Last week we began our series “Victory in Jesus,” to help us realize that through Jesus Christ we have been given victory over sin and the power of evil. Unfortunately even though we have this victory we still struggle with temptation and desires of the flesh. I firmly believe that God wants us to gain victory over sin and evil, so we are continuing this series to explore how we can claim the victory God wants to give us through Jesus. Last week we recognized the main reason for yielding to temptation and sin is because we lose the battle for our thoughts. In order to gain victory over sin and evil we must allow God to help us gain control over what we think. By God’s strength we can control the negative influences we put into our minds, and place good things in our mind. As Paul tells us, we should “set our minds on things above”. The more we think about God and his Word, and the good things of his creation the more we gain victory over temptation and sin. Last week I asked, what are you filling your mind with? How are you intentionally filling your thoughts with the things of God?
Beginning today and over the next three weeks we are going to look at specific issues of sin and evil which affect us and how we can gain victory in these areas. One of the most common areas of sin we are trapped by is anger. Have you ever been driving home from a long day at work and someone cuts you off or pulls out in front of you and you just churn inside as you think, “what a jerk,” or perhaps some other not so church friendly language? Perhaps vulgar language occasionally slips from your mouth. Does someone at work just make you hot under the collar every time you are around them? Do your kids just seem to push the right buttons and set you off? Do you find yourself being so impatient that the littlest thing sets you off into a verbal tirade or even a rage, perhaps you have even lashed out at someone physically? If any of these are true for you, you are like the millions of people have trouble dealing with anger.
Anger is a major problem in our country even for Christians. A Gallup poll found that 49 percent of those surveyed generally experienced anger at work, with one out of six becoming so angry that he or she felt like hitting another person. Domestic violence is on the rise, with 4 million occurrences of partner violence annually. “Thirty percent of American women report that their husband or boyfriend has at one time or another physically abused them.” Not to mention verbal or emotional abuse. Anger is out of control. When we lived in Kentucky in the neighboring town (about the size of Petoskey) a member of a church hit their pastor repeatedly in the head with a golf club causing severe injuries. In the small town in which we lived, where there was a Christian college and seminary, the rumor was that more calls were received by the police for domestic violence in the homes of seminary students than for the rest of the population. Obviously Christians have just as much a problem with anger, even though Jesus has given us the victory over all sin, including our anger response.
The Apostle Paul told the Christian believers at Colossae:
NIV Colossians 3:8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.
His reasoning was that those who are Christians have died to their earthly sinful nature and are now hidden with Christ in God. We are in Christ, therefore we must put away sin. How can you be in Christ and still do these things? Anger, rage, slander, and filthy language are not appropriate for Christian believers, and yet these seem to keep hanging around us and pestering us like mosquitoes.
Anger is a natural emotion
We must be careful in talking about anger because anger in itself is not a sin. People mistakenly think Christians should not get angry at all, but this is not the case. In Ephesians Paul writes “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil (Eph. 4:26-27, NRSV).” In other words anger happens to all of us, it is inevitable but it is what we do with our anger which is the real issue. Do we deal constructively with our anger and resolve it quickly (or as Paul says before the sun goes down), or do we nurse it and allow it to infect our thoughts like a virus giving the devil a stronghold in our thoughts which later erupts as rage, slander, or filthy language?
If we are going to gain victory over anger, guess where it begins? Just as I shared last week, it must begin up here [pointing to head] in our thoughts. We gain the victory through Jesus when we learn where our anger comes from and seek God’s help to change our thoughts. Remember last weeks verse, Rom. 12:2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Why? Because anger is a second emotion, which means it has another source. Our anger is triggered by something else.
1. Where does anger come from?
A. Anger comes from a failure to meet our goals and expectations.
Suppose I am already tired from a long day at work, and I just want to go home and have a relaxing meal with my family sit back and read the paper, but on my commute home I encounter a traffic jam and I get stuck in traffic for 30 minutes longer than I expected. I call home and say I am going to be late for dinner so if she could have it ready at 6:30 instead of 6:00. I finally get home, and as soon as I walk in the door the kids are screaming, dinner hasn’t even been started yet, and the house is a disaster. In anger I blow my top and start yelling at the kids to quiet down and yell at my wife for failing to have dinner ready, and plop down in front of the television or a newspaper to relax. Meanwhile my wife is about ready to blow her top because she has been working hard all day, she doesn’t get appreciated for what she is doing, the kids have misbehaved since they got home from school and she was hoping for a break so I could watch the kids while she got dinner ready.
Sound familiar? The cause of anger was a failed expectation, someone or something blocked me from achieving my goal. I wanted to get home at 6 o’clock for dinner but the traffic made me late, I wanted dinner ready when I got there but it wasn’t even started, the kids weren’t acting the way I had hoped. Many times we set goals or expectations for ourselves and when these are not met we get upset. I wanted to get the promotion but my boss gave me a bad recommendation, I wanted to go on vacation but I didn’t get the bonus. The anger begins to seethe within us and then we explode upon the next person who walks across our path. The problem with this is, is that we are allowing other people or situations to control our mood. The only person we can control is ourselves.
Ask yourself, why am I getting angry with my spouse, the kids, the boss, a coworker, the guy who just cut me off in traffic? Is it because someone didn’t meet my expectation?
i) God’s goal and expectation for us
The reason we get angry is because our goals are not God’s goals for us. God has two goals for every person:
(a) to be in a relationship with him, to love God and be loved by him, and
(b) to be like him, which means to have godly character (loving, patient, humble, gentle, kind).
Does this mean we shouldn’t make any goals for ourselves? We can make goals for ourselves, but we must realize that God can and will change our plans to fit with his goals. God will sometimes make roadblocks or detours to our plans and he may allow us to experience trials and tribulation in order to accomplish his goals of brining us into a closer relationship with him, or developing his character within us.
James 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4 Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
Consider it pure joy when that guy cuts you off in traffic, whenever your kids misbehave, when your boss overlooks you for a promotion. Why? Because the testing of your faith will develop perseverance which will help you mature in your faith, you will develop God’s character within you. The next time you start feeling the anger welling up within you, stop and count to 10 and ask yourself, is God trying to teach me something here, is he trying to bring me back to himself, or build his character in me?
Which brings us to the next cause of anger:
B. Anger Comes from our Perception of Our Circumstances
It is not the circumstances or other people who make us angry. You may think, “oh yes it is, you don’t know what they did to me.” That is not what makes you angry, it is our perception of those people and events and how we interpret them that determine whether we will lose our temper or not.”
Let me give you an illustration: One day a guy was on the subway, and on a particular stop a father and his two kids get on the train. The kids began acting horrible running up and down the train like little banshees screaming at the top of their lungs. The guy starts getting a little perturbed because the father of these two kids isn’t doing anything about it. He’s just staring out the window not even paying attention to them. He begins to think, ‘if it were my kids I would be disciplining them.” This goes on for several stops, and finally the guy’s anger keeps building and building until he can’t take it anymore and he says to the father, “would you please get your kids under control.” The father with a sad look on his face looks away from the window and says apologetically, “I’m so sorry, I guess I’m just overwhelmed, my wife passed away a couple of days ago and we are returning home from the funeral.” How do you think the guy feels? He feels about this big [indicate with fingers], and not only does his anger subside but he offers, “I am so sorry, what can I do help?” His anger changed, but did the situation change? No, his perception of the situation changed. He thought differently now about the kids and the father. Anger begins in our mind and is caused by our perception of the events around us. Which takes us back to last week, are we thinking God’s thoughts, are we perceiving the situation from God’s perspective?
When I’m caught in a traffic jam, do I think, perhaps God is giving me more time to talk with him? If the kids are screaming when I get home, is it because they need some love and attention from their dad? Is the lady at work, who always seems to put me down, doing it because she hurts so much inside herself? We need to let God change the way we think about our circumstance.
C. Anger comes from unresolved pain and issues
Another major cause of anger though is our pain from past experiences. We have been hurt by someone in the past, and we still haven’t gotten over it, and it becomes a source of bitterness, malice, vengeful thoughts toward that person and probably others as well.
Last week at the Soup Supper we heard a story from Rudy Kuyten about his missionary work in Japan. Rudy told about a woman who was sold by her parents when she was a young lady to be a geisha, which is basically a prostitute in Japan. She went through life being beaten and abused by men. She was cheated by a fellow geisha she lived with, and by the time Rudy met her she was hunched over with large bulge on her back under her kimono. Rudy asked her why she had this thing on her back which caused her to be hunched over. He thought it might be some medical reason, but as it turned out she had a collection of all the names of all the people who had wronged her throughout her life which she literally carried on her back causing her to be hunched over. Rudy tried to convince her it was unhealthy to be carrying all that weight around on her back, it would cause a stroke, she needed to let it go, but she wouldn’t. Sure enough she did have a stroke. Paralyzed her on one side and affected her speech.
We can be like this women carrying the anger of those who hurt us around with us everywhere we go, perhaps not physically but in our minds we carry them around. Perhaps you were abused or hurt very deeply by someone who is close to you, perhaps someone has insulted you or criticized you, perhaps has treated you unfairly. Anytime that person’s name is mentioned or even the thought of them gets you hot under the collar. What we need to realize is that the unresolved pain we have experienced and the anger and bitterness we feel toward them doesn’t hurt them, it only hurts us. You might say, “well you just don’t understand what they did to me!” You’re right I don’t, but God does, and God will punish them for what they have done. You have to release them to God’s justice. Who do you refuse to talk to? Or who do you avoid because of your anger over what they have done to you, just thinking of them builds rage within you? It may be that the person you are angry with is yourself for failing to do something you thought you should have, or perhaps you are God because God let something happen to you, he didn’t do anything to stop it. God didn’t take care of you the way you thought he should have.
i) Forgiveness is the only way to find healing from past hurt and anger
Fortunately, the geisha found freedom from her anger when she decided to forgive her parents, the woman who betrayed her, and every person she carried around with her for many years. The burden she bore was finally lifted and she was set free. The only way out of the anger and bitterness caused by pain is to forgive.
In our Colossians passage Paul says:
“Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you (3:15).”
Remember how much the Lord forgave you of your sins. He nailed our sin to a cross so we wouldn’t have to bear it anymore, he took them to the cross and buried them in a tomb. He’s asking you to do the same.
You might say, I can’t, I can’t forgive that person. Yes, you can. The same power which raised Jesus from the dead lives within you. The same God who set you free from your sin and bondage will help you set them free. Not for their sake but for yours. Forgiving doesn’t mean you will forget what they have done. We may never forget what people have done to us. It just means we are choosing to let go of any hostility, revenge, or ill will toward that person(s).
Step to Forgiveness
1. Be honest with yourself, ask God to show you the people you need to forgive and write down all the names of these people as he brings them to your mind. It could be your parents, a sibling, other relative, yourself, God. If you feel any ill will toward these people you have not forgiven them.
2. Ask God to bring to your mind specific offenses against you and how they made you feel. Be as specific as you can.
3. Confess to God your sin of anger and bitterness.
We confess to you God that we have harbored anger and bitterness to the people before us on our list. We know this is wrong please forgive us.
4. Make a choice to forgive. Pray something like
“Lord I choose right now to forgive (name) for (Specifically says what this person did to hurt you), which made me feel (express to God honestly the emotions you have felt).
5. Conclude your forgiveness of each individual with something like this:
Dear Lord, I choose not to hold anything against those who have hurt me. Thank you that I am forgiven for my anger and bitterness. I now ask you to bless those who curse me, and I give up my right to seek revenge, and I ask that you would heal my broken heart. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
6. Give thanks to the Lord, spend time praising and worshipping him.
