Transcription
Hey guys, it's time for another gritty podcast. Uh, I'm John Riggs and uh, so grateful that you are spending a small portion of your day here to join our discussion on a series that we have been teaching here on this podcast called the hallmarks of a mature man of God. We've been doing that for the last several weeks. We have a few more weeks to go, but I want to give a shout out to all of you guys that are currently right now in the middle of a six-week grit camp, our faith and fitness transformation camps. I hope that you guys are all enjoying the camp, that you're seeing um a transformation not only in your life spiritually, but also physically. And we're excited for you to see what God will do in your life through this six-week journey.
Um, if any of you out there listening or watching uh want to take part in one of our faith and fitness camps, contact me in the link below. I'm going to be doing a six-week faith and fitness camp, a grit camp coming up starting June 1st. And I'd encourage some other churches to join us. I know we have churches doing them at different times, but if you'd like to join with us as we do this six-week camp, um, man, I would like for you to contact me in the link below. It will give you all the information, everything that you need in order to be able to have a successful grit camp that brings about change and transformation in the lives of your men. Uh, whether it's at church or a discipleship group or maybe just at work, this is something that will bring great transformation and change in the lives of men for God's glory. So, uh, I could go on and on about it. Not going to do that right now. All I'm going to say is if you want to uh join us, um, contact me in the link below.
And by the way, our our our event that we're going to be doing here coming up in the middle of July is the uh Gritty Ultra Ruck. And that's going to take place in the state of Colorado. I live in Texas, but we have men coming from other parts of the country. We're going to meet in Colorado at this specific place, and we're going to be doing an ultra ruck. It's going to take several days to accomplish. We will be in some of the most very incredibly beautiful country that Colorado has to offer in the Rocky Mountains. We will be actually climbing over the Continental Divide twice. It's going to be a very challenging but an incredibly rewarding time to spend with other men of God who are like-minded and also just spending time with God in his creation. So, if you have an interest in that, hit me up in the link below. We'll be in contact with you, myself or one of our team members, and we would love to discuss uh this with you.
Anyway, let's get into our topic today. Um, today we're learning about how a mature man of God has learned how to manage his emotions. We looked at self-control a few weeks ago. It is a little bit similar here to self-control in that we are managing, but we're managing here um both positive and negative emotions. Okay? We want to be able to manage our emotions. And I would say we're all a work in progress. Some of you have become more and more um able over time and through discipline and training as you grow spiritually and you grow as a man to handle your emotions better. That's what we're all after. That's what we're doing. We're all about growing and maturing and developing as men of God.
But Paul writes very clearly um in giving the qualifications for an elder or an overseer in both 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus chapter 1. He he he gives really the hallmarks, these qualifications of a mature man of God. And he mentions in there in in a couple different ways um the significance and the importance of this typical or this type of um uh this this type of ability that has been trained over time where men have learned how to to control and manage um emotions that can have a devastating impact if they're not kept in check. And so in 1 Timothy, Paul when he's talking about this particular one, controlling our emotions and here he's looking at the negative side of emotions, Paul mentions in 1 Timothy, he says that this kind of man that would be an elder of a church, this mature man of God, he must not be a violent man and he must not be a quarrelsome man. Okay? So, can you imagine if you had a violent man as an elder of your church? Um, I'm not saying that he doesn't have the ability to be violent. I'm saying he has his emotions under control. They are harnessed, if you will. Also, one who is quarrelsome. The word quarrelsome here, actually, the Greek word means um it portrays a man who settles conflicts with his fists or by other forms of intimidation. Now, we know that in the church there's going to be all types of different conflicts that come up. Can you imagine having a pastor that all he wants to do is just bust somebody in the face? He may feel like it. He may he may think that would serve that person well, but he doesn't do that because he has his emotions under control. And because he knows if he does that, he's not a good shepherd because he needs to shepherd the flock of God. He needs to be an example to these people on spiritual maturity, how to control your emotions, how to how to respond to different things. And so Paul says he can't be a violent man. He can't be a quarrelsome man. He's not going to be a man who settles conflicts with by with his fists or with other type of intimidation. And this word carries the picture of a striker or a brawler, a person given to violent outbursts. So mature men of God have learned how to manage this type of emotion. Okay?
And I want to I want to say this also, put this on record. This in no way is speaking about our responsibility to protect our families. Okay? Or in an instance that you might need to defend your life. Mature Christian men can be violent when and if violence is required. Now, I'm not promoting violence. Don't go out there and say, "Oh, man. He said he's promoting violence." No, I'm not. I'm saying that we all have the capacity for violence. And what I mean by that is if we needed to protect our family, right? We're not we're not trying to to just have a discussion with a fellow. No, we're going to do whatever needs to be done to eliminate that threat. That's what I'm talking about here. And um, so it's important that we understand the difference here of what I'm trying to say. Okay.
Um, mature men of God display a heart of meekness. Okay? Or an attitude of meekness. And meekness, we know, is power under control. It's not that we don't have the capacity for this type of of power to be displayed. It's not that. It's not that we can't defend ourselves if necessary. It simply means that we have our emotions to handle things that way with violence under control. And there's only a certain time and a certain place where that is appropriate uh for us as men of God. And so Paul in another way in first in Titus, excuse me, Titus chapter 1, he says that an elder or a man that is mature here must not be quick-tempered or violent. The word quick-tempered here means prone to anger, one who harbors resentment, nurturing longstanding anger. Now this term, guys, it deals with a man's disposition. This would be the disposition of a man. He's just quick-tempered. He flies off the handle at everything. This is something more deep-rooted. I'm not speaking of a momentary lapse, you know, when when you have uh, you know, whatever it would be, but we're speaking of a man's disposition here. Mature men have their anger under control. They've learned how to manage it. Okay? That's what I'm dealing with.
You notice that people that are adolescent, let's say teenagers for example, or even some junior high or or younger, they don't know how to manage their emotions very well and they do things um that display that often. So they might have temper tantrums if they're a child. They just can't control their emotions. Or you know, if they're a young a young young man or a young boy, oftentimes they're doing the same. They're they're just not able to really harness and control that yet. They haven't learned how to do that. They don't have the maturity yet. They don't have the mind yet. They don't have the experience yet. And so, they struggle with controlling their emotions in that manner. But as a man, we should have learned how to do this. We're learning and we're in the process of growing and maturing. But one of the ways we know that we are reaching some maturity in our life as a man is that we are able to harness and control our emotions, both the positive and the negative um emotions.
Um, anger is a natural human emotion. Okay? It's a reality. We all feel it. We all experience anger. It's an emotion. That's what it is. Um, but anger in and of itself is not a sin. It's an emotion that we feel as human beings. God experiences and feels anger. But God doesn't sin in his anger. Okay? He's just in his anger. We oftentimes allow our anger to take the point to move to a point where we're not justified in our anger. We're allowing anger to lead us and we sin in our anger. There's a big difference there. A misplaced anger acted out in an unrighteous way though is sinful. And scripture does have a lot to say about the topic or the emotion of anger. Why is that? Because it's one of the um most um prominent emotions that men feel. Like we don't feel probably as much as ladies do with our emotions, but we do feel a lot of emotion. I'm not saying that, but we feel certain emotions more, I think, than others. And so anger is one of those emotions that men understand, recognize, and feel um very clearly and very strongly. This is why we have to learn to harness it because anger misplaced or used in the wrong way will actually bring about a sinful result and it brings pain. It brings destruction. It it it it it brings an outcome of negativity. We don't want to do that. We want to make sure that if our anger or uh is ever to be used, that it's done in a righteous way. Okay? That's what we want.
So there is an appropriate righteous anger. There is an appropriate righteous anger and then there's also as I mentioned, there's an inappropriate unrighteous anger that will ultimately lead to sin. Now anger can come from many sources. We know that a lot of them are outside, excuse me, outside sources. Um, some people have some deep-rooted anger because of maybe abuse that they experienced as a child. Um, and so some of that is deep-rooted and they're struggling, especially as a young man. They really struggle with how to work through that and how to harness that and control it. And rightfully so, those very painful things that you might have experienced as a boy or a young man. Um, but as we grow and mature and as God works in our life, he knows that there's a destructive side to that. So God desires to bring healing in those areas and then help us learn how to live in a way that brings honor and glory to him.
So James reminds us in verse 20 of chapter 1, "For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God." So James tries to remind his readers and us today that anger in and of itself that is unrighteous ultimately will not produce or bring about the righteousness of God. Doesn't produce righteous fruit. Let's put it that way. We all know that. We've all experienced it. How many times have you had a fit of anger and you broke something or you broke your hand or you or or whatever? Or you or you you really um, you said things you didn't mean, you know, whatever. These are the outcomes of anger in a way that bring about the fruits of unrighteousness, okay? Or pain, suffering, and all of that.
So we know though that um we all get angry at wickedness, right? There is an anger that we all feel um for unrighteous wickedness. There's just an anger that we feel that is a righteous type of anger. What is it that we are actually angry at the injustice that rules the day or when the um let's say when children are are are mistreated or or whatever it could be. We have this anger that is a righteous anger. And a righteous anger um we we we know deals with the defamation of God or the holiness of God or the justice of God. Those kinds of things we have an indignant righteous anger toward. And we get angry when people bring defamation against the name of Christ or we also get angry at the deception um that is so prevalent in our time. We we hate this deception. We we realize that it comes at its root from the the great deceiver Satan who is in the spiritual realm manifesting these things in the physical realm. And we have a righteous anger towards these things. And James knows that the Christians that he was writing to were also feeling these kinds of emotions uh because of the injustice they were experiencing in this dispersion that they were living in. They had been dispersed. They're living in another community um in some cases many many many miles away from their own homes and they're trying to you know to eke out a living and they're struggling because they're separated from families and separated from uh their friends. All of these things that they were experiencing. James knows that they were feeling a gamut of emotions and that anger would be one of the primary things that might be uh an emotion they would struggle with. And so that's why James writes them to encourage them in this way. And he reminded them um that they were to live in such a way that their life would bring honor and glory ultimately to God because we know that Satan can use anger as a tool for destruction and we want to be aware of that.
So how are we angry? How can we be angry and not sin? Now, this is this is the this is the key. Okay, we're going to go back to self-control just for a minute. That's why self-control was a big one, right? It covers so many things. But it's also this this idea which self-control is an idea of management. Okay. So, when we have these experiences and we feel that anger well up, we have an option set before us. The option is is to think about at this moment if I am to follow through in the emotion of my anger in an unrighteous way, what will be the outcome? And is this a righteous anger that I'm feeling or is this an anger that I'm feeling because someone said something negatively about me or they criticized me or it was about me personally and I was offended. Those would be kinds of anger, emotions toward those things that would be unrighteous, right? Yeah, you may not like it, but you don't have to respond and retaliate over those things in anger.
Titus 2:11-12 says, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness, worldly passions, to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age." This this is what God will do. The fruits of the spirit. One of those is self-control. And so when those emotions come up, we have to check those things. Like when you're riding a horse, right? And that horse is riding out or maybe it's charging out. It's it's moving out too fast. You can check that horse, right? Um, and and you can check it before it just gets going maybe out of hand. You know, one of the first things you want to teach a horse is to stop. Because if a horse runs off with itself, you need to be able to stop the horse. Okay? Same thing with anger. Anger is something that you're going to experience and you're going to feel, but we need to understand that we have the power and the responsibility to check that anger before it gets out of hand. That's the key. You can feel it boiling up. You can feel your ears turning red, so to speak. Okay? You can feel this emotion happening. But as you mature and as you grow grow in the Lord Jesus Christ and you grow as a man, you begin to learn to check your emotions because usually the first reaction is normally not the best reaction. So it's always good to give it some time, give it a count, if you will, think about it for a moment, maybe pray about it before you actually um act out. That's a big thing.
You're in an argument with your wife and she said something to you that hurt you, was offensive. Um, you know, she she attacked your character, whatever it would be, and it was like somebody smashed that red button and just woo, you feel it go off. Right? Here's the thing. Before you do anything, before you speak, before you act, you need to take some time. Just check it. That's what you're going to do. Check that thing and literally allow yourself some time to process that before you act out on that emotion. And if you'll do that, you'll find many times that what the outcome will bring is is is a positive outcome ultimately because you wouldn't want to retaliate. You know, your wife doesn't mean that. You're in a fight, an argument, she got her feelings hurt, she's upset, she's mad, she's she's she's whatever. You don't have to own what she said. And oftentimes afterward, what does your wife say? The same thing you've said to her many times. Listen, I didn't mean what I said. I just in haste said those words. And would you please forgive me? Here's the cool thing. If we learn to check that before we ever let it out, we won't have to spend so much time apologizing and asking for forgiveness. And so you set the example in your home for your wife and for your children. And if you're doing constant outbursts of anger, don't be surprised if your children don't do the same thing or your wife responds that way as well. So our wives are are really created and designed to respond to us. They're responsive to us. That's just one example, okay? It could be at work. It could be in the ministry. It could be anywhere where you check that emotion and you think about that for a moment before you let it out. And usually when you check it, you're going to think about that. And sometimes it's not long. It doesn't take long to think about. What you'll do is you'll suppress that and won't let it have its way because a mature man thinks through these things before he reacts. He's not really reactive as much as he is proactive. Um, and not only that, he thinks through what he's doing, and that's just a part of maturity.
Um, I didn't always do this. Um, I still struggle with it from time to time. Um, and I'm learning to be better at managing my emotions, especially those those emotions that we really feel as men, men, like anger, right? Um, as long as it's a righteous anger and um I'm I'm angry for the right reasons, an action is taken for the right reasons in the right way, then then I know that that the outcome that needs to happen like honoring the Lord, um, you know, um building up a brother, whatever it would be, encouraging your wife, um, um, teaching and educating and disciplining your children, all of those things are are something that we need to make sure that we check before we do. Same thing with disciplining your kids. That's another thing. Um, don't let things push to the red line before you before you you deal out discipline. In other words, you don't have to give three tries. Okay. Oh, okay. That's your fourth try. I told you three strikes, four try strikes, whatever. And your kids will learn. Oh, I mean, I got a line over here. I know I can do this three times before dad really does anything. No, what you can do is just respond the first time. I told you not to do this. You're not angry. You're not mad. You just discipline the child for direct disobedience to your command and deal with it. But you're not angry at the moment that you're dealing with it.
So, I could go on and on about this, but nonetheless, you get the idea. We're trying to learn how to manage this emotion that we feel so strongly, and that is the emotion of anger. And that's just one of the many ones. That's what Paul is getting at here when he's speaking about the qualifications of an elder or an overseer when he talks about the fact that you know they're not going to be a striker. They're not quarrelsome, that is um an immature man, for example, and that's not suitable for a man who is to lead the church of God. So we're all growing and maturing and I hope that this is an encouragement to you. Um, how long have I been here so far?
So, we have a responsibility, guys, to train ourselves in this area of managing our emotions. It's something we have to do. And it's not just going to happen on its own, more than likely. Um, if you struggle with this, your temper, um, the good news is you don't have to give way to it. You can begin to to tell it no and to check it and make it uh obedient to you. You can do that. That's the good news. Man, I hear guys say, "Well, I just can't control my anger." No, you don't want to control your anger. You're allowing your anger and your emotion of anger to control you, but you can control your anger, and it's just a sign of immaturity. And that that we need to grow and develop in that area.
Um, Galatians 5:22-23 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." These are the actual fruits of the Holy Spirit. And when we're when we're walking in step with the Holy Spirit, these fruits will manifest themselves in our lives. Um, 2 Timothy 1:7 says, "For God has given us a spirit not of fear, but of power, love, and of self-discipline or self-control." That is what what God has given us. That's the gift of the Holy Spirit. He offers us this. The spirit we have been given is not a spirit of fear, but the spirit we've received is a spirit of power and of self-control. So, those are just really some key things to remember in regards to this. And this is just one of those things. But Paul really specifically draws out these elements of quarreling and fighting and those those elements of anger, right? He he's pulling those things out. And guys, these are areas in which we can work in development and work at developing and becoming more mature in. And so if you're struggling today, not only with this one, we looked at the passions of the flesh when we talked about self-control. That's another emotion that you might feel. There's all these emotions that we have that we feel um and we want to be men who know how to harness those to um manage those um so that we can live and and present ourselves in a way that honors God and brings glory to his great name.
Well guys, that's all I'm going to have for you on this podcast. I know it's a little bit shorter. I'm trying to make these podcasts shorter, trying to keep them about 30 minutes in length, in fact. So that's my goal. I won't always accomplish it, but that is what um what I'm attempting to do. I hope that you're enjoying these podcasts. I hope you're getting something from these podcasts. And if they're benefiting you, would you please help us by liking, subscribing, and sharing these with your buddies? We have a whole lot more that's coming. Our our Grit app is almost complete. I can't wait for you guys to try out this new app that we have. It's going to be absolutely a blast and it's going to be something that will really be beneficial for the gritty men community as a whole. So, lots more coming. Um, I'm in the process of writing a brand new study right now called Stand Firm. Um, and so really excited about that one. We got a lot of things coming your way with resources and and all kinds of things. But anyway, guys, thank you for your time today. Love you in Christ. Hope you all are doing well. Look forward to hearing from you. God bless you guys. And until next time, stay gritty.