Speaker 1: Lauren, i appreciate you sharing your story.
Speaker 1: There's a longer version of that that's gonna be coming out in the days to come on Facebook and YouTube, so keep an eye out for that.
Speaker 1: But you know, lauren's an incredible example of someone who's been through a lot of moments in life that would have been easy to give up on God, but something about Jesus keeps drawing her back in And the way she and Jeff are leading their family.
Speaker 1: We've had the opportunity over the last eight months to see their two oldest children give their lives to Christ to be baptized Just an incredible example of faithfulness, even in the fires and the trials of life.
Speaker 1: So grateful Thank you for sharing your story today, and you know that's our prayer for all of us.
Speaker 1: I think that one we'd realize that we're all works in progress right.
Speaker 1: Whether it's anxiety or anger or sadness or whatever the trial that we face is, we're all on a journey of trying to become more like Jesus, and none of us have arrived yet.
Speaker 1: We all need the grace of God to work in us and to transform us from the inside out, and that's our prayer for our graduates as well, because they're about to enter a world that you know where it is easy, as we just sang, to be formed by feelings, to let go of what is true.
Speaker 1: And our prayer is that, in the midst of the trial, in the midst of the fire, that we wouldn't be formed by what we feel or what the world says, but that we would let the truth of God's word be the anchor for our lives, and so that, through the trial, through the fire, we actually grow and flourish and thrive.
Speaker 1: Today we are going to talk a little bit about anger.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's something that you struggle with, maybe it's not, but I think wherever you're at today, it's going to encourage you.
Speaker 1: I just want to say, too, i'm really honored to be part of what God's doing here.
Speaker 1: Isn't it amazing that we get to show up on Sunday and worship Jesus together and see?
Speaker 1: you know, last week we were able to dedicate a baby to the Lord.
Speaker 1: Parents love Jesus and serve Jesus.
Speaker 1: Today we're honoring graduates.
Speaker 1: Next week we get to celebrate six baptisms.
Speaker 1: Like it's amazing to be part of what God is doing here.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for you, grateful for the chance to serve here, And let's, let's never, let's never take this for granted.
Speaker 1: Let's never take this for granted.
Speaker 1: So let's pray and then we're going to jump into the scriptures this morning.
Speaker 1: Father, thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the chance to be together.
Speaker 1: Thank you for the chance to know that I'm God.
Speaker 1: You love us at our worst and you love us the same at our best.
Speaker 1: Father, your love for us is not rooted in us, but it's entirely rooted in who you are.
Speaker 1: God, you have chosen to make us the object of your affection And, father, we're so grateful for that.
Speaker 1: Father, may your love today compel us to change.
Speaker 1: May it lead us to a place of faith and repentance in Jesus' name Amen.
Speaker 1: So my family and I, we were in the upstate a couple of weeks ago and we had like a little what we call a get together down here, you know, and it was my family and Tara's family at my grandparents' house in Liberty, and sometime after dinner Judah, our three year old, and now Judah's cousin Kenley, who's also three, began to play a game of hide and seek.
Speaker 1: But they somehow did not communicate who was supposed to be finding them.
Speaker 1: And I said I'm not 100% sure how this unfolded and developed, but but they thought my grandma was going to come find them.
Speaker 1: And so they go off and hide And a few minutes later it's like has anybody seen Judah or Kenley?
Speaker 1: Because those are the people in the room and in the house tonight.
Speaker 1: Those are the two that probably don't want disappearing for long periods of time.
Speaker 1: And eventually they come around the corner and they're stomping down the hallway and they're frowning and they walk right up to my grandma And they stand in front of her and literally like in unison together.
Speaker 1: They look at my grandma and they say we're so angry.
Speaker 1: And my grandma's like why?
Speaker 1: And then they begin to explain we're playing hide and seek and nobody's finding us.
Speaker 1: And you know which, in the moment, you know, my grandma's trying not to laugh.
Speaker 1: She's like I'm so sorry, i didn't know.
Speaker 1: Nobody knew that you were hiding and wanted to be found.
Speaker 1: But but that phrase we're so angry, right?
Speaker 1: I feel like, if people are being honest, there are a lot of people that could walk around and say that today and it would be true of their lives.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe, maybe you've been to the DMV lately That just, that just is a blanket application to that environment.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you've been at a restaurant and you've watched the interactions between people who are waiting for their food and the way they're talking to the wait staff.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you work in customer service and so you've been on the receiving end.
Speaker 1: But it just seems like we're so angry And there have been so many studies done over the last couple of years to try to figure out like what that is, the underlying cause there.
Speaker 1: But the reality is like our world is just full of anger.
Speaker 1: Maybe our lives sometimes are full of anger as well.
Speaker 1: And and here's the thing unchecked anger will wreak havoc on your life.
Speaker 1: It'll wreak havoc in your relationships with others, with your family.
Speaker 1: It'll wreak havoc in your career, at work.
Speaker 1: It'll actually wreak havoc on your body.
Speaker 1: There's science behind this that says it's bad for your blood pressure to be in this constant state of anger.
Speaker 1: It increases anxiety levels.
Speaker 1: It literally changes the physiology of your heart.
Speaker 1: It affects the arteries, the artery.
Speaker 1: The arteries, the arteries makes you more likely to experience a heart attack.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 1: There's so many effects that that anger has on our lives, not not to mention our own internal sense of peace.
Speaker 1: You're angry all the time Like where's, where's the peace there?
Speaker 1: There is no peace there.
Speaker 1: So today, today, i want to take a couple of minutes and really answer two questions.
Speaker 1: One what does the Bible say about anger?
Speaker 1: What are.
Speaker 1: The scriptures teach us about anger.
Speaker 1: And then number two when we get angry, because we will get angry.
Speaker 1: What do we do with that anger?
Speaker 1: So what does the Bible say?
Speaker 1: and then, what do we do when we're angry?
Speaker 1: Y'all ready, let's go.
Speaker 1: Scriptures Proverbs 15, 18,.
Speaker 1: We're going to look at two proverbs in the passage in Matthew.
Speaker 1: Proverbs 15, 18 says this a hot, tempered man or woman stirs up strife, but he or she who is slow to anger quiet contention And then flip a page over.
Speaker 1: Proverbs 16, 32, whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, then he who takes a city.
Speaker 1: Now, when you read Proverbs, the Proverbs it's not a book of promises, it's a book of principles.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes we can read Proverbs and go well, if I do a, then B is what should follow, and that's sometimes how it works.
Speaker 1: It's not all the time it's.
Speaker 1: It's it's principles, not promises.
Speaker 1: And but this in Matthew five we're going to read next.
Speaker 1: This is the word of Jesus Sermon on the Mount, teaching it to his disciples.
Speaker 1: And Jesus has this to say about anger.
Speaker 1: You've heard that it was said to those of old Matthew, chapter five, beginning in verse 21.
Speaker 1: You've heard that it was said to those of old you shall not murder.
Speaker 1: Whoever murders will be liable to judgment.
Speaker 1: Everybody says amen to that.
Speaker 1: That's Old Testament, leviticus.
Speaker 1: You know, that's 10 commandments.
Speaker 1: Moses, the mountain, exodus, right, but I say Jesus says you've heard it said.
Speaker 1: But I say that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.
Speaker 1: Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council.
Speaker 1: Whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.
Speaker 1: So if you are offering your gift at the altar and they remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift.
Speaker 1: Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you're going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard and you be put in prison.
Speaker 1: Truly, i say to you, you will never get out until you've paid the last penny.
Speaker 1: So just a couple of thoughts from those scriptures really quickly this morning.
Speaker 1: Number one anger increases exponentially.
Speaker 1: But patience brings peace.
Speaker 1: That's Proverbs 15.
Speaker 1: Anger increases exponentially.
Speaker 1: A hot tempered man stirs up strife.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been in a situation where somebody gets mad and next thing you know, it's like the roof has just been blown off the building.
Speaker 1: And what happens?
Speaker 1: Anger creates more anger.
Speaker 1: If you have kids, you've seen that One person gets mad and the next thing you know things are flying all over the house And it's like what just happened to my beautiful, sweet little babies.
Speaker 1: A hot tempered man stirs up strife.
Speaker 1: Anger increases exponentially.
Speaker 1: But patience can bring peace.
Speaker 1: He who is slow to anger quiet's contention.
Speaker 1: Another place in the Proverbs that says that a gentle word turns away wrath.
Speaker 1: So when you meet someone's anger with a gentle word, with kindness, it has the ability to throw up a wall and be like wait a minute, what just happened?
Speaker 1: It's a little bit.
Speaker 1: It throws people off when they expect anger in return.
Speaker 1: But when you speak kindness back, it's like wait, something's just been diffused.
Speaker 1: It's like the plugs been pulled on the anger.
Speaker 1: Patience has the potential to bring peace.
Speaker 1: Second thought from the scripture second scripture we read it's better to have mastery over your anger than it is to possess great strength.
Speaker 1: He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, he who can control himself.
Speaker 1: It's better to be self-controlled than to have the power to take a city Like.
Speaker 1: What an incredible statement It's better to have the power to control yourself than it is to have the power to conquer your enemies.
Speaker 1: So Proverbs says it's better to have mastery over your anger than it is to possess great strength.
Speaker 1: And then Jesus and Matthew five.
Speaker 1: We could spend the rest of the day breaking down Matthew five, those six verses there.
Speaker 1: But let's summarize it to say it like this Externalized anger is a symptom of an internal problem.
Speaker 1: You've got anger against someone in your life.
Speaker 1: It's going to put you internally in a place where it's really hard to worship in purity and spirit and in truth.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because God loves you and God loves the person you're angry at too, And it's hard to worship God when you're mad at someone God loves.
Speaker 1: So Jesus's words, man, like that's an incredible challenge, is it not?
Speaker 1: When you come before God to offer you God, to offer your gift, to offer your sacrifice of praise, and there's something in you that says, hey, i got tension between me and someone else in my life, jesus is like pause your worship for a moment and be reconciled first to your brother.
Speaker 1: Wow, now some of y'all are like wait a minute.
Speaker 1: But that's not all the Bible says about anger, because there's another verse in the Bible that says be angry and do not sin.
Speaker 1: And you're right.
Speaker 1: It does say that.
Speaker 1: And some of you are thinking, and even God gets angry There's such thing as righteous anger.
Speaker 1: Jesus flipped tables and he used a whip and drove out the people selling the pigeons and whatever in the temple, like there's a place for righteous anger.
Speaker 1: And to that I would say two things.
Speaker 1: One you're right, it's in there.
Speaker 1: But the second thing I think we need to realize is, when it comes to anger is, i'm not God and you're not Jesus, and I say that to say this I would say that the majority of the time our anger is not righteous anger, and I'm gonna back that up here in just a second.
Speaker 1: The verse that I mentioned just a moment ago, ephesians 4, 26,.
Speaker 1: Be angry, paul says, and do not sin.
Speaker 1: He's quoting Psalm four, verse four, and Paul doesn't finish his quote.
Speaker 1: We're gonna see why in just a second.
Speaker 1: But the rest of that verse in Psalm four, verse four, the Psalmist says be angry, do not sin, rather ponder in your hearts on your bed and be silent.
Speaker 1: So in your anger, the Psalmist says hey, check it in your heart, hang out in your room by yourself for a minute and watch your mouth when you're angry, because sometimes and this is scientifically proven too when you get angry you get forgetful and you say things you don't mean.
Speaker 1: And so then Paul in Ephesians, chapter four, when he quotes Psalm four this is the rest of the context in that verse.
Speaker 1: Paul says this be angry, do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.
Speaker 1: So here's what Paul's saying Make sure that, even if your anger is righteous anger, that it's short-lived, deal with it, control it and move past it.
Speaker 1: Because if you don't, what Paul is saying is that your anger will control you.
Speaker 1: If you don't control your anger, your anger will control you, and the enemy will actually use your anger as an access point, a foothold in your life.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen that happen Like you started out and you felt like your anger was righteous.
Speaker 1: The next thing you knew you were just mad.
Speaker 1: You're like I'm just mad at everything now, like some.
Speaker 1: That that's what Paul is saying.
Speaker 1: So what is then righteous anger?
Speaker 1: If there is a type of anger that is righteous, how do we define righteous anger?
Speaker 1: Here's the definition Righteous anger is directed towards sin and injustice that harms people and dishonors God, that's righteous anger.
Speaker 1: When God gets mad, god gets mad at sin.
Speaker 1: He gets mad when his goodness is marred by people.
Speaker 1: He gets mad when he is dishonored, because God knows that anything that dishonors him harms us.
Speaker 1: And so when God is angry, in the scriptures, it's a righteous anger.
Speaker 1: It comes from his holiness, it's guarded by his righteousness And ultimately it's actually a product of his love for humanity.
Speaker 1: And that's important because if in our anger, if our anger is ever directed towards a person and not the sin or the injustice that harms the people, we got a problem.
Speaker 1: Because God loves people, even people who are far from him, even people who we would look at and say they are holding to an ideology or a way of life that is harmful and dangerous.
Speaker 1: They are loved by God.
Speaker 1: And guys, that's hard.
Speaker 1: There's some tension there, is it not?
Speaker 1: It'd be a whole lot easier just to write people off and not love them and be angry at them and their way of life and what they're doing.
Speaker 1: We can't go there.
Speaker 1: We can be angry at sin and injustice that dishonors God and harms people, but the second, our anger, moves towards people themselves.
Speaker 1: We've moved out of the unrighteous anger category.
Speaker 1: In fact, in the New Testament we're taught to pray for our enemies, to feed them, to clothe them, to bless them in the name of God, to overcome evil with good, and the Scripture even goes so far as to say we're to love those who hate us.
Speaker 1: We want to write down a couple of Scriptures to look at this week.
Speaker 1: Write down 1 Peter, 3, 9 and Romans 12, 14, matthew, 5, 43 through 45.
Speaker 1: Powerful.
Speaker 1: The world doesn't think this way.
Speaker 1: I don't have to say much more than that.
Speaker 1: But, like we all realize, we live in a world where if somebody disagrees with you, they are your enemy, they are on the opposite team, they are fighting against you.
Speaker 1: But yet we serve a God who, when we were dead in our sin, when we were before we were even on the journey with Jesus, he looked at us with love and sin is son.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about unrighteous anger for a moment Again.
Speaker 1: I think most of our anger falls in this category.
Speaker 1: It's why, over and over in the New Testament, we're told to to put anger and malice far away.
Speaker 1: We're told to lift our hands in worship without a without a moment or a fraction of anger in our hearts.
Speaker 1: James 1, 19 and 20 says this.
Speaker 1: Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
Speaker 1: The anger of man we could say it maybe, like this does not lead to the fruit of the spirit that Chris was teaching us about earlier this morning in Galatians, chapter five.
Speaker 1: So let me sum it up.
Speaker 1: Let me sum it up The word anger, angry, either of those, appears a total of 22 times in the New Testament, in the ESV translation 22 times And one time.
Speaker 1: One time in the New Testament we're told to be angry and not sin.
Speaker 1: The rest of those times that anger, angry is mentioned, it's either.
Speaker 1: It's either in revelation, a couple of times it's applied to God when he comes back to judge.
Speaker 1: The rest of the time, we're being told, exhorted to put anger far away.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the word love appears in the New Testament 279 times.
Speaker 1: What is it that should mark our lives as followers of Jesus?
Speaker 1: If I got to choose between love or anger, i'm going to go with love.
Speaker 1: I'm going to choose the way of love.
Speaker 1: So what does that leave us?
Speaker 1: Second question what do we do when we feel anger?
Speaker 1: How do we process through that?
Speaker 1: How do we make it through?
Speaker 1: How do we, how do we feel what we feel and yet choose faith?
Speaker 1: Or how do we, if it's righteous anger, how do we deal with it in a way that's helpful and constructive and healthy and doesn't give the enemy the foothold into our lives and our spirit?
Speaker 1: Four quick ideas.
Speaker 1: Number one take a deep breath, some of the best parenting advice I have ever gotten.
Speaker 1: Just take a deep breath.
Speaker 1: You know where I got it from Daniel Tiger.
Speaker 1: Daniel Tiger Yeah, some of y'all don't know what that is.
Speaker 1: He's like the cartoon version of Mr Rogers.
Speaker 1: Daniel Tiger sings a song.
Speaker 1: When you're feeling frustrated, take a deep breath and count to 10.
Speaker 1: It's great, daniel Tiger.
Speaker 1: When you're feeling frustrated, when the anger starts to well up, take a deep breath and count to 10.
Speaker 1: Well, daniel Tiger I don't know if Daniel Tiger knows or doesn't know When we take a deep breath, we're actually being like God.
Speaker 1: We are, and here's what I mean.
Speaker 1: So in Proverbs 15, when scripture says that that hot temperament stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger, quiet contention.
Speaker 1: That phrase slow to anger in the Hebrew is arek apayin.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're gonna get a little Hebrew today.
Speaker 1: Arek apayin, can you say that?
Speaker 1: this morning, fantastic, brilliant People will be like they're speaking in tongues over at the Baptist church.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It literally translates to long of nostril.
Speaker 1: It does Long of nostril.
Speaker 1: Slow to anger in Hebrew literally translates to long of nostril.
Speaker 1: And that phrase actually comes from Exodus 34, 7, where God is talking to Moses.
Speaker 1: Moses says God, i want to see you, i want to know who you are.
Speaker 1: God's like Moses.
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 1: You're sinful, i'm holy.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't be good for you.
Speaker 1: But here's what we're gonna do I'm gonna put you in the rock, i'm gonna hide you there, i'm gonna pass by.
Speaker 1: You're gonna see my glory.
Speaker 1: And so that happens.
Speaker 1: And when God passes by Moses, he proclaims his name to Moses And he says to Moses I'm Yahweh, yahweh, a God.
Speaker 1: And he goes through this list.
Speaker 1: But in this list of his name, who he is, he uses the phrase slow to anger, literally long of nostril.
Speaker 1: Now what is God talking about?
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 1: When you take a deep breath, what happens?
Speaker 1: What do you, what's your nose?
Speaker 1: do Everybody do that.
Speaker 1: Everybody do that?
Speaker 1: Just, deep, deep breath this morning, what happens to your nose?
Speaker 1: It flares, it flares, it expands, your nostrils lengthen.
Speaker 1: What God tells Moses in Exodus 34 is that God does get mad.
Speaker 1: There is righteous anger in God.
Speaker 1: It comes from his holiness, as we said earlier.
Speaker 1: But God takes a deep breath when he deals with us.
Speaker 1: Isn't that good news?
Speaker 1: He's not looking at us being like, oh man, they did it again.
Speaker 1: He's not flying off the handle in anger at us.
Speaker 1: He takes a deep breath.
Speaker 1: He's slow to anger.
Speaker 1: He's merciful, he's gracious, he's kind, he's patient with us.
Speaker 1: That's good news.
Speaker 1: I want to be more like God, as a dad, as a husband, as a friend, as an employee.
Speaker 1: I want to be that kind of person that when I have every reason I feel to get mad, my first response is deep breath.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that just bring?
Speaker 1: it's almost like we've been designed by an almighty creator, god, who knows physiologically how all this works.
Speaker 1: Like you, take a deep breath.
Speaker 1: It's just like it just feels peaceful.
Speaker 1: And that's what God does.
Speaker 1: Exodus 34 goes on and God says that he does get angry.
Speaker 1: He punishes the sins to the third and fourth generation, sins of the fathers to the third and the fourth generations And it's like well, that sounds harsh.
Speaker 1: But it also says that God keeps steadfast love to the thousandth generation, because he's slow to anger.
Speaker 1: Long of nostril.
Speaker 1: What did you learn at church today?
Speaker 1: Dinner conversation on the table God's long of nostril.
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 1: Where do you go to church?
Speaker 1: We don't want to go there, right?
Speaker 1: Take a deep breath.
Speaker 1: Second thing.
Speaker 1: Second thing get below the surface.
Speaker 1: When you pause and you take a deep breath, you breathe in a little peace.
Speaker 1: You remember that God is patient with you, so you can be patient with the person you're angry at.
Speaker 1: Second step is to go okay.
Speaker 1: I need to dig in a little bit here.
Speaker 1: Psychologists tell us that anger is not a primary response.
Speaker 1: It's not a primary emotion.
Speaker 1: It's what's called a secondary emotion.
Speaker 1: In other words, there's always something under the surface.
Speaker 1: I came across this graphic this week.
Speaker 1: I want to show this to you.
Speaker 1: It's called the anger iceberg.
Speaker 1: What you see poking above the water may be anger, but below the surface there's always something else there, and so the work that you and I need to do when we feel the anger rising up in us is go okay.
Speaker 1: I know this is secondary emotion.
Speaker 1: I know there's something under the surface.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's rejection, maybe it's frustration, maybe it's fear of the future, maybe there's a level of sadness or maybe I'm offended, there's an offense that's happened to me.
Speaker 1: But what is below the surface?
Speaker 1: How do I deal with anger there?
Speaker 1: Because if all we do is take care of the tip of the iceberg, it's like treating a rotten apple on a tree and the apple keeps showing up rotten over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: If you just keep plucking the rotten apple but you don't help the tree get healthy, we're never gonna fix what's really going on.
Speaker 1: And some of us that's what we do.
Speaker 1: We deal with anger when it pops its head out of the water.
Speaker 1: If you will, we apologize, sorry, i didn't mean to blow up.
Speaker 1: It happened.
Speaker 1: I know it happened again.
Speaker 1: Maybe men in the rooms at any of us that's me sometimes right.
Speaker 1: Just internalize, internalize, internalize until you can't any longer than sorry, my bad, let's dig in, let's get below the surface and go.
Speaker 1: Okay, what is it that's underneath the anger that, if I let God work there below the surface, deep on the inside, what becomes visible might actually change?
Speaker 1: We wanna dig in, we wanna heal at a deep level.
Speaker 1: We don't just wanna treat the externalized anger.
Speaker 1: So this is what Jesus says in Matthew five We don't just wanna deal with the external, we're not just worried about once it gets to the stage of murder.
Speaker 1: We wanna get on the inside and treat anger at its source.
Speaker 1: So that number three we can ultimately move towards forgiveness.
Speaker 1: The antidote to anger is forgiveness And we wanna be moving towards forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Anger is like a prison, is it not?
Speaker 1: Just locks you up, keeps you bound, feels like there's no way out.
Speaker 1: Well, if anger is the prison, forgiveness is the key that opens the door.
Speaker 1: So if you're here in the room this morning or if you're watching online at a later date and you're like I struggle with anger, that's me.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm trapped in a prison.
Speaker 1: The iceberg of anger keeps popping its head out in my life and it's wreaking havoc on my family, my kids, my spouse and my career.
Speaker 1: The key might be forgiveness.
Speaker 1: So maybe then the question becomes okay, well, who do I need to forgive?
Speaker 1: Is it a coworker?
Speaker 1: Said something in passing, just can't let it go?
Speaker 1: Is it a spouse?
Speaker 1: something in your past, someone from the past Man?
Speaker 1: forgiveness is one of those things like so it's great to talk about hard to get there, is it not?
Speaker 1: Because sometimes the people we need to forgive they don't even know that we're mad.
Speaker 1: They don't even know they did anything wrong, or it's been so long ago that they've forgotten it And we're holding on to it and we're thinking that it's wrecking their life, but really it is just imprisoning us.
Speaker 1: So we wanna move towards forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the person that we need to forgive the most isn't someone else, it's actually us.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're mad at yourself, choices you've made in your past, all patterns you still deal with to this day, or just not where you thought you'd be in life, and then just mad at yourself about whatever.
Speaker 1: If God is willing to forgive you, how could you not forgive yourself?
Speaker 1: If God is willing to forgive you, how could you not forgive someone else?
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's easy.
Speaker 1: It's a process.
Speaker 1: It's going to take some time.
Speaker 1: It's going to take some prayer.
Speaker 1: It's going to take some people probably coming around you and praying for you, encouraging you, speaking truth into your life.
Speaker 1: But in the long run, the work of forgiveness is worth it.
Speaker 1: Even if it doesn't change the person you're mad at, it's going to change you.
Speaker 1: It's going to free you from the prison that's got you bound.
Speaker 1: It's going to free you to offer your worship to God and know that you have done everything possible to live at peace with people.
Speaker 1: Fourth thing when we're dealing with anger, talk to God.
Speaker 1: Now some of you are like, well, you should have started there.
Speaker 1: I know we should have, but we didn't intentionally, because some of us, the issue isn't you're mad at somebody or you're mad at yourself.
Speaker 1: It's that you're mad at God, and we don't want to admit that, do we?
Speaker 1: We're frustrated with God because of what we've gone through, where we are, the circumstances that we know he could have fixed if he had chosen to, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: He may have done it for someone else, he may have done it for your friend, he could have done it for you, but he didn't and he chose not to.
Speaker 1: And so, if we're honest, deep on the inside, we're holding on to some anger towards God.
Speaker 1: If that's you today I love what Lauren said.
Speaker 1: God knows you're not going to tell God anything that he's not already aware of.
Speaker 1: So if you're mad at God, tell him.
Speaker 1: He can handle it.
Speaker 1: Tell him, but don't just stop there.
Speaker 1: Don't just tell God how you feel.
Speaker 1: Ask God to remind you who he is.
Speaker 1: Because, see, here's what we have to understand Even if we're frustrated with God, mad at God, god has never done anything wrong.
Speaker 1: He hasn't.
Speaker 1: Everything that God does comes from his holiness.
Speaker 1: He's perfect in every decision he's ever made.
Speaker 1: He's 100% good, through and through, pure, righteous.
Speaker 1: The father of good.
Speaker 1: James says Father of light.
Speaker 1: Every good and perfect gift comes from him And ultimately, he's motivated by his love.
Speaker 1: And so when we are frustrated with God, we're mad at God.
Speaker 1: I think we need to remember that, hey, god's got perspective that we don't have.
Speaker 1: He sees more than we see, and I love the promise of Romans 28 that in all things, god works for good.
Speaker 1: And so, even when I don't understand what God is doing, when I'm frustrated by how he's chosen to work his plan out in my life, i have to remind myself God, i know who you are, and I know you're righteous, i know you're holy, i know you're good, i know that everything you do is consistent with your character.
Speaker 1: And so if I don't understand, that's not your fault.
Speaker 1: I can trust you.
Speaker 1: Can I just say too if you don't understand God, that's not your fault either.
Speaker 1: You're human.
Speaker 1: God understands, he loves you just as much on your worst days he does on your best day.
Speaker 1: When you're mad at God, god is full of love and grace and compassion towards you And what God wants more than anything is for you to know his love, to walk in his love, to feel a peace with God.
Speaker 1: That only is possible through Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: So talk to God.
Speaker 1: You mad at someone else, talk to God about it.
Speaker 1: If you're frustrated with yourself, talk to God about it.
Speaker 1: If you're mad at God, talk to God about it.
Speaker 1: Let him remind you who he is.
Speaker 1: Let him remind you that you can trust him even when you don't like what he's doing.
Speaker 1: You don't understand why it had to be this way.
Speaker 1: I wanna close with a powerful example of anger and forgiveness I came across a little while ago.
Speaker 1: Some of you may remember 1994, rwanda.
Speaker 1: There was a genocide.
Speaker 1: It was the overflow of a couple of years of political violence, political turmoil between the Hutu people and the Tutsi people, two ethnic groups in Rwanda.
Speaker 1: They lived intermingled in communities, no-transcript racial and religious and religious issues that were mingled in communities.
Speaker 1: But over the course of time, because of this political tension and this turmoil within the country, the Hutu militias begin to exterminate Tutsi people over the course of about 100 days in the spring and summer of 1994.
Speaker 1: It's estimated that more than half a million Tutsi people died as a result of this genocide.
Speaker 1: It became the subject of a movie, hotel Rwanda, don Cheadle.
Speaker 1: you may have seen that.
Speaker 1: I remember watching that in high school and being like, oh my goodness, i had no idea.
Speaker 1: But I want to show you this morning a photo.
Speaker 1: This photo is from a New York Times special called Portraits of Reconciliation On the left.
Speaker 1: On the left is a Hutu man whose name is Sinsi Keromuka.
Speaker 1: On the right is a Tutsi man whose name is Kararero And I'm sure I said those wrong, but that's their names.
Speaker 1: And Sinsi Keromuka, on the left, was in the room when a Hutu militia took the life of Kararero's brother and he did nothing to stop it.
Speaker 1: How they ended up in a photo together is incredible.
Speaker 1: Shortly after the events of 1994, a nonprofit called AMI realized that hey, if we don't do something in the aftermath of this incredible violence, anger and division is gonna tear this nation apart.
Speaker 1: And so they made the choice to get involved and they began to take small groups of Hutus and Tutsis and put them in close proximity and with intensive counseling they begin to work towards real, practical reconciliation.
Speaker 1: And so they would undergo this intensive process and at the end of the process, the Hutu perpetrator of violence, if you will, would go to the victim of the violence and ask for forgiveness.
Speaker 1: And they were really intentional with these groups they put together, they would find a Hutu man who actually perpetrated violence against a Tutsi family and that man would go to this family and ask for forgiveness.
Speaker 1: And so Sinsi Kuramuka goes to Kararero and asked him to forgive him because he did nothing when Kararero's brother was being killed.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to read you Kararero's response He forgave Sinsi Kuramuka and he said this when someone is full of anger he can lose his mind, but when I granted forgiveness I felt my mind at rest.
Speaker 1: Peter Hugo, who took this photo, had this to say he said these people, these Rwandan men, they can't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: They have to make peace.
Speaker 1: Can I just say this morning we have to make peace as well With our anger, but ultimately what we really need is peace with our Creator.
Speaker 1: There's no greater example of reconciliation than what happened on the cross, as Jesus absorbed the wrath of God, the righteous anger of God's toward the sin of the world, and because of Jesus we can now receive mercy and kindness and be forgiven.
Speaker 1: Colossians one says it like this he, jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, rulers or authorities.
Speaker 1: All things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things And in him all things hold together and he is the head of the body, the church.
Speaker 1: He's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything Jesus might be preeminent, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and, through Jesus, to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Speaker 1: The greatest highest form of peace is not external, it's internal Peace with God.
Speaker 1: Through the finished work of Jesus And because of what Jesus has done, we can now live at peace with those around us, whether they reciprocate it or not.
Speaker 1: We can choose to be a peacemaker because God has made peace on our behalf.
Speaker 1: So, worship, team, why don't you guys go ahead and come back?
Speaker 1: We're gonna sing a song together and closing this morning.
Speaker 1: And just wanna ask you this morning who do you need to forgive?
Speaker 1: Who do you need to release your anger towards?
Speaker 1: and the invitation this morning is to release your anger to God.
Speaker 1: Let God step in, meet you there, show you what it's like to have peace, no peace, and live at peace.
Speaker 1: Maybe for the first time today, you said I need to give my life to Jesus, who has made peace on my behalf.
Speaker 1: I need the peace of the cross to rule and reign in my heart and in my life.
Speaker 1: I'd love to have that conversation with you this morning.
Speaker 1: Maybe you want to plant your roots here at Somerville Baptist.
Speaker 1: We'd love to have that conversation as well.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you just need to spend a moment in prayer and reflection this morning.
Speaker 1: But let's pray, father.
Speaker 1: This moment does belong to you.
Speaker 1: We wanna be people of love.
Speaker 1: We wanna be people who extend the same way and extend the same grace that we have received.
Speaker 1: We wanna be people who are willing to forgive because we've been forgiven.
Speaker 1: We wanna be people who reflect your love to the world.
Speaker 1: So, father, we know that for that to happen, for that to be a reality in our lives, your peace has to be real in our hearts.
Speaker 1: There's gotta be real reconciliation between us and you.
Speaker 1: And so, god, we're so grateful today for the blood of Jesus that was shed for our sin.
Speaker 1: What an incredible price was paid so that we could stand here today, forgiven, set free, confident in your love and your mercy.
Speaker 1: So, father, as we sing in response, as we open our hearts and our lives to you, we pray that your spirit would be at work, that you would draw us to yourself in Jesus' name, and everybody says amen, let's stand and respond and worship together this morning.