Today’s message is about ANGER.
Two types of people:
- skunk – who stinks up the whole place because they let everything out
- turtle – who takes it all and bottles it up inside.
Statistics about anger:
- 60% of murders in America did not happen because someone set out to kill someone else. It is because a situation escalated to that level because of anger and was a reaction.
- 4 million women are going to be abused by an angry husband.
- 10 million children each year are abused because of angry parents.
- Psychology Today calls this “the age of rage.”
There is the possibility that this thing on the inside of us is caused by something else that really needs to be addressed.
(Proverbs 29:22 NIV) An angry person stirs up conflict, and a hot-tempered person commits many sins.
(Proverbs 14:17a NIV) A quick-tempered person does foolish things…
(James 1:20 NIrV) A man’s anger doesn’t produce the kind of life God wants.
Three things we try that don’t work:
- My (going to fight for my rights and my way)
- Your (avoid conflict at all costs)
- Half (we go halves on this and compromise)
None of these really address the root issue.
(James 4:1-2 NIV) What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? (2) You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
- It’s not about them, it’s about me.
We keep wanting to change our circumstances and God keeps wanting to change us.
(Psalms 139:23-24 NIV) Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. (24) See if there is any offensive (to God) way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
OVERCOMING ANGER
(Matthew 16:21-25 NIV) From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. (22) Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” (23) Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” (24) Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (25) For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.
- Crucify self.
(Galatians 2:20 NIV) I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
We did this once when we received Jesus, but we must do it every day.
(1 Corinthians 15:31a NIrV) (31) I die every day.
When self dies, something else gets free and comes alive in you.
- Crucify my flesh.
Crucify the part of you that still desires bad things.
Isolate those things and deal with those areas.
(Galatians 5:24 NIV) Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
(Colossians 3:5a NIV) Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature…
(Romans 6:6-7 NIV) For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin– (7) because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
- Crucify the world.
(Galatians 6:14 NIV) May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
(2 Corinthians 6:17-18 NIV) (17) Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” (18) And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
- To find life, lose it.