Freedom From Anger
"For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me." (Psalms 51:3)
Anger Assessment Test:
1.I’ve had trouble on the job because of my temper. True or False
2.People say that I fly off the handle easily. True or False
3. When things don’t go my way, I “lose it.” True or False
4.I still get angry when I think of the bad things people did to me in the past. True or False
5.I find it very hard to forgive someone who has treated me badly. True or False
6.I often find myself engaged in heated arguments with the people who are close to me. True or False
7.At times I’ve felt angry enough to kill. True or False
8.When riled, I often blurt out things which I later regret saying. True or False
9.When I get angry, frustrated or hurt, I comfort myself by eating or using alcohol, or other drugs. True or False
10.I get angry with myself when I lose control of my emotions. True or False
11.When someone says or does something that upsets me, I don’t usually say anything at the time, but later I spend a lot of time thinking of cutting replies I could and should have made. True or False
12.If I get really upset about something, I have a tendency to feel sick later (frequently experiencing weak spells, headaches, upset stomach or diarrhea). True or False
13.I am apt to take frustration so badly that I cannot put it out of my mind. True or False
14.I’ve been so angry at times I couldn’t remember what I said or did. True or False
15.Sometimes I feel so hurt and alone that I’ve thought about killing myself. True of False
16.Some people are afraid of my bad temper. True or False
17. I’ve become so angry at times that I’ve become physically violent, hitting other people or breaking things. True or False
18.When someone hurts me, I want to get even. True or False
19.People I’ve trusted have often let me down, leaving me feeling angry or betrayed. True or False
Scoring:
- If you answered true for 10 or more questions – you might be prone to anger problems. You may need to consider seeking advice from a professional to help you deal with these anger issues.
- If you answered true for 5 questions, your anger feelings are at an average level, however it might be beneficial learning some anger management and relaxation techniques.
1.Admit you have an anger problem.
2.Determine what you are going to do to help defeat the anger in your life.
What Will We Be in Heaven?
“The Ultimate Extreme Makeover.”
Reading - 2 Corinthians 5:1-9
What is going to happen to us one day when our bodies receive its ultimate extreme makeover?
See 1 Corinthians 15:35 - Paul put before us a question which is the question for today message. Here is the question. “But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?"
In the next several verse Paul gives us some contrast between our current body and the body that we are going to have someday and doing so he literally outlines for us all the aspects of the Ultimate Extreme Makeover we are going to have.
- The Requirement for a Resurrected Body.
- The requirement for a resurrected body is that you must be dead.
- The requirement for the resurrected body is the death of the body.
- Note 1 Corinthians 15:36 “You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”
- The requirement for a resurrected body is that you must be dead.
- John 12:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
- Don’t be afraid of death - Just embrace it. Without death there is no new body.
- You must walk through the doorway of death to get that new body, unless you just happen to be alive when the rapture takes place.
The Results of the Resurrections in a Different kind of a Body. (V.37-38)
“And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. “
A. The body that comes out of the grave is different than the body that went into the grave.
B. Look at the illustration in our text - if you put a kernel of corn into the ground, what comes out of the ground is different. A green stock that produces ears of corn. It is different.
C. Paul is saying that the day our body dies, and it is put into the ground when the resurrection of the body takes place, we are not going to have the same body we are going to have a new kind of a body
D. We all understand what kind of body we now. Falling apart and getting harder and harder to maintain a good healthy body. AMEN
Paul is now going to answer the question, what king of a body are we going to have in heaven.
Please understand that when we die, our soul goes to be with Jesus in heaven, our body awaits the resurrection from the dead when Jesus returns.
Paul gives us four thoughts about our new bodies:
A. Our New Bodies will be Indestructible (V.42)
1. “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.” (1 Cor. 15:42)
2. The body in buried in corruption and raised in incorruption.
3. There has only been ONE body that has not every experienced corruption. The body of Jesus!
a. “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your holy one see corruption.” (Psalms 16:10)
b. When Jesus died, he was buried but in the third day his body was resurrected. His body did not see corruption.
c. This body we have now gets tired and worn out, but our new body we will get one day is Indestructible! AMEN!!
B. Our New Bodies will be Identifiable. (v.43)
“It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.” (1 Cor. 15:43)
1. Glory – Brilliant
2. Philippians 3:20-21 “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”
3. 1 Cor. 15:43 – our body is sown in dishonor - raised in GOLRY. That glory is the glory of our Lord Jesus.
a. Glory is the description of the resurrected body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
b. See 1 John 3:2 “Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
c. Now notice 1 Cor. 15:49 “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”
d. Bodies By Jesus
What is the body by Jesus?
During the 40-day period between the resurrection and when he ascended back to heaven is the only place we can answer the question, what is the body of Jesus.
4. Jesus said that His Body was Real
a. Luke 24:39 “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."
b. You are not going to have a spirit body that is going to just float around. Real body.
c. Jesus ate on two occasions. AMEN!
d. Are we going to eat when we get to heaven? Yes
e. Luke 24:42-42 “Jesus ate a piece of broiled fish.”
f. John:21-12-13 – Jesus had breakfast with the disciples.
2. Jesus told Thomas to touch his body
g. John 20:27 - Jesus told Thomas to touch his side.
h. John 20:17 Mary saw Jesus after the resurrections when she went to visit the tomb of Jesus. “Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
i. Real bodies – that are totally reinvented and made over.
j. They knew Jesus and were willing to testify of His resurrection up until their death. These men would not have died for a lie!
k. When you get to heaven you are going to know all the people you knew down here that put their faith and trust in Jesus for eternal salvation.
Our New Bodies will be Indestructible, Our New Bodies will be Identifiable, and our New Bodies will Be Incredible
C. Our New Bodies Will Be Incredible (V.43)
1. John 20:19 “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."
D. Our New Bodies Will Be Infinite (V.44) Limitless, will never die or wear out.
1. A Spiritual Body – What is this?
2. Jesus had a material body.
3. Paul is talking about a real body that is no longer controlled by your fleshly appetites but is controlled totally by your Spirit.
A Place Called Heaven
John 14:1-4 “"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going."
Can you imagine a place designed for you by someone who loved you so much He gave His Son to die for you? The Apostle John said, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son...” (1 John 4:10).
That’s love, isn’t it? We’re limited in our knowledge of the details about Heaven. God has purposely withheld some things from us. But He gives us all we need to know, and what we know leaves us in breathless wonder.
Did you know that the Apostle Paul took his trip to Heaven, he later said he was in the third heaven where he saw and heard “inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (2 Corinthians 12:4).
A Gallup poll found that 72% of the American people believe in Heaven, 60% believe in Hell, and only 4% think they are going to Hell. That leaves a vast majority believing they’re going to Heaven, but as the old Gospel song says, “Everybody talkin' 'bout heav'n ain't goin' there.”
Here are some facts God does give us about Heaven.
A.Heaven is a real place.
1.Heaven isn’t a philosophical idea or a vague state of mind.
2.It’s a real place on God’s map.
3.When Paul described his experience of visiting Heaven, he wrote, “whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows” (2 Corinthians 12:3). That indicates you can go to Heaven in your body or in your spirit.
4.Paul also said he was “caught up” into the “third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2-4).
B.Where is heaven located?
- We know Heaven is up:
- Acts 1:1-11 – “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven." (Acts 1:9-11)
3.In Isaiah 14:13-14, Lucifer said, before he fell, “I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north…above the stars... above the heights of the clouds.”
4.In Leviticus 1:11, God said the altar before Him was on the north side.
5.Psalm 75:6-7 says exaltation does not come from the east, west, or south but from God, and only one direction remains: north.
C.Why would Paul mention the “third heaven”? Because there are three.
- The Bible speaks of the “fowls of the heavens." That’s the atmospheric heaven, the atmosphere surrounding earth.
- “The stars of Heaven” indicate the second heaven, the stellar heaven.
- The third heaven is the abode of God, a real place to which Jesus ascended in His resurrection body.
D.Do the Saved go to Heaven immediately at death?
- According to the Bible - Every believer in Christ goes immediately to Heaven at death.
- Some people think the soul sleeps in the grave, awaiting the resurrection. No. The body awaits the resurrection; your spirit goes immediately to be with Jesus. For example:
- Jesus told the dying thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
- Jesus Himself as He died, said, “Father, into Your hands, I commit My spirit” (Luke 23:46).
- Stephen, the first Christian martyr, stoned for his faith, “looked up steadfastly into Heaven, and saw the glory of God,” then said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59).