Wisdom and Anger
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. He is great. He can throw well.
He can even hit. It was very exciting up until about a month ago. He finally had a bad outing and he left the mound pretty angry and did what no pitcher should ever do. He got to the dugout and decided to use his fists in his anchor and he punched the dugout benches. And I don't know if you've ever punched something like a bench or a wall. It does not go well for your hand.
And he broke his hand and he's out for like the next, he's out a month, he's like two more months that he's out, which hurts us. He learned a valuable lesson. When you get angry, kick things. If you're a pitcher, do not use your hands. They are very valuable for your career. But no, he felt embarrassed.
The coach came out and just said he's super embarrassed, super frustrated and super mad at kind of how he went about himself and making a fool of himself. The reality is, is that that happens to us, right? In our anger, we do foolish things, not as public as his mistake, but the reality is, is that we mess up in a lot of different ways that are more private. Maybe you've lost your temper and you've acted harshly towards your spouse behind closed doors. Maybe you're the kind of person that you've snapped at your kids when they don't react the way that you want them to. Maybe you are the kind of person that has sent passive aggressive emails to co-workers in your anger and made a fool of yourself.
Maybe you've even given your friends when they have treated you not the way that you've wanted to be treated. You've given them a cold shoulder, right? You've just been angry towards them. The reality is, is we do this on a regular basis in a lot of different ways. Anger is both self-destructive and it hurts and harms others. So we're going to look at the Proverbs today and see what it has to say, what kind of wisdom it has to give for the subject matter of wrath.
So as we move through this today, we're going to look at it from three different angles. We are first going to look at the danger of anger. Why anger is dangerous. Then we're going to look secondly at the fulfillment of wrath. How this shows up throughout the whole of the scriptures. And then lastly, we're going to get real practical in how to rule our anger.
How to rule our anger. How to control our wrath. So let me pray and then we'll jump into the text. Father, we thank you for your word. That it is a gift. That you have spoken.
And we get to open it up. We get to let it go to work on our hearts. And I pray this morning that you would soften our hearts. That you would move us towards repentance. And ultimately sing the wisdom that you have to say about anger. We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen. Alright, so. Proverbs 15, 18. A hot-tempered man stirs up strife. But he who is slow to anger quiets contention.
Alright, so that's one idea we're going to see throughout this. An uncontrolled man stirs up strife. They stir up mess. And their life and the life around them. And the ideal that is holed up is being slow to anger. That's the ideal that we would be.
Slow to anger. And then kind of the anchor passage for our morning is Proverbs 16, 32. Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. That's what's upheld for us to strive after this morning. Is that we would be slow to anger.
In a way that it says that if you are slow to anger. You are mightier than one that takes down cities. Is what it's getting at. You're mightier than a conqueror. And that's difficult. That's what's being upheld here.
It's difficult to rule your spirit. It's easy to take down a city in comparison to being able to control your anger. So that's how hard it pictures for us. Controlling your anger. So I have three kids.
My youngest. She still looks like a baby because she doesn't have a lot of hair. But she is very firmly a toddler. She is in that stage. And when she gets angry. She gets beat right in the face.
And she throws her hands in the air. And she just screams. She yells across the house. Ah! And then she finds the couch. It's kind of her favorite spot.
And she just collapses into the couch. And just screams into the couch. And it's a little bit humorous. Our oldest. She sees it in laughs. We can't laugh at this.
It's going to reinforce the behavior. But it's. She has no. Listen. She's a toddler. She has no ability to be able to control what's happening inside her.
She hasn't gotten there yet. And there's a lot of really physical things that are happening inside of her when she gets angry. There's some physiological things that happen when you get angry. There's a nervous tension that starts to run through your body. Right? Your adrenaline spikes.
And your blood starts pumping. And you're on edge. You get alert. The muscles in your face and your chest start to tighten. Sometimes for some people their stomach starts to churn. And then blood starts to flow throughout your muscles.
For some people it flows to their face. That's why they get hot. Red. And face. There's a lot of physical things that are happening. They've done brain scans that show that part of your brain just lights up when you get angry.
It's a very physical. Natural. Response. And it happens. All in a matter of seconds. And for the one who cannot control their anger.
The physical takes over. And they act foolishly. Anger manifests itself physically. But it's also an emotion. And specifically it's the emotion of judgment. It's an emotion that arises out of a feeling of being wronged.
And the Bible has two kind of broad categories in how it speaks about anger. There is righteous anger that mirrors the Lord. And then there's unrighteous, uncontrolled anger that is sinful. Now, the Proverbs doesn't say a whole lot about the righteous anger category. It just doesn't. But I do want to highlight it here so we don't get confused.
Because there is an idea that there is this righteous anger. When it perfectly reflects God's anger, His wrath, that it's actually holy. Even though the Proverbs doesn't spend a lot of time on it. So let me quickly just highlight this for us. Righteous anger is a judgment that says this is not right. Righteous anger is a judgment that says this isn't right.
When Jesus is in the temple in John 2. And He sees the temple being used as a marketplace for greedy and corrupt places. He sees the house of worship being tainted with this kind of greed and corruption. There's a righteous anger, a zeal that rises up within Him. And it says in John 2, And making a whip of cords, which I don't know if you've ever made a whip of cords. I don't know if that's one of your hobbies.
But that takes some time. Right? He's making this whip of cords. They're slow to anger as He's getting ready to make action from His judgment. It says, So He's slow to anger. But He sees something that is not wrong.
And for righteousness' sake, He goes and He clears out the temple. So we see that anger in and of itself actually isn't sin. You can go to Ephesians 4, 26, which says, Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. It says, Be angry, but don't sin in your anger. So, if anger is an emotion, Alright?
And if it actually slowly rises out of a heart for justice or for God's righteousness, or for godly correction, for some categories that have to do with righteous anger, then you are in the clear. That you actually are honoring God. The problem is, is that 99% of the time, that's not how we get angry. It's just not us. And the Proverbs is basically speaking about uncontrolled anger. And they're capturing that idea.
So that is what we're going to spend the majority of our time this morning. It's how the Proverbs talks about this uncontrolled, sinful anger that is within us. And I'm going to walk through three different dangerous aspects of anger that the Proverbs upholds for us. So three different dangerous aspects. The first is uncontrolled anger is foolish. Uncontrolled anger is foolish.
Proverbs 14, verse 17 says, A man of quick temper Acts foolishly, and a man of evil devices is hated. Verse 29, it says, Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. So, you may not be a person that throws their hands in the air and starts screaming across the house like a crazy person when you get angry. Right? Some of you may. We may need to talk after this.
But the majority of us, we don't act like a toddler when we get angry. But there are things that provoke in us anger. Maybe you're the kind of person that when you are driving and you get cut off in traffic, that there are colorful words and gestures that just flow from you when you get angry, all while repping a Mill City bumper sticker, which, thank you for being a bad witness. If you struggle with getting very angry, maybe take it off for a season, work on your anger, and then put it back on. Right? Maybe that's you.
Maybe when you are angry, you're the kind of person that hurls the cruelest insults you can. You hurl cruel insults at your wife, at your friends, at your roommates. There's this thing, this physical thing that takes over, and all of a sudden you would describe yourself maybe as, or others would describe you as hot-headed. The reality is that this is you. If you are hot-headed, if you act rashly when you get upset, if you have this category of uncontrolled anger that exhibits itself in flashbang fashion, it says you are foolish. The Bible has a category of foolishness and sin.
It says you're undisciplined. You lack self-control. You're unpredictable. You are dangerous in your words and actions. And the Proverbs and the rest of the Bible are going to uphold this ideal, this being slow to anger. And the reality is that being slow to anger is not natural to us.
It's not human. Actually, being slow to anger is godly. It's an attribute of the Lord. You see, when Moses is on the mountain in Mount Sinai, God comes and speaks to him. It's one of the more foundational passages about the character of God in the Old Testament. So God is surrounding the mountain, and he calls out to Moses.
It says in Exodus 34, The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. This idea that God describes himself is slow to anger. The rest of the scriptures uphold this. You can see it in Numbers 14, in 2 Chronicles 30, Nehemiah 9, Psalm 86. Actually, there's multiple places throughout the Psalms that uphold this idea that God is slow to anger. The God who knows the future and can see our sin and our rebellion thousands of years before we commit it is slow to anger and forbearing with us.
He is not hasty in his judgment. He is not quick to get angry. He is not quick to judge. Unlike us, his judgment is always sound. It is always perfect. We, on the other hand, are hasty in our judgment.
That is one of the core reasons that we get angry. We are quick to get angry because we believe that our judgment is sound. We believe we're right. Uncontrolled, sinful anger is ultimately our displeasure at how things are happening, at how we're treated at a more base level. We get angry when things don't go our way. And what happens in a moment is you basically have a kangaroo court for a mind.
When something makes you mad, in a moment's notice, you play judge, jury, executioner, like that. You have made the judgment. Someone has wronged you. Someone has done something that is wrong. And you are going to respond accordingly. We are hasty in our judgment.
And when we do this, when we make hasty judgments, when we respond in uncontrolled anger, we harm others. A few months back, one of my children was using our upstairs toilet and put too much toilet paper in and it overflowed. And when I found out about this, I responded with some uncontrolled anger. Just responded harshly to the situation. And it was foolishness for two different reasons. Firstly, my children are five, three, and one.
And goodness gracious, they make mistakes. But the reason that I was getting so upset was that when it overflowed, the water flowed into the subflooring and it went into the ceiling above our kitchen. And the reason why it was foolish is not just because I have young children, and it's understandable, but that might happen every now and then. We've been in the process. The second reason, we've been remodeling a house for the last year. And bit by bit, this has been a complete remodel.
And in that upstairs bathroom, like an idiot, I never sealed the toilet when we reset it. It was my fault. It was my fault that the water flowed under the toilet and into the ceiling. But I went up there, and in a hasty judgment, I overreacted. Not realizing that my children are going to make mistakes. Not realizing that it's actually my fault that the ceiling has a spot in it now.
We do this. And what happened out of that was, is that my child was afraid to flush the toilet for quite a while after that. It harms people around us when we make these hasty judgments. And if you're honest with yourself, you've been there. You've lived some version of that story where you saw a situation unfold, you reacted poorly in your anger, and out of your poor reaction, out of your sinful, hasty judgment, you harmed others. And the hope is, is that you have the humility enough to realize that, and can repent when it happens.
Hasty judgment. Hasty, quick to anger. This is foolishness. It says it's foolishness. Also dangerous anger. This uncontrolled anger.
The second thing is that it causes sin. Uncontrolled anger causes sin. Proverbs 29, 22. It says, A man of wrath stirs up strife, and one given to anger causes much transgression. It says, A man of wrath stirs up conflict. They stir up strife, and they cause sin.
That dangerous anger causes sin and stirs up strife in those around it. And the reality is, is we need to be able to picture this, what types of anger do this. I read in preparation for this this week, a book by David Pallison. He is a helpful counseling pastor. He was. He died a couple of years ago.
But he has a lot of very helpful books when it comes to Christian counseling. He has one on anger called Good and Angry. And if you struggle with anger, I encourage you to get on Amazon today and order it. Because it's a very helpful book. But he has some of these different categories of destructive anger, and how these categories harm and hurt others and those around you.
So I just want to walk through a few of them so we can see some of these destructive categories of anger. The first one is arguing. Maybe you're the type of person, when you get angry, you are going to argue. You are going to use your words as a weapon. You will out-argue anyone to win your way. So my wife and I get in arguments.
If I want to, I can win pretty much everyone. Before I was called to ministry, I thought about being a lawyer. So I can be pretty decent at arguments. My wife is not a wordsmith. She's just not. When she tries to get arguments sometimes, she says the wrong thing, and I find it very cute.
But the problem is, is that I can use that against her. I can win every argument. I can be domineering and go after it. But the reality is, is that that violates so many of the commands of Scripture. 1 Peter 3, 7 comes to mind. Live with your wife in an understanding way.
Showing honor to her. So at what cost, right? For those of you that argue, at what cost is it worth it to get one more dig in, to get one more argument in? At what cost to your roommates? At what cost to your friends? At what cost to your co-workers?
Is it worth it in your anger to lash out and argue? Maybe it's not arguing. Maybe it's irritability. It's the second category of anger that he gives. Now this can be, irritability can show up in a lot of different ways.
There's kind of two kind of spectrums of anger sometimes where it's hot anger or cold anger. Hot anger is the one that we're most familiar with, right? You get heated. It's, you know, it gets pretty quick, pretty fast. The other one's cold. It's subtle.
It's more of a, you give the cold shoulder. But you can be both of those when you're irritable. Maybe you're angry all the time and you're just irritable. You're grumpy. You're touchy. And everyone around you walks on eggshells.
Y'all, we've all known the relative that around Thanksgiving and Christmas time everyone's walking on eggshells around them trying not to say the wrong thing, making sure that they're okay, right? Maybe you're like, no, I don't have any relatives like that. All my relatives are annoying and cheerful. You found him. It's you. Look in the mirror.
But everyone is walking on eggshells around you because you're irritable and you're angry all the time. Maybe it's not irritability. Maybe it's bitterness. It's another category of anger. And this category actually does more destruction to yourself. That you've let grievances and grudges from years past just sit with you.
And like a cancer, bitterness is grown in your soul. And that anger has just eaten away at you. I mean, I've seen families. I've seen friendships. I've seen people that are just bitter. And they're not reconciled to their family or friends.
They've stayed mad for years. And it's just eaten away at their soul. As the proverb says, it causes much transgression. And it stirs up strife. Maybe it's not bitterness. Maybe it's this type of violent anger, violence.
Maybe when you're the type of person you get angry, you get violent. You are going to absolutely inflict pain on those who hurt you. You're going to get even. And that doesn't always have to be with your fist. But you have angry outbursts.
You're harsh, verbally abusive in your speech. It's violent. I remember the first time I slammed a door in our marriage. It was the first year of our marriage. Got an argument, slammed the door. my wife, who is loving and is sensitive. It hurt her.
Not realizing that this kind of violent outbursts, it harms those around you. Hear what the proverb we read earlier says. It is easier to conquer a city. It is much harder to control your anger. If you're the type of person that has violent outbursts, you need to grow in this. Your anger hurts those around you.
Give you one more category of destructive anger. Self-righteous anger. Maybe if this is the type of anger that you swim in, maybe you're the kind of person that loves to say, I told you so. I told you. You should listen to me. And it comes out in this really angry, vindictive speech.
Maybe the kind of person that when you get angry at those who don't follow the rules and you're sniping at those who don't follow the rules. Maybe you're the kind of person that gets angry that people don't dress a certain way, they don't look a certain way. Maybe the kind of person that gets angry when people don't use the same kind of politically correct updated phrasing. Maybe the kind of person that gets mad on Facebook and you troll Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, whatever you use just to get in arguments with people because there's this self-righteousness within you that makes you want to lash out at others.
These are just a few different categories of destructive anger. And the reality is is when you engage in this type of anger that comes from these quick hasty judgments, you hurt people. You hurt those around you. You hurt the people that you love most around you. Destructive anger causes sin, but also the third aspect I want us to see from the Proverbs is that uncontrolled anger spreads. Uncontrolled anger spreads.
Proverbs 22, 24, through 25 says, Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare. It says the ways of a wrathful man are both infectious and they're deadly. They ensnare those around them. You set traps for those around you that they might fall into anger with you. A few months back, I saw my son. He's my middle child.
And he got angry and he growled. He went, Arr! And I was like, Man, must have gotten that from his mama. I was like, No. No, that's definitely learned behavior. That kid gets a lot of things honestly from me.
A lot of things honestly. Looks like me, has mannerisms like me, but that was learned behavior because he's seen me do house projects. He's seen me realizing that I'm going to have to go back to Lowe's for a fourth time. He's seen that. I'm just like, Arr! And when I saw it happen, I went, Oh.
Oh, yeah. He picked that up from me. What type of destructive anger are you imparting to your children for those of you that have kids? What kind of patterns are they seeing? Right? This is a classic excuse where it's like, Oh, I grew up in an Italian family.
We're just, Wow, that's what we do. Sure. That's generations of uncontrolled anger. You could just accept that as a reality and impart that to your kid and your kid one day will be an angry, sometimes violent, sometimes abusive, husband, wife, friend, co-worker. Or you can decide to break the cycle and be different. You can decide to impart some wisdom to your child by learning how to control your anger yourself and not impart that to your kids.
It's infectious in so many ways. Maybe you've been in a community group before where someone's just angry about something. And they're angry and then all of a sudden what happens? They stir up more anger, right? Sin begets sin, right? Sin spreads.
It grows. And then all of a sudden someone else is angry about something. And then you just got an angry group. Maybe you're in a household where you have roommates that they're just angry. And what happens? They get angry about something and someone else gets angry and then all of a sudden you have a household that's just cold.
And it's not fun at all. Anger, it just, it spreads amongst us. So uncontrolled anger is foolish. It causes sin. And that sin spreads. We have to absorb that this destructive, uncontrolled anger is dangerous.
It harms us and it harms those around us. And we have to stop. We have to repent. We have to change. But the reality is is that you won't repent.
You won't change until you understand that our sinful, uncontrolled anger, until you understand that in light of the righteous anger of God. The second thing I want us to see this morning is the fulfillment of wrath. We will not fully understand how destructive and how fallen our anger is until we understand it in light of the righteous wrath of God. which I know is a subject matter that is not popular. But the Bible upholds it and for good reason. First off, we need to understand that God is a perfect and righteous judge. Read that passage from Exodus 34 that talks about the character of God?
It continues in verse 7. It says, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty. We have to see this. You have to see the just and patient anger and wrath of God. You have to understand this from the Bible, that God has anger towards injustice. God has anger towards sin.
We are creation and He is the Creator. And as creation, we rebel against Him. We reject His good design for this world. We choose and run after our own sin, our own idolatry, and we shake our fist at God. I mean, if you could create something out of nothing and that creation rebelled against you, hated you, turned its back on you, you would be just in your righteous judgment to bring judgment, to bring wrath. The Bible upholds this very clearly.
And you want this. You don't want a God that turns a blind eye to injustice. You don't want a God that turns a blind eye to the more extreme, which would be genocide. You don't want that. But you don't want a God who turns a blind eye to the husband who beats his wife.
No, we want a God of justice. As Westerners, we don't like this. The rest of the world that experiences injustice on a much more grand scale, as Christians, they long for the justice of God. They wouldn't worship a God who does not bring wrath towards injustice, who does not right every wrong. We have to believe this. You have to fully know this, that in his righteous judgment he brings wrath.
But he's slow to do it. He's slow to anger. We don't understand this because sometimes when we read the Bible you see someone sins against God then God strikes them down. But we don't realize that God is eternal. He sees this coming for thousands of years in advance. And he forbears with us still.
He is slow to anger. We don't understand the scope of how God's wrath works. How long it is. How forbearing it is. We are not God. We are unable to judge like him.
He is a righteous judge. But we also get to see that he is a merciful and gracious judge. And how he overlooks offenses. And that finally makes so much beautiful and perfect sense when you get to the cross. When you get to the cross and you realize that that cross was meant for us. That that judgment was meant for us.
But Jesus absorbs that. He goes to the cross for us. That God takes our place on the cross for our sins and absorbs the wrath that was diverted from us to him. Once you see that you understand he fulfills what Proverbs 19 teaches. Proverbs 19 says good sense makes one slow to anger and it is as glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 10 says hatred stirs up strife but love covers all offenses.
Jesus perfectly fulfills this. The only one that does not deserve judgment. He takes it in our place and by his blood and by his love it covers our offenses. It covers our transgressions. When you understand the cost of what it took with Jesus on the cross in our place. When you understand that we deserve wrath and then when you flip to the end of the story and you get to the book of Revelation and you read that one day Jesus will come back as the righteous judge and he will right every wrong then you can really begin to absorb this.
There's a Croatian theologian. His name is Miroslav Volf. He says this the certainty of God's just judgment at the end of history is the presupposition for the renunciation of violence in the middle of it. That's pretty jam-packed as a phrase. But what he's getting at is that the certainty that one day Jesus will come back and he will judge all things.
That forms the basis by which we who are in the middle of the story respond. That we don't have to result to violence in the middle of the story because one day Jesus comes back and he's going to judge all things. Once you firmly believe that that Jesus will come back and he will judge all things that we in our anger don't have to sin. We don't have to be the ones who judge others. We don't have to bring this hasty judgment. We can rest in the fact that one day the judge will come back and he will right every wrong.
That is a comfort to those who are hurting. That our judge will come back and when you firmly believe this it is then that you can actually not just control your anger but you can show mercy and you can show forgiveness. So you have to understand the fulfillment of wrath. You have to understand that we deserve wrath that God has wrath towards injustice towards sin. You have to understand that Jesus died in our place on the cross and that one day he is going to come back and wrath will be fulfilled when all things are made new. Once you understand that then you can begin to get practical and learn how to rule your anger.
And that is the last thing I want us to see today. To learn how to practically rule our anger. Proverbs 16.32 says whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. That's the ideal. That we would be slow to anger having all that theological back where we just went through. Having that in the back of your mind.
We'd be slow to anger and in our anger that we would be slow and that we would rule ultimately our spirit. That's the ideal. That you would rule that you would control your spirit your anger. Now how do you practically do that? I have a very practical first step to physically slow yourself down. There's a lot of physiological things that are happening when you get angry.
One of the things I've taught before I think I've taught on a Sunday I know I teach this in counseling is the idea of breathing. Alright? Of deep breathing. When the physical anger is starting to rise within you you need to learn how to slow yourself down. How to practically calm yourself down. Because all that theology, all the philosophy, all the things you have in the back of your mind is going to be really hard when you get worked up and your adrenaline spikes.
So I teach people when they're getting worked up to put their hand on their diaphragm right here and to learn to slowly deep breathe. What happens when you do that is it slows your pulse down which was spiked from adrenaline. It floods your brain with oxygen which helps you be a more sound judge. It makes you be more rational. To actually slow yourself down that is an easy first step to rule your spirit. You've got to understand the physical nature of what happens when you get angry and then slow yourself down.
After you've slowed yourself down I have some questions for you to think through. Now these questions are best in the moment. It's best to think about these when you're slow to anger not after you've gotten angry and done something that's foolish. But if you're like me and you step into trouble and you've acted foolishly in your anger you can do an anger autopsy after the fact. It's important and I'm dead serious to actually think through why is it that I got so angry. So I have some questions and this is important.
There are times when I'm angry and my wife and I get in some type of argument and she's like why are you so mad? And I'm like I don't know but I need some time to figure this out and I'll get back to you. And she does. She's loving it. She gives me the space. It's helpful to have space to be able to figure this out.
So I have some questions for you to think through. And I'm going to give you a case study for how to think through this. I found one very easily this week on Tuesday when I was taking my oldest to school. So my oldest has been late, I don't know, like five times the last two weeks of school. For various reasons she's been late. And I was like no, we're finishing up the school year, she's not going to be late.
And all of a sudden on Tuesday one thing led to another. We got out the house and we were late. And on the way to driving her to school, I'm just gripping the steering wheel and I'm mad, I'm flying down the road in a Prius y'all, just all the way down Highway 1. I'm like why, and then I was like why am I so mad about this? Why am I so angry? So I didn't, I obviously didn't win the battle beforehand, had to do an angry autopsy afterwards.
So here are three questions I had to work through this week for when you get angry or after the fact that you need to process. All right, first question. When you got upset, what did you want? What did you want? Why does the thing that you're angry about matter so much? What did you want?
I had to ask myself that this week. So I'm thinking about why did I get so angry because we're late to school. A few different reasons popped up. It's like well I'm a scheduled person. I'm a routine person. I like things to go in, you know, I like things to be in order.
This is out of order. It's frustrating. And it's like also I don't want to get an email from her teacher this week about her being late to school. And I was like okay, that's why I'm upset. All right, second question.
What are you afraid of? You're building off these questions together. What are you afraid of? And it's like ugh, I don't know. I don't like my schedule to be off kilter. That's a thing.
I also, I really don't like the shame of someone saying hey, you're parenting bad. Get your kid to school on time. You know? I don't like the eyes of someone who's like oh yeah, your child's in here for the fifth time in two weeks. Right? I was like okay, that's what I'm afraid of.
All right. Third question. What does that reveal about where your hope is? That is the big one. That's going to get the sin beneath the sin. And it's like okay, what does that reveal about where my hope is?
What do I truly want? What's going on underneath the surface? And I was like oh, okay. I know myself. I know I have control idolatry. It's a deep idol for me.
I know I have approval idolatry. That's also a deep idol for me. So part of this is I'm controlling and I like to have my schedule work out. And when things get out of whack, it's not going well for me. But that's part of the reason.
Here's the core reason. I have some approval idolatry. And I ultimately want to be a parent that has a child who shows up on time. I grew up all the time and was late to everything. I want to be different. I want to be able to present my child as we're a responsible family.
I'm a responsible parent. Approve of me. And ultimately, it's not about her at all. It's not about being on time at all. Ultimately, it's about me. And once you get to the sin beneath the sin, you've worked through these questions, you can start to understand why you are angry.
It is best to stop in the moment, slow yourself down, to do some deep breathing, and to pause in the moment and figure it out. But at the fact, you need to be able to ask these questions. When you've understood, understood, when you've understood how our sin works, and how we are just bad Judges, and how we're quick to this uncontrolled anger, when you've examined the hidden motives underneath the surface, you've done the tough work, with the backdrop of the fulfillment of wrath and what we know about God, and how our unrighteous, uncontrolled wrath looks in light of the wrath of God. When you do the tough, soul work of working through this, it is then that you can begin to believe the gospel.
It is then you can apply the gospel to yourself, it is when you can apply it to others, it is then you can be the kind of person that the Proverbs describes you. You can be one who is mightier than those who conquer cities. You can do the most difficult thing and rule your spirit. You can be the kind of person that your friends need, who's not flying off the handle, who's not cold and bitter. You can be the kind of person that your roommates need, you can be the kind of person that your wife and kids need, that your husband and children need. You can be the kind of person that rules his or her spirit because you've done the tough work, you've learned to be a self-controlled man or woman, and you've sought to honor God and the way that you go about life, not being hasty to judge, not being quick to be angry, but being a self-controlled man or woman that honors God and the way that you live your life, for the glory of God and for the good of others.