tim keller the healing of anger

1.  its dangerous power
-it can disintegrate the body.  tranquil heart is life to the body but anger rots your bones.
nothing sets you up for heart attacks like anger.
-disintegrates community. when you are angry you throw around words and wounds relationships and you can never get them back.
-disintegrates your wisdom.  patient man has great understanding but a quick-tempered man displays folly.

anger distorts your view of your self, the world and others.

-it also destroys your will and ability to make intelligent choices at all

a hot tempered man must pay the penalty, if you rescue him you must do it again and again.

-anger is like an addictive substance. it keeps you in denial "i'm just an activist, i'm just standing up for myself, i just tell it like it is"

the more you deny it the more you have it and the more you have it, the more you have to keep up the fiction that you haven't induced this yourself, you need more anger to justify your situations.

20-30 years ago, they said to ventilate your anger.  but proverbs says the more you are angry the more you need to be angry and the more you are angry, the more you lose control.

positive things about anger:  basically, it's a good thing. "he who is slow to anger is better than the might and he who rules the spirit than he who captures the city"

what the bible claims to be ideal is not no anger, but it's slow anger.  it's a sin to never get angry, but also a sin to blow up with your angry.

slow to anger is the wise man.woman.  ephesian 24:6- be angry, but sin not.

he that is angry without cause, sins.  but he who is not angry, when there is cause, sins.  for unreasonable patience is the hot bed of many vices.

god is slow to anger.

if you never get angry about anything, you don't love anything.  true love always gets angry.  love in its uncorrupted origin is just love moved to deal with the threat of someone you love.

hate is the opposite of love, not anger.  apathy is the ultimate form of hate.

if something you really love is threatened, you get angry at it.  anger is nothing but love in motion when someone or something you love is under threat.

if you look at the things in your heart that most angers you, and ask the question- what are you defending?  the answer is the thing that you love the most.

inividualist cultures advocates anger too much while on the flipside, cultures can say its all about the family/tribe

2.  how/why does anger go wrong? "do not testify to your neighbor without cause, or say i'll pay him back for what he did to me"

in spite of the fact that you are angry, you might not have just cause for the anger.  how can you have anger disproportionate to the cause?

-our anger is disordered.

the biggest problem we have is disordered loves.  we turn good things into ultimate things.  we look to certain things to give us the happiness/security/self-worth that only God can do.  when we love those things too much and more than God, then that's when we get distorted.

when you look to something or someone only in the way you should to god, that's when your emotions are completely over the top

disordered love creates disordered anger
1. anger is disordered in its cause
-why are you angry about being snubbed more than you are to a group of people suffering injustice?
-you may believe in god but if his love is an abstraction, and what you're really looking for is acceptance, good reputation, then you are getting angry over causes that do not deserve that ; due to pride, ego,

2.  anger is disordered with regard to its goal
-loving anger always seeks to do a surgical strike on the evil
-in disordered anger, you don't go after the problem, you go after the person.  you don't do a surgical strike, you slash and burn,
-you seek vengeance when you have not totally forgiven someone.
-if we don't get exactly what we want, then we have a bedrock of things we never got, instead of god.  roots of bitterness.


how do we heal it?
1.  first thing- admit it.
the key to being angry well = slow anger.
you have to own your anger, be in touch with it, know how angry you are.
if you disguise your anger from yourself and not admit it, someone will wrong you and you will respond by thinking you are above them.

even if you are the victim or that you have been wronged, to even admit you are angry is an act of weakness/vulnerability.  it gives the possibility of reconciilation.

2.  analyze it.
"do not say i'll do to him and he's done to me"- self-talk.
what makes you angry is not what's happened to you but what you say to yourself has happened to you and what you tell yourself that it means.
-your anger comes from what you believe, not what people are doing to you.

when you get angry say, what is this big thing that is so important to me that i am willing to clobber everybody to get it than lose it?

many times, the thing you are defending is your pride, ego and self-esteem.

seekest thou great things for thy self, seek them not. jeremiah
-you are ordering your love.
if you ask yourself why are you angry, it can take you to the roots of your soul.

3.  transform it.
if someone comes up to you with a harsh word, transform it.

if you have an enemy, feed him.  if he's thirty, give him drink.

with children:
if you stay away from them, their idiocy takes away at them.
if you go after them, you both become idiots.
but you must come in close and insist gently on the truth and absorb the anger without paying back.

parents who can not take the rage of their children are not fit to be parents.
in order to save it, you must absorb the rage without paying back.

we are mad at him, and we are in denial, and its the most unjustified, proof is there when we killed him when he came in close and was vulnerable.  mocked and beat.

he didn't just take the undeserved anger but also the anger that we deserved.  jesus in garden of gothesemete "take this cup from me"

when you experience the ultimate surgical strike, you are free to turn around and do it urself.

"jesus said, love your enemies that you may be children of your father which is in heaven.  of course you say, all this about loving enemies is not practical.  life is about getting even, maybe in some distant utopia would that work but not in this society..." mlk jr.

tim keller's Knowing God.

If i focus on God first and foremost, everything will fall into place

Question is not, how can I use god to get what i want in life,

but how is my life right now being lived to get to God

fear of the Lord is beginning with God and knowing God

Fear- closely intertwined with loving and understanding forgiveness of God
Not being scared of the Lord, Deut 10:12- What has the Lord your God required of you? To fear the Lord your God, to love him and serve him with heart and soul

psalms 130:4- But with you, there is forgiveness, therefore, I fear you

fearful joy- is bc it's humbling.

joy of success inflates you and makes you look down on other people

but joy of the greatness of god is so unmerited, unlooked for, it takes off the melancholy burden of always having to prove yourself and always think of yourself and allows you to understand weaker ppl better

psychologists have told us that if you understand your greatest fear, you will understand what your heart is looking to most for its security and identity

if you look mainly in life for peoples approval, your greatest fear is rejection
if power, then your greatest nightmare is humiliation

your greatest fear is a sign of what your heart most desperately wants. the loss of which would render life meaningless.  your greatest fear is your greatest love.

you can believe in god, you can be inspired by god, obey his laws.  it's possible that he can be a concept, but not your fear.  but once god moves from being a concept to the love of your life, the one thing that your heart is desperate to get a hold of, if god is your fear, then you  move into knowing him personally

proverbs 9:10- "fear of the lord leads to having insight of the holy one".  when he becomes the core of your identity, when you're astounded by what he's done for you, he arranges who you are.

knowing a lot about a person is very different from an encounter.  infinite difference from being told and believing that honey is sweet, and actually tasting the honey.  aka god is love, glorious, vs experiencing the love and glory of god.

knowing god is also trusting god.  proverbs 3:5-6
knowing god is internally.  trusting god is externally walked out.

almost all of us starts our relationship with god conditionally.  i'll start going to church- i'll try it out- if things work out, if all goes well...i'll believe.

on the other side of the if are your real trusts, fears, non-negotiables.  if...i make more money, if...i find a spouse.  that is where ur other trusts lie.

how do u get urself to the place of trusting. discovery of the grace of god. proverbs 20:9- who can say i have made my heart pure, i am clean from my sin.
-no one can clean themselves, meaning everybody is lost.
steadfast love; absolutely and total unconditional love and faithfuless; total and unconditional commitment to truth and righteousness

how can god do this?  he can't
if he did, he is compromising his holiness
if he doesn't, then he is not loving

but somehow, its by total love and total holiness are both the source of how we are saved and freed from our sin

what makes the change is knowing that its by complete free grace we are saved


message of father to son- if u hold on to ur life, they will lose theirs, but if u let go of ur life, if u pay their debt, then they will have theirs back. so jesus knew he would be crushed and utterly abandoned, but he had complete trust in the love of his father.

give up ur right to self-determination.  "and i'm not asking u to do something i haven't done. i gave up control for u. i gave up my life for u, and i was abandoned.  if u give up control for me, u will only be embraced."

work out ur salvation in fear and trembling. take the amazing gospel and work it into ur life until more and more joyful and astounding fear of god it makes u not afraid of anything else, so grow in it.