Peter Barnes | Ephesians 4:26-27
SERMON NOTES
Dealing with Anger
(Ephesians 4:26-27)
– general in 4:17-24, and more specific from verse 25 onwards.
1. We are to be righteously angry.
– anger is a sin in Eph.4:31; see Prov.15:18; Eccles.7:9; James 1:19-20
– but God is angry (1 Kings 11:9; Ps.7:11) and so is Christ in Mark 3:5; John 2:23-25; see Ps.119:53
– John Ruskin: ‘we have starved and chilled our faculty of indignation’; John Trapp: ‘Be angry at nothing but sin.’
2. We must resolve our anger quickly.
– Jay Adams: do not blow up or clam up; Prov.29:11
– Matt.5:23-24
3. The devil looks for opportunities to use our anger.
– he turns a righteous anger into a self-righteous anger; he fosters resentment; small things become big things.
– anger is like handling dynamite.