Slaying The Giants In Your Life Series
"Attacking Your Anger" 4 of 6
May 19, 2002 FBC, Chester, Illinois Mike Fogerson, Speaker
INTRODUCTION:
A One of the most common terms used today among psychiatrists is LFT. (Low Frustration Tolerance)
a We have allowed circumstances, situations, schedules, and people to crowd out our ability to tolerate frustration.
b We become people who live on the edge, on the brink of eruption.
*Bottom Line: We get angry too easily and I want to show you how to attack anger in such a way as to slow it down..
B Anger is a God given emotion and in is of itself NOT A SIN!
a Ephesians 4:26/27 (NAS)
26 Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity.
b The Bible says, "Be ANGRY..." Whoa! I can do that!
*Lot’s of people see this verse as their ticket to vent their anger. -pleasing to the ear...but not biblical.
Eph. 4:31/32
"Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you Venting is a BAD idea.
1 Sinless anger is possible
How do we deal with anger? How do we get angry and don’t sin? Look to Jesus. John 2:14/16
[14] In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. [15] So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. [16] To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!"
A The temple in Jerusalem was THE ONLY place to worship God on the High Holy days.
a You would bring the best of your flock and the priests would tell you its unacceptable. What do you do?
b Outside there are 100% guaranteed sacrifices (oxen, sheep, dove) for sale right out side.
(Priests had sweet deals cut with retailers) Huge mark up on the product.
*Where else are you going to go to get your sacrifice? (IL.) How much does a hotdog cost at Busch Stadium? Cold drink? They can charge an outrage price because....where else are you going to get your soda & hotdog?
NO COMPETITION NO CONTROLS=Sky High Prices Temple situation was just that.
B The only place the merchants set up shop was the court of the gentiles. (Gentiles weren’t allowed in the temple. Their sacrifice and worship had to be carried out in the court yard.)
a The Gentiles (LOST) were the people Jesus came to save. He was there for the lost person. (Just as FBC exists for to bring lost people to Jesus.)
*If the Wal-Mart Wannabe’s are hogging the court yard, where do the gentiles worship? NO WHERE!!!
b How was Jesus’s anger sinless?
*His anger wasn’t about Him. (When He was beat, belittled by Pilate and spit on by the crowd, nailed to a cross....he never got angry.)
*He got angry when an injustice was done against people and God. Sinless anger!
*When He tossed the merchants out of the temple it was a controlled action.
(He made a whip and kicked them out! It wasn’t an uncontrolled tantrum, it was a redemptive action.)
C Mark 3:5 tells about a man with a withered/shriveled hand coming to Jesus on the Jewish Sabbath to be healed by Jesus. The church leaders criticized Him for healing on the Sabbath.
MK 3:5 He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.
a Why was Jesus angry? They (pharisees) didn’t get it!
b They were worried about some Hebraic law and couldn’t see that redemption/love/compassion override the fine points of the law. RIGHTEOUS ANGER!!
"A man who is angry on the right grounds, against the right persons, in the right manner, at the right moment and for the right length of time deserves great praise." -Aristotle "That’s Jesus!"
T.S.: The right kind of anger is admirable, the wrong kind is an abomination.
2 Sinful anger is tameable.
A Don’t NURSE your anger. (Staying angry is a choice)
a Many of us get angry at someone and we’ll stay awake at night rehearsing our speech of what where going to tell that person at just the right moment, devise a plan of attack, how to get even.....we let it nest. (What happens when you sit on something in a nest long enough? It will hatch and fly out!)
b Hebrews 12:15 "See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many."
*Clear all the relationship accounts before the day is done.
*Proverbs 22:24/25
24 Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, 25 or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.
If you run/walk with a sarcastic, angry crowd that is always ticked about something...your sitting yourself up for sinful anger.
YOU CAN’T CHOSE YOUR FAMILY, BUT YOU CAN CHOSE YOUR FRIENDS
B Don’t REHEARSE your anger. (Have you ever said, "That person made me mad.") Me too.
Henry Brandt said, "It’s a fallacy to say that some other person "makes us angry." If we become angry its because we already had it in us, and we allowed someone else to pull it out of us. But no one can MAKE us angry."
a Some people have their own little anger factory inside them with a steady supply on hand & nearly anyone can make them angry.
*Say something to them and they’ll explode, tell that same thing to somebody else and their not bothered at all. (Hurting people hurt people)
*Some people simply have more buttons to push and some people are nothing but buttons!!
b This story may not be appropriate, but it has helped me control my anger so much,...I’ve got to share it. It comes from John Maxwell’s book The Success Journey
IL. A bird got a late start going south for the winter, fell into a barnyard freezing to death. A cow "plops" on him, the bird begins to sing because he’s thawing out, a cat comes up and cleans him off, and the cat eats him.
3 Morals: (1) Not everybody who "plops" on you is your enemy. (2) Not everybody who cleans "plop" off you is your friend. (3) If you get "plopped" on, shut up about it.
C Reverse Your Anger (Have you ever wished you could rewind a moment in your life and do something differently? Anger is one of those things you can reverse.)
a Romans 12:20 [20] On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."
*An ancient Egyptian custom. If you truly felt remorse and regret on something you did, you put a plate of hot coals on your head to show the person you wronged just how sorry you were. OUCH!
b We pay out the reverse of what we feel or what has been done to us. (That DON’T make sense. To the world your right, but to God it does make sense.)
*We showed him hate, he showed us love.
*We show him contempt, he showed us compassion.
*We told him our rights, he showed us his righteousness.
*Is it easy to reverse your anger? Get Real. It takes wisdom, self-control, maturity....but it does work.. That’s what the Bible says.
Conclusion:
We can attack our anger and slow it down.
(Don’t nurse it, Don’t rehearse it.....and Reverse it)
Forrest Gump: Scene where Jenny returns to old home after her father has died and the old farm house is dilapidated and abandons. As she reflects on the sexual abuse that she endured as a child, she is overcome by rage and begins throwing rocks at the house. She throws and throws, and rapidly reaches for more rocks. Jenny finally falls to the ground in exhaustion and the scene closes with Forrest Gump saying, "Sometimes there just aren’t enough rocks."
a Many of us struggle with anger. (Bunch of reasons to be angry)
b If we don’t do something with our anger, it will kill us. Unresolved anger leaves us reaching and crying for more rocks. (The rage is never satisfied and contentment is never found.)
Through the power of Jesus Christ we can find the strength to lay down our rocks of anger today.
a Who will attack their anger today?
b Stop nursing, rehearsing and start reversing!
*Pray
