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"Get Rid of Anger" Ephesians 4:22-5:6; Matthew 5: 21-26

By Clancy Nixon

August 13, 2006

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.holyspiritanglican.org

I read a news article recently about the grievances of prisoners, and some of the

things they're suing the system for. They are being served chunky peanut butter instead

of smooth. Mail deliveries are sometimes scheduled while they're napping. And they're

being forced to listen to country music. Over 39,000 lawsuits last year were filed from

behind bars complaining about cruel and unusual punishment. (Thanks to Jim Nicoderm)

We live in an "Age of Rage." As I visited Uganda in July, the sweet fragrance of

kindness in that culture helped convince me that our anger here really is a major problem.

The subject of anger can be confusing for Christians. Today we are going to look

at these four questions: Does God get angry, or not? Is anger really a sin? What does

God say we are to do with our anger? Why do we get angry?

Since last week, we've been looking at Paul's letter to the Ephesians, chapters 4

and 5, which has several things to teach us about anger. I encourage you to follow along

in Ephesians 4 by turning to page 1158 and 59 in your blue pew Bibles. In verse 31, Paul

says we are to "get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger." Last week, we looked at how

Paul says we are to put off the old man: to throw it away like an old uniform from our

former lives as unbelievers, and to put on the new uniform of our vocation in Christ. It's

like if you used to work in delivery for UPS, and then you work in consulting for the old

IBM; you'd throw away the old brown uniform, and begin wearing a blue pinstripe suit.

Getting rid of the things of the old life is part of the process of becoming mature, in

Greek telios. Becoming mature involves both stripping down and putting on: in verse 31,

we are to discard anger; and in verse 32, we take on the garments of kindness and

forgiveness. Kindness and forgiveness are opposite spirits to anger. When you are caught

in a sin, it's wise to come against it in the opposite spirit. To use the metaphor of lawn

care from last week, to get a good lawn, it's not enough to pull the dandelions up by the

roots; you also need to water that lawn, or else it will burn out in August. When we learn

how to deal with anger biblically, Paul tells us we are on our way to living mature and

holy lives, chapter 5, verse 2, "lives of love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for

us."

Before we look at our own anger, it is useful to be reminded that God does get

angry. That is because, Chapter 5, verse 1, Paul says we are to "be imitators of God."

That is how we become mature we look more and more like Christ. Ephesians Chapter

5, verse 6 says this: "Let no one deceive you with empty words, because of such things

God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient." Yes, God's wrath. I know this is a

difficult subject; hang in there with me as I develop this.

1. Remember God's anger at sin. You may have heard it said that the God of

wrath portrayed in the Old Testament was replaced by Jesus' understanding of a God of

love in the New Testament. If you heard that, you heard wrong; that is an anti-Semitic lie

first propagated by a second century heretic named Marcion. (William Stafford,

Disordered Loves, p. 78) God has the same attributes and character in the New Testament

as he did in the Old, because both testaments witness to the same God. We know the

story of Uriah, whom God struck dead for touching the Ark of the Covenant while trying

to steady it. How is that different from the story of Ananias & Sapphira, whom God

struck dead for lying to the apostles about their giving? Both disobeyed God's law, and

while the penalty may seem harsh to us, God intervened at crucial times in history to

underscore the importance of obedience the start of the Kingdom of David, and the start

of the age of the Holy Spirit.

In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says He did not come to abolish the law or the prophets,

but to fulfill them. Paul takes the entire first three chapters of his letter to the Romans to

convince us of the wrath of God for our sin. Paul does that so he can demonstrate how

great a salvation Christ has purchased for us. Keeping your finger in Ephesians 4, turn

back with me to Romans Chapter 1, verse 18, page 1112 in the blue Bibles: "The wrath of

God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of those

who suppress the truth...." Chapter 2, verse 5: "Because of your stubbornness and your

unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath,

when his righteous judgment will be revealed." Chapter 3, verse 5: "...what shall we say?

That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us?...Certainly not!" All this leads to Romans

chapter 3, verse 23: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified

freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." In this we see

God's chief characteristics are His love and holiness, which drive His anger at sin. God

has a wrath - he gets angry about sin, the things we do to separate ourselves from him.

Thinking about God being angry at you personally is a scary thought. Theologians

have long been embarrassed by the idea of God's wrath. Augustine of Hippo tried to

make the idea of God's wrath into a fault of human perception. While the Biblical

writers experienced God as angry, Augustine said, God never really does get angry.

Contrary to the Biblical record, Augustine adopted the Greek philosophical assumption

that God cannot have any emotions. This is a first order error in theology: man's

philosophy should never overrule Holy Scripture; the Word of God, the Bible should

correct man's philosophies. Ephesians 4:30 says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit." God is

personal, and persons have emotions: they grieve and get angry.

The difference is that God's wrath is always a righteous wrath. Just like God's

love is higher than our love, God's wrath is not like our wrath. God's wrath is not cruel,

nor is it capricious, nor irritable, like human anger so often is. God's wrath is just. J.I.

Packer reminds us that the wrath of God has two qualities: first, it is always judicial it

is the wrath of the Judge, administering true justice. Second, people choose God's wrath

for themselves, by walking away from God. (See John 3:18, 19) (Packer, Loving God, p.

152)

If we affirm that God does get angry, how is it, then, that anger is a sin? Back to

page 1158, Ephesians 4:26a says, "In your anger do not sin." This suggests that anger is

not necessarily a sin, even though Paul makes it clear that anger carries with it a great

temptation to sin.

2. Anger can be righteous or unrighteous. While God's anger is always

righteous, human anger is often unrighteous. We all have a sense of what righteous anger

is, since we usually think that if WE are angry, it must be righteous anger! I've been

angry about the injustice of Al Qaeda using commercial airplanes to kill innocents. That

is righteous anger. God gets angry about sin, and so can we. Even so, Ephesians 4:26a

says that our anger is dangerous, because so often we miss the mark with our own anger.

James 1:20 says, "Man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires."

Even when our anger is righteous, we often sin in how we express it, like the soldier

interviewed in the Washington Post who volunteered for Iraq so he could kill people. We

sin in how we address the injustice, like in denying the protections of the Geneva

Convention to prisoners held at Guantanamo. Anger is a desire for vengeance, and

individuals are to leave vengeance to the Lord, and to governments. Romans 12:19 says,

"Vengeance is mine, says the Lord."

Paul tells us how we are to handle our anger. Ephesians 4:26b says, "Do not let

the sun go down on your anger." 3. Control your initial rage. The first thing God tells us

to do with our anger is to control our initial rage. James 1:19 says, "Be slow to anger."

Jesus says at Matthew 5:25, "Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking

you to court." We tell our young children to go into a "time out" so they can pause and

consider the consequences of what they do. Anger management techniques like

"counting to ten" do work, because the adrenalin rush to our brains when anger erupts is

a temporary chemical response. Away from the heat of the moment, we do think more

clearly. (Green, The Explosive Child)

Ginger and I have learned this in our marriage. Both of us hold our opinions

passionately; we're both leaders. We often have, shall we say, "vigorous fellowship"; a

foreign diplomatic correspondent might write of us that we have "frank exchanges." One

of the things we have learned about disagreements is to reconcile quickly. If possible, we

reconcile right away. There are exceptions: we have implemented the Ten O'clock Rule

from the Marriage Course: we've agreed not to discuss disagreements after ten p.m.

What a simple way to avoid heartache this has been! Before the ten o'clock rule, an

argument could keep us up to all hours of the night when we couldn't think straight and

talked in circles. Have you ever been there? Even if we cannot completely solve a

problem before ten o'clock, we do not go to bed angry with one another. We apologize

and reconcile before sleep, even if it is past 10 p.m.

Ephesians 4:26 and 27 say, "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry,

and do not give the devil a foothold." Paul says your own anger can give the devil a

foothold in the hedge of protection around your new man, your spirit man. If you let your

anger linger, you are giving the devil legal permission to torment you. You see, Satan

needs your permission to do most of the damage he can do to you. He tempts us to give

him a purchase on our old man, our fallen nature, to resurrect the old man who died with

Christ in Baptism. Once he sinks his claws into you, he is hard to kick out. It's easier to

keep the devil out than it is to kick him out once he has a foothold! Jesus implies in

Matthew 5:22 that anger is as bad as murder. Murder is the fruition of anger, which Jesus

says puts you in danger of the fires of hell. The devil is aiming flaming missiles, like

Hezbollah rockets at you, in order to stir up anger in your old self. These missiles can

destroy you. You can't shake them just by making a decision not to get angry you need

spiritual weapons to fight a spiritual foe. If you are habitually angry, you need to take

authority over the devil, and rebuke Satan! Some come out only by prayer and fasting. If

you need help, ask Ginger or me, and we will see that a prayer minister prays with you.

Don't give the devil a foothold by your anger. How do we uproot our anger?

4. Discover the source of your anger. We need to discover the source of our

anger because anger is a secondary emotion; it's brought on by something else. Look at

Ephesians 4:26, "in your anger do not sin." You see that little footnote "e" at the bottom

of the page? Verse 26 is a direct quote from Psalm 4:4. When you do your Bible study, I

encourage you to look up the cross-references, and God will reveal to you riches that you

could get no other way. One principle of Biblical interpretation is that the first time a

concept occurs in the Bible controls the interpretation of the later references. So we turn

to Psalm 4:4, page 533 in your blue pew Bibles, and we read this: "In your anger do not

sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent." When we do the hard

work of searching our hearts in silence, praying and asking God to show us why we are

angry, we often find what the real issue is. That is hard work, but it is essential to become

mature in Christ.

When anger erupts in us, it's an excellent signal that something is wrong. Eugene

Peterson says that what our anger fails to do is to tell us whether the source of our anger

is outside us or inside us. (Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant) We usually think the

source is outside us. For example, your wife has neglected you; your child spoke

disrespectfully to you; or a slow cashier made you wait in line. Contrary to what we

usually think, more often our anger has as its source in something inside us.

Friends, when we pray in our quiet times, we need to include focus on the

character traits where we struggle. There is often a cost to this self-examination: a cost in

money paid to a Christian counselor, a cost in time in Theophostic Prayer Ministry, in

time spent in reflection, in humbling yourself by asking forgiveness. If you are habitually

angry, get help. There is always a cost to discipleship. But friends, make no mistake: the

cost of not submitting to the discipline of the Lord is far higher than the cost of

discipleship. If you don't pay attention to these areas, you can crash and burn. If you do

crash and burn, you will learn that the high cost in broken relationships, in continuing

therapy, in divorce lawyers, in remaking a life for yourself, is far higher than the cost of

self-examination.

So, what is the source of your anger? Some sources of anger are hurt, fear and

frustration. You might fear that your needs will not be met. You can be hurt by being

undervalued, cheated or attacked, you might well respond with anger. When someone

rejects you, you may become angry. Pride is often behind our anger. We just can't

believe that this is happening to us. We feel we deserve so much better, don't we? It's

hard to imagine a truly humble person becoming angry.

Anger is often a defense mechanism that we use in order to block something

underneath that we don't want to remember or to feel. Often a trauma from the past will

trigger anger today. Anger can be a gift, a helpful window to uncover lies that we believe

from our past, that have us in bondage. A mother I know was angry with her teenaged

daughter, who had recently begun to keep her at arm's length. The mother's anger at her

daughter had produced the distance in the first place, because the daughter had learned

that it was not safe to share with her mother her real thoughts. In a Theophostic prayer

session, the mother realized that behind her anger was fear from her childhood: she was

afraid that her daughter would continue to freeze her out just as the mother's own mother

had frozen her out when she was a child. God showed her the truth that her daughter is

not her mother, and she did have the power to get closer to her daughter. When the

daughter heard of her mother's fears from her childhood, she had compassion on her

mother, and the two became close again. The mother learned not to criticize her daughter

so much, and God is glorified to this day in their relationship.

So remember God's anger at sin. Anger can be righteous or unrighteous. Control

your initial rage. And discover the source of your anger. Never forget God's forgiveness

as you confess your anger, how God's wrath was poured out not on you, but on Jesus for

the forgiveness of your sins. On the cross, Jesus loved us and gave himself up for us as a

fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. That's God's