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In biblical counseling, we usually strive to biblically define a problem. We have to do that, we have to be careful. But anger is one of those special issues where we sometimes just focus on the outside problem. We want to focus on the anger itself and not necessarily what it reveals – because it catches your attention, especially when it is an outbreak. I would like to encourage us to look beyond and view anger as an indicator. But beyond that, I want to look at just anger.
Do you know how the arm of the secret service that looks for counterfeit bills works? There are so many creative things people do to counterfeit money that the Secret Service doesn't necessarily investigate fake bills. They focus on studying the original article so that they can recognize something that is different. We often skip talking about just anger. We can have a perspective that says, "Well, there is sinful anger and just anger. We don't really make sincere anger well. So let's talk about sinful anger, because that's what we're watching."
I would tell you that if we really want to understand sinful anger, we need to understand just anger. God has a good and right design for anger. If we understand the real article, it will help us better understand how sinful man turned it into sinful anger so that we can help people who struggle with sinful anger more precisely and accurately.
We want to serve the whole individual – remember Colossians 1:28: "We proclaim him, warn everyone and teach everyone with all wisdom that we can present every mature person in Christ." It is a great mission statement for us. We can have this tendency, I know, in parenting and counseling – sometimes the same – I want to suppress the hot, turbulent outbursts or even the cold, withdrawn distancing that we see.
We go straight to the proverbs and talk about why this is a wrong way. "Look at all the orders so as not to be angry" – and we are right, if we stick to the text, we are right to do so. But if you go this way, we can miss a bigger goal. Our goal is not just to eradicate the counselor's sinful anger, but to help him understand that God has a specific design and purpose for anger. And if the situation requires it, they need to understand what just anger looks like.
Instead of just saying categorically: "Don't be angry", we go one step further.
Before we understand the sinful perversion of human anger, we need to understand what it was perverted from. What are the right elements that we can understand so that we can help people more accurately? What is God's purpose for anger? A dictionary definition of anger is: a strong feeling of displeasure caused by injustice. You notice that something you find wrong and something arises in you because you see an injustice. My revision for our purposes is: A strong feeling of displeasure, caused by a feeling of injustice that encourages action (to glorify God and appropriately address the wrong thing).
When we think of anger, we think of all sinful expressions of it, but I want to look at God's anger, Jesus' anger and even Paul’s anger in Scripture. You will see that the indignation or anger of our Lord and Father God never gets out of control at any time. He never shows the things that we would associate with human anger, so to speak. The wrath of God has some important similarities and qualities that we need to keep in mind. I would also like to say this very carefully, and maybe I will repeat myself a few times when we look at a text with God's anger expressions in Scripture. These are descriptions that are useful to us. They are not necessarily recipes.
You are not a "This is how you have to do it". If you get upset with me, don't come here and turn my table over or something like that. I want to make sure that we study this to better understand our God and understand how and why He expresses anger.
The Wrath of the Father
In Matthew 18 we see a parable that begins with Peter coming to Jesus and says: “Lord, how often should my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times? "At that time, the Pharisees taught that you should forgive your brother three times, and then you were done. The Lord replies with the parable of ten thousand talents in which the servant is forgiven his great guilt, but then he went to someone who owed him significantly less than ten thousand talents – still a lot, a hundred denarii were about a third of an annual wage – and what did he do?
He asked for it. He called for justice instead of mercy. And this is the answer of the Lord in the parable who is God in Matthew 18: 34-35. "He moved with anger and handed him over to the torturers until he was supposed to pay back everything he owed. My heavenly Father will do the same to you if none of you forgive your brother from the heart. "
We understand that God is holy and just and therefore always angry with sin, including the sins of his own children. We can at least see that from this text. Remember that there is an injustice that is perceived and that God's perceptions are always right and always true. There is a perceived injustice and then an appropriate measure.
In this parable there was contempt and ingratitude for God's offer of mercy, as the lack of mercy towards another shows and instead demands justice. If you call for righteousness in this parable, as Jesus said, God will give righteousness. If you ask for mercy, then God gives mercy. There is a connection there.
Hebrews 3: 7-11 says:
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,
"If you hear His voice today,
Do not harden your hearts when they provoke me.
As on the day of the test in the wild,
Where your fathers tried me by testing me,
And saw my works for forty years.
"That's why I was angry with this generation,
And said: "They always get lost in their hearts,
And they didn't know my ways ”;
When I swore in my anger,
"You will not enter my rest."
This is a reference to number 14 when the people of Israel refused to enter the promised land that God put before them and they wanted to return to Egypt and choose another leader. What makes sense, right? Because sin is irrational.
But what is the injustice here? What is God's anger stirred up for? That they are testing God – Hebrews explain it to us. They refused to listen to his voice, and their hearts were filled with unbelief, even so much that they were blind to the miracles that he regularly performed before them.
Because the people of God treated him with this contempt, he swore that no one of this generation above a certain age would see the country that he had promised their ancestors. That is the action he took.
Some psalms also help us to recognize similar characteristics of God's wrath.
God rebukes and disciplines in his anger. Psalm 6: 1 says: “O Lord, do not blame me in your anger and do not chastise me in your anger.”
Psalm 7:11 states: "God is a just judge and a God who is outraged every day." He is outraged every day because he is just always. That is why he is constantly outraged by injustice. These are two sides of the same coin. God's constant love of justice requires constant anger against injustice. The two are the same; they don't resist.
Who is the focus of injustice here? Who is injustice against? God. It is also very important. Righteous anger arises because of the injustice against God's wishes and plan. Not ours.
Psalm 78:21 says: “This is why the Lord heard and was full of anger; and a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also rose against Israel. “Again he is provoked because Israel did not believe in him and trusted in his redemption. We see in Psalm 78 that anger has provoked idolatry. Verse 59 states that he “detested them”. God rejected many Israelites because of their unbelief. Who is the center of injustice for just anger? God.
Christ's Wrath
What about Christ?
In Mark 3 we see a situation in which Christ entered the synagogue and there was a man whose hand was withered. The Pharisees watched him to see if he would heal on the Sabbath – they hoped. Christ knew their thoughts, he knew what they were trying to do. He said to the man: "Get up and come forward!" The man did it and Jesus turned and asked the Pharisees, "Is it allowed to do good or harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?" But they were silent. After looking angrily and sadly at the hardness of her heart, he said to the man, "Extend your hand." And he reached out and his hand was restored. "
Of course, their answer was to go right away and conspire about how they could destroy him.
What was Christ angry about? Your hardness of heart. Their man-made ritualism and greed for power outweighed God's concern for human well-being in this situation.
What did Christ do?
He confronted this hypocrisy and exposed it to others as an example. Here too, the wrath of Jesus is a necessary accompaniment to his love. Let me give you an example of how we can relate to it – the right anger is connected with love.
Suppose you and I are very close – maybe you are related to me or you are in my church. One day you come to my house and realize that I suddenly live a life that is only cold for my wife. I ignore them. It is lonely. I am numb. I might be less interested in telling the truth.
And you look at me about our relationship and you say, “Tim, what's wrong with you? I can't keep silent about it. We'll talk about it and you won't let it go. "It is an outrage that through your love for me, your love for our Church, your love for the service that the Lord has entrusted to me in my life, and how he affects Christ, because of His righteousness and not because of something that I stand for is awakened in me.
This is an outrage that is awakened by a feeling of love. They are concerned about God's glory and my testimony. You are concerned about treating another image carrier well. They worry about God's glory in our marriage and in our church. You move out of love.
The love of Christ is necessarily accompanied by his anger when the righteousness, holiness and glory of God are attacked.
In counseling we do not always tell people that they should only turn away from things. I can turn away from something, but then I have to turn in a different direction. There are 359.9 degrees of it in "another direction". We don't just want to flee from injustice. We want to strive for justice. And that is a real comfort for me. We can deal with people trapped in all sorts of weird situations, but once we understand by collecting data and moving it to a place of repentance, if the Lord wants it, we still want to protect and work on to postpone sinful thinking and to change that, but we really want to fill their plates with what it means to be a divine man or woman in their particular context of life.
We can pretty much preoccupy people with that. I want to put them back in the normal flow of discipleship where they love and serve in their church and are regularly in the Word. They pray regularly. They walk with the Lord as they should be, or at least walk that path.
Sinful anger can occur for many different reasons. When I tell you that I am an angry man, you really don't have much information to go on. I can be angry out of a feeling of injustice, which can be any number of things. I have two boys and they have given me permission to share this with you. My oldest when he was younger had some trouble that we as parents had to deal with. We started watching when he was angry and it turned out that he loved control. So if his siblings weren't playing by the rules, what came out? Anger. If they didn't do what he wanted, what would it come out? Anger.
Not so with the younger one – there were also trouble problems when he reached a certain age, and we started to see how these things manifested differently. We had to raise it very differently because it was really about revenge. Both have a lot in common, both saw a feeling of injustice (an injustice that God would not agree to was an injustice), but they saw that feeling of injustice and acted sinfully to correct this injustice in their minds.
Here is another example of Christ's outrage in Mark 10, this time towards his disciples whom he loves.
His disciples held the children back. They would not allow parents to bring their children to Christ. And when he saw that, he was outraged and said to them: Allow the children to come to me; do not hinder them; for such is the kingdom of God. "
The injustice: He loved these children deeply and tenderly. When he saw this, he told the disciples to bring them. He confronted and blamed her. He referred them to the gospel – because then he goes on to explain the faith of a believer who must be like a child and says, “Verily, I tell you who does not receive the kingdom of God as a child will not occur at all. "
And of course there is the example that we have all been waiting for – the situation when turning around in Matthew 21:12, also in John 2: 13-17.
The problem in this scene is that the money changers and cattle traders in God's temple were clearly in sin. They had desecrated the temple. It turned the physical manifestation of God's abode – before Pentecost – into a thief's pit. Christ certainly caught their attention and drove them away with chords. I say that – because Jesus is who he is, we have to understand that this was in no way exaggerated and in no way out of control.
Now remember, his anger is in step with his love. When this text is explained in John 2:17, it says, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Injustice still points to the same thing: God's glory.
And getting her out of this situation as quickly as possible is the measure he has taken. This is not a recipe for us to do and necessarily do so, but we can still understand this pattern.
Paul's anger
Galatians 2: 11-21 reports when Paul confronted Peter because of his hypocritical and loveless acts towards the Gentile believers. Paul confronted him openly – that was his act. He confronted him face to face and did so publicly because this was necessary for this particular situation. It was about the gospel – it was about God's glory, not something that Peter had done and that Paul personally displeased.
In each of the above cases, we can see where injustice comes from – what God specifically wants for his kingdom, such as your merciful love for your neighbor like you.
Sinful people pervert everything that God designs. At each of these levels there is a perversion of just anger: a wrong feeling of injustice, a wrong motive or goal, or a wrong desired result and wrong way to achieve that result.
We can really mess things up on all three levels. Our sinfulness will surely drive us to do so. What was damaged here? What do we have to pay attention to?
Corrupt perception of what is "injustice"
The curse obscures our understanding. We see that in Ephesians 4:18. We should expect it. The curse obscures our understanding so that it affects our desires and our treasures. The evil treasures of an evil man's heart will produce evil (Luke 6:45). The good treasures of a good man's heart produce the good. Because the mouth speaks from the fullness of the heart.
So if the treasure is offended and it is a sinful, idolatrous treasure, then this is the injustice that we perceive. We often don't do it right when God is not at the center of our worries, which can often be the case. "I don't get what I want," or as I heard Nicolas Ellen say, "Well, I'm angry because they don't think about me as much as I do about myself."
That stopped me on my trail so many times – what an honest assessment. If that happens, where do we have to move to? If I may come into conflict with sinful anger, even if I think there is an injustice, I must first remove the log from my own eye. I still have to deal with the sin that is on the table that I put there.
Corrupt goals in combating perceived injustice
Humans will also distort the goals in fighting this injustice. Suppose we come through this first filter and there is really an injustice that God would agree is wrong. Okay, what are we trying to do with it now?
We can distort our goals if we are not careful. We then have to deal with the question: "What am I trying to achieve by addressing this injustice?" Sinful anger is always associated with evil treasures and requires further persecution of the counselor to identify that treasure and guard the counselor on the way to repentance and good treasures.
We can take the example of my younger son with vengeance. He may have addressed real injustice, but he distorted God's goals. We can now overshadow God's goal with our goals. "I just want to be the same. I want to take the place of God and take care of it myself. "
Another example: "I just want my children to honor me! You should honor me, right? "
Or: "Why should I show my husband awe if he doesn't even run his own family?" There is an injustice – that he does not run his family. Yes, but the goal is not God's goal. It is not about restoring this husband with meekness and humility in this situation.
Stuart Scott drew it like this in his brochure From Pride to Humility. I really love these illustrations, which highlight a god-centered view versus a human-centered view, especially what helps us to remember how a human-centered view corrupts our view of other people.
This is a self-centered perspective of others, rather than being centered on God. Everything must now be "for me", "from me" and "from me", where I increase myself and my wishes. So why are there other people? When I am in this state of mind, you exist for me. They exist to please me, to serve me, to respect me and to meet my needs, so to speak. And you won't do that – not consistently anyway, not in my perception. So what should I do? I will try to manipulate you. I will judge. I will criticize. I will put things on you.
If I love myself, I will use people instead of loving people. The first and second largest commandments help us to see when I really love God, then I will love people. I will see it as an opportunity to show and express my love for the Savior. Instead of being in the middle, I see other people as somehow in the way. They either stand in the way of what I think I need to be happy with, or they have what I think I need to be happy, and they hold it against me.
For example, it is not wrong for me that my wife respects me. God calls them to do so. But if He, in His wisdom and sovereignty, allows her to sinfully withhold this from me for a period of time, and I have a sinful response to anger, then I have spoiled that good desire into an idolatrous desire.
How could I do that? Here are some quotes from counseling situations to give you a feel for how this might sound:
"Instead of clarifying things, I will say I agree with what is a lie, but then I go alone and braise about it for hours. I will then avoid the other person as much as possible."
"I'm getting angry. I throw and break things until I calm down. "
"When I fight with my husband, I quickly resort to naming names and bringing up past sins and injuries."
"When I become sinfully angry with my children, I mainly want to manipulate their external behavior as quickly as possible without taking the time and effort to address their hearts."
Corrupt actions that flow from sinful treasures
Human perversion also corrupts the actions that result from our sinful treasures and desires.
When the Bible speaks about the heart, it speaks about the inner man: our desires, our motives, our thoughts, our treasures, our feelings – all these things. These things create our behavior, as the Bible teaches us.
And it is our behavior that reveals what is in our hearts. This is so good news for the consultant. Why? Because we can't just find out this stuff.
We cannot advise as Jesus did; We cannot approach the rich young ruler and automatically know what is in it. We have to collect data. We have to be careful, we have to hold back the judgment until we learn more and ask questions and examine and dig and preserve the context. We have to be like little investigators at the scene. We observe what we can do, what the behavior is.
Therefore, you will see an example of homework later. Journaling is sometimes so helpful that I understand, "What's going on here?" Your advisor will never do anything that his heart doesn't tell him. You can observe them in many different contexts, but one thing is common in all these contexts – that is their heart and it drives their behavior.
This will ultimately show what's inside. We need to collect enough information, not just a single data point, to get there. This treasure is always there and we need time to look at it and recognize it. One way to do this is to put these discussions in real contexts. For example, come to these general conversations where your advisors say, "Yes, I have an anger problem." "Yes, he gets angry, he says that and says that."
There aren't many details there. When we want to understand scripture, we always speak of getting the context of a passage right. Well, I want to know the context of your life. Here is a good continuation of this kind of general conversation: "If I may suggest, think of the last time you got angry. Tell me what was going on. What did you do? What was going on in your head? What did you think and what did you want at that moment? "
We went from what we can see to what was going on in their hearts by thinking about a particular situation. We don't just want to look at this as an evil that flows into sinful behavior – here too the path leads to change. "Next time, what should you wish for? What does the Bible say you should want and what should you remember next time? What can you practice on? The next time you need it, don't improvise. You are not just participating in what you have practiced in the past 15 years. "
Proverbs 14:17 reads: "An angry man acts foolishly, and a man with evil means is hated." Then Proverbs 14:29 says: "Those who are angry slowly have great understanding, but those who are quick tempered increases foolishness. " We see that it turns out that a man with a quick temper acts foolishly and increases foolishness towards slow anger, which has great understanding. We see that a lot in James 4. It not only corrupts our desires – it corrupts our feeling of injustice, our desires, our goals (the things we want to achieve by addressing this injustice).
Even if we have a right goal, we have to be very careful about how we behave because we can still mess things up. If this becomes a pattern in our lives, we will have a corrupt harvest. Anger does not reach God's righteousness, it does the opposite.
In Ephesians 4: 26-27 it says: "Don't let the sun go down and don't give the devil an opportunity."
It only leads to wrongdoing if we don't stop being angry and give up anger (Psalm 37). The anger of man is said to only lead to evils – the context here is over, to be angry with the bad guys who thrive. We see that a lot in the psalms and also in our own hearts.
Hope and help for the sinfully angry person
How do we help this person? How do we help to know that? Where are we going? Again, corruption lies in how we perceive injustice, what we want, and what behavior or reactions we have. To help someone, we start at the very beginning. What kind of question are we going to ask?
First: "What injustice is this? What is the injustice here that you are angry about? "This is a really powerful first question. We want to make up for it by remembering that we are not infallible. I evaluate and observe, but I can misunderstand it.
More specifically, we should ask, "Is this an injustice in God's eyes? Would he agree that it is an injustice?" Pulling out in front of you in traffic on a busy morning (when this guy must have known you late for an important meeting at work) is an injustice and he should expect God's holy horror. Until then, he can have your holy terror, right? So ask: "Is this an injustice in God's eyes?"
Teach your lawyer to stop and ask, “Should I collect more information? Because my observations are not infallible. Should I get wise advice? "
"Is it worthy of just anger in God's eyes?"
Weigh the purpose of the answer
We have to be careful to weigh the purpose of the answer. Wir möchten ihnen beibringen, anzuhalten und zunächst die Frage zu stellen: "Was ist die Ungerechtigkeit hier? Worüber bin ich genau wütend? " Dann: "Was ist der Zweck der Antwort? Was möchte ich dagegen tun? “
Lassen Sie sie fragen: "Was will ich?" Und wir sollten ein "sollte" vor diese werfen und die Frage in "Was soll ich wollen?" Verwandeln. Was sagt Gott, ich sollte wollen? “
Darauf haben wir eine Antwort, Freunde. Wir können oben beginnen mit: „Du sollst den Herrn, deinen Gott, von ganzem Herzen, von ganzer Seele und von ganzem Verstand lieben.“ Dies ist das große und wichtigste Gebot. Das zweite ist wie folgt: "Du sollst deinen Nächsten lieben wie dich selbst" (Matthäus 22: 37-38).
Vielleicht handelt es sich um eine Gerichtsverhandlung, und Sie sind über Ihren Zustand verärgert. Es ist wichtig zu lernen, ein Anbetungsziel im Leiden zu haben. Zu sagen: "Mein Anbetungsziel ist es, dass diese Situation meine Liebe zu Christus vertieft." Das muss unser Anbetungsziel sein, anstatt über „Warum ich?“ Zu schmoren. und wütend und bitter über die Situation zu werden, in der Sie sich befinden.
Stuart Scott zeichnet das Gegenteil von dem, was wir früher so gesehen haben. Dies ist die gottzentrierte oder theozentrische Perspektive anderer Menschen, in der Gott im Mittelpunkt von allem steht – alles ist „für ihn“, „von ihm“ und „von ihm“.
Es liegt in meiner Verantwortung – und in Ihrer, Freund -, Gott anzubeten, indem ich ihn liebe und ihm diene und andere liebe und ihm diene. Menschen existieren zu Gottes Ehre, und deshalb sollten Sie anderen als Ausdruck Ihrer Liebe zu Christus und Ihrer tiefen Wertschätzung für Ihr Heil antworten.
Wenn wir richtig denken, ist das so. Anstatt sie zu manipulieren und zu versuchen, sie zu kritisieren oder ihnen gegenüber hart zu sein und meine Bitterkeit auszudrücken, müssen wir stattdessen andere Menschen lieben, dienen, evangelisieren und erbauen, die aus diesem Grund immer noch Bildträger unseres Erretters und für Gott kostbar sind
Sie sind wertvoll, unabhängig davon, wo wir bei ihnen stehen, unabhängig von ihrem Hintergrund oder unserem Hintergrund oder anderen Dingen, über die wir uns nicht einig sind – es gibt keine Entschuldigung. Wenn Gott das zentrale Interesse und das ultimative Anliegen ist, müssen wir unsere Berater in all ihren Prüfungen und in Konfliktsituationen mit diesem Anbetungsziel konfrontieren.
Wie bereuen wir und ändern unseren Kurs, wenn es etwas gibt, das ich mehr möchte, als Gott zu verherrlichen?
Wir beten darüber. Wir denken darüber nach. We flood our counselee’s mind with the truth that points to that glory.
Galatians teaches us that we are sewing seeds all the time. We’re sewing seed in one or two directions—to the flesh or to the Spirit. This is not gardening a la Tim Keeter where I put something the ground and I hope it comes up. Everything we sew comes up, and we’re sewing to the Spirit and we’re reaping a righteous harvest from that because of His work. Or we’re sowing to the flesh and we’re reaping a corrupt harvest—and not just in our consequences and getting caught, but in our testimony, the habits we bear, and our usefulness in the Kingdom and in ministry.
Our sin affects others, whether they know it or not. Every joint is not doing what it’s supposed to in the body of Christ when someone is caught up in their sin.
If I’m the victim of an injustice, I want my suffering to deepen my love for Him. I want to ask how suffering this injustice can provide an opportunity to bless other image bears.
Someone else is the victim of an injustice. What is God’s goal in this matter? What is of eternal importance here?
Eternity is really the most important dimension of life. We should sing of heaven. We should think of heaven and our salvation, and what it is bought and promised for us. At the end of the day sin will not be master over us, that’s a promise in Romans 6. That’s not a command, that’s a promise that we can stand on.
What is the appropriate action? And after we’ve looked at that, what is God’s goal? What is of eternal importance here? What is the appropriate action that flows from it and what we got say is my role then and that action.
As counselors, we pray, we comfort, and we encourage the afflicted. We comfort the fainthearted. And how long do you comfort the fainthearted? Until they’re no longer fainthearted, and they’re able to comfort others who are fainthearted.
When is that? Two or three sessions? No, it could be some time. It’s a marathon not a 50-yard dash. And as a counselor, let me encourage you make that very clear to them. “Hey, this could take time. I’m not going anywhere. Six months, years, whatever, we’re not going anywhere. We’re your church we love you. We’re here for you. We’re going to suffer with you. We’re going to walk with you and we’re going to bring you face-to-face with your Savior. Even in situations where an injustice exists and you really have nothing left to hold onto but Jesus, He has to be enough. He is our portion.”
And I’m thankful for times in my life when the Lord has left me with nothing but that to lean on.
Weigh the Nature of the Response
Let’s say it is an injustice. It really is, God agrees with us that it is an injustice. We have to be very careful with the nature of our response. This is some of the warnings we get in James and other places. So when time permits, stop and ask some questions.
When time permits, take action only after careful self-examination (Psalm 139:23-24, Matthew 7:3-5). “Search Me, O Lord, see if there’s any any sin in my own heart.” Ask carefully:
Is there a log in my eye? Because I do not want to be hypocritical in this situation.
Do I have the facts right? I am answering a matter before I’ve really heard it? (Proverbs 18:13)
Should love hide it? Do I really need to go deal with this or is this something that love should hide? Is it sinful? Is it hindering growth? (1 Peter 4:8)
Is my timing rate? (Proverbs 15:23)
Is my attitude right? (Ephesians 4:15) Am I really wanting to speak the truth in love? Or am I just really ready to hammer down on somebody that’s got it coming because I think they’re a real jerk?
Are my goals God-centered? (Psalm 73:25-28; Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 10:31)
These are good questions to ask. If you’re working with someone who is habitually struggling with sinful anger, have them go through this list when they are tempted to respond in anger.
And along with self-examination is prayerful, biblical evaluation. Bathed in prayer, asking the Spirit to help us to understand His Word, going to others who are wise in the Word for counsel to evaluate the situation biblically. When we act in righteous anger, which may be confronting and going after someone, it needs to always be consistent with passages like Galatians 5:22-23, the fruit of the Spirit. It needs to be with self-control, kindness, and gentleness. We can be firm, we can confront, but we must reflect our Savior. We must not eclipse His grace.
Ephesians 4:2 is a great passage on patience and humility, and the characteristics that are necessary for upholding good relationships with others. Ephesians 4:29 says, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” We see a coupling of kindness and gentleness with the passionate energy that is sufficient enough to address the injustice. Of course, it needs to be coupled with our love of God’s righteousness.
And I think it’s important if we are going to go confront or if we’re teaching others to confront, that they make their intentions clear as to why they’re coming. “I intend to honor God and edify to you in this situation. I intend to love you by bringing something to your attention and addressing the situation.”
And if you can before confronting, get them to pray with you beforehand.
Do you see the hesitation? Why should we not tremble when we have such a propensity to get this wrong because of our own tendency to let those kinds of things run away within us?
We see passages like James 1:19, “This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.”
We see the warning that careless speech often accompanies an angry mood. And so James pleads with us for restraint. We’re teaching restraint and evaluation when we have anger.
Ephesians 4:26 says, “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” This is not so much an imperative as it is a warning. This passage quotes Psalm 4:4, which says “Tremble, and do not sin [in your anger, do not sin is a good way to say this]; Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.” I love that Selah comes right after this. Pause, be still, restrain yourself. Teach them to do that.
Romans 12:21 gives us our role in a matter of injustice, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Righteous wrath and vengeance belongs only to God. He’ll bring about justice perfectly and in the proper time, it’s never our job. Our job is to participate in His holy plan by being a faithful vessel that overcomes evil with good. Injustice can come in a lot of forms and fashions—for example, a parent who finds out that their child has been bullied persistently through social media or at school. We have wonderful opportunities to minister to the souls of our children in those situations.
Homework Ideas
How do you train someone to exercise this restraint?
We know it’s not just about education. That’s necessary, we need to teach, but if the process of change was just about informing people, then we’re done as long as we hear the right stuff at church every week. But you know that’s not true. We know the truth. We know the Sunday School answers, and yet we still sin. Why? Because the heart is deceitful above all else.
We need to practice, we need to force our will to obey, trusting in faith that the Spirit will bring that righteous harvest up and conform us to Christ through an indwelling of the Word. We read and meditate upon His Word and apply it through obedience in our life, out of a sense of gratitude for the gospel.
Journaling can be very important. On our church website, you can find a Heart Journal sample. Sometimes just to get data for me I’ll assign a journal, and say, “Just answer the first four questions on that. Don’t worry about the rest of them. We’ll deal with it together when you get back.”
The questions are:
1. What was going on?
2. What did I do in response to what was going on?
3. What did I think about what was going on?
4. What did I want out of what was going on?
And they don’t need to write a dissertation on those, just enough so they can remember and talk about next time we get together.
I’m not praying for a lot of anger throughout the week for my counselee, but if they have several instances of anger, then we can go treasure hunting. We can look for common themes—behavior that’s flowing out of that same heart in all these different situations.
Then we can move onto the other questions, starting from inside and working back out. We start from the outside with what we can observe. Now we work back into the heart and start inside when we say, “Next time this happens, what should you be wanting?”
“What should you then say to yourself to remind you of these truths? What are some passages that might help you?”
As a counselor, if we say, “Next time just do X, or just say X,” that’s still pretty outward. That’s hard to do. Why? Because we haven’t drug the heart along with it.
Scripture memory, reading, and meditation are also key—especially as we begin to zero in on what God wants to change in them that’s being manifested through this anger.
Have them practice thankful prayer. First Thessalonians 5:18 says, “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Jerry Bridges, in his excellent book Trusting God, says that at all times God is perfect in His love for you, He is infinite His wisdom, and He is completely sovereign. He’s perfect in His love for you, which means he always wants what is best for you. Because He is infinite in wisdom, not only does He always want what is best for you, He knows what is best for you. And He is completely sovereign, so not only does He want and know what is best for you, it’s a promise to all of His children that He will bring it about. And there will be nothing that stops that or hinders it in the slightest bit. That’s something we can gain comfort in even we can’t gain comfort in our circumstances or we lack the ability to resolve this conflict the way that we think it needs to be resolved.
I think it’s also important to practice how we discuss trials with others. “How am I going to discuss this in a way that points to Christ and that points to God’s glory?”
We need to practice how we think if we’re going to evaluate things well in the moment. There are days when the Word is open, our pastor is preaching out of the Word, and we see things that we’re so encouraged by. And I could step out the door that minute and face this great trial and I could handle it pretty well, because my mind is focused on the Word and I’m ready to go. The problem is that by Tuesday morning sometimes those aren’t really with me quite so sharply.
How do I think rightly in that moment too? I practice my thinking. That’s why I’ll bring the concept to you of a Think List. This is a short list of things to practice thinking. An example of a Think List for anger could be these questions:
Is this really an injustice?
Have I examined my facts, motives, and attitude?
Have I prayerfully taken time to seek godly counsel from God’s Word and others?
More than fixing the injustice, do I desire to act with kindness, gentleness, and self-control so as to resolve the problem in such a way to give grace and be a blessing to all involved?
Case Study
We can go through an example of a Case Study with Eric. Eric came in with his wife and the whole problem was “He’s just angry a lot.” Alright, so you need more context there. One of the questions I asked Eric was, “What are some times when you’re most angry?”
And he listed a couple things out, like when the puppy chews on the furniture, son not bringing home good grades, etc. And there were some pretty interesting conversations from that but I gave him a journal to take home. He came back in the next week, had done his journal and I grabbed the first one and we talked about that. He got really angry in traffic.
There was a backup on the parkway and he just lost it. He was an appliance repairman for his job and he got dispatched and drove all over the place. We can talk about that all day long with Proverbs and Psalms and other things, but our conversation went like this,
“So Eric, what was bad about traffic being slow there at the end of the day?”
“Well, it was the end of the day. I had to hurry to get to my next appointment.”
“If you don’t get to your next appointment, what’s the problem there?”
“Well, then I’ll be late picking my kid up.”
“And what happens when you’re late picking your kid up? What’s the problem there?”
“Well, then I have to pay extra.”
And we began to put together all these little things and realize that Eric’s issue was a concern for money, not just traffic. You see how the pathway to the heart reveals those different things.
Another example is Linda, who finds out her sister-in-law is planning to commit adultery against her brother. How would you counsel that situation? In-law relationships can be stressful relationships sometimes anyway, and now she’s planning to commit adultery. There’s a lot of mixed up feelings there: love for her brother, a hatred of that injustice and who it’s for, and maybe even a love for her sister-in-law that needs to be there. We want to be very careful to help Linda see the glory of God in that situation. What brings God the most glory in that situation? Helping restore her sister-in-law, and helping her brother if his wife does go through with her intentions.
Another example: Julie observes her older son bullying her younger son. It’s a pattern she sees many times. Think of how we would walk through making sure as a parent that Julies applies all these principles about righteous anger. What is the real injustice here? The older son is harming his brother. He’s failing to love another image bearer. If we can help Julie think about that goal and that injustice amidst all the others—the interruption, the loudness, and the thing that broke when the baseball flew across the room—then we can put Julie on the right path to dealing with that correctly.
