Gracious God, as we come to your word tonight,
we ask that you would challenge again
a sin which we hold so deep within us.
Father, we pray that you would expose it,
that we would deal with it by taking it to you for confession,
and that you would help us to rise to new life,
empowered by your spirit through your word,
and in step with the Lord Jesus,
and we ask it for your sake.
Amen.
Tuesday the 15th of May, 1894,
the Baltimore Orioles baseball team went to Boston
to play a routine game of baseball,
but it ended up being anything but routine.
In the third innings, a fierce fight broke out
between Baltimore's John McGraw
and Boston's third baseman Tommy Tucker.
Within minutes, as you notice on most TV baseball fights,
both benches were cleared
as the players and the officials from both sides
ended up in an all-in rumble.
The rumble then moved to the grandstands,
and it spread like wildfire.
Literally, it spread like wildfire
because someone decided to start a fire
in amongst all the mayhem.
The fire destroyed the ballpark
and $70,000 worth of equipment in 1894.
And then it spread from the ballpark
to other Boston buildings,
and by the time it was brought under control,
the building had, the fire, sorry,
had destroyed and severely damaged 170 buildings.
Basically, one half of Boston was wiped out.
A simple altercation on third base
resulted in half of Boston being wiped out.
And I say simple because when it was over,
John McGraw, the guy who lost his temper in the first base,
said, for the life of me,
I don't know what it was about.
Proverbs 29 verse 8,
mockers stir up a city,
but wise men turn away anger.
God knows the destructive power of our anger,
and his word warns us against it consistently.
Proverbs 29,
a fool gives full vent to his anger,
but a wise man keeps himself under control.
If only John McGraw had kept his anger under control,
destruction would have been prevented.
If only he didn't unleash his anger.
If only I didn't unleash my anger,
and you unleash your anger on friends and colleagues,
people you go to school with,
or uni or work.
If only we could control our anger.
But anger makes us feel so good, doesn't it?
I mean, come on.
You know, when you really get to blow that valve,
don't you feel kind of moved afterwards?
It sort of gets the blood rushing.
I remember one day,
my younger brother was particularly being annoying,
and he was trying to pick a fight with me,
and I was thinking,
I'm not going to retaliate.
Wise man keeps his anger under control.
I drew a line in the sand in my mind.
You know,
I can put up with this,
and I decided,
when he was coming back,
every couple of minutes annoying me,
I said,
if he does it one more time,
that's going to be it.
And do you know what?
He didn't.
And I wasn't going to let him get away with it.
And so as he was walking by,
and not annoying me,
I decided,
well,
I will retaliate based on all the things you've done to me so far.
And so I drew the line back one step.
I grabbed him.
My parents were away at this particular time,
on this weekend.
I grabbed him,
and I went bang with his head
through the plaster wall of the house.
Fortunately,
in between two sort of,
you know,
but it just went straight through.
It was quite impressive at the time.
And then I had to fix the house
before mum and dad got home.
If only we treated seriously
the command from God's word,
everyone should be quick to listen,
slow to speak,
and slow to become angry.
For man's anger does not bring
about the righteous life that God desires.
You see,
our ways are not God's ways.
And we need to change from being slaves to sin,
to being serviced to Christ.
We need to die to anger.
We need to rise to patience.
Patience.
And can I say that anger is everyone's issue?
Because sin's everyone's issue.
Anger's everyone's issue.
We all express it in different kinds of ways.
There are those who blow the valve,
go off their nut,
and you can clearly say,
oh, there's an angry person.
And there are those who quietly simmer away
with unresolved anger,
quietly simmer away,
and then maybe blow,
but maybe not.
There was a married couple
who a friend of mine was talking about recently.
They spent four months
not speaking to each other.
Four months of anger.
So it's not just those who blow the valve
and go off their nut
and their face turns red.
It's those who use the silent treatment,
those who we draw from the relationship.
So how do we die to anger?
Do we count to ten?
Hold our breath?
Bite our tongue?
Well, that might help a little bit,
but we actually need to go deeper than that.
We need to let God's word do radical surgery
in our lives
as we seek to live new lives
with Jesus the boss.
So where does it come from?
We looked at last week
at Genesis chapter three.
And so where does it come from?
We see the birth of anger in Genesis four.
So if you've got Bibles there,
you need to be up.
This is pretty simple.
I think it's page four in your Bibles,
roughly.
But if it's not,
you'll find it around there.
Genesis chapter four.
Sin is born,
as we saw last week
in Genesis chapter three,
where Adam and Eve
decide to reject God.
They decide to put themselves
at the center of the world.
They decide to grab God's crown
for themselves.
They want to become their own bosses.
And now we see that anger
was being born in chapter four.
If pride comes before a fall,
then anger is right hot on its heels.
As surely as Eve gives birth to Cain,
pride gives birth to anger.
But in some ways,
this is kind of a surprise.
Because in Genesis chapter three,
it ends with the promise
of a good birth.
With the birth of sin
came a promise of a wonderful birth.
And it's there in chapter three,
verse 15,
that somewhere that Eve will give birth
to a son who will crush the serpent.
It's a promise of reversal.
Eve's offspring will defeat Satan
and put right everything
that has gone wrong in this world.
And so as we move into Genesis chapter four,
what do you think's in the back of your mind?
In the back of your mind
is the question,
is this son that Eve
has just given birth to,
is this the one?
Is this the one that's going to crush
the head of the serpent?
Could he be the one
who will defeat Satan
and make it all right
and reverse everything
that's gone wrong?
But if our hope rises
with the birth of Cain,
they are soon dashed.
Instead, Cain crushing the serpent,
he is taken captive
by sin himself.
God favours Abel's offering
over Cain's.
We actually don't know why,
but I actually think
that's the point of it.
We don't need to know why.
God is God.
We're not.
He's got all the answers.
We don't.
Cain's anger towards Abel
stems from his defiance
against God.
He wants to be at the centre.
He wants things to go his way.
He wants to be the one
who calls the shots.
He wants to be the judge.
He wants to play God.
And in Cain,
we see the sinful,
angry heart inside all of us.
Eve was visited by Satan
to talk her into sin
and now not even a visit from God
will actually talk Cain out of sin.
Have a look at verse 6.
Then the Lord said to Cain,
why are you angry?
Why is your face downcast?
If you do what is right,
will you not be accepted?
But if you do not do what is right,
sin is crouching at your door.
It desires to have you,
but you must master it.
Eve actually had to be coaxed into sin,
but Cain won't be turned away from it.
Adam and Eve tremble with a fear
after their sin,
but there is no hiding in the bushes
or trembling for Cain.
Confronted by God,
God with his brother's blood on his hands,
he literally fobs God off.
He rejected God's way,
he rejected God's word,
and now he even rejects God's reason
or God's right to even question him on it.
But the contrast between Cain and his parents
goes even deeper.
Adam and Eve didn't question the judgment
that God handed down to them,
but Cain grumbles that God's judgment is not fair.
Not only does he reject God's way,
but when God calls him to account
and passes judgment on him
because of his sin,
he sort of turns around
and files for unfair dismissal.
Who do you think you are, God?
So self-centered,
so convinced that he was right.
This is the person who was a slave to sin.
And friends, without Jesus,
that's us.
That's us.
Consumed by sinful pride,
convinced that we are the center of the universe,
that I am the most important person in the world,
and the world revolves around me,
and with me at the top of the pile,
I will unleash destruction on anyone
who gets in my way
or challenges my right to the top of the pile.
I used to see this in goats.
We used to have this on our farm,
a bulldozer,
and the goats have an amazing ability
to climb most things.
You put a wheelbarrow in the paddock,
and they'll be sitting in it
for too much longer.
But this bulldozer in the paddock,
and we used to have goats sitting
all over the tracks and on the engine bay,
and the prized position
was the top of the canopy,
right up there, the top.
And naturally,
the big guy is up on the top.
And whenever a little guy
wanted to try and get on the top
with the big guy,
because there's plenty of room up there
for us all to sit and play,
he would be there standing on the top,
and as a little goat would jump
from the engine bay
to try and get up on top of the canopy,
he'd be there with his big horns
and go,
whack!
With his horns,
and this thing would go,
tumble, tumble, tumble, tumble, tumble.
And then come back
and try and do it again.
It wanted to be on top of the pile.
And friends,
we are exactly the same.
We've got to be up there.
So where is this son
who will crush the serpent?
Where's the offspring
who will reverse evil
and fix this world?
Who reverses pride?
Who reverses self-righteous anger?
It clearly is not Cain.
And Abel's dead.
So who will it be?
Well, the answer, of course, is Jesus.
And the reversal is illustrated perfectly
in Luke chapter 23.
This great reversal that Jesus brings,
they plied him with questions.
They hammer nails into his hands.
But Jesus doesn't answer.
He doesn't take matters into his own hands.
Even Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent.
And so in Luke 23, verse 14,
this is Pilate speaking.
He says,
You brought me this man
as one who was inciting the people to rebellion.
I've examined him in your presence
and have found no basis
for your charges against him.
Neither is Herod,
for he sent him back to us.
As you can see,
he has done nothing to deserve death.
Therefore, I will punish him
and I will release him.
Pilate can see that Jesus is innocent.
But they hated this innocent one.
And so what did the crowd cry out?
Away with this man.
Release to us Barabbas instead,
but crucify him, crucify him.
It's the hatred and anger of Cain
that leads the crowd to want to crucify Jesus.
But Jesus still doesn't take matters
into his own hands.
You would think he had every right to be angry.
But Jesus isn't like us.
Unlike us,
Jesus didn't push himself
to the centre of the universe,
even though it was his right to be there.
Instead of taking matters into his own hands,
Jesus allows his hands
to be nailed to planks of wood.
He submits to his heavenly Father's will,
even to death on the cross.
As we often sing,
hands that flung stars into space
to cruel nails surrendered.
Not grasping, but giving.
Not angry, but forgiving.
Not murdering, but murdered.
Jesus is the total opposite of Cain
and friends of us too.
And Jesus' prayer in verse 34 of chapter 23 of Luke
is the reversal in its totality.
Father, forgive them,
for they don't know what they're doing.
Father, forgive them.
Forgive them.
Instead of anger,
there is the most extraordinary patience.
Even though he has the right to be the centre,
he doesn't put himself there.
He turns to his Father
and trusts in his Father
and prays to his Father.
He cops our anger towards him
and he does not retaliate.
And yet,
he would be well within his rights too.
He could have in fact demonstrated
a righteous anger towards us.
He could have so easily have crushed
Cain and Pilate
and the chief priests
and the soldiers
and the mockers
and us.
The Son of God being nailed up by
little pipsqueaks.
He could so easily have crushed them
and it would have been his right.
But he wasn't there to crush us.
He was there to crush Satan.
Jesus is the son of Eve
that the world has been waiting for
to defeat Satan in his work.
He came to reverse sin,
the sin of Adam and Eve
and Cain and our sin as well.
And so he doesn't pray down
the fire of God's wrath
but that of his forgiveness instead.
In fact,
this is the irony of your all.
The fire of God's wrath
gets rained down on him
so that his prayer for us
might be fulfilled.
Father, forgive them
for they don't know
what they're doing.
Jesus, the son of Eve
who conquers sin,
who masters sin
when Cain couldn't do it,
who at the cross
paid for our sin,
who at the cross
was bitten by the serpent
and died
but who became the antidote
for the serpent's bite
and crushed him
so that the end sin's power
is no more.
Jesus is the one
who doesn't take things
into his own hands
but puts them into God's hands.
Even Jesus didn't consider himself
to be at the centre
but his heavenly father instead.
1 Peter chapter 2.
Have a look at it.
It was read out to us
a moment ago.
Verse 21.
To this you were called
because Christ suffered for you
leaving you an example
that you should follow
in his steps.
He committed no sin
and no deceit
was found in his mouth.
When they hurled insults at him
he did not retaliate.
When he suffered
he made no threats.
Instead he entrusted himself
to him who judges justly.
That's the example for us.
To turn away from all anger and sin.
But Jesus is much more
than just a role model.
He didn't just show us
how to turn away from sin
but he turned God's anger
away from our sin as well.
Verse 24.
He himself bore our sins
in his body on the tree
so that we might die to sin
and live for righteousness.
By his wounds
you have been healed.
He bore your sin.
He paid the penalty
for your sin.
And so yes,
marvel at his example
but be grateful
he paid the price
for your sin
and for your anger.
It's important you understand
what happened for you
at the cross.
Jesus died
for you
at the cross.
he died for your anger.
He died for the way
that you have run
other people down.
He died for those
little snappy
bitey comments.
He died for the manipulation.
He died for the gossip.
The way that you have
plotted revenge
against people
in your heart.
For all the ways
that you put yourself
at the centre of the universe
and played it being God
Jesus died for it.
They're the very things
that murdered Jesus.
They're the very things
that shed innocent blood.
He died for your pride,
for your anger,
for your lust,
for your impurity,
for your greed.
That's what drove
those nails
into his hands.
But now he's fixed it all.
And now that God
has fixed it for us,
we can fix it
with each other as well.
We can fix it
with each other as well.
We don't need to relate
in pride.
We don't need to
fester with anger.
But we love
one another deeply.
That's what we're to do.
Love one another deeply.
Now I can say this
because I'm a newcomer here.
But I've actually noticed
at various ports of call
as I've been moving
around St Paul's,
it's not unsurprised,
I'm not surprised by it
because it happens
in every church
because people are here.
There's unresolved anger
in this place.
There's unresolved anger
from things in the past.
There's unresolved anger
in relationships here.
Simmering away,
never brought to the surface.
It's only brought
to the surface
when there's just
little bites that happen,
little snarly comments
that happen between people
whenever my position
at the top of the pile
is challenged.
God wants to deal with that.
He wants to deal with it
in your heart.
And I want to say,
friends,
if there is someone here tonight
that you've got anger issues with,
you've got unresolved anger,
unresolved tension with,
then please,
in the name of Christ,
go and deal with it.
Deal with it.
Now that you have purified yourselves
by obeying the truth
so that you have sincere love
for your brothers,
love one another deeply
from the heart.
Purified hearts
are loving hearts,
hearts willing to forgive
as they have been forgiven.
Now that Jesus
is your saviour,
make him your character.
Make him your character.
He's forgiven your sin.
Now he wants to kill it.
He died for your anger
so that you can rise in patience.
And so deal with the anger.
Too often,
we just want to be back there
with Cain.
When you're doing,
when there's that person
driving 40 kilometres an hour
in the 60k zone,
that's when,
for me,
Cain starts to whirl up within me.
Holding me up
when I don't have anywhere
important to go
but I need to get there quickly.
What's that?
That's me putting myself
at the centre of the universe.
Anger comes up
when I put myself
at the centre,
when I haven't been served,
when I've been gossiped about
and I want justice.
But if friends,
if I stay at the centre,
if I stay at the centre
of the universe,
I die with Cain.
I die with Cain
and not only die with Cain,
but I murder
other people around me.
Do you know what Jesus says?
If you have anger
towards your brother,
you have murdered them.
You have murdered them.
You've killed them.
You've killed something
within them.
Whenever I stay
at the centre of the universe,
I am killing people
around me all the time.
I'm taking something
of their life
and robbing them of it.
And so I need to put
Jesus at the centre
and I need to rise with him.
Friends,
we need to die to anger
and rise to patience.
Anger
kills
relationships.
It kills
relationships.
It kills
our fellowship
with each other.
So how different
are we prepared to be?
Amen.