Start Taming My Temper

Welcome to church today whether you're joining us live or joining us on Facebook live or over in venue. It is great to have you here. My name is René, I'm one of the pastors, and I want to invite you to grab your message notes. Start is our New Year's series based on very common New Year's resolutions, and this morning I want to talk about taming my temper. This is a very relevant topic because would you agree with me that America just seems to be very angry right now? Everywhere you turn, it just seems like people are outraged. It's not your imagination.

I want you to look at a couple of things. BBC magazine recently had an article titled "Why Are Americans So Angry?" Listen to this: it says Americans are generally known for having a positive outlook on life, but something has changed. Now, 69% of us Americans say we are either very angry or somewhat angry. We're just a nation of angry people. And it's not just the BBC; NPR article headline: "America Is Angry, Very Angry." Washington Post: "Americans Are Addicted to Outrage." Time magazine: "America's Anger Is Out of Control." Is that true? Are we addicted to outrage? Is our anger out of control? I contend it is, and here is how you can see for yourself.

Just as an experiment, Google "outrage." You're going to get 16 million hits and some very interesting articles. In fact, try this as an experiment. I tried this last Thursday. I decided to put adjectives in front of the word "outrage," groups that I think were kind of mellow, groups that you don't normally associate with outrage. For example, I thought I would try "vegan outrage." I got over 400,000 hits. They're outraged over a lot of stuff, folks, and there are some fascinating stories here, like this one headline: "Betrayed Vegans Revolt Against Owners of Famous LA Vegan Restaurants After Their Meat-Eating Outed." Now, here's what this is about: these are owners of vegan restaurants who have started eating a little bit of meat on their own table, in their own house, on their own time. Vegans are outraged; they will not be placated.

And it's not just vegans. I googled "gardeners outraged"—nearly 700,000 hits. Like, TV gardener Monty Don sparks horticultural outrage. Why? For calling begonias ugly. We will not stand for this! Very angry. So then I tried "knitters outrage." Got a great story headline: "US Olympic Committee Apologizes to Knitters, But Knitters Will Not Be Appeased." This is about, I kid you not, knitting not being an Olympic event. But the thing is, you don't want to upset these knitters; they have the needles. Somebody once said we live in the golden age of outrage. There are no more numbers between one and ten, folks. Every single thing is a level ten.

Maybe you say, "I don't have an outrage problem. I don't get outraged, so I don't have an anger problem. I didn't need to come today to hear this message; I should have stayed home." Well, harsh words, passive-aggressive behavior, blaming everybody for your own problems, simmering low-grade resentment, maybe even depression, constant complaining could all be symptoms of a deeper anger problem. This is a real issue right now in our country.

So what is the cure? In this series, we're looking at what Proverbs has to say about some common problems that we tend to make resolutions about at the beginning of every year. Just to orient you, if you're new to all this, the book of Proverbs is a book in the Bible written about 3,000 years ago with all kinds of wisdom for daily living. It's got great stuff, and what's fascinating is human nature hasn't really changed all that much in all that time because in a thousand BC, controlling anger was a major theme of Proverbs. That tells you anger was a major problem in the kingdom of Israel way back then. It's got great verses like the two at the top of your notes. I'm going to put them on screen. Let's read some scripture together.

Look at Proverbs 16:32. Let's read it together: "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit is better than he who takes a city." Now, do they make movies about people who are slow to anger? Do they make movies about people who rule their spirit? I was watching movie previews yesterday, movie trailers, and they were all about vengeance and the mighty and people who take cities and warriors. There are heroes there, especially our heroes culturally right now. There's what somebody called vengeance porn. This is feeding our outrage today. But the Bible says no; it's better to rule your spirit.

And here's the opposite of that. Look at this: Proverbs 29:11. Let's read this out loud: "Fools give full vent to their rage." According to Proverbs, right now we are a nation of fools because we're all outraged all the time. And what's bad about that is when there's actually a good biblical reason for outrage, some real injustice that needs to be righted, we're all exhausted from being outraged because there's no knitting in the Olympics. So how can I adjust my anger so it's directed in a godly way toward things that make God angry, that God is concerned about?

If you look at all the verses in Proverbs, they really break down into two sections: the danger of anger and the healing of anger. That's our outline today. The danger of anger is on page one, and the healing is on page two. Now, before we dive into this, I just want to say something very personal. It's a very personal issue for me because my own temper was a serious issue, especially when I was younger and when Laurie and I were first married and when the kids were little too. Now, I was never violent, but I was explosive and prickly—unpredictably prickly. That's the worst kind of prickly. I realized I have got to deal with this.

The good news is I discovered there's lots of great resources out there. I have listened to and read so many books and sermons on this subject. There's great stuff, and I used a ton of resources to put today's message together, stuff I've used for years, and they're at the end of your notes on page two. But let me just say this: if this is a chronic issue for you as it was for me, I strongly encourage you to see a pastor or a counselor, get into our recovery groups here at TLC. I know you can change because that's been my experience. One of the best things I heard my wife tell me last year is she said, "Man, you have really changed when it comes to the way you express anger." I'm telling you, men, women, teenagers, it's not just how you were made, right? It's not just, "Well, I was born this way. You know, I've got a fiery temper." I've heard people use their ethnicity to justify that, no matter what their ethnicity is: "Well, you know, I'm Irish." "Well, you know, I'm Italian." "Well, you know, I'm a red-blooded Frenchman." You know, like whatever it is that explains it, right? It's not just the way you were made. God has better plans for you, and today's message can really be the start if you stop making excuses and start letting God change you.

So let me share with you from the heart. Here are some biblical concepts that have changed me, so I know they can change you. First, I was very convicted by how much Proverbs talks about the danger of anger. It is not some lightweight, amusing little foible. You know, the Bible says uncontrolled anger is, first of all, unhealthy. Look at Proverbs 14:30: "A tranquil heart is life to the body, but passion," and there's good passion, but the word here in context means uncontrolled temper, "is rottenness to the bones." And science is seeing increasing evidence of this. Check this out: the Mental Health Foundation of the United Kingdom just recently released a report called "Boiling Point," and it's about the growing problem with chronic anger. It says chronic and intense anger has been linked with coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, colds and flu, and generally poor health, as well as poor decision-making and substance abuse. It is so unhealthy, and not just for you.

Because number two, it's contagious. Anger is contagious. Look at Proverbs 15:18: "A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict." Have you ever noticed that? Ever notice if you're angry, other people start getting infected by it? And if somebody else is angry, you start getting all worked up, especially if your spouse tells you about somebody that insulted them or if your kids tell you about somebody that did something at school, and suddenly you're just all mad about the same thing that made them mad. That anger is contagious. And that means, parents, if you are angry, you are teaching your kids how to handle anger.

I've told some of you this before, but it was brought home to us one time about 20, 21 years ago. Our daughter Elizabeth was four or five years old, and she's in her bedroom, and she's playing with her dollhouse. She had like a little three-story dollhouse and little dolls about this tall as a mommy and kids and the daddy, and she's playing with all of her dolls. Lori's in the next room doing something, and she hears Elizabeth slamming the doll into the floor of the dollhouse, like she's walking around stomping around. Elizabeth's having the doll say, "I can't ever find anything in this stupid house. No one ever cleans up. I gotta do all the cleaning in this stupid house. Stupid!" Lori leans in the room, "What's going on?" Elizabeth says, "Stupid!" And then she says brightly, "I'm just pretending I'm the mommy. Stupid, stupid house!" Right now, Lori, I know those of us who know us know I'm the emotional one in the family; Lori is the coolest, calmest woman I know. But does she have those moments? Sure, like anybody does. Did Elizabeth pick up on them? Of course; that's what mommies do.

I got a question for you: so why do we do it? If it's unhealthy and it's contagious, why do we lose our temper ever? Because it works, right? It works to get people to do what you want to do. On your way to church today, I saw—I was out there as the service was starting—and I saw people, you know, with their little kids in hand running off to put them in their great kids programs. Okay, you're getting your family ready for church today. What works? Nicely going, "Hey, everyone, let's get in the car so we can go worship the Lord." No response, right? There's watching TV, one sock on, one sock off: "Get in the car this minute so we can go worship Jesus Christ!" They're sitting in there with their seats buckled. Works, right? In the short term, there's effect. But the point is, in the long run, you lose.

Third, it's intoxicating. Anger is an intoxicant; it's like a drug. And just like an intoxicant, it impairs your judgment. Look at Proverbs 14:17: "A quick-tempered person does foolish things." Anger just makes us stupid, right? Ever done something, said something when you were angry, and then later on when you're not angry anymore, look back at the thing that you did then and go, "I just feel like such a fool." Ever done that? You know why you feel like a fool? Because you were a fool. That's the point of this verse. I mean, just one example: I talked about what I was like. Oh my gosh, I think back on some of the things I did. One time when we were newlyweds, Lori and I—I didn't tell you I was going to tell you this story—but Lori and I were out on a date. We were married; we were living in San Diego. We went on a date night. I'm driving my little Fiat convertible around—tiny little car, literally was about the size of those little cars you drive around on the Utopia ride at Disneyland—just tiny, tiny little thing. And the roof is open, and I see a guy littering. He throws a banana peel out the driver's side window of his gigantic king cab diesel truck, throws this banana peel aside. For some reason, that just really got my goat.

And I race up to where he had thrown the banana peel, and Lori's like, "René, René, calm down." I will not calm down! He is littering! And I open up the driver's side of my door, and in the midst of busy traffic in a busy mall parking lot in San Diego in the month of December, I swoop up the banana peel thinking, "Check me out! Whoo! I'm so cool!" And I zoom the car up and race this guy in the truck, and I tossed the banana peel right back through his open window. And then I yelled at him, and I was so worked up that my voice was trying to be threatening, like, "Hey, stop that!" And my voice was so wired, my voice came out like Don Knotts on helium, I think something like that. Then I gave it gas like I was imagining being on a Harley, like, "Go, bro!" Just right away, I give it gas, boom! The car goes like this. I'm going, "Go faster!" And I can hear her, the pickup truck driver just laughing at me, certainly like he can't control himself. He's laughing at me so hard, and that just makes me more angry, right? What a fool! Anger just makes us do stupid things that make so much sense at the moment, right? This is brilliant! It's an intoxicant; it makes us dumb like some drug. And then, like another drug, it's addictive.

Like so many other intoxicants, look at the insight here in Proverbs 19:19: "A hot-tempered person must pay the penalty; rescue them, and you will have to do it again and again and again and again." Do you know what this verse is talking about? This verse is talking about what we call today codependency. Now, we're familiar with this when it comes to like you've got an alcoholic in the family. You can't just keep covering for them because they'll never change, right? They've got to hit bottom and realize how they're endangering their lives and their marriage and so on. That's when they start to change, and bottom looks different for different people. But you may be covering up for an outrage addict that you're in a relationship with, always excusing their anger: "Well, he's had a tough week at work." "Well, you know, she's just really stressed right now." You rescue them, and you'll have to do it again and again and again and again and again. At some point, they just have to realize, "I am endangering my marriage. I'm endangering my job. I'm risking my relationship with my children. I'm alienating people." It's addictive.

And you know another way it's addictive? It leads to denial. You know, I was thinking about this: these days, you could admit you're grieving and go to grief share. You can admit that you've got depression or a mental health issue and go to our support groups. I would say these days it's even easier to admit, "Man, I've got a drinking problem," and go to our recovery groups. But anger is not seen as much of a problem in our culture; it's almost valued. And so our culture feeds into anger denial. And here's what anger denial sounds like, and I should know because I said things like this: "I'm not angry; I'm just telling the truth. Just a truth-teller. Everyone else is afraid to call it like they see it, but not me. I'm not angry; I'm just advocating for social justice when everybody else stays silent. I'm not angry; I'm just an activist." It's so easy to rationalize, and because you deny your anger, the more all these problems show up.

So what's the healing? How do you heal all these things? Well, if anger is in many ways addictive and an intoxicant, really, you've got to start with the same place you start with addictions, and that is number one: you have to admit it. You have to admit it. Admit you've got a problem. Admit at least sometimes you are angry and do foolish things, and be open to critique from other people. Look at this; it's not in your notes, but Proverbs 10:8: "The wise are glad to be instructed, but babbling fools fall flat on their faces." Are you a fool or are you wise? When somebody says, "You know, there's something that I think you need to change in your life," do you get defensive? Do you feel offended? Do you feel like, "How dare they? They've got a lot of things they need to work on," or are you wise? Accept critique unless you want to fall flat on your face.

Look at Proverbs 28:13: "Whoever conceals his transgression won't prosper." You can't prosper that way, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. You'll get mercy if you admit it from the Lord and from others. You confess it to God; you confess it to a friend, to a counselor, a pastor, a support group like our recovery groups on Monday night. You start with admitting it, and then you can do all these other things. Number two, delay it. Very practical: delay it. Thomas Jefferson famously said, "When angry, count to ten before you speak." If you're very angry, a hundred, right? The problem is when your angry words come so easily. Ever notice that? When I'm angry, I'm brilliant! You know, I think you forgot your banana peel. You know, it's crazy. But look at this: Proverbs 12:16. Let's read this out loud together. Let's say it together: "Fools show annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult." Do you show your annoyance at once?

Have you ever learned never to tweet or email or leave a phone message or write a letter when you're angry? You've got to delay it because you're not thinking straight. Let me give you a word that changed our marriage and changed our whole family dynamic when it came to handling anger. It's a word we found in a book by a researcher named John Gottman. He has studied conflict in relationships, and he coined this term: flooded. Write that down somewhere in the margins of your notes: flooded. What's flooded? Flooded is what you feel when you're flushed with hormones in an argument. The adrenaline, all the other fight-or-flight hormones start to kick in. His research shows when you're flooded, you literally cannot learn anything. Let that just sink in. They've done brain scans. Let me show them to you. The cerebral cortex is the thinking part of the brain where logic and judgments live. In normal life, it lights up; it's very busy, right? That's the cerebral cortex, the thinking part of your brain. When someone is angry, blood flow to the thinking part of your brain just shuts down, and you literally, when you're angry, cannot reason or listen to reason. The thinking part of your brain shuts down.

Now, why would God have made us that way? Well, because it's a fight-or-flight response. It's designed for when you are in immediate physical threat so that you don't go, "Someone is throwing a spear at me; I wonder what I should do?" You just go, boom! You run, or you know, you try to bluff your way into intimidating the person. That's what that's meant for, right? What happens is we live in a world where people have discovered that outrage, when they can make you outraged, it leads to more web clicks on their web page, it leads to higher ratings on their cable TV network, it leads to more people reading their blog, it leads to more people reading their books, it leads to higher speaker fees because they get rooms full of people outraged. And so this button is constantly being pushed. And when this button is pushed, you literally cannot think.

So when somebody is flooded with hormones, the only thing you can do is to take a break to get unflooded. Usually, this takes about 20 minutes or so. As Gottman says, when flooded, the only constructive thing to do is to take a break to get unflooded. And again, I have to tell you this whole idea changed our family dynamic when it comes to conflict. Truly transformed it. We use this term flooded in our marriage and then with our kids. It's so beautiful when you have a teenager or younger, and they feel themselves getting flooded, and they have a vocabulary to identify it, and they can come to you as a parent and say, "You know, I'm feeling flooded right now. I think I need to go to my room and wait until I am unflooded because I can't think straight." That's what was happening in our family.

Now, I would say let them recognize it. Don't say to your spouse, "Honey, you seem very flooded right now. Let's take a break." That doesn't work quite as well. But this concept can help you delay it, right? So that then after you delay it, you can analyze it. That's number three: analyze it. Proverbs 17:27: "He who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding." You see, once you're unflooded, the cerebral cortex is back online; you can analyze your anger. And you know what you'll see? Not all anger is bad. Did you know that? Anger is supposed to be about righting wrongs, about defending the defenseless, about injustice. Look at Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. The Bible said he's perfect; he's holy. Does he get angry in the Bible? Absolutely he does. He's angry at the money changers in the temple. He's angry at the religious hypocrites. He's especially angry at the religious hypocrites. He calls them a brood of vipers. He calls them whitewashed tombs full of corrupt dead men's bones. Wow! Jesus, tell me what you really think, right? But he is defending his loved ones, not himself.

Our problem is you and I keep defending the wrong things, specifically our own egos. So you need to analyze this. Ask, "Why am I angry right now?" Why are you angry? Because anger is always your second emotion. Have you thought about that? Something else triggered the anger. You felt frustrated, or you felt held back, or you felt afraid, or you felt insecure. What triggered your anger? Let me just give you another real-life example. One time I really blew my stack when I was trying to install mini blinds on our living room windows. And every time I try to do some project around the house, it always seems to go south. So Laurie hears me just muttering under my breath; I'm throwing things around. I was so angry, and she says, "Hey, let's take a break. I think you're flooded right now." And it worked because I'm like, "Yeah, I'm very flooded right now." And about 20 minutes later, exactly like Gottman says, we could actually have a discussion. And it was a long discussion, but she really helped me analyze my anger. And you know what I saw? I realized that what was triggering my anger—I was mad. What I thought I was mad at was literally the drill—stupid drill! These stupid mini blinds! I wasn't mad at that. What triggered my anger was my own insecurity at not being very good at doing mechanical stuff around the house. My dad died when I was four; I wasn't raised with that, so I never really learned it. And Laurie's dad was a mechanical genius. Now, you think I'm using that term lightly. There was an article about him in the newspaper because he built an airplane from scratch in their garage. And I'm not talking about a model airplane; I'm talking about an airplane that he took his children to fly around the neighborhood in. He built it himself in their garage. One time, as a present to Laurie, he built her an ice skating rink in their backyard, and I can't hang mini blinds.

I realized that for me, so much of my own anger was fueled by thoughts of, "I am an incompetent husband. I feel embarrassed; I feel stupid." And once I felt like that, I would lash out at all kinds of people: drivers on the road, my own kids, people in my church. But it wasn't about them at all; it was about my own sense of incompetence. And below even that was a sense of insecurity because what I was afraid of, really, like at a soul level, was afraid that I'd lose Laurie's love and respect because I was an incompetent husband in the ways that she would have grown up understanding what a husband was. That's what I was afraid of. You have to analyze it. I'm going to get back to that later, but look at the insight in this next verse: Proverbs 24:29: "Do not say, 'I'll do to them as they've done to me; I'm going to pay them back for what they did.'" There's a question for you: who's this person talking to? To whom are they saying, "I'm going to pay them back"? Who are they saying that to? Themselves. This is self-talk, right? What with the truth behind this? The implication of this verse is what makes you angry is not necessarily what happens to you; it's what you say to yourself about what happened to you. It's what you tell yourself.

It means getting back to not being able to put up the mini-blinds. What I was saying to myself was, "This means people will think I'm an incompetent fool. This means people won't respect me. This means my wife may think she married some bozo husband." Right? What do you tell yourself it means? And by the way, who are all those ideas swirling around? It's all swirling around your own ego. I once heard a man talk about anger, and he said, "I realized I was always angry because I was always in the center of the equation. It was always about me, my pride, my convenience, my feelings." So the key was to step out of the center of the equation. Phenomenal, phenomenal advice. But how do you step out of the center of the equation? Only I would say that's only possible when God is at the center. And that brings us to our final two points. Jot these down.

Number four: transform it. When you feel the temptation to anger, transform it. Now, at the simplest level, here's one way you can do this: Proverbs 15:1: "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." Turning down the volume helps you transform anger, right? It lowers the anger. Lowering your volume. Proverbs 25:21 says, "If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink." Now, lots of cultures in the world had wisdom literature like Proverbs, but there was nothing in them like this because this is not just saying forgive your enemies, which you'll even rarely find that sentiment in other wisdom literature. This is saying give to your enemies what they do not deserve. Redeem that relationship. And of course, this is exactly what Jesus did on the way to the cross. On the cross, what did Jesus do with anger? What did he do with our anger directed at him, the insults, the spitting, and the torture? What did he do with all that? He not only forgave it; he then gave his life so that he could have a relationship with and grant eternal abundant life to the very people who were treating him this way. That's just amazing.

And when you realize he did that for you and me, when that captures your heart, when that captures your imagination, when you realize what Christ did on the cross, then you begin to discover the key to doing the same thing in your life. Because then, then watch this: then your security is not based on anything that you do. Then your ego is not at the center of the equation because then you're not afraid of losing your spouse's love and respect because you can't hang the mini blinds. You're not afraid of that anymore because you're not thinking about your own ego because you already know that the Lord of the universe loves you unconditionally. You're already loved unconditionally, so you don't have to worry about any of those fundamental things that trigger your anger, like, "What's my value as a human being?" and "I feel like I'm being held back," and "I feel like nobody loves me." All of that is resolved when you put Jesus Christ and his grace at the center of your universe. And then you can start to grace others because now you realize you've been graced by this incredible person.

I mean, just look at that. What you find when you put him at the center of the equation is that all the other things Proverbs says and all the rest of the Bible says about how to handle anger, he personifies it all. You see him in both righteous anger and also the ability to deflect other people's angers. It's remarkable. Look at 1 Peter 2:22: "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example. When they hurled insults at him, he didn't retaliate; instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly." Jesus embodies the rest of the law and the prophets and the wisdom literature. So if you want to know how to handle anger, you just look at Jesus. You gaze at Christ, and you do what he modeled and what he said as your Lord and Savior.

How do you do this? How does this look like in practical life? Let's bring this in for a landing. Last Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He had a lot to say about this. He said, for example, racism should make us angry because it's wrong. But then what do we do with that anger? Not hate, not resort to violence. Quoting him, Jesus said, "Love your enemies that you may be children of your Father which is in heaven." And of course, you say, "Well, this isn't practical. Life is a matter of getting even, of hitting back, of dog-eat-dog." Maybe in some distant utopia you say that idea will work, but not in the hard, cold world in which we live. My friends, we have followed that so-called practical way for too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with the wreckage of communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way because Jesus is eternally right. History is replete with the bleached bones of nations that refused to listen to him. May we hear and follow his words before it's too late. May we solemnly realize that we shall never be true sons of our heavenly Father until we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

Man, there's not too many people who really live like that anymore. How could he have had that attitude when he was receiving death threats all the time from people who hated him? One of the best books I read last year was called "Death of a King." It was almost a diary of the last year of his life during which he had a spiritual reawakening. It's really interesting because here's this famous figure, famous as a pastor, and he rediscovers his faith and an intense relationship with Jesus Christ during that final year of his life. And what he started doing was every morning and every evening, he would have a time of devotion where he wasn't just reading the Bible; he was memorizing scripture, and he was singing hymns. And he was all alone, but as his friends would say, they would come upon him weeping as he would sing. As he was singing hymns, in other words, he was being filled up with the love of Christ, so that's what spilled out.

And that's our final point today: you take that anger, if it's unrighteous anger, and you replace it. Replace it with something else. He memorized a lot of verses that final year of his life, but his favorite was Galatians 5:22–23, where it says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control." You know what that means? That means if you need patience, it's a fruit of the Spirit. If you need gentleness, it's a fruit of the Spirit. It's a product of having a spiritual life where you're walking with Jesus, in the presence of Jesus, gazing at Jesus every day. And then something changes inside of you. It's like this: some of you are like a glass, and you're filled all the way to the brim with tension and stress and anger and hurt—some unresolved things that have been with you subconsciously for a long time. And it's so full, and every day you get more and more drops of outrage being poured into that cup. Now, every time anything jostles you just a little bit, all that dark stuff inside you spills out onto other people.

Well, God invites you and me every day to come into his presence and pour out all that bile, just confess it to him, and then let him fill you up as you meditate on his presence and his grace. And then look at what changes. Here's our final verse today: Proverbs 26:20. What a great verse this is! Let's read this out loud together. Really meditate on what this is saying. Let's go: "Where there is no wood, the fire goes out, and where there is no tailbearer, strife ceases." Stop feeding the fire. Stop listening to the tailbearers. Practically switch channels from those televised outrage orgies from both the left and the right. They're playing you; they're pushing a drug because it benefits them. Switch the channel! Resist the urge to always get worked up every single morning about some stupid stuff that some knucklehead said or did or tweeted. Stop getting outraged all the time, and instead, spend some time among calm people doing healthy things and in the presence of Christ, gazing at him. And you'll find that he will direct your anger in constructive ways toward the right things.

Really, this is the key question. The whole point of every verse we've looked at can be boiled down to this: what is filling me up? Because that's your choice every day. You can choose to be filled by God's Spirit of peace and love or by whatever is outraging you. What's filling you up? That's what's going to spill out. And this is important because God has a mission for you, and it's to be an emissary of his love and of his grace. And the way we do that is in the Spirit of Christ. So let's get filled up right now in prayer and in one final worship song. Would you pray with me?

Heavenly Father, I know there's got to be a lot of people—men and women and young people—struggling with this issue in the sound of my voice. And God, I pray that you would help us all realize this is not a try-harder-to-be-good message. This is about resting in you, turning over all of those anxieties and fears and anger issues to you, to empty ourselves of that, and then to let ourselves be filled up by Jesus Christ. And many of us need to pray right now, "Lord, some for the first time, Jesus, come into my life and be my Savior and my Lord." And some of us need to go home and apologize to somebody and say, "I want to change. Let's pray that I'll be able to change." And then seek out resources. Jesus, help us to confess and to find healing now. In your name, and confident of your grace and mercy, we pray. Amen.