An Antidote for Anger

Please turn to James chapter 4. James chapter 4. Please stand when you have that. That can be found on page 1012 if you're using the Pew Bible. And for context, I will begin in verse 13 of the previous chapter and go all the way to verse 12 of chapter 4.

Who is wise and understanding among you by his good conduct? Let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth.

This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.

And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder.

You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the scripture says, he earns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us, but he gives more grace.

Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.

The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge. There's only one lawgiver and one judge, he who is able to save and to destroy.

But who are you to judge your neighbor? Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it so directly addresses our own heart conditions so that we might understand ourselves and address our own sin.

We pray that you would give us strength today by your Spirit, that you would give more grace in order that we would mortify the flesh, that it would be mortified within us by the power of the Spirit. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Anger, Worldly Wisdom, and Prayerlessness

This is a passage about anger. This is a passage about wisdom. The wisdom of the world leads to anger. The wisdom of the world says you've gotta look out for number one and gives you all kinds of ways of doing that, and those are ways that lead to all kinds of disorder and every vile practice.

But the wisdom from above is peaceable. It is one that gives unity among brothers. This passage, James 4, one through three, addresses what someone should do when they have issues with that kind of disorder, that kind of jealousy, selfishness, and every vile practice, specifically anger, when they have problems with anger, with warring against one another.

And the answer is found in prayer and the right understanding of prayer being expressed in the right action of prayer. This might be a new thought to you. Anger problems are prayerlessness problems. I don't know if that was already a intuitive thought in your mind, but it is true.

Anger problems are prayerlessness problems. If you don't have a right kind of prayer in your life, not just not prayer, but even a right kind of prayer in your life, you will naturally have anger problems.

Anger is a common problem among men. It is a violation. The sixth commandment is to commit murder in the heart, as Jesus explained, and so you will see this everywhere. Everywhere that people do not have their hearts rightly ordered before God, everywhere that there is any kind of double-mindedness, misunderstanding, it will come out in war against brothers.

The whole law is fulfilled in this one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. What does that mean? All of lawlessness, any kind of lawlessness, will ultimately be expressed in some kind of anger.

This really is at the heart of so much, but if you can understand the nature of your anger and you can address it, you can have the victory that is described in this passage. Be wretched and mourn and weep.

Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. If you resist the devil, he'll flee from you. It's just all kinds of hope that's given in this passage.

He gives more grace. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Just repeated, promise after promise after promise to deal with anger issues, to deal with any kind of strife, any kind of war between brothers.

And after that, promise after promise in order to meet it. He does grant victory. It's important to heed the words that he's given, meditate upon them in order that we would have that victory, in order that we would be able to address anger.

Righteous Anger and the Ownership of Life

Now, maybe it's important to explain that not all anger is sinful. There's an anger that is righteous, that is on behalf of offenses to God, but anger that is on behalf of offenses to you is inappropriate.

I'll give you an explanation of why. If anger is murder in the heart towards a brother, consider what Genesis 9 says about anger. And for your life blood, I will require a reckoning from every beast, I will require it from man.

From his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood shall be shed for God made man in his own image. Why is it that God has instituted the death penalty in order for the civil magistrate to seek vengeance on others?

Is it because when someone sheds the blood of another man that he has wronged that other man, and so therefore there must be death penalty? Perhaps in some measure that could be said, but the reason this passage gives is not because the man has been wronged, but because God has been wronged.

God owns all life. It is he who is wronged when someone is murdered. This is why that suicide is even wrong, right? If you owned your own life in the fullest sense, in a plenary sense, right? No one else, not having to answer to anyone else for your life, you could take it.

You could do whatever you want with it. But that is not how your life is. Your blood, your life is owned by God. And so someone who takes that life is not stealing from you so much as they are stealing from God.

And so that sense of desiring vengeance, that sense of anger is right when it is on behalf of the one who has truly been wronged. And it is wrong when it is on the one who is only as a steward, a holder of that account of his own life, et cetera, been wronged.

When you do that, you treat yourself as the owner of your life. When you are angry at another on your behalf, you treat yourself as the owner of your life. But if God is the owner of your life, it is appropriate to be angry on his behalf.

Now you can ask yourself in any situation where you are angry, would you be just as angry if this had happened to a neighbor and not to you? Right, would you still be angry on account of the offense to God, or is it specifically because it's been targeted at you that you feel so angry about this?

Four Steps for Dealing with Anger

James 4 is a very practical passage. James is a very practical writer. He gives us straightforward steps. I'm gonna break this down for you. And what I think is a good way to think about this passage.

Four steps, four steps to deal with your anger. Okay, the sermon is entitled An Antidote for Anger. What is the antidote? Four steps that James gives us. Some of these are explicit in the passage, some are implicit.

It's kind of obvious that they would be there, that he's intending for you to take these steps. And there are four things you need to identify. Okay, you need to identify your anger. You need to identify your desire.

You need to identify how you should be asking for that thing and how you should be acting. Okay, so your anger, your desire, how you should be asking and how you should be acting. First, just looking at your anger.

Identifying Anger and Its Hidden Patterns

Of course, it's important to identify your anger that you could even begin to fight anger. How would you know that you're supposed to, that you're supposed to address it? How would you even begin to address it if you did not identify it?

And this is not something that's obvious to people. All the time that they have anger issues. A lot of times it goes completely unnoticed. And that's partly because anger is expressed in different ways.

They might be used to seeing people express anger in one way and because they're not expressing anger the same way, not identify it. If you're used to seeing anger expressed by yelling, maybe you won't identify it when you shut down.

Okay, or you have a flight response instead of a fight response. But anger can come out in different ways. I remember one time in my early 20s that I called my dad and spoke to him about some anger problems that I was dealing with.

And he observed that I had always had these angry problems all throughout my childhood with this specific issue that was making me angry. And I had no idea. I had no idea that this had plagued me for so long.

It's just not always obvious to people that they have an anger issue. It might not be obvious in the individual moment. And then on top of that, connecting the dots to see a pattern is even less obvious to people.

Something to keep in mind, if you are in a position of authority over someone, if you're a husband, a father, a mother, take those opportunities to let the people that you are over understand the nature of their sin issues.

Children do not understand themselves well. Take opportunities to identify to them their particular sins that are different than others, the patterns that they have and what they need to be watching out for, because it's not going to be obvious to them.

I think one thing I've seen a number of times with people addressing sin issues in others is that to them, the issue is so obvious that they think it must be obvious to the other person. And so they will either not address it or they will very poorly address it, just kind of passive aggressively hinting or something like that, thinking the other person will have all the tools they need to deal with it.

It is not always obvious to people what their sin issues are. And this is true with anger. It may very well not be obvious to you. It's something that you need to watch out for. Something that a lot of people think is that, well, anger is just normal.

It's just normal for people to fight. It's just normal for friendships to break up. It's just normal to stop talking to people. Well, it might be common, but it is not normal within the body of God. It is not how it ought to be.

If you read this passage again, this is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but earthly, unspiritual, demonic. A lot of people describe their issues with other people in the church, with other Christians, the way, the problems that they have with just other people, their lives in general, in a way that this is just normal.

This is just an appropriate response of mine because this person's acting that way. No, your response, if you were responding with anger, if you were responding with division, is demonic. That might sound like a harsh word.

It's the word that James uses. It is demonic. That is something that is not from above. That is something that is from below. Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder in every vile practice.

Be on guard for these things and do not normalize them. Do not treat anger like it's just a normal issue that we have to deal with, that division, disunity, just a normal issue that that's an appropriate response.

If the situation's bad enough, then you just respond in your angry way. No, not at all. So what kind of things can you be looking out for yourself in order to identify anger? Look at how you speak. Is it the same way that you speak to other people?

Once again, not just are you yelling, but also are you shutting down? Are you resorting to unnecessary and inappropriate sarcasm? Sarcasm is often appropriate, and the Bible often uses sarcasm, but in a harsh way towards someone where it's not appropriate, then it's a sign of anger.

Look at how your disposition is to other people. Are there some people that you avoid, would not want to speak to? Is that not evidence of anger possibly? And look at your actions. You know, how do you act?

Are there any underhanded approaches you are taking to something? Is there any way that you act in a way that is either hostile or evasive that demonstrates anger? Be on guard for this. And if anyone amongst us thinks that he has no sin in this area, this is a core thing.

Like I said, the whole law is summed up in this one word. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. If you think that you don't have any kind of anger issue at all, and God's people shouldn't be defined by anger issues, so don't hear me saying otherwise, but if you think that you have so matured and so grown that this isn't an issue in your life, then you're saying that you have become perfect, but none is perfect.

You know, understanding this passage, it really helps to understand the whole of James. James 1 relates, James 2 relates, James 3 relates. When he talks about taming the tongue, no one can do it. This is something you will not completely have done until the end of your life, when God finishes the work through death, purifying you of your sinful flesh, eventually giving you a risen body, is not afflicted with the same, not afflicted with the same issues, completing the purification of your soul so that you do not sin anymore.

But until then, these issues will exist, so identify them. And if you don't think you have one, that is a certain, that is a certain way of knowing that you have one that has not yet been identified, right?

There's got to be something. Now, it might not be absolutely outstanding, but look in your heart for where there might be an anger issue that needs to be addressed. Now, having identified the anger itself, which is obvious, might as well call that step number zero, but that's the first thing, you need to identify your desire.

Identifying the Desire Beneath Anger

James 4, verse one says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

This is the idol that causes you to sin. If you have something you desire and you are willing to disobey the commandments of God in order to get this thing, if you are willing to resort to an entirely different disposition, the wisdom that is from below in order to get this thing, this is the idol that you have to identify.

This is such a fundamental question, and it's one a lot of people do not stop to ask when they are angry at someone. You can have so much victory if you just ask yourself in a situation with anger, what do I want?

What do I want? A lot of people don't stop to even think about that. And this is not necessarily an easy question to answer. A lot of people think it's an easy question to answer. Well, of course, if you're angry at someone about this thing, but you might in all the heat of your anger not even be aware of what it is that you want.

Jeremiah 17, nine says, the heart is deceitful above all else and desperately sick. Who can understand it? You may not have a real handle on what it is that you want, what it is that you desire. And it could be that this, and what I have found in practice, that this is the most critical piece.

Now, in another way, you could say, well, prayer, of course, going to God is the most critical piece, et cetera. Well, yes, that is. But what I mean is the part that I think the most people have the trouble with, the most people have to and misunderstand is the part where they try to understand their own selves.

A lot of people assume God, because he is incomprehensible, meaning no one can have a comprehensive knowledge of him, is beyond all understanding. If you can just understand him and keep your focus on him, then you'll have it all sorted out.

And that, of course, that's true in a sense in the way that that might be framed. But a lot of people don't realize that since they are only rightly understood in context of that incomprehensible one, they themselves are difficult to understand.

You need the wisdom of God in order to understand your own self. How does it describe the effect of powerful preaching in 1 Corinthians 14, that someone has the secrets of their heart disclosed? That's not something that they...

Now, that could be talking about someone who already has secret thoughts and is aware of them, and then they hear them explained. But is it not more common that people aren't even aware of what their own heart is cogitating, what their own heart is going through, and then it is through the word of God that it is exposed to them and they begin to understand their own selves?

Do not assume that you understand your own self. Okay, this is, from what I have seen, the most skipped, the most missed, the most critical part to the process of dealing with anger is trying to understand your own self and what is your desire.

To give you some examples of what people do, because a lot of times people will pick a broad thing, and it's not really that thing, it's something more specific. So if someone gets angry when people do not understand them, when they feel like they're being misunderstood, they might think that that's just always the case.

Okay, I want to be understood. But it may be that there's some people that make them angry when that happens and there's others that don't, or there's some occasions where they are angry over it and some occasions where they're not, and what does that show?

That it's not really not being understood that is the thing they want. There's something more specific. It might have to do with what they are trying to accomplish in that kind of speech. And that kind of communication.

It might have to do with the kind of respect that they're trying to get from someone else or the person they're trying to get respect from. And the more you can narrow it down and ask yourself, okay, is this true in all the time?

If I think that this is my desire, is that true in every case where I don't have that thing? Or is it not? If it's not, then you haven't gotten as deeply as you could. You might still have some victory as you go to God and you ask for that thing, et cetera.

But the more you're able to narrow in on it, more you're able to identify that idol, the more you will actually be able to address it. And so speaking of respect, someone might find that when someone else does not respect them with the way they speak or the way that they act, it very much upsets them.

They might say to themselves, okay, I am a person who wants to be respected. But then, when they ask themselves, do I care when this person doesn't respect me? Is it just a stranger when strangers don't respect me?

Or is it when people close to me don't respect me? Is it when people above me don't respect me or when people below me don't respect me in terms of authority? And these are, once again, important questions to answer.

If you can narrow in, it will be very beneficial to you. There are certain things you don't have that you want. Maybe you want peace and something is disturbing your peace. Maybe it's some kind of annoyance, maybe it's some kind of nagging thing.

Could be all kinds of stuff. Would I feel differently in a different circumstance if I was trying to accomplish something different? If that were coming from someone different, et cetera. Ask yourself these questions.

If you're having trouble figuring it out or maybe you've stuck to something pretty broad, if the answer you've concluded is something very broad, like just, I want respect or I want, I don't know, just pick something else or I want more money or I want whatever it is.

If it's very broad, chances are you haven't gone narrow enough. It could help to keep some kind of journal and try to identify not just the times when you were very angry, but even just a little bit frustrated.

Identify those times as well. And maybe you can begin seeing a pattern. If you're having trouble narrowing it down, ask someone else to help you. Someone who is wise, who you think could counsel you on this.

Don't use it as an opportunity to gossip about any person that you are angry with, but bring that forward. And maybe in a way where you can, if you shouldn't speak anyone's name, do so in a way that's not obvious who the person is, et cetera.

Asking God for the Right Thing in the Right Way

Okay, what happens after you've identified your anger and you've identified your desire? Then you have to identify how you should ask. That is what we have here. You do not have because you do not ask.

You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. Okay, you are supposed to be asking God. There's a couple of steps I haven't mentioned here that are obvious. You don't just have to identify how to ask.

You also have to actually ask. But the key thing that a lot of people miss is they should think about how they should be asking. Okay, if you ask to spend something on your passions, God's not going to give it to you.

It's important to ask in order to receive. The reason God gives gifts to his children is because they are good for his children. In fact, anytime he gives something to his child is because it is ultimately for their good.

Even if it's a trial, it is something that is for their good. If he is not giving you something that you want, it is because it is currently not for your good. And the reason that he has given prayer is for you to prepare your heart in order that it would be good for you to receive that thing.

What a lot of people misunderstand here is when they're praying for something, they think they are just supposed to pray for that thing or that they are just supposed to pray in a way that acknowledges some of the more outward-facing commands of God, right?

You care for your children, so give me this because I want it. But there are deeper ways of understanding God's gifts. And as you go deeper, you will find more of your prayers answered, right? If you understand God's purposes and you pray like David in the Psalms, this is a good way to train yourself if you're trying to figure out how can I do this.

Go through the Psalms, record the motivations that David gives, the way that he wrestles with the promises of God, the things he appeals to, and then incorporate that into your own prayers. Okay, say, in order that I could thank you, commit yourself to thanking God after the fact.

Maybe God hasn't given it to you because you wouldn't even appreciate it. You wouldn't even acknowledge it. It's coming from his hand. And so he is putting you through this season of need in order that you would be able to receive the gift and give him thanks for it, because otherwise you wouldn't even notice.

You'd just go about your merry way, not aware. Commit yourself to thankfulness. Maybe you would misuse the gift in some other way. Commit yourself to using it well in order that I might serve you in these various ways.

You can pray that others would see God's glory in the way that that gift is given in order that you would be glorified in the eyes of others as they see your goodness to your children. You can pray that God would keep you from temptation.

God, this is very difficult for me. I ask you to give me the strength now to endure it, but I also ask that you would remove this from me in order that I would not be tempted beyond what I can bear. It's also helpful to acknowledge limitations here, reasons why God may not answer a prayer request.

You can pray, God, I believe these would be according to your purposes for these reasons. Yet you might also not give it to me for these reasons, but it seems that these reasons are greater to me, so I plead with you on the basis of those reasons.

The more that you acknowledge the thought of God in scripture, the more you will be prepared to receive the answer that he has in store for you and to have the most good. And this is something that has its end result in receiving.

And maybe the answer will be different than you anticipate it being. Maybe a lot of people would identify it as just a rejection. God always answers his children's prayers, they just might not be the way that you think they ought to be answered, but you will be able to receive that and understand it as good if you prepare your heart in order to receive it.

Okay, so identify how it is that you are supposed to be asking God for the thing that you are asking him for. And then identify how it is that you are supposed to act, how it is you are supposed to act.

The implication here in this passage is that this would change your behavior, that you would cease to have disorder and engage in every vile practice so you wouldn't be jealous and selfish in your outward actions, you wouldn't be warring with one another.

Ask yourself how it is that you should act, how it is that you should be glorifying God. A lot of people misunderstand that the nature of either this passage or just the general approach to prayer is one of passivity.

Waiting on the Lord is not a passive thing. Okay, first of all, prayer itself is not a passive thing, that is an active thing that you are supposed to be doing. Secondly, a lot of what happens when people are not prayerful, when people are not thinking through the purposes of God and engaging in really digesting them and expressing them back to Him is that they do not understand what they are supposed to be doing.

So what happens when someone's angry? Someone thinks that they're supposed to have control over something that they aren't, and so they get frustrated and they get just real upset because they don't have control somewhere where they think that they are supposed to have control.

They're supposed to release all that to God, not be anxious for anything, but let Him deal with it. Okay, so that's half of it, but the other half is a lot of times because they are trying to seek control in ways they aren't supposed to have it, it means that they are...

I forget if I said that right. They may be trying to seek control in ways they aren't supposed to have it, but they may also not be seeking control in the ways that they are supposed to have it. And this is very frequent when people are not prayerful and thinking about what it is they are supposed to do.

If you're not asking the question to God, how should I glorify you or help me to glorify you? If this is not a prayer that they're coming to God with, they will often miss the very activities that they are supposed to be going for.

A lot of times people are very angry and frustrated with their children because they do not use the means of correction that God gives. This is something that happens often, and it's one of the things that most surprised me as a parent, that I thought that anger and correction would kind of, I don't know, maybe not proportionally match each other or anything, but they would kind of be together.

But what I find is they're almost inversely proportional. The more that I'm not pursuing the correction of my children that God would have me to do, the more that I am feeling angry and frustrated, and the more that I am pursuing the correction of them that God would have me pursue, the more I'm calm about it.

Okay, these are, once again, it is not obvious to a lot of people that the problems that they face are because they are trying to seek control where they shouldn't have it and then not pursuing the control where they do have it.

The means that God has given them to deal with things. Just to show you some ways that that's present here in this passage, connecting James 4 back to James 1. Just reading from James 1, verse 2. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.

For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Okay, so first of all, he's talking about trials, how someone responds under trials.

When you don't have something, that is a form of trial. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. Okay, so first of all, why is it saying that you should ask for wisdom?

How does that relate to the previous passage about trials? Well, the assumption is there's something that you're supposed to be doing and you don't know what to do. Okay, and that's what's going on here.

What is the prayer that you should be asking? You should be asking, not so you can spin things on your passions, but in order that you can glorify God. What should you be asking for? Well, James 1 tells us what to ask for in trials.

In addition to whatever thing it is you think you need, you should be asking for wisdom in order to know what to do. This is a very active thing that is supposed to be going on here. This is not a passive thing.

I can keep reading here. But let him ask in faith with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like the wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.

He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. All right, so someone who comes to God for wisdom, doubting whether or not God will give it, shouldn't expect whether or not, shouldn't expect that he would get that answer.

What does it say here in this passage? Verse eight, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Use that word again, double-minded.

How is this angry person the same thing that's different to this, or same thing, how is this similar to the foolish person who is doubting God? How are these things similar? Well, are they not identical?

That in both cases, this is someone who is kind of bobbing back and forth between whether or not God will give sufficiently or whether or not they have to take matters into their own hands. That's what goes on with anger, is that maybe you as a Christian recognize that you should be trusting God to answer your things, but you kind of bob back and forth.

You're double-minded and you're thinking, well, maybe I need to take it into my own hands. Well, maybe I need to trust God. Well, maybe I need to take it into my own hands. This is the same thing. You're not supposed to take it into your own hands if it has not been placed in your hands, but you are to ask for wisdom so that you are to know what you should do.

There may be actions. In fact, there almost certainly are specific actions that you should be taking. It is rarely just wait, just wait and see. And this is what a lot of people will counsel others. They will say, you know, just keep waiting on the Lord.

Just keep praying. And on one hand, it's true, you should wait on the Lord, but what is the waiting that you're supposed to be doing? Should you not ask for wisdom? Is it not likely there is something else that you should be doing?

And the more you are engaging in those activities, taking control of the things that God has placed for you to do, that you will have peace as you give everything else to Him. I mentioned issues of correction, right?

If there are those under your authority that you have a means to correct and you're not using that means, you will be angry. If you are upset because you don't have some kind of material thing that someone else has, maybe this is your opportunity to provide in a greater way for yourself.

Maybe God is giving you the opportunity to do so. Maybe there is some other thing that you are supposed to be doing. Maybe it is simply prayer, but often there are other things that you ought to be doing because the primary thing we are to be praying for is just wisdom to know how to act in that situation.