Angry Anger
How do you feel?
How do you deal with your anger? Jesus talks to us about this in the next part of the Sermon on the Mount.
The service starts at 9:30am on stwderby.online.church
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This morning in our service we continued looking at one of Jesus’ most famous teachings in the bible: THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.
It’s quite long and there’s so much good stuff to learn in this that we are looking at little parts of the passage each week. And so this week we are looking at Matthew 5v21-26 when Jesus talks about Anger and how we should deal with it.
In Matthew 5v21-26 Jesus at the start reminds us of the 10 commandments and one of the big rules God makes is DO NOT MURDER. We know it’s important to hurt others don’t we!? But Jesus also tells us that even if we’re just thinking bad things in our minds about this person or calling the bad names that too is hurtful and it also gets in the way of our relationship with God.
Jesus tells us that any kind of anger will cause hurt and so we need to be careful what we do when we’re feeling this way.
This morning we looked at 2 stories from the bible when people get angry and what happens to them and those around them so that we can think more about what we should do if we’re ever feeling angry.
Right at the beginning of this I want to remind you that God created us to have emotions and show how we feel. Our emotions and however you feel is always OKAY and good to share. But we need to make sure that these emotions don’t hurt others or get in the way of our relationship with God and others.
Now I wonder, have you ever heard of 2 brothers from the bible called Cain and Abel? Well their story is in Genesis 4 so let’s take a quick look at it now and see how they dealt with their anger.
“Cain and Abel were brothers. Abel took care of sheep. Cain became a farmer.
Later, Cain brought a gift to God. He brought some food from the ground. Abel brought the best parts of his best sheep. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift. But God did not accept Cain and his gift. Cain became very angry and looked unhappy.
The Lord asked Cain, “Why are you angry? Why do you look so unhappy? If you do good, I will accept you. But if you do not do good, then sin is ready to attack you. Sin wants you. But you must rule over it.”
Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out into the field.” So Cain and Abel went into the field. Then Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
Later, the Lord said to Cain,
“Where is your brother Abel?”
Cain answered, “I don’t know.
Is it my job to take care of my brother?”
Then the Lord said, “What have you done? Your brother’s blood is on the ground. That blood is like a voice that tells me what happened.”
What do you think of the story? It’s not very nice is it?
Both Cain and Abel loved God and wanted to give him a gift. Abel gave the BEST of what he had whilst Cain didn’t. God always deserves our best.
But because of this Cain got really really jealous of Abel and got very angry. So angry that he took it out on his brother and hurt him. Hurt him bad.
This was not okay. If your anger ever makes you want to hurt someone you need to try and think again. In our original passage in Matthew 5 Jesus is saying if you do get angry think about the consequences, try and put things right before they get totally out of hand.
There’s 3 things I want you to remember when you get angry.
IT’S OKAY TO FEEL THAT WAY
It’s okay if something makes you angry. It might be for a good reason.IT’S NOT OKAY TO HURT SOMEONE
There is never a good reason to hurt someone no matter how much they have annoyed you or angered you.IT’S OKAY TO NEED TIME TO COOL OFF
We all need time to process how we feel. The first step is being honest with what’s happening and why you feel that way so tell someone. Then you might want to talk about it or redirect your anger. Sometimes exercise is a great way to get rid of that bad energy by walking or running. Deep breaths will also help to calm you down or imagine you’re in a calm place. Find what works best for you to help you work through your anger.
If you are a Christian you have a secret weapon, because once you become a Christian God’s Holy Spirit shares your life with you and if you allow Him, He will help you be more patient and grow in self-control.
But also Jesus himself, who led a perfect life, was angry on occasion. Take a look at this passage from Matthew 21v12-13.
“Jesus entered the temple courts
and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers
and the benches of those selling doves.
’It is written,’ he said to them,
’My house will be called a house of prayer,
but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
As we’ve just seen Jesus gets angry at those in the temple who were buying and selling things. But his anger was controlled, no-one got hurt and he used His anger to show how upset He was that people had been misusing the Temple, His Father’s house.
The temple was set up with special places where particular people would pray and meet with God. The money changers which Jesus was angry at had set up their tables in the part of the temple where non-Jewish people were allowed to enter.
It was probably like a marketplace, really loud and busy, not the kind of environment where anyone would want to pray. So we can understand why Jesus was angry.
So anger can be a positive emotion when it’s controlled and used for good like for example when we hear or see someone being bullied the anger we feel may give us the courage to stand up to them or help make a change that could help them.
Jesus isn’t telling his listeners - don’t get angry or if you do get angry just control it. Although He recognises that anger is inevitable and that when we do get angry we need to have enough self-control to do something positive about it. More than that though, it might mean swallowing our pride and going and making peace with the person who’s caused the anger.
GO DEEPER!
SPARKS (Preschool)
Can you name some emotions or feelings?
Pull some faces of how someone looks when they feel these ways.
Now think about anger or when you are angry.
Have you ever felt anger? Why?
What sort of things do people do when they are angry?
You might want to draw or act out these things.
Often when we are angry we can hurt others even if we don’t mean it. Our anger can be bad so we need to help ourselves work through it so that we can be calm again and forgive those who might have made us angry.
Spend some time now practicing breathing so that you can do if you are ever feeling very angry.
Now get up and run around - sometimes doing exercise can help us get rid of our anger.
Can you think of any other ways you can help feel better whenever you feel angry?
Finish now by saying this prayer.
“Dear God,
Thank you that you gave us emotions and feelings.
Help us to understand and be able to tell others how we are feeling.
Amen.”
FLAMES (KS1)
What did you think of the stories today?
What were the differences between the 2 stories?
Do you remember what happened to Cain and Abel? Cain got crosser and crosser inside until he explodes! God told him to stop being angry, but he didn’t – he got angrier and angrier until he actually killed Abel!
Have you ever felt so angry you thought you would explode?
Get a thin plastic bag open. How many tins do you think you could put in the bag before it breaks?
Start putting more and more tins into the bag until it breaks under pressure.
This is what happens to us: we can only take so much and then we explode with anger and scream and shout and get into a mess! And that mess can hurt those around us.
Start to put tins into a new bag. Ask the children what we can do to stop the bag breaking.
We need to stop putting things in and take some tins out.
We need to learn how to be able to stop ourselves from exploding.
Can you think of things you can do so that you don’t ever feel tis way?
Think about something else
Tell someone about it
Tell God about it
Go for a walk or o some exercise
Do some breathing exercises
Jesus wants us to be proactive when we know that people are angry with us. He wants us to do something about it.
Think of someone you know who is angry with you because of something specific. Or think of someone who has made you feel angry.
Make a card for that person and write a message inside apologising for the thing you have done wrong, and ask for forgiveness or tell them you forgive them.
We never want our feelings to hurt others so understanding them is so important.
BLAZE (KS2)
We all have feelings but we don’t all know how to deal with them.
Are you able to talk with your family and friends with how you’re feeling?
We all get angry sometimes but when we do we have 2 choices:
You can lose your temper and act out
You can choose try to stay calm and make peace
Which choice is easy? And which choice is hard?
What happens when you are angry with someone and you try to pray? It’s hard because your anger keeps getting in the way.
Here’s something you can do to help you think about how anger affects us:
Get one person to start praying aloud. Something simple such as “God bless mum, God bless dad, God bless my friends” over and over again. As they pray get someone else to start whispering, “I’m so angry with Susan”, then gradually get louder and louder.
This is what happens in our minds when we are angry with someone – our anger drowns out the prayer we are trying to pray – it gets in the way of our relationship with God!
Take a look again at Matthew 5:21-26 in your Bible and read it out loud.
See if you can think of a way to summarise Jesus’ teaching on anger by acting it out or making a freeze frame or drawing a poster to illustrate it.
Any form of anger can hurt others which is why we need to learn how to work through our anger so that it doesn’t hurt anyone.
Spend some time now thinking about how you feel. Can you explain your feelings to someone right now?
Now take some time to think if there is someone that you are - or have been – angry with. Make a card for that person to say sorry for being angry. As you draw and write this they can pray for that person!
How do you feel now? Has anything changed?
When we are able to talk about our feelings it helps us change things and be better.
We never want our feelings to hurt others so understanding them is so important.
FUN ACTIVITIES + CRAFTS!
For those who LOVE colouring and activity sheets check these out:
Today we were talking about emotions. God gave us all different types of emotions.
HERE is a great website where you can do some crafts to help you talk about you emotions with your family and friends. These include:
- Stress Ball BalloonsWe also talked this morning how doing deep breaths can help to calm us down when we get angry. Make a pinwheel which you can blow every time you feel angry. It will help you think about your breathing and might help to calm you down.
HERE is a video which shows you how to make one!Go back and reread one of the stories.
Make a comic book strip of the story. HERE is an outline you can use!
Draw each part of the story and at the end write what you learnt about anger from the story.
WORSHIP + PRAYER
This song below speaks of how God tells us who we are and that he loves us no matter how we feel or what we’ve done. We are called children God and he welcomes us into his family.
The bridge of this song tells us we are chosen not forsaken. The word forsaken means abandoned or left alone. God will never leave us no matter how we’re feeling or what we’ve done.
You might want to spend some time talking to God about how you feel and if there is anything you want to say sorry for. Remember God loves you no matter what!
During our service today Joseph made some prayer bunting and used this to help us pray. You might want to do the same too! As you listen to this song pray and draw for people and things you’d like to pray for!
Created by Amy Farrar using several different sources including energize.net
