God’s Promises for Every Need: Anger
Proverbs 25:21-22
#EveryNeed
ANGER NARRATIVE 1
Your grandchild has been working really hard at learning soccer and playing soccer. They aren’t all that good in all honesty… they just started playing and learning about the sport. No one is good when they start something because it takes practice. You are watching the game in the stands with everyone else. The game starts. It’s all going fine. Cheering is fun. There is a parent on the front row who thinks they should be the coach and yet isn’t. He’s telling all the players what to do and how to do it. He’s an expert on everything. Even the kids are a little confused because they hear the coach’s voice, but also hear this guy yelling out. The confusion causes a mistake on the field and the other team scores. Then it happens. He berates your grandchild for the scored point and jokes to the people around him that, “this kid wouldn’t know a soccer ball from a tennis ball.” Your grandchild looks to the side of the field, hears the person yelling, and starts to cry.
At that moment, the yelling know-it-all went from being an obnoxious problem to an enemy who has made you completely righteously calling down-fire-from-heaven angry.
ANGER IS A BASIC EMOTION
Anger is a basic emotion.
Anger is a basic emotion because we all deal with it. If you are alive and breathing, you deal with anger. The first set of children… Cain and Abel… dealt with anger and it didn’t work out well for Abel. We get wronged, we get angry. We see something we judge as unfair, we get angry. Taco Bell stops serving the Mexican Pizza, we get angry. We feel verbally attacked by a co-worker, we get angry. Anger happens and it is an emotional reaction to the world around us that often seems unfair, belligerent, or does not meet our expectations. I also happen to think that anger is a normal part of being a human being. Anger is part of life.
Anger is a basic emotion.
When we think about anger and make it a color, we make it ‘red’ because red is a primary color. Red makes a ton of sense because it is a primary color and anger is a primary emotion. Anger makes our mouth go frowny, which is only 1 of the 2 ways our cheek muscles make our mouth move (up or down). Anger is basic. Anger is a gateway emotion which leads to hate and hate leads to suffering and suffering leads to the dark side. Anger can be described as an iceberg since the anger is on the surface, but guilt, fear, embarrassment, hurt, worry, or trauma might be hidden underneath the waves of life, but anger is the basic emotion expressed.
Anger is a basic emotion.
ANGER NARRATIVE 2
The tow-truck just drove away with your only car. Your blood pressure is through the roof and you are so angry you yell out loud. You were married once, but now you are not married. The reason you are not married is because ex-spouse decided to trade you in for a younger model and is now off living in Hawaii sipping from those little drinks made out of coconuts with the little umbrellas. The money they are spending to live in Hawaii and drink those little coconut drinks is the money you helped scrimp and save for and money for which you worked. Apparently, the car you drive is only in your ex’s name and they sold it out from under you to pay for their continued island life. Enemy. Enemy. Enemy. Anger. Anger. Anger.
ANGER IN SOME BIBLE PASSAGES
Anger is also an emotion tied often to sin in the Bible. The Bible addresses anger because all people in all walks of life will deal with anger. God knows you and I will deal with anger. God knows the ins and outs of anger and what ways you and I should process anger and what ways we should not.
READ PSALMS 37:8 = “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret, it leads only to evil”
READ PROVERBS 15:18a = “A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict”
READ ECCLESIASTES 7:9 = “anger resides in the lap of fools”
READ MATTHEW 5:22a = “anyone angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment”
READ EPHESIANS 2:26a = “In your anger do not sin”
READ JAMES 1:20 = “human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires”
Over and over and over again in God’s Word… the Word given to us because God loves us and wants the absolute best for us… God warns us that anger and the results of anger brings us no good thing. Anger solves nothing in relationships. Anger makes nothing right.
ANGER NARRATIVE 3
It is Sunday after church, and you and your family go to lunch. Some of your extended family is in town and so it is like a mini-family reunion. Your large group goes to a restaurant and takes up a really large table. You sit across from your uncle who you haven’t seen for a while. After everyone orders, while you wait for food, your uncle starts talking about politics. Specifically, the presidential debates taking place on TV. Your uncle says lots of things. How can anyone vote for a buffoon like that? How can anyone vote for him and betray the country like that? Anyone who votes for him is a loser. Anyone who votes for him has no brain or no feelings. In fact, he wouldn’t even eat with someone who votes for him. You speak up and tell your uncle that he is your candidate. Your uncle looks at you, calls you a name that shall not be repeated in a sermon in church, and leaves lunch. Not only that, he took his whole family with him and did not cancel his lunch order so you had to pay for all the uneaten lunches. Anger boils.
PURPOSE FOR TODAY
As I mentioned a moment ago, there are many Bible verses that describe anger, warn against anger, and show the end results of anger. The Bible passage that we are going to unpack today is about anger, but the verse looks at it from a little different perspective (in my opinion).
In the first short story I told this morning, the grandparent feels the need to be angry and defend the grandchild who was verbally mistreated by a parent in the stands. That seems understandable. In the second story I told this morning, the divorced person feels the need to be angry and probably to get even in some way because of obvious mistreatment and unfairness. That seems normal. In the third short story I told this morning, the verbally cursed person left with the check feels the need to be angry because of the unfairness of it all and the complete rudeness. I am thinking that in each of these situations you and I might even think that anger is normal and the right reaction in the situation. Anger feels normal sometimes.
There are times in our lives when we feel the need to be angry. We… feel the NEED … to be angry. The sermon series that we are currently in is called “God’s Promise for Every Need.” Sometimes we feel the NEED to be angry. It may be that we feel the person we are dealing with deserves our anger. The situation might be intolerable and the response needed from us is anger to change things around. Maybe the situation we are in is so awful or the people are so awful that the only right response we feel the need to have is being angry.
The reason I believe that this passage looks at anger a little bit differently is because it is directed to us when dealing with “enemies.” If there is anyone in our lives that we need to be angry with, it is someone who has crossed over into “enemy” status. Enemies are on our bad list permanently. Some people we may feel only deserve our anger and we need to be angry to deal with them. Other folks may mistreat us to the degree that they are toxic and they earn “enemy” status.
Let’s read from God’s Word this morning.
READ PROVERBS 25:21-22 (ESV)
“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink, 22 for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.”
WHAT THIS PASSAGE DOESN’T SAY
I’d like to talk first about what this passage doesn’t say.
This passage doesn’t say that you and I will not have enemies. The entire framework of the passage is speaking about a person in our life that is in opposition to us. The word literally means “hater.” Having those in our lives with whom we have a contentious interaction is a foregone conclusion. We will have people in our lives who are obstacles. It will happen. The Bible does not ever say we will be free from people who cause us pain or rub is the wrong way on purpose.
Do you want to know how I know without a shadow of a doubt that the Bible never says we will not have enemies? Jesus had enemies. Jesus Christ, Who was completely perfect and never sinned had enemies. People tried to trap Him in His words. People killed Him. If even Jesus of Nazareth, the Perfect Son of God could not get through life without dealing with bullies or enemies, you and I should not be surprised that enemies come into our lives.
This passage doesn’t say that if we hate someone or are hated by someone that we are to mistreat them. Just because you disagree with someone does not automatically make them your enemy and it also does not mean you mistreat them. Our society has lost that truth at the moment in between the couch cushions. Logic tells us that if a person is an enemy then you and I should treat them like an enemy which means starve or withhold or be angry with them. Our logic and God’s logic is often not the same. Often. Not. The. Same.
Do you want to know how I know that the Bible does not say we should mistreat our enemies? I know because in Matthew 5:44 (ESV) Jesus Christ says, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” We cannot hate and mistreat someone and love them at the same time. We cannot hate and mistreat someone and pray for them at the same time. We are called to a higher way of living.
This passage also doesn’t say that treating someone like we are told to treat them in this passage, makes the issue go away and makes things roses and unicorns. The passage does not say that the issue that made two people enemies will be resolved or forgiven. I find that shocking. We want some kind of resolution. We at least want some kind of hint of a conclusion. And yet, this verse is a season-ending cliff hanger where the show gets canceled and no one knows what happens.
Do you want to know how I know that treating someone well does not always make the issues go away? One name. Judas Iscariot. Jesus Christ had a very close follower (Matthew 26) who betrayed him even though Jesus treated him with love. Jesus did not point out to all the other disciples that Judas was a traitor. Jesus did not isolate Judas at the Last Supper… in fact Judas was sitting next to Jesus because they shared the same supper dishes. And yet Judas still did what he did and the issues remained.
WHAT THIS PASSAGE DOES DAY
So what does this passage say?
First, this passage does say that enemies will be in our lives and they are people too. They hunger and they thirst. They have needs. They have emotions. I think one of the things that we should realize is that people who hate us or people that are obstacles in our lives are also people. It is a trick of the mind and heart to de-humanize your enemies. The man on the front row verbally berating children for their lack of skill in soccer should be pitied because he obviously is trying to re-live glory days he never had. That’s terrible. That’s being a human. The person who sells a car out from under another has no character and no heart and we should feel sorry that life for them is so dreadfully narrow and that when the money runs out, so will all the fancy new toys. That is terrible. That’s being a lost human. The person who cuts off their family members because of politics has politics as their god and that is an empty god to have. We should feel sorry for them. That’s terrible. That’s being a lost human whose chosen path leads nowhere.
As we think about this and apply this, you and I need to pray and actively work at replacing our emotion of anger with something else. Pity works. Sorrow works. Sadness works. Not pity for ourselves or sorrow for ourselves or sadness for ourselves, but pity and sorrow and sadness for them! This person is so lost that they should be pitied because their mess has spilled over onto you. Ask God to remove the anger from your heart and replace it with compassion for them. That is a God-sized worthy prayer.
Second, the passage does say that when you and I act in love… instead of react like we think we need to… that we are heaping things into their lives that will make them uncomfortable. There is a Bible study word for that. It is a strange word that honestly feels sinful, but I am not sure that it is. It is a word usually associated with certain Psalms King David wrote. The word is “imprecatory.” “Imprecatory” Psalms are those that invoke judgment, calamity or curses upon one's enemies or those perceived as the enemies of God. In my brain: imprecatory means “good for me and bad for you, but God is doing the deciding.” This passage has an imprecatory feel to it. It says to us that we have enemies. It says that we are to treat our enemies with love and meet needs. In doing the loving and caring thing, we are actually making them uncomfortable and hurting them. Kindness is a burning coal on their heads. Love is a burning coal on their heads. A conscience will be a burning coal on their heads.
As we think about this and apply this, we need to adopt the perspective that throwing out compassion in the face of anger can be quite pleasurable. It is awesome when someone is being completely awful to us and we then turn around and show compassion. It burns them up! It makes them madder! It is so unexpected that we mess with their heads! And to be honest… that is quite pleasurable. They expect us to get mad back and to equally throw arrows of anger, but no… we are going to fight evil with good.
Third, this passage does give us a promise. The last 5 words of verse 22 are the promise: “The Lord will reward you.” This promise is for those times when we feel the NEED to be angry. We… feel the NEED … to be angry and God promises that He will reward us if we act in love instead of reacting in anger. It may be that we feel the person we are dealing with deserves our anger, but we are going to lay out love or understanding or blessing instead. The narrow road is love. The wide road is anger. This is absolutely contrary to our nature! God promises that in our need to be angry, He will bless us if we follow Him instead. I am going to repeat that because it is worth the price of admission, God promises that in our need to be angry, He will bless us if we follow Him on the narrow road instead of doing what we want on the wide road.
What is the reward God will give us? The word “reward” in this verse is the Hebrew word “shalom.” That is very significant. Shalom is a Hebrew word meaning peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility. When you and I follow God’s ways, He blesses us with peace in our hearts between us and Him. He gives us harmony in our own consciences that we have done all we could. Our Father in Heaven keeps our hearts whole and complete and not torn apart by anger and bitterness and acting like the very people we are dealing with. I also happen to think, beyond some blessings in this life, that God will reward us by helping to fan the flame around the coals on the other person’s head. Not to mention there are blessings after this life when God will make all things right for He is just and good and righteous.
SUMMARY AND APPLICATION
Here is the point for today. If you stopped listening a little bit ago, come on back and finish out strong. Life throws much at us and there are times when you and I feel the need to be angry. It feels right and good to do so. God’s way is different. God says to us that in the midst of a situation that makes us angry, God promises that in our need to be angry, He will bless us if we follow Him on the path of love and compassion instead. You and I have to decide if that is the kind of person we want to be. Do we want to follow God or not?
PRESENTATION OF THE GOSPEL
Perhaps you are here today and you don’t know much about God or Jesus. Maybe it surprised you when I said Jesus had enemies. I want to say something else that is true that you also may not know. We have talked about “anger” today. I want to tell you 100% that “God is not angry with you,” but I don’t honestly think that is completely true. God is angry with sin. God is furious that our sinful natures get in the way and He is separated from us… in the same way a human father who loves His children would be angry that He cannot see or be with His children. God is not in favor of disobedience and made a way for us to obey Him. 1I hope that makes sense. God loves you. God sent Jesus to die for you. God wants you in His Kingdom and as part of His family and it burns Him up when folks turn their back on Him. I hope I am explaining that well and not saying something improper about our Father in Heaven. He’s not so angry that He has cut you off… for He loves you. Jesus died for us so that we could have a way to God. God did that. For you. For me.
INVITATION AND PRAYER
