Anger, Jesus & Me
We return to our Patterns series and our journey through the Sermon on the Mount by battling some of the more challenging teachings from Jesus. This week we look into anger and its effect on our lives, how Jesus talks about it and how to deal with it within us when it arises.
Worship Suggestion:
As we launched the Discipleship resources this week, we’d love for you to spend some time together chatting about one area of that each week. This week is BELONG, both to a Sunday Gathering and to a Hope Group. Spend 10-15 minutes chatting about the importance of both of these to our faith journey and how they’ve made a difference in your life and relationship to God.
Group Questions:
- Re-read through Matthew 5:21-26. What has Jesus been saying to you as we’ve read through this passage?
- What aspect of God’s heart do you feel He’s stirred in you that can cause you to be passionate or motivated?
- Anger can be deadly, powerful and hurtful, manipulative and an active force. It has the power to make us strong…or eat away at us. Think of an example where you might have found it difficult to contain anger. What about it caused you to react this way?
- What techniques do you have to deal with it? How do these align with how Jesus recommends we deal with it? (settle issues fast, practice forgiveness and trust Jesus) (Refer to Ephesians 4:26-27 and 1 Peter 2:23-24).
- As a community, how do we ensure that we don’t mistake the pursuit of justice and use God’s righteousness and turn it into group self-righteousness?
Application/Prayer:
Jesus steps down from His deserved righteousness, takes the anger of the world and overcomes it on the cross. By His wounds we are healed.
What does this mean for us as community and individuals living out His good news?
Pray for each other that as communities we’d be examples of love and compassion over anger and self-righteousness.