Anger: Taking a “Chil” Pill:
Emotions, part 2
Wildwind Community Church
11/19/2006
David Flowers
With Thanksgiving being Thursday and Thanksgiving weekend actually being next week, I want to talk to you about something we’re not really all that thankful for this morning. We’re in a series on emotions right now and next week we’ll look at joy, but today I want to deal with the subject of anger.
I did not misspell the word chill, and I’m not just being cute here today. The word “chil” (c-h-i-l) is a Hebrew word that has everything to do with what we need to do with our anger. I’m so excited to talk to you about chil-ing this morning, but that’s going to come a little bit later.
First I want to ask you, do you struggle with anger? Here are some questions to help you know for sure if you struggle with anger (though most of you who do already know). Do you find that anger is your first response to many situations and then, later when you think about it, you realize that you’re actually hurt, or disappointed, or embarrassed? Has anger ever caused you to do something violent to someone you love? To yourself? Does anger feel like it suddenly takes you over and makes you do things? When you think about most of the things you regret doing and saying, were they done and said in moments of anger? Does your anger make you “talk” to people who can’t hear you, like other drivers on the freeway or ball players (or umpires) on TV? Are you a yeller? Does your spouse tell you to stop yelling at him/her at times when you don’t think you’re yelling at all?
If you answered yes to a couple of these, chances are good you struggle with anger. Chances are also very good that the majority of you are guys, but more women struggle with anger than you would think. In one survey, when a large sample of children were asked, “What one thing do you wish was different about your life?” 90% of small children replied, “I wish my mommy didn’t yell so much.”
Today I want to take yelling seriously for the sin that it almost always is. Did you hear that? Anger is almost always sin. I’ll bet some of you are really ticked off that I said that. But it’s true. Almost always. Biblically, we see that it is possible for us to be angry and not sin – that sin and anger don’t always necessarily go hand in hand.
Ephesians 4:26-27 (NIV)
26 "In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.
The Apostle Paul quotes here from Psalm 4:4. He warns us not to let the sun go down while we are angry. Remember that Paul was a Jew, and the start of the Jewish day begins at sundown. In our society we interpret this as “do not end the day in anger,” but Paul was actually saying, “Don’t begin the day in anger.” I think we would be wise to neither begin nor end the day in anger. In verse 27 we see the problem with anger and that’s what I want to talk to you about today. “Do not give the devil a foothold.” The problem with anger is that it has a unique capacity to lead to various kinds of sin – the devil uses it to get a foothold in our lives. This is why we should be intolerant of anger in our lives. Most of us DO sin in our anger. In fact, most of the time when we are angry, our anger itself stems from sin that is already in our heart. Let’s look at our key text for this morning, Psalm chapter 37, verses 1-8.
Psalms 37:1-8 (NASB)
1 Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers.
2 For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb.
3 Trust in the LORD and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday.
7 Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.
8 Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.
The Apostle Paul in our verse from Ephesians said that it’s possible to be angry and not sin. But the Psalmist here is saying anger leads ONLY to evildoing. Which is it? The answer is that it’s both. The Psalmist is writing here about the kind of anger that you and I deal with in our lives most of the time, and that is an anger that is basically a reflection of our own human pride. We see that at the beginning in verse 1, and at the end in verse 7. Verse 1, do not fret because of evildoers. The word “fret” here is from the Hebrew word “charah,” which means “to burn or be kindled with anger, but also carries with it the sense of competing with someone. Do not fret, do not be angry with evildoers and feel you are competing with them for good things in life. Verse 7, do not fret (or sense you are competing) with the wicked person who seems to prosper in life.
These two verses get at the heart of most of the anger you and I experience day to day. We carry around with us a sense of what we deserve from life, and what others deserve from life. We believe bad people deserve bad things, and we get upset (envious, jealous) when they get good things. We also tend to think of ourselves as good people, and therefore tend to believe that we deserve good things, and we get angry when we do not get good things. And when we see that we are getting bad things even though we’re good, and bad people are getting good things even though they’re bad, it violates our sense of justice and we get angry. In fact the word, “wrongdoers” is from the Hebrew “avlah,” and literally means, “those who commit injustice.” We hate it when those who commit injustice receive good things in life, because that in itself is not just, not fair. And despite the fact that as grownups we learn to say to our kids, “Life isn’t fair,” we somehow never stop thinking it ought to be.
Does this fit you so far? The last time you were mad at your spouse, what was the reason? Was it not because they had said or done something you felt was unfair? Maybe they had been unfairly harsh or brash toward you. Perhaps they had misjudged you or mischaracterized something you said or did. Perhaps they had come home, kicked their shoes off, and read the paper, which wasn’t fair, because after all you had been working all day, why should they be able to sit down?
The last time you were angry with your kids, what was the reason? Was it not because they had failed to act in ways you believed were fair? After all, you spent all day cleaning, why should they not spend a few minutes cleaning their room? Or why should they be able to sit there on the phone all night long?
I’m not implying we shouldn’t direct our children, I’m asking where the anger comes from. I’m asking you to hone in on the emotion of anger and realize that it comes from exactly where the Psalmist says it comes from. A sense that we are not receiving justice from God, from fate, from karma, from the world, from our spouse, from our children, from our mailman, from the driver in the car in front of us (making us wait an extra two seconds at the light – IDIOT!!), from customer service, from the pastor, from the neighbor, from the barber, the waitress, the flight attendant – how dare all these people do all these things to us that are so out of line? Don’t they realize how special we are? Why will they not give us respect, after all, we DESERVE it! We DESERVE it, because we are deserving of good things, and we resent the failure of others to honor us accordingly.
This, my friends, is pride. This is pride in the negative, sinful sense. Not basic feelings of well-being over something we worked hard to accomplish – not that kind of pride. I mean the basic sense that we are deserving of special favor in this world – that we should be exalted over others – the insistence that others should acknowledge how special we are and defer to us in various ways.
Gandhi saw this tendency in the human heart. At his ashram (religious community), every person had to take a turn cleaning the latrine. Everyone. Gandhi took a turn. He insisted his wife take a turn, which didn’t go over well with her, initially. She thought she should be exempt – after all, she was the wife of Gandhi. Gandhi correctly argued, “all the more reason why you should take your turn.” No one gets special treatment. No one gets exalted above anyone else. We will all learn our place in the world.
Most of the time anger stems from thinking we deserve an exalted place in the world and expecting others to honor it. Therefore anger keeps us from being able to cultivate humility, which is nothing more than a proper understanding of our place in the world. So anger both stems from a prideful heart, and has the effect of keeping us from being able to move beyond the sin of pride. Whether the word anger is used, or the word envy, or the word jealousy, or the word fret, the basic feeling behind it all is resentment, springing from the sin of pride. I’m angry at you. I resent you because you are not living up to my standards of justice. See, Jesus came to teach us about grace, didn’t he? Grace – undeserved favor. And we all say we love grace, and grace is amazing, but we hate it when grace is applied to other people, and practically every time we get angry with someone else, we show how ungracious we are.
Now most of you realize I am a licensed counselor. I could stand here this morning and give you anger management lessons. Frankly, some of you would rather have anger management lessons than deal with your pride. (And the ones I’m talking to are probably really mad at me for saying that!) Heck, I know I would. I’d rather learn anger management (sin management) then deal with my sin. It’s a lot easier, a lot more comfortable, and I get to go on thinking that I really deserve so much better treatment than what I get from most people.
But I’m not going to do anger management with you. Church isn’t where we come to manage our sin, it’s where we come to confess it, and learn how live so that God can root it out of us, which sometimes is painful. I want to tell you how to deal with the sin of pride, which shows up in our anger and fretting and resentment and rage. The text gives us five incredible ways to do this. I’m going to tell you these five things. By the way, I’m not speaking against getting counseling. It takes time to implement into our lives the things I’m about to tell you. Some of you need to deal with your anger right now because you are hurting yourself and those around you with it. You probably should get some help and learn some ways to deal with the symptom of anger in the short-term, while you allow God to chip away at the root in the long-term. Like most things in life, it’s a process.
By the way, the word translated “anger” is the Hebrew word “aph.” Literally, “aph” means “a nostril.” Where do you think that comes from?
So what are we to do with our anger? First of all, we are to trust in the Lord.
Psalms 37:3 (NASB)
3 Trust in the LORD and do good…
The word translated “trust” comes from the Hebrew “batach” (baw-TAKH). This word can be translated into English as the word “trust,” but also as the word, “bold,” and also as the word “careless.”
When we trust God, we are not merely choosing to believe He knows what’s best for us. We are boldly placing our confidence in Him, and choosing to live without care out of our belief that He is trustworthy.
1 Peter 5:6-7 (NKJV)
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,
7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Next time you read about trusting God, I want you to think of being boldly careless – actively choosing to reject your own standards of justice, and allowing God to be God. After all,
Psalms 37:6 (NASB)
6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday.
If you have a just cause, God will take up your cause. God will have his way. God will not allow anything to happen to you that you cannot learn from and be better because of. You don’t have to be the justice-bringer. You don’t even have to be understood. Trust God – be boldly careless (without care) knowing your life, and your cause, is in His hands.
Second, we are to delight ourselves in the Lord.
Psalms 37:4 (NASB)
4 Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.
The word translated “delight” here comes from the Hebrew “anog,” which literally means “to be soft and delicate.”
To delight in God is to be soft toward Him – to want the things He wants, and to not want the things He would not want. Men, is this one rough for you? Guys, a lot of us don’t want to think about being soft and delicate, do we? But the best way to describe this, men, is to have a softness toward God like you have toward your daughter, or your son. Real men can be soft, can be delicate, when the situation or relationship calls for it. When we are soft toward God, when we want the things God wants, we will find ourselves praying for things God would desire for us, and our heart’s desire will be God’s desire for us and God will give us our heart’s desire. But first we must boldly trust God that He knows what we need.
Third, we are to commit our way to the Lord.
Psalms 37:5 (NASB)
5 Commit your way to the LORD…
The word translated “way” is from the Hebrew “derek.” This same word is also translated “journey, path, and road.”
Commit your journey, your path, your way, your road, to the Lord. And of course this goes back to trusting in Him boldly and carelessly, and delighting in God, being soft toward God so we come to want the things for ourselves that He wants for us. We can’t commit our way to the Lord without trusting Him.
The fourth thing we are to do with our anger is cease from it!
Psalms 37:8 (NASB)
8 Cease from anger and forsake wrath…
The word translated “cease” is the Hebrew word “raphah” (raw-FAW). Raphah literally means “to sink or relax.”
Giving up anger requires a letting go. We must relax – let it sink. Allow it to dissipate. This happens as we boldly trust God, develop a soft heart toward Him, and commit our entire life’s journey to Him.
I have saved the best for last. We see in verse 7 that we are to
Psalms 37:7 (NASB)
7 Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him…
This is why we look at the original languages. We see we are to “rest” and “wait patiently,” and conclude that we aren’t really doing anything. We’re just kind of passively waiting for God to show up. But that’s not what this means at all. Waiting on God is active! It takes guts! See, the words translated “wait patiently” come from the Hebrew “chil,” which is actually pronounced “khool.” So instead of take a “chil” pill, I’m actually saying “take a khool pill,” which frankly I think is far cooler. But that’s not the half of it. See, the Hebrew word “chil” (remember, spelled “c-h-i-l”), is translated here as wait patiently.
You know how else that same word is translated in other places in the Bible? Ready? To whirl. To dance. To writhe. To give birth. To tremble. To burst. To bring forth.
My friends, this is literally what it means to wait on God. That you are not sitting idly while God moseys over in your direction. You are whirling, dancing, writhing, giving birth ladies, trembling, bursting, bringing something forth. Waiting on God is active – it requires a great deal of us. It costs something, and it produces something. It brings something forth. Whirling and dancing carry with them a sense of joy, which is part of waiting on God. Writhing and giving birth and trembling and bursting carry with them a sense of struggle, which is part of waiting on God. Bursting and bringing forth carry with them a sense of relief and release and coming through difficulty, which are part of waiting on God.
We are to wait patiently on God, and I put this last because it takes up into it everything else we have talked about. Trusting is not just trusting, it is being boldly without care. Soft and delicate towards God, like you are towards your child. Open to Him. Committing your life to Him out of bold confidence that He knows what is best for you. Relaxing and allowing our anger to sink into the oblivion of God’s care for us. And realizing that sometimes it’s a joy and sometimes it’s a struggle, but it’s never passive – it’s never where we’re just doing nothing and waiting for God to do it all. We are struggling and wrestling and dancing and writhing in prayer, and if we do not give up, our prayer will bring something forth – God will show up!
Galatians 6:9 (MSG)
9 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.
To do any of these things requires that we refuse to be the ones to make our own case – that we give up what we thought was a right to expect others to exalt us. You will never get past your problem with anger until you realize it stems from pride and a sense of entitlement, and commit your journey entirely to God, trusting completely in Him to take up your case for you, and having faith that He will do it exactly the way it needs to be done.
Are you ready to do something about your anger today? I mean something other than try to manage it? Anger almost never has a place in the lives of people who take Jesus seriously. It is nearly always sin that comes from pride. So what is needed right now? I think the number one need for some of us today is confession. We make so many excuses for our anger that we have almost totally accommodated it. Are you ready today to stop making excuses for this sin in your life? I’m going to ask something a bit different. If you want to confess this to God right now, I’m going to ask you to sit. Just sit right back down in your seat and let’s confess this to God and ask God to help us stop making excuses and to truly deal with anger in our lives as a spiritual issue.
Father, we confess the sin of anger today. We are tired of making excuses for it, blaming people who we say “make” us angry. Please forgive us for our prideful rage and anger and envy. We have no business entertaining such things in hearts that we have asked you to call home. Forgive us for tolerating sin in our lives. Give us Your Spirit and enable us to completely trust you with our journey, so that we don’t have to take up our own cause and be defensive, but would simply allow You to determine what we need and when and for how long.
