Passages from the Bible Gateway NIV Version
The Christian Walk 101 - Anger
Ephesians 4:17-32
Introduction
Ephesians 4:17-32 - 17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds;24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. 26 “In your anger do not sin”[d]: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold. 28 Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need.
29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Today we’re going continue looking at this passage in Ephesians chapter 4. As we continue in our series Christianity 101, today we’re going to look at the next aspect in this series as we deal with how we as Christians should walk. As we continue to look at these passages within Ephesians it’s important for us to realize that what we are changing within our lives really boils down to our attitudes. The attitudes of our mind. You see when we look at being truthful as we did last time, we need to realize that if we are going to be truthful, we have to change the attitudes of our minds. If we have the attitude that is okay to lie in this and this type of situation, then we will never overcome lying within our lives because our attitude about lying is that it is okay and we end up with a situational ethics about lying. The situational ethics we encounter is usually it is okay to lie when it is in my best interests!
When we do this we will continue to lie, so we must allow God and his spirit to work within our lives so that we may be made new in the attitude of our minds. In other words, to be transformed more and more into the image of God. So when God says that something is glorious and good we see it as glorious and good and when God sees something that is evil and bad, we see it as evil and bad.
In today’s lesson it is going to be the same thing, we will be looking at changing our attitudes. The next attitude that we need to change within our lives is our attitude towards anger.
Anger can be dealt with in two ways
In Ephesians 4:26-27 it says, “26 “In your anger do not sin”[d]: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold.”
The first thing we must realize when we look at anger is that it is not wrong to become angry. Anger is an emotion that was given to us by God and God himself has shown himself to become angry. We see this many places in scripture like in Joshua 7:1, “But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things[a]; Achan son of Karmi, the son of Zimri,[b] the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel.”
Achan broke some very specific instructions that God gave Israel before God delivered Jericho into their hands. God told Israel in Joshua 6:17-19 it reads,” 17 The city and all that is in it are to be devoted[a] to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. 18 But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. 19 All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.”
What did Achan do? He took some of the plunder that God told him not to take and as a result God’s anger burned. So we see that God also has the emotion of anger and therefore the emotion of anger is not sinful. As we see here in Ephesians it is not the emotion of anger that is the problem, but rather how we deal with the anger that leads us into all sorts of sins.
Righteous Anger
Since God cannot sin, when he is angry he must still be righteous in his anger. We need to understand what makes God angry so we in turn can learn what proper anger is about. Turn to
Exodus 22:22-24 22 “Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless. 23 If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. 24 My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless."
One area where God’s anger burns is against those that take advantage of the helpless. When God looks down and sees us taking advantage of the widows and orphans and those who are helpless it makes him angry. God seeing people hurting others he has created makes him angry. It is a righteous anger that rises up to protect those who are vulnerable and weak.
There is another area where God’s anger is roused.
Exodus 32:9-10 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
This passage in Exodus is where the people made the golden calf and started worshiping an idol instead of God. God’s anger burns against people who give their attention and affections to anyone or anything other than God himself. When we sin and turn our hearts away from being focused on God, God’s anger burns.
God does not want our leftovers. God wants all of our heart. When we are half-hearted towards him, we not only hurt ourselves but we end up hurting others God has created. As Christians we also hurt God’s reputation, by not demonstrating to the world God’s changing power within our lives and God’s anger burns.
So we can see that God being Holy and perfect and true is angered when he sees people being unholy, imperfect and deceitful. To break this down to the simplest of terms God’s anger burns when we sin. Our sinful attitudes, our hard hearts that are willing to hurt others to get what we want is what makes God angry. We call it righteous anger.
Sinful Anger
The problem we have is that in our anger we often do sin. We get angry about things that should not rouse our anger and when we are angry we do not display the righteous anger of God. Since there is not a thou shall not get angry command it leads us to an important question. How do I know that my anger is sinful? Let’s look at some of these attitudes that show we are in sinful anger.
Is Wanting to Hurt Another Person
Matthew 5:21-22 says, “You have heard that [k]the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be [l]liable to the court.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be [m]guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘[n]You good-for-nothing,’ shall be [o]guilty before [p]the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be [q]guilty enough to go into the [r]fiery hell.
The first thing I want us to recognize in this passage is it is tied to the concept of committing murder. In other words it is the heart of wanting to do harm to another person. When we find ourselves angry and wanting to inflict vengeance against another person or when we have a desire to get even, then our anger is sinful.
Romans 12:17-19 says, “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. [o]Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but [p]leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.”
In our anger we must not desire pay backs. Getting even is a way for us to justify returning evil back on the person who has wronged us. When we do what is evil to get even it is sin. When we desire to take vengeance against another person it is sin. Vengeance is not an authority that God has given to us. Vengeance belongs to the Lord.
Is Directed Towards Another Person
Another attitude that lets us know we are sinning in our anger that we can see from this passage is that it is directed towards another person. Our anger is directed towards the person and not the sin. We see this when we want to take revenge against the other person, when we want to give the other person the cold shoulder or we just don’t want to associate with that person any more. When we come to Church and we see so and so sitting over on that side so we go and sit on the other side so we can avoid that person and our intent is to keep as far away from them as possible, our anger towards that person is sinful. When we have these types of attitudes we are angry at the person and not the behavior that has led to the anger. Our heart should be to restore the relationship and not destroy the relationship. If our brother or sister has sinned against us and we see them entangled in sin, instead of us being angry for the wrong done to us, we should be wanting to go and help the person out of the trouble they are in and restore them to the body of Christ and restore the relationship that was damaged.
Is Irrational
In the King James Version it phrases this a little differently, Matthew 5:22, “22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment:” Not only is it sinful to wish harm, or avoid another person because of our anger, we also know our anger is sinful when it is irrational. We are angry with our brother or sister without cause. There is no reason for us to be angry! We see this type of anger most often when the problem of our anger is actually ourselves.
James 4:1-2 says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.”
This is irrational anger. We get angry at others because we have desires within our heart that ends up consuming us to the point where we are willing to get angry and fight and quarrel to get what we want. These things really are things that have become idols within our hearts. It can be even good things that we have let become consuming in our lives to the point where we are willing to trample over and cause division to accomplish our desires. We justify doing this because we see what we are trying to accomplish as good and right so the person opposing us must be sinful and wrong and therefore it is alright to cause divisions and conflicts.
The heart issue with this irrational anger is that we are trying to accomplish our goals in our own strength. “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.” Now listen closely, “You do not have because you do not ask God.”
We want it. Sometimes it is even a good thing we want, but we don’t ask God! We go it alone and in our own strength and our own time. When we do it alone and we don’t wait for God to open the door we will end up trying to accomplish our desires by doing things that are sinful. We will kill, covet, quarrel and fight.
When we evaluate our motives and we see that we are willing to divide, break relationships and willing to cause division between people, groups and the church we know that our anger is sinful.
Root Cause of Sinful Anger
So when we get down to the very root cause of anger, I see it resting in pride. Let’s continue Reading in James 4:3-10
3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us[b]? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: (CHANGE SLIDE)
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”[c]
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
How To Control Our Anger
If you want to control your anger, then you must first humble yourself and submit yourself to God. We must stop playing the harlot with God and stop thinking we can continue to do things our way and in our time. Being friends with the world is being an enemy with God. So we must submit to God and humble ourselves. We must put off the ways of this world and start coming near to God.
Getting our noses in God’s direction manual and start coming near to God. Studying, putting God’s directions into practice within our lives. Our evil ways are not pleasing to God and it is not fun or funny. To change our hearts we must realize that God is King and we are his servants. We must humbly start following after him with all of our hearts. Are you ready to do things God’s way? If so here are some passages that will help us with anger if we are willing to work on them by resisting the devil and those temptations that want us to be angry with a sinful anger.
Psalms 37:8 - Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
Proverbs 16:32 - He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.
Proverbs 19:11 - A man’s discretion makes him slow to anger,
And it is his glory to overlook a transgression.
Ecclesiastes 7:9 - Do not be [h]eager in your heart to be angry,
For anger resides in the bosom of fools.
James 1:19-25 - 19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
Closing
If you want to overcome sinful anger then:
• Be humble
• Deal with your anger quickly (Don’t let the sun go down)
• Refrain from anger
• Turn away from wrath
• Do not fret
• Be a person of discretion
• Be slow to become angry
• Overlook transgressions
• Don’t be eager to be angry
• Be quick to listen
• Be slow to speak
The reality is our human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires us to have within our lives. It leads to sinfulness, pain, heartache and broken relationships. So do not merely read God’s word and forget it. Put the things you learn into practice. I challenge each of you to work on putting this lesson into practice this week. Let us all work on anger this week and watch God as he transforms us more and more into his image.
