Exodus: Our Anger Within

Well, I thought I would just read the scripture uh this morning since it's so short.

So we've been going through the book of Exodus, the story, the second book of the Bible.

And so if you haven't been with us, uh you'll sort of catch along as we go.

I'll fill you in as we go, uh, because we've been through quite a pretty big story uh of these people who were in Egypt under slavery and then were rescued out of the slavery and they end up in the desert, and while they're in the desert, then we get these Ten Commandments, which we've probably all heard of, even if we couldn't recite them one by one, working our way through them.

We've all heard of the Ten Commandments, and these are healthy rules for society, holy good laws for society and for us.

And so uh Exodus 20, verse 13, you shall not murder.

Exodus 20:13

Alright, I think we'd all just kind of agree, nod, yes, thumbs up.

I'm I'm with you on that one, probably go home.

Um but if you could imagine Moses standing in that moment, and he's been writing these good holy laws down, right?

One through five, and he's just okay, nodding right along, and he hears this one.

And he has a past, if you remember.

It's probably been a couple months for us since we we talked about it, but he he murdered a guy, he killed a guy.

And so for him, this is one of those moments that you probably know this moment where that thing, that mistake from the past, it's just all shh comes right back to you.

And it's like you're reliving it and you feel all that shame and all that burden again.

And that's what Moses has to be feeling.

He just has to be feeling in this moment because he murdered the guy.

I mean, he went after the guy, he murdered him, and he buried the guy.

Now, now we could probably talk about, uh, we could take this and we could talk about just war.

We could talk about self-defense.

Um, and those would be good conversations.

We probably all have opinions on just war, and uh, we'd probably all disagree and not like each other by the end of that conversation, but we could have that conversation.

It would be an interesting conversation, and it could come out of this you shall not murder.

Um, but that's not the direction Jesus takes with it when he talks about it in the New Testament.

So I'm just gonna go along with when Jesus expounds on this you shall not murder, where he heads with it, and that's where we're gonna head with it, at least for this morning.

And what he says in Matthew 5, 21 and 22, he says this.

He says, You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder.

There it is.

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 counsel, and whoever says, you fool, will be liable to the hell of fire.

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Some strong words.

Okay, so you're telling me, and I can remember being a little kid, oh, you said fool, you know, you're going to hell.

I can remember doing that.

Um here's Jesus' point.

His point is not if you say fool, you're going to hell.

His point is this: if you live by the law, you will never be right with God.

So it's not just you shall not murder, it's it's don't even have anger in your heart.

Don't even have anger in your heart.

Don't even have behavior or expressions that come out of an angry heart.

And Jesus' point is, is he is breaking you with law.

To say, hey, hey, look, look, it's not just an act of murder, it's an angry heart.

And it's any expression that comes out of an angry heart.

And if you want to live by law, if you want to try to maintain your right standing with God by your behavior, then here's what you have to live up to.

And that's his point.

So we have five points to guide us through to think about anger this morning.

I will work my way through them.

Uh you can follow along.

Point number one is anger begins in our hearts.

This is what Jesus is saying.

He doesn't qualify the anger, he doesn't sort of like rank it based on the situation.

Though in another place, right, Jesus says, in your anger, do not sin.

In the New Testament, it says that, right?

In your anger, do not sin.

So there's this idea of rightful anger that can occur, but even then, isn't it?

It's just like this really sensitive tightrope to walk, because even in that rightful anger, so easy for malice towards some other person to develop.

And maybe it doesn't come out like with a nine millimeter shooting somebody.

Maybe it just comes out with a text or a comment or a withdrawal.

And Jesus is saying that all of that comes from the same place because primarily anger is about me.

It's about my heart.

But it's just it's just easy to be angry at people, right?

Because people are just such morons, not you, not me, just everybody else, right?

I mean, you're not the moron and I'm not the moron.

It's just the other people, right?

I mean, you know, I have great opinions and habits, but they, you know, they, the way they do things and the shows they watch and the way they park or the way they do anything, how loud they listen to their music, all of that is a moronic of what they do.

Not me, what I do is perfect, but what they do, right?

How dare they think that or think about him like that or her and what she said and how that worked out, and just like this simmering anger.

There used to be this guy where I used to work out, and uh yes, that actually I do that.

It doesn't show, but I do work out.

And so there's, you know, like you'd be at a near a machine, right?

Like you're near one of those little weight machines, and maybe you did a little set and you're you're kind of hovering around it, you know, like you're still near it.

And this one guy, I mean, this this went on for a long time.

He would just come right in and he would just start working out on the machine.

Now, I'm okay with the rotation, right?

Like that's plied, like, hey, can I rotate it?

No problem.

I'm just looking for recognition.

I'm here, right?

Just I'm here.

Like, I I I understand you want the machine, that's fine.

Let's rotate it.

Just acknowledge.

Like, maybe I'm still on it.

You don't know.

And that was my that was my whole thing is you don't know, but you're assuming I'm not on anymore, and it just drove me nuts.

Like every day it would drive me more.

And I was so angry at this guy, I would get so angry at his methodology of working on.

I would watch him in the weight room and he'd do it to that guy, and you'd go over there and do it to that guy.

And he just always assumed that that machine was open without any recognition.

And you know what the actuality probably was?

He probably just was trying to get through his workout as quick as possible to go to his job where he probably does something great like save whales or something fantastic.

He's probably like the nicest guy in the world.

But I just had so much anger simmering toward him.

It's just so easy to get angry in some way.

Then it's easy for us to say, well, I'm not an angry person.

I'm pretty refined, self-controlled.

Well, hang on, because it's possible, and I can't diagnose you, of course, but it's possible that anger could be simmering just kind of underneath.

And it's it's the thing that's creating that subtle hostility or that stress or that judgment.

And see, anger shows itself different in different people, and some people are outburst people, and some people are just like really passive, aggressive.

One time my grandma told me I went to visit her, and she said, you know, Dorothy's grandson brings flowers.

Okay.

Just a good angry, passive, aggressive comment.

Right?

So it looks different in different people, but it always comes out of our hearts.

Point number two, anger is relational.

At least when Jesus talks about anger, uh, it's between you and another person.

We're angry at that person at what happened, at what should have happened and didn't, how things turned out.

Maybe you're just saying I'm just angry at life, but when we say that really under there somewhere is you're angry at God.

That's relational.

Maybe you're angry at yourself.

That this is me.

I'm number number one person I get angry at is myself.

Because you just can't get it together, or you make that mistake again, or you can't get over that thing, and it becomes relational uh within yourself, but then it always spills over onto somebody else in the good passive-aggressive comment or in an active outburst.

And we can lose friends, and we can lose children, and we can lose a spouse.

And maybe the spouse sticks around physically, but maybe emotionally they check out.

And anger is unbelievable in terms of its addiction.

We can get so addicted to it because in these feelings that we have where we've lost all control, anger gives back to you a sense of power and control.

And that's point number three is anger gives us the sense of control.

You know, people, when somebody murders somebody, it gives a cr unbelievable sense of power to that person.

And it's it's the same feeling you get when you belittle somebody.

You feel so powerful over them.

If you call somebody a fool, you feel so powerful over that person, anger gives you power.

And whether you take them down in a murderous act or in a text or on Instagram or in a meeting, no matter how you take them down, putting that anger out gives you a sense of control.

And it is a dangerous internal practice because it's so toxic, because it's built on hate and not love, and has no humility and has no honesty for yourself.

So that's point number three.

Anger gives us a sense of control, which kind of ties into point number four, which is a little metaphorical for us, and that is that anger is both a puppet and an artist.

Anger is both a puppet and an artist.

And here's what I mean by this around Christmas time, uh, my family, so Christy and I and our girls, and then my sister is in town with um her husband and her girls, and then my mom, we all went to the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts.

Anyone hanging out at the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts?

Nobody is.

I wouldn't have thought people were hanging out there.

The place was slam-packed.

I mean, it was it was happening down there for Rudolph.

Uh, apparently a pretty big deal.

And so it was a hot ticket, and my mom had tickets, and so we're all down there getting cultured in the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts.

And so we get in there and we sit down.

I hadn't been at a puppet show in about 30 years at this point.

I don't know if you're going to a lot of puppet shows.

Been about 30 years.

Well, now they have a screen in the front of the stage, and so they can do some graphic stuff and some lighting.

It kind of gives depth behind the screen to the show.

It's pretty cool.

And so we're sitting there, Rudolph starts, the girls are in a trance.

I look over at little Greta, a little two and a half year old, and she is puppet show trance.

I mean, this is unbelievable.

She is in this world.

And so it lasts about 40 minutes or so, and they do the whole Rudolph show, and it was great, and the girls are glued, they're tuned in, and afterward, uh, kind of the lights come up behind the screen, and the the puppeteers they kind of they reveal themselves, and they're holding their puppets and they're talking about how all the puppet show works and where they hide and how they talk and where they hide to hold up the puppet.

And I look over at the girls, especially Greta, the smallest one, and you can just see her her brain being just blown like there's something behind the screen?

Like, there's someone behind the puppet.

And the puppeteers talked, and they made it really clear they're artists, not just puppeteers.

And I'm thinking, I'm just like cynical.

I'm like, yeah, okay, you know, it's you're moving around some puppets.

I don't know if you can call yourself artist.

But they kept talking, and they're like, yeah, we build the sets, we craft the puppets, we sing the songs, we act the roles, we manipulate the puppet.

I'm like, you win.

You actually that's that's actually a lot of art right there.

Like, you okay, you won me over.

You are the artist.

And they just show everybody, I gotta have a puppet here to help us understand this.

Um here she is, right here.

This would be in the anger world, this is like the passive aggressive puppet.

You know, she kind of shows herself as happy, and then she's like, Dorothy's grandson brings flowers, right?

Thanks a lot, granny.

Alright, so so the puppets are the puppeteers, the artists, are showing how they control the puppet.

And the whole time that my three-year-old's looking at this going, there's someone controlling the puppet?

Like, there's somebody has their hand up inside of that thing that I thought was real, and they they created the puppet, and now they're controlling the puppet, which by the way, sometimes the anger, uh sometimes it looks like this puppet, right?

It's not always as nice as this, sometimes it's just like a just a mean outburst.

Right?

Here's here's the point.

Here's the point.

Anger.

Anger is is not just the puppet, but it's also the artist behind the puppet.

And so a lot of times we see the revelation, right?

We see the emotion, we see the outburst, we see the passive aggressiveness, maybe we see the stress or hostility.

But there's there's an artist inside of us that's creating that toxic art that's death and slavery.

And so we have to recognize when we sense an emotion of anger, that it's not just the emotion, but there's something that's creating that.

There's anger inside.

There's depth to it.

Now that's a lot of really depressing reality that I went through with points one through four.

And so there's good news though.

And the good news is that there's another artist.

There's another artist that lives inside of us.

And that's the creator of the universe.

A creator, hello, that's an artist, by the way, a creator, the creator of the universe that lives in you through the Holy Spirit.

And here's what he says, point number five: you are fully loved in your anger.

And this is the thing we need.

This is the only thing that will help you to be able to move past that puppet down to be honest about what might be inside of you creating all that.

And this is where we live.

We live in this gracious word to us.

We don't live under the law, you shall not murder.

We don't live under the law, you have anger in your heart, or don't be angry in your heart.

You don't live under the law, don't say you fool.

All of that, it guides you, your behavior, society, and it crushes you, but it must point you to the way Jesus accepts us and loves us.

And that's what Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount, right?

After this Matthew 5, he's building up this case, he's just crushing people with the law through the Sermon on the Mount.

Just demolishing any chance of any person, and a lot of rule-following people listening to this, crushing any hope they might have to live up to a standard in order to be made right with God, and helping them see, please would you see the need for God's grace to you and for him, for him saying for me.

For me to be the substitutionary death, for me to be your righteousness.

Because he leaves the sermon, he goes on, you know, in the subsequent chapters, just to love people and hang out with people, and the people he's doing this with are really broken people.

Eventually, these guys who heard this sermon, uh, a lot of super-religious, rule-centered people, they get upset with a lot of this behavior.

In Matthew 9, 10 through 13, we get this little bit of a story.

It says, as Jesus reclined at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.

And when the Pharisees, those are the super religious, rule-centered people, when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

But when he heard it, he said, Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick, go and learn what this means.

I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

Now it's not that any given person is well or any given person does not need him, but it's that those people who are at least honest about their condition.

Right?

Those who are just done, done trying to hustle their way into self-worth and justification and righteousness, and they're willing to be honest about their imperfection, or what the Bible calls in the word that we used to be okay in our culture, sin.

And now they're on their way.

See, now you're on your way to some transformation of the Spirit of God inside of you doing something.

So I've been reading Brene Brown's new book, Rising Strong.

So she's social scientists and kind of like hot in the last few years in terms of the bestseller list.

Um, and here's a quote I read this week.

The goal here is simply to recognize that emotions and feelings are in play.

Some of us might be alerted to emotion by our body's response.

Others know that something emotional is happening because our thoughts start racing, or we have the event on slow motion replay.

And others may recognize emotion is at hand only once their behavior sends up a flare, like yelling at their kids or firing off a you can insert a descriptive word there, email to a colleague.

Recognizing emotion means developing awareness about how our thinking, feeling, including physiology, and behavior are connected.

This means having the willingness to open a line of inquiry into what's going on and why.

Again, the good news is that you don't need to answer those questions right off the bat.

You just need to want to learn more.

So another way to view this is that we are wired with these.

Right?

Smoke detector, right?

Usually well, usually you don't see it like this.

Usually you see it with this, with like the end of a broom like stabbing at it, right?

Because usually it goes off, and most of the time when it goes off What's the deal most of the time it goes off?

Right, you're just cooking something.

I mean, that's it.

Like there's there's nothing, there's nothing going on, but maybe like the noodles, the steam is just running out of the kitchen.

I mean, it's almost always there's nothing going on.

But no matter you still have to check it out, don't you?

Like it goes off, you still have to check it out.

You still have to recognize there's an alarm and you still have to make an inquiry.

Like you have to still summon the courage out of your laziness to go, okay, this is going off.

I have to check on this.

Because, and here's the point, because under that outburst, or under that passive aggressiveness, or under that kind of just on edge could be anger.

And we hate seeing that havoc or that anger because it brings up weakness and it brings up wounds.

But see, that's that's the place the Lord speaks.

That's the place.

Not in all the pretending like everything is right.

Not in all the pretending that you're all your self-righteousness and all that.

I mean, it's it's in the place of the vulnerability that the Lord can speak to us.

And the first thing we hear is that we're fully known and fully loved, which is the thing that helps us out of our anger.

Remember, remember before the commandments?

You remember verses one and two?

Right?

We're reminded, these people are reminded of the story.

You've been rescued.

Remember what I did when I led you out of Egypt.

Remember my graciousness to you, remember my gracious rescue of you.

Now let me let me give you a few things that should guide your lives and your society, and that will eventually crush you and lead you to the Messiah.

See, the grace of God, this is what we've been saying, the grace of God always precedes the demand.

So the demand, uh, you shall not murder, you shall not call anybody a fool, you shall not have anger in your heart.

All of that demand has no ability to accuse you.

And you, therefore, you can courageously face the reality that you might have anger.

And the creator of the universe created the stars and the oceans, and an unbelievable creator says he loves you, and that his work for you is enough.

And that all that anger that's inside of there can be put upon him, and is is put on the cross, and his righteousness is put upon you, so your standing with God is secure, and you are holy and righteous in his sight.

That's the great, ridiculous, scandalous message of Christian faith.

So last Saturday I bought one of those uh movable basketball goals.

You know, I'm talking about, like, we used to put them in the ground when I was little.

Now nobody puts them in the ground anymore, right?

You just, you know, I'm talking about big, you put water in the base of it.

So I bought one off Craigslist.

And so Monday after work, I was gonna put it together, which is a horrible decision, by the way.

I'm already totally impatient with this kind of stuff.

And so the idea of doing it at five o'clock and the sun's going down, and I'm already tired, and there's kind of like the you know, the stopwatch is going, this was a bad idea, and I unpack all the stuff, and there's about three million parts or so, and I got it all laid out, and I know I'm in trouble right away, and I should have packed it up right away, right then, but I don't because I'm not real bright, and I just want to have this thing done.

I want to have it put together, I'm gonna be done with it.

And so I'm at like step four out of about three million steps.

I'm at step four, and two poles have to be put together, and they won't go together.

And so I figure, well, if they're not going together, that means I need to cram them together because I'm impatient, and I just cram this one pole into the other unto the point, then I realize that they're not supposed to be together, and now I can't get them apart.

And I'm so angry, legitimately, unbelievably angry.

And it's just a basketball goal.

But I have to pack it all back into the garage.

So I can't get it undone.

Now I've got to figure out like who can get two poles slammed together, like maybe some massive vices and wrenches.

I don't know.

I don't know how this is done.

I gotta figure that out.

There's a good project for me to worry about.

But just angry.

So what I do, and I don't know about you, I just start beating myself up for the next few hours.

Right?

Just internally, kind of like an internal dialogue.

Unfortunately, I I think I I was y'all went out that night or something, so I was kind of by myself the next couple hours, which was good.

Um that was good, or else I would have spilt over massively.

But just to beat myself up, right, because it sent me somewhere.

This is what this is what anger does.

I did the thing I knew I was gonna do.

And I did it anyway.

And I've been doing this for a long time.

This is not the first time.

And so what I did didn't just just replay all the other times I've done the same thing, right?

And just replay all of those over and over and over again, and then I have this amazing capacity, just like you, then to move it from behavior to identity.

Well, maybe, maybe I'm just just maybe I'm just failure.

Maybe that's what it is.

And just angry, and then drag God into it, and I don't know, poor guy.

I I don't know, I just drag him into it, blame him for something while while I'm in this mood, just go ahead and do that.

And it's just this crazy internal dialogue and this just simmering anger that just kind of just comes up.

And when you see that, at least when you learn that this is in you, it at least you can begin to realize that what Jesus is teaching us is that those dark places exist in us.

And sometimes you just see it with this silly basketball goal, but it's never just about the basketball goal.

It's about something else.

Way back.

Some anger that's still there for this or for that or for kind of a compounding thing, maybe.

And you can begin in that process of devaluing yourself or whatever process it sends you into, but, but, but somewhere along the way you have the breaking point, right?

You have a brain point like, I don't want to be like this.

And you get contrite and you finally just don't want to be like it.

You say, I don't want to be angry, and begin to pray to the Lord, I'm angry.

Isn't that just a good prayer?

I'm angry.

Nobody else knows it.

I hide it, but I'm angry.

Maybe I don't even know why I'm angry yet, but Lord, I'd like for you to help me see why.

And I don't want to be angry anymore.

I don't want to be angry at you, I don't want to be angry at him or her or that thing or myself.

And you ask the Creator through his Holy Spirit, which lives in you as a follower of Jesus, as a follower of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is put inside of you.

And you say, would you begin to help me see my anger?

And would you begin to give me compassion for myself, surrender to you, and kindness toward other people.

And what you'll hear, and if you can't hear it, then you can just read it in the New Testament, just read stories of Jesus dealing with broken people, because what you'll read or what you're hear from the Holy Spirit is that I know you're hurting broken.

I already know that.

I'm glad you're beginning to see it.

And I love you still.

Let me into that need.

Let me accept you there in that fragile place.

Let's begin.

So, brothers and sisters, may you become more curious about those puppets that we see and allow your Creator to shine his redeeming light upon the anger inside, so that the Holy Spirit will flood your heart with grace and lead you to places of freedom, as He can do.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that you know all parts of us, and that you love us still, and that we are righteous before you.

Pure, kind, unbelievably perfectly, perfectly kind, compassionate people in your eyes.

Thank you that our security is set in Jesus and Jesus' work alone, because our work and our lives are messy.

We are messy, we are sinners, and we have anger.

We are angry for something done to us, angry for the way life has worked out, angry at a certain person, angry at ourselves, angry at you.

Would you give us the courage and the security we have in Jesus?

Would you give us the courage to become curious and to make an inquiry of what that is?

Would we let your love and acceptance into that place?

God, we thank you that you love us right exactly where we are.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.