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Anger
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God’s Answers for Our Anger
Ephesians 4:20-32
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church - Jan. 14, 2018
BACKGROUND:
*Please open your Bibles to Ephesians 4 to see what God has to say about our anger.
Here Paul is speaking to Christians, and on some level, all of us have to face up to our anger.
If you don’t believe it, take a bottle away from any happy baby, and in two seconds you will have a very angry person on your hands.
*Anger can be a big problem for us.
But God has the answers for our anger.
Please think about that as we read Ephesians 4:20-32.
MESSAGE:
*Do you ever lose your temper?
Have you ever had a big blow up over something really small?
Have you ever gotten mad, and said something you shouldn’t have said, something you didn’t mean, something you wish you could take back?
*Well, you’re not alone.
Some of us struggle with our anger more than others.
But all of us have been there to one degree or another.
And all of us have to overcome our anger on some level.
The good news is that God has the answers for our anger!
And here’s what to do:
1. First: We need to see the ugliness of our ungodly anger.
*God wants us to see the ugliness of our ungodly anger.
But please understand that some anger is appropriate.
In vs. 26, Paul tells Christians to "be angry and sin not."
One reason why this is possible is because there is such a thing as good anger.
We know this is true because God gets angry, and He never does anything wrong.
*A good place to see the Lord's righteous anger is in Mark 3:1-5.
There God's Word says this about Jesus:
1.
And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand.
2. And they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.
3. Then He said to the man who had the withered hand, "Step forward.''
4.
And He said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?''
But they kept silent.
5.
So when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand.''
And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.
*God gets angry, and we are created in the image of God, so godly anger is good.
In fact, the only good anger is godly anger.
There is such a thing as righteous indignation.
And God will put us in places to take a stand for truth, for justice, for righteousness, and for Him.
*At the right time, in the right way, for the right reason, godly anger is good.
But most of the time when we get angry, we do sin.
That's the problem.
And that’s the main reason why in vs. 26, Paul said: "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath."
*James 1:16-20 helps us understand.
There God’s Word says this to Christians:
16.
Do not err, my beloved brethren.
17.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
18.
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
19.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
20.
For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
*Our ungodly anger is an unrighteous, ugly thing, and it can cause terrible damage in our lives.
That’s why in vs. 26, Paul said: "Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath."
*Proverbs 14:17 says, "He who is quick-tempered acts foolishly, and a man of wicked intentions is hated."
-Proverbs 15:18 in the NAS says: "A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, But the slow to anger calms a dispute."
-The NLT says: "A hothead starts fights; a cool-tempered person tries to stop them."
*That's why Psalm 37:8 tells us to "cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it only causes harm."
*We need to see the ugliness of our ungodly anger.
Will Rogers once said: "Whenever you fly into a rage, you seldom make a safe landing."
-- And he was right.
(1)
*Philip Ryken said: "We need to see how destructive our anger is, both to ourselves and to others.
Unrighteous rage destroys the intimacy between a husband and wife, the friendship between a parent and child, the effectiveness of a work force, and the ministry of any Christian who won't get their temper under control.
And if we are going to make any progress in this area, we need to see how serious a sin it really is." (2)
*So again, Psalm 37:8 says "cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it only causes harm."
We need to understand the ugliness of our anger.
It can cause more harm than we can imagine.
*Have you ever seen a fight break out at a ballgame?
Most of us have, on TV anyway.
I remember a church softball game I was at years ago.
A guy got called out at second base and he didn't like it.
He blew up in a storm, and got so mad, that he went over and pushed the ump down.
*What made it worse was the ump was a woman.
-- Yeah.
That man had to do the walk of shame.
And the church softball game was pretty much over after that.
*Our ungodly anger can do more damage than we could possibly imagine.
Back in the spring of 1894, the Baltimore Orioles went to Boston to play a routine baseball game.
And at some point, the Orioles’ John McGraw got into a fight with the Boston third baseman.
Within minutes all the players from both teams had joined in the brawl.
*The battle quickly spread to the grandstands, and went from bad to worse.
Someone set fire to the stands and the whole ballpark burned to the ground.
Then the fire spread to 107 other buildings in Boston!
(3)
*Uncontrolled anger is always destructive.
It can be dangerous, disastrous, and even deadly.
*I remember when I first realized how ugly my anger could be.
It was way back in 1976.
Mary and I had been married a little over a year, and I had started losing my temper with her.
I had no idea how bad it was until the night we were eating up at Piccadilly, and I lost my temper in the restaurant over nothing.
All of a sudden, I realized that people all around us were looking at me.
And it was a turning point, because I began to see how ugly my anger really was.
2. God wants us to see the ugliness of our ungodly anger.
-- He also wants us to accept the ownership of our anger.
*Again in vs. 26, Paul said: "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath."
"Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath."
When we get mad, it's our anger.
Nobody makes us get mad.
*As aggravating as people can be sometimes, when we get mad, the problem is not them.
It’s us.
It’s our heart, -- our problem.
We will never get over ungodly anger if we live in denial, or try to push the blame off on someone else.
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