I wonder if you would consider yourself to be an “angry person?” Maybe for some of you, this feels like your most besetting sin. Maybe your anger is explosive, ready to be set off at a moment’s notice at the smallest provacation. Your child spilling a glass of juice, hitting a red light while you’re late to work, your spouse chewing their food a little too loudly. Maybe It doesn’t take much for that low-boiled anger to flare up and pour out of you. Your spouse, children, classmates, friends, coworkers have learned to walk on egg shells around you, fearful of being the next victim of your volcanic anger.
Or maybe what you have is not fiery anger, but icy anger. Your anger doesn’t “explode” out of you with shouts, and profanity, and violence, but comes out more in the chilly forms of constant irritability, a critical spirit, frustration at small annoyances, passive-aggressiveness, bitterness and unforgiveness. Maybe you have mastered the art of expressing your displeasure through subtle cues—the rolling of the eyes, the barely audible *sigh,” the passing comment that sounds friendly on the surface but carries a thinly veiled, biting critique.
Or perhaps the anger you most often experience is not directed at those around you. No, you live with a constant sense of self-hatred and anger. You believe that the pain, provocations, and hardships you experience in your life are mostly your fault. You might believe, “If I was more charming or handsome, women would want to talk to me.” “If I was a better wife, my husband wouldn’t treat me so poorly.” “If I wasn’t such a screw-up, I could be happy.”
Or maybe, friend, your problem with anger is that you don’t experience anger enough. Maybe you have so checked out from your life that nothing really affects you anymore. Your problem is not that you care too much, but that you care too little. I wonder if you’re familiar with the idea of sins of commission and sins of omission? Sins of commission are the wrong things that we actively do (lie, cheat, steal). But sins of omission are the right things that we fail to do (think of the priest and the Levite who ignored the man who was stripped and beaten on the side of the road in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan). We can fall into sin when we actively express our anger in destructive ways (belittling words a spouse, spanking a child in anger, cutting words spoken to a friend). But we can also fall into sin when we neglect to feel and express anger at the right things.
Ezekiel 22:29-30 “The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the sojourner without justice. And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.”
Friends, there are things in this broken world—many things—where anger is the only fitting response.
Wherever you fall on the spectrum, the truth is that every one of us has an anger problem. But the solution to our anger problem is not no anger, but righteous anger at the right things, in the right proportions. This kind of right anger, when properly channeled, can be an incredible power for good—for justice and mercy and joining God’s work of pushing back the darkness in our broken world.
I want to jump into our text, but before we do, I think it would be helpful to start by giving a biblical definition of what anger is. This week as I was preparing for this sermon, I was so helped by reading through David Powlison’s book, Good and Angry. Listen to the definition of anger he provides in his book:
“At its core anger is very simple. It expresses ‘I’m against that.’ It is an active stance you take to oppose something that you assess as both important and wrong. You notice something, size it up, and say, ‘That matters…and it’s not right.’
“The underlying essence [of anger] is… active displeasure toward something that’s important enough to care about” (p. 39).
It’s an active displeasure: Not simply a logical deduction that “this thing is wrong” but a visceral emotional response of indignation, disgust, or outrage that leads to an action of some kind.
And it’s toward something that’s important enough to care about: I love this nuance in Powlison’s defintion. Anger involves a form of moral calculus based on what we hold most dear. What makes you angry may not make other people angry. You might feel outraged when your boss asks you to cover a shift for your flaky coworker. But another person might be thrilled to get the extra overtime pay. Or to use a personal example: maybe, hypothetically, you get unreasonably agitated when your children accidentally change your TV’s color and picture settings that you spent an embarrassing amount of time calibrating to get the optimal picture quality. Or maybe you are like my wife who would rather just watch the movie than wait 10 minutes for her husband to change all the settings back again!
There is a level of subjectivity to anger—some things that make you unreasonably angry have little to no affect on someone else. But this also means that our anger impulses can be recalibrated. As people created in God’s image, we were made to care about the things that he cares about. In 2 Corinthians 3:18, the Apostle Paul explains what growth in the Christian life looks like:
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”
The path of sanctification is a path of constant reorientation. Walking hand-in-hand with the Holy Spirit, our old desires, inclinations, and motivations are being transformed more and more into the image of Christ. We learn to desire the things that he desires and care about the things that he cares about.
Let’s turn now to read our text in Micah 6:6-8, page ___ in the pew Bibles. Let’s read and then pray and ask for the Lord to help us cultivate the right kind of righteous anger.
“With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”
Pray
In our text this morning, we’ll consider how God’s perfect justice and steadfast mercy train us to express righteous anger toward the right things, in the right proportions, with right humility.
Micah 6:8 gives us an elegant 3-point template. “What does the Lord require of you?”
- Do justice
- Love Mercy
- Walk Humbly with Your God
1. Do Justice
Look again with me at verse 8:
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”
Quick context: Micah was a prophet to the nation of Judah between 700-750 BC, back when the the kingdom was divided between Judah and Israel. The people of Judah were enjoying a time of great prosperity during Micah’s day, and many of them interpreted this as a sign of God’s favor. Look back at verses 6 and 7. Micah poses a leading question to the wealthy people of Judah. He says,
“With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
What did God want from his people? Not their countless burnt offerings, not the rivers of oil, or their very best sacrifices. He wanted their hearts to be moved by what moved his. He wanted right feelings to lead to right action—justice, mercy, and humility.
But sadly, Judah’s sin was not only a neglect of justice, mercy and humility (a sin of commission), but they themselves were the ones committing great injustice:
Micah 2:8-9
”But lately my people have risen up as an enemy;
you strip the rich robe from those who pass by trustingly
with no thought of war.
The women of my people you drive out
from their delightful houses;
from their young children you take away
my splendor forever.”
The evil animating the heart of God’s people was so wicked that instead of welcoming the sojourner and stranger as God had commanded them to do in the Mosaic Law, they were lying in wait to ambush those who were passing through to steal their robes (a traveler’s most precious and important garment to keep them warm on their journey) to enrich themselves. Not only this, the people of Judah were forcing widows and their children out of their homes (the two most vulnerable populations among God’s people) taking their houses and inheritances for themselves.
God’s people had become agents of great injustice. And God was angry. In verse 10 of chapter 6 the Lord declares a prophesy of judgment upon them: “Arise and go, for this is no place to rest.” The wicked people of God who plundered the homes of widows and orphans were about to have their homes and their riches plundered and taken away. The people were about to be taken captive by the nation of Babylon.
You see, the people of Judah treated their relationship to God as transactional: “So long as we keep the burnt offerings coming and the oil flowing, God will keep blessing us and overlooking our sin. But God didn’t want their offerings, he wanted their hearts. He wanted them to experience the righteous anger that He experienced against all of the injustice being committed against his people, both from without and from within, and to let that right anger lead to right action. And so Micah says, “What does the LORD require of you, but to do justice.”
What does it mean to “do justice?”
Tim Keller: “Doing justice means giving people their due. On the one hand that means restraining and punishing wrongdoers. On the other hand it means giving people what we owe them as beings in the image of God.”
Restraining and punishing wrongdoers: I think this first half of Keller’s definition makes the most intuitive sense to us. My guess is that what comes most readily to mind when you hear the phrase, “do justice,” is the idea of pushing back against the things in this world that are clearly wrong and *un-*just. We think of abortion, human trafficking, abuse of children, the exploitation of the poor, government corruption, racism, religious persecution. “Doing justice” in these areas requires Christians to look these large, overarching evils square in the face and to say, “This matters, and it’s not right.” It requires us to get righteously angry and then to do something about it.
But what this also means is that if we are able to look at these great acts of injustice in the face and feel mostly unbothered or complacent something is deeply wrong inside of us. I think for many of us, the evil in this world feels so great and pervasive that we are lulled into this false belief that there is really nothing that we can do to enact any meaningful change. We hear all the horrifying statistics, even from just our own country, even from just the course of one year, statistics like:
- 1.17 million abortions committed
- The over half-a-million children every year who are confirmed victims of abuse and neglect
- The tens of thousands of women and children who are trafficked
- The roughly 80,000 Americans who die from a drug overdose
You hear these statistics—black and white evidence of systemic evil and injustice just in our own country alone, and what is it that you feel? If you’re like me, what you might feel most of all is sadness and despair. The injustice feels so overwhelming, and what can I do? This is so often how I feel. I know that when Jesus returns, he will right every wrong, and judge the wicked, and redeem the oppressed. And so I pray, “Come Lord Jesus.” And this is a right response! But it’s not a complete response. Why? Because the Lord does not only call us to pray and to wait when we encounter injustice, but to act.
Remember God’s judgment against his people in Ezekiel who were allowing great injustice to be committed against the most vulnerable in Israel? He says,
“And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.”
Friend, right now, God is looking for Christians who will care enough about the evil and injustice they see in the world—the women, children, and poor who are being used, abused, and destroyed every day—and to look at this great evil square in the face and to say, this is wrong, and I won’t allow it. We need Christians who are willing to stand in the breach between the the vulnerable and the ones who would seek to do them harm.
So, “on one hand,” Keller says, “doing justice means restraining and punishing wrongdoers. On the other hand it means giving people what we owe them as beings made in the image of God.”
You see there is not only a negative side to “doing justice—”restraining and punishing wrongdoers—but a positive side too. Doing justice also means giving people what we owe them as beings made in the image of God.
The husband who beats his wife commits injustice against her, but so does the husband who belittles his wife with his speech. Why? Because his wife is made in the image of God and is his covenant partner and is owed respect, protection, kindness, and love. The husband who withholds what he owes to his wife commits injustice against her.
Let’s consider what this looks like practically, sticking with the roles of husbands of wives as a test case:
If you are a husband, what is it that you owe your wife?
- You owe her your covenant love: To love her like Christ loves the church, and to lay down your life and your preferences for her (Eph 5)
- You owe her spiritual leadership in your home: You are to “wash her with the water of the Word” (Eph 5)
- You owe her kindness, patience, and respect: To live with her in an understanding way, showing honor to her as the weaker vessel since she is a co-heir with you of the grace of life (1 Peter 3).
- You owe her physical provision and protection: Because the man who does not provide for members of his household acts as if he has “denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8).
This is what you owe your wife, what justice dictates.
If you are a wife, what is it that you owe your husband?
- You owe him your submission and respect: To submit to his leadership in the same way that the church submits to Christ, and to respect the role and responsibilities God has especially entrusted to him.
- You owe him your love and affection:
- You owe him your help and partnership: To support him as the helper God made fit for him (Gen 2:18).
This is what you owe to your husband, what justice dictates.
There are many other examples we could give:
- What do parents owe their children?
- What do children owe their parents?
- What do employees owe their employers, and visa versa?
- What do citizens owe their governing authorities?
- Or most importantly, what do we owe God?
This other side of “doing justice” means that we should not only be righteously angry at the injustice that we see “out there” in the wider world. More profoundly, it means that we should be righteously angry at the injustice we see in our own lives. How we have failed to give to God what we owe him, and how we have failed to give to the others what we owe them.
Friends, if justice had the last word, we would all stand rightly condemned under God’s righteous anger. But blessedly, that is not the end of the story.
We are to “do justice,” but we are also to…
2. Love Mercy
“He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness [mercy]”
Let’s return to the definition of anger David Powlison gave us at the beginning of the sermon: “an active displeasure toward something that’s important enough to care about.”
When we see injustice committed against other image bearers, especially the most vulnerable, it should anger us. And, when we experience injustice against ourselves—when we are the recipients of abuse or neglect, cutting words or false accusations, anger is also a fitting response. It’s not right. Injustice of all kinds angers God, and it should anger us.`We should long for what the prophet Amos prays for, that “justice would roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24).
But this is also where our anger so often goes off the rails. What starts as a good impulse—this is wrong, and I’m against it—is twisted in on itself. We can begin to see justice as “getting even” at whatever cost—”an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”. Our anger at injustice which is meant to lead to right action so often leads us instead to destructive ends. We need the filter of mercy to help us sift the sin out of our anger and lead us instead to constructive action.
Powlison writes,
“Your anger and mine can be remade into God’s image. Of course, when we react to one bad with another kind of bad, we always compound problems. The typical bad angers are all versions of returning evil for evil. But where intelligent mercy flows, then mercy’s displeasure brings a powerful good. Strong mercy is the DNA of the entire Bible. Clear-minded mercy is the DNA of redemption. Jesus gathers up our angers, not to neuter our sensitivity to evil, but to redeem how we respond” (Good and Angry, p. 72).
The Bible presents us with two key aspects of mercy that can help us filter our anger toward a righteous response:
- Patience
- Forgiveness
Patience
Sinful anger loves to respond quickly. When we have a personal encounter with injustice, especially injustice committed against us or those we care about, we feel a surge of anger and outrage, and we desperately want to do something—anything—to fix it right now. About 15 years ago when I was in college, I found out that my sister’s boyfriend (who was 12 or 13 at the time) had been asking her to send him inappropriate images. I remember feeling this visceral sense of rage that I had never felt before. I was in my dorm room hundreds of miles away, but I couldn’t wait, so I pulled out my phone and immediately shot off a string of vicious text messages to this young man, letting him know how disgusted I was with him and what kind of divine wrath he could expect to receive from God on judgment day.
About five minutes later, my phone began to ring. I was getting a call, not from this young man, but from his father. This father, who was a Christian, filled with righteous anger over the injustice I had just committed against his son, proceeded to calmly, but clearly rebuke me. He acknowledged that what his son did was wrong, and that he and his wife were giving him appropriate consequences, but that it was wrong for me to stand in the place of God as this son’s judge, jury, and executioner. How could I, who had my own wicked sins forgiven, turn and deny that that same mercy could be offered to his son? And he was absolutely right. I think I mumbled a quiet, half-hearted apology and promptly hung up the phone, embarrassed and ashamed.
Proverbs 14:29 tells us that “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” Our anger, when left unfiltered by mercy, leads us to impatience and destructive ends.
But this is not what God’s anger is like. God’s anger, co-mingled with his mercy, is patient and long-suffering. Do you remember the divine self-disclosure God offered to Moses as he passed by him on Mt. Sinai?
Exodus 34:6 “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’.”
This is who God is at the core of his being: merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. But if we stopped there—as if this was all that God is—we would have an incomplete picture of his character. Let’s look at the second half of God’s divine self-disclosure in Exodus 34, this time picking up in verse 7:
“…keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.”
Friends, God’s mercy is never at the expense of his justice. I think that this misunderstanding is sometimes at the root of our impulse to impatient, unrighteous anger. We want all justice, no mercy, and we want it now, even if it means we need to get it for ourselves. We worry that God’s patience means that justice will never come. But this is not true. God’s mercy is not a license to sin—he will “by no means clear the guilty.” But his patience has a purpose. Paul tells us in Romans 2:4 that we should not “presume upon the riches of God’s kindness and forbearance and patience, for do you not know that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”
God will not clear the guilty. His just anger will be poured out upon every sinner that refuses to repent and humble themselves. But his heart is to forgive! “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,” he says in Ezekiel 33:11, “but that the wicked turn from his way and live.” God’s patience has a purpose, and that purpose is mercy. He willing to wait, to overlook offense, and to pour out his kindness through Christ upon the undeserving so that sinners like you and me might be led to repentance.
And so friend, right now, if you are experiencing deep anger of your own, anger at the injustices committed against you, or anger at the injustices committed against those you love, let that anger be sifted through the merciful patience that God has shown you. How patient has God been to you? How many offenses of yours has he absorbed? How long has he endured great injustices that you have committed against him to lead you to repentance?
Peter reminds us that “the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” God’s merciful patience towards we who sin against him should lead us to extend merciful patience towards those who sin against us. Not because the injustice doesn’t matter, but because we’d rather see them experience God’s mercy, not his wrath.
Mercy involves patience. But mercy also involves forgiveness.
Forgiveness
“Forgiveness, says Powlison, “is a second mercy, another curious and complex response to true wrong. Forgiveness also looks wrong in the eye. By definition, it names wrong for what it is and feels the sting. Then is consciously acts ‘unfairly’ in return. Anger is all about fairness (however accurate or distorted our perceptions of fairness might be). But forgiveness is mercifully unfair. You choose not to give back what only seems fair, just, equitable, or reasonable” (Good and Angry, p. 80).
I think many of us have a distorted understanding of forgiveness. We believe that forgiving someone who sinned against us means pretending like the offense didn’t happen, or wasn’t that big of a deal. But if you practice this kind of faulty forgiveness, what happens? You will probably find that you are still holding onto a lot of anger and bitterness against that person. Why? Because deep down you know that that offense—that injustice—really DID happen, and it DOES matter. But real forgiveness is not like that. Real forgiveness sees the injustice for the wrong it truly is, and consciously chooses to forgive the debt that is owed.
What is God’s forgiveness like?
As created beings made in his image, we owe God our worship, our gratitude, our love, and our obedience. But instead we have given him thankless, loveless hearts that treasure our sin more than we treasure him. We have incurred an incalculable debt against this holy God, and the wages we deserve for our sin is death and eternal punishment. God, of all people, has the ultimate right to be angry for the injustice that we have committed against him. Yet in his great mercy he offers us forgiveness, but this forgiveness is NOT God looking away from our sin and pretending like it doesn’t really matter. No, God’s forgiveness looks right in the face of the wrongs we’ve committed against him and says, “This debt of sin is so massive and heinous that only the death of the Son of God will be enough to forgive it.” Instead of giving us the justice our sin demands, for those who have placed their faith in Christ, he pours out his wrath on Jesus on the cross, where “justice and mercy embrace.” He looks our sin in the eye, deals with it at the cross, and releases us from our debt. What wondrous mercy is this! If this is what God’s merciful forgiveness is like toward us, what should our forgiveness look like towards one another?
Our forgiveness
Very simply, as we see in the Lord’s prayer, we are to forgive the debts of others as we ourselves have been forgiven. Friend, the sins that have been committed against you are real. They matter, not just to you, but to God. Where injustice happens, a debt is owed. But Jesus says to you, forgive the debt. As the Father has released your debt, release this debt.
And release the debt, even before they prove that they’re truly sorry. This is another place where our forgiveness often proves faulty. You see, the Bible presents two kinds of forgiveness: transactional forgiveness and attitudinal forgiveness. Transactional forgiveness is when the person who has wronged you acknowledges their sin against you and seeks your forgiveness. And this is always what we should always be aiming for, whether we are the one who has committed the sin or has been sinned against. Transactional forgiveness verbally acknowledges, “What I did to you was wrong, full stop and no excuses. Will you please forgive me?” and they are forgiven. Transactional forgiveness works to heal the relational barrier that sin created.
But transactional forgiveness is not always possible. What happens when the person who sinned against you is no longer alive? A parent, spouse, or friend that has passed away? Or if the person that sinned against you is unwilling to admit their wrong and seek your forgiveness? Attitudinal forgiveness is when you, before the Lord, consciously choose to release a person from their debt against you.
This is the kind of forgiveness Jesus is speaking about in Mark 11:25:
And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
The purpose of attitudinal forgiveness, Powlison says, “is to change you, not to deal with the other person. It prepares you, so you will go to the other person already willing to be merciful” (p 85). Attitudinal forgiveness—the willingness to release a debt of offense owed to us, even before the offending party repents—is evidence, Jesus is saying, that we have experienced the transformative mercy of God’s forgiveness. When we keep at the forefront of our minds God’s remarkable forgiveness of the infinite debt we owed him, it puts in perspective the sins committed against us. No injustice that you will ever experience in this life will compare to the injustice God has experienced at your hands, at my hands. If he was willing to release us from that great debt, we should be willing to release others from the smaller debts they owe us.
So, mercy is patient. It is willing to look injustice square in the face and instead of responding with rash anger, it remembers that lasting change often comes slowly. It is willing to play the long-game. When we remember God’s long-suffering patience towards stubborn sinners like us on the slow path of sanctification, we are empowered to exhibit that same patient mercy towards those who sin against us.
And mercy is also forgiving. It acknowledges that a real offense has occurred, and a debt is owed, and then consciously and freely chooses to release the debt. Instead of giving the offender what they owe, forgiveness is mercifully unfair. When we remember how God has mercifully forgiven our infinite debt against him, it empowers us to forgive and release the smaller debts of others, even if they never apologize for their offense.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, [and third and finally] walk humbly with your God.”
3. Walk Humbly with your God
This third point is really more of a conclusion. What does it mean to walk humbly with your God as we consider the role of right anger? I think we can make two brief applications as we conclude.
First, remember that God’s anger is better than your anger.
James 1:20 “For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”
The anger of man is like nuclear energy—when properly handled and channeled, it has incredible power. One uranium fuel pellet, about the size of your little finger contains as much usable energy as 1 ton of coal, 149 gallons of oil, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. But when mishandled or channeled to destructive ends, that same power can be used to create untold human suffering.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:26 to “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” You and I put ourselves in danger when we hold onto our anger for too long. So, God puts a limit on our anger. Don’t spend your days consumed with anger and thoughts of vengeance. Don’t go to bed angry. Your anger, when you refuse to let it go will fester and poison you from the inside. Leave it with God, the God whose anger is always right and just.
Second, remember that God’s justice is far better than your justice.
Romans 12:17-21 “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’”
Brother and sister, you can show mercy to those who hurt you because your Father is keeping a record of every injustice, every wrong that is committed against you. He will avenge you, and he will repay every wrongdoer. And his justice is far better than your justice. Trust him. Trust that he will one day right every wrong, and choose instead to release the debts owed to you, and extend mercy and forgiveness.
