Anger - Summer in the Psalms - Sermons - Josh Navey - 7.12.26

**Josh Navey** (0:05)
Is anger a sin? It's a question we bounced around in our living room over the last week with some mixed results of the conversation. But what do you think? Is anger a sin? We've been walking through the Psalms this summer, trying to see uniquely how this book of songs and prayers speaks to our emotional life, speaks to our feelings. In an effort to grow as disciples of Jesus, living our whole life in the presence of God, there's this Latin phrase we've said over and over, quorum Deo, before the face of God. It's trying to help you understand what's already true. God is everywhere. You are near him at all times. And we should live as if that's true. We should live before the face of God with every part of our life, including our emotions. Today, we're gonna be, we're gonna begin in Psalm chapter four. So if you got a Bible with you, I'd love for you to turn it open to Psalm chapter four, verse four, is where we're gonna start. And then we're gonna look in a few different places throughout scripture to understand God's thoughts on anger. Now, I love a good documentary. I am one of those people that entertainment is kind of learning, okay? I know some of you guys, entertainment is to escape reality and to kind of get away from what is real. But my entertainment is to learn what's real. And a short word for that is nerd. And I understand it.
But to fight against the nerd label here, I want you to know that there's not a doubt in my mind, the greatest documentary of all time is called The Last Dance. All right, this one came out during COVID. It kind of filled a little hole in our life where there weren't any live sports. Because The Last Dance is following Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls through the last year of their six NBA championships. It follows the practices. You see the behind the scenes. It has interviews with family members and tracks the team into the hotel and into the locker room. It really gave an unprecedented look into the life of an NBA player and NBA team. And it was amazing because it was Michael Jordan's last year until he unretired again. But that's a different story. The question I want to put in front of you is if you had a Last Dance style camera following you around for the next year, then what kind of emotions are we going to see? We're going to see joy on some days. We're going to see sadness on some days, grief, sorrow, lament. We're going to see happiness. But a sleeper candidate, I think, for the most influential emotion, if we were following you around for the next year, I think it would be anger, especially for our parents in the room. If you lived your child's life for the next year, you've seen the movie Inside Out. If you just got in their head and you were looking through their eyes, how would your anger shape their days? Or maybe more importantly, how does our anger shape their perception of themselves? I hope today to open your eyes to the power of your anger. I wanna give you perspective on how to see anger rightly, to see it the way God sees it. And I want you to know this isn't a sermon on how to quit being angry. This isn't going to add a lot of practical strategies into your life on how to manage anger. No, my goal is deeper than that. My goal is I wanna change your motivations so that even your anger, maybe especially your anger, will be lived for the glory of God and before the face of God. Listen to Psalm 4-4 and read along with me.
Says, be angry and do not sin. Reflect in your heart while on your bed and be silent. Now, Psalm chapter four, the best we can tell, was written when David's son was overthrowing his kingdom, Absalom. He was trying, but it had pretty well succeeded by this point because most scholars would agree that David's probably sitting in a cave as he pens this Psalm, with a group of men who had remained loyal to him. Not many, but a group of men who had remained loyal to him. They had fled the city while his son, Absalom, took over, and they were hiding in a cave. And David, in this moment of grief and sorrow, and also anger, talks some in Psalm 4 to God. But he also, in the middle of this Psalm, takes a few sentences to talk to the men that are seated with him. And he tells these men to be angry. Of course, there's not much good happening right now in their life. Be angry. But he also tells them to not sin, to reflect in their heart. This is, most scholars would say, this is an evening Psalm, one that should be read before you go to bed. Reflect in your heart while on your bed, even if your bed is made of rocks. And be silent. Now, I think this one line could do a lot of good for you and your emotional intelligence around anger. First, it answers our original question, because it is possible to be angry and not sin. So anger is not a sin in and of itself. But before you start elbowing that person beside you and saying, see, I told you so. I said it's possible, but I didn't say it's likely. All right. It's not common for sin to not be angry. Anger is not a sin all the time. But that doesn't mean your anger is not a sin all the time. Gregory Nichols defines anger as this. It'll be up on the screen for you. It's a hot displeasure of the heart in response to something you perceive to be wrong. All right. Anger could be throwing a tantrum. It could be an explosive outward emotion. But anger also could be coldness towards those around you. Couldn't it? It could be, I'm so angry, I will cut you off. So it could be explosive outward, or it could be, I hold on to it inside, and most likely you two are married to each other.