I'll be with you this morning. If you have your Bibles, we're going to open up to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5. As we continue and come close to the end of our series on biblical counseling and discipleship, this morning we're going to be thinking about how to overcome anger. How to overcome anger. Matthew chapter 5, in verse 21. Matthew 5, 21, the words of Jesus here. You have heard that it was said by them of old, thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and whosoever shall say to his brother Rekha shall be in danger of the counsel, But whosoever shall say thou fool shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." I'm just going to stop there. This is a familiar portion of Scripture. We're not really going to go verse by verse through this passage, but a familiar portion of Scripture. And it's one of these passages to where Jesus starts with something that is obvious from the Old Testament. Thou shalt not kill. And then He traces the problem really back to the heart. Or He traces the problem back to what we would think of being a lesser degree of the problem. So Jesus says, Sure, the problem is murder, but the real problem here is anger. It's anger. So, as we think about how to overcome anger and how to deal with anger, we want to kind of take the same approach as far as three different categories to think through as we did with anxiety last time. And so the first thing we want to do as it relates to anger is we want to discern the truth about it. You're going to overcome anger. You've got to think rightly about anger. We want to discern the truth about it. And so the question is, what is anger? What is anger? Well, from a big picture standpoint, I mean, as far as trying to frame something like this biblically, we would say the same thing about anger as we would any of these other things that we're gonna talk about and have been talking about. If anger is something that you struggle with on a regular basis, that's not because you have some sort of a disorder. Anger is a temptation that's common to man. You and I are tempted to respond in anger on a daily basis. Now, anger is on a sliding scale. So anger can be anything from, as far as manifestations, we'll talk about it a little more, but anger could be anything from a blow-up to a low-lying frustration. but there's a lot that goes in between that. So anger is something that's a very common thing. Anger is part of what it means for you to war against your flesh on a regular basis. You remember our time in Galatians 5, the flesh is constantly at war with the spirit, and this is one of those areas that's gonna constantly be at war with our spirits. With any of these things that we're talking about, whether it be anger, whether it be anxiety, whether it be depression, whether it be anything else. One thing to keep in mind as we think about overcoming anger is there's no silver bullet. What I mean by that is there's no way for you to do something with anger today that will relieve you of the temptation to be angry tomorrow. This is a constant fight. There is a constant overcoming. This is something that we have to regularly deal with. Okay, so this is one of the umbrella truths that we ought to know. So then the question again is what is it? What is anger? We want to try to get a definition based off of the content in the New Testament. So the New Testament really has three words that we would translate anger. Three Greek words in the New Testament that would be translated anger. The first one is It's a word that's pronounced thumos, thumos, and it means explosive anger. The boiling agitation of feelings and passion of anger. It's often translated wrath in the KJV. So thumos is just this explosive type anger. The second word is orge, orge, and it describes, what it means is an abiding, settled attitude of indignation that frequently seeks revenge. This is often just translated anger in KJV. Okay, so it's an abiding, settled attitude of indignation. You can see it's very different than what we said with thumos, which is just an explosion. And then there's a third word, and I'm not even going to try to pronounce it. It starts with a P. And it means this. It means anger mingled with irritability, exasperation, and or embitterment. Anger mingled with irritability, with exasperation, or embitterment. It's the same word that's translated provoke in Ephesians 6-4 when it says that fathers do not provoke your children unto wrath. It's also the same word in Ephesians 4-26, be angry and sin not. So it's this anger that has irritability and other qualities like that. So with these three words in mind, a man named Robert Jones has, I think, a very helpful functional definition of putting the biblical content together on this word or this idea of anger. And this is how he says it. And I've used this before, so you may have heard it before. He says, a whole person response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil. And I'm going to break that down in a minute. Anger is a whole person response. This is a big question that goes on in the world that we live in, in the secular world. What is anger? What is anger? What is it? Is it we just need to try to rearrange thoughts? Is it the result of something physical that needs to be altered? Is it the result of brain chemistry? Is that what it is? Is it the result of, I mean, just fill in the blanks. There's all kinds of different thoughts and theories about what anger is. But I think this, not only does it cover the biblical content, but I think it concisely communicates it, a whole person response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil. All right, so there's five realities here that we want to make sure we hit. Number one, anger is an active response. Every time. Anger is an active response. It just means this, anger is something that we do, not something that we have. Anger is something that we do, not something that we have. The angry heart is always active, not passive. Anger is a decision, response, whether you feel that way or not, or whether you perceive it that way or not. Or another way of saying this, anger is not something that happens to you, anger is something that develops in you, okay? Anger is something that you develop. It's a response, actively. So we aren't passive here. Now, that can be, and we're gonna talk about this a little bit later, but that can be a hard pill to swallow because sometimes we can get so angry so fast, it just seems like it came on us like this. which would be one of the reasons why James would say we ought to be slow to anger, slow to wrath, quick to hear, slow to speak. So it happens fast sometimes, but it's an active response. Anger is a whole person activity or a whole person active response. What that means is anger involves your emotions, it involves your belief system, it involves your desires, and it involves your behaviors. Anger covers the whole thing. So it's not enough just to say that if you want to deal with anger, you need to change your thoughts. Or it's not enough to say if you want to deal with anger, you've got to take control of your emotions. That's not enough, because anger covers the whole person. Number three, anger is a response against something. Anger is a response against something. You've never gotten angry because something happened that you wanted to happen. That's never elicited an angry response from you. Anger is against. I didn't want that to happen. So we do not get angry without a cause. We might get angry for bizarre or ridiculous reasons, but there's always something that we're responding against. Number four, and we're going to move on to look at some passages here in a second, but number four, Anger involves a negative moral judgment that we make. Anger always involves a negative moral judgment, and we're the ones who make it. So we live, I mean, kind of the ironic thing about this is we live in a world that says, you guys are just too judgmental. We also live in a world where everybody's angry about everything. And the reality is you can't be angry unless you are judgmental. You got to make a judgment. You got to make a judgment about something in order to be angry. This is a negative moral judgment. So something is wrong, something is unjust, or something must be stopped. Anger is out for justice. And the truth is, there's a little bit of Mama Justice in every one of us, isn't there? It just depends on what we're talking about, you know. Things aren't right and they need to be addressed. They need to be changed. And then number five, our anger involves a judgment against perceived evil, perceived evil. This is that judgment we've just got finished talking about. So, This moral judgment arises from a personal perception. This is not right. Whether that's real or not doesn't matter. It's a perceived evil. So if we think about just anger as a whole, I think those five categories are pretty comprehensive as it relates to the way the Bible would describe anger, the words, as well as the examples that we have, and that's just a very, I think, a good, clear understanding as far as us trying to think through our own anger. Now, let's think before we get too far into this about the biblical categories of anger, the biblical categories of anger, because Scripture gives us two categories. You probably know this already. But in the Bible we have righteous anger and we have unrighteous anger. Righteous anger and unrighteous anger. Righteous anger is anger that is motivated by a concern for God's glory and is expressed in a way that is consistent with God's word. righteous anger, it arises out of a concern for God's glory, and it is expressed in a way that is consistent with God's word. So, if you look at the Bible, and you were to just kind of take inventory, you've heard me say this before, but the angriest person in the Bible is God. There are more verses about God being angry than anybody else in the Bible. as it relates to wrath, as it relates to just him. What is it that God's angry with? Well, in Psalm 7, 11, God is angry with the wicked every day. You know, God's angry every day. So anger in and of itself is not the problem. Part of what it means for you to be created in the image of God is your capacity to be angry. Part of what it means for your anger to be unrighteous is the effects of living in a fallen world and a sin-cursed heart. But anger in and of itself, at least the righteous kind, that's not a problem. In Mark 3, Jesus becomes angry. The man with the withered hand is there. The religious leaders look around and wonder if Jesus is going to try to heal this man on the Sabbath or not. Jesus asked him, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? And they can't give an answer. They won't give an answer. And Jesus looked on them and he became angry. In Ephesians 4, verse 26, we're commanded to be angry without sinning. Be angry and sin not. So again, it's this idea that you and I can have righteous anger. I think to be realistic, we would have to say that when it comes to us, that's going to be in the there's gonna be a rarity, okay? And you say, well, you know, I get angry about things that would anger God, or I can get angry based on concerns for God's glory, and that's good, but it's very rare that you find the combination that we are motivated by a concern for God's glory, now the second half is the hardest, and then we express that concern in a way that's consistent with God's word. If it's righteous anger, both the motive and the action must be righteous. So this is very difficult, but it is possible. Oftentimes what happens is we can be motivated to do what's right, or even we can be motivated by a genuine love for another person, but then we express it in a way that is entirely sinful. And this happens in very common ways. Sometimes people that we love, that have chosen a foolish path, that are making horrible, destructive decisions, we love them, we want to get their attention. For whatever reason, things aren't clicking up here, and we just think, if I can get louder, or if I can just kind of rattle them out of this, and before we know it, we've ended up sinfully trying to address this person that we really have a good heart for. We really want to love them. We just want to see them do what's right. But we recognize we're not sovereign and we resort to sinful methods and means. So righteous anger. Righteous anger. Second is the one you're more familiar with. That is unrighteous anger. Unrighteous anger. So unrighteous anger. or sinful anger, is motivated by a concern for what you think is right, and is expressed in a way that is consistent with how you feel in the moment. Unrighteous anger is motivated by what we think is right, or we could say it this way, it's motivated by what we want, and then it's expressed based on how we feel in the moment. So think about this as far as it being illustrated. Look in Genesis chapter 4. Genesis chapter 4. In verse 3, we get this story of Cain and Abel. Genesis 4, verse 3, and in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, or he was very angry, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, why art thou wroth, or angry, and why is the countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shall thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and he slew him. This is the first murder in the Bible. And as you read the story, and this is not giving you every little detail, but we get enough details to know what happened. As we read the story, it seems to escalate fairly quickly. Cain brings an offering that's not accepted. Abel brings an offering that is accepted. Why is Cain mad? at Abel of all people. What did Abel do? Cain is upset out of envy, okay? So God accepts Abel's sacrifice, but he will not accept Cain's. Really, he's angry with God, but God's not there and Cain knows better. And so what ends up happening is Cain, in his anger, continues to feed that until it eventually ends up with him murdering his brother. So we have this unrighteous anger that is based on what he thinks is right. I've worked just as hard as Abel worked, maybe. What I'm bringing is just as legitimate as what Abel's bringing. There's a desire to be accepted. He doesn't get it, he kills his brother. We see the same sort of thing in 1 Samuel 18 in verses 7 through 12 with Saul. And I'm not going to turn there for time's sake. But what happens here is Saul, King Saul, makes David a general. David has lots of success in war. And then the ladies around town write that new song, you know, Saul has killed his thousands, but David his ten thousands. That song. And by the time you get down to verse 12, which is just a few verses down, you have Saul so angry that he's trying to pin David to the wall with a javelin. Okay. What is it? What is his anger fueled by? Well, it's not right that they should think about David that way. They ought to think about me that way. They ought to be seeing in David slain his thousands, but Saul his ten thousands. Saul is envious. He wants something and he can't get it. What does it lead to? Well, it leads to anger. Also, another thing that we see in the first Samuel one is that his anger is also fueled by fear. It's also fueled by fear. Oftentimes, fear and anger are a lot more closely connected than we think they are. Fear and anger are connected in the example I gave earlier where you're trying to talk to somebody that you love who's making poor, poor decisions and you don't want to see them live a destructive life. A lot of times your anger is fueled from a fear that this person's going to make horrific decisions that end in destruction. So these things go together. An interesting thing about this Sinful anger is that the book of Proverbs is full of passages about anger. Full of passages about anger. Now this is one thing that it lets us know. The one who is given, this is what Proverbs will say time and time again, and we'll look at these verses in a second, but the one who is given to sinful anger, okay, this is someone who is habitually given to anger, or even we could say this about our one-off anger episodes as well, but the one who is given to sinful anger is always operating out of a foolish heart. Proverbs would create anger would equate anger with foolishness. These two go hand in hand. It's the fool who expresses his anger in foolish ways. So look, you'll see what I'm talking about. Proverbs 14. Proverbs 14. And we're just going to kind of go through and look at several of these passages. There's not really a lot of comment that needs to be made. They're pretty clear. In Proverbs 14, verse 17, Proverbs 14, verse 17, says, He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly. And a man of wicked devices is hated. The point is the first half. He that is soon angry, dealeth foolishly. Again, we could think about the passage in James 1, slow to speak, slow to wrath. Proverbs 14, 29. He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding. but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth falling. He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth falling. Proverbs 16, 32. He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit, then he that taketh a city. Now, one thing that you'll notice so far in Proverbs is that as this whole business of anger is being addressed, he's addressing whether or not someone is quick to anger or slow to anger. I mean, there's a speed attached to it as he's talking about this. And the reason that I'm saying that is because another thing you'll notice is that this is connected to self-control. Self-control. One of the things we'll talk about a little bit later is one of the remedies, one of the ways that you overcome anger is through the development of self-control. Through the development of self-control. This is one of those passages in 1632. Proverbs 19.11. Proverbs 19.11. The discretion of a man." So now we're thinking about discernment, the ability to think clearly. The discretion of a man deferreth his anger. And it is his glory to pass over a transgression. And then finally, Proverbs 29-22. And I had to cut a bunch of these out because we could have spent a good bit of time just reading in Proverbs. Proverbs 29-22. An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression. An angry man stirs up strife, and a furious man abounds in transgression. Now, this is just, again, this is just sort of an observation type verse. Sometimes people find that they are always in some kind of quarrel, they are always in some sort of strife, or they're always in some sort of conflict. And one of the things that that ought to do for us if we find ourselves in a situation where conflict seems to follow us around, is we ought to give an honest look at our own hearts and our own, the way that we deal with this business of anger. Now, let's think about the manifestations of anger, manifestations of anger. And again, before we get out of Proverbs, I'll just say again, these verses, it relates to really any kind of anger, but primarily he's speaking to the, what he would call the angry man, the person who is characterologically angry. This is just habitually the kind of character that they've developed. All right, manifestations of anger. Again, we're just trying to understand it right now. Anger can be manifested in many ways. Many ways. Some people tend to blow up. Some people tend to clam up. Both expressions. are equally sinful. Both expressions are expressions of the same sin. So whether or not you're giving somebody the cold shoulder and you are giving them the silent treatment and you're withdrawn, or you have decided to blow up in sinful anger. Now, your sin count may be a little different. A lot of times when we're blowing up, there's a lot of words coming out, but it's the same sin, same substance. So consider the different manifestations that are found in Ephesians 4.31. Ephesians 4.31, you may remember several months ago, we looked at this passage in some detail. Ephesians 4.31, it says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Okay, so we have several different manifestations of anger there. The first one he mentions is bitterness. Bitterness is just a resentful spirit which refuses reconciliation. This tends to be a quiet anger or a clamming up type anger. It's a resentful spirit that refuses reconciliation. The next one is wrath. We talked about that earlier. It's an outburst of wrath from inward indignation. This is a blow up. The word for anger is a settled, long-lasting anger, frequently with a view to take revenge. We talked about that one as well. That tends to be a quiet clam up. We're told to put off clamor. The word clamor means to stun with noise. A loud outcry expressing complaints or demands. Another blow up there. We're told to put away evil speaking. That just means verbal abuse or slander. Using your words to tear another person down. And then we're told to, and that tends to be a blow up, and then we're told to put away malice. Malice is just ill will. or a desire to injure others. So you can see it's fairly even as far as if you're trying to think through these manifestations, what's a blow up, what's a clam up, what's hot anger, what's cold anger. As far as the list in Ephesians 4.31, it's a fairly even list, but the point is, Some people think that the only legitimate anger is the kind when somebody blows a fuse, and that's not true. It's just as sinful for us to withdraw and to give the cold shoulder as it relates to this manifestation of anger. And then last, and this last one is as far as our last category for understanding anger, let's think about the roots of anger. Let's think about what is it at the bottom of anger, what fuels our anger. And we've already made allusion to this, but go to James chapter four. And this is where we I mean it's helpful to get a good understanding of this stuff, but this is This is particularly helpful as you're thinking about overcoming anger is understanding and identifying where this is in your own heart as You are tempted so James chapter 4 Starting in verse one, it says, from whence, or the question is where, where do these wars and fightings come from among you? Come they not hence even your lust that war in your members? You lust and have not, you kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not, You ask and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your own lust." So, the question is, where do all these fightings come from? Where do these wars and fightings come from among you? Really the question is, what's the source of all this anger and all this contention? And the word that he uses is, he says, is it not, Your lust. Now the word lust here, if you look it up, it's translated your pleasures, but it's also desires. Desire is a good general word for this. Where does your anger come from? What's the root of your anger? It's your desires. It's maybe better to say it's a ruling desire of your heart. Ruling desire. of your heart. James gives three different ways that our desires can lead to anger. In verse 2, he says, you lust, or you desire, and have not. So you kill. So unmet ruling desires. You want something, and you can't have it. Now that seems awfully simplistic, doesn't it? I mean, it does. It seems awfully simplistic. We're not saying, you know, we're not saying you want something like, you know, I came to church hoping for one of Sister Diane's chocolate chip cookies. It wasn't there and I had a blow up, okay? We're talking about a ruling desire. Maybe you remember last week or the week before I talked about this progression where our desires can morph into expectations and then our expectations can morph into demands. That is, I have to have this. This is the kind of desire we're talking about. So unmet ruling desires. Second, that is, somebody has the ability to comply or to give you what you want. They're just not giving you what you want. Now second, you have these ruling desires that you cannot obtain in 2B, okay? You desire to have and you cannot obtain it. You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not. This is anger that finds its roots in covetousness or envy or greed. This is something that I want. This is something that I've convinced myself that I have to have, and if I can't have it, look out. And then the last one is, you ask but you receive not because you ask amiss that you might consume it upon your own lust. So again, all these are talking about desires. The last one is, your selfish motives, your selfish motives. So I have a desire for something, but it's completely selfish, it's completely self-centered. I want to consume it upon my own lust. It could be a desire for a good thing. It's like what we were talking about earlier. We could desire that somebody that we love stop making foolish decisions, start making wise decisions, and that desire can lead to wars. That desire can lead to sinful expressions of anger. So it goes like this, if we were to just kind of simplify this, sinful anger always follows this progression. It always follows this progression. I want, I can't, I sin. You could plug any scenario you wanted into that and it fits. I want something, I can't have what I want, and so I respond by sinning. The root of anger or sinful anger is a heart that says, I want something. It could be good. It could be neutral. It could be bad. It doesn't matter. I want something so much that I'm willing to sin in order to get it or sin if I can't have it. I want something so much that I'm willing to sin in order to get it or sin if I can't have it. Now, brothers and sisters, the inconvenient truth about all this is that that definition is, you know, if you just kind of lay it out there, that explains the workings of a toddler's temper tantrums, doesn't it? I mean, it really does. Anger's not that sophisticated. It's not that deep. It's not that complicated. We want things that we can't have, and when we don't get them, We throw a fit. Or if we think throwing a fit will help us get them, we'll do that too. That's essentially where that goes. Now, many times it can be hard for us to see this in our own hearts, okay? So many times it can be difficult for us to see it. Jeremiah 17 says our hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. So a lot of times these kinds of roots can be a bit embarrassing, maybe not as you're listening to a sermon, but maybe while you're in the moment. I've told you before about, this has been a long time ago, but you've heard this illustration a bunch, I think, when David was young, I mean little, and I was home, I think, on a Saturday, and Abby was going to go out with the girls and do something. I can't remember exactly what it was, but she had her day planned. I had my day planned. David was getting old enough to kind of taper off in naps. And whatever my day plan was, I don't remember, but it did not include a nap, whatever that was. And so Abby, as she's leaving, says, don't forget to give David a nap. And I mean, it flew all over me. I got so upset. Can you believe she'd have the nerve to say that to me? I got so upset. And we got into an argument. And she said somewhere along the way in the argument, why are you acting like this? And I stopped for a second to think about it. And I thought for a second, and here's what I realized for myself. I don't know that I actually verbalized this, because it was too embarrassing. But the conclusion was, I don't want you telling me what to do. That was it. Sophisticated? Nah. Prideful? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want her telling me what to do. I had my own plans. I had my own plans. Who cares if a nap would be better for David? I got my plans. And what I want ought to go. So I wanted, something was in the way of it, I couldn't have it, and I sinned. Now, I didn't see all that in the time, and that's because, you know this already, we are great at justifying ourselves, aren't we? We're great at justifying ourselves. Let me say that in a different way. We're great at lying to ourselves, aren't we? Self-justification is often just you lying to yourself and me lying to myself, constructing a reason as to why it was okay for us to do what was not okay. And so often, again, we've reference this a few times already, but often if we're going to be able to see these things in our own hearts and in our own actions, we often need to slow down and to step back from the situation in order to see things clearly. You know how this goes. If you've gotten worked up, at least most of us, If you want to see us at our best, get us worked up. I mean, we have just the right word at just the right time. We are so smart. We are so insightful. You know, we are at our best until it's over with and we realize what we've said and what's happened. So we've got to slow it down, step back and try to see things clearly. Anger is in a hurry. wisdom will slow down. Wisdom will slow down and assess the situation. So that's understanding anger, understanding anger. Secondly, now we're thinking about how do we overcome it? And there's two strategies. One is a long-term strategy, and the other one is a short-term strategy. So the long-term strategy for overcoming sinful anger is to develop the Christ-like character traits you are lacking in this area. Now, we are not all at the same level in every single character trait. You have strengths, I have strengths. You have weaknesses, I have weaknesses. The point of this is for you to develop the character traits that you need to develop in this area And again, this is long-term. You're going to spend the rest of your life trying to cultivate a Christ-like character. But you can, and you can grow. So this is not something that you're going to do overnight. So why would we do this? As it relates to anger. Here's another one of these truths that can hurt our feelings, but it's true. The reality is we do not have anger problems. We have character deficiencies that are exposed through sinful anger and responses to the pressures and disappointments of life. We don't have anger problems. Our anger tends to work just fine. What we have are character deficiencies that need to be developed so that we can begin to respond to the pressures and disappointments of life in a Christ-like way. So we go back to passages like, now again, we're thinking about character, Proverbs 4.23 or 23.19, where we're told to guard and guide our hearts. Our hearts need to be guarded, and our hearts need to be guided. And brothers and sisters, our hearts need to be guarded and guided long before we make it to the pressure-filled situation, long before we make it to the disappointment. You can try to guard them while you're in the thick of the battle, but it would be much better if you had developed and cultivated this guarded heart, this guided heart, before you get there. before you get there. If not, we kind of end up being like David with Saul's armor. We get into the middle of the battle and we say, I have not tried this. I can't use this stuff. I hadn't done anything with it. And what we're talking about is developing things ahead of time. So one of the questions that we consider as it relates to guarding and guiding your heart What do you tell yourself about your personal desires? What do you tell yourself about your personal desires? You've heard me say this before, but nobody talks to you as much as you do. We talk to ourselves constantly. It's usually in our own heads, but we're telling ourselves something all the time. So what do you tell yourself about your personal desires? Is it that you deserve them? You know, I put in a lot of work. I make a lot of sacrifices. These are things that I deserve. Is obtaining your desires the only way you could ever be happy or content? I can't be happy, I can't be content unless I have, fill in the blank. Are the obstacles that stand between you and your desire, The result of unreasonable people and or an unfair God. OK, these are three questions that we're answering in our minds on a regular basis, whether you whether you are aware of it or not. These are three questions that go a long way in this whole business of being angry or not. So what do you tell yourself? This is guarding, guiding your heart. Just because I want it doesn't mean I need it. And we could go through there, but for time's sake, we won't. We got to keep going. So that's the heart. Second, we want to think about working to develop essential biblical character traits. Again, these things are developed. Go to Ephesians chapter four. You're not going to be surprised at where I'm going here. Ephesians chapter four. Paul says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the calling, the word there is vocation, but it means calling, wherewith you are called with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love. I just want to stop there. So we have four character qualities there that you're familiar with if you've been here very long. Before we get to the character qualities in this passage, I will say, out of Galatians 5 23 out of the fruit of the spirit part of the fruit of the spirit is temperance or self-control Self-control is an essential part of character development Proverbs 16, verse 32, Proverbs 25, 28, both talk about self-control as it relates to anger. So self-control is something that we're all going to have to deal with. It's something that we're all going to have to grow in. If you do not have self-control, then patience, humility, gentleness, and forbearance are going to be impossible. You cannot do those things without self-control. And self-control is a fruit that the Spirit gives in the lives of every one of His people, but it's a fruit or a seed, whatever we want to say, that has to be developed. You have to learn how to use it. You have to grow into it and mature it. So self-control is there. Second, humility. Humility. And I'm gonna kind of go fairly quickly through this so I can get to the next one, but humility is You've heard me say this the CS Lewis definition. It's not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less It's not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less part of the part of the problem with sinful anger is that my thoughts are all focused on what I think is right, what I think should be happening. So Philippians 2, 3, and 4, do not do anything out of pride or vain glory. Esteem others as better than yourself. There's a passage for that. So humility. Second is meekness. Meekness just means a gentleness of mind. A.W. Pink says meekness is the opposite of self-will toward God and ill-will toward men. Meekness, the best, really, I think the best word we have for it, this doesn't get the whole meaning, but the best word we have is just gentleness. Gentleness. Number three, patience. Patience. Patience is the self-restraint which does not hastily retaliate a wrong. It's the ability to endure suffering or misfortune. And you might be thinking, well, Brother Lewis, you're giving us a word and a quick definition. How are we supposed to develop anything out of that? Well, not really out of this, but if you get on Sermon Audio and go back to our Ephesians series, there are multiple messages on each one of these character traits, if it's something that you're interested in trying to look at and develop. So, it's the ability to suffer long. Now, remember what we said last week in thinking about these things. These are difficult, that's for sure. But the Christian can never say, I can't do this. If you've been given the Spirit of God, you can never say, I can't. You can either say, I want, or I will, or at least I'll try. But you can't say, I can't, because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. This is what He's called you to. And so you are going to have to make a diligent effort to do it. But these are things that every single Christian can exercise. And the fourth one is forbearance. Forbearance. Wasn't that long ago? Bill Reed gave us a great message on that in the afternoon. It just means to put up with, put up with someone. So, one of the long-term plans, long-term strategies for sinful anger, you could come up with more character qualities if you wanted to, but if you put a focus on these four along with self-control, that will go a long, long way. That's the long-term plan. The short-term plan, short-term plan, that is fighting sinful anger in the moment. What do we do with that? How do we do that? Well, we discipline ourselves to respond to sinful anger in a God-prescribed way. We discipline ourselves to respond to sinful anger in a God-prescribed way. Again, discipline means it's something that you do, and it's something that you do repeatedly. So, you may have to do it several times before you feel comfortable with it. There's a lot of things we could say about this, but there are a lot of different ways we could do this. This is not the only strategy, but one I think that's helpful and memorable is just called the four R's. The four R's, and it goes like this. Number one, in the moment of your anger, you want to try to recognize the source of your anger. You're angry, you want to recognize the source. That is, what desire have I allowed control me. What desire is fueling my anger right now? What is it that I want? Second, not only recognize the source of your anger, but we want to repent on both a heart level and a behavioral level. Now what I mean by that is this, once we figure out the desire Okay, so that is, let me go back to my earlier example. My desire is, essentially, when I say, I didn't want Abby telling me what to do, to rephrase it in a way that sounds even more immature, it goes this way, I want to do what I want to do. Okay, that was the desire. How do I repent of that? I want to please Christ more than I want to please myself. Okay, so I'm not going to pursue this desire of doing whatever I want to do. I want to please Christ. And if I'm motivated by that, then that's also going to change some of the behaviors. But you've heard me quote 2 Corinthians 5, 9, 100 times, I make it my aim to please Him over and above myself. And as we do that and we begin to operate out of a heart that seeks to please God, then we're going to repent of given the cold shoulder, we're gonna repent of blowing up, we're gonna repent of all these other things we've talked about. Third, we wanna refocus on God and His grace, His provisions and His promises in Christ. One in particular, we could go with a bunch, but in James 4, 6, God gives more grace to the humble. Humbling yourself's hard, isn't it? I mean, maybe it's not for you, but it is for me. It's hard to humble yourself. But when we humble ourselves, we are putting ourselves in a position to be recipients of more grace. God is gracious, favorable. He helps those who humble themselves. And then, number four, we want to replace sinful anger with Christ-like attitudes and actions. So we talked about Ephesians 4.31. These things are in development. But the actions, we want to be peacemakers. We want to be peacemakers. So if we have sinned against someone in anger, then we want to make peace. So there's a four-step process, biblical process, that's helpful, and then we'll end here. And it goes like this. Number one, we want to seek to glorify God. We want to seek to glorify God. Second, we want to get the log out of our own eye first, Matthew chapter seven. We want to get the log out of our own eye first. It's not one of these nebulous things where if I offended you or I didn't mean to this and I didn't mean to that, if we've expressed sinful anger, we knew what we were doing. Get the log out of your own eye first. Number three, gently confront and restore You're trying to restore the relationship. And then number five, go and be reconciled. Now we could do a whole sermon just on those four, but these are actions, actions that we're replacing. So we've said a lot. There's five pages of notes. So if you're taking notes and you've missed some things and you'd like them, I'd be happy to email them to you. But this is how we overcome anger, how we overcome anger. And it's not done in an instance, but it can be done through the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. Again, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your provisions. We thank you that you have clearly articulated in your word in such a way that gives us an understanding of the struggles that we deal with on a regular basis, not just the fruit, but also the root. And then you've also given us power through the spirit and through the promises that you've given us to overcome. And so I pray that you would be with each of us. Bless us to be aware of this sin in our lives. And I pray that you would bless us to respond in a way that would be honoring to you as we're tempted. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.