Forgiving and Forgiven
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Please turn to Ephesians chapter 4.

And I'm going to read the verses that we've actually been looking at and we're going to continue to look at. We're reading the entire section each week, but of course we're really focusing in on a different verse or a different subject each week because it's an amazingly wonderful, multifarious passage on what the Christian lifestyle really is. Ephesians 4, and let me read verses 25 to 32.

Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. In your anger do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only that which is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who need it.

This is God's Word. The purpose of this passage is

is to show how we can put off the old self and put on the new. Remember that? Verse 22, 23, and 24, which we looked at in depth several weeks ago, maybe several months ago now, says, you were taught to put off your old self, which is being corrupt according to deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self. Now,

Let's remind ourselves again that this is the overarching principle and all of the little things that we're looking at, the specific injunctions like be truthful and don't steal and speak constructively and get rid of bitterness and so on. These are specific examples of how we are and where we are to put on the new self. Let's remember this, that that's the principle.

You notice how often this put off, put on principle you see in verse 22, 23, and 24 is mirrored in the specific injunctions. So you notice it says, put off falsehood and speak the truth. It says, put off stealing and put on labor and generosity. It says, put off...

speaking destructively, and it says speak constructively, put away anger and bitterness and put on forgiveness, and so on. The thing we have to continually remember, and I'll drive it home every week, is if you look at the particulars of what the Christian teaching is, the particulars do not look that different than many other ethical systems. Look at the Chinese ethical system of Confucius. Look at the Greek pagan ethical system.

Look at the humanist ethical system. Look at the Muslim, the Islamic ethical system. Aren't they all going to say, don't steal, be generous? Aren't they all going to say, don't lie, speak the truth? Aren't they all going to say, put away bitterness and forgive? Well, you have to be careful. In many of those other systems, you're not going to get that same emphasis. But basically...

Basically, you're going to find that most of the things that we're told here, you're told to do in other religions as well. But the difference. Paul, and therefore Christianity, is never interested in moral behavior simply as moral behavior. It doesn't just say, put on falsehood, put off falsehood and put on the truth because that's right. Now, it is right. But that's not what Paul says. What he's saying in every instance is,

Stop lying because of who you are. Put on the new self means remember your identity. Remind yourself of who you are now that you're a Christian.

That is the secret. That is the principle. And that makes the Christian religion very different than all other ethical systems. We've said that before, and you see it again. When I read through there, you notice it talked about don't lie, don't cheat, speak constructively. And then suddenly in the middle it says, and don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God with which you were sealed for the day of redemption.

You're not going to get that in Confucius, or you're going to get that in Muhammad, or you're going to get that in any of the other systems. And here, it says, be kind and compassionate, forgiving, as in Christ God forgave you. See that? What Paul is telling you is, now this is the principle, we're going to get into particulars, but let me just say it in a general way. Paul says, when you're angry, when you're bitter, don't say to yourself, okay, I've got to stop being bitter. Stop it.

When you're lying, don't say, no, wait a minute, it's wrong to lie. I can't lie. I just can't. I mustn't lie. Paul says that doesn't work. And you know what? You already know that. I can speak very personally about this. When I was in my seminary years, I was struggling with sins. I was struggling with things in my life I struggled with for a long time. And I would always do what I thought I was supposed to do. I was supposed to sit down and say, this is wrong. Stop it. Stop it. And it didn't seem to work.

I read a book, which I'm not sure I really recommend to people, because it's kind of a hard book to read, but I read a book, wrote a book, pardon me, I didn't write it, I read a book. You heard Rodney Dangerfield says, I just finished my first book, now I'm going to write another one. Now I'm going to read another one, he said. Anyway, did you get that? Now I'm going to read another one. What happens is,

This book that I read that I do not, didn't write, and that I don't recommend to anybody is a book by John Owen called Mortification of Sin. It was written by a Puritan. He wrote it in the 16, gosh, 1670s, something like that. And it's on how to put sin to death in your life. And it's really not one of the first books you should read. It's not even one of the 10th books you should read. It's probably maybe not even the 100th book you should read, but at some point it's a good one.

Because what he did in that book really revolutionized my life. He didn't sit down and say, now here's how you kill sin. You just say to yourself, how terrible to do such a thing. Gentlemen don't act like that. Human beings don't act like that. Christians don't act like that. Don't you feel bad that you've done that? He says, that doesn't work. Instead, you have to look at Jesus Christ on the cross.

And you have to say, now, how do I repay someone who's done this for me? I have to look at Jesus on the cross and I have to say, look at how he's forgiven me. Surely I have to forgive other people. That's what Paul's saying in verse 32. Don't just say, I shouldn't be bitter. Instead, think about what Jesus has done for you. Think of who that makes you. Think of who that makes him to you.

Or he says in verse 30, don't grieve the Spirit of God. You're supposed to say, now look at who lives inside me. Being a Christian is ultimately being melted with spiritual understandings of who you are now that Jesus Christ has said, you are my beloved child. Who you are now that the Holy Spirit has come in and said, I now live within your heart. You see...

Of course, you do actually have to put forth your effort and discipline yourself and just stop lying. You're tempted to lie. You know that if you lie, you're going to take it on the chin. I'm not saying that there's never a place for a Christian to say, no, I'm not going to do it. But in the long run, what Paul is saying, that is not how you'd put off lying. That's not how you put off bitterness or not how you put off anger. What you have to do is you have to melt yourself.

You melt yourself with an understanding of who he is and what he's done for you. And the great one who now lives within the courts of your life. That's what the Bible says. That's what Paul is saying. And in every one of these instances, this is the overarching message. All right? Now, we've got to keep that in mind as we go into this one. That is, Paul talks about, we saw last week, we finished last week, we spent a week and a half on it, on lying and dishonesty. Now we come to anger.

Last week we began talking about anger, and this week what I want to do is summarize and review what we said, but then move on. The anger subject is picked up in verse 26 and taken up again in verse 31 and 32. And I put them all for you right at the top of your handout if you've got it, so you don't have to go back and forth in your Bible.

I really, really muffed that Rodney Dangerfield joke, didn't I? I had a chance. I had a chance. Last week we said these things. And let me quickly run through the first two.

Two principles right away we get about anger. First of all, let's remember that Paul actually says, be angry and do not sin. He says, be angry. It's imperative. It's a command. And we learn this from that. First, and I don't have to spend any time on this, but last week we pointed out, be angry must mean that suppression or denial of anger is wrong. There's a lot of people who think there's only two approaches to anger. One is you can just ventilate it, and the other is you can control it like a civilized person.

Some people say you can ventilate it, but Christians control their anger. And they say the only two things you do with anger. You can either give in to it or you can control it. And that's not at all what the Bible says. The Bible is nowhere near as simplistic as that. And the Bible says if that is your understanding of anger, you're in for a lot of trouble.

It says in the book of Hebrews, Beware lest the root of bitterness remain and springing up defile many. What that means is that you're not supposed to deny your anger. If you have that view that says Christians don't get angry, you're very likely to deny it when it's there. The book of Hebrews says you should always be extremely aware of whether and how much anger you've got. Because if it's hidden, see...

If it remains and it's hidden and you're not aware of it, you're not being aware of it. Beware means to be wary or aware of something. If you're not aware of how much anger and whether it's there, you're going to be in trouble. It will defile you. And so obviously suppression of anger is a wrong thing. A lot of Christians, because they're taught that they can't be angry, Christians don't get angry.

You will call your anger anything else but anger. You'll say, I'm depressed, because Christians can get depressed. That's not so bad. You'll say, I'm upset. Christians get upset. You can say, I'm worried. Of course, Christians get worried. But you don't say, I'm angry, when actually you are. Secondly, the word be angry must also mean

that not only is anger something not to be suppressed, but secondly, that anger is sometimes required. This is a command. Paul actually says, be angry. He doesn't say, now Christians don't get angry. And he doesn't even say, now Christians, you know, if you do get angry, I guess that's inevitable, but you know, it's really a bad thing. He says, be angry. And that means that anger sometimes is required. Go further than that, or put another way, it means that sometimes if you're not angry, you are wrong.

See, anger is something that God is doing constantly, something that is true of God, and therefore can't be a sin. In fact, you can go this far. This is a bit of a tangent. I'm not sure there's any emotion that we know of that's a sin in itself. No emotion is intrinsically wrong or intrinsically bad. They're all created by God. They go bad because they're tainted with sin. They're like fruit that get rancid. They're like food that goes bad.

But in themselves, they're fine. I'm not sure there's any emotion that's wrong. Well, you say, what about hate? Hate's anger. And besides that, God hates evil. He says so. In fact, when David is at his best, he says, I hate your enemies with a perfect hatred. Perfect hatred. You see, hatred is something that God's capable of, so it can't be necessarily wrong. It's only wrong if it gets sinful. What about anger? We already said that. What about worry? Somebody says, worry is a bad thing. Yeah, but worry is just concern gone bad. Yeah.

A deep concern for someone's welfare or the health of something. Worry is just concern gone bad. Well, somebody says, well, what about... You see, when you start to think about it, you begin to realize that there really aren't any bad emotions. They're just emotions gone bad. Now, what about anger? We have to keep this in mind about anger. Last week, we defined it.

This week we said, let's take a look at Jesus getting angry and God getting angry because those are great examples. Last week I gave you an example I won't go into now. That's the example in 2 Corinthians 7 where Paul talks about anger being indignation and a zeal to see justice done. In Mark 5, we see Jesus getting angry. I did mention it last week, but I didn't put it in the handout, so I thought I'd put it in this week. When Jesus is about to heal a man who has a shriveled hand, the people around him, the Pharisees, start to watch him.

Because they can't wait to find him, see if he violates any of the Sabbath rules, because it's the Sabbath day, and if he violates the Sabbath, then they got him. And Jesus gets angry, very angry. Why? That's the key. Anger is energy aroused in defense of something good and released against something evil. That's the reason why it would be wrong in many situations not to be angry. Anger is energy aroused in defense of something. You want to defend something.

If you see something that's threatened, that's wonderful and good, and you don't get angry, you are not a good person.

If you see somebody being oppressed, if you see somebody being used, if you see justice being trampled on and you don't get angry, you are not like God. God has to get angry because he's good. In fact, the more good you are, the more righteous, the more holy, the more pure, the more loving you are, the more angry you're going to get when you see certain things that need to be defended. Anger is energy aroused and therefore it's released against something that's evil.

Now, Martin Luther King, I don't know if you've ever seen this, Martin Luther King has a series of what he called his principles of nonviolence, and they're wonderful principles. But the one that is most germane to us, Martin Luther King says, nonviolence is aggressive toward problems, not persons. And that is an extremely helpful and interesting understanding of righteous anger. Because what is Jesus mad at? He sees the Sabbath law, which is a wonderful law.

A law that's made to make us... Why did God pass the Sabbath law? So that we would rest on Sunday, so we would be refreshed one day a week. And of course, Jesus is very angry about seeing a law made for us being twisted into an instrument for self-righteousness and an instrument of torture for people. So he's angry. So what does he do? He turns...

And he actually speaks against the Pharisees and he says, tell me, it's unlawful to heal on the Sabbath? So what he does is he releases his anger against the error and against also the disease. And he heals the man in anger. It says he gets angry and he heals the man. He heals in anger. Of course, he wouldn't be good if he wasn't angry. So you see, what is he defending? The law of God. What is he attacking? Sickness and an error and evil.

All right. Third principle, be angry, but do not sin. And here's pretty much where we left off. And I'm going to read afterwards. I talked to a number of people about the example I used off the cuff. It's my own personal example. I realized I needed to draw it out and show it to you on a piece of paper. So here it is.

What is sinful anger? It's obvious that Paul says, be angry, therefore anger isn't sinful in itself. But do not sin, which means it's very possible to sin in many ways. Now, I'm going to tell you right here, there are three kinds of sinful anger that I would like us to look at. You can actually see it in verse 31.

It says, get rid of all bitterness. Let's wait for a minute and we'll get to that. One of the kinds of sinful anger is bitterness. You may be righteous in your anger. You may be right to be angry. But if that anger settles into bitterness, a settled hatred for someone, then it's wrong. And we'll look at that later. Secondly, then it goes and says, rage and anger, brawling,

Now, rage and anger are interesting. Rage and anger are internal conditions. Brawling and slander are external actions. Rage and anger, by the way, the word rage is two most, which means white heat. It means losing your temper. The second word, anger, is more of a settled condition in which you just go sour and you look at the whole world through anger. It's a settled, normal condition of your heart.

It gets to the place where nothing you see out there, you're seeing except through anger. So you're finding fault with everybody and you're finding irritation with everything and you're seeing injustice everywhere. And so these are internal conditions. Whereas brawling and slander are external behaviors. Listen, there's three forms of sinful anger. Bitterness, which we'll mention in a minute. Blowing up and clamming up. Because you see, when you keep your anger inside...

It's going to attack something. It's going to tear up something. Remember, anger is energy released to tear up things. If you keep it inside, if you say, I'm not angry, or I'm going to hold on to my anger, and you keep it inside, what will it tear up? You, your insides, literally. And some of you know what that means, literally. On the other hand, brawling and slander means it's another form of sinful anger where you blow up and you just release your anger toward people and destroy them.

Clamming up and blowing up. You see why the biblical understanding of anger is so subtle? It says in verse 29, it says, do not let any unwholesome corrupt talk him out of your mouths, but only that which is helpful for building others up.

What you're supposed to do, it's not simple, but you're not allowed just to stuff your anger and you're not allowed just to ventilate your anger, but you're not allowed to say things except those which are beneficial. You've got to attack the error. You've got to do what Martin Luther King said. Nonviolence is aggressive toward problems, not people. You've got to direct your anger. And therefore, anger is to be used, not to be stuffed, not to be ventilated. It's to be used. This is not easy.

But it's also, I think, as you think about it and realize it, a marvelously subtle and gloriously wise understanding of anger. As Jesus said, Father, I praise thee that thou has hidden these things from the high and the wise and you've shown them unto babes, us. Look, let me give you an example. Here's a father blowing up at his children. We all know who this is now.

We talked about this last week. Now, let's do an analysis. He's blowing up at his children. Now, since you know that all anger is essentially defending something and attacking something, you can always analyze whether it's righteous and constructive or sinful and destructive by asking yourself two questions. What am I defending and what am I attacking? My anger is aroused in defense of something. What is that?

Are you holding onto a grudge or struggling to forgive someone in your life? Would you like to experience the freedom and healing that forgiveness brings? In his book, Forgive, Why Should I and How Can I?, Tim Keller shows how forgiveness is not just a personal act, but a transformative power that embodies Christ's grace to a world fractured by conflict.

Far from being a barrier to justice, forgiveness is the foundation for pursuing it. In this book, you'll uncover how forgiveness and justice are deeply intertwined expressions of love and how embracing Christ's forgiveness equips us to extend grace to others.

We'd love to send you Dr. Keller's book, Forgive, as our thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life share the hope and forgiveness of Christ with more people. Visit gospelinlife.com slash give to request your copy. That's gospelinlife.com slash give. Now, here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. ♪

Now, in the first case, the father is sitting there and he says, OK, I know what I'm defending. He comes to see it was a schedule all day. He has filled his mind with with how wonderful it's going to be just to sit down and kick back and watch Monday Night Football. You say he's all day. He's been saying, I can't wait for that. It's a couple of teams that I'm really interested in. Maybe I'll have a friend over. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to have a friend over.

"Make some popcorn, I'm just going to relax, I'm going to have a couple of hours, and that's what I'm looking forward to." And all day he's filled his mind with how important this is going to be to him. So what happens is when his children either disobey or they begin to fight with each other, or they begin to continually deceive the father, get out of bed when they said they'd be in bed, turn off the light and... I mean, turn the light on and read when they said they were going to turn off the light and so on, the father blows up. Why?

Here's why he blows up. He blows up because what he's attacking is his own comfort, his own schedule, his own agenda. And what does he do? He attacks his children with intimidating gestures, with unkind words. He wants to make them feel as bad as he feels. And that's called blowing up, just ventilating his anger out there. Oh, he may punish, but the purpose of his punishment, and you might say the R, the nonverbal communication,

is a way of making the kids feel terrible. So what does he got to do? I'll tell you what the average Christian father does after he realizes how bad he has blown up. The first thing he does is he runs to the other extreme and he decides to clam up. This is a typical Christian alternative. He says, this was very, very wrong. So instead of releasing his anger toward his children, he stuffs it and maybe even denies it, you know.

Maybe, in some cases, the father wants to blow up, but he just doesn't do it. All he does is simmer and get extremely depressed, and at night his wife says, "What's the matter?" and he says, "I don't know, I'm depressed." See, good Christian people are not angry, so they say, "I'm depressed." This way, the anger stays inside the father's stomach and screws up his duodenum or whatever the heck it is in there, and he's tearing up himself. What is he supposed to do?

You see, for years I felt, and until I began to study the Scripture, I said there's only two things to do. You blow up or else you control it and you keep it inside. And I learned very, very often through the Scripture and very, very often through my wife that there was a problem here.

If my children were disobeying, if they were deceiving, if they were fighting with each other, that's a serious problem. There are things in their lives that are serious. They're wrong. They're bad things. If they're fighters with each other, if they learn to tell lies, if they learn to deceive, these are bad things in their lives.

And therefore, I should be angry. If I'm not angry with them and if I don't correct them and instruct them and speak to them with some kind of anger, they're not going to know the seriousness of it. It's bad for them never to see their father angry about anything because what happens is their father, at that point, they don't understand what is important in life, what things are serious. And so what I have to do, what the father's got to do is this. First of all, he says, what am I defending?

Unfortunately, I'm defending my own ego. I'm defending my own agenda. But is there anything to be angry at? What I have to do is I have to repent of the idolatry of my schedule. I have to comb it out. I have to sit down. I've got to do something about it. See, I've got to say, Lord, I see what I've done. And I have to do this. I have to fill my mind not with the glories of Monday Night Football and how much fun it was going to be. I have to fill my mind with these things. I have to say, think about my children. Think of how important they are.

Think of how little time I'm really going to have with them. Think of how fast they're growing up. Think of what an important charge it is to be raising children. And think about how important it is for me to catch them doing deceit or lies or disobedience in this nice, simple, early stage where you can nip it in the bud. So I have to fill my mind with that. And then I have to come back

And I've got to come down with anger. First of all, in general, I have to repent of the fact that I said things and I did things in a way that were intimidating. I was trying to hurt them, hurt their hearts. I was trying to make them feel bad because they had made me feel bad. I have to repent of that. Then I have to come in and say, however...

We've got a problem here. I'm mad at myself for having done that, but I'm mad at you. And here's why. And these are serious. And if you act like this, you're going to have troubles all the rest of your lives. You're going to have troubles in your marriage. You're going to have troubles in your job. You're going to have troubles in school. You're going to have troubles in friendships. And I have to what? I've got to attack something new. See this? What am I attacking? You have to refocus on the real problem. You have to release the anger. We're on the back of the sheet now. You have to...

Release your anger not at your insides and not at the children, but at the problem. So with zeal, with seriousness, with indignation, he punishes the children with instruction. And the kids always know that the appeals are loving appeals. I hate this. It's not me against you, kid. It's me and you against this habit that will destroy you unless we do something about it. Big, big difference.

Now, can I be honest about this? I mean, since I'm confessing my sins out here, let me just tell you that this is not at all an easy thing to do. To actually realize that you've got to, as the anger builds, say, what am I defending? So you still have to be rational to think like this. And then say, what am I attacking?

The ideal is to realize as the anger builds, you do the analysis early and you start to repent of the selfish defense and you say, but there is something to be angry about and there is the right thing to attack and I'm going to do something about it. Now, what happens if you can't do the analysis after you've blown up? Then you have to come back and repent and redirect it. And sometimes you are so hot and so upset that you're not even able to do that. It can take scores of events like this

Literally dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of situations in which you have to practice this before you can even begin to make the connection. You have to kind of slow yourself down. You have to do the analysis. It's not a matter of here's my anger, I just have to control it. Ah, no, I can't. I'll just blow up. It's not like those are the only two alternatives. Blowing up and clamming up are both wrong. You've got to repent if you've done it.

You know, for example, if you're mad at your friend or mad at your spouse or something for a day or something, and if you've done the clamming up and your spouse says no, you have to repent and say, yes, I have clammed up. I haven't told you. You cool down, you repent, you comb out the selfish parts of the motives, and you work on what you think really is something worth being angry at, and you redirect it, as Martin Luther King said, aggressive against the problem, not against the person. You say, oh my word, that's awfully subtle, that's awfully hard,

Remember the rule? Obedience is hard. Disobedience is impossible. And those are the only two alternatives you have. Obedience is very hard. Disobedience is absolutely devastating and really an impossible situation. Those are the only two alternatives you have. So obey. O Father.

I praise thee that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and the high and revealed them unto babes. That's us. Now, one more thing. By the way, this is very, very hard, extremely hard. You've got to remember this, that on the one hand, this takes time. It's a gradual thing. Oh, my, yes. It doesn't happen overnight. And it really...

It will only happen as you are growing in grace in general. We had a set of trees at our house in Virginia, and they were odd trees. They were some kind of oak trees. Maybe Kathy remembers them. The leaves would die in the fall, but they wouldn't fall off. They'd stay on the tree, and they didn't fall off until the spring when the new leaves came out of the buds and pushed the old leaves off. You see, there's a way of trying to change that simply relies on willpower.

says, I'm going to stop this. I'm not going to do this anymore. But the Christian approach is so different. Christianity says you have to be continually in worship and in prayer and in study of the Word and through the sacraments and through a personal encounter with God. You've got to be constantly meeting Him so that you're changing and you're growing. And as Christ's character begins to grow in you, it comes out and pushes off the old leaves. It pushes off the anger. It's not something that happens overnight. It comes gradually. It comes bit by bit.

Some of you know, for example, that, I mean, I guess you can be too personal in a sermon. Some of you know, if you were here earlier today at any of those other services, I was talking about how the gospel came to Korea. And I went back into an old history book I had in order to tell the story. And the story, as many of you know, there was a man who came to Korea back when it was illegal in the 1860s to

for a foreigner to come to Korea, and when his boat was sinking, he came out of the boat and he waded out of the river with his arms full of Bibles, and as the people on the shore killed him, clubbing him, knifing him, he thrust the Bibles into their hands as he was killing them. And that's how the gospel came to Korea. Today, the place where he died is a beautiful Thomas Memorial Chapel for Robert J. Thomas, the first missionary to Korea.

I read about him and I got so tremendously convicted and I realized I had an opportunity to worship. This was happening on Friday. I was typing the thing into the computer for my sermon. I was reading the book and I suddenly found, as I was reading it, I started to cry and I realized, here's a guy who was just so faithful and I began to feel like a baby. I began to say, I think my problems are so great. I think that the things that God calls me to do are so important. I

and so hard. And I got convicted of self-pity. I had an opportunity to worship. So you stop everything. You know, when the Spirit of God is preaching to you, is bringing something home, you say, here's a chance. So you stop everything. You sit down and say, I see what you're telling me. And you begin to worship. You repent. You praise Him. You receive forgiveness. And you sense yourself being renewed in the attitude of your mind.

That's the little leaf coming in and pushing off the old leaf. Christianity is an organic thing.

But on the other hand, though, it's an organic thing, it's a process. I also want you to see that Paul here is saying, on the other hand, do not tolerate this kind of anger in your life. Anger can hurt you. Sinful anger and bitterness and rage and malice, blowing up and clamming up. What he says here is not pray about it, ask God to get rid of it. He says, get rid of it, put it off, throw it off, hurl it off.

Out of the room. Trample on it. Bolt the door. Don't let it back in. I mean, he's really pretty serious. He doesn't just say, well, you pray about it and maybe God will get rid of it. He says, you get rid of it. So there's a balance here. It takes a long time. It's a process. But do not put up with it in your life. There's only one other. There's only one other form of sinful anger we need to talk about. And that's this last one. Get rid of all bitterness. Bitterness is holding somebody liable for a sin. What bitterness is...

is not just anger. You know, your anger might have been righteous to start with, but bitterness is what I put down here, is to continually will or hope for somebody else's harm or distress. The way you know that you're bitter is that you continually want to see the person who you're angry at harmed or distressed or brought up short. You want to see them brought down. You see, that's the reason that God is angry but never bitter.

Because the Bible says God is angry at the wicked all day. We said that last week and everybody laughed. The Bible says that God's angry constantly. Yet the Bible also says that God hates the idea of any of us perishing. And the Bible said God does not desire the death of a sinner. And there's a difference. God, here's what's the odd thing. God is angry with you and bears you no ill will.

God is angry without the slightest molecule of bitterness. The difference between anger and bitterness is this. Anger says...

This is wrong. This is an evil. This thing needs to stop. Bitterness moves over to the place where you actively will to see somebody hurt, brought down. You want bad things to happen. You want them to lose their job. You want them to be brought down off your high horse. And when you do, you're very, very, very tempted to gloat. What the Bible calls lifting up your voice over them, lifting up your eyes above them. And that's what the Bible says is absolutely wrong. Why? First of all, it imprisons you.

Friends, this should be enough to get you out of it. The only way that the person who you're bitter at can really win is if he keeps you bitter at him. You're still in prison. You're still being affected by it. I'll never forget going to see a guy who... I remember we used to have a vacation Bible school in a particular neighborhood around our church in Virginia. And

Whenever, after Vacation Bible School was over, you used to very often go visit the homes of the children who had come, and you just said, "Listen, we were very happy to have little Bobby or Susie coming to our church, and we would be happy to come by and give them a ride, and we'd be very happy to have your entire family come to church if you would rather do it that way."

And one time we went in to see a guy who says, "I'm never taking my kids to church." And I said, "Why?" He says, "Because when I was a kid, my father dragged me off to church every week. I hated it and he made me go every week until I moved out and I'm never going to do that to my child." What he was saying is, "I'm going to free myself from what my parents did to me. I'm freeing myself from religion. I'm so angry." He was angry. He was so bitter. He was still in prison.

He was still being controlled by what his father did. He was absolutely being controlled. His kid wanted to go to church, and he wouldn't let his kid go to church. Why not? He was still in prison. That's not the only reason you shouldn't be bitter. The second reason is it contradicts the behavior of Christ toward you. Paul says this, Forgive one another as Christ, in Christ, God forgave you. You know the place, the thing that many of you pray all the time?

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Do you know what that means? Forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors? Can't go into all the exegesis of that, but what it means is this. An unforgiving heart is an unforgiven heart. If you can't forgive, it's because you aren't forgiven. Now, there's three ways that you can be not forgiven.

One is, some people can't forgive because they're not forgiven because they don't think there's anything wrong with them. They're proud, they're arrogant, they have never repented of their sins. That's why they can't forgive. See, when you are bitter towards somebody, there's this little sense of superiority. You're saying, I would never have done something like that, ever. You can't be bitter against somebody unless you think that you are a little better. It's very difficult to be bitter against somebody who does something that you know you do all the time. Pretty hard.

But when you are bitter, it might be because you have never been forgiven because you are too arrogant to repent. There's another approach. Some of you can't forgive because you don't feel forgiven, but it's not because you haven't repented. You just think you're so bad that you don't feel you're forgivable. One of the reasons that many people don't forgive because they haven't been forgiven is because they think, well, I'm too wicked. R.C. Sproul, some of you know who he is, and he's a little bit more...

He told me this story once. He said, once he talked to a woman who said, I've tried to ask God for forgiveness. I've tried to ask God for forgiveness, but I just never feel forgiven and I can't forgive myself. I just feel too bad. You know what he said to her? And I shuddered when I heard this. He says, well, you actually haven't confessed the one sin that's really got you down. She said, what? He said, it's your pride. She says, what do you mean my pride? He says, well, because you see,

You want salvation the Smith Barney old-fashioned way. You want to earn it. The reason that you can't feel forgiven is you said, I failed, I haven't lived up to my standards, and I don't want God's bleeding charity. I failed and I feel bad about it, and that's that. He says, if you say you can't feel forgiven, it's because you really want to achieve your salvation. You want to be your own savior. You want to achieve your salvation through your own performance.

Some of you can't forgive because you're not forgiven, and you're not forgiven not because you think you're so great, but because you feel so bad about yourself. Underneath it all, I think Sproul was right. There's a pride that keeps you from feeling forgiven.

In most of our cases, the reason we can't forgive is we've forgotten what Jesus has done for us. And that's what Paul is saying. If you remember, and to the degree you remember what he's done for you, to the degree that you remember what he's done for you, to that degree you can forgive. Matthew 18 tells a story of the man who owed the king 10,000 talents. The king says, you know what 10,000 talents is? That's 17 years wages.

You add up to all the wages, your wages for 17 years, you realize how big a sum that is. The king says, pay me. The servant says, I can't. The king says, I forgive you. Your debt's gone. And then the next, that very day, the first servant meets a second servant and the first servant says to the second servant, where's my $10 you owe me? The second servant says, I can't pay. The first servant says, into debtor's prison with you if you can't pay. And when the king hears about it, he comes to the first servant and he says, you wicked servant.

I forgave you this infinite debt and you wouldn't forgive your fellow servant this small debt. Shouldn't you have had mercy on him as I had mercy on you? And he puts the first servant in debtor's prison. And Jesus says, so will my heavenly father do to you if you don't forgive your brother from the heart. What that means is, if you think about the infinite debt he's forgiven you, if you think about what he's done for you, that will melt your heart and you will have to let go.

An unforgiving heart is an unforgiven heart, period. And if you can't forgive, you haven't sensed his forgiveness. The forgiveness of God is so sweet. At the end of...

At the end of Lord of the Rings, Tolkien says, And their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed and thought out to regions where pain and fight flow together, and tears are the very wine of blessedness. And you know what that makes? That is absolute nonsense to talk about sweet tears, tears that are the wine of blessedness. That is absolute nonsense to anybody who has never experienced the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. That will change you forever.

And it will make you actually more capable of anger. Yes, you won't be as afraid of admitting that you're angry. You won't be guilt-ridden people. You can say, I'm angry and I have a right to be angry. But you can't be judged. You can't be guilty because you're thinking about what he's done. You're putting on the new self. Father, I rejoice that you have revealed these things to babes and hidden them from the wise and the high. Let's pray. Now, Father, we ask simply this, that as we

We come to you and in this final song just ask you to come near and melt our hearts with the spiritual understanding of what you've done for us so that we may find that the more we taste the sweetness of our own tears of confession and know the joy of forgiveness, we then can put away all malice and anger, all clamoring and brawling, all bitterness.

And then the world will look at us and be amazed at people who are so quick to be angry and quick to be indignant and injustice with no ill will. Father, how can we be angry with no ill will? How can we be quick to be angry and quick to laugh and quick to rejoice and quick to embrace what kingly people we would be? We can be if we remember who we are and if we come to you and we say...

Reckon us. Help us to reckon ourselves to belong to you so we don't grieve the spirit. And so we remember that you've forgiven us for everything. Now accomplish all these things in our lives. We pray it in Jesus name. Amen.

Thanks for listening to today's teaching by Tim Keller here at Gospel and Life. We want to share a special free resource with you that we provide during the season of Lent. For the 40 days from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, Gospel and Life would like to send you a daily Lent devotional. Sign up to receive this daily email at gospelandlife.com slash Lent. That's gospelandlife.com slash Lent.

Today's sermon was recorded in 1991. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.