Rick Warren - Who's Pushing Your Buttons - Part 2
How do you deal with the crazy makers 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? 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».
Now, you have to decide, am I gonna overcome evil with good or am I gonna just retaliate on their level? You see, when you attack somebody, it puts you below them. When you get even with somebody, it puts you on the same level. When you respond with love and kindness, it puts you above them, morally superior. Now, if you wanna just get even with people, fine. You’re no better than they are. That’s what, when you get even, you are no better than the person who has attacked you. To be better than that person, you overcome evil with good. You respond with love. You look past their words to their pain. Study after study after study after study has shown that aggression only creates more aggression, that anger only creates more anger, that angry outbursts leads to you becoming more angry more often and it becomes an habitual pattern in your life. The answer is not to just throw it out. Because that’s just gonna refill.
Now, the third thing you need to do is think before reacting. When somebody starts to come push your buttons and they wanna irritate you, they may do it, you know, visibly or they may do it hidden. They may do a bit in a manipulative way. You think before reacting. You think before you speak because anger control is largely a matter of mouth control. And you don’t respond impulsively. You put your mind in gear before you put your mouth in gear. Proverbs 13:16, «Sensible people always think before they act». Proverbs 29:11, «A fool gives full vent to his anger». So that’s foolish. If I give full vent to my ear, it says, I’m just a fool. «A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise person quietly holds it back». And in the Hebrew there, it literally means it cools it. He holds it down and cools his anger. He waits for it to cool.
Now, this is why we know that chill out is a biblical term. Okay, cool it, chill out, you know, let it go down. Now, if while you’re waiting, while you’re waiting, what do you do? You’re asking yourself questions. And let me give you three questions to ask while you’re waiting, okay, write these down, three questions. Number one, why am I angry? You think before reacting. Why am I angry? Why am I angry? Number two, he asked the question, what do I really want? Now, this person’s pushing my buttons right now. I’m tempted to just be sarcastic back. But what do I really want in this relationship? Why am I angry? What do I really want? And number three, how can I get it?
Now you can’t ask those questions if you immediately speak up, but if you be quiet for a minute, you can think about them. And when you say, how can I get it, blowing up is rarely the best way. Now, if you reflect before reacting, if you think before speaking, then you can identify the root cause of the anger. Anger is always caused by one of three things. Always look past the anger and look at the root cause. It’s always caused by one of these three things, here they are.
Number one is hurt. When somebody’s pushing your buttons and they’re angry, that maybe they’re hurt. Because when you get hurt, you get angry. If I’m at home and I’m nailing some nail into the wood, and I take the hammer and I hit my thumbnail, I don’t say praise the Lord, okay. No, I get angry when I hit, why? Because hurt always creates anger. I get angry at the hammer, I get angry at my hand, I just get angry at life. Why? Because when you’re hurt, you’re angry. And so it’s easier to deal with somebody who’s hurt. It’s easier to be more sympathetic to hurt than it is to be sympathetic with anger. Anger wants to make you defensive.
So, when you’re wounded, either emotionally or physically, you get angry. The second cause of anger is frustration. When you get frustrated, you get angry. When you’re irritated, when you’re forced to wait, Department of Motor Vehicles, angriest place around town usually. I tell you a cool story. A few months ago, I was in New York City, and I had my wallet stolen. So I lost all my credit cards. I had to cancel them all. I had to get a new driver’s license. I go over to DMV to get a new driver’s license. There’s a long line, and I’m being happy. And one of the… Angelica sees me and she says, «Pastor Rick, come on up over here».
So I come over, she helps me fill out all the papers, and then she goes, «Now, that’ll be $26». And I’m going, «I don’t have a wallet». «Do you have a credit card»? «Yeah, I had them all canceled». «Do you have check»? «No». And so I’m thinking, «oh man, I’m gonna have to go home and get money and come back and get in line again». She opens up her purse and says, «Here,» and she paid it for me, the $26. Now, I paid her back. In fact, I gave her more than she gave me when I sent her a note and said, «Thank you».
Last night, I baptized her, yeah. So that was kind of cool. So I said, «After I baptize, that’ll be $26». She did what you did, she laughed, yeah. Now, when you’re frustrated, when nothing seems to work, frustration causes anger. When you can’t control a situation, it makes you angry. Any parent who’s held an infant who has screamed for one solid hour and you have done everything possible to make this baby stop crying, and it won’t stop crying, and you, in your mind, have thought, «I’d like to strangle this child». So, «I’ve never thought that». There’s a word for you, liar, 'cause everybody’s, like, «I would like to shake this child right now,» because you feel so out of control. At that moment, that little helpless baby has control of your emotions. And you’re going, «I can’t stop it».
Now, the higher control person you are, the more prone you are to anger 'cause most of life is out of your control. If you’re a low control person, you don’t really deal with anger that much. You got your other problems. Everybody’s got their problem because we’re all broken. Some people struggle with lust. Some people struggle with fear. Some people struggle with worry. Some people struggle with envy and jealousy. Some people struggle with depression and loneliness. But if you’re a high-control person, this is a problem for you because the more you need to control, the more you realize how frustrated you are in life 'cause you can’t control. You can’t control your kids. You can’t control other people. Shoot, you can’t even control yourself most of the time.
So, hurt and frustration, high control equals high anger. The third cause of of anger is fear. When we get afraid, when we feel threatened, when we feel attacked, when we feel afraid, we fight back. You take any animal and force them into a corner, at some point, that cat’s gonna strike back. Whether it’s tame or it’s wild, a cornered cat, a cornered animal, is going to strike back.
Now, this is why delay is a great cause for anger. It allows you to reflect before reacting and think, am I hurt, am I frustrated, or am I afraid? Is that person hurt? Is that person frustrated? Is that person afraid? The longer you hold your temper, the better it gets. Thomas Jefferson was not a theologian, but what he said about anger was true. He said, «When you’re angry, count to 10. If you’re really angry, count to 100». It’s wise advice. Don’t immediately text back. Don’t immediately respond to that email. Sleep on it. Let it cool, calm it down. Count to 10. What do you do during the delay? You try to understand the cause.
Now, the more you understand, the more understanding you’ll be. The more you understand your children, the more understanding you’ll be of your children. The more you understand your boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife, the more you understanding you’re gonna be of your husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend. What people don’t realize is that anger is contagious. You can catch it, so you have to slow it down. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this that when you get loud, others get loud.
When others get loud, you get loud. Anger is contagious. And the problem here is that somebody’s got to stop the loudness. Now, the Bible says this, look on your outline, Proverbs 15:1. «A gentle answer quiets anger, but a harsh one stirs it up». What does it mean? Just by talking quieter, you ratchet down the anger in any relationship. It says, «gentle answer quiets anger». Whose anger does it quiet, yours. It’ll also do theirs, but it quiets yours. When you talk quiet, you are less angry.
The average man speaks 25,000 words a day. The average woman speaks 30,000 words a day. That’s why guys, when you get home at night, your wife still has 5,000 more words. And she needs to use them up. I was talking to a guy one time, and I said, «Does it bother you that your girlfriend always gets the last word»? He says, «No, I’m grateful when she gets to it».
Pastor Tom is gonna come and teach the fourth key. Pastor Tom Holladay: So what’s the fourth thing you do? Number four, ask God for help. Ask God for help. I love this verse Psalm 141, verse 3, «Lord, help me control my tongue, help me to be careful about what I say». In fact, that’s a great verse to memorize. When you squeeze your life, your heart, you know what comes out? Whatever’s inside, whatever’s inside. So the problem I’m facing in my life with my anger, with my struggles with lashing out at the people that I love the most, I can’t blame them. I can’t blame the circumstance because the problem is inside. The heart of the problem is a problem of the heart. It’s what’s coming out of me.
And so when I’m under tension, all of a sudden I start to attack everybody in my life. Pressure always reveals what’s inside of you. None of us like to admit that, but it’s the truth. We see these things coming out of our mouths, and we say, I don’t know where that came from. The truth is it came from inside of me. It comes from your heart. So the key is to change your heart. The key is to change what’s inside. If you’ve got a well, and the well has bad water, fixing the pump isn’t gonna help what’s in the well. That’s the problem with a lot of self-help books. They tell you how to fix the pump, but they don’t know how to tell you how to fix the water that’s in the well. And unless you fix that, things aren’t gonna change.
So what do you do? How do you make a difference? You let God’s spirit start to fill your life. The key is to be filled with God’s spirit. The Bible says in Galatians 5:22, that «The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control».
That’s the fruit of God’s spirit in our lives. I have found that when I’m filled with myself, when I’m filled with Tom, almost anything can upset me. In fact, I can make up things that will upset me when I’m filled with myself. But if I’m filled with God’s spirit, almost nothing will upset me because I’m filled with his love, his joy, his peace. How do you get filled with God’s spirit? Don’t make it too complicated. It just means you depend on God instead of depending on yourself. You pray that very simple two-word prayer, help me. Pray that prayer, help me, God. I’m depending on you. I’m not depending on myself. And as you do that, you will find, as you ask God for help, that He will fill you with His spirit.
Now, the dirty secret in millions of homes is out-of-control anger. Last year, 4 million wives were beaten by their husbands. That is unacceptable. Last year in America, 10 million children were beaten by their parents. That is unacceptable. That is the thing that has to be dealt with. I want you to know that if you’re being abused, if you’re being hurt, you need to get help now, and we will help you. Saddleback Church will help you. We have over 350 counselors in this church who give an average of 1,000 hours a year in counseling, 350,000 hours of counseling, and we will help you whether you are the victim or you are the perpetrator. You both need help. But the key is in humility. You’ve got to admit it. You’ve got to own up to it. You’ve got to admit it.
The Bible says, God gives grace to the humble. Grace is the power you need to change. You say, well, I know I’ve got this problem, but I can’t talk about it. Then it’s already out of control. Any problem you can’t talk honestly about in your life, whether it’s pornography or anger or lust or greed, or whatever it is, panic, whatever the problem is in your life, doesn’t really matter, if you can’t talk about it, it’s already out of control. And the starting point is for you to own up. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And we will help you. I have seen not hundreds, but thousands of people released from the power of uncontrolled anger. You can get over this. You can relearn it. You don’t have to stay the same the rest of your life. You learned some bad patterns. And you can unlearn them, and you can learn some new patterns. And if you’ll just be willing to humble yourself and get help, we will help you.
Now, the most important key to dealing with anger, first in your own life and with those who push your buttons and try to make you angry, is the last point. And it’s the most important one of all. If you’re gonna get control of your anger in your life, number five, I must base my identity in Jesus. You gotta change what you build your identity on. I must base my identity in Jesus, that he loves me unconditionally, that I am his, that I am valuable, I’m worthwhile, he has a purpose and plan for my life.
If you try to build your identity on anything else, you’ll struggle with insecurity in your life. You try to build your identity on your job, you can lose your job. You try to build your identity on how good looking you are, you’re gonna lose your good looks. You can build your identity on a person you marry, they’re gonna die. You can build your identity on being popular. You’re not always gonna be popular. If you build your identity on anything that can be taken away from you, you’re gonna be insecure, and insecurity is at the root of your anger. And until you start feeling secure about yourself, people are gonna be able to push your buttons. When you know who you are and whose you are, people can’t push your buttons. They can’t get to you. Anger and insecurity go together. The more insecure I feel, the more angry I feel.
So, I have to base my identity in Jesus. Otherwise, you’re gonna be able to push my buttons cause I’m gonna care too much about what you think of me. I’m gonna care too much about your approval or disapproval. The Bible says in Proverbs, here we go again, 29, chapter 29, verse 25, «The fear of human opinion disables you». If you are worried about what other people think, you have an emotional disability. You are emotionally disabled. If you are always worrying about who accepts me and who rejects me, who approves and who disapproves. «The fear of human opinion disables you. But trusting in God protects you from that». How does God help me manage my anger? Well, Tom already talked about it. He goes to the heart of the matter.
You see, when I get angry, my mouth just reveals what’s inside my heart. A harsh tongue reveals an angry heart. It just shows what’s inside of me. A negative tongue reveals a fearful heart. It just shows what’s inside of me. A boasting tongue reveals an insecure heart. It’s always the heart. An overactive tongue reveals an unsettled heart. A judgmental tongue reveals a guilty heart. The most judgmental people are those who feel guilt the most. A critical tongue reveals a bitter heart. It’s always showing what’s inside of me, and a filthy tongue reveals an impure heart. On the other hand, an encouraging tongue reveals a happy heart. And a gentle tongue reveals a loving heart. And a controlled tongue reveals a peaceful heart.
Do you know what you need to get rid of your anger problem? Do you know what you need to do to become immune to the button pushers in your life? You need a heart transplant. Fortunately, God specializes in them. It’s called salvation. God gives you a brand new heart, and he gives you a brand new identity. And all of a sudden, I’m not trying to find my identity in my job or in my bank account or in my good looks or in my talent or in my relationships, all which I can lose. But I find my identity in what God says about me. And then you can’t push my buttons anymore 'cause I don’t care as deeply as I did about what you think.
Let me show you some verses. Here on the screen, Ephesians 1:4, «Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us». Can you imagine that? God thought of you before he thought of the universe. «Before He made the world, God loved us and chose us,» before he made the universe, «chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes». So what should be my reaction? I need to start letting God be the center of my identity. Look at this verse on the screen, Matthew 5:48. «Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now, live like it. Live out your God-created identity». Not the identity somebody else tried to give you. «Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you».
When you are living out your God-given identity, you will be generous and you will be gracious to others. And no matter how much they push your button, you’re not pushing back because you’re living out your God-given identity. They don’t determine who you are. God determines who you are. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says this, «We are all baptized by one Spirit into one Body. And now the old labels we once used to identify ourselves with, like, I’m a Jew or I’m Greek or I’m a slave or I’m free,» or I’m rich, or I’m poor, or I’m Black, or I’m White or Brown or whatever, those «no longer needed,» because my identity is in Christ.
You see, the three things that cause anger, Jesus can heal. Hurt, frustration, and fear, Jesus can heal your hurting heart with his love. Jesus can replace your frustrated heart with his peace. Jesus can replace your insecure heart with his power. If you pick up a crying baby, and you hold that baby close, and it feels warm, and it feels secure, it stops crying. It stops being angry. And when you feel secure and accepted in Jesus Christ, your anger is gonna dissipate. Let’s bow our heads.
Father, it’s sad but true, but we often get angry at the people we love the most, those we’re closest to. Because we forget that you’re the source of all that we need, not others, we get angry. Jesus, help us to remember that when we expect anybody else to meet needs that only you can meet, we’re gonna be disappointed. We’re gonna be let down. We’re gonna be angry. Father, I’m certain that there are many people here who are struggling with anger in one of these four forms we talked about. And they’re angry because of hurt or because of frustration or because of insecurity. And you, Jesus, are the answer to all three of those things. Help them to experience hope and healing today.
Now, you pray.
Dear God, I admit I have a problem with my anger, and I let other people push my buttons. And I get even and I retaliate and I fight back, and I don’t think, I don’t think before speaking. I’m asking for your help. Help me to reflect before reacting. Help me to learn to release my anger appropriately. Help me to find my identity completely in you.
If you’ve never been baptized, say:
Jesus, I want to be baptized to identify myself as you commanded us to do. I open myself completely to you. Come into my life. Save me, change me, make the changes that only you can make. In your name I pray, amen.