Sunday, August 16, 2026

Scripture: John 2:13-17

Sermon Title: “Inside Out: Anger and Disgust”

If I had to guess, I’m guessing we all know at least one person with a temper. If we asked you to close your eyes and picture them, you could easily bring them to mind. Maybe you’re even a little embarrassed because you have a temper and you’re the person who first comes to mind. Growing up, my dad was kind of known for his temper. And you never wanted to be on the receiving end of his temper. He’s kind of mellowed out as he’s gotten older, but underneath, his temper is still there if someone or some situation gets under his skin. When my temper starts to come out, Jesse jokes that my Brad Miller is coming out.

Some of us are slow to anger, some are quick to get angry. But anger is an emotion that all humans experience to differing degrees. Anger might manifest itself differently in each one of us. For some, anger leads to yelling. Others, anger might even lead to crying. For some, anger is sitting and stewing in silence.

Last week we began a series on emotions called “Inside Out,” inspired by the Disney/Pixar Movie Inside Out which follows the emotions inside a little girl named Riley. All of the emotions are characters in the movie. In the first movie there is joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. And then the sequel, Inside Out 2 introduces more emotions as Riley is entering her teenage years. Emotions like anxiety, envy, ennui (which is basically boredom), embarrassment, and nostalgia.

These next few weeks we’re looking at some, not all of these emotions, and looking at what we see in scripture about these emotions. Some of our scriptures like today will even look at Jesus experiencing these emotions.

Last week we began with fear and anxiety, which seemed perfect before the first day of a new school year. We looked at a scripture from the book of Numbers. The Israelites sent spies into Canaan and were too fearful and anxious about what they saw. Even though God had promised them that he was giving them the land, they were still too fearful, anxious, and even wanted to go back to Egypt.

Today we’re looking at anger and disgust together. These emotions tend to go hand in hand. And here is how these characters are illustrated in the movie. The character of anger is red and sometimes even has fire coming out of his head. He’s a hothead. And disgust is green. She kind of comes across as a teenager with an attitude.

When we think of anger, we tend to think of anger as being sinful. But anger in and of itself, just like we said with fear last week isn’t a bad thing.

“At its core anger if very simple. It expresses, ‘I’m against that.’ You encounter something in your world that crosses the line. Anger expresses the energy of your reaction to something you find offensive and wish to eliminate.” (Good and Angry, by David Powlison)

When we think of anger, we tend to think of yelling, screaming, violence, and hatred. Maybe even this verse from Ephesians comes to mind, “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.” (Ephesians 4:26-27, NIV)

And this is good, it’s a reminder that anger in and of itself is not a sin, but we must be careful that our anger does not lead us to sin. As followers of Jesus Christ, we have this choice when it comes to anger. Will we channel our anger for sin and hurt others? Or will we channel our anger and disgust in righteous, holy ways?

Anger is not always a sin. There is righteous, holy anger. As we see in today’s scripture, even Jesus got angry, and Jesus was sinless. I think today’s scripture is the passage that first comes to mind when thinking about Jesus getting angry.

Our scripture today is Jesus clearing the temple. This is from John, but we also see this in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Though John’s account is earlier in his ministry. And in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus does this later in his ministry. So it would seem Jesus cleared the temple twice.

In today’s scripture we see Jesus making a whip out of cords and driving everything and everyone from the temple courts. We also see Jesus overturning tables. Now I don’t know about you, but Jesus with whips and overturning tables isn’t the picture we typically have of Jesus. Can you imagine if this was the scene depicted on the front of a Children’s Bible?

When Jesus does it a second time in the other gospel accounts, we hear similar descriptions. Matthew and Mark both tell us, “he overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.” (Matthew 21:12, NIV)

These images of Jesus chasing people out with whips and overturning tables and benches doesn’t sound like the Jesus we typically picture. Many of us tend to think of the God of the Old Testament as a God of anger and judgement. And we think of the God of the New Testament as a God of love, mercy, and grace. But the truth is, there is love, mercy, and grace in the Old Testament as well. And there is anger and judgment in the New Testament as well. Here we are seeing Jesus’s anger, judgement, and disgust.

But what exactly is Jesus angry and disgusted about?

Its Passover, the holiday where the Jewish people come and celebrate how God rescued them from slavery in Egypt, many have come on a pilgrimage from all over to worship God, and they can’t really worship because the temple has turned into a place more focused on selling things than people encountering God. There are some thoughts that the money lenders in the temple might have even been taking advantage of people coming to buy sacrifices, so this is not just an issue of proper worship, but possibly injustice as well.

The same way, we too should be angry and disgusted about the things in our world that are not of God. Things like child abuse, violence, oppression, racism, prejudice, hatred, bigotry, war, you name it.

Just this week we celebrated the first week of school here in Volusia County. As we showed in our announcements, we had all sorts of children in our church go back to school this week. I hope all of our students, parents, staff, and teachers had a great week. My girls had a great week.

But sadly, they shared with me that they had a lockdown drill one of the days. To be clear, nothing was wrong, there was no actual threat, this was just a drill. And Ellie, my second grader described lockdown this way, “Lockdown is when a horrible person who is not supposed to be there comes onto our campus.” So they practiced hiding with their classmates and teacher.

To be clear, I’m not disgusted with the school. I know that they have to practice this so that the students, teachers, and staff can be safe if they ever get in this situation. But I would be lying if I said that I’m not angry and disgusted that we live in a world where my kindergartener and second grader have to learn about lockdowns and practice this at their school. I long for a world where children don’t have to do this in the middle of their school day.

This is righteous, holy anger that we live in a world of violence where things are happening that are not of the ways of God. And this righteous, holy anger and disgust should not lead me to be violent with others, or yell at others, but it should lead me to seek change in our world and community to prevent violence. To me, children facing violence at school is a justice issue.

Justice is a theme that comes up a lot in scripture. It depends on your translation, but in the New International Version, we see the word “justice” mentioned 130 times in scripture, with it mentioned the most in the prophets. Specifically, we see justice mentioned the most, 30 times in the book of Isaiah.

Proverbs 21:15 tells us, “when justice is done, it brings joy to the righteous, but terror to evildoers.” (NIV)  

Don’t you love that idea? Justice brings joy to the righteous and terror to evildoers.

This morning, earlier in our service, we commissioned our justice ministry members. Here in Volusia County, we have a justice ministry called F.A.I.T.H. which stands for “Fighting Against Injustice Towards Harmony.” Pastor Sharon already said a lot about it, but if you came in late, F.A.I.T.H. is a justice ministry in our country that is interfaith, meaning different denominations, and even different faiths are working together to fight against injustice in our community.

Anger and disgust about the things in our world that are not of God, the injustices of our world, should lead us to pursue justice in our community, our nation, and our world. So if there is a justice issue in our community that you are angry and disgusted about, that makes you want to be like Jesus and get your whips out and overturn tables, we encourage you to be a part of F.A.I.T.H.

As Pastor Sharon said, the main issues F.A.I.T.H. is working on are flooding, affordable housing, and mental health. If you are angry or disgusted about any of these issues, please reach out to me, Pastor Sharon, or any of our Justice Ministry Team Members. We would love to invite you to a house meeting and get you more involved with F.A.I.T.H.

I want to remind you as well that sometimes we don’t know what to do with our anger and disgust about these issues of injustice in our world. But one thing we can do is vote. The reason we are having Dinner Church at another location on Monday night is that our church is a polling place for the primary on Tuesday, and they will have it all set up on Monday night.

But when you feel angry and disgusted about things going on in our community, our state, our nation, and our world, one of the things we are blessed to be able to do in our country is use our voice and vote. So, if there is an issue that is angering or disgusting you, make sure you research the various candidates and issues, pray about how you should vote in a way that is in line with the teachings of Christ, and go out and vote.

Now I want to be clear as we’re talking about anger this morning. If I had to guess, most of us aren’t as angry and disgusted by the injustice of our world as we should be. If I had to guess, most of our anger is probably not holy, righteous anger. If it is, that’s great, and let’s do something about it.

But I fear for many of us, our anger is sinful anger. We’re not against injustice and oppression in our world, but we’re against certain groups of people that don’t think, look, act, or vote like we do. Maybe it’s another gender, maybe another race, maybe another political party, maybe another religion, maybe someone from another country. And we have never met them, or gotten to know them, but we are deeply angered and disgusted by them.

Or for some of us, our anger is with people we know very well. In some cases, people who have hurt us deeply, and in other cases, they haven’t really done anything to us, but we are just quick to get angry and every little thing sets us off.

This week, I want to encourage us all to take the temperature on our tempers. Are we angry and disgusted at the things we should be? Is our anger and disgust holy and righteous? Or is it simply sinful? Is our anger and disgust leading us to harm others and maybe even ourselves?

Spend some time this week allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to you about your anger and disgust. Are you quick to get angry at your kids, your spouse, your neighbors, your coworkers, whoever? Are you quick to get angry at people and situations you don’t really even know because your political party, or the news or social media you follow has told you to be angry?

If you are finding that you are quick to get angry and your anger is not directed in healthy, holy, righteous ways, I encourage you to spend some time in prayer about it. I encourage you to maybe even speak to someone you trust about it. Maybe even seek counseling about it. I encourage you to seek forgiveness for how you have hurt others in your anger. And I encourage you to ask the Holy Spirit to transform you in this area of your life.

Anger by itself is not angry. Jesus himself got angry. But we must examine our hearts and ask, “is this anger justified? Is this anger holy and righteous? Is this anger leading me to fight against injustice in my world?” Or, “is my anger harmful? Is my anger hurting myself and others? Is my anger hurting my witness in the world?”

May we move away from harmful, hurtful anger, and move toward holy, righteous anger. May we me transformed by the Holy Spirit and look more and more like Jesus, even in the area of our anger.

Amen