Battle Ready: "Lies and Anger" Ephesians 4.25-27 Pastor Daniel Reese

Well, good morning again. Do you have your Bible's Ephesians 4 is where we're going to be?

Knock out three verses today. Now initially when I had outlined Ephesians

last year

the verses we are going to cover this morning were actually spread out over two weeks.

When we began looking at the schedule and trying to get done with chapter 4

before Advent we had to combine a couple of the weeks just for timing's sake.

But as I began working on

this thing this week I remembered why I wanted to separate verse 25 through

26 and 27 like it came back to me.

So there's a change of plans today, and I hope you'll be flexible.

I'm actually going to do it a little backwards.

So we're actually going to start with verse 26 and 27 and then we'll come back to verse 25. All right?

We'll read it all together, but that's so that's where we're going to go. All right.

So let's read our passage this morning. We'll start in verse 25.

Therefore having put away falsehood,

let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor for we are members of one another.

Be angry and do not sin.

Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil.

Now if we start with verse 26

and we'll come back to 25, but we start verse 26 we can see that there's two commands about anger right there, right?

There's two commands about anger. Paul says be angry

and do not let the sun go down on your anger. Now at the surface that can look somewhat confusing.

Be angry

but make sure you don't go to bed angry, right?

I just kind of confuse him. However, if we look at the look at it within with the correct lenses on and we look at it in the

right context,

hopefully we can clear that up. That word that is translated angry in the first command is often the same word that is used to

describe God's anger.

So when Paul says be angry he is referring to a righteous anger. We should be angry

against the things that are sinful.

Does that describe you?

Is that how you are? When sinful things are going on around you, does it anger you or are you unbothered by it?

So Paul says be angry. It's a command. Now when Paul says do not let the sun go down on your anger

it is a different word. It's an anger that is caused by irritation or

bitterness. Those are two different types of anger, right?

One has to do with holiness and the other has to do with

circumstances. It is one thing to be angry

about things that dishonor God.

It's another thing to be angry because your kid made a mess in the house.

Like those are two different types of anger. We should continue to be angry about sin,

but messes and annoyances need to be dealt with pretty quickly.

We don't want to let that fester. Now we'll see here in a minute that this text is not dealing with individual anger

but anger within the body. So as a church, as Cornerstone, we need to be angry about things that are sinful.

Things that rob God of his glory.

But things that go against our preferences or things that get on our nerves need to be handled differently.

Now from this context of this passage biblical anger is expressed within the church.

This is completely consistent with the context of this passage in which Paul is dealing with the entire body,

not just individual believers.

So the kind of anger that Paul is commanding his readers to express here seems to be limited

to that which is expressed within the body, expressed within a group of believers.

So when Sina and I were engaged and even when we were newly married,

other couples would quote this verse to us.

Do not let the song go down on your anger, meaning in your relationship settle all these disputes before you go to bed.

That's not correct use of this verse.

The correct use of this verse is that if there is anything within the body that's making you angry

and if you are angry at another member, don't let the sun go down before you deal with it because it will be harmful to the church.

When we allow things to fester, it gives the devil an opportunity.

We don't want to do that.

So because of this command, if there is an annoyance you have against somebody in this church,

it needs to be dealt with today.

If that means talking with them about it, if that means sharing your grievances and figuring out a solution,

then you need to do that today.

If it means that maybe you just sit there and pray that the Lord will soften your heart towards them,

that the Lord will help you overcome whatever that is, you need to do that today.

You can help protect the unity of the church by speaking the truth with one another and settling any anger that might disrupt that.

Settling any disturbance to the unity of the church.

We also need to understand that biblical anger fights for God's glory.

Now the first part of verse 26 is a quote from Psalm 4.

Let me read a couple of verses for you.

In Psalm chapter 4 starting in verse 2, David says,

Psalms 4 · chapter mention

It says,

So David wrote this Psalm out of his distress, probably at a time when his son Absalon had rebelled against him,

was trying to attack him, and in verse 2, David reveals the object of his anger.

While David has certainly been hurt by others, even his own flesh and blood,

his righteous indignation, his righteous anger is directed towards those who have turned away from God's glory,

who have put God's glory to shame.

By seeking falsehood rather than the truth, the very thing Paul has addressed and will address when we go back to verse 25,

his enemies have robbed God of his glory.

But in verse 4, David is warned against allowing that righteous anger to become sin.

That's where we got to be careful.

When sin is allowed to remain in the body, when sin is allowed to remain in the church,

it robs God of the glory that is to be his through his church.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5 what we should be angry about.

He says it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you,

and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife.

And you are arrogant.

Are you not rather to mourn?

Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

So if we were to pick apart that passage real quick in 1 Corinthians 5,

and we were to try to describe what kinds of sin do we need to be angry about,

it's revealed in this passage.

We should be angry about sin that is evident.

Sin that is well known within the church.

Even outside the church should cause us to be angry.

It was also continual.

In this passage, it doesn't a one time slip up.

This is a habitual lifestyle that this man was living in.

And additionally, it doesn't seem that there is any repentance,

but rather an acceptance.

So any sin that is evident, any sin that is continuous,

and any sin that is unrepentant needs to cause anger amongst us.

When there is that kind of sin in the body, we ought to be angry.

Not because of what that sin does to us or to our reputation,

but because of the way it robs God of the glory that he intends the church to give him

as it manifests his wisdom into the rest of the world.

When we allow sin to stay in this place and we're not angry about it,

we don't need to so much worry about our reputation.

We need to really consider the fact that God is not getting the glory that he deserves.

Finally, biblical anger is handled quickly.

Now remember that this is directed towards the body.

This is not directed towards individuals.

We'll get to individual anger in a few weeks.

But in the Jewish culture of Paul's day,

sunset was actually considered to be the beginning of a new day.

So the idea of handling anger before the sun sets means that we aren't to begin a new day

without handling that source of anger.

But it doesn't seem that Paul is attempting to place a definite time limit on handling our anger,

as much as he is making the point that we need to deal with the cause of the anger,

and we need to deal with that cause quickly, not let it fester.

The reason we want to handle it quickly is because we don't want to give the devil any opportunity.

We don't want to do that.

The word opportunity is the Greek word topos.

Now topos is where we get our English word topography.

It originally referred to a defined territory or a piece of land,

but it was also used figuratively to describe a place, an occasion, or an opportunity.

And so Paul is warning us here.

He's warning the church.

He's warning other believers that if we don't deal with the sin within the body,

that it gives the devil a base of operations from which he can infiltrate us,

from which he can attack us within the church.

And almost every military operation, the invading army starts by establishing a place of operation

from which they can stage their attack.

And at the spiritual battle is the place it's going on in our world.

The devil is always looking for a place within the body of Christ

where he can establish a base of operations from which to launch his attacks.

We don't want to give him that opportunity.

And when we allow sin to remain in the body without dealing it with it,

we provide the devil an opportunity to set up camp.

I've seen it happen so many times where good meaning people hold a grudge against someone

and it causes division amongst the church.

Because what happens is someone offend you and then you go tell someone about it.

Can you believe that they did that to me?

Can you believe they said that to me?

Can you believe they looked at me that way across the sanctuary?

Then what happens is that person goes and tells somebody else.

Then all of a sudden you have five or six people that are upset at this one person.

And that breaks trust.

It causes people to pick sides.

And then before you know it, there's this great chasm that has developed in the church.

I'm sure we've all seen it somehow.

I'm sure we've all experienced it in some way.

We have to have the mindset

that anytime we get angry about something,

anytime we get upset about something,

it has the potential to split the church if we don't handle it correctly.

Every time you get offended, you have to have the mindset,

if I don't handle this correctly, it has the potential to split the church.

There's a big difference,

but there's also a fine line between getting help about a situation,

seeking wisdom, and gossip.

There's a big difference, but the line is pretty fine.

If you are seeking wisdom about how to deal with your anger,

make sure that it is with someone who will listen to you

and advise you to make peace.

If your motivation is to get people on your side,

if the motivation is to build up a group of people

that will support your idea and support your cause,

it will cause division.

Every time you are offended,

keep in mind that it has the potential to disrupt the unity of our church.

When I was younger and before Caller ID was invented,

I used to do things that are not appropriate.

I had this friend named Josh that lived down the street from me.

We were the same age, went to the same school,

we were in the same class.

Almost every day after school, I would walk home with Josh,

and my brother and my sister were with me,

and we'd get to our road, and Josh would go left to his house,

and I would go right to my house, about another block.

We would then be home alone for about an hour,

hour and a half before one of my parents would get home.

Now, as you can imagine, I get bored sometimes.

And so I would make these prank phone calls to Josh

almost every day until eventually he figured out it was me,

and it wasn't any fun anymore.

So I had to take it up a level.

I would get home, and I would order a pizza,

and I would have it delivered to his house.

Now, I didn't have to pay for anything,

because this was just, once it shows up,

you pay, you know, COD, cash on delivery, right?

And so I would order these pizzas every week to his house.

You know, I started off small, you know, just one pizza,

but that got bored.

And so eventually, I took it up a notch,

and there was a time I was having ten pizzas

delivered to him after school.

Now, I'm really to this day not sure how my parents found out

that I did that.

But they did, and it didn't end well for me.

I'd lied by ordering pizza to a house in which I didn't live,

plus I couldn't pay for.

My parents lied and said that the police were going to come get me,

and I would spend a month in jail.

Which caused me to really fear the police

for a lot of my time growing up.

What I thought was one little prank turned into a whole lot of destruction.

I'm sure my parents had to pay for a lot of pizzas that weren't consumed.

Thankfully, thankfully.

I don't do that anymore, and I'm really hoping

that it's not just because Caller ID is now a thing, right?

I'm really hoping that the Lord has done a work in me,

and I don't do that.

I had to grow up.

And as Christians, that is what Paul is saying here now in verse 25.

He is bringing this back to church unity.

That as we grow up, we have to put away falsehood

because we are members of one body.

You can call it whatever you want to.

You can call it falsehood.

You can call it lying.

You can call it pretending to be someone you're not.

But the point that Paul is trying to make is

if we don't put away falsehood, it is going to be destructive.

Now you may not be ordering pizzas and not paying for them,

but let me give you some examples.

Are you a different person when you are at church

or you're around other Christians than you are the rest of the week?

Do you have one vocabulary that you use at church

and another that you use at work and another that you use at home?

Do you have a different vocabulary than the one you use at church

versus the one you use when somebody cuts you off in traffic?

Do you treat your coworkers, neighbors, friends, family different

than you treat people at church on a Sunday morning?

If you're trying to live these several different lives,

depending on your setting, depending on where you are,

then I'm going to suggest that you are still clothed with falsehood.

When people ask you how you're doing and you say,

fine, are you really being honest about what's going on inside of you?

Do you feel free to share your hurts with others

or are you afraid of what others might think of you?

I'm not saying that you just have to kind of dump all your baggage onto them

and let them carry those problems,

but if you're not willing to be honest about your life with others,

that's a form of falsehood.

I mean, believe it or not, how refreshing would it be

if you come in here, somebody asks how you're doing,

or you ask somebody how they're doing,

and they just kind of, listen, I've had a rough morning.

My kids are wearing me out.

We almost got divorced on the way over here.

I need some help today.

I mean, I know that's a story for many of us, right?

Sunday mornings are stressful.

Do you not think that's a spiritual battle?

Do you not think that other people are dealing with the same thing?

But instead, what do we do?

We come in here, how are you doing?

Fine.

Can't stand my wife right now, but I'm fine.

I want to slap my children right now, but I'm fine.

It's a form of falsehood.

Have you ever told someone that you would pray for them, or her,

then not follow through?

Perhaps you said it because you thought it sounded spiritual.

It sounded like the right thing to do,

but you never really had any intention of doing it,

or maybe you really, really meant well,

but you never followed through.

Have you ever made a commitment to some ministry in the church

and then not followed through?

Now, maybe something came up, and it kept you from committing,

or you just got too busy,

or maybe honestly you just forgot that you were supposed to do it,

but you never let anybody know what happened.

Are you struggling with some temptation or sin in your life,

but you're afraid to share that with anyone else?

Maybe you're afraid that someone will betray your confidence,

or you're worried about what someone else is going to think of you.

Maybe you don't share those things because you don't want to appear weak.

I want to encourage you with James 5.16,

it says that we should confess our sins to each other

and pray for each other so that we can be healed.

Confess your sins so that you can be healed.

When we don't do that, we are engaging in falsehood.

We're pretending to be someone we're not.

Now, I don't think we intentionally try to mislead or live in falsehood,

but we are all prone to do it.

Maybe it's because we don't realize how destructive it is.

The first way that it's destructive is it goes against the character of God.

Even though Paul doesn't mention this directly,

this principle is seen clearly if we read verse 25

within the context of the entire letter,

and especially chapter 4.

If the church is the body of Christ,

then we should reflect His character.

If the church is the body of Christ,

then we should reflect His character,

which is clearly seen in the Old Testament passage of Numbers.

Numbers 23 says,

God is not man that He should lie,

or a son of man that He should change His mind.

Has He said, and will He not do it?

Or has He spoken, and will He not fulfill it?

Last week we talked about truth, that Jesus is truth.

When we as the church

pretend to be something that we are not,

we violate the character of who He is.

We violate the truth.

There are non-believers all around us

where the only experience they have had with the character of God

is from people within the church.

And a lot of times, it hasn't been a good experience.

I'm sure many of us have had conversations with non-believers

that have said,

I've had some sort of horrible experience with somebody from church.

I've had some sort of horrible experience

with people that claim to be Jesus, or love Jesus.

Now, I waited tables for four years through college.

Abuelos Mexican Food Embassy, it's fantastic.

They need to get one here.

It's fantastic.

But I worked every shift throughout my time there.

And do you know which one I hated the most?

Sunday lunch.

All the people from church would come in

after experiencing a time of worship,

after experiencing a time where they got to hopefully be in the presence of the Lord,

and they come in for lunch,

and they are the rudest, cheapest people we saw all week long.

I came to understand why people like Billy Joel

would say that he would rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.

Friday nights were fun.

The people were nice.

The people weren't cheap.

I dreaded Sundays, and so did every single one of my coworkers.

One particular Sunday, my coworker, Clint,

who knew that I was a Christian,

asked me, why would you want to be associated with him?

He had just worked a table that racked up a $150 bill,

and they left a tract as a tip.

When you go out to a meal,

especially on a Sunday,

you get to reflect the character of God.

Be generous,

because he is overly generous.

Be kind, because he has been so kind to us.

Well, Daniel, sometimes the service is terrible.

Sometimes they're rude to me.

That's okay, because sometimes you're terrible.

And God still loves you anyway.

If you are going to claim to be a Christian,

if you're going to claim to be a follower of Jesus,

don't harm the character of God by looking like the rest of the world.

Falsehood is also destructive to yourself.

Proverbs 19 says that a false witness will not go unpunished,

and he who pours out lies will not go free.

There's two things that happen when our lives become characterized by falsehood.

There's two things that happen when our lives are characterized by lies.

The first is that we lose our integrity,

and that people can no longer trust us.

I mean, that's pretty obvious, right?

When you live a life of lies,

people begin to doubt that you're actually telling the truth.

I think that most of us recognize how falsehood hurts us in that manner.

But there's also the flip side that I'm not sure that we tend to consider.

When we fail to put off falsehood, when we live a life of lies,

we also have a hard time believing and trusting others.

If we live a life of falsehood,

it makes us skeptical of everyone around us.

I see it all the time.

I've experienced it in my own life.

We put on a facade because we think that's the person that people will accept.

We fail to be real because we want to have this relationship.

We want to have this friendship.

We pretend, and then we form this relationship that's based on a lie,

and we kind of somewhat become dependent on it.

But there's this constant thought in your head that if they really knew you,

if they really understood who you were, that relationship would be over.

If I were to confess that I struggle with this particular thing,

then people would abandon me.

And so you become skeptical of those around you.

Do they love you or do they love the facade that you've put up?

Do they want to hang out with you or do they want to hang out with a person that's lying to him?

That's a form of punishment.

It's not freedom.

That kind of life is exhausting.

Many of you are living it.

I've lived it.

It's exhausting.

It wears you out.

Some of the most free people I've ever met in my life are sitting in a prison cell right now.

That's who they are.

They've been busted.

There's no more secrets.

And they are walking in more freedom than most of us in this room are,

because they're not pretending.

Find you a group of people that you can trust.

Find you a group of people and be willing to be who you are with them.

It will be hard.

Not going to sugarcoat that one.

It's going to be hard.

They might betray you.

That's a reality.

But it will be worth it.

Finally, falsehood is destructive to the church.

That's very consistent with what Paul has already written here in Ephesians.

And how he's described that all of us are connected to one another.

We're connected to each other.

We are one body.

So when one part of the body suffers, the rest of the body suffers with it.

If there's an infection in a body part, it affects the rest of the body.

And that's particularly true when it comes to falsehood.

That's particularly true when you deal with a bunch of lies and things like that.

Many of us here in this room have either been a part of a church split,

or we've been impacted by one in some way.

And I'm convinced that in most of those cases,

that church split is not over some major theological or doctrinal issue.

But rather, that church split is a result of relationships that have been damaged

because of falsehood,

because of lying,

because of pretending.

I hear often, often, how someone doesn't trust someone else,

they feel like they're holding their cards too close to the chest.

They just like to talk at surface level.

You can never really go deep with them.

When we talk just on surface level,

now this is no offense to Andy Irvin,

but sometimes we've got to get past the weather.

Sometimes we've got to go a little bit deeper.

When we talk at surface level only, trust is unable to be built.

And when trust isn't built,

we will just be a church who likes to play in the kiddie pool.

There will never be healing if that's the case.

So audience participation, alright?

Everybody hopefully will participate.

But show of hands,

if anyone else thought daily, weekly, whatever,

that you were failing as a parent,

look around you.

So have I.

There's been many days that I lose sleep

because I'm wondering what should I have done better in that situation?

How can I love my kids better in that situation?

Has anyone else felt like their marriage needs help

because there's some hurt and there's not real great communication?

Anybody else?

Look around you.

Those of you that are married and do not have your hands up are liars.

Let's put away the falsehood.

Because I have.

There's days when scene and I do not click.

There's days when we just do not get along.

What about struggling with some sort of temptation or sin?

And you've been afraid to share it.

I've been there.

Anybody else?

Let's put away some falsehood, y'all.

I've been there.

Our sin nature wants to keep things in the dark.

Our sin nature wants to say,

I'm fine when we're not.

Our sin nature wants to pretend that our marriage is perfect when it's not.

Our sin nature wants to pretend that we are the best parents

to ever walk the face of the earth when we're not.

And when we do that, when we let our sin nature overcome us,

we will never be a place that finds healing.

So put away the falsehood.

Not everybody rose their hand.

Raise their hand.

Raise their hand.

But every single one of us in this room, you can look across the room.

Every single one of us in this room is dealing with something.

Everybody in this room is perfect by any means.

But we like to pretend that we are, don't we?

We like to pretend that we have it all together when we don't.

Let's put away the falsehood today.

Let's put away the falsehood.

And let's be angry about it when we see it.

Let's gather together and support one another.

Let's be honest with one another.

Let's find healing together.

And so I'm going to pray for us.

We'll have time to respond. We'll have time to sing.

Maybe you need to go grab somebody that's in this room that you can't stand right now.

Maybe you need to make peace.

Maybe you need to come to the altar and you need to lay these things before the Lord.

Maybe you need to sit in your chair and just ask God to speak and reveal things to you.

I don't know.

But this passage affects all of us.

Every single one of us.

I am a messed up, sin filled husband, father, pastor, person in general.

And I will never pretend to be anything else.

But because of Jesus, I have healing.

But not when I keep it to myself.

And so if you've ever once thought, man, I hope to be like Daniel in my spiritual journey,

I'm telling you you don't.

You don't.

I'm not the example.

Right?

We said that last week.

Jesus is the example.

Jesus is the truth.

Jesus is who we look up to to find life.

And so I'm going to pray for us.

I'm going to encourage you to take that step.

If you need, we'll have the prayer team ready, enable.

If they can pray with you, if you can want to confess something to them.

If you want to do something, let us minister to you today so that you can find healing.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Father God, I pray that you will do a work in this place today.

I pray, Father, that you will give us soft hearts.

I pray that you will reveal any anger that we might have that needs to be settled before

the day is done.

God, we pray for church unity.

We pray that you will not, that you will protect us from allowing the enemy, the devil, to

set up any sort of camp here.

We give him no opportunity whatsoever.

And so, Father, I pray that you as your spirit moves to this place, that you will bring healing,

that you will bring life.

So I ask all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.