Anger

My name is Rene, another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. And if you're new to the church, what we do is the first half hour or so of our hour or so together we spend in worship, singing, and praising God, and doing those responsive readings. And then this last half hour or so, we look at the Bible, and we look for practical things that the Bible has to teach us. And to follow along with the message, you can just grab those message notes that you were handed when you came in, or you can access them at tlc.org/notes, especially if you're joining us on the live stream right now.

Well, who is excited about the game coming up later on this afternoon? I said, who is excited about the game coming up later on this afternoon? I don't know if you noticed, but I subtly incorporated Niner colors into my outfit today. I'm keeping it very subtle, kind of on the down low. I don't want to draw attention to it, because I feel like if I wore like real Niners gear or made a big deal out of it, it might be potentially offensive to some Dallas Cowboy fans who might be here with us today. And everyone is welcome at church, so, um, whatever.

But, uh, so I'm just subtly doing it, because I figured if I didn't bring it up, then people who are Niner fans would notice my cut. This is what's called subtlety, all right? So who's excited about the game today? All right. Have you noticed how people seem to be angry these days in our culture, like all the Cowboys fans are mad at me right now? But just in general, New York Times had an article headline, "Why is everyone so angry?" Harvard Business Review, of all places, frontline work when everyone is angry, even on the other shores, across other continents are noticing this.

The BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation, ran a story. The first paragraph, "Americans are generally known for having a positive outlook on life." That's nice to know that that's what they think of us, but something has changed. 69% of Americans now say they almost constantly feel either very angry or somewhat angry. That's 69% of you, for example. And you know how you can tell that outrage has really taken over our culture? Just Google outrage, as I did this past week. 143 million results about all kinds of people being outraged about all kinds of stuff.

Now, maybe that's not a surprise for you, but I decided just for fun that I would search for groups that I thought had a reputation for being more mellow and kind of like harmless, right? Like I Googled vegans outraged, a million and a half hits. Vegans are testy, as it turns out. Gardeners outraged, nearly 3 million hits. And my favorite headline was this, "TV Gardner Sparks Horticultural Outrage for Calling Begonias Ugly." Call my begonias ugly, will ya? That's an outrage. Finally, I thought I'd try knitters outraged. Over 2 million hits. I guess you could say knitters are coming unraveled. You could say that, but I would never say something like that. They're all tied in knots, you know. They're easily needled.

Okay, somebody said, "We live in the golden age of outrage." Now, maybe you say, "Well, I don't get outraged. I don't have an anger problem, a temper problem." Well, harsh words, passive aggressive behavior, blaming, resentment, depression. Constant complaining can all be possible anger symptoms. So let's talk about it. One another is our January series on relationships, looking at some of the many one another verses that are in the New Testament. And just kind of a look forward, next weekend I'm going to be speaking and also we're going to have a panel here on the stage of relationship experts, licensed marriage and family counselors and pastors and so on. And they're going to be answering your relationship questions. Email them to me at renee@tlc.org. You will be kept anonymous completely. We would love to get your questions.

But today, let's talk about anger. And before we dive deeper into this subject, I just want to make a public confession and be very honest with you as your pastor. I am still really learning about this subject personally. And it's been a journey for me. My own temper was a serious issue when I was younger, especially early on in our marriage. I was never violent. I want to make that clear. But I was explosive. I would just lose my temper and fly off the handle. And finally, I realized that I really must deal with this. And I'm going to be telling you more about the story as the sermon goes on.

But the good news is I found out that there are great resources out there. And if this is a chronic issue for you, I would strongly encourage you to check out the research too and to see a pastor or a counselor get into 12-step recovery groups here at Twin Lakes Church. For example, we have a group here specifically for men about anger. It meets Thursdays at 7 p.m. You can email jim@tlc.org. Because there is so much more to say about anger than I have time to say this morning. I'm not even covering, for example, making amends for your anger or setting boundaries if you are friends with or live with a chronically angry person. But those kinds of topics are covered in our recovery groups.

Today, what I want to do is speak very narrowly to what you can do with your anger, whether it's a chronic problem for you or whether you're just in that 69% that just kind of is finding yourself always kind of like ticked off right now at stuff that's going on. This is what I have done in my own life and I have to say it really does work. Before this message this week while I was working on it, I decided I need to do a reality check here and I asked my wife and I asked some friends and some co-workers here at church, people who've known me for decades, and I asked them, give me an honest answer to this question. How am I doing on my anger?

And I'm so grateful that what they told me is that over time, incrementally, they have seen me change by God's grace when it comes to my anger. In fact, I can truly say that of all the things that I struggled with as a young man, this is the area where I have seen the most victory in my own life. I'm a changed man in this area. Not perfect, of course. But very, very different than I used to be. Why do I bring that up? Because that means I know personally you can change too. You are not trapped in your anger. It's not part of your personality. It's not just the way you were made. It's unreal.

It's funny because between services, so many people walked up to me who were in the first service and said, yeah, I really struggled with anger. And what cracks me up is how many times people relate it to their heritage. I struggled with somebody who came up to me, you know, I'm Portuguese-German, so the anger. Somebody else said, you know, I'm Russian, so the anger. Somebody else said, we're Spaniards, so the anger. Somebody else came up and said, well, you know, we're Irish. Literally every single nationality is like, well, you know. But you can change. It's not just a part of your ethnic identity or your nationality. You can be different if you stop making excuses and start being open to God changing you.

You can tell this really, really comes from my heart. And today what I want to do is share some of the personally important concepts for me, some of the biblical concepts and some of the professional advice that really changed me. And it all revolves around our one another verse for this morning. We've been looking at some of the one another verses in the Bible. There's over 100 of them that talk about how we should treat one another. And I love this one directly related to our topic today. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Now, what I love about this is Paul doesn't just talk about the more violent, explosive components of anger, rage and brawling, right? Some of you are like, I've never brawled in my life. But he also includes bitterness and slander and malice, some of these more passive aggressive forms of anger. Because there's a lot of people who never like punch people in the face, but they're nursing bitterness their whole lives. And it's ruining relationships. Or slander, I'm so sad to say that I'm seeing this go without excuse being rationalized among Christians. Like if you've ever forwarded a post that's denigrating about somebody that you see as your opponent, ideologically or politically, without fact checking it to see if it's actually true, you know, you might be engaged in slander, which the Bible tells us not to do.

Or malice, which just is having evil intent, you know, wishing the worst for people you perceive as opponents. So instead of that, Paul goes on and says, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another." And this last clause is crucial. Just as in Christ, God forgave, past tense, forgave you. You know, God, this is so important. So important if you're dealing with anger, rage, or really any other kind of a character flaw. God's not up there going, "Yeah, if you get control of your anger, then I'll bless you, then I'll like you, then I'll forgive you, then I'll love you." He's already forgiven you in Christ if you'll simply receive that gift of grace. He loves you unconditionally. This isn't about shame. This is about transformation.

So once you get that, that this is how God looks at you, then you start to tap into the power that can get you to see other people this way too. God doesn't look at you and say, you know, "You're bad. I hate you. Get out of my sight unless you could... If you deal with your anger, then you can come back and we can talk." He loves you and forgives you, but he wants you to thrive. And anger is keeping you from thriving. And the Bible talks a lot about this. For example, it says, "Uncontrolled anger." Well, it's just unhealthy. It's bad for you. Look at Proverbs 37, 8. This is very blunt. "Stop being angry. Turn from your rage. Do not lose your temper. It only leads to what? Harm."

I just saw a study this week said chronic anger was linked with, watch this, coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, colds, flu, generally poor health, poor decision-making, and substance misuse. That's like the top seven of stuff that you don't want to have happen in your life. And you're making all that stuff worse if you're nursing anger. So it's unhealthy and it's also contagious. It is contagious. Ever notice that if somebody else is angry, you'll get it? And if you're angry, somebody else gets it, right, from you? It truly is contagious. Proverbs 15, 18 says, "A hot-tempered man." And by the way, Proverbs talks about male pronouns, men, because the framework for Proverbs is it's set up as a father giving life advice to his son. So naturally, it's going to use masculine pronouns. But clearly, all these principles apply across gender, right? Women as well as men.

A hot-tempered person stirs up dissension. Stirring them up, being a provocateur, right? A disturber of people's peace. That's a job description for some people these days. But these people leave this wake of dissension. But a patient man calms a quarrel. Anger is contagious. And we need to have to be very, very careful about that. And then finally, anger is intoxicating. It's like a drug. I saw a fascinating Psychology Today article this past week. The headline was, "Is Anger Addictive?" And I talked about all the evidence that produces some of the same brain chemicals as cocaine. And is that a surprise to anybody? Where you get that head rush from anger? So it literally can be addictive. It's intoxicating. Proverbs 14, 17 says, "A quick-tempered man does foolish things."

Let me ask you a question. Show of hands. How many of you have ever calmed down after you've lost your temper and looked back over something that you did in that moment when you're all hot-headed and been ashamed and thought, "Man, I acted like I feel like I was a fool." Anybody ever felt like that in your lives? You know why you felt like you were a fool? Because you were a fool, according to these verses. Check this out. Another research project said, "Merely being exposed to angry words reduces our ability to process and recall information." That means to think. "Man, I need all the help I can get in this area, you know? I'm eating vitamin B and having kale milkshakes to help me in this area. But if I'm just exposing myself to outrage, I'm taking three steps back. It's unhealthy. It's contagious. It's intoxicating. The Bible warns us against this.

So what are the steps to controlling my anger? Anger is just an emotion, right? It's neither good nor bad. It's what you then do with it once you feel it. That's what matters. So now that the Bible told us what's wrong with anger, here's three biblical principles that were the three keys to my own anger management. And I personally know that these can help you starting today because we all get angry. And let me just say this. Not only do you get angry just because you're a human being, you get angry because there's people trying to make you angry all the time. You know why? So Wired magazine just had an article saying that headlines that evoke the emotion of outrage are by far the most effective as clickbait.

In other words, if you're writing a headline, you want to write it something like, "You might be outraged when you see what whoever the person you oppose politically said today." Right? And so you're going to click on that. I mean, almost guaranteed, right? So there's people leveraging that, monetizing your anger. And so it's not just that we all get angry about stuff. It's that now we live in a media world where that button is constantly being pushed. So how do I deal with it? Well, three very simple concepts. Really, there are three words. Number one, delay. Delay it. If you want to really speak your mind to somebody, wait. Look at this Ecclesiastes 7.9. "Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools."

Let me ask for another kind of audience poll here. Show of hands. How many of you have learned never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever send a tweet or post or an email or leave a phone message when you're mad? Anybody ever learned that lesson? How many of you learned it the hard way, like me? I've said this many times, but I'm just going to keep saying it. My life was changed by a book written by a researcher named John Gottman, who coined a term "flooded." And flooded is what you feel when you are just flushed with hormones in an argument, and you just find yourself getting really angry. The adrenaline and all the other fight or flight hormones are kicking in.

Research shows that when flooded, you literally cannot learn anything. When somebody's angry, blood flow to the what you could call the thinking part of your brain shuts down. Why? Well, it's our built-in fight or flight response in times of immediate physical danger, like there's a mountain lion on the path in front of me. We can react without thinking. That's a gift from God for those rare times that we're actually in danger. Anger also sparks this because I'm being threatened. No thinking, only reaction. But what that means in normal life is that it's literally pointless to have a conversation with an angry person because the thinking part of the brain is not online. Logical argument is physically impossible.

And so the only wise thing to do is to take a break, step back, and get un-flooded. And this takes minimally 20 minutes. Sometimes it can take as long as a day. I have to tell you, this idea transformed our family life, transformed our marriage. We ended up using this term "flooded" in our family, with our kids, with each other. "I'm feeling flooded right now. I have to wait until I'm un-flooded." Or, "Sweetheart, you seem flooded to me like now. Let's just kind of take a break." Honestly, that really, really works. I mean, parents, when you're parenting teenagers, especially early teens, teach them this concept. Why? Because then when you're sensing that intuitively, instead of saying, "You know what? You're on time out," which is punitive, make it constructive and say, "Wow, you know, I'm sensing that you're a little flooded right now. Let's just not talk about this anymore. Why don't you just go relax in your room until you're un-flooded?" You get that? This concept really helps delay it.

So then you can analyze it. Analyze it. So important. Proverbs 17, 27 says, "He who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding." Analysis. Here's one very good analytical question to ask yourself. Ask, "Why am I angry right now?" Not like, "That person provoked me," but what's underneath it? Because anger is almost always your second emotion. Have you ever thought about that? What triggered the anger? It's some other emotion. "I feel frustrated. I feel held back. I feel afraid. I feel insecure." What triggered my anger, and I don't mean this gives you an excuse to blame your outburst on somebody else, I mean you look deep within to see what your anger reveals about you.

So let me give you a very personal example. Once I really blew my stack early on in our marriage when I was trying to install mini blinds on our living room windows. Now, you know, I'm not the most mechanical person, but they were called five-minute mini blinds. That was literally their brand. The packaging shows a monkey with a screwdriver supposedly putting these things up. That's how easy it supposedly was. So I thought, "I have a master's degree. I can do this." It's a master's degree in theology with completely useless in this situation, but still I think I'm smart. Two hours later, my wife Laurie hears me muttering under my breath, and I'm even throwing tools, and I was so angry.

But I tell you that moment because that moment was really a turning point for me when it comes to analyze it. Laurie goes, "Uh, let's get unflooded first." And once I was unflooded, she helped me analyze it, and you know what I saw? I realized that what was triggering my anger was my own insecurity at not being good at doing mechanical stuff around the house. Because Laurie's dad was a mechanical genius, and I don't just mean he could, you know, change light bulbs well or something. He built, when my wife was a little girl, he built her an ice skating rink in their backyard. When she was a little girl, he built an airplane in their garage from scratch, and I don't mean a model plane. I mean an airplane that he flew around.

You know, I'm facing this kind of a man in Laurie's background, and now she's married to a guy who's being outperformed by a monkey with a screwdriver, you know? So I felt so insecure that I wasn't the kind of man she had seen her father be as a provider for her family. And it went even deeper than that. I was truly anxious that perhaps if she did not see that kind of husband in me, then she wouldn't love me. And then that led to an even deeper realization for me about my anger. It wasn't just that incident. So much of my own anger in all of life was sparked by thoughts of, "I hate feeling incompetent." Because it makes me feel stupid, it makes me feel embarrassed.

And once I saw that, I could see beneath so much of my anger. It really, really helped to help diffuse it. Because I realized I'm not really mad at that person or this situation. I'm mad right now because I feel stupid. I feel incompetent. And I realized it was really an issue of self-worth, which ultimately is found only in the Lord and what he says about me and my identity in Christ. What I'm saying is you have to analyze it. It helps diffuse your anger because often, not always, but so often, what's underneath your anger is the same root issue. And if you're like, "I don't know what to think," then ask family members. Ask friends what they think, and then don't get defensive about their honest answers.

You know, I once heard a man talk about his anger, and he said this. 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." And so the key was, he said, to step out of the center of the equation. That's phenomenal advice. But how do you step out of the center of the equation? Well, that's our final point. Replace it. You have to replace your anger. The Bible talks a lot about this. Replace it with what? Two things. First, with positive action. Look at what Jesus said in Luke 6. And by the way, this is just part of a longer sermon there in Luke 6, which is really, the whole sermon is all about being unprovocable.

It's all about, people are going to come up and try to push your button, push your button, push your button, push your button, but do not let yourself be provoked. Instead, Jesus says, for example, "Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you." Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. Transform your anger into service. And I would say, especially when you feel yourself getting angry about evil in the world, don't just sit there in your living room getting mad. Practical example. This weekend is Sanctity of Human Life weekend. And so many people about this issue just kind of get ticked off. And I get it. But instead, how about helping pregnant women in crisis? Helping mothers with new babies. Supporting single moms with vocational training.

You say, that sounds great. How? Well, volunteering or donating to the Pregnancy Resource Center, which TLC supports and Lori and I support, or Sienna House, which TLC supports as well. You know, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. Roll up your sleeves instead of just steeping yourself in anger. And prayer. Jesus says, pray for them. Here's a challenge. This week, ask yourself, who am I the most upset with right now? Who am I angry with? Pray for them. Replace your anger with positive action. And replace your anger with positive input. I love Proverbs 26 verses 40 and 41. Look at this. For lack of wood, the fire goes out. And where there was no whisperer, contention dies down. Because like charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a contentious man for kindling strife.

Right? He's saying, man, you got to get a little less upset about what these knuckleheads out there say. Because they're trying to push your buttons. Now, you might think, but there's so much bad stuff out there. There's so much to be angry about in our culture. Let me explain why you are seeing more and more and more bad stuff that is outraging you in our culture. It is simple math. Watch this. The amount of information that's out there when it comes to news and your news feeds and social media feeds and stuff, that increases every single year, right? Right? But the number of minutes you have to read it stays exactly the same. Nobody has ever come up with a way to add seconds to your day.

So you get more and more content being pushed your direction, you know, by people who are trying to get your eyes, get your clicks, but you only have the same number of minutes to read it. For example, in 2014, let's say for the sake of argument, you got 500 news stories pushed to you every single day based on your previous clicks, right? But you only have time to read if you're a fast reader, 100. What percent of 500 is 100? 20%. That means you're reading the most outrageous 20%. Because remember, you tend to click on clickbait that gets you angry, gets you outraged, that says bad things about people that you already dislike, right?

Fast forward to this year, there is 10 times as much out there when it comes to media sources. So let's say if you got 500 in 2014, you get 5000 stories pushed to you now, you still only have time to read 100. So what percentage of 5000 is 100? You are accessing the most outrageous 2%. Do you see? So you're developing a more and more and more extreme view of reality. But your brain sees that 2% and that's all the stories you're getting and it thinks the whole world is, it thinks that 2% is representative of the whole, like all the gardeners in the world are like that 2% that I read about that are mad about me calling begonias ugly, you know? Or all Democrats, or all Republicans, or all black people, or all white people.

And you know this to be the case because if you identify yourself as a Christian or an Orthodox Christian, an Evangelical Christian, you read about the nut cases that the news stories are about, Evangelical Christian does some zany, or says something crazy, and you think to yourself, "I am a Christian, I don't know a single Christian who's like that." Well you know what? The people who don't know any Christians, they think that that 2% is what all Christians are like. Well you know that's true of Christians, that same exact thing is true of every single other demographic group. You're getting exposed to the weirdos and you think the whole world is like that. And again, this is now intentional because people are pushing this stuff your direction because they're monetizing your outreach.

When you click on a headline, it gets that webpage more views and so they can charge more for the ads. You're being played. It's kind of like this, before I moved here I used to live up at Lake Tahoe. Show of hands, how many of you have been at Tahoe, right? Can I see? How many of you think Tahoe is beautiful? Isn't it beautiful? That's why the inside of casinos look like this. It always looks like 2 o'clock in the morning in a casino. And if there are windows to the outside, you know what they're made of? Smoked dark glass. Why? They don't want the beauty of the real world to distract you from their curated reality in there because they got flashing lights and buttons to allure you to just pull that lever one more time.

I used to work at a radio studio in Harrah's, Tahoe, which is where this is and I walked past all this to get to work and I always felt like saying, "People, get outside and see the beauty." But that exact thing is happening to you every single day. There's beauty all around you, but you're seeing the world through a little smoked glass window. And guess what? Just like casinos, there are lights and buttons designed to keep you addicted, keep you scrolling, keep you pulling that lever. You're being played. Just like when you walk through the doors of a club. So get out and see the beauty around you and especially see the glorious beauty of Jesus Christ because Jesus shows us what it looks like to be completely unprovocable when there's angry people all around you.

The Bible says, final verse, 1 Peter 2, "Christ suffered for you." Leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps, how so? When they hurled their insults at him, he didn't retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. See, when you're facing the world with faith, with trust that there's a loving God who is sovereign, then you know he's ultimately in control, history is not just absurd. Then you know God can bring good things even out of chaos as we sang about earlier. Then you know things that seem to be negative now can turn out to have great positive outcomes like the cross of Christ itself.

When your imagination is captured by that beauty, it changes the way you see everything. So really the key question here is this, and this is what everything we've looked at can be boiled down to, what is filling me up? Because you know what? You and I were all like glasses of water, for example. And whatever is inside of you, whatever fills you to the brim, that's what's going to, when something jostles you, that's what's going to spill out. Spill, and some of us are so full of anger and insecurity and rage and outrage that the slightest little thing, that's what pops out. But when you fill yourself with a focus on the grace of God for you, though I'm a sinner, God loves me and he sent his son Jesus to die for me on the cross, and we're all the same, we all are lost, and yet we're all loved and saved by God undeservingly, and yet he loves us unconditionally and empowers us with the resurrection power of Jesus.

When the grace of God captures your imagination, then grace is what spills out. So what are you allowing? This is a choice that you make every single day, every single minute of your life. And the choice you make completely changes you. And so let's allow God to fill us up right now. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your word, and thank you that it gives us such practical advice about these things. And Lord, I know that all of us struggle at one degree or another with this, and there's some people right now who we probably all need to pray and confess to you in this moment, some perhaps for the very first time just want to pray, "Jesus, save me. I need to be saved from my problem with anger. I need to turn it all over to you for the first time saying, 'Jesus, be my Lord, be my Savior.'"

But many others, I need to pray, "God, I want to confess to you I do have a problem with this, and I need to go home and confess it to people in my life. Give me the strength to do that, and give me the strength to change." God, may this not be perceived as a tryharder message, but as a surrender message, a surrender to you so that your grace can transform us from the inside out. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.