0008 - What about that temper? Matthew 5.21-26

I've heard people say, hey, I'm a good person, I've never murdered anyone, I pay my taxes, I've been faithful to my spouse. What doesn't there more to being a genuinely good person than that? Well, it's to that topic that Jesus turns next in the Sermon on the Mount and he begins with murder. Alright, man, it's good to be together again here on the Bible and Life Podcast. I am so glad that you're with us. It's crazy to me to think that it's already July 31st, it's the last day of July, I don't know where the month of July went to, and it's crazy that it's gone so fast. But here we are, end of July, and we have got a super rich, super important passage of Scripture to look at out of the Sermon on the Mount today. We're at Matthew chapter 5, verse 21 through 26, and we're really beginning the body of the Sermon on the Mount at this point, we've worked through the Beatitudes, we've worked through our vocation to be salt and light, and then we worked through last time what really is the like the thesis paragraph of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus ends with really the main point that he wants to demonstrate throughout the Sermon on the Mount and that that our righteousness must surpass that of the religious leaders of his day if we want to enter into the kingdom of heaven, and so Jesus's call to us and the Sermon is, his vision that he paints for us is if you want to enjoy a genuinely good life, if you want to experience all that God has for you, then you need to have surpassing righteousness, and he intends to make us the kind of people who can do just that. Well now having said that in verse 20, Jesus is ready to begin really fleshing out what surpassing righteousness looks like, and he's going to do that with just a handful of illustrations out of really taking Old Testament passage and say, "Here's what was said then, but guess what, the vision that I have that God has for you is deeper and richer and more powerful than that." And so what we're going to get in the next few paragraphs of the Sermon on the Mount are illustrations of surpassing righteousness, and the first has to do with really I think a very, very important and powerful truth that we need to make sure we listen to and we hear, if we're followers of Jesus, if we're going to be salt and light, we need to pay very close attention to what Jesus says in Matthew 5, 21, and following. Jesus says this, "Here's the first example, the first example is has to do with murder." He says this, "You have heard that the ancients were told you shall not commit murder, and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court, and this command you shall not murder is one of the ten commandments that's command number six, and Jesus says you've heard that, and that's good, that's right, and indeed Jesus intends to uphold this particular command, in fact he intends to take it deeper for us than that. "You have heard you shall not commit murder, while not murdering is good, but surpassing righteousness goes further than that." Whenever I read this text in context here, I always think of a guy by the name of Rich Pinkowski, yep, Rich Pinkowski. He was my boss when I was in high school. I worked at Safeway in the Bakery department, and I was the cleanup kid, and so I was responsible for cleaning the floors, cleaning all the tables, all the mixers, washing all the pans. I was the cleanup kid in the Bakery, and Rich Pinkowski was the baker, he was my boss. I don't even remember the exact context of the conversation, but somewhere along the lines, Rich and I were having this conversation, and he was significantly older than I was at that point in time. I'm guessing he was probably in his forties, and I was a teenage kid, and we were having some conversation, probably about Jesus, probably about the Bible, probably about church, or something like that, and Rich said in all seriousness, "Well, I'm a good person. I pay my taxes, and I've never murdered anyone." And that's good, that's true, that's right. I'm glad for Rich that he pays his taxes, and I'm really glad that he's never murdered anyone. But that's really a very minimalistic view of goodness, isn't it? Isn't there more to being a genuinely good person than not killing somebody else? There is, and Jesus' vision is much deeper, and much richer than that, and so if you're just going to limit yourself to that bare bones statement, you shall not murder. Jesus is like, "Well, no, we need surpassing righteousness. We need to get below the surface. We need to deal with the root of murder." You can't totally say that if there was no murder, we would have dealt with all the problem of human violence in our world. That human violence takes all sorts of forms, and sometimes it doesn't involve murder. Sometimes it doesn't involve physical abuse. There's other kinds of violence between people in our world, and Jesus wants to deal with that issue of human violence. In fact, that command, you shall not murder, as just a bare bones statement, Jesus would say, "Well, at the heart of that is the issue of human relationships and violence between humans. So let's go beneath the surface. Let's go deeper." And so notice what Jesus says in verse 22, he says, "But I say to you, you've heard that the ancients were told, you've heard this is what was said, you shall not commit murder, but I say to you, in Jesus invoking his authority as Messiah and Son of God wants to say, there's more to it than that. I say to you, Jesus says, that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. Not just if you murder somebody, but if you're angry with your brother or your sister, your fellow human, you shall be guilty before the court, that there is guilt before God. If you're angry with your brother, have you ever been angry with anyone? Have you ever thought harsh things, said harsh things, envisioned doing harsh things if you wanted ever wanted to hurt somebody because you were so angry? Well, that's the root of murder." And Jesus says that has to be dealt with if we're going to really fully and completely obey the command you shall not murder. You want to understand what the command means. You want to really be true to God's law? Well, have you ever been angry? Well there's guilt there and that needs to be dealt with. Jesus wants our righteousness to go beyond just not murdering to, let's deal with the root. Let's deal with anger. And we all know how destructive anger is. When we all know that there is a, like on a continuum, there is a connection between anger and even murder. In fact, when I was growing up just to be totally transparent and honest with you, when I was growing up I had a very, very bad temper and I could get really angry. Most people never saw it, didn't show up really at school or anything like that, it showed up at home, particularly towards my brother and my sister and I could get incredibly angry and I would get angry and I would yell and I would get mad and I would get very frustrated with people and my veins would pop out of my forehead and my neck and my sister always used to say he's going to grow up to be a murderer because I would get so angry. We know there's a connection between anger and murder. We know that they're on the same continuum, that me having a temper and my sister saying that she could make that connection because we recognize that anger is the root of murder and Jesus wants to deal with that root and so he says, I say to you everyone who is angry with his brother, well he's guilty too. He has violated God's intent, God's command. Then he goes on and he says this. He says, whoever shall say to his brother, Raka shall be guilty before the Supreme Court and whoever shall say you fool shall be guilty enough to go into the fire of hell. Now let's just pause for a second and reflect on what Jesus is getting at. He's already mentioned anger, well what is Raka and what is you fool have to do with it? Well Raka was an aromatic term of contempt. It was the kind of thing that someone would say when they were really frustrated or angry with each other and so you may have never been tempted to say Raka but my guess is if you're anything like the rest of us, you have been tempted to think or say mean-spirited harsh things to people. You have said or you've been tempted to say derogatory mean-spirited things about people. Well that's Raka, it's a term of contempt when you're mad, you're angry or when you're really frustrated or when you're resentful towards somebody and you say something that runs them down and tears down their person who that's Raka, literally it means something like empty head or something like that. Maybe a rough equivalent in our day and age would be like, you stupid idiot, right? We're tempted to say that. things. She's stupid idiot. Well, Jesus says everyone who says something like that shall be guilty enough to go into the fire of hell. That's challenging, isn't it? Because that speaks right to where every single one of us live. So, oh, I've been a good person. I've never murdered anyone. Well, Jesus has just taken it a whole lot deeper and says, "Well, have you been angry? Have you ever thought or said harsh things about another person?" Well, there's guilt there. And that needs to be addressed. That needs to be dealt with. That's the heart of the law. If you have ever been angry or contemptuous towards another person, then you're guilty before God. And Jesus wants to deal with that. Jesus wants to remove that as well. What Jesus does next in this section of the sermon on the Mount is, he then gives two illustrations to make really one particular point. Basically, what Jesus is saying by these next two illustrations is, if you want to deal with anger, you need to be quick to reconcile. You need to be quick to work things out with people. And he just kind of gives two really broad general illustrations from his context that made sense in his social context. The first illustration is the picture of worship. He pictures somebody at the temple getting ready to worship God. And he's emphasizing how serious this issue of broken human relationships fractured human relationships are by this illustration. This is what he says. If, therefore, you're presenting, presenting your offering at the altar. So there you are in the temple, you're getting ready to offer a sacrifice to God in their religious and cultural context. It was a daily occurrence. And so appealing to that, there you are in the midst of worshiping God. And while you're there, he says, you remember that your brother has something against you that you've done something to offend or harm or wrong your brother. What Jesus says then is this, leave your offering right there. Stop. Push pause. Don't go any further with your worship. Leave your offering there before the altar and go your way and find your brother. And first, he says, be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering. How important is it to God that we learn to repair damaged relationships? We learn to ask for forgiveness. We learn to reconcile how important is it? Well, it's so important that Jesus says, push pause on your worship, go reconcile with your brother if at all possible, then come and reengage in your worship. Or the second illustration Jesus gives in verse 25 is this. Now he pictures like some sort of civil course or civil case. There's there's a something that's happened and someone's bringing a civil case against you. And he says this, make friends quickly, reconcile quickly, work out your differences, come to some resolution quickly with your opponent at law while you're with him on the way. In order that your opponent doesn't deliver you to the judge and the judge to the officer and you're thrown into prison. Truly, I say to you, you shall not come out of there until you've paid up the last cent until you've worked things out and made a restitution for whatever the problem was. Jesus says, look, just be quick to work it out. He just pulls these two illustrations out and our situation may look different, but the point is so powerful and so important. If you want to deal with anger, you need to be quick to reconcile. That is a key key part of dealing with anger is not holding a grudge, not holding hostility. Being willing to own that maybe your brother has something against you and going apology for it and asking for forgiveness and working it out or even your opponent at law. Let's, how can we work this out and be willing to own your part of it, be willing to engage in a reconciliation process deal with that so anger doesn't sit there and fester and grow. If you, if we want to be, if we want to deal with anger, we need to be quick to reconcile. Well, what Jesus has then just taught us in this section of the turn on the mount is if we really want to honor God and be true to His commands, then we're going to have to deal with our anger and contempt. We're going to have to eliminate that. We know from reading the rest of Jesus' teaching and the rest of the New Testament that just controlling your anger is not enough. That's not what Jesus' vision is. Jesus, when he raises to the level of our consciousness that we often have a problem with anger, he's not just saying, well, so control your anger. What you see in these illustrations is, no, you need to go the next step and actually be a peacemaker, be a person who works for reconciliation and peace. In other words, you and I need to have a heart that's full of grace and peace towards people. And if we do that, anger, contempt and murder aren't going to be a problem for us. And that's Jesus' vision. Not merely to don't be angry, not merely that, but what Jesus really wants to have happen for us is to have our heart be full of grace, peace, and patience towards our brother. So how can you do that? Let me just, let me just talk a little bit about the house side of this for just a couple minutes. Because what Jesus really wants is for us, not just a control vice, but he wants us to cultivate virtue. He wants our heart to be so full. He wants the inner landscape of our soul to be so transformed that we're just marked by grace and peace and patience that anger really is an issue for us. So how can that become the case for you? Well, I've learned a little bit over the years because like I said, I used to have a violent temper. And though I haven't mastered patience and I still have some growth needed in the area of patience and peace and grace, I've learned a few things. And one of the really important things I've learned is that if you're going to cultivate a heart of grace and peace, one of the most important things you and I can do is we can actually look at Jesus who went out of his way to make peace with you and with me. That Jesus actually left the glories and the comforts of heaven to come our way, not because he had done anything wrong to us, but because his relationship with us was so important that he went out of his way to make peace with us. We'll stare at that. Look at that. Receive that. And that would be the second thing I would say. You want to cultivate a heart of grace and peace? Well, sincerely, genuinely open up your heart to the grace of Jesus. Just gaze at it. Welcome it. Embrace it. Receive it. Marinate it. Soak it until the grace of Jesus becomes the bedrock foundation of your soul. And then then the foundation of your life is built on grace. And Jesus' desire to reconcile with you and the more you stare at that, the more you believe that, the more you receive that it transforms your heart to where you want to give that same gift to others. You recognize how much that meant to you and how good it was to you. Well, now you want to give that to others. So, receive the grace and the peace of Jesus. Another little practical exercise or practical tip for cultivating a heart of grace and peace is simply this. Yield control to Jesus. Part of the reason we struggle with having patience or having grace and peace in our heart is we try to control the outcomes of our life. We try to make people do what we think they should do. We try to control circumstances and situations so they'll turn out the way we want. And that fills us with so much angst and anxiety and striving that we don't have grace and peace in our heart. And as a result, we can be very easily agitated. We can get frustrated. We can get angry so quickly because of that. Well, the solution for that is opening our hands and yielding control to Jesus. And basically trusting the outcomes to him, trusting that he's wise and he's good. And he has our best interest at heart. And he's really in control. And we don't have to sort everything out. We don't have to make everything right. We don't have to fix everything. We don't have to make everyone do what we think. We don't have to fight for our own justification or own vindication. We can just trust Jesus with that. And we can know that in his good time and in his good pleasure, he will defend us and he will vindicate us and he will sort things out. And Jesus is in charge. So relinquish control, yield control to Jesus, replace trying to control everything with trusting Jesus, replace control with trust, trusting Jesus' wisdom, Jesus' goodness, Jesus' promises, Jesus' plan, Jesus' purposes, and the future that Jesus has for you. Another very, very practical, simple little practical thing that will help you have more of a heart of grace and peace is to look at your schedule and create margin in your schedule. The fact is, as we live in such a go, go, go, do, do, accomplish, accomplish society that we very easily can fill up all the white space of our life with activities where we're constantly going, we're constantly trying, we're constantly busy, you know, even on our vacations, we fill our vacations so full of activity, we come up with vacation exhausted and we need a break from our vacation and we as a people just are active, active, go, go, go, do, do, do, and then often that comes with accomplished, accomplished, accomplished. There's a lot of reasons for that. Well, if we'll just learn to say, you know what, I'm not going to fill every ounce of my schedule and every ounce of my time list. If I'm going to create margin in my life, we'll now listen. There's opportunity for grace and peace to seep into that. We won't be running, running, running, running here and there. So look at your schedule, create some margin, allow for some margin in your life. One of the really important parts of that is actually, carve out time for silence, stillness and solitude in your life where you can be quiet and you can sit before God. You can welcome His presence and His grace into your life. You can remember what things really matter. You can get some perspective and that can be big moments of silence and solitude like where maybe like a friend of mine who just in a couple weeks is going to go to a monastery a couple hours away and you can just have a couple days of silence and solitude, but also we need some daily solitude, some daily moments where you start your, you start your day with a little bit of peace and quiet and stillness before God or you end your day that way or even in the midst of a busy day, you find a moment just to catch three, four, five minutes to just quiet yourself down. And that, that creates some stillness in your soul which will help grant grace and peace. And so it's not enough just to to avoid murder. If we want to actually be the kind of people Jesus calling us to be and really be salt and light in this world, well then we need to cultivate a heart of peace so that we're not even marked by anger and anger is an exception in our life and peace and patience and grace is the norm. And so as followers of Jesus, I urge you to take a look at your heart, what's going on on the inside and develop a plan for cultivating a heart of grace and peace so that anger and contempt are taken care of and the root of murder and human violence that can sometimes work its way to all our lives and all our souls as eliminated from your life. All right, that's it for today on this episode of Bible and Life. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'd love to connect with you. So if you haven't already, find me on Facebook and Instagram. I'd love to connect with you there and just get to know you a little bit that way so you can follow me on Facebook and Instagram. I hope you guys have a great week in grace and the peace of Jesus. God bless you guys. We'll see you next time on Bible and Life.