How to Handle Anger

If you go to the, to Pisa, there's this field, and it's just called to you to do a corny picture like that.

That is a really bent building, isn't it?

We went up it, which was really cool.

So that's when you see, it's like, wow, that's, that's pretty big.

And so, this, this is Leanne and I, and we are pressed against that wall, thinking, this feels really bad.

Like, way more leaning than you might expect.

Galileo in the 1600s went up that tower, that tower, which is really cool, because you're climbing up these steps thinking, oh, so now the people climbed up these stairs.

Because we were on holidays.

We were in Europe for a couple of weeks recently, just got back a few days ago.

Galileo did an experiment up there to work out the speed of gravity.

So he's dropping heavy things and light things, and he worked out they fall at the same speed.

And also Galileo built on Copernicus' work.

He remembers what geocentric was all about.

Lots of people are nodding.

So people understood throughout the Middle Ages that the solar system, the planet's all revolved around the Earth, geocentric.

But Galileo with Copernicus brought in this fresh understanding that it was heliocentric, so it revolved around the Sun.

You can imagine he was called the heretic because it was seen as an anti-biblical stance.

But what he did in bringing forth his discovery was he helped reframe reality, didn't he?

Like, in one of the most profound ways you could ever imagine, like how does this world we're in work?

He reframed it with his insights.

Well, the Sermon on the Mount reframed everything.

That's why it's so important.

The Sermon on the Mount is Chapter 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew.

And the reason it makes sense that it would reframe everything is that we have to remember who is doing the teaching.

It's acknowledged broadly across the world and throughout history as the greatest, most pure teaching ever given by a human being.

The Sermon on the Mount, Chapter 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew's Gospel.

And to understand and reflect on why it's so important, you just have to think of Colossians, Chapter 1, where it says, He, Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn from all creation, by him, for him, through him have all things been made.

So we just think Colossians and we think, wow, is that true?

And as a Christian constantly calls us to this reframing of our thinking, can it be true that one who walked on earth was truly God?

Is it possible that Jesus was who he said he was?

The creative utterance of God, the Word of God, the Logos of God, the one who was the breathing of creative statements that caused the universe to come into being.

That's the package deal we're talking about.

And so when God in human flesh goes to the western bank of the Sea of Galilee and a bunch of people all come, and they sit down on the green grass, as Mark's Gospel says, and he starts unveiling to them the way things are, he's not just telling them about some lofty ideal that is way beyond their reach.

I really believe he was actually unveiling the way things are in the kingdom of God.

He taught about the kingdom of God.

He re-framed everything.

And in the Sermon on the Mount, we get this idea that there's a realm, the kingdom of God, where life is different to the realm of the kingdom of this world.

The kingdom of this world is driven on the fuel of desire.

That's what runs the world, desire.

Do what you want.

The fuel of the kingdom of God is grace.

They're different.

And Jesus is unpacking the kingdom of God.

All you have to do is sort of have a look at the language he uses in Chapter 5, 6, and 7.

Yourself, it's a good thing to do.

We're studying it for quite a few months.

Have a look yourself.

Do your study of the primary text with a pencil or pen, and just go, kingdom of God, kingdom of God, kingdom of God.

It's a thing.

He prays.

You should pray this way.

May your what?

Kingdom come.

Matthew, in Mark Chapter 2, when Jesus is kicking off his ministry, he says, repent for the what is at hand?

The kingdom of God.

So sometimes it's good to stop and just think about definitions.

How would you describe the kingdom of God?

What is it?

Well, if you go to Bible College, often the first essay you do in New Testament is the question, what is the kingdom of God?

And it's the invisible reign of God.

It's the realm of his eternal reign.

It's where God is in control, and his rule is manifest, and under his good and right rule, things are different in that system than in the system of the world.

Does that make sense?

So, it's not the kingdom of God out there.

It's the kingdom of God here amongst us, but it's a system.

We live in a world filled with many and varied systems, don't we?

What's the system that comes to mind?

Traffic.

Traffic, yeah.

Everything, it's everything.

This morning, someone yelled out, tax.

Yeah, there are systems everywhere we go.

We were traveling recently, and what you find, you go to another country, they have systems that work, don't they?

They're different to our systems.

The system in most of the countries in Europe is, we used to have this line walking out onto the road, and we would look left and live.

That's a good one to remember, because they're driving on the wrong side of the road, not wrong, but the right side, and we're used to looking that way.

But in Europe, all the places, you've got to look that way when you get hit by a car.

It's because there's a system running, and I've got to understand what the system is.

There's ecological systems, social systems, political systems.

The kingdom of God is a system.

That's what Matthew 5, 6 and 7 is about.

So, the question to us that's challenging is, am I interested in working out how the system works that brings life in its fullness?

Because that would make sense, wouldn't it?

That would make sense.

So, he's reframing the way these people see the system of life working.

He's reframing it.

So, as Christine looked at a couple of weeks ago, the Beatitudes, those first verses of the greatest sermon, he reframes who is blessed.

Blessed, which means more than happy.

So, in this system that these people standing or sitting on the green hill on the side of the Sea of Galilee, the system they believe in is if I'm lame, my parents must have sinned.

That's the system, right?

I'm blind, oh, darn parents, they must have sinned, because the system is I get blind because of sin carried through generations.

And Jesus is coming into that and he's grabbing hold of that system by the strut of the neck and saying, that is not the way it works.

Get out of here.

What I want to tell you, all these people is, if you're blind, but you know the king of the kingdom, you know God, you're going to live forever, you know his grace, you're more than happy.

If you're lame, you can't get up, you've been begging all your life, you feel like you got the wrong deal in life.

And the whole system around you says, yeah, you poor, helpless, powerless person.

He says, no, no, I want to reframe your thinking, Mr.

Mrs.

Person Who Is Lame.

If you know the king of the kingdom, if you're in the kingdom, if you know the system, if you know God, my father, you can be more than happy.

Even if they persecute you for your faith, even if they take your life, I want to tell you, you can be more than happy.

Now, anyone who says you can find joy in suffering is talking about a system that most of us don't know how to get the action in.

Is that fair to say?

But how do you find joy in persecution?

Jesus says there's a way.

It's a different system, salt and light.

He goes on in Chapter 5 to say, when you live in the grace-empowered system, when you live in the kingdom the way you're meant to, in community, it's like you bring light in dark places.

You bring saltiness in places that need help.

And so, he then comes to what we're looking at tonight.

And he starts intentionally reframing anger.

One of the really important things to do when you look at the Sermon on the Mount, Chapter 5, 6, 7 of Matthew's Gospel, write down the order that he deals with the system of the kingdom of life, of kingdom of God.

I would put it to you, and you don't have to accept this.

Take it on and sort of think about it.

Is there meaning in the order?

Is there a prioritization in the fact that he deals with anger right at the top of his great sermon?

My sort of thesis to you tonight is, there is.

Anger's a really, really destructive thing.

We need to know how to handle it.

Jesus is dealing with it, and keep on having this thing rattling around.

This is the smartest guy who ever lived.

He knows what he's doing.

He's the smartest guy who ever lived.

He knows everything about life.

Not only because he designed it all, but because Jesus is eternal.

He's watched every human being live.

He's like, that didn't work, that didn't work, that didn't work.

Ever thought that your grandpa, if he's 90 years old, he's probably pretty wise, because he's just watched so much life.

This is the wisest one who's ever lived, and he comes and he teaches, and he talks about anger.

Anger is part of human existence, but it really needs to be handled well.

Who'd like to read chapter five, verse 21?

Rachael.

She's the one.

Been trying to get Rachael on video for two years.

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, you shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.

Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, Raqqa, is answerable to the court.

And anyone who says, you fool, will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister are something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.

First go and be reconciled to them, then come and offer your gift.

Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court.

Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison.

Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

So Jesus is the new Moses, isn't he, the new Moses.

Moses came down off the mount, gave the Ten Commandments.

Here's Jesus starting out his ministry, giving the fresh, reframed version of the Commandments.

And he's on the mountain.

So this is a picture of him redoing the Moses thing.

And he says these audacious words.

He says, you've heard that it was said.

What does he mean when he says, you've heard that it was said?

It's not just gossip and rumour.

He's saying, you heard that it was said ages ago when God gave you tablets of stone.

You've heard that it was said in the law, Exodus 20 verse 13, you shall not murder.

You heard that it was said.

Now he's like, I'm going to flex my authority muscles, but I say unto you.

And he's like, when I say, but I say unto you, I want you to listen to me.

You heard that it was said that way, but I say, I'm going to reframe the teaching.

And I want to tell you, really, it's not about not murdering.

It's about not being angry with contempt for your brother or sister.

You want to live the abundant, blessed, more than happy life?

You got to find a way of not living with contempt, which breeds anger.

So verse 22, as Rach read out to us, he says, if you go around calling people raka, which is pronounced with a sort of a guttural summoning of a spag, that's the sort of way it's done.

So raka, which you hear all the time if you go to Israel, it's just the way they speak.

It means empty head, raka.

Empty head.

So the derivatives of empty head are, and this is true, napskull, airhead, goose.

It's a term of derision, isn't it?

So Jesus is saying, I'm just, like I'm in the smartest clothes I've ever lived, I've watched, I'm the wisest person.

I'm just telling you, if you go around commonly just thinking, yeah, so-and-so is an airhead, that's probably not going to put you in a posture where you're likely to not treat them with contempt, because if I call you an airhead, do you think I respect you?

Well, there's just not much respect.

The other one is you fool.

And the Greek word there is moros.

What do you reckon the word is we get from moros?

Well, like right here, we get, ah, Jesus, I know, I know you probably know a lot, but like I could say a lot worse.

In the 21st century, then you're moron.

So old fashioned.

But what it's saying is, Jesus is saying, when you call someone a moron, when you call someone an earhead, you are taking their human being, who's made in the image of God, and you're making them less, aren't you?

You're just going, I don't have much respect for your brain.

And that means I don't have much respect for you.

The spirit-filled, God-saturated, abundant life that Jesus is calling us to live is a life that isn't marinated in anger and contempt.

It's really hard to love people the way Christ's followers are called to love people if you have contempt for them.

If you really, if you had the chance, you would spit on their name.

It's just contempt for them.

And, you know, if you want to check good challenge, go home sometime, or in the train tomorrow, or whatever.

Just write down or open up your phone and say, Lord, prompt me to consider who I have in my box of contempt.

And you might find there are a heap of people and things and organisations.

Now, they're there for a reason.

Maybe they don't deserve your respect, particularly if they treat you a certain way.

I'm not saying you wash your way in justice, but I'm just saying, Jesus says, the more people you have in that box of contempt, the more chance there is that that box is going to make you an angry person, and that will make you a person that finds really hard to get life.

That's the issue.

So then it goes on.

This is what we just read, verse 23.

Even if you're doing, Jesus says, even if you're doing really religious, spiritual stuff, that's taken effort to get there.

So he says, if you come into the altar with your offering, you're about to offer it.

We hear that, and we think, oh, what are they doing?

They're just rocked up, and they're about to sing a song.

Not, no, they've probably gone with their money.

They've changed it with the money changes.

They've got the temple tax.

They've got the money in the right exchange, the right currency, so that I can then go and buy some dubs or a lamb, and then I've taken my lamb, and I'm taking it up to the altar, and I'm going to offer my altar, offer my offering.

He says, in that moment that's so deeply spiritual, and you're feeling so religious, he says, I'm telling you straight, the Father and I and the Spirit are more interested in your heart.

Fix up your relational junk.

Don't feel good about the dove's room.

That's what he says.

So he's actually saying, anger and contempt, how I treat others, how I deal with what they've done to me, what I think they've done to me.

He's elevating that and saying, that's actually in the realm of your spirituality.

It matters to your life.

He goes on to say, verse 25, if you go in a court.

Interestingly, he doesn't say, don't ever go to court, though the New Testament does talk about avoiding it.

But I think what he's saying is, if you have to go to court, don't go there fuming with anger in your heart.

Do your best to present your case to the person before you get there and say, come on, let's be fair.

This is what it's cost me.

Deal with it in a friendly way if you can, and it will go better for you.

Now, we can often think, isn't he quaint and naive?

And we folks are saying, Jesus, if only you knew the world is filled with some evil people you know nothing about, of course.

Yeah, that's quaint and nice in the church, but in the real world, you can't act like that.

Is that what he's saying?

No.

No, he went to a cross.

You've got to hang on a Roman cross.

He's talking about the real world.

He knows that for the next 2,000 years, people are going to suffer for his name.

But he says, try to be friendly, try to be amicable, try to work it out.

So, let's think about some definitions.

I want to ask the question, what is anger?

What is anger?

If you were to have to describe it, you were going to write an essay on it.

I wonder where you'd start.

I wonder how if you were to get a pithy little way of describing, what is anger?

Well, it's been said that pain to the body is as anger is to feelings.

Pain to the body is a warning sign.

It's like something's wrong.

Like a sore leg.

I'd probably go, there's probably something wrong with me, because pain to the body is as anger to feelings.

So anger is there for a reason.

It's saying, whoa, I'm feeling something.

Anger is the will to harm.

There's one potential description.

So as they say, try that on for a bit.

What do you think about that?

Anger is the will to harm.

You guys, not all of you drive, but some of you drive.

Anyone feel good when someone tailgats you?

And you look in the mirror, oh, like I have, and you can see the whites of their eyes, and you think, that must be like a bikey from Hells Angels who just happens to be driving, because that guy, or those eyes are so angry.

And then I finally get to pull over, because I've just pulled out of my house and gone up onto the main road, and there's this crazy nutter hammering me in the back.

And I pull over, and of course, it's a 32-year-old woman with a kid in the back who drives past.

And I think, wow, anger is living in your body.

Anger.

I never feel good about it.

I'm just asking, does anyone feel good when someone's right up their tail?

It feels like they have the will to harm you.

Or if I said to you, like I said, Sam, Evan is, I'm just going to say he's really angry at you.

He's really angry at you.

Sam, how do you feel when you get told that?

You tend to feel defensive, don't you?

Oh, you find that, why are they, oh, they're really, whoa, well, they're really angry at me.

And so I guess my point is, anger is the will to harm.

There's a connection between the person that's angry and me, and it's not a good connection.

Is that fair to say?

The will to harm.

Contempt, raka, moron, is anger and storage.

So it's the will to harm, put away for later.

The will to harm, put away for later.

What causes anger?

Anger is a suggestion, if you think about it.

Anger is caused 99.9% of the time because of a crossing of the will.

A crossing of the will.

My will has been crossed, and I don't like that, and it's making me angry.

And to understand the idea of the will, just have a look at this quickly.

We looked at this a while ago, probably only two years ago now.

This is a way of understanding humanity.

At our core, we have our will, and we have another way to see that is the heart and the spirit.

When you become a Christian, you yield your will to Jesus, and you get a new heart.

And the Bible says that the spirit comes in and teaches me to walk according to the statutes of God.

So it's like my will gets empowered to live the way that God wants me to live.

So without an empowering at the core of who I am in my heart, a new heart, I've got buccalies of living the way Jesus wants me to live, yes?

So I need that change.

But then that affects my mind.

I'm told in scripture that I need to renew my mind, and that will affect my dominant emotions, and then that will come out into my body, and then my social context I live in will affect who I am, and then ultimately all that package is the aroma of my life, which is like my soul, who I am.

Anger, it's said that anger lives here in the body.

It's there.

It's just ready.

Have you ever noticed that anger just comes so quickly sometimes?

Anybody ever seen it in others?

It's just, it's sort of there.

And I'm not a doctor.

I'm suggesting it's not using our brain, but it's just there in our bodies.

And what I want to suggest to you is, if our will is not submitted to the Father's will, we're going to be heading to war to anger.

That's the essence of the problem.

I can easily get angry if your kingdom, if Rachel's kingdom overlaps my kingdom, and her will, her like queenly will in her queendom, starts affecting my kingdom, and we go, oi, and we bump chests.

Who's gonna will?

Who's gonna win?

I've got a will, and you've got a will?

You make me angry, because this is my kingdom, and you're like, well, this is my queendom.

And that language is really helpful about anger.

Kingdoms and queendoms.

Why do you get angry?

It's the crossing of the will.

So we'll come back to that, and how to sort of fix that potentially.

I just want to look at a couple of things about anger that the Bible tells us from other places, just to sort of jump out of a sermon on the Mount for a minute.

Scripture tells us that anger is incredibly dangerous.

Very quickly, it can disintegrate your body.

Proverbs 14, 29.

He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick-tempered exalts folly.

A tranquil heart is life to the body, but passion is rossomeness to the bones.

Anger destroys your body.

I read once that there's nothing that will give you a heart attack quicker than being infested with anger.

And so I'm not a doctor.

I didn't know.

So I went to a doctor surgeon that I know, and I said, I read that.

Is that fair?

He said, absolutely.

I deal with it all the time.

Anger, prolonged anger, will give you a heart attack as good as anything else.

It will kill you.

And that's what Scripture says.

It disintegrates the body, anger.

Secondly, it disintegrates community, Proverbs 15.

A hot tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.

Who enjoys going camping, go camping with 10 or 12 people, and one person is just a fire brand of anger.

Is it a good time?

It's like, the point is, anger destroys community.

Is that fair to say?

It destroys community.

And normally when the person manifests their anger, they feel silly afterwards as well.

And you feel like that's spoiled everything.

I've had that.

I had that once on a mission trip.

I got really angry with a bunch of guys, and it surprised me.

Of course you're tired.

You're just wasted.

And as you get to the end of your tether, and they were hassling me about something, and I got to the point where I wanted to turn into the hulkin and monster the lot of them.

And it was incredibly embarrassing.

It's like I'm a senior pastor.

I'm with elders.

I'm with other staff, and I get really angry, and then I'm just like, we get back to our place, and I'm just sitting in my room going, what do you do with that?

So I go straight to them.

I knock on the door.

I come in.

It's so awkward, and I just said, guys, I've got to ask you to forgive me.

And this, I just owned it.

I tried to.

What else are you going to do?

But I'm saying it because it destroys community.

Amen?

Anger will destroy your body.

It's going to destroy community.

It disintegrates wisdom.

That's the thing.

It disintegrates wisdom.

Proverbs 14.29 says, He who is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who is quick tempered exalts folly.

Anyone else willing to admit with a hand raised, you have had an anger session, and you started it out feeling good about this anger, but at the end you went, Oh, I feel like a fool.

Isn't it great?

I love that in community to go, Well, the model says that.

Anyone experience that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anger normally doesn't exalt wisdom when it's not controlled, but it exalts folly.

And lastly, it disintegrates the will.

Proverbs 19, verse 19.

A hot-tempered man or woman must pay the penalty.

If you rescue them, you'll have to do it again and again and again and again and again.

I mentioned this morning that a month or so ago, we were at the Bradings house, and Richard was giving a talk to men, men's breakfast.

And he's done heaps of work with gambling, gamblers, helping them as a lawyer.

But his talk was sort of about addiction.

He's just saying, guys, you've got to be careful.

Like stuff will grab a hold of you and get its talents in you.

And we need to help each other because addiction, gambling is an insidious thing.

And I would say to us all, men and women, like anger is an insidious, addictive thing.

It destroys the will.

Because if it destroys the will, if I can't have the power to say no to the feelings of anger, I am the slave to the anger, right?

And if you allow anger to keep having its head and sort of just being in control, it will rule you and you will typically, like a drug addict, move towards denial.

Is this a fair statement?

It's easier to tell your friend that you feel depressed or sorrowful or hurt than I'm angry.

Maybe, maybe not.

I didn't find it easy to tell you guys that I got angry just before.

I'd rather say I was really hurt by the way they treated me.

So unjust.

But when I'm angry, I feel embarrassed about it.

And that reality makes many of us hide the fact that we're angry.

We don't want to accept that we're angry and we live in denial.

Have you ever used lines like this to justify your anger?

I'm just sticking up for myself and for them.

I'm just getting it off my chest because that's like amnesty.

Everyone's allowed to get it off the chest.

Or one of the classic ones is I'm a straight shooter.

That's just the way I do it, the way I roll.

Sometimes straight shooters have to be told, that's just carnage.

Would you stop shooting straight at us?

No one enjoys it.

It's a dysfunctional brokenness.

Or I say it how it is.

So when I'm angry, I just speak it out.

Well, it's not helpful.

Normally, it's not helpful.

You know where you stand with me.

Yeah, we do.

Might not be, again, helpful.

I rock the boat.

Yes, you do.

So I would suggest that when you deny your anger, the problem is it allows you to continue to be angry.

And anger, Jesus says, is not a helpful thing, unfettered.

So hopefully, right now, you're processing this, the end of a Sunday, with heat sucking the air out of the room, and feeling like, is anyone too hot?

Cool, because in the morning, I open the lookout, and people...

I'll turn those heaters off, there's no air in here.

Don't think about the person you know who's got an anger problem, and you think, oh, I'm gonna point them to this video.

Think about you.

How do you go with anger?

Are you someone who acknowledges it?

The Bible talks about a place for anger.

It does.

It talks about a place for anger.

Proverbs 16, He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit, and he who captures a city.

Slow to anger is a good thing.

It's okay.

Anger's okay.

It's, but it's slow to anger.

Ephesians 4.26, anyone know this one?

Be angry and sin not.

Be angry and sin not.

One of the most amazing, strange scriptures you'll find on anger is Exodus 34.

Moses is there with God, and he's like, show me your glory.

Just give it to me.

Show me your glory.

And God goes, well, I'll hide you behind the cleft and the rock and give you a bit of my glory.

And then it says this.

The Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, showed his glory.

Isn't it weird that part of the glory of God is his anger?

I just find that just weird.

Okay, Moses, here's my glory.

I'm slow to anger.

So anger is right there.

It's part of God's expression of who he is, but he's slow to anger.

Did Jesus get angry?

The answer is yes.

He's angry at the money changes in the temple, John 2.

He's angry at the religious leaders, Mark 3.

He's angry at the tomb of Lazarus when his mate died, John 11.

He did get angry at Jesus.

So anger happens, but we have to control it.

We have to control it.

I've heard it said, yes, there is such a thing as righteous anger, and God can handle, God can trust Jesus with it, but most of us, he can't trust anger with.

But if you ask us in a private survey, can you be handled with it?

Can you be trusted with anger?

We go, absolutely.

I've got a lot of righteous anger.

Because most people, if you ask them, is your anger righteous or unrighteous?

No, righteous.

Totally.

You should see the people that do stuff to me.

I am so righteous.

It's just not the truth.

It's not the reality.

Most of our anger is not righteous.

Behind, behind anger, Jesus got angry.

So, you know, every now and then, I just let it fly.

Coming to the end of this, how do you heal anger?

Because it's a big deal.

We've got to get healed of it.

Um, number one is admit it.

Fuck anything to get healed from.

Any addiction, any big problem.

If you suppress it, you've got Buckleys of fixing it.

But if you admit it, then you've got a chance.

But if you don't, if you don't admit anger, it'll go deeper and deeper.

You'll have more people in your box of contempt, and these roots will start coming up, and they'll turn into shoots, and they'll turn into trees, and over time, they'll turn into forests.

Ever met an old person that you go, you are the grumpiest old so-and-so I've ever met in my life?

Because they've got a forest of grumpiness.

They've got a forest of anger.

And you know, partly it's not their fault.

They've had hard stuff happen to them in life, and they're like, you know what?

That sort of really sucks.

That's not fair.

But rather than deal with their own junk and their own party, then they foisted on others.

It's your fault.

You did that.

They blame others, and the roots of bitterness become shoots, become trees, become forests.

And Jesus is saying to this group of people on the grass, that pathway is not going to give you life.

So you've got to admit, if anger is there, remember that line, pain is to the body what anger is to our feelings and our emotions.

So the anger is there to go, wait, wait, something's wrong.

There's some stuff getting crossed, the wheels getting crossed.

So admit it.

And then the second thing is analyse it.

Analyse, why am I getting so angry?

You know, this is like, this is, if you get nothing else from this talk, this is worth just locking away in your mind.

What people do to you, what it means, is what you determine it means.

So when someone does something, it makes you really angry.

It's partly what they've done, but the much bigger deal is what you tell yourself it means to you, the fact that they did it.

So when someone tailgates me, I stupidly feel like you are giving an affront to my manhood, and I need like a night, some stupid night.

I need to defend the honor of the Shane's Shield coat of arms.

I need to get out, put like some stuff on, dress like a gladiator and fight to the death with you.

That's in me.

I was like, you're a loser.

You're an absolute loser.

Like, why would you get so upset?

But I can only find that when I analyze, I feel anger.

Why do I feel this anger?

And sometimes, often, the answer is embarrassing.

It's just embarrassing.

I'm defending my something because they got in the way of my kingdom.

They got in the way of my queendom.

If I'm late for a meeting, or you're late for a meeting and you're stuck in traffic, or you're stuck on whatever it is in your world, so easy to get angry about the person who's in your way, isn't it?

But how often do you stop and go, gee, I'm a numbskull, moron, rucka.

I should have left earlier.

It's my issue.

There's always traffic.

But we tend to sort of go chuck it on them.

So analyzing anger is such an important thing for us to learn how to do and think, what ordering of importance of loves in my life have I got?

And then that will indicate what really ticks me off.

If it's like, I get my own way all the time, and I don't have any pain, and I'm selfish, mongrel, and if that's the ordering of the loves of my life, I'm going to get angry all the time.

But if I have a properly ordered series of what matters, then everything is different.

So we admit it, we analyse it, we let God transform it.

We've got to come into the realm of grace and say, God, I need, I need your help.

In the Sermon on the Mount, if you read it, he says crazy things like, someone whacks you this side, what do you do?

Hey, you want to have another shot?

And it's pretty bizarre.

It's sort of like, what is he, what on earth is he telling me to do, be a doormat?

No, I would encourage you to sit in it.

And it's attention.

It's hard to work out.

He says, if they ask you to go a mile, go another mile.

Is he saying that we go, oh, the master said I have to go another mile.

So I've done one mile for my Roman master, and Jesus said another, so I've got to two.

Oh, my GPS, two, that's it, I'm done.

No, he's saying, I want the heart of a person who wouldn't mind doing another mile.

It's about our heart.

And when we look at ourselves and the claims of Jesus on our life and what the kingdom of life looks like, and we realise that we just can't do it in and of ourselves, we have to come humbly and say, God, I need you.

I need you.

And we have to make this decision.

We come to the last part of the VIM principle, which is VIM.

I've got to have a vision.

That I would be an angry man to become a gentle man.

It's not that slow to anger.

I've got to have a vision for it.

If you look at the sermon on the mound, like many do, and just go, that is not a vision for how I could live.

That is telling me how good Jesus is.

And we all together look at that, like the statue of David, and go, look at Jesus.

He's amazing.

We're just a bunch of sinners who get forgiven.

Isn't it great?

We are a bunch of sinners, filthy, wretches with no better than the ones out there.

And that's Jesus up there.

That way of seeing the sermon on the mound will give me zero vision to be less angry man.

Amen?

That's just not...

I've got to have a vision.

Next week, we're going to look at lusting.

If I don't want to be a person who lusts after men or women, whatever, I have to have a vision to go, I want to be a man who doesn't cultivate lusting.

I want to be a man who has a pure heart.

That's not that I'm not going to struggle with sin and whatever, but I'm not going to cultivate it.

And that's the thing with anger.

I've got to have a vision.

That's the person I'm going to be.

So I want to find someone I know who's slow to anger, who's gentle, who's wise, and I want to be like that guy, that or that woman.

That's a vision.

And then I'm going to have the eye as the intention.

So it's not just, I want to lose weight.

I'm going to either start really thinking about how this could happen, and I'm going to start tomorrow.

What am I going to do tomorrow to start this?

And then I'm going to find a means.

How am I going to work on my anger?

I might have mentioned it before.

I think, say, stop signs are a really great example if you're driving.

Many of us can go through stop signs.

It's easy to.

But to stop completely at a stop sign and make the car go...

It's a constant means to remind me that my kingdom is not a fascist dictator like some in the world want to have kingdoms.

My kingdom is submitted to a greater kingdom which happens to be a bunch of road rules which are then under a greater kingdom which is the kingdom of God.

And so when I drive, up here is a perfect example, and I come out and I stop the car, I do a spiritual just when I go, Lord, help me be a man whose will is submitted to your will.

Because I'm not the king of my kingdom, you are.

Find ways to integrate the handling and management of your will, which ultimately then will help you deal with anger in an appropriate way.

Vision, intention, means.

It will take effort.

Of course, the greatest means that we have of dealing with anger is the cross, the power of the cross.

It's a spiritual thing.

When someone has harmed you, when someone has done something to you, you might say to me, yeah, this all sounds good, but I have been hurt so badly.

I've been violated.

This has happened.

Like, it's a righteous justice.

The Grenfell stuff in Britain.

Well, we all, reading this stuff about, I read this afternoon, what the government apparently, they work out, it's going to cost 5,000 pound more to put non-flammable panels in a housing commission tower.

Now, let's save the 5,000 pound.

Let's put flammable panels up there and don't have adequate fire escape or management of the system.

And there's a catastrophe that happens, and people are angry, and we want to say, yeah, rightly so.

But it's what you then do with that anger.

It's what we do with it.

When stuff happens that is just so beyond us, you need a supernatural coming together of justice, love, anger.

It all needs to come together in something grand and beyond all of us, and that is the cross of Jesus.

Amen?

When Jesus died on the cross, you imagine the anger that he's sucking up.

He's died on the cross, he's sucking up every clenched fist of a human being saying, no, God, I'm angry at you.

You want my will?

No.

He sucked it up in him.

He took the anger of God against sin, sucked up in him on the cross.

He took the wrath of God against sin.

So when we deal with anger, we have to go, Lord, this is about my will being crossed.

I'm feeling so angry because they crossed my will.

And so then my approach is, I want to say, but Jesus was in the garden, and he said what?

Not my will, but yours be done.

I submit my will.

And so that's how we deal with anger, ultimately.

We submit our will.

We say, it's up to you, God.

Galatians 2.20 is the truth.

I have been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.

The power of the cross I'm going to bring to this place.

I'm going to absorb.

I'm going to absorb some of the anger.

You know, as a parent, some of you guys here, you know what it's like to have your kids do the wrong thing.

And you can get angry at them if you want.

Probably, it's probably not going to develop the best relationship.

If you're an angry dad or an angry mom, just constantly angry.

But your kids do stuff that's wrong.

And as a parent, you get used to this thing that there's some, and we'd say a kid, a tantruming kid.

You think there's a kid who is tired and out of control.

You think some of you guys are going to have kids.

What would you do?

It's out of control.

This kid is out of control.

I could come up in the old days and slap him, or I could yell at him.

But what I used to do, what I would do is I would come up close and I would grab them tight, and just let them know, let their heartbeat, feel my heartbeat and go, you're safe.

I'm also going to restrain you from breaking things and hitting me.

But can you see you, they may hit you, but you absorb the anger, and you smother it in love and grace.

That's a picture of what we do with anger.

How you do that as an adult is a challenge.

It's a challenge.

But you know, as we finish tonight, like may we be a community of people, wherever you end up in life, may you find people around you who will inspire you, for may I be inspired to live the life that Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount.

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