Our text for this week is Ephesians 4:26-27:

This raises a good question. Can we be angry and not sin? The answer is “yes.” We are called to be like the Lord, and to abide in Him, and He very definitely gets angry at some things. This is righteous anger.

This should cause us to want to understand what those things are that make the Lord angry. Some of them are injustice, unrighteousness, perversion, and taking advantage of the weak or oppressed. A study of the anger of the Lord is important for every Christian. If you do this you will also find some things that make Him angry that will probably surprise you.

For example, the anger of the Lord “burned against Moses” when the Lord called him to go to Egypt to set His people free. This happened because Moses responded to his calling by saying that he was not adequate for such a great task. This may seem like humility, and since the Lord promises to give His grace to the humble it is hard to understand why He would get angry at this. However, this is not true humility, but rather a profound arrogance. What Moses was really saying by this response was that he did not think the Lord knew what He was doing by choosing him. Moses was also saying by this response that the Lord’s adequacy was not as great as Moses’ inadequacy.

The obvious truth is that Moses was inadequate for the task, just as every one of us are inadequate for anything that the Lord calls us to do. If we were adequate within ourselves, we would not need Him. The type of false humility that Moses demonstrated can therefore be the basis for the most destructive kind of pride in leadership. The same logic presupposes that those the Lord chooses must be adequate. This is also the root of humanism that supposes that mankind has both the wisdom and goodness to do what is right—a remarkable delusion in the light of human history.

So there is a righteous anger, but we are also exhorted not to let the sun go down on our anger. That means we should settle such matters before we go to bed. This should be a rule in every relationship. Even when the Lord’s anger burned against Moses, He settled the matter immediately. The Lord did not reject Moses because of his folly. Even those who are doing and promoting the most unrighteous deeds that God hates are still loved by Him. The Lord even said that He gave Jezebel time to repent (see Revelation 2:20-21). He truly does desire for all to repent and be saved. Even so, He is still angry at sin and those who promote it.

We must also consider that the exhortation in our text for this week is a warning that when you are angry you are in danger of sinning. Certainly some of the worst crimes and diabolical deeds in history have been the result of uncontrolled anger. This is such an important issue that when Paul gave Titus the qualifications for those who would be elders in the church he said, “For the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered” (Titus 1:7). Being “quick tempered” therefore disqualifies one from being a leader in the church. This is because to “be angry, and yet do not sin” means that we may get angry, but we do not let the anger control us, we control it. Uncontrolled anger can be so damaging that it is a character flaw which will disqualify us from leadership in the church.