Divine Conspiracy 11 - Living without Anger

[Music] now i hope you understand the importance of thinking that this is an intelligent man who is giving an intelligent address to fundamental issues so on the assumption that jesus was smart and knew what he was talking about can we all agree on that assumption everyone okay with that he knew what he was talking about so now he's giving a talk and he's dealing with the issues so there's going to be an order in there so why does he start with anger answer because anger is the most fundamental problem in human life now systematically it's not but it is the most fundamental problem if you are aiming to transform people you have to start there and jesus is not writing a theory he can leave that to later people everyone from saint augustine to dietrich bonhoeffer and others and they can and we need the theory but he's not doing that see he is founding a community he's founding a community of redemption his project is to change people and the theory is all there it's in the background love love of god love of neighbor that's been developing laws that are expressions of that that's been developing for centuries but that's not going to help a person who's down here in the guts of life flailing about caught up in their own anger or other blind feelings trying to medicate perhaps to get out of them or letting them fly and brutalizing everyone around them by violent language and emotions and actions that's not going to do it so that's why he starts here and now then as he goes on see if let's suppose you start let's say let's say you decide oh i want to start and oh i think i'd like to start at uh well maybe verse 41. whoever will force you to go a mile go with him too you won't do well with that unless you've dealt with anger and contempt first now that's actually probably talking about a jewish person who is being forced by a roman soldier to carry a load for one mile because that was a that was what you could be required to do according to the roman government and jesus is saying something unbelievably radical right the roman was an uncircumcised pig if a jew went into a roman household or had close connections with the roman they were unclean they could not participate in religious rituals they couldn't come into certain kinds of company for three days would you say that is dissing i would say that's dissing wouldn't you no if you know if you haven't gotten out of your dissing mode and if you're in your anger mode you're probably going to dis because they're closely connected you're not going to do anything with this you're not going to do anything with the person who slapped you on one cheek and jesus is saying now turn the other one because you're full of anger you're full of contempt probably because you're full of lusting so you can't you can't do it these statements of jesus are ordered in a progressive way and so you have to understand the fundamental character of what he's saying about these first two sets of things that we gave on the list a moment ago and these are covered in verses 21 through actually through verse 32. so now let's go back and work on anger we talked a little bit about it earlier now we have to go deeper we said some things like anger is not in itself wrong but it is very likely to lead to wrong the person who is uh quick to anger is in is a dangerous person so for example when paul in titus 1 7 is talking about the requirements for elders and bishops and leaders one of the requirements that he lays down is that they are not soon angry they don't get angry quickly and that's right next door to not given too much wine [Music] love described in first corinthians 13 remember one of the things about it is it is not easily provoked not easily can it be provoked yeah if it's not easily provoked and it doesn't stay provoked if you remember how love is described there it doesn't doesn't keep score it lays things down lets grudges go see angry anger is is dangerous because it gets us on a a path that leads to things that harm other people so now let me go a little deeper here into anger and bear with me please anger is actually will to harm [Music] it is will to harm that's why when someone is angry at you you already feel hurt isn't that true i've yet to find someone who even likes to be honked at you like to be honked at what does what does a honk mean did you ever think you'd be caught in a situation discussing what a honk means well i mean they would be words like you idiot get out of my way right i mean that's a mild version maybe that's a christian version someone driving to church well it's very interesting anger is built and actually this when you understand this the this is a part what and what anger really does is announce to us that something needs to be changed now we may be wrong about that but that's what it announces anger in the emotional realm is like pain in the physical realm actually anger is a kind of pain it's an uncomfortable feeling and like when you step on a nail you feel pain in your foot and what that tells you is something is wrong the pain tells you something is wrong something needs to be changed and so the essence of anger is the will to push to if necessary move you harm you even so people then when people get caught up in anger they set themselves on a course of harm and that's where murder comes from i don't know if you remember joseph or jacob sorry when he came to die he said to his two sons levi and simon he said i don't want my soul to have anything to do with you i don't want my blessing to get messed up with you because you are angry people and you kill others and you slay animals these are these were people who are possessed by anger ecclesiastes 7 9 says anger reposes in the bosom of fools now that doesn't mean everyone who's angry is a fool it means if you find a fool you'll find some anger a fool is a heavy word in the scripture so we need to think deeply about the nature of anger and we need to understand for example that anger is caused by our will being crossed it doesn't matter how trivial it is you know out here in los angeles we shoot people over parking in the wrong place it doesn't matter how trivial it is if it crosses my will and i am a person who is given to unrestrained anger i will do anything to carry out that anger basically it is an insult to your kingdom that causes it your will is being crossed and really no matter how trivial the issue it i mean haven't you been around people who for no reason at all will just fly into a rage it doesn't have to be something big it just has to be experienced in a certain way now some people come to the point where they're just angry people they don't necessarily have to have anything to be angry at but when they get into that position then the smallest thing don't we talk that way we say the smallest thing will set them off right and that's always because you have a will in a certain condition and that is what causes anger and we want to say that anger is not a sin it is something that is natural like pain but only if you have rock solid christian character can keep you safe with anger and often people will say well god gets angry that's all right god can handle it you can bet on his character say didn't jesus get angry when he made the whip and went into the temple and yeah jesus god again you can try i can trust jesus with stuff i wouldn't trust myself with right now we do have situations where people do not have any other way of handling things and they become angry and sometimes it leads to change and so i think that in some circumstances we should say while anger not might not be the best thing it is better than some other things and so we often have people who feel that for example if you're not angry about certain kinds of injustices that you must be you couldn't possibly be right that either you're brain dead or your heart's not in the right place and there's something to be said for that and perhaps things do become so bad that in some situations the only way is to let anger explode but that i really want to say is not the best way of handling things and if you come to that what will invariably happen is that the anger will evoke anger on the other side unless you've got someone over there that is rock-solid christian character which is unlikely though they may think they have it right uh so it's it's uh we're not talking about repressing anger we're not talking about denying anger those are bad things we're talking about not being angry and still being able to stand for what is right be solid stand to the death if necessary and that may sometimes verge over even into things like warfare but if war is inevitable or necessary and some circumstances it is still true that anger and contempt are not and you will certainly recognize that anger and contempt that warfare conducted in anger and contempt is many times worse because of that many times worse so those are things that we need to have in mind and we can say i believe that everything you can do with anger you can do better without it you may have to learn how to do that and if you act without anger you're going to have to educate others that you really do mean what you say though you're not angry right and in many respects human beings just live at a level where if you don't act angry they'll think you don't mean what you say just like a dog you know you can say the most awful things to a dog in a kind tone and it'll just wag its tail and lick your hand right or you can say the best things to the dog in the in a tone of of reproach and anger and it'll just slink off with its tail between its legs and there's so much that from ceos that rule their operation by the threat of being angry and people would sort of drag along until that came over the horizon and then when they got angry they'd start to move you see this living without anger is a matter of re-educating everyone around you especially if you're in a position of responsibility so i say here everything you can do with anger you can do better without it understanding you have to go through that process both with yourself and with others now one of the reasons why anger is so dangerous is because it's always righteous in the moment i've already talked about that a little bit so i don't want to spend time on it but just call your attention to it again anger you check this out and check out everything i say of course but i mean you do want to test this all against your own experience and it's very rare that you ever meet someone who is angry who doesn't feel like their anger is completely justified and moreover they will feel that their anger justifies what they do in anger and um so that keeps us from being critical and anger is a feeling and all feelings when they come up they they don't raise the question of am i right thoughts and beliefs tend to do that but feelings simply tend to stand there in your face and yammer at you and say i want this i want this i want this i want this and um this is true for example you get a person who is caught up in a love affair they will normally feel completely justified in all the feelings that they now once they subside and so on then they can criticize them but the moment in the moment of feeling there is not the appropriate kind of reflection and criticism about what it all means and that's one reason why we have to be extremely careful with feelings and anger is one of the most important ones for us to deal with anger is in our body we've talked earlier about how we farm character out to our bodies and that's why it so easily bypasses our mind and our spirit if we are not well formed to recognize what's happening we will act in anger before we think that's where our mean christians come from you see you have people who are professing christians and they have not come to terms with their anger and then when things go contrary to their will they're unhappy they attack others they withdraw from others and normally they don't they don't really they're not really on top of what their feelings and thinkings are after 9 11 as we endearingly call it uh every church i went into was just a buzz like a hive of bees that had been hit with a stick everyone was so angry then they didn't know what to do with it and that's unfortunately typical because i mean where do you as a christian to deal with anger and to come out of that situation that jesus describes look here's what he says you've heard that the ancients were told you shall not commit murder and whoever commits murder will be liable to the court but i say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother and you there are two versions here if you like the easier version without a cause actually it doesn't make any difference for the point at hand shall be guilty before the court that is to say have the same kind of guilt as one who murders and whoever shall say to his brother raqqa now raqqa is an aramaic term that's uncertain in its origins but the way it's pronounced it sounds like the the noise you make when you're clearing your throat to spit i won't demonstrate but you can practice in the solitude of your room raqqa everyone who says that shall be guilty before the supreme court that's even worse than being angry and he goes on to say everyone who says you fool see these are all expressions of attitude of harm towards other people shall be guilty enough to go into the fires of gehenna it doesn't this isn't hades this is gehenna that is being referred to so you can see now jesus is actually putting a pretty heavy weight on stepping out of anger and the reason that we have so many angry christians is because they're not trained out of that they're not taught out of it no one lays the foundation for getting out of it and so now we want to to move on here to the next screen and talk a little bit about that stepping out of anger now since since anger is a will phenomena that's where you have to begin and so not just to get rid of anger but because it is right and good in itself stepping out of anger presupposes that you have surrendered your will to god now that means among other things that you have accepted the fact that you don't have to have your way all right so that other person did park in your parking place now what well it could be the end of the world or it could be an inconvenience and you might decide for example that you'll have compassion on the person that doesn't mean you wouldn't speak to them about it or do what is necessary in order to correct the situation it just means you won't do it in anger and contempt so surrender to the will of god affects a pervasive change in all of our life and now this is the meaning of the cross in spiritual growth and in redemption this is the meaning of the cross see jesus did not die on the cross so that we wouldn't have to die on the cross he died on the cross so that we could join him in his death on the cross so what does paul say in galatians i am crucified with christ what does that mean that means that i have accepted the same posture in my life as christ did i have given up my life to god i have laid it down here's i mentioned william law yesterday i think it was there's a wonderful passage here from that book a serious call to a devout and holy life and i just read a few words from it if therefore you lit therefore you live in murmurings and complaints accusing all the accidents of life it is not because you are a weak and firm creature but it is because you want the first principle of religion you lack the first principle of religion right belief in god wow maybe i should read that again might might help me he's talking about always being thankful to god in life he says if therefore you live in murmurings and complaints accusing all the accidents of life it is not because you are a weak and firm creature but it is because you lack the first principle of religion a right belief in god for as thankfulness is an express acknowledgement of the goodness of god towards you so repaintings and complaints are as plain accusations of god's want of goodness toward you on the other hand would you know who is the greatest saint in the world it is not he who prays or fasts most it is not he who gives most alms or is most imminent for temperance chastity or justice but it is he who is always thankful to god who wills everything that god wills who receives everything as an instance of god's goodness and has a heart always ready to praise god for it all prayer and devotions fastings and repentance meditation and retirement all sacraments and ordinances are but so many means to render the soul thus divine and conformable to the will of god and to fill it with thankfulness and praise for everything that comes from god something to think about so stepping out of anger is going to mean the surrender of our will to god now what about things that are wrong we can still act with reference to them we don't just let everything stand we speak truth and we live it but we don't do it in anger and contempt and the reason for that is we know that he is taking care of us we know that our real interests are safe so now suppose the guy parks in my parking place i had to park a block and a half away and walk to my apartment well can you do that praising god can you do that with thankfulness that you found a parking place two blocks and a half away then can you speak to the person who parked in your place with compassion and love and understanding of the weakness of people who do such things and their needs and so on and have a discussion with him well you see if you do this you talk with him what's he going to do he's going to get mad probably right because he knows he's wrong and he's uneasy to begin with and now you come along and point this out so now what's your response going to be to that person you're not going to get mad you could stand there and let him pour retribution and bile upon you and you're going because you're not an angry person now but you're going to be firm you're going to ask him not to do that again explain to him the situation god bless you have a good evening i'll be praying for you so now now what do you think that's going to do to that person now suppose instead you go and you whack on his door and you start harlem with him and cursing him he's going to curse you back and holler at you and feel completely justified in doing it because you came and cursed him and followed and hollered at him you see anger hurts i don't care if people they don't i'm cool baby that doesn't hurt they say as the blood drips down their shirt their wounded deep i'm cool baby but they don't want you to know they're hurt right so you get all this silliness absolute silliness and the way you circums you short circuit that and dump it somewhere and it takes a while because you see that person now that you're talking to this isn't a dive-bombing situation you're entering a relationship with that person when you do that they entered a relationship with you when they parked in your place and now this is the kind of work you have to do if you're going to understand anger and how to get out of it so you have to actually you can't just live in it you have to understand that p other people have to be drawn they're used to living in this little shell you know those little crabs that come out of their shell and you move towards them and they back into their shell that's very like human beings so you have to sort of say wait a minute not back in your shell so you stay with them now i again i'm not you don't make a law out of this you use your brains you use good sense that by the way is one of the things that many people read jesus's teachings as if you were some kind of an idiot you know and they they think well you just you don't you stop thinking and you just do what he says never never you see what you're being called to is responsible selfhood responsible humanity and responsible humanity means that you think in terms of relationships not in terms of acts much less tit for tat i spoke about firing someone in christian love see normally that means the relationship is divorced and this is a wrong attitude to what goes on what goes on between human beings but when we have a painful encounter with someone we try to scuttle back into our little rock or shell and we hope never to see that person again but now as you as a christian you're living in the neighborhood you're going to see that person again not even send them a valentine you maintain the relationship and that's a part of recognizing the care of god and the supervision as angry as i might be at this person in a sober moment i realize god loves that person god loves that person so now they may not even be right with god but god cares about them and if i'm going to relate to them then i have to be in a position to recognize that and god cares for me also he cares for me so now with this in place this point not getting what you want is not a big deal see that's that's you begin to step out of anger because anger always comes when you make things a big deal not a big deal now sometimes it is a big deal in other respects so if it has meaning other than just i i want my way then you you stay with that and you you don't you don't change what you're saying and what you're doing you're just not angry about it and because you're not angry about it you don't re you don't evoke all of the angry emotions from the other side that would come if you were angry now you get some but you see when you get those that's where you stand steady and let them work their way out and this applies to all kinds of relationships now i've already talked about the meaning of the cross here you see that's the meaning of the cross is that there is life beyond this event there's life outside this event and now then the christian the disciple of jesus living in the kingdom has learned that no matter what the event is there's life outside that event well we need to talk a little bit about contempt because anger and contempt they're twins you know anytime you find contempt or anger the other one is close by often locked in an embrace but in any case they're always close by because if you think uh if you have contempt towards something or someone you regard them as less worthy or worthless and so then it is a it is more appropriate or easier to do the things that would harm them to be angry at them so i mean you think of the whole history of things like racial conflict and you look at the history of that where people of another tribe work is quite fitting to eat them not your tribe of course but that was quite fitting to do whatever to them to degrade them to deprive them that's always what goes into contempt it regards the other as worthy of harm or loss so if you have contempt for someone and something bad happens to them you are certainly less likely to grieve over it you're less you're more likely to say well you know they deserve it and you certainly are less likely to do anything to help them or to act for their for their advantage so then we've talked about dissing someone that's all the use of filthy language is always an expression of contempt and many people can't find anything wrong with using filthy language it's always brings the element of contempt in and that contempt is is not a good thing and it makes anger easy and it issues from anger you see people in a fight they will always move to contempt filthy language uh it always goes that way that's that's built into the nature of anger uh if you if you get in the fight and the anger is flowing contempt will be right there and needless to say contempt does not mean love so now one of the things we can do is resolve to learn to live without contempt we can do that and the answer to contempt is love you cannot have contempt for things that you love now you test you again like always i say test this out in relationships test it out watch others observe life observe yourself and see whether or not these things are true we can give up the right to have contempt of people many people say well i have a right to be contemptuous of them no actually you don't but the human way of looking at things might suggest that you do that you have a right to be contemptuous you can give up the right to be angry say well i have a right to well in some cases you may but the question is whether or not you ought to do it anyway you have a right to do a lot of things that are not good for you so that i think a great moment for our own spiritual growth is the time when we decide i give up the right to be angry i'm not going to exercise it i abandon contempt i can live without it i'll be better off without it then i have to learn how to act against wrong without being angry and that's a lesson in itself now um i i realize that and when we get to questions later on you may want to go on in this for some length and i realized that there are some real issues here that have to be dealt with i do want to encourage you to study anger and angry inductively in your bible that is to get your old concordance down or now you've probably got it electronic and search anger and angry get those words and study them in the biblical context and that's a good occasion to say now everything i say to you in this series it has to come out of the bible if it's not biblical we don't want it and that comes from what we said earlier about the bible in relationship to our knowledge of reality and knowledge of what is good and right god has provided the bible it is the kind of thing it is because god thought that was best it be that way so it isn't a little rule book it isn't a theological treatise it's a window on life and so but you study it and there emerges from it the profound teachings that we need and i think you will see that about angry or anger if you study it that way now you're not have to study it that way if you don't take seriously the idea that that jesus and paul and others that we should just lay aside anger don't be there lay aside contempt don't be there either in this in the sermon itself you do want to look at the positive side on anger and contempt i should just mention this see when he goes um he goes do not commit adultery then he says i say to you don't be angry without a cause or whatever don't express contempt don't call people fools then he switches over to the positive so you need to understand that verses 24 through 26 is teaching the positive side of dealing with anger so he says therefore in verse 23 if you are presenting an offering at the altar and there remember your brother has something against you leave your offering there before the altar and go your way be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering now understand what that's doing see follow follow the texture of the sermon what is that doing that's still talking about anger and what it's doing now is it's contrasting the right attitude to the wrong attitude and now he he gives you teaching about the kind of thing that the person who has the right attitude will do they it isn't just they won't call them fools they won't be contemptuous of them and they won't be angry at them there's a positive attitude now pic get this picture jesus takes a situation where there is a great temptation to overlook the moral dimension of life in favor of the ritual dimension why does he pick that if you are presenting your offering at the altar well one reason is because that is precisely a situation you do not interrupt for any reason other than some other ritual consideration you can interrupt the process that he's talking about here if it were to turn out for example that the offering had something wrong with it or that the priest had not set things up in the right order so that the instruments that were used and all of that were proper then you could interrupt it see there's always a tendency in religious institutions to glorify those processes to such an extent that people wind up substituting ritual behavior for moral rightness and jesus is going counter to that see he's suggesting an outrageous thing in short that you would interrupt the process of your offering in the temple to do some trivial thing like go make things right with your brother now of course i don't mean it's trivial what he's saying is that's the really important thing and that it's so important that you would be prepared to interrupt the rel the ritual in order to go take care of it now why is he saying that to show what it's really like to not just not kill your brother but to really love do you understand what i'm saying there see the prophets had always had this problem with people substituting sacrifices and keeping days and all of that and saying oh we're just wonderful because we do that when they were morally debauched you know your old testament well enough to know that i think right they're always dealing with that issue the tendency to substitute ritual behavior for genuine goodness and rightness and that is what jesus is talking about he goes on he takes another case here which is very touchy he says makes friends quickly with your opponent at law now these are people who are in but engaged in a lawsuit as we might say today to make friends with the person you're having a contest with what is that about that is that's a further illustration of the genuine heart of the kingdom person that is so far from killing them see that's that's the the background that he's talking in so far from killing them that if they go to law they're friendly you ever seen people going to law ever done jury service and watched the people engaged in lawsuits would you be inclined to describe them as friendly well that's not the way now you see people who will say you never to go to law and maybe they qualified and say with a christian i know a man once who would not do business with christians he was a businessman because he said if things go wrong in our dealings i can't sue them now that's profound isn't it he had read this passage and thought that it said you shouldn't it doesn't say you shouldn't go to law it tells you how to go to law go to law in love be friendly so the person wins the case well jesus says if you [Music] someone sues you and takes away your overcoat and you later see that they need your jacket and you have an extra jacket what do you do you say you sob you took away my overcoat i wouldn't give you anything right no no jesus says give him your jacket now folks look here suppose we just got that far do you see what it's going to do to everything else i mean if you pull the anger and contempt out of pornography how much pornography do you have left almost none i would be willing to say none am i making any sense to you see jesus understood the structure of the immoral life he understood that and when he goes at it he just pulls the foundations out from under it if people were not contemptible of others there would be no pornography it's always full of contempt and anger is close at hand and so they're willing to degrade others and see other people degraded i'm just talking about pornography but see the reason i'm bringing that up is because now jesus is going to move on here to sexuality and he's going to talk about it in a day when there were people just like there have always been who might not commit adultery and might say well i didn't do it i didn't do it are there still people like that today yes of course there are and often they are religious people maybe they're even religious leaders i think that's what jesus was talking about because he understood that many of these people who were religious leaders in his day pharisees and scribes were people who would commit adultery if they had the occasion and were not fearful of what would happen but if they were not contemptuous already they wouldn't be bothered with that if they were not angry with their wife or wives in this case often unsatisfied with them they wouldn't be looking elsewhere and so he takes up this topic now in terms of the act of adultery and goes to the heart he says i say to you that everyone who looks on a woman to lust and if your version reads and lusts would you please mark it mark the and out give you time to look because this is such an important matter the language here is very clear it does not say looks and lust but looks too lust have an niv what does it say looks lustfully yeah so that's and so now y'all you check your greek do your sources on this this is a particular kind of thing that is often done for example apparently there were construction workers in jesus day now then this has spread to television commercials you know the pepsi commercial that has the young women standing in the window and the construction worker with his shirt off having a pepsi so i mean this is there's the familiar sort of thing it's looking too lost and you need to understand in this matter because you can easily enslave yourself to things that are you think are wrong that aren't you need to distinguish thought of sin from inclination to sin and that's temptation and readiness to sin adultery in the heart is three it's number three it's not temptation temptation is not sin and it's not thought thought is not sin adultery in the heart is manifested by three and it's manifested by cultivating desire when you look to lust you look in order to lust and that manifests three by not just having to but rather inciting to purposefully to enjoy dwelling on them so now we have to talk about why does one do that sort of thing see for the most part it's just a habit it feels good we enjoy titillation we enjoy imagining things we might like to do even if we wouldn't do them and so this habit of indulging feeling becomes a major part of how we get through life it's it's a part of that turn to the body that i we discussed earlier especially in relationship to romans 1 because it's a source of gratification and good feeling actually i think anger and contempt become that for a lot of people they actually feel better when they're enjoying being contemptible of others because it gives them sort of kick back effect they feel superior and that's a good feeling it's all a part of the sensualistic approach to life where feelings are treasured and often people live in imagination just because they enjoy that and perhaps they don't have many sources of satisfac satisfaction there they're not experiencing success and drama in their life and so they get it out of what we call sex and violence so now leaving it leaving cultivated lust you make the decision to go no further than one and in fact you decide to train yourself to avoid one as much as possible is still if it happens it's not a sin it's not something that is wrong it's just that you need to know that when you move there you move away from it you don't go further with it so now how do you do that well it's very important to decide to do it we decide to do we're not going to do this now it isn't like the law of gravity where you can't escape it and many people seem to talk that way but if you will experiment with it you will find just like covetousness and other things you don't have to be drawn into it and your world presently of course is just soaked with it so you have to recognize that and say i'm not going to be a part of that the discipline that i call chastity and i discuss it in the spirit of the disciplines not a good name for the discipline it's more a name for the outcome of the discipline uh is something you can learn to do you can train yourself to live by choosing to live with thoughts successfully by choosing to simply avoid them for periods of time you don't have to dwell on on on sexuality in relationships you can actually train yourself to think about life and relationships in a way that doesn't involve that but you have to break habits and most of us have habits that run in the other direction so that's a project i will help you in doing that if you indeed decide to view the person you encounter as and here we go back to language we've already used an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in god's great universe you will be your view of them will be lifted and lift it in such a way that you will not have the same inclinations in relationship to them and whatever thoughts that occur will be dismissed now then this condition is what could be called sexual purity and i don't know if you have a way of spelling that out or if you if in your circles people aren't apt to talk about it very much uh but you need a way of thinking about what sexual purity is and that does not mean that you are asexual or that you don't have thoughts of sex or appropriately engage in it if you're married or that you are a sexual being that's right but sexual purity means that you are not enslaved and accustomed to degrading yourself in that relationship or degrading others because it always comes in that way now we can also help ourselves here by training ourselves to take the initial signs which we used to use to get ready to cultivate your lust as signs to bless to help to pray for that should be for the person in question as long as you engage in these activities you're not going to have trouble with the others but you have to train yourself to do it and learning to see people as unceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in god's great universe opens the door then to doing these other things and using the customary signals that one might have used let's say that a the proverbial construction worker would use uh to just turn the other way and we can train ourselves to do that okay now then let's go back further since we have already surrendered self-will getting what you want you will not feel deprived see many the way the world runs person is have to say oh i'm being deprived if i can't do this i'm missing something important i'm missing something good now you have to get out of that you're not missing something good you're missing something that's harmful and can lead to much worse things so the surrender of self-will has to lay the foundation not only for anger but ceasing to cultivate lusting abandoning there it all hangs together and i hope that's one of the things that you will see as you go along now then what do we do as christians while we train ourselves and then as we're leaders and we're leading a group of disciples who want to be done with anger and with all of this other stuff then we train them in the things that we're talking about right here today and we don't treat things like anger and contempt and and sexuality as if they were sort of peeled grapes that it's impossible to pick up and as slippery and as incapable of getting hold of because now we've thought about it and we have teaching about it it may have struck us that actually jesus knows something about it and has something to teach us about it and then we're ready to act and in our groups and in our lives individually we can begin to take steps to change that inside the mind the will and the feelings in such a way that we are able to do the things that jesus said you know that's crucial because if what i've said to you is right we have to grow in grace by our own actions as well as receive that grace from god so we have to know what to do so we don't just say oh i failed again i'm going to try harder next time we don't say that we say how did that happen and we have to go through all the stages we have to have the vision that it's okay if i didn't do that it would be okay if i didn't engage in that my ears wouldn't fall off i'd still be a human being it's okay then we go to the stage of decision say i'm going to be that way and then we get into these details and we do whatever is necessary in addition to the sorts of things i've talked about to help us become a different kind of person on the inside the agape love is the sure answer to lust what you love you will treat lovingly but you have to understand the details and see what goes into that now then just finally here let's go back to disciplines because we've talked about the vision the intention and the means and we have to say that when you come to implement this for example dealing with anger you're going to have to think in terms of disciplines that will help you change remember the principle of indirection which i talk here again about you're becoming different inside and you have to do the things that change you so solitude and silence and fasting and study and all those things you engage in those without asking the question directly of how is this going to change me will it modify my behavior it will modify your behavior but remember you don't aim at modifying behavior you aim at changing the insides and then when the insides are changed the behavior changes disciplines enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort so you can't stop cultivating lusting by trying to stop cultivating lusting you cannot do it you have to go through the process of understanding and habit change [Music] habits of envy other relational see those those have to change um from the inside so you can't do that by direct effort so disciplines enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort so we just go into solitude we go into silence we practice worship we change all of those attitudes that lead us into degrading positions and then we're no longer there worship is worship is so tremendously important genuine worship admiration of god astonished reverence of god that's a good word for rev worship is astonished reverence for god many of our songs express those some we don't know any longer but if you go back and read a lot of the old hymns you maybe you know the old hymn immortal invisible god only wise see that's a tremendously powerful theological song it exalts god in such a way that the back effect is to change us john newton's old hymn how tedious and tasteless the hours when jesus no longer i see sweet prospects sweet birds and sweet flowers have all lost their sweetness to me the mid-summer sun shines but dim the fields look try in vain to look gay but when i'm happy in him december is as pleasant as may his name yields the richest perfume and sweeter than music his voice his presence disperses my gloom and causes all within me to rejoice and makes all within me rejoice i would where he always thus nigh have nothing to doubt or to fear no mortals so happy as i my summer would last all the year you see that's worship now when you're living there that changes you of course study has to go with worship then form the mind the emotions and the mind come together and so we come to the position that you see expressed in psalms 16 8 you remember that great messianic psalm and in 16 8 david says i have set the lord always before me he is at my right hand i will not be moved that's discipline those are that's what the disciplines do and they work by in direction and they are not aimed at behavior but the changes come in behavior so solitude and fasting and so on have tremendous effects on these areas of anger and and lusting i want to read you a letter here from a young lady who had been experimenting under direction she had been experimenting with fasting and solitude and the effect that it had on her young japanese woman actually and a friend of mine had gone from fuller seminary over to do some work there teaching in japan and this young lady gave this testimony just listen to these beautiful words she said the more i practice this discipline of solitude and silence the more i appreciate their strength and the less i become judgmental and skeptical and the more i learn from them the more i accept things i didn't really like about others the more i accept them as uniquely created in the image of god the less i talk the fuller are words spoken at an appropriate time the more i value others the more i serve them in small ways the more i enjoy and celebrate my life the more i celebrate the more i realize that god has given me wonderful things in my life and the less i worry about my future i will accept and enjoy what god is continuously giving me i think i am beginning to really enjoy god and see that's that's how disciplines work the disciplines that are tried and true in the life of the biblical people and more recently always have that effect of changing the the whole sense of life and the sense of god so that you're no longer driven by feelings by hungers by needs and so on because you're centered in the sufficiency of god now we need to say a little more about chapter 6 of the sermon perhaps well let's don't go there directly let's finish up chapter five just quickly i've talked about these two main topics of anger and contempt on the one hand and cultivated lusting but then as you go on through that sermon and culminate at the end where it's talking about being perfect as your heavenly father is perfect because now you love those who hate you your enemies you love them he goes through a series of things here affecting not only divorce because you see if you have already dealt with anger and contempt and cultivated lusting there's not going to be much of a problem with divorce because divorce without anger contempt and cultivated lusting will almost never occur there may be some other reason but normally they come out of those conditions but then he goes on to talk about what we discussed last night namely letting your yes be yes and an o be a no and then he moves on to retaliation the old law said let there be another you can have an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth actually that was a merciful law because it was a rule that if someone knocked out one of your eyes you couldn't knock out two of theirs you just restricted to one same way with teeth and so it was a way of restricting revenge now if you have already taken care of these earlier issues then you'll be ready to deal with retaliation now jesus says don't resist those who are evil and i hasten to say this is talking about a personal relationship don't resist them in the way they're attacking you so if someone slaps you don't slap them back remain vulnerable to them now if you are a person who is operating out of your own desires and your anger you won't be able to do that and there are all sorts of ways of responding you off everyone has heard the person who says well i'll turn the other cheek and then i'll knock their head off you see that's thinking legalistically that that's like the person who has to go a second mile well maybe the person doesn't want to go a second mile and you say well jesus told me to go to second mile because so i have to carry your load on down the way here you don't think about it legalistically you think it in terms of the spirit of jesus the realities of the kingdom of how love works and then these things begin to fit in place you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy it's the interesting in this case verse 43 you can't get hate your enemy out of the old law so it isn't quoted the part about love your neighbor is quoted but hate your enemy had actually been added on by the time of jesus as a requirement you should hate your enemy and uh that's a something that still is in the world today but jesus says love your enemies pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be the sons of your father in heaven that means in order that you can have the nature of your father in heaven so you be children children inherit the nature of their father here's what he does he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous that's what he's like for if you love those who love you what what reward do you have in other words what's that what's the big deal about that if you love those who love you and he goes on to say everyone does that if you greet your brothers only what do you more than others even the gentiles do the same thing that is gentiles remember these are people who do not know god now i'm piling stuff on here and i know it gets a little heavy because you you start thinking in terms of how am i going to do all of that someone comes given to him that asks of you and him that would borrow from you don't don't turn them away give give them what they want can we actually do that well again we can't if we're living on our own resources and all we know is controlling things so that they come out the way we want them if we have abandoned that there will be cases where people will ask you for something and they have no claim on you at all but you will give to them and you will not base it on some prior claim but simply on their need and basing the giving of something just on need is a is a characteristic that you will see in people who have learned to live in the kingdom of god now you're going to make a law of it i hope not right because sometimes there will be other claims on things you might give to a person a case a couple of weeks ago a man who was who was asked for some for money and the money he had was devoted to paying the bills that he already owed should you give that money to people who ask you well he was torn by that and he stepped into the situation in a way that he was bothered by the legalism of it and he did give the money and god did give him what he needed to pay the bills but see you're going to have to make a judgment about this and when you look at all these things about turning the other cheek and remaining vulnerable about giving to those who ask of you going the second mile you do not abandon your responsibility to make a judgment about what you have to do and voiced on these teachings a legalism that says you always do exactly that you see this is describing a circumstance where you are growing in your understanding and there will be occasions when you do this and in fact probably in most occasions you will do it but there will be occasions when you don't do it now when you when that's true what will be the reasoning the reasoning will be because love obliges you to do something different yes go ahead self-defense is a legitimate thing but what is not legitimate is to simply give back what you got because he hit me i hit him self-defense merely to defend yourself no there has to be a larger issue right so you have to think these things through and the only alternative is to and this is what has happened to the teachings of jesus over and over again through the ages the only alternative is to turn these into laws and then they will paralyze you because you actually won't know what to do because often they will force you into conditions of conflict right and so you have to then say well i understand that these are practical teachings and the principle that jesus teaches on is to contradict the prevailing assumption so the prevailing assumption is what you don't give to people just because they ask you right you give to people because they have some prior claim on you when people hit you you hit them back right and that that's right and proper no jesus says that's not the way it goes now you have to take this teaching along with what we said about luke 14 yesterday was it yesterday you remember the talk about taking the seat out in the kitchen and waiting for them to call you up or the teaching about when you have a dinner don't invite your neighbors and your relatives all right so you have to understand that in these teachings jesus is contradicting the prevailing assumptions about what you do and he's saying that for the child of the kingdom there will be many circumstances in which you will go contrary to those assumptions because you're alive in the kingdom and we have to go over this slowly and give it time to sort of soak in because i think this is a hard lesson because we keep wanting jesus to just tell us what to do and so we'll even take something like for example don't call people fools and we try to make a rule out of that and you can never catch the reality of the kingdom in a set of rules i know my grandmother would not allow me to call my little playmates fools well i solved that problem quickly i said i'll just think it you think i satisfied the rule well if you interpret it legalistically i did i didn't call them fools i just thought it it didn't say don't think it does it didn't say that right i guess i can think it then now see if you if you take these teachings and try to make them rules of righteousness you will always fail they will become impossible to do and you will make jesus look like he is an idiot if on the other hand you stand he's you understand that he's talking about having a certain kind of heart which may well out of love go exactly contrary to what is treated as righteousness go the mile you have to don't hit someone unless they hit you and then you can get them back don't give to people who have no claim on you we have an enemy hate him real good well that's not where you live when you live in the kingdom of god so that's what he's really coming to when he comes down to the end here says be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect that has caused many people a lot of trouble and i think you need to understand that the word teleoy there does not mean legal perfection it means functional completeness it means function in love and in kingdom reality as your father in heaven does does not refer to legal righteousness perfect adherence to the law give up on that one you never do that and it's a good thing you didn't because if you did it you'd be overwhelmed with pride so when it's talking about being perfect it's talking about growing into the the language we used last evening from ephesian paul's language growing into the fullness of humanity in christ from ephesians 4. now a child for example can be a perfect child and be a perfect teenager that's a little harder to conceptualize but still as people grow they are perfect all along the line though they have much growing to do and that's the kind of purpose-driven completeness that jesus is talking about you

Channel: Dallas Willard Ministries

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Keywords: #DallasWillard, Dallas Willard, Anger management, #AngerManagement, #DivineConspiracy, #WillardWednesday, Willard Wednesday, Sermon on the Mount, #Lust, #BeYePerfect, #Contempt, #Anger, #Angermanagement

Id: 22eeP1FK3qU

Length: 81min 20sec (4880 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2020