Jesus Says What?! (Murder) - Matthew 5:21-26 - October 23, 2011
Series: Kingdom Life – A World Turned Upside Down #12
I had a great-uncle who served in the Royal Air Force during WWII. He had gone over to England to join up a couple of years before the war started. By the time war did break out he was considered a highly experienced regular officer. On May 11, 1940 he was assigned to lead a formation of aircraft to bomb the bridges over the Maastricht canal. The German army was surging over them and the idea was to slow their advance by taking out the bridges.
Now my great-uncle never returned from that mission. He is buried in Belgium near the place where his aircraft came crashing to the earth. For years the family never really knew what had happened. The rumours abounded. I grew up hearing that he died in his parachute as the German pilots used the helpless airmen for target practice.
Radio broadcaster Paul Harvey was famous for his line, “and now you know the rest of the story.” Over the course of the last year or so we’ve been able to learn, from interviews with eye witnesses, what took place that day; “the rest of the story,” as it pertains to my uncle.
As they were making a turn to line up for their bomb run, German fighters attacked the formation. In an instant my uncle’s aircraft was set afire and plunged towards the earth. One man managed to bail out, his parachute just having time to open and slow his descent before he touched down.
It appeared to those who witnessed it that before the end came some control had been established in the aircraft. It came down on fire, but level, barely missing a house before a wing fell off and it crashed into a field with my uncle’s body still strapped in his seat. He and the one other crew member were both dead when German troops reached them moments later.
At some point the bodies were taken and buried in the place where they rest today, while the majority of the aircraft was eventually taken and sold for scrap. Before that happened though, villagers from a little town nearby, took souvenirs from the wreckage. A ring, an ammunition drum, and some other assorted odds and ends. It was a sad ending for a young life but the final chapter wasn’t written till some months later.
It seems that someone, while out looking for a souvenir, had taken from the wreck a couple of small black cylindrical objects. No one knew what they were. Over the months they were passed from hand to hand and every now and then the children would take them down and play with them. What was already a sad story suddenly became even more tragic. It turns out that these cylinders were a couple of small bombs which eventually exploded as two young boys were playing with them. Two more young lives destroyed by an explosion that never should have happened.
And among the things that struck me as that story was pieced together, was the destructive power of something that had lain dormant for so long, but which erupted with fury when it was least expected. And it made me think of the effects that anger has on our relationships. Emotions – like anger, bitterness, and resentment – can lie, seemingly dormant, just under the surface, until one day they erupt with destructive force bringing great pain and hurt into the lives of everyone near them.
And I’m sure we’ve all been hurt, by someone else’s anger at one time or another. And I’m just as certain, that we’ve all hurt others, with our own anger. Every one of us will be angry at some point – the question is – what do we do with it? That being said, I’ll ask you to open your Bibles with me this morning to the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew because Jesus has something to say about anger that we need to take to heart. Last week we looked at Jesus’ declaration that He had not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them. Jesus fills them up; He completes them. And the verses we looked at last time ended with Jesus saying unto them, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20, NIV)
And in the verses that follow, the ones we will start looking at today, Jesus gives us some concrete examples of how it is that we need to be living the spirit of the Law rather than the letter of it. He shows us what it looks like when our righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees. This is what it looks like in daily life. So let’s start reading in verse 21 …
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister, will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.” (Matthew 5:21–26, NIV)
Now over the next few weeks you’re going to notice a pattern in the Scriptures we read. Each week Jesus is going to start with those words, “You have heard it said,” – these are the things that you’ve heard - and then He’s going to share the common teaching of the day, and He’ll follow that with these words, “But I tell you …” And what Jesus is doing, is not setting Himself up against the Word of God – remember He hasn’t come to abolish it but to fulfill it – what He’s doing is taking the popular interpretations of God’s Word that was being taught in those days – and He’s revealing to the people the spirit of the Law; of what God had intended with His commandments in the first place. This is what the righteousness He’s talking about is going to look like.
In the 2nd letter to the church in Corinth we read these words … “He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6, NIV) And Jesus has come that we may have life, and have it abundantly! In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells the people, “The Spirit gives life; … The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.” (John 6:63, NIV) The Word of God is full of the Spirit and of life but the people had missed it! They excelled at keeping the letter of the law but they missed the heart of it!
And we know, because Scripture tells us so, that where man looks at outward appearances, God looks beyond to the heart. If the heart isn’t right, then nothing that comes from that heart will be right before God either. So here’s the thing. The people looked at God’s Word – like things like the Ten Commandments – in this case – “thou shall not commit murder,” and they judged themselves by the letter of the law. And if they hadn’t actually taken someone’s life they believed they had kept the Law completely. We do the same thing. But Jesus says, “No! That’s not the way it works! You’ve missed God’s heart. You’ve missed the spirit of the Law!”
The Pharisees were men who prided themselves on keeping God’s commandments. They would never dream of murdering anyone. But again and again in Scripture we find that they looked for ways to have Jesus killed – not by their own hands – but by the hands of another. They kept the rules - but entirely missed the spirit of them. And you and I aren’t all that much different sometimes.
Clarence Darrow was probably the most famous criminal lawyer of his day. He once said, “Everyone is a potential murderer. I have not killed anyone, but I frequently get satisfaction out of obituary notices.” (As quoted in, ‘Fixing Broken Relationships,’ by Matthew Rogers, www.sermoncentral.com) You and I might never dream of killing someone, but we’re all too willing sometimes to keep the anger, the rage, the bitterness, the resentment alive in our hearts.
The law says, “do not murder,” but Jesus goes further than the mere letter of the law – He goes to the heart of it all – and says, verse 22, “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister, will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (Matthew 5:22, NIV)
There’s a progression in those verses. It starts with anger. We’re all going to get angry at some time. It’s what we do with that anger that’s going to make the difference. The heart of God is this: That anger would be dealt with quickly. That we would practice forgiveness. That we would love even our enemies. If we don’t do that, that anger can simmer for days, weeks, even years. It eats away at our peace, destroys our joy, and erodes our relationships. When we hold anger in our hearts if affects our fellowship – not just with one another – but with the Lord Himself.
If we don’t deal with that anger quickly, and in a godly manner, our loathing of the other person begins to deepen. ‘Raca’ was a term used of someone you regarded with contempt; someone you thought of as being intellectually stupid. And the term translated ‘You fool!’ – it’s actually the word from which we get the English word, ‘moron,’ - took the contempt even further. It conveyed your utter disdain for the heart and character of the other person, going so far as to wish them dead. By this point you’ve got murder in your heart. You’ve decided that this person – created in the image of God and for whom Jesus died – is no longer worthy of any attempt at reconciliation whatsoever. You’ve written them off, and in your heart, you’ve condemned them to Hell.
The Believer’s Bible Commentary puts it this way … “There is no mistaking the severity of the Savior’s words. He teaches that anger contains the seeds of murder, that abusive language contains the spirit of murder, and that cursing language implies the very desire to murder.” (MacDonald, W., & Farstad, A. (1997). Believer's Bible Commentary : Old and New Testaments (Mt 5:22). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.)
And Jesus shared these teachings with the people because He wanted us to understand how this righteousness, that surpasses that of the Pharisees, works in daily life. And this is what I want us to understand this morning: In the body of believers we are going to have differences of opinion. There are going to be times when we – hopefully unintentionally – offend one another. When that time comes, how we handle it will make all the difference in the world.
Jesus warns us that the one who lets the anger fester and grow stands in danger of the fires of Hell. What Jesus is showing us is that the kingdom of the heaven is lived out from the heart and it goes way beyond the letter of the Law. And if you can go by, day by day, with such anger in your heart, if you regard a brother or sister with such contempt or hatred, if you find yourself given over to murderous thoughts, you would do well to examine your life to see if you’re actually in the faith. At the very least you need to get down on your knees in repentance and prayer for a heart that has not been right with God, because God’s desire is always for harmony, peace, and unity in His family. And how we treat one another is a sign of our relationship with Father.
In the book of 1 John we read these words … “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:15–18, NIV) We cannot claim to walk in righteousness, yet hate one another. We need to love, not just with words, which are easy to speak even when the heart isn’t right, but in truth and with our actions.
Verses 23-24 give us an idea of what love in action looks like. Jesus says, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23–24, NIV)
See, it’s a matter of priority; of first importance. God’s heart is so much for peace and unity and love within the family of believers that right relationships need to be worked out before we can bring our offerings – our giving, our time, our works and so on – before we can bring them to Him. Think about what that means for you and me.
God doesn’t want our offerings until we’ve tried, in so far as it is possible with us, to make things right and to live at peace with one another. And I say, “in so far as it is possible with us,” because that’s what Scripture says and we can’t determine how another person responds to our overtures of peace. We might do everything we can but they won’t accept it. The point is our conscience is clear before God at that point – we’ve left nothing undone – we’ve tried everything we knew how. Now the onus is on the other person and sometimes they will respond in the same spirit and there will be reconciliation and healing and wholeness - and other times they won’t – the point is that you’ve done what you could.
I’m going to ask you a couple of questions right now and what I want you to do is to see if any names come to mind right away when I ask the questions. The first question is this: Who in this church would say that you have wronged them? And number two: Who in this church do you need to forgive because they have wronged you? If a name comes to mind, then you have work to do this week. Cover it in prayer, but get it done because God’s heart is for reconciled, godly, relationships with one another, and as long as we’re content to settle for less we’re never going to be moving forward, or growing, as families or as a church.
In our Bible Study this week we watched a video clip by Pastor Chip Ingram. He used an illustration that I want to share with you. He used the image of a multi-tiered water fountain to illustrate how it is that our relationship with God is meant to flow into our relationships with one another. The top tier, the place where the water flows into first, represents our own lives. When that pool overflows, the water spills down into the next tier and so on down the line. If that flow is cut off anywhere along the way, the pools won’t fill as they are meant to. What we want to be doing is drinking so deeply from the Word of God and the life giving water of Jesus Christ, that it overflows into all of our other relationships. When that’s happening we’re going to be quick to seek to resolve conflict, to forgive hurts, to reconcile with those we’ve wronged.
And Jesus goes on to say, in verse 25, that we ought to settle matters quickly lest the end result be worse than the first. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger, as it says. Be slow to anger and quick to forgive. I like the story told by a Mr. Holt, of Caldwell Idaho. Fighting rush hour traffic one day he witnessed a young lady dart “her compact car from a side street into the stream of traffic immediately in front of a driver just a few car lengths ahead of” him, forcing this other driver to brake sharply. He avoided hitting her by inches and was obviously furious. Within seconds, traffic stopped at a red light, and he watched as the man who had been cut off, pulled up behind the offender, leap from his car, and stride angrily toward hers. Clearly, he intended to give her a piece of his mind. Seeing him coming, the very attractive young lady jumped from her car and ran to meet him--a big smile on her face! Before he could say one word or know what was happening, she had thrown her arms around him, hugged him tightly, and planted a passionate kiss on his lips! Then she was back in her car and driving away, leaving her antagonist standing in the middle of the street still speechless and looking somewhat confused and embarrassed--but no longer angry! (Adapted from, ‘Jesus on Anger,’ by Jeffery Anselmi, www.sermoncentral.com)
That girl knew how to make friends quickly! Now, I’m not advocating her methods, but she did understand that it is better to resolve problems quickly before the judgement comes. In the book of Hebrews we are exhorted with these words … “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” (Hebrews 12:14–15, NIV)
So how do we go about resolving issues with one another? In his book, Lee: the Last Years, Charles Flood reports that after the Civil War, Robert E. Lee visited a Kentucky lady who took him to the remains of a grand old tree in front of her house. There she bitterly cried that its limbs and trunk had been destroyed by Federal Artillery fire. She looked to Lee for a word condemning the North or at least sympathizing with her loss. After a brief silence, Lee said, “Cut it down, my dear Madam, and forget it.” (‘A Great Gift to God,’ by Ray Ellis, www.sermoncentral.com)
When it comes to offences, some of them you are just going to let go of and forgive without having to be face to face. “It is better to forgive the injustices of the past than to allow them to remain, let bitterness take root, and poison the rest of our life.” (Ray Ellis) But in those cases where more needs to be done, in particular where you have caused the offence, Jesus makes it clear what we need to do.
First, we need to leave our gift at the altar – to pause in our praise until we’ve taken care of business. King David wrote these words of God … “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16–17, NIV) More important than your offering is the heart with which you offer it. God would rather we be broken and humble and walking in obedience before Him then full of pride and self-righteousness.
Secondly we are told to “go and be reconciled.” Don’t wait on the other person - make it a matter of prayer - but be sure to go and seek out the other person. The heart of God at this point is for the two of you to be reconciled, to have the fellowship restored, the sin forgiven, the wrong righted, the peace made whole. Rev. Brian Bill uses this phrase which I quite like. He says of each of us, “reconciliation is always my responsibility.” (Rev. Brian Bill, ‘What To Do When Someone’s Mad At You, www.sermoncentral.com) Say that with me this morning, “Reconciliation is always my responsibility.” Imagine the power that would be unleashed if we all took that to heart! If we all understood that reconciliation was our responsibility - think of all the healing that could and would take place in people’s lives. We usually wait for the other person to come and make it right, but if we each thought of reconciliation as our own responsibility, we would meet each other along the way!
Thirdly, after being reconciled we are to come back and present our offerings. To enter back into worship wholeheartedly having been restored in fellowship, both with one another, and with God. This is good and pleasing in God’s eyes! It’s when we fail to take God’s word seriously, and to act upon it accordingly, that we set ourselves up for troubles.
You may have heard the story of the little boy, visiting his grandparents, who was given his first slingshot. He practiced in the woods, but he could never hit his target. As he came back to Grandma’s back yard, he spied her pet duck. On an impulse he took aim and let fly. The stone hit, and the duck fell dead. The boy panicked. Desperately he hid the dead duck in the woodpile, only to look up and see his sister watching. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing.
After lunch that day, Grandma said, “Sally, let’s wash the dishes.” But Sally said, “Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen today. Didn’t you, Johnny?” And she whispered to him, “Remember the duck!” So Johnny did the dishes. Later Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing. Grandma said, “I’m sorry, but I need Sally to help make supper.” Sally smiled and said, “That’s all taken care of. Johnny wants to do it.” Again she whispered, “Remember the duck.” Johnny stayed while Sally went fishing.
After several days of Johnny doing both his chores, and Sally’s, finally he could stand it no longer. He confessed to Grandma that he had killed the duck. “I know Johnny,” she said, giving him a hug. “I was standing at the window and saw the whole thing. Because I love you. I forgave you. I wondered how long you would let Sally make a slave of you.” (As told by Pastor Ray Ellis, www.sermoncentral.com)
That’s what unresolved conflict does to us, and to the larger body of believers, it makes prisoners of us – slaves of us to things like bitterness, rage and hatred. It disrupts the fellowship and grieves the heart of God. It unravels our worship and breaks the peace.
On the other hand, when believers are practicing forgiveness, and love and righteousness, the family and the fellowship and the worship all experience a blessing. So my challenge to you is this: if someone’s name, or some situation has come to your mind during the course of this message, deal with it in this coming week. Be quick to forgive and slow to anger for this is how God has loved us.
Let’s pray …
