Live Free with Josh Howerton - Routing Rage with Gentleness | Ep. 213 | Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

Which will you choose: gentleness or harshness? Both have the power to change our course and influence others around us. The Holy Spirit can direct us and help us toward the gentleness that leads to blessing. He can get into the details of our lives and smooth away the jagged edges that are so natural to our behavior. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. This Christmas, we want to invite you and your family to join us for our candlelight services on December 22nd through 24th at any of our six locations or for church online. For more information, visit latepoint.combe.combe. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, what's up everybody?

Thanks for joining us today. My name is Mike Bro, and we have been embracing our inner NFL referee. And going to the replay monitor and saying to God, search me, oh God. Would you get your eyes on my character? after further review. What do you see? And the great thing is, God never misses a call. He gets it right every single time, and if we will listen to him and humble ourselves, he'll start to grow us in that area. The replay monitor we've been using comes from Galatians chapter 5 talking about if you and I will cultivate and fertilize the soil of our heart with humility and gratitude, then the Holy Spirit

will produce all kinds of amazing fruit. In our life, here's the list. When the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And we picked one this week to work on, because honestly we don't talk about it much. And frankly, it's one that God revealed to me years ago that I needed to let him go to work on. I was flagged for unnecessary roughness. I needed some gentleness in my life. Now I've never been abusive, never been violent in any way, pretty laid-back guy. But my tone, my body language, my bluntness, my harshness, my sarcasm, my passive-aggressive anger,

it stood in need of some work. And honestly, this is where a lot of us get in trouble, isn't it? If we could just lose the attitude, if we would lose the harsh tone, lose the biting sarcasm, lose the profanity, lose the you're so stupid role of our eyes, then our relationships with our parents, with our kids, with our spouse, our brothers and sisters, our co-workers, our friends would dramatically improve. Here's a verse to stick at our hearts today. It comes from Proverbs chapter 15, verse 1. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger.

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger. You see that? I told you that gentleness really is a powerful thing. It's so powerful that it can make wrath back up. even run away. But harshness is also a powerful stir stuff up kind of thing. And we can damage

a lot of people without even realizing it simply by having a harsh disposition. And that's why we all need our power under God's control. Unless we allow the Holy Spirit to start planing our disposition on a daily basis, we're going to have splintered relationships. Can I bring another woodworking tool into the discussion?

Not only does the Holy Spirit want to plain our disposition, take some layers off and make us smoother, I am learning that he wants to get a little more detailed and start to router my rage. Not sure if you've ever used a router, but a router is a tool that puts like a nice edge on the shelf or on a table, and God really wants to put a smooth edge on you and me. I can get pretty edgy. The Bible says repeatedly, there's just no place in our lives for angry, outburst, and rage. In fact, in the verses preceding that checklist, that replay monitor, I was talking about in Galatians 522, when the Holy Spirit controls you,

Love, Joy, Peace, all that is in you. Right before that is a list of the flip-side qualities that our lives reflect when He doesn't control our lives. It says this in Galatians 5, 19, and 20. When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results. Sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry,

participation in demonic activity, and now catch how these last seven are all rage-related things, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outburst of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except for those in your own little group. It's that slow burn kind of anger that lurks within us that causes us to explode on a regular basis. And can I ask you right after you've exploded with anger? Do you feel better? Or do you feel really stupid? It says this in Proverse 29-11, and stupid people express their anger openly,

but sensible people are patient and hold it back. And the really stupid thing is that most of us tend to think than when we lose our temper, that it's triggered by one of two things. The first is stupid inanimate objects. I mean, you're in a hurry, and the button on your jeans pops off and breaks, and, oh, you stupid jeans! Or your computer crashes, you lose all your files. Oh, you stupid computer!

Or you hit a bad shot off the T? Oh, you stupid eight iron. We actually call inanimate objects stupid. So who's really stupid? And of course, the second category is stupid people. You might remember that country comedian Bill Ingval that came up with the Here's Your Stupid Sign bit. He said, hey, come up to someone on the side of the road and, hey, you got a flat tire?

No, the other three just all of a sudden swallowed up like that. Here's your sign. Most of it they get stupid people or stupid things that make us angry. And so typically we express our anger by saying, that makes me so mad or he makes me, she makes me so mad. But here's something you rarely ever hear come out of the mouth of an angry person. I make me so mad.

I'm going to let you in a little secret. I make me mad. You make you mad. Because in between the event, whether it's the stupid inanimate object or the rude driver or the annoying person at work, in between that and my anger is my interpretation of it. In between is my perception of it,

my thinking about it, my prior stuffed-down thoughts that led to my rage, So after further review, I make me mad. And just to make sure we all get this, I want us to say these words together wherever you are right now. I make me so mad. Would you say that with me? I make me so mad.

So today, when you're frustrated in traffic, or you're about to get in a big argument with somebody at work or a friend at school or somebody in your home, when you want to throw out your harshest words and unleash some unnecessary roughness on someone or something, you're going to stick out your finger and point at yourself. and you're going to say what? Yeah, I make me so mad. Just a reminder from James 1, verse 19 and 20, my dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak,

and slow to get angry. Your anger can never make things right. Your anger can never make things right in God's sight. And that's why he wants to put the router to our rage and produce gentleness in us. Let him go to work on that today, and I'll see you back tomorrow. great day. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.com.

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