Grace Church
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Burlington, WI 53105

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How to be liberated from Sinful Anger Ephesians 4:22-32 Dealing with Feelings Sermon Series Sermon #2 [Open with Film Clip from Home Alone - fight over the pizza] The news coming out of Rhode Island this past week has been gruesome. Nearly one hundred people lost their lives at the Station Concert Club when fire from pyrotechnics gone horribly bad, spread through the club. It will take days before many of the charred corpses are identified.   While not as physically deadly, another fire is raging in homes and lives across the globe this morning. As that scene from Home Alone depicted, it’s the fire of anger. It’s estimated that one out of five Americans has an anger management issue. Psychology Today calls our generation “The Age of Rage.”    Nearly everywhere we turn, we see ever increasing rage. It’s unusual to read the newspaper without reading of hostage takings, road rage, air rage, work rage, and not just high school but elementary school shootings. What’s most alarming is that many of these acts of violence occur not with strangers, but with people they know. It appears that they just weren’t able to control their anger in their personal relationships.    The statistics are mind‑boggling.  Nearly 60% of all murders in America are between people who know each other, yet don’t know how to manage their anger. During one recent winter two neighbors got into an argument over where snow should be shoveled. One became so enraged, he pulled out a pistol and killed the other man. In 1998 four million women were beaten by their husbands, men who would profess to love those same wives. More than ten million children were abused by parents who didn’t know how to control their anger. These people weren’t monsters, terrorists or serial killers. Some were doctors, lawyers, plumbers, telecommunication workers, even Sunday School teachers. Some are your neighbors...co-workers. It might even be you. They are individuals who simply did not know how to control their anger.   Toxic anger is a relationship killer. Everyday in neighborhoods just like yours, a wife becomes so angry with her husband that she says things to him she doesn’t mean, words which inflict deep and sometimes permanent wounds. Everyday in homes like yours, a father gets so frustrated with his son’s unwillingness to listen that he jerks his son far harder than he should. He gains not only his son’s attention but also his fear. Everyday on streets just like the ones we use, drivers use their cars as weapons in response to what they believe to be reckless, dangerous or just plain stupid driving on the part of some other driver. It’s the age of rage.   Parents who didn’t know how to control their anger raised many of us. Anger is one of the primary issues that breaks marriages apart. Most of us were never taught how to manage our anger. It’s certainly not being taught in most schools. The entertainment industry is not teaching it. Sadly, it’s not even being taught in most churches. But someone has to teach us how to handle our anger before we destroy our relationships and ourselves.   Perhaps what makes anger so menacing is that it’s so elusive. It can flare suddenly, powerfully and irrationally. It doesn’t see the future, just the immediate. If anger always had a long fuse, it wouldn’t be the problem that it is. We’d think, “Wait! I smell smoke. I hear the fuse burning. I’ll get a bucket of water to douse the flame.” But anger doesn’t usually have a lengthy fuse.      When anger is unleashed in our lives, it can feel like an inner fire. It hits you in the gut. You see red, feel hot and sweaty. You perspire, your nostrils may flare, and your jaw tightens. You are visibly irritated. You may feel like you’re going to explode. It’s painful. But explosive anger is not the only kind that’s deadly. Sometimes anger disguises itself behind masks of silence, cynicism or passive‑aggressive behaviors like pouting, stubbornness, sarcasm and argumentativeness. Anger looks like compliance on the outside, but on the inside resentment and hostility are raging just beneath the surface.   Anger is a lot like energy. It cannot be destroyed, only stored or altered to another form. When we fail to deal with anger, it pushes its way into our souls and troubles our minds. It hampers our relationships and can even produce physical problems. Learning how to Biblically handle our anger must be priority, or it will destroy us and those around us. Someone has insightfully said that ANGER is just one letter short of DANGER.   Our loving Heavenly Father does not want us to be consumed by rage. He does not want us to be victims of sinful anger, but instead be liberated from it. Turn again to Eph. 4:26-27, 29-32. This morning we want to talk about how we can be liberated from Sinful Anger. Hopefully this study will help some of you come to terms with the emotions that are raging inside of you. God’s Word has the answer on how we can be free from this age of rage.   1. What is anger? The dictionary says that “anger is a strong feeling of displeasure aroused by a real or a supposed wrong.” All of us have experienced those feelings of displeasure at one time or another. Psychologists tell us anger is one of our earliest emotions. Anyone who has had a baby with diaper rash will agree. I’d never heard such nerve-jarring sounds until I had children.   Those who study human emotions tell us that there are also various phases of anger. All of us have experienced some of them. Anger can begin with mild irritation, which is nothing more than perhaps an innocent experience of being upset, a mild feeling of discomfort brought about by someone or something. Anger can turn from irritation to indignation, which is a feeling that something must be answered; there must be an avenging of that which is wrong. Both irritation and indignation can go unexpressed. If fed, indignation leads to wrath–which never goes unexpressed. Wrath is a strong desire to avenge. Then, as it increases, anger becomes fury. The word suggests violence, even a loss of emotional control. The last phase of anger is rage. Obviously, rage is the most dangerous form of anger.   A father wanted to demonstrate to his son the difference between irritation and rage. He looked up the phone number of a pompous fellow commuter whom he knew only by name and reputation, and then he dialed the number. When the call was answered by the man, the father asked, “Is George there?” “There’s no George here. Why don’t you get the right number before bothering people this hour of the night?” roared the man on the other end. “Now that,” said the father as he put down the phone, “was simply irritation. We’ll wait a few minutes, and then you’ll hear something.” After a decent interval, the father dialed the same number and again asked, “Is George there?” This time the other party literally screamed into the phone, “What’s the matter with you, are you crazy? I told you to look up the number and stop bothering me!” Whereupon the receiver at the other end was slammed down. “Now that fellow was angry,” said the father. “In a few minutes I will show you what I mean by rage compared to anger.” After 15 minutes or so, the father dialed the same number for the third time, and when the same man answered at the other end, the father said almost cheerily, “Hi! This is George. Have there been any messages for me during the past half hour?” Most of us find it far too easy to move from irritation to rage in a matter of moments. 2. Not all anger is sinful. Usually, we think of all anger as wrong and sinful. That’s not what the Bible teaches. What Paul writes in Ephesians should cause us to pay careful attention, “In your anger do not sin” (4:26, p. 829). The New English Bible translates it this way; “If you are angry, do not let anger lead you into sin...” One can be angry and not sin.   Anger, like grief or joy, is a God-given emotion. We’re image-bearers, made in the likeness of God. And God, our Creator, gets angry. The psalmist wrote, “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Ps. 7:11).   The Lord Jesus, the One we typically think of as meek and gentle Jesus, expressed anger on more than one occasion. Twice during His ministry, both at the beginning and at the end of His ministry, He drove the moneychangers out of the Temple.   The Jews had all sorts of silly rules and regulations. They wouldn’t accept Roman money at the Temple. So when the people came and had to buy animals for sacrifices, they first had to exchange their Roman money for Temple money that was supposedly sanctified. But the Temple leaders were making a killing with the exchange rate and taking advantage of sincere worshipers. Turn to John 2:13-17 (p. 751).   It’s clear why anger bubbled up inside our Lord. But there’s something remarkable about His anger. What sanctified Jesus’ anger as compared to yours or mine? The key is in the object of His wrath. Jesus was not angry at injustices done to Him (we see no anger at all when He was hauled before Herod or Pilate, when He was beaten or mocked). His anger was a righteous anger directed at injustice against people and against God. His anger was not about self but about God. How often can we say that about our anger? Sadly, we have plenty of anger about our own issues, but very little about the things that concern God or the issues He cares about. We feel very little emotion over starving or homeless children, persecution of Christians abroad, or people dying without hearing the Gospel.   Righteous anger is never about us; it’s always forgetful of self. Jesus also had a measured, rational response, not a temperamental one, to the injustice He saw. Though angry He was still in complete control. He wasn’t a raging lunatic.  He carefully constructed the cords, and then brought about a practical resolution by clearing the Court of the Gentiles. It wasn’t some uncontrolled tantrum but a redemptive action.   There’s a great difference between righteous anger and sinful anger. Righteous anger is always toward sin. It’s not explosive but under control. It’s concerned about God’s reputation, or with defending and protecting others, not its own pride or desires. Holy anger produces righteousness not sinfulness.   Even the Greek philosopher, Aristotle understood the difference between righteous and sinful anger. He said, “Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way, that is not easy.”   In Abraham Lincoln’s biography Carl Sandburg tells the story of Lincoln as a young boy arriving in New Orleans after having traveled down the Mississippi River. As Lincoln and his companion were walking around the city, they came upon a slave market, the first Lincoln had ever seen. Families were being torn apart as their loved ones were sold like cattle at an auction. Lincoln was enraged and horrified and he said to his companion, “If I ever get a chance to hit this thing, I’m going to hit it hard.” Abraham Lincoln’s righteous anger became a motivating force and passion in his life to rid our country of slavery and right a terrible travesty. Not all anger is sinful. Righteous anger can be used by God to accomplish His will and for His glory. 3. Sinful anger is very costly and damaging. For most of us, the problem is not righteous anger. We struggle with sinful anger. There are many people, even in the Church, who spend their entire adult lives consumed by anger.   God’s Word consistently condemns sinful anger. In Galatians 5:20 “fits of rage” are listed with other vile sins such as idolatry and witchcraft. Proverbs 29:11 says that “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.” James 1:19-20 adds, “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” Ps. 37:8 commands us, “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath.”   It’s estimated that the average man loses his temper six times a week. A woman loses her temper three times a week. Women get angry more often at people while men tend to get angry at things (cars, machines, etc., when they break down). Single adults express their anger twice as often as married adults. Men are more physical with their anger than women. All of us though are more likely to express anger at home than anywhere else. Sadly, anger is most frequent and intense towards those we love, not towards strangers. While those statistics are for the world in general. The truth is that in the Church, we who are supposed to be different, Spirit-controlled...are not all that different.   A. Sinful anger hurts us physically. Physicians in Coral Gables, Florida compared the efficiency of the heart’s pumping action in 18 people with coronary artery disease to 9 healthy ones. Each of the study participants underwent one physical stress test (riding an exercise bicycle) and three mental stress tests (doing math problems in their heads, recalling a recent incident that had made them very angry, and giving a short speech to defend themselves against a hypothetical charge of shoplifting). Using sophisticated X‑ray techniques, the doctors took pictures of the subjects’ hearts in action during these tests. For all of the subjects, anger reduced the amount of blood that the heart pumped to body tissues more than the other tests. This was especially true of those who had heart disease. Another study found that angry people die younger. Those who score high for hostility on standard tests are four times more likely to die prematurely than those whose scores are low.    Why anger is so much more potent than fear or mental stress is anybody’s guess. The medical community is finally coming up with the same advice God gave us thousands of years ago, Eccles. 7:9 “Do not be quickly provoked...for anger resides in the lap of fools." Anger makes us sick. It can cause headaches, ulcers, hyper‑tension, digestive and intestinal problems, and even arthritis. While these disorders may not always be caused by anger, anger can be a major contributing factor.   B. Sinful anger hurts us relationally. Col. 3:21 warns us, “Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” Some of you are still struggling with unresolved anger and bitterness from childhood. Let’s end it with this generation. Often parents are impatient, lacking understanding for the feelings of their little ones, teenagers, or young adults still living at home.    When we exasperate our children by dealing with them unfairly, they respond in anger. Scripture wants us to not provoke our children to anger! We need to be careful that our dealings with our family are fair and that we can, before God, support them Scripturally and logically. We need to be sensitive to our spouses and children, knowing how to be servant-leaders in our family.   One study recently concluded that the “big secret” to romantic intimacy is not giving gifts or even doing thoughtful things. Do you want intimacy in your marriage? You don’t have to buy diamonds...just stop yelling. Avoidance of verbal aggression increases intimacy. Our relationships are more affected by anger than they are by positive behaviors.   C. Sinful anger hurts us spiritually. I’ll never forget when a dear friend of mine shared how he’d sought to have a good testimony in his shop and to be a witness. One day though, he lost it, let out a string of profanities and it torpedoed all that work he had done for years at being a witness. That’s why Prov. 12:16 warns, “A fool shows his annoyance at once.” Moses’ anger cost him the Promised Land. Jonah missed out on enjoying the greatest revival in history because he was ticked and pouting. Sinful anger costs us spiritually. More churches are destroyed by anger than will ever be destroyed by heresy.   In the 1890's there was a small Baptist church in Mayfield County, Kentucky. The church had only two deacons but those two men were constantly arguing and bickering with each other. One Sunday one deacon put up a small wooden peg in the back wall so the pastor could hang up his hat. When the other deacon discovered the peg, he was outraged. "How dare someone put a peg in the wall without first consulting me!" The people in the church took sides and the congregation eventually split. Over a hundred years later, residents of Mayfield County still refer to the two churches as Peg Baptist and Anti‑Peg Baptist.  Sinful anger is very costly and damaging.    Part of having victory over anger is to see the cost and consequences before we blow our stack. Angry people say and do things they later regret.        4. You can be liberated from sinful anger. Gordon MacDonald shares of meeting a Nigerian woman who is also a physician at a large teaching hospital in the United States. This Nigerian doctor came out of the crowd one day after one of his talks to say something kind about the lecture that MacDonald had just given. She introduced herself using an American name. “What’s your African name?” MacDonald asked. She immediately gave it to him, several syllables long with a musical sound to it. “What does the name mean?” he then asked. And this Nigerian doctor answered, “It means ‘Child who takes the anger away.”’ When he inquired as to why she would have been given this unusual name, she said, “My parents had been forbidden by their parents to marry. But they loved each other so much that they defied the family opinions and married anyway. For several years they were ostracized from both their families. Then my mother became pregnant with me. And when the grandparents held me in their arms for the first time, the walls of hostility came down. I became the one who swept the anger away. And that’s the name my mother and father gave me.”   Friend, let me tell you about the “Child” Who can take your anger away...His name is Jesus. When the angel spoke to Joseph, he said “[Mary] will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Jesus Christ wants to rescue us from sinful anger. Our sinful anger was nailed on the Cross with Him. So how can we claim this freedom, this emancipation proclamation from sinful anger?   A. Take personal responsibility for sinful anger. Eph. 4:31 says, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” It’s our responsibility to throw the garbage of sinful anger out.   When it comes to anger, most of us lie to ourselves. With other emotional issues we’ll say, “I’m so stressed...I’m so scared...I’m so sad.” But when it comes to anger, we often say “he/she/it/they...make me so mad.” We talk like there are little buttons in the back of our heads and we can’t help but lose it when someone pushes our buttons.   Or, we’ll blame our ancestry, “I can’t help it that I have a temper, I’m Irish” or “I got my temper from my Dad.” Now it is true that anger issues are often learned by imitation. That’s why Proverbs warns us, “Do not make friends with a hot‑tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared” (Prov. 22:24-25). This is also why we need to be careful about what we are modeling in front of our children. They learn from our example and usually fight the way that we do.   If you grew up in an angry home, you may have to work harder not to mimic that and bring that learned anger into your marriage and home. But you are still responsible. And God cannot fix it until we own it – that it’s ours.   B. Submit to the Spirit’s control. Eph. 5:18 “be filled [or controlled] with the Spirit.” When the Spirit is in control, He produces fruit in us, love, joy, peace, patience.” Sinful anger is often a result of frustration. Think about how often we come unglued just because the driver in front of us is impeding our progress or the cashier at the grocery store is slower than we think she should be. We must replace our frustration with the Spirit’s peace and patience.   We also become frustrated when we are idealistic. We believe that marriage or having children is going to be a certain way. When it’s not, when it doesn’t match the picture in our head, we become angry. We believe that something should take a certain amount of time, and when it doesn’t we become frustrated and angry. We need to allow the Spirit to replace our unrealistic idealism with His love and joy. Often we become angry just because we’re selfish. The Spirit’s work in our life helps us become selfless.   Then, some of us are just in the habit of responding in anger. We need to ask the Spirit to assist us in learning new habits and behaviors. This is the principle of replacement. You cannot rid yourself of a sinful habit without replacing it. This is the taking off of the old nature and the putting on of the new nature that Paul talks about in Ephesians 4. In the latter part of this chapter we observe that where Paul says one behavior needs to cease, he then gives a godly behavior to replace it. Look at vs. 29. We’re to discard unwholesome communication that tears down, but replace it with righteous words that build up...the principle of replacement.   Note: Being Spirit-filled does not mean that we can ignore natural laws or the way that God designed us. There is a connection with the fact that rage is such an issue today and we try to get by on less and less sleep. Many of us would be much easier to live with if we’d simply take care of the bodies God gave us and regularly get a good night’s sleep.   When our children were very small and would get crabby, we had a saying “Fussy babies go to bed.” Crabby adults should probably do the same.    C. Get a realistic perspective on life. Proverbs 19:11 “A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.” I’m embarrassed by some of the things I’ve gotten angry about. I’ve had steam nearly coming out of my ears because of a driver who made an obscene gesture to me. Yet, I don’t know them and will probably never see them again. For all I know, they might be on a weekend pass from a mental institution. It shouldn’t even be a blip on my screen. Most of us get bent out of shape over the smallest things. We need to get a grip. But we usually don’t get upset about the things that we should. We’ll blow a gasket if we’re on hold two minutes but we won’t give our neighbor two minutes in prayer, praying for their salvation. To be candid, most of us need to take this life less seriously and take eternal life a lot more seriously. God also gave us a sense of humor and we need to use it more.   D. Seek to Biblically problem solve. Counselors used to tell people to vent it, to get it out of their system. New studies have shown that venting just makes it worse and usually makes us angrier.   Just as bad though is to repress anger. Some people never let their anger out. They don’t want to rock the boat or they’re too afraid of the consequences. So they swallow their anger. Typically, this happens in a marriage. But this can be physically and emotionally devastating.   Eph. 4:15 tell us to “speak the truth in love.” If something really bothers you and you can’t get over it, go to that person and seek to Biblically problem-solve. Sadly, most of us go to everyone else and we gossip. So not only have we given in to sinful anger, we’ve spread it.   If we really love people, we’ll care enough to confront them. In 1997 a World War II bomb exploded in the French countryside killing 13 people and wounding 11 more. The bomb had been planted fifty years earlier to prevent German tanks from rolling across the French countryside. It was left untouched for a generation. According to French Interior Ministry experts, unexploded bombs get more dangerous with time. With corrosion, the weapon becomes unstable and the detonator can be exposed. What is true of old bombs is even more true of old hurts and old disappointments. Rather than festering or swallowing, please determine to Biblically problem solve.   Some of you are saying, “Well, if I do that, they are going to be angry with me.” Your responsibility is to seek to Biblically problem-solve. If they respond inappropriately, it’s not your problem or your responsibility. Commit that to the Lord and let the Holy Spirit deal with them.   E. Forgive as you have been forgiven and return good for evil. Eph. 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Rom. 12:21 says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” When we remember all that God has forgiven us for, it becomes easy to love and forgive others. As we do this, we reverse our anger.   Dr. David Jeremiah, pastors on the West Coast. He shared that he was having a busy day and had to eat lunch on the run. He drove up to the drive‑through window of a local fast‑food restaurant and wasn’t paying attention like he should have, and inadvertently cut a woman off who was coming from the other direction. It was completely unintentional, but she was furious. She rolled down her window and gave him a piece of her mind, and then served him a second helping. She shouted some obscenities, made obscene hand gestures, she honked her horn–it was quite a display. By the time her volcano was out of molten lava, there she was behind him in line, and they were both waiting for lunch. David Jeremiah admits that he did reach over and lock his car doors. But as he was getting his food, he also asked for the total bill for the woman behind him in line. The waitress asked, “Is she one of your relatives?” “Certainly not!” he said. That thought sent a cold chill up his spine. “But still, I’d like to pay for her dinner.” “Well, that’s very nice,” said the drive‑through waitress. So he paid for both of them. He confesses that he couldn’t help but wait around and furtively adjust his rearview mirror. He wanted to see the woman’s response. She was in total shock when she got up to the window. It was as if she had seen the supernatural–and maybe she had. She had just attacked some stranger with all her claws, and he had bought her lunch! It was a full‑scale reversal. Friend, that’s returning good for evil! Conclusion: If you and I give as we are given. If we succumb to sinful anger, we hurt not only ourselves but also the Kingdom and the cause of Christ. God does not want us to succumb to sinful anger. But we can’t have the victory in and of ourselves. It’s a God-thing. It begins at salvation and it continues as we surrender to the Spirit, appropriating His power and fruit in our lives.   Any pagan can have a nuclear meltdown. God has called you and I to live as children of light and grace. We’re to be different. We can be free from sinful anger. And when we are, what a testimony of God’s power and the new life that we have in Christ to a raging, angry world!