Our sermon title this morning is titled Jesus Teaching on Murder
and Anger. The Bible has a lot to say about
the topic of anger, and if you read all the verses where this
is brought out in the stories or particularly in different
passages where anger is addressed directly, it is never
in a positive light. We'll make a few comments about
how Jesus got angry a few times, and there's the righteous anger
of God, but generally speaking, the anger between one person and
another is never good. It just isn't.
And before we go into our passage this morning, I want to
read a few verses just to give us a give us a bit of
perspective on this topic of anger.
Proverbs chapter 22, verse 24. The writer says make no
friendship with an angry man and with a furious man.
Do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your
soul. The New Living Translation puts
it this way. Do not befriend angry people or
associates with hot tempered people or you will learn to be
like them and endanger your soul.
That's pretty grim. That's pretty dark.
But you know what is worse than being with angry people?
What's worse than making friends with angry people or going with
a furious man? You know what's worse than doing
that? What's worse than being with
angry people is to be 1. Then you're it.
Anger comes from the heart. It's an emotion.
Now the emotion of anger itself is an emotion that you cannot
always help. It's just how we're built, how
we're wired. When something wrong happens,
there's an emotional repulse, repulsive.
There's an emotional reaction to it.
It is a good reaction and it's right to be react.
This is wrong. But then it comes to the
dividing point. How will we respond to it?
And we'll talk about that from there on.
Anger has to be carefully guarded.
It must be rained in. It turns into words and then
words turn to actions. It is very dangerous.
Jesus has very strong language against it, and it talks about
the consequences of it. When anger is unleashed and let
go, from the human heart to the lips to our actions, there's no
way of knowing what ultimate damage it may cause.
Just think of all the broken relationships, loss of
friendships, loss of life, and damage that's recorded worldwide
since ancient biblical times. Again, anger at its starting
point is a human emotion that everyone has at some point in
time. The emotion in and of itself is
not where the sin it's it's what it's allowed to do, or how it's
rained, how it's used. Jesus himself was angry at the
Pharisees. We know the story of how he
cleaned out the temple. He was angry, but never in a
spiteful, malicious, vengeful way.
That's not how he expressed his anger.
It was a response to how evil was trampling on God's holiness
and he exposed it and he rebuked the people for doing it.
When we see something wrong, we may feel anger and maybe rightly
so. That's an emotion that just
happens. Anger is not so much the
question, the emotions, not so much the questions.
What do we do? It's very important how we
respond. We respond to situations when we
see they are wrong. A few more verses.
Proverbs 18, verse 21 says death and life are in the power of the
tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit, the Message
translation by Eugene Peterson writes.
He says words kill, words give life.
They're either poison or fruit. You choose James 3 verse 6,
James the Apostle writes, and the tongue is a fire, a world of
iniquity. The tongue is so set among our
members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the
course of nature and is set on fire by hell.
The tongue can be used to bless and to curse, to heal and to
hurt. And how we use our tongue is for
you and me to decide. This is our responsibility.
If we decide to speak evil, we are responsible.
We will reap the consequences of that.
If we decide to speak blessing, we will reap the rewards as
well. The blessing, the choice is
ours. This morning we're continuing
our sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount.
Last Sunday we looked at how Jesus shifted from speaking.
You've heard it said back up. Jesus said blessed are the poor,
blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful, the third
person. And then he went on to the
second person where he said blessed are those, blessed are
those. And then he said blessed,
blessed are you. But then he went to the first
person. He says, I tell you.
Then Matthew 5 verse 20 we read, unless we closed off there last
Sunday, Matthew 520 I say to you, unless your righteousness
exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will
by no means enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Jesus put a very high standard. He says, I say to you, I say to
you from that point on in this chapter, in chapter 5 of the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes it very personal, very
authoritative stance on 6 different issues.
And we will talk about that the next several Sundays.
Today it's going to be an anger. Next Sunday it'll be an
adultery. Lust and adultery will combine
those two into one. Then the after that will be the
one on oaths and standards on oaths and standards on oaths and
what and swearing and those kinds of things.
Then after that, it'll be a sermon on violence and
retaliation and finding love towards enemies.
And that'll wrap up chapter 5. But this morning we're going to
look at Matthew chapter 5, verse 21 to 26.
And here Jesus takes an authoritative stand on the issue
of anger. And guess what?
He does not lower the bar. He does not.
Oh yeah, you know, everybody does it.
It's OK as long as you don't hurt anybody.
It's not what happens. He raises the bar.
It's scary, folks. It's scary.
Sometimes people think of Jesus meek and mild.
He never would would have an issue.
No, it's incredible how serious He takes human anger.
Jesus is not tolerant towards sin.
He's gracious towards sinners, but sin has to be atoned for and
He did that on the cross. He's merciful and forgiving, but
He's not easy on sin. Sin demands payment.
He died for his sins and today Jesus puts anger in full
display. How He sees it, humanly
speaking, He raised the bar impossibly high.
So let's go through this chapter verse by verse, Matthew 5, verse
21. You've heard that it was said to
those of old, you shall not murder and whoever murders will
be in danger of judgment. That was the standard.
That was what every Jew was familiar with.
That's what they learned when they were when they were young,
The 10 commandments, OK, don't kill, don't kill.
And if somebody did kill someone, that person would be
arrested, face the judgment. And not every killing or every
death was it was the same. But if somebody had killed
somebody with malicious intent, with vengeance or intentionally,
there were harsh punishments and it meant the death penalty.
Now there was there would be other forms of killing may be
unintentional or we call manslaughter and those kinds of
killings that was not as severe. But the eye for an eye, the
tooth for tooth, the life for life mentality existed.
So when Jesus said you shall not murder, everybody got it.
OK, we got it. Everybody got it.
Everybody knew what he's talking about.
So far so good. Everybody's in agreement.
The whole crowd on the Mount Jesus by the water there,
everybody's listening. They all got it.
But now he starts to dig down. He goes down, he says, but I say
to you, he's taking authority here.
I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause
shall be in danger of the judgment.
And whoever says to his brother Raqqa shall be in danger of the
council. But whoever says you fool shall
be in danger of Hellfire. In the past it had been taking
of a human life that was the benchmark for punishment.
Now Jesus lumps anger into the same category.
He raised the bar. If you read different
translations, some of the earliest and commentators write
about the some of the earliest, most reliable manuscripts in the
Bible. The early, early ones do not
include that phrase there where it says without a cause.
But commentators believe this may have been added as a
clarifying comment because it was not.
Not all anger was sin. As we know Jesus was angry as
well at times. And I'll leave it there for this
morning, but here Jesus is saying killing a person,
expressing anger to a person comes out of the same category.
Both put one in the danger of judgment.
Jesus puts anger towards another person, the same category as
murder. He escalates it.
This is deep. This hits hard.
How often are people not angry at each other and with each
other? And then oftentimes it doesn't
just stop there. Then actions, suing, fighting,
revenge, retaliation starts coming.
Oh, I would never kill somebody. I'm just mad at him.
Maybe not, but in God's eyes, it lands in the same court.
So let's look at the consequences of uncontrolled
anger in the Old Testament. If a person got angry with
another person and committed murder, as I said, as we as the
Bible teaches, there's a standard for that punishment
would be given. But if a person just was angry
at somebody, there was no punishment.
It was not part of the 10 commandments.
The 10 commandments don't say thou shalt not be angry.
There's not an 11th commandment, thou shalt not be angry.
It's not there. Thou shalt not kill.
You shall not murder. That is there.
But if a person was just angry at somebody and wouldn't
actually do anything to that somebody, then maybe it wasn't
punishable. And still today in the law, it's
still the case today. If a person just angry at his
neighbor but doesn't do anything to his neighbor, that's not a
cause for arrest or for a court action.
Just being angry is not actually a crime in our country.
Now in God's moral standard, it's sin.
But on a from a from a legal standpoint, it's not a crime.
If it turns violent or to an assault, then it becomes 1.
So how do we best unpack this truth and explain it, that we
can see it for what it is and learn from it?
One of the best ways that I find that for me, that I find best to
explain difficult passages and topics and themes in the Bible
is through stories. And the Bible has plenty of
them. There's a lot of other stories
we could use, but I think the best stories are in the Bible.
And because we know the Bible, I would hope to say the best.
I would at least I would hope to say that this morning.
We want to look at two different stories in the Bible and see
what anger does, what destruction it unleashes if it's
not controlled. The first story we want to look
at this in Genesis chapter 4, verse 3 to 11.
It's a story of Cain and Abel. Now Cain and Abel were the sons
of Adam and Eve. God had blessed Adam and Eve
with two boys and they grew up and one became a farmer and the
other boy became a shepherd. Abel became a shepherd and Cain
became a farmer. Now in in Genesis chapter 4,
let's begin reading there, verse 3.
In the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an
offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord, And Abel
also brought the first born of his flock and of their fat.
And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but he did not
respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his
countenance fell. So the Lord said to Cain, Why
are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen?
If you do well, will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door, and its desire
is for you, but you should rule over it.
Now Cain talked with Abel's brother, and it came to pass
when they're in the field that Cain rose up against Abel's
brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain,
where is Abel your brother? He said, I don't know.
Am I my brother's keeper? And he, meaning God, said, what
have you done? The voice of your brother's
blood cries out to me from the ground.
So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its
mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
Then it goes on to explain how God, God did curse Cain.
And then he also said to him, From now on you will no longer
have the bountiful harvest that you have.
The ground will not yield its fruit for you.
You are going to suffer for this.
You think Cain had thought that through?
No. How often do people not do
something which in hindsight, oh, I wish I had not said that.
I wish I kept my mouth shut. All of us at times have done
that. Cain's curse came as a result of
God's punishment on him because he killed his brother Abel.
He didn't control his anger. The story goes on how things
went downhill from there. And there's more that happened,
but in summary, Abel lost his life due to Cain's anger.
He was dead. Cain's life continued on, but
the consequences he suffered were huge.
And there's no way of knowing when a person does stuff like
that, what the final outcome will be.
And I've said this here before, if CS Lewis, who one time said
every sin is in its own right a fresh fountain of evil flowing
on to the end of time, especially in cases like this,
the Bible continues on and, and I don't have the verse on the
PowerPoint here, but in Genesis 9 verse 6, when Noah comes out
of the ark, God gives a special command and said whoever sheds
man's blood, that man, his blood shall be shed from the image of
God. He made man.
Now we know under the new Covenant the death penalty is no
longer in place, but that's how serious God takes when humans
kill humans. People are made in God's image,
and if a person is killed, God takes it personally.
And here Jesus in Matthew chapter 5 puts anger towards
one's brother in that same category, on the same level of
murder. How many people on a daily basis
just have an angry attitude at their job, at their boss, at
their employer, at home, between spouses, parents to children,
children to parents, teachers to students, students to teachers,
people to law enforcement, law enforcement against the the
populace. It's everywhere.
And just because there's so much of it doesn't make it less
serious. The gateway through which sin
came into reality in Cain's life was his response to perceived
injury, perceived disappointment.
If Cain had held his anger in check as God told him to, Abel
would not have died. He would have continued farming,
avoided the curse. Life would have moved on.
In Cain's life, it started with an internal heart condition, and
he ended up with the killing his brother and ruining his own life
in the process. That's a hard story, but that's
a true story. There's another story in the
Bible, and this one's a bit different.
Then we'll go back to Matthew chapter 5.
This is the story of Moses. Now Moses, he's a hero.
He's a great guy. Moses was God's chosen man to
lead the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt.
It was a very difficult job and it took a big toll on Moses.
But back early on, before it all began, he was in the land of
Egypt. He's described later on as a
humble man, but in the land of Egypt he had an anger issue.
We find an exodus that when he was still in Egypt, one day, he
was 40 years old or so, he sees an Egyptian man beating an
Israelite. He has he, he can't stand that.
He takes and kills the Egyptian and hides the Egyptian in the
sand and buries him to hide the evidence.
Well, and someone might say, well, what's so bad about
defending an Israelite? The Egyptian had it coming,
right? He acted justly.
Somebody might argue. Well, the next day Moses sees 2
Israelite men fighting each other, and he wants to break up
that fight too. But one of them asked Moses, are
you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian yesterday?
And Moses, what I've done is out and everybody knows and I'm in
danger and he's fearful. He runs off to the land of
Midian in the desert, and there he finds a job as a shepherd,
the man he worked for as a shep, as a as a shepherd, that man
gave him one of his daughters as a wife.
And so Moses became the son-in-law of Jethro the
Midianite. And he stayed employed with
Jethro for 40 years in the desert.
At the end of that 40 years, Moses, now 80, God calls him and
sends him back to Egypt to free the people of Israel from
slavery in Egypt. Well, Moses is reluctant to go
and he doesn't think he's the man for the job.
God persuades him and he goes to Egypt and he does that.
He frees the people and through a long painful process, they get
out of Egypt into the desert. Now they're on their way to the
promised land, but the deserts not that good of a place to be.
And so they become unhappy very quickly and they start to
complain and repeatedly. And it starts wearing on Moses
in the desert day in and day out.
There were times it just got tough and patience grows thin
and attitudes get hot and tongues got loose and words got
said. Does that sound normal?
We respond to circumstances in a way like we feel.
Give somebody a piece of our mind and say things we wish we
hadn't. Well, let's continue reading
Numbers 20, verse one. Then the children of Israel, the
whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zen in the
first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh, and Miriam
died there and was buried there. Now there was no water for the
congregation, so they gathered together against Moses and
Aaron, and the people contended with Moses and spoke, saying, If
only we had died when our brethren died before the Lord.
Why have you brought up the assembly of the Lord into this
wilderness that we are animals, should die here?
What a complaining bunch. And why have you brought us,
made us come out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place?
It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates,
nor is there any water to drink. So Moses and Aaron went from the
presence of the assembly to the door of the Tabernacle of
meeting, and they fell on their face, and the glory of the Lord
appeared to them. Then the Lord spoke to Moses,
saying, Take the rod, you and your brother Aaron together the
current, and to you and your brother Aaron, gather the
congregation together. Speak to the rock before their
eyes, and it will yield its water.
Thus you shall bring water out for them out of the rock, and
give drink to the congregation and their animals.
Here it comes. So Moses took the rod from
before the Lord, as he had commanded him.
Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the
rock, and he said to them, Here now you rebels, must we bring
water for you out of this rock? Uh oh.
Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his
rod, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation
and their animals drank. Well, the problem's solved,
right? Nope, not so.
Moses action caused a greater problem.
Moses had disobeyed. God knows God's response.
Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, Because you did not
believe me to hallow me in the eyes of the children of Israel,
therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land
which I have given them. He had been told to speak to the
rock, not hit the rock. He hit it twice.
He got the blessing, but he tarnished the Lord's name and he
lost the privilege of entering the promised land.
Moses. Moses, of all guys, the last man
you would expect something like this to happen to.
But he said cut him some slack. You mean he done all this good
over all these years and that little bit, You mean you're
going to hold him to that? Yes, Patience had worn thin and
he, his fuse had worn short. But the law was the law.
And if we could debate with God, we'd say, hey, we'd cast our
vote with Moses. Lord, he, he, he still deserves
to go. I would have cast my vote with
him. What's the big deal?
All he did was saying, must we, must we get water for you
rebels? And it was true.
He wasn't lying. Everything he was said was true.
Did he try to see if God would relent?
Let's go again, verse, some verse, this verse, because you
did not believe me to hallow me in the eyes of the children of
Israel. Therefore you shall not bring
this assembly to the land I've given them.
I think for Moses, this was heartbreaking.
Moses really did want to go into the Promised Land and he did try
to bargain with God. Moses wasn't just ready to lay
down, let it go and forfeit this, this, this promise.
Notice verse drawing me chapter 33 verse 3023.
He says, then I pleaded. He's talking about the history
of the Israelites before his death.
Then I pleaded with the Lord at that time saying, O Lord, you've
begun to show your servant your greatness in your mighty hand
for what God is there in heaven or on earth who can do anything
like your works and your mighty deeds.
I pray let me crossover and see the good land beyond the Jordan,
those pleasant mountains in Lebanon.
He's describing it. He's explaining God, see God, I
I want to whose prayer, but Moses's prayer would God listen
to if Moses doesn't get his prayer answer, then who has a
chance? Would God listen to him?
Let's go further verse 26 but the Lord was angry with me on
your account. He tells the Israelites, and he
would not listen to me. So the Lord said to me, enough
of that. Speak no more to me of this
matter. Go up to the Mount of Pisgah,
and from lift your eyes toward the West, the north, the South,
and the east. Behold it with your eyes, for
you shall not crossover this Jordan.
Imagine this, this one little phrase that he said there and
beating the rock twice. That's it.
That cost him his journey to the Promised Land.
He'd given 40 years to service here.
He'd been so hard put up with so much, done so much.
We know Moses is in heaven with God, read the New Testament, the
Mount of Transfiguration, that experience.
Moses was not now cast aside, but I'm sure he just regretted
this so much. We we know what he did.
There were consequences for his action.
It makes you just want to drop your shoulders and what's what's
the hope for any of us if every angry outburst would be punished
that way? We're done, we're toast, we're
history. But there's grace.
We know that. And even for Moses, there was
grace too. But he still could not go into
the Promised land. How many relationships again?
How many are being destroyed? How many opportunities lost, How
many blessings forfeited simply because of the attitude of
anger? I'm thankful that today we are
under grace, under the new Covenant, but that does not
erase the consequences of it. So many relationships are ruined
and destroyed and someone's destruction follows because
people can't hold their tongue. God is serious about his
commands. Cain ruined his life.
Moses and Aaron forfeited their the promised land.
Well, back to the story of Jesus, verse 22, Matthew 5.
I say to you, whoever's angry with his brother without a cause
shall be in danger of the judgment.
Whoever says to his brother Raka shall be in danger of the
council. But whoever says you fool shall
be in danger of Hellfire. Anger that is expressed in
malice and hate, derogatory ways falls into this category.
Moses had violated it and he forfeited the promised land.
You see, it would be one thing if this closed off here and just
ended and it was overdone. It's not continuing on in the
passage. Now Jesus digs down even deeper.
I know this is hard. I did say at the beginning of
the series that there are hard things in this passage that are
hard for us to grasp and hard to hear.
But let's look again at the words of Jesus in Matthew 5.
And sooner or later you and I have something to repent of.
Now Jesus narrows it down and digs deeper.
Let's read verse 23. Therefore he says, therefore if
you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your
brother has something against you, Let's stop right there in
verse 23 says therefore, meaning what happened before the word is
used that when it comes next in response to something, the word
therefore is used as a response. He says, therefore, if you bring
your gift to the altar and there remember your brother has
something against you. See, sometimes you forget
something. You go to church, you engage in
service, you gain in ministry and you remember, oh souls has
something against me. You may have said something, you
may have done something offended that person or hurt that person,
or maligned that person in a way, or said something to the
person that should not have said.
You'd remember that. If you've done that, he says,
then leave your gift there before the altar.
Go your way first, be reconciled to your brother, then come and
offer your gift. The way I understand it is this.
If you did something to someone or said something to someone
that you should not have said, you are responsible.
And it's on you and me to take ownership of what we say, to
take ownership and responsibility.
Before we unpack this, I want to make something very clear about
this passage. What it is not saying, it's not
saying some things. One thing it's not saying is
that when someone has been victimized by crime and
assaulted and violated and abused and hurt, and some
perpetrator or predator has done that and they have not faced
legal consequences for their actions.
Jesus is not saying to the injured and victimized party or
you're now responsible to go get that person back in relationship
with you. That's not what this is saying,
not at all. They're people who've been
victimized and abused and mistreated in many ways and in
the end made to feel it's their fault.
They're to blame. That's not what Jesus talking
about here. He's saying if you're serving,
if you're worshiping and you remember you're wrong, somebody
you go make it right. That's what he's saying between
you and that person. It's more important to reconcile
than come to church and offer a gift because that's there's
that's the only way to healing, the only way to unity, the only
way to peace. There can be no fellowship
otherwise. And then he says something else.
Now he puts the pressure on it a little bit more.
He says it was 25. Agree with your adversary
quickly while you're on the way with him, lest your adversary
deliver you to the judge, The judge hand you over to the
officer and you be thrown in prison.
The path to healing and restoration.
It runs right through the field of ownership and responsibility.
And it shouldn't be procrastinated.
And as long as a person refuses to take ownership, a person will
never be free. Jesus tells his listeners to
make things right with the ones they've wronged.
And do it urgently, do it quickly.
Do some of us need to repent of anger in our lives, things we've
said to other people, how we've treated other people?
You see, in some countries, if an evil thing has happened, if a
crime has happened, it's been committed in a certain number of
years go by. There's what's called the statue
of limitations. In other words, if a crime has
been committed and the guilty party has not been caught and a
certain length of time comes and goes, then the government just
drops the case, or the the law just drops the case.
Some governments work that way. It's interesting because in
God's Kingdom there's no statute of limitations on sin.
That sin can be 80 years old. It's still as hard and cold and
dangerous as the day it was committed.
If it's not repent enough. All sin gets dealt with in God's
Kingdom. Jesus died for every sin.
And of course, we know we can't possibly remember every sin
we've ever committed, and we must pray in repentance that we
will, that we repent when things are brought to our mind.
What anger does is it lands a person in the prison of the
heart out of which there's no release.
If there's no repentance, a person may be walking in the
community, his heart may be in prison.
He may be free physically, but his heart is still chained
because he can't move past what he's done, can't confess, can't
repent. He's too proud.
How much better instead of just look at the issue, take owners
and say, look, my words caused you pain.
My words hurt you, My words damage you.
I'm sorry. I repent and I ask forgiveness
and then there's no conditions and no demands.
Jesus instructs us to go and deal with the issues in our
lives. And today we're talking about
anger. But this goes way beyond anger.
But the anger is the big one. He says in verse 26, assuredly,
I say to you, you'll by no means get out of there until you've
paid the last penny. I know this is a hard teaching.
Again, this is what I was referring to early on when I
said this series has hard parts and there's some sermons are
going to be hard on this one. There are consequences to all of
this. There's other passages the the
writers of Scripture talk about this as well.
James chapter one, verse 19 says so.
Then my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow
to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not produce
the righteousness of God. This is not talking, but having
different opinions on how to paint the church or how to
gravel the driveway or what kind of vehicle we're going to buy
next. Disagreements happen everywhere
and all the time, but in what context?
In what environment? This is talking about people who
speak to each other out of pride and arrogance and selfishness
and anger. Jesus talking about people who
use cutting words and hurtful language.
When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, He cast the light
beam of truth on the issue of human anger and He revealed it
for what it is. Repenting of anger isn't
optional. When we sin against each other,
we have said things in anger. We're responsible to own it, to
deal with it, to repent of it. Perhaps you know what it's like
to suffer the consequences of not controlling your anger.
Maybe you've lost a job because of an angry outburst.
Maybe you've lost a relationship because you didn't control your
anger. We all struggle with it in some
measure, in some form. I just want to say to all of us
here in this morning, let's be honest, let's be truthful, let's
be humble, let's be repentant. Let's build bridges, not walls.
You see if you fall into the hole of anger.
The only way others up to repentance, confession and
asking forgiveness and work toward healing.
That is the only way we must rule over the sin that wants to
enter our hearts the way God told Cain you must rule over it.
If you hear this morning you don't know Christ but would like
to have Him help you with your struggles, you can call out to
Him, confess your sin, put your faith and trust in Him and He'll
heal you. Jesus, whoever comes to him, he
will not cast out. I know for many people here this
is such a journey and have struggled so much, but there's
comfort in Matthew 1128. Jesus has come to me.
All you who labor and are heavy laden, I'll give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and
lowly in heart. You'll find rest for your souls,
for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
We're never married meant. We're never meant intended to
carry a yoke of anger, hopelessness, despair, and fear.
We can bring that to Christ and He'll help us with it.
And He'll help us with the pain and the burdens we carry.
We can turn to Him. He'll give us rest in the
difficult situations. We can break free from the
bondage of living an angry life with Jesus.
We can be truly free. Let us pray, Lord, we recognize
that we all fall far short of Your standard.
We have looked briefly today at the sin of anger.
We realize that it's not just anger, but a lot of other things
as well that we will need to look at as we go through the
series. Lord, we know that without Your
mercy, we have no hope. So help us, Lord, help us to
look to You, to walk with You, to surrender to you.
Help us to repent and to make things right with people we've
heard, with her words and with her actions, and maybe we walk
with you. May your Spirit revive your
church. We thank you, Jesus.
Amen.