Control Your Anger

We're at James chapter 1, 19 through 20, talking about how does God think about anger, wrath? What are we to think about with this? So let's go ahead and have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we come to You this morning asking You to help us. Lord, we need wisdom this morning.
Lord, Your Word is sharper than any two-edged sword piercing to the division of joint and marrow, soul and spirit. It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts. Lord, You know the inner composition of our souls and what we're tempted towards. You know our desires. And today, Lord, You give us something that's maybe convicting, hopefully it's helpful, maybe insightful, Lord, so please help us, help us to understand, help us to believe and live in Jesus's name, amen.
All right, so we're gonna talk about anger, James 1, verses 19 through 20. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? You might notice in New King James, the word for anger isn't there. I said we were gonna talk about anger, but here it says, for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Let me turn over here to the Greek so you're able to see this with me. So, my beloved brethren, let every, all men be quick into hearing, quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to orgy in, orgy in, slow to wrath, anger. If I was to click this, this is one of these fun things. This is a Bible software called Logos. And if I was to go here to Logos and do a Bible word study, we would come over here, it's gonna bring up i orgi here. And we're able to see it's translated wrath, anger, indignation sometimes. And so bidag is a lexicon. A lexicon's like a dictionary for an old dead language.
And so i orgi, so this would be in the nominative and the genitive would be tis orgis. But the point is anger, indignation, wrath, right? Anger is the idea of the internal, right, the emotion, and then when it's seething towards another, the indignation, but then the outplaying of anger is the wrath part.
So that's why the New King James translates it this way. Now, here's something interesting. Not all anger is sinful anger. Actually, we know this because Mark 3, 5. And when he, that being Jesus, looked around them with orgy, with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, stretch out your hand, right? Jesus was angry. Jesus was angry. And so we sit here and we wrestle with this.
What does it mean? Because Paul even tells us, be angry and do not sin. So how does James tell us that we are to be swift to hear, quick to listen, quick to lending our ear to someone, slow to babbling, quick to flapping our gums. or slow to clapping, I'm sorry, and slow to wrath, slow to anger for the anger of man. Interestingly, the word for man is not Anthropos, meaning all humanity, but here specifically of men, Andres. And so, men, I think this is specifically, I wrestle with this, this is a hard passage for me as a father and as a husband and as a man to wrestle with.
My anger, when it's because of what's before this, right? Did you remember where we're coming from? When we're not enduring temptation, when we're tempted, when we're drawn away by our own desires and enticed, that desire is conceived and gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it's full grown, brings forth death, right? That anger, which is meant to be a warning sign leads to wrath.
I'm going to show a different picture here. Let me go back to my screen and show you a different tab on my screen here. So this is what somebody shared with me one time, the anger iceberg, right? And they're pointing out to me that anger is a emotion that God has given us.
And it's not a sinful emotion in and of itself. It's a response to something that's going wrong. What we need to get at is what is the temptation underneath it? We get angry, be angry, but do not sin. What is it that there's something wrong in my life? Something isn't right here. The reaction isn't to full bore run into it and be wrathful, making others seek our vengeance.
But the difficulty is what's underneath it. I know for me often, right, there's overwhelmed. Sometimes it's disappointment. Sometimes there's anxiety. Sometimes it's anger. Sometimes you have contempt towards someone. You got to work through that in a different way. Sometimes it's grief, right? Some people are angry because they're grieving.
And so asking yourself what's causing this anger to bubble up, right? And what we think of anger is often the outward manifestation, the wrath of something else going wrong in our lives. It's at this point when we hear other people, right? And we might be tempted to quickly defend ourselves or quickly go on the attack to pull ourselves back and hold on. What's really going on?
Just this morning, I had to apologize. Nathan and to our kids, right? Because I was overwhelmed with the amount of work that needs to get done today. I was getting worked up because I was trying to get through all my schoolwork with them quickly so I could get on with the work that I had to do today.
And in that desire for getting my stuff done and my overwhelm with all the work that needed to happen, as soon as there was an annoyance and somebody impeding that, That desire to do work had the inception of sin. And sin definitely had the flavor of death as I lost my anger, and I raised my voice to my own son, hurting my relationship with my own boy. This is what James is talking to us about here, right? when you put to death that anger.
We've got to deal with those sinful manifestations of our wrath, lead with the Holy Spirit, that God by His Spirit would give us the wisdom, the ability to know what is right and put it into play, to be able to say, Lord, I wasn't quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.
I didn't accomplish your righteousness, right? My wrath did not accomplish the righteousness of God with my son. My wrath rarely ever has. Because typically it's because of my own preferences, my own desires, underneath that iceberg that boil up in a selfish outburst of anger.
The Lord says we're not to be those types of people. When Jesus was angry in his heart, it was because of the hardness of their hearts, because of their sin. He had righteous anger. Hypocrites, saying that he couldn't heal others on the Sabbath, couldn't show other people love. That's why Jesus was angry.
And yet so often my anger is not for the righteousness of God, not for the love of others, but it's because of things that I want. There are things in life to be angry about, but we ought to be very careful, because the vast majority of times, what James is getting at here, what the Holy Spirit is pressing on us this morning, is that our anger, we better be really slow to hear and slow to speak, be reasonable, listen to others, because our wrath is often drawn from our temptations, our desires in us, that are taking seed and then giving birth to sin, leading to death. So be very careful about your anger. Be very careful about your wrath.
It destroys relationships, hurts people, hurts our reputation. And when we do sin, thank God, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. We can confess our sins. but yet we must repent. Pray for me, that I would grow and put into death this sin more and more. Grease me when I do mess up. I'm going to pray for all of us now, as we deal with this.
Lord, we live in an angry age. We live in a day and age where it's almost even seen like the manly thing to do, to be angry, to be mad. And yet, Lord, we confess to you that often our anger messes things up. Because we won't listen. We're too stubborn. We want to speak our way because we're too prideful. And we don't seek your righteousness, but our preferences, our desires.
God have mercy on us, forgive us for our sin. Father, we pray that you would please let us be righteous in our anger the way that Christ was. For we know that the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. So God, please help us to put on love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Against such things, Lord, there is no law.
Please, Lord, work in us the fruits of your Holy Spirit, by the power of your Son, through your Spirit, working in our lives. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. May the Lord bless you as you seek to become more and more like his Son, Jesus. Put to death your sinful anger and live for his glory. I'll see you next time. Bye.