How to Be Angry Without Sinning | En Fuego | Pastor Mike Breaux

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Hey, guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching. Every week, we release a podcast that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free. An episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lake Point YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free. Now enjoy this Bible teaching. All right, what's up? What's up, everybody? Hey, great to see y'. All. Welcome. Welcome to Lake Point. Welcome all of our campuses. Those of you that might be joining us online as well, man, super grateful for all of y'. All. My name is Bro, by the way, and I get to be on the teaching team. And it is June, so you know what that means. You're stuck with me for, like, the next four weeks. So sorry, I don't know that. Yeah, I know. I know. Some of y'. All. Some of y', all, like, you come to a football game and you go, oh, the backup quarterback's playing. Ah, I don't know, man. Hey, Josh. Will, it's very little to do with the messenger. Everything to do with the message. The word of God is living and active. It penetrates our soul. The Holy Spirit's always speaking to you and me. And God wants to put us on his potter's wheel and mold us and shape us and chisel us into his best version of us. And I'm praying that God's going to do that in all of us over the next four weeks. We're kicking off a series today that we're calling En Fuego, and it's all about fire. And I got the idea from several different sources. I remember the late Stuart Scott of ESPN. He would do SportsCenter and he would do highlights. And if, like, a shooter got really hot, like, Steph Curry would hit, like, six in a row or something like that, he would just scream in fuego. I remember Taco Bell doing a marketing campaign about some really spicy thing that they were trying to pitch. And they would always say, en Fuego. My buddy Mark has a cigar shop where some guys hang out on Saturday nights and light up and talk about God. And he calls his cigar shop In Fuego. You talk to some of the police officers around here who serve us so faithfully every weekend. They'll tell you when the heat and humidity start to rise this time of year, crime goes in fuego. So in the coming weeks, we're going to talk about fire. We're going to talk about being consumed with passion, burning white hotel for God and for life. We're gonna talk about how God can even use the very tough things we have to go through through life to refine our character, much like fire refines gold and purifies it. But these first two weeks, we're gonna talk about a fire called anger. Cause it seems like we are living in the age of rage, doesn't it? All kinds of polarization, all kinds of factions and feuds and division and discord. I mean, it seems like everybody's mad at somebody, right? So let me ask y', all, who you mad at? You say right now you for bringing up this topic, right? Well, I'm just gonna have to deal with your anger because I think this is way too important for us to ignore. Because the damage that mishandled, mismanaged anger does in our world, in our city, in our neighborhood, in our homes, is absolutely staggering. The latest stats from the FBI crime clock says in our country, there's a violent crime every 26 seconds, an aggravated assault every 38 seconds, a robbery every two minutes, a rape every four minutes. Domestic violence is the number one cause of emergency room visits for women. 1,500 people are killed or injured every year in cases of road rage, can you say in fuego. And there are tons of television shows and series that revolve around, like, a homicide of some sort. You got all the date lines and the 48 Hours and the 2000s and crime documentaries on Netflix and Prime, all usually unpacking a story about a murder, which, by the way, happens every 31 minutes in our country. And I'm not a real big fan of those shows, and I'm certainly not a fan of, like, horror movies or slasher type films. I don't see why Hollywood keeps cranking them out, to be honest with you. But I do remember one scary movie year, actually. It was more suspenseful than it was scary. And I don't remember, like, anything about the movie. I can't remember anything about it. But I do remember the title of it, what Lies Beneath. That just sounds scary, doesn't it? Well, long before that movie, Jesus stands up and preaches this famous sermon from a mountainside that was laser focused on what lies beneath. And he spoke it into a culture much like ours, where external image was everything. So Jesus goes below the surface to the heart of the matter, which is always a matter of the heart. And check out what he says about murder. You have heard that our ancestors were told you must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment. But I say to you, even if you are angry with someone, you're subject to judgment. If you call someone an idiot, you're in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you're in danger of the fires of hell. So Jesus here is saying, you don't have to wield a blade, pull a trigger or detonate a bomb to be guilty of murder. It's all about what lies beneath. It's all about the anger that resides in our hearts. I've been learning it's really hard to move through your life in a God honoring way when you got a heart full of anger. When you're always living with a short fuse and you're always starting stuff with people, you're getting frustrated and flipping people off in traffic and you're always saying little things that set your kids off or you're trying to intentionally get under your parents skin. When it seems like you're always in a disagreement, some kind of argument with your spouse, with your brother, with your sister, with your co workers, with your teammates, with your neighbors, with your parents, with your in laws. Jesus is saying, listen, if that's the case, you're gonna live a miserable, even hellish existence. You see, according to Jesus, hell is a present condition with future implications. So Jesus is warning you and me, you keep this up and you'll just become a bitter, resentful old man, old woman who finds no joy in life because you lived your life all locked up in a self imposed prison of unresolved anger. It's a big deal. I can remember years and years ago, I was young, had hair and everything. And I was in charge of a basketball league for our city. It was like 30, 40 churches that put together this league and I was running the league. And we had an A league and a B league and a C league. The A league was for guys that just got out of college and they could still hoop. The B league was for guys who thought they still could hoop. And then there was a C league for guys who just acknowledged, I'm not good anymore, I just want to run up and down, jog up and down the floor and have a good time. Well, I get a phone call about an incident that happened in our C league. This guy got angry and choked an 18 year old referee. So I got the guy's number and called him up, said, what's going on? The guy goes, well, he wouldn't give me a timeout. I went, seriously, are you in the C league? Yes. He wouldn't give me a timeout. He said, you choked him. Well, the 18 year old referee filed charges, assault charges on this guy and this guy ends up losing his executive level job with a nationally known company. Anger. Anger and rage can take you out of a job. It can take you out of a friendship, it can take you out of a marriage, it can take you out of a family in a heartbeat. It can hurt a whole lot of people and cause your own soul to implode in the process. So we got to talk about this now. We're going to see. I'm talking a ton of scripture today, so you might just want to take out your phone and screenshot them along the way. Or you can jot them down as fast as you can and revisit them this week. But these couple of verses are going to be our key verses for the next two weeks anyway. Jesus, brother James writes a little letter. It's tucked in the back of the New Testament. And he says this about anger. He says, understand this my dear brothers and sisters. You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. Let me read that again. Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters. You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry. Cause human anger does not produce the righteous life that God desires. I heard the late Dallas Willard talk one time about how he would gauge his spiritual growth and maturity by his irritability levels. And when I heard him say that, man, that resonated personally with me. Cause most of the time, man, I'm a pretty easy going, laid back kind of guy. I don't get worked up about much. I can pretty easily let stuff roll off of me, but I can always tell when things aren't quite right in my heart. It's when anxiety chases away my peace and frustration and irritability starts to build up in me. It's when an angry, less than wholesome word comes out of my mouth that I normally wouldn't use. It just comes out of me when that happens. I know, man, there's something else. There's something else going on in me that didn't come from God. There's something here that's not quite right. So I understand why Dallas wrote to cut the root of anger is to wither the tree of human evil. I Think it's that important? Jesus said it's what lies beneath. Now the good news is that there is a way to cut the root of anger. There is a way to be appropriately passionate. There is a way to experience the emotion of anger without throwing a fit, frying pan, finger or fist. There is a way to be angry and not sin. There is a way to manage this emotion in a God honoring way. Now I need to qualify all this by saying anger in and of itself is an honest emotion. It's been hardwired into us by our very passionate God. We are created in his image, so we have this capacity for feeling anger. Scripture, in fact 256 of them tell us that sometimes God gets angry. Now he's slow to get angry and he's full of compassion and abounding love, but God gets angry. You might remember how Jesus one time, Saul, religious leaders scamming people in the name of God. And they were cheating all these poor people by telling them that the sacrifices that they brought to the temple were not acceptable and then forcing them to purchase their pre approved blemish free temple sacrifices at jacked up prices. Well, Jesus stands there and watches for as long as he can and his nostrils begin to flare in the face of injustice and he starts flipping over tables and driving out animals and scattering their money everywhere. And he says, my Father's house is supposed to be for prayer and worship and here you are ripping off poor people in his name. So God has a righteous kind of anger, a healthy kind of anger, the kind that flows from his perfect love and his perfect justice, the kind that absolutely hates evil. I mean, if you can watch like news reports of some of the atrocities that are going on in our world and not feel the same righteous anger that Jesus felt that day. There's just something wrong inside of you. Like if you don't feel angry over children being used and abused or discarded, if something doesn't stir within you when you hear about another senseless shooting, or the exploitation and trafficking of young women, or the scamming of older people, or blatant racism or terrorism, then your heart has grown immensely apathetic. Some things anger God and they ought to anger us who are made in his image. Now we gotta channel that anger and respond in an appropriate way and leave the ultimate vengeance to God. But evil, oppression and injustice ought to make us angry. And you know what? Sometimes anger even energizes us to do the right thing. A bunch of addicts that I know got to the point in their life where they finally just got mad about their life and the pain it was causing all the people in their life. And they said, you know what? Enough. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. And they humbled themselves and checked into rehab or they got in a group. So just being angry is not bad or sinful. Sometimes it can unleash passion and motivate us to do some very good things. But here's the deal. The Greek philosopher Aristotle said this over 2000 years ago. Anyone can become angry. That's easy. But to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose in the right way, that's not easy. And I don't have to tell y' all way too often, we are not angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose in the right way. Most of the time, it is in fuego, this fire raging out of control. And if we are serious about becoming God's best version of us, and I think we are, we gotta get a handle on the anger that lies beneath. And since all of us do want to get better at this, I think we ought to start with a little self evaluation. That be okay with y'. All. What's your anger management style? How do you express your anger? How do you react most of the time? Now, I'm sure there are many different styles of anger expression, but which one of these honestly most closely describes you? Maybe you would be described as the trash compactor. The trash compactor, you just stuff it down. I got back from vacation last summer, realized I forgot to take the trash can to the curb before I left. And it had already been sitting there for a week because I forgot to take it down the week before. So when I got home, it was ripe. I mean, so ripe. It had been sitting in the hot sun for two weeks. It had turned into, like a science project. It smelled like something had died while eating, like, bad cheese and dead fish. It was just. It was so, so nasty. And guess what? Anger that gets stuffed. It gets like that. People who stuff their anger, deny their angry feelings, or bury it deep within them often become powders. And you ask, what's wrong? Oh, nothing. Everybody knows something's wrong. Cause they can smell it. Anger stuffed always leaks. In middle school, our kids had to memorize Shel Silverstein's Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout. Have you heard this? You might know it. Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout would not take the garbage out. She scoured the pots and scraped the pans and candy the yams and Spiced the hams. And though her dad would scream and shout, she would not take the garbage out. And so it piled up to the ceilings. Coffee grounds, potato peelings, brown bananas, rotten peas, chunks of sour cottage cheese. It filled the can, it covered the floor, it cracked the window, it blocked the door with bacon rinds and chicken bones, Drippy ends of ice cream cones, prune pits, peach pits, orange peel, gloppy clumps of cold oatmeal. Pizza crust with withered greens, soggy beans and tangerines. Crust of black burned buttered toast, grizzly bits of beefy. The garbage rolled down the hall. It raised the roof, it broke the wall. Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs, globs of gooey bubblegum, cellophane from green bologna, rubbery blubbery macaroni, peanut butter caked in dry curdled milk and crust of pie, Moldy melons, dried up mustard eggshells mixed with lemon custard. Cold french fries and rancid meat, Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat. At last the garbage reached so high that finally it touched the sky and all the neighbo moved away. And none of her friends would come to play. And finally Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout said, okay, I'll take the garbage out. But then, of course, it was too late. The garbage reached across the state from New York to the Golden Gate. And there in the garbage she did hate, poor Sarah met an awful fate. So children, remember Sarah Stout and always take garbage out. Yeah, the Apostle Paul. The apostle Paul puts it like this in Ephesians, chapter 4. And don't sin by letting anger gain control over you. Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry. Don't stuff it. You take the garbage out, for anger gives a mighty foothold to the devil. Somebody once told me the difference between being mad and being bitter is sunset. See, there's an enemy that really wants to take you and me out. And when we let the sun go down, when we go to bed bad, and we just stuff our anger, you give him an opportunity to do some really, really nasty stuff on the inside of you. In fact, the word used here for foothold literally means base of operation. Paul's saying, don't let him set up his command center in the hub of your unresolved anger. Listen to me. Anger that gets buried is toxic and it leaks. And you will not be an exception to that. It will poison your thought processes. It will poison your body. It will poison your internal organs. It will poison your attitude, poison your relationships. It will poison Your soul. And that's why Paul says, take it to the curb. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. Well, maybe you're not a stuffer at all. And maybe you're thinking, why would anybody repress their anger when it's so much fun to express your anger? Perhaps you would identify more with this guy. The ventilator is what we'll call him, the ventilator. There are lots of people who do anything but stuff it deep inside. They just blow it out, man. They let it fly. They yell, they scream, they confront, they cuss, they punch drywall, they kick cats, they slam doors, they throw golf clubs, they honk their horn, they squeal their tires. They post angry things on social media and they do it with all caps with 10 exclamation points. They get in your face. They power up when they get mad. And it seems like the littlest thing can just set them off. And gang people who manage their anger this way, they tear up marriages and friendships and families and neighborhoods and companies and churches, and they're not a lot of fun to be around. Cause their tone, their volume, their body language just intimidates you and makes you want to steer clear. Ecclesiastes 7:9 has a word for the ventilator. Don't be quick tempered, for anger is the friend of fools. Proverbs 29:11 says, Stupid people express their anger openly, but sensible people are patient and hold it back. Do you catch a theme here? Those terms fool, stupid person, Those are not flattering terms for the one who expresses their anger to the detriment of other people. But gang, it's true. It seems just plain stupid to act like that. You just can't continue with angry outbursts and abusive reactions and call that God's best version of you. For a person's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Well, maybe your anger management style is more like, we'll call this person the prosecuting attorney. Maybe the way you handle your anger is to talk it to death. You just won't let it go. You just will not let it go. Dr. Les Carter, in his book called the Anger Workbook, which I highly recommend. I read it years ago, super helpful. He says that one of the root causes of anger is when our convictions get violated or there is some perceived injustice done against us. And when that's the case, the prosecuting attorney Goes to work, he or she cannot let this violation of justice rest. They start planning the attack. They're digging up dirt, they're keeping records, they're marking evidence. Exhibit A, exhibit B. They're bringing up cold cases from days gone by and being so overwhelmingly prepared and possessing superior intelligence and verbal skills, that child or that spouse is made to feel like a dirty rotten scoundrel until justice is served. So here's a word for the prosecutor. Proverbs 23. It's an honor for a man to stay out of a fight. Only fools insist, quarreling. I love this one. Straight out. Proverbs 10:19. Don't talk so much. You keep putting your foot in your mouth. Be sensible. Turn off the flow. Well, maybe you're none of those. Maybe you're more like I used to be. And you could be categorized as the stealth bomber. The clinical term is passive aggressive. Oh, you're aggressive with your anger. You just do it in a sly, passive kind of way. You kind of fly below the radar and then out of nowhere drop these little bombs of sarcasm. With your amazing wit and your clever tongue, you're able to fire these little heat seeking missiles not designed to destroy the enemy target. Just ding them a little bit and then almost stealth like you're out of the room. I used to be that guy. Proverbs 17:14 has a word for us. Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam. So drop the matter before a dispute breaks out and we say, wow, I wasn't trying to destroy him, man. I'm just trying to get a little last word, a little verbal jab in. Well, that verse is saying that's like poking a hole in a dam. What was just a little sarcastic shot is gonna turn into a flood of trouble if you don't stop doing that. So whether you find yourself as the trash compactor, or maybe the ventilator, or maybe the prosecuting attorney, or the stealth bomber or some other sort of. Or maybe all four combination. We all got to get proactive about this and we got to ask the Holy Spirit for help so that we can live the kind of life that God wants us to live and respond to each other in a God honoring way. So let me just give you a few practical ways that God's been teaching me through the years about handling my anger. Number one is this. Reflect before you react. Reflect before. See, anger is a pretty complex emotion. One of the reasons anger is as baffling and mysterious as it really is that most of the time our anger tends to divert our attention Away from the real issue to from what lies beneath. Which is why psychologists often refer to anger as the second emotion. The second emotion. We don't really know what to do with the first emotion. Complicated. So we just jump over to anger because that's a lot easier to just express anger rather than deal with the first emotion. For example, let me see if I can make sense of this. Let's just say a wife is like, foot stomping, I could spit nails mad. As she watches her husband pull into the driveway late for the fourth time in a row that week. And she greets him at the door, got a baby on the hip. And a sarcastic round of shots like, why don't you just put a cot in your office? Or I put name tags on the kids so you would know who they are, what's going on. When she meets him at the door like that, you say, well, she's mad, bro. Well, we all see that. But what I want you to ponder is what's really going on there? What might have been her first emotion? You think about it for a second. What was she probably feeling before she just jumped over to anger? I'm guessing some loneliness, maybe some disappointment, some abandonment, maybe. Maybe a lack of appreciation for all she's done all day long with three little kids. I mean, chances are she's looked forward to her husband coming home. She was hoping that he would come home early like he promised he would start doing so that she could get a break. Or maybe they could have dinner together, or maybe they could get the stroller and go for a walk, just hang out together. And when he didn't show up till 9 o', clock again, she probably started feeling sad first. Maybe a little unloved. Got to thinking, you know what? I'm not treasured around here. I mean, me and the kids, we're just afterthoughts. He cares more about his career than he cares about us. Or maybe she thought, you know what? I hate being lied to like this. And maybe she started feeling devalued, neglected, undesirable, maybe pushed aside. Do I have to tell any of y'? All? Like, feeling five minutes of those kind of feelings are enough to make any of us just bolt over to that second emotion called anger. Cause once we're feeling angry feelings now, we can grab some power as we gather up all those hurt feelings inside of us and just empty ourself of all those uncomfortable first emotions by spewing them out on somebody else in the form of rage. Anger is rarely the first emotion, so reflect before you react, you ask, what's really going on inside of me? What is the root of this? Instead of unloading on each other, you sit down and go, hey, listen, we really need to talk about this. You need to know, this is how this makes me feel. Those kind of conversations start the pathway to some honest change, and they're much better than intimidating, explosive anger. So just be aware. When you find yourself getting angry, admit to yourself as early in the process as possible. Hey, my buttons have been pushed, my fuse has been lit. My irritability level is rising. Yep, I'm pretty sure I'm ticked. Pause to reflect and you pray. That prayer from Psalm 139 that we see around here a lot, where you say, search me, O God, know my heart, test me, and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Reflect before you react. I heard Megan Marshman Erickson point this out the other day. I love Psalm 139, the one we just read. It is such a rich passage. If you've never read it, you go read it. Because David in his psalm is so beautiful. He talks about God. Your presence is everywhere. If I go here, you're there. If I go here, you're there. If I go over here, you're there. You're all around me. Your thoughts about me are way too many to count. I just love this, he says. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I am fearlessly and wonderfully made. Some really memorable and often quoted verses in Psalm 139, but I'd never seen this before. Right in the middle of it, right before he gets to the search me, O God prayer, David yells. He just gets his anger out with God. Check this out, he says, if only you, God, would slay the wicked away from me. You who are bloodthirsty, they speak of you with evil intent. Your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord? And abhor those who are in rebellion against you. I have nothing but hatred for them. I count them my enemies, God. That's what I'm feeling. These people make me furious. I am in fuego. So search my heart, O God, know my anxious thoughts. Show me what lies beneath in my heart. Point out any offensive junk that's living there and lead me onto a better path. So you honestly acknowledge I'm mad, but why am I so ticked off? What is the first emotion here? What's the deeper issue that I need to deal with? So help me God not to jump to the easy path. Bombing somebody else with my anger right now. Is there something going on in my own heart that's making me agitated and help me in this moment react appropriately. See, the earlier you admit it to yourself and you call it what it really is, the more time you have to decide how you're going to handle it. I love what it says in Proverbs 17:27, the one who knows much says little. Because an understanding person remains calm. So reflect, understand before you react. Number two, remember the results. Remember the results. You stop in a moment, say, you know what, I got a choice here. I can stir up dissension, I can hurt a bunch of people right now, I can make a total fool out of myself and commit a whole lot of sin in the next few minutes, or I can handle this appropriately. Because you do have a choice. You don't have to stuff it, spew it, litigate it, or bomb people with it. It can be managed in a God honoring way. I was speaking to a group of guys not long ago at this conference about sexual purity and lust and fantasies and affairs and such. And I told them, man, you got to play the video all the way out. You got to say to yourself, if I go down this road that I'm on, if I continue to do this, take a look at the long term consequences before you start down that road. Cause if you hit fast forward, you're not gonna like the way this ends. The same principle is effective in dealing with anger. Remember the results. Remember what happened the last time you went off. Think it through. Think about the damage you might do this time around. You visualize the trauma it might cause in a little girl, a little boy's life, even down the road. Sometimes God restrains me from doing something by giving me a quick glimpse of the way it's gonna be if I follow through with my angry impulses. And I don't like the picture, so I'm able to stop before it's too late. Just because somebody has made you mad, you don't have to be mean. You don't have to compound the problem with sin. Proverbs 29:22 says, an angry man, an angry woman stirs up dissension, and a hot tempered one commits many sins. Play the video all the way out because this is so Tragically true. Proverbs 11:29. The fool who provokes his family to anger and resentment will finally have nothing worthwhile left. So I think what we do, we internalize some of these scriptures that's why I ask you to take a screenshot or jot them down, start to scroll through the options. You stop in the moment. You ask the Holy Spirit, give me some help right now. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, guess what? He is in you. So you ask him in the moment for self control. You ask him for an extra dose of compassion and patience right now. With his help, we really can make wise choices that will honor God, build our character in the process, save our relationships. So reflect before you react. Remember the results. And then one more Restrain your remarks. Restrain your remarks. I told a friend last week I was gonna teach on this today. He said, bro, tell em this. God gave us two ears and one mouth. We need to learn to use them proportionally. Proverbs 21:23 says, if you wanna stay out of trouble, just be careful what you say. Anybody else's mouth get them in trouble. Ever seem like you got two mouths and no ears? James, the one who wrote our verse about being quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry. He gets on a roll about this in chapter three. Probably a lot of you have seen this before, but it says indeed we all make many mistakes, for if we could control our tongues, we'd be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way. We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth and a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong in the same way. In the same way. The tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches, but a tiny spark can set a great forest in Fuego. The tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness corrupting our entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself. You know what? People can tame all kinds of animals, Birds, reptiles, fish. But no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison. And I might add, in the world of social media posts and comments, you could also say the thumbs are a restless evil full of deadly poison. People will type angry negative bile comments. Then you'll look at their profile and it will say, lover of God. What the verse right after that don't let the sun go down on your anger has a word for all of us. Ephesians 4:29 do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen. Restrain your Remarks. Now maybe you're pushing back, going, hey, bro, didn't we just read, no one can tame the tongue. So how do you expect me to do that if it's impossible? Well, it is impossible. Without God's help, we can't transform ourselves. That's why it's so crucial to live every moment in the awareness of the presence and power of God. To humble yourself in the moment and ask him for help, to say, I can't, you can't. I'm going to let you. I'm going to renew my mind daily to your word. I'm going to apply the things we've been talking about today. If you will fill your heart with these verses, I'm telling you, he will bring them to your mind this week. He will help you in that heated moment. Hold your tongue and bite your lip. Listen, the next time you're engaged in a disagreement with your spouse, the next time you get a little heated up in traffic, the next time the umpire blows that call, the next time you want to set them straight with some kind of venomous post, the next time you get ticked off with the kids, the next time things aren't going so great with your folks, or something goes wrong at work or school, or you have to have a confrontational conversation, let God remind you of this. In fact, you ought to memorize this one. It's an easy one. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Let's read that together out loud. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Let's read that again. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Man, stick that one in your heart. This week I was driving a car that a guy was actually was going to let me have it years ago, and I was driving in a country road in Kentucky in this little small town, and a police officer pulled me over and he walks up to my door and I said, was I going too fast? And he goes, oh, no, you're fine, but your tags are expired. Oh, well, this is not. See, it's not really my car. It's just like somebody else's car. And he goes, well, I don't care whose car it is. Your tags are expired. You're the driver. I went, well, yeah, but. And he wouldn't listen. So he gave me a ticket. He said, listen, if you want to contest this ticket, you'll have to go to the courthouse. And he gave me a date that I could go to the courthouse and contest this Ticket. So I said, I'm contesting this ticket because this ain't fair. So I go to the courthouse, and I get there, and there's a long line of people waiting to see the judge. So I get in line. I'm standing there forever. It seems like I finally get up there and the judge is not in a good mood, and I try to explain my situation. He just kind of looks at me like, you're an idiot, and said, oh, okay. So I'm just gonna pay this ticket. I grabbed it. You know, I wasn't gonna tell my friend that I had the ticket or anything like that. So I grabbed the ticket and I walked down the hall. On the way down the hallway, I'm thinking, somebody's gonna hear about this injustice. The next person I see, I don't care who they are, they're gonna hear my story. Cause I'm mad, and I'm gonna tell somebody about this. And so I'm walking down the hallway saying, somebody's gonna know. I'm walking in the hall. I felt like God was saying to me, a gentle answer turns away wrath. Harsh words stirs up anger. Come on, man. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry. Gentle answer turns away wrath. A gentle answer turns away wrath. That person you're about to encounter is not their fault. And you're going to blow up all over somebody that has absolutely nothing to do with this situation. That person behind the counter that you're going to meet is somebody that Jesus died for. And they deserve to be treated with honor and dignity. So I walk in and there's this girl behind the counter. And I'm just. I'm boiling mad. But I managed to smile and paid the ticket. I did the right thing for once. I actually listened to him in the moment. And as I walked away, the girl behind the counter says, oh, hey, by the way, I love coming to your church. Oh, my goodness. I'm so glad I listened in the moment. Glad I got it right. So I'm telling you that because you can listen to him in the moment, too. He's gonna say to you this week, come on, calm down. Remember, that person's a person of great worth. A gentle answer turns away wrath. Gentle answer turns away wrath. A gentle answer will calm things down right now. Look in your own heart. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry. Reflect before you react and you pray. God, thank you. Thanks for that reminder, because I need them. Just help me right now not to say the wrong thing, the hurtful thing. The thing that's going to throw fuel on this fire. God, just help me shut up and smile right now. Give me like Jesus, humility, honesty, confidence and courage. But also I need some gentleness and restraint right now. Now you do know, don't you, that the same man, Jesus, who went to what lies beneath and spoke those heart clarifying words about murder was himself murdered? I mean, Jesus was murdered, right? I mean it was a cold hearted, premeditated conspiracy, Deliberate, hateful, vengeful, mafia style hit on his life. No doubt about it. A cold blooded, calculated murder. Or as they say in Dateline, or was it? I mean, the crime scene would certainly point to that verdict and the motive of the hearts of the people involved would certainly get them sentenced to death. But in the absolute truest sense, this was no murder. Did you know that? Jesus said, no one takes my life from me. I lay it down voluntarily from the cross. Jesus could have called 10,000 of the biggest, baddest angels in heaven. Don't you think that the one who could calm the wind and the ways of the word, the one who could make blind men see, the one who fed 5,000 people with two fish and five biscuits, the one who raised Lazarus from the dead, the one who in the beginning said, let there be light. Don't you think he could certainly handle a puny lynch mob if he wanted to? But because he saw your face and my face, because he saw your sin and my sin, because he saw what lies beneath all the rage, all the anger, all the bitterness, all the hatred in our hearts, he laid down his life and said, father, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing. Through the voluntary sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, there is forgiveness and freedom for anybody who will accept him as their savior. And then through his love, he begins to change angry hearts. So I think we just need to pray about this for a moment. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the way it does penetrate our hearts. And God, like we said, this is a big deal. We know it's a big deal because you talk about it a lot. Jesus, thank you for going to what lies beneath. A lot of us got junk just hanging inside of us that needs to go. Some of us have a lot of garbage in there we need to take to the curb. And you spoke to us today. Some of us, we just, we don't think. We just blow it out and say stupid stuff and make a fool of ourself and hurt people. Some of us, we just are sarcastic and we got our own ways of dishing it out. So we're just saying today, help us. We know that's not your best version of us. We know it doesn't bring about the righteous life. You desire us to live full of light and full of love. So God, examine our hearts. We give you permission to go deep inside of us and surgically start to remove some of this stuff. And we'll cooperate with you. We will memorize some of these scriptures. We'll at least read them over and over and get them in our hearts and our heads so that in the moment, this week, we can hear your speaking to us, and we'll stop. So thank you, Father, what you're going to teach us. Thanks for what you're teaching us today. And I pray all this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.