Well, we come today to that section of Matthew, chapter 5, verses 21 through 26, a very important section of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, and some of which, as we may find, to be a little difficult to hear. And so let us please stand as we read God's Word, Matthew 5, verses 21 through 26. You've heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Rahah, shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says you fool, or more in the Greek, you fool shall be in danger of hellfire. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him. Lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading and understanding of his word. This entire section and this sermon is entitled Dangerous Emotions. Please be seated. I'm pretty sure that more than one of us have had the same experience that I have had on occasion. You're flowing with the traffic down in the left lane. You're going about 10 miles per hour above the posted speed limit, which is the standard. Traffic is not highly packed, you're cruising along there, four or five car lengths behind the car in front of you, and the right lanes average about 10 miles per hour slower than you, so you're constantly moving past traffic in the next lane. And then some guy or gal, doing about 100 miles an hour, I'm not kidding, comes screaming up alongside of you, weaving in and out of traffic. He swings over in front of you, barely missing your right front headlight. You hit the brakes, as you have to do, and the horn simultaneously if you're in the car with me. And then he swings right back to the right with a car that's right there in front of him in the right lane, barely missing his left front fender as he goes. And he keeps that up as you watch him till he's out of sight. I'm sure we've had that experience. Now, what's your usual reaction to this? Well, if it's me, one option, I suppose, is to go back to my southern roots and look at them and say, well, bless your heart. I surely hope that you get home safely, no matter where it is you're going, as fast as you're driving. That's one option. But I could also go back to my Navy roots of dropping bombs and secretly, at least in the passing moment, wish that I might drive along and see this guy upside down in a ditch. I would gleefully honk my horn as I went by and say, you got what you deserve. Now, this isn't a time of true confession, so I'll leave it up to you to figure out which of those is most likely in my case, and my wife is not allowed to speak. I'm just offering two possible reactions I might have. How about you? How would you respond? The point is that this scenario easily falls under Jesus' teaching in this passage. While I'm not about to say that this is an occasion where there is anger without cause, But I think we can all agree that the desire to see this guy upside down in a ditch is pushing it a bit far. And there's absolutely no question that the words that might come out of my mouth at that moment might be something like raka, which basically translates into silly ass, as a term of absolute disgust, or more, which is the Greek word for an empty headed fool. I agree that the example itself is probably a bit trite, but I think it illustrates something because Jesus is here teaching us that the righteousness that is greater than the scribes and the Pharisees that we are to strive to exhibit is a righteousness where our external actions flow from a heart that is transformed by grace and which manifests itself in a law of love. Jesus teaches that it's not just first and foremost our actions which matter. It is not just our actions which reveal the righteousness of God, but it is our heart that has been transformed by grace. And so as we go into this passage and those that follow, let's consider it in that light. Before I get into it, as we start this whole section, as I do with these, as we go through the sermon, I want to spend a few moments commenting on its literary design because it is intentional, it is designed in such a way by God himself, and therefore we need to pay attention to it to understand what's coming across. Everything in the Sermon on the Mount harkens back to Mount Sinai. Jesus is presenting himself to us in this sermon and to the world as the new prophetic lawgiver. He is the new and better Moses that was promised in the Old Testament. And he has come into the world for the purpose of revealing or fulfilling out or making more clear the righteousness which God requires in his kingdom. In fact, he is showing how Moses should be interpreted. And that's the big point. When he says, you have heard it said of the people of old, and then goes on to speak of something, he is talking about how it was said to Israel in the old days, and then he refers to the 10 commandments in some form. But then he says, but I say unto you, And he's not saying here that I'm telling you something different from what God meant in those commandments. What he's really saying is, I'm going to show to you that what God said should be understood this way. And then he refers to that commandment. He gives examples then of how that should be done. And in giving these examples, he is also following Moses. And that's another point we need to remember here. You see, Moses also gave illustrative examples of the law that he was given by God to give to the people. These illustrative examples that Moses gave are called case law. And you find a lot of them in the Old Testament. It is didactic teaching, didactic or teaching that puts meat on the bones of the laws themselves. Jesus in this section gives six cases, six case law examples. There's murder, adultery, divorce, oath taking, vengeance and love. And each he is going to drive home the righteousness that is required of each. a righteousness that is greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees. So a couple of quick points before we move to the main text. What we should see from this and what we need to take home as an overall perspective is that God's law was always intended to be understood as Jesus here teaches. Jesus is not bringing something a new law. He is bringing the proper understanding of the old law. And I would just briefly mention something that we read in the Old Testament from a well-known verse from Micah. He has shown you, old man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? But to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with your God. Now I would suggest that that is a summary of everything that Jesus is teaching in this sermon and his ethical instruction across the board. And it certainly applies here. Jesus is not teaching something new. He is filling out what the eternal unchanging God has always sought to be displayed by his people. Now, before we move on further, I would ask a brief excursion on the law itself. God's law and Jesus's teaching of it reveals a continuum of transgression. And brothers and sisters, I can't tell you how hard this is to get across often to modern Christians. We're used to saying, okay, show me an exact verse where it says that. And that quite frankly, most often just can't be done. Why? Because there is a continuum of transgression that is included within each law that is not explicitly brought out. You see, God's law is not a Napoleonic code, where every possible wrongdoing is listed in that code, and then it is precisely and specifically told what is to be done about it. Rather, God's law was given to us requiring judgment and insight. For example, how did Jesus respond to the woman who was caught in adultery? He did not respond to them in the way that those who were standing around responded. As a matter of fact, he didn't. And so what we see in that situation is that God requires for judges or people of God to determine within the law as it is given to us in a specific instance, what aspect of that law has been broken, and then to determine with judgment how God's people ought to react to the offender. Now inherent in this is the idea of grace and mercy. Each case has to balance justice and mercy in a Solomonic fashion. And to see how God wants to display his righteousness among his people. So as we turn to these somewhat terrifying words that we are looking at today, let's remember that Jesus intends for us to take them very seriously. Brothers and sisters, the man who is speaking these words is Jesus. He is our God. He is our Christ. He is our savior. He is also our lawgiver. This is the one of whom God spoke on that mountain and he said, this is my beloved son, hear him. So we are here today to hear Jesus speak to us. And let's remember that each basic law that he expounds, starting with the first, reflects a continuum of behavior that is expounded within it to illustrate how it's to be understood so that it can be applied in an even wider fashion. We cannot just take comfort in the fact that I or you didn't chase down that fellow in that car and run him off the road. We can't take comfort in that. If and when we long to see him upside down in the ditch, we may have sinned. And our sin may have been greater than his. Perhaps that gets our attention. Let's look at the specific teaching here. Notice that this first passage that we're looking at in this section is broken into two parts. In verse 21 and 22, it addresses what I will call the negative aspect of the law against murder. Jesus not only affirms here that everyone who actually murders physically will be judged, but he also teaches against harboring unjust anger in our hearts. And then he also says that killing our brother through slander or contemptuous words, that these are in the same category as murder. Those are negative thoughts. Those are not negative in the sense that they detract from Jesus, but they are things that we have to think about negatively. But in verses 23 through 26, he commands the positive aspects of the law, what we are to do. Now here, the shoe is on the other foot. He teaches us what we should do when we have offended others. When it is we who are in the position of that guy who's been driving like a crazy person down the road. He teaches what we should be doing. And he says that it is not enough to guard against instilling anger or developing anger in our own hearts, but when we have contributed to the pain and suffering of another person unjustly, that they may be tempted into anger against us, it is up to us to go to them to take away, help take away that anger that they may be feeling against us. The law also constrains us to take steps to remove the anger from the hearts of others to whom we have given offense. He addresses the negative aspects first in verses 21 and 22. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be in danger of judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Rahah, shall be in danger of the council. And whoever says, Moare, or you fool, as it's translated, shall be in danger of hellfire. Now, note here that the commandment that he is expressing here, is explaining, is even more serious than we had imagined. He starts off with a prohibition against murder. That's pretty rough commandment. I mean, that's a serious commandment. And yes, we always thought it was serious. But even thinking that it's serious doesn't get to the heart of it and to the degree that the commandment actually reflects. The 10 commandments teach us that thou shall not kill, universally taken, murder. And Moses gives us a case law, you remember me mentioning that, in Exodus 21 verses 12 through 27 if you want to check it out. And there we find the commandment against murder has a continuum of application. There's the classic premeditated murder. A guy lies in wait to strike another man. But we also see it includes kidnapping, striking one of your parents, hitting a servant, and along with it is included striking a woman so that the life of the child in her womb dies. Each offense then is given its own penalty. Now behind all this teaching is this passage then, in this passage in Exodus, is the overall primary governing concept that God's people are to respect life, not just the criminal act of shooting some guy in the street as we see all around us. God designed his law on an essential principle, and here his essential principle is a respect for life. The result in a respect for life is a continuum of application. We find this in the Westminster Larger Catechism, and I would invite you to go and look at it. I'm sure you read it every night before you go to bed. But in the Westminster Larger Catechism, what is said there is what is required and what is prohibited in the Ten Commandments, and there's a positive and negative side to each. Positive side are those things that are required, negative side, those things that are prohibited. Look it up and you'll see there some things that will really give you pause to think about. So Jesus also reveals a continuum of transgression on this understanding here. He affirms the prohibition against the action. There is also the negative prescription against criminal murder, but along with that, he condemns the out and out desire for the other person's death. See, the principle of valuing life is at the heart of it. That is what is reinforced and made clear, that murder is a condition of the heart. A condition of the heart. And then he goes on to extend that this condition of the heart is the same which might erupt in hateful speech, slander, Things that tear down other people. Using words like raka or more, which is translated fool here. For raka, there is no precise definition available to us, but we do know from how it's used amongst earlier writers, that it's a term of absolute and utter contempt. It's similar to using the N word when you're talking to a black person. Only a person who is expressing contempt will do so. Dumb brute or silly ass spoken with vehement disgust is kind of how this is understood. But he extends this idea or he mentions this under the heading of killing or murder. It reflects the base hatred, these words reflect the base hatred that underlie racism or anti-Semitism or war propaganda or any political slogans, you take your pick, anything that promotes hate and disgust with other people just for being other people. something that we might have experience with in our culture today. Okay, when we think about this, I'll give you an example. A fellow by the name of Stonewall Jackson participated with Robert E. Lee in the Battle of Fredericksburg against the federal armies of Burnside and the Army of the Potomac. And after that war was over, which was a decisive victory for the Confederates, they went down into the town, they came down from the hill that they had been up on, and they viewed the rubbish and the desecration of the town of Fredericksburg that the Union troops had accomplished there, where they looted it and vandalized it and subjected it to wanton destruction. As they were going through it, there was a feeling of intense disgust. And Jackson was asked by a junior officer, General, how are we going to keep these Yankees from doing this kind of stuff? His answer, kill them all. Kill them all. Jackson was a devout Southern Presbyterian. But he ignored or was unaware that that was murder in his heart. You see, war can unleash murderous sympathies and impulses, even in the most honorable of men. And it is a tough sin to prevent or overcome. Then we move on to the Greek word more, or you fool, I'm not gonna spend a whole great deal of time on it. The word essentially means empty-headed idiot, and it strongly overlaps with raka in meaning as reflecting contempt. I grew up hearing adults speak of other people as he is a damn fool. Usually that meant that they could barely, the adult who said that about the other person could barely tolerate their presence. He definitely was not gonna be invited to the guna that night with the rest of them. The overall effect though of these last two examples is quite striking when we put them together. It means that the righteousness that God desires of us is such that we're to take positive steps to protect the good name of all men, but most especially the good name of our brothers and sisters in Christ. And look at what Jesus says about these things. Those who fail to protect the good name of others are in danger of judgment, both within the church or the council of elders, or when Jesus himself will require every person to give account for every word that came out of their mouth. Think about that. Preachers live in terror of that. because we will give account for every word that we have spoken. Maybe I need to revisit my road rage in light of that. Perhaps all of us need to guard not only our tongues but our thoughts as we think of our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially when we find ourselves angry at them without cause. And just a quick word about this Just Cause business. Anger is built into the human persona. I actually believe it's part of the image of God in us because it is what is in us to motivate us to correct injustice. We are supposed to get angry at injustice and be motivated to fix it, to do something about it. And there is a place for anger in the life of Christians just as there is a place for anger in the life of God who is angry at sin every day. But the sin of unjust anger is that though we may be motivated to be angry by something we perceive as sin, it's actually not something that we should be angry about. Unjust anger is when we perceive an injustice that has more to do with our pride than it has to do with what was done. I don't have time to go into this today, but brothers and sisters, unjust anger flows throughout our society like water through a faucet. People react to their feelings of being hurt and what they perceive as disrespect, and they do this often without just cause. We may not like what some guy says from a speaker's podium somewhere, or in conversation about things and they perceive the world differently than we do, but we can't take offense at people who say things we don't like, simply because it is their opinion. This cancel culture we see in our world today is deadly. Okay, off my soapbox. The point is this, God's commandment against murder is more serious than we thought. It extends to the heart for out of the heart comes both good and evil. And as Jesus says, a bad tree will bring forth bad fruit. So we have to guard our hearts against evil thoughts, no matter how much we might like to indulge them. Now, Jesus moves on to the positive effects of the law, aspects of the law. in which he is teaching us that it's not just avoiding murderous actions, but it means that we must take positive steps to make things right. The law against murder, in its negative sense, tells us to guard ourselves. But in its positive sense, we must guard our hearts, tongues, and actions. I mean, in its negative sense, we have to guard against reacting in an unholy manner when we are offended. But what about when we have someone who is justly holding something against us? What about it when we have treated someone harshly or used those words, raka or more or something even worse? What if we have acted spitefully, even vengefully, dismissively, contemptuously? Are we not guilty of exciting anger and passionate words in response to those things? Are we not, in that sense, contributing to the sin in others? Verses 23 through 24, Jesus takes us head on. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother does have something against you, something that is real, something that is in fact some fault in you, then leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Here Jesus says that it is inherent in the law against murder to seek to reconcile and be restored to mutual respect with your brother or sister. And it's so serious that knowing that you have sinned against a brother or a sister without seeking reconciliation means that we ought not to show our face before God until we do something about it. Now let's make this clear. This commandment is directed towards the case where indeed we have sinned. And we have committed some injustice against another person. It does not address, as I said before, when a person holds something against us, but does it without valid reason. Brothers and sisters, we can't control what other people think. Sometimes they may take offense justly, and we do not realize it. Sometimes they may take offense without actual just reason for doing so. For example, when we proclaim the Lord's clear teaching on such things as homosexuality or fornication or any of the things that are common in our culture, when we do that and people are offended that we hold those things. We can't control it. We can't say, don't be offended. We can't say that. They shouldn't be offended. but we can't stop them from being offended. So when we start to think about it, people do take offense for things without actual just reason for doing so. Think of the pace of murders that is happening in Baltimore this year. It's the most 10, 15, 20 years. And it's almost, the huge majority of it are kids People under the age of 21. Now, what's it happening? Well, oftentimes it's because some guy feels disrespected by what some other person has said, or just seeing the guy. Get some angry, pull out some gun and blow him away. Just because a person takes offense does not mean that they have reason for it, but when they do, it constitutes an obligation on us. The key to teaching here is it applies when we know we did wrong. And in such cases, we must address the sin, even if it means leaving your gift at the altar, leaving the temple, don't come before God with gifts in your hand when you're harboring sin in your hearts. So leave your gift at the altar. And notice that when he says so, that you are guilty depending upon the sin that you have done in both the courts of the church and in eternal judgment. And you need to be aware of that. So these are pretty difficult words. And what I'm going to do at this point is just be upfront and frank with you. I'm going to toss out my concluding remarks. I don't like them. So I'm going to tell you what I think. I think the most important thing that we need to do right here is move to where we say, what is the gospel in what Jesus has just taught? Where do we face this passage and not just feel the burden of the law breaking us down? What are we to understand as being glorious? Well, the first thing that we need to understand in this passage is the person who is giving it to us. Brothers and sisters, this is not some philosopher, this is not some political scientist, and God be praised, it's not some politician, telling us how we ought to live. Jesus is telling us how we ought to live. Why? Because he loves us. This is our Christ, the one who went to the cross for us, telling us this. Do you think that his whole purpose here is to just whip us into the bloody pulp and make sure that we understand just how foul we are? That we do need to understand that. But at the same point, do you think that's what his purpose is? Is that the way you understand our Lord Jesus Christ? Well, no. I speak for all of us when I say, no, we don't. Jesus here is expressing his love for us and telling us not to be like the Pharisees and the scribes and being content with just an external righteousness. He is telling us that what we should long for is a life that is characterized by a righteousness that flows from the heart. You believe that? Two of you do. I'll settle for what I can get. Then the other thing that we should see here is that, brothers and sisters, this is our Lord Jesus Christ speaking to us. And he is calling us to live a life that reflects the righteousness we see here. And do you think he would do that if we couldn't do it? Do you think that he is here calling upon us to bang our head against a wall back there and the only reason we do it is because it feels good when we stop? No, he's saying that this is something that you should strive for with the implied teaching that it is something that we can grow in. That in other words, through the grace of the Holy Spirit that he himself will send, his people can grow in the righteousness that here he requires of us. This is not a gold pot at the end of the rainbow that keeps moving away from us the closer we get to it. This is something that our Lord has called us to do that is in fact possible. for us to grow in and become part of. Do you believe that? Got three. We're growing. Okay, good. So brothers and sisters, there's good news here. Yes, it's a heavy teaching, but our Lord Jesus Christ gave us this teaching and we should take all of the law that he expounds here and understands that the law has always been given in grace. The Mosaic Law is part of the covenant of grace. The Sermon on the Mount is part of the covenant of grace. And in it, our Christ is calling his people to a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees. And God help us, let's grow in that. Let's pray. Our Lord and God, I thank you for the blessing of your word and the blessing of our Lord Jesus Christ. What a privilege it is. to be able to read his words and then, Lord God, to actually take and consider them and grow in them. Lord God, I thank you that the brothers and sisters here are content to do so. I pray, Lord God, that you will seal these words to our heart. Let us, Lord God, guard our tongues. Let us guard our hearts. Let us not be caught up in the prevailing contempt, the prevailing antagonism, the prevailing sense that the whole world is at each other's throats. Help us, Lord God, to live differently. Grant that we may live at peace with ourselves, inside ourselves, and with our brothers and sisters in the church. But also, Lord God, give us a sense of peace that we may, as we started the service, be still and know that you are God, even in the midst of a world that is content upon tearing each other's heads off. Grant, Lord God, that we may be sinless to the degree that it is possible for fallen sinners through the power of the Holy Spirit to be sinless of the act of murder. And we ask this in the name of our blessed savior who came to teach us this. Amen.