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Be Angry! Ephesians 4: 17 – 32 Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 11 Mar, 2007 |
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BE ANGRY! Everyone needs to be angry sometimes. It’s not wrong to be angry, but never imagine that being angry is an excuse to hurt people or abuse them. A team from the College came to help us with our Centenary. They went to Marrickville Road to tell people about Jesus. One student brought his girlfriend. She talked for a time to a woman about Christ. The woman agreed, but would not trust in Jesus as her Lord and Saviour. The girl returned to our debriefing session. She had steam coming out of her ears. I talked to her. “You seem irritated...” She certainly was irritated. She was very irritated. She was quite cranky about it. In the end the girl was shouting — she was so angry that this woman just would not change! I said, “You are really angry, aren’t you!” She was shocked. “I didn’t realise I was so angry!” she said. I said that we don’t change people by being angry with them. It is our job to tell the truth, and the Holy Spirit will help them change. It was sad how anger was driving that girl. She wasn’t telling about Jesus, she was offloading her anger on the poor woman. You have experienced anger like that, haven’t you? It’s a hidden, driving anger, and it can be very dangerous. But you know that Jesus was angry. He saw exploiters in the temple, keeping people away from worshipping God, he saw money changers and animal sellers, in the temple, and he was enraged. He knotted a rope and overturned the tables and drove the animals out. It must have been terrifying for the people who faced his anger, but it had to be done. It was good anger, that made things change. Like with worry, there is good and bad anger. Some anger is right, but we have to control anger when it is not right. I said last week that we can’t really stop a feeling. That’s true. We can channel it, but we can’t stop it. We need feelings, we need quick reactions. Let’s think about anger. It is rarely the primary emotion. We feel fear, we get that burst of adrenaline, and we make an instantaneous assessment. If it is too dangerous, we say it is fear, and we run. If we think we can fight our way out of the situation, we fight. They call it the fight–flight response. We run when we must, we fight when we can. In Genesis, we read, GE 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning — the sixth day. Everything God created was very good. And that includes anger, it includes fear, it includes all the emotions we experience. If God didn’t create them, who did? Did the devil? Do you think that Satan can truly create anything? Wouldn’t that make him equal to God? That is impossible! God gave us anger. It is part of his very good creation. Problems only arise when we misuse his gifts.
In Genesis 4 we read, The LORD looked with favour on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. This is anger turned bad, because very soon after this Cain murdered his brother. Anger drove him to do evil. Or you get people like Simeon and Levi, two of Jacob’s sons. They are angry, aggressive men. Jacob himself said about them, GEN 49:5 “Simeon and Levi are brothers — 6 Let me not enter their council, 7 Cursed be their anger, so fierce, These are angry men. Their anger drives them to do evil. This inner anger pops out and destroys. Jacob, the father of Simeon and Levi, didn’t want to be alone with his own sons, because he knew about their anger! That is the kind of anger many of us have seen and reacted against. When you hear the words, “Anger” or “Angry”, that is what many people first think of. It’s sad, because that’s anger put to bad use. Let’s look at ourselves. Are you angry like that? Do you have outbursts that damage other people, and you feel guilty afterwards? That’s an anger that needs to be controlled. Or what about that kind of cold anger which cuts people off without giving them a chance? That is also a dangerous and destructive kind of anger and has to be controlled. Do you turn your anger against yourself? Someone accused me of something that wasn’t quite true. It was partly true, and I couldn’t say nothing. Why? Because I kept angrily accusing myself of the same kind of thing, so, even when it didn’t apply, I still kept attacking myself. That’s a dangerous and destructive kind of anger and has to be controlled.
But sometimes our anger does what it was supposed to do. It defends us from an attack, When Jacob left his father–in–law, Laban, Rachel, Jacob’s wife, stole some idols from the house, and hid them. Laban chased Jacob and searched the belongings but found nothing. The Bible says, GEN 31:36 Jacob was angry and took Laban to task. “What is my crime?” he asked Laban. “What sin have I committed that you hunt me down? 37 Now that you have searched through all my goods, what have you found that belongs to your household? Put it here in front of your relatives and mine, and let them judge between the two of us. Jacob had no idea what Rachel had done. He had good reason to be angry. Jacob and Laban were both pretty tricky people, but Laban was more cunning than his son–in–law, and Jacob had been trying not to trick people. And now Laban was accusing Jacob. He dragged down Jacob’s reputation in front of his family and his servants. It threatened Jacob’s sense of who he was. Wouldn’t you be angry? But anger also protects other people. When I was about five, we visited some family friends in Newcastle, and their cocker spaniel dog had had pups. I went to pat one of the pups, and the mother snarled and bit me. She was angry that I came close, and she protected her pups. We do the same — not have pups and bite little kids — but we get angry so that we protec people who need protection. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and told Moses to go and talk to Pharaoh about letting the Israelites go, Moses made all kind of excuses. He said that he didn’t speak well. God finally gets sick and tired of all the excuses Moses gives him not to do as he was told to do, and we read, EX 4:14 Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and his heart will be glad when he sees you. 15 You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. God was angry with Moses because he was too selfish to go and rescue the Israelite slaves. God wanted to protect them; Moses only wanted to protect himself. Later, after God rescues Moses and the Israelites from the pursiung Egyptians, they even sang a song of praise about God’s angry judgment: EX 15:7 In the greatness of your majesty Anger establishes justice One area where we have to be very careful is in the area of justice. So often when people let their anger loose, it results in injustice. But that isn’t God’s original aim. Anger, power and even violence have their place in God’s will. Think of God’s wrath, God’s judgmental anger. I read a booklet on domestic violence, and the final section was about God’s violence. That was a shock! The author was a theologian, who wrote that God created violence, and it was part of that very good creation that God made. He said that God, the Creator of all things, created violence, but we are so afraid of violence because we so rarely see it used except for evil purposes. He wrote that that is not God’s perfect plan. God created violence because there are times when even violence is appropriate. But the devil seizes our violence and misuses it. Does that make sense to you? It took me a while, but I gradually worked it out. A just God has to judge evil. He has to take action against it. He is not out of control. He is not raging against petty misdemeanours. God sees our hearts. God knows the wickedness we are all capable of. He deals exactly and fittlingly with the evil men do. Here’s an example. God says, EX 22:22 “Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. 23 If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry. 24 My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless. See the exactitude of God’s wrath? This is a violent response to violent deeds. God is saying, “If you violate the rights, the well–being, of the poor and vulnerable, I will equally violate your rights and well–being.” As Jesus says, With the measure that you use, it will be measured to you. God can be angry with the whole people or angry with an individual. And when that anger is put into effect, when it turns into action and not just feeling, it is wrath — God’s perfectly just, perfectly appropriate angry response. Jesus showed us how to be angry. But he warned us about when it is not appropriate. We have already mentioned his anger in the Temple. Jesus shows us God’s wrath. God hates it when anyone stands between himself and other people, when the haves keep the have–nots away. That was just what the money changers did — that and worse. They kept the poor and the outcast from God, and exploited the defenceless. Jesus was rightly angry. He shows us righteous anger in action. A man sincerely wanted to be a Christian. He had heard the good news about Jesus, and it spoke to him. But he saw all the self–satisfied, successful Christian men in his church and said, “I could never be like them,” and he went away sorrowful. I was angry. These self–satisfied, successful men were failures and sinners like anyone else. They just hid it, no matter what. It was hypocrisy. They were moneylenders in God’s Temple. I wanted to drive them out, but it wasn’t my place.
Jesus showed an appropriate use of anger; on the other hand, he also taught, MT 5:21 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, `Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. He goes on to say that we should be reconciled to the people we have issues with before we go to our worship. We can’t compartmentalise our lives and be angry, hurtful people during the week and hope to be Spirit–filled worshippers on Sunday. Jesus emphasises that we must deal with our anger, work out the interpersonal issues. He says that the mere fact that we haven’t beaten anyone up or murdered them doesn’t mean we are sinless before God. An unjustly violent, murderous anger is just as bad, even if that feeling is not expressed. Paul sums up how to handle anger when he says in Ephesians, 26 “In your anger do not sin” : Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold. Again, he says, ...do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. He does not tell us not to be angry. That wasn’t what Jesus was saying, either. Paul says that bottled up, unresolved anger gives the devil a foothold in our lives. Look at what has been happening around our world in the past few years. When those aircraft flew into the twin towers, the world and the US had every right to be outraged, There was every reason to seek to bring the perpetrators to justice. But that anger took hold. The US forgot justice and cuddled up to vengeance. It attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan, maybe with some reason. But then they attacked Iraq. Why? There has never been an explanation, other than vengeful anger. Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died. Thousands of Iraqi Christians have become refugees in their own land. Anger was fed and it grew, and satan is having a field day! It happens in families, in towns and cities, within nations, and across the entire world. The Bible gives us three principles. First, Deal quickly with anger. Often just saying, “When you did so and so, I felt angry — and that is still how I feel!” that can be enough to start a reconciliation. Don’t let the sun set on your anger. Second, resist inappropriate expressions of anger. The more you express it in rage, in slander, in brawling, the worse it gets. These things don’t defuse anger, they only reinforce it. Third, actively express positives. Be kind when you don’t feel like it; try to understand the other person’s perspective (that’s part of compassion.) And forgive as far as you are able to. If we don’t do these things, we grieve the Holy Spirit and lose his blessing and fellowship. But if we do them, then we reflect how God has already treated us in Christ, because Jesus took the full blast of God’s anger so that we could be forgiven and reconciled to God. So, be angry! — but make sure you don’t sin! AMEN |
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© Peter R. Green 2007. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.) |
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