Anger at Home and Among Believers
01/26/19 (11/19) Video Broadcast
All right, well,
we are ready to begin our study
portion for today's broadcast.
How many people of you out there
just have an occasional
problem with anger?
We talked to our previous
segment about the
anger problems
that people have,
and I don't claim to be
totally immune to it.
Got a little bit perturbed earlier
today when I thought someone was
going to knock the camera over,
but yes,
One minute, please,
So pardon me for a minute there. So anyway,
yeah. I thought, someone's going to knock the camera over today. I yelled. I shouldn't have yelled. Or should I? I don't know. I didn't feel angry, but I did yell. So anyway, I tell you what. Anger is a normal emotion, but we never want to use it to hurt somebody. We never want to use it out of self.
Self doesn't get what it wants kind of anger. We just want to make sure we're on the right side of things. And I did talk about that here
at the previous segment about anger. Well, we want to continue this topic, and today we're going to discuss the issue of anger at home and among believers. Anger at home and among believers.
That is where anger usually finds its way is at home
among people that we're close to. It's kind of ironic that the people we love the most are the people with whom we tend to have the greatest issue with anger. And it's because we do love them. And that's kind of strange, strange and perplexing thing to say, isn't it? But it's true. What it means is those who we are close to have the greatest capacity to hurt us I'll say it again. Those we are close to have the greatest capacity to hurt us because we love them. And when things they do things to us that they shouldn't do to us, we are because we have that connection with them. We are more likely to get angry. And that's just kind of a natural thing, because the more we love somebody, the more it hurts when they do something that we regard as harmful to us. We have a greater expectation of having that love being returned. And so whether it's with a spouse or with our children or our parents or brothers and sisters, the anger is more likely to rise up with people that we're close to than some stranger on the street.
We have to be most on guard against harmful anger at home and among believers, among our family members, both spiritual family and our physical family that Yahweh has given us. So, we have to be thinking about that as we are discussing this topic today of anger at home and among believers. And our text we're going to look at here. You shall not go about as a tailbearer among your people. Nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. I am Yahweh. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh. So bearing grudges, taking vengeance, these are all manifestations of anger that is seeding. And anger comes out of these things. So we have to be aware of this thing. He says, don't hate your brother in your heart. I've actually heard believers say, I cannot stand her. I hate that person. No. We're supposed to love even our enemies, right? Even our enemies we're supposed to love. So now the word translated vengeance here in this scripture to avenge or take vengeance. Revengeful feelings...
So, we have here in Romans 12:19. It says, beloved, do not avenge yourselves. It's based on this scripture. Do not avenge yourselves. Rather give place to wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay. So, vengeance and wrath are kind of interconnected, aren't they? Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him drink. For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. HalleluYah. That's what we need to do. So, there's our text. And we have to be aware of this. This is a commandment from the Most High. We spoke about last week regarding the difference between righteous and unrighteous anger. We're going to talk about this unrighteous anger in more depth. To avenge ourselves, of course, is an act of anger and wrath. So what we want to do here is we want to let Yahweh be the one who takes the vengeance. We want him to be the one that will repay. We don't have to repay somebody study for the thing they did. There's the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Right? But then there's the perverted golden rule that says, Do unto others before they do unto you, or do unto others just as they've done unto you. And that's the perversion, the worldly version, of the Golden Rule. I'll call it the Black Rule. How about that? The dark rule. That's the rule that many people are willing to follow. It's not our place to express these things. It is for Yahweh to exhibit the necessary wrath and vengeance. And so we have to be careful. We're not placing ourselves in His position. This is His position, not our position. And so if we allow ourselves to do it instead of letting Him do it, we're basically making an elohim or a mighty one out of ourselves. We're considering ourselves to be the agents of vengeance, instead of letting us step out of the way and let our Heavenly Father deal with those things. That's not our place. Scripture says in Proverbs chapter 29, verse 22, an angry man stirs up strife. Right? Proverbs 15:3, the eyes of Yahweh are in every place keeping watch over the evil, on the evil and the good. So His eyes are the ones watching. So this a lot of times is a problem that exists in the household where we think nobody else is watching. Now, if you think you cannot control your anger,
try to think back to the last time you were in the middle of a heated argument with your spouse, or maybe your children. And hopefully not your children or your spouse. But if it ever happened, all of a sudden, ding dong, company comes in the door. Bam. You snap out of it. You're not angry anymore. Everyone acts normal, smile on her face like nothing ever happened. Don't tell me you have no control over your anger. Under the right circumstances, you do have control over over your anger. Now, imagine the one at the door is Yahushua, the Messiah. He's standing at the door. Right? He's standing at the door. And, what if He's not standing at the door? What if He's in the room, watching the evil and the good? All of a sudden, perspective changes. And just because you do not see Him does not mean he isn't there. He is there. In fact, He dwells in us. And we're supposed to be manifesting His character flaws, His character traits. He doesn't have any character flaws. We're supposed to be manifesting His character rather than our character flaws. And so as parents and as husbands and wives, we are in a place where we have a Father in heaven whose eyes are in every place, keeping watch on things. Now, toward our children, we have a tremendous amount of power. I've heard it said a man's character isn't always revealed through testing and trials and tribulation. See what happens when a man is given power.
If he's given power--sometimes in those circumstances you see what's really stewing in that person's heart and what's really going on. So here we have parents pretty much are in a position of having a lot of power and a lot of influence, right? Over the hearts of our children. Right? And so didn't Yahushua say, take heed that you don't despise one of these little ones?
If anyone was to cause one of them to stumble, be like taking a millstone hanging around your neck and let that be cast into the sea, right? So we need to think about this, and we are actually the chief influence over our children. Now once there was this man who
he brought his children to a counselor or his son to a counselor because his son had an anger problem. And, he wanted to see if he could help this boy's anger problem be resolved. So anyway, they're in the counseling room, and guess what? The boy just would not cooperate. He just sat there, mumbled a few words, no cooperation. And the father got upset with the boy, says, I've spent all this money. I've done all this stuff, and you will not cooperate. All these things. And he starts yelling at his boy. Right there in front of the counselor. And the counselor turned to him and said, if you want to know why your boy has an anger problem, look at what just happened in this room today.
He's getting it from you. That's where he's getting his anger problems, from you. And the scriptures actually tell us, don't make friendship with an angry man because you learn his ways instead of snaring for your soul. And so as we are in our households, in the privacy there, we have not only the potential of being...hurting our children with our anger, we also have the potential of setting an example for them that's a very poor example that we don't want them to stumble and fall over. So our goal is to provoke one another in our spirit. In the spirit of a man. And so if we can, instead of provoking the flesh, but we provoke the spirit, then the Holy Spirit can be used by us to
lead somebody to a higher walk. Right? That's our intention. Okay. So when we're looking at the home life,
we need to realize that the children that we have really they're not our children. They are Yahweh, our Heavenly Father's children. They are his children. And so since they are His children, we need to see..to ask ourselves we are as stewards of..in the care of these children, how are we treating His children? Suppose He gave us children that would be on loan for a while, and He told us, show them how I am. Live yourself in such a way that you manifest My character.
And then see what happens. How would your perspective change in that circumstance? Those are the questions we have to ask ourselves. So we need to have a proper reverence toward the Most High and make sure we're not doing things that would harm His children. These are His children, and we're just caretakers of them. We are called to love them, to bless them, to serve them. Now, we want to allow our words be words that bring life. Because a wholesome tongue is a tree of life. But perverseness in it breaks the spirit. Right? So
One minute here.
Guess my PowerPoint is messed up. But in Proverbs 15, verse 3, wholesome tongue, the tree of life, of perverseness in it breaks the spirit. Now, our words are called to be "marpe," which is words of healing, words that bring health, words that build up, not words that wound.
Say, for instance, And some people are more easily wounded than others. Suppose you had a big wound right here on your shoulder, okay? And someone come along and bumped it. Well, they're more likely, you're more likely to yell out, right? And have a very strong expressive response in that situation, right. So in the same way, all of us really, very few of us go through life and have no wounds whatsoever. As parents and as husbands in particular, we are called to cover the wounds of our family members with our hand and not allow others to hurt them. Right? That's our goal. And at the same time, we should never be one to hurt them. In fact, we should be one to protect them. And if we accidentally hurt somebody, let's say we made somebody trip and fall and they hurt themselves, wouldn't we rush over and say, I'm so sorry. Will you please forgive me?
And likewise, we need to understand that when we hurt someone with our words, we should have the same amount of love and concern in the event that we were to do that, right? Maybe the other person wasn't acting correctly. But sometimes their wrong actions are caused by the wounds we've actually inflicted in the past. And yet we will not allow that wound time to heal because we keep bumping it again and again and again. We want our words of correction, our words to be words of life, not words that wound. That's the way of truth. We're called to walk out the meekness of wisdom. You know what? Our children have some overcoming to do. Our spouses have some overcoming to do. Our brothers in the faith have some overcoming to do. You know what? So do we. And if we correct others or we hurt others with our words in a harsh correction, then, we've got to ask ourselves how would we want to be spoken to? If we had the same problem, what would be the most effective way to reach us? And sometimes the way that we might be helpful to us, actually wouldn't be helpful to somebody else.
So we need to be aware of these things. Our text we're going to look at here is from Deuteronomy, chapter 6 and verse 5. You shall love Yahweh your Elohim with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you rise up and when you lie down. The word translated "diligently" in the Hebrew is a word often translated "sharp" or "sharpen." Now, when you are sharpening an instrument, a knife, for instance, how many people go along with the sharpening stone and just take the knife and just go, all right, it's done. We're sharp. Doesn't work that way, does it? You have to keep working it over and over and over again until finally it is sharpened, right? And so He is saying you need to teach them over and over, frequently, over and over to your children. And by that they will be "sharpened." We're fashioning arrows for the kingdom. To go out and make exploits for the king of kings, to do damage to the enemy. We're sharpening them in their character. Repeating is how we do so, so we don't have to go, Oh, man, how many times have I told you? How many times has Yahweh told us something? We need to be need to hear it again. So repeating is what teaches us sometimes--helps us to remember. For those of you who are struggling with these areas, you may have to listen to the study again and again, to get it instilled in your mind and actually overcome the anger issues. If you want to learn multiplication tables or know a school subject, well, there are drills and other methods that are used to make a permanent imprint in our minds. And Yahweh knows that we are prone to forgetting. And so he wants us to look at things again and again and again, right? So He says, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand. They shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Right? You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. So, repeating--seeing something in front of you on a frequent basis, number one, it shows that we care. We care about the words of our Father in heaven, right? And so the reason why we want to have it before us all the time is so that we don't forget. So that we remember, because we don't want to forget His ways, because His ways are the ways of love. His ways are the ways of truth. And so we want to impart His loving ways to others, to our children, to our family members, to people who are in this world. And there are people that Yahweh has placed in the body of Messiah. To repeat these things, to remind us to teach and to help us know the words that Yahweh has given. He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, evangelists, some pastors and teachers. For the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Messiah, till we all come to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of Elohim, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Messiah. Ultimately, we are the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher of our children. And where we may lack, Yahweh places ministries in the body of Messiah to help bring all of us, including our children, to maturity. And so we want to be mature believers, we want to grow, be all that Yahweh has called us to be, right? So he places people in the body of Messiah to help us in our spiritual growth, to bring us to a place where we are mature. And so that's why we have the body of the Messiah. So that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men the cunning craftiness for deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in anger may no, wait a minute. No. Speaking the truth in what? In love. Right? ...may grow up in all things into him who is the head Messiah, from whom the whole body joined and knit together, by which every joint supplies according to the effective working, by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for edifying of itself in love. Once again, in love. That's what we're called to do. So, we're going to share the truth that we have in love. That is the key. In fact, if it's not done in love, we're not handling the law in a lawful way. Scripture says we're supposed to... The Law is good if we handle it lawfully. We want to handle the law lawfully. So when we speak the scriptures, we want to speak the truth, but also recognizing the purpose for which it is given. Remember that Yahweh's word is a sword. A sword is meant to come in and do surgery in our heart, not cut the person to pieces. We want the sword to do surgery and get the yucky part out of our heart without damaging that which is good. We want to cut the thorns out of the soil without damaging the original plant. The sword is there to destroy the old man and his deeds. Be careful how we use it. Even our quotes of scripture can be rooted in hatred. We're trying to cut the person down a notch rather than do surgery and remove the unpleasant fruit from the person's heart. So our motives should be grace and love, not condemnation and hurt and vengeance... getting back at somebody for how they have done or treated us, right? So let no corrupt word proceed out of our mouth. No, no corrupt word proceed out of our mouth. But that which is for the edifying of Yahweh's people. Just one minute here. So let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is necessary for...what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of Elohim by whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. HalleluYah. Good words here. Oh, convicting words. It's not edifying. It's not worth saying. Some people, they actually fancy themselves and say, you know what? I'm honest. I just tell how it is. I got to be brutally honest. At least I'm being honest.
But ask yourselves, maybe, is it possible that your so-called "brutally honest" is just brutal?
Not just brutally honest. It's flat out brutal. They can't hear that way. Ask yourself if your so-called "brutally honest" ways, Are you imparting grace and that edification?
It's harder work to word something in such a way it doesn't hurt the person, but addresses the problem itself. And so we want our words to inspired by Yahweh's Spirit because they're spoken in love with the fruits of patience, long suffering, kindness and gentleness. Rather than grieving the Holy Spirit, as it says. So don't let corrupt words come out of your mouth and grieve the Holy Spirit of Elohim. So then you have people that justify themselves saying, well, Yahushua called people white washed tombs and serpents and brood of vipers, and they use it to justify themselves. You need to understand, Yahushua was not speaking to believers. He was speaking to bloodthirsty men, murderers, charlatans, pretenders, people who held the awe and respect of the people, people who robbed the houses of widows and yet were held in the highest esteem among the people. He needed to expose their lawless deeds so that people would not be driven to follow these men. They were blind men leading the blind.
And He, being an agent of Yahweh Himself, would have the authority to treat those men in such a way. But we have to be careful. We're not taking too much upon ourselves and that we're not trying to find ways to justify our bitterness and justify our pride getting hurt and therefore we're getting angry. So unless looking at the same exact situation Yahushua was in, I'd say you better not use that as an example to justify yourself. Because Yahushua really wasn't the one speaking anyway. He was a prophet. He was from Yahweh, right? And so Yahushua actually said, The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own, but the Father who is in me, who dwells in me, does the works. So make sure yours is from Yahweh. So the best thing to do is just don't let any corrupt word come out of your mouth and let all bitterness, anger, wrath, clamor, evil speaking be put away from you. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as Elohim in Messiah has forgiven you. Our goal is to do things in such a way that we do not harm another person through our words. US. Right. Why? Because love does no harm to a neighbor. And love is the fulfillment of the law. If you are using the law to harm another person, you are not fulfilling it. You are not keeping it yourself. You are actually being hypocritical in your ways. So please understand, if you're wounding your family with your words, you're sinning against Yahweh. You're not fulfilling the Torah. You are not walking in Torah observance if you're speaking the word in a way that harms rather than lifts up and directs and convicts rather than condemns. So if we're really Torah observant, we really should be the most loving people on the planet. We should be at the top level, because the entire law of Yahweh hangs off the two great commands to love. Torah observant people should be the only full and complete representation of love on the earth. The only full and complete representation of Yahushua, the Messiah on the earth. And so our lives should be a continual manifestation of His character, His love, His life. Is it? I have to say, I mean, among people, that believe like me, tends to be a lot more condemnation and hurtful words being spoken. We have a very, very powerful and very sharp sword. We have to be able to handle this correctly.
Yahushua did a great job of it. He was more hurt than anybody. He didn't respond with anger and hurtful words.
He didn't. How can we manifest His character? That's our question. How can we manifest His character? He's the answer, and we desperately need Him. So what you need to do is lay down your own will. Lay down your own will and try to think of life in terms of this: It's no longer I that live,
It's Yahushua that lives in me and the life which I now live. I live by faith in the son of Elohim who loved me and gave Himself for me.
You're having difficulty with anger? Take solace in this. Number one, Yahushua is all we really need. What man does to us should not be so consequential.
And don't let what other people do take the edge off of your love and willingness to invest in the other person. But realize just as you and I are in continual need of the grace of Yahweh even when we didn't know Him, there are other people in the same position that you were. Go easy on them. You need your Father in heaven to go easy on you, Right? I know I need grace every single day. And I need Him to lead me in a way that I can bear.
I need Him to lead. Actually, David says about Yahweh, says, Your gentleness has made me great. Think about that. The gentleness of our Heavenly Father toward David is what made David the great man that he was. So how can your gentleness make another person excel? Your wife? Or in a case of a wife, your husband? How can your gentleness cause your children to grow and to excel? How can your gentleness cause another person in the body of Messiah to grow and to excel and to be all that he's called them to be? If Yahweh's gentleness is what makes us excel, then His gentleness ought to just flow right through us. As the parable of the man who owed 10,000 talents. And we owe Yahweh far more than 10,000 talents. We can't walk over to somebody else who owes us and grab them by a shirt and demand repayment. No, we forgive. We're willing to set it aside. We're willing to love the person, no matter what. So, go easy on others. They need it. Now, I've heard people get angry whenever someone calls them a name or something. Some bad name they don't really, really like, right? I once heard a story about a man whenever he called his sister, he would get so angry. And finally, one day, his wife says to him, why do you get so angry whenever you're on the phone with your sister? Well, she called me this, and she called me that, and she called me this. And she says, I'm this way. I'm not really that way. She called me this, that and the other. And his wife says, was any of those things true that she called you? Well, no, they weren't true. And so she said, so his wife says, well, what if she called you a pinto bean? A pinto bean? Well, wouldn't bother me. Why not? Because I'm not a pinto bean. All right, well, you just told me that you weren't any of those other things either, right? So whenever she starts calling you those things, just pretend like she's calling you a pinto bean, because, really, none of them fits the bill, right? None of them make any sense.
And all of a sudden, he was able to stop getting angry at his sister because he realized he was actually getting angry over things that he really wasn't these things that she said he was. But he just let it roll off his back. So, we don't have to receive what people say of us. They say we're this, they say we're that, or whatever. Then just say, Well, I'm not any of those things.
And remember, anger is a real problem. Anger is a real problem, and we have to be on guard against it. Think about what happened the very, very first time that anger makes its appearance in the Bible. It was rooted in rejection. It says, Abel brought the offering, brought the firstborn of his flock and their fat. And Yahweh respected Abel and his offering, but he did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry. Right? His countenance fell.
He sensed the rejection
that came from Yahweh. And when Yahweh saw that Cain was angry, what did he tell Cain to do? Just what he tell him to do. Let's look next. So Yahweh said to Cain, just a minute here. Have to make this up as I go. So Yahweh said to Cain, why are you angry? And why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. So anger comes in as a challenger,
wanting to rule over you. And you have to say no, I'm going to rule over it. Because sin lies at the door. First the anger, then the sin. But Yahweh's first counsel was for Cain, Hey, why don't you just try to do better? Then your offering will be accepted. Put more effort into the offering that you're giving. You're not being rejected. Don't get, you know, just do your best. He wants our best effort. Maybe Cain was not giving his best. Maybe he saw something he really liked. Like his Mom kind of had that problem and he ate it himself, right? I mean, if so, that makes sense. I mean, Cain's Mom had a little food issue there. But Yahweh's counsel was even if you didn't do well, look, rule over that sin that lies at the door and don't let the anger rule over you.
You choose to rule over it. Selfish anger is a cruel master. It destroys souls, wrecks marriages, inflicts serious wounds on the hearts of children. It leads to foolishness, slander, tailbearing, grudges, strife. And as we saw with Cain, even murder. So Yahweh calls us to rule over it. In fact, there's a scripture that says
he who is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. Anger can only be defeated when we humble ourselves and let Yahushua have full reign over us. And we know He's capable of defeating any and all enemies, right? He has placed all enemies under his feet, right? And so we need to ask Yahweh, through Yahushua, the Messiah, Rule over this anger through me. I don't want this sin to reign in my mortal body. I don't want to obey it in its lusts. I want my members to be instruments of righteousness and not unrighteousness. Sin does not have dominion over me. I am under grace. Sin is not my slave. I, through the power of the Messiah, Yahushua, rule over sin,
Right? That's the perspective that we need to have. And we can rule over sin because sin does not have any dominion over us, through Yahushua, the Messiah.
Now, for young people who are being corrected by a parent, take Cain's advice-- don't choose anger when your parent corrects you,
because the scripture says that a fool despises his father's instruction, right? But he who receives correction is prudent. See, children also can have anger problems, right? And so don't despise your father's instruction. Receive it and say, all right, well, it'll just make me better. Right? And even if your father's instruction seems to be coming out of anger, take David's approach, who said, let the righteous strike me. It shall be a kindness.
Let him rebuke me. It shall be as excellent oil. Let my head not refuse it. When good correction is given, even if the delivery of that correction is hurtful, we should consider it and take heed rather than despising it.
Right. We are all ultimately responsible for our own actions. If a parent is being a stumbling block to the children by provoking them to wrath, there's no excuse for that, no matter how the child may have behaved. And if the child chooses to get angry, bitter and disrespectful due to the way they're treated, there's no excuse for that either, no matter how the parent has acted. Because we are called to put off these things, as the scripture says. Now you yourselves are to put off all these what? Anger. Wrath. Malice. Blasphemy. Filthy language out of your mouth.
Yeah, actually, there's brothers out there justifying using profanity, the F bomb, so to speak, the S word, and they think there's no scripture that speaks against it. It's not true. Filthy language.
If you look this word up in some of the lexicons I've seen, it's basically talking about the culturally offensive words in slang terms that are culturally offensive. So, this is speaking directly to that very thing in our culture as well. And I can tell you just from witnessing people who are under demonic possession. In listening to their words, it seems like about every other word or anywhere a offensive word or profanity could come out of their mouth, it will.
People that are under the power of demonic spirits are most likely to be uttering these profane, filthy words.
And so, don't ever justify it. It's not from the Holy Spirit. It's not imparting grace to the hearers. And we are commanded to impart grace to the hearers and put off the anger and wrath and malice and blasphemy and filthy language out of our mouths.
Right? So, none of us can justify our anger. We're called to walk in love, called to walk in patience. And many times, pride is the source of our anger.
If our children are starting to show more and more anger, do a heart check on yourself. Take a look in the mirror. See whether or not you are the one teaching these character traits. Be accountable to other people who are seeing your anger and listen to them. Parents can use a little code word to secretly tell the other partner they see the other partner displaying anger in their correction.
Never aggressively correct the one who's anger, it only provokes more anger and escalates the situation. Humble yourselves and realize the other person isn't the one, only person in the house or in the body of Messiah which has this sin problem. Maybe they sin differently than you do. Maybe their problem isn't your problem, but your problem is a sin. Their problem is a sin. Get off the high horse. Acknowledge we all are standing before the great and tremendous and tall example of Yahushua, the Messiah. And we are still seeking to measure up to His awesome example of love and service. And we all need each other to remind each other in love, hey, is this the Messiah Yahushua coming out right now? And so when you realize you're in the flesh, be willing to apologize to your family members. You know, children will actually respect you more if you apologize to them for things that you've done. The humble experience will be an internal deterrent, actually, for the future, for yourself, and help them to see our faith is not out of reach for them. Our faith is not so lofty they could never reach the standard. Because they know their parents themselves are trying to overcome too, and they aren't acting like they're perfect either. So we need to adopt a biblical leadership style that does not resort to controlling others with raising voices and choosing anger, but rather a proper reverence and use of Yahweh's word to develop and to stimulate the conscience.
Seek to use ten words of encouragement for every word of correction. I've had to apologize many times on myself for being negative and not noticing the positive, but I can tell you it's far better to live an environment of encouragement and building up positive character traits than it is to live in an environment of discouragement and tearing down another for their negative character traits. We all have negative character traits, and if we are humble, we won't be so quick to hammer the other person for their character flaws. Right? So we are all called to build one another up. There's two ways that we can speak to one another, and this is something I'm learning, too.
Let's say someone is manifesting pride.
Rather than point the finger and say you're manifesting pride, why don't you say, hey, is this humility? I think we're called to humility. There's two different ways of correcting someone. One is pointing out the negative character trait that you're seeing, and the other one is pointing people toward the positive character trait that we're all called to emulate. Do you understand what I'm talking about? If someone has a lustful eye, rather than saying, Aha, the lustful eye!
You can say, hey, we're all called to purity. Let's walk in purity, let's walk in goodness, let's walk in holiness. Let's all check our hearts, right? If you see somebody disrespecting the Sabbath day,
instead of pointing a finger, saying Sabbath breaker, why don't you say, Hey, let's keep this day holy, this is a special day for our Father in heaven, let's keep it holy. Do you hear the two differences? And I often have to remind myself of this. I don't ever point the finger and say Sabbath breaker. I'm just saying there's two ways. There's one just sort of negative finger pointing and sometimes anger come out of that. But it's whole lot easier for anger to be set aside when you're just saying hey, let's try to walk in humility here, let's try to walk in kindness--is what you're doing... Is that kindness? And the person can say, no, I guess not. Is that putting on tender mercies and long suffering and meekness there that you're doing. Let's walk in tender, mercies, long suffering and meekness. When someone is choosing anger themselves, there's a beautiful scripture here... as the elect of Elohim, holy and beloved, let's put on tender, mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Messiah forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that just lifting up, encouraging, motivating. Far more motivating than "you're this, you're that, right?
And one's kind of a, you know, prideful way, you know, finger pointing way. And we don't have to finger point. We can just all point to the example, Yahsuhua. Gonna do some finger pointing, go (pointing upwards) Him, right? Is this Him? Let's be like Him. Let the peace of Elohim rule in our hearts because we're all called to one body. Let's be thankful. And let the word of Messiah dwell in us richly, with all wisdom teaching admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual psalms singing with grace in our hearts to Yahweh. And whatever we do in word or deed, doing everything in the name of the Master. Yahushua giving thanks to Elohim, the Father through Him. Tell you what, that's a picture of the kind of home I want to have, how about you? Kind of home I'd like to live in. Kind of a congregation I'd like to be a part of. Kind of world I want to live in.
We don't have a congregation like that unless the homes are like that. There's no unity in a congregation if the homes are not in unity. Kind of a joke. Yeah. Congregations in unity and the homes are not. Doesn't work that way. Let's walk out this calling. Let's embrace this calling because we are called into one body. Teaching admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, being thankful. Let's be thankful for one another. Instead of infectious anger, how about infectious joy and encouragement? Instead of infectious discouragement...Infectious encouragement. Instead of the leaven of pride... the holy standard of humility,
being willing to humble ourselves
and walk in love.
Are we ready to do that?
Let's pray.
Thank you, Father Yahweh for Your love and mercies and kindness, your tender mercies, your gentleness that makes us great. O Father, help us to walk out your awesome, amazing example of love and mercy toward us even while we are yet sinners. Yahushua the Messiah giving His life for us. Strengthen us Father in our weaknesses, glorify Your name in the areas that You've made us strong even in our weaknesses.
Show us, Father, the way of everlasting life. Help us to speak to our family members in ways that when we use Your word, we use it in the way that You called us to use it. Remind one another of Your holy standard. Reminding one another of the example of Your Son, Yahushua, glorifying you in our conduct, in our examples, in our service and our faith. Let it all be that we, as Your people, be manifesting the righteous and holy example of our Savior, Yahushua, the Messiah. For truly yours is the kingdom and power and glory and majesty, forever and ever. And to h Him we look. Amen.
So pardon me for a minute there. So anyway,
yeah. I thought, someone's going to knock the camera over today. I yelled. I shouldn't have yelled. Or should I? I don't know. I didn't feel angry, but I did yell. So anyway, I tell you what. Anger is a normal emotion, but we never want to use it to hurt somebody. We never want to use it out of self.
Self doesn't get what it wants kind of anger. We just want to make sure we're on the right side of things. And I did talk about that here
at the previous segment about anger. Well, we want to continue this topic, and today we're going to discuss the issue of anger at home and among believers. Anger at home and among believers.
That is where anger usually finds its way is at home
among people that we're close to. It's kind of ironic that the people we love the most are the people with whom we tend to have the greatest issue with anger. And it's because we do love them. And that's kind of strange, strange and perplexing thing to say, isn't it? But it's true. What it means is those who we are close to have the greatest capacity to hurt us I'll say it again. Those we are close to have the greatest capacity to hurt us because we love them. And when things they do things to us that they shouldn't do to us, we are because we have that connection with them. We are more likely to get angry. And that's just kind of a natural thing, because the more we love somebody, the more it hurts when they do something that we regard as harmful to us. We have a greater expectation of having that love being returned. And so whether it's with a spouse or with our children or our parents or brothers and sisters, the anger is more likely to rise up with people that we're close to than some stranger on the street.
We have to be most on guard against harmful anger at home and among believers, among our family members, both spiritual family and our physical family that Yahweh has given us. So, we have to be thinking about that as we are discussing this topic today of anger at home and among believers. And our text we're going to look at here. You shall not go about as a tailbearer among your people. Nor shall you take a stand against the life of your neighbor. I am Yahweh. You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh. So bearing grudges, taking vengeance, these are all manifestations of anger that is seeding. And anger comes out of these things. So we have to be aware of this thing. He says, don't hate your brother in your heart. I've actually heard believers say, I cannot stand her. I hate that person. No. We're supposed to love even our enemies, right? Even our enemies we're supposed to love. So now the word translated vengeance here in this scripture to avenge or take vengeance. Revengeful feelings...
So, we have here in Romans 12:19. It says, beloved, do not avenge yourselves. It's based on this scripture. Do not avenge yourselves. Rather give place to wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay. So, vengeance and wrath are kind of interconnected, aren't they? Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him drink. For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. HalleluYah. That's what we need to do. So, there's our text. And we have to be aware of this. This is a commandment from the Most High. We spoke about last week regarding the difference between righteous and unrighteous anger. We're going to talk about this unrighteous anger in more depth. To avenge ourselves, of course, is an act of anger and wrath. So what we want to do here is we want to let Yahweh be the one who takes the vengeance. We want him to be the one that will repay. We don't have to repay somebody study for the thing they did. There's the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Right? But then there's the perverted golden rule that says, Do unto others before they do unto you, or do unto others just as they've done unto you. And that's the perversion, the worldly version, of the Golden Rule. I'll call it the Black Rule. How about that? The dark rule. That's the rule that many people are willing to follow. It's not our place to express these things. It is for Yahweh to exhibit the necessary wrath and vengeance. And so we have to be careful. We're not placing ourselves in His position. This is His position, not our position. And so if we allow ourselves to do it instead of letting Him do it, we're basically making an elohim or a mighty one out of ourselves. We're considering ourselves to be the agents of vengeance, instead of letting us step out of the way and let our Heavenly Father deal with those things. That's not our place. Scripture says in Proverbs chapter 29, verse 22, an angry man stirs up strife. Right? Proverbs 15:3, the eyes of Yahweh are in every place keeping watch over the evil, on the evil and the good. So His eyes are the ones watching. So this a lot of times is a problem that exists in the household where we think nobody else is watching. Now, if you think you cannot control your anger,
try to think back to the last time you were in the middle of a heated argument with your spouse, or maybe your children. And hopefully not your children or your spouse. But if it ever happened, all of a sudden, ding dong, company comes in the door. Bam. You snap out of it. You're not angry anymore. Everyone acts normal, smile on her face like nothing ever happened. Don't tell me you have no control over your anger. Under the right circumstances, you do have control over over your anger. Now, imagine the one at the door is Yahushua, the Messiah. He's standing at the door. Right? He's standing at the door. And, what if He's not standing at the door? What if He's in the room, watching the evil and the good? All of a sudden, perspective changes. And just because you do not see Him does not mean he isn't there. He is there. In fact, He dwells in us. And we're supposed to be manifesting His character flaws, His character traits. He doesn't have any character flaws. We're supposed to be manifesting His character rather than our character flaws. And so as parents and as husbands and wives, we are in a place where we have a Father in heaven whose eyes are in every place, keeping watch on things. Now, toward our children, we have a tremendous amount of power. I've heard it said a man's character isn't always revealed through testing and trials and tribulation. See what happens when a man is given power.
If he's given power--sometimes in those circumstances you see what's really stewing in that person's heart and what's really going on. So here we have parents pretty much are in a position of having a lot of power and a lot of influence, right? Over the hearts of our children. Right? And so didn't Yahushua say, take heed that you don't despise one of these little ones?
If anyone was to cause one of them to stumble, be like taking a millstone hanging around your neck and let that be cast into the sea, right? So we need to think about this, and we are actually the chief influence over our children. Now once there was this man who
he brought his children to a counselor or his son to a counselor because his son had an anger problem. And, he wanted to see if he could help this boy's anger problem be resolved. So anyway, they're in the counseling room, and guess what? The boy just would not cooperate. He just sat there, mumbled a few words, no cooperation. And the father got upset with the boy, says, I've spent all this money. I've done all this stuff, and you will not cooperate. All these things. And he starts yelling at his boy. Right there in front of the counselor. And the counselor turned to him and said, if you want to know why your boy has an anger problem, look at what just happened in this room today.
He's getting it from you. That's where he's getting his anger problems, from you. And the scriptures actually tell us, don't make friendship with an angry man because you learn his ways instead of snaring for your soul. And so as we are in our households, in the privacy there, we have not only the potential of being...hurting our children with our anger, we also have the potential of setting an example for them that's a very poor example that we don't want them to stumble and fall over. So our goal is to provoke one another in our spirit. In the spirit of a man. And so if we can, instead of provoking the flesh, but we provoke the spirit, then the Holy Spirit can be used by us to
lead somebody to a higher walk. Right? That's our intention. Okay. So when we're looking at the home life,
we need to realize that the children that we have really they're not our children. They are Yahweh, our Heavenly Father's children. They are his children. And so since they are His children, we need to see..to ask ourselves we are as stewards of..in the care of these children, how are we treating His children? Suppose He gave us children that would be on loan for a while, and He told us, show them how I am. Live yourself in such a way that you manifest My character.
And then see what happens. How would your perspective change in that circumstance? Those are the questions we have to ask ourselves. So we need to have a proper reverence toward the Most High and make sure we're not doing things that would harm His children. These are His children, and we're just caretakers of them. We are called to love them, to bless them, to serve them. Now, we want to allow our words be words that bring life. Because a wholesome tongue is a tree of life. But perverseness in it breaks the spirit. Right? So
One minute here.
Guess my PowerPoint is messed up. But in Proverbs 15, verse 3, wholesome tongue, the tree of life, of perverseness in it breaks the spirit. Now, our words are called to be "marpe," which is words of healing, words that bring health, words that build up, not words that wound.
Say, for instance, And some people are more easily wounded than others. Suppose you had a big wound right here on your shoulder, okay? And someone come along and bumped it. Well, they're more likely, you're more likely to yell out, right? And have a very strong expressive response in that situation, right. So in the same way, all of us really, very few of us go through life and have no wounds whatsoever. As parents and as husbands in particular, we are called to cover the wounds of our family members with our hand and not allow others to hurt them. Right? That's our goal. And at the same time, we should never be one to hurt them. In fact, we should be one to protect them. And if we accidentally hurt somebody, let's say we made somebody trip and fall and they hurt themselves, wouldn't we rush over and say, I'm so sorry. Will you please forgive me?
And likewise, we need to understand that when we hurt someone with our words, we should have the same amount of love and concern in the event that we were to do that, right? Maybe the other person wasn't acting correctly. But sometimes their wrong actions are caused by the wounds we've actually inflicted in the past. And yet we will not allow that wound time to heal because we keep bumping it again and again and again. We want our words of correction, our words to be words of life, not words that wound. That's the way of truth. We're called to walk out the meekness of wisdom. You know what? Our children have some overcoming to do. Our spouses have some overcoming to do. Our brothers in the faith have some overcoming to do. You know what? So do we. And if we correct others or we hurt others with our words in a harsh correction, then, we've got to ask ourselves how would we want to be spoken to? If we had the same problem, what would be the most effective way to reach us? And sometimes the way that we might be helpful to us, actually wouldn't be helpful to somebody else.
So we need to be aware of these things. Our text we're going to look at here is from Deuteronomy, chapter 6 and verse 5. You shall love Yahweh your Elohim with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you rise up and when you lie down. The word translated "diligently" in the Hebrew is a word often translated "sharp" or "sharpen." Now, when you are sharpening an instrument, a knife, for instance, how many people go along with the sharpening stone and just take the knife and just go, all right, it's done. We're sharp. Doesn't work that way, does it? You have to keep working it over and over and over again until finally it is sharpened, right? And so He is saying you need to teach them over and over, frequently, over and over to your children. And by that they will be "sharpened." We're fashioning arrows for the kingdom. To go out and make exploits for the king of kings, to do damage to the enemy. We're sharpening them in their character. Repeating is how we do so, so we don't have to go, Oh, man, how many times have I told you? How many times has Yahweh told us something? We need to be need to hear it again. So repeating is what teaches us sometimes--helps us to remember. For those of you who are struggling with these areas, you may have to listen to the study again and again, to get it instilled in your mind and actually overcome the anger issues. If you want to learn multiplication tables or know a school subject, well, there are drills and other methods that are used to make a permanent imprint in our minds. And Yahweh knows that we are prone to forgetting. And so he wants us to look at things again and again and again, right? So He says, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand. They shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Right? You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. So, repeating--seeing something in front of you on a frequent basis, number one, it shows that we care. We care about the words of our Father in heaven, right? And so the reason why we want to have it before us all the time is so that we don't forget. So that we remember, because we don't want to forget His ways, because His ways are the ways of love. His ways are the ways of truth. And so we want to impart His loving ways to others, to our children, to our family members, to people who are in this world. And there are people that Yahweh has placed in the body of Messiah. To repeat these things, to remind us to teach and to help us know the words that Yahweh has given. He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, evangelists, some pastors and teachers. For the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Messiah, till we all come to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of Elohim, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Messiah. Ultimately, we are the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher of our children. And where we may lack, Yahweh places ministries in the body of Messiah to help bring all of us, including our children, to maturity. And so we want to be mature believers, we want to grow, be all that Yahweh has called us to be, right? So he places people in the body of Messiah to help us in our spiritual growth, to bring us to a place where we are mature. And so that's why we have the body of the Messiah. So that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men the cunning craftiness for deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in anger may no, wait a minute. No. Speaking the truth in what? In love. Right? ...may grow up in all things into him who is the head Messiah, from whom the whole body joined and knit together, by which every joint supplies according to the effective working, by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for edifying of itself in love. Once again, in love. That's what we're called to do. So, we're going to share the truth that we have in love. That is the key. In fact, if it's not done in love, we're not handling the law in a lawful way. Scripture says we're supposed to... The Law is good if we handle it lawfully. We want to handle the law lawfully. So when we speak the scriptures, we want to speak the truth, but also recognizing the purpose for which it is given. Remember that Yahweh's word is a sword. A sword is meant to come in and do surgery in our heart, not cut the person to pieces. We want the sword to do surgery and get the yucky part out of our heart without damaging that which is good. We want to cut the thorns out of the soil without damaging the original plant. The sword is there to destroy the old man and his deeds. Be careful how we use it. Even our quotes of scripture can be rooted in hatred. We're trying to cut the person down a notch rather than do surgery and remove the unpleasant fruit from the person's heart. So our motives should be grace and love, not condemnation and hurt and vengeance... getting back at somebody for how they have done or treated us, right? So let no corrupt word proceed out of our mouth. No, no corrupt word proceed out of our mouth. But that which is for the edifying of Yahweh's people. Just one minute here. So let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is necessary for...what is good for necessary edification that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of Elohim by whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. HalleluYah. Good words here. Oh, convicting words. It's not edifying. It's not worth saying. Some people, they actually fancy themselves and say, you know what? I'm honest. I just tell how it is. I got to be brutally honest. At least I'm being honest.
But ask yourselves, maybe, is it possible that your so-called "brutally honest" is just brutal?
Not just brutally honest. It's flat out brutal. They can't hear that way. Ask yourself if your so-called "brutally honest" ways, Are you imparting grace and that edification?
It's harder work to word something in such a way it doesn't hurt the person, but addresses the problem itself. And so we want our words to inspired by Yahweh's Spirit because they're spoken in love with the fruits of patience, long suffering, kindness and gentleness. Rather than grieving the Holy Spirit, as it says. So don't let corrupt words come out of your mouth and grieve the Holy Spirit of Elohim. So then you have people that justify themselves saying, well, Yahushua called people white washed tombs and serpents and brood of vipers, and they use it to justify themselves. You need to understand, Yahushua was not speaking to believers. He was speaking to bloodthirsty men, murderers, charlatans, pretenders, people who held the awe and respect of the people, people who robbed the houses of widows and yet were held in the highest esteem among the people. He needed to expose their lawless deeds so that people would not be driven to follow these men. They were blind men leading the blind.
And He, being an agent of Yahweh Himself, would have the authority to treat those men in such a way. But we have to be careful. We're not taking too much upon ourselves and that we're not trying to find ways to justify our bitterness and justify our pride getting hurt and therefore we're getting angry. So unless looking at the same exact situation Yahushua was in, I'd say you better not use that as an example to justify yourself. Because Yahushua really wasn't the one speaking anyway. He was a prophet. He was from Yahweh, right? And so Yahushua actually said, The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own, but the Father who is in me, who dwells in me, does the works. So make sure yours is from Yahweh. So the best thing to do is just don't let any corrupt word come out of your mouth and let all bitterness, anger, wrath, clamor, evil speaking be put away from you. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as Elohim in Messiah has forgiven you. Our goal is to do things in such a way that we do not harm another person through our words. US. Right. Why? Because love does no harm to a neighbor. And love is the fulfillment of the law. If you are using the law to harm another person, you are not fulfilling it. You are not keeping it yourself. You are actually being hypocritical in your ways. So please understand, if you're wounding your family with your words, you're sinning against Yahweh. You're not fulfilling the Torah. You are not walking in Torah observance if you're speaking the word in a way that harms rather than lifts up and directs and convicts rather than condemns. So if we're really Torah observant, we really should be the most loving people on the planet. We should be at the top level, because the entire law of Yahweh hangs off the two great commands to love. Torah observant people should be the only full and complete representation of love on the earth. The only full and complete representation of Yahushua, the Messiah on the earth. And so our lives should be a continual manifestation of His character, His love, His life. Is it? I have to say, I mean, among people, that believe like me, tends to be a lot more condemnation and hurtful words being spoken. We have a very, very powerful and very sharp sword. We have to be able to handle this correctly.
Yahushua did a great job of it. He was more hurt than anybody. He didn't respond with anger and hurtful words.
He didn't. How can we manifest His character? That's our question. How can we manifest His character? He's the answer, and we desperately need Him. So what you need to do is lay down your own will. Lay down your own will and try to think of life in terms of this: It's no longer I that live,
It's Yahushua that lives in me and the life which I now live. I live by faith in the son of Elohim who loved me and gave Himself for me.
You're having difficulty with anger? Take solace in this. Number one, Yahushua is all we really need. What man does to us should not be so consequential.
And don't let what other people do take the edge off of your love and willingness to invest in the other person. But realize just as you and I are in continual need of the grace of Yahweh even when we didn't know Him, there are other people in the same position that you were. Go easy on them. You need your Father in heaven to go easy on you, Right? I know I need grace every single day. And I need Him to lead me in a way that I can bear.
I need Him to lead. Actually, David says about Yahweh, says, Your gentleness has made me great. Think about that. The gentleness of our Heavenly Father toward David is what made David the great man that he was. So how can your gentleness make another person excel? Your wife? Or in a case of a wife, your husband? How can your gentleness cause your children to grow and to excel? How can your gentleness cause another person in the body of Messiah to grow and to excel and to be all that he's called them to be? If Yahweh's gentleness is what makes us excel, then His gentleness ought to just flow right through us. As the parable of the man who owed 10,000 talents. And we owe Yahweh far more than 10,000 talents. We can't walk over to somebody else who owes us and grab them by a shirt and demand repayment. No, we forgive. We're willing to set it aside. We're willing to love the person, no matter what. So, go easy on others. They need it. Now, I've heard people get angry whenever someone calls them a name or something. Some bad name they don't really, really like, right? I once heard a story about a man whenever he called his sister, he would get so angry. And finally, one day, his wife says to him, why do you get so angry whenever you're on the phone with your sister? Well, she called me this, and she called me that, and she called me this. And she says, I'm this way. I'm not really that way. She called me this, that and the other. And his wife says, was any of those things true that she called you? Well, no, they weren't true. And so she said, so his wife says, well, what if she called you a pinto bean? A pinto bean? Well, wouldn't bother me. Why not? Because I'm not a pinto bean. All right, well, you just told me that you weren't any of those other things either, right? So whenever she starts calling you those things, just pretend like she's calling you a pinto bean, because, really, none of them fits the bill, right? None of them make any sense.
And all of a sudden, he was able to stop getting angry at his sister because he realized he was actually getting angry over things that he really wasn't these things that she said he was. But he just let it roll off his back. So, we don't have to receive what people say of us. They say we're this, they say we're that, or whatever. Then just say, Well, I'm not any of those things.
And remember, anger is a real problem. Anger is a real problem, and we have to be on guard against it. Think about what happened the very, very first time that anger makes its appearance in the Bible. It was rooted in rejection. It says, Abel brought the offering, brought the firstborn of his flock and their fat. And Yahweh respected Abel and his offering, but he did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry. Right? His countenance fell.
He sensed the rejection
that came from Yahweh. And when Yahweh saw that Cain was angry, what did he tell Cain to do? Just what he tell him to do. Let's look next. So Yahweh said to Cain, just a minute here. Have to make this up as I go. So Yahweh said to Cain, why are you angry? And why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. So anger comes in as a challenger,
wanting to rule over you. And you have to say no, I'm going to rule over it. Because sin lies at the door. First the anger, then the sin. But Yahweh's first counsel was for Cain, Hey, why don't you just try to do better? Then your offering will be accepted. Put more effort into the offering that you're giving. You're not being rejected. Don't get, you know, just do your best. He wants our best effort. Maybe Cain was not giving his best. Maybe he saw something he really liked. Like his Mom kind of had that problem and he ate it himself, right? I mean, if so, that makes sense. I mean, Cain's Mom had a little food issue there. But Yahweh's counsel was even if you didn't do well, look, rule over that sin that lies at the door and don't let the anger rule over you.
You choose to rule over it. Selfish anger is a cruel master. It destroys souls, wrecks marriages, inflicts serious wounds on the hearts of children. It leads to foolishness, slander, tailbearing, grudges, strife. And as we saw with Cain, even murder. So Yahweh calls us to rule over it. In fact, there's a scripture that says
he who is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. Anger can only be defeated when we humble ourselves and let Yahushua have full reign over us. And we know He's capable of defeating any and all enemies, right? He has placed all enemies under his feet, right? And so we need to ask Yahweh, through Yahushua, the Messiah, Rule over this anger through me. I don't want this sin to reign in my mortal body. I don't want to obey it in its lusts. I want my members to be instruments of righteousness and not unrighteousness. Sin does not have dominion over me. I am under grace. Sin is not my slave. I, through the power of the Messiah, Yahushua, rule over sin,
Right? That's the perspective that we need to have. And we can rule over sin because sin does not have any dominion over us, through Yahushua, the Messiah.
Now, for young people who are being corrected by a parent, take Cain's advice-- don't choose anger when your parent corrects you,
because the scripture says that a fool despises his father's instruction, right? But he who receives correction is prudent. See, children also can have anger problems, right? And so don't despise your father's instruction. Receive it and say, all right, well, it'll just make me better. Right? And even if your father's instruction seems to be coming out of anger, take David's approach, who said, let the righteous strike me. It shall be a kindness.
Let him rebuke me. It shall be as excellent oil. Let my head not refuse it. When good correction is given, even if the delivery of that correction is hurtful, we should consider it and take heed rather than despising it.
Right. We are all ultimately responsible for our own actions. If a parent is being a stumbling block to the children by provoking them to wrath, there's no excuse for that, no matter how the child may have behaved. And if the child chooses to get angry, bitter and disrespectful due to the way they're treated, there's no excuse for that either, no matter how the parent has acted. Because we are called to put off these things, as the scripture says. Now you yourselves are to put off all these what? Anger. Wrath. Malice. Blasphemy. Filthy language out of your mouth.
Yeah, actually, there's brothers out there justifying using profanity, the F bomb, so to speak, the S word, and they think there's no scripture that speaks against it. It's not true. Filthy language.
If you look this word up in some of the lexicons I've seen, it's basically talking about the culturally offensive words in slang terms that are culturally offensive. So, this is speaking directly to that very thing in our culture as well. And I can tell you just from witnessing people who are under demonic possession. In listening to their words, it seems like about every other word or anywhere a offensive word or profanity could come out of their mouth, it will.
People that are under the power of demonic spirits are most likely to be uttering these profane, filthy words.
And so, don't ever justify it. It's not from the Holy Spirit. It's not imparting grace to the hearers. And we are commanded to impart grace to the hearers and put off the anger and wrath and malice and blasphemy and filthy language out of our mouths.
Right? So, none of us can justify our anger. We're called to walk in love, called to walk in patience. And many times, pride is the source of our anger.
If our children are starting to show more and more anger, do a heart check on yourself. Take a look in the mirror. See whether or not you are the one teaching these character traits. Be accountable to other people who are seeing your anger and listen to them. Parents can use a little code word to secretly tell the other partner they see the other partner displaying anger in their correction.
Never aggressively correct the one who's anger, it only provokes more anger and escalates the situation. Humble yourselves and realize the other person isn't the one, only person in the house or in the body of Messiah which has this sin problem. Maybe they sin differently than you do. Maybe their problem isn't your problem, but your problem is a sin. Their problem is a sin. Get off the high horse. Acknowledge we all are standing before the great and tremendous and tall example of Yahushua, the Messiah. And we are still seeking to measure up to His awesome example of love and service. And we all need each other to remind each other in love, hey, is this the Messiah Yahushua coming out right now? And so when you realize you're in the flesh, be willing to apologize to your family members. You know, children will actually respect you more if you apologize to them for things that you've done. The humble experience will be an internal deterrent, actually, for the future, for yourself, and help them to see our faith is not out of reach for them. Our faith is not so lofty they could never reach the standard. Because they know their parents themselves are trying to overcome too, and they aren't acting like they're perfect either. So we need to adopt a biblical leadership style that does not resort to controlling others with raising voices and choosing anger, but rather a proper reverence and use of Yahweh's word to develop and to stimulate the conscience.
Seek to use ten words of encouragement for every word of correction. I've had to apologize many times on myself for being negative and not noticing the positive, but I can tell you it's far better to live an environment of encouragement and building up positive character traits than it is to live in an environment of discouragement and tearing down another for their negative character traits. We all have negative character traits, and if we are humble, we won't be so quick to hammer the other person for their character flaws. Right? So we are all called to build one another up. There's two ways that we can speak to one another, and this is something I'm learning, too.
Let's say someone is manifesting pride.
Rather than point the finger and say you're manifesting pride, why don't you say, hey, is this humility? I think we're called to humility. There's two different ways of correcting someone. One is pointing out the negative character trait that you're seeing, and the other one is pointing people toward the positive character trait that we're all called to emulate. Do you understand what I'm talking about? If someone has a lustful eye, rather than saying, Aha, the lustful eye!
You can say, hey, we're all called to purity. Let's walk in purity, let's walk in goodness, let's walk in holiness. Let's all check our hearts, right? If you see somebody disrespecting the Sabbath day,
instead of pointing a finger, saying Sabbath breaker, why don't you say, Hey, let's keep this day holy, this is a special day for our Father in heaven, let's keep it holy. Do you hear the two differences? And I often have to remind myself of this. I don't ever point the finger and say Sabbath breaker. I'm just saying there's two ways. There's one just sort of negative finger pointing and sometimes anger come out of that. But it's whole lot easier for anger to be set aside when you're just saying hey, let's try to walk in humility here, let's try to walk in kindness--is what you're doing... Is that kindness? And the person can say, no, I guess not. Is that putting on tender mercies and long suffering and meekness there that you're doing. Let's walk in tender, mercies, long suffering and meekness. When someone is choosing anger themselves, there's a beautiful scripture here... as the elect of Elohim, holy and beloved, let's put on tender, mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long suffering, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Messiah forgave you, so you also must do. But above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that just lifting up, encouraging, motivating. Far more motivating than "you're this, you're that, right?
And one's kind of a, you know, prideful way, you know, finger pointing way. And we don't have to finger point. We can just all point to the example, Yahsuhua. Gonna do some finger pointing, go (pointing upwards) Him, right? Is this Him? Let's be like Him. Let the peace of Elohim rule in our hearts because we're all called to one body. Let's be thankful. And let the word of Messiah dwell in us richly, with all wisdom teaching admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual psalms singing with grace in our hearts to Yahweh. And whatever we do in word or deed, doing everything in the name of the Master. Yahushua giving thanks to Elohim, the Father through Him. Tell you what, that's a picture of the kind of home I want to have, how about you? Kind of home I'd like to live in. Kind of a congregation I'd like to be a part of. Kind of world I want to live in.
We don't have a congregation like that unless the homes are like that. There's no unity in a congregation if the homes are not in unity. Kind of a joke. Yeah. Congregations in unity and the homes are not. Doesn't work that way. Let's walk out this calling. Let's embrace this calling because we are called into one body. Teaching admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, being thankful. Let's be thankful for one another. Instead of infectious anger, how about infectious joy and encouragement? Instead of infectious discouragement...Infectious encouragement. Instead of the leaven of pride... the holy standard of humility,
being willing to humble ourselves
and walk in love.
Are we ready to do that?
Let's pray.
Thank you, Father Yahweh for Your love and mercies and kindness, your tender mercies, your gentleness that makes us great. O Father, help us to walk out your awesome, amazing example of love and mercy toward us even while we are yet sinners. Yahushua the Messiah giving His life for us. Strengthen us Father in our weaknesses, glorify Your name in the areas that You've made us strong even in our weaknesses.
Show us, Father, the way of everlasting life. Help us to speak to our family members in ways that when we use Your word, we use it in the way that You called us to use it. Remind one another of Your holy standard. Reminding one another of the example of Your Son, Yahushua, glorifying you in our conduct, in our examples, in our service and our faith. Let it all be that we, as Your people, be manifesting the righteous and holy example of our Savior, Yahushua, the Messiah. For truly yours is the kingdom and power and glory and majesty, forever and ever. And to h Him we look. Amen.