Why We Get Angry, Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. What happens to us is we set up our expectations, and after we set them up, when someone doesn't meet our expectations, we get angry. And almost always, we're wrong.

Almost always, we're wrong. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now, as once again, he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Sociologists have described our culture as the age of rage. Road rage, parking rage, air rage, checkout line rage.

From pipe bombs, to drive-by shootings, to battered women, to movie heroes who bear lethal weapons and die hard. Anger is everywhere. It rides with us in our cars.

It joins the foursome on the golf course. It sits beside us at work. It stands in every line we wade in. Our blood pressure rises. Our mouths get dry. Our fists clench.

Our muscles tense. And then anger flows in many different ways. Some of us are volcanoes, spewers.

Sometimes it's slow cooking and sometimes it's microwave. But when we erupt, we erupt with words and gestures, sometimes even with punches and slaps. Some of us are toxic waste dumps. We are leakers. We bury our anger.

And then over the years, the contamination begins to leak out when everybody around us. And some of us are snow cones. I call them stuffers. They sort of give you just the big chill. They don't act as though there's anything wrong at all. They simply repress all their anger. And they really don't hurt anybody but themselves. It doesn't matter if you're a volcano or a toxic waste dump or a snow cone or a spewer, a leaker or a stuffer. Anger can be a very, very big problem in your life.

Before you get too pious and thinking I might be speaking of somebody else, let me ask you the question. Have you ever done something you wished you hadn't done while you were angry? Have you ever said something when you were angry you wish you could take back? Have you ever made a bad decision when you were angry? Have you ever ruined a friendship or a marriage or a family relationship or a business relationship because of anger? Have you ever seen someone hurt because of someone else's anger physically, emotionally or psychologically? Have you ever made yourself feel miserable or guilty or have you ever had pity for yourself because of anger?

I would say in a resounding way, yes. Proverbs 29, 22, Solomon says, an angry person stirs up strife. A hot-tempered person commits many sins. And so I would like to speak about anger.

Today I want to simply answer three basic questions before we really get into the heart of it next time. That is, what is anger? Most importantly, why do we get angry? And thirdly, can anger ever be a good thing? What is anger? I'm going to rely on Webster for this.

It seems like the best of all definitions. Anger is a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a perceived wrong. Anger is a feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a perceived wrong. It's amazing when you go to a thesaurus and see how many synonyms we have for anger.

Enraged, furious, indignant, mad, seething, infuriated, irritated, aggravated, annoyed, bothered, frustrated, huffy, inflammatory, irascible, provoked, red hot, riled up, teed off, peeved. Have you ever felt any of those things at all? It's anger. You know what it feels like.

Tim Jackson wrote this, at times anger can feel like inner fire. It hits you in the gut. You see red and you feel hot and sweaty. Your stomach churns, your blood pressure rises, your breathing rate increases, and if you're laboring as if you're laboring under a heavy weight. Outwardly, your body responds to the internal activity with a flushed appearance.

He says you perspire, your nostrils may flare, your jaw tightens. Many people describe their experience of anger as their blood boiling. On the other hand, anger can be experienced as compliance on the outside while resentment and hostility run just beneath the surface.

The little boy who complies with his teacher's request to sit down may still be standing up on the inside. A strong feeling, it manifests itself in a variety of ways of displeasure and belligerence directed toward others aroused by a perceived wrong. And boy, that's going to be the heart of it.

It's very subjective. Chip Ingram defines it in a different way. He says anger is a charged, morally neutral, emotional response of protective preservation. The key is, he says, what are we trying to protect and preserve whenever we get angry? If you look in the Bible, you'll see many warnings that we have about not getting angry, but you have to come to grips with another reality. And that reality is, is that anger is an emotion we share with God. In fact, in the Bible, we find that God is angry at times. We also find that Jesus Christ is angry.

And in Ephesians, the apostle Paul wrote to them and to us and he said this, be angry and sin not. So what is anger? You see, anger is this whole idea of a strong feeling that we have.

It's always going to be aroused in us. And anger has this way manifesting itself in a variety of ways. Why do we get angry? That's the heart of what I want to talk about. I hope you can find yourself in these three points this morning. Why do you get angry? You see, why?

It's a very important question to ask. The first point is going to be made in Genesis chapter 37, Genesis 37 and verse three. What is anger? A strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a perceived wrong.

Genesis 37. You know the story, but I want you to see something in this story. I want you to become sympathetic this morning with a group of guys you never want to be sympathetic toward. And that is Joseph's brothers. I mean, really, you always think of Joseph brothers a bunch of rats, don't you? I mean, they're just terrible guys, but I think you could sympathize with them a little bit here.

I think you can. Because I think they're manifesting anger. And they're manifesting it for the first reason I want to give this morning. Hurt from unmet needs.

We get angry because we have hurt from unmet needs. Verse three. Now, Israel, that's Jacob, loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a very colored tunic. And his brother saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers.

Wow. Would you be angry if you're one of his brothers? Is that a legitimate need? Is there a legitimate need that a child is loved by their parents? Is a legitimate need that if you have more than one child, you love those children equally?

Absolutely. But that's not the case here. And not only did Jacob say it. And he said it in the presence of the brothers, but he made Joseph a very colored jacket to remind them every day that I love him more than all of you. I didn't think they'd feel.

How would you feel? You see, it's a legitimate need. Anger from unmet needs. His brother saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers. And so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms.

Any time they spoke to him, they were angry. See, that's what happens. We have needs.

If we don't get those needs met, we can feel rejected, lonely, betrayed, unappreciated and unloved. And boy, when that happens, we get angry. Now, obviously, they were more the volcano type. It kind of manifested itself in a very big way. It sold them into slavery. Remember, though, several of them wanted him dead. They just wanted him murdered.

That's how angry they were. I want you to see some insight into this idea of how this anger makes us feel. Turn with me to Psalm 35, the book of Psalms, Psalm 35 and David. You see, we have legitimate needs. We have a need to be loved. We have a need to be accepted. We have a need to be acknowledged. We have a need to belong.

And when that doesn't happen, we can get angry. Well, David, in Psalm 35, is not enjoying his enormous popularity that he had after Goliath. Everybody loved David then, except Saul, but everybody loved David. But as things went on for David, David ended up with a lot of enemies. And so David starts to feel this idea of being rejected, this idea of people hate me, people want to betray me. So here is David praying to God.

And it's interesting. This is a prayer of anger from unmet need. David says, contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me.

What do you mean, David? Fight against those who fight against me. Get them, God. Get them.

That's simply want you to get them. He says, take hold of the buckler and shield and rise up. He says, for my help, draw also, he says, the spear in the battle ax to meet those who pursue me. Say to my soul, I am your salvation. Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life. Let those be turned back and humiliated who devise evil against me. Let them be like chaff before the wind with the angel of the Lord driving them on. And he says, and let their way be dark and slippery with the angel of the Lord pursuing them. For without cause, they hid their net for me. Without cause, they dug a pit for my soul. Let destruction come upon him unawares and let the net which he hid catch himself into the very destruction.

Let him fall. He's angry. When you feel that disenfranchised, when you feel that you're hated, not acknowledged, betrayed, unloved. When you feel those things, you feel anger.

David is the kind of guy that lets it out. You might not be that kind of person, me kind of person that stuffs it all in. But if you stuff it all in and you're sort of the snow cone type of person, the only person you ever hurt is yourself. And you will. You see, there's a tremendous amount of hurt from unmet needs.

There is a second reason we get angry and maybe the most common. I want you to turn to Second Kings, Second Kings, Chapter five, and a man named Naaman. He is an impressive, impressive guy. Naaman is a leader of men. He is a valiant warrior. He is respected by everybody. And he is without flaw except for one thing.

He has leprosy. And in that world, what a mark that is to live by. And so in Second Kings five, it says, Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man with his master and highly respected because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. And he says, And the man was also a valiant warrior, but he was a leper.

And now he says the Arameans, he said, had gone out into bands and had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel. And she waited on Naaman's wife. She was brought in as a servant.

And she said to her mistress, I wish that my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria. That would be Elisha. She said, I wish he could meet Elisha.

Because Elisha can do phenomenal things. Notice this girl, taken captive, has deep respect for Naaman. She wants to help Naaman. She respects him so much. He sees. Then she says this.

Then he would cure him of his leprosy. So Naaman went in and told the king, his master said, Thus and thus spoke the girl who is from the land of Israel. And the king of Aram, who thinks so much of Naaman, said, Go now and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. And he departed and he took with him ten thousand talents of silver and he says six thousand shekels of gold and ten changes of clothes, which is unheard of in those days. By the way, that's twelve thousand ounces of silver and two thousand four hundred ounces of gold.

So if you know what gold selling for right now, you can kind of do the math here. Now, that's given to the king of Israel. But by the way, sometimes your best intentions are very much misunderstood. Notice what happens. He brought the letter to the king of Israel and said, And now this letter comes to you. Behold, I have sent Naaman, my servant, to you that you may cure him of his leprosy. He's thinking, OK, I'll send to the king of Israel. The king.

It came about when the king of Israel read the letter that he tore his clothes and said, Am I a god? To kill and to make a lie that this man is sending word to me to be to cure a man of leprosy? He says, But consider now, see how he's seeking? He wants a fight against me. This is a setup.

This is a setup. He knows no one can. I can't cure leprosy. He's giving me all this money and saying there and I'll do it. And when I don't do it, he's going to get angry and he's going to try to fight with me. Well, it happened when Elijah, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes. He sent word to the king and said, Why have you torn your clothes? Now let him come to me and he shall know that there's a prophet in Israel.

So Elijah hears about it. This is a divine appointment. So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots.

Now, this is a big entourage. This is Naaman. He's the number one guy.

He's a five star general. He comes to the little house of Elijah and Elijah sent a messenger to him. And this is it. Go and wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh will be restored to you and you shall be clean. Well, that should be a happy story, right? Naaman was furious. Furious. And he said, Behold, I thought he will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord, his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.

The end of verse 12, he said he turned and he went away in a rage. Why is he so angry? The same reason you are so often. Frustration of unmet expectations.

Frustration of unmet expectations. What was he expecting? Well, he said, Look, leprosy is something we all die with.

So leprosy to cure a leper has got to be a big thing. So there's this great prophet. When I meet this prophet. Well, first of all, I think the prophet would have come out and talked to me.

I'm Naaman. But he didn't even come out and talk to me. He sent a servant.

He just sent another guy out to talk to me. And what do you and I'm sure that there have been some kind of religious ceremony. Shouldn't have been something.

I mean, maybe some flashes of lightning and collapse of thunder, something big. And notice what this guy does is go to the Jordan. Watch yourself off.

Unmet expectations. You see, he is furious. And it's interesting because notice his response are not Abana and far part of the rivers of Damascus better than the all the waters of Israel.

Could I not wash in them and be clean? This is ridiculous. He's angry. And then his servants came near and they spoke to him and said, my father had the prophet told you to do some great thing.

What have you not done it? How much more than when he says, wash and be clean. They cool him down. And by, as you know, the story. He went, he did it and he was clean. So how do you think he felt then? He felt just like you do.

After you get wrong for the wrong reasons and you get completely upset and angry over unmet expectations and you find out they're not well founded at all. How do you feel then? Stupid.

Just plain stupid. He had to. He comes out. Notice when he does it, he went down and he dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God. And he says, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child.

And he was clean. Right then. You see, this is a really, really, really, really common reason we get so angry. Unmet expectations.

Let me ask you something. What are your expectations? What are your expectations for your husband? What are your expectations for your wife? What are your expectations for your children or your parents? What are your expectations of your brothers and sisters? What are your expectations of your employers or your employees? What are your expectations of family members and friends?

What are your expectations? You see, what happens to us is we set up our expectations and after we set them up, when someone doesn't meet our expectations, we get angry. And almost always, we're wrong.

Almost always, we're wrong. You see, here's the ignition of this. Here's the fuse that lights it. In verse 11, Naaman was furious and went away, and here it is, and he said, behold, I thought. Behold, I thought. You see, I thought. I thought that once I got married, my husband would be different than you are. I thought my wife would be different.

I thought my kids would be different than the way they're acting. I thought. I thought. That's what we do. And when someone doesn't meet our, I thought the server should have been like this in this restaurant.

I thought. And then we get angry. And the trouble is that expectations in close relationships become demands, our expectations. And boy, is that dangerous for us. Be careful if you have a vocabulary when you deal with people with words like this, ought, should, must, always, never.

You talk like that, you have a problem. You always do this. You never do that.

That's my expectations. By the way, let me be honest about this, only God always and nevers. You understand that? Only God.

Only God is capable of always and never. But we do that, don't we? And it's always in the context of anger. And the reason we're angry is we're frustrated about the unmet expectations. You see, as we go on in this series, I want to warn you that your expectations better be God's expectations.

Because if they're his, you're fine, but if they're yours, you're in trouble. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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