Surrender Your Anger Series

If I asked you to think of an angry person, I would suspect it wouldn’t take very long for a particular person to come to mind. Don’t look around.

Maybe your boss, or a stranger that you’ve never met, but you’ve witnessed their anger, maybe it’s someone you are close to, perhaps a parent or a partner. Maybe it’s one of your children.

What about someone who very seldom gets angry. Can you picture them?

This is week four of our surrender series here at Cornerstone. In our first week we looked at things that we should never surrender. Our dreams, our convictions and our relationship with Jesus.

Then we began looking at things we need to surrender to God as part of our relationship with him. Two weeks ago, we looked at how we need to surrender our wills to God. The Bible tells us that we need to allow ourselves to be crucified daily.

Last week we looked at how we need to surrender our speech to God. And that meant that we aren’t to use foul or abusive language, but instead language that is good and encouraging and full of grace.

This week let’s jump down to the last verse of the scripture that was read earlier.

And it says, Ephesians 4:31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. And that sounds like a good idea, get rid of bitterness, rage and anger. But as someone said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”

Most of us would agree that anger isn’t the best state of mind to exist in, it was Mark Twain who said, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

And Buddha warned his followers, “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”

And Jesus warned the crowds who gathered to hear him, Matthew 5:21-22 “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.”

So, in theory we need to surrender our anger to God, but what does that look like in practice?

For most of us, we say we don’t like to get angry, although it seems to be becoming more and more a reality of the society we are living in.

Recently I read a statement from Jean Kim, a psychiatrist for the US Department of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Kim said, “Anger is a public epidemic in America; it contaminates everything from media controversy to road rage to wars to mass shootings.”

Dr. Kim goes on to state that anger is addictive—it feels good and overrides moral and rational responses because it originates from our primordial system—the lizard brain, if you will.

And it seems that we live in a society that is perpetually angry over something. No longer can we simply disagree with someone; we need to be angry with them. You only had to follow the last federal election to see the reality of that.

But should we as Christ followers be angry?

Maybe we need to discover Why We Get Angry Sometimes we think, and we are taught that all anger is sinful and is a result of man’s fall and original sin.

In his book, Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion, Author Gary Chapman’s view is that we get angry because we have been created in the image of God. And I know that sounds wrong and almost blasphemous but bear with me for a bit.

And to be truthful A lot of what we will be dealing with this morning comes from Chapman’s book.

Chapman suggests that anger derives from two aspects of God’s nature. His holiness and His love.

We don’t have to go very far into the bible to realize that Holiness and love are vital parts of who God is. God spoke to the people of Israel and told them in Leviticus 11:44 “For I am the LORD your God. You must consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy.” And we read in Leviticus 19:1-2 The LORD also said to Moses, “Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.”

And the word Holy simply means ‘set apart from sin’. There is no sin in the nature of God, which is why it could be said about Jesus in Hebrews 4:15 This High Priest of ours (Jesus) understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.