Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

Following Jesus means knowing how to be good & angry John 2:12-17 Following Jesus without Freaking out Sermon 03 Have you ever wanted to shoot your computer? George Doughty did. He  was so mad that he blew away his PC. Doughty said his laptop crashed once too often so he shot it four times as customers watched in his Sportsman's Bar and Restaurant in Lafayette, Colorado. The dead computer is now hanging as a trophy on the wall of the tavern. While Guy Boos didn’t shoot his computer, he did shoot another appliance. It seems that his washing machine was acting up so he pushed it out the door, down a flight of stairs and then got his .25 caliber pistol and shot it three times.   So what makes you angry? What was the last thing that you really got bent out of shape over? Aren’t Christians supposed to never get angry?  Can you picture Jesus angry? Be honest. What’s the first thought that comes to your mind at the name of Jesus? How would you describe His character or emotional makeup? What’s your mental picture of Jesus like? Isn’t He sort of meek and mild? One man said “the pictures I have of him show a gentle guy with children all around. Kind of like Mother Teresa.”   Those are predominantly the kind of pictures we find in our churches and homes. They leave us with the impression that Jesus was the world’s nicest guy. Like Mister Rogers with a beard or Barney in a robe. From Sunday School on we see a gentle, meek Savior, well-groomed and tidy man wearing a shining white dress. In these paintings He taps gently on a door, plays with children, or stares lovingly into the eyes of a lamb nestled in His arm. Although these images are comforting, they do not suggest masculine strength and resolve. Jesuit priest, Patrick Arnold, laments Christ’s frequent portrayal as a bearded lady.   Liberal churches have re-created Christ as a benevolent Teacher who is always gentle, tender, and accepting. This Christ would never offend anyone, judge anyone, and of course, never send anyone to hell. If Christ were a radio station, His slogan would be "all tenderness all the time."  There are two problems with this view of Jesus: (1) it’s not accurate (2) no man wants to follow a feminized man.   So is Jesus more like Mother Teresa or William Wallace? Remember William Wallace was the hero of the movie Braveheart? He’s the warrior who became the liberator of Scotland in the early 1300’s. When Wallace arrives on the scene Scotland had been under England’s heel for centuries. Without a leader the rebellion was failing. At this point Wallace rides in with his band of warriors, blue warpaint on there faces, ready for battle. Wallace challenged the fearful men with "Sons of Scotland, you have come to fight as free men, and free men you are.” He goes on to say "Dying in your bed, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!" He picks a fight with the English army and ultimately leads Scotland to freedom. Does he sound like Jesus to you? Or do we see Jesus more like Mother Teresa?   The honest answer is that it depends. The Bible shows both sides of Jesus. If you’re a leper, an outcast of society whom no one has ever touched because you’re unclean, if all you’ve longed for is just one kind word, then Christ is the incarnation of tender mercy. He reaches out and touches you. But if you’re a Pharisee, one of those self-appointed doctrine police, watch out! On more than one occasion Jesus picks a fight with those notorious hypocrites. One of those scenes is found in John 2:12-17 (p. 751). Please mark it down! Anger is not always wrong or sinful. Following Jesus does not mean that you have to be some saccharine sweet wimp.   It’s important we comprehend the full range of the personality of Jesus, including the broad range of His emotions. Jesus was a normal human being. The more we understand how Jesus expressed His own emotions, including anger, the better we’ll understand our own emotions so that we can express them in a way that is both healthy and holy.      Bible scholar, G. Walter Hansen, made this insightful observation about the emotional life of Jesus: “The gospel writers paint their portraits of Jesus using a kaleidoscope of brilliant ‘emotional’ colors. Jesus felt compassion; He was angry, indignant, and consumed with zeal; He was troubled, greatly distressed, very sorrowful, depressed, deeply moved, and grieved; He sighed; He wept and sobbed; He groaned; He was in agony; He was surprised and amazed; He rejoiced very greatly and was full of joy; He greatly desired, and He loved. In our quest to be like Jesus we often overlook His emotions. Jesus reveals what it means to be fully human and made in the image of God. His emotions reflect the image of God without any deficiency or distortion. When we compare our own emotional lives to His, we become aware of our need for a transformation of our emotions so that we can be fully human, as He is.” The way Jesus expressed His emotions is the way that we should express emotion. Anger is a God-given emotion. There’s a time for anger.   Jesus’ anger was a righteous anger directed at evil and injustice. Bede Jarrett rightly observed that “The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough.” Christian psychologist, David Seamands, pointed out that “The person who cannot feel anger at evil is a person who lacks enthusiasm for good. If you cannot hate wrong, it’s very questionable whether you really love righteousness.” 1. What made Jesus angry? Picture this. You pull into the church parking lot on Sunday morning. Your heart is full of anticipation. Your cup is empty and you’re ready to fill it. You’re ready to enter the church and join your brothers and sisters in joyous worship. You look forward to singing to the Lord. You feel the need to commune in prayer. You anticipate the Lord’s Supper being served. You have your tithe and offering. You long to hear God’s word spoken and taught. Yet as you pull up, the parking lot is crammed full. You can’t even find a place to park. You’re undeterred. You park down the street and walk a few blocks. But as you try to enter the building there’s a long line. Tables are set up at every entrance. People are writing checks or putting down cash on the tables and getting tokens in return to place in the offering plate. You finally make it to the table and are told that you need the new church currency in order to make an offering. So you place a $20 bill on table and get a $10 special church coin in return. You finally make it through the entrance, only to find the halls very congested. Booths are set up throughout the hallways. People are selling hymn books at two booths. “Get your hymn books here. You can’t sing without your official church song book. Rent yours for only $19.95." Across the way there are tables where people are selling communion bread. The sign reads “Official Unleavened Communion Bread. Get your pinch for only $5.” On up ahead you notice merchants pouring wine. The sign reads “100% Pure ’Fruit of the Vine’ for Communion. Individual Cups only $7.50.” There’s so much commotion and commerce going on that you throw your hands up in disgust realizing you’ll never make it into the sanctuary to worship.   That’s a modernized picture of what Jesus saw. If you can imagine an experience like this and how frustrating it would be, then you can understand what it was like inside the Temple court yard during the time of Passover when Jesus came to worship.   It’s close to the time of Passover. Jewish tradition required an entire month of preparation for Passover. Roads were repaired, bridges rebuilt or shored up and tombs whitewashed. The entire country bustled with the spirit of the holiday, and so we aren't surprised to read in the Gospel of John that Jesus went to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast. Scholars estimate that more than two million people may have crowded into Jerusalem at Passover. As Jesus traveled south to Jerusalem, the roads must have been very congested. As He entered the gates of the city and approached the great cream and gold temple, He saw the sellers of trinkets and souvenirs on all sides. This may have concerned Him but not as much as what He saw when He stepped into the outer court of the temple. In the Temple He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves. Money changers are doing a brisk business. The money changers claimed their business was a necessity. They had to change foreign currency into Jewish currency because foreign money was not acceptable as an offering in the Temple. Money changers charged as much as two hours of a working man's wage to change a shekel, then charged the same amount again for every half shekel they gave in return for a larger coin. If you had a two-shekel piece, you were charged an entire day's wage just to get your money changed. It was big business! The Temple was taking in great sums of money. In fact, some years before, a man had robbed the temple, taking the equivalent of $20 million and he hadn't come close to depleting the treasury of the temple.   All the sacrifices in the temple were peddled by the sellers and inspectors. Rabbinical literature tells us that inspectors spent eighteen months on a farm learning to distinguish between a clean and an unclean animal. They even learned to identify an animal that would one day become unclean. If the inspectors didn’t want to approve an animal, it could not be approved. Extortion was common! And it was said that Annas the high priest was behind the whole operation. Commentators of that day dubbed the temple “the bazaars of Annas.” They knew the high priest sold franchises for the money-changing booths and for the stalls to sell animals.   When Jesus entered the Temple, He found a religious circus. As He scanned the great court of the Gentiles, He saw sheep, oxen, fowl and all the sounds and smells that go with them. He saw huckstering, bartering, and haggling over the weight of a coin. It was more than He could tolerate. Jesus reached down, picked up some cords and quickly knotted them together. Above the racket He shouted, "Take these things away; stop making My Father's house a house of merchandise." His whip began to fly. Tables were thrown over, money jangled across the floor as Jesus drove the money changers, the sellers and the inspectors out of the temple.   Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, is a concept so overworked that many preach and follow a Christ who has no resemblance to the Lion in the Temple. The Jesus they preach is an idol drained of His deity, a good-natured god whose great aim is to let us off the hook. While it’s true that Jesus described Himself as "meek and lowly in heart" (Matt. 11:29), yet to have a balanced picture of Jesus, we need to see Him in other settings, like the day when He was about to heal the man with the withered hand. He looked around at all those who questioned His performing a miracle on the Sabbath and He was filled with a swelling wrath (Mark 3:5). There was nothing gentle in the message He sent to King Herod, "Go and tell that fox" (Luke 13:32), or in His response to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan!" (Matt. 16:23). His reproach of the Pharisees was far from mild: "You are like whitewashed tombs…You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?" (23:27, 33). As Christ lashed the whip at the money changers, He was as fully Godlike as when He stood on the Mount of Transfiguration or when He hung on the cross of Calvary. To understand His action in the temple, we need to examine the reasons for His anger.   a) Jesus was angry at the lack of reverence toward God the Father. The purpose of the temple was to glorify God. Instead of a place of worship the Temple had been turned into a marketplace.   Jokes about God aren’t funny. He’s not the “big guy in the sky. If you were in the presence of the President or the Queen of England, would you be joking around with them or would you be giving them the utmost respect? It’s the custom of many countries, that when you are in the presence of royalty, you must bow in their presence. We show respect to court judges, police officers, professors and politicians, yet give God who holds our very lives in His hands very little respect.   b) Jesus was angry at the discouraging of worship. The second time that He drove out the money-changers at the end of His ministry, Jesus said, “My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of robbers” (Mt. 21:13). Can you imagine trying to worship and focus on God while sellers hawked their goods or sheep are bleating? The Temple was a place of worship and prayer, but the atmosphere in the courtyard was more like that at a carnival.   Sadly, that happens today too. During the worship service some feel it’s a time to cut-up, whisper, sleep, crack jokes, do text messages on their phone. Years ago we had someone who’d trim their nails during the service each week. Sometimes it’s innocent things that we don’t think of. We all know that a crying baby is a distraction but did you know that a happy baby can be worse? It’s hard to focus on singing praises or the sermon, if you have a little child in front of you doing something cute. c) Jesus was angry at the taking advantage of worshippers. No one likes to be ripped off but these animal sellers and money-changers were ripping off people in the name of God.   Years ago a well-known televangelist sent green prayer cloths to thousands of his viewers. God supposedly told him that the prayer cloth would be a point of contact, between him and the audience, for                                 releasing God’s blessing—with one essential condition. They needed to send him lots of money with the prayer cloth, or as he put it, “Sow your very best seed.” To those who returned the green cloth with some money, the televangelist promised great prosperity. Sadly, there are many who profess the name of Christ who are padding their own wallets and manipulating sincere Christians.   d) Jesus was angry at the shutting out of the Gentiles. Perhaps the worst error of all was the fact that it was all in the Court of the Gentiles. This was the only place Gentiles were allowed to enter for worship. Jews might be able to get away from it all, but this market place in the Temple virtually excluded the Gentiles from worship. So much for Gentile evangelism!   God has called us to reach all people. We must be careful that we’re never insensitive or prejudiced toward any people groups. Obviously, we need to be aware of ethnic discrimination but the greater sin of the contemporary church is economic discrimination. The contemporary church is middle class. We often do not have space, time or concern about those who have less or impoverished. Our doors must be open to all! 2. What should make us angry? Before becoming president Teddy Roosevelt was a Sunday School teacher. One day a boy came in with shiner and Teddy asked him what had happened. He said another boy was tormenting his sister so he took a swing at him. Teddy gave him a silver dollar as a reward. But Teddy was asked by the church not to teach anymore. You see, that church valued turning the other cheek, but not defending the weak. Teddy valued the other biblical value.   Now I’m not saying that we need to pop people in the nose but most Christians today are far too passive. One of the greatest tragedies of our day in our wealthy Western civilization is that an insidious apathy and comfort has settled in. Many people have forgotten the reality of life. Life is not meant to be a playground where personal ease and satisfaction are the goals and expected results. It’s a precious resource to be invested for the good of others. For the believer, life is a battlefield! We’re at war—and we need to act like it! In a war you’re not passive. You’ll never win in sports if you’re a wimp. Healthy anger is vital! So get angry! That's right, get angry. You should be incensed when you see debauchery around you. Get angry when temptation keeps knocking at your door. Become angry at it and let that anger motivate you to change and respond aggressively.   Aristotle said it well, “The man who is angry at the right things and with the right people, and, further, as he ought, when he ought, and as long as he ought, is praised.” Billy Sunday, the baseball evangelist, thundered against evil during the Great Depression. He preached Christ as the only answer to man’s needs until his death in 1935. He said, “I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. When I’m old and fistless and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition.”   History gives us numerous examples of the positive results of healthy anger. It was good anger that led Candy Lightner to found MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) after a drunken driver plowed his vehicle into her 13-year-old daughter and a Californian judge gave the repeat offender a light sentence. That organization has saved countless lives. It was good anger that led people in England and then in America to end slavery and work to right the continued wrongs committed due to racial prejudice. It was good anger that motivated Martin Luther King Jr. to fight against discrimination and injustice in this country. And the world would be a sadder place without good anger...selfless anger...anger that is motivated by wrongs committed against other people.   Don’t get me wrong. It’s very easy for anger to lead us into sin, but it doesn’t have to. It can motivate us to do a lot of good. There’s a vast difference between righteous anger and sinful anger. Righteous anger is always toward sin. It’s not explosive but under control. It’s concerned about God’s reputation, or with defending and protecting others, not its own pride or desires. Holy anger produces righteousness not sinfulness. 3. How can we be good and angry? Anger is not always wrong. Paul wrote, “In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” (Eph. 4:26-27).   One Christian couple totally misinterpreted that verse. They’d had a huge argument. He had hollered and she’d returned in kind. They dressed for bed and the wife leaned over to the husband and said, “Honey, we promised never to let the sun go down on our wrath.” And he retorted back, “The sun is still shining in China.” So how can we be good and angry like Jesus? Let me suggest five guidelines.   a) Stay away from angry people. Our closest friends should not be people who can’t control their rage. We tend to become like people we hang with.  If we spend time with a rebel, we’ll become rebellious. If we hang around negative people, we become negative. Anger is highly contagious. Solomon strongly urges us not to date, marry, befriend or go into business with someone who has difficulty controlling his temper. In Proverbs 22:24-25 he warns, “Do not associate with a man given to anger or go with a hot-tempered man, lest you learn his ways, and find a snare for yourself.”   b) When we first become angry, take an emotional time out. Most of the time our anger leads us to cross the line into sin in that first emotionally heated response, when we fly off the handle and say or do things we shouldn’t. As you know, flying off the handle is easy but flying back on the handle can be a tricky maneuver. Often our initial unbridled anger causes us to say things that we can’t take back or do things that we can’t undo. When we first feel our blood beginning to boil, it’s wise to step back for a few minutes and think—to delay our reaction long enough for us to calm down and evaluate what’s going on. Follow Thomas Jefferson’s advice and count to ten—or a hundred—or however long it takes you to cool down enough to think clearly. If we give ourselves a time out like this—if we step away for a bit or ask the person if we can call back later, we’ll be less likely to say something we’ll later regret. “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.” (Prov. 29:11), “He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly” (Prov. 14:29).   c) Learn to clarify the issue. The purpose of an “emotional time out” is not to avoid our anger but to give ourselves the time and space necessary to analyze the situation. Frequently, we get angry over things because we don’t know the facts and our “time out” can allow us to get them. Use this time for honest self-examination to try and find out exactly why you’re so ticked. Use anger as a God-given warning light to remind yourself that something inside is wrong, to pull aside for a while to try to cool down and understand what it is. When Paul says, “Be angry but sin not,” he’s saying in essence, “Watch out...you’d better find out what lies behind your anger before it leads you to sin.” Backing off from the source of the conflict gives us time to not only calm down, but to prayerfully figure out what it is that has made us mad in the first place. Once we’ve clarified the issue, we are ready to move on to the next step…   d) Deal with the problem. Many people tend to suppress their anger or put off dealing with it. They bottle anger up inside. The problem with this is that bottled up anger always leaks out. When it does, it poisons our bodies, our minds and our relationships. Internalized anger is just as destructive as anger that is vented. Burying your anger is a lot like the environmental problem of burying toxic waste. When the canisters of poison are buried underground, everyone thinks the problem is gone. Later people start getting sick as the poison leaks into the ground water. That’s the principle Paul is getting at here in Ephesians, when he tells us not to let the sun go down on our wrath. He’s saying we need to deal with the problem. There’s an old Latin proverb that says, “He who goes to bed angry has the devil for a bedfellow.” Don’t put off dealing with the source of your anger. Go to the person you’re angry with and in a Christlike manner talk about the issue until it’s resolved and peace is restored.   e) The best way to deal with our anger is to learn to forgive. Think about it. Venting it doesn’t work. It only increases our rage. Suppressing it isn’t effective either. It always comes out in some way. So what do we do with our anger? The best way to deal with anger is to replace it with Christlike qualities. Look at Ephesians 4:31-32 where Paul says, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Paul is encouraging us to replace our anger with Christlike qualities.   Chuck Swindoll shared the story of a seminary student in Chicago who faced a  forgiveness test. Although he preferred to work in some kind of ministry, the only job he could find was driving a bus on Chicago's south side. One day a gang of tough teens got on board and refused to pay the fare. After a few days of this, the seminarian spotted a policeman on the corner, stopped the bus, and reported them. The officer made them pay, but then he got off. When the bus rounded a corner, the gang robbed the seminary student and beat him severely. He pressed charges and the gang was rounded up. They were found guilty. But as soon as the jail sentence was given, the young Christian saw their spiritual need and felt pity for them. He asked the judge if he could serve their sentences for them. The gang members and the judge were dumbfounded. "It's because I forgive you," he explained. His request was denied, but he visited the young men in jail and led several of them to faith in Christ.   That’s exactly what Jesus did to the same ones who were behind this marketing in the Temple. As He was dying on the Cross, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Conclusion: Following Jesus means knowing how to be good & angry.  J.B. Phillips, who wrote a translation of the Bible, also wrote a book called Your God is Too Small. In this book, he comments on the old children’s poem that says, “Christian children all must be mild, obedient, good as He.”   This is what Phillips says about the poem: “This word ‘mild’ is apparently deliberately used to describe a man who did not hesitate to challenge and expose the hypocrisies of the religious people of His day; a man who had such ‘personality’ that He walked unscathed through a murderous crowd; a man so far from being a nonentity that He was regarded by the authorities as a public danger; a man who could be moved to violent anger by shameless exploitation or by smug complacent orthodoxy; a man of such courage that He deliberately walked to what He knew would mean death, despite the earnest pleas of well-meaning friends!   Mild! What a word to use for a personality whose challenge and strange attractiveness nineteen centuries have by no means exhausted. Jesus Christ might well be called ‘meek,’ in the sense of being selfless and humble and utterly devoted to what He considered right, whatever the personal cost; but ‘mild,’ never!”   Friend, following Jesus does not mean that you and I are to be mild. There is a proper and righteous time for anger. We just have to make sure that we are handling it carefully and in a way that pleases our Lord! Following Jesus means knowing how to be both good & angry.