All The Feels | Week 5 | Pat McCalla

So it was a beautiful spring day. My wife and I had just recently moved to Chicago for college. I was leaving work in Downtown Chicago, getting ready to head out our house in the Western Suburbs.

I got on the radio and I heard a radio report, and they said all of the freeways and highways were packed, back, bumper to bumper traffic, and so I got on Cermak Drive. If you're from Chicago, you know what I mean by Cermak Drive. It would leave Downtown Chicago as kind of a back road, but it was it was like rigs.

It wasn't just a two lane back road. It was like six lanes, and it would leave Downtown Chicago, go into West Chicago, into the Western Chicago Suburbs. Now, I was young and competitive in everything I did in these days, so I had to even drive competitively competitively.

So I'm weaving in and out of traffic. I'm not being really rude, but I am being a little aggressive. And all of a sudden, noticed in my rearview mirror a white box truck who was being extremely rude and extremely aggressive.

I mean, people were honking and screeching tires. And as he as he comes flying up behind me, I can see in my rearview mirror, he's got his sunglasses on. He's got a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth, papers all over the dashboard, windows down, music blaring.

And he's, like, getting into it and everything right up beside me, whips around, and then cuts in front of me So much so that I had to, like, nail my like, and oh, oh, I was ticked off. So then I I I noticed as he's getting away from me now, he's got one of those stickers on the back that says, how's my driving? So

I catch up to him, and this is pre cell phone days, so I can't just call, but I jot down the number.

And he keeps cutting people off, so I get home. I'm still so angry. I walk up to our apartment, and I'm just pacing like this telling my wife the story. And then I go over to the wall, and I get the phone. And there was a cord from the wall with the phone, young people. That's what we used to have to do. And I called the number that was how's my driving, and someone answers. I'm like, can I speak to the manager? And he said, this is him. I'm like, hey, I was just on Cermak Drive and there was a one of your trucks was down there cutting people off, driving rude, almost caused some accidents. He's like, yes. So?

And that starts to dawn on me, I think I'm talking to the guy who was driving the truck. You were the driver, weren't you? Yes, so? And then we exchanged some more words, not really nice words to each other, and he goes, hangs up on me. Oh. Oh, I was ticked off. Two days later, I'm driving down to Cermak.

I look in my rearview mirror, and I see a white box truck coming. I mean, what are the chances? He doesn't know who I am, but I know who he is. I mean, what are the chances? A city of millions. And here comes this box truck. I look in the mirror, and I can see as he's racing up behind me, sunglasses,

cigarette, papers all over the dashboard again, music blurring, windows down. And and I drive in an old junky car. So as he comes screaming up behind me, I go, and this in slow motion in the rearview mirror, I see this. Glasses

fly off, cigarette, papers all over the place. There's no accident. Nothing nothing bad happened, but he is so ticked off. He he comes up next to me. He he's giving me the one finger salute. Right? He's cussing me out and, oh, it felt so good.

And I know some of you are going, you still seem a little happy about it. I am. God's still working on me. Here's my point.

Who in here, who online doesn't struggle with anger?

Who in here hasn't had some kind of injustice done to you? Maybe a real injustice, not just that you cut off in traffic, but who in here hasn't had some kind of injustice done to you where it gets you angry? Maybe a valid anger and you think to yourself, oh, if I can someday get them back.

If someday I can take vengeance on them. In fact,

anger is an emotion that you and I started dealing with from the time we were little children. No one had to teach us how to throw a fit. Right? If you're a parent or a grandparent, no one you don't you don't you don't have anger school with your children and teach them how to throw a fit. Now

now right now, some moms are in here going, are you seriously preaching a sermon about anger on Mother's Day? Well, we're in a series about emotions and feelings and yes, anger does fall on Mother's Day, but it's appropriate because if you're a mom, you deal with little kids throwing temper tantrums and if you're a mom,

you get angry sometimes. In fact, here's some parents who posted some pictures of their kids throwing a fit and then an explanation of why their kids are throwing their little temper tantrums. So here's the first one. Here's what it says, we wouldn't let him swim in the sea. He can't swim in at six degrees.

He's throwing a How about this next one? I wouldn't let him eat a battery for breakfast. How about this one? I refused to switch the sun off so his pumpkin could light up. Throwing a fit. Alright. How about this one? I wouldn't let her eat the bath bomb.

Okay. This last one. This is my favorite though. The face of someone whose mom wouldn't let him hold his own poop in his hands.

You know what? I bet right now God is smiling at us though. I bet right now that God is smiling at the fact that you and I are laughing at those and God is smiling saying, and you think you've grown out of that. You think you don't still act like that sometimes. Right? Because anger is something that we all

deal with as human beings, and often we don't deal with it very well. In fact, let me read you some famous quotes about anger and tell me if these resonate with you. Anger is a feeling that makes your mouth move faster than your mind.

How many of you have learned this the hard way? Right? Or how about this one? Ambrose Bierce said, speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. How many of you have learned that the hard way?

Right? Or Bruce Lee said, a quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough. How many of you have learned that the hard way? Anger, Eleanor Roosevelt said, anger is only one letter short of danger. True, isn't it?

See, for most of us, when it comes to our personal struggles with anger, we wanna believe this next sign is really the cause of anger. I wouldn't have to manage my anger if people could learn to manage their stupidity.

Right? If we're honest, that's how most of us feel. It's like, yeah, you know, if people weren't so stupid, I wouldn't be so angry. Here's the truth that we're gonna look at today. Here's the big idea of what we're gonna look at today, k? Your anger, our anger can become our prison or our passport.

Our anger can become our prison or our

Our anger can become our prison or our passport. Passport. You see, anger isn't all bad. Anger is a human emotion. Jesus was angry at times. But anger is it it can be a passport. It can actually be something that that that made you make a change that you needed to make in your life. It can become your passport to something better. We're gonna talk about that more in a little bit. But most often for us as human beings,

our anger can become our prison. If you have your Bibles open to Psalm 137. Psalm 137, biggest book in the Bible, right in the middle, but here's what I'm gonna ask you to do. If you're on rockpoint.io and you have the notes there, do not scroll ahead.

Do not scroll ahead. If you have a hard copy Bible like I'm holding in my hands and you find Psalm 137, do not read ahead. If you have a Bible app on your smart device, do not read ahead because the last verse of this chapter, CS Lewis, one of the great theologians of the early twentieth century,

said that he didn't understand how this verse made it in the bible. Some have said this is the scandal of Psalms. Now I know the very fact that I'm telling you not to read ahead, some of you are going, oh, I've never read ahead in church before, but I really want to now. Don't do it. Don't do it.

This is one of the hardest verses in the bible. C. S. Lewis said, I don't know how this made it into the bible. What did he mean by that? We're gonna see in a moment. So you've probably heard the phrase before, what do you have to lose? When it comes to our anger, a lot. A lot.

See, all of us in here and all of us online can probably look back and tell stories about times when our anger allowed us to lose respect or lose relationships or lose jobs or or or or a marriage breakup because of our unrestrained

anger. When when it comes to anger, what do you have to lose? A lot. So how do we tame this emotion called anger? How do we allow anger to become our passport, not our prison? Psalm one thirty seven, no one's reading ahead.

Here here we go. We're gonna jump into it, but I gotta give you a little background before we look at verse one because the context of this is so important. Psalm one thirty seven was written by a guy who's actually enslaved in Babylon now. He was a Jewish person who was in Israel. In May,

Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonians had taken over most of the known world at that time. They surrounded Jerusalem. Jerusalem was under siege for months. It became such a desperate time. We know historically that they were literally cannibalizing

each other within the walls of the city because they were so hungry. They were eating other human beings. They were that hungry. It was a horrible time. Finally, the Babylonians breached the walls of the city. They burned the city. They destroy the temple. They take all of the elements out of the temple. They're they're slaughtering people in the streets. I'm gonna speak more to that in a little bit because it pertains to the Psalm, and they take some of the people back into slavery.

One of them was the guy who wrote Psalm one thirty seven. So he's enslaved in Babylon remembering what he just witnessed. Remembering what he just saw.

So now we pick it up, verse one, Psalm one thirty seven verse one. No one's reading ahead. Verse one, beside the rivers of Babylon, that's the Tigris and Euphrates for all you geography nerds, beside the rivers of Babylon, we sat and wept as we thought of Jerusalem. And you know there's tears of joy,

there's tears of sadness, there's tears of anger. These are tears of sadness. They're gonna morph into tears of anger. Don't read ahead. Verse two, look at this, we put away our harps, hanging them on the branches of poplar trees. Now most, if not any of us, play harps anymore. So we read that verse and we're like,

It's like I I I'm putting my harp on the poplar tree. But but here's what he's saying, if you're a musician and here he's it was a musician who's saying, I'm so sad

about what I've witnessed that I can't even play music anymore. I've put my my guitar in the in the closet. I've shut the lid of the piano. I don't play music anymore. Why? Look at verse three. No one's reading ahead. Look at verse three.

For or because our captors demanded a song from us, our tormentors insisted on a joyful hymn. Sing us one of those songs of Jerusalem. See their captors, Babylonians

are mocking them, they're tormenting them, they're saying, hey, you have this book called the Psalms, we have it in our bible, full of songs that are written about how great and mighty your God is. How he's delivered you from Egypt in the past. Why don't you get out your harps and your music

instruments and sing to your great God who our God's defeated. Why don't you sing to your great God about how he delivered you in the past but couldn't deliver you? They're tormenting. Writer is saying, hey, we're not even singing anymore. We're so sad we can't even sing anymore. Look at verse four,

he repeats again, but how can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a pagan land? How can we sing anymore? There's no song in our voices anymore. In fact, the next two verses, we're not gonna look at them, but if you read them, he says, if I ever forget the glory days of Israel, may I become mute.

Then the Psalm starts taking a turn. No one's reading ahead. It starts taking a turn now, and it's gonna turn from sadness to anger. And the the anger we're gonna see at the end, don't read ahead, but the anger we're gonna see at the end. K. Watch this. Watch how this is starting to turn now. K. Verse seven. Oh Lord,

remember what the Edomites did on the day the armies of Babylon captured Jerusalem. Destroy it, they yelled, level it to the ground. Now you have to get a little historical context to understand what's happening here.

The Edomites were descendants of Esau. If you've read this before, you may remember in the book of Genesis, Jacob and Esau, they were brothers and they did not get along, and their descendants

don't get along. So in a sense, their descendants, two brothers have kids, they're kind of cousins. K? The Edomites and the Israelites have never really gotten along. It's been thousands of years and there's still animosity between them. So historically, we know when the Babylonians surrounded Jerusalem and finally breached the walls, and the raping and pillaging and burning and killing, the Edomites were standing back, The cousins, if you will, of the Israelites were standing back saying, get them.

Destroy them. It'd be like you being out on the playground and a bully is beating you down and your cousin isn't helping. In fact, your cousin's standing there saying, hit him again. Hit him again. So this writer is saying, God, remember them. Remember what the Edomites did. Now, don't read ahead.

Now he's going to he's gone from sadness. You can see the anger building, and now you're gonna see this change in this psalm. He's no longer talking about what happened. He's gonna start speaking to his enemies

with anger. K. Watch the next verse here. Look at verse eight. O Babylon, he's talking to his enemies now. O Babylon, you will be destroyed. Happy is the one who pays you back for what you have done to us. This isn't a cry for forgiveness. This is a cry for vengeance.

This is me driving and looking in my rearview mirror and seeing the white box truck and going, you're gonna get what you deserve. Right or wrong is how I was feeling. And this is that was silly compared to what they're dealing with as you were gonna see in a moment.

And the and the writer now is is is there's this anger coming out and he's saying, oh Babylon, that you would get what you deserve. Then we get to this last verse. Look at verse nine. Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks.

You do it with that verse. Wonder C. S. Lewis said, I don't know how this verse made it into the bible. I wonder this is called the scandal of Psalms. Happy is the one who takes children and smashes them on the rocks. Now I'm

gonna be really blunt here historically and explain what happened so you can understand where there's this anger, this victim's anger is coming out. When the Babylonians came in, they destroyed this place. They were the survivors would have seen their mothers and sisters being raped.

We know historically that the Babylonians were literally taking children and grabbing them by their legs and hitting them against the walls of the city. And so can you imagine the PTSD of the survivors

that had witnessed horrors like that? Recently, I finished reading a book about some of the survivors of World War II, specifically it wasn't just about survivors, it was about the women Jewish resistance workers, the ones who began to fight against the Germans, especially in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

And in the beginning of the book, the writer is explaining why did these women, why were they willing to risk the torture and the death that many of them went through? Why were they willing to do that? Well, in the first few chapters of the book, the writer is saying because of what they witnessed.

They saw their moms raped or their sisters raped. They they themselves were raped. They they saw people their entire family sometimes

shot or killed in front of them. Some of them saw their little siblings literally picked up by a Nazi and and beat against the train until they they witnessed this with their own eyes and they came to the point where they were going, I'll I'll risk torture to fight back against the Nazis. Well,

thousands of years ago when the Psalmist wrote this, he has just witnessed that. He he had just seen that kind of thing happen to his people.

And so I'm gonna act this out right now and it's gonna be a little intense, but I wanna take this out of the the churchy thing we sometimes do with verses in the bible. You know, sometimes the the religious way to read verse nine is this, happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks.

No, no, no, no. This is the cry of an abused victim. And so it's probably more like this, happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them on the rocks. What you did to our babies. That's probably what's happening. Again, like CS Lewis, you have to go, how did this make it into the Bible? Why

is this there? And I have to look at this and once again go, oh, this is why this is so applicable to you and I. It touches every human emotion we have because who amongst us again hasn't felt intense anger sometimes for good reasons.

And if you forget everything or you miss everything else I say today, don't miss this, okay? If you miss everything else I say today, don't miss this. The safest place

to pour out your emotions is in prayer to God. The safest place to pour out your emotions is in prayer to God. If you miss everything else I say, would you remember that and take that with you and live that out?

Those emotions that sometimes you're going, I can't believe I'm thinking this. I can't believe I'm saying this. The safest place to think and say that is in your prayer before God. This man is pouring out his anger.

But but it begs the question then, how do you and I handle this anger, this emotion that all of us have? How how do we make sure that it doesn't become our prison, but it becomes our passport? How do we tame this emotion, anger? I wanna share with you five principles on how we can tame this this emotion

called anger. The first principle is this, acknowledge your anger. Just acknowledge your anger. See, some of us grew up in families or churches or homes or or we had mentors or teachers that that taught us that

anger, the emotion of anger is bad, and so repress it, hide it, push it down, but you found the hard way, sometimes from watching other people or you in your own life, that if you try to ignore anger, you push it down, you try to pretend it's not there, it will eventually come out and it's usually not pretty, is it?

And so principle number one is simply to say, anger is a human emotion, so acknowledge it. Principle number two is this, identify what kind of anger it is. Is it a valid anger or an invalid anger? There are valid reasons to be angry.

The psalmist in the Psalm, I mean we may go, wow, I think he took it a little far in that verse, but he had a valid reason to be angry. Years ago when I was fighting human

trafficking here in our own city and I was working with our vice squad, our local vice squad, and we were making a documentary about how the fact that in our own backyard,

right down the street from where we go to church and go to work and we live, there are 12 and 13 and 14 year old girls who are gonna be raped for profit repeatedly, right here. And when I was making that film, was hearing horrific stories. And if those stories don't make you angry, there's something wrong with you.

See, some of the greatest social reform in the history of this world are a result of people becoming angry, of people saying it's not right that someone can't sit wherever they want on a bus. It's not right that we have different drinking fountains. It's not right that we have segregated school. And so some people got angry and said, we need to change this.

We look at our world now and we think that millions of children are gonna die this year of treatable diseases. Millions of children will die from diseases that we have treatments for, if that doesn't make you angry, there's something wrong with you. See, there is a valid reason to be angry at times. Some marriages

in here have been repaired because you got angry to the point where you're saying, I'm sick and tired of being in a marriage where we just exist in the same house.

We're not doing this anymore. We're gonna go get counseling. We're gonna go get help. And it may have been the emotion of anger that brought you to making a change, a healthy change. So there is a valid anger. Anger can be our passport

to making necessary changes, but I would suggest that most often when we're angry, it's for invalid reasons, not necessarily good reasons. When my children were little one day, was getting ready to take them to school. We got in the car and

they had gotten in the car, and I was in the garage, and I don't remember what I got mad about. I got mad about something, and I kicked a garbage can, and so when I got in the car and I was driving them, I realized, well, that wasn't a very good example. So I started giving them a little sermonette on the way to school. I said, well, you know, if you put your faith in Jesus, you have the spirit of God in you, and Galatians five tells us that part of the fruit of the spirit is self control, and daddy didn't exhibit self control, but self control is you ever noticed when you're a parent, when you give a little sermon like that, sometimes it's within hours where you

mess it up again.

Because see just a few hours later, we're back at our house. This is in Montana at the time, and we have this big green yard, and I had one of those gas mowers that you have to like pull to start, but but my gas mower was like demon possessed or something. Wouldn't start, like it would take me a dozen or two dozen poles.

Now, at the time, this hand was in a cast because this this thumb still doesn't work. It was broken at the time. It was in a cast. So I had to take my lawn mower, take it over picnic table, lift up the picnic table, wedge the mower underneath the picnic table, and then pull it, you know, a dozen, two dozen times, and I keep pulling it and pulling it, and it would sound like it was gonna start, and it would act like it was gonna start, but it wouldn't start.

Now all three of my children who just that morning had heard me giving that little sermon about self control are watching me. Okay? And I'm getting more and more angry and I swear my lawnmower was laughing at me. Finally, got so ticked off, just kicked it. Stupid mower and I started walking away, smart.

Except I didn't keep walking. I stopped and I turned around and I looked at the mower and I don't know if you've ever talked to inanimate objects,

but I started having a conversation with the mower. Now all three of my kids, they've stopped playing in the yard now. They're just standing there staring at their dad, and I'm looking at the mower, I'm going, I'm gonna come back over there and I'm gonna pull you one more time and you better start. And I walked over to that mower, and I pull it and

I lost it. I jerked that mower out from cast and all. Jerked that mower out from underneath it. I threw the mower, goes through the air, rolls over, it's leaking gas and oil all over the the yard, the grass, and I'm suddenly going and

my my middle child, Josiah, who thought he was a comedian at the time, he looked at the mower and then at me and then at the mower and then at me, he's maybe it'll start now, dad.

Good thing he was halfway across the yard. They would've chucked him too. My kids run inside. They're like, mom, don't go in the backyard. Dad has lost it. I go over to make sure I haven't completely destroyed my mower. Now, was that a valid reason to be angry? No. No. Principle two is stop, pause, ask yourself,

I'm angry, but principle number one, just acknowledge your anger. I'm angry, but is this valid or invalid? There are valid reasons, but often we're mad about invalid things, stupid things.

In fact, might want to take a picture of the quote that's gonna go on the screen in a moment. It was Aristotle. He gave this quote years ago. He said this, he said, anyone can become angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way, that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.

Isn't that good? Most of the time in my life, my anger is not for the right reason, at the right person, at the right time. So principle number one again, we're gonna jump to three, but principle number one is acknowledge

that you're angry. Principle number two is just identify as valid or invalid, then principle number three, restrain your immediate response. Oh my friends, Rock Point, please hear me on this one. If we would just live out number three, restrain your immediate response.

If you're a note taker, you're gonna wanna write down this next phrase. See, you will own your anger or your anger will own you. You will own your anger or your anger will own you. And often our anger owns us because we simply don't do. Number three, restrain your immediate response. With the mower, I was angry

and I started walking away, and that would have been smart if I would have kept walking away. Step away, cool down, don't say it, don't do something, give yourself little bit of time, because if you lash out in anger, and you know what I'm talking about, you're gonna say something stupid or do something stupid.

So just put the brakes on. Say, hey, I'm really angry right now, Can we just talk about this in a little bit? I don't want to say anything I'm going regret. I just need to slow down right now. Walk away from the mower or the hammer or the wrench or the trash can

or anything else that you throw when you're angry. I'm not speaking from personal experience, I'm just saying this could be the case. Walk away, pause. In fact, Psalms and Proverbs has so much to say about this.

At Proverbs 29 verse 11, it says, fools vent their anger but the wise quietly hold it back. There's nothing that makes us look more foolish than unrestrained anger, right? Proverbs 2five 28 says, a person without self control is like a city with

broke down walls. Now that proverb doesn't make much sense to us today because we don't really build cities this way anymore. But three thousand years ago when that proverb was written, any city that didn't have walls was a city that was indefensible. An enemy was gonna be able to come in and just take that city over.

It was going to be controlled by the enemy. If you don't control your anger, your anger will control you. A person without restraining their anger is a person like a city without a wall.

Your anger will control you. In fact, look at Psalm four verse four, this is a great one. Don't sin by letting anger control you, think about it overnight and remain silent. Can you imagine, my friends, if we just lived out those three verses? Don't let your anger control you. Step away, process it.

Don't say or do something stupid. And so principle number one, acknowledge your anger. Principle number two, identify. Is this valid reason to be angry or is this invalid reason to be angry? Principle number three, restrain your immediate response. Principle number four, do not hold on to anger.

Do not hold on to your anger. Note takers, this is another one you might wanna write down. Anger was meant to be a visitor, not a resident.

Anger was meant to be a visitor, not a resident. Again, anger is a human emotion, we all will deal with it. Jesus was angry at times. Anger was made to be a visitor, not a resident. In fact, Bill was in last night's sermon, and afterwards he said, oh, you should add this part, that if you allow anger to be a resident in your life, it will become president in your life. That's good, isn't it? That was that was a bill there.

And it's true. We If don't control anger, anger will control us. And if we hold on to anger, it's supposed to be a visitor, not a resident. Look at this verse in Ephesians four verse 26.

It speaks to this idea of letting go of anger. Be angry, but don't sin. You can't be angry and not sin. Be angry, but don't sin. Don't let the sun go down before you have dealt with the cause of your anger. In other words, let go of anger, deal with it in a healthy way, but you gotta let it go.

It's almost like you can picture that we all have an anger tank. And if we keep stuffing anger in that tank and there's not a release valve, that tank eventually gets full. And then it's like

We've all witnessed that, haven't we? It's gotta be a release valve. You gotta let go of it. And Rock Point, one of the number one reasons that we hang on to anger is because of storytelling and ruminating.

Is because if you had a valid reason to be angry, a valid injustice was done to you, like the guy who wrote this Psalm or the

people that survived World War II, all of us have had injustices done to us, wrongs done to us, valid reasons to be angry, but if you start keep storytelling and ruminating about that day after day after day, you're never gonna let go of that anger, you're just gonna hold it in and it's gonna build and build and build and eventually it's gonna blow.

And so what you end up doing is tomorrow you wake up and you start thinking about how you were wronged. And the next day you wake up and you think about how you were wronged. And you wake up the next day and you think about how you were wronged. And you never let go of the anger. Recently,

and what I mean by recently is two weeks ago, was talking to a friend of mine, and he was one of those friends that can speak truth, they can be a truth teller even when it's hard, they give you the throw punches,

and he gave me one two weeks ago because we had met for coffee, and then I was standing out by my car, and I was talking to him, I said, hey, his name is Bob, and I said, hey Bob, you just pray for me because I'm really struggling with a recent injustice, what I felt it was an injustice done to me, and I'm just

having a hard time letting it go. And he looked at me and he said, well, you need to repent.

Now if you're new to church, repent isn't a word you're gonna hear in like Safeway today, okay? So it's a churchy word, but it's a fairly harsh word. It literally means to turn away. Like if you repent of something, you're facing it and then you repent, you turn away. What Bob was telling me is he said, you need to repent of your storytelling. The reason you're having a hard time letting this go is because you keep telling yourself the story of how you were wronged, and you need to discipline yourself to tell yourself a different story. I mean, maybe you were really wronged,

but you gave it to God, you moved on,

and now when you start to tell yourself that story, when you start to ruminate, you need to instead choose to have an attitude of gratitude and start thinking about what are you grateful that's in your life right now? You need to remind yourself Romans eight twenty eight, for we know that all things work together for the good of those that love the Lord our God. That somehow, some way, someday God will take this hurt that was done to me and he'll work it for good.

Stop the storyteller. Some of you are with me on that one. You know what I'm talking about. Here's here's a practical way that maybe you could do this. Another friend of mine told me this.

He said, you know, when I start storytelling ruminating about an injustice that was done to me, I will sometime write it down on a piece of paper.

I'll go outside and I'll take that piece of paper and I'll say, God, this was something that was done or said to me, but I'm giving it to you and then they'll burn the piece of paper. It's gone.

And and if a real injustice has been done to you, it may not be that you do that once and it's done. You may have to do that every day for a while. In fact, the friend that told me this wasn't any small thing he was dealing with. His daughter was murdered by her boyfriend. And

he will never again in this world hug his daughter or hold his daughter or talk to his daughter. And every anniversary that comes around of his daughter's death, he starts storytelling and ruminate

about what this guy took away from him. He said, if I allowed it, my anger was gonna turn to bitterness, and bitterness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies. It was going to hurt me. My anger was going to hurt me. So I got to let it go. So he said, I write it down and I give it to God and I burn it.

Principle number four, anger is real. We're gonna have it at times, but don't hold on to it. Which leads us to principle number five. Principle number five is simply admit your failures.

Who in here has handled anger perfectly? I see no hands. Jesus is the only one who's ever lived on this earth who has handled his anger perfectly. And if you get very many more, I was gonna say decades or years, but I'll just stick with days, you're probably gonna make a mistake with your anger again.

And you just need to admit it. And see the reason that we don't admit our failures when it comes to anger is usually because of our pride.

You're gonna get angry at your spouse, you're gonna get angry at your kids, kids you're gonna get angry at your parents, you're gonna get angry at friends, you're gonna get angry at coworkers,

bosses you're gonna get angry at your employees, employees you're gonna get angry at your bosses, it's gonna happen and sometimes you're not gonna handle it correctly. And the most powerful thing you can do is these three simple words, I am sorry.

See another reason we don't do that sometimes is when we're in the place of power. You're a parent and you don't want to apologize to your kid because you think you're gonna lose some power. You're a boss and you're gonna apologize to your employees because you think you're gonna lose some power. No, no, no.

One of the most powerful positions you can ever be in is when you're this. I'm sorry. You see the day that I threw the lawn mower, the kids went in and they're gonna, don't go in the backyard, dad's lost it. I go make sure I didn't completely ruin my mower, by the way, it worked perfectly after that.

And I go go check my mower, get a hold of myself, I went inside and I had my kids come and sit on the couch and I got on my knees in front of them and I said, kids daddy is so sorry. My daughter says, yeah, you just talked about self control this morning, dad. Thank you, Ashley. Thank you for reminding me of that.

I'm sorry. It wasn't a position of weakness for me as a father to admit my failure with my anger. It was a position of power.

None of us in here are gonna handle our anger perfectly all the time, and so principle number five is when you when you mess up, when you say that thing you shouldn't have said or you do that thing you shouldn't have done, the most powerful thing you can do is just simply say, I am sorry. Rock Point, this emotion

of anger is real, it's human. We've been dealing with it since we were little children and the power of the spirit of God is allowing us and we'll listen to these five principles and live these out, is allowing us to tame our anger and allow it to become a passport in our life, not a prison in our life.

The moment the worship team is gonna come out, they're gonna lead us in another song, and here's what I wanna ask us to do as they lead us in this song. My supposition is that there's a lot of you, if not all of us in here, who have some stories that we keep telling ourselves.

Because no one in here has not been hurt by words or actions of someone else. And and maybe at some time in the past, you've given that to God, but you find yourself again ruminating on it, storytelling.

Because of that, you're letting this anger build up. It's turning to bitterness. And so in this next song, as we are led in this and we're worshiping our Jesus, would you just let the spirit of God speak to you?

And one more time, would you just go, God, I don't want to carry this anymore. I don't wanna tell this story anymore. I don't wanna keep ruminating about this anymore, I give it to you. Jesus,

right now, spirit of God, would you just speak into our hearts and for all of us, whatever that is that we keep storytelling, whatever that is that we keep ruminating, whatever that hurt, whatever that thing that was said to us, God, right now, would we once again just give that to you so that we're not hanging on to this anger. It's not becoming a resident in our life. It was a visitor, but it's not gonna be a resident, God. And so we give it to you, God.

We love you, Jesus. And all God's people said, amen.

You.

Thank

Lord. We you for the

love to talk with you. If you're watching online, thank you for joining us this weekend. If you need to pray, go to rockpoint.io and click the need to talk tab. Other than that, happy Mother's Day. We love you guys. Have an awesome rest of your weekend.