Further

Episode 115: Righteous Anger

Season 2 Episode 39

In this episode of Further, Brenton sits down with Clay to talk through his recent sermon on anger from John 11. Clay shares how his own personal struggles with anger helped shape his message and how Jesus’ response to grief and brokenness reveals a purposeful, righteous anger. They discuss the difference between stuffing or venting anger and what it means to bring our emotions to Jesus with honesty and self-control. The conversation also highlights how pride, shame, and isolation can fuel our anger—but how the gospel offers a better way. Through passages like Ephesians 4 and Romans 8:1, they point listeners to the hope and freedom found in Christ.

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[00:01:29:20 - 00:01:34:06]
Brenton
 Welcome back to Further. I am Britain Grimm. How's it going, Clay?

[00:01:34:06 - 00:01:36:21]
Clay
 It's going great. Thanks for having me back.

[00:01:36:21 - 00:01:38:21]
Brenton
 Yeah, it's been a while since you've been in here.

[00:01:38:21 - 00:01:39:07]
Clay
 Yes.

[00:01:40:09 - 00:01:41:12]
Brenton
 Haven't preached for a while, huh?

[00:01:41:12 - 00:01:51:08]
Clay
 Haven't preached for a while. And I think even before that, I've weaseled my way out of somebody's appearances. Not that I would try to do that. I love talking with you. It is good to be back, though.

[00:01:51:08 - 00:01:52:01]
Brenton
 Yeah, for sure.

[00:01:53:22 - 00:01:57:19]
Brenton
 What was your prep week like this week?

[00:01:59:03 - 00:02:02:21]
Clay
 I think it was pretty typical, but that means it was kind of hard.

[00:02:04:14 - 00:02:30:11]
Clay
 So one of the things that I tried to do as a preacher is, and I should do this every time, try to do it every time, is apply the text to myself first. And so on a week like this, that was pretty convicting for obvious reasons. And I'm sure we'll get into some of those, but also just, it just seems like every time, every preaching week,

[00:02:32:12 - 00:02:41:17]
Clay
 it's just a struggle throughout the week to stay centered on glorifying the Lord and not fearing man and what are people gonna think, or am I gonna get this right?

[00:02:43:17 - 00:02:50:17]
Clay
 Yeah, so you just have all those thoughts and you just gotta persevere and stick with it and keep your eyes on Christ. So that's kind of how my week was.

[00:02:50:17 - 00:03:10:10]
Brenton
 Yeah, all right. So if I had to guess where you were going with this message this week before Sunday, my answer probably would not have been to focus on anger. So I guess my question is, how did you land on this direction as you studied the passage?

[00:03:11:14 - 00:03:19:07]
Clay
 Yeah, I didn't think I was gonna go that direction either. When I first read through it, in our good old English Bibles,

[00:03:20:12 - 00:03:26:11]
Clay
 I was thinking in terms of how the passage shows Jesus's humanity and that he wept.

[00:03:27:16 - 00:03:33:16]
Clay
 I was thinking it showed his divinity and that he raised Lazarus from the dead.

[00:03:35:01 - 00:03:51:12]
Clay
 And so I was going in that direction. I think I had a third point, which I now forget, but I'm sure there had to be a third point, right? Of course. But then as I studied the passage and came across what I shared about verses 33 and 38 in the commentaries and that Greek word,

[00:03:51:12 - 00:03:51:21]
 (Speaking In Foreign Language)

[00:03:51:21 - 00:04:18:12]
Clay
 and how our English translations, most of them translate that deeply moved. Now the NLT does say he welled up with anger. So they got that right. But I was just, I kept looking, I kept going to other commentaries. Well, okay, maybe it's just this one guy. And no, it wasn't. It was this other guy too. And this other guy over here. And then I, oh, what about this one? Nope, that too. So they were all saying the same thing about this Greek word,

[00:04:18:12 - 00:04:18:22]
 (Speaking In Foreign Language)

[00:04:20:04 - 00:04:25:01]
Clay
 that it means he was angry. And when that shows up a couple of different times,

[00:04:26:01 - 00:04:45:15]
Clay
 right after people are saying things like, boy, if you had only been here, my brother wouldn't have died. And couldn't this guy have kept this man from dying? And then Jesus, that's when it says he was angry. And then he's moved to act. So I just thought it was a really important piece of this passage.

[00:04:46:16 - 00:04:54:13]
Clay
 So that's the main reason why I went that direction. But also I was influenced by a conversation I had recently with an unbeliever,

[00:04:55:19 - 00:05:00:10]
Clay
 probably, I don't know, two, three or so weeks before I started studying.

[00:05:02:14 - 00:05:13:09]
Clay
 And this unbeliever was, he's just, he was being honest, but he's angry with God. And he's angry with God at a number of things that he's experienced in life. And as I started reading about Jesus's anger

[00:05:14:09 - 00:05:22:02]
Clay
 and thought of my unbelieving friend who's angry with God, and then applied the passage to myself, which I mentioned a little bit ago,

[00:05:23:17 - 00:05:28:09]
Clay
 anger is definitely something I struggle with and experience. So that's why I went down that road.

[00:05:28:09 - 00:05:35:13]
Brenton
 Yeah, that makes sense. Why do you think that this topic is such an important one for us as the church?

[00:05:36:15 - 00:05:55:10]
Clay
 I think it's one we can all relate to. And already it's only been a couple of days since I've preached the sermon, but a number of people have related to the topic, have related to my opening illustration. I talked about the movie "Inside Out" and putting the foot down and even my,

[00:05:57:06 - 00:06:19:22]
Clay
 what I shared about my experience with that a couple of weeks ago, it just hits on with people. They know exactly what I'm talking about and they can apply it to. One of our colleagues said, I was fuming in my anger right in that moment as you started your sermon. She was fuming in anger about some situation and so it was just very timely.

[00:06:19:22 - 00:06:38:00]
Brenton
 Yeah, it's one of those things I think that we feel so justified in at the moment, but you snap out of it so fast once you do and you realize how silly you were being. So yeah, I think it was probably on a lot of our minds.

[00:06:39:17 - 00:06:47:12]
Brenton
 You spent time comparing the way we see Jesus dealing with his anger in this passage against how we typically deal with it.

[00:06:49:04 - 00:06:56:01]
Brenton
 You even referenced Jonah at the beginning and his anger toward God for redeeming the Ninevites.

[00:06:58:01 - 00:07:10:10]
Brenton
 For the purpose of this conversation, could you kind of sum up the common sinful ways that we express our anger? Like what kind of sinful attitudes or behaviors come out when we're angry?

[00:07:12:08 - 00:07:13:08]
Clay
 Yeah, that's a great question.

[00:07:15:00 - 00:07:35:14]
Clay
 So I think of it in a couple of different categories and the Bible has some specific words it puts to this and we can look at those, but to me the general categories are, we either express it outwardly or we express it or stuff it inwardly. And both options are sinful,

[00:07:36:21 - 00:07:43:08]
Clay
 almost every time. We can talk about some things that aren't sinful, some good things, but if you look at Ephesians chapter four,

[00:07:45:02 - 00:07:46:08]
Clay
 near the end of the chapter,

[00:07:47:08 - 00:08:09:07]
Clay
 Paul says, let all, this is verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. So we've got a whole constellation of words there and anger is one of them, but I think they're all related to anger. So that bitterness, that'd be like stuffing it in.

[00:08:10:09 - 00:08:15:07]
Clay
 I think I've heard Chris say that bitterness is like a poison you drank hoping that someone else dies.

[00:08:16:13 - 00:08:16:17]
Clay
 Right?

[00:08:17:17 - 00:08:34:23]
Clay
 And then, but then you've got something like slander or wrath, those would be more like outward expressions of that. You're gonna, you're so mad at somebody, you're so angry that you're going to talk in a disparaging way about them, or you're gonna lash out on them,

[00:08:36:21 - 00:09:02:00]
Clay
 hopefully not, but perhaps physically, and I think more commonly for a lot of us verbally. So I think we've got a number of different sinful options, but those are the two big categories I think of. It's either we stuff it and try to deal with it on our own, pretend like it's not there, but it wells up in us and it eventually comes out, it leaks out and in all sorts of unhealthy ways, or we just, we vent it out, you know, and that's not good either.

[00:09:02:00 - 00:09:12:08]
Brenton
 Yeah. Why do you think that we kind of ignore the warning signs of anger until it actually happens? Like, you know,

[00:09:13:08 - 00:09:20:01]
Brenton
 it seems like we don't even realize that that's in us until it actually comes outwardly.

[00:09:20:01 - 00:09:20:11]
Speaker 4
 Yeah.

[00:09:20:11 - 00:09:27:02]
Brenton
 And even like the bitterness, I think you don't even recognize that it's there until something happens outwardly.

[00:09:27:02 - 00:09:43:07]
Clay
 Mm-hmm. Yeah, the thing that jumps out to me first as you asked that question is pride. This is for me, this is me talking here, but I want to believe that I'm above that. Like, no, I'm not really angry about that.

[00:09:45:09 - 00:10:06:07]
Clay
 I'm not really bitter about that because a Christian or Jesus wouldn't be. You know, he wouldn't be angry about that or bitter about that or stewing over that. And surely I'm not either. And I just, I think I can convince myself in my mind that no, I'm good, I'm good. No, I'm over it.

[00:10:08:05 - 00:10:14:05]
Clay
 No, that's not really impacting me anymore. I'm not worked up over it anymore. And it's just not true.

[00:10:15:18 - 00:10:19:11]
Clay
 So yeah, that's the thing that first jumps out at me and-

[00:10:19:11 - 00:10:27:18]
Brenton
 Yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, so maybe a more often honest assessment of where we're at would be a healthy thing to do here.

[00:10:28:19 - 00:10:38:23]
Brenton
 Why do you think that, you know, like I was saying earlier, it's something that in the moment we feel so justified in, why do you think that is? How do we convince ourselves of that?

[00:10:38:23 - 00:10:47:03]
Clay
 Yeah, that's great. And that's related to what I had just said about pride. I'm so proud, I think I'm right.

[00:10:48:12 - 00:10:58:12]
Clay
 Of course I'm right, I'm right to feel this way. And, you know, in my mind, I can be fairly logical about things and lay out a case

[00:10:59:13 - 00:11:17:21]
Clay
 for why I'm right to think this way about something or feel this way about something. And at the same time, like deny that that emotion is controlling me or having negative effects on me. So it's just crazy how pride works in this. I didn't even talk about pride in the sermon, but we could have.

[00:11:17:21 - 00:11:20:10]
Brenton
 You're right, that's a big factor here.

[00:11:22:05 - 00:11:30:02]
Brenton
 One thing that really stood out to me in your message was something that I don't think you said directly in it, but it was clear throughout,

[00:11:31:13 - 00:11:34:13]
Brenton
 is that Jesus, his anger was purposeful.

[00:11:35:20 - 00:12:04:03]
Brenton
 Like in verse 41, we see Jesus praying to the Father and he says, "I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me." So even in his deep anger here, he's teaching those around him. And as you pointed out, raising Lazarus was a significant step toward his own crucifixion,

[00:12:05:04 - 00:12:38:08]
Brenton
 that intentionality that we see from Jesus contrasts with the way we often handle anger. Like a lot of the time, we're not in control of our anger, it's not in control of us. I know from experience that when I'm expressing anger, in an unhealthy way, I'm not directing it with purpose. It's directing me. So how can we learn from Jesus here, learn to respond to anger or to be mindful of what our anger produces?

[00:12:40:21 - 00:12:42:14]
Clay
 Yeah, well, that's a great point.

[00:12:43:21 - 00:12:52:01]
Clay
 Jesus, something that struck me, as I was going over this, and you're right, I didn't expressly talk about his purpose in this and certainly could have,

[00:12:53:12 - 00:12:55:11]
Clay
 but Jesus is always in control.

[00:12:56:16 - 00:12:59:10]
Clay
 And yeah, you said it, we're so often not,

[00:13:00:14 - 00:13:24:10]
Clay
 but he always is. I think of the fruit of the spirit, one aspect of that is self-control, and he's always in control. So he's one with the spirit, right? So he's always loving, joyful, he has peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, and he always has those things, which is just crazy to think about.

[00:13:25:15 - 00:14:13:21]
Clay
 And so, yeah, that's a great grid, I guess, to put on this when you read a passage like we did on Sunday in John 11, is he's in control of himself in that situation. He's got a plan, he's got a purpose. It's to help other people there actually believe in him, and it's to move his story on to the bigger end, the ultimate purpose of his death and resurrection. And we just so often lack that control. We're not in step with the spirit. We're not availing ourselves of the spirit within us. Like he's always in step with the spirit. He's always doing the will of the Father, and we so often are doing our own will and getting out of step with him. And then, like you said, we lose control.

[00:14:15:09 - 00:14:43:01]
Brenton
 Yeah, as I was writing questions for this, that was kind of what came to my mind too, was that it's a matter of self-control. I think you're right. I think that so often we kind of view self-control as like we're in control enough to stop ourselves from doing things that we shouldn't do, right? And that's kind of as far as maybe we go with that idea, but to put this in the frame of Jesus,

[00:14:44:01 - 00:14:47:12]
Brenton
 he's in control of his emotions, he's in control of his mind.

[00:14:49:04 - 00:14:52:04]
Clay
 Well, and he's always honest with himself too. I mean, he's always truthful.

[00:14:53:06 - 00:14:55:02]
Clay
 Kind of getting back to what I was saying earlier,

[00:14:56:02 - 00:15:39:08]
Clay
 like when I operate in fleshly self-control, I can prevent myself from saying certain words or acting in certain ways, but that still doesn't mean I am in step with the spirit and that that anger is not really there in my heart, that I've really dealt with it. And so that's kind of like that stuffing it. That's what I talked about earlier. But my wife is a great helper to me and sometimes it annoys me to no end, but she is always really good at sniffing out, sensing when I'm stuffing anger, because it's leaking, because she can see it in my mannerisms, my behaviors, that maybe the sharpness with which I might say something, irritability,

[00:15:40:13 - 00:15:48:01]
Clay
 and I can deny it, and I can be thinking I am perfectly in control, self-control, yeah, all the way, because I'm not lashing out.

[00:15:49:03 - 00:15:50:18]
Clay
 I'm not doing something super overt,

[00:15:51:18 - 00:15:56:21]
Clay
 but that does not mean it's not there. And that does not mean I am truly self-controlled, like the spirit would have maybe.

[00:15:56:21 - 00:16:07:17]
Brenton
 Yeah, I can certainly relate to that. I hear often around our house that when I start sighing as I'm walking around, she notices it immediately.

[00:16:07:17 - 00:16:12:00]
Clay
 What's going on, what's wrong? Nothing, everything's fine.

[00:16:12:00 - 00:16:16:03]
Brenton
 I don't even know that I'm doing it, but yeah. That's good to have a wife.

[00:16:19:09 - 00:16:32:18]
Brenton
 How do you think our interactions would be different if we were able to actually focus on the purpose of anger, if that was an intentional thing for us rather than something that happens to us?

[00:16:36:23 - 00:16:38:13]
Clay
 Yeah, that's a great question.

[00:16:40:22 - 00:16:41:21]
Clay
 I think anger,

[00:16:42:22 - 00:16:56:22]
Clay
 it's a real emotion, and I mentioned on Sunday, Bible says in Ephesians 4, be angry and do not sin. And so we can be angry and not sin, but then I think we need to ask God, why are we angry?

[00:16:58:06 - 00:17:08:22]
Clay
 What is going on here? And if it's a good reason, if there's some evil in the world or some suffering or something that we have every right to be angry about,

[00:17:10:00 - 00:17:17:11]
Clay
 I think a key question is, God, what do you want me to do with this? So Jesus was purposeful in everything and always self-controlled.

[00:17:19:00 - 00:17:30:19]
Clay
 We can ask, we can ask Jesus, we can ask God, what is the purpose for my anger here? What do you have? Do you want me to move toward a person in love?

[00:17:31:21 - 00:17:41:07]
Clay
 Do you want me to start praying over this situation? Do you want me to take some kind of action to right this wrong, to remedy the situation?

[00:17:42:18 - 00:17:50:06]
Clay
 But it would need to be, of course, as Jesus is, motivated by love, and it would need to be good and gentle and peaceful.

[00:17:52:07 - 00:18:04:13]
Clay
 And we probably need to do a lot of work in our hearts and talking with God when we're angry before we would then act on it and be able to act on it in a God-honoring way.

[00:18:06:03 - 00:18:16:15]
Brenton
 Yeah, okay. So this might be a good time to talk about what righteous anger is. So kind of coming out of Ephesians where you said, be angry and do not sin,

[00:18:17:18 - 00:18:21:20]
Brenton
 how would you define righteous anger? Like what does that actually look like for us?

[00:18:23:02 - 00:18:32:20]
Clay
 Yeah, well, I think it's the things that we see, God's righteous, so it's the things that we see him angry about, and he's angry about sin, and he's angry about faithlessness,

[00:18:33:21 - 00:18:35:14]
Clay
 he's angry about brokenness.

[00:18:36:15 - 00:19:01:10]
Clay
 These things aren't right. They're not, I mean, they were ultimately a result of the fall, which was prompted by the devil and fully committed by humans, and we continue in that all the time. And so we're responsible, and these things are right to be angry about. So the manifestations of them in our life might be somebody being victimized in some way,

[00:19:02:16 - 00:19:06:05]
Clay
 or just being angry over injustice in the world,

[00:19:07:19 - 00:19:15:20]
Clay
 or injustice in our community. It doesn't have to always be a big picture thing, but it can be a real small, specific situation too.

[00:19:16:21 - 00:19:22:01]
Clay
 And so I think it's okay to be angry about that. And then the big question is, what do you do with it?

[00:19:22:01 - 00:19:25:12]
Brenton
 I think, yeah, maybe there's a separation there between,

[00:19:28:01 - 00:19:41:09]
Brenton
 when we see, like you said, injustices in the world, those are things that are happening to other people that should rightly make us angry. But I think most of the time our anger comes from things that are done to us.

[00:19:41:09 - 00:19:43:04]
Clay
 Yeah, we're pretty self-centered.

[00:19:44:12 - 00:19:44:21]
Clay
 For sure.

[00:19:47:10 - 00:19:54:13]
Brenton
 Do we have an ability to be righteously angry about something that happens to us? Like, is that ever a...

[00:19:54:13 - 00:20:27:09]
Clay
 Well, sure. I think if you were wronged by somebody, if somebody's in the wrong, they've hurt you without, I mean, there's no justification for it. They've sinned against you, right? But what are we supposed to do if our brother sins against us? Well, we're supposed to remove the plank or the log from our own eye first, consider what role we had in the situation. And that involves prayer, of course. And then we're supposed to go to our brother in a spirit of peacemaking and unity and try to bring to his or her attention

[00:20:28:13 - 00:20:32:07]
Clay
 the wrong that they've done to us and try to resolve it and try to reconcile.

[00:20:33:16 - 00:20:54:00]
Clay
 So, yeah, I mean, I think there absolutely is reason or can be reason for us to be righteously angry. But then again, what do we do about it? Or what do we do with that? Do we act in a way that's gonna be loving, that's gonna be God honoring, that's gonna be in alignment with his characteristics like the fruit of the spirit, which we mentioned earlier,

[00:20:55:04 - 00:20:58:08]
Clay
 or are we gonna go a different way? And that other way is not good.

[00:20:58:08 - 00:20:59:08]
Brenton
 Yeah,

[00:21:00:08 - 00:21:01:01]
Brenton
 yep, okay.

[00:21:03:17 - 00:21:08:15]
Brenton
 So you emphasize that Jesus is the answer for our anger.

[00:21:10:11 - 00:21:21:16]
Brenton
 Practically speaking, what steps can we take when we feel ourselves starting to spiral into that? How can we actually go to Jesus with those things? What does that look like?

[00:21:21:16 - 00:21:44:17]
Clay
 Yeah, well, that's, I think the big thing is to just go with him, go to him at all. And your question assumes that you're feeling the anger come on or you're sensing that you're in the midst of it. And that's awesome. If you have that presence of mind, that's a win. And then of course the spirit helps us with that. But I do think, so we've mentioned Ephesians 4 a number of times, great chapter.

[00:21:45:22 - 00:21:59:19]
Clay
 The last verse though, super practical in answer to your question, verse 32. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

[00:22:01:06 - 00:22:07:20]
Clay
 And I see that verse and that verse drives me to the cross.

[00:22:08:21 - 00:22:12:05]
Clay
 As God in Christ forgave me.

[00:22:13:15 - 00:22:20:11]
Clay
 So it drives me to an awareness of my own sin, the necessity of the cross because of my sin.

[00:22:21:11 - 00:22:28:22]
Clay
 And how did God forgive me? He forgave me because his son took his wrath for me.

[00:22:30:01 - 00:22:52:05]
Clay
 Because Christ willingly, purposefully, gladly submitted to death on a cross, bearing my sins and the sins of the world in my place for me. And that's how God can forgive me. When I accept that in grace and place my faith in him, he forgives me. And so in a situation where I'm feeling angry, if I'm dealing with that rightly,

[00:22:53:07 - 00:22:58:12]
Clay
 I'm gonna think of Jesus on the cross. I'm gonna think of what he did for me

[00:22:59:14 - 00:23:21:08]
Clay
 and I didn't deserve it. And that just changes everything. And that changes how we look at a situation. And that changes how we look at and consider another person. And then we can live out the first part of that verse, we can be kind, we can be tenderhearted. Because it reminds us of just how kind and just how tenderhearted God has been to us.

[00:23:23:16 - 00:23:53:14]
Brenton
 Yeah, yeah, that's good. I think a lot of times we can kind of look at taking things to Jesus as just praying about it, which obviously is a great step. We wanna be in communication with Jesus. But the, yeah, taking it back to the cross, I think is super important. And you said it earlier, but Chris has been saying a lot lately, we can either move toward people or we can move away from people.

[00:23:54:18 - 00:24:00:19]
Brenton
 And at the crucifixion, we see no better act of someone moving toward us. Ah, yes.

[00:24:01:20 - 00:24:08:19]
Brenton
 And so that brings us back to what our posture should be toward other people. So that's good.

[00:24:10:10 - 00:24:12:06]
Brenton
 You also mentioned Hebrews 4.15,

[00:24:13:09 - 00:24:23:04]
Brenton
 which says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin."

[00:24:24:06 - 00:24:29:22]
Brenton
 Why is this idea so helpful for us as believers? Like what should we do with this knowledge?

[00:24:31:12 - 00:24:32:19]
Clay
 Yeah, I think it's helpful.

[00:24:34:07 - 00:25:11:11]
Clay
 And I touched on this on Sunday, but Jesus can relate to us, He gets us, and we're not alone in this. And so I think it's easy for us to think of God as so far above us that He's impersonal or can't relate to us. He's not here on the ground living what I'm living. But that's just not accurate. And we see, we just see that fully in the personal work of Jesus. And so He's fully God and fully man at the same time and has experienced everything that we experience.

[00:25:12:23 - 00:25:25:20]
Clay
 And He's God, and so He just knows everything too. So I think it's really helpful to remember that God isn't just some impersonal force

[00:25:27:02 - 00:25:30:02]
Clay
 that is indifferent at best,

[00:25:31:10 - 00:25:34:01]
Clay
 acting at ways or at times against you.

[00:25:36:03 - 00:25:43:08]
Clay
 That I think is an image of God we can have at times. I can have or have had at times, but that's not who God truly is.

[00:25:44:13 - 00:25:54:13]
Clay
 And we see who God truly is in the personal work of Jesus. And He understands us. He understands what we're going through. He's patient with us. He's tender with us.

[00:25:55:14 - 00:26:22:00]
Clay
 And He gave up His own life for us. And so we just, we need to remember that. And when we do, I think it can be really helpful to know that we're not alone in this. And He still loves us anyway. I mentioned shame on Sunday, but we can feel like we're not worthy and we're not in ourselves, but He makes us worthy through His righteousness imputed us. So yeah, we have no reason to be ashamed if we're in Him.

[00:26:22:00 - 00:26:33:01]
Brenton
 Yeah, okay. So carrying on from the shame conversation, you did make the point that anger can often leave us feeling isolated and ashamed.

[00:26:34:18 - 00:26:42:16]
Brenton
 So let's get kind of practical. What encouragement would you give to someone who feels stuck in that place today?

[00:26:43:23 - 00:26:54:18]
Clay
 Yeah, I would love to be able to talk with them about my own sins and struggles, but yeah, so there. I mean, I guess maybe you're not alone and you're,

[00:26:55:19 - 00:27:19:04]
Clay
 so I think I mentioned this at the top, but after this sermon, a number of people have hit me up and just saying like, yeah, I got it. That was really good because I've been there. I know exactly what that's like. And I experienced that all the time. And these are people on our church staff. These are members of our church, leaders of our church.

[00:27:20:12 - 00:28:11:13]
Clay
 It's a whole variety of people that can all relate to this issue of anger, this struggle with anger. And so for that reason, you're not alone and you shouldn't feel any special sense of shame or any sense of shame over this. We're all in this together. But then theologically, I quoted Romans 8.1, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's a verse I learned a long time ago and have repeated to myself often because I can be my own worst critic. And I know a lot of other people are this way too, but you beat yourself up, get down on yourself. And Romans 8.1 really is true. It really is true that there's no condemnation for you in Christ Jesus. We need to remember that. We need to believe it.

[00:28:12:17 - 00:28:19:12]
Clay
 We need to renew our mind. We need to let the spirit renew our minds in light of that verse, the light of that scripture there.

[00:28:20:14 - 00:28:20:23]
Brenton
 That's good.

[00:28:22:03 - 00:28:29:02]
Brenton
 Okay. Well, that's all I got. Really appreciate you coming in and also for your sermon this week. It was,

[00:28:30:03 - 00:28:40:01]
Brenton
 like I said, not what I expected, but probably what I needed, so. Likewise. That's good. All right, well, if you do have any questions, ask at furtherpodcast.com.

[00:28:41:02 - 00:28:43:11]
Brenton
 And yeah, thanks for coming in. Talk to you next week.

[00:28:43:11 - 00:28:46:16]
 (Upbeat Music)

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