Anger and Self Control

Here is the auto transcript from this week’s sermon on the Anger: Abstinence is not deliverance

So a couple of housekeeping announcements for you.

You'll notice out in the lobby, and we're going to be doing this all the way through next weekend, we have a cart for food donations.

One of the things we do every year is as we clean out our home and we clean out our pantries and we're looking to get rid of the leaven, we also recognize the commandment to not glean the corners of your fields.

Obviously we're not farmers.

I don't believe anybody in this room is a farmer.

And so we're not out there leaving corn or peas or lemongrass or whatever it is that you farm in the corners of the field for those who are homeless, for those who are less fortunate.

And so during this season, we like to bring any of the items that we're going to be getting rid of and/or just items that maybe you can purchase and then put it there that we can donate to those who are less fortunate and keep the precept and the parable of the feast and doing well and good by others who have less than us alive in what we do in practice.

As well as we're giving to those who are less fortunate, we also have to do in moderation, not gladness, we're doing a matzo bark fundraiser.

And so anytime you take matzo and you load it up with chocolate and you sprinkle a little sea salt on it, it helps make the matzo a little bit more enjoyable during unleavened bread.

It's like saltines that have been left out for days upon days upon days with not as much salt.

So the youth are raising funds for youth camps this year.

So the matzo bark is $10 per pound and they're going to be getting together this weekend and actually fulfilling all of those orders, making it, getting it all ready.

So if you haven't already, you can order that online or you can see Sarah or Farrah and then they will be delivering that next week here at service.

Last night we had a phenomenal time with the Oklahoma City Passover.

And so for all of those who came out, not only to be a part of the event, but to also volunteer and help us, I think we had almost as many volunteers helping set up and tear down as we had actual people in attendance for the first time ever.

And as the gentleman who's normally here with his family until the very last moment of the evening, getting to leave at nine o'clock was huge.

So thank you for that.

Makes it a little bit easier to stand up here this morning on my fourth cup of coffee and act like I'm not getting old.

So thank you to all who came out last night.

The Oklahoma City Passover is one of our greatest outreaches in the city to teach people about Jesus and the Passover.

Today we're going to continue on with anger, something that nobody in this church has ever wrestled with.

Right?

Okay, so Crystal's never wrestled with it.

At least we have one person who is the expert on not wrestling with anger.

Anger is a reaction and a distraction from deep inner suffering.

It's caused by sadness, shame, anxiety, inadequacy, isolation, and the feeling of lacking control.

It can be an outgrowth from intense pain and depression.

I read that definition this week and I actually put together a couple of definitions and I was like, "Man, normally you just think of anger as being this raw emotion that happens."

But the reality is that anger comes from deep inward issues that we have.

Anger is such a raw, enraged-like emotion because of the intense pain, depression, and struggle that we're wrestling with.

It's really not about the other person.

Anger is really about yourself.

And so when I think back to my short time on this earth and I remember some of the moments of my life where I wrestled with anger the most, and I would always justify anger and the feeling of rage as the letdown of another individual.

A person or a place or a thing let us down.

And by being let down, I felt justified in my emotional response to those individuals.

We see that all the time when it comes to consumers.

If you go to a restaurant and you pay for something, you have an expectation.

If you feel that they let you down, you have an emotional response.

But a lot of times, our expectation is the reason why we feel let down.

We have a misplaced expectation on something.

For example, I no longer have the misplaced expectation that my fries from McDonald's are going to be edible.

So if I buy fries from McDonald's and they're not edible, I'm not angry, I'm not let down.

My expectation is in line with what I paid for.

Now if I were to go to Frida's Southwest up in the district where they have beef empanadas and they have all these wonderful foods and it's all made by hand, and I were to pay for that and the food were to be bad, okay, well maybe I could be angry or I could have an emotional response to that.

But our daily life, most of us are not going to five-star restaurants, we're not watching five-star movies, we're not living this life of luxury.

So what we pay for, what we go and do, we shouldn't have that expectation that the burger is going to be fantastic.

We shouldn't have the expectation that our cell phone coverage is going to be phenomenal.

We shouldn't have the expectation that the power grid isn't going to go down.

The reality is, is if we step back and we look at what's around us, we know the power grid is old.

We know that cell phone towers are constantly needing to be upgraded.

We know that all these things are works in progress.

Okay, look around the room.

I'd like to introduce you to works in progress.

You're already staring at one, so we're just going to make this a family gathering here rather than y'all judging me.

Like, I already told you, you can judge me, I'm a work in progress.

Anger is also something that I'm a work in progress on.

You see, anger allows me to feel justified in misplaced expectations.

I had a higher expectation that you would do this, or you would provide this.

And when you don't do that, rather than looking at my own inadequacies as a leader, as a shepherd, as a father, I can make it your problem.

I can project it onto you.

Oh, that sounds like maybe I'm placing a higher value on my own thought process.

Oh wait, that's pride.

Oh, well maybe I'm thinking more of myself and what I want to obtain and what I expect.

Oh wait, there's elements of greed there.

Oh wait, so all the seven deadly sins are all interconnected with each other.

Yes.

They're all interconnected with each other.

And so when you look at somebody and you say, "Oh, I know that this person is wrestling with this," great, you identified their greatest wrestle.

But underneath that greatest wrestle are multiple other wrestles that are there.

It is easier for us to just be angry with someone than to tell them that they hurt you.

Why do I say that?

Because church hurt and trauma drama is real.

It's one of the most talked about things.

And in our church hurt, in our trauma drama, we get angry with the church, we get angry with God, we say we don't need to go to service anymore, we don't need a community, we don't need fellowship, we're just going to watch somebody online because they can't hurt us, we're just going to use our mind, we're no longer going to use our heart.

And we continue to cycle in trauma drama.

And then we guilt tilt.

Hmm.

You're doing what?

You're going where?

Hmm.

We create all of these things that are really just fortresses around our heart and around our life to protect us from more hurt, more guilt, more shame, more condemnation.

Yet the Bible tells us that we are to open up our heart, we're to be transparent in our relationship and our love, and we're to love others even when we cannot control.

And as long as we seek to control our life, then we'll wrestle with disappointment, with anxiety, shame, guilt, fear, and all the other things that come with the fact that we were never intended to be 100% correct, and we will fail.

Steve Jobs is one of the individuals that I like to look at when it comes to worldly influences, business, that type of stuff.

Because he talks about he never had the expectation that he wasn't going to fail.

He knew he was going to fail.

But if he could find that one success in those failures, that that one success would surpass all those who said, "Well, I'm going to wait until I get it perfect because I don't want to fail.

So I'm going to get it perfect, and once I get it perfect, then I'll execute it."

And they spend their whole life never actually doing anything.

Whereas Steve Jobs would spend his whole life tinkering and failing and tinkering and failing and tinkering and failing, and all of a sudden, one miraculous thing would come, and it would revolutionize the world.

It would allow me to not use a binder like Brent and preach on a stage.

It would allow us to be able to take what used to be these big honking computers and in a device this big or smaller, it's this big because I'm getting older, but even in smaller at your fingertips have access to all kinds of data, all kinds of information.

We live in a day and age where anything that's said from the pulpit can be immediately fact checked from the pew.

It forces us to open ourself up.

I know Ian's down here on his phone.

He's like, "Trust me.

I have AI open."

He's telling me whether you're right or wrong.

That's okay.

The question is, does it know Hebrew?

Because if AI can't translate Hebrew, then I'm still right.

Remember that God tells us that we're to relinquish this control of our life so that we can die daily so that He can become alive in us.

That's true power.

That's true might.

An overindulgence of our self, our thought processes, and material possessions are not a fruit of the Spirit.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.

We thank you for the opportunity to come together.

We thank you for the opportunity to serve this city in the Passover Seder last night.

Lord, we lift up those who are hurting today.

We lift up Stephen and the doctors, Lord.

We lift up Michelle and her father and the surgery he'll be having today.

Lord, we lift up Sherry Spear as she transitions into this new phase of her life, Lord.

Just lead her, guide her, bless her, Lord, as she's been such a blessing to us.

And for all of those, Lord, who have unspoken prayer requests, we ask that you would meet their needs, Lord, that you would raise them up on wings like eagles.

We love you, Lord, and we give you all the honor and the glory in this place.

In the name of Jesus, amen and amen.

Proverbs 14, 17, "People with a hot temper do foolish things, yet wiser people remain calm."

Anybody in this room know anybody with a temper?

Anybody know anybody who's a rage monster?

Fumbles with things?

Trolling?

I didn't ask you to tell on yourself, brother.

But you're good at that.

Like, you're just like, "Hey, man, I'm wrestling with that."

That's the transparency I love.

Brothers can do those things together.

Psalm 37, 8, "Don't give in to worry or anger.

It only leads to trouble."

And Ephesians 4, 31 through 32, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you."

Anger and wrath are a water slide to other emotional responses.

They quickly lead you down a path that will spiral into other problems.

You can take a very small problem like, "I'm running late."

The reality is, is what really happens when you're running late?

Nothing.

And I use this because this is a pet peeve of mine.

I like to be on time.

I expect you to be on time as well.

But the reality is, is if you show up one minute late, what's really the big deal?

Really not.

It's not really a big deal.

Like, the world's not going to come to an end.

You know, the democracy of the United States of America is not going to fall.

Your relationship in your marriage is not going to crumble.

One minute is not a big deal.

However, when you get angry over that one minute, now you have a problem and you spiral.

And not only was I angry that you were a minute late, I was angry that you didn't show me respect four months ago.

And I was also angry that you didn't give me a gift seven months before that.

And little by little, anger lights a fire of pride and ego and gluttonous thoughts and greed inside your heart and inside your mind.

It gives credence to things that really weren't an issue that we then manifest and make into an issue.

One that only not lives in the past, but it can grow into the present and even dictate the future.

So today, I get angry with you for something and there's no resolution to it.

It's not going to go away.

The next time I see you and the next time you disappoint me, it's going to grow.

And now, we're not talking about something that happens two weeks from now.

We're talking about something that happens two weeks from now reminds me of the 40 things that happened over the last three years.

The irony of that is that I'm placing a higher interest of my own emotional response to this than what I might have actually done to you in the same weights and measures.

The Bible says we're going to use equal weights and measures.

But I'm placing a higher importance on my emotional response to you.

It doesn't sound like wisdom to me.

It sounds like a fool.

And it sounds like I'm operating with more judgment than I am in grace and mercy.

And yet every day I ask the Lord for more grace and more mercy.

I should also afford that to my brothers and sisters as we do that.

Many people who have been hurt react out of anger, the anger that clouds their ability to function properly in their calling.

When you're angry with somebody, you're not properly operating in your calling.

Everybody in this room has a calling.

Ephesians 2 tells us that before you were born, you were given a calling.

You were given a gift.

You were given a path that you should choose to walk in.

And when we walk in anger, whether it's anger of self or anger of another person, we're not walking in that calling.

Because it stunts the ceiling of what the Lord can do.

Again, I went back and looked this week just to verify, because I'm not an expert, but anger is not a fruit of the Spirit.

Or is it?

It is a fruit of the Spirit.

It's just not a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

And so we say, "Well, I didn't want to get angry, but they did this to me."

Yeah, but you still had the choice on how you chose to interact with that.

You had the choice whether you leveled grace, mercy, or you gave somebody else the power to commit an offense to you.

Most offenses we have, guys, let's just be honest, they're not big.

We read through the testimonies of the Bible and we see Pharaoh killing all the Hebrew baby males, the firstborn.

That's a pretty big offense.

As I look around this room, I don't see anybody who's murdered babies.

Okay, so you didn't say hi to somebody at service.

Is that equal to Pharaoh murdering babies?

No.

Okay.

Did anybody pick up a rock and kill their brother or sister recently?

During your life?

Lifetime?

Okay, is that equal to somebody not saying hi to you at service?

Okay, all right, awesome.

All right, see where I'm going with this?

When we read about the testimonies of things that happen throughout Scripture, there's some really bad things that happen.

And that's just in the Bible.

When we look around the perversion of the world in the United States of America, we know that there are some really horrific things that are happening on a regular basis.

But we get angry and we get sideways with each other for simple things.

There's too much haze in the room.

Chris has a man bun.

You laugh.

Somebody was very angry with a post on YouTube on a video, told me to cut my hair.

Why does that matter?

I like Riley's hair.

I wouldn't look good in that haircut, but why does it matter?

Does it matter?

No, it doesn't matter.

But these are things we interact with on a regular basis.

And we get angry and we use emotional reactions to them.

And then we justify ourselves why we're okay to do so.

But these are all small things.

They're nuances in life.

They should not be what splits the body of Christ apart from each other.

But we allow those things to creep in.

And we're not even talking about the wrestle and the anguish with the Lord.

What about those times when you can't pay your bills and you put in job application after job application after job application and things are working and you're angry with the Lord?

Those aren't what happens on a regular basis.

Normally what happens on a regular basis, we're talking about very small moments.

A lot of times I believe misunderstandings, misconceptions.

And yet we level emotional reactions that don't equal the circumstances that are there.

I learned a long time ago that my wife was right in everything.

So now I don't get angry.

And we don't fight.

When you make adjustments to how you think about things and the Holy Spirit falls on you and gives you the wisdom and the knowledge of all things, life is good.

But every day that I wake up and I deal with my wife or I deal with my children or they deal with me, we have an opportunity.

Think of how many hundreds of opportunities you have to interact.

Are you going to interact in a healthy manner or in an unhealthy manner?

The choice is yours.

When we react out of anger, when we allow anger to cloud our ability to see each other the way that God wants, we set forth a pending divorce.

Sooner or later, when we don't allow the Lord to heal us and we don't allow the grace and the mercy to be afforded to other people, we set forth a pending divorce.

Sooner or later you'll divorce yourself from the church or from a relationship or something else.

You haven't dealt with your hurt, you haven't dealt with your wounds, you haven't learned how to be transparent, you haven't learned how to be set free.

And then we go into new relationships.

We'll go to a new church.

We'll go to a new friendship.

We'll go into new marriages.

And we haven't dealt with the very things that we already had that broke up our previous relationships, our previous church lives, our previous jobs, whatever.

So now we're not even starting in the same place.

It's not like I'm showing up to a job interview and I'm the best of who I am.

No, I show up to a job interview as an employee who's been scorned, as a church member who's been scorned.

I'm angry, I'm a victim, I've been wrong.

And so I show up, whether it's a relationship or a job or a church, and I'm 50% or 30% or 20% of who God originally intended me to be.

And then we wonder why we keep creating a spiral and a cycle and a spiral and a cycle.

We build walls, safeguards, and we project all of the responsibility onto other individuals.

One thing we really changed in this church a year and a half ago is that we knew the Lord wanted us to be transparent, transparent about the good things, giving the testimonies, never have enough testimonies, and then transparent in the bad things.

I'm really struggling with my anger, I'm really struggling with my finances, I'm really struggling with these things.

And by doing so, the people, especially on the leadership team, who've embraced those things, we hardly ever have drama.

Because when a situation arises, guess what?

It's going to.

It's not a judgmental situation, it's a situation that allows us to not be emotionally attached to it and say, "Okay, how do we solve the problem?

What does the Word of God say?

How do we grow?

How do we grow closer?

How do we grow more in fellowship?

How do we heal?"

It's okay to heal.

The Bible is all about trying to heal you, because you can't heal yourself.

But sometimes we get angry, we come into a new church, we say, "Hey, I want to teach.

I want to do this, I want to do that."

It's like, maybe you need a year to heal.

"Well, I'm angry because you didn't do what I want you to do."

Guess what?

In a church of 100 and something people, we're all not going to do what you want us to do.

It happens.

The Lord's not going to do what you want Him to do either.

It's not like the Lord's up there and He's like, "Well, you gave your 10% tithe this week, so I owe you a good old gracious moment here.

I owe you a healing."

That's not how the Lord works.

He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes on a city.

Know this, my beloved brothers.

Let everyone, every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of a man does not produce the righteousness of God.

You cannot produce the righteousness of God through your anger.

The entire Proverbs 16 chapter is one that we should regularly read.

I encourage you to read it on a regular basis.

Your anger towards someone else does nothing to them, it only kills you.

This is why we cannot let pride creep up.

Pride tells us that we are more important than they are, and God says all are important.

All have been saved, and all are in need of forgiveness and repentance.

You can't have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in your heart when you're walking around with your guilt tilt and your mean Bible face.

"Mmm, I got my mean Bible face.

You didn't do the Sabbath right.

Mmm, I got my mean Bible face.

You aren't doing Passover right.

Mmm, I got my mean Bible face.

Mmm, mmm."

We're supposed to have joy, we're supposed to have peace, we're supposed to have patience, kindness.

God asks for us to walk in self-control, not projection control.

One is where you project your ability to control what someone else does onto them.

God says control what you can control.

Practice self-control.

There was a show I was trying to remember what it was called and I was looking it up and AI wasn't helping me.

From my childhood I think it would have been somewhere around 87, I would have been 5.

I think it was called the Watchkins or Watchkins or something, and no it was not like the Watchmen on the Wall, Watchmen.

It was like some really bad cartoon and they would try to teach you these virtues and there was this goat, I think it was Gus.

I was 5, cut me a little bit of slack here.

But Gus would eat everything.

This resonated with me.

I was a kid who had trauma from my parents' divorce when I was 2.

I didn't recognize I had trauma until much later on in life, but I did.

And I would eat constantly to cover that.

I would get angry constantly and overreact.

And there was, I still remember it to this day, I don't remember almost anything I learned in high school or elementary school or anything my mother told me, but I can remember this.

Self-control is saying no.

Self-control is saying that's enough.

And there was a whole jingle, and I can remember that from my childhood.

Self-control is saying no.

Self-control is saying that's enough.

Sometimes when your anger gets the better of you or your envy or your pride or your lust or whatever, sometimes you have to practice the self-control and say, "No, I'm not going to do that.

No, I'm not going to think that way.

No, we're not going to go back there."

For those of you who have had multiple relationships in your life, self-control is saying, "We're not going to do what I did before.

We're not going to go there."

Those of you who have lost your best friends, your relationships have fallen apart, "I'm not going to go and do the same thing I did before.

I'm going to take responsibility for what I can control because just as much as the Holy Spirit dwells in me and empowers me, the Holy Spirit dwells and empowers them."

That's hard to do.

In the last year and a half of this church, our whole leadership structure has changed.

And I could have been angry and I could have been upset and I could have said, "Why is this happening, Lord?

Why?

Woe is me.

I'm the victim.

Woe."

But at some point in time, I had to wake up and say, "No, we're not going there.

No, we're not going to act like that.

No, we're not going to do that."

And bless them and pray that they bless me in the calling on our life.

Angry people are not healthy people.

Angry people are not healthy people.

If you wrestle with anger, guys, I'm just telling you, if you're wrestling with anger, it's not healthy.

If you're around people who are angry, it's not healthy.

God wants joy.

God wants peace.

God wants patience.

He wants you to practice in self-control.

And that's not doing the rage that comes up inside of you.

God and the Holy Spirit are not chaos.

They are order.

The chaos that comes from our own anger and our own issues and our own trauma, God is the only one who can speak into that and provide that order.

This is how I want you to live your life.

If you go to church and you are worshiping and you remember an angry friend, go to him.

Run out of the church immediately and do everything in your power to make it right.

That's the Chris version of Matthew 5, 23, 24.

Anger is so important and offense is so important that God says it's more important for you to leave his house, leave your offering, leave what's happening and go make it right.

It also says if you remember they are angry with you or they have an offense with you or they are harmed by you.

It doesn't matter whether you think you are right or you think you did something that was upstanding.

If I know that Ian has an ought against me, it doesn't matter whether I agree with his perception of the situation or not.

I'm supposed to go to him and make it right.

God is asking us to place a higher importance on other people than ourselves.

So there is another form of anger and that's the "I'm angry with myself" all the time.

See we like to talk about the people who we know outwardly are just angry at people.

It's like if I were to confront Stephen and Stephen is an angry person and his immediate reaction is to turn bright red all over and rage monster out.

We like to talk about those people because that's very public.

But what about the people who are constantly angry with themselves?

"Oh I'm stupid.

I should have known better.

I shouldn't have done that.

Oh I'm so stupid."

Neither one is healthy.

You're not stupid.

You were bought with the same price by the same king that everybody else was.

So you're not stupid.

You have value.

It's not any healthier for you to look at yourself with anger and look at yourself with disparaging remarks than it is to speak or act that way to somebody else.

Both are minimizing God's kingdom and God's calling and God's ability to create.

Anytime you think negatively of the creation of the creator, you're putting down the creator.

Being consistently angry is a telltale sign that you're in deep sadness, shame, anxiety, inadequacy, isolation, and feeling of lack of control.

But the Bible tells us that we must rid ourselves of all practices of anger.

In Colossians 3, it says, "But now you must also rid yourself of all such things as these, anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips."

There's nothing wrong with having emotions.

God created you with those.

There's nothing wrong with feeling deeply.

In fact, when you start to shut off your heart and you become lacking in sympathy and empathy for others and for yourself, it's a dangerous place towards bitterness and being closed off.

But emotions can be manipulated.

We've heard that term narcissistic, narcissism.

There's different forms of that.

Part of the goal of a person who is a narcissist or struggles with narcissism is not really anything other than to get a reaction from you.

It is a manipulation of your emotions.

Some people say, "Well, I'm dealing with a narcissist.

I don't know what they want."

Well, they are getting everything they want when you're angry, when you're upset, when you're sad, because they've enslaved you to manipulation of emotions.

Whereas God says, "I've given you the power to overcome these things, and when you have the power to overcome these things by putting them in my hand, in my lap, on my throne, I'm going to give you the ability to overcome them in a time where you would be angry.

I'm going to give you peace.

In a time where you might have been very rage-oriented, I'm going to deal with this.

I'm going to give you compassion and self-control."

So how do you overcome anger?

First, you have to restrain it.

Earlier in the series, we talked about restraint.

Proverbs 29, 11 tells us that fools vent their anger, but the wise quietly hold it back.

This isn't telling you that the wise bury their anger or their feelings.

It's saying that they restrain from interacting with it.

They use self-control.

You can keep your emotions in check.

It is possible.

In fact, that's what the Lord tells us to do.

Walk in self-control.

Walk in patience.

Walk in long-suffering.

Walk in these things that cause us to keep and hold our responses, our emotions in check so that people can see the fruit of the Holy Spirit through you, not the fruit of the adversary, which is my anger or my rage or my emotional mood swings.

And guys, we're just as hormonal as women.

We have just as many issues.

So just as much as we don't want to allow them to say, "Well, it's that time again."

And so they also could say, "Well, it's your time again."

Either way, we have the ability to control every day, every month, every week, every year.

We have the ability to control our response because we're all childs of God and we're all created and we're all given the same power and the same gifts.

Number two, evaluate it.

Listen and watch a person's words and actions without reading into anything.

Just watch.

Just listen.

Don't come with an agenda.

Don't say, "Well, I listened to them so I could debate them."

Just listen and watch.

Evaluate.

James 1, 19 through 20 says, "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this.

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires."

When you're slow to react, you can evaluate what's being said, what you see with your eyes, and you can evaluate it with self-control.

There's been a lot of times where I've immediately reacted to a situation and when I've gone back, distanced myself from it, and I've evaluated it through a different lens, not the immediate lens of emotions, I'm like, "Oh, I totally see why they did what they did.

I don't think that this was their goal."

But in the moment, one thing led to another thing.

The guy at Walmart who cut us off and the person who took the very last Chipotle Tabasco sauce and now I'm not going to have the perfect taco tonight has led me to come home to my child who didn't take out the trash.

And then my wife came and she didn't say, "I love you," the right way, and then boom.

Everybody's waiting for the next world war and the end of the world.

We have our own.

We're walking around with our own nuclear codes, just waiting for somebody to say the right thing.

And then when you step out of it, take a deep breath, there's no stress.

You realize there really wasn't a reason to have that.

There was no reason to think that way.

That person wasn't trying to...they had no alternative thoughts here.

They weren't trying to take it out on you.

You just lost your cool and you look like a fool.

Now I know, man, I got a lot of free Sundays with getting that punch card.

But I'm not going to let you go.

I'm not going to let you go.

I'm not going to let you go.

I'm not going to let you go.

I'm not going to let you go.

I'm not going to let you go.

I'm not going to let you go.

If you don't heal from what has hurt you, you will bleed on people who didn't cut you.

So when we talk about the church being a hospital, when we talk about the church being a place where you should be able to come and bring your burdens and bring your failures and bring all of these things and lay them down and allow Jesus to heal you, you have to have the mentality that you want to be healed.

You have to recognize there's a problem.

You have to walk in community with other people who can help you overcome that problem.

They can show you Jesus.

They can testify of what Jesus has done in their life.

They can show you from Genesis to Revelation how God has never lost a battle.

He's always been on time.

He's always taken care of everything.

And at no place, at no point in time has anger ever healed a person.

I know because I used to be so angry.

I used to be angry at my parents for being divorced.

I used to be angry at my brother for being a rat.

Every time I took a cookie from the pantry, he would tell on me.

Every time I didn't do my chore, he would tell on me.

I used to be angry at him for that.

I used to be angry at my other brother because he was the baby.

He got all the love.

He got more in the first like 10 years of his life than I got in all 18 years of my life.

Now, thankfully, my parents are just, they're like, "Yeah, he's the baby.

We got older.

We just got tired of dealing.

He just raised himself.

He got whatever he wanted."

At that time, I was angry when they testified about that.

How dare you?

I didn't get mine.

You can be angry at anything.

You can find literally anything to be angry at.

There's so many opportunities in life.

But don't allow anger to rob you of the joy that God wants you to have.

Stress is one of the greatest contributors to death and physical problems.

I don't think I've ever been stressed when I've been happy.

I don't think I've ever been stressed when I was operating in joy.

I don't know how you can be angry and not operate in stress.

It's like when you get angry with somebody, you can only be healed if they do what you need them to do.

But what if what you're asking them to do, what if your expectation of them is not God's expectation of them?

Because I don't see anywhere in the Bible where it says that you should live your life to please me.

I don't see anywhere in the Bible where it says in order to be a part of this church, you have to come in here and you have to do exactly what I tell you, even if the Bible says opposite.

No, you obey the commandments of the Lord.

You operate in the Spirit of the Lord.

You operate to get closer to the Lord, not to be more like me, not to be more like Brent, not to be more like any of the other elders or any of the other deacons in here.

To be more like the Lord.

The Lord had the opportunity to be angry many, many times.

Judas is dining with him.

This is his last meal.

It's his last meal.

And one of his closest person is going to betray him.

And yet he didn't get angry.

The guards came.

Peter is the one who picked up the sword.

And we're like, "See, that's justification for getting angry."

No, God tells him to put the sword down.

I will say I am much more like Peter than I am like Jesus.

I'm a work in progress.

I want to pick up the sword more.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness.

Where does anger fall into that?

It doesn't.

They don't jive, right?

So the world wants you to be angry.

It wants you to find a fence with every person and everything.

It wants you to look and be tense.

The Lord says, "Come to me and let me give you rest.

Come to me and let me heal you.

Come to me and let me show you the areas of your life that you need to give over to me and be more like me."

And as long as we're focusing on ourselves and cleansing our own storehouse, it's hard to be angry with somebody else.

Somebody comes and is like, "Did you know what somebody said about your sermon?"

It's like, "What?"

Like, "You weren't on it today."

How dare they say you weren't on your sermon today?

I was at the peak of my performance.

Or you go back and you're like, "Oh, you're probably right."

One is about pride, thinking more of oneself.

The other is about humility and understanding that we're all vessels here who need grace and mercy of the Lord, who need to operate in peace and patience and self-control so that we can all grow collectively into the bride of a spotless bridegroom.

Jesus is awesome.

And Jesus promises that if we focus our eyes on Him, if we focus our heart on Him, if we walk according to the Word of God and be molded more and more like Him, that He will give us a new heart, that He will write His commandments on our heart, that He will put His Spirit in us.

So if you wrestle with anger in this room today, His promises already are yes and amen to giving you the solution.

But you have to want it.

You have to want to lower yourself and elevate Him.

Remember me as we respond.

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