Anger Part 4 (Applied Love)
Scriptures: Ephesians 4:26-5:2; 1 John 4:7-21
Introduction
This message will conclude my series on anger. This morning we will revisit what Paul wrote to the Church of Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 4. Please turn with me to this chapter and we will begin reading at verse twenty-six. As we read this Scripture this morning I want you to think of a situation where you were very angry. Now imagine Paul speaking directly to you about this situation in an attempt to calm you down before you cross the line and sin against God. “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” (Ephesians 4:26-32; 5:1-2)
If I were to paraphrase key verses from this Scripture as I talked to someone I cared about who was angry, it would sound like this: “I know that you are angry and rightfully so, but you cannot respond like you want to and potentially sin against the God you serve. Why? Because we are living testimonies for God and our enemy will take our response and use it to destroy our testimony. So because you belong to God, you cannot go off on the person by raising your voice and cussing and screaming at them, even if they are doing that to you. Because the Holy Spirit dwells within you, He will enable you to withstand and speak grace to the situation even though that seems impossible to you right now. So please let go of the anger and bitterness that you are feeling knowing that your response to the situation is critical to your personal testimony. Apply love to the situation and for the person because only true love can defeat true anger. We are to imitate God in everything we do and God is love so in this situation that you are dealing with right now, see past the person, see past what has been said, and apply the love of God.” If you and I were having this conversation would you listen? Would these words help you to calm down and refocus on what is best for you and potentially the other person? Would you walk away feeling better or would you walk away thinking that in your time of need all I gave you was some religious mumbo jumbo when you were really seeking support and approval to handle your business? How would you respond to this advice?
This morning I want to focus on “applied love.” Applied love is when you proactively apply love (respond with love) to a given situation. For example, when I was a child if we were playing outside and someone fell and got hurt, the older people would say something like, “Go bring me that container of salve.” I don’t have a clue as to what was in the salve (sometimes it was from the store and sometimes it was homemade) but when they asked for the salve you knew your sore was about to be taken care of. They would get that salve and apply it to the cuts and life was good again. We don’t use that word much today because we’re more educated. Now we say, “Go put some Neosporin on it” and for me it just does not sound the same as “go get the salve.” My point with this is there was an injury and the salve was the ointment that started the healing process. When we get angry, there is an injury and love is the salve that starts the healing process. Let me give you a clearer picture of this. Your child comes running to you screaming because they fell down. You ask that child where does it hurt and they point to their arm, their head, or wherever they are feeling pain. Now if this was the mother, she would then tell their child, “I am going to kiss it and make it better.” The mother would take her child, so matter how smelly or dirty they were, and kiss that sore spot. When the mother kissed that sore spot, that child felt better and often ran off to go back to playing. That mother, taking her child in her arms and kissing that sore spot, is an example of applying love to an injury and through that love the child was made to feel better. It does not matter if the child was truly hurt or not, the fact was the child thought they were hurt and a kiss from the mother who loved them made them feel better. That’s applied love. That’s how God wants us to respond to our angry moments because love is the only thing that conquers anger. Now I cannot speak about the mothers without speaking about the fathers. In that same situation, what would the father do? Some fathers would kiss it to make it better if it was his daughter, but not necessarily so if it was his son. Imagine a son running up to a “real man” father and asks him to kiss his sore to make it feel better. That “real man” father with his “real man” mentality would probably tell his son that he wasn’t hurt and to grow up and be a man. There was no love applied, just an expectation that the son would deal with his “small” pain without being cuddled and made “weak.” This, my friends, is how the world wants us to respond to our angry moments. In order to not appear weak in the eyes of others, we have to respond in kind. Are you seeing the difference? This is what Peter said, “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:8) What covers a multitude of sin? Love! Love is the salve that covers and heals the sin. God loved us and sent His only begotten Son to die for us. Jesus loved us so much that He was willing to die for us. His loved covered all of our sin, yesterday, today and tomorrow. So if you are angry, unforgiveness follows close behind so you better get that salve of love out and start applying it!
Love covers a multitude of sin. Love is the only thing that enables us to deal with our anger issues and the people who are making us angry. Turn with me to First John, chapter four and we will begin reading at verse seven. It reads, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the Day of Judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.” (1 John 4:7-21)
In these verses John captures the essence of the power of love. I want to make it clear at this point that this is serious. We talk about how Christians are supposed to love and some think that walking in love makes a person weak. This is quite the contrary. Love is the one emotion that can make us stronger than any force that we may encounter. Regardless of what the world may tell you about love, here is the fact that we need to accept. If you are unable to walk in, demonstrate and act out of love, you really do not love God or have the relationship with Him that you think you have. There are people who have been angry for years and have crossed over into unforgiveness and they truly believe that God is okay with it because what was done to them was wrong. They believe they have a right to be angry and therefore they have a right to hold on to it. What I need you to see this morning is that we have to fix the internal so that it shows up in the external. What happened to us may have been the worse, but applying the love salve heals more than just the situation, it has the power to heal us. Let’s look more closely at what John wrote.
In verse seven John says that we should love one another because love is from God and those that love is born of God and knows God. If this statement is true, then the opposite by default must also be true. A person who refuses to love, and I am not talking selective loving someone, I am talking about the global love we extend to all, if a person does not love then they therefore do not know God because God is love. There are many people who claim to be in a relationship with God but hate their fellowman. According to the Bible this is impossible because the Bible says plainly that the one who does not love does not know God (Vs. 8). Why is it important that we learn to love others? It’s simple; God first loved us and sent His only Son to die for our sins. It was love that made Him do it and it was love that motivated Jesus to agree. We are surrounded by love and love is the reason that each of us is in this place today. John says that even though we have not seen God when we love one another God abides within us and His love is perfected in us. We are vessels of love when we walk in a true relationship with God.
Now I want you to look closely at what John says in verse eighteen. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.” If you have ever been afraid of someone until you got to know them then you will understand what this verse says. John says that there is no fear in love and perfect love casts out fear. There is a difference between the fear of God and being afraid of Him. The fear of God is often mentioned and commanded as the substance of religion and so it brings in the high regard and feelings of deep respect we have for God and his authority and government. Such fear is constant with love. But then there is a being afraid of God, which arises from a sense of guilt. God is often represented as a consuming fire; and so fear here may be rendered dread and there is no “dread” in love. Love considers its object as good and excellent, and therefore amiable, and worthy to be beloved. Verse twenty says, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” You may be thinking that you can get angry with someone, speak them out, talk to others about them and still love them with the love of God? Well I dare say you may be wrong. I am not saying that you have to chase down everyone that has hurt you or made you angry and give them a big hug, but as someone once said, there is a very thin line between love and hate. On one side of the line we should stand firm and on the other side of the line we should limit our steps there to only those things that God hates and people are not included in this because God loves all and desires that all men would come into the knowledge of Him and be saved.
If we are to effectively handle our anger moments, we must recite to ourselves First Corinthians chapter thirteen. But we must do it in the moment of anger so that we can deal with the situation without sinning. So our recitation would go something like this; “I must remember now that it does not matter what great things that I may accomplish, if I do not love and exhibit love to this person right now, my accomplishments means nothing in the eyes of God because He is love. Through love I am patient, kind and not jealous. Through love I do not brag about my accomplishments and or demonstrate contempt or disregard for others because of who I think I am. Even when I am angry, I act appropriately because I am not easily provoked and I do not keep a record of every time this person has done something against me. Through the love flowing in me I am able to bear and endure all things. God’s love never fails and neither will mine in this situation. When I was a child I spoke and acted like a child. Now that I am grown, I am putting away my childish behaviors which include treating this person as they are treating me now. When everything else around me fades away, it is love that will still be present. I choose love in this situation so I will refrain from responding and just walk away.” What I have just read to you is based on First Corinthians chapter thirteen, which is known as the love chapter in the Bible. John told us that we must learn to love and Paul told us how that love shows up. John told us who to love and Paul told us when to love. This is not easy by any stretch of the imagination but if we can master love conquering our anger we will be unstoppable.
Last week I shared with you how Moses was denied being able to fulfill his calling because he became so angry at the people that he sinned against God. This is what we are facing. In the moment of our anger we forget Who we belong to. In the moment of our anger, we displace the love that should be flowing through us with responses acceptable by the world at large. Do you not understand that the world speaks of love but the world does not truly know what real love is? The world’s love is not universal as its love expects something in return. The world’s love is based on love being returned and therefore if someone is making you angry they are not loving you and therefore you do not have to love them. The world’s love is selective and therefore you can pick and choose whom to love. If we operate in the love that is defined by the world we will be free to respond in kind during our anger moments because the person we are angry at may not be someone I “have to love” anyway.
This morning I want to close with this small personal demonstration. I want each of you to close your eyes and think of a situation that you have faced recently. Think about the person that made you angry. Think about what they said to you. Think about the facial expressions as they talked to you. Think about what you were feeling. The possible desire to reach out and touch them or the desire to respond in kind. Can you see it? Can you feel some of the emotions coming back that may have been present when you were dealing with that situation? As you see this memory, ask yourself two questions: “Does God love this person? If so, how can I allow His love to flow through me in this situation?” If you ask and answer these two questions honestly then you will begin to learn how to control your anger moments. It really is that simple.
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
