THE BOOK ON ANGER

THE BOOK ON ANGER Ephesians 4:26-27 February 18,  2001 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory In his "Breakpoint Commentary recently Chuck Colson shared this story: Lou had had enough. He learned that his wife was having an affair. And, even after he confronted her, she continued to cheat on him. So after his wife left the house one day to meet her paramour at a restaurant, Lou followed. When he saw them together, he beat the lover senseless with a motorcycle helmet, and then rammed the guy's SUV into a fire hydrant. But instead of throwing the book at Lou, the court sent him to school--anger management school, that is.Lou is one of the thousands of offenders who have been ordered to attend classes on how to control their temper. Included in these court-ordered "time outs" are rock stars Tommy Lee and Courtney Love, and that paragon of self-control, boxer Mike Tyson. The classes aren't limited to those who have broken the law. Time magazine reported, many private firms are sending their irascible employees to these kinds of classes, as well. The best-known example of such a referral is Latrell Sprewell, the basketball star. After choking his coach--twice- Sprewell was ordered by the NBA to attend classes on how to control his rage. There was a news story a few years ago about a 19-year old who had a problem with his temper. On the seventh tee at the local golf course, he hit a bad shot. Apparently this was "another" bad shot like he'd been making all day, and, in a rage, he swung his golf club at a thin tree nearby. The club broke in half and the splintered end of the steel shaft shot between his ribs and pierced his heart. He hemorrhaged and died in front of his friends within two minutes Anger You can find as many definitions of anger as you can find books on the subject of anger-and there are a lot of them. But most definitions distill to mean pretty much the same thing. Here's how one author defines it: Anger is an emotion or passion directed toward self or others in response to a real or perceived wrongdoing. The Bible never really defines anger, but nevertheless has a lot to say about it. We'll focus this morning on one particular message found at Ephesians 4:26-27 in your New Testament. Turn there, please, and see it in print in your own Bible-there is great value in that. "'In your anger do not sin' [quote of Psalm 4:4]; Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold." I ask you to notice a couple of things re anger that leap out of this passage: 1. Anger is assumed ("in your anger", not "don't get angry") 2. You can sin when you are angry, but you don't have to 3. The straightforward command is "do not sin" in your anger 4. This anger sin that you might commit has something to do with REMAINING in anger ("Don't le the sun go down while.") 5. There is very real spiritual danger in this sin which in involved in remaining in anger, because it gives "the devil a foothold." Is that about what you see in that text? That's what I see. I'd like to talk, in very practical and spiritual terms, about what that means to us-all of us. And I include those who are always angry about something, and they know it; those who are always angry about things and they don't realize it (their spouses and kids do, though); those who are certain they never get angry, let alone sin when they do; and all the rest-the honest ones-who know they get angry, and that they often sin in their anger. Further, I believe there is DELIVERANCE available for those who sincerely want help. Anger as an Emotion - Most experts in the behavioral sciences will agree with the Bible in this: that anger is a natural human emotion, and in and of itself is not wrong. How we let anger shape our souls and our behavior can be wrong, though. We'll look at this in a moment. Anger is a mental thing (soul/mind/heart). That is, it first happens in our thinking and feeling. Anger usually erupts as a feeling when we feel that we or our convictions have been violated or threatened. When we feel like we are the objects of a personal assault or when we are unable to control the circumstances in our lives, we experience anger. Sometimes we get angry when we are under divine conviction of our sin. We get angry when we have significant unmet needs, blocked goals or unfulfilled desires. An inability to love, either others or ourselves can prompt recurring feelings of anger. We get angry, too, when we witness injustice, not just toward ourselves, but against anyone else-particularly the helpless or defenseless. Anger is also a physical thing (body). This powerful emotion, like all of our emotions, effects a physiological change in us. The connection between soul and body is very strong here. When you feel angry, you undergo certain changes physically. When you, or your convictions, are threatened, your natural reaction is to get anxious. Anxiety can actually be measured physiologically. You might detect a physical discomfort if I were to say: drunk drivers, pollution, insurance company, cancer, taxes, in-laws, Bill Clinton, unemployment, divorce, New York Mets. If there was an anger response to any of those ideas your heart rate might have increased slightly, your blood pressure, your metabolic rate, your "fight or flight" adrenaline hormones are released. Gastric juices flow, muscles tighten. Chronic anger problems put you at higher risk of stroke, cardiovascular disease, GI problems, stress related issues and suppressed immune system. And, thirdly, anger is also a spiritual thing (spirit). We don't often think of issues like guilt, shame, woundedness, bitterness and fear as being spiritual feelings, but they very much are. They go to the deepest part of us, affect our feelings about ourselves, others and God. A healthy person knows how to deal appropriately with anger when it flares up in him. That is what Ephesians 4:26-27 is all about. 'Want to feel better and be healthier, body, soul and spirit? Learn to handle anger. Anger as Expression Many people thoughtlessly equate anger and aggression or rage. They are not the same. Anger is a feeling, emotion; rage is a reaction. In an unhealthy scenario, anger can lead to aggression, but not necessarily. The line that is drawn between healthy, normal emotional feelings of anger and the unhealthy, sinful behavior that can result from anger is in this area: How long you choose to remain angry without resolving it in appropriate ways, and whether you choose to let that anger express itself in destructive ways. What gets your goat? How do you act after you encounter that "goat-getter"? The question is Do you react, and how? Are your behaviors edifying to yourself, to others and to the Lord? You see, what you DO about the anger you experience is the critical issue. One man said, "When I have an argument with my wife, she never get hysterical, she gets historical." Anger as a Bondage - Chronic or Compulsive Anger For some people, even believers, anger has given way to aggressive reaction for so long it has become an ingrained habit for them. They live in perpetual state of anger. Many are chronically angry because of unresolved bitterness or unforgiveness in their past. Some are just plain wounded, and have never gotten over it. As the pain worked its way deeper into their souls, it became less and less recognizable. And the only symptom that remains is this hotheaded tendency to explode into a rage at anything threatening. Little things "tick them off"; they're negative about everything, it seems. And if the chronically angry person is a believer he is doubly miserable because he knows the joy of the Lord is to be his strength, but he just can't muster it up. In fact, if he hears one more sermon on "Rejoice, again I say rejoice!" he's liable to deck the preacher! The Lord is lovingly and vitally interested in bringing deliverance to such a person. Those Christians who are strangled by anger are living far beneath their privilege in the Lord. Most of us have learned civility and don't tend to explode with our anger in aggressive fashion. We handle our anger in "nice" ways. We hide it, like a dog with a favorite bone-we bury it in the back yard of our souls. But this is just as unhealthy as the outward aggression technique for handling anger. Anger that is buried has not gone away, but like the creature in the Alien movies, it mutates into other unhealthy behaviors and destroys us (and those around us) a little bit at a time. There are at least four methods of mishandling anger. I hope to deal with these a little more next Sunday, but they are: 1. Exploding (dealt with this one) 2. Somatizing - denial and stuffing, and it comes out in ill health and disease 3. Self-punishing - turning anger inward, self-demeaning behaviors and depression 4. Underhanding - pouting sympathy-seekers, relationship sabotagers, sarcastic, passive aggressive behaviors, Ephesians 4:26-27 says you can be angry and yet not sin! And what is the devil doing to and through these angry people? Destroying their lives, wounding those who love them, decimating Christian community, and, in general, having a ball. Why? Because he comes to steal, kill and destroy. And his favorite territory is the mind, body and spirit of an angry person. HOW Can I Be Angry and not Sin? Resolve to seek the Spirit's direction at the critical juncture of anger Author Neil Clark Warren, former dean of Fuller Graduate School, defines anger as "Preparedness. Power." Anger begs to move from emotion to expression. It is at this critical juncture that the wise Christian must be ready to turn to the Lord for direction. It was Thomas Jefferson who gets the credit for the advice that says, "when angry, count to ten, if very angry count to a hundred!" When Mark Twain read that counsel he put his own inimitable twist on it: he said, "When angry count to four, if very angry swear." Jefferson's advice has the right idea, but doesn't go far enough. You know as well as I that counting to ten can be an opportunity for cooling down, but it can also be a countdown to a blast-off! Next week I hope to investigate with you some practical spiritual principles in this area, but for now let's understand the basic idea-that when you are angry you are prepared for action. Just what action you decide to take makes all the difference in the world. Resolve to give your anger an "Expiration Date" Anger has to be dealt with. Many say it has to be "vented"-never hit a person, but hit something you can't hurt, like a punching bag. While giving vent to anger with physical aggression is not really the best way to handle the anger, neither is ignoring it, or "stuffing" it. Putting stuffing untreated anger down into your soul and trying to ignore it is like turning up the heat on a boiler. The pressure will become so great that it will eventually blow. What that means for boilers is a dangerous explosion. Do you know what it means in the human being? A dangerous explosion! There is an old yarn about a Quaker who owned an ornery cow. Every time he milked her, it was a clash of two wills. This particular morning she was unusually irritable, but he was determined to endure the session without so much as a cross word. As the farmer began to milk her, ol' Bossy stepped on his foot with all her weight. He struggles silently, groaned a little under his breath, pulled his foot free, then sat back down on the stool. She then swished her tail in his face like a string whip. The farmer just leaned away. Next she kicked over the milk bucket just when it was half-full. He started over, mumbling a few words to himself, but he never lost his cool. Once finished with the ordeal, he breathed a sigh of relief, picked up the bucket and stool, and as he was leaving she hauled off and kicked him knocking him against the barn wall ten feet away. That did it. He stood up, marched to the front of that cow, stared into those big eyes, and as he shook a long bony finger in her face, he shouted, "Thou dost know that I am a Quaker. Thou dost know also that I cannot strike thee back . . .but thou must remember, I can always sell thee to a Baptist!" If left unhealed, anger will get you, and your spirit and your behavior will fall victim to it. Chuck Swindoll tells about a man who watching an eagle one day. And he saw the eagle go into a sift dive, apparently seeing dinner on the ground. The mighty eagle swooped low and snatched up a weasel in as athletic a move as the man had ever seen. With his prey in his beak the eagle reascending. But suddenly the man noticed the eagle's wings went limp, and within seconds it fell to the ground like a lifeless doll. It turned out that the weasel, though wounded itself, bit his attacker in the neck killing the eagle in mid-flight. If you cling to anger, it will sink its teeth into your soul's jugular and take you down. Resolve to handle your anger in godly ways The Lord willing, I hope to deal more fully with this topic next Sunday, but suffice it to say now that there are ways and means to deal positively and appropriately with feelings of anger. As with all strong emotions in our lives, anger generates its own kind of stress within us. As I said, it releases new levels of adrenaline, physically, emotionally and spiritually. That is a kind of energy, you know, and it is actually a gift from God. We use it to fight injustice, to stand up for righteousness and to deal with unwanted threats. Well there are good and bad ways to use that stress that comes from anger. If we handle it badly, the anger really never goes away-in fact, it tends to grow. If we learn to handle it in the correct way, we watch the anger dissipate, and we experience the victory of the Lord in our lives, in our homes and in our Christian community. In a nutshell, we learn to use this stress, not as DIS-stress, but as EU-stress. We learn to focus the energy this adrenaline gives us, not in negative or destructive ways, but in positive and edifying ways. And that has to do with the decision we make in the "critical juncture" of anger. That decision is, quite simply, "Do I want to really FIX this problem, or do I want to HOLD ON TO my anger? The Ken Burns PBS series on jazz music has a terrific quote by jazz great Duke Ellington. Duke was asked about his feelings at not being able, as a black man, to stay in the guest rooms of the hotels he and his band performed in because of segregation. He said, "I took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues." In the academy award winning movie, Forrest Gump, there are a couple of memorable lines. The one everyone seems to remember is the one about life being like a box of chocolates-you never know what you're gonna' get. But there is another line worth remembering. In one dramatic scene, one of the key characters, Jenny, returns to her old home after her father has died, and the old farmhouse is dilapidated and abandoned. As she reflects on the sexual abuse that she endured as a child, she is overcome by rage and she begins throwing rocks at the house. The artful and powerful photography shows her reaching rapidly for the rocks and violently throwing them, almost insanely, at all the house represented to her. Jenny finally falls in an exhausted heap to the ground, and the scene closes with Forrest philosophically saying, "Sometimes there just aren't enough rocks." When you struggle with anger, especially that anger that has sat in your soul and steeped for too long, you reach frantically for anything handy that might help relieve the pain in your heart. But there are never enough rocks to bring genuine healing. Venting, whatever form it takes, never satisfies. You don't need another rock to throw, another partner to mistreat, another pity party, another issue to get enraged about. You need a deliverer. Jesus said He came to set captives free. He was talking about a lot of bondages, but one of them was the prison of anger. Let His love and salvation set you free. Call on Him today.   [Back to Top]