Today we're gonna consider wrath and peace,
and because it's Mother's Day,
and because we have a dedication,
we have three baptisms, I'm gonna keep this one short.
All right, so let's open up our Bibles.
If you don't have a Bible, there's Bibles on the tables.
You can download a Bible from any of the digital app stores.
You're welcome to take one of those blue Bibles home.
If you would like one of them,
we're gonna open to Proverbs 15,
and I'm also gonna read 1 Peter 3,
and so feel free to open to either one of those.
If you would like Proverbs 15 or 1 Peter 3,
and we have a tradition at the house
of giving the Scriptures our full attention
when we read them during this time of the service.
You're welcome to stand with me if you would like.
Otherwise, you can sit
and just give the Scriptures your attention.
Read Proverbs 15, 18 says this.
A hot tempered person stirs up conflict,
but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.
And then 1 Peter 3, 9, do not repay evil with evil
or insult with insult.
On the contrary, repay evil with blessing,
because to this you were called
so that you may inherit a blessing.
God of every tribe, every tongue, every color,
every nation, we thank you for the Scriptures,
that they have persisted throughout the millennia,
that we still have them to read and consider,
and I pray that whatever you have for us to learn today,
I pray that it would stick,
that it would become a part of the framework of our faith,
that our faith would become stronger
as we become more like your son Jesus.
Amen?
Amen, you all can have a seat.
Thanks so much.
Right, so from Proverbs to Peter
and really everything before and after,
all across the Scriptures,
we are reminded consistently over and over and over again
that our earthly anger doesn't solve our problems.
Some of you were like, dang it.
Especially, they don't solve our problems,
especially when it is our ugly,
out of control expression of anger that turns into wrath.
I've said it before that anger
tends to be a secondary emotion,
and what that means is that
we don't always know what we're feeling.
Some of us, we have a feeling,
we don't know how to identify it,
and so what we show is anger,
because anger is easily translatable.
Or when we don't know how to express a certain feeling,
even if we know what it is,
we may still express anger
because we don't want to let someone else know
what it is we're actually feeling.
We feel foolish.
We show anger.
We feel disrespected.
We show anger.
We feel embarrassed.
We show anger.
When these opportunities for anger get multiplied,
they kind of collapse in on themselves like a black hole
looking for vengeance.
Now, anger, of course, on its own isn't a sin.
We also know the scripture says,
be angry, but do not sin in your anger.
It's what we do with anger
that draws it towards a place
where it's no longer a healthy feeling to have
or to let it be turned into something else.
And one of the reasons that we control
or manage our anger when we do
is because we know how uncontrolled anger
can affect those that are around us, right?
But wrath, wrath is what we express
when we no longer care about the collateral damage.
So long as the object of our wrath is obliterated.
I think in my entire life, my ripe old age of 46,
I have probably only ever felt something approaching
wrath a handful of times.
In almost all of those times,
it was because I wanted to protect my family.
In particular, because I wanted to protect one of my kids.
Nothing jumps the line from a moderate emotion
to wanting to scorch the earth
like someone else's actions hurting one of your kids.
Moms, you know what I'm talking about?
For example, raise your hand if you ever lived in the South.
Anyone ever lived in the South?
All right, so if you ever lived in the South,
we lived in Georgia from 2007 to 2010.
And if you've ever lived in the South
and you know the South has a particular kind of evil
living in its dirt, it's called fire ants.
I think, I don't know if I could support the see-logically,
but I think that when Jesus defeated death on the cross,
that he cast all the demons of the world
into the fire ants of the South.
Because they are evil.
Like many of you, I grew up in the Midwest,
God's country, right?
I mean, if you have seen Field of Dreams,
you know, oh, is this heaven?
No, it's Iowa.
I'll take, I'll put Illinois in there.
It's the Midwest.
And growing up in the 80s, in the Midwest,
if you were a kid and you got bored, you went outside
and ants were basically the neighborhood friend
that had to play with you whether they wanted to or not.
They were just all the ways around.
Oh, look, my friendly friend, the ant.
I did not know that ants were the devil down there.
And when we first moved to Georgia,
Liam wasn't even born yet.
He's 16 now.
Brennan was just about 15 months old.
And so when I saw an anthill at the corner of our garage,
I didn't think anything of us.
I probably actually encouraged him to play with the ants
because I had grown up playing with ants.
I went inside the house and then I heard his cries
because ants did what ants do.
They crawled on his feet.
He started crawling up his legs.
And then fire ants started to do what fire ants do.
They started to bite him.
When I heard his cries, I ran, picked him up,
rushed him into the house, put him in the sink,
started washing off his feet.
They were already turning into little pus pockets,
a phrase you weren't expecting to hear today.
And I just kept saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
I'm so sorry because I knew it was my fault.
So I did the only thing that I knew that I could do.
I got my gasoline and I burned that ant pile to oblivion
because I felt wrath.
Maybe some of you have felt that before.
Maybe some of you have felt that
about another human being before.
Maybe some of you have felt that about yourself before.
That's why the scriptures remind us
not to repay evil for evil.
Sin for sin, mistake for mistake.
The Old Testament says eye for an eye
and yet Jesus says, love your enemies,
pray for those who persecute you,
turn the other cheek, go the extra mile.
Love each other as you love yourself.
Now I give you a greater command
to love each other as I have loved you.
Jesus knows that when we feel these things
that we might want to ignore,
the fruit of the spirit which is peace,
love, joy, peace, that he has been growing
from that new radical effect inside of our hearts,
inside of our lives, we know it's there.
Jesus knows that we can easily convince ourselves
that we cannot, that we will not possibly feel peace
unless someone else feels pain.
But wrath directed at another person or even ourselves
is only wrath directed at Jesus.
Because the sin of wrath was on the shoulders of Jesus
when he died on the cross.
Paul has this verse where he says,
but should we sin more?
He says, no, we should not sin more.
He says, no, not that we should crucify Christ again.
So what do we do?
How do we participate with this concept of wrath
sitting in contrast against peace
and peace being a radical effect
that is already developing within you,
whether you may even know it or not.
Maybe you're not all that peaceful of a person,
but the Holy Spirit is working peace
within the soil of your heart.
It is the truth of the scriptures,
it is the truth of who God is.
It is the truth of who the Holy Spirit is
and what the Holy Spirit does.
Whether you know it or not,
under the dirt of your heart,
the Holy Spirit is working peace.
The one thing I think we can especially do today,
especially since we are baptizing three individuals today,
dedicating a child,
is for you to remember your own baptism.
If you've never been baptized, maybe this is the moment
where you go, I need to do that.
I need to get on the list to do it
and maybe not wait till the next Mother's Day.
We'll do it another day.
But maybe it's time for you to consider that.
And if you have been baptized,
today's the day for you to remember what that means.
When you were baptized,
you said you'd be baptized,
but you didn't.
When you were baptized, you said you believe in Jesus,
that you believe that Jesus is the Lord of your life,
that you reject the sins of this world,
that you will follow Jesus with the help of the Holy Spirit
and that the global church,
but especially whatever church you were baptized in,
that those people would help guide you,
be bumper rails for you as you tried your best
to follow Jesus as the Holy Spirit developed the life
of Christ within you.
When you were baptized,
you said I believe something has happened.
I believe that all of my sin was crucified with Christ,
and nevertheless I live,
yet not I,
but Christ lives within me.
And the life which I now live,
no longer for myself do I live,
but for the resurrected Christ.
If you, if your sin died with Christ,
then you are also resurrected with Christ into new life.
When we baptize people today,
it symbolizes them going down into the grave
with Jesus Christ and being raised with him
into a new life.
It is an external, physical representation
of a spiritual reality that is not just a physical reality,
but a representation of a spiritual reality
that has already happened.
We have to remind ourselves,
as you remind yourselves of your own baptisms today,
we have to remind ourselves not to cover up
the radical effect of what God wants to do
and is doing with the dirt of our old lives.
Because there is a peace in Jesus.
Jesus dwells within you.
He makes his home within you.
And so peace is here.
Amen.