Transcript

Well, grab your Bibles and let’s go to Ephesians 4 and we’ll pick up where we left off last time, and between Philemon and Ephesians, we are getting our wagons loaded with practical exhortations about walking the Christian life that he has provided for us. I spent the entire last time we were together on Sunday night reviewing the great foundation of the sovereign grace which makes us God’s children. So we stand in this position of, how can I say it, divine justification; this powerful, settled, fixed, immovable, unthwartable, unconquerable position we have as being righteous and justified before a holy God. And how do we know we are so secure in that? Because he did it. I didn’t do something to gain that place, he did something and gave me that place and that’s what Ephesians bears out.

Now he says, that all being true, there is something new and different about you and one of the ways I like to say this, especially in this section of this epistle, is that we have a new Father. Satan used to be our father. He used to be master and lord of us. We were of his dominion but God has, by his own grace through the merits of his own Son, purchased us out of that household and adopted us in. He has grafted us into his household. We are his now.

We have a new Father. We have a new family. We are the ekklesia; it’s the Greek word we translate “church” in the New Testament. It literally means “called out ones.” We were of the world, we naturally belonged in the world, our values were like the world, our philosophy was one of many worldly philosophies, and then all of a sudden through the Gospel, we were apprehended, we were changed, and called to another group. It doesn’t mean we don’t still do some things in the world. We can work with people in the world and we buy stuff where people of the world buy stuff. We enjoy ballgames like people of the world. But that’s secondary to us now. Our primary identification is with this new group called the ekklesia, the called out ones. Called out from somewhere else, called together to one another and to Christ, and now as this new fellowship, we have new values, new priorities, new rules, new precepts. We live by a higher standard, a new and true and wise understanding of what life is really all about. And by the way, when God called you out from the world to this new fellowship, you are part of a new family now that never ends. This is eternal. This is not temporal.

Now not only a new Father and a new fellowship, or rather a new family, but thirdly, a new fellowship, and that’s what he’s talking about here. He is saying, “Now as you walk together as the people of God in your local church,” for these people it was the local church at Ephesus, for us it’s Grace Life Church of the Shoals, but he says, “as you walk together, I want you to do some things. I want you to live in a certain way. I want you to conduct yourself and behave yourself in a certain way.”

So look at it, if you will, in verses 25 through 27 of Ephesians 4. “Therefore,” that word “therefore,” again, everything he said already, all the great standing you have through the merits of Christ as a justified one, a changed one, a Spirit indwelt one, a called out one, therefore all that being true and much more, “laying aside falsehood,” notice that’s a continual action verb. You don’t just lay it aside, well, in one sense you do, you decide, “I’m no longer going to be a falsehood,” but we slip and we slope back and we leak and so we have to keep going back and laying aside. We’ve become repenters of that old way of life. “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.” You at this called out group. You become this interconnected body of believers that can’t be separated, so whatever you do, don’t you dare be in the pattern or the habit of living in and speaking falsehood to each other.

Now verse 26, “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” As you have conflicts and quarrels and disputes and difficulties, deal with it. Don’t let it remain there and whatever part of your anger steps over into sinful anger, get rid of it.

Then he says verse 27, “and do not give the devil an opportunity.” So he’s getting really down to where the rubber meets the road. He’s getting down to brass tacks, just practical everyday stuff here.

Let’s look at it this way, I: talking truth. Talking truth, and under that the subpoint A would be: the negative to set aside. Now Christianity was always a taking off and a putting on. That’s what our entire process of sanctification entails. We are constantly catching stuff, calling it what it is if it violates Scripture, and we are repenting of it and we are taking it off so we can put on the new. That’s where Scripture memorization and meditation is so helpful because it helps to meld and it helps to seal into our hearts and into our thinking the new way to approach something; it helps to dislodge and get out of us the old.

So I: talking truth, subpoint A, the negative to set aside. Very clearly in verse 25, the first part, “Therefore, laying aside falsehood.” You see, through the working of God, the old man or the old self, you can use either phrase, both are biblical, is now being laid aside and a new man is being put on, and it is our duty and even more, it is our blessing to choose to walk in the new man. How many times have you and I been doing something in situations and our attitude be wrong or we choose to go in a wrong place or 1,001 things that at that moment you put the old man back on? Our privilege, though, and our duty, our blessing, is to walk in the new man.

Now particularly here, he wants us to put off the falsehood and that would include a broad range of anything that’s vice and sin, anything of ungodliness, but particularly here he wants to talk about our speech. Falsehood here would refer back to the lie of the garden of Eden when Satan tempted Eve and then Eve tempts Adam with the lie that they do not have to submit to God; they do not have to yield to God’s authority over their lives, they can be their own god and they can decide for themselves what is right and wrong and what is evil and what is good. Is that not what our world is doing today? We’ve decided, “Hey, we can decide what’s moral. We can decide what’s good. We can decide what the definition of marriage is. We can decide what gender is or what it is not.” Again like I said this morning, I mean, I’m going to say it until I die: this is perverse, it’s vile, it’s wrong, and once you start down that funnel, that’s why you have this unending domino effect of weirdness. It’s funny, it wasn’t too long ago do you know what they called these viewpoints? Mental illness, then with one stroke of the pen, the American Psychiatric or Psychological Association says, “No, it’s no longer weird. It’s okay.” No science there just deciding these things.

All of that is of the falsehood and we lay that aside and particularly we lay aside any falsehood that we find in our speech. We are no longer to be sons of the great liar, of course, who is Satan. The Bible calls him the father of all liars. We now with the new nature follow a new Father and he’s the Father of truth. So we are to be children of the truth. We must be discipled believers setting aside all falsehood, particularly in this context all lying and speaking only the truth. What a contrast, walking in the truth and speaking the truth is to the world system you and I live in, even going all the way back to the ancient Greek philosophers like Plato. Plato would discuss how we ought to incorporate some lying into our lives, that it’s just a better life to incorporate lying into your life. But we are not of that philosophy. That’s not who we are. We are of the God of truth and we are striving to put off everything that is not of the truth and walk in this new fellowship.

So we are putting off, he says, “Therefore, laying aside all falsehood,” now subpoint B under talking truth, he says in verse 25, “speak truth each of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.” Speak truth each one of you, that’s what you put on, and what this calls for, brothers and sisters, is rigorous self-discipline and a commitment to speak the truth, to be accurate. To be accurate. Samuel Johnson, as recorded in Boice’s good commentary on this book, says, “It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.” God wants us to discipline our tongues to speak the truth and be careful and not embellish and not exaggerate things and certainly avoid out-and-out lying. Why? We are the children of a new Father and he’s the Father of truth. We are children in a new family and we are a family of truth. We are children in a new fellowship and it’s a fellowship marked by truth.

Now let me give a balance here because having raised children and raising grandchildren, children just come forth from the womb speaking lies, do they not? And I don’t think the Lord is talking about, since Mother Goose didn’t really talk, that’s a lie, you can’t teach your children Mother Goose, okay? That’s not, I think, what he’s talking about. However, I would say fairly early without the rod of harshness, we need to start guiding our children as to, “Sweetheart, that didn’t quite happen like that,” because we want to try to talk the truth. You begin guiding them to not embellish and not exaggerate because it’s contrary to what we are. And I have to be careful with some of you because some of you are kind of like me, you can get too firm and too harsh on things, you’re going to fix everything with a sledgehammer. That’s not what we’re talking about here, but it’s a gentle, parental, discerning guidance in our households, in our church fellowships, and in any other fellowship with children of God, that we want to strive to be of the truth.

There was a man who was the headmaster at one of the area Christian schools, he actually joined our church later on and he and I were talking one day. This was many years ago and he had run into somebody who was disgruntled about our church and me in particular. Those people used to not be very hard to find, and the person did not know that he and I had become friends and he appreciated our ministry, and as he was talking to the person, they said some things about me and about us that were patently untrue. Probably like you’ve got to give to them your W-2 form if you join that church, or something along that line. And that man looked at that woman and said, “I thought you were a Christian.” She said, “Well, I am a Christian.” He said, “Well, the Bible says Christians are of the truth and what you just told me I know is a lie.” I thought that’s a pretty good way to respond to something like that. He said the conversation ended there. Well, I’m not saying that’s the appropriate response in every setting but sometimes a good clear response like that is appropriate.

So first of all, he says as children of God, called out ones, justified ones, we ought to be talking the truth, laying aside falsehood, putting on the speaking of truth one to another, and then third, subpoint C here would be the motivation for it. He gives us a clear motivation for why we do this, “for we are members of one another.” We are inseparably, irrevocably, eternally connected to each other. You can’t lie to me without hurting you, and I can’t lie to you without hurting me. That’s why in the New Testament, particularly dealing with the distribution of spiritual gifts, he describes us as being part of the same body. Somebody is a hand. Somebody is the foot. Somebody is the eyes. Somebody is the ears. But you are all part of one whole. You are all part of one body.

Hodge, the great Presbyterian theologian, talking about this truth said this, “It is unnatural and absurd for the hand to deceive and hurt the foot. It is a violation of the very law of their union, and it is also a very violation of one Christian to lie and deceive another.” Falsehood in the church is a stab into the very vitals of the body. Imagine you’re walking along a path in the woods and you come across a pit that’s been covered with some sticks and some leaves, the eye will not use the foot to find out if it’s hollow underneath or firm or safe, or rather the eye will use the foot, but the foot would not respond back to the eye and say, “Oh, it’s okay. Just go ahead.” No, they are not going to lie to each other. If the eye sees a danger in the woods, would it lie to the foot about it? No, we look out for each other. We protect each other. So he says here, here’s the motivation, here’s the reason why. You’ve got to understand your connection to one another is even more vital and more real than your connection to blood relatives if they are not born again. It doesn’t mean you don’t love and are not connected to your blood relatives. Of course you do, but there is something more substantial. They say blood is thicker than water, yes, but blood is not thicker than the Spirit. The Spirit is weightier than even the blood that connects us.

I remember visiting so many Third World countries and the nationals in that country would take us to the drugstore, take us wherever, and we’d buy something and in every situation there was this brokering bartering system where you just lie and deceive. It’s just what they do. I mean, it’s just part of the system. A bribing, bartering, dishonest system, and do you know why that is? If you find a culture that does not have a Christian ethic for its background, you find this kind of deception and lying and scheming. Now you find it in our culture and I think it’s getting worse, but it’s not just an accepted part of the everyday lifestyle. It still shocks us and still angers us and there is a righteous anger, and we’ll talk about that a little bit more in a moment, when we run into somebody like that, but a culture that doesn’t have this, it’s just a part of who they are.

So he says you need to be speaking the truth. Take off the falsehood. Put on speaking the truth. And remember, if you don’t, you are damaging yourself and you’re certainly damaging the body.

Well, II: he says deal with anger. Deal with anger. You know, thinking on this this week, I thought about how I don’t think we can comprehend what these people came out of as they were immersed in this vile, superstitious, idolatrous, deeply immoral culture, and they come out of all of this falsehood and all this lying and all this immorality, and then wham, Paul says, “Now that you are changed, let’s start walking in a different way.” And I know there had to be a lot of slipping and sliding and falling and stumbling and repenting, just like you and I do. But fortunately here in America, there is still some pretty good remnants of a Christian culture here that when we come to Christ, radically everything changes in a way but our culture has helped us somewhat. But for these ancient Ephesians, the culture they came out of all of this had to be shockingly brand- new.

Now he’s saying, “Okay, let’s deal with the anger issues as they are going to regularly pop up within your fellowship and in your own heart and in your own life.” Subpoint A: the negative to take off. He says, “Be angry, and yet do not sin.” Put off sinful anger. “Now what is sinful anger, pastor?” Well, when we are angry because our pride is injured. That’s simply idolatry of self. We are not dying to ourselves. We are thinking about us. “What is the source of your quarrels? Is it not your pleasures?” the Bible says. Boy, that’s convicting to me. How many times do I get irritated and find myself drifting toward anger and when the Spirit speaks to me and convicts me, I’m thinking, “What’s this really about? This is really about me. That’s who I’m really thinking about. I’m not thinking about the glory of God. I’m not thinking about the good of others or the good of the church, I’m thinking about me.” I have to repent there. When your pride is injured and you start leaning toward anger, that’s sinful anger. When you have anger with malice, when you intend to harm someone, you get mad and you want to harm someone, you want to strike back, you want to make them look bad, you want to damage them in some way, that’s sinful anger. Any anger with any spirit of revenge is sinful anger. The Bible says, “I will repay. Vengeance is mine. I will repay,” says the Lord. We don’t believe in vigilante justice either in the culture or in the church.

Ecclesiastes 7:9 tells us, “Do not be eager in your heart to be angry.” Now, all of us to some dimension are going to have to wrestle and repent of this, but God forbid you get to the place where you are eager to be angry. “Do not be eager,” Ecclesiastes 7:9 says, “in your heart to be angry, For anger resides in the bosom of fools.” The problem is we are prone to be angry at the wrong things and at the wrong times and that’s a good definition for what sinful anger is. Sinful anger is where you are angry at the wrong object and beyond the limits or out of bounds of what God has ordained is a proper or acceptable anger. We are, again, children of a new Father, a Father who selflessly gave his Son for us. We are members of a new family and we are now in a new fellowship. So put off as a disciplined act of the will all sinful anger, and we must trust God to help us get these emotions in lien.

So sinful anger must be put off and a form of that, subpoint B: we need to put off a simmering anger. A simmering anger. He says there in verse 26, “do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Anger must not be cherished. It must not be cultivated. It must not be liked. You need to talk to your anger, get mad at your anger. Say, “This is not good. This is not right. I’m not going to let this foster. God, help me! God, help me! Don’t let this stay here.” Anger must not be allowed to simmer because if you allow it to simmer, you will begin to like it. You’ll begin to enjoy it. Have you ever seen people who get together just to stir up each other’s bitterness? Just to stir up the other third-party they both want to be angry at? That’s so wrong in the church. Never do that. Don’t do that. Just don’t be a party to that. Don’t let it simmer. Don’t let it churn. Don’t let it develop. We must not nurse anger. Anger must be quickly identified and when it crosses into a sinful realm, then it must be quickly repented of and disposed of.

The word “anger” at the end of verse 26 here, he says, “do not let the sun go down on your anger,” it’s actually a different Greek word at the end of 26 than the word “anger” at the beginning of verse 26. The one at the end of verse 26 literally means “resentment.” It’s developing into something further. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. He said there is a limited time and you ought to have this dealt with. Some people probably need to move to Greenland. The sun doesn’t go down for three months there, but that’s not an option, and that’s not what he’s talking about.

I was thinking earlier about I remember Adrian Rogers told a story about Johnny and Bobby, talking about speaking the truth. And Johnny told Bobby one day, he said, “Bobby, my daddy has got a list of the names of all the men he can whip.” And Johnny told Bobby that and Bobby said, “Well, okay.” So he went home and Bobby told his daddy, he said, “Johnny’s daddy’s got the names of all the men he can whip. Your name is at the top of the list, dad.” So Bobby’s dad said, “All right,” and Bobby’s dad went over to Johnny’s house and knocked on the door and Johnny’s dad came to the door and said, “My son tells me that you’ve got the name of all the men that you can whip and my name is at the top of the list. So what are you going to do about it?” He said, “I guess I have to take your name off that list.” Speak the truth. Don’t be guilty of saying something that’s not true, and here be cautious with anger, sinful anger, simmering anger. Now the positive, to put on. Put those off, now the positive. He said, “Be angry, and sin not.” Literally it means in your anger do not sin. And again, make sure that if you have an anger, it’s a righteous indignation and the right object is being focused on, and it doesn’t go beyond the limitations God sets for you.

There is a righteous anger, there is an anger that is not sin, there is an anger that is for the glory of God, there is an anger that’s for the good of the church and good for others and it’s good for you. God gets angry. Ephesians 5:6 says, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” Jesus showed his anger. Matthew 21:12 and 13, “Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer”; but you are making it a robber’s den.'” Here he came with really violence and ran these men out with a whip, turning over their tables. Mark 3:5, “After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.” Now, preachers get kind of fancy right here and say, “Well, you know what it is, God is angry at the sin but he loves the sinner.” The Bible doesn’t say that. God is not going to send men’s sin to hell, he’s going to send men to hell. Don’t you make out God to be politically correct. Let him be who he is. He’s a God we tremble before at times.

Now, here’s the beautiful thing about God: God who righteously is indignant, God who has his holy wrath focused on sinners, the same God who will reach out and save that wicked sinner and make them an object of grace and mercy. If I were saying that, I would say in a sense it is true, God hates the sin and loves the sinner, but there will come a time when he will vent all of his wrath on sinners who have not repented. He is holding it back right now. He is restraining the wrath that ought to come against sinners right now, but the day will come when the last one will be saved that God is going to save and then the door will be closed, the door of grace. The day of grace will be over and God’s wrath will pour forth against sin.

But we’re talking about anger. God shows his anger. The Lord Jesus showed his anger and this is a consecrated anger and it’s a controlled anger. Here’s what I mean by consecrated: it’s an anger that is separate from the lust of the world, the lust of the flesh, and from the devil’s influences. It’s a holy anger for the glory of God and the good of the saints. It’s also a controlled anger. It’s the idea of meekness. Meekness is power under control. Meekness comes from an old word that describes two great, strong, draft, work horses who are under complete discipline and control of their master. So a consecrated anger and a controlled anger, an anger that is never out of hand, an anger that is yielded to the will and controlled by the Spirit. It’s an anger mingled with holy affection. John Stott said, “To fail to feel or express Christian anger is, number one, to deny God; number two, to damage ourselves; and number three, to encourage the spread of evil.” God hates sin and God’s children should hate sin. There is a great need for Christian anger today. In the face of blatant evil, we should be indignant. We should not be tolerant. We should be angry, not apathetic. It should make us angry that little babies are murdered. It should make us angry little babies are murdered in abortion. It should make us angry to see the kind of racism and the hate that sometimes fills the corridors of this land. It should make us angry when we see what some churches call being open-minded and inclusive and it’s part of their ploy to “reach the lost.” They welcome into membership people who are clearly involved in open wickedness and rebellious activity, never practicing any form of church discipline in God’s church. Those things make God angry and they should make us angry. John 2:17, the Bible says, “Zeal for thy house will consume me.” It means the Lord Jesus is zealous, zealous with a righteous indignation for his house to be right with him. There should be some of that stirring in our own hearts.

So he says put off sinful and simmering anger, put on a righteous indignation. Now he says here’s the motivation, last part of verse 27, “do not give the devil an opportunity.” Do not give the devil an opportunity, literally it means don’t give the devil a place. What he means is once you let anger cross over into sinful anger, Satan comes down into your heart and Satan just takes rest. He says, “Boy, I’ve got me a good place right here to set up camp. I’ve got me a good place right here to do my work and be effective. And as long as he’s not, she’s not dealing with this anger issue, I’ve got them.” You give Satan a willful place of stronghold in your heart and life which leads to a multiplication of other sins.

So this is a powerful warning and a motivation for all of us to avoid sinful anger. You see, an anger that simmers is not controlled and it gives Satan a power over us. It fuels the desire to yield to his evil suggestions. An anger that is not quickly subdued and repented of gives Satan a beachhead in our souls. It gives Satan a base for further operation.

Satan loves to lurk around angry people. You know, the Bible warns you don’t be around a man, don’t associate with a man given to anger. Now look, we all have to struggle and repent with anger and some more than others, but if a person is striving and repenting, hey, they are welcome in our fellowship, amen? But a person who walks in and gives themselves over, defends their sinful anger, cherishes their sinful anger, you’d better stay away from them because Satan is right there. You are opening yourself up so the Bible says don’t you run with a man given to anger. Man being generic. It very easily could be a woman, of course. Whoever it is, these type people are fertile ground for the seeds of poison to flourish in and once anger is not dealt with and it fosters further, it starts a domino effect provoking further bitterness, further hatred, further malice, breaches in fellowship, even violence. And I think Satan’s first ploy, the first thing he does if anger is not dealt with, is he starts dulling you to the damage and the seriousness of what’s happening in your soul. He lets you kind of justify, “It’s okay. It’s my personality.” I’m going to tell you what you need to do: you need to change your personality. Your personality is not Lord, Jesus is Lord, amen? “Well, it’s just, you know, I have this different temperament.” Well, change it. Don’t be that way. This is the kind of preaching that helps you. This ain’t hurting you. This helps us. Don’t let that simmer. Don’t let that foster. His first ploy is blindness. You become insensitive to that truth that this is a damaging metastasizing cancer in your soul. It builds and builds and churns and churns and leads to many other sins.

A couple of quick thoughts and I’m done, all right? Conclusions for practical application. Remember, be mindful that the root of both falsehood and the root of sinful anger is the same root, it’s self-idolatry. It’s, “I love me more than I love God. I love me more than I love the person I’m angry at. I love me more than I love my church,” because if you’re angry or speaking falsehood, you’re damaging your church because we’re connected to you. If you do it, it affects us. It’s self-idolatry. That’s always the root. Call it that. By an act of the will say, “God, there I go worshiping me again.” And do you know what you need to say? “Lord, isn’t that just like me. That’s why it took you dying on the cross because this is what I’m prone to be like.” That’s the way I have to repent. Am I the only one?

Secondly, understand these steps to turn from falsehood or to turn from sinful anger. Step 1: claim, stand on, that your case is not unique. “Yeah, but.” You know, I didn’t grow up in a great environment. My home was dysfunctional. They all have been dysfunctional since Adam and Eve ate us out of house and home, but if you think you’ve got an excuse for your anger, do you want to hear my story sometime? Most all of us have a story, amen? I mean, you can hang your hat on a thousand, “Well, I’ve got reason to be angry. I’ve got reason to be bitter. I’ve got reason.” No, you don’t. “No temptation, no temptation has seized you but that which is common to man and God is faithful who along with the temptation will provide a means of escape also.” Your situation is not unique. Get over it. And your children’s situation is not unique. Quit excusing your children for their sin. They sin because they are little sinners and they love sin and they love self and they don’t love God, and you need to sometimes wrap your arms around them, kiss them on the cheek and say, “Daddy will die for you, granddaddy would die for you, but I’m telling you, you’re a wicked little sinner and you need a Savior.” Now, don’t do that when they are three, maybe. Be balanced, but let’s speak truth to our children, amen?

Remember the story of Charles Haddon Spurgeon sitting around his table? I know Spurgeon was probably up in his early teen years and his mom looked at him and said, “Charles, I’m telling you, you’re a sinner before a holy God. The righteousness of God and the justice of God is against you, and if you die and you stand before the judgment bar of God, I will testify against you.” Woo! That’s a good mama right there. So Spurgeon went down to a Methodist chapel and got saved. But what I’m saying, she loved him with all of her heart but he was getting to the age he needed to take seriously the claims of Christ and the claims of sin and the claims of the Gospel.

Your situation is not special. Here’s what you need to tell yourself. Businessman, are you angry? Homemaker, are you angry? Student, are you angry? Son or daughter, you angry about your situation? Senior adult, are you angry about how things turned out? Here’s what you need to say to yourself: millions of other Christians have been in just as tough or a worst spot and kept on keeping on and repenting and humbling themselves and serving Jesus and I am going to do too. I’m not going to let this anger and this bitterness, this malice and this stirring and churning continue. My situation is not unique.

2. God’s grace is sufficient. He knows where you are, he knows your situation and he has grace enough to carry you through it. He has grace enough to get you through it. Look to him. Call on him. Tell him you are weak. When you fail repent and go again. Paul had a thorn in the flesh. I’m convinced the thorn in the flesh was not some thing, I’m convinced it was some one, an unrelenting attacker, an unrelenting slanderer, an unrelenting accuser who just tried to wound and diminish Paul’s ministry everywhere he went. That’s what I’m convinced it was. I’ll show it to you some day, and in all that context, it was tearing Paul apart and he was losing sleep, he was about to kill him. He said, “O God, remove it! Remove it! Remove it!” And God said, “No, Paul, I want to use you so I’m going to keep humbling you and my grace is sufficient for this thorn in the flesh you are carrying.” And I guess every child of God has a thorn in the flesh. You say, “Yeah, my thorn in the flesh is my anger.” No, your thorn in the flesh is your husband’s cross. You say, “Well, this anger is my thorn in the flesh.” No, that’s your sin. It might be your wife’s cross or your husband’s cross to have to live with you if you’re that way, or your friends or your small group, or whoever it is. But your cross to bear is not your anger.

Your case is not special. God’s grace is sufficient. And loving Christian accountability is probably required. There probably needs to be somebody in your life that you give permission to say, “Man, check on me. Man, if you see me crossing the line, call me out. Remind me, say there you go.” I was doing a project one time and I had to tell an expert helping me with the project, I hate to say this to you. I said, “You know, I can get a little obsessive sometimes or a lot obsessive sometimes, and if I get too anxious about something, if I get too overboard on something, will you just tell me it’s okay. That imperfection is okay. And I’m going to take your word and I’m going to go on” I needed that accountability. How does it feel to have a flawed pastor like me? You see, you just thought I was perfect, didn’t you?

But you might need accountability. As a matter of fact, we all need accountability. As a matter of fact, that’s what a church family is among other wonderful things is an accountability system for all of us. But there are times when we may have a particular struggle. It might be jealousy. It might be 1,001 different things. In this context, it may be anger, but your situation is not unique. God’s grace is sufficient, and find a brother or sister that you can be accountable to.