PAUL’S PRESCRIPTION FOR ANGER MANAGEMENT 2/13/2006
Ephesians 4:26-5:2
A young girl who was writing a paper for school came to her father and asked, "Dad, what is the difference between anger and exasperation?" The father replied, "It is mostly a matter of degree. Let me show you what I mean."
With that the father went to the telephone and dialed a number at random. To the man who answered the phone, he said, "Hello, is Melvin there?" The man answered, "There is no one living here named Melvin. Why don’t you learn to look up numbers before you dial"
"See," said the father to his daughter. "That man was not a bit happy with our call. He was probably very busy with something and we annoyed him. Now watch...." The father dialed the number again. "Hello, is Melvin there?" asked the father. "Now look here!" came the heated reply. "You just called this number and I told you that there is no Melvin here! You’ve got lot of guts calling again!" The receiver slammed down hard.
The father turned to his daughter and said, "You see, that was anger. Now I’ll show you what exasperation means. "He dialed the same number, and when a violent voice roared, "Hello!" The father calmly said, "Hello, this is Melvin. Have there been any calls for me?"
We all face anger, and most of us experience it every day for all sorts of causes; someone going under the speed limit in the left hand lane on the interstate, or someone takes your parking space at Wal-Mart, or the copier jams again.
You’ve probably heard the expressions like “boiling mad”, or we had a “heated argument” or “I have gotten so mad that steam was coming out of my ears”.
So we know it is enviable that we are going to “Blow our top” from time to time, how are we to handle it? So this morning let’s look at the advice we read from Paul on anger management. First of all we must realize that…
Sometimes Anger is ok
Our text tells us, “Be angry, and do not sin”. We have this idea that anger itself is a sin. But it is not being angry that is the sin; it is the reaction when we become angry is what can become the sin.
Anger when held in can be both physically and physiologically unhealthy. That is where we get the saying that “I blew my top”, in other words, I lost control. Instead of me controlling my anger, it controlled me.
My wife Hope now has for a couple of years been saying that she wants a heavy bag to hit. Now you might think that sounds bad, but considering the alternative of her hitting me, I know what she is getting for Christmas next year. Physical exertion can help you to blow off the steam.
You read about these kids who after many years of someone picking on them, they take a gun and go into the schools for revenge. The same when you hear about someone going into their employer or former employer and shooting it up. They did not vent their anger till it was too late and they lost it.
But the release of anger does not have to be done behind closed doors. We should be angry when we had innocent babies are being killed daily. We should not be angry and want to do harm to the parents or the Doctor’s as some of these nuts do, killing the Doctor and then claiming that God told them to.
We should be angry when we have minorities like the atheist and the homosexuals trying to prevent me from expressing our beliefs in God. But God doesn’t promote hate crimes. Love the sinner, hate the sin.
There are things we should be angry about, and that is anything that is contrary to what God is or says.
Why do I think this? We are to be Christ like, in other words we are to model and mold our lives around Jesus Christ. We read in…
John 2:14-16 And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen and poured out the changers money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Fathers house a house of merchandise!”
So does this mean that Jesus got angry? I don’t think He was asking permission to overturn their tables. These men where taking a place of worship and using it for their own personal gain. And I’m sure there were a lot more of them then there then there were of those with Jesus. But He was no wimp and I think they knew He meant business. And Jesus actions of turning over the tables and chasing the dealers out was not an act of anger toward the people as it was a healthy anger directed at the lack of respect for God’s house.
So some anger is ok, then…
Don’t hold on to Anger
Paul said, “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath”. So we are not to allow our anger to fester or continue for a long time. Christians should respond with controlled anger to sin and injustice, but they should never be consumed by this anger. Instead they should seek opportunities to express Christ love to everyone.
Have you ever got a splinter in your hand? If you don’t remove the splinter when you first get it, then you let the skin grow over and it will irate you until you get it out. It can also get infected. That’s what happens when you have anger that you hold on to. You need to get rid of your anger before it festers and infects you too.
Have you ever gone to bed mad? You know how much sleep you got then right. That is why you need to take care of your anger before you go to bed. There have been many times that I’ve had to say I’m sorry before I went to bed.
Anger when not dealt with in a timely fashion will cause you a lot of pain in the future. So don’t hold on to your anger, because if you do it can lead to my next point.
Anger when not settled leads to opportunities for the Devil
Vs.27 nor give a place to the devil
When you hold on to your anger you are opining up a foothold for Satan. Maybe you have heard the following expressions.
(1) “Give Satan an inch and he’ll be a ruler.”
(2) “Never give the devil a ride—he always wants to drive.”
(3) “In the sentence of life, the devil may be a comma—but never let him be the
period.”
(4) “He who angers you controls you.”
Satan will use anger so fast you won’t know what hits you. For example, there have been times that I have lost control when I got angry and I was so mad that I had to be told what I did afterwards. I don’t remember what I said; I don’t remember what I did; I totally lose control.
When we get angry and lose control we can lose a friendship, we can lose our credibility, or we can even lose our job. But worse yet is we can and will loose our testimony, our witness, our chance to share Christ with effectiveness.
How many times have you gotten angry and let some words you shouldn’t say come out of your mouth at work? Then try inviting someone you work with then to church with you.
I use to do an illustration with the youth when I worked with them and parents this is good for you to use with your own kids at home. But get a tube of toothpaste and take the contents out and put them on a plate. Then have them try to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Now I’ve witnessed some very creative ways of trying to accomplish this, but the point of this experiment is that once something comes out of your mouth it is very hard to take back.
Now you can say you’re sorry and apologize for you mistakes but people have a tendency to remember the bad. It can take years to gain a reputation of being a Godly person and when you lose control of your temper, Satan will destroy everything you have worked so hard to earn.
When someone is out of control, as we often are when angry, then we do tend to be more vulnerable to those who would take advantage.
A man once told a friend, “When I fight with my wife, she gets historical.”
“Oh, don’t you mean ‘hysterical’?” asked his friend.
“No, historical—she keeps bringing up the past.”
Control is definitely an issue—don’t allow the devil to take the helm by giving him an edge.
And one of the things that Satan likes to control when we loose control when we get angry is what comes out of our mouth.
Vs.29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impact grace to the hearers.
What is the one quickest way to spread anger? Our tongue. If we yield control of our tongue and allow anger to have all the voice it needs then it can do a lot of damage. So do not allow Satan to get a foothold but there is one more element of anger that need to be addressed.
Anger will ultimately distance us from God
Vs. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,
Remember last week we talked about God being love. If God’s nature is to love then wouldn’t anger be the opposite. Therefore it causes separation between our creator and us. Anger is an easy path to take so how do we overcome it.
Turn your bitter into better with Christ like qualities
Vs.31-5:2 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be kind to one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma.
Be imitators of God. That’s a hard order to fill and even harder if we try to do it in anger. The title of my sermon is anger management, which I am not so sure I like that terminology. Management sounds like something you do with your money or a rental property. I think rather than manage it; we need to convert it into love. Turn your anger into kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness, and into love as our text says.
Now with Christ there comes instead an anger release—as we receive His life-giving love—and then in turn, allow Him to live that love through us.
Maybe you’re here today, and no matter how hard you’ve tried, that release does not seem to come. Maybe you’ve tried and tried, and it just seems to continue in a spiral. Won’t you come and find His sweet release?
Maybe you’re here today, and things have been going pretty well, but there is just that one little something that keeps nagging at you in the back of your mind, and you recognize that little tempting voice calling you to harbor that grudge a little longer. Won’t you come and be free from it instead, before it grows to an even greater strength?
