Be Angry and Do Not Sin (Ephesians 4:26, 27)

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Please meet me in the book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 4 as we continue this series of putting off the old man and putting on the new man. And this morning we'll be at Ephesians chapter 4 and we'll go ahead and read verses 20 down to 27. 20 to 27 is where we'll be reading but we'll be focusing on a more narrow section. Ephesians chapter 4 beginning at verse 20.

But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard of him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man, which grows corrupt according to the deceitfulness of lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, put away lying. Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. nor give place to the devil. Well, in the reading of God's word there, the grass withers and the flower fades, but brothers and sisters, the word of our God endures forever. It's perfect, it's true, it will change your life now and it will change your eternity in the future.

Well, if there's one thing that makes me mad, it's scammers. But I have found this amazing thing that Devin introduced me to on YouTube. People who are smarter than scammers. And they'll scam the scammers. And they make videos of how the scammers will get into these people's computers. But what they'll do is they don't realize that that also gives the other person access to their computer. And so they'll go through and they'll erase all their files. Or they'll go through and they'll find the victims that they have been perpetuating these lies to.

One woman was stolen $31,000. And these people got to go and to return her $31,000 to her. But it was amazing as you watch these guys, they record their conversations with them and out of this deceit, they are angry and rightfully angry. These are people who are purposely stealing tens of thousands of dollars from people.

And they are angry, and it's right for them to be angry. And what our passage tells us this morning in Ephesians chapter 4 verses 26 and 27 is there are times where it is right to be angry. So we need to put on righteous anger, but we need to take off unrighteous anger. Or we need to take off sinful anger and put on righteousness. and those things which would pull us away in sinful anger. So as we get here this morning, first we need to ask ourselves, is there really such a thing as righteous anger? Is there really such a thing as righteous anger? Well, if we're trying to find out if something is good or not, where should we go? Well, one, we should go to the Scriptures, but we should see, is this something that's of God?

And what we find in Deuteronomy chapter 32 is God says of himself, he is angry at those who worship idols. God says that himself in Deuteronomy chapter 32, that he is angry at those who worship idols. He's angry at those who cut down a piece of wood and say that this piece of wood is somehow their God, and he's angry at that.

And then in Nehemiah chapter 13, what did we find? Nehemiah, after he had cleansed the city, after they had rebuilt the wall, after they had rededicated the city to God, do you remember that? In Nehemiah chapter 13, what did the merchants do? With their wares and with their merchandise, they sat outside the city gate on the Sabbath and tried to distract people from the worship of God by selling their goods. And Nehemiah was righteously angry with them. And when they said, OK, well, we won't come into the city, but we'll just stand by the gates. The gates is a weird idea for us, but that would be like someone saying, OK, we won't come into the church to sell stuff, so we'll just stand right out on the gravel road instead.

And what does Nehemiah do? He's angry at them. Right? Don't do this wicked thing again, lest I lay hands upon you. And he sets guards to keep them away. But you might say, oh, that's like Old Testament stuff, Brian. That's like God of wrath. What about the New Testament? Well, isn't that what we see Jesus do in the temple?

When he comes into the temple and the people are stealing from the worshipers, when they're over-inflating the marketplace so that way people would come and instead of bringing their animal with them, they would bring some money so they could buy an animal at the temple.

And as they were buying the animal, the prices would be inflated. And as they exchanged their money to give their tithe, the money exchange would be inflated. And instead of the temple court being a place of prayer and of worship, what it had become, it had become vanity fair. It had become nothing but the corner bazaar. It had become the marketplace. What does Jesus do? Not once, but twice. I'm always amazed by this. We think of Jesus and you think of the pictures of Jesus' long flowing hair and beautiful white light around him.

Nobody shows the picture of him making a whip and driving the money changers out of the temple. When he takes the edge of the tables and he flips them up and he's filled with righteous anger because they have turned God's house of prayer into a den of robbers. There's a place for righteous anger. And again, this isn't just like, oh, well, Jesus was just upset at that. No, in Revelation chapter 19, we get the image of Jesus riding in on his white steed. And how does it describe Jesus? That his coat is soaked in blood, the blood of his enemies. God hates sin. There's a place for righteous anger. There's a place for righteous anger. But we have to ask ourselves then, is there a place for righteous anger in our hearts? Well, absolutely. Absolutely. We should be upset.

We should be upset that this past year, 2019, over 3,000 children were murdered in the state of Iowa. And on the public radio, they're sad that the number was so low. We should be righteously angry that there are those who are trying to push laws to allow more and more innocent children to be killed before they ever have a breath of fresh air. We should be righteously angry when we find out that children are being kidnapped from communities and sold into slavery as sex slaves. We should be righteously angry when we find out that governors are making laws telling churches you cannot worship. We should be angry When we find out that there are children starving in sweatshops in foreign places and nobody cares.

We should be angry at sin. Well, let me turn that on you. Are you angry at the sin in your heart? Oh, it's easy to be angry about the sin out there. But do you hate the sin in here? Brothers and sisters, I'm going to tell you, I've had to preach the sermon to myself. I did not want to come before you and preach what I'm going to have to preach out of the sermon, because once we get to the book of Proverbs, the finger points at me. We look at our own hearts, and are we angry at our own sin? There is a place for anger. But there's also sinful anger. You know that type of sinful anger, don't you? You've seen it in your kids. I bet you did it when you were a kid and you got upset with your siblings. That type of anger that's petty, that type of anger that's just out of annoyance, that type of anger that's not out of a heart of justice, but just out of a heart of, I'm just mad at you because you're doing something I don't like. There is a type of sinful anger, and we must stay far away from that anger.

We're going to get to that in a little bit, but I want us to turn to the book of Proverbs. We're going to take a walk through the book of Proverbs. Proverbs is this amazing book full of pithy wisdom sayings, small sayings that just cut to the heart and do it in such a way that brings it straight to our eyes. And so we're going to go through a whole bunch of these, and you're going to feel exhausted by the time we get through.

But stick with me here, OK? Proverbs chapter 3. Proverbs chapter 3, verse 30. And if you can't keep up with flipping the pages, that's fine. Proverbs chapter 3, verse 30. Do not strive with a man without cause. If he has done you no harm. Proverbs 10, verse 12. Proverbs 10, verse 12. Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sin. Proverbs 12, verse 16. A gracious woman retains honor, but ruthless men retain riches. Proverbs 13, verse 10. Proverbs 13 verse 10, by pride comes nothing but strife, but with the well-advised is wisdom.

Proverbs chapter 14, there's a few here, Proverbs 14 verses 16 and 17, a wise man, 14, 16, a wise man fears and departs from evil, but a fool rages and is self-confident. A quick-tempered man acts foolishly, and a man of wicked intentions is hated. Proverbs 14, 29. He who is slow to wrath has great understanding, but he who is impulsive exalts folly. Proverbs 14, 33. Wisdom rests in the heart of him who has understanding, but what is in the heart of fools is made known.

Proverbs 15 verse 1, a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15 verse 18, a wrathful man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger allies contention. Proverbs 19 verse 11, The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook a transgression. Proverbs 19, 19. A man of great wrath will suffer punishment, for if you rescue him, you will have to do it again.

Proverbs 20 verse three, it is honorable for a man to stop striving since any fool, this is one of my favorite ones, since any fool can start a quarrel. Proverbs 21 verse nine, better to dwell in a corner of a housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman.

Proverbs 22 verses 24 through 25, Proverbs 22, 24. Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul. Proverbs 25, 24. Proverbs 25, 24. It is better to dwell in a corner of a housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman. Proverbs 27, verse three. A stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than both of them. Proverbs 29, lastly, Proverbs 29 verse 11. A fool, what does a fool do? A fool vents all his feelings, but a wise man holds them back.

Did you notice again and again and again what it calls a contentious person, what it calls an angry person, what it calls someone who's given over to wrath? Did you catch what that word is there again and again and again? It's a four letter word and it cuts deep to my heart. Starts with an F, ends with an L. Fool.

A fool vents all of his feelings. Some translations of that will say a fool vents all his wrath, but a wise man keeps himself under control. A fool. That is what unrighteous anger is called in the Proverbs. A fool. Someone who is contentious. Someone who is going to lash out right away. This is not what Ephesians chapter 4 is talking about when it says, be angry and do not sin. There is a type of anger.

Maybe this is just me. Sometimes when I'm working in the garage, Maybe this, guys, maybe you'll understand this, maybe I'm just sinful. And probably both. But I've noticed sometimes when I've, it is cold outside and my knuckles hurt and I turn a wrench and my knuckles hit and they start bleeding and that bolt still didn't come off and I throw that wrench down and I get upset at a machine and I think, I'm the fool who can't take the nut off. And yet I'm yelling at an engine.

That's not the righteous anger that Ephesians chapter 4 is talking about. Be angry and do not sin. Be angry and do not give yourself to yelling. Be angry and do not give yourself to screaming. Be angry but don't give yourself to that place where you would want to hit people. Be angry but do not give yourself that place where you would want to become bitter at people. Be angry but do not let yourself get to that place where you would have malice and hatred towards others.

Be angry at sin when there is a righteous place to be angry. It is righteous to be angry at certain sins, at all sins. But the question is, how do we handle that and what's the effects on us if we don't handle our anger rightly? Well, first of all, we need to recognize that there is a, especially amongst people, we are going to sin.

You're going to fail people. People are going to betray you. People are going to hurt you. It's a modern myth that everybody is good and everything's going to go well for you. No, no, no. We live with people who make bad choices all the time. On purpose or on accident, people are going to hurt you.

You're going to say careless things that are going to hurt you. You're going to say careless things to people that you don't realize that it stung them in that little way. You're going to make decisions with your business, or how you treat your children, or how your children treat you, and it's going to hurt.

The question is, how do you respond to that? Well, I think Jesus gives us two very clear ways to respond to that. First is Matthew chapter 5 style. Jesus warns us in the Sermon on the Mount He tells us if we say to someone, you fool, or rakah, be careful because you are in danger, you are liable to the fires of hell. You need to be careful, you need to be careful. Because if you have hated somebody, if you have hated someone, you've already, what does Jesus say again in Matthew chapter 5, you've already committed murder in your heart. So we need to be very careful, right? We can take Ephesians chapter 4 and be like, yeah, I'm going to be angry. I got a right to be angry. In all reality, Jesus is saying, whoa, hold on, buddy. You better balance that out real quick. Better be real careful.

Because if you've already hated someone in your heart, you've committed murder. But what do you do, right? You go to the temple, you come to church, you're about to take the Lord's Supper, you're about to go to sleep, and you're praying at night, and you remember, hold on, Bob over there's got something against me. What does Jesus tell you to do? Go and reconcile with your brother, right? Go and make peace. Go and make peace. If you've seen your brother and they're sinning against you, what are you supposed to do?

Well, Jesus talks about this as well. You might righteously be angry that someone is doing something wrong. Well, you really have two choices. Well, three choices. If you find out that it's not sin, you can cover it over in love. But if it is sin, you really have two choices.

Either you shut your mouth and you harbor it inside, and you let that poison seep down into your soul, which becomes bitterness, and hatred, and malice, and just a bad attitude towards that person. Or do what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 18. You muster up some courage, you pray to God to give you wisdom, and you go and you talk to your brother. You go and you tell them, hey, this is wrong. What you did was sin, and this needs to be repented of.

You find out that someone in the community is stealing from people. We don't just go and we don't just harbor it in our heart or go spread the gossip, but we go and we talk to that person. But sometimes you also, I'm going to warn you here, sometimes we sweep things under the rug because we think we've just talked to that person. If it's a criminal activity, Brothers and sisters, I beg you to go call the police. I'm going to specifically call out something that's heavy on my heart that I've seen time and time and time again in posts amongst different pastors and different denominations, where churches will try to keep sexual abuse and sexual predators under the rug.

Oh, we've confronted that person. Oh, the elders have talked to that person. No, if they have laid their hands, especially on a child, you better pick up that phone right away. That is something to be angry about and the civil magistrate needs to come in to that situation.

Be angry and do not sin. Be angry and do not sin. But what else does it say here in verse 26? Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. You fail. You get angry and you do sin. And you fail. You said things that you didn't mean to say. You did things that you didn't mean to do. You got upset and showed it on your face. You stormed out of the room.

What happens if you just suck that in? What happens if you just close your eyes, go to sleep, and imagine everything's going to be better in the morning? Do you know what typically happens? Especially in the heart of the person who you offended, that pain steeps deeper and deeper. And for you, you will become more and more callous to the results of your sin. That when you were unrighteously angry and you went to sleep, it hurts and it creates bitterness, resentfulness.

This is especially true with our children. is especially true with our spouses, with our siblings. And I don't mean to be dour with us today or heavy with us today, but this is what the Lord is commanding us. And there is beauty in this that God is telling us. What God is telling us is there is a danger here, but there is blessing if we go about it the Lord's way. Because if we don't go about it his way, what does verse 27 tell us? What do we do if we just go to sleep while we're angry?

It should scare the bejesus out of you. Nor give place to the devil. Let me just ask you an honest question. If I asked you, hey, Do you want to give Satan a foothold in your marriage? Does that sound good? No. No. What if I came to you and I said, hey, you want to put a foothold for the devil between you and your siblings? No, you wouldn't want to do that. What if I said, hey, you know what? What if we just said, do you want to put a foothold for the devil in the church? No. No, none of us would want that, right?

But that's exactly what happens when people get angry and bitter and resentful and they sleep on that anger and it goes and it goes and it goes. It's like roots going deeper and deeper and deeper down into your heart and spreading out. And then you just get bitter and sour and resentful of people. And you might not even a year later remember why you don't like them anymore. But now all of a sudden there's a wall that's between you and them, and there's no more communion. Fellowship is broken down.

In marriage, whenever we do marriage counseling with couples, this is one of the first things that we have to talk to people about is, how often are you making sure that you go to bed on good terms with your spouse? I'm going to warn you, you want to talk about something that will make you tired in the morning.

We got this standard from scripture, but we heard it from couple after couple. As Olivia and I interviewed and sat down for dinner with a whole bunch of couples before we got married, this was one of their biggest pieces of advice. They said, never go to sleep angry. Never go to sleep angry. Now my poor wife deals with an angry husband.

And so sometimes that means we have to work on things until two o'clock in the morning. But I'll tell you what, every time it's been a blessing. And I'm sure for some of you, if you haven't been married that long, we should be talking to the older members of the congregation, because some of you are nodding your head like, yeah. But it's hard. It is hard because if you make this a standard, if you say, I'm going to take this seriously, one, it's going to cost you sleep. Two, it's going to cost you time and energy and effort. But the question is, will we make God's standard the standard for how we live our lives? Because here's the rub, right? You go to sleep angry. You go to sleep mad and you refuse to let that go. What's the real danger in that? Well, my fear is that the real danger is that you become an unforgiving person.

And what does Jesus tell us after the Lord's Prayer? In the model prayer, Jesus tells us, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. But just after that, he says that if we will not forgive men their trespasses, neither will our Father in heaven forgive us our trespasses.

That's what implementing this in our lives look like. Implementing this in our work relationships. Implementing it in our marriage. Implementing it in our childbearing. When we put it into the midst of how we're going to interact with our siblings, and with our children, and with our grandchildren, and with our bosses, and we sit there and we say, no, hold on.

I gotta learn how to forgive, even if somebody has sinned against me. Because I know that I have sinned against my God. that he has forgiven me. Or will you? Oh, I beg that this might not be you. Or will you be like that unmerciful servant? Even though you've been forgiven a thousand talents, will hold on to that little sin, that couple denarii that somebody has offended you.

And you'll cling on to that in your heart, and you'll go to bed angry and fuming. Brothers and sisters, be angry and do not sin. Put off that sinful anger. Put it off before you go to bed. Put off that anger before you hit your pillow. And instead, what should you put on? This whole thing, we have to ask ourselves, OK, so if we put off that, what are we to put on? Well, one is patience. Put on patience. Let me encourage you, this is a big surprise, you ready?

You're not God. But what does the Apostle Paul say in Romans chapter 12? Brethren, do not avenge yourself, for vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay. God's gonna repay if somebody is unrepentant for their sin. Or God has already paid for that on his cross. Vengeance isn't yours to be taken out. That's God's role. We can be patient for the Lord with that. We can put on that patience and put on that tender ear that James chapter 1 tells us. My beloved brethren, I beseech you, let each one of you be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

Why? For the wrath of man does not accomplish, does not produce the righteousness of God. Right? When we put on a tender ear, when we listen twice as fast as we get angry, we realize we're not God. And our anger isn't going to produce the righteousness of God. Be angry and do not sin. Right?

When we put on peace, It's been a great blessing in our family recently to memorize Matthew chapter 5, the Beatitudes, and one of them is always, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called, what? Sons of God. Right, are we those holding on to our anger, going to bed angry and mad and upset, or are we those who at the end of the day, God looks at us and says, there's my child. You know how I know he's my child? You know how I know she's my child?

They're about peace. They're about peace. Patience, right? Do you know what the old English word for patience is? I love this. Long suffering. Do you know someone in your life that you have to suffer long with? It's not easy. It is not easy, but that is what God calls us to put on. All of these are fruit of the Spirit, right? This is what Galatians chapter 5 tells us we are to have, is the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness.

Put off that anger and will you put on a heart of kindness towards others? In a word, will you love others more than yourself? It ain't easy. It's sacrificial. But it's amazing how similar the fruits of the Spirit are versus 1 Corinthians 13 with love. Because love is also patient. Love is also kind. Love is also not quickly angered.

Will we love? Will we forgive? Will we put on patience? Will we put on peace? Will we be righteously angry where we should be righteous, but at the end of the day be able to go to our beds and say, Lord, the world is in your hands. I'm going to show you how useless I am. I'm going to go to sleep. And let the Lord take care of what the Lord's going to do.

Closing Prayer

Brothers and sisters, be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down upon your anger, nor give place to the devil. But put on those fruits of the Spirit and truly love. Let's let that flourish in our lives. Let's learn Christ and live like Him. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for your Holy Spirit. For Lord, we need a helper with this. Father, we pray that you would cut us deeply. Lord, that you would not let these words fall upon deaf ears, but Lord, that we would indeed truly repent of sinful anger. Lord, that you would rise up in us a righteous anger towards that which is sin. Father, but we pray that we would be quick to love, quick to forgive. Lord, I pray that you would. Let our congregation, this church of yours, be marked by such fruit. Please, Lord, care for us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.