Introductory Comments
1. Did you do homework assignment this week? Last week I asked you to prepare for today’s message. Are you prepared? I asked that you think of the name or names of the people that you are angry with. For some of you that may have been very easy, for others somewhat more difficult.
2. As we hear word of God today, think of these names and ask how you can apply what God says to you in regard to the anger you feel toward that person.
3. I promised last week that we would deal with our anger, but I cannot deal with in on your behalf, only you can. And so I suggest we do one thing before we go on, and that is that we ask God to enable us to face our anger and deal with it according to His will. Let us pray.
Teaching
1. To help us deal with anger it is important to understand how anger works. And to do that we consider the first biblical account of one person being angry with another. We look at Cain and his anger.
2. The first step in the birth of anger is our thoughts in reaction to something that happens or is said. We may say the first step is the thing or event that triggers our action. But that would be blaming the event for our anger and as we said last week we are responsible for our anger - we cannot blame anything or anyone else. Our thoughts or thinking is really our perception of what has taken place.
3. In our passage both Cain and Abel bring offerings to God. The problem for Cain is that God looked with favour on Abel and his offering and He did not look down with favour on Cain and his offering. This is the situation. How does Cain perceive it?
4. Cain perceives the problem as being Abel. Abel did him one up. He gave a better sacrifice. He needs to be dealt with because as long as he is around God will always like him more and bless him more. Get rid of Cain and the problem is gone.
5. This thinking, as we know is wrong. If Cain could have seen the situation differently, then his anger may not ever have developed. If Cain could have seen that the problem was not with Abel but with himself. If he could have seen how Abel gave his best to the Lord and how he had just brought SOME of the fruit of the soil. If he could have seen that he had to deal with his own attitude toward God. If somehow he could have seen that he was really interest in getting God’s favour rather than offering to God simply to honour God and show His faith in Him. If he could have figured out what God told him later "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?"
6. How we perceive a situation affects how we respond to it. A husband come home late from work again. His wife is upset. Her thoughts are about how she has been made to wait for him. Supper is overcooked and the children are restless. How could he be so inconsiderate? Perhaps she is not aware that the boss has been pressuring him to get a job done. And that he worked as hard as he could, even through coffee break and lunch, so that he would not be even later.
7. To think clearly we need to have the facts. Last week I got angry when I heard a member of the youth executive had not been contacted about a meeting. Later I found out that she had been invited by another person. I got angry because I did not have all the facts.
9. pg. 149 Tim Lahaye’s "Anger is a Choice" - illustration of child on train.
10. Friends, too often we get angry without having all the facts. We don’t know everything and we over-react. The important thing is to check out the facts. Then we can think correctly. This will not prevent all anger, but I believe most of it will be prevented.
11. It is important to do this before our feelings take over. Once they do they colour all of our thinking about the one whom we are angry with. God told Cain that his thinking was wrong, but by then, Cain’s anger had developed to the next stage.
12. Think of whom you feel anger towards. Think of why you feel angry. Because your emotions are already involved, this is now harder to do. But are your thoughts based on facts or your emotional perceptions?
13. To do this we need to need to ask ourselves some questions about the situation and about our anger. Things may have turned out different for Cain had he done that. And so I ask you:
- have you asked the person why he or she did what she did?
- have you asked her why she is angry with you?
- does he remind you of someone from your past - perhaps a parent or someone who hurt you?
- is some of your anger displaced?
- are you quick to become angry at him because you are angry about other things - you are simply an angry person who has never dealt with past anger?
14. In his book, Christian counselling, Gary Collins suggests we ask:
- what is making me feel angry?
- why am I feeling angry and not some other emotion?
- am I jumping to conclusions about the situation or the person who is making me angry?
- is my anger justified?
- how might others, including that person see the situation?
(mine) - are they angry? Why?
- is there another way I could look at the situation?
- are there things I could do to change the situation in order to reduce my anger?
15. We can also affect our thinking by remembering that God is in control. Sometimes he allows these situations to come into our lives to help us to grow and learn to trust in Him. How we look at our struggles affects how we respond to them?
2 Cor 1:3-5 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows
16. We need to deal with our thinking, our perceptions of the situation - both before and after we become angry.
17. The next stage is that of our feelings. Once we are convinced that we have been wronged, to start to feel angry. And we talked last week what anger does to us? We sin against God, one another, stifles compassion, leads to attacking one another, it sits heavy upon us.
18. But we can still deal with our anger - even then. Cain is angry, but God tells him there is a way out of his anger.
Gen 4:7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
19. We have a choice as to how we respond to our anger. We can either do the right sin or allow our anger to lead us into more sin. That means that though we feel angry and may falsely feel justified, we need to ask ourselves, "What should I do with my anger? What is the right thing that God would have me do?"
20. What would God have you do with the anger you feel today?
a. First - see it as the sin it really is. Don’t justify it or nurse it. See how sin is crouching at the door and how Satan has gained a foothold in your life. Start seeing that the problem does not lie with the other person, but with you. That might mean eating some of our pride. Means looking at our own sin rather than sin of the person we are angry with. And that is harder for us to do.
b. Second - we need to confess our sin to God. Not only to be forgiven but to be purified.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
c. Third - confess to one another. Confess to person you are angry with . Not in way to blame them, but to explain our hurt and pain. As said last week, when angry we do not see hurt of the other person. If we can admit pain, healing can take place.
d. Fourth, and we need to ask God to remove our anger.
1 John 5:14-15 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him.
God does not want us to be angry. Ask Him to take away and keep asking until He does.
e. And perhaps the hardest and yet most important thing. Forgive the one you are angry at. First forgive them in your heart and then, as is appropriate and helpful, let them know you have forgiven them. And more importantly, show you have. This is difficult. We talked about forgiving each other last month. We need to take first step.
21. Whom do you need to forgive? Why are you not forgiving them? If they don’t admit sin, still important to forgive them in your heart. For own sake and for sake of fellowship.
Heb 12:14-15 Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
22. Next week we are to partake in Lord’s Supper. To celebrate God’s grace. To confess that we are sinners and that Christ paid the price for our sin. That through His blood we are forgiven. It is because of His death that we are to deal with anger. He died so we could live. But unless we forgive each other, have we really received His gift of forgiveness.
23. Can we even come to the table if we bear anger and bitterness to one another? I challenge you - do not come unless you deal with your anger. God does not want us to come to Him unless we are first at peace with our brother.
24. Is there something you need to do right now? To admit you are angry, to take ownership of this anger, to forgive someone and to be released from that anger? Let us do so in prayer .
25. Time for silent prayer (raise hands if angry, if recognize need to forgive, if you do forgive).
26. Let us pray.
