Passion City on the Hill: What Do I Do With Anger?

well in the 1920s america had a drinking problem uh daniel o'crandt wrote a book about it called last call the rise and fall of prohibition and he started the book by saying america has been a wash and drink from its start for context in 1830 american adults per capita drank seven gallons of pure alcohol per year if you're trying to get your head around that that's three times what we drink today right uh in uh in 1850 americans consumed 36 million gallons of beer by 1890 it had gone up to 855 million gallons of beer abraham lincoln said of alcohol it commonly enters into the first draught of an infant and the last thoughts of a dying man he called it the devastator benjamin franklin recorded 228 synonyms for drunk that's how drunk america was right uh women's suffrage launched in many ways because of women saw the devastation that this was bringing into their homes and into their families and they said we need to see the cultural tide change right and so in the 1920s we as a country we made a decision to enact prohibition to prohibit the sale and distribution of alcohol external laws to shut down this behavior that was destructive to our society and many of you know we widely consider it to not have been particularly successful in some ways it was america did drink less but as you look through history in many ways we just got sneakier about how we drink and it sort of emboldened organized crime so as a nation we thought you know what we've got a problem but external laws meant to cage it in isn't really solving it so a decade later 1930s uh there was a guy bob who's a recovering alcoholic was going on a work trip to ohio and realized i am tempted to drink he called his mentor hey i need some help and he said hey there's another guy that's an alcoholic in ohio named bill so bob called bill and the two of them sort of hang out and they realized you know what in this context of understanding and grace and kindness with each other we find strength and we find some hope and they begin to encourage each other and as they did it they talked about the reality that among other things addiction is a spiritual issue uh that there's something broken in us that uh many people say that addiction is an intimacy disorder that what we're meant to find in intimacy with god and intimacy with people we can't find so we go to a substance uh to fill a void or to numb intolerable feelings that's how some define addiction right it's a pathological relationship with a mood-altering experience i don't like these feelings they're intolerable let me blast them away with something some distraction some beverage some drug some screen someone's body whatever i can use to get me out of having to deal with these intolerable elements of my life and so what bob and bill started to realize was you know what where this begins they said we got to start with the reality that we have a problem and we are powerless to stop it and not only are we powerless it's completely unmanageable the thing we went to as a solution has actually become our problem it's destroying our lives and so we admit a powerlessness and an unmanageability and then what do you do when you go okay i'm powerless to this big problem in my life you start looking where's the power to fix it i need to find a power bigger than me and i need to find a power bigger than my problem that it's not just has more power than i do but has more power than even my problems do and so they started to look to a higher power something right and i got to go to a higher power and i got to admit my need and i got to come empty and i got to say you save me you help me you give me grace and i surrender to god and as i do that i find his grace helps me not have to try to bury the shame and then what's interesting is as they continue to write out this list of what you need to do to get free it ended up being 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous rather than external laws it started from the inside out i need a new relationship with god i need him to heal what's broken in me so i'm not numbing it and then as i stop the numbing all the pain comes up but it's in a context of understanding and grace where i can be healed and as they wrote out these 12 steps people started to get on board and now millions of people millions upon millions around the world have been led out of addiction because of the steps these men have made now i mentioned all that because it was fascinating a couple years ago i was listening to an interview with michael keaton i don't know if many of you young people know who michael keaton is he was batman in the 80s all right in many ways started this new superhero revolution batman michael keaton and he was talking with the interviewer about him getting sober and uh he was talking about these 12 steps how magical they were in his life and the interviewer was a recovering addict as well and so they began to talk to each other and they were like how do you think they wrote it they're like where did bill and bob get these these insights they're they're amazing they're so intuitive about the human experience they're so helpful in us liberating from the problems we couldn't liberate ourselves from they were like it's almost nigh into scripture or some holy book like where did they get it from and the whole time i'm listening to this i'm like they got it from scripture [Music] that bob was part of the oxford group which was a deeply christian group and yet he adapted the language for people who had a hang up about religion maybe they had a a bad church experience and so they were so hung up by the language he changed the language to open the doors wider to others but the reality is these principles are deeply rooted in the word why because this is a path to freedom and what's fascinating is if you follow along the 12 steps they sound a lot like the sermon on the mount where did we start last week blessed are the poor in spirit where does the blessing of god start not by trying to get our act together not by trying to control what's unmanageable in our lives but by admitting our spiritual poverty i am powerless and what i'm doing is now unmanageable and we mourn it and then we start to hunger and thirst for righteousness i need one who's bigger than me and he says when you're poor in spirit yours is the kingdom when you mourn you'll be comforted right when you hunger and thirst for righteousness i'll fill it and we begin to take our problems not to a substance not to a drink not to a distraction not to someone's bodies we take it to god and as we do it we stop the numbing and as the hurt comes up it's in a context of grace and then what's fascinating is in the 12 steps the next thing you do is in that context of grace now i'm not trying to bury my shame and so since i'm not trying to bury my shame i let the failures come up and as i do it i go okay god i have your grace help me be what i'm supposed to be a responsible moral agent in the world help me now step out and be not a drain to the world but a fountain to the world and so you make a searching and fearless moral inventory and then you go and make amends where i've put hurt in the world let me make it right it's the 12 steps fascinating exactly what jesus does in the sermon if last week was the admission of need and the acceptance of grace now jesus turns and says okay now in the context of my grace let's deal with how to be a responsible moral agent in the world and he starts with let's deal with the anger let's deal with the hurt let's deal with the resentment buried inside now before we get into his text let me just say this as we get into this some of you go well ben why are we talking about this this isn't an aa group we're not addicts here we don't have an addiction problem is that right it's fascinating uh jeffrey d sachs of columbia university releases the annual world happiness report they report on happiness now and the reason they do it is because they found a trend in america over several decades and that is as gdp rose and as people's personal income rose happiness stayed flat success wasn't making us happier and then an even more disturbing trend lately is happiness has begun to go down in america that we are the most prosperous nation living at a relatively safest time in human history to be alive and yet we are increasingly unhappy as americans and he was trying to understand why in his 2019 report and so he entitled it addiction and the unhappiness of america and he says the rise of u.s income has been accompanied by worsening health conditions and declining social trust he says what's the causation he's trying to figure it out but he says america is a mass addiction society gambling social media video games unhealthy foods alcohol opiates various substances risky sexual behavior the prevalence of addiction in u.s society seems to be on the rise and it's causing considerably considerable unhappiness and depression we've got a problem america and now we just have more substances to choose from than they did in the 20s and so we've got a problem right and buried underneath all this is some simmering resentment we've got an anger problem too some of you go ben do we really i mean i pulled up so many uh illustrations of anger in america but i realized do you really need them does anyone need to know that we're all upset i mean you look at the news and you see it i'll give you one just because it's fascinating and maybe not what you expect because you're expecting me to go political nathan dewalt is a psychologist at the university of kentucky and he studied song lyrics from the 80s to the 2000s and he found that from 1980s to the 2000s there's been a marked shift in song lyrics from words like we and us to i and me and words like love and care to words that are anger and want to hurt you and so there's been a rise of narcissism in music and a trend towards hostility right jean twenge told the new york times the recent songs are now about what the individual wants and how she or he has been disappointed and wronged i did an experiment and looked up the top songs being listened to in washington dc and i would say about eight out of the top ten were about being upset right it used to just be the purview of heavy metal right i dub the unforgiven you know and you're like yeah i do dub thee uh you know and then it moved into pop and now whole careers taylor swift olivia rodrigo now is just making bank off the fact that you're mad right and they just put it to a tune for you so we got an anger problem and we got to deal with it so in the sermon on the mount he starts with the beatitudes you're blessed you're blessed you're blessed when you admit your need god comes in to meet it god is gracious this isn't external laws to cage you in and try to force compliance that's not what jesus is doing he starts with your admission of need and the grace of god coming in that's where it begins but when it starts there now the shift moves and he says okay are you ready in this context of acceptance and grace let's take your rightful place as a responsible moral agent you're putting something out in the world and it needs to change and so he starts to talk about the anger you've heard it said to those of old you shall not murder and whoever murders will be liable to judgment but i say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire now he quotes there the old testament quotes the ten commandments you've heard it said you shall not murder and let me just say he's not undermining the old testament right he's not trying to dismiss the old testament what he's doing is in one sense intensifying it and intensifying it by showing the direction that it points there was a popular uh method of interpretation back then which was just to try to minimize it to the very minimum so there was a law against do not murder and religious leaders were like all right i haven't committed homicide done and jesus is like that was never just the goal like hey i didn't commit homicide i'm crushing this what's next he's like no that's not acceptable alone in society yes we should not murder but that isn't the hallmark we want of our community it's meant to be more than that and so he shows where the law points it's a deepening not destroying the commands of the law because it's in human nature to want to do the minimum right how few hours do i have to work out to get in shape how many days do i have to eat healthy how many cheat days is three cheat days good right how much do i have to study to pass the test we look for the minimum right and yet here jesus says we're not doing that with the word of god how much do i got to do to be holy how much service do i have to do for you all to think i'm a good person he's like that's not the community i'm building he said i want us to chase being all that we're meant to be as men and women under god we're not asking the minimum we're asking what's possible when a human life surrenders to god so yeah it starts with not murdering each other but then jesus moves backwards upstream to the fountain and says you know where murder comes from it comes from anger it comes from hate and we need to address that and so he says yes to your forefathers law was given to not murder but i say whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of judgment what's interesting is he centers himself i say this it was what blew their minds that jesus was putting himself in the center like he wrote this hey when i wrote the law this is what it means because that's who he is right no one talked like that back then he's like no i'm telling you this is where the law is going and i'm telling you i don't want you to be angry and insult and be mean to each other now is he saying it's wrong to always be angry or ever to be angry no because jesus did get angry at times anger is the appropriate response to injustice and exploitation we want a god of wrath when we consider abuse in the world and so anger is the proper response to the abuse of others and you'll see jesus get angry at times but his angry is holy righteous because it's rooted in love it's an anger of love i love people so i don't like how you're treating them usually for us our hate or our anger is because of our bruised ego what you see here is he's moving on a progression from anger to calling to insulting someone and calling them a fool it's anger that moves into name calling now technically can you call someone a fool yes in the old testament fool was a technical term for somebody who tries to divorce action from consequence i can do this but nothing bad will happen that's called a fool right the bible has a technical term for it and jesus will use that term to address other people right you are a fool and yet he doesn't say it to dismiss them the same pharisees he calls fools he prays that god would forgive them while they were crucifying him so don't miss that this is an attitude that leads to action he's talking about a progression here of i get some resentment you hurt my feelings i get some anger and rather than processing it and leading it to a place where i'm praying for you and hoping the best for you i begin to insult you that's a he is an aramaic word there raqqa means empty head blockhead and then he moves on to whoever says you fool that's a greek word so he's saying hey you can insult people in multiple languages all of you are guilty right that's the point there to insult one if there's any nuance between those words uh that one is more about the heart there's a moral indignation you're a bad person so you're stupid and you're bad so if i don't like what someone says and i take the step of going so i dismiss them you are stupid and you are bad that progression jesus says whoa that's dangerous there's a simple word to summarize this it's the word contempt if i have contempt for someone jesus says that's a problem contempt will lead to condemnation that'll lead you to cancel somebody what are we saying when we saying that i want you to go away i don't want you to be in my view i don't want you to exist i want you gone i want you dead i just don't want to go through the inconvenience of killing you right but it's the same stream it's the same ugliness and jesus takes us upstream to the source right and arthur brooks told the new york times in march 2019 uh we are a culture of contempt that's what he wrote uh the title of his article the tagline was the problem in america is not incivility or intolerance it's something far worse he says political scientists have found that our nation is more polarized than it's ever been since the civil war one in six americans stopped talking to a family member or close friend because of the 2016 election and then he cites an article in 2014 from a science journal about motive attribution asymmetry which is a beautiful way of describing i assume my ideology is based in love and i assume yours is based in hate and he says research has found that the average republican and average democrat suffers from a level of motive attribution asymmetry that's comparable with the palestinians and israelis he says people often say that our problem in america today is incivility or intolerance that's incorrect motivation attribution asymmetry leads to something far worse contempt which is a noxious brew of anger and disgust it's not just contempt for the other person's ideas but also for the other person it's the unsullied conviction of the worthlessness of the other spurred on by what he calls the outrage industrial complex of screaming politicians news networks columns social media contempt makes political compromise and progress impossible it also makes us anxious increases anxiety depression and sadness it releases two stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline in ways both public and personal contempt is causing us deep harm so jesus goes upstream and says what's upstream of killing is contempt and we have a contempt problem in america and let me just tell you if god doesn't like it i don't know if you picked up on that he said if you decide to harbor bitterness which i love that verb harbor because a harbor is where a boat pulls up to tie off and go in to the convenience store or restaurant get a snack sit down and eat take a shower if you pull your boat into a harbor it takes refuge there and stays if you harbor bitterness that means you're letting bitterness kind of saddle up into your heart throw out a rope you tie it up you let it into the restaurant with your other feelings you let resentment kind of speak to them you let them color the ambiance of the whole room are you harboring resentment if we do that it's a toxin in the culture it's spreading a poison among us right and jesus doesn't like it and he says so you'll be liable to the council and and back then if you murdered somebody you were brought before a council and a judge it's that kind of system here he's not saying you're going to go through a human court because the human court really has a hard time determining whether or not you're angry at someone he's talking about defying divine judgment and that's why he moves the end to the hell of fire which is our least favorite subject to talk about right uh but let's get technical he calls it the gehenna of fire gehenna uh is a words combination of words uh the garhen on the valley of henon it was the south side of jerusalem in the old testament there were kings like ahaz in manasseh when they blew off god what's left me if i'm not going to worship god i worship me and i need to consolidate my political power and so they would worship gods i would consolidate their power one of those powerful gods was molek and the way you worshiped moloch was by sacrificing your children convenient if you're a king wanting to eliminate rivals and really shows everyone you're fearsome if you're willing to eliminate your own child so in the valley of henon leaders of the nation of the people of god would worship molech by sacrificing their children in the valley of hanon and god said to the prophet jeremiah i hate that and that has never even entered my mind why was god angry because of the disregard of human life and so when josiah's heart was captured by god it says in the old testament he defiled the valley of henon he threw trash in it to defile it as a holy place and in jesus day it was still that it was a noxious smoldering burning trash heap and so in the bible it became a symbol of judgment became a symbol of eternal judgment and so jesus says it's like that the contempt we show people is so toxic and dangerous i defile it i cast it out it's not welcome in my community among the brothers that's the language used here the family of god jesus knit together we don't harbor bitterness because it leads to a devaluing of the image of god and people we don't do that it's interesting the book of genesis says we're in the image of god and people debate what does that actually mean but there's only two other places in the bible that bring it up one of them says you're in the image of god so i don't murder you and then one of them says you're in the image of god so i don't speak cruel things to you isn't that interesting because god made you and because you have value i don't physically hurt you and i don't verbally hurt you right both of those why because you're made in the image of god so god some of you might be reading this you're like man this is my least favorite jesus i like the jesus that's healing people i like the jesus now when someone's having a bad day he's like look at you get up you want some bread bread for everybody you get bread you get fish like i like that jesus this jesus man this bull i hate when he starts talking like this too much well let me just tell you the reason he's talking with this kind of judgment is because of love because he loves us because he doesn't want a community that harbors bitterness because he knows where that leads it's the anger that leads to murder and it's doing it in washington dc our homicide rate hit a 16-year high in 2019. in 2020 it was 20 higher than 2019. in 2021 it's 20 higher than 2020. we're in a bad trend as a city and there's a lot underneath that there's a lot of issues i'm not getting to right and yet the reality is can any of us debate as we as a community in a society stir in resentment and begin to ambiently radiate it out online it's starting to move into property damage and shouting and yelling and the words always move to hands and the hands move to take life and so jesus backs it up and says in my community we cut it off here we're cutting the hate out that's who we are so what do we do he gives us the solution in 23-26 he says so if you're offering a gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you leave your gift before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother then come and offer your gift come to terms quickly with your accuser while you're going with him to court lest your accuser hands you over to the judge and the judge to the guard and you be put in prison truly i say to you you will not get out until you've had the last penny he tells two stories one about going to church and one about going to court and he says if you come to church and you're here and you realize man i got an issue with the brother he says you go make it right right you go solve that it's fascinating you would think you would put worship of god before being cool with other people but god so values other people he says i don't want you to curse someone or shout him out and dismiss them and then worship me he's like go make that right and then we'll talk that he still values other people part of worshipping me is valuing other human beings right it's indistinguishable he says so if you've got a problem you go and deal that person and then he says on your way to court hey you've got a uh if you got an accuser taking you to court make it right as fast as you can because if you wait till you get to court it only gets worse from there if i was to summarize those two illustrations about what he's saying to do with anger he says get on it early because it costs too much to wait that's the point when you see a little seed of resentment inside of you someone hurts your feelings get on it early because it costs too much to do it late and let me give you some free advice this is critical in marriage let me tell you how this goes you first get married it's bliss before god and everybody you're crying up front and then you run off to your honeymoon it's magic and then you get back home and you're getting ready and he's finished eating dinner so he takes the dishes and throws it in the sinks and walks walks off and you're like huh am i supposed to do that and you go you know what it's no big deal it's fine so you just watch it it's fine i don't care yeah this isn't disrespect whatever or you come home and you're tired and you sit on the couch and you want to watch tv and she's asking how's your day and what happened and you're like why does she keep bothering me you know what it's fine and rather than process hey when you say this this is how i feel you go it's fine and you take a little bit of resentment and you just drop a little sand of resentment into the stream of your love and maybe it's just two three fans of judgment first month three four five six 20 30. if you stack it up by a year and a year and a year you always do that you always disrespect me you always talk like that and then what happens you're five maybe you start going to counseling let me tell you what happens when you go to counseling they start talking to you and what happens the more they get you to open up you start going back to year one well you know where it all started and now you're having to pay money for you to talk about this now silt bed beachfront of resentment sand that you've built up that has completely squeezed out all the love and passion in your marriage and you're having to pay this guy to help you dig up what you could have dealt with early and if you don't do it then then you bring the lawyers in and now it's talking money and you don't get out until you pay the last penny that's what jesus says so get on it early because it costs too much to get on it later and donna and i talk about this all the time we said we're going to keep short accounts we're going to keep short accounts keep the circle small it's not hurt feelings resentment hold on to it ten years later bring it up right we're like nope hurt feelings resentment bring it up right and we try to keep the circle small just to get get the get the the river clear and the water flowing right and so our first year marriage that meant a lot of long talks four hour talks that always started like this me going i don't want to do this i don't have to do this i could do something else i don't do this spending like an hour two hours saying things like this and then finally walking in and going uh i need to talk to you um when you said that earlier what did you mean because uh i thought when you made that joke about me and my head size that uh it um it hurt my feelings and i hate those words i mean it's hard to say i could hurt my feelings but i don't like that you know and she was just like what and that's not what i meant at all it's not what you meant no it's not what i meant oh what did you mean i was trying to have fun oh i like fun too i like you oh look at us and the river's flowing and you just get the resentment out early and conversations that took four hours at the beginning of our marriage take five minutes if they happen at all now and let me tell you we're the happiest we've ever been why because you get on it early because it costs too much to pay later right this is critical it's critical in relationships and so many of you know it you've seen that you let little irritations build up and slowly you went from not calling anymore to not texting anymore to never seeing again and that's not how we're meant to work we're meant to go a different way and so if there's something wrong with somebody make it right let me tell you something this is very practical i do this all the time and it's because you have to when you preach a sermon you realize when you preach a sermon if the spirit of god is not helping make these words make sense and opening up your heart to understand them nothing of spiritual significance will happen and if nothing of spiritual significance happens then what am i doing up here i'm just dancing and i don't want to do that and i want this to have spiritual power but i know if i was rude to somebody if i was impatient with them and harsh if i do what most of us do oh i'm sure they're fine it was no big deal i was just tired and dismissed god's like all right and the faucet of the blessing of god turns i can feel it and so i've realized i can't get out here unless i feel like me and god are good and me and god can't be good if i've been harsh and impatient with my kids or donna or any of you and some of you you can fake it you're like i can sit in church and all i have to do is just numb my emotions a little bit kill what's inside and god's like no i don't want you to do that when you show up here if you've hurt somebody text him now that's a great thing you don't have to leave your gift at the altar and go you can just go oops whoop hey man can we talk later when i said this and then don't minimize it i was really tired it'd been a long night and you know how you get that's not an apology you say hey i was rude to you this morning i'm sorry full stop remember this started by talking about being a city on the hill being a bright shining light in a dark world can you imagine how different you will be in your culture if you say those words i'm sorry and mean them not the dismissive way we do it now one star you feel that way it's not an apology you're apologizing for my feelings that's completely illegitimate you can't do that can you really say i'm sorry for what i did because here's the fascinating thing as we land this thing i want you to notice what jesus is doing in this number one he says see it is personal and i love that he says hey it's not just about murder it's about don't hate and i think everyone would be on board with that message that's so popular in america like yeah hate's dumb i hate people who hate and she's like right and then he switches to personal pronouns so if you are on your way to the altar and you remember that you hurt somebody else and isn't that fascinating he flips it on us he doesn't say so think about all the times you've been hurt he doesn't do that that's easy that's a layup anyone can do that everyone does that let me catalog my resentments today right all of us know how to catalog where others hurt us jesus flips and says no once you're right with me i want you to take a searching and fearless moral inventory of your life and see where did you hurt somebody else if there's a brother you offended stop for a minute and think was i cruel the way i talked to her she was clearly trying to tell a story and did i blow her off was i impatient with him did i mock him in front of everybody else for what out of my own insecurity why did i do that to him i just put a little ugliness in the world i don't want to be that person he said stop and think about did i offend somebody else and make it personal so many of us are like yeah the world's full of hate the world's terrible yeah you can't control what the world does you can't control what they the other party does you can't control what those people do but you can control you and as far as it depends on you become a responsible moral agent saying where have i but hate out in the culture where i put anger on the culture and let me own it let me be honest that's where it gets hard but that's where it gets healing some of you have never had that experience of walking in with all the armor off and saying to somebody else hey when i said this it was rude and i'm sorry and leave it now yes but you said this and you did this and you always do that noodles yeah yeah they did things too but you're responsible for you and now paul said it as far as it depends on you live at peace with all men think about your own life is there anyone you need to apologize to and not tell them all the wrong they've done but just admit the wrong you've done often when you do that it creates a safe space for people to share theirs back right so make it personal make it theological that's what jesus does some of us go ben i can't forgive that person there's no way i can't go and ask for forgiveness from that person but jesus links it to our spiritual life that's why he uses that altar imagery and uses judgment imagery he uses the altar and the throne he says when you're thinking about the fact that you might have hurt someone and need to apologize connect it to your relationship with me so it's the resistance and you may go well they don't deserve it of course they don't well they might reject it they might well i don't think they would value how brave i'm being by doing this they may not but i'm asking you as a recipient of my grace to be a conduit of grace are you going to stop the stream are you going to let it flow through you and so i'm asking you to go and how they respond that's up to them but you be a conduit of grace in the world and so he says make it theological as a function of worshiping me apologize to them and he makes it theological by taking it to final judgment and that's why by making it theological it sobers us and it comforts us it sobers us he says you have to do this you have to as a function of relating to me i'm telling you to do it and you don't want to show up in my presence having blown me off uh it's interesting my kids whenever they're fighting in their room i've started to do this lately if i hear them fighting over a toy something that's not gonna like end in blood you know some issue i'll walk in there and i'll go what's going on in here and then i'll say do you want me to get involved and they usually say no no no we got it we got it and then i'll stand in the door and hear them like i'm sorry it's just can you ask first before you get my toy yes okay i'll ask okay okay and i'll watch them negotiate a piece right but they're doing it because they know if daddy gets involved he will be impartial and severe and so they realize better to deal with it now than to wait for the final judgment right and here god says you're going to meet me now as gracious and kind at the end i'm the judge don't wait till then don't look at me and say yeah i know you told me to forgive these people but i blew you off don't don't wait for that but there's a comfort in it too because many of us say but if i forgive that person or if i apologize to them before they apologize to me i'm letting them off the hook and who's going to punish them and that's where being theological helps because you can read verses like vengeance is mine says the lord and you go he'll deal with them he will judge them and verses like this comfort you because what they let you know is every sin will be paid for no one gets away with anything it will be paid for either in jesus shed blood on the cross or in their life in hell and if you're not wishing hell on someone you pray for their redemption and you obey the king who is willing to pour out his life for his enemies and you go apologize and you make things right as far as it depends on you right so you make it theological now does that mean that we never take issues to court no if you've been physically abused you should report somebody but not so that they'll get destroyed it's so that you can protect the rest of society from someone who's abusive do you see the different motivation it's not resentment it's love and that makes all the difference for you so you make it theological i may need to report somebody but it's always with a hope of redemption and a concern for the community right and yet when i'm dealing with somebody who's hurt me i can trust my soul to the lord and their soul to the lord so you make it personal you make it theological it's a function of knowing god i'm gonna do this and you make it eternal he brings up the end here because he says hey we're all hurtling towards the same place but let's hope when they get there it'll be a place of grace and kindness i'll tell you for me just honestly as we close i had a lot of resentment in my heart after my parents divorce a lot of anger and anger can be a comfort it can be a motivator it can make you feel good it can make you feel justified that there's a there's an intoxicating element to being furious it's why we're so drunk on it in america now but you don't get to contain the receptacle of anger it spills out in the rest of your heart and messes up all your relationships and i realized in my 20s i don't want to hate anymore it's too toxic of a substance for me to carry and so i remember going and following these steps in the sermon on the mount coming to the lord and saying i don't want to be angry anymore but i'm powerless to stop it and his grace flooded in his kindness overwhelmed me a picture of the cross knowing jesus saved my soul and then the most fascinating thing happened for the first time in my life i considered how i had been cruel to my father i always felt entitled well he started it he did it first i had never stopped to consider yes all that but you've judged him and condemned him you've created no path of redemption in your heart even as you pray for him and you've been rude as a christian you've been mean and religious bad people are the worst when you want to make a really evil bad guy in a movie make him a religious bad guy and i was like i don't want to be that whatever my father becomes i don't want to be that and so i had to release my anger trust god and then i had to apologize for the wrong i've done and then not right on the heels of that but over time the most amazing thing happened i watch god capture my father's heart that anything is possible nobody's too far gone god can do amazing miraculous things and we don't get to control how it flows but he's given us responsibility for us and so we say for my part i'm going to receive grace and then for my part i'm going to show grace for my part i'm not going to hide before god i'm going to come honest and real and trust that as i come poor and empty and confessing his mercy floods in and then by his strength alone and his power alone i'll extend that mercy to others that's how we live and you watch when a flood of mercy begins to flow out of a community like this when people hear us apologize for each other we don't let the sediment of resentment build up they'll go what kind of people are you no one does this if someone offends you you store it to use against them later you guys let it go it's weird and different and beautiful it's a light in the darkness it's a city on a hill that's what we're meant to be

Channel: Passion City Church DC

Views: 9,110

Rating: 4.8912387 out of 5

Keywords: Passion, Passion City Church, Passion Sermons, Ben, Stuart, Washington D.C., Passion D.C., christian, sixsteps, (six), passion conference, passion, passion city church worship, passion church, passion music, worship, jesus, ben stuart, passion city on the hill, sermon on the mount, kingdom, anger, resentment, forgiveness, forgive

Id: KXFFNFHFxhU

Length: 40min 30sec (2430 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 14 2021