A New Way To Deal With Anger Series

INTRODUCTION

• VIDEO CLIP

• SLIDE #1

• To soften the tension of the video…

• One day a lady in a brand-new Volvo had been driving around in a crowded car park, had finally found a spot and was just about to back into it when a young kid in a tricked-out Honda whizzed into the spot before her.

• As the Honda driver got out of his car and was walking away the lady in the Volvo called out “I found that spot first. What gives you the right to push in and take it?”

• The young man laughed and said “Because I’m young and quick” and kept on walking.

• All the sudden he heard the hideous sound of a car being heartily smashed.

• He turned around to see the lady in the Volvo repeatedly ramming her car into his. She caught his eye and said “That’s because I’m old and rich!”

• Anger can be so destructive.

• Today we are going to examine a new way to deal with anger.

• In the video clip from the movie Fireproof, that scene plays itself out in many marriages today.

• One person does something that angers the other, and instead of dealing with the problem, they let it build.

• As I alluded to last week, over time, when our anger is not dealt with, we use the things that we allow to upset us to as bricks to build a wall of separation between ourselves and others.

• When things happen to us that we are not pleased with, we get angry, when we get hurt by situations or other people, we get angry.

• When we get in the checkout line at Wal-Mart, WAIT, too close to home!

• When we hit the 5-hour light at Target, Oh, boy! Never mind!

• When we do not get out way, we get angry. There are so things that have the potential to make us angry.

• This subject is one that is close to home for me. Down deep inside, I was an angry person. I could not stand to lose and I could not stand to be insulted or slighted in any way.

• Being angry all the time is not healthy and it can cause others around you to catch the angry fever from you.

• WE live in a world that anger seems to be the norm, and when one gives themselves to Jesus, how we to deal with our anger?

• What does the world tell us to do, to stay mad, to get retribution, to make the offender pay for making us mad?

• Today we will look at how one should deal with their anger. We will be in Ephesians 4:26-27 today.

• SLIDE #2

• Ephesians 4:26 (HCSB) Be angry and do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger,

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

I. The emotion of anger is part of our life.

• Anger is something that even when you are in Christ, will be a part of your life.

• In verse 26 and in verse 31, in the English translation we see the word anger and in some translations, the second-time anger appears in verse 26 is translated as WRATH.

• What is interesting to me is in those two verses, where we see the word anger or angry, each one is a different word in the original text.

• The word in verse 31 denotes a turbulent, fierce indignation. Passionate outbursts.

• The second time the word anger is used in verse 26 denotes an anger accompanied by irritation and embitterment. It is a state of being quite angry and upset with something.

• The first time angry is used in verse 26 denotes an anger aroused under certain circumstances and sometimes the emotion can be a good one when righteous anger is involved. It means to be relatively angry.

• There is an anger that is righteous. Christ was angry at times (Mark 3:5). We should be indignant over injustice, sin, blasphemous statements, and so forth.

• Despite these nuances of the original, one thing that should not escape our sight is the fact that Paul tells us BE ANGRY.

• This is not a command to be angry but rather it can be translated IF YOU ARE ANGRY OR WHEN ANGRY…or BE ANGRY IF YOU MUST.

• In other words, even in Christ, you will still have to deal with the emotion of anger.

• The implication is that anger is inevitable in one’s life. Being angry in itself is not a sin.

• God was angry several times in the Bible, like in Psalm 79:5-ff.

• I do not think that when Jesus drove the money-changers out of the temple, He was not smiling!