©2005 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

10-30-05

On Being Angry With God

10/30/05 Being Angry With God

As part of our teaching last week

we looked briefly once again

at a passage in Ephesians that I consider to be

one of the most critical, pivotal passages in the entire New Testament.

It finds its way into my teaching so often

that it will not surprise most of you

to hear me make that statement.

After revealing to us

the role that we now play on this earth,

the role of being the physical body of Jesus Christ,

the means by which God now reveals His greatest works

to both His friends and His enemies,

Paul then concludes his revelation of this truth by saying, “ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father...”.

And he then prays the prayer for us

that reveals to us

what must take place within our lives

in order for us to be able to fulfill

this, the most crucial role ever assigned to any group of people on this earth.

And what does he pray?

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:14, 16-19)

He prays that we will be able to grow, and grow, and grow

in our personal awareness

of the depth and nature of the love of our God for us.

It is our daily rediscovery of that love

that provides us with the reason for every right response we have toward God.

And it is the absence of our awareness of His love

that provides us with the motivation

for every wrong choice we ever make.

When Adam and Eve took that first step of rebellion against God

they did it because they doubted God’s love for them.

Satan’s lie to them

was the same lie he uses so effectively on us.

“Your God is out to cheat you.

He’s established all of these barriers,

all of these rules

to keep you from those things

that will bring you true fulfillment and satisfaction in life.”

GEN 3:4-5 The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

And Satan has been using that same lie against us ever since.

“You can’t trust Him.

He doesn’t understand what you really need.

Or if He understands, He certainly doesn’t truly care.

Do you really want to bet your whole life

on the hope that this God does deeply, personally love you,

and that He loves you in a way

that will meet your deepest needs?”

Those are the lies,

those are the fears

that form the backdrop to each of our lives

when we enter into this world.

They are lies and fears that seem so reasonable,

so rational

because our spirits are turned away from the Light

and all we can see before us

is blackness and emptiness.

And from the instant we enter this world

we become immersed in a great battle,

a battle in which Satan seeks to wound us in such a way

as to make the love of God for us seem like the greatest absurdity of life,

and the Spirit of God seeks to communicate the truth to us

in a way that allows us to see the love of God for us

as the only real absolute in human existence.

We’ve talked a great deal about this battle during the past few weeks,

and the discussion has brought me back repeatedly

to that passage in Ephesians

in which Paul drops to his knees

and prays that our hearts and minds would be opened

to the truth about the way our God loves us.

But if you were here last week

you may remember that,

when I once again read a portion of that passage,

after reading it I asked if you knew

what the opposite of that truth was.

What is the opposite of our spirit’s awareness of the love of God?

I also mentioned

that, if the opposite becomes active in our life,

it will have a profound negative impact on us.

I then committed myself to using this week

to share with you

what that opposite is

and how we can deal with it in our lives.

I did that mostly because I wanted to force myself

to work my way through some ideas

that have been surfacing in my thinking,

ideas I didn’t want to loose.

So this morning we’ll go ahead and give it a try

and see if I can put into words

some of what’s been going on inside my mind recently.

You see, what I have begun to realize

is that the opposite of our knowing the love of our God for us

is not ignorance of God.

It isn’t doubt,

it isn’t fear of Him,

it isn’t even rebellion against Him.

I think the opposite of knowing the love of God

is anger -

our anger against Him

for what we believe to be His injustice against us

or His failure to do for us or for someone we love

what we feel He should have done.

And I know that as soon as I say that

I run the risk of losing your interest

because right now most of you

are very likely not consciously aware

of any personal anger against God.

And yet,

not only do I think that anger is present in some of your lives,

but I have come to believe

that anger against God

is the place at which we all begin our interaction with Him.

It is, in fact, the human default setting

in our attitude toward our Creator.

It is, the natural response of human flesh

to an all-powerful Creator God.

The reason we rarely have any conscious awareness of our anger

is because we have an instinctive awareness

of how illogical it is

for a created being to pass judgment on the actions of the Creator,

and so we disguise our anger against Him

by redirecting it

to what we believe to be more reasonable targets.

We’ll be angry at our circumstances.

We’ll be angry at our parents.

We’ll be angry at our spouse or our children.

We’ll be angry at our boss,

or at the government,

or at the weather,

or at our living situation.

We’ll be angry at our lack of money to do the things we want to do,

or at our health,

or at those in authority over us who will not give us the freedom we believe we deserve.

We’ll be angry at the jerk in front of us who’s driving too slow,

or at the jerk behind us who’s driving too fast.

But with every anger response we ever feel,

underlying that response

there is a deeper anger response within our spirits against God.

And outside of the redemptive work of the Spirit of God within us

it seems like an absolutely reasonable, justified anger.

You see, given the obvious existence of a Creator God,

(and when we enter this world it is obvious to us,

though we frequently work hard to find some way around this obvious truth

as we move into our adult years,)

and given the obvious truth

that such a God can do anything He chooses to do,

whenever we encounter anything in our world

that does not meet with our approval,

at the spirit level

we just naturally trace our resentment, our anger for what offends us

back to the One who could have changed it,

or prevented it from ever happening.

Our anger against God

begins long before we have any conscious awareness of it.

It is certainly fully developed

from our earliest school days.

We learn very early in life

that, even though it says right there in our Constitution

that all men are created equal,

it’s simply not true.

We learn even before we can speak

how the people around us respond to us,

and how they respond to others.

By the time we start school

it is obvious to us

that there are some children who seem to have nicer bodies than ours,

and some who always seem to know the answers the teacher wants long before we do,

and some who are stronger, or faster, or funnier, or richer than us.

I can remember in my early grade school years

sitting in the lunch room at North City Elementary School

and watching one of my friends take a whole package of Hostess cup cakes out of his lunch bag.

Not just one cup cake,

but a whole, unopened package of two.

I have a brother a year older than myself

and maybe once or twice a year

we would each find one such cup cake in our lunches.

But never ever two.

I knew right then that all boys are not created equal.

There are some who come from incredible wealth,

some who regularly find whole packages of Hostess cup cakes in their lunch.

But my point here is simply that

our anger against our Creator

finds it’s roots in our earliest discoveries about ourselves,

and about our world,

and about the way things operate in this world

because in our spirits

we trace every perceived flaw within ourselves

and every injustice in our world

back to the One who made us the way we are,

back to the One who could have made us taller,

or shorter,

or smarter,

or funnier,

or prettier,

or stronger,

or more co-ordinated,

and back to the One

who could have intervened in our lives

at those points where evil or injustice touched us

and yet He did nothing.

And prior to our encounter with Jesus Christ

our list of grievances against God

just continues to grow and grow and grow.

We see every wound that comes into our lives,

every real or perceived act of unkindness,

or outright sin against us,

everything that causes us pain,

or anxiety,

or feelings of inadequacy,

we see all of them as things this almighty God could have prevented,

and things that, to our minds, give us a reasonable, justifiable basis

for anger against Him.

This spirit-level anger against Him

serves a vital role in our lives prior to our submission to Christ

because it provides us with our inner justifications

for why submission to such a God would be ridiculous.

“I could certainly never worship any God who would...”,

and then we fill in the blanks.

And from there

we may even take our grievances against Him

to the point where we intellectually reject His existence.

But no matter where we my go with our God-concept intellectually,

this quiet inner spirit-rage against Him

is, I believe, the place at which we all begin our dealings with our God.

And before we move on to look

at some of the changes that take place within us

when we enter into a relationship with Christ,

let me just mention a few of the evidences

that are present within our lives

when we are angry with God.

And perhaps the easiest way for us to see this

is to place it into our human relationships

and see what happens there.

If you’re really angry at another person

how does it affect your relationship with them?

If you’re really angry at them,

just the sound of their voice

will often cause you to react.

You don’t like being around them,

and if you can find things to do

that you know will really bug them

you’ll probably find some way of doing them.

Your entire relationship with them

is clothed in a coldness and an emotional distance.

You certainly don’t trust what they say

or seek them out for guidance or instruction.

And when we are angry at God

our spirits respond to Him in much the same way.

The moral quality of our lives frequently plummets

because doing things God doesn’t like

is a great way to get back at Him for what He did to us

or failed to do for us.

We certainly don’t trust what He says

or find any comfort in His words.

We may maintain a strong external facade of religious piety,

or we may avoid all things religious,

but either way our spirit response to God

is characterized by a coldness and emotional distance.

So what changes when we turn to Christ?

Through Christ

for the first time we begin to see our God as He really is.

And what we see

is a God who loves us so much

that, even when we were furious with Him,

even when we held Him accountable for everything we didn’t like in our lives,

even when we blamed Him

for all of the corruption and evil that has entered this world

as a direct result of our own rebellion against Him,

even when we were dead in our sins,

He chose to take our sin onto Himself

and then die in our place

so that we could be brought into an eternal friendship with Him.

In other words,

through Christ we receive our first great personal introduction

into the true nature of the love of our God for us.

And with that discovery

our anger at Him

is replaced by gratitude toward Him for what He’s done for us

in the face of our rebellion against Him.

Great!

But unfortunately

our anger responses against God

do not end with Christ’s entrance into our lives.

His entrance into our life

certainly introduces us at the spirit level to an awareness of His love,

but our minds and emotions just don’t get it at all,

and given the expectations we bring with us into our relationship with God,

and our deeply flawed reasoning processes that understand almost nothing about the ways of God,

and given the determination of Satan to keep us blinded to Christ’s love for us,

we continue to face real ongoing battles

against anger responses in our relationship with our Creator.

You know how it is.

To our minds

it seems only right and reasonable

that, if we do what God asks,

if we are among the few

who recognize Him for who He is,

and submit to His leadership in our lives,

if we are faithful in what we believe to be our duties to Him,

then surely He should do what we ask in return.

He should fix what’s broken in our lives,

He should fix what’s broken in the lives of those we love.

He should go before us,

and smooth our way,

and protect us from pain,

and make us healthy, wealthy, and wise.

And if we do not recognize those expectations

as the lies they are,

we can set ourselves up for intense ongoing anger battles with our Lord.

I came across a statement this past week in the 14^th chapter of Acts,

a statement that made me realize once again

how deeply flawed our expectations of life with God often are.

The statement was made by Paul to a group of new believers,

people who had just recently turned to Christ.

In Acts 14-21-22 it says,

After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God."

Now what kind of thing is that to say to a group of young Christians?

He’s telling them

that their response to Christ

is in some ways actually going to increase the turmoil in their lives.

Now, why did he tell them that?

Because it’s true.

Because our union with Christ

and the working of His Spirit within us

will produce certain elements within our lives

that will make life more difficult.

In the culture we live in today

every choice we make for true righteous living

will have some personal cost attached to it.

It will come at the expense of what feels good,

or it will make us look utterly out of step with our culture,

or it will cost us money.

And if we dare to allow our Lord

to begin loving people through us

we will, at times, discover pain as we’ve never known it before.

Do you want to hurt?

Dare to care about someone whose life is in turmoil.

Loving, caring about others

is the most risky,

potentially pain-filled activity in human experience.

I was in a conversation with a young man recently

in which I said to him,

“There are times when I feel like flinging you on the ground,

pounding on your chest and screaming, ‘Why are you so determined to destroy yourself?’,

but I don’t because I don’t think it would help.”

To which he responded, “No, you’re right - it wouldn’t.”

There are a great many forms of suffering

that our Lord’s presence in our lives brings us deliverance from.

I had a dear friend come up to me after the teaching last week

and share with me that that day he was celebrating 25 years of sobriety.

Our God does heal

and He does deliver.

But there are a whole bunch of other forms of turmoil and pain

that enter our lives as a direct result of our union with Christ.

And if we don’t understand what’s happening

we can easily find ourselves

once again fighting anger responses to our God,

and in the process

losing the comfort and strength and encouragement

that only the awareness of His love can bring into our lives.

But recognizing anger against God

is sometimes a very difficult thing for us to do.

In truth,

the only way I’ve ever been able to recognize it in myself

is through the external symptoms.

Does God seem distant and cold to you?

Have you lost your will to fight against immorality?

Do His words have no power to comfort,

or to encourage,

or to convict,

or to fill you with hope?

If so,

then I would encourage you

to ask your God

if you’re spirit is filled with anger against Him.

Are you angry at Him for what He’s done or failed to do in the life of someone you love?

Are you angry at Him

for the way you feel He has dealt with your own life?

Let me close by reminding us of the basics of life.

There aren’t all that many.

The first is that this right here

is the only world available to us.

It is a world filled with tremendous suffering and evil

because of the corruption within the human race

since the time of Adam and Eve.

But it is also a world

in which our God actively seeks each of us

in the midst of that evil,

our evil,

seeking to reveal to us His love

in a way we can see it, and know it, and respond.

And the second basic of life is this,

that only our discovery of the love of our God for us

can enable us to make sense out of our lives

and give us the strength and the hope for the future that we so desperately long for.

And the third basic truth of life is this -

if you take whatever it is

that is making you so angry at your God

and share it with Him,

and place it into His hands,

He will take it,

and reshape it into great good in your life.

It is what He does in the lives of those who reach out to Him.

That doesn’t mean He will remove what we hate,

but it does mean He can and He will reshape it in our lives,

turning real evil into eternal good within us.

And then, just one final word

about His work in the lives of those we love.

He alone knows how to reach the hearts of those we care about.

He alone knows how to save.

If we could chose,

we would certainly choose a path to God for those we love

that avoids all pain and suffering.

But tell me honestly,

was that the path that brought you into the knowledge of His love?

Most of all

what we can do

is to pray, and pray, and pray,

and love, and love, and love,

and then trust our God

to find His way into their hearts and lives.

There is only one Savior for the human race,

and it’s not us,

and when we try to be what we are not equipped to be

or do what only He can do

we will take on ourselves

a burden He never intended for us to bear.