Creatures Of Habit | Week 4 - Anger

welcome northview it's so good to have you here today thank you for giving us a part of your weekend for those of you that are our guests northview is one church in several locations if you don't have a church home we'd be honored to have you come and be a part of all that god is doing man you talk about a summer spectacular we have such a great lineup of speakers for you this summer you will want to cancel all of your vacation plans to be here okay just kidding about that you may not want to cancel your vacation plans but seriously as much as you can possibly be here you'll want to be here we've got some great great speakers lined up i'm so excited to hear them speak and we kick it all off on june the 6th and the 7th with frank reich the head coach the head coach of the colts is going to be with us now many of you saw just one year ago i interviewed frank in his home and it was an incredible story that he shared with us if you haven't seen it maybe you can go back and watch that but it was an incredible incredible story what i found when i was with frank is that he's just such a humble guy he really he's the real deal guys but what a lot of people don't know is that before he was in football before he was a coach in football he was actually a pastor he was the president of a bible college and he was actually a pastor so this time it's not going to be an interview this time frank is going to preach he's going to teach and so you will want to be here and guys listen to me this is an incredible opportunity for you to invite your friends i mean who doesn't know who coach frank reich is so invite your neighbors invite your coworkers to come and be with us on that june 6 7 weekend well i'm anxious to jump into this today so let me pray and we are going to get started father i just uh i thank you and i praise you for your faithfulness god you're an amazing god i thank you lord for the the many ways that you've been blessing our church but we're thankful god for all the different ways that you've been blessing churches all throughout our community and i pray to your god that not only will you continue to bless our church but i pray specifically today for east 91st christian church what an incredible congregation they are god would you just bless and use them and god i pray for their pastor rick grover i'm so thankful for his friendship and pray god we could link arms together to make a difference throughout central indiana thanks god be with us now as we get into this message and i pray that you would use it to challenge us and just to stir our hearts in the name of jesus amen well guys i grew up in a middle class home with parents that absolutely loved me and yet i had a father with a lot of unresolved anger i never quite knew when he was going to blow or what might set him off it could be anything seriously it could be a teenager driving too fast up the road and he'd run out of the house screaming and shouting at them it could be it could be that i had the television too loud when he was trying to sleep at night and so he came out yelling whatever it was when it happened things got loud and explicitly began to flow these outbursts of anger created a lot of different emotions in me as a child anything from from fear to embarrassment to making me angry over my dad's anger on one occasion for instance when i was about 11 we were in a car going somewhere i don't know where we were going but we were coming up towards a stop sign and he was looking off at something and he rear-ended the car in front of us and immediately he turned to me and started screaming and yelling at me as if it were my fault guys something had obviously happened in my father's life before he got in the car that day and i don't mean minutes or hours before i literally mean years before some injustice in his life that was totally unrelated to that fender bender some hurt or some offense that was never resolved and so it left him responding to every perceived injustice with anger and after a while the anger became so much a part of his life that he didn't even notice the damage it was doing to those that he loved now fortunate now fortunately for me the story ends on a much happier note in my teenage years my dad discovered a relationship with jesus christ and it radically changed his life i mean from that time on he went out of his way to make sure that i knew that he was proud of me and to make sure that he that i knew that he loved me god became a priority in his life i mean so much so he got involved with just about everything anything at the church started a bus ministry at that time which was popular in those days and he started a 24-hour prayer chapel and he started our first children's ministry i mean he just wanted to serve god and yet i'm not telling you that he never got angry again because like all of us there were things that upset him but i do believe the point that i'm trying to make is that i do believe that he broke that habit of responding to every difficult thing in his life with anger so we're we're talking about us being in this series we're talking about us being creatures of habit and how these habits hold you back from god's best and it's all based on my new book that was just released actually this week by the same title and as i did research for this book i found that most of us greatly underestimate the power of habits in our life i certainly did i had no idea that the scripture talked so much about it i had no idea that it really played such a big role in our life in fact a psychologist uh and others have done surveys and they have said that over 40 of all the things that we do every single day are done out of habit let me say that to you again that 40 of the things that we do each and every day are done out of habit i mean that is almost half of everything that happens happens from habit what is a habit well a habit is a simple choice we make and then when we repeat that choice the next day and the next day and when we repeat it enough times it then becomes an unconscious pattern i don't want you to forget that definition it becomes an unconscious pattern or in other words it becomes second nature we don't even give it a thought anymore it's just we just do it naturally and those habits become our identity in other words we become known for our habits good or bad we become known for our habits let's say for instance that um you were going to describe me to someone else and let's say that i'm an honest person a person of integrity and yet at the same time maybe i complain a lot well when you go describe me to someone else you're gonna say well you know he's he is as honest as you'll ever find you can trust him completely and totally he is a bit of a complainer but he's an honest guy see you've just described me by my habits and that my friends is why it's so important that we establish good habits in our life okay you say well steve so how in the world do i know whether it's a good habit or a bad habit well guys actually that's a great question because our brain can't delineate between the two it doesn't know the difference between a good habit or a bad habit and so we have to establish what we want we have to establish what we feel like are good habits good habits are what good habits reinforce your desire to be like jesus good habits reinforce your desire to be christ-like in scripture those are called spiritual disciplines spiritual disciplines those are the things that that help us uh to become like christ they become stepping stones in our like helping us to develop the character nature of christ bad habits on the other hand conflict with christ's nature in our life bad habits conflict with who christ wants you and i to be the scripture calls those things spiritual strongholds i mean they get a they get a grip on your life and they keep you from god's best they're also called addictions or they're also called um it's also called idolatry in our life and these things become tombstones to us in other words these are these are going to keep us from god's best now as i mentioned uh just a second ago the scripture has a lot to say about habits much more than i ever realized that it did in fact let me show you in romans chapter 12 verse 2 it says do not conform do not conform to the pattern of this world now remember what i said a minute ago when we were talking about the definition of a habit i said a habit is something that when you when you repeat it enough times it becomes a conscious uh or an unconscious pattern it becomes like second nature an unconscious pattern and so paul says do not conform to the pattern of this world to the habits of this world but instead he says be transformed or changed how by the renewing of your mind that's really really important because what did we say we said it's second nature to us a habit becomes an unconscious pattern it's second nature we don't even give it a thought and so therefore if we're trying to break an old habit and establish a new habit then then we have to renew our mind we have to renew our mind from the old habit to a new habit or a new pattern that we're establishing it says then you will be able to test and approve what god's will is his good pleasing and perfect will listen guys when you invited jesus christ to come into your life the power of god broke sins hold on you before you were saved before you were christian sin had a grip on you sin had a hold on you and when you invited christ into your life he broke sins hold in other words he gave you the power to say no to sin and yet yet i hear all the time christians will say but steve i've been a christian now for three years i've been a christian now for five years and i feel like i'm stuck i feel like i can't get any further in my spiritual growth and the reason is is because you haven't dealt with all these bad habits you say even though you now have the power to say no to sin you've got all these bad habits that have been established over a lifetime over years and so before you can move forward you've got to break the bad habits and establish good habits well today we're going to talk about the habit of anger but i first think it's important to mention that anger is not always a bad thing listen to me anger is not always a bad thing in fact anger is a god-given emotion listen it's when it becomes a habit or in other words it becomes the way we automatically respond to things we don't like that's when the problem begins anger is designed to help us deal with any threat that might come into our life you see anger becomes a problem when you lose control when you lose control of your words or when you lose control of your actions for instance we know that jesus got angry right do you remember when he ran the money changers out of the temple the merchants were turning religion into a money-making scam and it angered him and i think to be honest though i think there are many other things that make jesus angry any kind of injustice angers god i think it angers god to see an adult harm a child and yet even though jesus got angry the scriptures make it very clear that he never sinned he never sinned you see the type of anger that jesus demonstrated was more of a righteous indignation he got angry at those who acted contrary to god's standard of right and wrong of god's standard of fairness and justice and goodness and this anger is more directed at the wrong that was done and not so much towards the person involved in fact it's this kind of anger that has produced great movements such as mad mothers against drunk driving their anger over the loss of their children motivated them to do something about it by starting one of the largest victim advocate groups in america today on the other hand anger is an emotion that many of us experience when things in our world are not going the way we want them to go maybe you've been i don't know maybe you've been working towards a promotion but the promotion goes to someone else it makes you so angry you know or you tell your kids to clean their room but they ignore you that makes you so mad as i said if anger becomes your immediate response every time you don't like something well then you've established a habit you've established a habit of anger and so now all of a sudden this this emotional response has gone to a response that's habitual and you just respond to every circumstance or situation in that way and when you do that listen it has the potential to hurt your health to wreck your peace of mind to destroy your relationships and honestly to even threaten your career i once heard uh psychologist and author dr richard dobbins i had him come and speak to a to a men's group and as he was talking to these men he said gentlemen there are basically three things that men struggle with he said they struggle with number one sexual issues number two anger issues and number three they lie about the first two guys anger has become an epidemic in america you see signs of our nation's irritability everywhere you go i mean come on the polarization of the political system the everyday nastiness of social media or the online world and even as of late to cancel culture or worse yet or the workplace or school shootings that we've seen guys it's gotten so bad we're afraid to lock eyes with anyone in fear they might lose their cool and pull out a gun and yet violence in america is not random most violence in america is not random the american spcc says there's over 4 million child abuse cases reported annually think about that that's just the ones that are reported over four million child abuse cases reported each and every year and many of those take place in the hands of angry out of control parents friends i think we all know this but none of us are born with anger issues right we're not born with anger issues it is learned behavior which is why if you are a parent you need to control your anger in front of your kids psychologists have called our generation the age of rage it's become so common that we've created our own rage vocabulary for instance road rage that's a term i know that you've heard or maybe even possibly experienced or maybe you've experienced check out rage while waiting in a long line at a retail store or maybe you've experienced phone range after being put on hold for such a long period of time or we even see it in recreational activities such as golf rage several years ago i was playing golf with a buddy and he was having a bad day and uh finally after one time he hooked it so bad lost his ball and he just lost it he got angry and he took his club and he threw it into the pond he jumped in his cart and he took off and we just kind of shrugged and there were three of us and we got in the cart and followed it took about two holes but about two holes later he calmed down and he just said guys i'll be back and he drove the cart back to that pond and he waded into that murky water and he found his club proverbs chapter 14 verse 29 says people with understanding control their anger a hot temper shows great foolishness some of you might argue some of you might argue that you cannot control your anger and i would simply push back and say listen while you might not be able to control the situation or you might not be able to control the way it makes you feel you certainly can control how you express your anger it reminds me of a a passion play it was an outdoor passion play where an actor was playing the part of jesus and uh as he would walk up this hill he would carry the cross behind him he was pulling it and of course the actors were all along and there were people along the side watching this play and there was a heckler and this heckler was going along and he was calling him names and swearing at him and and just being very verbally abusive and finally this this actor that was playing the role of jesus got so angry that he puts down the cross and he goes over and he hits him in the face he comes back he picks up the cross and continues on well at the end the director came up to him and he said what are you doing he said i know this guy was a pain but my gosh i can't have i can't have one of my actors going out and assaulting one of the spectators he said especially the one playing the part of jesus and he said i'm so sorry it'll never happen again i promise it'll never happen again i just lost my cool i lost my temper so he said all right so the next day they're doing it again the guy's walking up the same hill and here's the same heckler throwing out curses and and just belittling him and on and on and on and again he's losing his cool he's getting so angry that he finally does it again he lays down his cross he goes over and he punches the guy in the nose he goes back picks up the cross and on he goes afterwards the director came up and said i'm done you're fired i can't have jesus hitting people i just can't have that he said oh my gosh i'm so sorry please it'll never happen again don't fire me i need this i need this job and it'll never happen again he said all right he said we'll try it one more time but i'm just telling you if it happens again we're not even going to talk about it you're done just pack up your stuff and go away so he said it won't happen again so third day here's the guy again the heckler and he's on his case and he's calling him all kinds of things and this guy is so angry he's walking with his cross he's clenching his fish fist he's grinding his teeth i mean he is upset and the guy just is relentless and then all of a sudden the guy just stops the guy playing jesus just stops and he turns to this heckler and he points at him and he says i'll meet you after the resurrection listen guys when we don't control our anger we don't seem much like jesus you know some try some people try to use anger to motivate people to action you yell at your kids to motivate their behavior you yell at the sales clerk to motivate them to help you you yell at your employees to motivate them to work harder and you know what it works at least in the short term you can scare people into doing almost anything but in the long run listen to me guys in the long run you're always going to lose because anger always alienates people think about it when people are angry and shouting at you does it draw you closer to them or does it push you away i think we're people are all the same when someone is in our face when someone is angry with us i mean we draw back we draw away it doesn't draw us closer at all it puts a wall up between us if you're a parent and you're using anger to motivate your kids you're actually pushing your kids away here you're trying to to love on your kids but you're building a wall between you and them listen when your kids are young moms and dads they think you're a superhero i mean everybody else that knows you may think you're a bit quirky they may think you're a little bit odd not your kids they think you can do no wrong they're spirits when it comes to their moms and dads their spirits are wide open but if you continue listen to me if you continue to show anger towards them their spirit slowly will close until there comes a point when you're trying to relate to your kids and love on your kids and they won't receive it at all because you have closed down their spirit paul recognized the danger of this when he wrote when he wrote and he warned us in ephesians chapter 6 fathers do not provoke your children to anger don't provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them rather bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the lord listen to me friends if you struggle with a habit of anger you may feel like there's nothing you can do but you have more control over your anger than you think you do you can learn to express your emotions without losing control so today if i could i want to give you some steps that you can use to break this habit in your life but guys before i do that please hear me on this if you try these steps and they don't work and you're still struggling with this habit of anger would you please seek personal help i'm as serious as i can be would you please seek out professional help from a christian counselor hopefully one that has some experience with anger issues because if you don't break this habit in your life i'm just telling you this is one of those habits that is so destructive to the people we love it's so destructive to the relationships in your life that are important to your kids to your spouse whoever that's close to you you're shutting down their spirit so seek help if this doesn't work seek help but i would encourage you to try these steps first because i really believe that these steps can help you break this habit of anger we often try to excuse our behavior by blaming others for our anger you've you've said it before you've you've expressed it before you know it's those kids of mine that make me so angry it's my co-workers that make me so mad you know if she wouldn't have said that i wouldn't have lost my temper listen before you can ever break this habit of anger you have to take responsibility you have to acknowledge it you have to own it you have to own that this is a problem for you and so therefore i've got to deal with it for me i you know i i think i've shared with you already for me it's all 12 of them in my book there's 12 topics and people say how'd you come up with these topics these are all habits that i've struggled with every one of them i've acknowledged it i've owned it and i've taken steps i have taken steps on every single one of them to break the habit in my life so let me give you as we talk about this one of this habit of anger let me give you some steps that you can take to break this habit number one identify the source of your anger identify the source of your anger if you have a habit of losing control over every perceived injustice you need to figure out what's really behind your anger does that make sense you see more than likely anger is not the problem as i talked about with my dad i said there was something years earlier some injustice some painful thing in his life that had caused him to act out in anger and that's true of most of us because anger is rarely the primary problem in other words it's usually listen it's usually the result of a much deeper problem such as what such as pride or hurt or insecurity or embarrassment but once i understand what's behind my anger well guys then i'm more likely to resolve it then i'm more likely to deal with that specific problem for instance let's say it's physical or emotional pain physical or emotion continuous physical or emotional pain can cause you anger to respond or to act out in anger when i was younger i'll give you an example in my own life when i was younger in my early 30s actually i went into a season of life where i had unexplained pain joint pain and muscle pain i went to all kinds of doctors trying to figure out what was causing the severity of this pain medication wasn't taking care of it nobody was really sure they finally somebody diagnosed me with fibromyalgia uh you know all kinds of different diagnosis some just said it was stress i mean there are all kinds of things but i'm not talking about just sore muscles like after you've exercised i'm talking about i went through several years of unexplained pain and i found that when i hurt i was more impatient with people and i was quick to lose my temper when i was going through a difficult time i was quick to lose my temper with my kids i was quick to lose my temper with my wife and with my staff or let's say maybe someone hurt your feelings or broke your heart guys these are all common causes for anger i'm just saying that if you can identify the source of your anger you're more likely to understand what you need to do to deal with it and i've found that once people identify it then they dive in and they start taking care of that issue number two the second step is learn to calm down before you react learn to calm down before you react when you start to feel those emotions of anger rise up within you and you know what i'm talking about and they just seem to come up from your inner being and rise out then take a few minutes to step away take a few minutes to collect your thoughts and then i would encourage you self-talk i mean self-talk and be so very effective you know asking yourself is it really worth getting this upset over will my anger really solve anything you know proverbs chapter 29 says fools give full vent to their rage but the wise bring calm in the end fools give full vent to their rage but the wise bring calm in the end in other words think before you speak put your mind in gear before you put your mouth in motion i once heard someone say i've never regretted silence but i've often regretted what i spoke james chapter one he writes he says understand this my dear brothers and sisters you must all be quick to listen slow to speak and slow to get angry the reason i love this verse and it's been one of my favorites for many years the reason i love it so much is because we do the very opposite don't we you know it's like you must be quick to listen we're slow to listen we don't listen to people do we we're slow to listen instead of being quick to listen and we're quick to speak and we're quick to get angry and so james is trying to give us wisdom to say you need to do the opposite you need to be quick to listen to what people have to say and slow to speak and slow to get angry number three get some exercise get some exercise you know it really does help i know that may seem silly when you're thinking about getting rid of anger or dealing with a habit of anger but get some exercise when you feel that rising up within you you know take a walk go to a gym whatever you need to do to reduce your anger or stress level because experts tell us that exercise helps to increase the release of endorphins in your body that will do what they have a calming effect they'll reduce your level of stress so get some exercise number four let go of your anger correctly let go of your anger correctly you know there's a lot that could be said about this particular one but just decide that you're not going to handle your anger in inappropriate ways i mean just draw a line in the sand and say i've made up my mind i'm not going to handle my anger in inappropriate ways for instance don't repress your anger because your anger will always find a way to be expressed in other words specifically don't use sarcasm some of you think you're pretty witty with your sarcasm but it's actually coming from repressed anger some of you try to manipulate to get your own way others of you have a vindictive spirit i don't get mad i just get even listen guys whether you complain blame or criticize people that are negative are usually trying to repress their anger but anger will always find a way of release by the way did you know that there's another word for repressed anger it's the word depression depression is actually frozen rage or repressed anger that's what depression is and yet on the flip side on the flip side you can't just express your anger like in violent or abusive reactions or verbal abuse you can't do that either when you do you leave burn marks on everyone that's in your path one pastor he said we often act like a skunk we spray our stinking temper on anyone that gets in our way the fifth step practice forgiveness practice forgiveness jesus now think about this for just a minute jesus was unjustly beaten and mocked they placed a crown of thorns on his head they nailed his hands and feet to a wooden cross guys if anyone had the right to be angry it was jesus and yet do you remember what he said he said father forgive them they don't know what they're doing if you really want to get rid of your anger you have to decide you're going to forgive the person who has done you wrong i've heard it said that holding on to forgiveness is like drinking rat poison hoping the rat will die colossians chapter 3 it says make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you remember the lord forgave you so you must forgive others i mean that's a responsibility that's so guys the scripture is just telling us things that help us to break bad habits and create good habits in our life and obviously forgiveness is a good habit that we need to create but that's another topic and so it says remember the lord forgave you so you must forgive others louis smeads once said to forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that prisoner was you that's good to forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that prisoner was you and yet forgiveness is a process isn't it and while it while it takes time to let it go to while it takes time to let go of this hurt or this thing that has angered us you can forgive that one who has wronged you you may you may have to keep laying it down and letting it go day after day until finally you've released it completely but you can forgive them the sixth step give your anger an expiration date in ephesians chapter four paul said don't let the sun go down while you're still angry don't let the sun go down while you're still angry don't let the day pass by without taking care of this anger in your life without resolving it when you allow angry emotions to accumulate over time like a pressure cooker they will eventually explode in destructive and inappropriate ways in inappropriate ways that will hurt the people you love the people that you care about and it'll leave you listen it'll leave you with all kinds of regrets and then number seven rely on god's control rely on god's control listen if you really believe guys if you really believe that god has a plan for your life you then will experience contentment and peace in other words if i really believe god's got my back god loves me and god has god's got my back he's still on the throne when i really settle that issue i begin to experience contentment and peace so in other words maybe you maybe you bid on a new home and you didn't get it so you want to get angry it frustrates you and you want to get upset but then you realize you know what god has a plan for my life and i may not fully understand what he's doing but i trust him and so therefore there's just no reason for me to get angry there's no reason for me to get upset anger is not something guys that you can prevent but as long as it's not a habit you can keep it under control as long as it's not a habit you can keep it under control and as long as you keep it uncontro under control then you will have more peace and healthier relationships i'm going to ask everybody right now if you would to bow your head at every campus right now if you would just bow your head for just a moment with every head bowed and every eye closed i'm going to ask you a simple question nobody's looking around this is just between you me and god but how many of you would raise a hand and say steve anger is a bad habit i need to break once and for all i want you just to raise your hand and put it back down it's important you acknowledge it it's important that you own it if anger is a bad habit in your life that you want to break i want you to raise your hand right now and then you can put it back down yeah thank you let me pray for you god i just thank you and i praise you for your faithfulness in our lives i thank you god that no matter what it is we're struggling with no matter what our hurt or or our habit or pattern is in our life we can bring it to you and you've promised to help us with that today lord we make a decision we we draw a line in the sand to once and for all break this habit of anger we own it we acknowledge that it's a problem and god we're going to take the necessary steps to break this pattern in our life we've hurt people around us too much but god we need your help we can't do this on our own so i pray god that you give us the courage that you give us the boldness to act and the strength to break this stronghold once and for all thank you god we love you and we praise you we ask it all in the name of jesus amen

Channel: Northview Church

Views: 574

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Northview Church, Northview, Steve Poe, Carmel, Fishers, Westfield, Lafayette, Indy North, Indianapolis

Id: ATdF-fV5sG0

Length: 35min 13sec (2113 seconds)

Published: Tue May 25 2021