Get Rid Of Your Anger, Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Nobody makes you angry. Anger is an inside job. Anger is a choice you make.

Well, we don't like that, do we? You see, oh, you make me so angry. 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. Do you have any anger issues this last week? Remember that I said anger is a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence, aroused by a perceived wrong. Anger is often how we manifest hurt from unmet needs, frustration from unmet expectations, and feelings of insecurity from a threatened self-esteem.

If you're a human being, there is much to make you angry. Someone lied to you? You had to wait a long time in the checkout line at the store?

Your children just not listening to you? The waitress was slow or brought the wrong food? You stubbed your toe? You find out too late that you're out of toilet paper?

The line at the public restroom is very, very long. Your spouse forgot the call and was very late. The clothes that you were dying to wear to that event are still in the laundry hamper. You drove all the way across town to find that the store was out of the one item that you needed. The kids continually and relentlessly demand too much of your time. You forgot to do something that you were supposed to. You have no time for yourself. Someone said something harsh and insensitive to you. A store clerk was rude. You're in a hurry, and wouldn't you know it, you hit every red light.

Your boss doesn't appreciate you the way that you think he or she should. Someone tracked dirt into your freshly cleaned house. The driver in front of you is going so slow. Someone close to you died. I hope you get the point. We get angry. We get angry at little things and big things. We get angry at people. We get angry at situations, institutions, God, and even ourselves. Ben Franklin said, anger is never without a reason, but seldom a good one. Considering all the damage that anger does in our lives, and particularly in your life, why do we hold on to it?

Why do we keep it around? This past week I read a psychologist who said that there are several reasons why people want to be angry. To control and to manipulate others. To regurgitate negative emotions. To relieve stress.

To keep people at a safe distance. To avoid having to face our deeper and more painful problems. To draw attention away from the real issues of our life. To hide deeper hurts. To feel dominant, powerful, intimidating. To take revenge. To avoid scrutiny. To avoid conflict. To avoid change.

To avoid having to face the unknown. You see, when it comes to anger, the real issue isn't if. The real issue in your life is when. What is it that we are to do when we get angry?

In other words, how should we deal with anger? Well, God has spoken and he's been very, very clear about it. Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. And before I go to verse 31, which is really the main text, I just want to say something about verse 26. Because it's kind of a freeing verse. Kind of unusual.

The kind you don't expect to find, and yet you do. In verse 26, the apostle Paul tells the church of Ephesus, and us, he says this, be angry. And yet, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. I'm kind of surprised. Be angry.

Go ahead. Be angry. I think the Lord realizes there's a lot of situations and a lot of people in your life that are going to give you reason to be angry.

It's interesting though. What he is telling us is go ahead and be angry, but deal with it now. Go ahead and be angry, but deal with it now. We have this tendency, don't we, many of us, that when we're angry we don't deal with it now, do we? As I said last time, we're like the toxic waste dump.

We just put it in and put it in, and then eventually over the years it starts oozing out. Because we don't deal with it. He says no, you must. And then down now to verse 31, where it appears that he gives a very unrealistic request.

Paul writes, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Does that seem reasonable? Notice what he said.

Not much wiggle room here. All. All. It's not just all anger. All bitterness and wrath, clamor and malice, but also all anger. Put it all away. Does that seem reasonable? I mean, wouldn't you rather he said something like, try to get control of your anger.

Try to do better this week than you did last week. I mean, that's kind of what you're hoping that he would say, but he doesn't give you any wiggle room. He says put it all away.

In fact, it's kind of even more interesting when you look at the words. He said that it shall, slander shall be put away from you. Put away. That Greek word means to hastily remove. Some of the newer translations will say, get rid of.

That's exactly right. Get rid of it. Get rid of all your anger. As I was trying to think, what is the impact of those words?

That Greek word, get rid of. And the best way I could think of it would illustrate it this way. Just imagine that you walk into one of the abandoned homes in New Orleans and you're looking maybe to buy it. Use it as rental property or live in it for yourself.

Hasn't been lived in since Katrina. And you're just walking in. And so you walk into the first room and it's not too good. You decide to go to the bedrooms and you walk down the hall and you just turn in the hallway and you walk into the biggest spider web you've ever found in your life and you just walked in it. Now, what do you do in that situation? Honey, I think I'm in a spider web, so be careful.

When you walk into a spider web, how do you act? You know it. Right? You just want to do what? Get rid of it. Get away from it. Pull it away.

That's the inference of this passage. He is saying to us, get rid of all your anger. Get rid of all of it. Tear it away.

Get rid of it. Well, I know a lot of you and so I know what some of you are thinking. Well, pastor, I'm not really an angry person. I never slapped anybody.

I never hit anybody. And pastors, you know, I never raise my voice. Those kind of people make me mad.

They're just pious. So let me try to help you. These are the ways in which you demonstrate anger. Sometimes we shut down. Sometimes you assert power and authority. Sometimes you become pushy and aggressive. Sometimes you yell and scream and shout and slam. Sometimes you belittle and demean and slander.

Sometimes you intimidate others. Sometimes you become depressed. Sometimes you isolate yourself. Sometimes you suppress your feelings. You repress your feelings. You regress your feelings. Sometimes you become fearful.

Sometimes you grab and hit and push and beat and kick and slap and throw things. Sometimes you become defensive. Sometimes you become proudful and arrogant.

Sometimes you become withdrawn. Sometimes you become self-righteous. Sometimes you even lie. Sometimes you cuss.

Sometimes you withhold affection. Sometimes you whine. Sometimes you put others down.

Sometimes you roll your eyes. Sometimes you spew out. Sometimes you threaten others. Sometimes you become hostile and violent. Sometimes you blame others. Sometimes you manipulate others. Sometimes you cover up your feelings. Sometimes you pretend not to feel the way you do. Sometimes you rationalize and justify your actions and feelings. Sometimes you make excuses.

Sometimes you gossip and slander. Sometimes you become selfish and self-centered. Sometimes you groan.

Sometimes you give ultimatums. Sometimes you just shrug your shoulders. Sometimes you sneer.

Sometimes you shake your fist or your head. Sometimes you deny your feelings. Sometimes you feel self-pity. Sometimes you become critical and cynical. Sometimes you become sarcastic. Sometimes you give the silent treatment. Sometimes you cry.

I hit any of you? You see, not everybody is a volcano. Not everybody just spews it all out. But if you're a human being, you have anger issues.

We all get angry. Paul was telling us to get rid of it. And by the way, don't forget the context. Where is Paul when he says that? He's in jail. He's in prison. And you know why? People hate him. That's the only reason.

He's in jail because people hate him. Do you think he might be angry? Do you think it's possible that he would be angry?

Yes. Paul's not just saying this to the Ephesians and to us, but he's saying it to themselves. Get rid of all your anger. And before I go to the verse that tells us how, I want you to see something else that's very important here.

It's written between the lines in verse 31. Don't miss this. Nobody makes you angry. Nobody makes you angry. Anger is an inside job. Anger is a choice you make.

Well, we don't like that, do we? You see, oh, you make me so angry. No. See, what we'd like Paul to say is, hey, stay away from angry, the people that make you angry, and you'll be okay. Just stay away from people that make you angry.

You'll be okay. No. He says you don't deal with anger by staying away. You get rid of anger by the actions and choices you make. So please, if you start that idea, this person makes you angry. That person makes you angry. Don't buy it anymore because it's not true. Now, Paul says then there is a solution here, a formula of dealing with anger.

He says, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. It's almost magical. It's certainly a secret to a lot of us. But Paul says here there is a way to get rid of anger, and this is it. Now, how does that sit with you?

See, I am a hunch for a lot of you it's just like, his lips are moving, but I'm really not hearing at all what he's saying. I mean, I want you to hold your place here and go with me back to Proverbs chapter 9. There's a couple of verses God has written specifically for you, if that's the way you feel. Proverbs 9 and verses 8 and 9. And Solomon writes this, he said, do not reprove a scoffer. By the way, scoffers are used synonymously with fools in the wisdom literature.

Do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you. Reprove a wise man and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man and he will still be wiser. Teach a righteous man and he will increase in his learning.

Now we can go back. Now, what Solomon is saying is this, when the word of God confronts you with something that's very important and you allow it to change your life, you're a wise man. But whenever the word of God addresses you or confronts one of your behaviors and you ignore it, you're a fool.

You're a scoffer. And so when we look at this passage of letting all the bitterness, wrath, anger and clamor and slander be put away from us and along with all malice, he said, this is the way you do it. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven you. The first thing he says is to be kind.

But I think that's a little bit misleading. Christus is the Greek word and it means to be good and useful. It can be translated kind, but it means to be good and useful. So notice that the first thing he says is be good and useful to one another. And then he says, tender hearted.

You slang NOS, one of the only times it's used in the entire New Testament, you slang NOS. It means to be sympathetic. Empathetic.

That's what it means. He says tender hearted here. If you put those two together, look, be good and useful to one another. Be sympathetic and empathetic to one another. And these are just set up verses. These are the actions that you need to have to set up what really is the solution.

And the solution comes with the next phrase. Forgiving each other. How do I put away anger?

How do I do that? He says by forgiving each other. And again, he's very careful with his word choice. Affemy is the word that's almost always used for forgiveness or forgiving. And it means to send it away. The idea of forgiving something. I forgive your debt.

I just send it away. But that's not the word he uses here. He uses the word charisma. And if you see the word charisma, you see in the beginning of it, the word chorus. The word chorus is usually translated in the New Testament grace. It means gift.

Here's what he is saying. He is saying when we forgive one another, he means to give the gift freely. To give an undeserved gift. That's what he means when he says to forgive one another. Give the person an undeserved gift.

And that gift, of course, is forgiveness. Is that what you want to do when you're angry? That seem fair to you? You see, there's something going on here.

Well, he gets much clearer the next two words. Just as. Just as. God in Christ has forgiven you. Just as. Just like you have been forgiven.

Wow. Now you see it as a gift, don't you? Is the forgiveness of God a gift in your life or is it something you thought you earned? You see, that's the whole point of grace. Just the way you've been forgiven.

Just as. That's the way you forgive people. That's how you get rid of anger in your life. You forgive. Andy Stanley really gets to the heart of it when he writes this. He said, In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feels like a decision to reward my enemy.

I love that. In the shadow of my hurt, forgiveness feels like a decision to reward my enemy. But in the shadow of the cross, forgiveness is merely a gift from one undeserving soul to another. You see, you have to see it that way. That's how you get rid of your anger.

You get rid of your anger because you see it. Just as. Just as I have been forgiven totally, repeatedly. Well, maybe there's a loophole. There's not.

Well, maybe there's a limit. Turn with me to Matthew Chapter 18. Matthew Chapter 18. Verse 21. Very familiar verse. We've been there not that long ago. In verse 21, Matthew writes, Then Peter came and said to the Lord, How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?

You see, their world was like our world. It's one thing to forgive someone who has never done anything against you at all and then inadvertently does something. And inevitably, what your response is, I forgive you. But what about somebody who's.

A stone in your shoe, the burr under your saddle. What about the person that seems like every single day? There's a reason to forgive him. In other words, what about your spouse? You see, what about somebody that's right there?

What about that? So Peter says, How often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? And then he gets very self-righteous and he says up to seven times.

Peter understood that the rabbinic tradition of the day was three. You see, we often say maybe two, right? First time something you do something like that to me. Shame. What on you? The second time and I forgive you.

Shame on me. We're not even close. Peter says seven times and he feels that the Lord is going to be very impressed.

He's not. Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 70 times seven. Now, Jesus means that for you literalists, Jesus is using hyperbole and he means always he means perfection. Some of you probably got a little notepad with a number 490 written on it. And every time you forgive someone, you dig in that 486, 471, 295. We're working it down. That's not what he means.

He means always. 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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