HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU
James Series 8: Anger
INTRO: RAIN AND SUNNY WEATHER (This is my news article, use what parts you like)
About 10 years ago or so, an upstart band named Ugly Kid Joe sang a song titled “Everything About You.” It had a rockin’ beat that youth at that time sang along too, and the refrain was sort of catchy for the words were simple and minds that were easily amused could learn them quickly and sing along with them. Of course, the song had a major problem as one would guess by the song’s title, it spewed hate.
The first line opened up, “I, hate the rain and sunny weather, and I hate the beach and mountains too.” Wow. Halfway through the first stanza, most of the weather conditions are obviously not liked by the main singer. And two of my most favorite places in the world, the beach and the mountains, are not enjoyed either.
The band continues…”I don’t like a thing about the city, no, no, and I, I, I hate the countryside too!” Now Ugly Kid Joe has my country wife, who grew up in a small rural town with one blinking stoplight, up in arms!
But his message gets worse, his refrain states, “I get sick when I’m around…I can’t stand to be around…I…hate everything about you, everything about you, everything about you, everything about you!” At first listen, I would say that this band has some anger problems, wouldn’t you say?
So what causes a man or woman to spew such venom, to deny all the words written about in James chapter 3, in what I symbolically call the “Control Thy Tongue Chapter” of the Bible? Even if a person was joking, or even if they really felt this way, why put it onto the airwaves? And why would anyone with a discerning nature ever choose to listen to such garbage? Could it be…because we as mere mortals…are angry too? The Bible says a lot about anger and hatred.
James 1:19-20 states, “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” Ecclesiastes 7:9 orders, “Do not let yourself be quickly provoked, for anger resides in the lap of fools.” And Proverbs 19:11 tells us, “A person’s wisdom makes him slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” With so many verses reminding us to prevent ungodly anger, then maybe we should take that request seriously.
A song about pure hatred is definitely not the song one would expect from a band that performed a fairly successful remake of Harry Chapin’s classic Cat’s in the Cradle. But then again, we should also have the expectation that Christians who know the Lord Jesus should abstain from becoming anger quickly. The next time our boiling point increases, let’s turn down the temperature, and look for calmness in both the rain and the sunny weather.
BIBLE VERSE: James 1:19-20
19My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
1. QUICK TO LISTEN:
BIBLE VERSE: James 1:19-20
19My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
I repeated this here because this is the central verse of the whole lesson. But the phrase on the surface doesn’t seem to make all that much sense. How does a person be “quick to listen?” I mean, I know “quick to avoid being hit by a dodgeball,” or “quick to ask a girl who just got dumped out.” But, quick to listen?
DOUBLE MESSAGE: This lesson absolutely refers to listening to others…but it also refers to listening to the Lord! Seriously, lost in the hustle and bustle of our world is the fact that there is an omnipotent God who wishes to communicate with us. How?
GOD COMMUNICATES TO US IN 4 WAYS:
A. God Communicates Through the Bible
To listen to his voice and discern his Word, we must be in His Word. God can communicate his Word through a variety of measures: counseling, song, books, DVDs, etc. But by far in the modern era, the primary message from God outside of personal Bible reading is through the local assembly gathering to hear the word.
B. God Communicates Through the Holy Spirit
Given to us by God at Pentecost, the Spirit now resides inside those of us who know and love the Lord.
C. God Communicates Through Events in our Lives
Special blessings reveals God’s love for us (give an example of something that was a blessing to you), special times of worship, & even trials and tribulations as well.
D. God Communicates Through People in our Lives
Ephesians 5:19-20 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; 20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;
2. SLOW TO SPEAK:
YOU DON’T GET YOUR WORDS BACK…
WOMAN IN INDIAN VILLAGE: “There is a story of a woman in an Indian village who maliciously gossiped about another lady and her family in the village. One day she found out that she was wrong about this lady and her family and had a change of heart. She went to the village’s wise man and asked how she could take back all the wrong she had done. The wise man told her to go home and kill her chickens and pluck there feathers and put them into a bag. After this she was to go back and see the wise man again, but on her way back she was to scatter all the feathers she had plucked from the chickens.
The lady did as she was told. When she got back to the man, he told her, " now go back and pick up all the feathers that you have scattered. " The woman was astonished at such a command and said, " By now the wind has carried the feathers through out the village and beyond." The wise man then told Her, And so it is with your careless words. They are like the feathers scattered in the wind. You can not retrieve them. " With that the woman with a broken heart because of the words she had spoken went her way, determined from that day forward to Watch her words.”
BIBLE VERSE:
Proverbs 18:21: Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
Words, like a murder, is something that you cannot get back and cannot undo. As the wife in a bitter rage shouts to her husband “I wish I had never married you,” or as the father shouts at the kid, “we’d be better off if you just left,” some things you just never get back. Even if the person forgives you of it, they will be remembered, especially if they’re harsh.
3. SLOW TO BECOME ANGRY:
BIBLE VERSE: Matthew 21:12
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.
TEACHING POINT: Despite common belief, anger in and of itself is NOT a sin. Being quick to anger is the sin, we are to be slow to anger. Just like Jesus had met his boiling point in this verse we just read. Let’s take a look at the different types of anger here.
3 TYPES OF ANGER:
Thumos appears twenty times and means a turbulent commotion, boiling agitation of feeling, sudden explosion. It's like our word rage.
Orge appears forty-five times and describes a long-lasting attitude that often continues to seek revenge, like our word resentment.
Aganaktesis, mentioned five times, is a form of anger without the implication of inappropriate behavior: indignation.
THERE ARE THINGS IN LIFE THAT MAKE US ANGRY...
Here is an example (feel free to put in your own story here on how the score was run up on by an opposing team if that has happened to you).
RUNNING UP THE SCORE
Micah Grimes, the Head Girls Basketball Coach of Covenant School in Texas made national news this week as his high school team beat Dallas Academy 100-0. Dallas Academy is a small school with only 20 girls in the entire student body, 8 of them play basketball. By design, D.A. was set up to assist in the develop of students with learning differences and has not won a game in 4 years. But that did not stop the players under Coach Grimes from launching 3 point shots late in the 4th quarter as the coaching staff cheered wildly for a triple digit score. As a coach myself, I find the actions of this coach and his post-game comments refusing to admit any wrong-doing as despicable.
Running up the score is something that happens from time to time in a wide variety of sports. It seems that at times because of the way national champions are crowned, college football is filled with examples. In 1992, Notre Dame beat rival Boston College 54-7 and still managed to fake a punt in the 4th quarter. In ’68, Ohio State was beating Michigan 48-14 when they decided to go for 2 on the extra point conversion. When asked why he went for 2, Head Coach Woody Hayes responded “because I couldn’t go for 3.” The greatest blowout in football history goes way back before American involvement in World War I when Georgia Tech beat Cumberland 222-0 while scoring 6 touchdowns in the final quarter. The prestigious Heisman trophy is named after John Heisman, the head coach of Tech during that blowout.
Teams that run up a score tend to think they have something to prove. Perhaps they want to show dominance. Maybe their intent is to embarrass another team. Some might think this improves a team’s prestige, or proves a point to a rival coach, or perhaps just to pad statistics for one reason or another. Whatever the reason for the run-up, it demonstrates poor sportsmanship.
Jesus Christ is all about playing fair, treating others fairly, and because He is perfect is never a poor sport. His Word is full of examples. One of these examples is the parable of the talents, written in Matthew 25. In the story, a man going on a journey gives out a different amount of talents to three different people. One man gets 5 talents, the next man 2, and the final man 1. The man with 5 talents manages to make 5 more. Likewise the man with 2 also doubles what he was given. But the man with 1 single talent decided to bury his talent in the ground. To this the Lord responds, “Evil and lazy slave!” He continues, “you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received my money back with interest!”
Though this verse is specifically geared toward money, the parable denotes that there is a level of fairness that exists when people work or compete on level playing fields. We all have talents in one way or another, and we all compete because we’re human. The way in which we compete in life reflects our families, and if we’re Christian the way we represent God.
Coach Grimes made a mistake with the talents given to him, and he paid for it by losing his job. Let’s use this example of Texas basketball to serve as a reminder to all of us that when it comes to our walk with the Lord, winning and losing is hardly the final say—but how we handle our lives with Christ-like integrity in the process.
Sources:
Keathley III, J. Hampton. Preparing to Hear God’s Word, bible.org.
Kraft, Vickie. Chapter 8: The Truth About Anger, bible.org.
Smith, Jeffrey. The Power of Words, Heartland Community Church, Kissimmee, Florida, August 10, 2002.
HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU
James Series 8: Anger
INTRO: “I hate everything about you.”
-Ugly Kid Joe
BIBLE VERSE: James 1:19-20
19My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be ________________________, ______________ and _______________________________________________, 20for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.
1. _________________________________
DOUBLE MESSAGE:
GOD COMMUNICATES TO US BY FOUR WAYS:
A. ___________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________
B. ___________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________
C. ___________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________
D. ___________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________
2. __________________________________
WOMAN AT INDIAN VILLAGE:
BIBLE VERSE:
Proverbs 18:21: Death and life are in the power of the _____________________________.
3. _________________________________________________________
BIBLE VERSE: Matthew 21:12
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.
THREE TYPES OF ANGER:
A. ___________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________
B. ___________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________
C. ___________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________
RUNNING UP THE SCORE: