Tag Archives: life

Anger Management

You’ve heard of trampoline parks and escape rooms, but there’s a new trend called the “rage room.” Rage rooms have grown in popularity in recent years, especially due to COVID, and they continue to pop up across the country. Basically, you pay money to go into an enclosed space and smash things to release all that pent-up anger.

One customer described the experience of going with her husband,

“At first, we were a little timid, but it didn’t take long before we were going full-out. We discovered that TVs are surprisingly hard to break, even with a metal baseball bat. …The best surprise? The old-school computer printer. I’d forgotten how much I hated printers for all the times they’d run out of ink, mangled my papers in college, or got jammed. That printer became a symbol for years of frustration, and it felt great to just destroy that thing….

“The most satisfying items to break [were] the glassware. My husband would “pitch” me a beer bottle or glass, and I’d hit it with the baseball bat. We laughed and cheered and smashed stuff until every last thing was unrecognizably destroyed. It was such a huge adrenaline rush. For the first time in what seemed like forever, I finally felt in control.”

This may all sound like fun and games, but these rooms illustrate a deeper problem in society. We have anger issues. Temper tantrums, road rage, campus protests, street riots, cyberbullying, hostile work environments, even assassination attempts on national leaders. People are angry, and most of them don’t know how to get help.

According to one recent report, 30% of adults struggle to control their anger. And 64% of teens and young adults admit they have uncontrolled anger. In this study of Colossians 3:8, we learn…

  • Why anger is so dangerous
  • Getting to the heart of the matter
  • Is it ever OK to be angry?
  • Five strategies to overcome anger
  • How Jesus can give you peace

Thanks for listening. For a complete list of sermons organized by book of the Bible, please visit the Sermon page.

Be Not Conformed

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

If we’re not intentional, we will let the world conform us into its image. Instead of being rooted and grounded in Christ, we’ll start to look like the world, think like the world, talk like the world. We might even start to “smell” like the world.

Several years ago, I was driving along and spotted a table on the side of the road. It was available to anyone, free for the taking. I decided I could save these people a trip to the dump and put it in my backyard as a gardening table. So I pulled over, loaded it up into the van, and drove it home.

What I soon discovered is that the previous owners must have been heavy smokers. Even though the table was outside, I could smell it like 20 feet away — especially at first. It was no big deal, since it was going to stay outside and be used mainly for bags of dirt and flower pots. It served its purpose. But it taught an important lesson. The years of smoke left a residual effect that lasted long after the table had been moved. If we’re not careful, the same can be true of us as Christians. We will soak in what we see on TV, social media, movies, music, friends, etc. and keep smelling like the world.

Several months ago, around VBS time, I preached on this text at Calvary Church West Hills. We looked deeper into the passage and I shared some particular ways we might be inclined to be conformed into the world today. You can listen here…

In what ways do you think Christians are easily conformed into the world around us? Leave a note in the comments section below…