Righteousness amid Rage

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

We all have things that make us angry, don’t we? We all experience anger at some point. If you don’t, I’d be kind of concerned about you.

Give me a couple things that make you angry. And if it’s about somebody else in this room, keep it to yourself. But what are some things that make you angry?

Okay. Liars. That makes a lot of us angry, right?

Who else? Julie, the only one that gets angry? Yes.

Thank you. Testifying. Traffic.

Anybody else? Procrastination. Yourself or others?

Okay, yeah. I get angry when others procrastinate, but I get even angrier when I catch myself doing it. Yeah.

Anybody else? Dishonest. Huh? I’m angry at myself so much because it seems like I’m always forgetting something.

Okay, forgetfulness. Yeah, I know that one too. Get angry with myself for that.

You know, we all have things that make us angry. Dishonesty, yeah. I think the thing that makes me angriest is when I see my wife being disrespected.

I’m a fairly easygoing person, but even my kids can see this. My whole face changes. You know, they mouth off at me.

I’m going to sit down and talk to them calmly about it usually. They get disrespectful toward mama. they see a whole different situation.

We all get angry. There’s anger. I mean, it’s nothing new.

But is it my imagination, or does it feel like we are getting angrier as a society, that there’s more of it out there? All right. We’re not alone in that, because I found last summer NPR, National Public Radio, released a study that said 84% of Americans believe our country is angrier than it was a generation ago.

I’d say that’s probably a pretty accurate assessment. 71% of the people surveyed said watching the news makes them angry, at least some of the time. Anybody else in here?

All right, not just me. I listen to the news on the radio, and even that makes me angry. But watching the TV news, I’m not even going to try it.

About 90%, I’ve wondered, are we actually getting angrier, Or is it just that we have more opportunities to vent that anger? You hear more about it. And 90% of people said they were more willing to vent their anger because of social media.

They felt like they had more of a platform to just let it all out there. So I don’t know if it’s that we’re actually getting angrier or we’re just being exposed to it more. But there’s a lot of anger in our world today.

There’s no secret that it’s all around us. Just in the last few months, we’ve experienced lots of this. People calling each other murderers on Facebook because of stuff they believe or don’t believe.

There’s been anger over the coronavirus restrictions. There’s been anger over the lack of coronavirus restrictions. That’s why I said to you a couple weeks ago, you know, I always dreamed of being governor.

There’s no way I’d want to be governor right now because nobody’s, you know, if he has restrictions, some people are mad. If he doesn’t, some people are mad. There’s no way I’d want to be governor of any state at this point.

There’s been anger over racial injustice. There’s been anger over expressing anger over racial injustice. There’s been anger over the lack of law and order.

There’s been anger over trying to enforce law and order. There’s just anger. Some of you have probably felt, I’m getting a little angry that my children think it’s a screaming section in the background right now.

Some of you have probably felt some anger over these things with the way COVID is being handled or not handled, the things going on in our streets. Some of you have been angry about some of those at some point, no doubt. Some of you may even be angry this morning.

Some of you may be here even angry this morning. And the Bible tells us how Christians ought to deal with this anger, if you’ll turn with me, to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4.

We know the easy answer is to go out there and vent that anger and let everybody know how you feel. And it feels so good for just a moment, doesn’t it? Until there’s some repercussions.

Until you’ve torched your witness with everybody you know. Wait a minute, I was praying for that friend for 10 years that they’d come to Christ, and now they’ve just cut me off completely because of my little temper tantrum. We’ve all been there.

So we know what the easy answer is, but the Bible gives us not the easy answer, but the correct answer for how to deal with the anger that we feel at times. Not just about what’s going on in our world. You may be angry about something that has nothing to do with what’s going on in the news.

But we’re continuing on with this series that I’ve been doing for the last few weeks about how to navigate difficult times in a way that draws us closer to God and points other people closer to God. And each of these weeks we’re looking at one of the things that we go through in times of trouble and what the Bible teaches about it. And this morning I want to talk to you about anger.

from Ephesians chapter 4, how to deal with it. Ephesians chapter 4, starting in verse 25, says, Therefore, putting away lying, let each of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. So just before where we picked up in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 25, Paul had been speaking about the work of Christ and how it results in the old man being gone and him creating a new man in us, creating a new person in us.

He writes about that in verses 17 through 24. And in this passage that we looked at that we just read, as a result of what he’s just said about the work of Christ and and out with the old man and in with the new man, he outlines some of the differences that are going to show up. Now these are not the only differences in us as a result of what Christ does, but he outlines a few of them here, that we should go from lying to speaking truth as a result of what Christ has done in us.

We should be more honest. That’s in verse 25. In verse 28 he says that we should go from stealing to working and giving. That we’re no longer takers in society.

We’re no longer looking to get a dishonest advantage, but we go to being productive citizens who are generous with what God’s blessed us with. And then in verses 26 and 27, he outlines how we go from being angry all the time to being kind. Now, it doesn’t mean we’re never going to be angry, but as Christians, sometimes we are known more for what we’re against than what we’re for, which is unfortunate.

There are some things that we should be against. but it’s far more helpful to be vocal about the things we’re for. We’re against sin, but we’re really more for the righteousness of God, for example. We have a reputation sometimes of being a little bit negative.

As Christians, there are going to be times that we’re going to be angry. That’s just part of being human. But are we known for and are we characterized by our anger or are we known for and characterized by kindness?

Is it the moments of kindness that stand out as abnormal for us? Or is it the moments of anger that make people say, that’s not normal for him. He’s typically so kind.

What are we known for? What this is talking about here. Now, none of this that I’m going to talk to you about this morning is about behavior modification.

What I mean by that is it’s not just clean up your life and act better. It’s a reminder that when we are in Christ, we become new people. The message of the Bible is never straighten up and act right.

The message of the Bible overall is that we can’t straighten up and act right. That’s why we needed Christ to die so we could be forgiven. But then as a result, he also indwells us and he gives us his Holy Spirit.

And then he straightens us up. See where we can’t straighten up and act right. He straightens us up and makes us act right.

He causes us to act right. So this is more about becoming new people in Jesus Christ than it is just get yourself in line. if we’re in Christ, we can expect to see a change in ourselves.

Now, sometimes the change is quicker and more complete. It’s quicker to be a complete turnaround than in other cases. But as Christians, we should see, we should expect to see a change in ourselves as a result of what Jesus Christ has done in us.

And if we see no change, then we should really stop and consider whether we are in Christ. You know, if you made a profession of faith 10 years ago and you don’t see any spiritual growth, go back and check and see what happened there. Did you really trust Christ or not? Were you really born again or not?

Because this tells us that as a result of out with the old man and in with the new man in Christ, we’re going to see some changes. It’s a common theme throughout the New Testament here. And in this passage, in particular, it focuses on that wrathful old man.

There are all sorts of things that go out with Christ when he changes us. But this passage seems to focus pretty heavily on wrath and anger and rage that characterize sinful man. And as I’ve said already, we all experience anger sometimes, but the Bible teaches, it’s not a sin to be angry, by the way.

It’s not a sin to be angry. The Bible tells us be angry and do not sin here in verse 26. Okay.

The Bible doesn’t teach that it’s always a sin to be angry. Instead, the Bible teaches us that there are right ways and wrong ways to deal with that anger. There are ways to deal with that anger that bring glory to Jesus Christ, and there are ways to deal with anger that do not bring glory to Jesus Christ. And so our job is to figure out the ways to deal with it in such a way that brings glory to Him and points others to Him instead of away from Him.

So not all anger is sinful, okay? Sometimes you’ll get mad and people will be like, well, I thought you were a Christian. Christians get mad too.

It tells us here, be angry and do not sin. So there’s a, there’s a, at least a possibility that we can do this right, that we can be angry and still not sin in that anger. And then of course, there’s the example given in each of the four gospels, possibly two different occasions, where Jesus got angry and turned tables over and drove people out of the temple with a whip because they were defrauding people, because they were mistreating the temple, this place that was supposed to be set aside for the worship of God.

And they had made it into what he called a den of thieves, a place where they could come and swindle people, where they could come bring them in for worship and then just fleece as much money as possible out of them. And Jesus didn’t like that. And I tell you what, Jesus still doesn’t like that today.

And so Jesus was angry. He turned over the tables. He made a whip and drove them out with it.

Jesus was angry. Jesus was furious. And yet the Bible is also clear that Jesus never sinned, not even once.

So clearly you can be angry. Sometimes you can even act out of that anger and it not be a sin. Sinful anger is what this passage is talking about.

And let me tell you the difference between sinful anger and kind of the anger that Jesus displayed there and the kind of anger that we’re supposed to have and how we’re supposed to deal with it. Sinful anger is uncontrolled anger to start with. When we just lose control, when we let our emotions in the driver’s seat instead of the Holy Spirit, it becomes a sin, all right, because we’re being driven by the flesh rather than by the Spirit.

It’s anger that festers to become bitterness. You know, just having that momentary reaction, that momentary emotion of sin, excuse me, of anger, that momentary emotion of anger as a response to some injustice that’s happened in your world, that’s not necessarily a sin. But when we hold on to it and we hold on to it and we nurse it and we pet it and we love it and we hold on to it and we watch it grow up, it festers into bitterness.

The Bible tells us that we’re not supposed to be bitter. Sinful anger. And in verse 26, he tells us, we see this here because he tells us, do not let the sun go down on your wrath.

Meaning, don’t hold on to it. Don’t hold on to it until the next day. Matter of fact, I drive my wife crazy.

Give you a little peek into our house. I drive my wife crazy. We don’t argue that much, but when we do, eventually she’ll be done and want to walk to the other room and just just be done I will follow her because no this has got to be resolved there there’s there’s a problem between us and I don’t like when we’re not on the same page and we’ve just got to fix this we’ve got to fix it now and so I will follow her over the years she has learned to not be so annoyed when I follow her and I’ve learned to give her at least 30 seconds after she leaves the room.

And so we’re working on it. But you’re not supposed to hold on to it until the next day. We as Christians should be eager to resolve things.

Don’t hang on to it and let it become bitterness. Sinful anger is uncontrolled anger. It’s anger that festers to become bitterness.

It’s anger that serves the flesh instead of God. All right. In verse 30, he tells us that our anger should not grieve the Holy Spirit.

In other words, our anger should be in line with what the Spirit says, not opposed to it. We can get angry for the wrong reasons. Why did Jesus get angry?

Because God was being disrespected. Why do I get angry? Because somebody looked at me funny when they cut me off in traffic.

That’s fleshly anger because me, it’s the flesh that gets fired up. That was done to me. When on the other hand, we see things going wrong and we say, this is not of God.

This is wrong. When we see things going on in our society and we say, this is not what God wants. This is not good for you.

This is going to hurt you. When we get fired up about that, that’s not sinful anger necessarily. We can, we can, we can cross a line there and be hateful about it.

But anger that serves the flesh instead of God is sinful. And then any anger that leads to disobedience is sinful. Any anger that leads us to do what we want to do instead of what God wants us to do is sinful.

Any anger that leads you to lash out at somebody is sinful. Any anger that leads you to, you know, people get angry and they knock their wives and kids around. I don’t care how bad a day you’ve had.

I don’t care what’s going on. Always sinful. Always wrong.

No excuse. No justification. we had people in our neighborhood out screaming at each other one day this week charla and I were outside I felt so awkward because we could see them and they could see us it was like all of their family that not even lived there they were just out screaming at each other and I felt so awkward and I couldn’t just rush in the house that would have made it more awkward because we’d have to walk closer to them to to do it and so charla and I are just standing there I’m saying I think that branch is dead on the rose bush should I go ahead and cut it off yeah I think you should cut it off can you help me stretch out the water?

I mean, we’re just, they were out there, here’s where I’m going with it, they were out there screaming at each other, they were out there saying words that I had never heard before, okay? Some new ones, some new ones, new combinations, yeah? New uses, I didn’t know that could be used as an adverb, but all right, let’s, thank goodness the kids are not out here.

You know, if it’s leading you to get red-faced and scream at your family members to where the cops have to be called and it was not me, I’m not the one who called the police. Always sinful when it leads you to lash out. When it causes us to be disobedient, when it causes us to lash out, when it causes us to serve the flesh, or when it makes it bitter.

These things are sinful anger. And the Bible outlines some of the effects of sinful anger here. It infects the way we deal with others and it allows bitterness to spread.

You know, he said in verse 29, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. As it’s tied to anger, sometimes people will get angry and they’ll say things that they shouldn’t say, say things that maybe even they don’t mean, but that they can never take back and doesn’t it poison the interaction with that person from then on? I mean, we can forgive somebody for something that was said, and sometimes it’s really hard to forget.

Sometimes people don’t even forgive. and the bitterness just grows on both sides because of people acting out of anger. And if you and I as Christians, if we deal with people out of just an uncontrolled anger, yes, there’s a lot of stuff going on in our world right now.

There may be a lot of stuff in your world right now to be angry about, but if we deal with people out of that uncontrolled anger, then it prevents us from building each other up and it prevents us from showing others grace, both of which are spelled out in verse 29 that we are supposed to do. He says, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. Quit spewing out of that anger.

But instead, what is good for necessary edification, that means building others up, that it may impart grace to the hearers. We as Christians want to build others up in the Lord. We want to speak grace to them.

We want to point them to the grace of God. We want to help them understand that there is a God in heaven who has every right to be angry with us, but who chose to show grace and send His Son to die for us instead. How are we possibly going to convey that message of grace to people when we go around spouting off and acting out out of anger?

He says, don’t let that corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. Only what’s necessary for edification and imparting grace. And another effect of this uncontrolled anger is that it grieves the Holy Spirit.

because he tells us deal with your anger in the right way and don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. It means we can grieve the Holy Spirit. Have you ever been grieved by your children?

You’ve been out in public and they’ve said something or done something they shouldn’t have and you just, they’re still my child, I still love them, but can I act like I don’t know them at this moment? I think that’s what it means here. The Holy Spirit is grieved by our behavior sometimes.

we cause him sorrow, we can even make the Holy Spirit feel ashamed. It tells us here in verse 30 that he is here with us to seal us until our redemption is fully realized. Okay, we are as saved as we are ever going to be, but we have not yet experienced all the blessings of that salvation because we have not been taken to heaven to experience the joys of that.

And he is here to seal us until that time. He’s there to hold us to God. And yet all these attitudes, all these angry attitudes, all these sinful attitudes, they deny the work that He’s doing in us.

And meanwhile, the Holy Spirit’s standing there and if He’s anything like me, He’s saying, I’ve taught you better than that. We can grieve the Holy Spirit. And it gives Satan a foothold within our lives.

And He tells us in verse 27, do not give place to the devil. Be angry and sin not. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.

When we allow uncontrolled anger into the driver’s seat, we give the devil a foothold in our lives to corrupt our thoughts and our actions, to undermine our work that we do for the Lord, to undermine our witness for Jesus Christ, and to hinder our fellowship with God. We give him a foothold to get in the way of everything that God wants to do. Everything that God wants us to be.

And so we as believers are told not to let that anger into the driver’s seat. Not to let ourselves be characterized by that anger and that rage. Instead, here’s what he tells us to do.

Be ready to resolve it. Don’t treat it like your pet that you want to hang on to forever. Be ready to resolve it.

Be eager. Be eager to resolve it. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, verse 26 tells us.

Hey, dealing with it quickly. I thought about putting in my notes, deal with it quickly. See, we can deal with it hastily, deal with it quickly, and deal with it in the wrong way.

When we’re angry, we can jump into a situation quickly. I’m going to deal with it, that’s not what I mean. It’s more important than dealing with it quickly, is to deal with our anger the right way, quickly.

Deal with one another quickly. Resolve it, rather than let it fester and turn into bitterness. We should be anxious to resolve it with the other person, especially among believers.

We should be anxious to talk to each other and say, I don’t care. Maybe I do feel like you were wrong. But what’s more important is that there’s something not right between us.

And that’s what the relationship is what needs to be fixed. If we don’t let the sun go down on our wrath, it means that we as Christians should be eager to resolve things. Or sometimes we just want to be mad.

We want to stay mad. The Bible says no. Be quick to resolve it. Sometimes that means resolving it with the other person.

And sometimes that means resolving it with yourself. Sometimes that means I just need to put on my big boy pants and realize that it wasn’t that big a deal in the first place, and I have no reason to be so outraged. Sometimes you do need to go to the other person.

When you’ve got that, when you’re angry about something, sometimes you’ve got to go make it right with the person, and the Bible gives us steps to carry out to do that. Sometimes it means me just letting go and realizing just because I feel mad about something doesn’t mean that something was actually wrong. So I would suggest to you this morning, if there’s any anger you’re holding on today, don’t delay dealing with it any longer.

Get it resolved. Resolve it with that other person. If you just need to resolve it within yourself and let go of it, do that.

Resolve it with the Lord. If you’re saying, I know this is right, but I kind of still want to be mad, talk to the Lord and ask him to help you have a heart that’s willing to resolve it and to forgive and be forgiven. Don’t give Satan that foothold that he wants to have.

Be ready to resolve it. Because when a situation makes us angry, we may have to fight to keep that anger under control. He tells us here to keep it under control.

We are not always in control of the emotions that strike us, but we are responsible to God for how we respond to those emotions. We don’t always choose to be angry, but we do have to choose how we deal with that anger. We have to keep ourselves under control.

He tells us in verse 29 not to speak destructive words. He tells us to build each other up. He tells us to show grace.

But this is more than self-control. I’m going to tell you we have to get this anger under control. It’s more than just self-control.

The Bible calls self-control a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. 23. This means we can control ourselves, but we can only control ourselves because of the work of the Holy Spirit within us, enabling us to get control over those things.

So it’s not just self-control, it’s Spirit-led self-control. We’ve got to rely on the Holy Spirit and His work in us to help us get this right. We need to follow His lead.

And ultimately, we need to look to Jesus because He’s the example we’re supposed to follow. He’s the example we’re supposed to follow. Paul told the Ephesians to get rid of all the rage in verse 31.

Get rid of all the rage, get rid of all the bitterness, the screaming, the accusations, the malice, all the things that we think of when we think of somebody being angry, red-faced, and screaming, and acting out. He said, get rid of all of that. And in verse 32, he told them to be kind and compassionate and be quick to forgive.

Why? Because that’s how the gospel works. Why am I supposed to do that?

Why do I, as a Christian, have to let go of my anger when I feel completely justified in it? Why do I have to let go of that anger and be kind and forgiving? Because that’s how the gospel works.

God put aside all the consequences that we deserve. As I said earlier, God has every right to be furious with us in our sin. And yet God put aside all the consequences that we deserve.

And in Christ, he showed us all the forgiveness, all the mercy, and all the grace that we did not deserve. God showed us kindness that we didn’t deserve. So we have a choice when we’re angry.

We can either let the anger of the moment control us, we can use that moment as an opportunity to give the world a living demonstration of what the gospel looks like. We can be kind to those who don’t deserve it because he was kind to us. We can be quick to forgive those who don’t deserve it because he was quick to forgive us when we didn’t deserve it.

And when we look at the world and it seems to be so much angrier now than it’s ever been, I don’t know if it actually is, but it seems that way. When the world seems to be so much angrier than it’s ever been. What the world needs now is not more anger.

What the world needs now is more kindness and more grace and more forgiveness. People need to experience grace and kindness and forgiveness from us as Christians, but ultimately, as a result of that, they need to experience kindness and forgiveness and grace from God. And it’s our job to point them to that.

It’s our job to help them understand that they are separated from God because of their sins, that they do not deserve, that none of us deserve God’s forgiveness, that we’ve all sinned against him, and the penalty that we deserve is death and separation from him for eternity in hell. And yet God, who could have been angry, God who could have just written us off in his anger, instead showed the kindness and the mercy and the grace and the forgiveness, the willingness to send his only begotten son, Jesus Christ to go to the cross, to be nailed to that cross, to shed his blood, and to die, taking full responsibility for all of those sins of ours, so that he could pay for them, so that he could be punished in our place, so that you and I could be forgiven. And now as a result, God offers forgiveness, and he offers salvation.

He offers all these things that we don’t deserve. When he could be mad, he offers forgiveness. That forgiveness is what the world needs.

That forgiveness is what you and I need. And if you don’t have it this morning, it is as simple as admitting that you’ve sinned against God. Admitting that that sin has separated you from God and that God has every right to be angry with you, but also acknowledging that you believe that he sent Jesus to die in your place.

Believing in Jesus as your one and only Savior, because he died on the cross to pay for your sins in full, and he rose again to prove it. And this morning, if you’ll cry out to God and you’ll admit that sin and you’ll acknowledge Jesus as your one and only Savior and you will ask God to forgive you on the basis of what Christ did. And He will save you, He will forgive you, and He’ll give you eternal life.