CHS Downtown sermon | Tim Henderson+

How are you guys doing? Great. You're doing alright? Hey. Welcome to Church of the Holy Spirit downtown. We call this the table because we center our time around a celebration of an ancient meal. Do you want to hang out together? Are you good? You can stay right up here. Yeah, I'm glad you're here.

We call it the table because we build our time around a celebration of an ancient meal, which I will explain more about as we go. But until we get there, just so you know, you're welcome to the water and cheese on your table. There'll be bread and wine coming, but not quite yet. Feel free to nibble on the cheese and sate your thirst as we go, and then I'll tell you more as we go. Barbara's sneaking the wine already. We're hereby blessed it. It's good. It's great.

A Series on Proverbs

So you guys, we're doing a series on Proverbs. For the last several weeks, we've been studying Proverbs, which is a kind of an odd book in the Old Testament. It's basically a collection of short little sayings, pithy little brief one or two liners that are meant to teach us how to grow wise and also what to do when we come to the realization that we're actually not that wise. And maybe we think about the consequences of that.

In Proverbs, wisdom and folly or wisdom and foolishness are personified as two women. There's one woman named Wisdom and another woman named Folly. And in the book of Proverbs, each of them are calling out saying, follow me. Do things the way that I think you should do things. And what's really interesting is that both wisdom and folly make the exact same invitation in the exact same words. I think this is meaningful to us.

Here it is, Proverbs nine:

Wisdom has built her house. She has hewn out its seven pillars. She's prepared her meat and mixed her wine. She's also set her table. She sent out her maids and she calls from the highest point of the city, and here's her invitation: Let all who are simple come in here, she says to those who lack judgment. — Proverbs 9:1-4

And then later on, just a paragraph later in verse 13, it says:

The woman folly is loud. She is undisciplined and without knowledge. She sits at the door of her house on a seat at the highest point of the city, calling out to those who pass by, who go straight on their way. Let all who are simple come in here, she says to those who lack judgment. — Proverbs 9:13-16

I think what Proverbs is trying to tell us here is that sometimes they can be hard to tell apart. They make the exact same claim. They make the exact same invitation, but one of them is lying. And Proverbs is written to help us become a people that are discerning, that we would be able to tell the difference between wisdom and folly, even though they sometimes look an awful lot alike, that we would become the kind of people that can see through the lies that folly is telling.

Now, Proverbs discusses a huge range of topics, and it's kind of helter skelter. There's a whole bunch of stuff thrown in a bucket. It's a big bag of ideas. And so what we have done here is we sat down as a staff team, and we thought about what are some of the topics that are most pertinent to us that we can extract from Proverbs. The topic we talk about tonight, I think, is really relevant, and it's the topic of anger.

Anger and Its Relevance

Some of you might find that not to be particularly relevant. In my life, you guys, anger is a pertinent topic. Is it for you? Either because you find yourself being quick tempered, easily angered, or because perhaps you live with someone who is or you've experienced the pain from somebody who is.

I would say one disadvantage I have in this whole topic is that I'm male. And I have noticed that men in particular seem to struggle with anger. Not all men, certainly. And certainly, there's plenty of women that struggle with anger too. But it seems to me that my gender gives the lion's share of this. So it's either appropriate or completely unfair that we're talking about this on Father's Day.

Some of you, like me, you might have things that you regret about the way that you have fathered your children and how anger has been part of their experience in life. The good thing about life at the table, I think, as we're together, is that we don't pretend to be a self-righteous people. Any one of us knows if you saw the highlight reel of our lives, it would just be embarrassing. And maybe some of those clips might be you just being really ticked about something, maybe justified, maybe not justified.

Quig said something this morning about how there may be such a thing as righteous anger, but I don't know if I've ever experienced it. I always think I do at the moment. Do you know this? You always feel so righteous when you're mad, and then later on you're like, maybe not.

I noticed something. I'm studying Greek right now, and there's a verse in James 1:20, and I've heard it a million times. It says:

Man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. — James 1:20

I always assumed what he's really saying is that mankind's anger doesn't bring about the righteous life that God requires. But there are two words for man in the New Testament: anthropos, which means mankind, and aner, which means men, male, dudes. And you want to guess which one it says in James 1:20? It's not talking about mankind—it's talking about dudes. It's talking about the anger of men does not accomplish the righteousness that God desires.

That felt a little bit like a flick in the eye when I discovered that. But it's true, right? Our anger, and particularly, I think it flows more as a byproduct of testosterone. We don't get all of it, but we definitely get a disproportionate share of it. So what I want to do, ladies, you can listen in. By all means, listen in because sometimes you guys get mad too. And you're the thing that makes us mad, just to be clear.

But Proverbs says a ton about anger. Lots and lots and lots of stuff about anger. So we're going to do a quick survey, and then I'll give you guys a chance to discuss it around the table. Where does this land in your life as we share this meal?

What Proverbs Says About Anger

So here it is, Proverbs 14:16:

A wise man fears the Lord and shuns evil, but a fool is hot-headed and reckless. — Proverbs 14:16

Do you hear the fork in the road there? There's wisdom and there's folly. This happens over and over and over again in Proverbs. There's a path of wisdom. There's a path of folly. Each of them are calling out, "Do it this way." And as you're at that crossroads, the wise man is going to shun evil, but a fool is hot-headed, reckless. There's an invitation to that. Two paths.

Now listen to what anger produces according to Proverbs. This is Proverbs 15:18:

A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel. — Proverbs 15:18

Have you ever noticed that? Anger begets anger, right? Anger produces something. If I'm angry with you and I express that to you, it's a very high likelihood that you're going to get angry with me. Right? And if not with me, then you might get angry with somebody else, and they might kick their dog, and the thing just spreads.

Dissension is a broad term. It doesn't just mean anger begets anger, though that's certainly true. But dissension sometimes just creates this dissipation where I might treat you with anger and harshness and sharpness, and you might not respond to me out loud, but I can almost guarantee you that it's going to produce a distance. Have you seen this happen in your life? It happens all the time, right? It just creates a distance.

Here's what it says in Proverbs 29:22. It gets worse:

An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins. — Proverbs 29:22

So we get more dissension, of course. That's standard. But it's not just dissension—it produces other sins. When I am angry, I feel righteous. But in fact, I am very, very likely to do something that is harmful and stupid, and it just spreads like ugly stepchildren. And anger, maybe you've noticed this in your life, anger is rarely alone. It brings along all sorts of other undesirable things.

Here's a colorful way that they put it in Proverbs 30:33:

For as churning the milk produces butter, and as twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife. — Proverbs 30:33

Now, I need to confess I have never churned milk, and to my knowledge, I've never twisted somebody's nose until it bled, but I think I get his point. And if you consider this, if you twist somebody's nose and they bleed, it's not their fault they're bleeding, right? You caused that effect. It's not their fault.

And so it might be that you bark at your kids or you're sharp with a subordinate or you're angry on the road and things get nasty. But the deal is that anger produces this thing that you find yourself not liking as it comes back to you. You may have had a hand in producing those realities. I have certainly had a hand in producing those realities. That's life down this particular path of folly.

And we live in a culture—I would say right now, I mean, I've never seen a chart of this, but does it seem like anger is at an all-time high right now? The stock market gets higher and so does it seem that our anger is. We are in a culture that's quick to anger.

We're quick tempered. There's all kinds of ways that things get out of hand, and that's the path of folly. And this woman, Folly, who stands at the road and calling the simple down that path, she loves this. What would she love more than to see people just at each other's throats and bickering and short-tempered and ungracious and quick to anger. She loves that. And so it's a shameful thing to me, the ways that I have contributed to that.

And in fact, the next proverb I want you to see suggests this better path, but notice what it's going to say about it. Here's Proverbs 29:11.

A fool gives full vent to his anger. — Proverbs 29:11

You ever try to vent your anger thinking that you're going to dissipate it, but instead it works you up more? A fool gives full vent to his anger. But check it out:

But a wise man keeps himself under control. — Proverbs 29:11

That wise path of control, I think that sounds lovely. But I can tell you from my own experience of being alive is that it's really, really hard. It's hard to not be angry. And if I'm already hooked, if something is frustrating me, if my computer just won't print for no good reason, whatever the thing is that provokes me, once I'm already there and you tell me, "Hey, hey, it's okay. Be patient." That's like telling a drowning person to swim. It's just a little bit too late. I'm already over the edge.

Do you know this phenomena that once you're hooked, you're hooked? Some of you don't. God bless you. Some of you are basically like Kelly. Right? So in our marriage, I get easily 98% of the anger in our marriage. I am quick tempered. Kelly is sweet and gracious and godly and good. But this week, she got angry, and I love it. Whenever Kelly gets mad, I don't even know what she was frustrated with—something. She wasn't mad at me. She's never mad at me, and I wouldn't have liked that as much. But something was frustrating her, and so she was short. She was just kind of impatient, and she just needed me to leave her alone.

And I'm always like, "Oh, praise God." Like, I'm like, "Kelly, remember this. Right now, the way that you feel right now, if I were to jump in and say, 'Sweetheart, it's okay. Be patient.' You would hate that. Right?" You know this? And I'm always like, "Oh, dear God. Let her remember what it feels like because that's how I feel all the time."

It's hard to be patient once you're already hooked. It passes quickly for Kelly—she goes back to being righteous. But for me, when my temper is rising, it's really, really hard. So here's how Proverbs puts that. Listen to this. This is Proverbs 16:32.

Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city. — Proverbs 16:32

Do you hear what he's saying here? Think about this. There's something about if you have the ability to control that rage as it's rising, that is like the height of power. If you can do that, you are stronger than the guy that can demolish a city.

It's a little bit—if you guys are Marvel fans, have you watched the whole Marvel canon of all these movies? Who do you wish you were? Is there one of these guys, men or women, that you're like, "I wish I was this guy"? Captain America. So he's like the super righteous one. He's amazing. Steve Rogers. He's a beast. He's great. Anybody else you guys like? Iron Man? Iron Man is incredible. I would love to be Iron Man. That guy's got the tools. But the Hulk? So you want to be the Hulk? Yeah.

So I am the Hulk, and you don't want to be the Hulk. I don't look like him, but when Bruce Banner fights his anger, it's like, man, once that thing goes, there's nothing you can do. Do you identify with that? Remember the old TV show? "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." Remember that? That's the Bruce Banner story.

And for me, if everything's great, I'm great. Everything's awesome. I'm not mad at all right now. But when it's not great, when I'm in pain or when I'm frustrated, when everything changes—I'll tell you what, keeping that thing in check, it's like taking a city, and it's really, really difficult.

And so if maybe some of you pride yourself on your strength, you are a powerful, dominant person, let me just tell you, you know what's more impressive than that? It's being dominant over your own temper. Better a man who can do this than a warrior. Your ability to control yourself—if you can do that, Proverbs says, like, props to you.

Because that is where the real strength is actually found. Okay? So what I want you guys to do tonight as we share this meal, which I'll explain in a second, is I want you to ponder together: How do you find that strength? How could you become the sort of person who is more powerful than a warrior, who is really in check of your own rising temper?

And I will warn you, around the table, it's gonna require a bit of honesty to figure out what is it. Let me kind of run the autopsy. What makes me angry? What's the thing that is most likely to hook me? And those of you that are given to anger, you might have actually a little bit more to offer in this conversation. So I hope you might feel the safety and the courage to say, "Well, last week, this is what happened to me and here's how it goes," if you've ever paid attention to it. Right?

Understanding Your Anger

Consider: What makes you mad? Do you have an early warning system, like an earthquake detector? You know, like, something happens—I don't know what it is—but that tells you there's gonna be an earthquake in an hour. Do you have that? Can you sense, "This is the thing that's gonna rise me up"? Or maybe there's a particular situation. Or maybe—if you've ever noticed this—your anger has a predictable undercurrent to it.

I was talking to Brian Morgan, another one of our priests on staff, and he told me, "Tim, whenever people get angry, there's 100% of the time, it's one of three things." Like, do tell. He says it's always gonna be a loss of control, a loss of love, or a loss of identity. That before you get angry, you're suffering from a loss of control, a loss of love, or a loss of identity.

Now I haven't pondered that too deeply, so maybe Brian's wrong. But it sounded pretty good when he said it. So chew on that. Does it fit for you? Think about the last couple of times that you've been mad. What does it root back to? A loss of control? That one's kind of obvious—that's that's me right there. Right? Identity, I don't think I care that much about that. But control, I care a great deal about. Right? Loss of love, loss of control, loss of identity. Maybe think about that.

And after you've had a chance to process through together, think about this in your own life: Where is this all playing out? And I hope that you might feel the courage to be a little bit introspective, to be a little investigative about your own anger. Then I will share just a few brief comments. When we're all done talking about that, I'll jump back on stage with how you—a resource that's available to you—to help you jump off this path of folly and get back on the path of wisdom regarding your anger. So that's where we're gonna go tonight.