The Giant of Anger | Pastor Wayne Cordeiro

we all have the tendency to get riled up sometimes angry maybe we're mad at a parent or we're angry at what others have done or maybe what they've not done or maybe we're angry from a negative name a person called us years ago and we can't shake it loose i'd like to tell this funny story of a father who was he was an indian brave and he was walking by the river bank near their village with his young son and the sons about 10 years old who had a couple of younger sisters and as they walked along the son looked up at the the indian brave was his dad and he said dad i just want to ask you a question how do we get our names the names that you gave us and the father said well when you were born and when i left the teepee as soon as mom gave birth well the first thing i saw became what we named you like your sister falling rain or your other sister spot a deer why do you ask pooping dog that might get me angry but the truth is you know a lot of times we don't even know what we're angry about might be your name or the condition of your life sometimes we just don't know we'll just we just know that there's a low grade anger that follows us around like a gray cloud and we we live on the edge and sometimes we get easily easily offended by anything that doesn't agree with us and if we're not careful there will come a time when our anger starts backfiring on us some years ago a man in our church was in a car on the way home with his parents from our church and there was a tragic accident both parents died he survived barely but years later as i got back in contact with him i found out that he had become an alcoholic he was involved deeply in drugs finally landed in prison and later with a counselor when unpacking all the stuff in his life he realized that it all started when his parents were killed he was angry at god he was angry at his parents for leaving him he was angry at himself that he didn't die with him and that anger now is spilling over like acid onto everyone he came in contact with and his healing could never begin until he started to deal with the root of the problem he couldn't stop taking drugs or doing antagonistic things i believe there are many just like him who struggle maybe with substance abuse or they have constant relationship problems or family problems or a myriad of other character issues where the root of the problem is that somewhere deep inside we're angry angry at a parent or a god or angry at someone who hurt them or disappointed them or angry at themselves for letting things get where they are but it's not uncommon now we've all experienced anger haven't we sometimes the root is unknown sometimes it is we experience anger when we're overlooked for a raise or when you're not consulted for your advice before decisions were made or someone steals something from you or when your son doesn't put the tools back in his father's shop when he got them the other day and and he doesn't return the battery charger or his coffee cups or shirts or his keys sound like i'm angry i'm just kidding but i hope aaron's listening but anger anger is simply a strong emotion you're annoyed displeased about something however the destructive part when we like letting a spoiled child get his way we let anger become uncontrolled and then it escalates into a rage or fury or hate or resentment revenge destructive words actions that are deplorable soon follow anger is one letter away from danger and the letter d could represent when the devil gets you to feel righteous about doing something unrighteous and that is exactly where we find david at this time david is hiding in the hills south of bethlehem in a place called mayon now he's still looking over his shoulder staying out of the reach of king saul who's still hot on his trail now there was a very wealthy man named nabel and it was sheep-shearing days in israel this was a time of feasting and celebration sort of like the israeli mardi gras or the county fair of sorts during this whole week celebration people give gifts of food and drink to their neighbors so david sent some men to nabel to get his share of the bounty i mean share something with us too after all you're shearing all your sheep and there's a lot of money there and also david's military men acted sort of like security guards in the area so they thought this would be a good time to share in some of the good will however nabel when they come he flatly refuses to give david's men even the time of day in fact he snubs them and even bullies them and then nabel has the gall to give them a tongue lashing and sends them away with only curses for david he said you tell that bonehead that he's a rebel that's what basically the scripture says well when they get back and tell david what nable said david turns into rambo first blood master of disaster all rolled into one he flies into a rage straps on his sword grabs a couple of grenades and one of those doohickey scarves around his head and he heads out you know did i mention he was angry yeah he orders 400 of his men to do exactly the same just think about it 400 rambos coming at you and they start their march on nabel here's his battle speech it's written in first samuel 25 and it says this it's been useless david is saying all my watching over this fellow's property in the wilderness so that nothing of his was missing he has paid me back evil for good how may god deal with david be it ever so severely if by morning i leave alive one male of all who belong to him oh and did i mention he was angry yeah now here's a good part nabel had a wife named abigail she's our guest today on on the example that dave is going to leave for us the bible says she was intelligent and beautiful so she was sort of like half supermodel and half brain surgeon in other words she was sharp now now one of her servants saw what was going down so she hightails it over to abigail and says oh snap that's my version nabel is a dead man and we're about to be roadkill now this servant tells abigail what took place and david is on his way with 400 men abigail the bible says immediately moves bang into action she's about to open up israel's first catering company like give give him some stuff abigail's catering her motto was foods the tame the savage beast so here's our first customized menu for david look at what she prepares 200 loaves of bread five dressed sheep a barrel of roasted grain 100 cakes of raisins and 200 cakes of pressed figs she then loads them onto donkeys to go and give it to david i mean this is like the bible's first food trucks and she hightails it to intercept david now he and his men are in a rage they got their doohickeys on their heads they're coming down the ravine with grenades they're going to come after naval they're seeking them out they've got their target right on them and she intercepts them and immediately bows her face to the ground and the first thing she does check this out she takes the blame here's what the scriptures say on me alone my lord be the guilt i your servant did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent pay no attention she says please pay no attention my lord to that wicked man nabel amazing she asks forgiveness even though she didn't violate anybody she says please forgive the trespass of your maidservant interestingly she in her meal she she knew that she needed to tame the heart of david with forgiveness regardless of who was at fault she just needed to deploy forgiveness because you see the lack of that was not only about to destroy her husband nabel and the men of a village but it was about to destroy david you see uncontrolled anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die it it doesn't work so if later on we interviewed david later on in his life what do you think he would say that helped him overcome the giant of anger what advice would he give to you and me because abigail made a huge difference you know what he'd do he'd say i would start by saying the first principle in the battle against the giant of anger is this before the battle starts write it down practice forgiving yeah that's right practice forgiving because forgiving doesn't come easily it's not some stock item that comes with you and your heart and your life when you're born no you've got to build it you've got to practice it it's like a skill in other words before forgiveness is needed before it's required practice forgiving start by forgiving the easy stuff first when someone forgets to greet you forgive just like no big deal when you don't get served first or when a friend forgets your birthdays like no big deal you see we all make mistakes we're all going to face people problems negative events so practice forgiving as a part of your everyday life i i can't tell you how many times someone has said to me with tones of like disappointment such things as i walked into the room and he didn't even greet me or i came to church and no one shook my hand i thought are you kidding go over there and shake his hand shake his hand right off his arm don't harbor that kind of small stuff you know i think the newest chorus in all our churches should be this let it go let it go you'd want to die you don't want to die on ant hills if you spend too much time on ant hills the ants will eat you alive sorry that's a little dorky saying but it's the best i could come up with at a moment's notice but all of that to say practice overlooking the small stuff someone's mistake someone's immaturity someone's word that was misused misspoken they didn't even think they were saying something wrong they tried to reach for humor and they they didn't have a long reach and it wasn't that humorous like let it go let it go you see one day you're going to need not small forgivings but you're going to need big ones and if you haven't learned it in small ways it's going to be a train wreck when life throws you a curveball let me tell you a story when i was attending bible college there was a wonderful lady in my class named arlene she was a bit older than the rest of us but i noticed something about her she wore big glasses maybe to cover up or distract the onlookers from the many scars on her face and cheek bones and neck she was studying to be a missionary one day i don't know why just youthful inquiry but i just asked her i said hey how'd you get all those scars because there must have been 15 or 20 of them she says oh it's nothing i just kept pressing i said no no no how did you get all those scars and she looked a little embarrassed she told me a story she said well when i married a very nice man who had one big problem that i didn't know about when we got married you see when he drank he couldn't stop and when he couldn't stop he'd become very angry and when he became very angry he became very violent and one night he came home very drunk and he got very angry at me and then he got very violent took out a knife from the kitchen drawer and stabbed me 27 times i thought no way she said he was since sentenced to prison for attempted murder and i spent three months in the hospital and after many surgeries and four years of healing she said i come to this bible college because i want to be a missionary to tell people about the gospel of jesus and i thought wow i felt embarrassed for having asked her to relive such a hurtful experience i told her this must be super hard to shake this huh and then she said something i'll never forget it's been with me ever since she said oh no i've forgiven him he took four years of my life from me and so i figure i'm not going to give him a second more practicing forgiveness on a small scale will prepare us to forgive on a grander scale practice for giving on a daily basis and you'll be surprised how much better life will be well abigail came with this offer of forgiveness and david was so moved here's his answer praise be to the lord the god of israel he has sent you today to meet me may you be blessed for your good judgment and for keeping me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself with my own hands otherwise as surely as the lord the god of israel lives who has kept me from harming you if you had not come quickly to meet me not one male belonging to nabal would have been left alive by daybreak he continues and said go home in peace i have heard your words and have granted your request she saved david from sinning abigail helped david here it is rethink his first initial reaction which would have been devastating thank god for people like abigail i call them lightning rods by the way we need several of them in our lives these are people that you can vent on i mean throw up on and they'll ground your anger or your disappointment and help you rethink your response my pray for those kinds of men and women who will be advisors and friends rather than gang members for you these people will they will not shoulder your offense but neither will they judge you they won't post your vent or your rant on facebook under hashtag wayne is not very christian i have several in my life who help me rethink and rewrite my responses so that i don't need jerk abigail seemed to be one of those lightning rods so in retrospect if we asked david later in his life what he learned along the way in overcoming the giant of anger here's the second here it is ready the second is this learn to unlearn and that's right we've got habits that we've got to unlearn that worked for us in the past and they're not working for us today you've got to unlearn some people think what unlearn absolutely alvin toffler is the author of the book future shock said it this way he said those who are going to be the literate of the 21st century will not be those who can read or write it'll be those who can learn unlearn then relearn because you see anger is something we learned along the way something that happened to us and we just kind of clicked into a tilt and everything went off now we've got this low-grade anger that follows us around even solomon reminds us of that in proverbs 22 and verse 24. he warns us in this way we read these words do not make friends with a hot tempered person do not associate with one easily angered or here it is you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared did you notice that you can learn these ways and many have we learn our patterns of anger and in the past maybe it was something that was said to us or what parents just let us do in our immaturity in our youthful rebellion and it just grew and grew and it became a habit we learned that and it maybe worked for you back then but now it's working against you maybe in the past when you got mad people gave in you got your way you got what you wanted or your anger became a subtle way to punish people who displeased you we do that with our moods with our silence with our anger or maybe even our threats but the problem is now that you're older that learned pattern is working against you to steal your potential friendships or ruin your marriage your family robbing you of your future causing irreparable damage that may not be able to be undone it drives people away from you it breaks up your family separates people but here's the good news are you ready if if a temper an anger this angry disposition is something that we learn here's the good news it can be unlearned that's right remember those who will be the literate of the 21st century will be those who learn unlearn and then relearn see if something is learned it can be unlearned so you say well how do you unlearn it first you just got to see its devastating effects and fight it like the plague i mean look at all the money we're spending on fighting this virus two trillion and yet anger is like a virus it spreads it's contagious and then we let it spread taking life after life and marriage after marriage and family after family it can lead to so many other addictions because it gives us power it gives us a reason to look for other escapes it gives us reason to blame it rationalizes hate it authorizes vengeance some people say man i just can't stop myself when i get angry sure you can sure you can no no i can't i just it just takes a hold of me you can i mean let me let me prove it let's say you're having a hard time with one of your kids and you're yelling at him you know clean your room quit talking back now you need to go to a detention home and until you go to a detention home you're grounded for the rest of your life and just then the phone rings ring ring ring your other child says mom what uh it's the pastor oh you pick up the phone praise the lord oh god is good all the time all the time god is good isn't that right you can go from rage to praise the lord and we do it all the time you just have to make the choice you just got to make the choice i'm going to go from this to this david did and abby gail that supermodel when she said let's not be angry he said praise the lord god is good all the time you need to hear this so put your ears on listen carefully abraham lincoln who's one of my heroes said when someone attacked him with a nasty letter he'd write two letters back the first draft would be deliberately insulting and he would just give it to him in this letter and then after he's done just kind of spewing and venting you know what he'd do he'd take that first draft and throw it away and then he'd sit down and after prayer he said i'd write a second draft this one would be gracious and kind and i'd focus on solving the problem rather than attacking the person i was thinking that about that first draft and second draft you see before he met abigail david had his first draft in his fists and it will be settled with the sword but after he spoke to abigail it's like he wrote a second draft and here's what david learned david wrote the book of psalms you know that and these are letters or poems or thoughts that he recorded along the way now in many of the psalms you can hear david venting before god in some of the psalms it's like he kept his first draft just so you and i can learn from him really i love it because often the first half of a psalm is like his first draft and then he lets us see the second draft something changes and by the way i i just love how the the bible is unashamed to show us men and women in their raw unedited versions of themselves because many times we are right there too let me example for you david's first and second drafts because he's like us and we're like him but he gives us clues how to kill the giant of anger and just like abraham lincoln you write a first draft and then here comes the second draft watch this in psalm 69 for example david is tired of running like a fugitive he's never safe always looking over his shoulders but one morning he takes out his uh his life journal and and he pens these words read read it with me it says this i am weary with my crying my throat is parched my eyes fail while i wait for my god in other words here's what he's saying i'm sick and tired of this i don't know how much longer i can take it but he's not done yet here's the rest of his first draft first draft he continues now watch this he writes let their eyes go blind so that they cannot see and make their bodies shake continually pour out your fury on them let their homes be deserted pile their sins high and don't let them go free in other words god blind them and make them tremble in their boots six by four nail them to the floor and by the way no mercy and at that point wouldn't we all agree that david needed to enter an anger management program yeah but here's the cool part then he rethinks all of that and watch this this is so cool just five verses later five verses later we find his second draft and a change of heart we read these words rescue me o god by your saving power then i will praise god's name with singing and i will honor him with thanksgiving for this will please the lord more than sacrificing cattle the humble will see their god at work and be glad let all who seek god's help be encouraged wow quite a different perspective from the first draft don't you think because you see if he sent his first draft there would have been war for sure and another time when he was running from saul he pens his first draft again i want to show you another example this is so cool in psalms 109 i just love this here's his first draft he's running from saul and he's talking about saul and we read these words let his days be few and let another take his office let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow let his children be continually vagabonds and beg that's his first draft in other words here's what he was saying lord maybe saul could like die early and somebody else get elected and then maybe when he's gone his family should be homeless for the rest of their lives maybe they could live under a bridge that'd be fine with me but then a few verses later we find his second draft and he reveals that he himself may not be seeing things like they should be seen here you can almost hear him sighing and admitting he says this i'm afflicted and needy and my heart is wounded within me and then listen to the following verses he finishes his second draft with these words let them curse but you you bless your servant shall be glad with my mouth i will give thanks abundantly to the lord and in the midst of many i will praise him for he stands at the right hand of the needy to save him from those who judge his soul wow i love the psalms hey let me ask you a question are you ready have you been living as a first draft person i mean do you send the first draft of your words your actions your thoughts go to war and then suffer regret the rest of your days or maybe you can unlearn that and learn a new normal a better normal when all of this stuff is over and changed to be a second draft person that's what i want to be first drafts are normal even human but people who are second draft people second draft people are divine that's what separates those who miss life from those who tap into life be one of them and by the way don't take too long to get to your second draft i think that's why paul says in ephesians 4 26 he says this be angry but do not sin do not let the sun go down on your anger in other words he's saying get to your second draft wayne before too long and if you need to take a walk or take a cold shower just don't send out that first draft pour your heart out before wait for it here it is don't pour your heart out before people pour your heart out before god alone if you need to vent vent to god alone that's right he can take it people cannot god is the only person we can fully pour our hearts out to and the sooner you and i do that the sooner we get to our second draft the book of psalms is filled with david's prayers of first draft anguish psalm 62 and verse 8 gives us one of those many of those times one of the many times where david writes he says this he says pour out your heart before god god is a refuge for us you see david learned at an early age to go to the lord in times of distress and vent before him pour out your heart he knew that there was only one that could give him comfort and no one else could relieve him from his distresses here's a second question ready how long does it take you to get to your second draft be careful because you don't always have abigail's around you you might have nables so you have to really think now remember to get from first draft to second draft it may take some effort i know that some discipline but it'll be so worth it can you remember this there will be two pains in life the pain of discipline or the pain of regret you choose see you don't have to live a life of regrets and it all begins with whether you are a first draft or a second draft person and if we were asking david one final question later in his life as to how we can overcome the giant of anger oh yep he'd talk about forgiveness and he talked about unlearning but i think he'd recall abigail's words that reminded him again that nabel's mistake is not that which should determine his future here's what he would tell us and would you write this down somewhere catch it here's the third step in killing the giant of anger here it is determine once and for all who your lord is determined once and for all who your lord's going to be let me explain it this way but first let's read her words in first samuel she says this please forgive your servant surely and here's look at the switch surely the lord will reward you even when you are chased by those who seek to kill you your life is safe don't let this be a blemish on your record then your conscience won't have to bear the staggering burden of needless bloodshed and vengeance wow you know what she's reminding him of she's reminding him who it was that was going to determine his success the lord's going to reward you you see it wasn't nabal he wasn't determining david's future but at that point he was so mad he was going after nabal nabal was controlling him nabal was determining whether he was going to be a wise leader and unwise to to be someone who is a peace maker or someone who is a blood shedder let me talk to you for a second about that you know many people get saved and they receive jesus as their savior but their life has lived like a train wreck oh jesus saved them from hell he's their savior but now here it is we must determine once and for all who's going to be our lord is jesus going to be our lord you see you can be called a christian then you'll end up in heaven but your life on earth could be a mess why because we're giving away lordship or control or who's going to determine our day we're giving that to anybody in anything their mistake their immaturity you see whose lord in your life is the one who determines your disposition who's lord in your life is the one who controls your actions your words your demeanor whose lord in your life is who governs whether your day is going to be a success or a failure who decides if your attitude is going to be up or down who decides if your life is safe or insecure you see we're going to have a lot of nabels in our life and if we haven't made jesus not only savior but if we haven't made jesus lord then you can be a christian but yet be vulnerable to anybody and anything that comes along to mess your life up oh you can be a christian saved for 20 years but still haven't fully come to grips with determining determining once and for all if jesus alone is lord or everybody else can be you're going to share that throne with everything and everybody let me bring it to a conclusion with a story you know my brother lived near san francisco about an hour out of san fran and and this was the days before the gps we we actually had used maps oh yeah maps and uh it wasn't that long ago uh you think it's in the 1800s or something no no it wasn't that long ago and uh and as you're navigating with a map which usually anna would do she'd be the navigator with the map if you took the wrong exit like around san francisco i mean it's so confusing it's like you have to drive to guadalajara mexico to get back on the freeway so i said to my wife honey is this the exit we're supposed to take she said i don't know i said turn that thing around you know why i can't find the exit i said look because it's coming up she says i think it's this one i think it's this one i said make sure because if if it's wrong i've got to drive to mexico and i don't speak spanish well i think this is the one so i take that exit and it's the wrong exit i mean i go down to these like barrios and there's cars jacked up on the side of the road like no tires and i get out there's a little pullover stop area and i get out and i'm so mad i slammed the door i kicked the tire poof this is so bad so stupid you're supposed to read the map and she comes out the other side she says honey let's pray i said don't touch me i was so mad i was so angry what are we gonna do now this is your responsibility you only had one thing to do so i walked around and i kicked the other tire so my wife sat on the inside of the car there waiting for me and and i remember having a conversation with god i said god it's that wife you gave me this is so dumb i don't know what to do now and it's like god spoke to me just like boom in a nanosecond i know you've had him do that to you too he said wayne who's your lord i said you are he said no no no he said who's your lord is who's determining your words right now to your wife who's controlling your thoughts who's controlling your action your disposition who's governing the way that you are right now your whole demeanor your countenance everything about you is completely flipped from five minutes ago and now it's like completely a train wreck who's controlling that who's governing that because that's who your lord is and then he said again am i your lord i thought no now you know what's controlling me is that wrong exit or a wife's error or an inability to read a map or whatever it might be but jesus sure wasn't lord it was everything else that was going wrong and when you make everything else that's going wrong lord in your life you'll end up really angry see we're all going to have wrong exits in life wrong twists wrong turns but only one lord let him determine your life we're going to have a lot of nabels in our life and we're going to let their mistake or their immaturity start to control us and the only response is going to be devastating anger i love abigail's reminder she said surely the lord will reward you even when you are chased by those who seek to kill you your life is safe don't let this be a blemish on your record what was she saying she's saying don't forget who your lord is and it's not the nables it's not the wrong exits it's not people's mistakes determine once and for all who your lord is going to be when i come back i want to give you an opportunity to make jesus savior and lord because he's going to be there to help you defeat the giant of anger he's going to help you write a second draft he's going to be there to help you unlearn some things that you've learned incorrectly and understand the power of forgiveness that's why we need to start practicing it early start with the small stuff and when you do the giant of anger won't have a chance to diminish your life your family or your future why because jesus alone is lord you

Channel: New Hope West

Views: 274

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: NEWHOPEWEST, WAYNECORDEIRO, ONLINECHURCH, CHURCHONLINE, KILLINGGIANTS, GIANTOFANGER

Id: Jf6Buasz7Ik

Length: 40min 28sec (2428 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 21 2020