One of the greatest gifts we have from God is our emotions.  God has given us the emotion to feel and express the emotion of love.  Love binds us to our spouse and children.  It binds us to our father in heaven.  We have the emotion of sadness, it helps us express hurtful things that happen of us.  It allows healing.

We experience fear.  Fear keeps us safe and away from danger.  We can feel happiness, to help us feel good times.  We can experience shame, it helps us understand when we have done something wrong.  We can experience jealousy and envy.

Exodus 20:1-5 → God describes the emotion of jealousy and describes having it for us.  God doesn’t want us to bow down to other gods.

Deuteronomy 4:24 → The Lord our God is a consuming God.  God has claimed us 100% as His people.
God has set boundaries for us.

Deuteronomy 32:16 → Israelites provokes God to anger.

God experiences anger as we experience anger. God created us with the same emotions as He had in heaven. All of these emotions are for our good. God gives us stewardship over our emotions, we control our emotions, not Him. They are to benefit us and others.

We will talk about the emotion of anger today.

Anger has every emotion, has a trigger.

Unrighteous Anger

Genesis 4:3 -> Cain and Abel.  Process of time -- could very well mean the Sabbath.  Why was God unhappy with the offering that Cain brought to Him?

Genesis 32:13

Genesis 43:25

Leviticus 2:1 → Grain offerings were to include fine flour, oil, and frankincense.

The quality of Cain’s offering was sub-par.  The offerings were supposed to be 2 parts.  One was to show the greatness of God and the second part was to be an atonement to God - that we needed His forgiveness for payment for our sins.

Hebrews 11:4 → Even though Abel was long dead, it was used as an example of what to do to this day.

Our Faith is shone by our obedience.  Abel obeyed God by his offering, it was a complete offering.  

Genesis 4:5 → Cain knew that his offering was not acceptable.

Genesis 4:6 → God asked why Abel was angry.

Cain knew what the proper offering was to be, he just didn’t bring it in front of God.  The problem with Cain wasn’t necessarily the offering - but of his heart.  He wasn’t a man of faith.

Genesis 4:7 → God said - if you would have just obeyed me, everything would have been fine.  God told Cain to rule over his emotions.

An unrighteous heart will lead us to unrighteous anger.  

Can didn’t accept God’s correction, he became discontentment.  He led his heart to boil and let it become unrighteous anger.

He didn’t turn it back against God, but back on his family.  Cain turned it on his brother.  

Not all anger leads to sin.

Exodus 32:

God expresses his anger throughout the Bible as He did when the Israelites created the golden calf.  God was ready to wipe them out.  All righteous anger should be fueled by sin and evil.  What fuels God’s wrath against us?

Romans 2:1

Psalms 103:8-9

At times, we can become angry at ourselves.

Joel 2:13 → We can be angry at ourselves, but it must be done in a right and proper way.

God wants to rend our hearts to Him.  There are times when anger is appropriate.  When Jesus was angry, it was also towards sinful things.

Mark 11:15 → A lot of people might have been surprised how Christ acted toward the money changers, but it was against sinful actions.  Righteous anger never ends up in sin.

We are the temple of our Father.

Ephesians 4:26 → Be angry and do not sin.