How to Deal With Anger

How many times have you in anger? You just get frustrated, you get upset, you get angry, and you blurt out something horrible to another person. It might be a friend, a co-worker, it might be your spouse. And even while you're saying it, you know you shouldn't say it. In fact, you don't even really mean it. But it almost doesn't matter. You're so angry that hurting that other person is more important than anything. And then, you know, sometimes as soon as it comes out, the person will say, oh, I didn't even say that. I didn't even mean it.

Anger can cause us to do a lot of strange things. Maybe you're the type of person who just lets anger just sit inside. You never show it. Everybody thinks you're so calm. You never get upset. You never have it. But you just, it's in there. And you just hold it back, and you hold it back, and you hold it back. And then one day, you have all kinds of health problems. You might have a heart attack. It's interesting how many people with strokes, especially strokes, have had some kind of experience with anger within a few days before the stroke. And the body is just sort of taken over by the anger, and it's damaged by it. There's all kinds of health problems that come from holding anger inside of you. All kinds of emotional problems that come from that. Maybe you're the kind of person that just explodes, and then suddenly the anger goes away. Maybe you're the kind of person that when you get angry, you know, two years later, oh, I don't talk to that person. Why? They made me mad. They made me angry, and you just don't talk to them? You know, that's it. I don't talk to you anymore because you may be angry. And you're still angry. Even the mention of the person's name makes you feel angry. Or after services at Murfreesboro, one of the women came up to me and said, you know, that's the type of person I am, what I explain here next. And she said, I said, wow, people like you scare me. Maybe you're the type of person that you don't show your anger. You just get even. You know? You just get even. So you're scheming how to get the other person back. Because you have anger, and you're going to release it one way or another. Anger can be one of the most destructive of all human emotions.

It can break apart families. It can destroy marriages. It can destroy friendships. It can destroy congregations. It can destroy your own health. And it can destroy your relationship with God. You know, there's a lot in the Bible about anger. A surprising amount of information in the Bible about anger. Today we're going to talk about anger. And we're going to talk about what the Bible says about anger.

Why we have so much dysfunctional human anger. What we can do about it. How we can grow in controlling our anger. And dealing with our anger. No matter how you deal with anger. Because each, you know, people deal with it differently.

It doesn't matter. It's dysfunctional. It doesn't work. Like I said, you could be the person that everybody thinks never has an anger problem. And you could be the person who dies from a heart attack at age 47. Because you've held that inside you, and you actually destroy your own health. That's not what God wants either. Now when we talk about anger, we have to first begin to understand that anger is a normal human emotion. And when I say that, this sermon isn't about how never to feel angry. You can't not feel angry. You're wired to feel anger.

It's what we do with it. It's what causes it, and what we do with it that matters. You can't not feel angry. Your body is actually wired to produce certain chemicals that creates the feeling of anger. We know that God experiences anger. Although, do not equate our dysfunctional anger with God. As we go through this, you'll be able to see more and more when God says He's angry about something.

There's a specific reason for it, and a specific reasoned response. And we'll look at, when we look at human responses, you'll actually be able to understand God's response more. God's anger has no chemical reaction. You know, there's no spike in adrenaline because He's angry. That makes everything so different. His anger is reasoned. His anger is reasoned. We're going to talk a lot today about the fine line between reasoned anger and non-reason anger because most of what you and I experience is non-reasoned anger. It is anger that is not reasoned. It is just a blind emotion. You know, there are people who will say, I was so angry, I went blind, I didn't see, I didn't think, I don't know what happened.

You know, there are people who will talk about that in terms of murder. You know, one of the defenses for murder is the person was, at that point, mentally insane because they don't remember it, they couldn't see, they couldn't think, and actually that's actually true. Now that doesn't erase the fact of their culpability. What it means is you can become so overwhelmed as a human being with the emotion of anger that you are capable of murder.

That's how violent anger can be. And you know, we're not going to go out and commit murder, any of you, but I tell you what, you can damage your life and you can damage the lives of others and you can put a barrier between you and God. In fact, when we have lost control of our anger, it is not possible at that point to interact with God's Spirit properly.

You have to step back in order to do so. And we'll show you why, too. There's a point in anger where we step over a point into the unreasoned anger and it gets more and more unreasoned that you can't even respond to God's Spirit because you're not even desiring to respond to God's Spirit.

You're just overwhelmed with an emotion, with a feeling. So anger is very, very important. Like I said, not all anger may be wrong. That's another thing. If you're driving down the road and someone cuts in front of you in their car, at that moment you're going to feel anger. That is normal. You can't say, oh good, I'll finally be such a Christian.

I'll never get angry if someone cuts in front of me. No, you will. Your body is designed to survive. You are designed to survive. You're designed to feel fear and anger in order to survive. But what do we do with it and why do we have it? Let's go to Proverbs 29.22. It's sort of a place to start here. We're actually going to go back and forth to Proverbs quite a bit. It's amazing how much there is in the book of Proverbs just about anger. Proverbs 29.22. An angry man stirs up strife, and a furious man abounds in transgressions. Have you ever met somebody that has been angry so much and so long? They're just angry.

They're just angry all the time. Their response to every situation is anger. Their response to every person is anger. When you meet somebody like that and you look at this passage, how do you even relate to them out of fear? Anger back? You just get angry back with them? But a furious man abounds in sin. We are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves. You know, Mr. Frankie was talking about admonishment. You know how admonishment works? You love the person you're admonishing. That's the other way it really works. You admonish people you love. That you have a relationship where this admonishment can take place, as he mentioned. If you're angry, how can you love anybody? I mean, angry all the time.

So when we look at this, and we're going to see a lot, especially in Proverbs, about angry people. Not just a person who has anger, or he's experiencing anger, or has a problem with anger, but people who are angry all the time. That anger has become a controlling emotion. At that point, they simply sin against other people. It's just the way they act. It's the way they treat others. So we have a solution here. Let's go to James 1. James chapter 1. Well, it should be easy now. We can go to this one scripture, and we're going to have a solution to anger. This morning, after I gave this three, the man came up to me and said, we've been talking about your sermon, and we wanted to tell you that we didn't appreciate you meddling. And I responded with, I'm really getting mad at you guys. So, you know, here's a simple problem. James 1, or solution, James 1, 19. James says, So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. There you go. I can go sit down now.

Oh, I just have to shut up, listen to everybody, and not get mad. Well, how do I do that? It's the rest of the sentence I really want to zero in on. For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. We have to start to be able to tell the difference between a reasoned anger that can produce righteousness and what we do usually, which is an unreasoned emotional outburst, whether you're holding it in or screaming or yelling or however you deal with it. You know, some people, their answer to anger is, I just don't talk to you. It doesn't solve anything either. Most of what we do is so dysfunctional, and it's not what we're supposed to be as the children of God.

So, where does anger come from? Where does anger come from? Well, as I already mentioned, we have to understand, first of all, that anger is hotwired into our brains. It is a response to any number of stimuli. And of itself is not sin.

Paul said that we should be angry and sin not. Now there's the problem. He didn't say, never feel anger because it's not physically possible. But to be angry and sin not, there's what we have to learn. Because you can't ever not, you know, I'm just never going to feel anger again. Now we also have to realize, some of us, just in genetics, we handle anger differently. You ever be around somebody and they have a baby that's three months old, and that baby's throwing a temper tantrum? And you look at all the other babies that are three months old and they're not throwing a temper tantrum. And you say, oh, is this kid going to be a handful? Well, they get older, right? There is in this child's genetics something that they just don't handle anger very well. That doesn't excuse. I mean, that's like, say, well, okay, it's okay if you punch my son in the nose because you have a bad temper. And I understand. Now, that's not an excuse, but it is a reality. Some of us will have to deal with our anger in a more difficult way than others. But remember, just because someone is open with their anger doesn't mean, oh, good, I don't have a problem with open anger. It doesn't make yours any more better because it's damage in relationships. It's damage in a relationship between you and God can be just as dramatic. So, okay, there's a biological reason for anger. It's actually hot-wired into our brains. And some people are going to handle it differently just through personality. One of the main reasons we show anger is that because we experience a threat. Now, a threat to physical life, anger can be good. Fear and anger sometimes go together. This is why we don't pet mountain lions in the wild, right? This is good. But this is also why you can see a child getting attacked by a dog. You have all these stories about, you know, some 90-pound woman goes and takes a 150-pound dog and brings him down, right? The fear and the anger mingle together to protect the child.

So, anger is because of a threat that can be good or bad.

Here's our problem. You and I emotionally don't differentiate between a physical threat of the dog attacking the child and an attack on our well-being. So, you have someone who has a problem with anger and he gets fired from his job at McDonald's. He goes in the next day, I mean, we hear about this in the news all the time, and shoots his boss, right? And this rage and this anger because his well-being was attacked. He emotionally could not tell the difference between protecting a child from a dog and shooting his manager. And here's where we really... this gets really messy. Anger is a really messy thing. We get just as angry and can become just as violent when we believe that our self-image is attacked. So, someone calls you a liar. An angry response is not evil. I mean, someone accused you of something and it's not true. Someone accused you of stealing and it's not true. And your response is, I did not do that, right? You might be a little angry. You show it. I did not do that. I can prove I did not do that. That's wrong for you to say that.

Okay? That is a reasoned response. And you may be even showing some anger. Hitting them with a baseball bat is not a reasoned response. Okay? Now, the truth is that the line between the reasoned anger response and the unreasoned response is really thin. It's really thin. And remember, we will act emotionally, the same as if it was a physical threat to my reputation or a threat to how I feel about myself. And it gets really ugly then. It gets really messy. Also, anger comes just from our environment. And we need to understand this when it comes to children.

You as a parent, if you do your job, or as a grandparent, you're going to make them angry once in a while. No, you're only 14. You're not going to go out with those bunch of 21-year-olds. Okay? That 14-year-old doesn't understand because, boy, what's your problem? And they're angry. Okay. If you're a good parent, you're still going to say, I'm sorry you're angry, but you're not going.

But Paul also in Colossians says, and he warns fathers specifically, about provoking their children to wrath. It's one thing to have the immaturity of a child, you know, a five-year-old. Well, no, I'm not going to go to bed, and they're mad at you. I don't care if you're angry. You're going to go to bed, and you teach them about anger. You have a moment in time to teach them about anger, right? You use this as a teaching tool to help them to begin to work through anger. As I do with my grandkids all the time, you know, Eli took my toys. Okay, here's what I want you to do. No, I'm going to break his toys. No, here's what I want you to do. Okay, put your hands together and take a big breath.

Oh, don't take another one.

After a couple breaths with their hands held together, it's like, feel better now? Yeah. Okay, we now can have a reasoned discussion about your anger towards your sibling, and maybe they should be punished for taking your toys. But you know, going and smashing their toys is an unreasoned response. It is a human response, but it's not reasoned. And it's not what we're supposed to do as Christians. Since we have to deal with anger, we have to reason it. We have to reason through it. And we have to have God's principles and power to reason through it. That's why, as we go through this, to really deal with anger issues, we need the power of God's Spirit. We need the power of God's Spirit. Environment. You can... Okay, punishing children for moral issues or learning, as part of their learning, is not bad. Constantly punishing them, constantly putting them down, giving them nothing but negative input, will make an angry child. It will create an angry child.

We have to know the difference between anger that's coming because... Yeah, okay, you have a bad... You're having a bad response to what's right. Okay, that's just corrupt human nature here. So we're not... You know, you don't win this one. And beating a child into anger. I don't mean physically. Boy, you can physically be the child in anger. I mean, what is it like to be eight years old and have a big strong adult at three times your size beat you up, and you can't fight back? That child... That's God. An adult is like God to a child. That's why you can't take your fist and hit a child in the face. You can't do it.

environment can make us angry. But it says in Proverbs 22, and that's why, by the way, I think, yes, women can make their children angry. But it's interesting Paul specifically says to us men. Proverbs 22, 24. That means our relationship with our children has to be more than just negative. There has to be something else involved in that relationship. Something else than more than just even teaching. There has to be something that that child feels bonded to you and loves you and knows that you will. What's even more important, they know that you love them. Children are all about being loved before they can learn to love back. Proverbs 22, 24. We should be friends with everybody, right? That's not what it says here. Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man, do not go. If you have someone who is a friend who is angry all the time and violent all the time, and bitter all the time, and they won't take advice or help from anyone, there may be a point where you have to give up that friendship. But why? Well, here's what it says, lest you learn his ways and set a trap or a snare for your soul.

Anger is a funny thing. You ever be around an angry person, and pretty soon you start to feel angry? It's just like you can fill a room with people, and you put enough angry people in there, and you make everybody angry. There's something, an aura, energy that comes out of angry people, and it makes everybody else angry.

And so here, what we have are instructions. Okay, be careful here. You can actually set a trap for your own self-destruction. We also can have anger build up in us until it becomes almost our normal human state, our emotional state, is because of repeated negative experiences. You ever have a job where you have a person that you work with that just picks on you, that treats you badly, that makes you angry? And you live with it, you live with it, and then it's like every morning you get out of bed, and what is it? I gotta see so and so today. And you're already angry. But driving to work, you get madder and madder. All day at work, you're trying to avoid the person. You have to work with them. It's to the place where every time they walk in the room, your stomach does a flip-flop. And then they just keep piling it on. They just keep doing media stuff. Piling it on. They just keep doing mean things. It is wrong, wrong, wrong. So guess what happens? You're on the way home, and now you're the person who's shaking your fist at people as they go by. You're the person who's driving angrily. You're the person who goes home and screams and yells and kicks your dog.

Because you're taking your anger out in some way. Repeated anger. So I mean, I've talked to how many people over the years, oh yeah, Sunday night, before I know I got to go to work Monday morning, I start to get angry because I know I got to go work with this person. I hate it so much. I've seen husbands and wives never deal with their anger, and that anger has reached a point where they never even talk to each other. They hardly look at each other. They're two strangers in the same house. Because they have never dealt with this anger. Repeated negative experiences creates this anger. It becomes at the core of who we are. Fear causes anger. I touched on that. But now I want to go to a source of anger that you and I... No psychologist is going to tell you this. That you and I have to be extremely aware of this. And it's in Ephesians chapter 2.

Paul's writing to the church in Ephesus. So this is to us today too. We could just be these people, and he'd be writing directly to us. And you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins.

We were dead, lost, till God came along and he called us, and we realized that he sacrificed his son for us, and Christ resurrected, went back to heaven with the Father, and here God's now working in our lives. In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. Now that's Satan. Satan. This is Satan's world. God's allowed him to have this world for a while. Christ can come back and he's going to take it away from him. But for right now, it's his world. God acts with individuals and deals with people here and there throughout this world. But he says here, remember, there was a time when you were influenced by Satan.

The spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, verse 3, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature. What's it look at this? By nature, by who we were. It was just part of our mental DNA, if you will, or emotional DNA. You were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Satan is a being that is absolutely consumed with anger. It is who he is. Anger and violence motivates him. Hatred motivates him. And what we have to understand is when we cross that line of reasoned anger, and we become more and more controlled by the anger, more and more controlled by the emotion, he likes that kind of company. Now he doesn't come possess us, but I tell you what he will do. He'll throw gasoline on the fire.

You have to understand this is his state of mind. And when you and I move into that state of mind, he will energize it.

That's one reason why you'll hear people talk about, oh, I get so angry I just lost control. Who had control? Satan's not possessing us. We can stop this. But you have to understand we cannot minimize—and we'll talk about this in a minute, a few minutes, because it's in another scripture—we cannot minimize the influence you'll have on us when we're in that state.

So see how important this whole subject of anger is? So you can't not have it. So we better learn what we're supposed to do with it. I already talked about some of the wrong ways of dealing with anger. It's interesting, the psychologists call it uncontrolled ventilation. In other words, you just explode. So what they'll say to do is go get a punching bag. So when you're really angry, just go beat up the punching bag. Actually, if you have a difficulty with losing your temper—I mean, just losing it, hollering and screaming at people, shoving people, whatever—you know, that's not a bad thing to do. But remember, that's just behavioral modification. You've just taken one behavior and moved it to something else. And until you learn to get control of it, it's probably not a bad thing.

Anger has to be dissipated. That's why it's so important to be able, in any situation, to be honest. I am angry is an honest statement. That is not a sin. Because you can be angry and not sin. I am angry and I need some time here. That's a mature statement.

That's why sometimes, you know, people say, let me go for a walk. Let me go jog a little bit. Let me go punch the bag. Okay. Let me dissipate the chemical reactions in me so that I may move more towards a reasoned response. That is mature. So even though, you know, controlled ventilation is in some ways can be just a, okay, you don't change your real, you don't change who you are, you just change your behavior. There is some truth to that. There is some truth to take and dissipate your anger, the chemicals that are happening, so that now you can actually reason. So, you know, don't be, don't fear honesty. Like, I'm angry here. Let me have a minute. I'm angry here. We'll talk about this later. As long as you go back and talk about it. You can't say, oh, I'm angry. I'll talk about later and then never, never talk about it. Because you know what? You're not dealing with your anger. You're actually probably now dealing with fear. I don't want to go back and talk about it. So I'll just ignore it. That's not mature either. So, we have to recognize we all have these mechanisms that don't work. Like I said, repressing anger. You know what long-term repressed anger produces? Anybody have any idea? It produces another state of mind, another emotion. Long-term repressed anger. It's actually in the Bible. Let's go to Jonah. You know the story of Jonah.

Jonah is sent to tell the people of Nineveh that if they don't repent, God is going to punish them. He wants them punished. He's happy to see them punished. And then they go through this repentance and God says, okay, I'm not going to punish you.

And he can't believe that. How unfair this is. These people are rotten people. I mean, these people are pagans. These people aren't the worshipers of the true God. And they just make a few changes in their lives and God's going to say, okay, I will not destroy you at this point. And in this, he becomes extremely depressed.

Verse 3, therefore now, O Lord, this is of chapter 4 of Jonah, verse 3, therefore now, O Lord, please take my life for me, for it is better for me to die than to live. Now, I've talked about depression and so forth and how depression can come from a lot of different areas. So depression is so difficult to work out. Because all of us, when we have depression, it can come from a lot of different ways, just like anger. Anger can come from a lot of different areas of life. We're talking about a specific one here. He's depressed so much, he wants God to let him die. I just have no purpose anymore. I don't want to live anymore. Now, you think God's answer would be, well, why are you so down? But look what God's response is in verse 4. Then the Lord said, is it right for you to be angry? You're so mad that this isn't working out the way you want. And you've just, anger is just so you just, requested in you that now you're coming to God and saying, oh God, just let me die. I hate life so much. Why? Because you don't punish these people, okay? Why are you so angry? Repressed anger causes depression. We can be angry over all kinds of things and feel like we shouldn't be angry, feel ashamed because we're angry, know that maybe our anger is a little bit unreasoned. Or in some cases, we're angry because of things that have happened to us or things people have done to us. We could be angry because someone really mistreated you or abused you and you can't do anything about it. It's so difficult dealing with people who have been through extreme abuse and the person who abused them died. And then they're just angry. I can't deal with this. I can never solve it. I can't take care of it. The person died.

And you have to help them try to work through letting go of the anger and the depression and becoming a healthy human being with God's help. I'm sorry, psychology isn't enough, folks. Not to where God wants to take you. And there's certain parts and issues in most psychology or many... there's so many schools of psychology that are actually anti-biblical. Then there's elements that aren't. It's hard to sort through that. The thing is, we can just look at what the Bible says on this issue. And we begin to begin to understand how we can deal with this. So if the wrath of man is the unrighteousness of God, okay, so what is righteous anger? So we know what unrighteous anger is. That's what we most... you and I feel most of the time. It doesn't produce much good. So okay, what is righteous anger? How can we break this down and say, what is anger that is good? Because you can have anger and sin not. Well, let's go to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4.

Now we mentioned this verse, but I want to look at... there's a couple little gems here that it's easy to overlook because everybody sort of memorized the first part of the verse.

Ephesians 4 verse 26.

The angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. You know what that really means is that anger must be short-lived.

You can't let anger sit inside of you.

You can't become obsessed. You ever... you know, somebody does something wrong to you, and you can become obsessed with it. That's all you think about. You become obsessed with... somebody says something mean to you today, and you don't sleep well tonight because you're obsessed with it. You're upset. You complain to your husband or wife about it. Sunday, you're still upset. You're mad. You're angry. You call your best friend. You tell your best friend about it. And you just can't get out of your mind. So you don't sleep well Sunday night. You gotta work on Monday. You don't feel good about it. You're upset. You're just angry, and the anger gets worse. Somewhere around Tuesday or Wednesday, you're sick. Ever notice that?

You're breaking down. Maybe now you're sort of getting... having arguments with your spouse. There's a breakdown on all levels of life. What he's saying here is there are times... he does say you don't go back to it, but there's times you have to take an anger, and you have to set it aside and say, no, I'm not going to obsess on that. You're just not going to obsess on it. We set it aside, and we do something else. Now you might go back to it. Sometimes you can't always set everything aside either. That's denial. That's denial. Oh no, that never happened. Well, yeah, it did. And it made me feel angry, so I'm a bad person. No, everybody who's healthy, emotionally healthy, would have felt angry at that point. Okay, then what do I do with it? I don't know. Maybe we need to set it aside, think about it. Maybe do something you really like to do. Disengage from it for a while. Come back to it when maybe you can reason through it a little more. A little better. With God's help. I keep going back to God on this. We can modify behavior, and God doesn't care. What he wants is the change of heart that goes with the change of behavior. He wants both. He wants both. Okay, sometimes you've got to set it aside. Anger isn't something that you just in anger all the time. You try to resolve things. The problem in life is you can be angry over something and it'll never be resolved in this life. That's reality. And part of being able to spiritually grow is to be able to accept that there's parts of things that have happened to you that are not going to be solved in this life. And holding that anger is robbing you every day of happiness. Holding onto that anger is robbing you every day of fully experiencing the fruits of the Spirit. Peace, joy, long suffering, mercy, gentleness, faith, self-control. Oh, you're losing out on the full meaning of that fruit because of the anger you won't let go of. Anger actually becomes part of our identity of who we are. I'm angry because this happened to me. I'm angry because of this. I'm angry because of that. And there's a point you say, no, that's not who I am. And there's this, we move forward in our relationship with God. Look at the next verse. Do not let the sun go down your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Sometimes we just forget Satan exists. A few minutes ago I mentioned that we'd come back to the idea that Satan's involved in our wrath. We go beyond that reason line. We become more and more controlled by that emotion. There's a point where somehow we're in tune with him. He's actually involved in our anger. He feeds it. And it gets harder and harder to respond to God. So we have to really recognize the spiritual element of anger and how we deal with anger.

So it can be manipulated by Satan.

Righteous anger has a moral element to it. What do you mean by that? Remember when abortion made you angry? Remember?

Now you'll get more angry over a bad call at a basketball game than you will over abortion.

I do not believe the bad call at a basketball game is a moral issue. It's just your favorite team.

And so we lose the things what God is angry at. Go study what God says he's angry at. You'll find there's always a very good moral reason he's angry. And his response is always measured. Now this is where people say, well, God, no, that's not true. God's cruel. Okay? He killed all those people in Sodom. That's true. He did. They passed the line so far that he killed them. How many people do you think in the history of humanity have lived past that line?

Just about everybody. Has God gone around killing everybody? No?

There's a reason for his anger that if you hate evil, there's a reason for it. And there's a measured response. When Jesus Christ comes back, the world is going to be a rebellion against God. The whole world, except for the people that have responded to him. But it's going to be a minority of people. We know that from the Scripture. Does Jesus Christ kill everybody on the earth? No. Who's he killed? Because it says he's angry. He brings the wrath of God. The people who are trying to kill him, of course they can't kill him, they don't realize that, but the people who come out, the fight against him. The armies that comes to fight against him, he kills them. Does he kill everybody else? No. It's a measured response, a measured response to the absolute moral depravity of these people.

When you start looking at what God makes God angry, much of the time you know what he's angry at, how we treat each other. And then the other thing he's angry at is when he reveals himself to us, and we spit in his face, here's Almighty God. And he says, look, just don't worship idols.

But you know what? You look at ancient Israel, how many times did they worship idols, and he didn't punish them is what's amazing. We look at the time he punished, times he punished them, and we forget all the times he said, just stop this. Don't do this. Stop this. Don't. Okay, this prophet's going to tell you not to do it. Okay, you killed him. I'm going to send you another prophet. Okay, just stop this. We forget all this time of this measured response that says, I'm really angry with this. Come on, children, stop. And okay, you've crossed the line so far, I will punish you. He's never out of control. It's never a lost emotional response, where he loses it. Never happens. But I sure would want to face his anger, because it is measured. It is thought out. It is the right thing to do. When he does something in anger, it is the right thing to do. So we have to understand that there's a moral principle. That's why anger is so deceptive.

No, I'm angry because you didn't say you were sorry. Okay. The person should have said they were sorry. Yes. The person treated you wrong. Yes. You're angry. Yes. That's okay.

But guess what? They're not going to say they're sorry. So now what you've done is you've decided that their response is more happy than your well-being. Their response, your control over their response, is more important than your own happiness. Because you can't be happy when you're angry. So if I don't get the response, then I'm going to stay mad at you. Oh.

I mean, when you put it that way, it seems sort of silly, doesn't it?

I'm like, you won't say you're sorry. I'm going to be miserable.

It's so deceptive. Anger really loses reason after a while. And that's when it's so frightening. That's why a person who is righteous anger gets angry at situations. They're not angry all the time.

Yes. You know, we talk about short-lived. Someone would go back to traffic, because I guess everybody I talk to gets angry in traffic, and they say, I think I'm sinning. And I say, why? If someone cuts you off, and they're driving crazily, and they're shaking their fist at you, or telling your number one, you know, hey, you're number one. That's what I always think. You're going to feel angry. At that point, you haven't sinned. That's that self-defense mechanism that says, we better get some adrenaline going. I mean, actually, your reaction time has just gone up. That's why you stepped into brakes and did not have an accident. Your anger actually protected you. Now, what do you do? I have to admit, sometimes my first thought is, God, never mind.

Because I don't want that to come out.

And then it's something like, help that person not to get killed, right?

Because I want to let go of the anger. I don't know who that person is, and maybe they argue they're going to get killed up the road. But I can't let that person control who I am. I don't do that all the time. You know, anger is something you really struggle with, but you have to learn to reason it out. Let that one go. Turn on the radio and sing a song. You know. But let it go. Or you know what happens? You're the guy riding somebody's bumper. You're the guy that's shaking your fist at somebody you go by. You become angry yourself. Now who's sinning? Now who's sinning? Look at Proverbs 19.19.

There are brilliant bits of wisdom that are in Proverbs. A man of great wrath will suffer punishment. For if you rescue him, you will have to do it again. You know, a guy's going to get in a fight 50 times. There's a reason why his friend says, hey, you're on your own. You're on your own. We're not going to rescue you anymore. We hear the word, and we're going to get out of here. We're going to get out of here. We're going to get out of here. We're going to get out of here. We're going to get out of here. We have to be angry at situations. A person who just gets angry all the time is in the middle of conflict all the time. So if we're angry with... Now think about this, okay, I have short-lived anger. That's my goal. I have short-lived anger, not being controlled by Satan. It is to have a moral principle involved. It is to be angry at situations. Then, okay, how do I respond in anger? Our normal response is a very negative response. And one of my favorite passages, because it's so opposite of me, on this, is in Mark 3. Mark 3.

So Jesus enters the synagogue. Verse 1. Mark 3, verse 1. And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand. So they watched Him closely whether He would heal them on the Sabbath so that they might accuse Him. Now you think about how terrible this situation is. He goes into the synagogue. Everybody's worshiping on the Sabbath. Jesus is there to worship God. And there's a man who has a withered hand. He can't use it. Maybe it's painful. He can't grab things. He can't... I mean, that's terrible to have a withered hand. It's all gnarled up.

And they're watching Him, these few religious leaders, mainly the Pharisees here in this case. The Pharisees are watching Him. And it's like, let Him go ahead and heal this man. And what He does, we'll say, look, He's working on the Sabbath. This man doesn't believe in the Sabbath. How can He be your teacher? And we'll really put Him down in front of everybody. What's interesting here is, remember I said we get angry over our own self-image? Jesus didn't need to have His self-image protected? I mean, He's God. What do I have to protect here? So His reaction is towards a moral issue and a specific...or has a moral issue in a specific situation. He says, and He said to the man who had the withered hand step forward. Then He said to them, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to evil, to save life or to kill? Now, how are they going to answer that? It's such a loaded question. Should you do good on the Sabbath? Yes. Should you do evil? No. Should you save life on the Sabbath? Yes. Should you kill? No. Let's see. I'm about to do good and save life. I mean, it's...they're silent because He's got them trapped. And these aren't stupid people. It's like, oh, if we answer that question, He can heal the man. Verse 5, And when He had looked around them with anger...how did Mark know he was angry? Everybody there, as this story was passed on, was, oh boy, the look in his eyes, his voice changed. He showed anger. He felt anger, different than the anger he felt in heaven because now he's feeling anger as a human being. He feels anger. He shows anger. He's not out of control, though. This is all reasoned. And then he does exactly what I would have done. And he tells them to put out their hands, and he withers all their hands. Because that's exactly what I would have done. Whereas someone else told me, you know what would have been great? Hold out your hands. And he withered all their hands. And while they're in pain and looking at him and crying out, saying, oh, no, no, I can heal you, but it's the Sabbath. Yes, that's what I would do. He turns to the man. He says he's grieved by the hardness of their hearts. And he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out his hand, and it was restored as whole as the other. His anger was funneled into a positive reaction. That is teaching us something right there. That's way beyond me, but that's what we're hearing. What's really interesting is what was the Pharisees' response. Verse 6, Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against him that they may destroy him. Their anger was so much that he had put them down. They were so offended, so angry, that they went out and said, we've got to kill this man. We've got to kill him. Anger leads to hatred real quickly. It moves into hatred very quickly. The difference between response to anger is not that Jesus didn't have it. It's what he did with it. And that's why righteous anger will not produce depression. It will not produce a self-destructive mindset. It will not produce a self-destructive mindset. Unrighteous anger will.

But righteous anger doesn't produce depression or self-destructive mindset. Now, let me say this. Anger over a moral principle can cause sadness. You can be angry over abortion and realize you have no power to stop it. And it can make you sad. But it doesn't make you self-destructive. You see the difference? You see the difference? Righteous anger can produce sadness. It will not produce a desire for self-destruction. Where unbridled or dealt with anger that's not dealt with properly, then can cause us to run self-destruction because the mind can't deal with the stress that we put it under. So let me wrap this up with seven quick points. These are very quick points because these are things now you have to do on how to respond to anger. I mean, this is a huge subject. So what I'm giving you, I hope, is the ability now to do an in-depth Bible study on this subject. First, we must recognize that most of the anger we experience is actually destructive to ourselves and to others. It's actually not good. Proverbs 27 verse 3. Proverbs 27 verse 3.

I love the imagery of this. A stone is heavy and sand is weighty. What if you had a big stone that weighed 50 pounds and you had to put it on one shoulder, and then you have a big stone and now a big bag of sand. What's amazing about sand is how heavy it is. It doesn't take much of a bag to weigh 50 pounds. So you put a hundred pounds of rock on this shoulder and a hundred pound bag of sand on this shoulder. Well, most of us couldn't even take a step, right? Most of us would be sinking down to our knees. This would just be crushing us. So he uses his imagery. A stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than both of them. You've got to pick up both of these things and put them on you. The point here is, it crushes you. This is what a fool in Hebrew simply means someone who's not wise. In Greek, it could mean someone who is worthless. That's why Jesus said, don't call anybody a fool. What He means there with the Greek word means don't call somebody absolutely worthless. You have no purpose or worth to even to God. We don't have the right to say that. But what a fool means here is you're just not wise. This person does stupid things. You say, well, how could you say that? Because that's what it means. And this poor person that does stupid things is angry all the time. So we have to remember this, that most of our anger is self-destructive. And that means the second point is you have to take your anger to God. If you're one of those people that you get mad and you stay mad, and then you need to take it to God. If you're one of those people who gets mad and there's a flurry of anger and then it goes away, you need to take it to God. If you're the type of person who just denies your anger and pretends it's not there until you get sick, you need to take it to God. If you're the person who schemes to get people back and takes out your anger that way, you need to take it to God.

You need to take your anger to God and ask God to help you with His Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long, suffering, mercy, gentleness, faith. This is self-control. These are all the things that we have to have, and anger keeps us from having any of those. Think about it. Anger will resist or keep us from having any of the fruits of God's Spirit. Wrong anger will. Not proper anger, but wrong anger will. That means, and this is number three, we have to deal with anger by taking a step back. Why am I angry and what is my response? You know what happens when you literally can do this? It's not that important.

A few days after Christmas, in the middle of the night, about midnight, about midnight, there's glowing fire back by my backyard. I've found all the neighbors' houses on fire. There's noise. There's a generator noise. I go out to look. I look out the window. And there's three guys out there, and it's really cold. So they're all bundled up. They get all the lights on in the garage. They have a generator going, and they have a big round pot where they're burning the Christmas tree at midnight. Okay. Now, I have to admit, there was a time in my life I had probably run out there, and what are you guys doing? Which is not good to do in its nine degrees and you're in your underwear. See, you do stupid things when you're angry, right?

And Kim goes, what's going on? I said, they're burning the Christmas tree.

At midnight? Yeah.

Okay. And we just let it go. We went to bed. We let it go. So what? Who cares?

I get to live next to these people. It's not worth creating the controversy. Now, some things there might be, but this wasn't worth it. That's what happens when you can step back. Now, for 30 seconds, you know, fortunately, I've grown a little in life and I didn't run out in nine degrees in my underwear. Someone told me today that they did one time run out outside angry with somebody because it was the middle of the night and they'd been half asleep and they realized that when they got out there, they didn't have any clothes on, but their underwear, you know. But that's what anger does. You know, it picks the fight that you know, uh-oh, I can't win this. And then you're not angry anymore. And it's too late because the people you pick the fight with, they're all angry. It's a reason response and you have to think it through. Now, that means what we have to do, take the step back, you have to spend time not when you're angry, but later, you know, how should I deal with anger? You have to meditate on what the Bible says about anger and how you should handle it so that you can have a more positive response. How should I handle this? Okay, if this happens again, what should I do? If this happens again, what should I do? You know, you have that situation at work where this person is always bugging you or this is happening or that's happening, or your wife or your husband. Okay, my wife does this and she makes me mad and they handle it this way and I shouldn't. Or vice versa. My husband makes me mad. I handle this. Or your child. My child makes me mad and I just get angry. My teenager just makes me angry. Or the teenager says, my parents just make me angry. They drive me crazy. Okay, wait a minute, step back. What if you handled that differently? What if you handled that differently? You know how you're going to handle it differently? You're going to think about, why am I mad? How do I handle it?

Why am I mad? And how do I handle it? And you're going to have to think through your mind almost like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to do. And you know what happens the next time it happens? You do it wrong again. But over time, you change because, no, I don't want to handle it that way. I want to handle it this way. And maybe there's some point you go to mom and dad and say, you know what? I've been trying not to lose my temper when you do such and such, but that really makes me angry. It is not dishonest or wrong or disrespectful to say that made me angry. But I'm going to try not to scream and holler next time. But how do we reason it out? You know, it's like I've been telling my kids and my husband to take the dishes and put them in a dishwasher for six months. And I've been telling them and telling them and telling them and telling them. And one night they hear all this crashing. They go out and you're taking all the dishes and smashing them on the floor. What are you doing? I told you not to do this, to put them in the dishwasher. Now I'll see what you've done. And they're looking at you like, we've done. You've just smashed all our dishes.

See that thin line between reason and unreasoned response? You know, when you're laughing, it's like, oh, I could see. Yeah, that could happen. Yeah, you can see what I mean. We know that there's such a thin line there. God wants us to stay on the reasoned side of anger, not the unreason side. Besides, then you have to go buy all new dishes. And they probably won't put them in the dishwasher anyways.

So you have to think through, what can I do? Because sometimes you respond differently, and it causes the people that you're having conflict with to respond differently to you. I remember hearing my daughter tell my other daughter, my one daughter was real stubborn, and she told her, look, just don't argue with them. You'll probably get your way anyway. I think they answered a pushover, you know, and I remember hearing this, you know, just don't argue with them. Just talk to him.

You're just too stubborn. I thought, you know, she's probably right. She would get her way more often if she wouldn't argue with me. So think about this. Meditate on what makes you angry and how you deal with it. And then think about your mind, how can I deal with this differently? The other thing is you have to learn to forgive, and that's number five. Our last scripture here is in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4. We just read, you know, a couple of verses about being angry in sin, verse 26 and 27. Let's go down to verse 30.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit. I've always found that to be an amazing little statement. You know, when God gives us His Spirit and it flows out from Him into us, His mind and His love and His power comes into us, what goes back to Him? Us. And at times that grieves Him. Think about that. It grieves God what comes back to Him from us. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, which means grumping and griping and complaining and conflict and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenor-hearted, forgiving one another even as God in Christ forgave you. You look at that list, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, malice. That's all that we're talking about here as part of anger. Just put this stuff away. Replace it with something else. And the only way that's going to happen is when we forgive. Now, forgiveness is a whole other subject. I'm not going to go into detail there because we misunderstand forgiveness, too. Forgiveness doesn't mean people get away with things.

In the simple context of what we're talking about here, forgiveness means I'm not going to be angry so that you can control me anymore. You don't control me anymore. I have no malice toward you anymore.

It doesn't make them right. It doesn't justify what they did. It doesn't erase the penalty God may put upon them. It doesn't even mean you have to have a relationship with them. It means you're not going to hate them. Because the hate doesn't destroy them. Guess who the hate destroys? You.

The anger doesn't destroy them. They may be a person who doesn't even care you're angry at. So it just makes you more angry. And you're real... it's not doing anything. It's destroying you. So we have to learn the whole concept of forgiveness, which is huge. Six, sometimes get support. Somebody you can talk to to help you through your anger. Work with you, maybe a counselor or a friend. If it's a friend, make sure it's somebody who will pull punches that will admonish you. Make sure it's somebody who will admonish you. Lost my temper with my wife. Ask because you're a jerk. That's probably a good friend. Hey, that's probably a good friend. You know, you got a good wife. What's your problem?

And seven, realize this. It took you years of trying to deal with your own biological issues and behavior that's in our brain, of Satan influencing you, of bad negative things happening to you, of all the stuff that's created whatever how you deal with anger wrong. It's taking you years to get there. God's not going to fix it in 24 hours. But he will help you get through it. He will help you overcome it. He will help you change. But it's not so easy. Wouldn't it be nice? Give me the shot. Give me the anger shot. Oh, there, I'm cured. This is a spiritual disease that an anger shot doesn't fix. God's spirit in us and our submission so that the mind of Christ is developed in us. That's the only thing that will solve it. That's the only thing. Or behavioral modification, which some good psychologists could teach you.

But the change of nature comes from God and our submission to God. And being honest about ourselves, being honest about our anger, being honest about who we are, and being honest about what we need to do, and be honest about that fine line we cross all the time between reason anger and unreason anger. Remember, we all experience anger. And remember, it takes God's spirit to help us get over that, to work with it.

And if we do this and we submit to God's direction, we apply these principles, and we struggle with it. But eventually we will learn the command from the Apostle Paul when he said, Be angry and sin not.