“Having a Heart Condition”
Matt. 5:20-26
July 7, 2002
The Rev’d Quintin Morrow
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Fort Worth, Texas
www.st-andrew.com
In 1506 Leonardo Da Vinci painted perhaps the most valuable, famous, and easily-recognizable portrait in the world on a piece of pine wood: The Mona Lisa. Da Vinci’s brush strokes, the beauty of his subject’s face, and of course her enigmatic smile have all caused the Mona Lisa to be the most admired painting in the history of art. Scholars have speculated for centuries about the identity of Da Vinci’s subject. It seems the artist kept detailed records of his model sittings during his lifetime, nevertheless he never mentions a model posing for the Mona Lisa. Who was this unknown person?
In 1992, Dr. Lillian Schwartz, a pioneer of computer graphics at AT&T’s Bell Labs, began using burgeoning computer technology to answer the riddle of the identity of the subject of the Mona Lisa. Schwartz digitalized a self-portrait if Da Vinci and the face of the Mona Lisa. Next, she flipped the self-portrait of Da Vinci and merged the two images together using a computer. The results were shocking. Schwartz noticed immediately that the facial features of both subjects aligned perfectly. She theorized in her subsequent 1992 book The Computer Artist’s Handbook that in fact the Mona Lisa is in fact a self-portrait of Da Vinci himself.
Whether Schwartz’s conclusion is true or not will probably never be confirmed, but the point is nonetheless a valuable one: It is possible to become so familiar with something that we either overlook or fail to discover its true meaning.
Consider our Gospel reading for today from Matt. 5:20-26. A cursory perusal would seem to indicate that our Lord Jesus enjoins anger and warns us that it is the first step toward murder. And that is true. Jesus does says that. But that isn’t all He says. He says, much, much more. For, not only does the Lord reveal the dangers of anger, but He also yanks the carpet out from under everyone who foolishly believes that their sporadic outward conformity to God’s law is sufficient to make them right with God.
The context for our passage, of course, is the familiar Sermon on the Mount. It begins in Matt. 5:1 with:
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he was sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
And it concludes in Matt. 7 with:
And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
The Sermon on the Mount is the longest uninterrupted teaching we have from the lips of our Savior in all the Gospels. In this sermon Jesus gives us the Lord’s Prayer; He warns us about worry, pridefully judging others, and practicing our piety publically in order to be seen by others; He reveals that marriage is sacred, that His followers will be known by their manner of life and doctrine, and that we should “go the extra mile” for others.
But the immediate interpretive context for our text this morning is found in the three verses immediately preceding ours—verses 17, 18, & 19. There Jesus says:
17 v“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, wtill heaven and earth pass away, one 2jot or one 3tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. 19 xWhoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
And then follows the revelatory cold shower from the lips of the Son of God—verse 20, the first verse of our text:
20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds ythe righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
For the sake of time this morning, let me tell you right now what Jesus is on about in this portion of the Sermon on the Mount. Primarily, the Lord is revealing that the righteousness which pleases God is not merely an outward conformity to the stipulations of the Law, but involves rather a perfect obedience that springs from a renewed heart. And then, secondarily, He warns us about the dangers of anger, and how it is tantamount in God’s eyes to murder, the dangers of adultery, and how lusting in the heart is tantamount to the adulterous act in God’s eyes, and etc, etc, through the remainder of chapter 5. In other words, Jesus is raising the bar of what is acceptable obedience according to God’s reckoning and reveals that God judges not just our outward perfor-mance but our inward motivation and thoughts as well. And anger/murder, and lust/adultery are simply examples of that point.
Let’s examine the most obvious principle first: The dangers of anger. Jesus begins in v.21 by reminding His hearers of what the Law of Moses said: “Do not kill,” the sixth commandment. This does not include killing in war, self-defense, or the state exercising its authority in capital punishment, but means premeditated murder. His audience knew very well what Jesus was saying. If I kill someone, or even if I utter a demeaning quip like “Raca,” which was a common Aramaic term of derision meaning “empty-head,” or “idiot,” in Jesus’ day, I will me liable for an appearance before the Sanhedrin and punishment. So far, so good.
Next, Jesus, as the master teacher, in vv. 23-25, imparts to His immediate hearers and us, a remedy for the quagmire of anger—both from God’s perspective and from man’s perspective.
Firstly, notice our anger from God’s perspective. Jesus says that if you go to church to worship and give and are reminded that there is something not right between you and another person—especially a family member or fellow believer—you are to first go and try and work it out, then, secondly, return to God’s house for worship. Now, in Jesus’ day, offering a sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem was the acme, the apex of Jewish devotion. So do you see the meaning of the Savior’s words? God places a premium on forgive-ness and reconciliation. More important than your sacrifices and offerings, He wants unity, love, and concord among His people. Secondly, notice anger from man’s perspective. Jesus admonishes us to go and search out and find that one we have had troubles with, and strive, even if it involves compromise on our parts, to work it out. “Agree with your adversary quickly,” Jesus wisely advises us. If we don’t, unresolved anger will turn to bitterness, bitterness to resentment, and resentment will lead to untoward actions or words which will make you liable for condemnation under the law. And, He concludes, v.26, unresolved anger leading to spiteful words or actions will not let you go until you have served the full penalty for the maximum amount of time.
May I plead with you this morning: If you have come here today with harbored anger or resentment against another, get it worked out. Even if I am more sinned against than sinning? Yes. Even if I am not at fault? Yes. But…. Try and get it resolved. Forgiveness is not forgetting, nor is it a concession that the injury done to you no longer matters. Forgiveness is releasing another person from the debt of injury they owe you, and refusing to tie the offending party to your pain. You are not responsible for the response of the other person. God only holds you responsible for you. So make the effort to forgive and reconcile.
But now we must go deeper and look more closely. The anger/murder teaching here, like the lust/adultery teaching which follows our text, is merely a representative example of the Lord’s main point, which is: The utter inadequacy of righteousness that only goes skin-deep. Verse 20:
20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds ythe righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
This one verse ought to send tremors down your body. It does mine. And here’s why: You and I are not capable of a righteous- ness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. The only conclusion seems to be, therefore, that we will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Let me tell you briefly about the scribes and the Pharisees. The scribes were a learned class in Israel in New Testament times that studied the Law, and served as copyists, editors, and teachers. The Pharisees, likewise, were a group in Jesus’ day which sought to live out every positive command and avoid every negative command of the entire Mosaic Law. Both parties had the entire Torah—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—completely committed to memory. The Pharisees made it their life’s ambition to keep every stipulation of the Mosaic Law perfectly. In Jesus’ day the Pharisees quibbled about whether it was lawful for a Jew to eat an egg a chicken laid on the Sabbath, because the chicken had broken the law against keeping the Sabbath by laying the egg. They admonished women to not look in a mirror on the Sabbath, because she may see a grey hair, pull it out, and thus violate the Sabbath by working. They forbad spitting on the Sabbath, because the spittle would hit the ground and raise up dust, which was tantamount to plowing, which also violated the Sabbath. The Pharisees said that a man could not carry his clothes out of his house if it were on fire on the Sabbath—that’s work—but he could put all of his clothes on and walk out of the burning building. The point here is that these two groups made the outward compliance to the Law the goal of their life. They were punctilious about every nuance of the Law down to the last detail. And that was just exactly why they were a failure in Jesus’ words: They had substituted outward conformity to the law for a heart that loved and trusted and desired to obey God.
Jesus says that unless we have a righteousness that goes beyond the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees we will never see the kingdom of heaven. But we can’t have an outward righteousness that exceeds theirs. That, too, is Jesus’ point. Outward obedience and works do not a saint make. Besides the outward law, God looks at the heart. And the heart is exactly where we fail. Jesus uses the example of murder/anger as exhibit “A.” You’ve heard it said “You shall not kill.” “But God, I have never murdered anyone.” Super. The problem is that God is not simply evaluating our goodness by our outward conformity to the Law. He is also adjudicating the inward thoughts and intents of our hearts. You may not have murdered anyone, but every person in this room at one time or another has harbored angry, bitter feelings toward someone else. Men, you may not have committed adultery, but every fellow in this room has seen a beautiful woman walking down the street, scantily clad, and wondered what an evening alone with her might be like. Our trouble is that we have a heart condition; more specifically, as offspring of Adam, we have dispositions that incline more toward evil than good. And our fallen condition also gives us eye trouble—we see evil in everyone else but condone, ignore, or justify it in ourselves. Don’t you see? Jesus is revealing to us that our state before the perfect justice of God is, from the human perspective, utterly hopeless. For even if I could somehow keep the Law outwardly, perfectly—which I can’t—there is still the selfish, wicked, rebellious heart of mine I can’t fix. And that heart, left untransformed, will condemn me.
A lawyer once came to Jesus, remember, asking Him what the greatest commandment of all was. 29 “Jesus answered him,” Mark chapter 12,
‘The 2first of all the commandments is: q‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30 And you shall rlove the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 3This is the first commandment. 31 And the second, like it, is this: s‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than tthese.’”
Folks, I haven’t loved the Lord my God with all that I am and all that I have for five minutes, and neither have you; much less have we made it a lifestyle to thoroughly love God and our neighbor. Jesus is talking about love, which comes from the heart. Attending church, trying to keep the Ten Commandments, paying my taxes, having a neighborhood barbecue, and being nice to my employees is insufficient to get you to heaven. What you need is a new heart and different righteousness. And that’s exactly what you receive from God when you are born again—justified by faith—and made right with God.
When the poor, lost, helpless, convicted and condemned sinner forsakes his sin and his vain attempts at self-righteousness, and throws himself on the mercy of God and receives the Lord Jesus Christ in his heart by faith, God gives that man or that woman a foreign righteousness—the perfect righteousness of Christ—which he or she could never earn, and a new, regenerate heart. Christ lived for you, in perfect obedience to the Law, so that God could impute His righteousness to you: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law…” (Gal. 4.4). Christ died for you. God imputed all your sins on His Son, and punished Him in your place, that divine justice could be completely satisfied and you and I could be acquitted, forgiven, justified:
“8 But lGod demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified mby His blood, we shall be saved nfrom wrath through Him” (Rom. 5:8-9).
But the penitent sinner not only gets a new righteousness in salvation, but also a new heart:
“Therefore, brethren, having mboldness 6to enter nthe Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and oliving way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and having a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us pdraw near with a true heart qin full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:19-22).
The Gospel message is really quite simple: We did all the sinning; God did all the saving.
3 “For cwe ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. 4 But when dthe kindness and the love of eGod our Savior toward man appeared, 5 fnot by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through gthe washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 hwhom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace iwe should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:3-7).
It matters not how gorgeous you are, what country club you belong to, how educated you are, or what you’ve got in your 401K. The question is: How is your heart? You can’t get a new heart on your own. The answer is, was, and ever shall be: Christ and Christ alone.
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
AMEN.
