Anger = Righteousness

Two questions for you and you don't need to answer out loud I prefer if you didn't how good are you at listening just think through yourself yeah how good are you at listening where are you for me I think it's just kind of a viewer look at a meter be moving you know there are times I'm like I'm on it and there are times I'm like no and sometimes I'm aware of when I'm not listening well and sometimes I'm not aware people have to create awareness in me but where are you as a listener how's that working in your life the second question is how are you as a doer getting things done and it's probably this meter as well how are you at doing what needs to be done our scripture is going to speak about these two things this evening this morning the scripture is going to speak about two things we're in the book of James we're dealing in a sermon series called the great con our our culture our society has a way of talking about the way we should live life and James has this as a way of saying to us no that's not gonna work really well so we're in the first chapter of James for those of you don't know James tradition tells us that James the author of this book is the pillar of the church the scripture tells us that he was the brother of Jesus and while Jesus was doing his ministry James thought Jesus was out of his mind kind of nuts is when Jesus was crucified and died and then appeared to James in the resurrection James understood oh my older brother is something else and he became a key leader in the church and in the old orderings of these books James often followed the book of Acts because he was considered the pillar of the church and this is the reformation this the ordering we have in the new testament is so so James James speaks with an interesting authority so James won a restricted office and the book is about King James bigger women in the church were called Men し greatest vile women that time and age and annoyed men but nonetheless Define this beloved let everyone be quick to listen slow too speak and slow too anger for your anger does not produce God's righteousness therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has power to save your souls but be doers of the word and not many who are proved to be both can walk until their walls are lost I'm given already to have stolen the reminding the discipline of the Lord must be here and now merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror, for they look at themselves and then on going away immediately forget what they're like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty and persevere, being not hearers who forget, but doers who act, they will be blessed in their doing. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Would you pray with me?

You know us, we evade you often. We run, we hide, we set up walls. Man, we're strange. Here you come seeking us and we just put up facades. But we thank you that you are bigger than us. We pray that your Holy Spirit would fall upon each of us.

You'd give us ears to hear, mouths that know when to speak, spirits that know how to deal with what goes on inside of us. The ability to be humble before you, to hear your word, and to engage it. We pray that you'd speak. Yours is the only voice we're interested in. Any words that aren't yours, we pray they'd be like dust, chaff, smoke, quickly blown away. But yours, press upon our hearts, our minds, our souls, our bodies.

Speak, we pray. Amen.

So here's your first test on your listening. He had an epithet for you, a name he called you, a way he addressed you, again, not out loud. What was it he called you? Just think to yourself, what was it he called you? This is your first test of listening. He said, you must remember this, my beloved. That was how he addressed you, my beloved. That was the term that he used for you. I would love to ask a show of hands, but I don't want to embarrass you who did not hear. You are God's beloved. That's who you are. It's very important whenever we read scripture, whenever we listen to what God is saying, we start with a sense of our identity. We are not trying to get God to love us. That's an impossibility. God already loves you. You are in a stance of response. All you can do is really say, oh, and I love you. Oh, and I love you too. I also love you. You're never able to get the first word in. I'll be honest with you that when I think of James, James is not the first guy I think of who would be using the term my beloved. I'm just a little surprised. I'm like, wow, James is using that language. You must understand this, my beloved. You are beloved by God. I know you may not feel like it. Trust me, there are times I don't feel like it either. I get that. But scripture tells us that God chose his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, and I am one of those, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Scripture tells us elsewhere, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever should believe in him should not die. Amen. But have everlasting life. This is, God already made these moves well before you ever had a thought of God. This is the nature of God. I don't get it, sincerely. With every year I grow as a Christian, and I've been there many years now, it's just more mysterious to me. Like, that's who you are? That's nuts. But that's who he is. You are God's beloved. That's the nature of who you are. So as you listen to all this, here is what we might call the logic of love. When someone loves you, the logic of love is to love them back. If someone just, you love them, they love you, and they love you, you're like, oh, well, I love you. What can I do? And so I come to Scripture trying to hear what he has to say, and one of the first things he says in this text is, you must be quick to listen. Are you quick to listen? It depends on the day for me. It really depends. Sometimes I'm on it. Now, when I'm, before, what I do now in most of my life is consult and coach. And one of the first classes I had to take for coaching was listening, a four-hour class on listening. And I'll be honest with you, I thought, are you kidding me? I'm a pastor. A four-hour course on listening? That's ridiculous. It was great. I was shocked. I was like, wow, this is really good. And then I listened to another guy, and he talked about what he calls this concept of the advice monster. And most of us have very large advice monster. That are ready to come out at any moment and give advice to people. And one of the tricks is, how do you tame your advice monster, make it small and put it in a kennel or a cage and rarely bring that guy out? Are you quick to listen? Why ask that question? Well, it's kind of obvious that we all like to be listened to. I'm not sure I've ever met anyone who doesn't want to be listened to. If we have, they're probably not of the right mind. Everyone loves to be listened to. Are you quick to listen? Sometimes I am. Sometimes I'm on it. Sometimes I'm absolutely dialed in. Occasionally, I will catch myself not listening. Once in a while, I will say to my wife, Gail, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was not listening. Hold on a moment. Okay, what are you saying? And I'm able to just get it. Now, I should have been able to get it the first time. I shouldn't need to reorient myself. But at least sometimes I'm conscious of the fact that I'm not listening.

Imagine if you were a listening person, someone quick to listen. That that was just part of who you are. Would you consider that loving? I would. I'm grateful for friends who are prone to listening to me. I can think of one friend I would say I dominated 80% of the conversations. Just over many years. And I thought to myself, that's ridiculous. But he just was a great listener. He'd just listen to me go on and on and on, chat about my life. Wow, that was kindness. That was love. For some of us, that might be a good mantra. As we're being interrupted, as someone's talking to us, just to start saying to ourselves, quick to listen, quick to listen, quick to listen, quick to listen, in the head. Quick to listen. Okay, quick to listen. What does it take for me to dial in and do that?

You must understand this, my beloved. Let everyone be quick to listen. One of the writers of The Simpsons, people of great wisdom, wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal called It's True, You Talk Too Much. And he said, take this simple test. After your next long conversation with someone, estimate what percentage of it you spent talking. Be honest. Nope, you're already overestimating. How do I know? Because it's more fun to talk than listen. Talking's like drinking a great Cabernet. Listening's like doing squats.

Listening is like reading a corporate report. Talking is like eating a cinnamon bun.

Talking. I've never been accused of being slow to talk.

Man, you're slow to talk, dude. What's up with you? Why are you always holding back? I don't think anyone in my family, the one I grew up in or the one I'm in, it's just that would not be an accusation for me. I have a preponderance to talking. Now, part of it, I think talking was honestly a survival skill for me. It was a way just kind of in my family. It was something, a role I filled within the family I grew up in. Also, I was 4'11 till 10th grade. When you're a small guy, you learn that the only way to get out of trouble is with your mouth. It's not going to be some other way. I grew 11 inches in my 10th grade year. That's what changed, but talking just stayed a habit. It was already ingrained. You've met with people who talk too much. My wife and I were in seminary, which is a graduate school to train people for ministry, and we visited this couple. We have never seen anyone talk with the speed that she talked with, with the incessantness that she talked to, and this is how she breathed in between words, and then just went right on. You remember, don't you? You remember. We went through this for like 40 minutes, sitting there going, there is no opportunity to interrupt this nonsense. What is your deal? Lady, what's up with that? Are you quick to speak? What would it mean for you to give space, to slow down? I'm often told, and it's probably already happening, you could slow down when you speak. You could just, you know, slow it down a bit. Because I'm not only quick to speak, I'm quick when I speak. Those are just two little wonderful habits I have. And then the next one is slow to anger. I don't know what anger, what that takes place in your life.

I love and I don't love this story about Joshua John Boudin, 27-year-old in Minnesota, arrested for fifth-degree felony assault. So he's at a bus stop, and witnesses say he didn't feel like he was being respected by this 57-year-old woman. And so he's just harassing her. So she pulls out her phone to call the police, and he punches her in the face. 63-year-old guy intervenes. He starts hitting the guy with his blue folder, and then apparently gets away. This is how the police track him down. In the blue folder is his homework for an anger management class he's taking. . I think that's a problem. I think a little too quick to anger in that. It was on the news. Just wild. I don't know how anger works in your life. I don't know what makes you angry. I don't know what sets you off. I don't know what you do when you're angry. Angry doesn't just have to be a tirade. That's bad. There are other ways to be angry, right? You can shut down when you're angry. You can be an escape artist. You can be in a house, but you can disappear. There are lots of ways to be angry, but everyone knows it. Whether you're a yelling, screaming monster, or whether you are just frozen still.

I'm intrigued by the way he impends, but your anger does not produce God's righteousness. That's an intriguing little phrase. An oft-repeated phrase. Only once in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament, you see God is slow to anger.

If you want to be more like God, you pray that God would make you slow to anger. Why is it I'm in this room? Because God is not fast to anger. I would not be in this room if God were quick to anger. I'd be gone by now if he were quick to anger. He's been indescribably patient with me.

Indescribably patient with me.

I don't know what you do with your anger. I love this story by a guy named Leroy Imes, a Christian writer. He wrote a marvelous book on discipleship in the 80s. He said, when I became a Christian, I had an anger problem. Whenever I got angry, I'd punch a door. It bloodied my knuckles, but I'd punch a door once. He said, I'd bust up a ring my wife gave me that had ebony and diamonds in it. Then I'm in this Bible study, and we get to Colossians. We're reading through Colossians. We get to 3.8, and it says, put off anger, malice, and just kind of a list. He said, I stopped there. I didn't want to stop there, but I'm looking at this going, oh, I've got to change. He said, I promised the Lord I will work on this. He started memorizing this scripture. All of Colossians 3 is a worthwhile memorization and worthwhile to pray into your life. He just started praying, and he asked God to help him. He told his wife, feel free to remind me of this scripture at any point you want to do that. That's okay. He said, slowly, gradually, my life changed. It would be nice. It would be wonderful. You mean it. You need a great verse in scripture. You go, wow, I've got to do that, and you pray, and it's instantly gone. It doesn't work that way. Sometimes it's glacial in change. It's gradual in change. Here's some advantages. Unfortunately, since it's gradual or glacial, a couple of advantages. One, the grace of Jesus Christ. I just screwed up again, Lord. Angry burst. Sorry. I'm so sorry. Forgive me. Amazingly, God forgives you. God forgives me. God, pour out your spirit upon me. Help me to change. Go say I'm sorry. Do what I need to do. I need to change. They did a study of third graders to 12th graders, and they asked, hey, grade your parents on various things. The worst score for parents was on anger. 40% CDF on parents. The one thing they wished their parents could do was deal with them differently when they had screwed up. I go, oh, man, I can think of times as a dad. I didn't do well. Right? I mean, you can just think of things. You go, ah, man, how do I need to change?

Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger. It's to be present with someone, to show up to be accounted for. I read a story of a guy who said, I remember growing up, and I'd have cereal with my dad. And I'd watch my dad, and slowly but surely, his eyes would glaze, and he would be somewhere else. Because dad was a business exec, and he was off to another country in his mind. And the guy realized much later in life that his dad was actually never present at breakfast, even though they were having cereal every day. Just wasn't there. What does it mean? So the question for you is, like, how do you want to show up? What sort of person do you want to be? Now, it'd be simple to just stop here and to turn all of this into just a horizontal, just how you and I deal with each other. But this isn't merely speaking horizontally. This is also speaking vertically. What does it mean to be quick to listen to God? He talks about putting off this assortedness, all the rank growth of wickedness, all those things that come out of our mouths that shouldn't come. How do we put that stuff off? And then welcome with meekness. Welcome with meekness, the implanted word that has power to save our souls. We have the ability to be willful, at least I do, to be willful towards or against God. Like, I don't want to do that. Nope, don't want to. Nope, nope, it's not what I want to do. How do I become meek? How do I turn the focus off of me to somewhere else? There is a soccer player who, I don't know if I'll pronounce his name well, but I'll do my best. There's a soccer player whose name is Andres Iannestia. Did I do it right, Iannestia? All right. Greatest Spanish soccer player. Some people think he's better than even Messi. Some people think. Some people think. Clearly not my daughter-in-law. My daughter-in-law does not think that's the case. I wasn't saying that, just so you know. I never said this guy was the best guy ever. I said some people said. So in the 200, in the 2010 World Cup, in the 116 minute, now for those of you who don't know soccer, there are 90 minutes to a soccer, there's so 26 minutes of stoppage time. In the 26 minutes, he edges over to the right, this incredible pass comes to him. A guy, a Dutch guy is just on him. He wins this shot, pass the Dutch guy, pass the goalie. First Spanish World Cup championship ever. Now you need to know this guy's 140 pounds, five foot seven, looks like he could break his legs with a twig. But just an amazing guy. And what's equally amazing about him is his humility. His humility is this. He was once in a restaurant, and the waitress mistook him for a busboy, and asked him to clear the tables. And without him stopping a beat, he just did it. When he shot the goal, I want to show you a picture. When he shot the goal, he did what soccer players do, he took off his jersey. But look at his jersey. Dani Garque siempre con nosotros. Dani Garque is always with us. Okay, a billion people are watching him. Who knows how many people are worshiping him at this moment. And what does he do? He takes all the focus off of himself, and onto a former teammate, who died a year before with a heart attack. Like, who are you? This is just not the arrogance and narcissism I expect of someone who's that good.

Life isn't about you. Not about me either. It's just not. And life wasn't about Jesus, it was about us. Strange. Really odd to me.

I would love to have that sort of meekness that just welcomes the other, God, into my life.

One of my roles in life is I'm a, I teach at a seminary. I teach theologian types.

And enjoy that work. Basically, I'm a nerd. That would be a way to think of me. And he talks about, he talks about in this text, he says, but be doers of the word and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. And the danger of the work I do is to teach, is to teach people and myself to just be hearers because I study scripture with people. So we're not actually trying to hear, we're trying to understand it. Can you get that distinction, right? We're studying it, we're understanding it, we're trying to work the language, get sense of what's going. But it's not the same thing as reading a letter. Here's a way of talking about it. A guy named Soren Kierkegaard, just a Copenhagen Danish genius, wrote a book called For Self-Examination. Not very long. It's a bigger book than, but he's got all sorts of notes, the translator does. And it's a genius way of looking at scripture and he says, imagine, imagine a letter is written from a lover to a lover, but it's written in a foreign language. What does the lover who receives the letter do? Well, you frickin' get a dictionary and you translate that baby, right? Because your lover has sent you a letter and you're trying to understand it. And a friend comes and sees you with this dictionary and goes, are you reading your lover's letter? No. I'm translating it. I'm not reading it. I'm trying to understand what's going on. No, I'm not. Well, that's nice of you to ask, but that's not what I'm doing. But the moment they have it translated, then they read it. They try to understand it. And hopefully they've done their best and they might hear terms of affection which would be wonderful. They're beloved. They're loved. And they might hear some requests or some things to do. And so the lover who's received the letter is going to do everything he can, I'll choose he, in my case, he can, to do those things. And he may have done more than the lover was actually requesting. But if he did more than the lover was actually requesting, is that bad? No. A letter written from a lover to a lover where someone just goes, ah, that's fabulous. Or imagine a child who's in a class and the teacher says, tomorrow you need to know this chapter. And one kid goes home and just like eats the chapter, memorizes it, knows the chapter, comes in the next day ready. And that's not what the teacher was saying, but the kid went above and beyond. Has the kid done something wrong? No. Wow. That's amazing. And Kierkegaard's saying, you know, what we're doing when we're reading scripture is we're reading something in a metaphorical way, an analogy, from someone who loves us. So we can hear terms of affection and go, what? Beloved? Me? You must not know me. You love me? Okay. You want me to be quick to listen?

Slow to speak? Slow to anger? Welcome your word? You want me to hear what you have to say?

Because anyone who receives a letter from a lover goes, oh, yes. Here's the letter. Fabulous. Now, one could wonder is if a lover receives a letter and doesn't do anything that the lover who sent the letter said, if there's actually a reciprocity in this relationship. Because the logic of love is you just do these things. So James says, you know, people who just hear but not do, they're like people who look in a mirror, kind of, you know, fix themselves, walk away and can't even remember what they look like. But people who are not only hearers but doers, well, they're blessed in their doing.

So, to read scripture, you actually have to read it, right? To do scripture, you have to have a sense of it. Now, one of the things I've learned over the years is I grew up in a decently healthy type of church ecosystem. Not everyone in this room has. Some of you may have grown up in churches where like the Bible is used as kind of like a rubber mallet, you know, just kind of smack you on the head over and over again. That may have been the sort of tradition you worked up in. And others, you just may have come from an ecosystem with just high legalism. I don't, I don't come from that. But I appreciate that story of yours. And what I want to say to you, and I know it's not easy because you grew up with that, see if you can set aside the legalism, the mallet, the cudgel, and go back to, and maybe just start with a gospel like the gospel of John and go, oh my gosh, God is like Jesus? Oh! He's like Jesus! He's not like that stuff over there. He's like Jesus? Oh! Well, this is good news? Yes. Right. It is really good news. And then when you realize if God's like Jesus, you go, I want to do what this guy wants me to do. Because that's great stuff. So Kierkegaard has some advice for us. He says, one of the things not to do is don't look at the mirror.

Because that's not the point. And he even talks about scripture being mirror. Don't look at the mirror. Look at what it's saying. What is it saying to you? How do you, you're going to listen to this material? What will you do? Get alone with it. Because anyone who receives a letter from a lover isn't reading it aloud to a group of people. getting alone with it and listening to it and going, oh, oh yeah, what, what do you want me to do? How can I love you back? It's just a natural thing. But, one of the things to know about you and me, doesn't matter how smart or stupid we are, we're amazingly sly at protecting ourselves from God's word. We are all liars. I don't mean to make anyone feel guilty when I say this. We are all, I'm including me, all liars when we say, I'll do whatever God wants me to do.

Because we have ways of playing games, of dancing, you know, shuffling away, looking good. And this is where we need the Holy Spirit to go, help me, because you know I'm going to evade you. I'm going to protect me from you. Which is a strange statement, but we all do it. At least I do. I assume you're kind of like me. We all kind of try to protect ourselves from what God might be saying to us, even though it might be really good stuff. Like, you are loved. Strangely, we will evade even words like that. Remember, God is not like these people who use the Bible as a rubber mallet or legalism. God is like Jesus.

And so, what does it mean to like, go, I want to read this stuff. Well, here might be some ways to start. Pray. Let's pretend you're not the least bit interested in Scripture. Okay. That's fine. We all got that. I'm not the least bit interested in Scripture. God is not going to go, you're kidding. I had no idea. Really? That's right. I mean, he's not going to like, not know this material. So tell him, I'm not interested. I couldn't care less, but I kind of want to want to. So, would you help me to want to read Scripture? Because I would like that. I've had dry times in my life. I've told the Lord, I'm not really into it, but I want to want to. And then he brings it back. I'm like, oh, cool. I want to. Pray. God, open my eyes that I could see wonderful things in your law. That's in Psalm 119. Open my eyes. Let me see things. Luther had nice, three nice Latin words. I don't speak Latin. Oratio, meditatio, tenatio. Pray, meditate on it, and test or be tested on it. I like that. Pray. God, open up the stuff. Read it. Oh, what does it say? When you get to something it tells you to do, like, love Love someone. And then you'll test it out. You'll try it. Or he'll be tested on it. Challenging things will happen. One of the objections that comes to hear here that tickled me. He said, but, you may say, there are so many obscure passages in the Bible, whole books that are practically riddles. To that I would answer, before I have anything to do with this objection, it must be made by someone whose life manifests that he has so scrupulously complied with all the passages that are easy to understand. Is that you? And I go, nope, nope, not me, not me, not me, not me. So the questions are, how good are you at listening? You get to choose it. I'm not here to get you to listen. I'm just working on me. I'm trying to step up my game. How good are you at doing what the lover says for you to do? To hear that you are loved. That's where he starts. To hear that you are loved, loved by God. How good are you at doing, when God says to you, love your neighbor. To loving the people you actually live with, or work with, or are your neighbors. Those aren't really hard things to understand. I don't give myself high marks. That's why I'm really grateful for the grace of God and the Holy Spirit who's trying to work some change in me. Boy, I want a lot of change happening to me. There's some mantras that you could memorize. You could pray into your life. And when you fail tomorrow, Tom told you you would. And so you go, I'm doing great. Tom told me I'd fail. I did great today. God, I'm sorry. I screwed up again. Please forgive me. And try again. And you'll screw up again. And Tom told you you would. So you're doing great. That's part of learning. And you rely upon the grace of God. You don't take it for granted. And you ask the Holy Spirit to change you. And you start working with the passages that you understand all too well.

All of it starts with your identity. This epithet thrown at you, beloved.

God is like a grandparent. Who has your picture on their fridge. You are beloved. How do you logically respond to the love of God? What's the visceral reaction to that? Would you pray with me?