Learn more about how to be angry without blowing it in this sermon from Lisa Bevere.
i’m going to show you my family again
that was just like a quick blur of
family oops forgot there was a table
there okay so these are my grandchildren
there is lizzy august sophia my
beautiful texas daughter-in-law my first
born son we’re going to be talking about
him tonight
my firstborn grandson asher who turns 10
next month my old man husband who is
very cute who i’ve been married to for
37 years please do not tell him i said
that he gets really mad when i say he’s
old my youngest son who is married to a
girl named christian in case he forgets
who he is me
my mother-in-law my only other single
son i need help i need him to be married
by the next time i come here and or or
maybe next year would be even better
okay then i’ve got my second son and his
beautiful wife
jessica do you see everybody looks
normal
do you see they all look happy okay i
just want you to look at this because
this is the redemption of god
in this photo
and i want to do something i’m going to
be talking about being angry
and not sinning
because a lot of us know how to be angry
and sin
but i’m going to talk about how to be
angry
and sin
not and i’m going to talk about it from
my
own
life
i grew up
sicilian
i don’t know if you know what a saying
is anybody here know what a sicilian is
wave at me okay sicilians are greeks
arabs and italians mixed
we are the ones that gave the world the
mafia you’re welcome it was our
contribution everybody has a
contribution the mafia is ours i hope
you enjoy the movies anyway
i am sicilian
that my mother
is french
and apache indian i’m just kind of
putting together a little bit
of a package there my dad 100 sicilian
my mom french apache indian and thank
god a teeny bit of british because that
just kind of helps with some stuff
and i grew up in a very angry household
i got saved in 1981 the majority of you
are not even born then
but i was born again in 1981.
married john bevere in 1982
became a pastor’s wife
in 1988
and in
1988 because i was sitting on the front
row like you guys i prayed a stupid
prayer i said god
i’m just about perfect god i’m a
pastor’s wife i’m sitting on the front
row singing hallelujah falling down once
a month god i thank you are
so pleased with me so i’m going to just
pray a prayer that sounds good
father i want you to come into my life
and excavate it just go in i i had been
singing over and over an old school song
take me in to the holy of holies take me
in by the blood of the lamb take me into
the holy of holies take your coal
cleanse my lips
here i am
thought that i would go to bed that
night
and an angel would tap my shoulder
here’s your call but there was a very
different process that began in my life
see
before that prayer
just once
a quarter i would maybe freak out on my
husband i would maybe call him names i
would maybe say things i shouldn’t say
but it was just like maybe four times a
year
but after i prayed that prayer
it was now
once a month that’s when i learned about
premenstrual tension i was like until
the church of jesus christ puts all the
women into the spa for that week of
course they are going to be living on
the edge but now if john would say honey
are you getting ready that’s not it but
it always was it then it went from once
a month to like
every single week that’s when i figured
out
you’ll understand this chris we’re youth
pastors probably all of the witches in
orlando have targeted me and they are
praying against me i am under spiritual
attack that is why i’m angry not to
mention all of the other things i’ve
already said sicilian mafia vendettas
apache people stole my land all this
stuff is going on
i began to be afraid to open my mouth
and i have one of those husbands that
you know like does not let something
like stop so like if we were having a
fight
and it was nighttime and we went to bed
now we were word of faith people so i
would say to my husband i forgive you
by faith i don’t even know
i don’t even know what that meant but if
his leg happened to come over into my
space after i’d forgiven him by faith or
kick him back i’m like roll over off the
edge of the bed and then john would say
no he’d flip on the lights rip off the
covers and say we are not doing this we
cannot let the sun go down on our
wrath but see
i think he was wrong because we had
started fighting when it was dark out so
i felt like we had until the next day
sundown
we were in a disagreement in the kitchen
i felt like my idol word account was
getting high i was like i just
need to not talk and john was pushing me
pushing me pushing me and before i knew
what happened i turned and i threw a
plate at him it was thrown like a
frisbee my husband ducked missing
decapitation and it hit the window
went right out the window that was not
open i
shattered our apartment
window now when you do something like
that everybody comes to attention and
john was like i can’t believe you just
did that i said
i can’t even throw a frisbee i can’t
believe i did that john was like no
seriously lisa you just broke the window
in our apartment complex it was a huge
big picture window y’all remember i was
only 28 only 28
59 now it’s a long time ago anyway threw
it and he said you know what
when they come to fix this window
i am not gonna lie for you and i said
you know what you’re a man of god and i
don’t want you to lie but i will not be
here when they fix the window
so i get in my car and i am praying in
the spirit i am like god you are the god
of the impossible it would it would be
so easy for you just to reassemble that
window it would be a miracle i could
just give you gloria for all of my life
just it’s just like a flinch of your
eyelash the entire all the pieces of
glass would come back together i prayed
and i prayed when i saw the maintenance
truck i said not going home yet just
kept circling circling circling
and when i came in my husband looked at
me
and he said you must have really
been praying
i said i was i prayed for everything i
could possibly think of
and he said well
the maintenance man came in
while i was on the toilet
so
your two-year-old son let him in
and when he walked in he saw the broken
window and he said whoa whoa what
happened here and he moved the sofa away
from the window looked down
and there was a metal tonka truck
he picked up the truck looked at my
husband and said
say no more this is why we have
insurance we understand that
two-year-olds do things like this these
kind of things happen
[Applause]
and john said
i just
decided to follow his instructions and
say
no more
so
i went from
broken i’m so sorry god imagining people
seeing me in church
youth pastor’s wife breaks picture
window at post lake apartments i always
knew she had a problem i went from
shaming myself to justifying myself
you were gonna uncover me and see what
god did i remember no longer feeling
quite so bad about it yeah i probably
shouldn’t have thrown the plate but you
shouldn’t have pushed me that’s the way
i began to reason i know nobody in south
africa would ever think like that
then i had my second child
now i want to explain something
one child
is an accessory you take them out you
dress them up they behave well it’s all
a trick to get you to have
more children
when i had my second child i remember
thinking
what have i done
i will never brush my teeth before noon
again
every single day was just chaos and
mayhem and we only had one car john
would take the car to work and then come
home
look at me i’d be standing there with
one baby in my arms another one on my
leg a spank spoon in my hand my nursing
flaps down and he would say
what have you done all day and i’d say
i don’t
know
i don’t know what i have done john but i
have been busy and he would
i say people are calling me saying they
want to commit suicide and i am offering
to join them now i i i i’m not saying
it’s a good technique but it did it did
help people like oh no we need to rescue
you now i was like wait what maybe so
every single day i was failing failing
failing because my oldest son my
perfectly
well-behaved firstborn now
refuse to take a nap because he is a
justice child so if i kissed the baby i
had to kiss him what was i doing with
the baby if he was sleeping i might be
doing something with the baby that might
not be equal for him and so i would put
him down
and he would get up a lot of times he
would hear the phone ring yeah i was a
mother in the day without portable
phones and he knew she’s trapped he
would come out of his bedroom i would be
in the kitchen he would be playing in
the loft i’d be stomping my foot and
waving the spanx put at him like get
back in your room all of these motions
while i’m praying for someone over the
phone and my son would just be like i
see your hand
i see your hand
but i’m not going anywhere i’m not i’m
not doing it i tried putting the spaying
spoon on the threshold of his doorway he
just stepped right over and he’d like i
need to do this
and one day
my son
came down the stairs
and i came running up to meet him i no
longer saw him as a child i saw him as
an enemy i thought this is the one
stopping me from getting anything
accomplished i was a sleep deprived
crazy woman i’m stomping up the stairs
with addison i walk into his bedroom i’m
looking around i’m thinking what can i
do
and i hear a voice say
lift him up
and slam him into the wall and put him
on his bed
and i thought to myself
yeah that should work i lifted him up
and i was just getting ready to shove
him in the wall
when i saw something
i had never seen before
see
my son
was not afraid of what i was going to do
he had no idea
what i was going to do
he was afraid of me
and when i saw the fear in my son’s eyes
i remembered my own
growing up in a physically and
emotionally abusive household and every
time i was slapped and every time i was
kicked and every time i had been shoved
into a wall
i made myself a promise and it went like
this
i will
never
treat my children this way
but there i was
a born-again
pastor’s wife
getting ready to slam my son against the
wall
and it broke me
i put him down on his bed
i said addison
i’m so sorry i’m so sorry mommy scared
you
i went running
downstairs
and i hit the carpet
and i wept
until my entire
being
was empty
i said god
it’s not the witches in orlando
god
it’s not the apache
god it could be the sicilian but you’re
bigger than that god it’s not my mother
god it’s not my father it’s not john
it’s me
i have a real problem
with anger
and i don’t know how to be free
wept and wept
and then
i heard the spirit of god
whisper to me
and he said
because you’re no longer justifying this
i’ll take it out of your life
you see what we justify
we buy
we say i have earned the right to be
this way because of what was done
to me
how many times do we hear this
and yes you can say that
but what was done for you
is greater than what was done
to you
and so
i had a memory
see my mother is the one
who took out most of her anger
on me
she was married to an absent
alcoholic
adulterous husband
and i acted more like my dad
than i acted like my mom
so i grew up hearing you’re just like
your father you’re just like your father
you’re just like your father so when my
dad didn’t come home
by a certain time
she knew he was in the bars
and i did everything i could to stay
away from her because it meant that her
anger would be taken out
on me
but she would always
find me
so
there was one incident
that i had hid away in my heart
my mom became a christian
when i was in my
teens and i became a christian at 21
and my mom came to me and she said will
you forgive me
i didn’t raise you
the way i wish i would have
i didn’t raise you the way i would have
raised you if i had been a christian and
i said yeah yeah i forgive you i forgive
you
but i hid
one instant
in my heart
one i don’t know i thought maybe it
would keep me safe
it was the only one that when i thought
about i actually felt pain
and i heard the holy spirit say call
your mother
and bring up
that particular instance
and i was like no no i’m not gonna i’m
not gonna bring that up god i have a
beautiful amazing husband i i totally
have compassion for her now i i should i
should never have held that back and he
said nope you need to call your mother
so i called my mom and i’m weeping on
the phone and i said mom i almost
slammed addison into the wall
and she’s and then i said i need to ask
you to forgive me
for the one thing i never forgave you
for
and then she started crying
and she said lisa
that’s the one thing i’ve never been
able to forgive myself for
well there’s a reason for that
remember the parable of the wicked
servant forgiven the unpayable debt
goes out grabs the fellow servant pay me
what you owe me i was like i understand
that he almost just got in trouble but
no that’s not what god said the other
servants reported it back to the king
and what did the king do
he takes the wicked servant and said i
forgave you the unpayable debt
and what does he do throws him into
prison
but the other one
now was in torment and so i was
tormented by the very thing i refuse to
forgive
in
my
mother
so when i forgave my mother
we together
prayed
broke the curse of abuse off of our
family and i just remember it was just
this beautiful healing the worst day of
my life became this beautiful moment in
my life
and then john came home
and i thought do i tell him
because i did call one of my girlfriends
and i said you can’t believe i almost
slammed addison into the wall today and
she said but you didn’t she said i
almost slammed my kids into the wall
every day
see i didn’t need
somebody that was going to give me
sympathy
i needed accountability
what does the book of james say book
james says confess your sins one to
another that you might be what
healed see i was forgiven when i
confessed it to god
but i was healed when i confessed it to
my mother and then i was made
accountable when i told my husband what
almost happened
and john had no problems being my
accountability partner because he had
been on the other side of
that
anger i want to read to you from the
book of galatians galatians 5 16
and the heading in the esv says keep in
step with the spirit
but i say to you but i say walk by the
spirit and you will not gratify the
desires of the flesh for the desires of
the flesh are against the spirit and the
desires of the spirit are against the
flesh for these are opposed to each
other to keep you from doing the things
you want to do what did i want to do
i wanted to be a better mother what did
i want to do i wanted to be a
loving
wife
but because i was living under the law
of this was done to me therefore i can
do this
i was not
living
in the spirit
justifying and blaming puts all of us
back
under the law
he goes on to say but if you are led by
the spirit you are not under the law now
the works of the flesh are evident
sexual immorality impurity sexuality
sensuality idolatry sorcery enmity
strife jealousy
fits
of
rage
there i was
busted well this one’s as fits of anger
but niv says fits and raise rivalries
dissensions divisions envy drunkenness
orgies and things like these
and then he goes on to say
i warn you as i warned you before that
those who do such things
the niv says
practice this another version says
live like this
will not inherit the kingdom of god
see that was incredibly sobering for me
but i want to unpack it because i know
that we have all done things
but it is different to do something
and another thing
to have a practice of something see a
doctor has a what
practice
every single day that’s where he goes
that’s what he does that’s living
like this and that’s living a life where
we say it’s okay to be like this because
of the other people in my world and i’m
watching
what is happening
with the men and the women in the world
i’m watching the women begin to think
it’s okay
to have a fit of rage
it’s okay
to act disrespectful it’s okay to have a
mean spirit because of something that
was done
to us
but this is what i have learned about
the genders that what wounds one
wounds the other and we cannot act like
the world and point our fingers one to
another
because we are not going to be like adam
and eve and blaming it was never that
adam and eve were supposed to blame each
other or shut down the voice of the
woman it was that adam and eve should
unite their voice and speak to the
serpent and say god is good and it is
written
so
i didn’t want to live my life
according to the flesh
and then it goes on to say but the fruit
of the spirit is love joy peace patience
kindness goodness faithfulness
gentleness self-control against such
things there is no law and those who
belong to christ jesus have crucified
the flesh with its passions and desires
if we live by the spirit let us also
keep in step with the spirit let us not
become conceited provoking one another
envying one another
came home
told john
because see i knew i was forgiven
i knew that i had been healed but i had
a habit pattern
and patterns of habit
are incredibly
strong see every time i was angry i was
used to stomping around through the
house i was used to slamming things
one time and again this is before this
happened one time john did something i
don’t even know what he did that i was
really mad and i’m stomping around
through the house we had just moved into
our very first house and i was throwing
stuff in the dryer and i thought i’m
just gonna slam
this dryer door shut and when i slammed
it my husband was standing there he
picked me up carried me out to the
garage and locked me in the garage and
he said you are staying out here until
you calm down it had the exact opposite
effect of calming me down i was furious
i thought i cannot allow this man every
time he thinks i’m mad put me in the
garage so i began to look around the
garage for something to break something
of john’s that would send a clear
message don’t mess with this woman but i
couldn’t find anything that i could
break because i was too poor to replace
it so i remembered
that my husband did all the grilling
so i picked up a hammer
and i thought i’m just going to put a
dent
in the lid of this grill
and every time john goes to grill he’ll
say whoa
that woman’s strong
and i reach back
and i remember hearing the holy spirit
say
if you hit this grill it’s gonna be you
doing it it’s not the witches
it’s not a demon
it’s you
i hit the grill and i said i bind
condemnation in the name of jesus
brought john out to the garage to see my
handiwork he was not
impressed so i had a habit pattern
of
pitching a fit
so what i started to do
is every single day when i woke up
i would pray god put a watch over my
mouth
let me be slow to speak
quick
to listen
slow
to wrath
see as a sicilian i would tell my
husband
hey
if you want to have passion in the
bedroom you have to have things thrown
at you in the kitchen it’s just the
package steal so i had made so
many excuses
i was quick to speak slow to listen
quick to wrath because i was fiery in my
blood
so i had to stop allowing that
to be my normal
i’d say god
show me what that looks like
you know a lot of times when we talk
about renewing our mind people think
it’s just memorizing and memorizing is
great but i’m not that smart and so what
i do is i
read a scripture
and then i meditate on it
i say if i’m going to be slow to speak
what is that going to look like
am i going to count to 10
am i going to stop thinking of my
response while my husband’s talking
okay
one of the best ways to do that is
whenever my husband said something
i actually set it back to him that way i
was paying attention then i sometimes i
would say so is what you’re saying and
then i would say it and he’d be like no
no that’s not actually what i was saying
that’d be like okay
tell me what you’re saying
that was being quick
to listen
and slow to wrath what is wrath
wrath is when you think you have the
right to punish someone
anger has three stages
anger that’s that’s normal it’s normal
to be angry about stuff
rage rages like you just put a gun on
the table
says now we have a threat in the air
wrath
is shooting somebody again i’m sorry for
the mafia uh
correlations it’s just my world but we
need to actually
stop things
before they get out of hand
and one of the other steps is i had to
tell my husband
i don’t like it when you chase me around
when i’m upset about something i need to
have a little bit of space so that my
idle word account doesn’t get too high i
need to be able to step back that’s what
anger does
so that i can return
god when he was mad he would turn his
face away
then he would turn his face
back we got to get this stuff resolved
because the wrath of a man or a woman
never
works
the righteous purposes of god
another key i had was
if you want to be heard because a lot of
times people get angry
because they feel like they’re not being
heard have a really smart husband and
i’d be talking and i could see he is
preparing an argument like a lawyer
while i’m just trying to talk
but that would make me ramp it i’d start
ramping ramping stop it and then he just
argument going higher because john would
go logical
so what i had to learn
is if i wanted to be heard
i needed to say it the way i like to
hear it
i don’t like to be yelled at i don’t
like to be threatened
i don’t like somebody being aggressive
and we are in a day in a time
where our voices need to be heard
so we need to
learn
how to speak so we
can be
hurt
in a nation
such as this
poised
on a threshold
watched by the world in so many ways
you’re a social experiment a beautiful
melting pot
so many people are watching
so many people are thinking are you
going to make it now i know
i know in my spirit
that john and i feel very
attached to south africa it’s really
interesting to me
when i go to my audience number one is
america
number two is south africa
and so i know that our hearts are
connected and our messages are connected
to this soil i know pastor andre has
taken our resources and pastor wilma has
taken our resources and they have
scattered it as seed into your lives and
into the leadership and i am here to say
to you
don’t you allow it to be downgraded to
the anger of people
don’t allow judgment
to come out of your mouth
make sure you bless
rather than curse
that you do good rather than
despitefully
do good to those who have despitefully
used and abused you in a crowd like this
just as in america
there’d be people in here
that grew up
in similar
circumstances to me
maybe way worse
there would also be
mothers and fathers in here
that found themselves
on the edge
and were afraid
of what they thought they were
potentially capable of
there would also be parents here
that went over the edge
and they did things that they’re so
ashamed of
so
afraid that sometimes they’ll even
justify it
i remember my mother used to always say
i’m sorry i hit you but you made me so
angry
see that’s an apology and an apology is
the defense of a behavior apologetics is
the defense of christianity we are not
called to apologize we are called to
confess and a confession is i’m
sorry
i
was wrong
here’s what i love
there’s always
new mercy there’s always a new beginning
there’s always a fresh start there’s
always something that god can take and
redeem it do you know my testimony by
accident my son happened to see it on tv
now i didn’t do it two weeks afterwards
it was probably
five or six years later
i had christian television on my son
walks into the room
and he is watching the tv i’m out of the
room i didn’t even know i was going to
be on tv that day and my son is
listening to me
tell the testimony of me almost slamming
him into the wall not something i wanted
him to hear
and when i walk into the room panic hit
me
but my son turned and looked at me and
he said
i can’t even picture you doing that
that
is the redemptive
power
of god
so i want to do something i want to set
something
in motion
i believe
that i need a lot of mercy
so i have learned
to sow
a lot of mercy
i have learned to forgive people
that have never asked for it
i don’t believe there’s anything more
supernatural
that forgiving people who do not deserve
it
it is how we are the most christlike
when we say father
forgive them
they didn’t know what they were doing
so i want to do something and i don’t
want to single anybody out but i would
just love
to pray together
all together seeing you all stand to
your feet
and i want you to say heavenly father
forgive me
for the times
i’ve been quick to speak
slow to listen
and quick to wrath
i want to have a new beginning
i’m going to stop making excuses
what you did for me
is more powerful than what was done to
me
now i want you to think about the
incident
or the person
that comes up in your mind
and i want you to say
father
forgive them
they didn’t know what they were doing
i cancelled their debt
they owe me
nothing
i released them from that prison
free me from my torment
i will bless
and not curse
i will do good
i will not take judgment
or wrath into my own hands
father i will not call anger demonic or
some kind of witchcraft that i can’t
control
that was a lot sorry
say i take responsibility
i’m going to control myself
because i’m going to be led by the
spirit
i’m going to get up every single day
and i’m going to break the habit
of anger
in jesus name
habits can be broken in 21
days
that’s all it takes but you know how you
break a habit because 21 days for me
sounded like an eternity
you do it
one hour at a time
half an hour at a time
five minutes at a time
one minute at a time
and some of you you might need to make
the phone call like i made
to a parent
you might need to make a phone call or
email to somebody that you’ve been
holding back
because you have no idea
but they’ve been imprisoned
release them and you’ll be shocked
at the release you will experience
south africa is not a nation of anger
south africa is a nation for the glory
of god in jesus name
amen
and amen