RockPointe Church
What Do We Do With Our Anger | Psalm 137
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RockPointe Church - Parker Square
500 Parker Square Rd, Flower Mound, TX 75028, USA
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https://rockpointechurch.org/sermon-library/What do we do with our anger?
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- Two Options: Keep it in or get it out.
- Not good/safe to stay bottled up in our heart and it's not good/safe to be released in public space.
- Must be a better way - a healthy, productive, positive outlet to help us be angry and not sin.
Consider the Imprecatory Psalms.
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- Two Options: Keep it in or get it out.
- Not good/safe to stay bottled up in our heart and it's not good/safe to be released in public space.
- Must be a better way - a healthy, productive, positive outlet to help us be angry and not sin.
Consider the Imprecatory Psalms.
“Imprecatory” comes from Latin word imprecari, = “to pray for, to call down, to invoke”
To pray for what, to call down what, to invoke what? Curses that invoke misfortune and disaster upon a foe.
Author/Singer calls down calamity, destruction, and God’s wrath, anger and judgment on his and God’s enemies.
To pray for what, to call down what, to invoke what? Curses that invoke misfortune and disaster upon a foe.
Author/Singer calls down calamity, destruction, and God’s wrath, anger and judgment on his and God’s enemies.
The study of imprecatory psalms aren't just theological, they're personal. When you’ve been wronged, betrayed, abused, or unjustly treated—what do you do with that rage and desire for revenge?
Imprecatory prayers are for when people of God are oppressed and the character of God is at stake.
1. Imprecatory Prayers are Honest
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Honest about God’s Just Judgement
God’s righteousness demands judgment. People are accountable to God for their deeds
Honest About Raw Human Emotion
Psalms express what we often repress. They give us words to cry out when we’re hurt, betrayed, or enraged.
The Psalms are not pious words for the devout, but honest speech from the depths of pain, dislocation, and sometimes rage.
God prefers honest prayers over sanitized platitudes.
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Honest about God’s Just Judgement
God’s righteousness demands judgment. People are accountable to God for their deeds
Honest About Raw Human Emotion
Psalms express what we often repress. They give us words to cry out when we’re hurt, betrayed, or enraged.
The Psalms are not pious words for the devout, but honest speech from the depths of pain, dislocation, and sometimes rage.
God prefers honest prayers over sanitized platitudes.
2. Imprecatory Prayers are NOT Prescriptive
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God allows space for honest, emotional grief—but He does not endorse revenge.
Imprecatory Psalms are like a wound—bloody and unfiltered. It's not prescribing action; it's describing agony. Pray them, don’t perform them.
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God allows space for honest, emotional grief—but He does not endorse revenge.
Imprecatory Psalms are like a wound—bloody and unfiltered. It's not prescribing action; it's describing agony. Pray them, don’t perform them.
3. Imprecatory Prayers are Healing
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God gave us these Psalms not to encourage retaliation, but to invite us to bring our rage to Him as a way to not become enslaved and consumed by thoughts of revenge.
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God gave us these Psalms not to encourage retaliation, but to invite us to bring our rage to Him as a way to not become enslaved and consumed by thoughts of revenge.
4. Imprecatory Prayers are Acts of Surrender & Trust
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When the saints pray for divine vengeance, they do not give way to personal emotion but call upon God to act as righteous judge.
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When the saints pray for divine vengeance, they do not give way to personal emotion but call upon God to act as righteous judge.
It is an act of faith to entrust your most precious hatred to God, knowing He will take it seriously.
5. Imprecatory Prayers are Compatible with the Gospel.
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Anger against sin and a desire that evildoers be punished, are not opposed to the spirit of the gospel, or to the love of enemies which our Lord exemplified. The law of holiness requires us to pray for the fires of divine retribution: the law of love, to seek meanwhile to rescue them from the burning.
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Anger against sin and a desire that evildoers be punished, are not opposed to the spirit of the gospel, or to the love of enemies which our Lord exemplified. The law of holiness requires us to pray for the fires of divine retribution: the law of love, to seek meanwhile to rescue them from the burning.
6. Imprecatory Prayers are Fulfilled in Jesus
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If we want to read and pray the prayers of the Bible, and especially the Psalms, we must not ask first what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus.
The imprecatory Psalms find their fulfillment not in human vengeance, but in the cross.
Jesus fulfills the Psalms including the imprecatory ones—not by canceling them, but by redirecting their trajectory.
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If we want to read and pray the prayers of the Bible, and especially the Psalms, we must not ask first what they have to do with us, but what they have to do with Jesus.
The imprecatory Psalms find their fulfillment not in human vengeance, but in the cross.
Jesus fulfills the Psalms including the imprecatory ones—not by canceling them, but by redirecting their trajectory.
Is there any pain, injustice, rage are you holding onto today that you need to bring to God. You don’t have to deny your anger or explode with it. You can bring it to the Cross.