The Problems with Anger.
- You cannot be angry and live the righteous life that God desires.
- Anger is a gateway to other toxic emotions.
- Anger is self-reinforcing.
- Anger is bad for your health.
Big Idea: Cultivating forgiveness counteracts the erosion of chronic anger.
3 Heart Questions to Overcome Your Anger
1. Is this righteous or unrighteous? (4:26)
Unrighteous anger = self-centeredness.
Righteous anger = when the heart of God is being violated.
2. Am I responding or reacting? (4:27-31)
3. Will I choose forgiveness or un-forgiveness? (4:32)
Forgive = “to cancel the debt”
What forgiveness is NOT.
- Forgiveness is not a feeling.
- Forgiveness isn’t pretending that what they did to you is okay.
- Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to trust that person.
- Forgiveness doesn’t erase the consequences for their actions.
- Forgiveness doesn’t mean you’ll automatically forget.
- Forgiveness does not require and apology.
Next Step:
“here’s my chance.”
Find more series resources at www.whoisgrace.com/READ
[MUSIC] Life is hard and emotions like anger, guilt, greed, and envy, steal your joy and undermine your faith. Join us as we dig beneath the surface and learn to say no to toxic emotions. Well, hi, everyone. Please open your Bibles, if you will, or your device to Ephesians 4, verse 26. That's where we're going to be camping out today. And some of you might remember the movie with Jim Carrey called Liar Liar, where he's an attorney. He spent his life filtering out the junk in his heart by being kind of just a chronic liar. And then one day, for 24 hours, he can't lie anymore. Whatever pops into his head comes out of his mouth. No more filter. If he's thinking you're a jerk, he tells you you're a jerk. If he's thinking that girl is hot, he tells her that she's hot. If he's thinking the judge is incompetent, he tells him he's incompetent. His filter is gone for 24 hours. Can you imagine if God took away your filter for 24 hours, like no image management, you can't control your tongue, you just say out loud what's in your mind. A lot of us would be doing some serious damage control for a long time. And a lot of people think being a good person or even being a good disciple of Jesus means coming up with better filters than everyone else. Trying to not let whatever's really going inside you come out. You see, we think being a good Christian means that we have to have better filters than everyone else. We think our job as parents is to help our kids develop these good filters. We think our job as pastors is to help our people refine their filters. If you say this, God will be mad. If you say this instead, God will be happy. If you do this, you're going to tick God off. But if you do it this way, you're going to please God. And so we teach Christian behavior modification. And we've done you a terrible disservice by doing this. Because you see Jesus is saying it's not about having better filters. It's about changing what's actually going on in your hearts. The people actually Jesus was harshest with and even condemned. They had like PhDs in filters, but they were totally messed up in their hearts. And so this month we're talking about four toxic emotions in a series that we're calling beneath the surface. And so as disciples, we're trying to get at the heart level, a surrender to Jesus. And so last week we tackled the first of these toxic emotions. We looked at chronic guilt and we said that guilt kind of boils down to this. Guilt says, I owe you. I've hurt you. I've offended you. I've taken something from you. I've wronged you. And now my guilt weighs on me saying, I owe you. And the only way to counteract this chronic guilt we said is to cultivate grace. And so we looked at six different ways to cultivate grace. And so today we're going to talk about anger. And if guilt says, I owe you, anger says, you owe me. Whenever you're hurt, whenever you're offended or mistreated, there's this sense that whoever hurt you has taken something from you. In fact, show me an angry person and I'm going to show you a hurt person. I guarantee that the person is hurt because something has been taken from them. And so maybe you would say, you know, that person robbed my reputation or they stole my concept of family or they took the best years of my life or you robbed me of my teenage years or you took my purity or I deserved a raise or a second chance or a little bit of affection. Well, whatever it may be, the root of anger is this perception that something has been taken and that something is owed to you at the very least, maybe an apology. But a debt to debtor relationship has been established. The irony is that in most cases, that debt can never be paid back. Like, how do you pay back a 25-year-old son for not being there for him from when he was 12? It can't be done. And it's tragic because angry people spend much of their lives waiting for debts to be paid that cannot be paid. The opportunity to make things right is long gone, but the anger remains. And in many cases, that anger intensifies and it spreads. And soon, the anger morphs from anger at one person owes me to everybody owes me. See, people with chronic anger start to become angry all the time with everybody. And anger is a heart disease. It's like being sick. And as soon as that anger alienates us from other people, it begins to erode our relationships. And more times than we care to admit, the shrapnel of our anger blows up on those who are closest to us. And it demands to be paid back. And unfortunately, in most cases, it's our unsuspecting friends and family members who end up paying. So I want to talk about just some problems with anger. And I want to start by saying it is a problem on a number of levels. The main reason it's a problem is because you cannot be angry and live the righteous life that God desires. So the Bible says in James 1, 19, and 20, everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. We know that part, but listen to this next part. For a man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Do you catch that? The ongoing presence of anger in our hearts actually prevents us. It blocks us from living the righteous life that God desires. It holds us back from following Jesus. So I could stop right there and that's enough of a problem with anger. But it's also a problem because anger is a gateway to other toxic emotions. It's been said that anger is one letter short of danger, and that's actually a good warning to keep in mind. When you're in a state of anger or rage, you can justify just about anything else in the moment. Any crazy behavior feels very logical when your heart is filled with rage. All of a sudden, other toxic traits like aggression and cruelty and dismay and hatred and insecurity and paranoia, they all have a seat at the table with anger. The third problem is that anger is self-reinforcing. This makes anger particularly dangerous because when you get mad, you often get the results you're looking for, which means that you're more likely to get mad again the next time. You scream at your spouse extra loud and out of fear, they just give in and do whatever you want. So you're like, "Well, screaming extra loud works. It gets me what I want." But it doesn't get you what you want because what you really want is lasting, secure, loving relationships. Anger is a shortcut that short circuits the relationships and undermines your true happiness. As Neil Clark Warren puts it, "I get what I ask for, but not what I want." You get the immediate results that you're looking for, but you lose out on true joy in the long run. There's one last problem, and that is anger is bad for your health. Did you know this muscle tension, grinding teeth, headaches, migraines, anger raises your blood pressure, anger can cause chest pain. It triggers heart attacks. It can cause digestive issues and diarrhea and ulcers. It can lead to anxiety and insomnia and nightmares and depression. Believe it or not, anger is a cause of skin problems like rashes and hives and acne. It can lead to eating disorders and alcohol abuse and drug abuse. The physiological effects of anger are amazing. In addition to undermining your discipleship journey with Jesus. Now, some of you know these problems of anger all too well. When you look back in the rear view mirror of your life, like you've left a wake of wounded people because of your anger. And for others of you, you're not the angry outburst type, but you've held on to low grade anger and unforgiveness in your soul for many years. And it's like a cancer that's killing your ability to love and worship God. It's rotting away any opportunity that you have in healthy relationships with people moving forward. But there is hope. And so here's today's big idea. It's that cultivating forgiveness counteracts the erosion of chronic anger. So hopefully you've kept your finger in Ephesians 4 because we're finally getting there. These verses in Ephesians 4 were written by a man who knew what it was like to be hated and mistreated. He was stoned. He was beaten. He was flogged, gassed about, slandered, falsely accused. And when this kind of stuff happens to you, there's the real potential for some resentment to build up. But Paul shows us that there's a way to manage anger at a heart level. You don't have to carry it around with you. You don't have to funnel all your reactions through it. You can say no to anger, but it involves cultivating a heart of forgiveness. And so as we look at Ephesians 4, let's frame it like this. I want to ask three heart questions to overcome your anger. So here's the first heart question. Is this righteous or unrighteous anger? So in Ephesians 4, 26, Paul allows for the possibility of anger without sin. Listen to how he says it. He says, "Be angry and do not sin and do not let the sun go down on your anger." Now we would expect the Bible to say, "Don't be angry." But it actually says, "Be angry," which means anger can be good and right. It can even be godly. It can accomplish holy and righteous purposes in certain situations. But it can also be problematic as I just noted above. And this passage even says that there's a way to delineate between good and bad anger. The passage will actually later acknowledge that anger can definitely lead you into sin. In fact, it's pretty easy to sin when you're angry. It's a pretty short step from anger to spite or anger to cruelty or to revenge or bitterness or hatred. Because that's the kind of stuff that comes out when we're mad. But this first heart question really has to do with motive. Is the thing making me angry, a righteous or an unrighteous cause? Just because I'm feeling anger doesn't mean I'm justified in doing so. And so we have to get curious about what kinds of things make me angry. I would invite you to ask yourself kind of a diagnostic question. Here's the main way I would summarize what falls into the unrighteous anger category. It's self-centeredness. The diagnostic question is what is it that makes me angry? You see most of our unrighteous anger can be traced back to pure unadulterated selfishness. From silly things like a player on your soccer team messes up and you lose the game to slow drivers in the passing lane. Anybody get mad at that? To the line next to you in the grocery store that's moving faster than the one you chose. To a waitress who brought you the wrong meal. To your child who didn't get as much playing time in the T-ball game as your neighbor's child. You feel like your time is being wasted or your reputation is being solid or you're the victim of some disservice. Even if what's happening is really not even about you at all. But there are more serious things too. Someone failed to keep a promise. Somebody forgot about an obligation or your sibling got something that you didn't get and anger comes up. Anger can also come out from things like unmet needs. This usually goes unspoken especially in a marriage. But when you're not communicating over time unmet needs begin to build up into anger. Anger can also arise when you feel like something is out of your control. This causes fear and fear can cause anger. Anger comes when we feel violated or when we feel humiliated. Then throw a busy schedule on top of this and a lack of margins and anger can really start to spin out of control. So unrighteous anger is when we want to self-protect, when we want to self-defend, self-pity, and strike back to protect ourselves. It's anger for our own sake. For how the situation affects you. Righteous anger on the other hand is anger when the heart of God is being violated. This is a deep-seated settled conviction over offenses to the ways of Jesus. So we see examples in the gospels of Jesus' righteous anger over sin and over idolatry and unbelief and an exploitation of the disadvantaged. Moses' anger burned at Pharaoh for stubbornly refusing to submit to God. And then later when he saw the golden calf being worshipped, Nehemiah experienced this righteous anger when the poor were mistreated because the rich were charging excessive interest to them. It would be today's equivalent of predatory lenders. The best outlet for righteous anger is actually ministry. It's activity. We have so many at grace who have said, you know what? That the situation in the prisons is unacceptable. I'm going to step into prison ministry or there are too many kids in the city without a home. I'm going to be a foster parent or there are too many hungry people. I'm going to serve at the food pantry. Righteous anger drives us to action. And again, a good diagnostic question to ask when you feel anger rising up in you is this. Does this grieve the heart of God or is this mostly about me? Then there's this second phrase where Paul implies that there's a clear way to recognize that your anger has moved into the sin category. It's when you carry anger from one season into the next. It's this phrase where he says, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger." Now some people have interpreted this very narrowly as that we can never go to bed angry, which has led many a married couple to stay awake for weeks at a time. Obviously, I think this is a good kind of rule of thumb to handle anger as it comes up in us and don't carry it to the next day if possible. I also believe though that there are some issues that are too big to be worked out before the sun goes down. But I think the heart of the phrase here is to deal with your anger as soon as possible. Don't wait. Don't let it simmer and stew and sieve and fester. I do believe the original intent was more about seasons of life. Don't carry your anger from one season to the next, from one friendship to the next, from one church to the next. Don't carry anger from your childhood into your marriage. Don't carry anger from your workday back home into your parenting. Don't blow through your 20s and carry anger with you into your 30s. Here comes Christmas again. Here comes another Christmas again and you still haven't let go of that thing. Paul says, "Carry anger for as short a time as possible." Now, as you consider these two options, righteous versus unrighteous anger, I would ask you, which kind of anger are you spending the most time and energy on? Because, sadly, we're often willing to spend a tremendous amount of time and energy fanning the flames of self-centered anger and we spend precious little time and energy responding to the call to action of the righteous anger of God. Here's the second question to ask about your anger. It's, "Am I responding or reacting?" So we've already established that there will be anger. The question is not, "What do you feel?" The question is, "What do you do about what you feel?" So anger is an emotion. It's not a behavior, but you must pay attention to the kinds of behaviors that your anger gives birth to. Are the behaviors, reactions, or are they responses? And so you may have heard the phrase, "How does it go?" "Don't get mad, get what?" Even, yeah. That's not in the Bible. So, but we gain insight around this idea when we ask the question, "How does my anger express it?" "Am I getting even because of my anger?" Or is it more of a response? Because you can be angry, but it doesn't need to lead to reactionary outbursts. I love this quote from Martin Luther said, "You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair." So that initial feeling of anger may rise up, but you're not enslaved to anger reactions. I want you to look at verse 27 in Ephesians 4. He says, "Do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness and rage and anger and brawling and slander along with every form of malice. When you carry anger you see, you open a door to the devil and you say, "Come on in," you give the devil a foothold and you say, "Come on in and sit down." We were driving one time when we were in Capacian Haiti and if you've ever been there and you've seen what's called a tap tap, this is the Haitian version of a taxi, but it's like a tiny little pickup truck and these trucks carry way more people than they're designed to carry and they're called tap taps because when a customer jumps on for a ride and they ride a couple of blocks or a couple of miles or whatever, when they want to get off, they just tap tap somewhere on the truck and the driver knows that he needs to at least slow down so that they can jump off. Well, we were following behind one of these tap taps on time and it was packed with people and over the course of about a mile, I watched a guy who had just hopped on the back bumper. His foot was hanging on by a thread. Literally what this verse calls a foothold, I would call it even a toe hold. Slowly but surely, I watched that guy squeeze and maneuver and at time shove and weasel his way all the way back so that he was sitting comfortably next to the the cab, the best seat in the whole thing. I thought, what a great picture of this passage. You give the devil just a little foothold, just a little slight crack in the door, a little offense here, a little bitterness there and pretty soon he has weaseled his way right up next to you with his arm around you as you're driving down the road in full blown anger. He says, don't give the devil a foothold because Paul says, you're not only opening the door to the devil but you're opening the door to other toxic behaviors and emotions that are going to come with him and so let's start with behaviors. Notice Paul indicates here that there seem to be two body parts that we particularly need to watch out for when our anger comes on. It's in verses 28 and 29. He says, those body parts are our hands and our mouths. With our hands, there is the potential for stealing, for abuse, for violence, for destruction when it comes to our anger. With our mouths, we have the capacity for gossip and slander and cursing and rage. And then he goes into what I've always called kind of the remove and replace strategy. In other words, find something redemptive for your hands and your mouth to do instead of reacting in anger. So choose a response instead of a reaction. He says, if you're stealing with your hands out of your anger, replace that with something useful like work and giving generously to others. If you're tearing people down with your words, remove that behavior and replace it with encouraging others with words. See, if you just try to remove something bad without filling that void with something good, you're just going to fall back into your old behaviors. If in your anger, your reaction is to throw stuff and break stuff around the house. Instead of that, choose a response that says, if I feel that anger coming on, I'm going to go lift weights. I'm going to go take a walk. I'm going to do something else with my hands that provides a more positive outlet. But the devil will also bring these related toxic emotions. And so Paul goes down this list and he says, get rid of bitterness, which literally means a sour spirit. I love that description. Get rid of that sour spirit, he says. And get rid of rage, which is just hotheadedness. And get rid of anger. This word anger means a silent hostility. This is the moody, silent treatment that some people use when they get mad. He says, get rid of brawling, which is more of an eruptive anger, people who raise their voice and who yell and scream. He says, get rid of slander, speaking evil of others behind their backs. He says, get rid of malice, which is a wishing ill or plotting against people. What Paul's doing here is he's indicating that you have a choice when it comes to your anger. You can harbor it. You can let it fuel all of these unhealthy reactions. And so he says, grieve the Holy Spirit. Or you can put them off. You can get rid of it. But there is a choice in the matter. And the right choice is to get rid of it all to clean house because getting rid of your anger is infinitely more important than getting even. So get rid of it all. He says, empty the garbage, take the trash out, clean out your closets, your garage, your attic, clean out your heart because if you don't, all that anger is going to wear on your soul. It's going to corrupt your relationships with people that you care about it will completely undermine your walk with God. Be very slow toward anger. In fact, if I were to summarize into one word, the full counsel of the Bible on how to avoid these reactionary pitfalls and deal with our anger properly, that word would be slow. Slow down, be slow to anger. Put some space between the feeling and the reaction. And do you know that we are like God when we are slow to anger? Moses and David and Nehemiah and a bunch of the minor prophets all affirm this phrase. The Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, he is slow to anger, abounding in love. I want you to just listen to this series of proverbs that talk about anger. It says that the fool shows his annoyance at once but a prudent man overlooks an insult. It says a wise man fears the Lord and shuns evil but a fool is hotheaded and reckless. It says a quick tempered man does foolish things. It says a patient man has great understanding but a quick tempered man displays folly. It says a hot tempered man stirs up dissension but a patient man calms a quarrel. It says a fool gives full vent to his anger but a wise man keeps himself under control. It says an angry man stirs up dissension and a hot tempered one commits many sins. It says everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to become angry as we read in James. I read these descriptions and I think of a childishness for a toddler. There is no delay between stimulus and reaction and it's the same for those who fly off the handle and anger. Reacting in anger is an indicator of immaturity of childishness and if that's you guys, I'm not here to shame you. I'm here to say it's time to heed the warning signs and it's time to do something about that. It's time to surrender your heart and to go through some heart transformation. So the first two questions that we asked about our anger is this righteous or unrighteous and second am I responding or reacting and for the third I want you to look at verse 32 in Ephesians 4. Paul says be kind to one another tender hearted forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. So here's the antidote and the question is will I choose forgiveness or unforgiveness? Forgiveness is the antidote to anger. It is the key to relational healing. Forgiveness is also the way of our leader Jesus. When we don't forgive we're actually out of step with Jesus. Forgive one another he says as God in Christ forgave you. So in the last point we said that anger is like an open door to the devil but here Paul says anger is not only an open door, anger is an open account and when we choose forgiveness we choose to close the account. Remember earlier we said that the debt that goes with anger is you owe me and when you hold on to anger you're saying I'm not going to close this account until you pay me back and you think I can't let them off the hook. They owe me. But here Paul indicates that getting rid of anger is more important than getting your offense resolved on the ledger sheet. This word forgive it means to cancel the debt. Forgiveness is when you're able to say according to my records here I see that that you owe me and then you put a big X on the ledger sheet and you say but I'm deciding that you don't owe me anymore. That's forgiveness. Forgiveness closes the account and forgiveness breaks the power of anger. Paul says just like God forgave you. And by the way the Bible has strong language for people who refuse to forgive others because it's so close to the heart of God. Matthew 6, 15 says if you do not forgive others their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses. Bottom line forgiveness means that you don't require that person who hurt you to answer to you. That's God's place. Forgiveness means that you give up your right to give even. You cancel the debt and you leave it to God to set things right. Now forgiveness is tricky and so I want to spend a moment clarifying some things that forgiveness is not. First forgiveness is not a feeling. If you wait until you feel like forgiving you might wait your whole life. Your feelings will actually prevent you, they'll hold you back from forgiving at every turn. So like other things often the call of discipleship is to do what is right even when it doesn't feel, even when you don't feel like it. Second forgiveness isn't pretending that what that person did to you is okay. Forgiveness doesn't mean that you don't call sin sin. It's not rationalizing what they did. It's not excusing what they did. It's not condoning what they did. In fact you can't forgive someone unless you know it was wrong. Third forgiveness doesn't mean you have to trust that person. Trust has to be earned back. Forgiveness is a gift. You can forgive that relative for abusing you but still not trust them to babysit your kid. Those are two totally different things. Fourth forgiveness doesn't erase the consequences for that person's actions. In other words the person who wronged you may still have to face some punishment for what they did. They may still have to make things right. You can forgive someone for stealing something from you and still press charges for example. Fifth forgiveness doesn't mean that you're going to automatically forget. We like to use this phrase forgive and forget like it's some magical combo. That is not how it works in the real world. When the Bible talks about God's memory of our sin it's not that he forgets that he chooses not to remember. I don't think it's possible for an omniscient being to forget stuff. Instead when he thinks of us he doesn't call our sins to mind. And so when we forgive we choose not to call a person's sins to mind against them. But until God's ultimate healing is fully worked out the memory of that hurt that pain that they inflicted might overwhelm you again and again. You might not forget. Finally forgiveness does not require an apology. Please don't make your forgiveness hold out for an apology because you might be waiting your whole life. You might never get one and the longer you wait the longer that person has control over your soul. If you wait to forgive that cancer of unforgiveness stays inside you and it's not inside them. They might go on living their lives happily ever after. Probably never even giving it a second thought. I love the quote that says holding on to unforgiveness is like swallowing poison and then waiting for the other person to die. You're only killing yourself. And so you have to start the process of forgiving whether they apologize to you or not. See when it comes down to it forgiveness is one of the distinctive marks of our Christian faith. Anybody can love people who love them back. But what makes Christians different is that we don't carry anger. We don't practice revenge. We don't fall into bitterness. We're followers of Jesus. We're different like that. And so these three heart questions that we've wrestled with today about overcoming our anger are, is this righteous or unrighteous? Am I responding or reacting and will I choose forgiveness or unforgiveness? If you feel like you're being plagued by chronic anger these are the three diagnostic questions to ask. But for our next step today I want to arm us with a three-word phrase that I hope you'll come back to in the coming days and weeks when you're tempted by anger. Just imagine the potential here. If all the people of grace committed ourselves to prioritizing forgiveness. You want to make the community around us take notice. You want to see your co-workers start asking what's different about you. You want to make an impact for Christ in your family setting. Then practice radical forgiveness. And I want to encourage us to start with this phrase this week. These three words. Ready? Here's my chance. Here's my chance to practice forgiveness. In this situation where anger wants to rear its head. Here's my chance to practice the way of Christ. This is a declaration that says a spirit of anger and retaliation does not rule and reign in me. And so maybe what sets your anger off is not going to be some super dramatic moment. You're probably not going to get physically assaulted this week or punched in the face order. It's probably going to be something a little smaller. Something more like you're driving up Pete's street and you're in a hurry and there's a lot of traffic and somebody's weaving in and out and they're speeding and that person will weave right in front of you. And in that moment you're going to say here's my chance. Here's my chance to not react with anger but to respond with understanding. Maybe that person has an emergency. Maybe they're late for a life changing meeting. Here's my chance to choose the way of Jesus. Again you might not get assaulted but probably this week somebody's going to hurt you in a different way. Somebody's going to give you a little zinger. Your natural instinct is going to be to give them a little zinger back to lash out or maybe your instinct will be to run away or pretend nothing happened or start nursing a grudge against that person from this moment forward. And instead of doing that this week we're all going to say here's my chance. You can get down and pray for that person. God I'm not even sure right now what to do or say but but I'm open. I'm available. I'm going to try. I will have the courage to not choose bitterness or revenge or passive aggressive responses. Here's my chance to practice forgiveness or this week into your mind sometime is going to come up a painful memory or the face of a person who's hurt you the worst of all. Somebody who betrayed you somebody who cheated you in a business deal a friend who violated your friendship somebody who broke a confidence and they did it on purpose and they left you in enormous trouble or somebody who deliberately lied to you or deceived you or somebody who broke your heart. That face that name is going to come to mind but you're going to say one thing I know if I keep carrying around this unforgiveness is going to kill me it's going to kill my heart it's going to undermine my walk with Jesus and so I don't want to be a part of that. I want to choose a different path. I want to remember that that my mentor and my master Jesus who kept on forgiving no matter what happened. And so here's my chance to choose the way of the cross. I pray that you'll take the chance to forgive this week. I love you guys.
