through the ACBC counseling exams. I trust that you're all doing well and rejoicing in the goodness of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And we just look forward to a wonderful time tonight looking at the study of God's word in relation to a very practical subject, which is dealing with sinful anger.

This is a topic that is related to many counseling issues and you will find this study to be applicable to many counseling sessions that you will be part of if you continue with the ACBC training. And it is also an issue that is relevant to each of our lives as we are seeking to be more sanctified and become more like Christ.

We need to learn to put off sinful anger and to put on the fruit of godly character, which is always characterized by kindness and patience, long-suffering, gentleness, peaceable nature. These are the character qualities that we are called to in scripture. So just a wonderful topic tonight. I'm so glad that you're able to join us.

And I pray that this will be a blessing to your life and that the Lord will multiply the fruitfulness of our study tonight and that we will be equipped not only to grow ourselves in our own pursuit of Christ, but also to be equipped to help others in their sanctification.

So let's pray together. Let's devote our time to the Lord and we'll dive right into the notes tonight. We're looking at counseling exam number four, dealing with sinful anger. So let's pray together. Father, we thank you so much for the work of your son, Jesus Christ, and for his perfect work that was accomplished on our behalf.

His life that was lived in full obedience to the law of God, for the death that he died on the cross and standing in our place for our sins and his glorious resurrection from the grave. We thank you that it is in Christ and through Christ that we come into your presence and that we receive the grace and the mercy that flows into our lives, a help in our time of need for we come to you, not on the basis of our own works, but on the basis of Christ and his perfect work on our behalf.

We thank you for the ministry of your spirit who lives in us and who produces the fruit of Christ's likeness in us. And we thank you for your word, the sufficient written word of God, the 66 books of the Bible, which is sufficient for life and godliness. We pray that as we study your word tonight, that you would produce the fruit of godliness in our own lives, help us to identify sinful anger and expressions of anger and to repent of our own anger that we may bear the fruit of patience and kindness, gentleness, and that we may be known as peacemakers in our everyday lives.

So we just devote this time to you. Thank you for each student who's joining us on this webinar, pray that you would bless each one. And we ask this in Jesus name, amen. - Amen, well, if you look at your handout for tonight, we are on page one. And I just wanted to give you an overview of some of the great resources that are available to you as you study this subject, dealing with sinful anger.

We just wanna note the practical significance of this topic, dealing with sinful anger, as I mentioned, an issue that is relevant to so many different counseling scenarios from marital conflicts to parent-child relationships, to dealing with coworkers in the workplace, to just dealing with sitting in rush hour traffic. Anger is a very prominent issue in counseling ministry.

And it is an issue that we need to think through with biblical discernment. This exam topic is prompting you to articulate in your own words, your view of the issue of sinful anger and how you would go about counseling someone who is dealing with this issue. So let me go ahead and read the question tonight.

Counseling exam number four is provide a biblical definition of anger, describe manifestations of anger in both the inner man and outer man, explain the biblical factors that drive anger, detail several biblical strategies to respond to anger. This is a great opportunity to think deeply on this topic. I do wanna encourage you as counselors in training to think deeply about the subject of sinful anger as it is addressed in the scriptures.

I wanna encourage you to take the foundations that were given to you in the year one training of biblical counseling and to apply them to the issue of sinful anger. I wanna encourage you that the deeper that you go in your understanding of the subject, the more skillful you will be in addressing this issue from scripture.

And I also wanna make you aware that there is no shortage of people who need help in this area. There seems to be no shortage of people even in the church who are seeking to overcome sinful anger and seeking to put on the sweet characteristics of godliness as described in the fruit of the spirit in Galatians chapter five.

And so if you become equipped to address the issue of anger in counseling ministry, you will have no shortage of opportunities to minister in this area. Now, fortunately, as you look at page one of your handout, there are a number of good resources on the subject that are written from a biblical counseling perspective.

Now, you don't need to read all of these resources in order to write this essay, but I am gonna encourage you to read as much as you can. My goal in this session is to stir each of you up in your own heart to have a passion to read more on the subject of dealing with sinful anger and bearing the fruit of the spirit.

The truth is that you and I need to be better equipped in this area. We need counselors in the church who are equipped to minister to those who are seeking to overcome sinful anger. Every family in your church is dealing with this issue to some degree in some way.

And if that family has a two-year-old in their home, they are definitely dealing with this issue in some way, not only the anger of the two-year-old, but the anger of the parent who is trying to keep the two-year-old under control. Every family in the church is dealing with this issue to some degree in some way.

And so I wanna just encourage you to read as much as you can on this subject, be equipped as much as you can, make it a lifelong goal and pursuit to be better equipped to counsel those who are seeking to overcome anger. Dr. Robert Jones has a very good work that I would highly recommend.

It's entitled "Uprooting Anger, Biblical Help for a Common Problem." That's a very readable book. It's a book that you can put in someone else's hands. It's very practical, pastoral and biblical. And I just love that title, the language of uprooting anger. Not just managing behavior, but addressing the root causes of anger, which as you know, we have emphasized in this class, the root issues always relate to the issues of the heart.

And so Dr. Jones models an approach to counseling those who are dealing with anger by using the scriptures to address heart issues. And the title "Uprooting Anger" is very helpful to summarize our approach to ministering this area. You will find that much of the material coming from secular psychology addresses the issue of anger in seeking to manage outward behavior.

You'll hear the language of managing anger or managing one's behavior. Secular psychology seeks to limit the full expression of a person's anger, or at least seeks to give a person healthy avenues to vent their anger. But secular psychology does not seek to address the root causes of sinful anger, which are always related to a worshiping heart.

The heart is always relating either rightly or wrongly to the true and the living God. And anger is always related to how the heart is relating to God. And secular psychology cannot address those issues apart from divine revelation. Secular psychology can describe how an angry person behaves. And you'll find in secular literature that secular psychology does describe accurately in many cases, how an angry person behaves.

And secular psychology can give tips and techniques to possibly limit in a temporary manner, the full expression of a person's anger, but secular psychology cannot address the root issues that give rise to angry expressions. And secular psychology cannot help a person become more like Jesus Christ. When is an angry person no longer angry?

It is when that person loves Jesus Christ, worships Jesus Christ, and begins to grow in character qualities that are like Jesus Christ. And secular psychology is powerless to affect that type of heart transformation and life change. And so while we would concede that secular psychology accurately describes how angry people behave, secular psychology cannot make a person more like Christ.

And that is the goal of biblical counseling. So all that to say that Dr. Robert Jones does a wonderful job dealing with the idea of uprooting anger and addressing the root causes of sinful anger. Then you have David Powelson's work that is entitled "Good and Angry." The subtitle is "Redeeming Anger, Irritation, Complaining, and Bitterness." Now, dear friends, just think for a moment of how much you and I would be more sanctified and how our relationships would be so much more healthy if we were able to be sanctified from these issues, anger, irritation, complaining, and bitterness.

And I think that subtitle gives that helpful connection between those issues. Maybe there is one person who says, "Well, I'm not an angry person, but I'm just complaining all the time." Or, "I'm not an angry person, I'm just filled with longstanding bitterness." And they might claim to be able to separate those issues of anger, irritation, complaining, and bitterness.

But generally those issues go together because they are related to the deeds of the flesh. And so anything by David Powelson is worth reading, but that book, "Good and Angry" is a very helpful treatment on the subject of anger. Then you have Lou Priolo's "The Heart of Anger," which is an excellent resource.

The subtitle is "Practical Help for the Prevention and Cure of Anger in Children." So I remember when my son was two or three years of age, he was playing with his cousin who was also two or three years of age, and they were playing with Legos and one boy took a Lego from the other, the other boy didn't like it.

And so one of them hit the other person and they both started crying. And so here they are, two toddlers, and they're both crying because they wanted the same Lego and they got angry. And I realized that as these children grow to be adults, that the heart issues don't change.

The only things that change is that the Legos get bigger and maybe more complicated, but the same heart dynamics are at work. You are in a conflict because you want something that you are not getting. You want, maybe not a Lego, but you want respect or you want approval or you want a certain promotion or you wanna be treated in a certain way, or you want your life to be a certain way.

You are not getting what you want. And that is why you become angry and enter into a conflict. And so anything that is written in order to address the heart issues of children is also applicable to ministering to adults because the heart issues really are no different. The issues in life are different, but the heart dynamics are very much the same.

And Preola does a good job diagnosing the root causes of anger in that book. Stuart Scott's "Anger, Anxiety, and Fear" is a booklet that we use often in counseling ministry. Anything by Dr. Scott is helpful and written with much wisdom. And then a book you might wanna star, it's a book that we use often in the counseling ministry here at Kindred.

It's Ed Welch's little book that is entitled "A Small Book About a Big Problem, "Meditations on Anger, Patience, and Peace." That has become a go-to book in the Kindred Counseling Ministry. We assign it frequently. It has 50 short readings on the subject of anger that is designed to be read over the course of 50 days.

And so that book is meant to be read a little at a time. And it is a 50-day assignment for a counselee to read one chapter a day and to interact with the contents of that book. Just a very helpful resource. We have found that counselees who do read that book make great progress in overcoming sinful anger.

And so a very good resource that I want to recommend to you. I would encourage you to read the three journal articles by David Powelson that I've sent via Dropbox to you. That's excellent material on the subject of anger. And in addition, I've listed two booklets and also three lectures that I would recommend to you for further reflection.

Just a lot of good material on this subject that I want to put in your hands and hopefully stir up in you a desire to make this a subject or a focus of lifelong study. Much material there that is very helpful. Now let me move to page two of your handout and just talk through the importance of this subject for a moment.

Dealing with sinful anger. Why should you be motivated to write an essay on this subject? And why should you be motivated to study well on this subject? Well, Jim Neuheiser has said this. He said, "I believe Jay Adams said that anger is a factor "in 90% of counseling cases." And my only response would be, I don't know what the other 10% are in which there is not an issue of anger.

People in the midst of conflict, people in relationships, sometimes even people, they're depressed because they're angry. They're anxious because they're fearful. Anger is a reaction of judgment when I don't get what I want. It's very rare I would have a situation where someone's come for counsel where anger is not involved in some manner.

So anger is very common in counseling cases, especially relating to marital or family issues. It seems that the closer sinners live in proximity with each other, the more you see anger put on display. We note the relation here between anger and other counseling issues, fear, anxiety, and depression. Oftentimes those issues tend to go together.

People who are angry also live with anxiety. People who are angry also tend to experience depression. We're not surprised by that. Anger is ultimately an indicator that a person is not walking in close relationship with Jesus Christ. And so when the heart is not submitted to Christ and his word, a person will experience sanctification issues in many areas of life.

The heart is not submitted to Christ, and many deeds of the flesh begin to show themselves. And so Galatians 5, verse 19 names the deeds of the flesh, which are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and divisions, and so forth and so on.

When a person walks in the flesh and is not filled with the spirit, a number of different expressions of the flesh can be found in that person's life. And so you'll find that anger is often associated with other sins and other counseling issues. You'll find that people are often blinded to their own anger.

Anger always feels completely justified in the moment. Because anger is related to a negative moral judgment that is being made upon another person or upon an event. So much of counseling ministry is just helping people see what they are doing when they are expressing their anger. It's just helping them come to their senses in seeing that they're destroying the relationships that are around them.

Just getting people to acknowledge the gravity of their sin is really half the battle in dealing with anger issues. Jesus said that anger is a form of murder in the heart. And this anger is expressed in destructive words that tear people down and destroy relationships. Oftentimes, anger is related to the sin of self-righteousness.

I'll just share an example from my own life. My wife and kids know that I tend to get quote unquote irritated or quote unquote frustrated. You'll remember from our year one training, those are just words that we use to describe sinful anger. We use other words because we don't wanna say I'm sinfully angry.

So we say I'm irritated or I'm frustrated or I'm miffed or whatever the language is, we just substitute because we don't like to say I'm sinfully angry. Well, I tend to get quote unquote irritated or frustrated when I come home from work at the end of the day and find that the house is in a bit of a mess.

And by the way, my wife and I have four children. So you might be saying, Dan, what are your expectations with four children living in the house? How can you expect the house to be completely clean when you come home? And that is a fair response to my illustration.

But the point is I would tend to get upset when I come home and I see that the kitchen is a mess or the living room is not tidy. And it is interesting what would come out of my mouth in those occasions. It wasn't just, well, children, could you please clean up the kitchen or children, could you please clean up the living room?

Oftentimes it is something along the lines of I've worked hard all day and this is what I come home to. Now, what is that? That is the language of self-righteousness. It is the language that says, I deserve to come home to a cleaner house because of what I have done all day.

And you'll find that type of language when people get angry. It is not just that they want the situation to be different or they want to be treated in a different way, but you will find that the issue of self-righteousness arises in their hearts. Self-justification, because I have done this or that, or because I have behaved in a righteous way, I deserve to be treated in a different way.

And so anger is oftentimes related to this type of self-righteousness, which is a form of pride instead of simply acknowledging our need for grace in every area of life. And so that's something that can be explored in greater detail, but just note that, that anger can be related to self-righteousness as well as to other sins and other deeds of the flesh.

Also note that the quietest personalities can also have the angriest hearts. Anger is not a personality issue. It's not a cultural issue. It really is a spiritual issue. It is a heart issue. And so anger cannot be defined by mere personality type. No one can say, well, I just have an angry personality and that excuses me because it can be found on a personality chart somewhere.

The bottom line is that if you're angry, you are not being like Christ. And the issue is that we need to repent of our anger and submit our hearts to the Lordship of Christ. The sin of anger is often related to critical and abusive words. James says in James 3, verse six, that the tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell.

The point is that we speak out of the overflow of what fills our hearts. And so if our hearts are filled with anger, then our words will be critical and destructive. Angry words tear down and cause great harm. Note here that a subcategory of this topic is dealing with a person's anger at God.

I'm not gonna have time to get into that subtopic, but Robert Jones and David Powelson have done some good work in this area, just working through how to help a person who says that he or she is angry at God. And so the Bible speaks much about the sin of anger.

David Powelson does a good job surveying this issue as it is found in Scripture, from the blame shifting of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to the murder of Abel by his brother Cain, to the anger of Moses displayed in the wilderness when he struck the rock instead of speaking to it, to the brooding temper of Saul, the self-willed king.

Powelson says both by precept and example, the Bible continually enlightens us about anger intending to change us. The motivations for sinful anger are exposed within Scripture. Why do the Israelites grumble repeatedly in the wilderness? The Bible doesn't leave us in doubt. They didn't get what they wanted, and they didn't believe that God was good, powerful, and wise.

In all cases, the cause of sinful anger boils down to specific lies and lusts that rule the human heart. You and those you counsel are no different. Why is this essay topic so important? Dear friends, it is important because the sin of anger is an issue of the heart that reveals what we truly love and what we truly worship.

If I worship my job, I will be angry at my competitor. If I worship my own comfort, I'll be angry when I'm stuck in rush hour traffic. If I worship my bank account, I will be angry when the economy goes south or when a business fails. If I worship my own reputation, I will be angry when others do not treat me with the respect that I think I deserve.

Show me what makes you sinfully angry, and I will show you what you truly love, what you truly trust, what you truly treasure, and ultimately what you truly worship. And so when we're dealing with our own sinful anger, we are not dealing with an issue that can be viewed in isolation.

Dealing with this issue in our own sanctification is really a way of drawing us to worship the true and the living God. It is an issue of submitting our hearts to the Lordship of Christ. It is an issue of asking God to purify our hearts, to cleanse our hearts, so that he will rule over our hearts and over every desire and treasure of our hearts.

And when our hearts are purified and transformed in this way, we become more like Christ. And we begin to demonstrate the character qualities that are beautiful in his sight, patience and kindness, gentleness, and those issues that, those characteristics that reflect the loveliness of our savior. Secular psychology can't do that.

Can never deal with the root issue. Secular psychology cannot deal with the worship issues in a person's life. If you read the DSM-4 or the DSM-5, you will find accurate descriptions of how people behave. You will find accurate descriptions of how people behave when they are angry. In the DSM-5, there are more than 32 disorders that list anger, aggression, or irritability as a symptom.

What you will not find in the secular literature is a description of the root issues that cause people to become angry or the solutions to those root issues that give hope and the help for change. One of the things that I like to say to people in counseling when they're dealing with the issue of anger, especially if I'm assured that this person is a believer, is just to say, "Brother, you don't need to be a slave "to anger.

"You don't need to destroy the relationships "that are around you. "You don't need to hurt your wife in this way. "The Bible says you are not a slave to sin, "and you can repent. "You can grow. "You can bear the fruit of patience and kindness "and faithfulness and self-control.

"You can love Christ more than you love "whatever you are worshiping in your life right now. "By God's grace and through the work of Jesus on the cross, "you have been freed from the power of sin, "and you can grow. "You don't need to be a slave to anger." And I say this as one who was enslaved to anger in my unbelieving life.

Before I came to Christ, I was a slave to the sin of anger. And by God's grace, through the work of Jesus on the cross, I've been freed from that sin. And although I still am tempted to anger and struggle with anger, I am not a slave to this sin.

I have been, by God's grace, able to grow in this area and overcome anger in my life. Secular psychology can't do that for any of our counselees. And so we have noted that one example of how the secular world describes anger is using the diagnosis of IED, or Intermittent Explosive Disorder.

We've covered that in year one. What I find interesting about the DSM's description of Intermittent Explosive Disorder is that there really is no hope for life change. This disorder can be managed, and hopefully over time it will go away. But the secular world can't give solutions to this issue.

At the bottom of your handout, you have the Mayo Clinic's 10 tips to tame your temper. Number one, think before you speak. Once you're calm, express your anger, get some exercise, take a timeout, identify possible solutions, stick with I statements, don't hold a grudge, use humor to release tension, practice relaxation skills, and know when to seek help.

Now, I am not doubting that some of those help, some of those tips may be helpful. In temporarily restraining the full expression of a person's anger, you might find that some of these things may help you not explode when you're in traffic on a certain freeway. They may be helpful in a very limited temporary way, but none of those tips will help a person become more like Jesus Christ.

And so the secular world can only manage behavior. I've noticed on, I've noted on page two, the three approaches that the secular world seeks to use in addressing the issue of anger. And I'll just note this just briefly for your reference, 'cause I do think it's helpful in contrasting what the Bible says versus what the secular world says about anger.

The psychodynamic approach is basically the idea that anger is sort of this neutral energy fluid that builds up inside of you. And the way you deal with it is you let it out. It's sort of this idea is that there is this pressure that is building up inside of you.

So you have to vent all that pressure out. And if you release it, then the issue will be solved. Well, the problem with that is that the Bible says that anger is not neutral. Anger is a form of murder in the heart. And so you don't wanna be releasing murder in the heart out into the world.

You wanna be dealing with that heart issue before the Lord. But that is the psychodynamic approach. There is the behaviorist approach, which says that anger is learned from people in society. And so your father was angry, therefore you learned your anger from him. And there is some truth to that.

I mean, there is some truth that if you go with an angry person and you spend time with an angry person, that you will learn that person's ways, Proverbs 23 warns against that. And yet this approach does not account for the fact that a two-year-old who has wonderfully sweet parents will still throw a temper tantrum.

Even though that two-year-old has not observed his father or mother throw temper tantrums, he has somehow learned to do a temper tantrum all by himself. I never had to teach my children lessons on how to become angry. I did have to teach them lessons on how to be selfless and how to serve others.

But the behaviorist approach can't account for the fact that anger is not only learned. Anger is an issue of the heart and sinners are born into this world knowing how to be angry. And then there is the cognitive approach. This again is the secular world seeking to deal with this issue, which says that anger is based on beliefs and expectations.

Again, there's some truth to that. Anger is related to what we believe. And yet the cognitive approach does not account for the fact that we live in relationship with God. A secular approach to dealing with anger can't account for the heart's relationship with the true and the living God and how we either relate to God rightly or wrongly.

And so the secular world cannot transform a person and make that person more like Christ. So just simply stated, the goal in biblical counseling is not to manage behavior. We learned that in year one. The goal in biblical counseling is to help an angry person become a worshiper of Jesus Christ so that the fruits of the spirit begin to grow in that person's life.

With that said, let me move to page three of your handout and give you a biblical definition for anger. Robert Jones has written this, "Our anger is our whole person's active response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil." That's a good definition you'll find in his book, "Uprooting Anger." It's also a very quotable definition that really encompasses a lot of things that the Bible says about the sin of anger.

Our anger is our whole person that is both heart and body, both immaterial and material, both soul and body are involved in anger. It is a heart issue, a form of murder in the heart, but you will find that it affects what we say, how we behave, it affects our emotions.

And so our anger is our whole person active response. That is to say that we're not just passively letting out neutral pressure that is built up inside of us when we are angry, we are actively sinning when we are angry. And so he says, "It is our whole person active response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil." Now that last part of the definition is very helpful and I just wanna camp on that for a moment.

When you and I are angry, we are making a moral judgment. Our hearts are declaring that a certain person or certain event is morally wrong. So it's wrong that that person took my parking spot on a Sunday morning. Or it's wrong that this person sat in the seat that I saved on a Sunday morning.

Or it's wrong that that person took the donut that I wanted to eat on a Sunday morning. So there's lots of temptations to become angry just on a Sunday morning. We haven't even gotten to Monday yet. The point is that the heart is always making these moral judgments. I am angry because my heart has declared a certain situation or a certain person to be wrong.

It is wrong that the dishes are not cleaned by my children when I come home. Or it is wrong that this person does not treat me with the respect that I think I deserve. It is wrong that my parents won't give me what I want. That is the dynamic, the heart dynamic at work in anger.

It's just helpful to recognize that, that your heart is making a negative moral judgment against perceived evil. And let me apply that for just a moment. Let's take the example of when a married couple fights or has a conflict. My wife, Mina, and I have been married for 24 years.

And I like to tell people we have no practical experience at this at all. And I'm being totally humorous. Of course, we have experience at being in conflict and having to resolve conflict. I hope you know me well enough to know that my wife and I experience conflict. We are two sinners who have our share of differing viewpoints in life.

But we have learned to recognize that when we are in a conflict and when anger is involved, that generally what is happening is that the two of us are making a moral judgment of the other person. What is happening in the conflict is that we are trying to justify ourselves and blame the other person for what is wrong.

Conflict Resolution 101 says this, "Stop trying to justify yourself. Stop trying to show the other person where the other person is wrong. Instead, confess your sins to the other person and show the other person where you are wrong. Turn your moral judgment upon yourself and allow that moral judgment to lead you to repentance.

Before the Lord." The point is that whenever anger is involved in a conflict, a certain moral judgment is taking place. You are standing as the judge upon a person or a certain situation. And in that sense, you are taking the place of God because there is only one true judge who makes a righteous judgment all the time.

And so I think that last part of the definition is very helpful. Our anger is our whole person's active response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil. Now, if you look at page three of your handout, you have the forms of anger listed. This is based off of Ephesians chapter four, verse 31.

Paul says, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice." He uses a number of different words for anger. It's the put off. "Let all bitterness, wrath and anger be put away from you." And then verse 32, he talks about the put on.

"Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you." When is an angry person no longer angry? Not only when that person puts off sinful anger, but an angry person is no longer angry when he or she is kind, tender-hearted and fulfilled with forgiveness for other people.

And so you have the forms of anger listed there. I won't take the time to walk through all of that, but just note that Paul says that all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander is to be put away from us. This is a call to deal with the sin of anger, decisively and radically.

Let me move to towards the bottom of page three on your handout and just walk through some elements of this definition. We noted that anger is an active response. You and I are actively sinning when we are angry. If we can actively sin, we can actively repent of that sin.

Colossians 3, verse eight, "But now you must put them all away." The word put away refers to a decisive, definitive action that needs to be carried out with a sense of urgency. You don't need a blow off steam. You don't need to cool off. What you need to do is put your anger away.

Repent of that sin and do it immediately. Ephesians four talks about, "Do not let the sun go down on your anger." This is not a call to vent your anger. It is not a call to release your anger. It is a call to repent from your anger. Don't vent what's in your heart.

Submit your heart to the Lordship of Christ. Just say to the Lord, "Lord, my anger is revealing a heart "that is in rebellion against you. "And I don't wanna live in rebellion against you, "unsubmissive to your word. "Soften my heart, Lord. "Bring my heart in submission to you." James one verse 19, "Know this my beloved brothers, "let every person be quick to hear, "slow to speak, slow to anger." Did Jesus become righteously angry in his earthly ministry?

He did. There is a place for righteous anger in the Christian's life. But even when Jesus became righteously angry, he demonstrated in his earthly ministry a slowness to anger. How many times did he put up with the disciples questioning and their failures and their weaknesses without becoming angry with those men?

And James calls us to be slow to anger. Why? Anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. You accomplish nothing good when you become sinfully angry. Therefore, James says, here's the word again, put away. Now that is a call to action. Put away, again, the comprehensive term, all filthiness and rampant wickedness.

And receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. The connection between dealing with anger and hearing God's word, dealing with sin and receiving the word of God into our hearts is noteworthy in this text. You and I don't hear the word of God well when we are angry.

If our hearts are filled with pride and arguments against other people and self-righteousness and self-justification, then we are not able to hear the word of God taught and preached, at least not with great profit. And James says that we are to put away our anger as well as filthiness and wickedness so that we may receive the word of God.

The word of God would bear fruit in our lives. So anger is an active response, which in some ways is a hopeful truth because it means that we can actively repent from anger. Let me move to page four of your handout and just note here that anger is a hard issue.

We have used these verses often in our year one training. I'm just applying it here to the issue of anger. Anger is a hard issue. Matthew 15, verse 19, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, "murder, adultery, sexual immorality, "theft, false witness, slanders. "These are what defile a person, "but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a person." Proverbs 4, verse 23, "Keep your heart with all vigilance "for from it flow the springs of life." Matthew 5, verse 21, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, "you shall not murder "and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.

"But I say to you that everyone who is angry "with his brother will be liable to judgment. "Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. "Whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire." Anger is a hard issue. Remember from year one, the dynamics of the heart.

I'll just place this on the slide here. We looked at the fact that the heart has thoughts. Scripture talks about the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. The heart has desires. Scripture talks about the desires of the heart. And the heart also has treasures or values. Jesus said where your treasure is, your heart will be also.

So we have these dynamics that relate to the heart. The heart is always thinking, desiring, treasuring, valuing, declaring something or someone to be worthy of its affections. And so out of the heart flow the issues of life. Anger reveals what is in your heart. And so out of the heart's thinking and desiring and treasuring and worshiping come external actions, emotions, and words.

And so what we find is that secular psychology is seeking to manage behavior from an external perspective. Secular psychology is seeking to address actions, emotions, and words without dealing with the dynamics of the heart, the thoughts, and the desires, and the values which are characteristic of the heart. And so we don't wanna be merely managing behavior.

We want to be instruments that are used by God to affect spirit-led transformation of the heart. That brings us to the key text that is on page three, James 4, verses one to two. James 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. "You do not have because you do not ask." That's the heart issue that is related to the sin of anger. It goes back to the two toddlers who were fighting over the Legos.

You want something that you do not have. You want something that you are not getting. You want something and someone is in the way. And so you're angry at that person for standing in the way of your heart's desire. You are angry because you are wanting something more than you want the glory of God.

Some potential things that you may want are listed by Jim Uheiser in the homework sheet that I sent to you. That's a good sheet to just give to a counselee. Potential things that people want, that they become angry when they don't get it. I wanna be respected, appreciated. I want to be comfortable.

I want to be successful. I want to be treated fairly. I want to be free from problems and pressures. I mean, that's something that you will notice that in my case study, when I come home from a day's work, and I believe that because of my day's work that I should enter into a hassle-free zone.

My house should be a place with no problems and no issues. And when I don't get what I want, I'm willing to become angry over it. That's just helpful to see how the heart dynamics are interacting with the issues of life. I want to have a life which is free from difficulty.

I want to have a spouse who is affectionate. I want to have a spouse who is not late. That's a issue that may apply to many families on a Sunday morning or even a weekday morning. I wanna have children who make me look good. I want to get my own way.

I wanna be happy, be safe, be pain-free. I want to be thought of as intelligent and witty. Just, Neuhauser is doing a number on us. He's just listing a number of things that the heart can desire in an idolatrous way. How do you know that those desires have become idolatrous?

You become angry when you don't get them. And so, as I said, this issue is a way of seeing how our hearts are truly worshiping. We note here that it's possible to want a good thing in a wrong way. Is it wrong to want my wife to respect me?

No, not necessarily. But if I want that respect so much that I'm willing to sin, if I don't get it, then that desire has become an idolatrous lust. So on the screen here, I put the throne staircase diagram, which you'll find in Robert Jones's materials. We use this in counseling ministry.

Sometimes it's helpful with a counselee to just write out or draw out some diagrams that help them to understand basic biblical concepts. And basically, here you have on the throne what should be happening, which is Christ should be on the throne of your heart, ruling over every desire. And yet there are some desires that begin at the bottom of the staircase that ascend the staircase and then occupy the throne and they begin to rule over the heart.

And that's what James is talking about, that the source of your conflict is a desire that is in your heart. And so we use this diagram just to illustrate for counselees there are desires that really should be at the bottom of the staircase that may have ascended to the throne of your heart.

And now they are seeking to take the place of Christ on the throne of your heart. We want Christ to rule over every desire. The cure for an idolatrous heart is repentance and submission before the Lord, James 4, verse 8. 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. So we cover that anger is an active response. Anger is a heart issue.

And thirdly, anger involves a moral judgment, James 4, verse 12. Who are you to judge your neighbor? Jones says our anger, in essence, involves a negative moral judgment that we make. It arises from our judicial sense and functions under the larger dynamic of judgmentalism. In the sense, we may call anger a moral emotion.

Anger protests what you did was wrong. It pronounces that action is unjust. It pleads this must stop. Anger objects to wrongs committed. So what we do in biblical counseling is we help people reflect on what they are doing when they become angry. We give assignments. We dialogue. We ask questions.

And what we are trying to do is help people reflect on their own conduct and reflect on what it is that their hearts are doing when they become angry over a certain situation. I sent you a homework assignment that was written out by Lou Priolo. It's very helpful. It asks the questions, what circumstances led to my becoming angry?

What did I do when I became angry? What is the biblical evaluation of what I did when I became angry? And what should I have done when I became angry? And that's just a homework assignment that is designed to help a counselee reflect on their own behavior and what are the heart issues that are leading to this expression of anger.

And we're seeking to help the counselee bring their heart to submission before the Lord. Very quickly on page 5 of your handout, just a brief note. I'm not going to go over this in great detail. But just the question asks about the whole person. So just note that, as we've talked about, the heart issues that give rise to anger, that anger also affects the outer man, the body.

You see this in the example of Cain and Abel, that Cain became angry and his face fell. And so anger shows itself in what a person does with his or her body. It affects the outer man. And then we see that anger expresses itself in destructive words and actions.

As I mentioned, I think I mentioned Keith Palmer, who's my friend and who oversees the counseling ministry here from a distance. He's an ACBC fellow and board member. He did an excellent seminar on sword words or verbal abuse that is found at the ACBC website and relating that to the heart issue of anger.

Just a very helpful seminar that you might want to listen to in preparation to writing this essay. Strategies to deal with sinful anger. There are many that we could name here, but the three main ones that I would highlight is, just very practically, so much of working with a counselee is helping them not to be self-deceived.

A person who is angry feels justified in his anger. As it's been said by others, I've never lost an argument in my own mind. When you are angry, you will feel also righteous in that anger. And you may even feel that you are righteously expressing that anger in a way that is making a situation move from wrong to right.

And James says that your anger is not accomplishing anything helpful. The anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God. So just helping people not to be self-deceived about what they're doing. And it requires a lot of patience in asking good questions, good homework assignments. But helping people just recognize their anger, and then also seeing the seriousness, the gravity of their anger, is one of the first ways to deal with the issue.

Identifying ungodly desires. What do you want right now that more than you want the glory of God? If you do counseling long enough, you find that people will tell you exactly what they want. They will say exactly what they want. I just want my wife to treat me in a certain way.

The key is to bring those desires in submission to the Lord. And then actively pursuing Christ-like character is helpful. I want to leave you with an illustration that I found very helpful from the writings of Paul Tripp. And I hope that this will give you some hope in counseling ministry.

And it's also a great example of how powerful counseling can be. And he has this-- I think it's on his blog, so it's very public. He writes, "I was a very angry man. The problem is that I didn't know I was an angry man. My wife, Luella, knew I was angry.

My kids knew I was angry, but I didn't know. Luella was very faithful in bringing that anger before me with this result in failures to love my family. She did it often and with much grace, but I wouldn't listen. Again and again, I would wrap myself in robes of righteousness and tell her what a great husband I was.

I said I would pray for her problem with discontentment. I was a man in the midst of destroying my marriage, family, and ministry, and I didn't know it. This is embarrassing to admit, but there was an occasion when Luella was confronting me, and I said these deeply humble words.

95% of the women in our church would love to be married to a man like me. I bet that helped the problem. Luella very quickly informed me that she was part of the 5%. I was convinced that no one had a more accurate picture of me than I did.

In my blindness, I also failed to see and fear the disaster that I was heading toward. Now, here's where the counseling comes into play. On the way home from a ministry training weekend, my brother Ted suggested that we should make the things we learned practical to our personal lives.

He then began to ask questions about my marriage. As he asked, it was as if God was ripping down curtains, and I saw and heard myself with accuracy for the first time in years. Praise God for the specificity of the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit. As my eyes were open, I couldn't believe what I had said and done.

I was broken and grieved. It was hard for me to believe that the man who I was seeing was me. I couldn't wait to get home. When I entered my house that night, Luella could tell that something was up on my seriousness. I asked her if we could talk.

After we sat down, I said, I know for years that you've been trying to talk to me about my anger and my failure to love you and the kids as I should, and I've been unwilling to listen. I can honestly say tonight that I'm ready to listen. I want to hear.

He writes that the next several weeks were extremely painful, as I saw that anger everywhere. But I experienced the transformative pain of grace. God was causing that anger to become so repulsive to me that I would never want to be there again. By God's grace, that life-dominating anger is gone.

Grace has removed the power of that old anger from my heart. He's not talking about perfectionism there. He's just saying that his eyes were opened and convicted to repent of that sin, and now he can make progress in his sanctification. I share that story for a couple of reasons.

One, Paul Tripp is a very recognized biblical counselor. And so if he struggled with anger, then all of us need to do the work of looking at ourselves first before we would try to counsel others in this area. Number two, you see how blinding anger can be, that you can feel completely justified and be completely blinded to the issue of anger in your life.

And so much of the work is praying for the Holy Spirit to help people see the issue in their lives. And then I share that story, number three, because Paul Tripp had a good brother named Ted who knew how to counsel and knew how to ask the right questions, who knew how to draw out the purposes of the heart and then to address biblically the sin of anger.

And I share that story because God used Ted as an instrument in the Redeemer's hands to help his brother grow in sanctification and possibly saved a marriage, a family, a ministry, and brought many blessings to bear in a person's life and possibly in the church's life. And I just want to commend that example to you and pray that you and I may be one day that counselor in someone else's life, to be used in a person's life to bring about that sanctification, that a marriage may be healed, a family may be healed, that blessings may be brought to the church, that you and I would become skilled in counseling in the area of dealing with sinful anger.

I want to trust that to you and trust that to the Lord and pray that this was a helpful study as we prepare for counseling exam number four. Thank you all so much for being here tonight and for joining us for this study. We look forward to seeing the fruits of this study in your counseling exams and in your further training.

What I'm going to do, there's some questions coming in. I'm going to go ahead and close this in prayer. If you want to stay on, I'll stay on for five minutes or so to answer any questions that might come in, but we'll dismiss you tonight and let you go if you need to go.

Let me pray for us. Father, thank you so much for our study. We pray, Father, that you would help us to do the hard work of repentance ourselves, that we would repent of not just some forms of anger, but all of it, that we'd put it away, all bitterness, wrath, clamor, slander, that it would all be put away, that we may receive with meekness the word of God, and that it may bear fruit in our lives.

I pray that you would train each of us to be instruments in the Redeemer's hands, that you would use us as you used Ted Tripp in his brother's life to bring about life transformation for the glory of God. And we trust you for these things and pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

Amen, God bless you. If you have any questions, I'll hang on for a few more minutes. Otherwise, you may be dismissed, but I'll answer some of the questions that are coming in on the Q and A. The question came in, how do we truly submit anger and not stuff it inside?

We may think we submit, but in reality, we stuff the anger. It's a great question. I think that the question is relating to how do we truly deal with the anger that we have inside and not store it up, I think would be the language that we might use.

And I do think that where we need to go with James chapter four is asking that hard question of what is the desire that is not being met here that is causing the anger. And I'm trying to think of some other examples in real life. I'm giving you a lot of my own stories with the lasagna story and other stories.

But typically when you're angry, you are wanting something that you are not getting. And the issue of dealing with that anger is to submit that desire to the Lordship of Christ. It's praying not my will, but your will be done. And it may be that God's will for me is that I come home and the dishes aren't done or the living room is not clean.

I mean, that may be God's will for me as a father and to submit whatever desire that I have to the Lord and humble myself before him, I think is really the key to dealing with that type of sinful anger. I'm not sure if that's answering the question, the specific issue there.

But I do think that dealing with desire is the heart of life transformation. By the way, you need to view your corporate worship, what you do on a Sunday morning as a battle for sanctification. That's what we're doing when we're singing these songs of worship, reminding ourselves that only Christ is worth all of our heart's desires and all of our treasuring and valuing of our hearts.

Christ deserves it all. And when you worship Christ in that way, then you can go home to possibly a family member who doesn't respect you and you can respond with grace and with kindness because you're not worshiping your own comfort or your own reputation. You're worshiping Christ and out of the overflow of your relationship with Christ, you can give to someone who is not giving to you.

So I hope that's a helpful answer to the question. Well, God bless you all. Have a wonderful week. We'll be back here next Sunday at 5 p.m. Pacific time and looking at counseling exam number five. Have a wonderful week of study.