The Anger Antidote
Bible Passage:
1 Kings 17:17-24
Pastor:
Pastor Mike
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Sermon Date:
2011-04-09
Have you ever been angry with God? Have you ever gone through something so hard for so long you felt bitter towards God? If so, you’re not alone. On a website for Christian teens, I read story after story of angry, bitter ex-believers. A young woman named Layla said, “I asked God to help me make the right choice for a big decision…He permitted me to go forward and I made the wrong decision and was publicly humiliated. Why did he permit this to happen to me?... Something has died in me today and sadly, there is no consolation. There is no love. There will be no more prayers.” An angry confession of her lack of faith.
Behind every ounce of anger you’ll find the Evil One. We’ve been studying the devil’s strategy in this spiritual war and anger is one of his favorite tactics. And here’s how he does it (let me give away the entire sermon in one sentence): Anger comes from expecting too much of God now and too little of God later. Memorize that. Anger comes from expecting too much of God now and too little of God later.
Expecting too much of God? That might be confusing. Imagine a guy who expected too much from his new wife. “I can’t wait,” he thinks. “She’s going to cook my favorite foods just like mom used to. And she’s going to rub my feet every night after work. And she’s going to be perfectly cool with watching the kids four nights each week so I can go out with the boys. And she’s going to live off of ramen noodles and water for a few months so I can buy that fishing boat. This is going to be the best!” You know what kind of marriage he’s going to have? A disappointing one. Anger will come from his unrealistic expectations.
Expecting too much of God might seem innocent, but it is straight from the devil. If we are convinced life should be perfect here and now, we’ll end up disappointed and angry. That’s what happened in our Bible lesson for today. Turn to 1 Kings 17 as I give you the background. We’re going back to about 800 B.C. to a little town just north of Israel. A widow lives there with her only son, but another man is staying at her house—a prophet named Elijah. A drought is ravaging the entire land, but God has miraculously provided for this poor widow. All things considered, life is good. But then the Evil One steps in…
Our text says, “17Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing.18 She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?” God worked miracles for this woman. God sent a prophet to this woman. But when her son dies, what happens to this woman? Anger. “What do you have against me?” she accuses. “Is that why you came here? To kill my son?! To tell me what a sinner I am?!” She expected more than that from God. Anger explodes out of her grief.
That story matters because our stories are no different. We may not have lost a child or a husband, but we understand the struggle. If you don’t—if your life is perfect—we are happy for the both of you. But the rest of us get it. Life isn’t perfect right now. You finally find work, but you know it’s a dead-end job. You meet couples who hold hands and look at each other like they’re 16 again and then you go home to a marriage that’s on life-support. You try to sleep as you think about your kids who apparently got amnesia and forgot everything you taught them about life and faith.
And when that happens, when God doesn’t meet your expectations, here’s what the Evil One whispers: Be angry at God. Be angry over the failed relationship. Blame God for your disability. Accuse God of not answering prayer. Indict God on charges of indifference. Hold God accountable for every sleepless night, every painful morning, and every sin committed against you. Get angry. Do you see how the devil lies? He wants you to expect so much of God right now—“God will make life better”—and when it doesn’t happen, he attacks your faith, your belief in God’s goodness, your confidence in the power of prayer. An unrealistic expectation can create an angry ex-Christian.
But Lent exposes the lie. Because we worship a guy who was crucified! Jesus did everything right, prayed the perfect prayers, made all the right choices, and they killed him! That should shape our expectations of life on this earth. And if you have any doubt about that, read the Bible. They killed Jesus, stoned Paul, opposed Moses, mocked Isaiah, whipped Peter, murdered James, and beheaded John. We must not expect anything less. The antidote for anger is to have a realistic expectation of the Christian life now. You don’t wear a crown just yet. Now you must carry a cross.
Paul Gerhardt taught us that. The hymn we just sang was written by Gerhardt, a Lutheran pastor from the 1600’s. Gerhardt loved God and devoted his life to spreading the truth about Jesus. But his life wasn’t filled with Hallmark moments. His child died in infancy. Then another. Then a third. Then a fourth. Then his wife. What was supposed to be a family of seven ended up with just poor Paul Gerhardt and his 6 year-old son. Did he get angry? Give up on God? Shake a fist at heaven? No, he wrote the hymn we just sang, “Why should cross and trial grieve me?...When life’s troubles rise to meet me, though their weight may be great, they will not defeat me…God gives me days of gladness and I will trust him still when he sends me sadness.”
Gerhardt knew the antidote for anger is a realistic expectation of life right now. Yes, God has promised you forgiveness now…and has given it. Yes, God has promised you unconditional love now…and has shown it. Yes, God has promised to be with you always…and he has been. But God hasn’t promised a perfect today. If you have healthy kids, thank God, but don’t feel you are entitled to them. If you have a job today, thank God, but don’t feel you deserve it. If you can walk and talk and remember and save and spend and invest and retire, thank God, but don’t assume you will be able to tomorrow. Don’t let the Evil One trick you and make you expect too much today.
But we also must not let the Evil One make us expect too little tomorrow. Because if we forget what is coming for us, the people of God, we’ll lose hope. We’ll be angry that this struggle-filled life is all we got. No, we must remember that for us, life is like a chick-flick. If you don’t know, a chick flick is a movie, a romantic comedy that most likely stars Sandra Bullock or Hugh Grant or Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant. Every chick flick has the same plot—Guy meets girl. Guy falls in love with girl. Cue the romantic music. The first kiss. But—oh no!—something goes wrong. Will they make it? She cries with her girlfriends. It’s over. But then he shows up. They kiss. And cut. (I just ruined the plot to 50,000 movies for you!) So the other day I rented a chick flick…for my wife. And since, on rare occasions, I am incredibly selfless and Christ-like, I watched it with her. The guy met the girl. They fell in love. The music started. They kissed. But then things went wrong! It looked like the relationship was over. And I remember, for just a moment, being worried about it. Will he come back? Will she move on? But then it hit me—This is a chick flick! Mike, you know how this ends. Sandra Bullock isn’t in movies with depressing endings. It doesn’t matter how bad things look right now, everything’s going to be okay.
At the risk of sounding very irreverent, the Christian life is like a chick flick. It gets bad in the middle, sometimes really bad. People die. Kids get sick. Relationships end. But it won’t end like that. God will fix it. Either in the near future or in the eternal future, he will fix it.
That’s what happened to that poor widow. “19Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. 20 Then he cried out to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” 21 Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this boy’s life return to him!” 22 The LORD heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. 23 Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!” 24 Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth.” God decided it would be best if he worked a miracle. So he did. He didn’t have to, but he generously chose to. Picture her face, creased with anger, streaked with tears, when Elijah came back downstairs. Her anger must have dissolved in her joy.
God can fix things for us, too. We don’t assume he will, but we believe he can. “Cast all your anxiety on God,” the apostle Peter writes, “because God cares for you.” Don’t be anxious. Don’t be angry. God can fix it. He can cure cancer. He can find you a new job. He can open doors you didn’t know existed. So don’t stop praying. James 5 says, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed…” Since Jesus died for you, you are righteous men and women. You are as close to God as Elijah was. So don’t get angry about today, pray about it. God just might fix it right now.
And no matter how God answers your prayers about today, never forget his promise about tomorrow. We don’t know about today. But we do know about eternity. The Apostle Paul said it so powerfully in Romans 8, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Catch that? Not worth comparing. All of our pain and tears and confusion is not worth comparing to what is coming. What is coming for Christians is beyond description. Our best moments on earth times a trillion still don’t even come close!
That’s because we don’t worship a dead Savior, but a living one. Yes, Jesus hung on a cross, but he’s not on a cross anymore. He wears a crown. He is risen from the dead and will reign forever and ever. Through faith in him, you will, too. Christ went through his agonizing “today” on the cross so you could have an eternal “tomorrow” with God. He took our anger and our bitterness on his shoulders so we wouldn’t have to carry our sin anymore. The widow was filled with joy to have her son’s life back, but we have a greater joy at the cross, knowing that we have true life back. True life now filled with peace and hope because our sins are forgiven. True life then where there will not be a single reason to be angry.
And if you ever forget that, just read the last page. Flip open your Bible to the final chapters and see how the story—your story—ends. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them…He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” That is why we can live with the trials of today. That is why, with His help, we won’t believe the lie and be angry with God. Amen.
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