Is Rage Tearing Your Family Apart? Bringing Life to Your Family

Joe Head: [00:00:09] Well, I try to take the calves when they're about six months old. Other than trying to raise them and feed them, I just take them to the sale barn. But this is the old home place.

Edie: [00:00:35] I believe with all my heart that when you ask God for something and you pray for something, you wait for his timing. You can't hurry God up, he's got plans.

Joe Head: [00:00:48] Well, basically, in 1975, I got a call from Texas A&M offering me an internship to work on my PhD. Of course, the internship didn't pay a whole lot, it paid my tuition, but not that much more. So we prayed about it, and it seemed like God said we should go. Since we were not too far from Austin, my wife wanted to go over and see if we could file for adoption of a child. Well, we went over there, and they told us there's probably a thousand ahead of us for an infant, and we went ahead and applied.

Edie: [00:01:38] They had told them, though, since they already had one, it might be difficult to get another one. She was at my house when she got the call.

Joe Head: [00:01:46] It wasn't probably two weeks, we got a call saying they had a two-month-old girl that was left, and they could not find the mother. Would we be interested?

Edie: [00:02:30] When you hear news like that of a child being left, it leaves a lot of questions. It was just so much news that we weren't sure of what was going to happen because they were hunting the mother. You know, when you see something like that, your heart gets heavy and you think, oh, we could love her, and I'm sure there are so many that didn't have children that wanted her.

Joe Head: [00:03:09] She always wanted a baby girl to raise. She couldn't have one herself, so she wanted one, and that was her most wanted desire. When we got her, they really didn't know for sure exactly her birthday, but they thought it was somewhere in the two weeks there and I could name her birthday, and since my birthday was June the 17th, I said March the 17th.

Joe Head: [00:04:25] God had really blessed us with one of the most perfect daughters you could have.

Edie: [00:04:36] She's beautiful. And your heart can pour out love that you never knew existed. But it was advertised on TV that her name was baby Faith, everybody had enough faith, and they knew that the child was loved. We knew that she was special, that was just a sign to us that God said.

Joe Head: [00:05:27] I had a tractor about the same age I am that I used for gardening. I've had all kinds of work done to it and they couldn't find out what's wrong with it. And finally, it dawned on me years ago, that the switch was messed up, and I took it off and put another switch on, and that switch wasn't working right, and I've had trouble ever since. So I called a guy, I told him, I said, I think that's what's wrong with it, and he put a new switch on it and it works fine now.

Melissa Humphrey: [00:06:13] Does she have one horn?

Joe Head: [00:06:14] She's got part of a horn. I have to cut it off every once in a while.

Melissa Humphrey: [00:06:18] I've always felt handpicked. I felt handpicked by God to do this life that he's put me in, but then I also felt handpicked by you guys and God as the orchestrator of it all.

Joe Head: [00:06:33] Absolutely.

Melissa Humphrey: [00:06:34] But, you know, I've always felt chosen and very special. For the first 40 years of my life, I was the abandoned baby that was found in a greenhouse. And for the last five years, I've had to rethink all of that, it's like, well, I really wasn't an abandoned baby, you know? My biological mother knew that she couldn't care for me, and she called the authorities and said she had found a baby. If you even think about it from my biological mother's perspective, how could I be upset with her? You know, I never saw it as that she was giving me up or not choosing me. I have always felt like she was making life better for me, and because of her decision to give me life and then to put me in a place where I would be found, and ultimately God putting me in you and mom's arms, she had a role in that too, and I'm grateful for that. This is my Aunt Edie, my mom's only sister. She's always been, like, a second mother to me. She was there really, from the beginning.

Edie: [00:07:46] She's just such a blessing, and I just love her to pieces.

Melissa Humphrey: [00:07:53] My family had a chance to talk with the caseworker following my placement. And, you know, her words were we needed a family that didn't expect much, that would love this child no matter what because we had no idea what was going to become of her. My parents were in College Station at the time, and they would hear the story, read the story, see the news, and would, you know, talk about it. It's like, wow, I really hope that baby gets a good home. And then fast forward a few months later when they got the call to come to Austin and see this baby, they weren't told that it was Baby Faith, the greenhouse baby. I have seen all along the way how God has taken care of me. It's so easy for me to see his handprint in my life. So, you know, I've never once in my life wondered if I was in the right place.

Ross Sawyers: [00:09:56] I am so grateful for people being willing to share their stories. Melissa and her husband, Chad, have been a part of 121 for quite a while now, and I just thought that was such an incredible story, blending together the fifth command, which is to honor our father and mother, and then the sixth command, where we'll spend our time on this Father's Day. So if you have a Bible, if you'll turn to Exodus chapter 20, we'll be in verse 13.

Ross Sawyers: [00:10:21] While you're turning there, I wanted to welcome all those who are online worshiping with us, as well as those who are in prison who are worshiping with us, we're grateful that we can be a part of what's happening there. And then I just wanted to share with you that a few weeks ago, we voted as a church to purchase the land for a second location for 121 in Keller, and that land has now been purchased, and so we're excited about what God has in store. Yeah, we love the mission God has given us to lead people to live for Jesus Christ, and grateful for the opportunity to expand, and there'll be more detail on that as we move along.

Ross Sawyers: [00:10:21] We've been thinking about the last few weeks, timeless truths in a shifting culture. And when you have things that are unstable and seem to always be shifting, are there some places on which we can stand, and have a truth on which to stand so that we can be stable in the midst of it? And we really find that in the Ten Commandments in Exodus chapter 20, the people of God had been rescued out of slavery, and he was now establishing them as his people, and then he was laying out for them, this is what it will look like to flourish as my people. The commands are given in a way that they might bring freedom, and they might cause us to flourish when we live within the ways that God has established.

Ross Sawyers: [00:11:47] And you can think about the commands like this. The first four, are more vertical, they deal more directly with our relationship with God, beginning with our ultimate devotion being to him. And then the other three follow to help us, to continue to activate that devotion and prioritize it to him. The fifth command actually is a bridge command into the last six, which is more about loving our neighbor. So it's loving God, in the first four, and loving our neighbor in the next six. But it's interesting that he begins with honoring our father and our mother as the bridge commands. So the first command is to ultimately give devotion to God, the fifth command is to honor our father and mother, and then from it flows the remaining commands which help us know how to love our neighbor well. So there's a flow in the way that God has laid these out for his people.

Ross Sawyers: [00:12:42] We've been working through a Bible study method called the Discovery Bible Study Method as we've sorted through these different commands, I'll continue to lay that framework today for those who might be new and are wondering why we're doing it this way. And then, I also recognize on a day like this that, we have really every week it would be like this, some people who are curious and trying to figure out what all the God and Christian things actually mean. We have other people that come, and you're just honoring someone in your family today, and you were willing to come out of respect for them. There are others of you who've gotten stuck in your faith, and you're trying to figure some things out, some things don't make much sense to you, and you are kind of wrestling through it. Others are young and trying to learn and grow. And then there are still others who've been at it for a long time and are maturing and continue to grow in faith.

Ross Sawyers: [00:13:35] So I hope today, it's an incredibly challenging topic for Father's Day, and I want to own that up front that I realize that. as a norm at our church, we work through different series, and we're working through the Ten Commandments one at a time. I was able to get it to where on Mother's Day, we talked about ultimate devotion to God, and I think that was a very encouraging Mother's Day. Father's Day, you're going to think I might have gone with another buddy somewhere else if this is what we're going to talk about. But I actually find today, that if we sit in the hard for a little bit, it can actually be really freeing. And so I recognize it's weighty, it'll be weighty for all of us, candidly. But I hope that we can kind of walk through it like we always do, and see what God has to say. There should be a lot of affirmation today. and there ought to be repentance as well as we look at what God has to say,

Ross Sawyers: [00:14:41] I also want to acknowledge today, that Father's Day, just like Mother's Day, can be a day that's an encouraging day based on whatever relationship with our father is like, or with our kids, and it can be a good day, and it can be a hard day, depending on what that relationship was. So I just want to acknowledge that today and know that God will meet us as a perfect Father, regardless of what our situations are currently. And so I'm just asking that God will meet us today, and that will be a people that reflect him, and that we reflect the ideas today.

Ross Sawyers: [00:14:41] So we want to ask the question, and this is a question I want us to ask throughout the morning together. What are you doing, and what am I doing, so what are we doing to preserve a culture of life? I believe we live in so much of a culture of death in our day, and this command, while it's a negative prohibition, actually is what allows life to flourish. And it's not okay today for us to be passive, what God is calling us into is to be active in preserving a culture of life, and all of us have a way that we can be a part of that, depending on where God might speak and call us into that life.

Ross Sawyers: [00:16:12] And so we begin by asking that question personally for us to consider, and then we want to ask of this part of the Scripture, what does this verse say? In Exodus 20, verse 13, it says, "You shall not murder." And that is in the Hebrew, which the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, it's actually just two words. So when they would have received this command, what they would have heard is no murder. There wasn't a promise to go with it like some of the others, there wasn't any more explanation behind it, we can look at the rest of Scripture to understand it, which we will; it is simply two words, no murder. There was to be no deliberate or premeditated murder, and that was intended so that there might be life.

Ross Sawyers: [00:16:59] And when we go back into Genesis chapter 1, and if you're looking for a place in Scripture to linger or hang out, I would hang out in Genesis and Proverbs, in light of the things I've been talking about, and perhaps Luke, so that you're hanging out with Jesus. And when we go back to Genesis 1 and 2, we see a perfect environment that God creates, it's suitable so that life can begin, it's suitable so that marriage can flourish, it's suitable so that work and rest are healthy in their relationship to one another, it's a perfect environment in which people can grow and develop.

Ross Sawyers: [00:17:40] In Genesis 3, we see sin enter into the world, and once sin enters into the world, then all kinds of things went wrong because now the human heart was damaged by sin and it doesn't take very long before we see that chaos erupt. In Genesis chapter 4, verses 6 through 8, Adam and Eve are banned from the garden. Now they have two sons, Cain and Abel, and the two sons, are having some conflict with each other due to some different things. So you can read Genesis 4 for context, but this is what God says in verse 6, I want to stay in tune with what we're doing in Exodus 20, "The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7“If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” I think that is a powerful picture of what sin does, and that's the same today as it was in Genesis 4, it is crouching at your doorstep, it is only waiting for a moment for that door to crack and be able to come in and master you and master me. And once sin is our master, then death is the culture in which we are living. Well "Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him." So God warned him about the anger in his heart and his countenance. And I think that's crucial for our conversation this morning to think about this command. It's not simply no murder. Back in Genesis 4, God is warning Cain that it starts with anger in your heart, and when there's anger in your heart, your countenance, your face will show that anger. And here's the result in this case, with Cain and Abel, totally disregarded, and murdered his brother. This is not preserving a culture of life. This is taking life.

Ross Sawyers: [00:19:56] Later we find in Hosea, one of the prophets, towards the end of the Old Testament. And in it, we see by then that Israel and their whole land, which God had promised and given them as a blessing, now it was full of murder and swearing and deception and all kinds of things, and the land was mourning in despair. When these commands are violated, the land mourns. I believe we live in a nation today where the land is mourning because we have more of a culture of death than we have a culture of life. That's what the command says in Exodus 20.

Ross Sawyers: [00:20:47] So what does it say about God? This is God's story, so we will be asking the question, then what does this say about God? It says about God that he's a God of life, that he's the creator, and that he desires life. In Genesis 1:27, and I would cheer you on today whether you memorize scripture, don't memorize scripture, this verse is such a core verse to understanding most of the way we function in humanity as Christians. And it says, "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." God is the creator and designer of life, and he created human beings in his image, and he made them distinctly male and distinctly female. And created us in the image of God, he loves humanity, and he created us to be blessed, to be fruitful, and to multiply in his design. If you think about it today, the reason that anybody has dignity and value, it originates from God. In chapter 1, verse 27, the reason you have value today is not because of your color. The reason you have value today is not because of your gender. The reason you have value today is not because of your occupation. The reason that we treat each other with dignity, value, and respect is because you and I have been created in the image of God, we are image bearers. And when we harm the image of someone else as an image bearer, then we're in essence doing that to God himself. God is a God of life and he's created us in his image.

Ross Sawyers: [00:22:39] Now the challenge is this, is that when sin entered into the world, then the image of God became distorted and marred. And that's how everything became more about self and pride and all the things that destroy. But specific to this idea in Exodus 20 is Genesis 9:6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man." So the why of why someone is not to be murdered in Exodus 20 is because that person is made in the image of God. So we're establishing what this says about God, this is why the prohibition.

Ross Sawyers: [00:23:28] And then later we find, and what I'm trying to do is establish for you the biblical basis for how we look at really difficult topics that we'll do in just a moment. But in Psalm 139 it says, "For you formed my inward parts." the psalmist is talking to God, "And you wove me in my mother's womb." So in the womb, God is detailing and working the person, "I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. 15My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; 16Your eyes have seen my unformed substance." So in that unformed substance in the womb, God sees that, he details that, and he's weaving that as a person. And then he says, "In your book, we're all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them." And in the mystery of God, of which none of us will know, we've all been given a certain number of days. I don't know why some get this number and some get this number, I have no idea. But God is sovereign, he's creator, and he has purposes for the life that he gives, that much we can lean into. So when we base ourselves in that scripture, and we know that God is a God of life, and that's why he gives this command. It's a negative command, but it comes out of a God who's a God of life.

Ross Sawyers: [00:24:57] So what does this say about us? We want to look at Scripture and say, what does it say? And then we want to say, what does it say about God? Well, what does the verse say about us? Well, one thing it says is that once sin has entered into the world, we are certainly prone to sin, and the problem behind any sin is the human heart. In Jeremiah 17:9 it says, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" So people want to argue today that the human heart, that people are basically good. I don't know how we can look around with common sense and make that argument. If I were just to be able to tap into your thoughts for 24 hours, would you be able to tell me that you're basically a good human being? I don't want you tapping into mine. We are sinful, and the image of God within us is distorted and marred, and that's why these things happen. It begins with the human heart, it expresses itself differently in different people, we're prone to different kinds of sins, but the reality is that all of us are equal at the point of a sinful human heart.

Ross Sawyers: [00:26:25] So what else does this say about us? Well, I want to talk about some really hard things in our current culture that we have to wrestle through in light of this command. Now, I'm not able today to go into detail in depth on these, it's just not even possible. These are hours-long study conversations and wrestling, this is not a, oh, here's a flippant 144-character answer. I don't even think that's the rule anymore, but it used to be, it's not that. And when we approach these, we approach these thoughtfully and we approach these with grace and we ask God for help, as we work through them. So what I've done so far is given you a biblical base, that God is a God of life. And I'm asking you and I'm asking me as we work through this list, are we helping to preserve a culture of life? We can't do all of these things, but what might God be prompting us to be engaged in, or what might he convict us of that we have a wrong perspective?

Ross Sawyers: [00:27:40] Now, again, I'm speaking from a God-centered Christian worldview when I speak of these. If that's not your center, then you'll probably see some of these things differently than I do, and that's where we'd want to have a conversation. But it begins with what is even our center and the lens through which we're looking. So when we look at these, I also want to encourage you, 2 or 3 resources to spend some time if you want to study these. Sean McDowell has been at our church as a guest, he's at Biola University in California, and he's an apologetic speaker. He's a dad, and he is actively out there in what he's doing, moving us to a culture of life and preserving that. I would go to him for help on some of these topics. Jim Dennison, who I mentioned often, he's local in Dallas, and he does great work on these topics. And then BreakPoint is one I recommend often, and I would cheer you on those particular topics. Probe.org is one of my favorite places to go, they deal with almost any issue. They'll talk about the issue, and then they'll talk about a biblical response to it. So I want to share those with you so that if you're interested in any of these or it might stir something you haven't thought about, maybe this will be a way that you can pursue the study of them.

Ross Sawyers: [00:29:06] And the first thing that I would say today, that is certainly prominent in our culture today, is the unborn. And this week in the Supreme Court, there was another ruling, dealing with an abortion drug. It's an interesting drug in that what I just described earlier that in Genesis one and two, God created a perfect environment in which humans could flourish and grow and develop, the abortion drug that is being talked about, that was talked about in the Supreme Court the other day and in ongoing conversation, actually blocks the ability for there to be an environment for the child to be able to grow and develop in the womb. And you'll want to go look at the ruling on that case if you haven't, there's some different nuances to it, and it's important to understand the nuances as to the why of what they ruled. But regardless of what the judiciary does or regardless of what happens in the politician world, the things I'm talking about today, it might hit you as, oh, we're talking about politics. No, these are primarily issues about God and humanity first, and certainly, they're in the political realm and they're in the religious realm, but that's not what they are first. And so regardless of what's happening in those realms, as a Christian with a God-centered worldview, then the way we would look at life is it begins in the womb. Conception is when life begins. A sperm and an egg come together, and when they come together, they form a zygote. And that zygote then has 23 chromosomes from the sperm and 23 chromosomes from the egg, at that point, a distinct person is formed, and now that person begins to grow and develop from that point. And that's firmed up in Psalm 139 which I just read a minute ago, that's how God looks at life, that's where it begins. So when we think about the unborn from a biblical position, we're looking at it and saying that life begins at conception.

Ross Sawyers: [00:31:13] In Jeremiah 1:5, what does God say about Jeremiah? He said, "Before you were formed in the womb, I knew you." I knew you. In Luke chapter 1, verses 41 and 44, Mary is pregnant, Elizabeth is pregnant, they come together, and the baby leaps in the womb for joy. And the word for baby there in the Greek is the same word for baby in the womb or out of the womb, it's a person in the womb, and the command here is such that life is to be preserved in the womb. Now, I don't believe that most women who have had an abortion believe they're violating this command. I believe most of the time it's going to be out of fear, lack of support, or some kind of circumstances that they don't know what to do, and too many times it's because the father of the baby opts out and leaves it totally with her. We're talking about a culture of life, this is an opportune moment for fathers to step up into things like this, and that we have compassion where these things have happened. And I'll look in a little bit if you'll just hang with me, we'll come to another side of this, as well, that will be helpful. But there is grace here, where things have been done in violation of this command. And then let's not be fooled, a former co-owner of two abortion clinics years ago, said this, "This is not about choice. This is not about rights. This is about money." The abortion industry is about money that's what it's about, and it's promoting a culture of death. God is for preserving a culture of life. What are you and I doing to be a part of preserving a culture of life?

Ross Sawyers: [00:33:37] We also look at a number of other things in our day the physically or mentally challenged. One of the cool things in the last several years is sonograms so that we can see the baby in the womb. One of the downsides now is we can identify all kinds of details, even things where there might be physical or mental challenges that will come as a result, and oftentimes now that person is encouraged to abort the baby. Now Psalm 139, and we know today that some who are physically and mentally challenged are some of the most joyful, joy-filled people on the planet, they are a person of value and dignity in the womb and out of the womb.

Ross Sawyers: [00:34:27] And then we talk when we talk about euthanasia, end of life. God is the one who gives life, God is the one who takes away life. In James, we're told that God works in and through and goes with us through suffering, so we would want to wrestle around with euthanasia. What about capital punishment? The death penalty? What do we think about that? Well, all through the Old Testament you see the death penalty and there's a lot of care around it before whatever happened, but we want to take a look. What does God say? Is it sometimes better to take the life of someone for the sake of preserving the life of many others? Which would be the same when we talk about war. There's a theory called the just war theory, is there a time and place where war is necessary? In Ecclesiastes, it says there is time for war so that there can actually be life preserved. And it's the role of government, by the way, in Romans 13 to restrain evil. And that's why we pray for our government, that they'll have wisdom, so they'll know when it's time for certain things. These are all things I'm simply saying to you that have to deal with this command, and we need to get in and wrestle with those so that we can be thoughtful in dialog. These are the real things going on out there among us.

Ross Sawyers: [00:35:46] Probably a year or two ago now, I saw a lady draw on a whiteboard. She's an apologetic speaker, and she said, here's what's going on. She said, when our kids show up to church, we're teaching them this, and then she wrote on the board, and this is what they're actually facing every day, these aren't meshing. So we have to talk about the hard things that are going on. And what does God have to say about those? So we can bring a thoughtful dialog to the table and be a help in preserving life.

Ross Sawyers: [00:36:23] And then two more that are really tough. One is suicide, and I've walked with a number of families over the years, and it is raw, and it is hard. And I would say today that probably most people who commit suicide, they're not thinking that they're violating this command; somehow, they've gotten in such a place of despair, they see no other choice. That ought to cause our hearts to have compassion in those moments and how can we intersect so that there's less and less when there's that kind of despair and darkness deep within someone? And then in case you're wondering, because this becomes a dialog for people, I was at an event about six months ago, and I got so mad at some guys out kind of street preaching and screaming at everybody, and they were saying, if you commit suicide, you're going to hell. And so I just kind of got right up with him and we had a long conversation about that. I said, I don't know where you're landing that, and I can't believe you would say that to somebody, but here's what the Scripture says. In John 10:28-29 Jesus gives eternal life to us. And if we've received eternal life, then the Father keeps us, nothing can snatch us away from that. So it's a question more of salvation before Jesus, and that we're kept in him no matter what happens in our days.

Ross Sawyers: [00:37:56] And then the last one that maybe you've thought about, maybe you haven't thought about is IVF, and that can be a really good thing. But the ethical question is when there are extra zygotes that are being frozen, some are being disposed of, if life begins at conception, what's really occurring there? And we just have to be willing to wrestle with the ethical questions biblically on these things.

Ross Sawyers: [00:38:29] So what are ways to do that? I gave you some resources earlier, and then I would send you also to our website 121cc.com, and we have an unbelievable tool on there now. It's called Got Questions? Ask Me. And it's Bible chat AI. And I played with it all week long, I put in all the hard topics that we've talked about so far, and it will give you different scriptures to look at, and other resources to consider. I think I can almost say this, so I'll say it with a bit of a caveat, I think you should not have to have any Bible question unanswered. You should be able to go to this, this one tool and ask it your questions. When you're researching, if you don't know who this person is. Lisa and I were talking yesterday, we didn't know who the person was. I thought I'd go look, so I typed it in, and it told me, and it was spot on. I've been looking to see if I can find it to mess up, and so far, no, and we've had a lot of people testing it that way. So let me just encourage you to use that as a tool in any kind of Bible things that you're doing.

Ross Sawyers: [00:39:46] And then this last thing I'd say about those topics about us because that's all our world today. I don't really know what most of you think about anything I just said. I don't know what you really believe about those things. I don't know if you have exception areas. I don't know if you believe it absolutely. I don't know. What I would encourage you to do is to have real conversations with each other. I can help with your Father's Day conversations today. Somebody said to me, what about fathers having these conversations with their children? Maybe it's not today, maybe it's another day. So that were actually helping on the real issues that are out there in light of what God says and how can we walk with grace and with confidence and truth on those things? We don't know what people are thinking until we ask them, and then we actually have the opportunity to disciple each other at that point.

Ross Sawyers: [00:40:44] But that takes us to the next piece of this, and we say, what does this say about Jesus? So that's kind of here on what does it say about us, but what does it say about Jesus? And if somehow, you've moved through this one safely, we may not be as safe anymore, because Jesus had some things to say about this command, and he was all for it. But he actually dug back into what God was saying to Cain in Genesis chapter 4, and he said, the real issue is not murder, the real issue underneath it in the human heart is anger. In Matthew 5:21, “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell." He warns us about anger, that actually this command in Exodus 20:13, he amps it up. It's not just about a physical thing, it's about anger in the heart or hatred towards another person.

Ross Sawyers: [00:42:01] Now we know our culture has an anger issue. When's the last select baseball game you've been to, and you listen to a dad letting the 14-year-old have it, that's reffing or umping? When was the last time you've been on social media? That's a pleasant environment. See Jesus is speaking to what is a really core problem in our culture, and it's anger. It's anger in politics, there's anger in social media, it's anger in sports, anger is everywhere. It's anger in our homes. So I was saying earlier today, this could be the hardest message for Father's Day and the most freeing one that will ever happen to your family. If there is a father in here who has anger issues can come before the Lord and start to find freedom, that will bring a culture of life to a family.

Ross Sawyers: [00:43:12] So Jesus says this about anger and name-calling. Then Paul expands it as well and talks about it in Ephesians chapter 4, and he says this in verse 26, "BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27and do not give the devil an opportunity." So apparently there's the kind of anger that can happen that is not sin. The question is going to be, what are we going to do to manage that once it comes up as an emotion? So we'd be angry and not sin. The things we could be angry about that would not be sin, would be things that are offensive to God. Things that might be mistreatment of another person, that would seem a right response is to be angry if this happens to someone else. The problem is, if we let it simmer, it says be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, don't let it linger around very long, because you're going to give the devil an opportunity at that point. Well, what do we know about Satan? In John 10:10 it says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." So what is Satan doing? He's actively looking for ways to steal, to kill, and to destroy you. He's on the prowl, he's looking, and he's working on the sin that is crouched at your door so that he can get in and get what the Bible calls a stronghold. And once I get in there with a stronghold, and I let bitterness kind of settle in and resentment settle in, then Satan's taking that initial thing of anger, and he's turned it into a stronghold, like a fortress, that this keeps getting built up and built up. And then God's looking down like he did to Cain and he's saying, you better watch out, why are you so angry? Your countenance is falling. You can see the anger all over people's faces when it gets that foothold. So we want to be careful, and we want to be careful not just to like rename anger as frustration. Frustration is just another form of anger.

Ross Sawyers: [00:45:34] So what do we do? We bring it to the Lord. I want to continue my streak here of Jen Wilkin quotes from her book On the Ten Commandments, and she said this about this idea, "A negative emotion can lead to harmful thinking, which can lead to harmful speech, which can lead to harmful actions." That is the progression. Let it sit there long enough, and then we start thinking on it, and the more we think on it, then it's going to turn into words and we're going to have, as she would call it, a contempt for some. We're not going to care that we hurt the other person, and then it might lead to harmful actions, and we see this all the time. So what do we do with that? Well, Proverbs 17:22 says, "A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones." When there's anger, it breaks the spirit of everybody around. It crushes the spirit, and then it dries up the bones in the present.

Ross Sawyers: [00:46:39] So we're looking for a joyful heart, and then we're looking for ways to be shaped. In Proverbs 13:20, "He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm." And Proverbs 22, verses 24 and 25, we're told not to associate with a hot-headed or someone who's given to anger. Why is that? Well, the proverb says it, so that we don't learn his ways and it becomes a snare to us. We've talked again and again about who we're hanging out with, it shapes us. Hang out with angry people, and you'll become an angry person. Hang out with God, and you'll start to bear out patience, kindness, joy, and life.

Ross Sawyers: [00:47:25] I've just finished with a group of guys that I've been discipling; we did a 90-day challenge. I challenged them in ways that I really haven't challenged a group of men before, they stepped up to it. I was asked by another guy, he said, what if you asked him this question at the end? What did their wives see that was different as a result of those 90 days? Do you know what they said? Their wives said to them, you're more patient, you're more kind, you spend more time with us, the things you're saying are more substantive. Why is that? You know what I love happened there, their wives didn't say that I noticed you were spending 90 minutes a day in the morning with Jesus, they didn't say that. Because when you spend time with Jesus, you just start to look like him, and that's what they noticed, they noticed the character changes. That's not what they were trying to do, that's what happened. So we either hang out with angry people or people who are more like Jesus, and we start to be like them.

Ross Sawyers: [00:48:31] And then the other question we'd want to ask about anger is what Andy Stanley says in his book, The Enemies of the Heart, "The root of anger is "You owe me." So whenever I'm angry at you or you're angry at me, a good question to ask is, what am I believing in this moment that you owe me? Because I'm angry because you're not delivering on what I believe you owe me. I think this could be helpful for us. We're talking about preserving a culture of life, and we preserve life with words. Are you preserving that culture of life? And then with Jesus, we just say, okay, he's the one that's our hope, our living hope. In Acts chapter 2, verse 23, it says, "This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death." Jesus was murdered. This command was violated, he was murdered by the politicians and the religious people who should have been his protectors. But there was something completely different about this murder because, in this murder, he took on every way that we would murder someone with our words, our actions, and our thoughts. He took all that sin. This is the good news today, anytime we've done something in violation of this command, Jesus took it upon himself, he gave us back a freedom and a forgiveness and washed it all away. That's grace and mercy, there is not anything we've done that's so sinful that his grace on the cross does not cover every detail to the depth and core of who we are, his grace is sufficient, and when that happens, then life is restored. That sinful human nature, now we have Christ in us and we're in union with him. And the Scripture says, so here's the hard question on Father's Day, God is either your Father today or Satan is your father. That's what Jesus said in John chapter 8, your father is either a murderer and a liar and a deceiver, and he's robbing life from you, or God is your Father and he's giving you life and joy and peace. Trust in Jesus and what he's done.

Ross Sawyers: [00:51:05] So what do we do with this? We build rhythms of time with the Lord, life group, worship, and serving, that gets us in a position for God to be shaping us. We're slow to anger, James 1:19, "Be slow to anger, quick to hear, and slow to speak. For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." And then confession and repentance, we come before God, confessing sin before God. That's actually a gift he's given us, is to be able to confess and then repent of it. And then we ask God to help uproot bitterness and resentment so that the anger is not what controls and dominates, but rather it's Christ in us.

Ross Sawyers: [00:51:51] And then I just think there are the coolest opportunities for us as fathers to get involved in life-giving kinds of causes. This will be for anybody, but on Father's Day, can I call dads up? What are the things that you're in that are about preserving a culture of life? We're partnered at 121 with Mid-cities Women's Clinic in the HEB area. They've just broken ground on a new clinic that will be built in Haslet, not too long from now, going to where they're underserved in this realm. And this, by the way, we're working with women because we value women, we're working with the fathers because we value the fathers, we are working with the children, giving, diapers and baby food and milk and formula and all the things that they need, and then discipling somebody to walk alongside them. We're helping the whole person, and they're valued.

Ross Sawyers: [00:52:52] Or maybe there are men in the room that you could be like Rollin Warren that we had a couple of years ago, that retired from one job, where he was working on the National Fatherhood Initiative, to working with Care Net. Care Net, it's 1200 clinics across the country, that are pro-life. And one thing he says that they've done differently now in light of fathers, they used to ask a woman who was abortion determined or trying to figure out what she was going to do, would you consider bringing the father with you? They don't ask anymore, they tell her we would like for you to bring the father, and they've taken it off of her to try and get him to come. Instead, she's able to say they would like for you to come as well because they found when the father is in the mix and supports, it changes everything. This is not just a female kind of issue, it's a chance for men to step in. Health for Her, which is a local group we work with, it's men that stepped in and are running it.

Ross Sawyers: [00:54:01] I want to affirm there are so many dads in here that you've adopted. And what a beautiful story with Melissa being adopted and Joe adopting that little girl and what a gift adoption is. And then I would just say, for all of us today, it would be really easy for us to have a life-giving culture if we simply realize that our words either give death or life. A lady in our church sent me a story about her family, her mom and dad had been married for decades. Her dad left a mom, divorced her, remarried. When he remarried, he let the rest of the family know, you're no longer my family. She said those words murdered me. Fast forward a father-in-law that loved and cared for her deeply, on his last days, about to go into ICU, and she was with him. He grabs her hand and says, sweetie, I love you so much. Life giving words. As dads, we have the ability to create and preserve a culture of life in our homes and anywhere we are with life giving words, not death giving words. Can we be those kinds of dads today? By God's grace and with the help of Jesus, we can because he's the life giver.

Ross Sawyers: [00:55:38] Father, thank you for our time this morning. We're grateful for the life that you give, grateful that you're a God of life. And Father, we've hit some hard things this morning, and yet I know you meet us in those. So I pray, God, where there's conviction and there needs to be that we'd receive it, and this can be a freeing day of confession and repentance before you. Father, where we've been passive and not been about things that bring life, I pray, God, that you would move us out of passivity and into activity in life, I pray, Father, where someone might not know Jesus today, that they would know you and God, that you would become their Father today, and that they would have a Father of light and not a father of dark. And then, Father, I pray where so many can just simply be encouraged today, that you would cheer their hearts on, to keep it up, and to continue to walk in the things that are bringing about life. So, God, I pray for all of us today that we would be about preserving a culture of life, and that we'd be willing to wrestle things down from a biblical point of view and then meaningfully, thoughtfully, and with grace, move into those realms to bring life. And I pray these things in Jesus' name.

Ross Sawyers: [00:56:56] If we could, let's just be silent for a moment, and then Jordan will come wrap us up. But I want you to have just a tiny bit of space to at least begin thinking about whether was there just one thing that God really rose to the top in this time that you can begin asking him what you're to do with it, and so we'll give you a little space for that today.



Recorded in Grapevine, Texas.