Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Break the Anger Cycle | Been There | Part 7

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

What makes you angry? The answer is different for everyone. And if we’re honest, it’s probably not just one thing—a lot of things make us angry. There were things that made Jesus angry too. What did He do when He felt angry? Is it possible to learn how to control your anger? We’re talking about it in this message. ABOUT THIS MESSAGEHave you ever been hurt by a friend? Jesus has. Maybe you feel like God isn't listening? Jesus knows what that’s like. No matter what you’re facing, Jesus understands because He’s Been There.NEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextCONNECT WITH A PASTORDo you need prayer? Would you like to find out how you can get involved at Life.Church? One of our pastors would love to meet with you. Schedule a video call with a pastor: https://www.life.church/meetwithusABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.churchFind locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/appFIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifechurchYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LCNowCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/craiggroeschelFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@craiggroeschel#lifechurch #craiggroeschel #beenthere Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Let me just kind of give you a snapshot of what it looked like for me to stand up here today. Okay? So Pastor Craig called me and he's like, hey, I'd love for you to preach a message. I was like, man, thank you so much. And he said, here's like three topics, okay? Three possible topics. Put them in order of the one that you want to preach the most. Like put that at his number one and then put them the rest under that.

So I was like, okay, cool. And then he said, I can't guarantee that you're actually going to get to preach your top choice. But just put them in order. So I was like, all right. So I tried to play a little game. I was like, I'm going to put the one that I don't want to preach at number one. Let me give you just a screenshot of my text message conversation with Pastor Craig. Here were the topics, and these were all like the ones that I wanted to preach about.

I really wanted to preach on abandoned. But then he came to and said, yeah, go ahead and preach on anger. Guess what I'm preaching on today? Anger, right? It's not what I wanted to. When he said that to me, I got a little angry, honestly, because it's something that actually God's been working on in me. like he's been working on me just even recently. I've been finding myself really short with Liz, getting angry with my kids.

So I was like, that's not the one I want to preach, but how good is God with a sense of humor to be like, you're going to preach on anger? So here's what I want to do today. I want to give you four different examples of things that maybe make you a little upset. And so I'm going to need everyone to participate. Those of you joining us online, I need you to put some angry emojis in there. If any of these make you a little mad, those of you at all of our locations, you to participate here in the room as well. If one of these makes you mad, would you just

raise your hand up, right? Here we go. The first one, bad drivers. Anybody? Bad drivers. Okay, you know these people, right? You're trying to get your kids into life kids. They cut you off in the parking lot. You give them the blessing, right? And bad drivers. Okay, here's another one. One uppers. One uppers. It's those people, you might not know what this is. Let me tell you. It's those people that you're like, man, I can't wait. I'm going to vacation in Florida. And they're like, oh, that reminds me when we went to Turks and Kekos. It was amazing. Always got a one-up you.

Anybody angry with the one-upers? Yeah. Okay, how about this one? Food photographers. Not professional, but the ones like this, just eat your dang food. You're going to get like 20 likes on that post-enuist, but no, I got it. I got as food photographers. All right.

Last one. Left on red. You know this? yeah, they read your text, have not replied, and you're just waiting. Anybody mad when you're like, come on, man, at least make it to where I can't see that you read my text messages, right? Listen, these are kind of light and funny, but the truth is, is we have an anger issue. We really do. You don't believe me? Let me show you the numbers, okay? The Global Rise of Unhappiness. Check this chart out. According to the 2022 Global Emotions Report from Gallup, in 2021, negative emotions, the aggregate of stress, sadness, anger, worry, and physical pain that people feel every day reached a new record in the history of Gallup's tracking.

Now, this is straight from the report. Check us out. As negative emotions have increased globally, so has civil unrest. According to the Global Peace Index, riots, strikes, and anti-government demonstrations increased 200, and 44% from 2011 to 2019. In 2020, y'all remember that year? No, we all want to forget that year, right? In 2020, though, unrest increased exponentially with 15,000 protests estimated globally. We've got an anger issue.

And that's like riots and stuff, but you know this because you feel it on the holidays, at home, with your family, maybe in your office or in your marriage or even with people that you thought you were really close friends with. Anger is rising. And so today, the title of my message is, break the anger cycle. We need to break it. We need to stop it.

We need to find healing for our hearts. Ephesians 426 says this. In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. if you're anything like me, heck, if you're human, you've likely failed at this. You've probably sinned in your anger. So what do you do when you've got an anger issue? What do you do when you lose your temper? What do you do when you just, you sin in your anger? The good news is that we can look to Jesus for his example, because Jesus himself actually struggled with or experienced

anger, just like you and me. We're in a message series called Bimmy. We're in a message series called been there. And in this series, we've been exploring the different things that Jesus has been through. And in fact, whatever pain that you are facing, whatever challenge that you are enduring, Jesus most likely has endured those and has been there. He understands. So if you've ever lost your temper, if you've ever been angry, you're not alone. Jesus gets it. He understands. Now, when Christians think about anger and Jesus being angry, most think of the time where he flipped the tables because there was corruption in the temple, right? But there's another instance that a lot of people overlook, and it's in Mark chapter three. Check this out. Mark chapter three says this.

Jesus went into the synagogue again and noticed a man with a deformed hand. Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus' enemies watched him closely. If he healed the man's hand, they plan to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with a deformed hand, come and stand in front of everyone. Then it says, he turned to his critics and asked, does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it? But they wouldn't answer him. Anybody get angry when people don't answer you? There's a moment there. He says, and then it says, he looked around at them. What did he do? Say it with me, he looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the men, hold out your

hand. So the man held out his hand and it was restored. At once, the Pharisees went away and met with the supporters of Herod to plot how to kill Jesus. Jesus dealt with anger. So what is anger? Let me give you one definition. The American Psychological Association defines anger as an emotion characterized by tension and hostility arising from frustration, real or imagined injury by another or perceived injustice. Studies show that anger is most commonly a secondary emotion. It's not the primary emotion. There's something else that's causing you to feel angry. It's been said that anger is the outward expression of an internal wound or offense. Something happened. It's something internal. And you see this in your own life. Maybe it's grief. You lost a loved one. Maybe it's sadness.

or fear, insecurity, or disrespect that you've experienced. All of these emotions and many others can be the root of your anger. Now, I want you to hear this clearly. It is not a sin to be angry, but anger can lead to sin. So, let me show you the cycle of anger. This is how anger works out. First, there's an offense. Somebody disrespects you, or you feel demeaned,

or someone you love hurts you. And it's an offense that takes place. Then that offense plants a seed in your heart. The seed, if it goes unnoticed or unattended, it begins to grow into a root. And this becomes a root of bitterness. And the root is growing underneath. You can't see it yet, but it's growing.

And actually, there's small signs that there's a root of bitterness growing. You know what it is? It's the eye roll, right? it's that moment where you're just like, mm-hmm, or it's the external sigh. It's these microaggressions that just kind of show that there's a root of bitterness growing inside of you. And that root actually becomes an outburst, right? There's the spewers of the world. These are people that, like, when you just let go, like, everything has built up and you're just, you lose it.

Right? It's almost like you emotionally vomit and then you feel good, but everybody around you is covered in it. And what happens when you do that? When you have that outburst, it actually starts the cycle over in them, in the people that suffered your wrath. So how do we break this cycle? What do we do to break this cycle of anger? I'm going to give you three and a half ways to break the anger cycle. Three and a half.

Here we go. Number one, discover. Number two, disclose. And number three, deny. Everybody say that with me. Say, discover, disclose, deny. Okay, one more time.

Those of you online, put it in the comments. It's no fun without you. At all of our locations, come on, say it again. Say, discover, disclose, deny. Number one, discover. Why am I? mad. James Chapter 4, verses 1 and 2 says this.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire, but you do not have, so you kill. You covet, but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You got to discover

what's making me angry. What's the root? What's the thing that happened? Were you hurt? Were you disrespected? Were you offended? You got to ask, what is making me mad? As a kid, I had anger issues. Like, you asked my parents, they were worried about me at times. They were like, this kid must be possessed. Because, man, I would get angry just even as a little kid. And a lot of the times it was like, it was, it was nothing that I did like externally. I didn't blow up, but it was this look.

Like, I need the camera to like get close because it was right. right here in the eyes. My parents said I had a look that could kill. Like my eyes would get bloodshot red and watery filled and I would just look at you. And my dad, he was so loving and so caring. He tried to help me with my anger issues as a kid. So he would give me all kinds of ways to do it. He said, son, count to 10. Like when you start getting angry, count to 10. And so I would. One, two, three, four, five. It wasn't working, right? So he's like, don't do that anymore. He's like, take deep breaths. Take a couple of deep breaths.

Nothing would work. Then finally one day he was like, I got it. I got one son. This is going to do it. This is going to help you when you're angry. And I'm going to give you this tool today. It's a wonderful tool. And I need everybody to participate.

I'm going to have you repeat this after me. You guys ready? Okay, here we go. Some of y'all are ready. I know in Florida, y'all are ready. Here we go. Ready? I need you to repeat after me.

Three, two, one. One, two, three. What the heck Is bothering me Let's do it again This time like actually like feel it out Maybe you got here today You're angry at your spouse

You got into it before you got here So let's just practice it For those that are struggling with anger Come on everybody Three to one One two three What the heck Is bothering me

Man you can make a song out of that Look This was the tool that my dad gave me right And there's so many tools. There's so many great tools to help you deal with your anger and to manage your anger. And counseling is a great thing and slowing down enough to just breathe and to just ask, why am I getting mad? There's a root.

There's a root. You've got to discover the root. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 15 says this. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God. and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. You got to discover the root. And again, there's a lot of great tools out there. There's a lot of great hacks out there.

But let me give you one that's really powerful. Pray. Just pray. Here's a simple prayer to pray. Holy Spirit, help me. Help me discover what that root is. help me to see what is it that's making me angry. So you discover the root and then you disclose.

You got to talk about it. You got to bring it to light. We know this, that sin grows best in the dark. So turn on the light. Flip the light on. Like expose it, disclose it, talk about it. Because here's the thing. Everybody knows that you're mad.

We just don't know why. Like, we need to you to talk about this. It was clear that Jesus was angry. In verse 5, it says this, he looked around at them angrily. He looked at them. It was clear. He was angry. So let's just stop and talk about the look.

Last week, here in the U.S. was Mother's Day. And we love our mamas. We honor our mamas. We show them all the love. And moms have a look. It's a look that when you see, see it, send shivers down your spine. It's the look that says, boy, you about to get it, moms, you have a look. There's a look. Right? And here's the thing. For me, in the Hispanic

culture, if the look wasn't, because that's a Latina look, okay? That's a little bit different. But if the look wasn't enough, then came the chancla. Some of you are like, Pastor Sam, What is the chancla? Let me tell you what the chancla is. The chancla is a slipper or a sandal or a flip-flop. Okay? And mom would pull that flip-flop, have it in her hand after she'd given you that look and chuck the chancla.

You'd get hit upside the head. What was crazy about it is, to me, it seemed like that thing was a boomerang. Before I knew it, it was right back in her hand. Ready to go again. It's the chancla, right? Look, you got to talk about it. You got to just disclose it. I'm angry because I'm hurt.

I'm angry because you offended me. I'm angry, and I don't know why, but I just need to talk. You got to disclose it. Colossians chapter 3, verse 8, says this, but now you must also rid yourself of all such things as this. anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Because a lot of us, we have the look, some of us we have the lips. That language.

You know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about? Y'all too holy? Come on. You got to talk about it. Talk about it with a counselor. Share it in your life group. Bring it to light.

let God heal. See, we confess to God for forgiveness, but we confess to each other for healing. And here's the thing, it really, it's so good to bring it to light, because when you bring it to light, it helps, but only God can actually heal. So here's what we do. We pray. We pray a simple prayer. Holy Spirit, heal me. Because the end of the day, he's the end of the day, he's a simple prayer. He's a is the only one that can heal, that anger, that pain that you feel. So you discover, you disclose, and then you deny. Okay? And what I mean by this is you deny your flesh. Okay? Groucho Marx said this, speak when you're angry, and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret. How many of us have been there before? You regret what came out of your mouth. Proverbs 29-11 says this.

fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end. You may have a reason to be angry, but you don't have a right to sin. Let me say that again. You may have a reason, a real reason to be angry, but you do not have a right to sin. The moment you became a follower of Jesus, that right was revoked. You can't sin? So you're like, well, I just need to rage out. Nope.

Well, they deserve my wrath. Nope. It's just the way I grew up. No. And not all anger is explosive. Some of it is actually subtle. It's the silent treatment. It's the cold shoulder.

It's the moving your feet away. You know what I'm talking about? You're in bed and you reach over with your cold toes and you try to touch her toes or his toes. And what do they do? They take them away. You're not touching my toes tonight. Or maybe it's withholding intimacy or affection. Maybe it's just simply like, I'm not going to make her coffee today.

I just put myself on blast because that's what I do to Liz. I'm like, not today. Galatians 2.20 says this. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. You can be angry, yes, but do not sin. It's not a right to sin.

It's not a right to sin. You know, I told you I had angry issues as a kid. and Pastor Craig even mentioned it at the beginning that this message is personal to me because yes, God has been working on me in this area. But when I stop and look back and I think about my anger issues as a child, I had to do some discovery. And I had to disclose. I had to talk about it.

I had to dig down. Why? If you've not been a part of this message series, you need to go back and watch every single message, Every single one has been so powerful. The moment that Pastor Craig told us that we were going to talk about abuse, that weekend, I honestly did not want to come to church. I was like, ah, not that one.

Fortunately and unfortunately, I work here, so I had to be here, right? I came to church, and I just realized, like, there's some things in my heart. There's some things in my life. Some wounds, some offenses from my childhood early on, some abuse. that I experienced that set off really a lifetime of anger to talk about it. I had to bring it up.

I had to let God heal. Look, let's take a look back at Jesus and how he handled anger. What did he do? First, let's look at what he didn't do, okay? He's looking around at them and they're making them mad. and why were they making them mad? Because they were getting in the way of that man's healing.

It was a righteous anger. So what he didn't do was he didn't lash out at them. He didn't give him hemorrhoids in their ears. He could have, but he didn't. What did he do? Jesus was angry at these people, at the religious leaders. So he gave them the look, but he did not sin. He heals the man's hand, knowing that doing so would lead the Pharisees to go off and plot on how to kill him.

What did he do? He did his father's will. Is it fair? No. Is it easy? Absolutely not. Is it Christ-like? You better believe it. He calls us. He calls us to not to deny our flesh, to not act out, to not lash out. That's what we do as Christ's followers. And if you struggle with this, here's what you can do. you can pray. Holy Spirit, have your way. Not me. Not what I want. Not my desires. But your way, Holy Spirit. So let me give you these three simple but powerful prayers one more time.

Holy Spirit, help me. Help me discover why I'm anger. Holy Spirit. heal me. Talk about it. Bring it to him. Talk about it in your life group. Talk to, talk about it to a pastor. Disclose it. Bring it to light and let him heal you. And then finally, Holy Spirit, have your way. Deny your flesh. You got to dig deep. You got to figure out what's going on. It's hard work. It's so important to recognize the things that are making you angry. Pastor Tim Keller, who recently went home to be with Jesus,

has a great quote on anger. And I wanted to share this with you. He said, if you find that despite all the efforts to forgive you, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, what am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without? It may be that until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger. You got to dig deep. You got to figure out. There's work to be done, and it's hard work. Let me illustrate it to you this way.

This is my lawn. My backyard. I love my backyard. My mentor, Pastor Chris Beale, encouraged me. When Liz and I bought this house, he was like, I know you want to redo the kitchen, but I promise you, invest in your lawn. It can be an oasis for you, a place of rest and refreshment. So we did.

And we've invested in it. And I put a lot of hard work in that backyard. And every year I get weeds. Every year there's weeds that I need to address. Every year I sprinkle, I spray, I spread. I try everything to get rid of these weeds. And it's funny because one year there was so bad that I just decided, I got angry at the weeds. And so I decided, I'm going to pull these suckers straight from the root.

Like by hand, one by one, there were so many of them. And it was a lot of hard work. My kids, they thought, well, these are just pretty flowers. I'm like, no, it's an invasive species that's killing my lawn. We've got to get rid of it, right? See, let me say it to you again. Anger is the outward expression of an internal wound or offense. So what is it for you?

You've got to do the work. It's not easy. It's hard work. If you've ever pulled weeds, you know it's hard work. It's dirty work. It's hard to discover, to disclose and to deny. Like, that's hard work. So what is it for you?

When you think about your life and maybe you just lash out at your kids all the time and you're constantly angry and you yell at everybody around you and you're trying to prove your manliness because that one day, your dad looked at you and said, don't be a sissy. and you've spent your entire life trying to prove the truth. Man, you've got to dig deep. It's hard work. It's dirty work.

Or maybe that person put a ring on your finger and promised to love you, to never leave you, to forsake, to never forsake you, to walk with you in all your life. And then they left you and abandoned you. And you find that you can't even get into another relationship because you're just bitter. And your heart has hardened.

It's hard work. It's dirty work. It takes a lot of work to pull these weeds out. Maybe for you, you've just been hurt so much by people. And you lash out like at work. Everybody knows that you're just an angry person. and if you stop and you dig a little bit deeper, you just remember when your boss fired you for no good reason

and that wound stayed with you. Maybe somebody said something to you about the color of your skin. And every time you see racism, something rises up within you, you just want to lash out because there's a wound, there's an offense. there's something that somebody did. It's hard work. It's not easy. It takes time.

It takes the right people to be around you. To disclose, to show them the weeds of your life. It's hard work, guys. But it's so important. It's so important. Have you been hurt? Have you been offended? Has somebody betrayed you?

Whatever pain you're experiencing, whatever it is that's making that anger rise up within you. God wants to heal that. It's hard work. You know, I told you I pulled all those weeds. And then I looked at my lawn and there were bare patches everywhere. I was like, what did I do? So then there's still more work to be done.

I planted new seeds of grass in those areas and I watered it. And I let the sun hit it. And then with time, new grass grew and my lawn began to live beautiful and after doing the work this is what i get to see my kids enjoying the lawn enjoying the work of my hands enjoying the work that i did see see the work that you put in today creates the beauty that you and future generations can enjoy it's not just about you God wants to heal you. But there's an entire generation of people that are needing a beautiful lawn that is the work that you've done.

So I told you that I was going to give you three and a half ways to break the cycle. Discover, disclose, and deny. Y'all ready for the half? I got the half for you. You got to dance. You got to dance, man. You got to dance on your lawn. You've got to enjoy your lawn when you put the work and you've got to dance.

I mean, do a little salsa, do a little bachata, do some two-step country, whatever floats your boat, a little running man. If you're back in the eight, like you've got to dance. Life's too short to not enjoy the work that you're doing on your heart. You got to enjoy it. You got to dance. Let others enjoy. joy the work that you're doing. See, when you do this work, God begins to do a healing work inside of you. So let's look back at Jesus. Jesus got angry. Why did he get angry? Let's go back

and look. Verse five, it says, he looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then he said to the men, the man, hold out your hand. Everybody hold your hand. out. Come on, everybody, at all our locations, just reach out your hand, okay? Go ahead and put it back. He said, hold out your hand, so the man held out his hand, and it was restored. Look, if we're honest, at some point, we all struggle with anger. We all need healing from past wounds and offenses and roots of bitterness that have grown inside of us. The great news is, Jesus stands ready to heal us. All we have to do is reach out our hand. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you that you're a loving God who wants to heal our hearts.

Today, if you're here and you say, you know what? I recognize that just straight up, I struggle with anger. or maybe you're here and you're realizing that there are some roots of bitterness in your life that need to come out, need to be disclosed, and you need healing over those things. If you're here today and you say, I struggle with anger, or I need some healing in my life, God's ready to heal you. Would you just raise your hand at all of our locations? Just raise your hand up. I want to pray for you right now.

Hands going up all over this place. God, I thank you. That you're a God who, when we reach out to you, you reach back out. and you embrace us with your love. You love us, Father God, and you heal us. And I pray that we would be a church, Father God, that is here healing together, Lord. Heal us, Father God.

As we continue in this attitude of prayer, there's some of you here today that if you were serious, if we just had a conversation together, you might actually express that you have some anger towards God himself. Maybe you've been coming to church for a long time, and you kind of just go through the motions every week, but if you're honest, if you're sincere,

you would recognize, man, I am angry at God. Maybe there's a root of bitterness inside of you when you think about God. For others of you, you're just trying church for the first time, you're joining us online, and you're just trying to see what this is all about, and you've tried to fill your life with different things, but you recognize that nothing has been able to fill it.

In fact, if you look at your life, you're actually just angry and bitter all the time, and the thing is that that sin, that is in us is what separates us from God. And yet God loves you. Listen to me. He loves you. And he's angry at the sin that is separating you from him. And so because of that love, because he wants a relationship with you, he did something for us. He sent his son Jesus, who lived a sinless life, did not sin in his anger. And yet he died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sin, our rage, our anger, he took it on that cross and he died. But he didn't stay dead after three days. He was

raised from the dead so that you and I could have a new life in him. And that sin that separate us was gone and you could have a relationship with God. And for many of you, that's why you're here today. You joined us online. In this moment, you're going to reach out to God and say, God, I need you in my life. Here's what scripture says, is that anyone, and this includes you, anyone who calls on the name of Jesus will be saved. And so in this moment, if you're here today at all of our life church locations, those of you saying, I'm ready to surrender to God. I need him to take this root of bitterness out and I want to have a relationship with God. When you turn away from your sins and you turn towards Christ, what he does is he forgives you and he gives you a brand new life. And for many

of you, that is why you're here. It's time to reach your hand up and say, Jesus, I need you. In my life, I'm ready to surrender to you. And if that's you, I want you to raise your hand right now. Come on lift up your hand in this place. God bless you. Welcome to the family of God. Those of you that say yes, others of you that say, I need Jesus. I'm ready to surrender to you.

Those of you online, you go ahead and type it in the comments right now. Say, I'm surrendering my life to Jesus. Church, would you pray with those making that decision? Pray out loud. Say, Heavenly Father, I give you my life. I surrender my heart. Today I declare Jesus as my Lord and my Savior. By His grace, I'm forgiven.

By his truth, I am set free. No more guilt, no more shame. My life belongs to you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Come on, church, would you celebrate as into the family of God today.