Rick Warren - Who's Pushing Your Buttons - Part 1
You know, one of the amazing things about the crazymakers in your life is how quickly they can flip you from being happy to angry. Have you noticed this? I mean, you could be going through a typical day and you actually are having a pretty good day. You’re in a good mood, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, you feel great, and then this crazymaker walks into your life, and in about 1.2 seconds, all of a sudden you’re frustrated, mad, and upset. They can flip you so fast, they know how to push your buttons. So if we’re gonna deal with healthy relationships, we gotta learn how to deal with anger, how it shows up, how to deal with it in our own lives, and how to diffuse it in the lives of others, particularly the crazymakers who push your buttons.
Let me give you some facts about anger that I found out. The average woman loses her temper three times a week, the average man six times a week. Women get angry more often at people, men get angry more often at things: computers, mechanical problems, things like that. Women are more verbal with their anger, men are more physical with their anger, we know that. This is interesting, single adults express anger twice as often as married adults, I wouldn’t have known that. The place you’re most likely to express anger is home. Yeah right, because we get angry more often and more intensely at those we love than strangers. That’s obvious, the people who make you the most angry are those you love the most because they have the greatest potential to hurt you, or to offend you, or to irritate you, or to frustrate you.
Dr. S.I. McMillen has identified 51 illnesses that can be directly attributed or caused by anger, 51 illnesses. In fact, proctologists now know that anger can literally create a pain in the rear. Now you’ve heard me say many times, «To dwell above with those we love, that will be a glory, but to dwell below with those we know, that’s another story». Because we all have crazymakers in our life. Now, I want you to know that anger is not always an inappropriate response, it’s not always wrong. Uncontrolled anger is always wrong, but anger is not always wrong. In fact, there are many situations where anger is the only appropriate response. Actually, anger can be an evidence of love. Somebody tries to hurt my kids or grandkids or my wife, I’m gonna get angry. That’s an appropriate response.
If I don’t get angry, it means I don’t love, I’m apathetic. And there are some things that you ought to get angry about. I get angry about injustice in the world, I get angry about greed in the world, I get angry about racism in the world, and you ought to too. I get angry when people go to bed at night hungry while others have more than they could possibly… they feed their dog better than people are being fed today. When people are raped, when people are abused, that ought to make you angry. Anger is an evidence of love. In fact, the only reason you are able to get angry is because you were made in God’s image, and the Bible says, «God gets angry». God has emotions too, you know. That’s why you’re an emotional person.
In fact, 375 times in the Bible, it says, «God got angry» or «Jesus got angry,» «the Holy Spirit got angry». There are some things that are definitely wrong and you ought to be angry about them. There’s a righteous anger, there’s an unrighteous. There’s a right way and a wrong way. There’s an appropriate way, there’s an inappropriate way. In Ephesians 4:26, in the Bible, it says, «When you get angry, do not sin». Which obviously implies there’s a way to get angry and not sin, that not all anger is sin. Selfish anger is sinful, self-centered anger is sinful, uncontrolled anger is sinful. But the Bible says anger is sometimes an appropriate response. Sometimes it’s helpful, but most of the time in our lives it’s harmful.
Let me show you a few verses out of the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 25:28 says this. «If you cannot control your anger you are as helpless as a city without walls, open to attack». You are defenseless, people will manipulate your life. Do you realize that when you say, «You make me so mad,» you are admitting, at that point, those people are controlling your life. You are admitting that they are stronger than you, that you are weak. When you say, «You make me,» in other words, «You have an ability to control my emotions».
That’s what you’re admitting. You are defenseless, «You are without a wall, open to attack». Proverbs 12, verse 16 says this. «A fool is quick-tempered,» that anytime I got, I’m a hair trigger temper, I’m a fool, I’m foolish, «but a wise person stays calm when insulted». It’s wise to just let it roll off your back. «A wise person stays calm when insulted». Proverbs 16:32, «It’s better to be patient than powerful; It’s better to have self-control than to conquer a city». In other words, it’s more important to be in control of your own emotions than to be the president of the United States or an outstanding entrepreneur.
Now, the fact is, anger is a learned response, you learned it from other people. Maybe bad examples, but you learned it from others. You learned it from television, you learned it from movies, you learned it from your parents, from other people in your life. And the good news is that, since it’s learned, it can be unlearned, and you can learn appropriate ways to deal with your anger. Now, what I want us to do this week… and it’s two things. First, I want you to understand the different ways that anger shows up, because it’s not all just volcano Mount Vesuvius. There are lots of different ways that anger shows up. Not all of you are exploders, but you still have anger problems. So there’s different ways. We’re gonna look at that, and I want you to be able to identify them and what the Bible says about it. And then I want to share with you some biblical principles on how you diffuse the angry crazymakers in your life and how you disarm them.
Now the Bible identifies four different ways that we express anger, and I want you to be aware of these so I’ve given them some kind of modern day names. I want you to write these down if you’re taking notes. The first category of the way people express anger is what I call «the machine guns». And «the machine guns» are people who… they just let you have it. You know, they just mow you down. There’s no doubt that they’re mad. They’re very expressive, they cuss, they yell, they throw things, they hit, they let it fly. These people are the exploders, the Mount Vesuvius. They’re like the walking time bomb, and when you pull the hairpin trigger on the grenade, it goes off. This is very obvious, this kind is the most obvious. It just kind of, «blaah,» explodes all over you.
Some of you are old enough to remember Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes. He had the machine gun type of anger. In fact, he had a great career as a football coach, but he had a known temper problem. And one day in the Gator Bowl when a Clemson opponent caught a interception, he got so mad he walked out onto the field and slugged the kid and immediately resigned. It ended his career right there, one moment of anger ended his career. Now, these kind of people are in the paper all the time. They are the machine guns, they just let 'er rip, they let it fly.
Now, in the Bible, an example of this first kind of anger, the exploder, would be Cain. Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve, and Cain committed the first murder out of anger in Genesis 4, verses 5 and 8. It says this. «Cain became furious and he scowled in anger. And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel, and killed him». Circle the word «attacked». This is the response of the first form of anger. It’s the attacker, the machine guns. Now this response is so obvious, the people who have this type of anger immediately regret it. They regret the things they’ve said, they regret the things they’ve done, and they’re often embarrassed, ashamed, they want to apologize. But that’s not the only kind of anger.
The second kind of anger, besides the machine gun, is what I call «the mutes». Now, the mutes are the exact opposite. They don’t blow up, they clam up. And mutes don’t get violent, they get silent. And they hold it in, and they live in denial, and they masquerade, and they pretend, and they always refuse to admit it when they’re angry. «I can see you’re angry, honey». «No, I’m not». «Yes, you are». «No, I’m not». «You’re angry». «I am not angry». «Yeah, you are». It’s real obvious, you’re angry, but you’re holding it in. You’re holding, now, this is not the exploding kind of anger. This is what I call «crockpot anger». It stews and it simmers and it’s a slow burn, okay? They don’t just kind of spiritually vomit over you, but they burn and it’s a slow burn. And the mutes swallow their anger.
Now here’s the problem, every time you swallow your anger, your stomach keeps score. If you don’t talk it out, you’re gonna take it out on your body. And so people who are the mutes, who hold in all of their anger, they get the high blood pressure, they get the chronic pain, they get the tension headaches, they get the ulcers, and all these other anger-related effects to our body. Good example of a mute would be the prophet Jeremiah in the Bible. The Bible calls him «the weeping prophet» because he cried a lot. He held in his anger, he was so ticked off at what was happening in society around him, but he didn’t explode. He wasn’t a machine gun, but he was one of these guys who held it in.
In Jeremiah 15 it says this. «I stayed by myself,» that’s typical of a mute, «I stayed by myself and was filled with anger». In other words, I’m just being silent, I’m holding it all in. And then he asked, «Why do I keep on suffering? Why are my wounds incurable»? I’ve got these terminal problems. «Why won’t they heal»? 'Cause you’re holding it in. Are you holding on to unexpressed anger? When people say «that burns me up,» well, literally, it does. Holding onto anger in your body, your body wasn’t meant to hold onto anger. And it’s like taking fire, it’s like swallowing poison.
Now the third kind of anger response, and many of you are this, is «the martyrs». And the martyrs are pros at holding pity parties, and they announce a pity party and invite themselves to it. And martyrs are always passive, and they tend to punish themselves, and when a crazymaker comes into their life, they don’t think, «My mom’s crazy,» they think, «What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me? What did I do wrong? It must all be my fault». And if you walk around saying, «I should, I must, I have to, I ought,» and you’re always shooting yourself, then you’re gonna be a martyr because you’re going to blame yourself. Maybe you just got a crazy coworker, and it’s not really you, it’s just they’re crazy, or a crazy relative, and they’re a crazymaker, but you blame yourself. You are the martyr.
Now, the number one sign that you have the martyr approach to anger is depression. Depression is caused by many different things, but one of the primary causes of depression is frozen anger. When you hold onto anger and you let it freeze in your life, and you make yourself a martyr, you’re going to get depressed. I know this from personal experience. Many of you don’t know that when I was 21 years old, I was hospitalized for depression. And I had no idea why I was depressed, I had only been married about four or five months, and I remember laying in the hospital and they sent a psychiatrist in to see me and I’m thinking, «I don’t need a psychiatrist, I’m a youth pastor».
The psychiatrist looks at me and he says, «So what are you angry about»? I said, «I’m not angry». He said, «Yeah, you are». I said, «No, no, I’m depressed». He said, «Depression is frozen anger. What are you angry about»? What I was angry about was our marriage, because Kay and I started fighting from day one. We started fighting on the honeymoon, we just did not get along. Now, we’ve been married 38 years, 36 happy years. But the first two were hell on earth, okay, and we did not get along. And within about six months, we were both so disappointed in our marriage, Kay thought she was having a nervous breakdown, and I ended up in the hospital with depression. And I didn’t know how to let it out and I just thought, as a pastor, a youth pastor, how angry I am at my new bride. And I was just swallowing it and I was being the martyr.
Now that’s maybe what’s eating you up, but the martyrs do this. Now a good example of the martyr in the Bible would be the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. Remember, this man has two sons and one of them says, «Dad, I want my half of the inheritance,» and he goes off and he wastes it on wine, women, and song, blows it all, wastes half the family inheritance, comes back home a total mess, and the dad throws a party for him. And unconditional love welcomes him back, and the older brother gets ticked off, he says, «Wait a minute, I’m the good boy. You’ve never thrown a party for me. And I’ve been here all along, and I didn’t go off and blow half the family inheritance».
And he gets mad and he becomes a martyr and in Luke 15:28, «The elder brother was so angry he would not go in (to the party). So his father went out and pleaded with him». You got anybody like this in your family? They have to be coaxed, they have to be pleaded with, they have to be pampered, they make everybody else miserable. If they’re not happy, they don’t want anybody else happy, they ruin all the family parties. They’re martyrs, they’re martyrs. And that’s just as wrong as the machine gun person. Now the fourth kind of anger is what I call «the manipulators,» the manipulators. And the motto of the manipulators is, «Don’t get mad, get even». And a lot of movies and a lot of TV shows are built on this category of anger.
Now manipulators will never tell you to your face they’re angry with you, but they’re gonna do it subtly, they’re gonna do it slyly, they’re gonna do it sarcastically, they’re indirect with jibes and cuts. And they do things to sabotage you, and they do things to make you look bad, but you never can catch them on it. And they never will flat out own up to the fact that they’re seething with anger. And when they do say something to you that’s hurtful or something, and mean, and you actually call them on it, they say, «Can’t you take a joke»? They’re not joking, they’re a crazymaker, that’s a crazymaker. It is a manipulator that says, «Can’t you take a joke»?
Now religious people can be really good at this one because they couch all of their anger in spiritual terms. «I was grieved in my spirit». What’s that mean? It means I was ticked off. Just say it, I was ticked off. And I don’t wanna… now, in the South, in the Bible Belt, you can do almost any mean thing to another person as long as you say, «Well, bless your heart». That covers them. What does, «Well, bless your heart» mean? Nothing, it means nothing. And so they can stab you in the back and say, «Well, bless your heart». They’re manipulators.
Now, an example of this in the Bible would be the Pharisees, the religious leaders. Luke 6, verse 10, they were so ticked off at Jesus, 'cause Jesus was popular and they weren’t. And it says in verse 11, «They were furious and began to plot,» circle that, they’re manipulators, «they began to plot,» they’re gonna get even, «began to plot with each other what they might do to Jesus». Now, all four of these ways, whether you are a machine gun or you’re a martyr or you’re a manipulator or you’re a mute, you learned how to get angry that way. And it’s not very helpful, none of those ways are actually helpful at all, and you can unlearn them.
Now, what I wanna do today is spend most of our time on «How do you disarm the person who uses these against you»? How do you deal with the crazymakers who push your buttons? How do you deal with your own anger and not get angry back, and how do you deal with their anger at you when they won’t come out and admit that they’re angry? What do you do in disarming button pushers? Well, the Bible teaches us four or five really good practical things, and they’re all in the book of Proverbs. Here they are, number one, the first thing the book of Proverbs teaches us, and it says it over and over and over again is this, «Calculate the cost of anger».
Before you allow yourself to get mad back, you calculate what you’re gonna lose, calculate the cost of anger. You’re less likely to get angry when somebody’s pushing your buttons if you realize there’s always a price tag to me getting angry back. The Bible is very, very specific about uncontrolled anger. Let me show you some verses out of Proverbs. Proverbs 29:22, «An angry person causes trouble,» circle that, «causes trouble». «And a person with a quick temper sins a lot,» circle that. You’re gonna get in trouble more often and you’re gonna sin more often if you get angry, so don’t do it. On the back of your outline, Proverbs 15:18, «Hot tempers cause,» what? «Arguments».
Circle that, you don’t want to get in arguments. And when you get angry, what is… first, one way, pushing buttons is gonna become an argument. Proverbs 14:29, «Anger causes mistakes». Circle that. Proverbs 14:27, «People with hot tempers do foolish things». Circle that. So, if I get angry, here’s the cost. I’m gonna get in trouble, I’m gonna sin, I’m gonna cause arguments, I’m gonna make mistakes, and I’m gonna do foolish things. Do I want to get angry when you’re pushing my buttons? Absolutely not, it’s foolish. I want you to write this down. «I always lose when I lose my temper».
Write that down, I always lose when I lose my temper. Now you can lose your respect, you can lose the respect of others, you can lose the love of your family, you could lose your job by losing your temper, you can lose your health by stuffing it down. Now, you may be a parent, or you may be a coach of a little league team, or you may be a supervisor at work, or you may have some way that you will be tempted to use anger to motivate people to do the right thing. Don’t, don’t, don’t do it. Because in the short run, you may motivate people, «If you don’t do this, I’m going to», and you make a threat. And in the short run, you may get, you know, the short-term payoff, but in the long run, anger always produces more anger, more apathy, and more alienation.
How many kids have become alienated from their dads or their moms because of anger out of control? How many people have been alienated from a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband, a wife, or a friend, because somebody lost their cool? Anger destroys relationships faster than anything else. So, when somebody starts pushing your buttons, and they’re pushing your buttons, and they’re pushing your buttons, before you retaliate, before you get angry back, you just realize, «Do I really wanna do this? Do I wanna make mistakes? Do I wanna sin more? Do I wanna act foolish? Do I wanna lose? Do I wanna cause arguments? Do I wanna do foolish things»? No, I don’t, I don’t.
Proverbs 14:29 says this. «Those who control their anger have great understanding,» you have great understanding, «those with a hasty temper make mistakes». So number one is «Calculate the cost of anger». When somebody starts pushing my buttons, I remind myself, «I do not want to get angry back». Number two, «Look past their words to their pain».
Now I mentioned this last week, I know that, and I’m coming back intentionally to mention it again, 'cause it’s one of the keys. By the way, if you missed last week’s message on the six ways to be wise in relationships, you need to go and get that message and listen to it. But you look past their words to their pain. You don’t respond to what they’re saying, you look at why they’re saying what they’re saying. Proverbs 19, verse 11, «A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory,» to his credit, «to overlook an offense».
See, you’re wise if you don’t listen to the words but you look at the pain behind the words. A man’s wisdom gives us patience. And I said this many times, «Hurt people hurt people». When somebody’s hurting you, it’s because they’ve been hurt and they are still hurting. Unkind people are people who’ve never felt kindness. Unloving people are people who feel unloved.
When somebody is rude, bitter, unkind, sarcastic, mean-spirited, arrogant, attacking, they are shouting with all of their behaviors, «I need massive doses of love. I do not feel loved, I do not feel secure». Because secure, loved, people don’t act that way. They’re not rude, they’re not judgmental, they’re not unkind, they’re not attacking. The person who feels deeply loved and deeply secure is generous and gracious to other people. When somebody is mean and cranky, they are telegraphing in as loud terms as possible, «I am in pain»! And what they need is not what they deserve. Now, you have to decide, «Am I gonna overcome evil with good or am I gonna just retaliate on their level»?