Taming Your Temper

Tom Shrader examines Ephesians 4:31 to show how anger progresses from a root of bitterness through wrath, anger, clamor, slander, to malice. He explains that we must respond to offense immediately—either forget it, confront it in love, or store it (which leads to explosion). Shrader identifies four triggers for anger: challenged authority, unmet expectations, violated rights, and jealousy.

“When Adam sinned, he separated us from God, and we get that, but when Adam sinned, he affects everybody and everything—he messed up everything.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Person to Person

Recorded: February 09, 2017

Duration: 39 min

Themes: anger, bitterness, forgiveness, relationships, authority, expectations, jealousy, temper, struggling with anger, marriage conflict, workplace tension, dealing with bitterness, parent, husband, church member, new believer

Scripture: Ephesians 4:29-32, Ephesians 4:31, Ephesians 4:26, Genesis 4:6, Numbers 22, 1 Corinthians 13, Philippians 2:5

Theological Themes: sanctification, holy spirit, biblical authority, spiritual maturity, grieving spirit, interpersonal ministry, biblical counseling, practical theology

Full Transcript

If you have Bibles, open them please to the book of Ephesians. We're in a four-week series. This is a series which every day what you're hearing, you can literally put into your life immediately. Practical would be the word. Person to Person is the title of the series. Subtitle is Improving Interpersonal Relationships.

Things are broken. I made a comment last week, and I just keep coming back to it, that when Adam sinned, He separated us from God, and we get that. I think most of us that hang around this stuff, we get that. We get it so much that we tend to focus on that. But when Adam sinned, He affects everybody and everything. He messed up everything.

When we're messed up individually, now we come together and we try to have a relationship. Maybe it's marriage. Maybe it's family. Maybe it's a homeowner's association. Maybe it's a church. Maybe it's a club. Maybe it's work. These things get very tough.

Paul's Tools for Interpersonal Relationships

What we're talking about in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 29, 30, 31, and 32, are tools, thoughts that Paul gives us to help us in these interpersonal relationships. When we looked at verse 29, Paul writes and tells us to let no unwholesome word proceed from our mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment. There were a bunch of points in there that my speech should be positive and constructive, but we added a component that my speech should be perceptive.

I'm supposed to, in an encounter with a conversation, I'm supposed to build you up according to the need that you have. If I'm going to do that, I've got to listen to you. We've got a lot of talk going on, but nobody's listening anymore. My own observation is, the closer you are to the person you're talking to, the more likely you are to assume you know what they need, so you just go jam in there what you think they need, not necessarily what they're telling you they need.

Don't Grieve the Holy Spirit

In verse 30, we saw it last week, don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Here's a big point. How do I grieve the Holy Spirit? Well, I rebel against God, and rebellion is against His direct or delegated authority. So I get it. If God says don't do it in His Word, and I go to do it, I get that's rebellion.

But God has also put us in these relationships and authority structures that He's established. Work, family, government. Family's an easy one. If I don't love Sandy, love the way God says to love her, nurture, cherish her, value, encourage, if I'm not loving her, God says I'm rebelling against Him.

Sandy is fascinating for me to watch work because I've never been around anybody quite like this. She's so disciplined. She's so tenacious, so focused. When the weather's like this, every Sunday we go to the track, not for paradise, but the track at Mesquite High. My goal is I walk a 440, and then there's a bench, and I do some sit-stands, some squats, then I walk a 440, then I do fewer sit-squats, then I walk a 440, then I sit.

Sandy has this sheet of these sets, so she runs, she's got a problem, so she's not running anymore. So she'll run a 220, and then she does 20 squats, and then 20 burpees, and then 20 push-ups, and then runs a 220, and does that set 10 times. Then runs around the track, takes a two-minute break, and then runs around the track the other way and does another 10 sets.

I'm exhausted. She was reading the workout on the way to the track the other day, and I said, I'm breathing heavy. I got to check my pulse. We're all done, and I said, I never saw you take a break. She said, well, I got thinking about it, and I thought, why am I going to take a break? I got to get these done. I'm going to do these. I can physically do them. This is what I'm going to do. She needs that.

I watch her in work. She was relating something the other day, and it was just an amazing story from work. She's in Pasadena, so she was flying over yesterday, and I sent her a text, and I said, you are amazing. I wasn't blowing smoke at her. I just said, it is so much fun to watch you. Watch you use your gifts and talents, and I wasn't trying to manipulate her. I'm not going to be home until Sunday. There's no manipulation going on. I'm trying to encourage her, and God says that's how we're to be.

Wives, submit to your husbands. If you're not submitting to your husband, then you're rebelling against God. If I'm rebelling against God, Paul says don't do it. Don't grieve the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit sealed you for the day of redemption. What that means, get it on the CD next week. Verse 32 next week on forgiveness.

Taming Your Temper

The focus today, verse 31, and the title is taming your temper. The whole premise is this: because our vertical relationship with God is correct, we now are His instrument of peace in our horizontal relationship, and He begins to talk about temper.

Let me read it. Follow along, would you? "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice." There's a couple of things I want to do. I want to define each of those words the best we can. What you're going to see is there's a progression here.

When we're talking about temper, we're talking about something that starts with the phrase that we would use, this root of bitterness, this toxic bitterness that gets into our heart. It may not manifest itself right away, but it's costly.

I had a friend one day, and He called and He said, my aunt just left me a piece of property. It's a corner, and there was a gas station on it. It's long gone. I'd like to get rid of it. What's it worth? So I don't know. Let me do a little work on it. I called Him back and I said, I got good news and I got bad news. Good news is it's probably worth about 400 grand.

The bad news is it was a gas station. So those tanks have leaked. You got toxic challenges all over. I don't know, because I don't have the authority to go get it done, but the guys I know tell me it'll be 400 or 500 grand to clean it up. So when you're all done, if everything works well, you'll break even. Minus my commission, which I assume I'm going to get screwed on at the end of the day. That's how that typically goes.

But it's that toxic thing you didn't see on our church site when we bought these 21 acres. We bought it from the RTC, so we had no time really to do due diligence. There was an old well on it, and that was the big decision we had to make. We didn't know what it was used for. We weren't really sure. We had mixed reports, and we rolled the dice and it ended up being no problem. Well, that's that root of bitterness.

Understanding the Progression of Anger

Let me give you some of the definitions here, and then I want you to see we'll go back and look at the progression. Bitterness is animosity that's marked by cynicism. One author writes this: it reflects a smoldering resentment, brooding grudge-filled attitude, a spirit of irritability that keeps a person in perpetual sourness. Animosity makes him venomous.

Those were the key words I wrote down: brooding, smoldering. It's something that takes place that just flips into your heart. Could be a big deal, could be a little deal, but it's in there.

It oftentimes progresses to rage. Some of your translations will say wrath. It's a passion of the moment. It moves to anger. Now the anger we're talking about here is more internal. It's this strong, subtle, deep feeling. It's bubbling up inside of you.

And then it's brawling. Now it's external. Some of the translations will say clamor. It's a violent outburst. The stakes go higher, the behavior gets more animated. Slander - false, damaging statements. You start to lash out at people.

A Personal Story About Slander

I had something happen to me years ago. There was a guy, and I didn't know him. He came to me one day and he said, "Can we meet?" I said, "Sure." I don't like that when somebody says, "Can we meet?" I always assume the worst. I'm not good at it. So I said, "Yeah, let's do it fast."

He said, "I owe you an apology." I said, "Okay, what did you do?" He said, "Well, there's a guy in town that really, really, really bugs me, and I thought it was you. So I've gone all over town slandering your name. I thought it was you. It wasn't you, and I just want to apologize to you."

I said, "Well, that's cool. Let me ask you this: How are we going to fix this?" He said, "Well, I don't think we can fix it." I said, "I don't think we can either."

But he had this guy that did something to him. Somehow my name got attached to the guy, and it was a perfect process here. It was bitterness and rage and anger, and he was going to get mad and he didn't know how, so it was slander. And then malice - that's a desire to see somebody suffer.

The Process Becomes Clear

But that process, do you see it? This one becomes knowledgeable. That process begins with this root of bitterness. I need to be aware of that.

So how do you respond to this? Well, number one: you respond immediately. And number two: you respond intelligently.

The Bread-Buttering Crisis

I always use illustrations. I get a call from a guy. I knew his name. They were a young couple in the church. He said, "Can my wife and I come and see you?" I said, "Okay."

They came in and sat down, and they looked like they were about 12. It's starting to be more and more the occasion with people. You're about 12. I said, "All right, what's the problem?" He said, "Our marriage is not going to make it." I said, "Okay, how long have you been married?" "Ninety days."

"Well, you might want to hang in there longer than 90 days. You got a longer trial on my dishwasher than 90 days, but we'll see." So I said, "What's the problem?" Long ago I never asked the guy because the guy typically doesn't know or won't say. So I said to the girl, "What's the problem?" She said, "Go ahead and tell him." Then he said, "No, I don't want to tell." So I said, "Well, what's the problem?" She said, "Go ahead and tell him," and he said, "No, I'm not going to tell him."

I said, "Well, we're going to get nowhere here if you don't tell me." He said, "It's so stupid." So what do you know at this point? It's really stupid. He didn't want to say it. It's dumb. So I said, "All right, pal, just say it. Get it over with."

He said, "She does not know how to butter bread."

When Small Things Become Big Problems

Okay, not a lot of marriages break up over this, but this could be the one. I said, "Really?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "How do you butter bread?" He said, "Here's what she does. She takes a piece of bread, she gets a slab of butter, she puts the butter in the middle, and she gives it to me and says it's buttered. It's not buttered."

Now here's where I'm vulnerable. When Susan and I first got married, here's how she would butter bread: She'd get a slab of butter, she'd put it in the middle, she'd give it to me, and it drove me nuts. Then she'd put like a piece of meat on it and another piece of bread, and I'm going, "How am I going to eat this? All the butter's in the middle."

So I said to the guy, "How should you butter the bread?" "Tom, you don't take a slab. You take a thinner piece. You start in the upper left-hand corner, you drag it to the right-hand corner, you come down, you go back the other way until the butter's all over the bread."

Now we can debate how you butter bread. The point was this: he said, "This started right when we were married. It's driving me crazy." He's got 90 days of watching her trying to butter a piece of bread.

Responding Immediately

How do you respond to that? You've got to respond immediately. Susan and I had been married about three weeks, and we're at a stop sign and I cracked my knuckles. She said, "Don't do that." "What do you mean don't do that? I've been doing it. We've been dating for three years." "Don't do it." I said, "Why didn't you say something in the three years we were dating? I got a whole bunch of things..."

When Someone Pushes Your Buttons

Of other things I'm going to spring on you in the next couple of weeks, you're going to beg me to crack my knuckles here pretty soon. You're going to wish I was cracking knuckles. But it was that little thing. I need to respond immediately.

Immediately. Ephesians 4:26 says, "Don't let the sun go down on your anger." The implication is go with it right away when somebody does something or a situation flips that root in there. You know when it is. You might not be able to see it, but you can feel it.

Three Options for Handling Anger

You've got three options. Number one: forget it. Stuff it if you can. Somebody does something—forget it in a relationship.

I'm sure that on Saturday, because Saturday is the day I'm typically home and Sandy's home, there has to be a dozen things I do to drive her nuts. There has to be. Just laying there watching TV. I mean, every time she walks by, she's got to look at me and go, "Move. Do something. Turn the channel. Do something. Go get a drink." It's got to drive her crazy.

If it does, and periodically it does, she'll say, "You need to do something. You ought to get up." All right, I'll go out, come in, and watch again. But forget it if you can.

Confronting in Love

Number two, and this is a good way to deal with it: confront it in love. I taught a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday morning—I'm teaching like four of the next five Sundays somewhere. It's a lot for me. Not sure physically how it'll go. But I taught three weeks ago at Gilbert, three lessons, and Sandy comes to the 11 o'clock service.

We're all done and I wore slacks and leather shoes. I dressed up like a big boy and did everything right. So we're all done and I came down and she said, "Do you want to stop and get something to eat on the way home?" I said, "No, we'll just get something at home." Got home and she's going to have a salad and I get a cinnamon roll.

I said, "How'd you like church today?" She said, "Well, music was good." I said, "Well, nobody's there for the music. I meant more the lesson." And she said, "Tom, it just wasn't very good. If you had a point, I never got what it was." I said, "Well, I never landed the plane." And she said, "You never got it off the runway. It didn't work."

I said, "Well, help me because I didn't see it. I didn't think it was great, but I thought it was good." And we had a good, honest discussion about a lesson. If something happens or something comes along, if you can, the best thing you can do is have that discussion. Now, the challenge with that is you have to have the capital of trust in a relationship to be able to do that.

The Danger of Storing Hurt

The third thing, and I don't think it's really an option, is to store it away. Not to forget it, but to store it. And I'm not sure over a period of time—and we'll stick in marriage—a marriage or any relationship can withstand a closet full of stored, hurt, bitter experiences.

So I've got to respond. And it's the second thing: I need to respond in these situations intelligently.

Asking the Right Question: "Why Am I So Angry?"

There's a great moment in Genesis 4 where God has begun to deal with Cain. Genesis 4:6, God asks this amazing question: "Why are you so angry?" You know that. You're dealing with somebody and you make some comment and bam, they explode. You kind of know it's disproportionate to what took place. It's something else.

There's a great scene—last summer I re-watched the movie Seabiscuit—where Johnny Pollard, the jockey (this is before Seabiscuit was really Seabiscuit), they're in this race and this guy bumps him and bumps him again. Pollard fights him off and gets disqualified. The owner says to Pollard, "Why are you so mad?"

When you feel this temper in you, you need to ask yourself, "Why the strong response? Why am I so mad?"

When Authority Is Challenged

I've got four or five things here. Number one: it's when your authority is challenged. Numbers 22 is Balaam and his donkey. The donkey is spoken to by an angel and heads in the wrong direction. Balaam is mad and begins to whip him, then the donkey crushes his legs, and he hits him again and again. He's basically saying, "Who do you think you are?"

If you're walking around the house saying, "I'm the man," you're walking around the church saying, "I'm the elder," you're walking around work saying, "I'm the boss," you're dealing with a kid and you utter these words—which at this point you can throw in the towel—"As long as you live in this house..." Well, that authority's challenged.

I don't want anybody to challenge my authority. I mean, you kind of get this played out on the evening news now. You've got the head of the free world tweeting every time somebody says something kind of bad about him. Let it go.

Unrealized and Undefined Expectations

Here's the second thing, and this is huge. I've got red marks and stars all over this: unrealized expectations. That'll create anger. Unrealized, and I added to it, undefined expectations.

As I tell these stories, you might easily think they're made up. This is true. I had a guy come to me one day and he said, "Will you be my friend?" This was probably 10 years ago. I said, "Yeah, I guess. I don't know. Are we going to get hearts and come together? I don't know. Yeah, I'll be your friend."

About a month later, he comes up and says, "You're the worst friend I've ever had." I said, "Okay. Why do you say that?" He said, "You don't ever call me. We don't go out to dinner with our wives. We don't do any..." He had a whole list of things. I said, "Man, I thought when you said 'be my friend,' I'd meet with you once a month and you'd buy lunch. That's what I thought friendship was going to be."

He was shattered. He walked away and said, "You're the worst friend anybody's ever had." I said, "Okay." Misplaced expectations—the root of bitterness.

One summer I learned this lesson with my girls, and I did it with them a lot on things they had, like grades and school. But one summer, we had planned, and I'm a vacation guy—I love vacation. I don't like to go when somebody goes for a long weekend; I'd almost rather stay home. I mean, I like to go for a long time.

So one summer, here's what happened. We had a super vacation. I couldn't make the front of it, but Susan could. Susan drives to San Diego with the girls. We're staying in a condo down by Qualcomm. I fly in a couple days later. They go to the zoo. They go up to Balboa Park. I get there, we go over to Coronado. We drive around San Diego. We drive up to Los Angeles. We go to the Allenson Theater to see Phantom of the Opera with Michael Crawford doing it, so it's like a real Phantom. We go to Knott's Berry Farm.

We drive all the way up because I want to get to Sea Ranch. We go to San Francisco and spend a week in San Francisco. The girls are at Six Flags a day or two. We're down on Market Street. We're out on the pier. We go to Sea Ranch for two weeks. We're driving home. I could take you to the place. We're in Palm Springs, right as you're coming up the hill, where it tells you to turn off your air conditioner. I said, "Girls, how'd you like the vacation?" And they said, "We didn't do anything. Really, we didn't do anything."

The Power of Defined Expectations

The next year, we were going to have a similar vacation. It's about a week before we leave. I give each girl a legal pad, and I said, "Write down everything you want to do." You want to go to the beach? You want to get—there's a little candy store in Bodega Bay. You want to stop at Bodega Bay? Write it down.

And then, as we do them—and it was a fraction of what we did the year before—as we're doing them, I said, "Oh, there we go. We went to Pier 39. Check it off, check." About three or four days before vacation's over, I said, "What do we have on there we haven't done?" "Well, we haven't been to the candy store." And I said, "All right, should we go there?" "No, that's okay. We don't need to go." I said, "All right, put your initials by that one."

And you know where this is going. We're all done, and everything had a check or an initial. We're driving home. We get to Palm Springs, the same spot on the hill. I said, "Girls, how was the vacation?" They said, "It's the best vacation we've ever had. We did so much." We did a fraction of what we did the year before, but it was defined.

Lessons from Business Arbitration

Now I come into these relationships at work. I'm called in by two guys—and I'll never do this. Don't ever call me for this. I hate this. I don't know why I did it, but into an arbitration. I'm not going to do it. I'm done. I'm all arbitrated out.

So we sit down with the guys. They're two Christian guys. And they said, "Tom, whatever you say, this is what we're going to do." Normally, I'd like to hear those words, but not in this situation. So they started, and the first guy said, "When we got together, I assumed this is how this works." And then this guy said, "I assumed this." So you're setting yourself up for failure. Remember the context here: I'm trying to figure out why do I have this root of bitterness? Why am I feeling this? Well, my expectations haven't been met.

Unmet Expectations in Marriage

When Susan and I got married, and when Sandy and I got married, we never had a discussion on the division of labor in the house. My thought on the division was: here's what needs to be done, you do it. And each one of them had some thought that I would offload some of that.

I'm realizing, last week, I did something really weird. I made the bed. This is Sandy's big deal. She likes to have that bed made. When I get up and go to the bathroom, if I don't get right back in there, that bed's made. I got to be quick. I made the bed. And she was perky all day long. Then I said to her, "Gosh, you're in a good mood today." And she said, "You made the bed." It wasn't that big a deal. I could do this. Well, every day is ambitious. I could do this more often than never.

But see, that was never defined. We never had that discussion. And it's a lot of work. It feels weird if you're sitting down with a friend and say, "We're going to do this business venture, and we don't need a whole bunch of legal documents, and we don't want to make the attorneys rich. We'll just agree on this." We're going to get married. We love the same thing. You love a sunset. I love a sunset. You love music. I love music. You love food. I love food. All of a sudden, as those expectations aren't met—let's go through our scenario. I can't just forget it. I haven't confronted it. I've stored it. And I'm going to end up in this explosion.

When Rights Are Violated

Here's the third thing that'll cause this: when my rights are violated. When I feel like you've done me dirty. Great example of that, for us in the positive sense, would be the picture of Jesus. Have the mind in you that was also in Christ Jesus. For all of a sudden, it's what love is in 1 Corinthians 13. I'm thinking more about you than me.

It's counterintuitive. I think about me. If Congress passes a tax change, I don't go, "Oh, what does this mean for the overall economy?" I want to know, what does it mean to me? What about my rights?

If you see a 10-year-old kid walking through Fashion Square, and he's walking along—he's 10, so he's up on that second level—and he's going by Victoria's Secret, and he doesn't know what he's looking at, but he knows it's something that he likes, and he trips and falls. He jumps up, and the first thing he says is, "I'm going to sue somebody." Where did that come from, buddy? My rights?

The Challenge of Jealousy

The last thing, and we're out of time, is this jealousy that gets in there. That's why class reunions and Christmas parties are so hard. It's so hard to go to somebody else's house for a Christmas party, and you go in, and you see all of these things, and here's this beautiful house. I'm talking to somebody the other day, a mom, and she and her husband are in—

The Reality of Comparison and Envy

Let me share a story from our church. There's a couple, probably in their early 30s, and I asked how they were doing. She said they were good, but then I mentioned that they were at a tough time with these kids at home.

I was last year at a place called Maggie's Place. How many of you know Maggie's Place? I'm hooked on this place - they got me right in, though I haven't been there very often. They showed me around, and basically the short story is they found a niche in the market: homeless pregnant girls. When you find out you're pregnant, you can come there, deliver, and stay up to a year. They have a great plaque on the second floor that I loved: "Changing the world one diaper at a time." That's a winner. You're in this process of changing the world one diaper at a time.

So I'm talking to this lady, and I said, "How are you doing?" She said, "You know what's really hard?" I said, "No." She said, "All these young families in our church have new cars, and I know they can't be paying cash for it. Their kids are in these schools, and they're taking summer break and going to Disney World. Tom, I want that so much, but we can't afford it and we aren't willing to go into debt for it."

She's got that kind of under control, but there's this raging thing when you see somebody that has something. It's the illustration biblically of the prodigal son and his brother who becomes so jealous.

Three Options for Dealing with Anger

The bottom line is this: in your life, you're going to have these moments of anger, and you need to respond quickly. Either just forget it, if you can, or confront it - not in anger, but in love. The third option, which is an option but not a very good one, is to store it.

When you store it, it'll become that root of bitterness. It'll brew in there, and there'll be this internal ferment. Then somehow, sometime, somewhere, it's going to explode.

When Anger Explodes Disproportionately

So in your life, if you're one of those people who all of a sudden, in a relationship, "bam" - it explodes and you can't figure it out - my guess is the question to be asked is: why are you so angry? What really happened? Because your response is way disproportionate to the grievance of the moment.

In every relationship, it seems to me, there are virtually infinite opportunities to offend. Therefore, infinite opportunities to forgive. Next week, we'll take a look at that - verse 32. If you want to read ahead, Ephesians 4:32, begin to work on it and unpack it yourself.