Anger's Damage to the Home
Our Imperfect Family • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Ephesians 4.26-5.2
On her blog Personal excellence Celes Chua
Gives 7 tips for living with someone with an anger problem.
Among the advice are these ideas...
Pick your Battles
Pick opportune times to talk to them.
Shield yourself from their Anger.
Energy Ball (focused thoughts)
Drawing
Understand why they are angry
Show them Love: Speak in their language of Love.
Use your anger to reflect on yourself.
Help them walk through their anger.
I don’t know how that strikes you but this breaks my heart.
Anger is a natural emotion that can have both positive and negative effects. When expressed appropriately, anger can be a powerful motivator for change and can help to resolve conflicts. However, when anger is not managed properly, it can lead to destructive and harmful behavior, especially within the home.
The Bible warns us of the danger of uncontrolled anger in many places. Here are a few examples:
He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding:
But he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
In the context of the home, uncontrolled anger can lead to verbal or physical abuse, broken relationships, and a lack of trust and intimacy. It is important for family members to learn how to manage their anger in healthy and productive ways, such as through communication, forgiveness, and seeking help when needed.
We will hear when the discussion of anger is brought up we automatically run to
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.
When this discussion comes up we say wait there is such a thing as righteous indignation. Okay I’ll give that to you, but the home is not the place for such an anger.
Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them.
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
What about your children?
Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.
What does anger give permission for...
Physical Abuse
Emotional Abuse
Manipulation
Name Calling
Marital Rape
Mental Control
Over Correction of the Children
Yelling/Screaming
Vulgarity
Cursing
Well preacher I just get worked up you know. Then shame on you that you give into your flesh… This is not awe well do your best. No this is sin and you are bringing a poison into the home through your anger. I recognize that there is a difference between Physical about and yelling. For the one that is practicing their anger. But what you are doing is permitting yourself the right to take the peace of your family and throw it away until you are done with your tempertantrum.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.
Life change happens:
Consider that same passage that I referenced a bit ago...
Now, I said I would point you back to the way Paul worked with anger.
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
This text is a model for fathers and how to attack the anger in the family — in himself, in his children, in his wife.
Notice Eph 4.31-32 That’s all command — and as command, powerless.
You go to a dad who’s angry in this church tonight and say, “Stop feeling that way.” He’ll look at you like, “You mean you want me to fly? It doesn’t work.” That’s what he would say, probably, if you just said, “Stop the anger” — or like Paul, “Put it away.” That’s powerless. But the next phrase is all power: “. . . as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). There’s the only hope, dads. The gospel is the only hope for child-rearing.
The main issue in making kids mad is that we’re mad. And if we’re going to pull the plug on our anger, this is it. I don’t know any other Christ-exalting answer to how to overcome anger than to do it the way Paul says here. “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you” (Ephesians 4:31).
Reverse it. Let there be kindness and tenderheartedness — those other sweet emotions that are being slaughtered by the anger. Replace the anger with tenderheartedness, and forgive one another. And then here it comes: “as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).
So according to the text, God doesn’t just come to us dads and say, “Stop being angry, and stop provoking your kids to anger — period. I mean it. I’m God. Do what I say.” That’s not the gospel. What God says is this: “From eternity, I planned to save you.
My Son and I, in a covenant of redemption, agreed to do it. I’m going to let him go. He’s going to die. He’s going to rise again.” For every dad who will look away from himself to Christ to see the punishment he deserves and the righteousness God requires, and who will receive all that precious, glorious treasure — at that moment, God says, “I am totally for you, forever.”
And out of that forgiveness, out of that right standing, out of that sweet, tenderhearted experience of the living God folding me like a father into his family, you know what can happen, dads? A soul that has shriveled up to one solitary emotion, anger, can begin to melt under the smile of God. It can happen. It will happen.
