospel. And I was so convicted that I'd never actually said yes to Jesus that I went left the meeting early, went down the hall to the men's bathroom, pulled out a little track that was in my wallet, flipped to the back and said, Lord, I need you. Will you come into my life and forgive me in my sins? And so I prayed to receive Christ right there in a men's bathroom. And I remember I came out and just before the meeting was done, my Bible study leader. So the guy who had been leading me in Bible study for almost a full year was standing in the hallway waiting to greet students as they came out. And I went up to him and I said, Dave, I just want you to know I just became a Christian. And he was like, what? He was so confused because I'd been coming to Bible study for the year. I knew all the right answers. I knew how to behave well. I was not partying and drinking. I wasn't sleeping around. And so on the outside, my cup on the outside was very clean, but I was convicted in that meeting that the inside of my cup was incredibly dirty to the point that I had fooled even my Bible study leader. So that should be a warning sign for all parents. Your kids are not Christians because you're a Christian. You should make sure that they make their decisions on their own. Lead them, guide them, instruct them, teach them. Yes. We'll catch more than they're taught and so live the Christian life in front of them. So in this moment when Christ is going after these leaders, so powerfully, we've already said he could not remain silent with this horrible distortion of God's redeeming plan. But there's nothing that motivated it is he was angry at the crushing burden of this legalism on the average Jew. And so again, you see his anger is a combination of his holiness and his mercy. That kind of legalism will crush you. Yeah, I definitely want to. Because you never can measure up. The minute you think you've arrived, there's a higher standard. My way of expressing that what legalism does, it's like a sand in the middle of a gymnasium and being told that I have to jump up and touch the ceiling. You cannot, you cannot, cannot, cannot, cannot, cannot, cannot become acceptable to God by the keeping of his law. It's impossible. In the minute we shift from a grace-based faith to a law-based faith, we've lost the plot. Now, that doesn't mean God's law isn't a wonderful guide for your life it is. Of course. And it's a beautiful job of exposing your sin. But it has no power whatsoever to radically transform your heart and to achieve reconciliation with God. Yeah. And I like the intentional contrast here in the scripture too that when Jesus reclined at table, they were astonished to see that he first didn't wash. Estonished is it is not a word that I use very often in my everyday language, but it astonishes me. No, it doesn't. But it's a powerful word. They're so taken aback by the fact that Jesus didn't obey this one outward washing of the cup. And he immediately goes after their heart. What that tells you shall be is they're constantly keeping score. Yeah. That's what they are. That's what self-righteousness does. I'm constantly keeping score. And you know that when you're constantly keeping score, the people you're scoring never measure up as much as you do. You're always in the lead. You always win. Yeah. But they're score keepers. They're sitting with the Messiah for Pete's sake. Come on. Yeah. And they're keeping it. They're trying to tally whether or not he's actually doing what he's supposed to do. How mortifying it is to be so spiritually blind that you're astonished by what the Messiah does. Yeah. Just ridiculous, just absolute foolishness. And it's actually really good. But again, remember who we're talking about. Yeah. These are the big religious leaders of the day. It's good to see this too because there can be two people sitting in the front pew of a church and their lives more realistically could look exactly the same morally. They could be they could be very on the same page, living a life that's honorable showing up to church, reading their Bibles, praying and all that kind of stuff. But one person can be doing it out of their love for God and one person can be doing it because they're trying to appease God or they're trying to impress other people. And even though they might look morally the same, they're on two entirely different planets. Well, we could we could do it this way. You have two people, two men, both married, sitting in Sunday morning service. They look exactly alike, alike. After the service, the wife does something irritating to the one man in the car and he rips her for 20 minutes to get home. The other man gets in the car and he says to his wife, dear, there was a very convicting service for me. And I realize how unloving I can be toward you and I just want your forgiveness. Externally they look exactly alike, but they're actually different, different men. One man is blind to the massive contradiction that has just taken place in his life from flipping the switch so quickly from worship to abuse of anger. And the other man carries that worship into the car in the form of confession. So you know, what's beautiful about these passages is in examining the anger of Jesus. We learned so much about it. about our own spiritual struggles. And the ways we can just get things wrong. We can think we're so right. And I mean, you're in a conservative, gospel centered, biblical church. You're one of the good guys. But if you would have interviewed a Pharisee, they would have said the same thing. They would have said, I'm one of the good guys. Yeah. They never thought they were the Brutal Vipers. They never thought they were the white wash tombs. They never thought they were the dirty cups on the inside. And that's why, you know, they're so offended by Jesus because once you get called out for what's actually going on inside your heart, there's a tension there. And that response shows you exactly who you are. If you respond to defensiveness and anger, it's proving the point. If you respond to tenderness and humility, that shows you where your heart actually is. So what I want to do is summarize that what we're seeing is there is complete continuity. We do the anger of God that's revealed in the Old Testament. And the anger of Jesus in his time here on earth, it's a function of his love, it's a function of his holiness, it's a function of his justice, it's a function of his mercy. And for that, we should be thankful. We, Shelby, we just have to get away from viewing the anger of God as the embarrassing uncle of his characteristics that we need to hide from the rest of the family. - Right, yeah. - And if God, we're not angry in the ways that we have seen revealed in scripture, there would be no cross. It's the anger of God with sin, meeting the grace of God that sent Jesus to the cross. So this, the anger of God gets right to the heart of redeeming grace. - Yeah, and I said this in the last podcast, a lot of people think that the opposite of love is hate or anger, but it's not. It's actually the opposite of love is apathy. And so if we're apathetic toward other people, like the man with the withered hand, for example, they just didn't care about him at all, that showed what was going on in their hearts. And so if we want to be loving people, there is going to be anger attached to that, just like I was saying with my daughters, like there's something that comes to threaten them, I will be angry at that. And that is a good thing because that shows how much I love them and care about them. And we see that reflect, and that happens because I am made in the image of God. It's a reflection of God. - Yeah. - So I want to turn for the last of our conversation on anger to what the Bible says about our anger. Well, we know right away. Without looking at any more past scripture, that the command of the New Testament of God to us is be holy as I, the Lord your God, and holy. That means in every dimension of our lives. So the application would be in this topic as God is holy and is anger, I should be holy and my anger. My anger should be the function of love. My anger should be the function of a pure and holy heart. My anger should be a function of justice. My anger should be a function of mercy. And so it's right for us to say, Lord, I'm not there. Please rescue me for me. Please transform my heart. Please make me holy like you're holy. Because I cannot say with honesty that in every situation, the anger that I experience and the anger that I express in words of behavior is a result of those four things. And in that way, when it comes to anger, I am not holy as he is holy. Now, for that, I cry out for transforming grace. But don't close your heart to the fact that our anger is a evidence that we have not arrived. Our anger is evidence that there is work that still needs to be done. I'm thankful that I'm a different man than I was 10 years ago. But I pray that in another 10 years I'll be a much more godly man than I am today. Yeah. And anger is a. It should be one of those obvious signs that's like taking your temperature. It's such an, why does the doctor always take your temperature? Because it's a clear sign of your health. Your anger is a clear sign of your spiritual health. - Yes, good. - It's like taking your temperature. How when, why are you angry? Look at that. It's a very helpful indication of your spiritual health. - Yeah. How often would you say that the average person needs to do something like that? Is that like a daily thing? Is that like every hour kind of a deal or what's your routine for keeping that kind of stuff in check? - I know that's a super practical question, but. - No, I think well every day, I think every time I open God's word, whether it's for personal devotions or for preparation or something, my prayer is that it would be a mirror to me and God would show me myself as I actually am. Often when I am preparing to teach a preach, I call it my head down in my Bible moments when I'm just broken and grieved by my own sin and praying for God's grace for me. And so you look for those spiritual thermometers and anger is clearly one of those. - Yeah. I found that whenever I wake up in the morning, every day the old man, so to speak, the old version of Shelby is resurrected again. And I need to remind myself often through the mirror of God's word through prayer to help me recalibrate and make sure that I'm thinking properly. I'm speaking properly. I'm viewing God properly and a great way to do that is in his word and through prayer. But it's difficult to do, especially when you're struggling with something specific that's making you angry. - Yeah, and I wanna make sure that the people watching or listening to understand when I'm talking about anger as a spiritual thermometer, I'm not talking about your standing before God. My standing before God has been secured by the perfectly righteous life, acceptable sacrifice, victorious resurrection and royal police the ascension of Jesus. He looks at me through the righteousness of Jesus. That, that, him that I love, I need no other argument, I need no other play. It is enough that Jesus died and Jesus died for me. - Yeah. - When Jesus said it's finished, he meant it. We're talking about, honestly estimating your spiritual health. Your need for growth, your need for further transforming work of grace, classic theological term, sanctification. - Yeah. - So that's what we're talking about. You don't examine yourself to see if you're still worthy of God's love. Okay. because that settled. But you should care about living in a way that's pleasing on our honor and glorified God and is consistent with the march of his work of grace in your life. Yeah, regardless, too, of how long you've been a Christian. So I think it could be easy to say, why I've been a Christian for 25 years, I don't need to work at this anymore. No, we're always a work in progress. There's big things that God takes care of initially when we're sanctified in those early process. But we need to remember that sanctification is not, it's a means to an end. It's a preparatory thing to get us ready for spending eternity with God. Like sanctification is not just to ruin your fun or make you go through hard times or to purify you just for the sake of God being this kind of like angry person who wants to punish his children. No, it's a means to an end. It's sanctification draws you closer to the heart of God. And if our goal in life is to know God and to make him known, like this is one of the best ways to do that is to take your temperature and and look at what's going on in your life right now. Are you growing? Are you more sanctified than you were the day before? And I want to say as you're seeking to take your temperature, this is important to say, don't look out. Because you're always able to find somebody less righteous than you. Yes. Very good at that. Don't look within because as long as sin is inside of us, there's going to be pockets of spiritual blindness. You look into the best diagnostic ever. What is that? The word of God. The word of God is written to be that mirror. And that's what we've been doing. And as we talked about anger, what's happened? We can't talk about the anger of Jesus without it being a mirror on to our own anger. I love that that's been what our conversation has done because that's how what's God's word is supposed to be. These things will retain for our example, our instruction. Yeah. Okay. One verse in Ephesians 4, I'll read it verse 26, "Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger." I want to look at this passage basically to say that it holds out the possibility that between the already of our conversion and the not yet of our home going, we can actually have anger that's not sinful. It's possibility. Yeah. Be angry, but don't sin. And then the command goes on, don't let the sun go down on your anger. Anger undoubt with is anger that grows. For sure. It never gets less because you're rehearsing. And as you do, anger increases. I can remember in LeWell and I were first married. We coven it with one another that we would never go to sleep angry. I've heard of couples doing that before. And the early days we would lay in bed holding our eyes open, waiting for the other person to confess first. Is yours a tired? But we were great married. No, we were. No, it was a combination of being tired and being stubborn. But I want to say I've joked about this. LeWell and I have never had anything in our closet. We just don't carry things. We have really, really sought to keep shorts accounts. No, what in the closet, I mean, full of bitterness and anger. And that's why when you're talking about something happened a day and you say six weeks ago, you're right. And you remember when we were on vacation two years ago, yeah, yeah, that's all stuff that hasn't been dealt with. You've let the sun go down on your anger. Yes. Yeah. And it comes flowing out. It's been such a blessing just to take this command seriously. And to be able to deal with the issue of the moment, because we've we've kept short accounts. And I think much of the health of our marriage has been attributable to that. Yeah, because if you sweep stuff under the rug, and you think, I'll just let it go. I don't want to get involved in an argument or or it will pop out again. It'll come out again. There's no such thing as making it disappear. Can confused. Is the is the rug in the closet? You're the one that uses the closet illustration, not me. But I have noticed that that there have been plenty of times. If if there's a swelling anger, it's usually cumulative. Based based on previous conversations, previous hurts, previous like feelings of being dishonored or disrespected or offended or whatever. And that stuff, it just cannot be buried. It can't be pushed down. It will pop out again. So keeping short accounts is a great way to apply this scripture and help us to understand really what God wants us to do in our anger in the face of anger. So I want to get to what maybe our last passage here. This is James 4, 1 through 10. I just don't think you can have a biblical understanding of anger and your anger in my anger, apart from this passage. It's just so foundational and extremely practical and convicting. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? 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. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is empty with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says he yearns jellously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proudest gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. CLEANS YOUR HANDS YOU SINNERS and purify your hearts you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to morning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. This passage is helpful and convicting in so many different levels. If you would approach a seven-year-old child and you would say, what causes all these quarrels and fights between you and your sibling? What would the expected answer be? It's their fault. It's someone else did something. So our fundamental error and understanding our anger is a so important say it's to look outside of ourselves to explain it. The people in your life, the situation in your life, do not explain the causality for your anger. Now in this situation we're talking sinful anger. What causes fights and quarrels among you? That's the age-old question. Everybody who's a human being religious or religious and non-religious would ask because we all have conflict in our lives. And immediately scripture instead of calling us to look outside of ourselves to explain the anger tells us to look inside of ourselves. Isn't that this that your passions are at war within you? There it is. My anger is a result of thwarted desire. I want to be great with. I want to be first in the line. I want the biggest cookie on the cookie sheet. examples are endless. Right. You covet and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel. Now that word "covet" is important because twice I think it is Paul, the apostle Paul, names coveted as what? "Idallotry." So he's talking about desires that now rule our hearts. Rather than our hearts being ruled by our Lord, our hearts are ruled by something else in a particular situation or a particular relationship. This is enormously helpful. Right. So the love of God and love of neighbor that should be ruling me in those moments is not ruling me. It's been moved aside by some other God replacement. I want to be right. I want to be in control. I want peace and comfort. Whatever whatever the issue. You ask and you don't receive because you ask wrongly. What's the wrongly? To satisfy these passions. A passion is probably a desire coupled with emotion. Now here's the ticket. What is he talking about? What does adultery have to do with it? It sounds like all the sudden in this provocative, helpful conversation of anger, Paul is changing the subject. He's not. And I was a very angry man. This passage blew my head off in a way that was just life transforming. What he means is that sinful human anger is rooted in spiritual adultery. The love that I'm supposed to have for God has been replaced by love for something else. If even in this moment. And as long as sin will still lives inside of us, we will oscillate between true true worship of God and idolatry. So in this moment what's driving my heart is not love for God. It's craving. It's worship of something else. Confession here. One of the big ones for me is time. I incessantly measure time. I've noticed this about you. I've I have never used an alarm in my life. Really? I don't know. I can I can say to myself if I have to get to a plane early in the morning, wake up before a clock, a four-clock I wake up. Really? Yeah. It's nothing to be esteemed. It's just insanity. Yeah. I was going to say you're very rare that way. But I'm very project oriented. I know exactly how all my assigned duties on life, how long it should take me. I am always rushing in a competition myself to get things done. And I hate having to wait. I want my biggest struggles with with Lohella is she's not that way. She's very methodical. She's under the mistaken notion of doing something well is better than doing it quickly. Mistake in notion. You're still wrestling with it right now actually. And I've had to confess more than I would like to admit that that becomes a more ruling thing in my heart. Then love is. And all of us have areas of susceptibility like that. So in those moments, I'm angry, not as a product of love, pure heart, justice or mercy, but because what I want has been thwarted. It's just spiritual adultery or another term idolatry. And that to me was because I could always say, isn't it right to be on time? And isn't it? No, I had ways of justifying that anger. And this just took them all away. I mean, I don't know when I felt like my heart was more naked before the Lord. I was just exposed by this passage. For which I am eternally grateful. But it was mortifying. Did I have to do with the word adulterous in particular? Is that something that was like very intentional about going after your heart? Because adultery is such a strong word. It's such an ugly thing. Right. That indictment was very, very convicting. Notice how what God is doing the midst of this. He says he yearns jealousy over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us. Notice it's not holy spirit. It's talking soul here. Look at the contrast. While I'm giving away my heart, God is fighting for my heart in redeeming grace. Yeah. I think that it's important to understand that the hurt that can come with actual adultery that happens between a married couple is because there is such love there. Like when love is betrayed, it's just the deepest kind of hurt. And so God intentionally uses this word to help us understand that his anger comes as a result of his love here. Again, we're coming back to that same thing. Remember that Ezekiel uses graphic sexual language to describe the idolatry and spiritual adultery of Israel. Because that was meant to be graphic and distasteful and rattling. That's picked up in this passage. Yeah. I love that sinful human anger is rooted in spiritual adultery. It's the result of love for God being replaced by love for something else. Yeah. And because God loves us, he yearns jealousy jealous over our souls. And then he says, God, a prozer probably gives grace to the humble, submit yourselves there for to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Here's what you need to understand. Sinful anger is must be dealt with vertically before you'll ever get control over it horizontally. My problem is not first with you. My problems with God. My problem with the lovela is not first that I don't love lovela well enough. My problem is I don't love God enough. And because I don't, I don't love lovela well enough. That's the order. And that is just such an important inside. So helpful. Yeah. And that's right where James goes. Yeah. He doesn't say, okay, you got to manage your anger. I have to say this. Our hope is not an anger management. Our hope is in heart realignment. It's got to be said. Yeah. You know that trying to manage your anger is is like trying to keep a cake of dynamite from exploding when it's already been lit. It's just you won't successfully do that for long. And so often anger management, it's just behavioral management. Yeah. You know, get out of the situation, but the thing is, this problem has been solved. It's like me saying to you, you better be glad I'm a Christian. Because if I wasn't a Christian, I would deck you. Now, is that what God wants me? No, absolutely not. Because the battle for the heart is lost. I may not, I may not be hitting you. I'm, but I'm murdering you in my heart. And so this is, this is not anger man anger management passage. Now, if that's where you are in your spiritual growth, that's a good thing. It's a good thing you're no longer hitting people. But don't think that's the battle solved. And that's that's that that might be a very concerning thing for people to hear too, because they think I can't control it. I can't manage my own anger in order to get to a certain place. This is not self-help. This should lead you to a spot of neediness. This should lead you to a spot of going, I can't control this. I can't do this. God, I need you to do this for me. That's a really great position to be in. You may successfully hold your arms at your side. But the rage, the hatred, the desire for bad things to happen to that person, that is only removed by transforming grace. And that's why it says, submit yourselves there for the God. Surrender. And resist the devil. And he will flee from you, which is wonderful. Yeah, crazy. He's not fleeing from my power, but the power of the one who lives with me. Yes, yes, very good. Draw near to God. And he will draw near to you. And notice, again, this goes back to earlier, cleans your hands and purify your hearts. Hands is behavior and heart. Got to fight the battle on on both levels. But I think this insight that human anger is rooted in spiritual adultery that, but when I understand my anger, I don't look outside. I look inside. And if I want to solve my anger, I do that first vertically before I ever try to solve it horizontally. And reminding yourself to verse the beginning of verse six, but he gives more grace. We need that grace to think that we can control it ourselves is impossible to do. Yeah. And then that's that's a beautiful thing to to point out. I also think that the end James says, can I be honest with you? Your problem isn't that that you don't laugh enough. Your problem is you don't weep enough. Yeah. Yeah. Let your laugh to be turned to morning. If God will give us eyes to see ourselves as we actually are, we would weep. Not weep because we think we're going to hell because we know our destiny is secure and our stand is secure. But weep at how far we are from where grace could enable us to be. Yeah. And know that in this process, it's not it's not about getting to a this kind of phantom spot where we're not angry anymore. It's God wants to be with us in that process. It's about then now as much as it is is about the destination. A lot of times we think, we'll get to heaven one day. It will I will be like this one day. This won't be a problem anymore. Well, that doesn't mean we shouldn't neglect the present. God wants to be working in our lives and be next to us in this process, extending grace as we become sanctified more and more. You know, I think one of the things God does is he gives us exposure to things that use as metaphors for us. I've known the Lord for a long time and I have a high level of biblical literacy and theological understanding and it can be a temptation to think I arrived and I was. I was listening to an interview with Michael Jordan probably the best greatest basketball player who ever lived. I think by the time this interview had won several championships and he says someone the interviewer said what what should the day of a game like for you? He said, well, I'm I'm usually the first one in the gym shooting shots and person said, well, you're one of the best ever. And he said my my shooting percentage hovered between 50 and 51%. He said that means almost half the time I failed. I will never stop practicing. And I thought what an application to our lives with the Lord. I was listening to years ago an interview with Betmiddler who in the 70s and 80s was renowned for her voice. She began talking about her career and she said, I still take voice lessons. Really? And she said, I'm going to any voice lessons till I'm going. And I thought both those examples I really believe that my Lord brought those into my life to be a word picture of where he wants me. I'm never going to stop studying his word. I'm never going to stop looking into that mirror. I'm never going to stop confessing because whatever a topic I look at, I'm filled with all at the beauty of my Lord and filled with grief at how far I am from it. We have seen a gorgeous picture of what anger can be. And it's purest, holiest, just most loving and merciful form. And we also have seen how ugly anger can be. God's anger is a huge blessing to us. Our anger can be a huge spiritual danger to us. And by God's grace, we can do better. We can be better. Rather than running to righteous arguments that justify our anger, how about running to God in humble confession and say, wow, there's a lot more spiritual adultery in my life than I would have thought there was. Yeah. Yeah. There are a lot more moments when I'm ruled by something else other than you. And I'm here to humble myself before you and say, please help. Yeah, those are beautiful prayers because it exposes your neediness. And I think it's important to remember that God loves needy people. He loves needy people. And it allows him to shine. The promise of the gospel is a broken and contrite heart. Yeah. He won't despise. Yeah. Come to him and brokenness. He sees through your righteousness. Yeah. He gives grace to the humble. Yeah. And you come, submit to him. The exalting will be done by him. You don't need to do it. Yeah. And anger is one of those things I just think who could stand before the scriptural description of righteous anger in all of its mercy and all of its justice and all of its love and not say, I fall short of that standard. We all do. And for that I'm very thankful for our, for ours, the conversation. They've been a huge reminder to me, huge, hugely convicting to me and motivating. Yeah. Yeah. And thanks for being honest. From the beginning, you talk about your anger and even talking about this example that you, you had earlier with just being honest about what you wrestle with too, because sometimes we could look at our heroes and, and go, I'll never be like that because I'm just never going to achieve that. So I appreciate you being authentic about your continuing struggles with these things because it, it, it, it exposes our need for the gospel and weakness is an advantage if, if, if, if dependence on Jesus is the actual goal. So. Well, it's gotten hard for me to call others to confession and be unwilling to confess myself. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to say as you come, as you begin to face your heart and face who you really are, understand there's nothing that could be known exposed or revealed about you that hasn't been covered by the person who work of Jesus. You don't need to be afraid. Yes. welcoming arms of love will greet you. And what is broken God has the power to make new. Yeah. This is the gospel. The blessing and danger of anger. Thank you, brother. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in to the Paul Trip podcast. If you've been enjoying this podcast, please leave us a review. Each review helps us reach more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you were blessed by what you've heard today, would you consider supporting Paul's not-for-profit ministry? Your donations help Paul create more of these free gospel-centered resources. Gifts can be made online at PaulTrick.com/give. Thanks for your generosity and we hope you tune in a gift.