The Danger of Communication: Anger
Family Talk August 3, 2025 Ephesians 4:25-29 Notes
Today, we’re talking about a topic that every family—and every believer—must face: anger. Let’s be honest, anger shows up in every home, every relationship, and even in the church. It can flare up with a harsh word or simmer beneath the surface with a cold shoulder. But left unchecked, anger can wreak havoc on the relationships God has called us to nurture. Uncontrolled, sinful anger is a danger to our family communication and ultimately our unity.
Whether we’re talking about your family or the church family, the way we deal with anger will either strengthen or sabotage our relationships. Anger itself isn’t always sin, but what we do with it often is. We need God’s power and wisdom to respond in a way that builds up rather than tears down. In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he exhorted believers that they must control their anger as members of one another in Christ Jesus.
Audio
All right, good morning, church. It's good to see all of you here this morning. We are in part three of our series. We're going through Ephesians, chapter four, together in a series we've entitled, “Family Talk.”
It's the apostle Paul's word to the church, not just to your house, but to our house as a church, on communication. Our theme verse for this passage is found in verse 15, Ephesians 4:15 (ESV) 15 “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” So, it's about communication, it's about speaking the truth, balanced by love, with a goal of unity, being one in Christ as the head and we are the body. So that's what we're talking about in chapter four.
Today, we're going to talk about a topic that's true in every family. It's true with every person; it’s the topic of anger. Every believer faces it and it can be dangerous to our unity if it's not rightly handled. So, let's be honest.
Anger shows up in every home and every relationship. It shows up in the church, and it can flare up with a harsh word or it can simmer beneath the surface like a cold shoulder, but left unchecked, anger can wreak havoc on relationships that God has called us to nurture and to be at one with. Uncontrolled sinful anger is a danger to our family communication in God's house and at our house. In his book, “Good and Angry,” David Powlison says this,
“We all have firsthand experience with anger gone wrong. We’ve dished it out. We’ve been on the receiving end. We’ve heard and seen others get angry at each other.
At some point in each day you are probably affected by some form of anger gone bad—either your own or someone else’s… And yet anger done right is a great good. It says, 'That’s wrong’ and acts to protect the innocent and helpless. It says, ‘That’s wrong’ and energizes us to address real problems. God, who is good and does good, expresses good anger for a good cause.”
So, Powlison concludes that quote in his book, “Good and Angry.” Whether we're talking about your family or the church family, the way we deal with anger will either strengthen or sabotage our relationships. Anger itself isn't always sin, but it can lead to sin and it can tear down our relationships. But with God's wisdom, we can handle anger appropriately. As we look at the apostle Paul's word to us today and to the church at Ephesus, he exhorted believers that the way we deal with anger will either help us strengthen or cause us to sabotage our relationships.
We control our anger as members of the body of Christ. As we look at the text today, I think we'll see three ways that this is true, that, as members of the body of Christ, we can control our anger, achieve and continue in oneness with the Lord. Let's start at verse 25, and we'll read down through verse 29 of chapter four. Ephesians 4:25-29 (ESV) 25 “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.
26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” This is God's word.
Amen. We're looking for three ways that we can control our anger as members of Christ's body. Here's the first way:
1. By avoiding sinful anger.
Notice in verse 26, that Paul doesn't say, “Never be angry.” That would not surprise us. As believers, we often equate anger with sin. It often is, but not always, because God gets angry, as we've mentioned before.
So, anger can be a right response, or it can be a selfish response to an offense. So, he doesn't say, ‘Never be angry.’ In fact, he surprises us by saying, “Be angry.” That's what he says, in verse 26, “Be angry and do not sin.”
Anger is not always sinful. It can be a right response to injustice, but it is dangerous. We must admit the danger of anger, because it often goes wrong for us. As we look at this in verse 25, he begins by talking about putting away falsehood. In other words, stop lying.
Start speaking the truth with your neighbor. And then he says, “for we are members one of another.” He's reminding us of the theme of chapter four and that is, as the body of Christ, we are to grow up to maturity and oneness in Christ, with Him being the head and us being the body. So, his desire here is that our communication would have the goal of
not just being heard, of not just expressing yourself and getting it off your chest, but of oneness in Christ, at your house and in God's house. Now, he begins to deal with one of the dangers of communication and that's angry communication. That anger can harm our relationships, or it can actually help, if it's handled appropriately with God's help. So it's kind of an unusual command verb here, “Be angry.”
If you look at it in the Greek, it's in the passive imperative. A passive verb in the Greek means that there was an external force acting on the person. So, there's something that happened that causes you to respond with anger. And the fact that it's an imperative seems odd. That's a strange thing to say, “Be angry.”
Do we go around being angry? It would have made more sense for him to say, ‘Don't be angry,’ but that's not what he says. He says, “Be angry and do not sin.” What he's talking about is that you're going to be angry.
Stuff is going to happen; it's going to tick you off. But, when it happens, don't fall into sinful anger. The NIV version gets at it like this, “In your anger, do not sin.” Let’s try to “unpack” that passive imperative Greek verb in your anger.
So, you're going to be angry, but when it happens, because it's going to happen, don't sin. Don't fall into sinful anger. Now, what is anger? Let's just ask Webster. What is anger?
Here's what Webster's dictionary says: “It's an intense emotional state induced by displeasure.” It's that heat that rises up. You feel your neck turning red, you feel your face turning red, you feel your ears turning red. Then, it just explodes out of the top of your head and out of your mouth, right?
It's an intense displeasure. We have all kinds of synonyms for anger: rage, fury, indignation, wrath. Then, we start using temperature words like “hot, boiling;” “she's hot around the collar.”
If you're from Wilson, North Carolina, we talk about being “sick” with anger. We say, “he's ill.” We use a lot of different sayings. If you're a Christian and you feel like being angry, “I'm not angry, I'm frustrated.”
We have a lot of words for anger, but still, anger, whatever you call it, it's the heart's emotional response to a felt offense, whether real or imagined. It's the heart's emotional response to a felt offense, whether real or imagined, because sometimes you attribute to someone that they did it on purpose when they accidentally did it. That's a different category. Or, you attribute it to something which really you should keep to yourself, but you didn't get your way.
So, that's selfish anger. Your expectations weren't met, so there's a kind of anger that's just purely sinful at its source. It was about your selfishness: “I want my way. I won't have expectations; I want to be in control
and that happened outside of my control.” I'm driving down Interstate 40 and I'm making good time and I told the people I'd be here at such and such time and then…. What in the world? Why is there a “parking lot” on Interstate 40 now? What's going on?
You look as far as you can. You can't see any reason why this has happened and you just feel it. There it comes; there comes that emotional response.
Now, who are you mad at? I don't know. I'm just mad. That might be sinful anger because you're not getting your way. I didn't want to be in a “parking lot” on Interstate 40.
So then, you're mad at your spouse. You're mad at your children; plus, they're getting chaotic back there. The AC is not working. Now that you're sitting still, you're not getting your way.
Some of you are just like that –He just described what happened to me this past week. So, why do we get angry? It is because our rights have been violated.
They called me something or I had to wait in line too long for my hamburger or whatever. We've been offended. That's why we get angry.
Is anger always sin? Not necessarily, but it often is. Now when he says, “Be angry and do not sin,” I've been talking about how unusual it is for Paul to say, “Be angry.” But the truth is, Paul is so well read in the Old Testament that when he's writing from the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he's often quoting the Old Testament.
Let's not miss this. Quoting David's work in the book of Psalms, Psalm 4:4. Here it says it verbatim, Psalm 4:4 (ESV) “Be angry, and do not sin;” That's where it was actually, way back there. He's actually quoting a well known saying.
But then, here's the additional information from David as he's writing in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he says, “...ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.” When you're angry, “count to 10.” That's good advice. Think about it and ask the mind of Christ, the Holy Spirit living within you, “Do I have a right to this anger that I'm feeling well up inside of me or do I need to put this in the category of, ‘Ooh, this is really sinful anger because I'm wanting my way or my expectations haven't been met?’ I probably just need to ponder this and be silent.” There is a category of sinful anger that, if you'll talk to the Holy Spirit about it in the moment and ask him to quiet your soul down, it never needs to be expressed.
That's good advice. That's often true. Is anger sin? Well, does God get angry? Yes.
Does God sin? No. But, His anger is different. He's got a long fuse. He's slow to get angry and when He gets angry, it's over quickly.
Notice these two verses, one from Exodus, Exodus 34:6 (ESV) …"The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” He's got a long fuse. It takes a lot to make him angry. He's slow to anger.
Those that would follow Christ and pursue Christ will be slow to anger. God's slow to anger, and He's also quick to get over it. It says in Psalm 30, Psalm 30:5 (ESV) “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime.” His mercy lasts forever.
His anger is brief. We can be like God. However, our anger is often sinful. This is why James warns about it. It says in James, chapter one, James 1:19-20 (ESV) 19 “Know this, my beloved brothers:
let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” So, we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us. We can say, ‘Spirit, help me to know, is this sinful anger or is this righteous anger?’ If it's righteous anger, then we needed that adrenaline, we needed that heat as an impetus to push us towards reconciliation.
Often, we're cowardly about addressing problems in our relationships. I just won't hang out with them for a while. I'm mad at them. That's sinful anger to just go off and pout. It's not really a true offense where they've hurt you and they may not have done it on purpose, or they may have done it accidentally. If they've been hurting you in the same way over and over again, it's more and more likely it's on purpose.
If they're being sarcastic with you a lot, it might be that they're not handling their anger well and you're just now starting to pick up on it. But, there comes a point where, for your relationship to grow to unity, anger can actually be the emotion, the God-given emotion, that helps you get at it rather than avoiding it. We need the Holy Spirit to help us to know which one to do which category. In Proverbs we read this, Proverbs 29:11 (NIV) “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.”
Now, in the book of Proverbs, he uses the word, “fool,” to describe a sinful approach and “wise” to describe a righteous approach to life. He says, ‘the fool gives full vent.’ In other words, they just blow up like Mount St. Helens. They build it up, build it up and then “blow.” It destroys everything around them.
They just give full vent. I needed to get that off my chest, you'll often hear them say. Maybe, they should have kept it there. But, a wise man keeps himself under control. This comes from the Lord, this kind of wisdom to do this.
If you look at the fruit of the spirit, it's the ninth character trait: self control. Or, if you're looking at the fruit singular, it's the ninth “seed in the apple.” Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. It's the one part that we really need in order to be wise in the Lord, to have self control over our emotions and over our anger. Anger is like a fire, it can warm your house or burn it down.
Sinful anger, it's like the kind of anger, especially when it's been simmering for a while, of having an unattended fire in your basement. By the time you smell the smoke, it's too late. It's already burnt your house down. We need to recognize what sinful anger can do to our relationships. Do you struggle with sinful anger? Your expectations aren't met or
you didn't get your way? You express it in all kinds of ways, sarcastic remarks, or even just blowing it completely. Pray like this, “Lord, help me; help me to be quick to listen and slow to speak. Give me a long fuse, slow to become angry and when I do feel the heat of anger, help me to bring it to the Holy Spirit and say, ‘Do I have a right to this anger or is this sinful anger based on my selfishness?’” These are things we can do in the power of Jesus as believers, we can get control of our anger.
We can avoid sinful anger. This leads to our second way that we can control anger as members of the body of Christ:
2. By addressing anger urgently.
Now you say be quick? Not quick; when it's right anger, you slow down. You count to ten, but don't count to a million. You count to ten in order to give the Holy Spirit time for you to ask, “Do I have a right to this anger?
Okay, actually, this really happened. It's not just an imagined offense. This really happened. This is going to hurt our relationship if I don't deal with it.” So now, you need to deal with it urgently.
Why? Because anger, left to itself, is a problem. Notice what Paul says, “Be angry and do not sin.” We've covered that.
“Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” So, there's an urgency, there's a spiritual urgency to addressing anger. We need to address anger urgently. Anger unresolved, that's just left to simmer, turns to bitterness and bitterness turns to resentment as it settles deeper in your soul. That's where you'll just start to think, I don't even care if we have a relationship now.
You just start wanting to write that person off. It could be your spouse. You think, I'm done. It could be another relationship. It could be the church.
I'm done with that church. I'm gonna go find another church. We break things off because it turns to resentment. What really started out might have been a smaller thing, but we “stuffed” it and we didn't handle it urgently, which leads to verse 28. In studying verse 28, it gave me a challenge contextually,because it seems that he's talking about unity.
He's talking about communication. Verse 25 says to speak the truth with your neighbor. Okay? Then, in verse 29, it says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” So he's still talking about communication, but in the middle of it, he's got verse 28. He says, 28 “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” Stealers, stop stealing.
Thieves, stop stealing. Okay, well, that's good advice. Stop being a thief. It's okay, Paul, but the Holy Spirit's speaking through you.
So, I was trying to see how I could interpret this through the lens of the context. He's talking about communication. He's talking about the problem of anger and the danger of anger. How can I apply this? Certainly I can say, “Hey, don't steal,
because that'll cause people to be angry.” But then, I started thinking, what if we apply it like this: Because of his “purpose clause,” we can see it. Let's look at verse 28, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands.”
That's called a “purpose clause.” ‘Stop stealing and start working
so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.’ Do you know a “relationship thief?”
Do you know one? You don't? It could be you. It's someone who's a taker relationally; they're always in need.
Relationally, they are not a giver. They're not sharing, they're not working at the relationship. They're lazy in the relationship. They're a “relationship thief.” When reconciliation is needed, if they've let their anger go to resentment, they're not going to work at it.
Next. I'll get a new friend. I'll get in a new relationship. I'll find a new church. Perhaps, we could look at it like that. I think it certainly does apply to “don't steal, work hard” so you can be a giver instead of a taker. That's true, but what if we apply it to this context relationally?
Don't be a “relationship thief.” Do the hard work and do it urgently. Don't let the sun go down. I've heard it like this: A husband and wife go to bed at night, mad and angry.
There's two people in the bed, but they don't handle it. They stay mad. They wake up the next morning and there's three people in the bed. That's where he's headed here as he talks about giving the devil an opportunity. This urgency Jesus addresses in Matthew chapter five.
He says, inMatthew 5:23-24 (ESV) 23 “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” It might seem surprising, but here's what Jesus is teaching: Worship is important. Bring your offering. That's important to God, but make it a priority that you're right with your fellow believer, with your brother, because if not, you're being hypocritical by bringing your offering.
So first, get right with your brother. Get right with your sister. Anger, righteous anger, can be the emotional impetus to move you to make that appointment, to get together, to make that phone call. By the way, here is a “sidebar” tip: Don't text them or email them, because now it lives on and on. It is nonverbal. You can't see the face; you can't feel the emotion.
They can keep rereading it and letting the devil tell them what it meant when it's not what it meant. Make a phone call and make an appointment to have coffee. Really talk to the person, so they can see your face and hear your demeanor. We want to be a relationship thief; what we want to do is make it as easy on ourselves as possible to reconcile.
I'm gonna fire off. I'm gonna just send them a text. So many times, I see that it makes things worse.
We'll keep moving here. This is what we're talking about – be careful about being urgent, addressing these things. Look what it says in Hebrews about this urgency and about working at peace. It says, inHebrews 12:14-15 (NLT) 14 “Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.
15 Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.” Work at your marriage; work at your friendships. Invest in other people. When anger comes up and you've identified, through the Holy Spirit's gifting the mind of Christ within you, that you have a right to this anger, move towards improving the relationship as the goal of oneness.
Then move on it. Don't wait. Move on it. What's a way I could describe this urgency, the need for it, when it's righteous anger to you and to myself?
I began to think, Okay, what would be a good illustration? Imagine a boil. It's just right under the skin. You can barely feel it, but it's tender to the touch.
Then, it starts turning red. At first you think, Well, maybe it is a mosquito bite. But, it keeps getting bigger, it keeps growing, it becomes hot and inflamed and then it becomes what doctors call an “angry boil.” Have you ever had one of those? Man, those things hurt and left unattended will fester with infection and may require surgery
because it could affect the whole limb that it's on, your whole arm or your whole leg. It could affect the whole body. It might require at some point a surgical response to get rid of it, when it would have been so much easier when it was just a little boil to address it. Anger's like that. It's like an “angry” boil that can infect your soul.
If you address it quickly, urgently, it can be handled more easily. But, if you wait and you let it fester, it'll often destroy your relationship with another person. Here's another way of looking at it. It's like dirty dishes. When you handle dishes right after supper and you go ahead and wash them,
oh, sure, it's nasty. You might get some food on you. It's work. But if you leave them overnight, you gotta get tools out to get the food off of the dishes and off of the pots and pans.
Anger is like that. “Don't let the sun go down on your anger” and by the way, don't wait until bedtime to work on it either, because you'll be up all night. Be urgent as you deal with anger. This is good advice; when anger lingers, it must be addressed urgently.
We can pray, as members of Christ's body, “Lord, help us to know when it's right anger or when it's sinful anger. If it's sinful anger, help us to confess it to you and to release it. If it's righteous anger, help us to know how to move forward with wisdom, to know how to work on our relationship with one another.” This leads us to the third way that we can control our anger as members of the body of Christ:
3. By acknowledging anger’s danger.
It's by acknowledging anger's danger. By the way, if you take one letter off of danger, you get angry, right? You take the “d” off of danger and you get angry. Anger is dangerous. That's where Paul's at now in verse 27.
I hinted at it a minute ago. Verse 27, “and give no opportunity to the devil.” Be angry and do not sin. Don't let the sun go down in your anger. Give no opportunity to the devil.
Here's what he's basically saying, and the NIV says it like this, “and don't give the devil a foothold,” because if you give the devil a foothold, he'll turn it into a stronghold. He only needs a little crack in the door to your house, and unresolved anger will be that little crack. Then, he'll get his foot in and climb in.
Like I said earlier, two may go to bed, but you'll wake up with the devil in the middle of your bed. He will be happy to be there. Anger, sinful anger, opens the door and gives opportunity to the evil one. Notice in verse 29 that he warns us about corrupting talk.
I think this is very much connected to verse 27. When you let the devil in, when you let his lying, accusatory way of speaking in, it leads to filthy corrupting talk coming out of your mouth. Jesus warns that what comes out of your mouth originates in the heart. Here's what I've noticed about uncontrolled anger. People who vent their anger often say things they wish they had never said.
They often speak to loved ones that they say they love and they call them filthy names. They say horrible things. Soon, they'll cool down. They got hot, but they'll cool down and they'll come back and say, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn't have said that.’ Well, it can't be “unsaid” now; it can't be “unheard.” Do corrupting words come out of your mouth when you get angry?
Corrupting talk? So many times I've been trying to help a couple having marital problems and often it's either him or her that'll say, “I can't ‘unhear’ what he called me, the names he has called me.” You'll see shame come over the other person's face. But then they'll immediately say, “I can't help it.
My father was like this and my father's father. We're all angry. I've always seen that how you deal with things is with anger.” But, we're called to a better life. We're called to a life in Christ, where we can have self control and we can get a new heart so that those kinds of words don't come out of our mouths.
Paul doesn't leave us there with a “don't.” He doesn't just leave us here with “don't let these kinds of corrupting words…” because that kind of sinful anger often results in corrupting talk coming out of your mouth. But he says, in verse 29, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”
Oh, the Holy Spirit can put in new words, so even when I'm expressing anger, if it's right, anger rightly expressed, I can edify the other person. “Building up” there, literally in the Greek, has the idea of “building a house.”
So, when anger is rightly expressed with the goal of oneness and unity. The goal of helping the other person and yourself get right with each other. You're building up your house instead of tearing it down. You're building up God's house instead of tearing it down. Anger can be a good thing when it has a good goal and has a good God empowering you. This is what he says.
Then, he goes on to say this. He says, “...fits the occasion…” Now, you've got the Holy Spirit telling you how to say it, so it fits the occasion, the right timing. It's not when it's the right time for you, but it's when it's the right time for them.
Then, he goes on. Here's another “purpose clause” “...that it may give grace to those who hear.” Grace is “unmerited favor.” My goal is not to harm the other person. If anger has moved me, it's not to make them hurt too. They've hurt me, I'm going to hurt them back.
That's sinful anger. No, my goal is that there would be favor again, that I could forgive and that you could forgive me and we receive grace and forgiveness. That's my goal. My goal in expressing right anger is that grace would take place and that forgiveness would take place. That's the goal that Paul is talking about here
, instead of letting the evil one control our tongue. We read this in Proverbs 14:29 (NLT) “Those who control their anger have great understanding; those with a hasty temper will make mistakes.” We can have the mind of Christ.
In First Corinthians, chapter two, it says that we have the mind of Christ. As believers, we can have great understanding about how to control our anger. But those with a hasty temper will make mistakes. They'll make relationship mistakes everywhere. They'll leave a trail of broken relationships because of uncontrolled anger, which does harm to themselves and others.
You know, we don't have to go far in the Bible to see this illustrated. In just a few chapters; in Genesis, chapter 4. Just one generation into humanity's origin. Adam and Eve had two little boys, Cain and Abel. We know the story.
We learned these stories in Sunday school. Cain and Abel brought sacrifices to the Lord. They knew what to bring because they had mom and dad to explain. When Adam and Eve sinned, the Father took animals, slew them and made skin clothing in order to cover their nakedness, to cover their shame and their sin. Blood had to be shed from the get go.
That was the pattern. That blood had to be shed for the forgiveness of sin in order to cover our sins. So Adam and Eve surely told their sons about this. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd.
Cain probably was the firstborn. I'm just trying to read into the story; I am trying to understand it. He would have probably had to exchange some of his crops with Abel in order to get a lamb. But, he's the big brother.
He's not going to be trying to make deals with Abel. Whatever their motives were, we don't know. The scripture doesn't say, but we know this, that they both brought offerings.
Cain brought vegetables. Abel brought a lamb and the shedding of blood. God told them, ‘Yours is acceptable Abel, but Cain, you know yours is not.’ Cain got angry. He got angry.
He probably got jealous because Abel’s offering was approved. I don't know what happened, but here's how God goes to Cain. In Genesis 4:6-7 (ESV) 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?
7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, and you must rule over it.”.
Its desire is for you and you must rule over it. It wants you. It's crouching like a lion, like the devil crouching at your door, this anger, this resentment, because see, he didn't fly mad when he got unapproved. It wasn't manslaughter where he just got mad in the rage and killed Abel without thinking.
No, he's off to himself now and God's talking to him. God, in His grace and His mercy is warning him, ‘You need to make this right. If you do right, will you not be approved? Just do right.
But if you don't, sin is crouching at your door. It wants to get a foothold in your house.’ What does Cain do? He goes off and talks to his brother. He says, ‘Hey, let's walk out in this field’
and he commits premeditated murder, because that anger turns to bitterness, which turns to resentment and then turns to violence.
Anger is dangerous and it gives a foothold to Satan. It'll destroy your relationships. It's what we see on the news every day. It started at the very beginning, just one generation in. Brother slew brother. My friends, we must acknowledge the danger of sinful, unrepentant anger and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us. If unrepentant anger invites the enemy, then repentance invites the spirit.
Oh, if Cain would have just said, ‘Lord, you're right.
Forgive me. I'll bring an offering as you've required.’ I think Abel and Cain would have grown up to be best friends. We wouldn't even have this story. But what we found is that mankind from the very beginning had sin in his heart. We've got sin in our hearts
and without the saving grace of Jesus to save us and give us new hearts, we have the kind of anger that kills.
Sometimes it's with words; we kill with words. Sometimes it's more violent and we see it on the news. What if we begin to pray like this? ‘Lord, examine my heart. Am I letting the evil one use my words to do harm to others?’
Ask yourself, will this give grace or give the enemy ammunition? What I'm about to say to this person, will this give grace to them or will it give the enemy ammunition so that the enemy will now follow them around repeating my words? Especially if I text it to them, then they can just read it over and over and over and over and over again; they will copy it to all their friends.
Pray like this, ‘Lord, don't let my angry emotions give Satan a foothold. Lord Jesus, by Your spirit, give me a new heart as it regards anger. Break the chains of my forebearers. My mother or my father was an angry person. Help me to break those chains so that I handle anger appropriately, rightly, under control.’
Anger is a God given emotion, but it's a dangerous one. Like fire, it can harm or destroy. As members of Christ's body, we are called to steward anger, not suppress it or unleash it, but to surrender it. We are to say, ‘Christ Jesus, You knew when and how to get angry.’ We read in the Gospels that Jesus got angry.
He always turned the other cheek, it seemed like, when they were offending Him. But if they spoke against the Father or the Spirit or to one of His flock, you would see His anger rightly expressed.
I never remember a place where it was to protect Himself. It was always to protect others. Can we be like Jesus? Absolutely. Quoting David Powlison again, from his book, “Good Anger,”
“Anger done right is a great good… it says, ‘That’s wrong,’ and energizes us to address real problems.” We can let Christ teach us to do anger right, so that we can be good and angry. We can do it. As Paul speaks here, as we're closing, I want you to think and I want the Holy Spirit to examine us.
Is there someone you need to forgive that you've yet to forgive? Or, is there someone you've offended that you need to seek forgiveness? Is there someone you've wounded with your anger that you need to have a talk with?
Is there someone you've been silently resenting and you've allowed it to build up? Ask Jesus, by his Holy Spirit, to make you right today with Him and with one another. Let's pray.
”Lord, we thank You for Your word.
We pray, Lord, first of all, for that person that came in this morning, far from God.” You came in this morning on a thin thread. You barely got here. But you know you need help. Maybe it's anger.
It could be anger towards God or anger towards someone else. Or, maybe you're just hurt; something brought you here, but you need a Savior. Would you pray with me right now, right where you're at, right where you're listening, right now. Whether you're seated here, watching from home or watching next door.
”Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner.
I've made so many mistakes in my life. I've sinned against You and I've sinned against my fellow man. I need forgiveness. Lord, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me, that He paid for my sins on the cross by His blood. I believe that You raised Him from the grave three days later.
I believe that. Right now, at this very moment, I invite Him to come into my life. Lord Jesus, come into my life. Forgive me of my sins.
Make me a child of God. I surrender my life to You. I want to follow You all the days of my life.” If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, He'll save you. Others are here and you're a Christ follower. You know the Lord.
But anger has been a problem. It's in your house, it's in relationships at work. Holy Spirit, right now, just examine our hearts. We surrender resentment. We surrender unforgiveness.
Lord, help us to know when it's right anger and when it's the right time to address it. Lord, help us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Audio
Right. Good morning, church. So thankful you're here this morning. I'm very excited to be preaching this morning with you and spending some time with you in God's word. We're going to be in Ephesians chapter four.
We're going to be there for this week and next week finishing up this series called Family Talk where we're learning how to together not only communicate better in our personal families, but also communicate better inside the house of God, the family of God, which I pray that we will just grow in our capacity to love and care for one another and communicate with each other. Well, today we're going to talk about a very difficult subject, A subject that I think has 100% involvement with everyone in the room. It's not every week that I get to say that, but I know this pretty confidently. Every single person in the room has dealt with or is dealing with the danger in communication, which is the big A word. Anger.
Whatever word came to your mind might be another problem. I'm not getting into that today. Anger. We're going to talk today about this idea of dealing with it in a way that is righteous. I'll go ahead and caveat this by saying anger in and of itself is not sin.
It's what anger produces. That's often sin. Anger is simply an emotion that our very Lord and Savior Jesus expressed at least once, probably many more times. There's a time in the Bible where we see Christ get angry. We see God get angry sometimes.
Anger itself isn't the problem, it's what anger produces. And so we're going to spend time today on this. I pray it's a blessing to you. I'm sure it will challenge you. It has challenged me.
But I pray you can hear it and that it'll move you. So reminder of this. Our theme verse for these four weeks has been Ephesians, chapter four. Kind of the heart of the text, which is in verse 15 it says rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ. Now we're talking about this topic that every family, every believer, every person must face.
And let's be honest, it shows up everywhere, everywhere. Every relationship. Even some of you who have got these wide eyed wonderful looks at each other. There's a few of you in the room that are still in this dating phase or something like that, or you're newly friends, even like you've just become acquainted and you're like, hey, like a movie I once saw. Did we just become best friends?
And you just think, everything's great. Give it time, let it simmer for a bit. You'll find out there's some things that we don't quite see eye to eye. It's like this in every single relationship. It's the nature of things.
Dating is all good and fun until eventually you go, okay, there's some things we're going to have to work on. Anger is one of them. Anger is just absolutely one of them. And so let's spend some time with this today in God's word and hear what he has to say. Say to us about this.
I would recommend a book to you that. It's from David Paulson Palleson, maybe is how you pronounce it. Good and Angry is the title of the book Good and Angry. And his position is how to help us understand anger in the way God has it, not in the way that we often have it. And so he says this in his book.
We all have firsthand experience with anger gone wrong. We've dished it out. We've been on the receiving end. We've heard and seen others get angry at each other. At some point in each day, you are probably affected by some form of anger gone bad.
Some of you, I pray this didn't happen. But some of you, maybe on the road here today, experienced a little taste of anger gone bad, either your own or someone else. He goes on to say, yet anger done right is a great good. This may surprise you today. Church.
My goal today is not to go, hey, never be angry. It's not allowed in Christianity. That's not true. My goal is to help you see what anger could produce in a godly way and what it should never produce, and when maybe you just need to let go your anger. He writes this anger done right is a great good.
It says, that's wrong, and it acts to protect the innocent, helpless. It says that's wrong and energizes us to address real problems. God, who is good and does good, expresses good anger for a good cause. So sometimes we need anger to remind us to move forward, to actually get into a confrontation that needs to be addressed. But it often, for humans, produces something not so great.
So let's get into that today. In the Apostle Paul's letter, the Ephesians, he exhorted believers that they must control their anger as members, one of another in the body of Christ. And we can control our anger too, both in our families and in the body of believers. So how do we do this? I think the text gives us three really Pretty clear ways about how to temper, how to control our anger in Christ Jesus.
So let's read these few verses together. We're going to pick up Ephesians 4. 25. We're hitting 25 again. If you were with us last week, we touched 25 to end last week, but we're going to grab it once more and continue.
Verse 25 through 29, it says, therefore having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing good, honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.
This is God's word. Amen. Some of you are like, I was willing to say amen till that last verse. And sometimes I don't want to say nice things. Yeah, let's dig in together.
We can control this. Some of you in the room, this is a really important topic for you. This might be the thing. The touchy spot in your life is your anger and your inability at times to control it. I pray that the Lord would just speak into your life today.
This is not a place of condemnation, but a place of healing that we come in here. I just pray you would be open to admit it and then see where the Lord might lead you. Because I believe in Christ Jesus, we can control all of these things that the spirit empowers us to overcome. And this is a sin area that some of us really struggle with. So let's control our anger together as members of Christ's body through the blood of Christ first.
First, by avoiding sinful anger. By avoiding sinful anger. I'll give you a hint as to how I broke this down. I took verse 26 and really saw three ideas in that. Do not sin, do not let the sun go down, and do not allow an opportunity for the evil one.
Those are really my three points today, if you will. My three ways. So that's where that's coming from in the text. And the first one he says is, be angry and do not sin. Is that not the weirdest thing you've ever heard that the Bible?
Did you see it? The Bible says, be angry and do not sin. Now, most of us will look at that and go Is he saying that Christians should walk around a little ticked off all the time? That the way Christians should behave is we're always on edge, we're ready to be angry? That is not the case here.
This. This is going to sound very grammatical for a moment, but let me just pull. Let me pull back the veil for a second because it has meaning. This is a series of imperative verbs here, which tells us these are commands from the Lord. Imperative.
That tense simply means these are commands, but this one is unique. The rest of them are in this active voice. Don't let the sun go down. That means actively pursue reconciliation. Don't let the devil in.
Don't give him a foothold in this. These are active. But this first one among all of them, the rest are active. This one is passive. What does that mean?
It's a passive imperative. That's weird. I'll just say that's a weird thing to occur in the Bible. What that means is sometimes things are going to act upon you. If it's impassive, this means there are things externally that may cause you to be angry.
Can I get an amen on that? Does anything ever cause you to be angry? Yeah, all of us are having this now. Every once in a while, we have to admit something. Every once in a while, we just generate anger and we just woke up funny.
Something was achy when we turned over that stuff. You need to give straight to God. It's never going to produce righteousness. It's not. The voice here is not, hey, actively be angry.
No, it's sometimes something is going to make you angry in that do not sin. I think the NIV gets this actually pretty well. The NIV translation says, in your anger, do not sin. That's actually really well put. That's what the Apostle Paul is really speaking to here, is that sometimes your anger is going to be activated.
And it may be for good reason. It may be that you're looking at the budget and your wife, your husband, your kids, somebody spent too much, something went wrong, you didn't agree, it wasn't agreed upon. Or you find out that your kids stayed out too late or did something disobedient and anger happens. You feel anger at first that's not in and of itself wrong. It's what's next that actually might produce good conversation, good discipline.
Anger can often produce real good, but sometimes it flies off the handle. So what is anger? Well, one definition I found this week was it's an intense emotional state induced by displeasure. We use a lot of words to Describe it too. Things like, and this is a Christian thing to do, I'm going to out y' all for a minute, alright?
And myself as well. We like to run around anger. We don't want to often say I'm angry, partially because we were probably raised that, you know, you can't be angry all the time, you know, so we'll say things like, I'm just a little frustrated, okay? Anger, you know, I'm just a little agitated right now. Down here in the south, we'll say, I'm a little ill, I'm a little ill. That don't mean sick.
We often, we almost never mean sick. When we say ill down here, it means I'm ticked off. It's because we're afraid of the word anger. I'm frustrated, I'm ill. No, you're, you're mad, you're angry, you're hot, you're boiling. Whatever we call it, anger, is this emotional response to some kind of offense, maybe real, maybe imagined.
Why do we get angry? Well, generally it's one of two things. We feel like our rights have been violated somehow something offensive has occurred to us or maybe our expectations haven't been met. And so we get ill. We get a little ticked off. In this, the Holy Spirit says, do not sin.
Do not sin. This is the idea of don't miss the mark. Don't go oppose God in this. Don't go against his will in this. It's interesting to me.
I think I had discovered this before, but it was a refresher to me this week to find out that the Apostle Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was. When he writes verse 26, he's actually directly quoting the psalmist. I don't know if you're aware of this. This isn't just a New Testament theme, it's an Old Testament theme. It's a biblical theme.
Psalm 44, it says, Be angry and do not sin. I love where it goes next. Ponder in your hearts on your beds and be silent. Some of you in the room, that little idea would go a long ways for you. Why don't you go get somewhere silent for a minute and ponder whether this anger is going to lead to any sort of righteousness.
Take a minute. Is your anger. Is this anger? Some of you, something's coming to mind right now. Maybe something that happened this week, maybe something that happened this morning, something that happened yesterday, maybe in your family, maybe at your workplace, something brought on anger.
The question that you can wrestle with now, this can be direct application. You don't have to wait on this and go. I'm going to chew on that message later. Let's chew on it right now, together. Is the anger you've experienced recently, is it sin?
Maybe not. God certainly gets angry. Maybe something wrong was done to you. But how are you handling it? Well, I absolutely flew off the handle.
I let him hear it. Good job. You disobeyed the word of God here. I've done it too. This isn't condemnation for you, my friend.
But know something. Something is changing in you because of the power of Christ Jesus in you. I have no doubt that Jesus could have decided to be angry thousands, millions of more times than he was both then and now with me. I'm thankful that the Lord I serve doesn't live in anger towards me because I would deserve it. I would deserve it.
And we are changed because of this. God gets angry, yeah, but his anger is slow and his forgiveness is quick. Isn't this astounding? Look, friends, church, we've been called to be angry, but do not sin that in our anger we would be like Christ. What is Christ like?
What is God like? The Bible says more than once, hey, imitate Christ. Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. There's this pattern of what kind of anger should a Christian display? The one that's like God, that's godly, that's like Christ.
Well, what's God's anger like? I found so much scripture on this. Okay, there's a lot. But I'll give you a few really, really helpful places. In Exodus, chapter 34, it says, the Lord, the Lord, a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
The idea of being slow to anger is said of God so many times. He is a long, fused God. We see that even in display. If you look at the history of the nation of Israel, he waits hundreds of years before he punishes. Hundreds of years before he disciplines them.
And then in the scheme of things, the exile is short two generations, really, when there were tens of generations of disobedience. His anger is slow. And then the psalmist says in Psalm 30 that his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Sometimes I believe Christian church, we feel the displeasure of God. I know that I do.
There are times where I'm coming to the Lord. And I said this last week. I think there's one verse where you'll always hear the voice of God. It's the verse, Psalm 139 where you say, search me, O God, and know my heart. Tell me if there's any wicked ways, anything that offends you.
I've found that almost every single time I pray that God speaks. And it's in those moments that sometimes I feel his displeasure, his anger, if you will. Not at me, but at my. My disobedience, my sin. I also feel the moment that I come clean, I feel his open arms.
I bet this is your experience too. It may have not been your experience as a child, it may have not been your experience with your parents or with your loved ones. But this is who God is. This is sometimes the problem with our anger view is that we view anger in the light of our human relationships and we can't see God for who he is. God is slow to anger and quick to forgive.
He wants to be one in communication and relationship with you. He's not going to leave the relationship with some kind of messiness. No, he's ready to repair it, to reconcile it, and to be one again. His forgiveness is way more perfect than we could ever experience or imagine apart from him.
So, friends, what are we called to? We're not called as believers to never be angry, but to display the anger, the godly, righteous kind of anger of our Lord Jesus, who's slow to anger and quick to forgive. So, friends in the room, you know who you are. I'm not going to point, I'm not going to call out names. But I've heard, I've been around some of you for a very long time.
I've heard people say, you know, I'm a short fused person from a family of short fused people, or we are going to flip out every once in a while. I hear you. That is not the Christ to which you've been taught. That is not the way of faith. Come clean.
You don't have to come to me anymore and say, hey, this is who I am. I hear you. Maybe start saying, this is the way I was. This is the way I was. The Bible's funny about this.
In 2 Corinthians it says, behold, the new has come. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Some of you need to start believing that that the old you that was quick to flip out is gone. Behold, the new has come.
Live according to that. Live in the Holy Spirit's power so that anger no longer grips you and takes over. There's a lot of scripture about this. I found that this topic might be one of the favorite topics of the writer of Proverbs. Primarily Solomon, but there are many writers in the Proverbs.
The idea of the fool giving in to his anger is all through it. Almost every chapter of Proverbs you will find some line on this. James speaks to it too. This is a famous place. James, chapter one, it says, know this, my beloved brothers.
Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, to slow to anger for the anger of man. Hear this. The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
The writer of Proverbs puts it this way. A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.
I know that it can be a relief to you to just vent it often to the people you love the very most. That's who gets the brunt of it. Isn't that wild that the people you love the most, you trust the most, they end up getting every single bit of your anger, every last dose of it, and they're hurting and you may not be aware of it. The Bible says a fool gives full vent to his anger. What he's speaking to there is the idea of being fully venting it to others.
Where I think there's a safer place. I'm confident there's a better place to vent one's anger, and it's at the feet of Jesus. You can try this. You do you. I've found I can't be angry there long when I come with my righteous anger if I have it to the feet of Jesus.
And like, I can't believe you let this happen to me. I can't believe that she said that. I can't believe these things have happened. I. I just feel like Job at times where he says, who was it that put the Leviathan in the deep? And you come talking to me like that.
I don't know that that'll be your experience. Maybe you'll get loving. He knows me. He knows what I need. It's a direct shot across the bow, like, chill out, Jonathan.
Every time I bring my anger in full vent to the Lord, all of a sudden he brings to mind my problem, my part in it, that there was sin even in my camp. I would advise you, friends, if this is a struggle for you, where you're often venting it in unhealthy ways that you don't do as the psalmist said and ponder. Ponder it to see if it's righteous. Take time. Then first vent it to the Lord and ask him to give you guidance and wisdom.
Look, our Lord Jesus, our God is a God who is slow to anger and quick to forgive. Let's desperately. Church. Let's desperately be thankful that that is who God is and we ought to be the same. We have been forgiven so much.
We take that so for granted that God could in every way and has every right to judge us to the nth degree. But he doesn't. Instead, he took it all upon himself. Do you understand this, friend? You.
You've got to be well acquainted with this. So that when you look at others, you go, I'm forgiven. They're forgiven. What's a better place to handle this anger issue I'm having? Jonah knew this so well.
I couldn't help but share this story with you today. Jonah is a fascinating prophet. He doesn't want to go and speak the word of God because he actually believes God will do it. Isn't that weird? But most of the prophets are hesitant.
Cause they're like, I don't know how this is gonna go. Jonah does not wanna go to Nineveh because he knows when he goes and preaches in Nineveh, the people will respond and God will forgive. And Jonah hates the Ninevites. Isn't that wild? Reads the story of Jonah again.
Oh, I thought it was just about a big fish and swallowing people. Way bigger and cooler than that. What is God gonna do with the people you can't stand? That's the prophet Jonah. Oh, I don't really want to share the gospel with such and such because I hate their guts.
You would never say that in church, but in your heart you've said it. Oh, I don't really want to have a talk with them because they are the worst. That's the Ninevites to Jonah. And so what does he do? He runs.
He goes in the opposite direction. If you look at a map, Jonah goes this way. The opposite direction is Nineveh. And God says, nope, you're gonna do it. He doesn't do that with everybody, but that's what he did with Jonah.
I doubt many of you are gonna get swallowed by a big fish. However that went down, I would have liked to have seen it. I still. I'll say this, church. I've said it before.
I pray there's a studio in heaven where we can watch the stories of the Bible. Cause I want to know, what did that actually look like? How big really was Goliath. I'd love to see the scene. Don't know if it's gonna be the case.
I'm just saying. Huh? I'm asking for it. Put a theater up there. But Jonah gets swallowed.
He Gets sped out right there on the shores of Nineveh. And he's like, fine, I'll do it. And he goes in and does it. And guess what happens? The people repent and God's anger relents.
That's who God is. He had every right to destroy the nation. He relents. And so Jonah reacts this way. Hear this church, Jonah 4:1.
But it displeased Jonah exceedingly. And he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, o Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my own country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. For I knew, for I knew, that you are a gracious God and merciful.
Slow to anger, Abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me. He's in a dark place. It is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said to him simply this.
Do you do well to be angry?
I don't know how that felt for Jonah, but I've heard that voice from God. God, you can't believe what you've let her do. I can't believe how my finances are going. God, here I am, bleeding for the ministry. Why am I broke?
Like, that was a little too close to home. I'm sorry, but God's just like, do you do well to be angry? What a great question. No, I don't. I don't do well.
He's gone suicidal. That's how dark he's gone. I get so furious.
Our Lord God is slow to anger. Abounding in love, Relenting from disaster. Thank the Lord of hosts that he is. Thank him. He's calling you to the same.
Anger is like a fire, my friends. A fire is not a bad thing. You keep it in your fireplace. It's pretty. It keeps the warm house.
You know when a spark comes flying out of there and lands in your carpet, though you better put that out. Some of you haven't been doing that in your life. Sparks have been flying out for a while. The house is burning down. You're still in it.
Why is it so hot in here? Because you're unbridled anger. You don't keep the fire in the fireplace. Friends, it's okay to be angry sometimes with one another because we need to move towards goodness and godliness. Sometimes our anger leads us to do the right thing.
But most often it burns the house down. Do you struggle with sinful anger in Christ Jesus? Will you admit this today? Begin with prayer. Lord, help me with this.
Help me to be quick, to listen, slow to speak, slow to be angry. I'll lay it here at your feet today, Lord, make me like you. Here's the second way. As usual, I got really excited on point one. Good grief.
By addressing anger urgently. This one's hilarious to me. The second thing he says is, don't let sun go down on your anger. I took this so literally and early in my marriage and most of you have heard this story, that I literally would not let us sleep. I would keep my poor wife up till 1, 2, 3 in the morning because we could not resolve a conflict.
And guess what? It didn't work. It just made us exhausted. And then we'd really say bogus stuff to one another. That's not the point of this text.
It's not literal. It doesn't mean, hey, every time you have a conflict, every time you have a fight, you better solve it today. There's a promptness to it. That's the point of it. It's about being urgent.
Don't sweep it under the rug. Don't let it go weeks. Don't let it go years. Address it promptly, urgently. He says, don't let the sun go down.
But instead he goes on in verse 28, and this almost seems. It seems like an aside. When I read verse 28 earlier, you were like, I have no idea what this has to do with anger. I think it's purposeful. In this whole section where Paul is talking about being the body of Christ and communicating well and not taking from each other, he randomly says in this, let the thief no longer steal.
Let him labor so that he can have something to share. Why does he have that in the middle of this communication conversation? Because. Because he's not just talking about the idea that there are people who take physically. I think he's primarily talking about people who still in relationships.
He's still talking about the body of Christ. Now, certainly he's talking to actual thieves, which there are probably very few of you in the room. If that is, you pray with me after service. Because that's a much different and bigger issue. But primarily he's talking to the body and saying, hey, how is it that you steal from one another?
How is it that you take? We've often said it this way, that, you know, some people are givers and some people are takers. I got news for you, the takers are just in sin. Okay? That's not the church.
Oh, well, you know, he's more of a receiver than he is a giver. No, he's just more sinful than you. I mean, quit sugarcoating the language here. Paul says, quit stealing. Instead, labor honest work with your hands.
Let it be something that you're doing. Honest work here is the idea of, it's good, it's pleasant, it's agreeable. The Greek word here, agathos, means primarily good. That there's such a thing as good anger, there's such a thing as good work. Let the thief no longer take.
Some of you are relationship thieves, and that's a much harder one for you to discover about yourself. That all you ever do is bring your troubles and your needs to the relationship. And the other person is pouring out. And guess what will happen over time? They'll run out of gas.
They'll run out of steam. I know this. You know how I know this? I've probably had a dozen people. And not in that room yet.
We'll get there. But in a counseling room somewhere, saying one party is like, I'm done. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. I'm moving on.
That person has moved to a place where they're not even showing anger anymore. They're toast. That person scares me. Because if you're no longer even angry about it, you've really moved on. Anger at least shows me there's some passion.
I don't mind your anger in counseling, just so you know. That doesn't mean, hey, I'm setting something up this week so I can scold the pastor. That's not what I'm saying. But if you bring anger into that room towards one another, at least I can see there's still passion. It's not working, but there's passion.
But eventually the taker. Taker, taker eventually drains the giver. This is not the way of Christ. He says, let the thief no longer steal, but let him labor. Why?
What is the point? And this is bigger than just your communication church. I hope that you can receive this. The point of your work. Physical, relational, spiritual.
The point of your work is not. I have more.
This will change the way you work physically, too. I work so that I can have more stuff, more money. Nah. Nope. This is one of many places where the purpose of our work is first for the glory of God and also for the sharing and generosity for others.
Starts in your home. The Bible speaks to this. It is a man that doesn't take care of his house is worse than an unbeliever. That's what the Bible says. It starts there, that you should take care of those around you.
Fathers in the room. I think this is a motherly task too. But fathers especially. I want you to hear this. Everyone else should have everything they need before you.
You want to know what it means to be a servant leader? To be like Jesus Christ? Everyone else in your home should have what they need before you ever do. That's just the nature of being a man of God. And guess what?
This may surprise you to hear. You're going to feel so much purpose and peace in that you're going to feel good. Why? Because you're living in to God's calling in your life. I've been a little messed up lately because my poor wife, the van.
We've been in a spot where neither one of us really have. My vehicle's running pretty good, but hers. The AC went out and I have. Something hits me when this occurs where I'm like, I can't let this be. I can't have her driving around in this heat.
I'll drive around in the heat. We bought Nate a car. So what we ended up doing is just. I'm driving his mess. Sometimes he don't need it.
He sent it to house. That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Men in the room.
Until recently, I always wanted her to have the nicest, the newest. I don't want my poor wife breaking down on the side of the road. I don't want that.
That is the calling, I think, on the life of a man. But it's the calling on the parents of the family too. That you have what you need. That you devote yourself to the generosity of others. And then it grows from there.
Then we work so that we can give. Dave Ramsey. I like a lot of the work he's done. I like his final phrase where he says, you live now like no one else. Which means you don't go into debt.
You work through your debt. You live like no one else. So that someday you can live like no one else and give like no one else. I really like that phrase. I think he's on target with that.
Live in such a way that you live beneath your means. So that one day you can give well above what anybody would expect. Expect. There's a joy there that you may have never experienced. A peace, a purpose.
So work so that you can give. Work in the way that you communicate. Then don't be a constant thief. Only you might know this about yourself. This might be a hard conversation over lunch.
If you want to go there, just go ahead and set up an appointment. With me this week. But if you want to go over lunch today and ask your kids and ask your spouse, hey, am I a communication thief in this marriage? As a parent, I don't know how that's going to go. All right?
Am I the one that's always taking that? Every time I show up, I need you to help me. I need you to counsel me. And I don't often give encouragement. I don't often give much to this.
That may be some of you in the room. That might be a dangerous conversation, but could be worth it. Look at ways that you might give and then address it urgently. Deal with this anger promptly. Jesus teaches, in fact, for us to be prompt in reconciliation.
Here's how far he takes it. Listen to this church Matthew, chapter five. He says, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you. Leave your gift before the altar and go first. Be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.
Do you see the urgency of that? Don't be coming up here, you know, trying to take time, giving back to the Lord, being generous with the Lord, and not even being in reconciliation with your brother.
When you're taken, there's another place where it talks about the Lord's Supper, that you should be right with others. You should be in a place of repentance before you take communion. There's urgency to handling this. We're called to stop stealing in relationships. Work at peace with each other.
Address anger with promptness, urgency. Hebrews chapter 12. It says, Work at living in peace with everyone. Work at living a holy life for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God.
Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.
I've noticed something at my house. I bet this happens at your house, that some nights after dinner nobody has the energy to do the dishes. Does this ever happen at your house? This happens at my house at least once a week, maybe more, that just we're all toast. We're all done.
We were thankful that we at least cooked dinner and didn't eat out. That's as far as we got. Sometimes I can get the kids to do it, and some nights I'm so tired I don't even think to make them do it. That's just silly. I know, but that's the case.
Maybe we're having a good time doing something else. You know what I've noticed? Every single time the Next morning, when I look in that sink, they look worse. For some reason, I think that actually might be true. Especially some of you don't have this problem at all.
I'm a cereal eater. I got problems, y'. All. Ice cream will be the end of me, maybe. And if not that, it's going to be Fruity Pebbles late at night.
And you're like, fruity Pebbles, you're 40 years old. Oh, well, I'll probably do it at 80 if the Lord will give me that time. I'm going to definitely eat a bowl of Fruity Pebbles at 80 if I'm still around, I promise you. And I might put ice cream in it, because I heard that's pretty awesome. Ice cream, Fruity Pebbles.
I might reach heaven instantly. But I've noticed something about things like that. Fruity Pebbles, things like that. You know, you better pre rinse. Hey, you might not want to do the dishes tonight, but you at least better rinse, because guess what Fruity Pebbles do the next day?
They become concrete. You're like, what in the world am I going to do about this? You got to get the green one out, that green scrubby one, or one of umbrella pads, and you're in there, boy. Dirty dishes, they just get worse overnight somehow. And there's a lot of things like this.
They don't get better. I've noticed things about life generally, they don't get better unless you put work into them. They only get worse.
Some of you, this is where you are in this anger thing. It has entered your house. Okay, it's there, but it's becoming like dirty dishes, staying over and over. And now guess what you have to do. And you need to have the strength by the power of God to do it.
You got to get the green scrubby out now. It's gotten to that place. I'm sorry. It's the case. You did this.
All right. Your anger's been sitting there for a while. You about burned the whole house down. So time to get the green scrubby out and start confessing. Start admitting some things.
Start saying, this is not the man. This is not the woman I want to be. Honey, would you forgive me? Think of actual things that have happened, not just a general. I know I've been angry.
Please forgive me. No, I said this when I was angry. I did this when I was angry. Please forgive me. And that stuff's turned to concrete.
I understand that there's work to do. I've also found this to be true when with enough elbow grease, I've always Been able to get them clean. I've always been able to get them clean. And if not, I'll Google it. Go.
Okay, this is a real disaster. What are people doing with this?
You can call me. You can google this too. Hey, I've got some unbridled anger. What are people doing about this? You'll find some good resources.
The question is, are you willing to admit it, handle it promptly and begin the work.
Let's finish well together the last thing. And this one's maybe the spookiest. By acknowledging anger's danger. There's a real danger to your anger. Some of you have actually experienced it to the end degree where a relationship's been ruined, a job has been ruined because of your anger.
And maybe I pray today you're at a place where you could say I was part of the. I was not just part. I was a main issue in the problem here. Acknowledge anger's danger. The worst part of this danger is it gives an opportunity for evil.
Specifically, Paul says, the evil one. I promise you something. There's couples in the room right now. Some of you are having a hard time. Maybe you're going through some strain.
You're not sure you're going to pull through this one. I just want to tell you something. There's nothing that pleases the evil one more than to destroy your marriage. That's what he wants more than anything. He hates your family.
He hates it. He hates the fact that you would try to be together. He hates the fact that you might would have kids and that you might raise them up into the Lord. He hates you. Do you understand this?
And any opportunity you give for him to sneak on in there, go, good, good, good. They're fighting good tonight. He's like, yes, let me in. Let me in. I heard it put this way before.
This is probably an old preacher adage. A husband and wife may go to bed mad, but they wake up with a third party in the bed. They went to bed with two, they woke up with three. That's some of you. Now, time to get to work.
Time to get to scrubbing. Paul says, give no opportunity to the evil one, to the devil. The ways in which we might do this. Where he closes, and I want to close here too. He closes with verse 29 to give you some insight about how you might protect your family, your church family, from the opportunity to foothold of the evil one.
That begins by first deciding. I'm not letting corrupting talk come out of my face anymore. I'm not going to be about that I'm not going to be about the gossip that I hear. I'm not going to be about the rotten, bad, worthless language. This word literally means rotten, putrefied.
It stinks. When someone says this kind of stuff to you, it smells. And you've heard plenty of this in your life. I guarantee you, every single one of you in the room has heard corrupt, worthless language. Paul says this is a way that you can protect your family from the opportunity of the evil one.
I've said this recently at church. I'm really trying to live by this church. I don't want to say another thing in my life that I don't mean. I don't want to say another thing in my life that doesn't come from a heart that's totally devoted to Christ. Am I going to fail sometimes?
But my goal is that my speech would be from a heart devoted to Jesus. So that I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm gonna share the truth in love. And I'm not gonna say things to my spouse, to my kids, to my brothers and sisters in Christ that their only purpose is harm. This is what anger produces in you.
Anger produces eventually in you. You saying something to those you love most, something that you don't mean and something that seeks to destroy things like, hey, you've always been lazy. You don't say always to a guy like me. I'll find the time. I wasn't always.
Avoid always and never say never is an adage I would go ahead and encourage you to live by. Especially if you deal with a goofball like me. Don't ever say something like that to my son Nate, either. He's going to say no, yesterday I did this. You never take out the trash.
I did it last week. So avoid that kind of stuff. But there's name calling that we get into. Some of you are there. You're there with your spouse, with your kids.
Some of you grew up like this. You're in the state you're in now because your dad when you were little, said, you worthless little. You lazy. You're never gonna be good at anything. I can't believe you did that to your sister.
You're the worst. Some of you heard that as children. You can carry that on. You can determine to carry that on. The easiest thing for you to do would just continue to pass that on because you saw it, you experienced it, you know how to pass that on.
But that's not how you've learned Christ. That's not the way of faith. It can end with you. Did you know that? It can stop with you.
Stop passing this stuff on. Tell your kids the truth in love. When they make mistakes, tell them. But I think it can be sheltered. It can have some clothes on it.
Hey, son, you didn't do the right thing there. You're better than this. You made a C on that grade there. You're smarter than this. You can't come home and tell me every day school's so easy and bring anything less than an A.
So just don't even come home saying school is easy. You better start changing your tone and saying, I'm having a hard time, dad, because otherwise my expectations are way high for you. That's what I'm going to do. As a father, I believe you can do anything, that the Lord is preparing you. I don't know what you could do, but the sky's the limit.
I want to believe that for you, too, Church. That he can do anything in your life. He can save any marriage. He can make anything better.
But it starts with determining that this junk stops with me. This corrupting talk. I heard it my whole life. I'm not doing that anymore. It stops with you.
You want to raise kids that yell at each other and yell at their spouses and yell at their kids. Keep yelling. Keep yelling at home. You will reproduce it. You will reproduce it.
Keep cussing at them, cursing at them, and wonder why your house's language is so vulgar. You're reproducing it, friend.
Do you see it? It doesn't have to stay this way. Lay it at the feet of Jesus. He says Instead of verse 29, here's what your language could look like. That which builds up, that which fits the occasion, that that which gives grace fits the occasion is so helpful here that your anger should be suitable to the environment.
Maybe sometimes you get overly angry about some really petty stuff. Lay that down, Lord. This is unnecessary. I know this. I'm not speaking to you as if I don't know.
I get angry about little bitty OCD kind of things. I have to take that to the Lord and say, can you help me to not get so frustrated when they clutter the living room? Can you help me? Because they're just kids and it's summer and they're not in school and they're just having a good time. But when I walk through this room, I feel my blood pressure going up.
It's just who I am. But that doesn't mean I have to spill it. Sometimes I just got to carry this stuff and I walk through the room and go. I need to move on now. To be fair, it's not a room I'm going to be able to relax in.
I'm going to have to go to another room because I can't relax and clutter just who I am. I'm sorry. I'm admitting that to you. But instead of lashing out, I carry it and lay it where it should go. Uncontrolled anger can lead to mistakes that harm, lead you to say things you don't mean, terrible things.
And they open us up to spiritual attack. Proverbs, chapter 14. It says, those who control their anger have great understanding. Those who have a hasty temper will make mistakes. Some of you are living there.
It doesn't have to stay this way anymore. I want you to know something. The very first murder in the Bible happens in only four chapters in. Did you know this? That anger of man led to murder before we're even out of the book of Genesis.
We're not even to the Flood yet. And Cain gets angry about how God likes Abel's gift over his gift. And God gives him opportunity to repent and come clean and make right. And Cain chooses instead to lash out in anger. And you might think, hey, I would never do that.
But you're already doing the early signs of that kind of stuff to the people you love most. You call them the worst things. Guess what Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount. I want to remind you of this church. What does he say?
Those who call their brother Raca have committed murder in their hearts. This is all connected. Isn't this cool? Like, I don't like it, but it is pretty cool. You're constantly doing this to the people you love, to your brothers and sisters in the faith.
Christ says, this is like murder.
Unrepentant anger invites the enemy in. But guess what? Repentance invites the Holy Spirit. You don't have to stay the same anymore, friend. Maybe this is how you were raised.
This is what you've experienced. Can it stop with you? Yes. Give it to Christ Jesus today. Invite in the Holy Spirit.
Repent of these things. Repent with your family. Have a time of healing. This might be the sweetest time in your family's history up until this point where all of you say, hey, we've been speaking to one another like we shouldn't. We've been lashing out.
We've been treating each other and our godly family incorrectly. This will be a sweet time for you. Let it begin with repentance and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you rather than allowing the evil one foothold. Let me end with one quote from that book I mentioned earlier. David Powelson wrote, anger done right is a great good.
It says that's wrong and energizes us to address real problems. We can let Christ teach us to do anger right for the good of our relationships at homes and at this house. Do you believe that? Church? You believe that?
I pray that you'll receive it and live it. Let's pray now together. Church Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that first of all, you are a good God, a loving God who is slow to anger and quick to forgive. If nothing else this morning I am uniquely thankful for that because I am a mess. I make mistakes all the time.
I know so much of what I do and say and think is offensive to you. God and yet you love me still. God I'm just thankful that you are slow to anger, that you don't lose your temper with me because I deserve it, but you don't. Instead, you pour out your love. Yes, you call me into repentance.
You discipline me with your displeasure, but you're so quick to put the signet ring back on my and put the cloak back on my shoulders to welcome the prodigal son back in. This is who you are. God, I'm so thankful. And as a church, we are so grateful that that's the kind of God we know and love and serve and worship. God, I ask now boldly.
Then I get it. I see what you're calling your people to. I see what you're calling me to. To an anger that's righteous like yours. And I mess this up a lot.
God we come in repentance first to you. Saying our anger is often it often produces something very sinful. It often produces language that we should never say to one another. It often produces lies and manipulation and God first, we repent of that. We lay that at your feet.
The things we've said to our family members, our brothers and sisters in the faith, the way in which our anger has lashed out. We repent. God, sorry, heal us at this.
Help us in our anger to be righteous, that it doesn't lead us to sin. I pray really above that. God, would you help us to be a people of peace? That anger is a very rare emotion in this church. I think most often we can handle things without it.
There are times where we need a little bit of righteous anger, but most of the time there could be a sweet air of peace in this place and in our homes that's what I want more than anything, God, that my house will be a place of peace. You can do this, God. I pray for that boldly. I pray for those people in the room that anger has destroyed things in their life already. Destroyed relationships, destroyed workplaces, destroyed families.
Some people in the room have felt the deepest end of that, God. I pray first for them that you would help them experience comfort and peace right now. That all of us have made terrible, terrible errors in our sin. But you're not done with us and you don't leave us in that place. Not only do you heal us and forgive us, but you restore us, God.
I'm praying for those people in the room that feel that. That you would show them a path towards restoration, that they would feel less and less shame and guilt for those things where anger has destroyed them in the past. Help them in their future. Help me too, Lord, that my anger would only appear and necessitate a righteous action. Action, God.
I know that maybe someone showed up today, that there's no way they can understand this righteous anger that comes from God, this godly kind of anger, because they're not living by faith at all. They've not given themselves to you, Lord Jesus, in any sort of way. And so it's hard to understand this, but they feel perhaps today, Lord, you calling them towards you yourself, you're drawing them towards yourself and a new way of life, a new purpose that's one of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, that this is what you're longing for today. And perhaps you're understanding that it's in Christ Jesus that you'll find it. If that's you, my friend, I want to give you an opportunity to receive Christ today.
There's no reason to wait even another moment. He wants to restore every relationship. He wants to help you with this unbridled anger. He wants to help you in your other areas of sin. He wants you to be able to lay that at his feet so that you can overcome it and live with a sense of purpose like you've never experienced.
A joy that you've never seen. That is the desire of God on your life. If that's you, my friend, today the Bible says simply this. If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. It begins with faith, my friend.
It begins with belief. But I want to give you an opportunity of confession as like a pillar in your life that you can look back to and say, that was the time I decided to walk with God, if that's you today, my friend, I want to give you this opportunity to pray with me. Simply this prayer. Pray along. Jesus, I believe that you are Lord of all things and certainly Lord and Savior of my life.
Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for my sin, the anger, all of it. You died for it and it's paid for. I believe I am forgiven because of that. And God, I believe that you raised Christ Jesus from the dead. And because of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus, I have great hope that not only have you overcome sin, but you can continue to overcome it in my life.
And that there is an eternal destination for me that is good and worth it.
Dear friend, welcome to the family of God. If you prayed that with me just now, we are so thankful. We're so thankful for you and we're praying right along with you. Dear Lord, help us to lay all of our sin at your feet today in full repentance. Help us to be people only of righteous anger, but generally a people of peace.
Do this in us, your church. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.