Learning How to Be Angry (Ephesians 4:26-27) | Adult Sunday School

Good to see you this morning, grateful for the opportunity to be up here fighting a little bit of a cold this morning, so I've got a cough drop in, apologize for the rattling around in there.

Actually reminds me of a story of an old Baptist preacher who, he used to keep track of how long he was to preach by putting a cough drop in his mouth at the beginning of his sermon, and when he finished, you know, when it was dissolved, then it was time to stop.

It worked really well for a long time until one day he reached into his pocket and pulled out a button by accident and put it in. Alright, let's pray as we start.

Well, our Father, we come into your presence this morning and we desire to hear from you through your word.

Father, calm our hearts, help us to focus our minds, help us to have a well -tilled soil to receive the living word as it comes to us.

And oh Lord, we desire to be obedient to what we hear. Change, real change to be made in our hearts as we submit ourselves to you.

Father, we ask this morning for clarity, clarity of speech, clarity of thought, clarity of comprehension, that the name of Christ would be glorified here in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, the year was 1847, 1847, and an

Italian chemist by the name of Scania Sobrero synthesized a heavy, colorless, oily chemical compound by nitrating glycerol with white fuming nitric acid.

The resulting compound, called nitroglycerin, was extremely unstable and highly explosive.

About 20 years later, after a number of accidents, the Swedish chemist

Alfred Nobel figured out how to make nitroglycerin commercially viable by combining it with diatomaceous earth.

The resultant product, called dynamite, was patented by him and made him fabulously wealthy.

In 1878, Dr. William Murrell began treating his heart patients with small, diluted doses of nitroglycerin to alleviate the angina and reduce blood pressure.

A few months before his death, in 1896, Alfred Nobel was prescribed nitroglycerin for his own heart condition.

And writing to a friend, he said the following, and I quote, Isn't it the irony of fate that I have been prescribed nitroglycerin to be taken internally?

They call it trinitrin so as not to scare the chemist and the public.

Beloved, the same highly volatile and dangerous chemical compound can take a life or it can save it.

And it all depends on the how and the why it is used.

The same is true for anger. The same is true for anger.

Our text this morning is Ephesians chapter 4, verses 26 and 27.

As you find your way there to Ephesians chapter 4, verses 26 and 27.

When you get there, you gotta look up at me. And I will take up the reading beginning at verse 25.

Therefore, laying aside falsehoods, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor. For we are members of one another.

Be angry and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. And do not give the devil an opportunity.

He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with the one who has need.

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word that is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, and anger, and clamor, and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

Unlike lying and stealing, which are to have no place in the life of a child of God, anger is more nuanced.

Anger is more nuanced. Notice in verse 31 there, Paul says that wrath and anger are to be put off.

And in their place, verse 32, we are to supply kindness, and tenderness, and forgiveness.

They are to be put on. Notice also as you let your eyes drop down the page to chapter 5 and verse 1, where Paul calls us to be imitators of God as his beloved children.

And then notice further in verse 6 of chapter 5, where Paul says, let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Paul speaks here of the wrath of God against that which once characterized their former way of life.

So the result of all of this is, we see that the topic of anger and wrath is not as straightforward as one might first suppose.

There is a nuance involved in this. Furthermore, in our text this morning, verses 26 and 27,

Paul uses four imperatives, four commands, to speak about the topic of anger, to address the topic of anger.

Four of them. There they are, you can see them. Be angry is one. Do not sin, a second.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger, a third. And do not give the devil an opportunity. There's your four commands, your four imperatives.

Now, this first imperative, be angry, verse 26, a present middle imperative for those keeping track, has caused no end to consternation among Bible commentators and even translators as to how to render this command, this imperative.

How exactly is it to be understood? A number of possibilities have been put forward.

So some see it as what's called a conditional or a concessional imperative.

In other words, it could be translated something like this, if this is what you assume Paul's doing. If you do get angry, make sure you do not sin.

And that's actually how the NIV handles the text, where they said in your anger do not sin.

They translate it that way. Others think it's more what's called a permissive imperative.

Be angry, in other words, I cannot prevent it and you cannot prevent it, but don't sin.

The third and the one to which I'm attracted is that it is a command. It is a command.

There is a moral obligation to be angry as the occasion requires.

And there's also a moral obligation not to sin in the expression of that anger.

Now, notice when you look at your text here, your Bible probably designates it somehow for you that this is a quote.

Paul is quoting from the Old Testament. He's actually quoting Psalm 4 in the

Septuagint. And there in the Septuagint translation of Psalm 4, we find the following in verse 4.

Be angry and do not sin. But what's going on there in Psalm 4? Again, there's a difference of opinion.

In Psalm 4, the psalmist is accused unjustly by his enemies of some crime or sin.

And although he knows that he's innocent, the weight of the accusation is weighing very heavily upon him.

Now, again, difference of opinion. What is David saying here in verse 4?

Is he speaking to the ungodly and counseling them to restrain their anger against him, the permissive imperative?

Or is he speaking to himself and counseling his own heart to restrain his anger against their unjust accusations and trusting

God to vindicate him? I believe David is speaking in the latter.

Therefore, I understand Ephesians 4 and verse 26 to be a command to righteous anger, righteous indignation.

Remember with me now. Remember, the Ephesian believers had come out of a life of darkness, sin, and idolatry.

Their consciences had been dulled to sin. It really didn't bother them as it didn't bother you or me before the work of the

Spirit of God in our hearts. It was their environment. They knew nothing else.

Once God, though, had opened their blind eyes to the beauty of Christ, everything changes.

Everything changes. They become new creations, right? 2

Corinthians 5, 17. They needed to change the way their lives operated, and that includes the realm of anger.

Look at verses 22 and 23. In reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lust of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

Lay aside the old man and his behaviors, his attitudes, his reactions.

All things become new in Christ. All things become new. What is true of them is true of me and it's true of you.

If you are a child of God by faith in Christ this morning, one of the effects of becoming a new creation in Christ is learning how and when to be angry.

How and when to be angry. So here's our outline for this morning.

It's pretty simple. Four commands that must be simultaneously obeyed in order to biblically learn how to be angry.

Four commands that must be simultaneously obeyed in order to biblically learn how to be angry.

All right, the first one in verse 26. The first command, repent of your complacency.

Repent of your complacency. Be angry. Beloved, sin does not shock us like it ought to.

Like it ought to. Daily we are inundated with news that has the effect of hardening us to sin and its devastating consequences.

Theft, fraud, rape, murder, pornography, abortion, sex trafficking.

That's just a few. Just a few. We become numb.

We turn away. We're also in danger of becoming numb to the lesser sins.

That frequent the church. Things like gossip, slander, factions, criticism, irreverence, immorality, fornication.

One writer says, in the face of blatant evil, we should be indignant and not tolerant.

Angry and not apathetic. And not apathetic.

Can we find examples of this kind of righteous anger in the scriptures? You bet we can.

You bet we can. Yahweh, the God, the

Lord Himself, His anger is displayed many times in the Old Testament. Many times.

There's a very small sampling. Ephesians. That is not in the

Old Testament. Exodus chapter 3 and verse 14. Exodus in 3 .14.

We find God angry over Moses. His unbelief. God said to Moses, I am who

I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent you.

Wrong citation. Sorry. 4 .14. That works better. 3 .14 is good.

4 .14 is better. More to the point. Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses and he said, is there not your brother

Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently. And moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you.

When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. God is angry with Moses because Moses is unbelieving of the

Lord. The commission that God has put upon him. He says, I can't do it. Can't do it. God demonstrates anger against Israel.

Exodus 22. Because of their mistreatment of the helpless.

Exodus 22 verses 21 through 24.

Exodus 22. 21 to 24. You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you afflict him at all. And if he does cry out to me,

I will surely hear his crying. My anger will be kindled and I will kill you with the sword. And your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

God cares about the helpless. It provokes him to anger when they're mistreated.

God is angry with his people when they grumble. Numbers chapter 11 verse 1.

Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord.

Like those who complain of adversity. In other words, like most people. And when the

Lord heard it, his anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.

But it's angry they're grumbling. Chapter 12 verse 9.

We have Miriam and Aaron who murmur and and grumble against Moses.

Verse 9. So the anger of the Lord burned against them and he departed. And of course you know what happened to Miriam.

Struck with leprosy. Grumbling makes God angry.

I will turn you there but it's familiar enough to you. But 2 Samuel chapter 6 and verse 7. When David is seeking to bring the ark of the covenant into his capital city.

You remember that? The ark is placed on an ox cart and it is as it's being brought in.

The ox stumbles, the cart shifts, and the ark of the covenant that's on on the cart looks like it's going to fall.

And Uzzah sticks out his hand to prevent it from falling into the mud and God strikes him dead. Anger of the

Lord flashed and struck him dead. There's a whole sermon by the way in that event.

But let's just say this. First, Uzzah was a Levite. Likely of the sons of Kohath who were a

Kohathite who was who was appointed by God to carry the ark. Not put it on an ox cart.

Not touch it. In a flagrant disregard for his Levitical duties, God slayed him.

Beyond that, shame on man to think his hand is less defiled than the mud. That is not in rebellion against God.

We have the example of Moses. Again I won't turn you there but you can remember this. This is

Exodus chapter 32. Moses comes down from the mountain after receiving the Ten Commandments because he hears that the people had descended into idolatry and he pleads with God first not to destroy them.

Then he comes down from the mountain and he smashes the stones, the tablets, in his anger. Time will escape me if I turn to King David in his sin with Bathsheba, right?

He's confronted about a year later by Nathan who tells the story of the rich man who took the poor man's only lamb.

You remember this? Then the anger of David flashed forth. Said that man should should repay fourfold.

And Nathan says, thou art the man. And David does repay fourfold in the loss of four sons.

The loss of four sons. Paul, Galatians chapter 2, in his anger over Peter's defection from the gospel.

He confronts him openly to his face. And the last, and I will turn you here, is

Jesus in Mark chapter 3 and verse 5. We'll pick it up at the beginning of the chapter.

And he, that is Jesus, entered again into a synagogue and a man was there whose hand was withered. And they were watching him to see if he would heal him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him.

And he said to the man with the withered hand, get up and come forward. And he said to them, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save a life or to kill?

But they kept silent. Verse 5. After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, stretch out your hand.

And he stretched it out and his hand was restored. We're certainly well aware of Jesus entering into the temple and making a whip out of cords and driving the money changers from the temple, cleansing the temple twice, the beginning and the end of his public ministry.

Is there biblical precedent to be angry? Absolutely.

All over the place. All over the place. So what can we learn?

What can we learn from these examples? Here's a few suggestions for you.

You can develop these on your own and add many more, I'm sure. Sin makes

God angry. This is the first one. Sin makes God angry. And as those bearing the family image, it should make us angry too.

Should make us angry too. Second, the instances of anger come in response to serious spiritual defection.

Serious spiritual defection and often manifested itself in rebellion against the law of God.

It is the serious spiritual defection that comes in manifest rebellion against the law of God.

That draws the anger of God and that should draw the anger of his people. And third,

God's anger rises slowly. It is not explosive and it is not out of control.

Exodus 34, I will turn you there. And verse 6, then the

Lord passed by in front of him, that is Moses, and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin.

Yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.

God is compassionate and slow to anger. And as his children, we need to be just like that.

David Polissen in his book Good and Angry writes the following, the wrath of God is the clearest example

I know of how to get good and angry and be patient, merciful, and generous at the same time.

Now, the danger in repenting of our complacency is that it can quickly go from righteous to unrighteous anger.

And then it becomes an occasion for sin. Then it becomes occasion for sin. Like a nuclear reactor, we need to keep the fuel rods cool or things can quickly melt down and spew deadly radiation all over the place.

To keep things under control, Paul provides the three additional commands that provide a counterbalance to the weight of that first one.

So we find our second command, restrain your passions.

Restrain your passions. Back to Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 26.

Be angry and yet do not sin.

And do not sin. Anger is a very volatile substance.

And even righteous anger can easily become corrupted and turn into bitterness, resentment, self -righteousness, and various other destructive thoughts and behaviors.

It can tip quickly. It is like the nuclear reactor. Furthermore, I am convinced that frequently our anger is not a result of God's glory being impinged or offended but our own.

Our own. Injured pride, sometimes coming when we baptize our ambitions and then attribute them to God, becomes a source of our anger when our ambitions are frustrated.

We confuse our ambitions with God's, our glory with his. One writer wrote, anger is an acid that destroys its container.

Anger is an acid that destroys its container. Because passions can so easily get out of control, the

New Testament counsels us to be slow to anger. To be slow to anger, right?

James chapter 1 verses 19 and 20. Know this my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.

For the anger of man does not produce, you fill it in, what? The righteousness of God.

Or chapter 3 of James letter verses 16 through 18. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy.

And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

James has got a lot to say about the role of anger, by the way, in the local assembly and the tongue, which is often the source by which the anger is vented.

Brian Chappell in his fine little commentary on the book of Ephesians writes the following, lack of control over anger may be evidenced by how long it is held as well as by how vigorously it is expressed.

Repent of your complacency. Secondly, restrain your passions.

Third command, release the offender. Release the offender.

Again, verse 26. Be angry and do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger. Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

Hanging on to anger for whatever reason puts us in a vulnerable position.

So Paul commands us to let it go. Let it go. Now, this is not a literal command by which sunset is a fixed marker of time, but rather this is a warning about brooding in your anger or nursing it and letting it fester.

It's a wisdom statement, actually. It's a wisdom statement. So, if a husband and wife have a strong disagreement that bubbles forth in anger at four o 'clock in the afternoon,

Paul is not saying they've got till 5 p .m. when the sun goes down to get this resolved. They'll get after it, although that's a good idea.

But here's what he's saying to them. Do not hang on to the anger that has been generated, but quickly release it and the offender.

Because you can't let go of the anger without letting go of the offender and resolve the problem as soon as practically possible.

When it comes to releasing the offender, the words of D. Martin Lloyd -Jones,

I think, are quite helpful here. So I have a bit of a lengthy quote from Lloyd -Jones, which if you know anything about Lloyd -Jones, he doesn't do anything in short.

It's Ephesians commentary. I forget. It's eight volumes. Is that what it is? Yeah. Not bad, huh?

Six chapters, eight volumes. But he writes the following, you may have a great struggle with yourself, but do not go to rest until you have settled it.

You may have to argue it backwards and forwards. Go on, I say, until you have realized the love of God in Christ to you.

Until you have seen Christ bleeding and dying on the cross that you might be forgiven.

Dwell on it until he has melted your heart and broken you down and made you sorry for the one who has offended you.

And until you forgive freely. Then, but not until then, get into your bed and put your head down on the pillow and sleep the sleep of the just and the righteous and the holy.

Because you have a right to do so. You will be doing it as a son of God himself did it.

You will have acted in your life and domain as God himself has acted with respect to you.

Preach the gospel to yourself until you have been broken again by the reality of what

Christ has done for you. What he sacrificed for you, your unworthiness, his willingness, his desire to forgive you.

And when you get a good grip on that, at that point you can then release the offender.

This is practical gospel soul work. Do not listen to your heart, speak truth to your heart.

Speak truth to your heart. Repent of your complacency.

Be angry for the right things. Restrain your passions and your anger.

Do not let it go over into sin. Release the offender.

Forgive as God has forgiven you. And finally, recognize the danger here.

Recognize the danger. Verse 27. Do not give the devil an opportunity.

Do not give the devil an opportunity. It's a fascinating statement, by the way.

I'm racking my brain standing up here, but I think I'm on safe ground to say this. This is the only place that I can think of where a sin is directly related in the

New Testament. This way to a believer about opening themselves up to the work of the devil. False teachers are demonic and bring in demonic doctrines of demons in that way.

But in terms of behaviors, this is interesting how it stands out. The greatest danger of unrighteous anger is that the devil will exploit it for his own purposes.

He will exploit it for his own purposes. When we hang on to anger, we provide the devil with a base of operations from which to create destruction in our lives.

Let me say that again to you. When we hang on to anger, we provide the devil with a base of operations from which to create destruction in our lives.

We're giving him a foothold, an opportunity, a breach in the wall.

Peter writes in 1 Peter 5a, Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, probing, testing.

How are the defenses? Beloved prolonged anger should frighten us.

It should frighten us because it opens up the gates of the city to the invader.

This is true with regard to our own spiritual and emotional health for sure. But in even more important,

I would say in wider context, it is true of the community of believers. It is true of the church.

Anger, unrighteous anger held on to brooded over that turns inward to bitterness, becomes a point of vulnerability in a local congregation such as ours.

Proverbs chapter 30 and verses 32 and 33. If you have been foolish, exalting yourself, or if you have been devising evil, put your hand on your mouth.

For pressing milk produces curds, pressing the nose produces blood, and pressing anger produces strife.

Pressing anger produces strife. Notice by the way, and I will just try to contextually tie this in for you, at the beginning of chapter 4 verses 1 through 3 where Paul, there is the turning point in the letter, right?

Chapters 1, 2, and 3 are the great doctrinal foundation of the letter. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are the so what of the letter.

Now that this is true, so what, how do we live? And notice how Paul begins the so what section of the letter.

Therefore, I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

In other words, in light of the great doctrinal truths of the gospel outlaid in chapters 1, 2, and 3, we are to walk in unity with one another, to be long -suffering with one another, to be in humility with one another.

Anger is the exact opposite of all of that. It's an attack on that. How do church splits happen?

If you've been a believer long enough, you've unfortunately been party of one, or observed it at least.

How do they happen? They happen when someone is offended and cannot let go.

Someone is offended and they cannot let go. Soon others in the body line up like little tin soldiers in battle formation to take up the cause.

Then the two sides square off, and it becomes a holy war in which compromise is considered heresy.

Satan just laughs in delight as another gospel lighthouse goes dark.

Anger in the local body is incredibly dangerous. But God would have us angry at the right things, and for the right reasons.

Then he would have us react to that anger by humbly, gently, passionately, and lovingly preaching the gospel, both to ourselves and into that situation.

May the

Spirit of God renew our thinking with regard to this most important topic.

Let's pray. Our Father, there is enough conviction here for all of us this morning, for we have been angry and not in a righteous way, in fact, more times than we can even remember.

When we have substituted our glory for yours, and when our will was thwarted, we lashed out in anger.

And then, Father, we also confess that when we should be angry, we find ourselves to be blasé, uninvolved.

We turn away and move on with the happy things of life. And yet you have called us to be angry in the right way for the right things, and then to let it go, to bring the only thing that can resolve the problem, and that is the gospel.

Oh Lord, may you help us this morning to renew our commitment to live in light of the reality that all of our sin has been placed on Christ, and he has consumed your wrath to the final drop.

Nothing remains for us. Let us be those who understand, who practice, and who preach that reality into this broken world.