[00:00:00] We're continuing with our weak links message series this morning. We're on week three of that series, and we've been talking about the different vulnerabilities that we have when it comes to our relationship with God. And we kicked this off a few weeks ago and we talked about how depression and despair can come between our relationship with God.

[00:01:16] Last week we talked about how bitterness and resentment can can get in the way of our relationship with God. And this morning I wanna talk about a close cousin to bitterness and resentment. I wanna talk a little bit about anger. The question that I wanna pose to you as we get started this morning is, how easily are you angered?

[00:01:41] Are you someone that struggles with anger and can be easily angered? Are you someone who it takes a lot to become angry? Are you a type of person that people have to choose their words carefully and what they say to you because you can be triggered easily. You're. Set off you might take something the wrong way that maybe wasn't even intended to be taken the wrong way.

[00:02:07] Are you the type of person that when you come home in the evening people have to walk in eggshells because you just never really know how you might come home at the end of the day. This morning I wanna talk about anger, and I wanna talk about it from a biblical standpoint because it's very destructive in our relationship with one another.

[00:02:32] But it's also can be very detrimental in terms of our relationship with God. And as I talk about it this morning, the very first half of the message, I just wanna get a handle on anger. Anger, just in terms of a general principle. And the second half of the message, we're gonna really delve into what the Bible says about anger.

[00:02:55] So first of all, why do people get angry? An anger is really, it's an emotion. But. It's not a primary emotion. What's interesting about anger is it's a secondary emotion. And what I mean by that is it's a reaction to to some other emotion. So take for instance, Hurt.

[00:03:24] Okay. When a person gets hurt they're gonna react to being hurt a certain way. Some people might cry when they're hurt. Some people might get really quiet when they're hurt. Some people might just run the other way when they get hurt. But some people, when they get hurt, the way that they're gonna respond to being hurt is they're gonna get angry and they're gonna lash out.

[00:03:51] And what that does is it's meant to protect them from being hurt anymore. So it, it's a response to put a barrier there and to protect them from any future hurt. So hurt leads to anger. So anger is a response to. Another feeling that leads to anger is the feeling of injustice being done.

[00:04:15] When we see God becoming angry in the Bible quite often it's because of injustice. That that in response to injustice, We see the anger of God. Now, I would say in general, if there's gonna be something that is gonna set me off, something that if you're gonna see me angry this is like my weak link of anger.

[00:04:39] I've always been this way ever since I've been a kid. Injustice can set me off pretty easy, where I will become easily angry. I remember. Many years ago, just as had started Light of the world we were in the shopping center. So this was within a couple years of starting Light of the World.

[00:05:03] At lunchtime I went to Wingstop to pick up some wings and fries, and there was a guy there that had already had placed his order and I placed mine. And as I was waiting for my wings, there's this guy that was just becoming very impatient and he was becoming. Hostile to the woman that was behind the counter.

[00:05:21] And she was just like this 18 year old girl. And he was like huffing and puffing and he was like making snide comments like why is this taking so long? And just being really ugly to her. And he was escalating his frustration and anger towards her now. It had nothing to do with me.

[00:05:42] Frustrated with her and she wasn't seeing anything back. But for me, I was becoming frustrated because for me, there was a fair amount of injustice. Like she had no control in how long this was taking because she wasn't the cook, she was just behind the counter and he was being very negative and aggressive towards her.

[00:06:00] And eventually I just couldn't keep my mouth shut any longer. And I just turned to him and said have you, and I said, have you never had a bad day? And he said excuse me. And I said, have you never had a bad day? And he said, no, I haven't. And I'm like I wish I was you. And next thing like this guy is like ready to go and fight like right there and then and so we start going back and forth and it's starting to get loud and.

[00:06:29] and I think like the lady who's behind the counter like tells us that we have to go outside and I'm thinking, listen lady, I'm just like trying to defend this injustice on you. Like now you're asking me to lead. You should be giving me a discount on my wings, right?

[00:06:45] Injustices, something that can ultimately lead to anger. The emotion of fear is something that can lead to anger as well. I'll use myself in as an example on this one as well many years ago as well. We took a group of high schoolers on mission trip to Mexico, and we went through this organization.

[00:07:11] We're staying at a church, and we were working this job site that was probably like six or seven blocks from the church that we're staying. And so they left us there to work the job site. And they told us to walk back to the church when we were done. And so we finished up at that job site and as we're walking back, suddenly like a rock comes flying.

[00:07:34] And then multiple rocks start flying in as as several people like, like I would say late teens, early twenties are starting to yell. Americans go home. Fear quickly came in as I was responsible for the wellbeing of this group of high schoolers. And you have people chunking large sized rocks, yelling, Americans go home.

[00:07:59] You're in a foreign country. You have no place to take shelter. You've got all these people that are out there on their porches just watching it happen. No one's yelling at the, these youth to, to not do it. And it's just, you have no control over the situation. And quickly I became angry. I would've loved to have taken my anger out on the.

[00:08:19] The late teens, early twenties kids that were doing this, but there was several of 'em. I don't know how many. And I was in a country in which, like a foreign country and like probably gang members I had no ability to take my anger out in them. And so just got all the kids as close as possible.

[00:08:38] And were trying to rush 'em along as close as possible. And I, I don't remember if we called the organ. Organization or what. But as we got closer to the organization, one of the vehicles came by, and I just remember the, one of the group leaders driving by and he had a pleasant smile on his face.

[00:08:55] And I walked up to the vehicle and I don't remember if his window was down or a motion for him to put his window down, and I just very calmly walked up to the window. And when I got up to the side of the window, I reached in and I grabbed him by. T-shirt. I twisted it. I pulled him to the edge of the window and I probably said a couple choice words, but then at the end of it, I said, don't ever put me or my kids in that situation again and.

[00:09:24] Honestly I feel terrible about it at this point. I didn't at the moment. And if I remembered where I was, who, what group I was through and what the guy's name is, I certainly would apologize. But that's an example where fear Can certainly cause and lead to anger. Another example of an emotion or a feeling that can lead to anger is frustration.

[00:09:49] And I know this can be a big one for a lot of you, especially at work because a lot of you feel frustration with your jobs. Because at your jobs you have very limited control over how things are done, and so you find yourself very frustrated the way that things are done at your. But you can't do anything about it.

[00:10:08] And as that frustration builds and builds, eventually that frustration will turn into anger because it has no other way to manifest itself, cuz you can't do anything about it. We can have that same situation in our families, right? Let's say your spouse is spending all kinds of money and they won't stop and you just knew if they didn't spend that money, you wouldn't be in that financial ruin.

[00:10:34] That frustration will manifest itself in anger Your. Kids are making all kinds of bad decisions, and if they would just listen to you, but they don't, that frustration is gonna manifest itself in anger. There's so many things in this world that we don't have control over, but if we did, we knew things could be different and we know things could be better.

[00:10:52] Here's the deal with frustration is that when there's no resolution to frustration, it will manifest itself in anger. Some other reasons that we get angry is that Some people will get angry because that's actually how they try to control. And this is a big frustration of mine, right? We all know some adults that are really good at having temper tantrums, and the reason that they have 'em is because, , it works.

[00:11:23] That's how they control people. You'll see it like when you go out to restaurants. Hopefully it's not someone in your party, but it might be someone in the party next to you. Someone just flips out over something insignificant, screaming for the manager, and then the manager comes over and tries to placate them and everything just to get them to calm down, to relax.

[00:11:43] Or you see it at your kid's school or on your kid's sporting team or something like that. I like by nature, if someone's having an adult temper tantrum, I won't I won't give into that because they do it for control. And I guess maybe I'm a control freak, right? And so I refuse to give 'em that control.

[00:12:02] But people are just like, like that loud barking dog. It gets the attention. It's for control. Another reason why people will get angry is because it's how you distract. So let's say, You catch someone in a lie about something and all of a sudden they just explode about something else. And so they change the conversation.

[00:12:25] Now they're erupting about this so that you're no longer talking about that. Or if you put it in a work environment, someone's not doing your job and you're calling 'em out about that. Now they're erupting about something that happened three months ago yesterday, and once again, it ha it, it's too distract from what you're really talking about.

[00:12:43] It's like in the military, throwing a, like a smoke grenade, right? That's not, what's really going on? What's going on is this, but it's to divert attention. These are all the different reasons why people get angry, but in the end, anger, and this is what we all need to understand, anger is emotionally, spiritually, and physically destructive.

[00:13:12] It is seldom, if ever, God pleasing in its seldom or ever of. If you think of the fruit of the spirit, what are the fruit of the spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, self-control and anger. Right? Anger's not on there. I was just testing you love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, self-control.

[00:13:44] See, anger's not in there. And the Bible talks about the, these three things, faith, hope, and love. Anger's not anywhere in there anger's contrary to these things that we're called to be, but people are like, yeah, but I have righteous anger. But here's the reality is I'm gonna show you in a little bit that from scripture, you don't have righteous anger.

[00:14:08] We all like to invoke that. My anger is the righteous anger of God. I'm just doing God's bidding with righteous anger. We don't, we can't have righteous anger because we're not righteous. God alone is righteous. So our anger is seldom if ever, of God or pleasing to God. And the problem with anger is it's an emotion.

[00:14:33] And so as an emotion, it's gonna skew reality. Emotions amplify reality. And so when we get angry, suddenly we're seeing it through a lens that isn't exactly true. It's not exactly real. It's not exactly right. So it's gonna cause us to hear something that, that wasn't actually intended. It's gonna cause us to say something we didn't actually mean or we wish we hadn't.

[00:14:58] It just skews reality and when it comes to anger, ultimately it's the root of evil. If you think about the very first murder in the Bible, it's the result of anger, isn't it? Why does Kane kill his brother? Abel? He's angry. How does our savior get killed? How does Jesus get killed? It's out of anger. The crowd is angry because Jesus isn't gonna be the Messiah.

[00:15:25] They want 'em to be. The religious leaders have Jesus killed because they're angry at the things that he taught, and he said, I want you to ask yourself how many wars have started because of anger? I want you to ask yourself, how many people have been murdered because of anger? I want you to ask yourself, how many people have been abused mentally, physically, emotionally, sexually, because of anger?

[00:15:52] I want you to ask yourself, how many relationships have been destroyed because of anger? Do you know that anger is the number one reason why people have lost their jobs? You like to think that someone loses their job because of incompetence. That's not it. Someone that's incompetent, they can always receive more training.

[00:16:14] They can always learn more, but someone who's got a bad attitude, and that's the number one reason people are fired, is it's their attitude. It's hard to do something with someone who's got a bad attitude. All right, so that's getting our arms around anger. Now let's take a look at what the Bible says about anger, because I think it's pretty powerful.

[00:16:38] Look at, let's start with proverb. Verse 32. It says this, whoever is slowed, anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. So right there, when we look at this passage, we can see that you know what anger in and of itself isn't necessarily always wrong because it says whoever is slow to anger doesn't say never anger, but here's how God does it.

[00:17:12] And I think if God does it a certain way, then it's safe to say that we can do it that way, cuz God doesn't sin. Here's what scripture says about God is it says God is slow to anger. It's always how God is referred to God is slow to anger and he abounds in love. So the question is are you slow to anger or are you quick to anger, or are you somewhere in between?

[00:17:43] How would we define slow to anger versus quick to anger? I guess I would describe it as the difference between how often it freezes in Miami. Versus how often it freezes in Buffalo. Do you know how often it freezes in Miami? About once every 10 years. It freezes. In the last 50 years, it's froze five times.

[00:18:07] In Miami, in Buffalo it freezes 130 times a year. So do you get angry about once every 10 years or about 130 times a. Dallas, by the way, is about 30 times a year, or is that more your style? Slow to anger? Do you find yourself getting angry once a day? That's not slow to anger, is it? Do you find yourself getting angry with someone, whether work home, friends who are.

[00:18:47] Once a week. I don't know that we would quantify once a week that you're slow to anger because that's 50 sometimes a year. Once a month, eh, that's still, that's a fast, slow.

[00:19:10] Maybe it's three or four times a year. All right. It's gonna happen.

[00:19:17] But God is slow to, an anger's gonna ha it's gonna happen, but we're called to be slow to anger. But look at what it says is if you're slow to anger, you're better than someone who's mighty. Listen I'd be happy being mighty. Can you imagine if you're better than mighty? That's especially might. It says he who rules his spirit.

[00:19:49] If you put your spirit under control you're better than someone who can conquer a city. I'd love to conquer a city who wouldn't, right? This is what the Bible says is this. It's not that anger's always wrong, but if you're gonna be angry, it should be. It should be rare. Almost as rare as a freeze in Miami.

[00:20:18] James won 19 to 20. Know this. My beloved brothers let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak. There again, we see slow to anger. Okay, slow to anger. Why? Because God is slow to anger. Thank God he is. What if God wasn't? Oh man, we'd be in trouble. For the anger of man doesn't produce the righteousness of God.

[00:20:49] Now look at it. It says every person should be quick to hear, slow to speak. Can you imagine? Can we go to the front part of that passage real quick?

[00:21:03] Every person be quick to hear and slow to speak. Can you imagine how different arguments would. If we would all just learn to be quick to hear and slow to speak because fundamentally that's not how we do it. We're all quick to speak and we're slow to hear in an argument. This is how it goes.

[00:21:28] We listen to the first two words and we either stop the other person. And we start, or we just stop listening and we start formulating how we're gonna respond. And so what turns out is we're quick to speak and we're slow to hear, but if we can reverse that, if we can actually be quick to hear and slow to speak.

[00:21:53] I wonder how often we could just move past the argument. And I think like some people are like we don't wanna do it because we're afraid people are gonna twist it around on us. But the reality is listen, if what you're believe and what you're gonna argue is truth, you shouldn't be threatened by someone else's viewpoint.

[00:22:18] Listen to their viewpoint because you. Understand where they're coming from and there might, the greater the understanding the more likelihood there can be a resolution, it would fundamentally change how we communicate. There would be a lot less hatred in, in, in holding grudges and bitterness if we would just learn to listen first and be slow to speak.

[00:22:45] And then let's look at the last part of that passage. It says, For the anger of man doesn't produce the righteousness of God, and this is what we've gotta be careful of as Christians because we always say I was angry, but it was a righteous anger. You do not have righteous anger. Because the anger of man can't produce righteous anger.

[00:23:12] It can't produce the righteous anger of God. Why? Because you are not God. The anger of man produces one or two things that produces sin or produces the righteousness of man, which there is room for the righteousness of man. I don't mean to knock it. I mean there needs to be a righteousness of man, but it's never gonna produce the righteousness of God.

[00:23:32] The only thing that will produce the righteousness of God is the anger of. Don't you cert for yourself what only God can do? Here's a passage you've heard before in anger and it's a good one. Ephesians 4 26 in your anger. Do not sin and do not let the son go down while you're still angry. So this is another one that can make us feel a little bit better about if we do get angry once every 10.

[00:24:08] In your anger. So at times we're gonna, we're gonna get anger, it's gonna happen, but when you do, just don't sin. And here's how we keep from sinning. Don't let the sun go down. So that doesn't give us an exact timeframe on how long we're allowed to be angry, but I guess it's how close you are to sunset if you wanna look at literally.

[00:24:33] But what it's really saying is, all right, you can be angry for 20 minutes. You can be angry for an hour, maybe two, listen. But by the time you walk around the block three or four times, it's about time you start stopping. There is gonna be that initial anger, but then you need to quickly begin to process through that anger and you need to let go of that anger.

[00:24:56] Because if you hold onto that anger for hours, I'm not saying days but what Ephesians are saying is when you're holding on anger for hours, you're actually starting to sin. Why? Because it's not good. It's not good because what's gonna happen is that anger is gonna take root and it's gonna become bitterness.

[00:25:14] And once it takes root and becomes bitterness, it's gonna become very destructive to your relationship with that individual. But also in terms of your relationship with God, it's gonna give the. Foothold to really work in your life. Now notice here's what it doesn't say. It doesn't say, do not let the sun go down on your disagreement.

[00:25:36] It doesn't say that. It says, don't let this thing go down on your anger. In other words, if your disagreements with a coworker, you might have 365 days of that disagreement. If that disagreements with your spouse, you might have. Two weeks of disagreement with your spouse. If that disagreements with your kids, you might have two months of disagreement with your kids.

[00:25:59] Listen, you might have a long time of disagreement because one, you can't control their the disagreement, you can't control their anger back to you. Listen, sometimes we're gonna have a legitimate disagreement forever, and that's okay, but you don't have to be angry about it. It's the anger that, okay, in your anger, sometimes you're gonna get anger, angry, be slow to, but when you get there and it hits you, process through it quickly, or you're gonna be sinning.

[00:26:37] Here's the last passage and this is a really cool passage. I could have preached the whole sermon just on this passage because it covers everything. Colossians three, eight. But now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene. Talk from your mouth. So all of these are like the different manifestations of what we call a being mad.

[00:27:10] Okay. And we're gonna take a look at the different angles of this and then just some closing thoughts. So all of these things we're told to put them away, and it starts with anger. What is meant by anger here? Anger here is the feeling. It's the feels. It's when the blood starts boiling.

[00:27:36] When you literally start getting.

[00:27:41] You can see it on a person. Like some people, their face will visibly start getting red. Some people start shaking. They get so angry.

[00:27:55] Some people, their face starts contorting. They get that, that look like they wanna kill you.

[00:28:08] They just wanna rip you apart, beat you over the head. I could go on and on. I've never felt it.

[00:28:26] It's dangerous. This is why Jesus warns us about feelings. It's why he says, lost his equivalent to adultery. It's why he says hate is equivalent to murder because the feels is not a good thing to have. That's where anger, he says, put it away, because if you're red and you're shaking and you're looking like you wanna kill him, it's not a good place to be.

[00:28:54] And then there's wrath. What's wrath? Wrath is when you let the anger out and we all do it. We all let the anger out, but we do it different ways. Some of you like slam in the door. That's how you know you're mad. Oh, there goes the door. Mad. We weren't sure, but now we know. Damn.

[00:29:23] Some of you like to shout, even though you're right here next to me. Can you hear me? Now,

[00:29:31] some of you might just choose to scream into the pillow. I don't care if you're screaming in the pillow. That's wrath cuz you know what? You hear that on the other side of the house too. Some of you like to give the one finger salute. That's wrath. Some of you just refuse to talk. You give the silent treatment.

[00:29:53] Guess what? The silent treatment's wrath. Oh, that. That says plenty. Some of you're passive aggressive. That's wrath. However you do it, it doesn't matter. There's a million ways in which we let the anger out. It's all wrath, but we're told not to do it. Why? Because even when we're wronged, even when we're mad, wrath.

[00:30:24] Wrath isn't something that we're the privilege, we're given the privilege to do. It belongs to God, not to us. Look at Romans 1217 to 19. We pay no one evil for evil. But give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all if possible. So far as it depends on you live peaceably with all. Beloved never avenge.

[00:30:57] It doesn't say try not to. It doesn't usually don't never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written vengeance as mine for I will repas as the. God's taken all the fun out of it. Obviously no anger, no wrath.

[00:31:24] And then he says, no malice. So what you're expected me to say is you're supposed to keep it in. But that's not true either because that's malice and we're told. Have nothing to do with it. Malice is when we keep our anger under wraps, but the problem with malice, the problem when we just keep anger inside is that then leads to what we talked about last week.

[00:31:48] It leads to bitterness and resentment. When we keep anger inside, when we don't let it out, when we're just holding it in then like we have a skewed perception of the person. No matter what the person does, we can no longer appreciate the person because we hold malice towards them no matter what compliment that person might give you and be like, whatever, because we hold malice towards them.

[00:32:23] Just when that name comes up, you're gonna find yourself like thinking all kinds of nasty thoughts. Because of malice and that's not that you've shown any wrath. You've held it all in, but you have malice in your heart. What's the best way to deal with malice? Pray for the person. Don't pray about the person.

[00:32:49] Literally pray for the person. It's very hard to be malicious towards a person and to have malice towards a person when you're praying.

[00:33:01] Another form of anger and hate is slander. And this is a tough one, I'm gonna be honest. Like when someone ticks us off and I'll throw myself in this, like I don't normally feel any need to talk about people, but when someone ticks me off, alright, now I'm gonna wanna talk about someone, right? And I don't need to talk to everyone, but I need to just talk to one or two people.

[00:33:25] And slander is like when we wanna talk about that person, that's made us mad and we don't have anything good to say about that person. It's not like we're gonna give an objective viewpoint of the person's mostly good, but yeah, I just have these few issues. Like it's all negative about the person, right?

[00:33:41] And the absolute worst is like when you're trying to do good. Like you got all kinds of mean things you can say about this person and you're biting your tongue until it's like your mouth is filling with blood. Like you're trying your hardest not to say anything bad about this person. And then there's a group of people that's saying how wonderful this person is, they're not.

[00:34:02] And then you just can't help but say, you think that person's wonderful. This is what they did to me, blah, blah, blah. Slander. But if you had reconciled with that person immediately when they had ticked you off, then you could probably handle this group of people saying all this stuff about them and been like, oh, whatever and not felt the need to say all this other stuff about 'em.

[00:34:28] And then the last thing that's mentioned is obscene talk. And while we know what that is, right? It's all those nice four letter modifiers we use when we describe people that we are frustrated with.

[00:34:48] The Bible tells us, put it all away. None of it's becoming of being a child of God, but how much of it is just stuff that we just do regularly?

[00:35:09] It's not easy to not be angry. It really comes down to making a choice. And I have to tell you, like I, I think partly because I'm not an overly emotional person I don't normally struggle that much with anger. My daughter indirectly, I think what I took as a compliment a year ago, she had said she was talking to her now husband.

[00:35:35] She had said, who's the most angry in my family? And he was going through the different people in my family. This is how this person shows angry. This is how shows angry. She's like, how's my dad show anger? And he's I don't think I've ever seen your dad angry. He just kinda gets quiet.

[00:35:51] He doesn't like yell or anything like that. And when she told me that, I'm. Good. That's how I'd wanna be known. Cause I don't wanna be known as like a shouter, a yeller, someone that loses his cool or blows his temper. I don't wanna be known as an angry person. But even though I'm not necessarily inclined to be angry, although Aaron's sitting here is I've seen you on the soccer field, dude, you can get angry.

[00:36:12] I do have my moments, and the Lord knew I was gonna preach the sermon, so let me. Use my example of 10 days ago when your pastor was foolishly angry. I do like to sometimes in the very smug pastor Greg kind of way, like to remind people when they are nasty to other people that they're children of God.

[00:36:33] People will get angry at people and it's now cut it out. You need to. They're children of God. It's my it's true, but I get it can be a little smug. But anyways, I was driving home from work and when I say I'm driving home from work, by the way, I'm a pastor, so it means I'm driving home from church.

[00:36:51] Okay. Let me be clear. And this was like 10 days ago or so, and I was I was over by Central High School and then trying to make a left and and there was a just one car in front of me and there was a green arrow and the car in front of me wasn't going. And some of y'all get really nasty right away on that.

[00:37:14] I believe in grace. I'm a pastor. You have to. And so I decided to wait five seconds before I did anything about it. I waited about five seconds and five seconds. They're still not moving. And now it's starting to frustrate me a little bit, but I'm not one of those people that just gives that long honk, cuz that's just rude.

[00:37:33] You just don't do that. So I just gave this little. Hong Kong. Just, and so I did, and either they heard it or whatever, but at that point they start going and they started going at about a half of a mile an hour. I don't know how far fast car's idle when you take your foot off the brake, but this had to be at like a third of that speed.

[00:38:04] I could have walked backwards quicker than they were going. So much so that I was quite certain I wasn't gonna get through the light before it changed. And so now I'm getting a little frustrated because, alright, I get that. You didn't see the arrow because some of us like look around when it's red.

[00:38:23] Some of us look at our phone and I've done all that stuff too, so it happens, but you now know it's green. And so either because I honked, which maybe you're mad that I honked or maybe you just don't even know how to drive. I don't know. But I'm thinking you're just not happy that I gave you the honk.

[00:38:43] And so now I'm like, you're intentionally trying to be a jerk to me. Then that whole sense of justice thing starts boiling in me and and I start like thinking all kinds of just. Un pastor like things and very unlike Greg of me, and I wouldn't tell you what I was thinking. I don't really remember what I was thinking about.

[00:39:05] I was like they weren't good things because I was getting very frustrated and I remember that like little smug ish voice saying, but Greg, they're a child of God. And I'm like, but Greg, I don't really care.

[00:39:21] And then like they get far enough up and I was gonna make it through that light one way or the other. And I did. And they get far enough ahead of me and I look and I'm like, man, they got like a handicap sticker on their license plate. I'm like, wouldn't you figure like the pastors thinking all kinds of nasty thoughts about these people and the person's handicap.

[00:39:42] And do you feel good about yourself now, Greg? Do you really. And so I'm like beating myself up about that and they're going and I'm following and I'm like, serves you right? And as we're driving, I'm thinking, as I go into my subdivision, there's a church across from it.

[00:40:00] I'm like, wouldn't it serve you right Greg? If when you go into your subdivision, they turn into the church that. You would've been honking at who cares about the honking? But you have been thinking all those mean ugly. vital thoughts about someone that is not only handicapped but is pulling into the church parking lot and don't, when I get to that turn, they're pulling into the church parking lot.

[00:40:28] Like way to go, pastor Greg. Way to go. And my point is this, right? Even for those of us who don't struggle much with anger, it's easy to fall into the trap of being angry. None of us are immune to. , I want to encourage you with this. Anger needs to be rare, almost as rare as a freeze in Miami enemy.

[00:40:57] Alright? Not once every 10 years, but come on. Not every week. Hopefully not even every month when you get angry and you will and I think it's okay that we. Process through it quickly. And when I say quickly, I'm talking like in the minutes and hours, not in the days and weeks. And know that it takes work to not be an angry person.

[00:41:24] Listen we've got genetics, we've got how, what's happened to us in our past. But in the end, if you are easily angered, you're being lazy because if you work at it hard enough, you can choose. , you can choose to not be angry. Desire to be as God, slow to anger and abound in love because if we desire God to be slow to anger with us, then we must be slow to anger with others.

[00:42:03] Would you join me in a word of. Gracious Almighty God, we just thank and praise you for this opportunity to to look at this difficult topic for many of us and even for some of us who don't necessarily struggle with it a lot we still do. And I just pray, gracious God, that by your example, you've shown us what compassion is and just an immense patience with us.

[00:42:30] There's so much that we do every single day that you could be so incredibly angry with us, but yet you're not. Help us to be patient with our family, with our friends, with our coworkers, with the people on the road, and even with our enemies. Gracious God, it might not be natural to. But I just pray, gracious God, that by the power of your spirit, that you would give us a heart that would change, and a heart that would desire to be quick to forgive.

[00:43:08] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.