WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.400 Well good evening, it's great to be here tonight. We continue our series in the 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:12.400 Book of Proverbs and this has been given a very apt title. The title is Becoming 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:18.839 Wise because that's what God desires from his people, that we grow in our faith, 00:00:18.839 --> 00:00:25.080 that we grow in holiness, that we grow in righteousness, that we clothe ourselves 00:00:25.079 --> 00:00:31.919 with Christ and a product of this is an ever-increasing measure and application 00:00:31.919 --> 00:00:39.119 of wisdom to our lives. To the situations we all face daily where we have to make a 00:00:39.119 --> 00:00:44.200 decision and in the past seven weeks we've had some great stuff, some stellar 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:50.239 stuff from Alistair, Corey, Neil, Derek and Tom and I've been listening to that 00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:56.359 online in my own prep just to get into the Book of Proverbs. So I don't really 00:00:56.359 --> 00:01:02.560 want to reiterate too much of what they've said or tread some old ground but I 00:01:02.560 --> 00:01:06.120 really do want to say one thing that they have all said in a different form. 00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:13.640 Wisdom is something that we need to seek and pray for especially in our modern 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:20.439 progressive world. The Bible might not have an explicit command about an issue 00:01:20.439 --> 00:01:25.879 that we are faced with each and every day but by learning from God's Word, 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:33.000 knowing Jesus, loving him and loving the things that he loves, we are equipped 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:39.599 with the tools to discern true wisdom. So no matter what you're faced that is 00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:46.879 your paradigm as how we view the world, whether it be in the workplace, at home, 00:01:46.879 --> 00:01:53.679 in a relationship, how we can duct our family lives, we need to learn to love 00:01:53.679 --> 00:01:59.199 what the Lord loves and hate what the Lord hates. Therefore we do not have the 00:01:59.199 --> 00:02:03.519 luxury of saying the Bible doesn't really comment on that so it's a bit of a 00:02:03.519 --> 00:02:10.039 gray area because the Bible teaches us about God and about who Jesus is. We can 00:02:10.039 --> 00:02:14.680 look to Jesus and see what he liked and disliked, what he loved and what he 00:02:14.680 --> 00:02:21.639 hated and that helps us live a wise and righteous life as we go through this 00:02:21.639 --> 00:02:28.719 world. Or to put it into the language of Proverbs, Proverbs 9 verse 10 says, the 00:02:28.719 --> 00:02:33.919 fear of the Lord is a beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One 00:02:33.919 --> 00:02:42.840 is in sight. Wisdom is knowing what pleases God and living a life for that 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:48.199 sole purpose. And we should be so thankful for the book of Proverbs because it 00:02:48.199 --> 00:02:51.599 doesn't really, as I would say in the Highlands, it doesn't really mince its 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:55.960 words, it short sayings, we can just grab ahold of them and we can understand 00:02:55.960 --> 00:03:01.520 them without too much digging. And as the point, the writer of Proverbs wants it to 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:06.360 be easy, accessible. I think Corey said in his introduction to this series, this 00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:11.800 was from an old wise man to the young guy coming up, how to teach him, how to 00:03:11.800 --> 00:03:17.600 make him wise for the jobs and the world that he's going to face. And there's a 00:03:17.600 --> 00:03:22.480 lot of challenges within the book of Proverbs to becoming wise, but I've been 00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:28.639 asked to speak on one of the oldest enemies of wisdom and that is our anger. 00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:34.399 And this week, the words of John Calvin have been rattling around my head that 00:03:34.399 --> 00:03:39.239 if a preacher hasn't first preached a sermon to himself, John Calvin says, it's 00:03:39.239 --> 00:03:44.519 better to slip on a step and break your neck before you preach that sermon. So 00:03:44.519 --> 00:03:48.239 I'm really glad that we don't preach from up there anymore because that's a lot 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:56.680 of steps because anger is an emotion that we're all so familiar with, aren't we? 00:03:56.680 --> 00:04:03.920 We get angry sometimes daily and this is why the writer of Proverbs picks this 00:04:03.920 --> 00:04:10.320 emotion because it can blind us to wisdom. So I have three short points 00:04:10.320 --> 00:04:14.040 hopefully for us this evening, I'm going to break the Proverbs up and just discuss 00:04:14.040 --> 00:04:17.759 the type of anger that the writer is talking about and I've decided to call 00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:22.599 it the good, the bad, and the ugly. So the first point this morning is this 00:04:22.599 --> 00:04:28.759 evening is the good and yes there is a good type of anger. The Bible sometimes 00:04:28.759 --> 00:04:35.680 calls this a righteous anger. Now before we all quickly try and say oh how much of 00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:41.199 our anger is righteous, I'll just say right at the outset that 99% of the anger 00:04:41.199 --> 00:04:48.519 that we feel is not righteous, it's not good, and it's not healthy. But the writer 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:54.120 of Proverbs never tells us to destroy anger. The Bible is quite clear that we 00:04:54.120 --> 00:04:59.519 are to destroy sent. To stamp on it, the psalmist says, get rid of it. The book of 00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:04.879 Proverbs never talks about anger that in that way. We are not meant to be like 00:05:04.879 --> 00:05:10.240 you know Spock or the Vulcans in Star Trek who have eradicated all the emotion. 00:05:10.240 --> 00:05:18.639 But what the writer says in Proverbs 14, 29, whoever is slow to anger has great 00:05:18.639 --> 00:05:27.560 understanding. But he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. Or 1632, whoever is 00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:33.280 slow to anger is better than the mighty and he who rules his spirit than he who 00:05:33.280 --> 00:05:40.199 takes the city. The writers tell us that we need to be slow to anger. Not to 00:05:40.199 --> 00:05:45.800 get rid of anger but to be slow. Paul highlights this for us in Ephesians 4 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:53.360 which Stephen read for us. He says be angry but do not sin. The slowness of 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:59.519 anger that the Bible teaches us is to reflect upon it. To push it through some 00:05:59.519 --> 00:06:05.719 filters is this a justified anger that I am feeling? We are to bring it to Jesus. 00:06:05.719 --> 00:06:10.159 Is this something that would anger him? We are to pray about it and bring it 00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:16.840 before God's word. Proverbs 19, 11 says this is good sense. Makes one slow to 00:06:16.840 --> 00:06:23.680 anger and it is his glory to overlook an offense. It is just good sense to push 00:06:23.680 --> 00:06:32.720 anger through these filters to make sure it's not coming from a sinful place. We 00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:38.760 see righteous anger in Matthew 21 with Jesus. Jesus goes to the temple and he 00:06:38.759 --> 00:06:44.240 looks around he sees things being sold. People having to pay to get in to worship 00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:48.560 God. It's like tonight the front row they all paid a thousand pounds and poor. 00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:52.920 The guy's in the sound booth 20 quid. You know there's something wrong with that. 00:06:52.920 --> 00:06:59.879 Jesus gets angry. He turns on over the tables. Makes a whip and chases people out. 00:06:59.879 --> 00:07:06.599 But there was no sin in his action. Jesus was trying to protect the poor, the weak 00:07:06.600 --> 00:07:13.400 who just wanted to worship God without being taxed to death. He wanted the temple 00:07:13.400 --> 00:07:20.280 to be purely for worship to his God and our Father. David Paulson in his book 00:07:20.280 --> 00:07:27.680 Good and Angry writes God who is good and does good expresses good anger for a 00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:37.079 good cause. Jesus gets good and angry in the service of mercy and peace. This is 00:07:37.079 --> 00:07:44.040 the perfect display of righteous anger, good anger, being angry at what angers 00:07:44.040 --> 00:07:49.519 God. This form of anger is actually good because it moves us from inaction to 00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:55.960 action. We want to do something about it. So as Christians we should get angry at 00:07:55.959 --> 00:08:02.319 injustice. We should get angry at things like the poor getting poorer and the rich 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:10.680 getting richer. We should get angry at so much that it goes on in our world. But 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:16.759 unfortunately for us as I said 99% of our anger that we live with daily does 00:08:16.759 --> 00:08:22.279 not come from a good place. It cannot be called righteous or healthy. In fact it's 00:08:22.279 --> 00:08:28.399 bad. And that's my second point this evening. So what is bad anger? Bad anger 00:08:28.399 --> 00:08:34.000 in Proverbs I would say is the type of anger that blinds us to biblical wisdom 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:42.439 to becoming wise. We can see this quite clearly in Proverbs 1919. A man of great 00:08:42.439 --> 00:08:48.159 wrath will pay the penalty for if you deliver him you will only have to do it 00:08:48.159 --> 00:08:55.399 again. The anger of this man is kind of like an eruption isn't it? And you can 00:08:55.399 --> 00:09:01.879 see from his actions he habitually gets himself into trouble. You have to rescue 00:09:01.879 --> 00:09:06.319 him and then again you have to rescue him because he's so consumed with his anger 00:09:06.319 --> 00:09:10.719 he can't put wisdom on, he can't live a wise life and just keeps getting into 00:09:10.719 --> 00:09:17.199 trouble, trouble, trouble. Ultimately this man in Proverbs 1919 is acting like a 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:22.200 fool and he is a fool because he's not putting on wisdom he's not learning 00:09:22.200 --> 00:09:27.440 from God. You all know what I mean but in your anger you've done or said 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:32.800 something, they hate the moment and just snapped. And then next minute you walk away 00:09:32.800 --> 00:09:38.520 thinking oh what an idiot shouldn't have said that. You feel that because you were 00:09:38.520 --> 00:09:44.600 stupid you were being an idiot. You were reacting in anger and in the folly. This 00:09:44.600 --> 00:09:51.159 form of anger is easy, it's impulsive and it blinds us to push in our anger 00:09:51.159 --> 00:09:57.840 through filters like prayer in God's Word. We don't take a moment to reflect, we 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:04.879 just explode and it makes us feel a wee bit good. There was an insightful article 00:10:04.879 --> 00:10:11.000 in The Times last year about the American anger crisis. I didn't know America was 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:16.480 having an anger crisis but last year they were and the writer says anger is the 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:24.399 lazy person's emotion, it's quick, it's binary, it's delicious and the more and 00:10:24.399 --> 00:10:32.960 more we are gorging on it. That's similar for us in Scotland. We're quick to anger, we're gorging on it. 00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:40.519 This anger is ultimately bad as well because it leads us to sin. Proverbs 00:10:40.519 --> 00:10:48.319 29 and 22 says a man of wrath stirs up strife and the one giving to anger 00:10:48.319 --> 00:10:54.079 causes much transgression. This is the sort of guy that you pray you don't get 00:10:54.079 --> 00:11:01.519 as a flatmate, isn't it? Stares up strife causes much transgression. These are 00:11:01.519 --> 00:11:06.039 almost the opposite words to Paul. You know Paul says be angry but do not sin. 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:13.719 This man here by his impulsive anger is causing transgression. He is leading 00:11:13.719 --> 00:11:21.120 himself into sin which ultimately hurts him and hurts those around him. That's 00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:27.679 why anger is bad. Mark Twain also wrote a very insightful comment. He says anger is 00:11:27.679 --> 00:11:34.480 an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than anything 00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:41.600 on which it is poured out upon. It hurts us. It leads us to transgression. It 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:49.320 leads us to sin. Anger unchecked and uncontrolled hurts and it hurts those 00:11:49.320 --> 00:11:55.800 around us. On the flip side, we all have what's called emotional 00:11:55.800 --> 00:12:00.600 intelligence. We can look at people and the three top emotions that 00:12:00.600 --> 00:12:05.560 people can sense our anger, happiness and sadness from a facial expression. So we 00:12:05.560 --> 00:12:10.159 can all sense in a room when someone's angry. You know we can see it on people 00:12:10.159 --> 00:12:15.519 and it can spill out of them. And sometimes we think oh we need to repress 00:12:15.519 --> 00:12:21.159 us so no one can see our anger. Repressing it into our heart what we are 00:12:21.159 --> 00:12:29.960 actually doing is refining it. We're making it more toxic in our lives. Again 00:12:29.960 --> 00:12:34.519 in his book Good and Angry, David Paulson talks about this. He talks about a lady 00:12:34.519 --> 00:12:40.960 called Helen who was in her 60s and he commented about her that her anger had 00:12:40.960 --> 00:12:47.000 destroyed almost all her relationships in her life. It cost her jobs, friendships, 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:54.480 relationships. She spoke of grievances that went back decades and he says her 00:12:54.480 --> 00:13:03.080 anger was fresh like a fire. David Paulson wrote her rage seeded continually, 00:13:03.080 --> 00:13:11.320 barely controllable on the edge of exploding. It's an awful anger isn't it? 00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:16.680 It's just ugly. And the writer of Proverbs tells us not to make friends with 00:13:16.680 --> 00:13:23.000 this person in Proverbs 22, 24. Make no friendship with a man given to anger nor 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:30.600 go with a wrathful man. The writer of Proverbs knows all too well that this 00:13:30.600 --> 00:13:38.399 anger is seeding underneath, ready to strike out. So the wise need to recognize 00:13:38.399 --> 00:13:45.519 it and move past it. The truly wise take it to our other Lord Jesus Christ. Take 00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:52.080 their anger to him, take their heart to him and learn from him to be wise. But 00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:57.840 this anger here is ugly from Helen and that leads us on to our final point this 00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:04.280 evening. And I would say that the ugly anger that we have in Proverbs is a 00:14:04.280 --> 00:14:11.120 type of anger that does not look to be resolved. The type of anger that destroys 00:14:11.120 --> 00:14:16.400 and distorts relationships. Proverbs 30, 30 free is a very interesting one that 00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:22.199 says, for pressing milk produces curds, pressing the nose produces blood and 00:14:22.199 --> 00:14:32.360 pressing the angry produces strife. You know this person here cannot control 00:14:32.360 --> 00:14:37.159 themselves and the pressure is on and things are happening if they have a busy 00:14:37.159 --> 00:14:41.600 workload at work, the kids are going mental. What happens? They just lash out, 00:14:41.600 --> 00:14:48.560 they produce strife wherever they go. They don't have the ability to push their 00:14:48.560 --> 00:14:54.360 anger through any sort of filter. Shakespeare writes kind of on this 00:14:54.360 --> 00:15:00.639 theme in Othello, man in rage strikes out at those that wish him the best. And 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:05.680 this is so true of this ugly type of anger. It's waiting to lash out, it's 00:15:05.679 --> 00:15:14.000 waiting to hurt, it's waiting to cut. It's so ugly in relationships. And it's 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:17.719 normally unfortunately for us the ones that we love, the ones that we are 00:15:17.719 --> 00:15:24.399 closest to, that this anger strikes out at the most. Our spouse, our children, our 00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:29.199 dear friends normally get to see the ugly side of us more than an acquaintance. 00:15:29.200 --> 00:15:37.440 We would just ball it up if it was them. I read this week of Walt Ragman, I think 00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:41.879 that's his last name, in the book called Ragman, Another Cry of Faith and he's a 00:15:41.879 --> 00:15:46.960 great illustration of this. Walt recounts a story between him and him in his mouth 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:52.440 that his wife had bought a small flat, it's like a one-bedroom thing, so the bed 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:57.000 and the living room kitchen were all one. And he says he would frequently get into 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:01.600 these arguments because they're just in such tape proximity. And Walt's solution 00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:05.879 to this was to grab his jacket and storm out the flat and go a walk. And he says 00:16:05.879 --> 00:16:10.519 one night that him and his wife had a real barn, a real barny or a real 00:16:10.519 --> 00:16:16.000 argument and it goes to the temperature got so high, so hot that he stormed out 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:21.960 and as he stepped out the door caught inside of his jacket with the keys on 00:16:21.960 --> 00:16:26.679 the other side of the door. So Walt in his anger tried to pull the jacket, boom 00:16:26.679 --> 00:16:33.759 come free. So Walt had two options, either to go a long walk in the pouring rain or 00:16:33.759 --> 00:16:41.519 to knock the door. So a few moments passed and Walt decided eventually to 00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:47.359 knock the door. And the door opened immediately and his wife burst out laughing 00:16:47.359 --> 00:16:51.039 because the whole time she had seen the jacket corner going up and down as he's 00:16:51.039 --> 00:16:59.679 trying to free it. And Walt had a choice then. He says in that moment I could have 00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:04.920 simply laughed with her and our humour would have provided the bridge to 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:11.399 reconciliation. But I refused to do so. I gathered up my jacket, walked out into 00:17:11.399 --> 00:17:18.519 the rainy evening, a prisoner of my own refusal to laugh. To see the ugliness of 00:17:18.519 --> 00:17:26.799 this anger doesn't seek to be resolved. How it isolates people. How ultimately it 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:31.359 makes them foolish. All Walt had to do was laugh with his wife there and 00:17:31.359 --> 00:17:35.960 reconciliation could have happened. It could have been the first step but he 00:17:35.960 --> 00:17:43.400 didn't chose to grab his jacket and walk out in the pouring rain. Proverbs 27 verse 00:17:43.400 --> 00:17:50.400 four says wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming. It is ultimately ugly and 00:17:50.400 --> 00:17:56.600 unattractive. Walt points this out. It doesn't look for reconciliation and the 00:17:56.600 --> 00:18:01.960 writer of Proverbs knows this. That's why he says in 193 when a man's folly 00:18:01.960 --> 00:18:12.000 brings him to ruin his heart rages against the Lord. Anger is ugly, it is bad and it 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:20.039 blinds us to be reconciled to God. In our anger we don't want answers sometimes. 00:18:20.039 --> 00:18:27.200 We just want to rage. Take this scenario that has happened to me before. You come 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:31.039 out your car and you step into a puddle and you go for a job interview and you're 00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:39.000 instantly, why God? Why did you let this happen to me? You rage instantly and your 00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:44.200 anger you lash out. Even though the Lord has given me eyes to see that puddle and 00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:50.359 when I step in it is my own fault but I rage towards him. The Lord has given us 00:18:50.359 --> 00:18:57.519 the Bible that can save us from drowning in our own anger but instead we 00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:04.480 blind ourselves in our sin and we don't apply that wisdom to our hearts and minds. 00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:11.599 And that's the real issue here tonight. That anger is a heart issue. It can't be 00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:18.640 solved purely by an intellectual reasoning. It's not a problem to be solved. 00:19:18.640 --> 00:19:23.720 Self-control, yes, can help but ultimately self-control will not keep your 00:19:23.720 --> 00:19:28.960 anger at bay. There's a good example from history from this. There was a guy 00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:36.200 called Seneca who was a philosopher and I think it was 49 AD years around those 00:19:36.200 --> 00:19:42.600 and he had this job to teach this 12 year old how to conduct himself in court 00:19:42.600 --> 00:19:50.759 and Seneca says that this child had a murderous temper and he recognized 00:19:50.759 --> 00:19:56.440 immediately that he had to mitigate this anger with philosophy. The young boy's 00:19:56.440 --> 00:20:01.480 name was Nero and he said whenever the young boy hugged him and said Seneca I 00:20:01.480 --> 00:20:06.000 love you I would never hurt you and his heart he knew that this boy didn't mean 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:12.480 any of it because his anger was just seeding underneath. Seneca's philosophy 00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:18.840 never changed the life of Nero. It never impacted his heart. World philosophies, 00:20:18.840 --> 00:20:25.360 worldviews generally do not impact the heart. What we need is something, something 00:20:25.359 --> 00:20:31.599 outside ourselves to put a new heart within us and that's one of the promises 00:20:31.599 --> 00:20:38.240 of the gospel that when we encounter Jesus our affections are changed. Things 00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:42.719 that would rail as before become slow because we look to him for what 00:20:42.719 --> 00:20:49.799 angers him first. We look to Jesus and look to his love to live our lives. 00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:56.639 Jesus even says in Matthew for where your treasure is there your heart will be 00:20:56.639 --> 00:21:05.359 also. So anger comes from a misaligned heart. We get angry because our pride has 00:21:05.359 --> 00:21:11.480 been dented. We get angry when things aren't going our way. What Jesus is saying 00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:17.639 we need a new heart within us. Proverbs tells us that as well. Proverbs 4, 23 00:21:17.640 --> 00:21:24.440 keep your heart with all vigilance is the writer. From it flows the spring of 00:21:24.440 --> 00:21:32.680 life. So true biblical wisdom is applying the words of Jesus Christ to our heart. 00:21:32.680 --> 00:21:39.640 Living for him and him alone. So how do we do control our anger to reflect on it 00:21:39.640 --> 00:21:46.080 as a group? Well as a group we hold one another accountable. We read from Ephesians 00:21:46.079 --> 00:21:52.439 4 you know we are told to put off former things and put on the new. And as a 00:21:52.439 --> 00:21:56.639 church we are accountable to one another so as we live our lives daily we hold 00:21:56.639 --> 00:22:02.639 each other accountable. And secondly we bring all our anger and our heart to our 00:22:02.639 --> 00:22:07.599 Lord Jesus Christ. One of the big things that people think is God just wants the 00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:14.039 best of you. Like your achievements or your goodness. The beauty of the gospel 00:22:14.039 --> 00:22:20.279 is Christ came for all of you. Your brokenness, your heart, your anger and he 00:22:20.279 --> 00:22:30.000 gives healing, restoration and a new heart. So for us to become wise is looking 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:35.599 to our Lord Jesus Christ loving him, loving the things that he loves and 00:22:35.599 --> 00:22:46.519 being angry at the things that anger him. Let us pray. Dear heavenly Father we just 00:22:46.519 --> 00:22:52.119 thank you tonight for all the emotions that you have given us. Lord we would 00:22:52.119 --> 00:22:57.119 pray that we would bring all of them before your throne. Lord that we would 00:22:57.119 --> 00:23:02.959 really look to you and push our anger our feelings through the filters of prayer 00:23:02.960 --> 00:23:08.720 and biblical wisdom. That we would really put off anything that would hinder us. 00:23:08.720 --> 00:23:15.000 And Lord we thank you that you gathered us as a community. That we can keep one 00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:20.039 another accountable in your work. So Lord if we're sitting here tonight and we 00:23:20.039 --> 00:23:26.079 are raging against you in our hearts. We would pray that you would send your 00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:32.840 Holy Spirit that comforter to show us the love of Jesus Christ. Lord that we 00:23:32.839 --> 00:23:38.720 would become wise in your eyes and we would live that out daily in our lives. 00:23:38.720 --> 00:24:04.120 In Jesus name. Amen.