We all grew up with that, right? Like, there's righteous anger and there's unrighteous anger. And you should have righteous anger, but unrighteous anger, you should get rid of that. So I honestly was asking, how long do I hold on to righteous anger? And no one could answer it. And then I started looking in the Bible for righteous anger for humans.
It's not in there. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Anne Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com.
This is Family Life Today. Two of our favorite people on the planet are Brant and Carolyn Hansen. Aren't they the best?
They're awesome. And Brant spoke on the Love Like You Mean It cruise with us this past February. We actually went to the room at night, and I got to tell you something you don't know about Brant. He can't stay up past 930 at night.
He's falling asleep while we're sitting in his room trying to talk. We're like, we need to leave now. They need to go to bed. They're such a classy couple.
We go in there in our sweatpants, and they still look so nice. They're all dressed up. It's like they're the Gatsby. Remember the great Gatsby?
They're just dressed to the tease. Anyway, Brant spoke several times on the boat, and you're going to hear a portion of a talk he gave during a breakout based on his book that was a bestseller named Unoffendable. Think about that.
Not being offended. And I went to this breakout, and let me tell you, you're going to love this, and you're going to share this with others. So enjoy Brant Hansen. Anybody ever hear the Metashare commercials? All right, so that's me. I'm doing the Metashare. That's me.
Yeah. But it's funny because I wrote this book, Unoffendable, because I do Christian radio. I've done talk radio. People are mad all the time about everything, and even my commercials.
I've gotten hate tweets. It's just for two. My commercial is just me. I'm not trying to talk like a radio guy. I'm not like, well, you know, act now, and you'll get a big discount. That creeps me out.
So I just I want to be myself, and it still makes people mad. I got this one guy. I'll never forget. He tweeted.
He said, dude, you're the worst. Every time I hear your voice, I want to drive my Jeep into a tree. So my response was, OK, but first, let me tell you about a health plan where you can save five hundred dollars. Oh, the other thing before we get started here is we recently became grandparents. This is one of the few things that lives up to the hype. It really does.
It has been awesome. Our daughter, the baby's mom, has a rule. She asked me, she's like, Dad, I know you mean well, but you got it like a social media footprint and you're a public figure or whatever. So please don't post photos. I'm like, it's killing me. And I even asked because it's all you want to do is post photos, your grandkids.
But I said, what about like I'm speaking groups? And she's like, no, please don't. No photos.
OK, but I'm actually something of an artist. And so I was left alone with her. It was beautiful.
It was nighttime. And I was able to I use mixed media, but mainly watercolors, but like it was just me and her. And I was able to capture her.
She's so beautiful. So I'm like, it's not a photo. But here's here's what I came up with.
Yeah, you can see her mouth just beginning to form on the right side. Anyway, this is the book. It's called Unoffendable.
I wanted to talk about this book is the first book I wrote. It's very counterintuitive. I promise you 90 percent. If you haven't read the book, you're going to disagree with what I'm about to say. I mean, honestly, 90 plus percent of Christians, when I start like beginning what I'm saying, they're like, no, that's not true.
It can't be true by the end. Please consider this, by the way, because honestly, if you're a disciple of Jesus, you're always learning, right? That's what it means to be a disciple.
So you don't want to hit a point in your life where you're like, I can't learn anything more. I can't rethink. Well, we're supposed to be rethinkers. Literally repent means rethink.
It's OK to grow up one way and go, I've always heard this and then go, wait a second. Maybe there's something better that Jesus is saying. This is a very good thing. I actually made a chart.
It's called the new idea processor chart. This is how humans generally process new ideas. Where does this affirm what I'm already doing? If yes, applaud. If not, kill. That's generally how we do it.
I would like you to reach past that and go, OK, I may disagree with him, but let me hear him out before you rush the stage. So here we go. I want to talk about the anger thing, because when I was on the air one time, there was a crime. It was in South Florida where we live. There was a crime. People were beaten up, homeless people or something.
It was terrible. But people were wondering, well, that just makes me angry. It makes me angry. We need to be angry about this. Right. Right. And then I asked the question. I said, well, how long are we supposed to be angry about this?
I'm just curious. Personally, how long do I carry the anger? And no one can answer the question. Well, wait, I thought we had righteous anger. So how long do we hang on to righteous anger?
Because we all grew up with that, right? There's righteous anger and there's unrighteous anger. And you should have righteous anger. But unrighteous anger, you should get rid of that, like pronto.
But this you need to hold on to. So I honestly was asking, how long do I hold on to righteous anger? And no one can answer it. Well, that's interesting. And then I started looking in the Bible for righteous anger for humans. It's not in there. There is no righteous anger for humans in the Bible. You can't find it.
I thought there was because I was told that. But Dallas Willard, who I look up to a lot, he's a scholar. He said, American Christians biggest problem is anger because they're not taught out of it. We're told your anger is righteous. Well, when is your anger when it's right, when it's something that would make God mad, it should make me mad. That's OK. That's not what it says in the Bible. In the Bible, God's anger is righteous.
Ours is not. So there is such a thing as righteous anger in the Bible, but it's not ours. There's also vengeance that's righteous in the Bible, but that's just God's. And people are like, well, what about Jesus in the temple?
Right. He's not a sinner. You're not Jesus in the temple. You're the money changers. That's us. But we want to equate ourselves with Jesus to go, I'm like the king of the world.
I can decide I'm the final judge. But it's not true. So I know this is counterintuitive.
We've all grown up with this idea, but I do want you to give me a chance. Here's one thing that happens every time someone will be like, but Brant in the Bible, it says in your anger, do not sin. That's in Ephesians four twenty six ergo. And therefore, anger is not sin. It's good to be angry. That's what people will tell me.
That's what I used to believe, too. Ephesians four twenty six. Here it is. Now, I want you to look at this, though, when you were angry, do not sin. Comma. We only memorize half the verse, you guys. You know what the rest of the verse says?
Now, think about this. Our entire theology of our righteous anger is hinged on this half verse. Well, I believe that anger is not a sin, too. But I also believe the rest of this right after the comma. When you are angry, do not sin.
Comma. And be sure to stop being angry by the end of the day. So we memorize half of this verse to justify our righteous anger theology, and we don't memorize the second half of the verse. I mean, if it's so righteous, why are we supposed to get rid of it right now? God is brilliant. Jesus is a genius. His way of living is brilliant.
He's setting us free. Five verses later, it says to get rid of all anger. It's in the same paragraph. And that's our proof text to be like, this is why my anger is righteous.
It's not. I'll explain more about that in a second. But look what they do with the—this is the message version of this.
Now, look at this. When you're angry, do not sin, and be sure to stop being angry by the end of the day. The message version from Eugene Peterson—I love Eugene Peterson, but he interprets that. Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry, but don't use your anger as fuel for revenge. Look how that's a misinterpretation entirely.
And I don't want to point a finger at him, A, because he's deceased, but also because, like, we all do that. We've twisted this verse into going, see, my anger is good. That's not what it says. It says to get rid of it by the end of the day. So the truth is you will get—anger happens, okay? It's like a—it's a response to threat, but we're supposed to get rid of it before the sun goes down. Why? Because it'll kill us.
More on that in a moment. And if you're like, well, Brent, we need anger to bring about the righteousness of God in this world. Here's another verse from James 1-20 that nobody memorizes. The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Point blank. It doesn't.
It will kill us. And here's what I mean by this. Think about this.
I was just talking about this with a friend a moment ago. There's a guy at Stanford. He calls himself a militant atheist. His name is Robert Sapolsky. He's a primate neuroendocrinologist, all right? So he knows all about the endocrine system and reactions. I thought this was amazing.
He wrote a book called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. It's so brilliant. It really is. You have a perceived threat reaction that's fight or flight, right? So somebody threatens you, you get angry or you feel threatened. You literally get a physiological response. Your cortisol spikes, your adrenaline spikes, your blood pressure changes, insulin level, blood sugar, on and on and on and on. Every system in your body is affected by fight or flight.
Why? It's to make you faster or stronger. So for zebras, they get flooded. They see a lion like, oh, dear, take off running.
All of these physiological changes happen to make that zebra faster to get away. And it's over in about 30 seconds, one way or the other. I mean, but it is over. Think about this. They don't get ulcers because only humans, and this is what this primate neuroendocrinologist is saying.
Humans are the only ones on the planet that get ulcers. Why? Because we're the only ones that can imagine threats that might happen two weeks from now.
Or next year or next whatever. Zebras don't do that. Animals don't do that. In his point, as a scientist was saying, this will kill you literally physically if you keep that in your body, that fight or flight response. So that cortisol, those blood pressure changes, it causes heart attacks. It causes weight gain. It'll change your skin.
He's like, it'll make you look older if you hold this in. I find that remarkable because he concluded his course. I listened to this course again, Militant Atheists. And check this out.
The conclusion of his course was, you know what, students, here's my conclusion. We should all be more like the animals. Think about the animals. They're not concerned about tomorrow. They're not worried about the future. What good is it going to do to worry about the future? Just today's got enough problems of its own. Right?
Yeah, that's what I thought too. This is Family Life Today and we're listening to Brant Hansen on the Love Like You Mean It Cruise. This is a talk Brant gave back in February of this year and it's so good.
Yeah, that's great stuff. And we don't want to say anything more. Just sign up right now to get on next year's Love Like You Mean It Cruise at familylifetoday.com. Let's go back to Brant. So this is a brilliant way of living that Jesus is telling us how to live. He's telling us to forgive people. So you get angry, but you forgive people.
Why? Because they deserve it? No, because you didn't. That's your basis for forgiving people. We all have hurts and things from our past and they're absolutely legitimate. And this is not making them illegitimate to say, well, you shouldn't. That was nothing.
No, no, no, no. It's something. But the reason you forgive is because you didn't deserve it and God forgave you anyway. So remember, Jesus tells this story about a servant who was forgiven a lot and then didn't turn around and forgive.
And he's like, that guy's in trouble. That's us if we don't forgive. You cannot forgive someone and say, but I'm holding on to my right to anger against you. You can't.
This is part of forgiveness is you're surrendering the right to anger in light of what God has done for us. That's it. I got a chance. It's so weird because it just worked out.
But we went up to New York last year. I was on Good Morning America talking about this. Very subject, which is cool to be able to talk to the American public about Jesus way of living being better.
And the guy, the anchor guy is totally fair, but the anchor guy was like, yeah, but forgiveness is so hard. It is. You know what's harder? Living a life of unforgiveness. This is freedom. Jesus is giving us a way of freedom. Do you understand that?
This is for you. And people will say to you, well, does that mean I have to stay in relationship with this person forever? No, that's not what forgiveness means. Doesn't mean you have to stay in relationship with him. It means you surrender your right to anger. But I'll tell you what, if you don't forgive that person, you are staying in relationship with them in your head for the rest of your life. So this is the way out. Everything Jesus tells us for our own good, it's helpful. It's freedom.
This is freedom. But you forgive, again, not because they deserve it. They won't. They may never say they're sorry. The point is that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
We didn't deserve it. And out of thankfulness to God, this becomes an act of worship. And it's something that becomes a way of life. So when I wrote Unoffendable, what I'm saying is you start the day deliberately humbling yourself in light of what God's done for you.
You start the day going, you know what, I'm not going to be offended by people today. And it's actually doable because you start with that mentality. And then you're not like, oh, I can't believe somebody cut me off on the interstate. You can't believe it?
Have you ever driven before? I mean, I can't believe my mom just said that thing. Like, really? How long has she been saying stuff like that?
Like, 67 years. Okay, well, maybe go ahead and believe it. Your mom is going to say stuff your mom says. Your boss is going to do boss stuff.
That guy across the street is going to do that guy across the street stuff. Because it's the world that we are in. We know this. We, as Christians, should be the most unoffendable people on the planet. Because we walk in forgiveness ahead of time.
It becomes a discipline. And we already know that humans are broken. Don't we? Why would we be shocked constantly?
Why would we be shocked? There's just something about that. There's actually scripture. I love this because there's scripture where the disciples are thinking something stupid and selfish. And it says, but Jesus knew what they were thinking. No one had to tell him what men were like. Okay, well, as Jesus people, we know what men are like, right?
And women. We know. We're broken. So that's established.
At the beginning of the day, then it becomes a discipline. Lord, help me forgive as I've been forgiven. And then you're living this lifestyle of forgiveness that makes you unoffendable. You know people are broken. Instead of going through life like, I am in a moral outrage.
Really? People are messed up. It's funny that we always think our anger is righteous. Have you noticed that?
No one thinks their anger is unrighteous. And there's a big part of that. I don't know if you guys saw a show when I was growing up called The People's Court. Remember this? But they would walk in and it was like, and they had like this little door they would open and walk through.
I still don't understand that half door. Like to keep the toddlers out of the courtroom. But I remember watching this. Actually, I remember this case.
I would come home from school and eat crackers and watch People's Court. But I remember this case specifically. A family of seven. So they would announce, the plaintiffs are here.
It's a family of seven. He and his wife and children all went to the defendant's pizza restaurant and they all got food sickness and were violently ill for 24 hours. They're suing for $1500 for pain and suffering. And I'm watching this and I'm like, they all got sick? I mean, how's this even a case?
All seven of them got sick. Like, hello? And then they introduced the defendant. The defendant comes in.
The defendant says he doesn't even own a pizza restaurant and has no idea. Oh. Well, now it's on. I mean, this is, I see why it's a case. And then they went ahead. The defendant won the case because apparently this other guy's a con artist. He's always trying to con money out of his brother-in-law or something.
It was that stupid. But all that to say, there's a proverb that actually says the first to testify always seems right until he's cross-examined. So you hear one side of a work dispute and you're like, man, that's and then you hear, oh, well, guess who to testify first is in my head over any dispute.
It's me. I always think I'm right. We always think we're right. Can we also embrace humility on that as somebody who knows I'm prone to selfishness and I'm biased and I don't know other people's motives?
I don't. In fact, this is humbling and helpful and freeing. In First Corinthians, in Chapter four, you can look this up.
Nobody memorizes this, by the way. But Paul says, not only do I not know other people's motives, he said, I don't even know my own. So I'm going to have to let God sort it out in the end. I mean, that's humility. We're all a mixed bag, you know.
So how about saying I don't know what other people's motives are. I don't even know my own humility. And I forgive people even though they don't deserve it in the moment. You can practice this. That's what I call traffic, actually, is forgiveness practice.
It really is because it's really low leverage. Like it's like you're getting all mad. Somebody just cut you off. That's their thing. Right. So you can pray. I'm serious about this. You pray blessings on that person and you can feel your own body temperature dropping because you're praying a blessing for this person. Like, God, grant them peace.
Something's going on with that guy. And then you'll not think about it the rest of the day. Instead of being absorbed by conflict all the time where you replay it in your head over and over. You have an argument.
No, no. You respond to them gently. And then you're not stuck with that for not being able to sleep at night.
Same thing online. Instead of returning evil for evil or sarcasm for sarcasm, you stop it and you go, hey, how are your kids? I don't know how your kids are doing. And then you can sleep. Isn't that something? There's also a proverb that says, maybe you've heard this, a gentle answer turns away wrath. That's not just their wrath. That's your wrath.
When you give a gentle answer, you can feel your own wrath changing because you hear yourself being gentle to this person and blessing an enemy. This is Jesus' way of life. We're supposed to be his disciples. So we bless our enemies. We pray for people who persecute us. And it changes our hearts to be more like him. This is Family Life Today, and we've been listening to a portion of a talk that Brandt Hansen gave on the Love Like You Mean It cruise back in February.
And I tell you what. It's so convicting. It was so good. I remember sitting there and just that last part we heard about, God offers us a way out of resentment and bitterness. And we don't want to take it.
It's called forgiving others that don't deserve it, just like we didn't deserve it. It's unearthly. It's heavenly. It's a heavenly thing to do.
Supernatural. And he makes it so attractive, and yet we know in our hearts, like, man, we need to live like this. Yeah, and I love the way Brandt presented this. And we've only heard part of his talk.
You're going to hear the rest of it tomorrow. But my challenge for you, and I'm looking in the mirror, is, is there someone in your life you need to forgive? Has someone offended you in a deep way or even in a, you know, in a significant way? But maybe it's more of a trivial way. But either way, it's time to forgive. And I know that's a journey.
It took me years to forgive my own dad. So it isn't like you get there just by hearing a talk on a cruise ship, but it starts the healing process. And maybe that's what God's doing through Brandt's message with you.
He's starting something. But the only way he can complete that is we have to be willing to go there with him. We have to say, OK, God, I have a hardened heart, and I'm willing to start this journey. And I'm willing to let you take me to a place where I can become unoffendable and a forgiver. And I have a challenge to sign up for the Love Like You Minute Marriage Cruise 2025. You can go to familylifetoday.com and sign up. We want you to be there. Come and join us because it really is life changing in every way.
I loved Dave's encouragement there just a minute ago. You may not be in a position right now where you actually want to forgive someone in your life. But here's a question.
Do you want to want to? I mean, if so, that's actually a good spot to be in because our prayers shape our destiny. And in praying for wanting to forgive that person in your life who's deeply hurt you will shape who you become. And it all happens by the power of God's Spirit. So you may not want to forgive this person, but if you want to want to forgive, or maybe if you want to want to want to forgive, just follow that line of thinking all the way backward to that little tiny seed of desire from the power of God and ask him to change you.
And you be shocked by what he's capable of doing in your heart and life. I'm Shelby Abbott and you've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Brant Hansen from the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise on Family Life Today. Brant has written a book called Unoffendable.
How just one change can make all of life better. This has now been updated with two new chapters and you can get your copy right now by going online to familylifetoday.com or you can find it in our show notes or simply give us a call at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today and request your copy of Brant Hansen's Unoffendable. So all this week we've been listening to messages from the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise this past year. And did you know that right now you can book and save during our SEAS, S-E-A-S, the savings sale. That's right, for the 2025 Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise, if you use the promo code SEAS25, you can save big on a stateroom for next year. This sale is going to end on June 25th of this year, but I highly encourage you to talk to your spouse about it and book a room for the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise.
It's a getaway for married couples looking for relaxation, renewal, romance, lifelong memories, yes, but most importantly a reconnection with each other and with God. You can learn more at familylifetoday.com and clicking on the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise banner on the page or again give us a call at 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. So we were able to hear from Brandt today, but I encourage you to tune in tomorrow because Brandt Hansen is back from the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise as he encourages us to have open conversations with loved ones about their struggles with offense and forgiveness. That's coming up tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of David Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
