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Mar 21, 2021

Redeeming the Ogre

Redeeming the Ogre

Passage: Philippians 1:9

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: We Must Love One Another, or Die - Lent 2021

Keywords: repentance, anger, resentment, examination, provoke

Even with an end to this season apparently in sight, the last year wears heavily upon many. It’s hard to say whether our more regretful moments were caused by this year or were only provoked by it. That is to say, in our weakest moments of lashing out or wishing harm (if ever we admitted it), was that our circumstances’ fault or only their occasion? So what to do with an anger that perhaps lives closer to the surface and breaks out with a ferocity? And what to do with resentments we feel toward those we think have done us wrong? We know they reflect no love, but how does love ever hope to supplant them? Can it?

Readings & Scripture

INTRO & PREPARATION:        Exodus 23:10-14   

LEADER: 10For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, 11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. “Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.  “Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.

LIVE - CALL & RESPONSE: 6th Commandment        

Q134: Which is the sixth commandment?

A134: The sixth commandment is, Thou shalt not kill.

Q135: What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?

A135: The duties required in the sixth commandment are, all careful studies, and lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves  and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any; by just defense thereof against violence, patient bearing of the hand of God, quietness of mind, cheerfulness of spirit; a sober use of meat, drink, physic, sleep, labor, and recreations; by charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness; peaceable, mild and courteous speeches and behavior; forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil; comforting and succoring the distressed, and protecting and defending the innocent.

BENEDICTION:                 Ephesians 3:20-21            Patrick

LEADER: 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

ALL: 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

ILLUSTRATIONS:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Ever know any ogres--people who seemed easily to set off and happy to return wrong with wrong? Ever assumed the role of an ogre?  What’s beneath the surface of your average ogre?
  2. What’s most tempted you to irritation in these last 12 months? Over what have you been tempted to bear a grudge? Talk about the experience of it. Talk about what’s fueled it. At what point does the desire for a different circumstance or outcome fall into the counter-productive and unloving ditch of irritability and resentment?
  3. How can those three questions you heard in the sermon serve to release you from the self-made prison of your own irritability and resentment?
  4. How is the fact that the Lord chose not to account our sins against us, but to hold them against Jesus, meant to undercut our temptation to bear a grudge?
  5. Is there anyone with whom you’ve exploded in anger toward, or held a grudge against that this text now pleads with you to make amends with?

QUOTES:

  • Tell me what you pay attention to and I will tell you who you are. José Ortega y Gasset
  • In evaluating the reality of the last five years, what has been more salient and relevant to the daily lives of so many American Christians, the fact of disagreement with brothers and sisters or the manner of disagreement with brothers and sisters? David French
  • My anger protected me only for a short time; anger wearies itself out and truth comes in. C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces
  • The pleasure of anger - the gnawing attraction which makes one return again and again to its theme - lies, I believe, in the fact that one feels entirely righteous when one is angry. Then the other person is pure black, and you are pure white. C.S. Lewis
  • One man may be so placed that his anger sheds the blood of thousands, and another so placed that however angry he gets he will only be laughed at. But the little mark on the soul may be much the same in both. Each has done something to himself which, unless he repents, will make it harder for him to keep out of the rage next time he is tempted, and will make the rage worse when he does fall into it. Each of them, if he seriously turns to God, can have that twist in the central man straightened out again: each is, in the long run, doomed if he will not. The bigness or smallness of the thing, seen from the outside, is not what really matters.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
  • Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.  Martin Luther King, Jr. 

BOOKS / DOCS

SERMONS / TALKS: 

“The Spirit of Love is the Opposite of a Censorious Spirit” a sermon by Jonathan Edwards