Category: Discipleship

Respectable Sins: Anger | Part 3

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Practical, Respectable Sins5 Comments

Angry Birds

In the last post in this series, I answered the question: What is the cause of sinful anger? Today I will look at how we are to respond when others sin against us.

How to Respond When Others Sin Against Us

When others sin against us, we can respond in one of two ways. We can:

  1. Get angry
  2. We can respond by being mindful of God

Instead of anger, we should be mindful of God. Peter gives this advice to a slave who has an unjust master.

In 1 Peter 2:18-20 he writes,

“Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.”

What does it mean to be mindful of God?

Being mindful of God means that we are to think of God’s will and His glory instead of our will and our glory. Instead of getting angry and blowing up on another, we relax, take a deep breath, and think about our Christian witness. In order to do this we have to see God’s glory as more important than our own.

Admittedly, keeping God’s glory supreme is difficult. For that reason, Jerry Bridges provides a few questions we can ask to keep ourselves mindful of God:

  1. How would God have me respond in this situation?
  2. How can I best glorify God by my response?
  3. Do I believe that this difficult situation or this unjust treatment is under the sovereign control of God and that in His infinite wisdom and goodness He is using these difficult circumstances to conform me more to the likeness of Christ? (see Rom. 8:28; James 1:2-4)

By being mindful of God, we can better deal with our anger when others sin against us. So the next time you are tempted to blow up on another, keep your witness and God’s glory in mind.

Question for Reflection

  1. Are you mindful of God when others sins against you?
  2. Do you have God’s glory in mind or your own pride?
  3. Can you think of a situation where you were mindful of God and it served as an effective witness?

Looking Forward

In the next post in this series, I will talk about how we show our anger.

Resources

Post adapted from Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins, 121-28

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Respectable Sins: Anger | Part 2

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Practical, Respectable Sins4 Comments

Angry Birds

In the last post in this series, I defined anger, talked about one form of anger, which is righteous anger, and gave an example. Today we move on to sinful anger, discussing its cause.

What is the Cause of Sinful Anger?

Is should be said first that others are not the cause of our anger. No one causes us to be angry. The actions or words of others are just an occasion for anger to surface. The cause of anger is our own pride, selfishness, or desire to be in control.

Examples

It may be helpful to look at a few examples. As we do, help me pick out the underlying cause of anger in each.

Example #1

You agree to come and speak at a gathering at my house this Friday. I have told all my friends you are going to be there, but then when Friday rolls around, the appointment slips your mind and you don’t show up. The next day you call to apologize, and I jump all over you.

What is the cause of my anger? 

The cause of my anger is pride because you made me look bad in front of my friends.

Example #2 

You hear that someone in the church gossiping about you. When you find out whom, you approach them, but instead of approaching them lovingly, you blow up and start yelling.

What is the cause of your anger?

Again, the cause of your anger is pride, which results from your character and reputation being questioned.

Example #3 

At church, there is vote on whether to move the Sunday service time from 11am to 10:30am. When the vote is tallied, you lose, and the service is moved to 10:30am despite your objection. When you realize you lost, you become angry.

What is the cause of your anger?

Your anger could be caused by a number of underlying sins: a desire to be in control, your selfishness, or your pride.

What Does this Tell Us?

This simple exercise tells us our anger, while provoked by others, is not ultimately caused by them. It is caused by our own sinfulness. As well as we learn there are underlying sins – control, selfishness, and pride. It is appropriate to restrain ourselves when provoked, but if we want to kill the sin of anger, we must deal with these other sins as well.

Question for Reflection

  1. What often causes you to become angry? Is it a desire to be in control, selfishness, or pride?

Looking Forward

In the next post in this series, I will provide a way we can respond when others sin against us.

Resources

Post adapted from Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins, 121-28

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Respectable Sins: Anger | Part 1

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Practical, Respectable Sins1 Comment

Angry Birds

This week we continue working through Jerry Bridges’ book Respectable Sins. The respectable sin for this week is anger. Let’s get started by defining anger.

Anger Defined

Anger is defined as:

A strong feeling of displeasure and usually antagonism often accompanied by sinful emotions, words, and actions hurtful to those who are the object of our anger.

Righteous Anger

One form of anger is righteous anger. We would like to think this is the form of anger we often exercise, but most of the time it’s not. How do we know? We can employ two tests to see if our anger is righteous.

Two Tests

First, do we perceive the action of another as true evil that is a violation of God’s moral law?

If we do see it as a violation of God’s moral law, we should be concerned about God and His will, not concerned about ourselves and our will. In other words, is our focus on God and His will or on me and my will?

Second, are you in control when you are angry?

Those who are angry for righteous reasons are not out of control. They do not lose their temper, nor do they seek vengeance.

Conclusion of Two Tests

I believe when we employ these two tests, we find our anger is not as righteous as we first thought. Even if we are “reacting to another person’s real sin that does not necessarily make our anger righteous. We are likely more concerned with the negative impact of the sinful actions on us than we are that it is a violation of God’s law. Or we may even use the fact that it is a violation of God’s law to justify our own sinful angry response.”[1] If either of these cases are true, then our anger is not righteous anger, but sinful.

An Example of Righteous Anger

Jesus cleansing the temple is an example of righteous anger. Look with me at the following two verses.

John 2:13-17

“The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”” 

Mark 11:15-17

“And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

When we apply the test above to Jesus’ actions, we see that: 

  • Jesus had a valid concern for the Lord’s will – He did not want the temple to be a den of robbers, but a house of prayer.
  • Jesus did not retaliate in a vengeful way.
  • Jesus is self-controlled.
  • Jesus did not lose His temper.

We can conclude that Jesus’ actions were done in righteous anger.

Questions for Reflection

  1. Can you think of sins others commit that would cause us to be more concerned with the negative impact on us than on God?
  2. Have you ever used others violation of God’s law as a way to justify your own sinful anger?

Looking Forward

The next post in this series will deal with sinful anger and its causes.

Resources

[1] Jerry Bridges, Respectable Sins, 122.

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Free eBook for Advent 2012

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Books, Discipleship, PracticalLeave a comment

Advent is here! For four weeks leading up to Christmas in December, we remember the thousand’s of years God’s people were anticipating and longing for the Messiah.

1 Peter 1:10-12 provides a description of what we look back to during Advent.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

To assist you this Advent season in reflecting back on God’s promise of a coming Messiah, I recommend John Piper’s book Good News of Great Joy: Daily Readings for Advent. You can download a free ebook here.

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What is Does it Mean to Repent?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Practical5 Comments

If someone where to ask you, what is true repentance, how would you answer?

You might say, “True Repentance is being grieved over our sin so much that we turn away from sin and turn toward God.”

You might continue by saying what one commentator has said, “True repentance is to return to God, to His covenant, and to loyalty and obedience.”

That is a pretty heavy definition, so let’s break it down into manageable parts.

True Repentance Means we are Grieved Over Sin

We see in the first place that repentance is more than just being sorry for what we have done. It is to be grieved over our sin.

One day, when I was young I was doing something I should not do with the neighborhood kids. I don’t remember what it was, but I knew my mom did not want me to do it, but I did it anyway. Some how my mom knew I did what she did not want me to do. I don’t know how she knew, or how she found out. Mom’s seem to have that keen ability to just know when their kids disobey.

Later that day, she asked me about it. Instead of telling the truth, I decided I would lie to see if I could get away with it, but my mom knew I was lying. And because I disobeyed her and lied to her, I was punished for it.

I remember as I sat in my room, I was grieved, not just because I had gotten caught, and now I could not go out and play with my friends, but because I offended my mom.

Repentance is similar. It is an understanding that we as sinners offend a Holy God, and in realizing that, we are truly grieved over our sin. Not just because we will be punished one day, but because we offend God.

True Repentance Involves the Entire Person, Loyalty and Obedience to God

We also learn that repentance involves more than just grief. It involves radical transformation of the entire person – our mind, our heart, and our will.

Many of you have seen the movie the Matrix. At the beginning of the movie, the main character, Nero, is offered a choice between two pills, a red pill and a blue pill. The blue pill allows him to carry on life as if he had never even met Morpheus and learned the truth. The red pill allows him to be plunged into the Matrix fully learning all of what Morpheus and his crew know.

As he stares at those two pills he has a choice. Keep living like nothing happened. Or change everything. We all know that Nero chooses the red pill and is plunged into the Matrix with Morpheus‘ and his crew. When he chose that red pill, he turned away from the life he once knew and embarked on a new journey.

That is also apart of what it means to repent of our sins. It is a complete turning away from our old way of life to a new way of life in Christ. We can’t just do this intellectually. When Nero decided to take that red pill, his whole being was involved.

Similarly, when we repent of our sins, we don’t just do so intellectually. Our whole being is involved. Our mind, our will, our heart all turn from sin toward God. When we do that, we submit ourselves to God, to His rule, and to what He wants for our lives, just like Nero submitted himself to the Matrix, it’s rule, and what it wanted for his life.

So when we repent of our sins, we are saying that we will be loyal to God and obedient to Him, and our loyalty involves more than just our mind, it involves our whole being.

Challenge

We have to ask ourselves, given this definition of repentance, have we really repented?

  • Are you grieved knowing you have offended a Holy God because you are a sinner?
  • Have you turned to God from your sin, allowing Him to be the Lord of your life?
  • Are you loyal to God and God alone?
  • Are you obedient to God’s commands?

If we are truly repentant, these things will be evident in our life. I pray they are evident in your life.

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Book Recommendation: Every Good Endeavor

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Books, Discipleship, Practical1 Comment

Just yesterday Timothy Keller’s new book Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work was released. You can pick up a copy here.

Before the release, the guys over at Desiring God had Keller on their podcast Authors on the Line. Here is what they had to say about the interview:

We put Dr. Keller on the line to ask him about the 9 to 5 labors into which we invest so much of our lives. So what is the purpose of our work? What if we get stuck in a job we don’t enjoy? And why does it seem the church has such a hard time getting its arms around vocation in the first place?

Their interview was helpful and informative. I recommend you take the time to listen to their discussion and pick up a copy of Keller’s new book.

God’s Work and Ours: An Interview with Timothy Keller (17 minutes)