The Christian Response to Anger || Pastor Adam Mesa

Oh, what a mistake?

Had man come into the movies today?

The end of the week.

Everybody's here, but of course they are.

How hard is it to order food?

You know, there's only a few items. You get some popcorn,

you get some soda, you get some candy. It's going

me look like you shouldn't have any candy. Maybe he's

off on the suitets, you know what I mean?

Look at this line. What a waste of my time?

Oh you don't know what I'm.

Doing here previewsly like forty five minutes anyway, a waste. Now,

these people need to learn how to order their food.

You know, you go up, you.

Pick out what you want, You give them your.

Money, credit card, right, your PayPal, whatever it is. You

take your stuff and you take your seat.

It's not that hard.

You give it to the dumb gen z working behind

the register, who probably doesn't even know how to count

the money anyway, because they got no initiative. That's the problem.

That's the reason we're in line, because the kid behind

the counter doesn't know what they're doing. Come on, what's

the matter with you?

Excuse me who said that you got a problem? You

got a problem?

Is it you who's got you got a problem with me?

Is there a problem?

Huh?

It doesn't sound like there's a problem, because I don't

hear you saying anything now, huh, your keyboard warrior, Yeah,

you're a big man. You'll show your face next time,

all right. And by the way, the popcorn is burning.

I don't know if you're aware of that. Do you

not know how to cook popcorn?

It's really easy.

You put oil in the pan and corn.

That's it.

That's the recipe. Your people don't smell this.

You don't smell the burning popcorn though nothing. Do you

believe this? You see this? You okay with this?

I can smell it from here?

Are you growing the popcorn? Back there? Let's go.

You burn the popcorn like that, It defeats its own purpose.

What are you staring at a little too smiling?

All right? All right? Who said that?

Let me see your face? Come on, show me your face.

Come on, come on, I want to see you. Come on,

come on, give me a reason. I'll break your legs.

I'll put them back together. I'll break them again. How

about that. Look, I'm on my knees. I'm begging you.

Give me a reason. On my children's lives. All right,

I will sacrifice a year of my life just for

you to say that one more time than my face.

Come on, nobody, nothing, Yeah, get out your phones, make.

Me go viral, make me a star.

Uh maybe you come see me in the movies. How

about that?

How about that?

Hey that's what I thought. Yeah, I'm going, I'm going.

It's my time now, all right, I'm up here. Now

my time to order, thank you?

All right?

I want to get a small popcorn and a uh

wait a minute. How much more is the large?

Fifty cents?

All right, that's you know, the large is what a

medium used to be. By the way, Yeah, that's why

everybody's yeah exactly. Some of these people don't need the candy,

you know what I mean. Right, don't worry about it.

I'll get a large, no scratch that. Give me the

hot dog, yeah you know what, And now forget the

hot dog. Too many nitrates. Give me give me a water,

take of water, and uh, nachos.

That's good.

Can you hurry up please?

All right?

Thanks?

Unbelievable. And now preview time. That's good. Oh that's great.

Your talk the all time.

Well, it's just good doing it, you know. It's fune.

That's good.

Yeah, hey, in a business meeting throwing a movie.

That's great. It's forty minutes of previews.

Okay, really.

How did they get these made? I mean, who's paying

for this? Now?

There's fifty five production companies, there's ten production companies.

Where does the movie start? Oh?

Look there's the.

Logo now of the companies that you.

It's what is this? What are we?

What are we doing here with this?

Like?

What do we? Wow?

Wow?

Is it a garbage bag full of popcorn? Really? Yeah?

Did you buy all the popcorn?

No? Just just home off?

Can you can you clear your throat like a little

well quieter?

Maybe? What do what? Do? Who eat? Meals?

They're serving meals? Just hear?

Sorry, this is Anger.

He will make sure the world knows Anger is in control.

But what you really need to watch out for is

when he's out of control.

You know, between me and you, I'm kind of glad

he's not in the theater anymore. Anger sure is hard

to be around. Sometimes it's entertaining to watch and see,

but really, when you're in the crosshairs of anger, nobody

really wants to be around that. You think of many

movies where anger is at the center of a person's emotion.

At first the reason and the motive at which they're

doing everything, Anger is at the center of it. You

think of the famous movie Gladiator, where a man loses

his entire family and he's angry and all he wants

to do is go after Caesar and kill Caesar. All

that becomes about is retribution, but by the end of

it he sees a broader side of these things. Or

you think of the movie The A Bruce Banner has

this side of him that anger. The Hulk only comes

out when he gets most angry. So and there's a

famous line where he looks at some individuals and he says,

you may be wondering when I turn green and how

I get angry? He said, The reality is I'm always angry,

and really, he says, he's always ready to go. That's

really an intimidate thing to be around. Have you ever

been around someone where you got to walk around on

pins and needles wondering is this the moment? Is this

the thing that's going to like them on fire? Is

this the thing just like inside out, where the flame

is gonna come out and they're gonna be angry at everyone.

I kind of felt that. Not too long ago. A

few months back, I was on a flight headed back

home to California and there was a woman that was

next to me who was probably having a little bit

too many of the free drinks on the flight. By

the end of the flight, she leans over at me

after a five hour flight because I was working on

my computer and I was working on a message, and

she said, do you happen to be a Christian? And

I thought, oh, this is you know, this is great.

She notices I'm a Christian. It's gonna have a fun conversation.

I said yes. She goes, do you happen to be

work at a church? Because she saw my computer the

things that I was doing. I said, yes, absolutely, and

she said, please tell me your church's name so that

I can never go to it. And she begins to

angerly spill how she hates Christians, how she hates people

who go to church. And by this time, I said, man,

we've been on a five hour flight, We've had minimal talk.

I don't want to argue, but there was a sight

of me where I started getting a little angry because

she started getting personal. And she said, by the way,

if you're a Christian. You should have been talking to

me about Jesus this whole flight. And I looked at her,

I said, would you want me to talk about Jesus?

And she said, no, I don't, And so I found

that I was. I was in trouble either way. By

the end of it, she says, I'm angry and I

want nothing to do with people who go to church

because my son recently became a Christian and I don't

have a relationship with him anymore. At that point, I

realized that her anger was really be fueled by something

that was really personal and really painful. At that moment,

I actually calmed down because I realized her offense wasn't

with me. She was hurting. And a lot of times

we got a pinpoint why our anger comes from where

it comes from, and the only way that you can

heal from anger is if you address anger head on.

All right, let's continue to talk this week for at

the movies. Let's talk further about anger by show hands.

You know, often in church we talk about shame the

devil until the truth. Okay, so I want some of

y'all to shame the devil this morning, and I want

to see by show of hands. If you've been angry

within the past twenty four hours, raise your hand. You've

been angry the past twenty four Okay, we're already at

about a third of the room. With that, all right,

If you've been angry within the past forty eight hours,

let me see a show of hands. Okay, we see.

Now we're probably about fifty percent. Let's just say, if

you've been angry the past seventy two hours, the past

three days, raise your hand. You've been angry. Okay. Think

we're almost at seventy percent of the room. Now, let's

see if you've been angry within the week, raise your hand.

Let me see hand. Okay, think we're at ninety percent

of the room. Okay, so we can just safely say

within the past seven days, almost one hundred percent of

the room has dealt with anger in some way, shape

or form. Let me see any bold people in here

who showed up to church angry today. By a show

of hands, okay, we got some honest people, at least

fifty people, and here you are. Okay. If there's any

place to be angry, let it be church. Okay, But man,

you see something that we all deal with on a

regular basis. Some anger is sometimes justified. Other anger sometimes

we could say probably isn't justified. But the reality is

we struggle with it, we have to deal with it.

We're going to talk about it today, hopefully in a

different lens that you haven't particularly thought of before that's

been in line with this series. So if you brought

a Bible today, or you have it on your smart device,

or you simply want to follow along on the screen,

would you turn for just a few moments to Ephesians

chapter four. We're going to read out of Ephesians chapter

four that's in the New Testament. So so far in

this series we've been in the Old Testament. I thought

it'd be appropriate as we talk about anger, we talk

about the New Testament, because the New Testament begins to

speak about what it means to be a Christian, a

believer and deal with these emotions. And the Apostle Paul

particularly encourages us on how to view anger, but also

what anger can lead to if we don't view it

in its proper place. Ephesians chapter four, verse twenty five.

If you guys are ready, would you do me the

honor of standing for reading of God's word this morning today.

We do that just because we want to give God

our focus and make sure we're You know, whenever someone

of high prominence in society comes in a room, mostly

everybody stands up, and we believe that the highest thing

we can read today or know today is God's word,

and we stand for it. And here's what it says. Therefore,

having put away falsehood, let each of you speak the

truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Be angry and do not sin. I want you to

repeat that for just a moment. Be angry and do

not sin. There we go. Do not let the sun

go down on your anger. Next versus, and give no

opportunity to the devil. So far, what we've learned is

that we are encouraged to be angry and not sin.

That's what we've encouraged to do. We've also been encouraged

not to let the sun go down on our anger.

What immediately that means is if you are angry and sin,

or if you are angry and let the sun go

down on your anger, then you give opportunity for Satan

to use you or to abuse you, or to implicate you.

And so he says let the thief no longer steal,

but rather let him labor. Seems a little odd that

we were talking about anger and now we're talking about

a thief. There's a reason why, he says, so that

he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but

only such as is good for building up, as fits

for the occasion, that it may give grace to those

who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of

God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption,

the Last Peace. Let all bitterness and wrath, and anger,

and clamor and slander be put away from you, along

with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving

one another, as God in Christ forgave you amen. You

may be seated today. What I want to do is

look at for just a moment that whole verse that

we just read. I want you to see something that

be begins to stand out. So what we've already noticed

is there's an encouragement for us by Paul to not

be angry. Okay, And what he doesn't want is he

doesn't want our anger. We're gonna mark our Bible up

for a little bit, for just a few moments. He

doesn't want our anger to lead to sin. What is sin, well,

according to the word of God, the word sin is

to miss the mark. It's like an archer who is

shooting for a target and they miss the bull's eye,

and so you're missing the mark. You're missing who's our mark.

Our mark is holiness in God. Our mark is God's way.

And so he says, anger can make you miss the mark.

And then what he begins to do is he goes

to a place where then he says that and says,

don't give any opportunity to the devil. But then it's

odd because then he jumps over here and he says,

let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him

labor and do something honest. It seems a little odd

that he would jump to that, but not necessarily when

you put it into a picture. So what happens is

now he says, so that he may have something to

share with anyone, And now he goes like this, He says,

let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, okay,

And then from that point Paul continues to talk and

he says this, let all he says this, you are sealed.

And he says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger

and clamor and slander be put away from you. Okay,

So you'll notice he talks about anger, He talks about

not letting the sun go down on your anger. Then

what does he do. He says, don't let the thief

steal anymore. Then he says, let no corrupting talk come

from your mouth. And then he says, and all bitterness

and wrath and clamor and slander be put away. Okay,

I know you're not following yet, but we're gonna get

to somewhere. Now, give me the blank page. So what

happens is is what happens is the apostle Paul, as

he's talking in this moment, what is he talking about, Well,

what he's talking about is he talks about the thief.

Which what do thiefs use to steal is they use

what their hands. Okay. Then when he's talking about a thief,

he also encourages us that no corrupting words come out

of our mouth. Well, according to the Bible, what's affected

when things come out of your mouth? What will see

in a few moments that out of the abundance of

the mouth, the heart speaks. Okay, then what does he do?

He talks about bitterness, slander, and the words often where

do the words live that come out of your mouth?

Will they live in your head? And so what Paul

says in this moment is he says anger when you're angry,

angry and anger will control your hands, your heart, and

your head. So as he's talking, he says, well, what

will lead you to sin? What will lead you to

sin is if you allow your anger to control what

you do, you will start to walk in sin. When

you lat anger sit in your hearts, you will start

to sin when you lat anger sit in your head.

Anger is one of those emotions. Have you ever been

sad before and a friend makes a joke even when

you're crying and you're sad, and you'll laugh, You're like, oh,

that was funny. Or you remember anxious before, and maybe

you're anxious about something going on a flight or something,

and then maybe you know, sometimes we'll get you know,

will be up in the air and our plane will shake,

and my wife will start getting anxious, and then I'll

just put my hand on her hand and she'll be calm.

But when you're angry, it don't matter what happens around you.

You're just angry. It doesn't Anger doesn't tend to let

room in for anything. You could be sad and you

can still laugh. You could be anxious and you can

still be calm, what somewhat. But when you're angry, you

are angry because anger is one of those things that

it takes control of your whole person. And so today,

for the few moments that we have together, we're gonna

look at each of those and we're gonna see how

we can handle those. So if you're taking notes, the

first one we're gonna look at is see how important

it is to make sure that when we're angry we

temper our hands. Want you to see this verse today

that's found in Psalms, chapter seventeen, verses six to eight.

It says, this I call upon you, for you will

answer me. Oh God, incline your ear to hear me,

hear my words, wondrously, show your steadfast love, O, savior

of those who seek refuge from their adversaries, at your

right hand. Keep me as the apple of your eye,

hide me in the shadow of your wings. You know,

if you were to do a study of the Bible,

particularly the Old Testament. Every time that the Bible somewhat

tries to refer to God's covering or God's leading, it'll

use God's hand as an explanation. Because what happens is

is when God's guiding you, there's this feeling that's god

hand is with you. And so what happens is we

see that the impostle Paul talks about anger and not

letting it lead us to sin, and letting lead us

to a place where the sun could go down. Because

what will often happen is when you get angry, the

first thing it'll enter is your head. And when you're angry,

you continue to replay it. You replay it, you replay it,

you replay it, and if you keep replaying it enough,

it'll start to impact your heart. Now you actually start

feeling some type of way. Now you actually start convincing

yourself of an alternate reality. You start convincing yourself of

how you think you really feel, or you start to

convince yourself how it's justified, and you start to hold

onto this end of your heart. Eventually, what will happen

is it will guide to your actions, your hand and

what we do know about the Word of God is

what you reap, and what you sew is what you

will reap. So if you start to sew anger, if

you start to so arguing, if you start to sew

being justified for the way that you act or what

you do, then you will immediately reciprocate that what it

is that you are handing out. And anger is one

of those things that you will rarely find yourself winning.

When you are angry, you are almost always losing because

anger does that to us. It takes us to a

place where it's trying to move our actions against the grain,

against God's hand. And the moment we step out of

God's hand and we take it into our own hands,

that's often where you find yourself in a lot of trouble.

So I want you to see what it looks like

where it really sits in our heart, because this is

something you really need healing for because the longer it

lives in the heart, the longer it will control your

hands and your head. So what do I do when

this thing it lives in my heart? Well, Jesus tells us.

According to Luke, chapter six, verse forty five, the good

person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good.

The evil person, out of his evil treasure, produces evil.

Then he says, for out of the abundance of the heart,

his mouth speaks. You know, I've done it before where

I've met people or counseled people that had one too

many drinks one time or many times, and they end

up saying things or doing things that they say that

wasn't me, that was the alcohol. And then then we

always respond to say, hey, the alcohol just gave you

courage to do what was inside of you. That's what

it did. Nothing, It didn't force you to do nothing.

You didn't black out. It just that usual that conscience

that you have, that guide that you have if you're

a Christian, the Holy Spirit that you have that's normally

speaking to you, that's normally guiding you. Well, when you're

not sober anymore, and I'm not just talking about alcohol,

when you're angry and you're not sober anymore, you will

act like and you will think that you can say

things that justifies well, I was angry when I said that.

That don't mean nothing the matter. You were angry when

you say out of the abundance of the mouth your

heart is speaking, so you can't say, oh, I was

mad when I said that. I'm sorry if I'm stepping

on some people's toes today, and I'm removing your excuse

of what you use on a regular basis. But according

to word God, it doesn't work. That excuse doesn't work.

All you've done is you've shown your hands of card,

and your hands of card is you are angry, you

are hurting, you're in pain, you are insecure. You don't

know what to do, and so what tends to happen.

If you've ever seen a dog that's cornered before it

starts growling, and it starts getting angry, and it starts chomping,

it doesn't matter if if it's a Chihuahua or a Rottweiler.

When they're in a corner, they do the same thing.

And when you and I exemplify as much anger as

we do, you think that we think that it's justified.

Oh hell, they're angry because they're justified to be up

to saying no. What we think is what are they

insecure about? What is it they feel like they are

out of control? Because here's the beauty about God. And

I love that God gives us permission to exercise our emotions.

Because Ephesians four doesn't say the Christian no longer gets angry,

you would think that's the case. I mean, Jesus tells

us to turn the other cheek when someone does us wrong.

So you would think God would say, hey, being angry

has no place in the Kingdom of God. But you

read the Old Testament. In the New Testament, there's plenty

things that make God angry. And we read Ephesians four

and it says be angry, do not sin. You think yourself, WHOA,

what does that even mean? Well, the reality is we

have all these emotions, right, here's me and you, and

so you got all these emotions, these emotions we've been

talking about, you have you know, you have sadness, you

have joy, you have anxiety, yeah, uh, you have you

have embarrassment, You have all these things, right. You even

you even have anger, right. And so what happens is

is when they're all relatively meant to be made small,

it's pretty easy to deal with. It's easy to handle.

And so there are days my wife comes home and

she's sad, and you know, we sit down and we

have dinner, we talk about it a little bit, and

then by the end of the night she's not sad anymore.

There's times that I come home with anxiety or stress

and then I spend some time with my wife or

my kids. We go out to the park, we play.

I come back, I go, oh, I'm pretty good. Now

I'm doing okay. But anger is one of those things

that the moment it plants a seed in your heart

and your head, you start to on a regular basis,

you start to give it air and you and you

just everything makes you mad. Right you go to Windy's,

the fact that they messed up your your your fries

were soggy, and you ask for double cheese and you

only got single cheese. And then you go to the

grocery store and the clerk didn't have your favorite ice

cream and they told you they're not gonna have it

for a week. And then you go to work and

you open the fridge and someone got your lunch into

your lunch and your work fridge. And I know some

people are saying amen to that, and so you keep

feeding that and feeding it, and so you just keep

thinking about this stuff, and you just you start letting

everything get upset. You start letting everything make you angry,

and so what happens is it just fills all the

space inside of you. Now you're just angry all the time.

And the thing with anger is as you're trying to

have these other emotions, happiness, joy, things that are really

healthy for you, well, when you filled yourself with anger,

when those things try to come, nothing can sit with it,

Nothing rests, and so you're one what's going on? And

instead of going and getting with God, instead of healing,

instead of figuring out why you have anger issues, instead

of asking God God what we have a course at

our church we do call Freedom that'll help you discover

a lot of these emotions, help you put them in

the right place, help you discover where the Holy Spirit

is in these things. But if you don't treat this

with seriousness, then all you're doing every time is you're

just throwing new emotions at your anger. And anger doesn't

allow any space for any other emotion. So you're angry,

and you convinced yourself, as long as my circumstances change,

I won't be angry anymore. Well, guess what, tomorrow, we're

all making you angry again because we don't know how

to deal with your anger, because we don't know what

really makes you angry. You think it's about the fact

that no one listens to you, or that no one's

taking you serious or no one cares about you. But

it is so much deeper than that, so much deeper

than that, and you've been sowing anger for so long.

What happens is people will just start matching your anger

with their anger. So they went from being really patient

with you with your anger to actually kind of getting

fed up with the anger. And so as you have

been filling them up with your anger, what happens is

is they fill themselves up with the same anger. And

now you get to a point where people can't get

along no more. Because what happens with anger sadness. We

can all kind of put up with. We all, you know.

You know, there's that one person in your life that's

just always mopey. They're like e or it's never happy

with anything. You could take them to the best restaurant

in all of Los Angeles and they're gonna find something

wrong with it. It's like, oh, well, the Brussels Cross

were soggy, and it's just you know, and Mike Colke

was a little flat and you're like, it was all great,

what are you talking about? But we put up with that,

you know, we put up with people who are always joyful.

Believe it or not. I don't people who always have

joy that make me feel very uncomfortable. And so when

I'm around people who have a lot of joy I do.

I put up with it a lot of times because

because it's very uncomfortable. I want to see them upset.

Sometimes I want to see them sad, and they just

never are. But we put up with that, right, people

who are anxious, It's like my wife, and my wife

deals with anxiousness. Man, I'm always I try to be

as patient as possible whenever that happens. But guess what

anger nobody has patience for. If you're gonna be angry

all the time, you're gonna isolate yourself from relationships. You're

gonna lose a lot of relationships that you're gonna be

sober one day, and you're gonna think to yourself, how

did I allow myself to get to a heartened heart

where I thought everyone was out to get me, where

I thought everyone was doing me wrong, And here I am,

I'm on a lonely island. And I have no one

with me, because that's exactly what will happen when anger

starts to hit your heart. And then what happens is

we'll see in a beautiful way what happen as it

begins to live in your head, because as it's in

your heart, it'll start to exemplify in your head. So

we ask ourselves what do we do when I find

myself always angry in my head? Because I had that

the other day, two days ago, I ordered something online

that was very It was pretty pricey. It was a

pricey investment. And it came to my doorstep and I

opened it and the box was empty. It wasn't in there.

And so there's a pair of optical glasses and here,

you guys know, optical glasses are not cheap. And so

I call the customer service. I'm like, hey, my glasses

aren't in here, and I'm like, can you take a

picture of it? I go, you let me take a

picture of an empty box. Yeah, I'm happy to do that.

Boom an empty box, and she goes, oh, sir, we

have very detailed packaging processes, so that's not our problem.

That's a problem for FedEx ups. You got to go

to ups and deal with this. I said, I'm sorry,

what and she goes, I go, how long does this take?

She goes, it could take anywhere between eight to fourteen weeks. Now,

how many you guys know in the moment, Oh, I

was about to tear someone up. This girl had no

idea the capacity of how I was about to rip

her up over the phone. And she's just like, yeah,

there's nothing we can do. Yeah, there's nothing we can do.

And I think to myself, and I'm sure if I yelled,

kicked and screamed, I could probably get something out of this.

Isn't that how that always is? The people who are loudest,

the people who kick the most, who scream the most,

they get the most attention. You can go to Disneyland

and have a bad experience, but they won't do anything

for you. But the moment you start screaming in Disneyland

like okay, sir, okay, sar okay sir, we'll give you

a new tickets like why? Because we respond to anger.

Anger creates a response. So I had to make a

decision with that girl. I'm like, she's just doing her job.

I'm gonna hang up the phone because I was mad,

as you can believe. And what happens is you gotta

make a decision that as it lives in your head,

Am I gonna gate keep this? Am I gonna let

this leave my lips? Or not? You're your own gatekeeper

with your anger, You're your own gatekeeper. When it leads

to sin, you're your own gatekeeper. Because what happens is

Apostle Paul says in Ephesian chapter four, if you don't

gatekeep your anger, then you, as a believer, it will

lead to something where you will grieve the Holy Spirit himself,

where the Holy Spirit will be a spectator towards your

anger and go, oh, that's my baby. Oh no, yes,

she's with me. Yeah, he's with me. They know better

than that the world. That's the reason why this is

in the New Testament, not the Old Testament, because the

world knows how to be angry. The Bible, the Word

of God in Jesus Christ, knows how to heal. And

so the moment you choose to follow Jesus, and you

choose to follow the King of kings and the Lord

of Lords and the Prince of peace, what happens is

you give up your rights and privileges to hold onto

your anger. You don't give up your rights and privileges

to be angry, but you give up your rights and

privileges to hold on to it. I have a dog.

There are times he gets and he'll like, he'll catch

a mouse or a bunny or something like that. But

I don't let him keep it. He's just a dog,

so he'll go in about. But when I see it,

he's got to release it. If he doesn't, he's gonna

be in trouble. And when you when we're angry, God's saying,

it's okay, it's gonna happen. Anger is gonna happen, but

you better release it, because if you don't release it,

then you don't reflect being a child of God. If

you hold onto it, you reflect the world standard of

how they do things. I want you to see what

Peter says. First Peter, chapter three, verse eight says this, Finally,

all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love,

a tender heart, and a humble mind. So someone may

ask what's the path towards getting rid of this anger,

releasing this anger? Well, according to First Peter, the path

is having the humility of mind, being humble humility is

the opposite of a right to be angry, because when

you're angry, you think more of yourself, you think more

of your issues. You hold on You justify why you

can hold on to it. You justify why you don't

need to forgive. You justify why you don't need a love.

You justify why it was okay for you to say

or do the thing that you did. But humility says

I don't have any right. Humility says I don't have

any right, a right to hold on to this. So

what Peter says, He says, a humble mind. But I'm

gonna take it a little deeper, because humble mind in

English isn't even the accurate depiction of what it means

to have a humble mind. What he actually uses is

he uses a Greek phrase to pay nos, which to

pay nos the very definition is to be God reliant.

So when he says that you and I are called

to have a humble mind, he says, you and I

are called to have a god reliant mind, a mind

that is fully reliant on God. It's not just humility

that's like, oh no, you know, no, I don't need applause.

Oh no, I don't need attention. A God reliant mind

is someone who goes Yeah. I mean, I have every

right to be upset. I have every right to be angry.

I have every right to get right with those people.

But I rely on God. So I don't need you.

I don't need you. My mind is reliant fully on God.

And it's a comparative term that opposes self reliance to

God reliance. And so you will grieve the Holy Spirit

when your life, when your emotions go from relying on

God to reliant on yourself. That's what grieves God. What

grieves God is as it leads to sin, or what

leads to us, is that anger will actually show Man

and show God. I don't need God. I got this,

And that's what grieves God. What griefs God is not

that you were upset. It's that, by your actions and

what placed in your heart and your words, you have

shown God. You have shown the Holy Spirit, and you

have shown others that. Yeah, I'm a person who loves Jesus.

I'm a person who goes to church. I'm a person

who worships God. But when the rubber meets the road,

I don't actually need him. I have myself. I don't

need him to justify. I don't need his hand to

guide me. I don't need his hand to cover me.

Because I got the right words to say to my

spouse when I'm angry. I got the right words to

say to my coworkers when they offend me. I got

the right words to say to my neighbor when they

mess up my side of the lawn with their stuff.

I got the right words. I got the right words

to the server when they mess up my order. God.

God may have words, but he don't have my right words.

God may do something, but how long is that gonna take.

I need action right now. I need to be justified

right now. And so there the Holy Spirit is there

as you're a believer, and he's filled you, and he's

watching this whole thing, and he's trying to talk to you.

He's trying to reel you back, he's trying to hold

you back. You're like, no, Holy Spirit, I got this.

And he's grieved. He's like, oh, And so what happens

is when we grieve God, it's a place where we

say I'm self reliant, I can do this. So the

beauty is that there is a promise that as you

and I get to a place of being fulfilled with

our emotions is you may in your life, you may

feel like you're full of anger, but we need to

go to a place where we're filled with humility. Not

just a humility of thinking like, oh, I don't I'm okay,

I'm just a humble person. It's a humility that says

I rely on God, I rely on Jesus. I don't

need to get involved in that. I got People always

ask me all the time, Hey, I heard this about

you passed around him. Do you have a comment on that? Like, man,

I got no comment on that. I rely on Jesus, don't.

I don't need comment on that. Someone may come after

you one day on your DMS. You may you know,

you may be struggling with relationships and you find yourself

on Facebook and you think, okay, someone's talking about me.

I need to get on them comments on Facebook. I

need to get in them dms. I need to do

an email thread to everyone, or I need to get

in a family group text. And really, what you needed

to say is God's got me. I'm gonna love my

fruit show. I'm gonna walk in forgiveness. I'm gonna walk

in love now. There may be times you gotta speak

something in truth, but that's why you got to check

and gate keep yourself to say is this a righteous

anger or is this an unholy anger that I'm holding

on too? Because there is such thing as a righteous anger.

You may have to get upset about some things, but

you're doing it in a way that it's a holiness.

It's a conviction and it's not a place that you

feel like you're defending yourself or you're justifying yourself. And

so as we find ourselves in a place of oftentimes

getting angry, the question is do you hold on to

it for a moment and pass it to God. Do

you put it in its same size range as all

the other emotions, or do you blow it up every

single day? Do you feel yourself every day? And if

you find your self filling you every day, it might

be time for you to go to God and say, God,

help me discover what it is that's actually making you angry.

Help me to because because it has nothing to do

with whatever you think it is, there is something deeper

that is causing your anger on why you feel like

you have to protect yourself by showing your anger every time,

and that you need to heal and you need to

give to the Lord, that you need to ask Jesus

to come and grab a hold of because it will

absolutely take control of your life and it'll tear things

down in your life. And so I want to invite

you today as we close, as maybe you've struggled with anger,

or maybe next week we're gonna close and we're gonna

talk about joy. But as you struggle with many things

in your life, you may struggle with grief, you may

struggle with anxiety, you may struggle with fear, you may

struggle with anger. I love the beauty about what we

sung today. And the fact about Jesus is that he's

the Prince of peace. Because whatever your struggle is, when

it comes to your emotions, the one fixed to all

of those things is peace. That God can be peace,

just like he spoke to as Jesus spoke to the

sea of Galilee when there was a storm and he

spoke peace over the sea. That was a picture of

that's exactly what Jesus can do to the chaos of

your own life. And in the same way, whether it's

life that brings about a storm, or whether it's our

own sin that brings storms into our life. That as

we would be willing, if we would give those things

over to Jesus, the Prince of Peace, you can see

God begin to take control of your life, and you

can go from self reliant to God reliant. And the

only way that we can do that today is through

faith in Jesus Christ. He's the only one that came

to this earth and lived a perfect life. Every other

person is imperfect, and every other person needs a savior.

But Jesus, he is our savior, and he sits at

the right hand of the Father today. And the Bible

tells us that for those that would follow Jesus, Jesus

sits on the right hand of the Father, and he

intercedes for us. In other words, he knows your name,

and he speaks your name on behalf of you. Something

we all desperately need. We've all fallen short, we've all sinned.

One day we all stand before God, we will stand

before God and we'll give an account. But with Jesus,

when we stand before God and we give an account,

he will interrupt that moment and he will say, that's

a child of ours. They don't have to give an

account for all of their sins because they followed me.

They've given their life to me. They fully believed in

the death and resurrection. And so as you're here today,

you're saying, here's about time I follow the Prince of Peace.

It's about time I make Jesus my lord and savior.

Then I encourage you, whether you're in the courtyard, the cafe,

or in this room, could we all bow our heads

and close our eyes right now, in this moment, we're

all going to leave here together. If you're here today

and you're ready to make that decision, that step of faith,

to follow Jesus for the first time, if you're ready

to give him your all today, what I'm not saying

is if you're ready to be perfect. What I'm saying

is God knows you're not perfect. A lot of people say,

when I get this figured out, when I get when

I can you know, fix this or do that, then

I'll give my life to Jesus. No, God wants you

exactly where you're at. He'll give you the power, he'll

give you the strength, the Holy Spirit will lead you.

And so if you're here to make that decision, to

follow Jesus as the Holy Spirit of speaking to you.

Would you engage me today and would you say this

prayer out loud as we affirm the work of God.

Would you say, Dear Lord Jesus, in this place, I

confess you as Lord and Savior. I believe in my

heart that you died on the cross and you rose

three days later. And from this day forward I call

you my Lord in my savior, and I will follow

you for the rest of my days in Jesus' name. Amen.