BRINGING YOUR ANGER
UNDER THE
LORDSHIP OF CHRIST
EPHESIANS 4:26-27
Be angry and do not sin;
do not let the sun go down on your anger,
and give no opportunity to the devil.
do not let the sun go down on your anger,
and give no opportunity to the devil.
Message begins at approximately the 34 min mark.
Last week I was talking with a group of the men from the congregation. I mentioned that this week we would be dealing with the topic of anger. One of the men retorted, “Well, that’s one that is pretty relevant.”
There’s no doubt that today’s message will speak in some way to every single person in this room. Anger is one of those issues that is common to men. Some people struggle with it more than others. Some may have a more volatile spirit and be given to anger and aggression. But we know that there is not one person in this room who is exempt from the problems associated with anger.
As a matter of fact, I thought about taking a survey this morning and asking who here had been angry just this morning. I figured that might be a little too revealing though. I personally will admit that I am in need in this category too. As I was preparing this message, studying the dynamics of anger, I found that I became overly heated with one of my children; to the point that I repeatedly slammed my hand upon the console of the car, breaking the lid of the console.
There's no doubt that anger is a relevant issue.
You can be guaranteed, too, that where there are relationships there will be anger.
Keep in mind that Paul is still dealing with our unity as a church. All of the commands he gives fall under this Jew-Gentile dynamic in the Ephesian congregation. And Paul knows that anger is one of those things that plays a vital role in church divisions. If people would not become angry (or if people would deal with their anger in a godly fashion), then it would be in a much better spot in terms of its health.
To that end, Paul calls us to bring our anger under the Lordship of Christ. And the two verses before us help us do that very thing. I would like to submit to you that these verses speak volumes to us. For there are 4 points that we can glean from them today in regard to the issue of anger.
The first thing we learn is that anger is not all bad. That may come as a bit of a surprise to you. But it is true. Anger does have a proper place in the Christian life. Just look at verse 26. Notice that as Paul begins his discussion of anger he first points out its legitimacy.
I. Its legitimacy
He says, “be angry and do not sin.” You’ll notice that Paul does not say, “Do not be angry.” He actually says the exact opposite. He says, “be angry.”
Paul does not in any way put a blanket prohibition on anger. You may even say that Paul wants you to be angry. Paul gives an imperative. So this is actually a command to be angry. Obviously, Paul does not want you to be angry all the time. But we recognize that Paul says that there is some legitimacy to our anger. He is helping us understand that there is nothing wrong with you getting a little hot under the collar.
This is important to bring out because there have been some people who have said that all anger is sinful. There are Christiaan people who have put all anger into the realm of evil and said that there is no justification for it whatsoever.
But that kind of thinking is not biblical. Anger is a legitimate emotion. It is the emotion of displeasure. And we should understand that this emotion in and of itself is not problematic or evil. It is an emotion that God gave us.
As a matter of fact, this is one way we are made in the image of God. We reflect God’s nature by means of our anger. The Bible says that God gets angry. Psalm 7 says that he is angry with the wicked everyday. The Bible says that our sin provokes God to anger. Yes, he may be slow to anger, but he does get angry. We should not deny that fact.
Furthermore, in the gospels we see that there were numerous times when Jesus became angry. When he saw the money changers in the temple, anger “ate him up.” He was consumed with anger. So angry was he that flipped tables and chase them out with a whip. He was pretty irate.
There’s no denying the fact that anger is a part of who God is. And we were made in the likeness of God in this respect. This is one of those attributes that we share with God. So we shouldn’t think that it is by any means wrong to get angry.
I emphasize this because know that some people feel guilty for getting angry. Perhaps you are one of these people. You get angry at your anger. You feel that you’ve done something wrong when you get mad.
It is understandable that you may feel that way. You may not like feeling this way. If you have a sensitive type of spirit, you may not like how you feel when you get angry. And when you do get angry, you may feel like you’ve done something wrong.
But a great many times, you do not have to feel guilty about it. As I said earlier, anger is the emotion of displeasure. And there are things in this world that are displeasing. It could be sin. I hope you have a displeasure towards sin. When someone hurts you or does something to your property, it is perfectly lawful to be filled with just indignation. That’s the kind of displeasure God feels.
And it can come in other ways too. You might feel angry in regards to things that may not necessarily be sinful. It could be as simple as not getting your way. When you are playing with a friend and he gets the toy you wanted, that’s not sin. But it can make you frustrated. If mom says no you cannot go to your friend’s house; you have to clean the toilets, that might rub you the wrong way. That might upset you.
I want you to understand that this the initial reaction you may have is not necessarily wrong. What is wrong is the sinful expression of that anger.
Which leads us to our second point. Now that we understand anger’s legitimacy, we have to take into consideration its propensity.
II. Its propensity
Our anger, even though it may start off as perfectly justifiable, can have a tendency to go array. That’s why Paul says, “Be angry and do not sin.”
Paul is speaking to the issue of our hearts now. He has gone from speaking about the emotion and initial reaction we feel, to speaking about our soul and what we do as a result of that emotion.
Because of our sinfulness, we don’t typically do the right thing with our anger. Most of the time we express our anger in an uncontrolled or counter productive way. So we end up displeasing God with our displeasure.
Typically, we will do one of two things. We will either blow up or clam up. Some of us may have a propensity to do one more than the other. It’s possible that we may have a mix. But those are the two basic reactions. Because of our hearts’ condition, we either blow up or we clam up.
By blowing up I mean that you become explosive in the way you react. You are like a volcano erupting. You yell, you shout, you punch or slam you hand down. You release a lot of energy. And all that energy is aimed at another person. The purpose of which is to shut them down by force.
On the opposite extreme, you can internalized your anger. This is what I mean when I say you clam up. You have all the same anger; you have all the same energy, but instead of unleashing it outwardly, you swallow it. You clam up by becoming silent and keeping it all pent up inside of you.
So your husband will come to you and he will notice that you seem to be a little quiet. You seem to be giving him the cold shoulder. And he’ll ask you, “What’s wrong?” and you’ll say, “Nothing.” And he’ll find that a little hard to believe. She he’ll probe a little more. And you’ll say, “I’m fine.”
Many people deal with their anger this way because they think it is much more pious. They think that they are doing a good thing because they avoid a confrontation and perhaps even an argument. But that's a false piety. This internalization of our anger is not God's way.
I want to make sure you understand that both of these reactions are wrong. And I emphasize it because we live in a world that will tell you that there’s nothing wrong with it.
For instance, there are some counselors that will advise you that what you need to do is vent your anger. They will tell you that it is not good to keep it all pent up inside of you. You need to get it all out of you. They will tell you that you need to get “catharsis.” And the only way to get this so called catharsis is to just go ahead and unleash it.
I’ve heard stories that there are some therapists who have wiffle ball bats and pillows in their offices. So if you come in and say that your boss is giving you problems, they will tell you that you need to get that anger out of you. Once you get it out, you’ll be fine. So you can take a pillow and scream into it as long and loud as you can. Or you can pretend one of those pillows is your boss. And you can take one of those bats and you can begin thwacking away at it. Just beat that thing to a pulp.
But if you do that, just know that you are not getting catharsis. You are not getting rid of your anger. You are only making it worse. You are reinforcing your anger. You are giving way to your anger.
What’s going to happen when you get mad at your boss and you don’t have a pillow? You’ve trained yourself to vent your anger in an aggressive way. So you may end up screaming in his face. Or worse, picking up a blunt object and walloping him with it.
You also have people go to the other extreme. They will tell you not to give way to your passions and it is inappropriate to vent your anger. What you need to do is suck it up. They will say you have to swallow it and keep it to yourself. Perhaps you grew up in a family that encouraged this kind of thing. Your parents said it was inappropriate to give way to passion. They taught you to be more stoic in your attitude and to suppress your feelings.
This is just as foolish. Instead of unleashing it on someone else, you end up unleashing it on yourself. And that’s going to have its own problems. It’ll can result in bitterness and physical problems, like ulcers. And, of course, at some point that anger will come out. How many premeditated murders have taken place because someone had been brooding on their issues for years on end.
Again, this is the kind of world we live in. They will tell you that these are the ways you should deal with your anger. But we need to recognize that that is all wrong. Those are contrary what God calls us to in His word. He calls us to be self controlled, kind, patient, gentle. He tells us that there is a good and proper way to deal with our anger. And how we need to use this anger to help resolve our problems peacefully and properly.
But what we need to understand is that blowing up and clamming up is directly opposed to God’s will. And we need to understand that our hearts have this kind of sinful inclination. The world will try to justify these sinful reactions, but the world id not the cause of them. This is a problem that has its origin right here in our own soul.
That’s why we need to take heed to what Paul says. God calls us to put off these sinful expressions of anger. He calls us to inward change so that we do not give into this propensity.
And Lord willing, next time we meet together, we are going to deal with some of that. We’re going to talk about how we should handle our anger. For this passage gives us a lot of good direction when it comes to venting our anger in a godly way. But right now, we need to continue looking at the dark side of our anger.
And we need to understand something about our anger and its lethargy.
III. Its lethargy
Look at what Paul says in the rest of verse 26. He says we are not to “let the sun go down on your anger.”
What is Paul saying here? He’s pointing at the fact that we can be rather slow when it comes to dealing with our anger. If something ticks us off, we will often avoid dealing with it. We walk away from that person or situation without coming to any kind of real resolution. And we allow the fire to continue to burn. Maybe we will blow up by storming away from ground zero with clenched fists and we’ll slam the door. Or maybe we will tuck that anger down in and let our resentment simmer.
That’s why I say that anger can be lethargic. We can be lethargic in that we do not make any attempt to solve our problems in a timely fashion. And what happens is that we allow the anger to persist. We let the problem linger on. The sun goes down on our anger. But then the next day comes along, and guess what? The problem is still there.
We may tell ourselves that “time heals all wounds." Or maybe we'll try and say that we just need to sleep it off. But that’s really just a cover for our sloth. There isn’t any healing when you ignore a wound. When you ignore it, it only gets worse. The same is true with our anger.
Paul is telling us that God wants us to put a priority on reconciliation. There needs to be a sense of urgency when it comes to dealing with our problems and that sense of displeasure.
Here again you find the radical difference between the Christian way of life and that of our world. The world around us will frequently talk about ‘anger management.’ If you go to court and get sentenced, you may have to take anger management classes. But you must understand that this is another misled idea. That is by no means a biblical thing. God doesn’t want you to manage your anger; he wants you to end it.
So he tells us to not let the sun go down on our anger. Thus, God puts a time limit on our anger. And he wants us to understand that it is a violation of the 6th commandment to let it linger on for an extended period of time.
Now, the good news is that the Lord does give you most of the day to deal with it. We should be thankful for that. Because it may not be wise to try and solve it right then and there. Maybe its wise to take a little time to cool off. It's never wise to try and act in the midst of passion. Perhaps you might need some time to think about how you have handled things. We might need some time to think about how we will approach things with the person. After all, we don’t want another explosion or you to say something stupid that will only make things worse.
But you have to realize that, in God’s eyes, the clock is ticking. There is a deadline that you need to meet when it comes to your anger.
Now, I had a professor in college say that he and his wife would not talk to each other after 9 pm. They were literalists when it came to this verse; so much so that they just stopped talking after the sun went down. I don’t know what that says about their relationship. But I don’t know that we need to go quite that far.
Obviously, there may be times when you cannot speak to the issue before the sun sets. You may not be able to get the reconciliation before dark. But you can deal with your anger before the sun goes down. What you can at least do is make a plan to address things. Maybe you will say, “I’m going to call him in the morning and see if we can make and appointment to get together.” That’s at least attempting to make headway and doing something active before the sun goes down.
But you get the picture. God’s wanting us to understand that we cannot let our pride get the best of us. We cannot think, “Well, they started it; so they need to come to me first.” No, that is not the kind of attitude God wants. He wants us to be people who are ready to take the initiative. He wants us to put off the procrastinating spirit and be proactive in regards to our relationships.
And there’s good reason for this. Because, as Paul says in verse 27, we can “give the devil a foothold.” This is where I want you to consider the potency of anger. We’ve considered its legitimacy, propensity, and its lethargy. But I want you to understand that anger has a hellish power that it can impose upon you.
IV. Its potency
What exactly does it mean when it says that the devil can get a foothold? It means that, anger, if you allow it to persist, can cause all kinds of other evils in your life. It will be like a cancer that spreads. Its tentacles will reach into other areas of your life and do even more damage.
You should not underestimate the potency of anger. You have to think of it as the fountainhead to many other sins and shortcomings. If you allow it to fester in your soul, it will wreak more havoc.
I mentioned premeditated murder earlier. This is an extreme example, but it is definitely worth considering. Why is it that people commit murder in the first degree? It is obviously not something that pops out of no where. This person has allowed their anger to live in them. They allowed it to gains a foothold. It is something that may be small to begin with, but because it is lodged in there, it ends up growing. That anger turns to resentment. Then it eventually morphs into malice. It takes on a vengeful attitude and begins to delight in a person’s suffering. They cultivate this anger and begin to meditate on how they may bring this person harm.
That’s just an extreme example. And it goes to show how anger can get a foothold and become a swelling pollutant in a person’s life. There are other examples that are not so extreme, but certainly just as powerful and destructive.
For instance, when you are upset, what is the one thing that you normally will do? If you don’t talk to the person who made you angry, who will you talk to? Well, you will likely talk to someone else, and you’ve likely just engaged in the sin of gossip. You have tried to turn this person away from that person by getting them on your side.
And, of course, that has huge implications for the rest of the church, or for your family, or for your work environment. Perhaps you have worked at a place where there seems to be an “us verse them” mentality. That kind of environment is not one that is productive, let alone enjoyable.
But you see how things can escalate. You understand how anger can weasel into other areas of life. It can not only pollute your life, but it has the power to infect whole institutions.
I often speak about this in my premarital counseling. I stress to couples how important it is to settle your problems before the sun goes down. There are couples who find themselves being very unsatisfied in regards to their relationship. I’m speaking in terms of their intimacy. Why is that? It is because they are coming to bed with all their problems. Their anger has gotten a foothold.
It should not be all that hard to understand. You don’t have harmony in the living room; why would you expect to have relational harmony in the bedroom?
Mark my words: Anger is not an opportunity to be missed by the evil forces of this world. Satan would love to capitalize on your anger. He would happily make it snowball so that it causes even more evil.
That’s why it is important that we always seek to be proactive. We must understand that God calls us to deal with our anger. And by dealing with it, I mean putting an end to it. Crucifying it and seeing to it that we put away our anger.
Conclusion
As I mentioned earlier, there is much more to say on this topic. Most of what we have talked about today has to do with the negative aspects of our anger. We recognized that anger has a place (we’ve considered its legitimacy), but we’ve mostly looked at how we fail in regards to our anger. We’ve seen that we have a propensity to blow up or clam up. We’ve noted how we can be lethargic when it comes to dealing with our anger; we can let our feelings linger much longer than is appropriate.
So, we have seen what needs to be put off. But we have not thoroughly considered what we need to put on. That’s why we are going to come back to this passage again next week. And we are going to examine a fifth and final point in regard to anger. And that is its responsibility.
For we know that it is not enough to stop being angry. Our anger calls us to do something. Our anger will only cease when we vent it in the way that God desires.
But for now, I’d like you to take heed to the fact God has laid down here specific commands in regards to our anger. And we need to recognize the need to put off our sinful expressions of anger. And we must not think that avoiding a confrontation is by any means pleasing to God. He is much displeased with us when we vent our anger in a sinful way or are negligent in regards to our dealing with it.
And we should understand that if we do not obey his commands, the Lord may chastise us for it. We can provoke his anger and he may come to us and discipline us.
But that's precisely where the good news is in this passage. The good news is that God will never deal with us as our sins deserve. The Lord will never be provoke to such a degree that he will cast us off forever. For there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and he does not treat us as our sins deserve.
You recognize that our God is not volatile towards you when it comes to his anger. He does not explode and wipe you from the earth. Neither has he given us the silent treatment by turning a cold shoulder to us.
He has dealt with this anger. And he has done so in a most gracious way. For in the fullness of time he sent his Son. And there on the cross the Lord poured out his wrath upon him.
The beautiful thing about this passage is that it is simply calling you to live in the light of these gospel realities. He's calling us to turn from these sinful patterns that are not in keeping with the gospel led life and put on the new characteristics that are, which, Lord willing, we will examine further next time.