This morning I want to talk about finding freedom from anger, or to be precise, from destructive anger, not all anger. And our sermon text for this morning lays out a very simple outline of some really important guidance for us about anger. It is Ephesians 4:25-27. 26 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil.
So I want to make 3 main points today from our text.
• Verse 26 says, “Be angry”. There is a time for anger. The Apostle Paul isn’t telling us to be angry a lot. This isn’t like love, where the more loving you can be the better. Anger can really get you in trouble, but there is a time for it.
• When you are angry, don’t sin. And every one of us could talk about moments when we got angry or someone else did and it went really bad. For that I’m going to think about acute anger, particular situations that come and go.
• And be sure not to let the sun go down on your anger. I hear in that a warning against chronic anger, letting it fester and burn in your heart. That gets really destructive.
Now anger is something that good Christian people generally don’t like. In most churches and many families we are taught that to be mad is bad. And being good and being mad just don’t go together. To be good and mad feels like an oxymoron, two words that just don’t fit together, like hot ice or jumbo shrimp, a dull shine, an easy childbirth, kosher ham, or airline cuisine.
Churches have often been places that were just plain against anger. We look out at the conflicts and boiling emotions of the world outside and we say, let’s just be calm and love each other here, just chill out, be calm, whatever happens, it will be all right.
We have even brought that ideology into the church in the form of a theology that says that God just radically accepts everybody, and everything, no matter what. We like the stories of Jesus meek and mild, hugging children and feeding hungry people. Doesn’t that sound nice?
Is it possible to be good and mad? Paul says to be mad, but not to sin. It must be possible.
Actually, the Bible talks about God being angry a lot. In the Old Testament God was angry when the Egyptians enslaved and abused the Israelites. And anyone who can look at slavery without getting at least a little mad has something wrong with them. And that isn’t just ancient history or American pre-civil war history. Today millions of women are trapped as sex slaves, workers are trapped in sweat shops as slaves, children are kidnapped into guerilla armies and forced to serve as slaves. Be sure that makes God mad, and it should make us mad, too.
One day Jesus went into the temple to celebrate the Passover. One of the really neat things about the temple is that it had a special place for people who hadn’t grown up Jewish, who hadn’t converted yet, but who were honestly seeking, could come and pray. That was really important to Jesus. He died so that disciples could be made in every nation. And when he got there, the court of the Gentiles, the place for those who were still seekers, was all clogged up with moneychangers and sheep sellers, making such a commotion that there was no way anybody could pray there. And Jesus got mad. And he chased them out.
And even in our enlightened age, I’m sure God is angry. God is angry that billions of dollars are going down the drain every year in military spending while children are dying of starvation.
God is angry that so many people are content to live very comfortable lives for themselves and won’t go beyond token charitable contributions to help others who are in desperate need.
God is angry that we just keep polluting the air and wasting the natural resources he put into this beautiful earth, at all the animal species that are endangered because we can’t see beyond getting the most products for ourselves by the cheapest method available. God is angry.
I believe God is angry that churches so often dink around worrying about so many petty things while there are still many millions of people on this earth who have never heard that there is a savior who died for them and wants to make their lives new.
If we care about this world, we will be angry when things destroy it. If we refuse to allow ourselves to be stirred by anger, then we become without passion, apathetic. And those who refuse to allow themselves to be angry become the passive sheep who allow the wolves of the world to tear through the flock. There are times when God calls us to be mad.
Those who see injustice and stifle themselves from doing anything about it start rationalizing that decision. “There’s nothing I can do about it anyway. I can’t do anything. I don’t know what to do. What I do doesn’t matter.” And pretty soon they start to believe those rationalizations and have talked themselves into being incompetent and ineffective. Many times people who are depressed are really people who are angry. But they are stuck in that anger and not channeling it constructively, so it turns inside and poisons them. And sometimes when someone is stuck in depression, taking just one positive step to address the problem, to break the lie that says you are incapable feels wonderful.
Blessed are those who are able to find motivation for the energy to throw themselves into life and do great things. There’s a place for being mad, for allowing yourself to be deeply stirred about the things that need to be changed in this world. That’s the first part of this morning’s message. So are you with me that there is a time for anger?
Then comes a hard part. Be angry. But do not sin.
I think of those who don’t allow themselves to be deeply moved as being like people who stick to getting around in a horse and buggy. It’s slow. It’s frustrating. You don’t get very far. But it feels safe.
And if you decide to move up to a faster life, to let yourself be moved by your feelings, it would be like moving up from the horse and buggy to driving a hot car. All of a sudden there is a lot more power. It might be intoxicating. You might love the energy of it. But if you are going to drive a powerful car, you’d better be ready to stop when you come to a red light. You’d better understand that you stay in your lane except to pass, and then only when you can see that the road is clear. You’d better know to yield to pedestrians. And you’d better know enough not to drive in your neighbor’s front yard. If you can’t control the power of the car constructively, you don’t belong on the road. Paul tells us, “Be angry, but do not sin.”
Let’s think together about some of the destruction when people let their anger get out of control. What damage gets done?
Trust is broken
Can lead to violence
People stop thinking clearly (makes you stupid)
Foolish things are said.
Feelings are hurt
Stop thinking about other peoples’ feelings or thoughts or needs.
Communication stops
Negotiation stops
If someone is being irrational, how can you solve anything?
Children can be deeply wounded. How many of us can think of a time, maybe decades ago when something was said to us in anger and we still hurt from it? Just thinking about it can turn an adult back into a child.
Centuries ago anger was listed as one of the seven deadly sins because it so often leads to many other sins.
And what can we do to prevent anger from getting us into trouble? Proverbs 16:32 says “One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty.” Don’t let your anger just jump out and get you in trouble. You can learn to control it, to take a few minutes to think carefully about what you are going to do with your anger. That’s hard, but the proverb continues, “One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and one whose temper is controlled than one who captures a city.” Sometimes it’s harder to control ourselves than to control a whole city. But it’s necessary.
In that pause, where you count to ten, or maybe to 50, you can have a chance to see the situation through the other person’s eyes. And that may make it easier to respond wisely. In that pause, you may be able to think of a soft answer that would work a whole lot better than an angry answer. Proverbs 15:1 tells us that “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Take an extra minute to come up with a soft answer, something that will get you working together on a solution.
Use your anger to attack problems, never to attack people. Someone may say something that really hurts you inside, maybe someone you love. And the first feeling might be to push them away, hurt them back, and give up on your love for them. Remember that you can love someone and be mad at them at the same time. Work through the thing that made you mad, and do it in a loving, open, gentle way. You can love someone and be mad at them at the same time. You don’t have to go on the attack.
But there is something even more destructive than blowing up today. That is letting the anger just simmer inside yourself. So Paul told the Ephesians, “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.”
We have all met people who carry a ball of anger deep inside, ready to explode at any provocation. Most likely it is unresolved anger, a grudge they have been carrying, sometimes for a long, long time. And that unresolved anger builds up pressure and more pressure until the slightest thing sets it off. And Lord have mercy on whoever is around when it explodes.
Don’t just stay angry all the time. That’s what Milton Berle said about his wife. He said she was very even tempered, angry all the time. That will poison you inside and make you miserable to be around. Don’t let your anger simmer away forever. Act on it.
One thing would be to take time to look at how you interpret the things that happen to you.
Three people may get laid off by the same firm on the same day. One person may choose to interpret the layoff as a personal offense, attach this offense to a long list of other offenses he has collected, and make a scene on the last day, and say very nasty things to the poor person who had to deliver the notice and spend the next month blowing up at anyone who crosses their path. Their anger gets channeled into attacks on people. And when they get an interview for another job they may find themselves just venting about how badly they were treated at the last job. And who’s going to hire someone like that? Their anger is destroying them.
A second person may get the same pink slip on the same day and choose to interpret it in the big picture of the economy and choose not to take it personally or get angry at all and because of that be free to focus on the task of getting another job.
The third may take that pink slip and bring it to God and accept it as a challenge to walk by faith, trusting God to see him through until he finds another job. And then that person may be free not only to go out and find another job, to find motivation to support the many others who are going through the same things. And again the focus is on attacking problems, not people.
The battle is in your own heart. And many of us carry deep wounds from many years ago that have been stirring us up for years and distorting our thinking. And that’s one of the reasons why Christians have emphasized the daily discipline of spending time alone with God to allow God to sort out the tangle of misperceptions and feelings we all carry.
In the words of Psalm 139, “23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. 24 See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
There can be a sort of perverse pleasure in letting anger take over your life. It allows you to blame all your problems on other people, to avoid responsibility for your own actions. But the more you label yourself as a hopeless victim, the more you start to really become a hopeless victim, busier at collecting reasons to be mad than at solving your problems. And anger and self pity become a bottomless pit. You are so afraid of blowing up that you don’t dare try to resolve your conflicts with people. And because you don’t do anything constructive to solve conflicts with people, they don’t get resolved. So you get more angry. And you are really in trouble.
And you really need to hear our scripture for this morning: “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” Resolve it today. That may mean having a direct conversation with the one who irritates you, working together to find a solution so it won’t happen again.
If something doesn’t go the way you planned, instead of getting mad about it, it may mean doubling down, planning more thoroughly for the next time and learning from what went wrong.
If it’s something that really isn’t going to be fixed today, it definitely means letting the anger go. Leave the problem in God’s hands. Remember that you don’t have to panic. God is here. You can let go.
And remember the model of God’s anger. God’s anger is righteous. He doesn’t just blow up every time he doesn’t get his way. He is only angry over righteous causes, things that really matter. And, while human anger so easily gets out of control, God’s anger is always just. It does not lead him to do anything wrong.
Psalm 103:8 tells us that “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” God is slow to anger. He really, really works to let us respond to his grace. He does everything he can do to solve a problem before getting angry.
And Psalm 30:5 says that God’s anger is “but for a moment.” He is quick to forgive, quick to return to joy. He doesn’t simmer and fume forever. If you have messed up, give him any sign that you are going to work with him on it and his anger is gone, and he’s on your side.
