Right Living in a World Gone Wrong
A New Life: Anger Without Sin
Special Speaker: Dino Calarco
When Pastor Bob gave me the topic for this weeks message Ephesians 4:26-27
And "don't sin by letting anger gain control over you." F9 Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry,
for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil. “Anger”. I was like how am I going to preach on that I’m not aware of any anger issues (yah right). I mentioned this to Steve Lein and he gently reminded me of my tenacity on the basketball court sometimes gets a little out of control. Then I mentioned this to people at work and they made me aware of how angry I was when I wanted to get central air but Janette wouldn’t do it. Then God had to make me aware of my anger issues in order to fully understand that I in fact have anger issues in my life. This is what happened. It was Awana night and my day off, so I dropped Bella off at St. John’s and went to meet Gary Detlaff for lunch at the Celtic; which was great. Then I met with Pastor Bob for a little while to go over the message and then I had to pick Bella up and go to the Pig for groceries, which is where it all began. Bella is a beautiful child of God but her attitude sometimes at times is like any other four year old it centers around her and she was more than a handful at the store: she won’t put her jacket on, she wants another token because the toy she got wasn’t the right one, then she didn’t want her seat belt on, its cold out and the guy who brought out the groceries to the car is of course watching all this. So, I finally get home and remembered that Janette had a meeting and was going to be late but said she would be home in time to give the lesson at Awana and we had 4 extra kids tonight because of Awana and they watched me put them away. I asked for some help but they all had homework. I then started to make supper; chili, which was already made all I had to do, was put it on the stove. I then started to set the table and the kids started to get louder and louder. Suddenly, I heard a cry from the basement Mia stepped in our dog Riley’s vomit that must have been there a couple days because it was hardened in the ground but still squishy on top. You see the basement is the playroom but it hadn’t been cleaned for a couple days so it was more like a disaster room—the vomit went unnoticed until Mia was able to find it. So I called up to Paige (her dog anyway) and she came down to clean it but now I was out of control. I grabbed the shop vac and started kicking toys out of the way and finally slammed down the shop vac and told her to finish it. Then I went back upstairs finished setting the table, yelled at Costa and Payton for fighting called everyone to come sit down and some of the kids don’t like chili so I had to get up and go make them pb and j because well they are not my kids and I have to feed them what would there parents say. Now suppers over and they all pitch in to help clean-up at this point they can tell I'm not quite right but, its getting close to crunch time where if we don’t leave we will be late. Janette has the suburban; I have nine people to load up and only six seatbelts. All the while thinking that there would be no one at Awana to watch the Jver’s. How irresponsible of me. Remember, it was Janette’s week to teach the lesson at Awana so now I'm thinking of what I'm going to teach. I decided to leave four of them behind and head off to church someone had to be there for the Jvers. I get to church start making copies of permission slip and then see Janette's notes on the lesson and scramble to put it all together. Running around with my head chopped off to find a cd, boom box, pencils, paper, candles I finally get up in the loft only to find about 5 more kids then usual (praise God) but now I don’t have enough supplies and this first lesson is supposed to be a quiet time experience with God. Well the good news is Janette shows up and helps me but again I’m out of control so I see two Jver’s getting out of line a little bit and I called them out on it in front of everyone (during quiet time). Then that lesson is over and we start game time and I've got to count off the kids but I see them scheming and jumping around so they can have certain people on certain teams together big deal right but I was going to control this situation and counted around them so I would have my way. Finally Janette came over to me and said “Dino you need to back off, you are out of control” I said fine I’m leaving. So I left church and went to the library and went home a couple hours later and went to bed. The culmination of all this happened in the morning when I woke up. The kids were late and missed the bus; Janette had to drive them to school but Costa was giving her some grief on the way to the car. The next thing I know Janette comes back in the house tells me Costa got mad and slammed the car door into the suburban a bunch of times and made a big mark. I gently took Bella off my lap jumped up and went out the garage where I grabbed Costa and took him into the bathroom where I was about to give him five bare but spankings when Costa screams to me, tears in his eyes, dad give me: MERCY< MERCY<MERCY. Unknown to me Pastor Bob talked to the kids at Awana about mercy the night before. I was just stunned but I still gave him spankings in my anger.
During quiet time, God made me aware of my anger and I apologized to those I wronged and asked God to forgive me as well. Pastor Bob pointed out last week that a disciple of Jesus tries not to sin in his anger. Through this experience and a recent more intense study on anger I found out some things I want share with you all that might help you overcome anger situations where you might be out of control. The key thing I felt God trying to tell me that I want to share with you is this: are you truly aware of the anger issues in your life (repeat). I’d like you all to grab the insert out of the bulletin and take the anger quiz it will only take a couple minutes so be honest and then I’ll continue.
Are you aware of all the different types of anger and what they lead to? Did you know anger is a secondary emotion it is usually preceded by other feelings, such as pain or fear. Here are the 8 different types of anger and brief descriptions of how they play out in real life.
1. Chronic anger: ongoing resentment toward others and life in general.
2. Volatile anger: comes and goes, builds to rage, explodes as physical or verbal aggression.
3. Judgmental anger: critical statements are made to belittle, shame, or correct others, done with disdain.
4. Passive anger: expressed through sarcasm, or being late on purpose, or avoiding situation all together
5. Overwhelmed anger: arises when people can’t handle their life circumstances, and lash out to relieve stress or pain.
6. Retaliatory anger: directed to a person to get back at them for something that they said or did.
7. Self-inflicted anger: may result in hurting oneself emotionally or physically—negative self-talk, starvation, eating or drinking to excess.
8. Righteous anger: using anger to make a positive difference, such as becoming involved in a cause or movement for positive change.
Jesus’ righteous anger is found in John 2:13-16
Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
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 tablesAnd He said to those who sold doves, "Take these things away! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!"
Mother Theresa once said “The wire is you and me; the current is God,” she said. “we have the power to let the current pass through us, use us, and produce the light of the world—Jesus.”
Okay let’s take a look at the verse again and see how we can learn to deal with this:
And "don't sin by letting anger gain control over you." F9 Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry,
for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil
Paul is saying here that you are going to get angry; and that is okay anger is a God given emotion and quite frankly is a safety mechanism God set up to protect us. The key is to be in control of our anger not our anger in control of us. Anger in and of itself is not wrong it is wrong when we are out of control spewing hurt and anger towards others. The parallel reference to this verse is psalm 4:4:
Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah
The first thing a disciple of Jesus needs to look at here is the heart; “meditate within your heart on your bed”. The psalmist doesn’t say it is morning or night so lets figure we need to be meditating during both and ask God to search our hearts for any wrong we have done throughout the day or night. Reflection of the day’s events and playing out in our mind what we have done and then asking God to show us how we could of handled it better with expectation that the Holy Spirit will help. Also, it is preventative—if when you start your day in prayer and meditation it can help you from making the same mistakes.
The second thing a disciple of Jesus needs to look at is the word of God itself. Search the Scriptures for they testify to us and can convict us of our sin. This can only happen when you are allowing the Holy Spirit to guide as you read. Knowing is not the same as doing. Remember in the book of James it says:
James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only
So ask the Holy Spirit to be help you be aware during your quiet time study of the word. Ask him to let it speak to you about your anger and how to handle those situations.
The third thing that will help us control our anger is confession and accountability James 5:16 says:
Confess your trespasses F23 to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
Confessing our sins to one another is another way of saying lets keep each other accountable. If you are having a bad day and you yell at you kids or an employee or whoever and then confess it your accountability partner it is doing two things; first of all the confession is biblical as we just read but secondly its not fun to tell someone when you sin and make a mistake. It is very humbling and hopefully you and your partner have some ramifications set up so that if it is the same sin over and over there are consequences to pay. Some basic ideas for accountability are progressive discipline:
1. Confess to the person you have harmed.
2. Memorize a Scripture that will help
3. Then if it still continues you might need to put some teeth too it and have them come before the elders of the church or even the whole congregation.
4. Finally, if nothing else works you might want to suggest counseling.
5. Here is a suggestion that might help you make the accountability call everyday—you might want to set up a fine of a $1 or $5 if the person who is suppose to make the call doesn’t make it.
Then the next time you are about to yell at someone out of control that will serve as a reminder. Let’s take a look at a veggie tale video to really help us make it practical [play video].
Okay I hope now you are aware of the types of anger and how they can sometimes disguise themselves but how can we practically handle these situations. How can we remember at those critical moments to be in control of our anger and use for good? I mean it is a God given emotion. In this whole series on the book of Ephesians the main point Paul is trying to point out from 4:27-6:20 is putting on the new self and getting rid of the old self. He is telling us exactly why and how to live like Christians. Here are 4 ways to do it:
1. Recognize (be aware when you are angry)
2. Prayer and reflection (reflect on your beds)
3. Quote verse (Don’t sin in my anger)
4. Let it go (casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 1peter 5:7)
Let’s look at the second part of this passage for a moment using the New Living Translation:
4:27
for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil.
You will notice all through chapter four and five the Apostle Paul is mentioning the old self and the new self and the former ways and the new ways of living. During this time this is the only sin that he stops and lets us know that this gives a mighty foothold to the devil. To bring it back to the beginning of the message when I said that it culminated with Costa the next day I truly believe that I allowed Satan to block my forgiveness and confession and allow me to foster on the days events with contempt, sorrow pain you know the old self, complaining that Janette should of been home the basement should have been clean and it was just nurturing all night into the next day where all it was going to take was one semi large incident for me to really lose it. This foothold that Satan uses is huge and it affects every other aspect of our lives. That is why I think it is such a mighty foothold because if Satan can get you angry he has won the battle. When we are mad it is pretty hard to foster a relationship with the Holy Spirit because well first of all you feel guilty and secondly the idea of communing with the creator of the universe never enters the mind.
If you forget everything else that I've said this morning; just remember this one thing and that is to BE AWARE OF YOUR ANGER BE AWARE OF YOUR ANGER.
So I have a challenge for all of you and here it is; at night or in the morning when you wake up meditate on your bed and reflect the days events and allow the holy spirit to guide you through this and then confess to your accountability partner what you’ve done. There is only one thing that must happen before all this and that is if you do not Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior you do not have the Holy Spirit living in you. But the good news is you can settle that issue right now right where you are in that chair. God knew before the foundations of the earth were formed that you would be sitting in that chair and he has called you here for a reason. It doesn’t matter what brought you here it matters that you are here all you need to do to have the Creator of the universe live in you is confess that you are a sinner and believe that Jesus died on the cross for you and rose again to conquer sin and death—ask him to come into your heart that you no longer want to run the race alone but have him as your personal guide through it all and he come and do it. And at that moment he is living in you and the angels are rejoicing in heaven.