Welcome to Season 6 of the Food for Your Soul Podcast, where we apply the Word of God to the hearts of men and women to stoke the fires of your delight in Christ. This season of the podcast is devoted to the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus teaches His people about life in the Kingdom of God. Verse 21, you have heard it was said, people long ago, do not murder. And anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother is subject to judgment. Second half of verse 22, Jesus moves from anger to contempt. Anyone who says to his brother, Raka, is answerable to the Sanhedrin. Anyone who says, you fool, will be in danger of the fire of hell. And at this point we've got to address the obvious question, what about Jesus? He did both those things. He got angry and he called people fools. Matthew 23, 17, you blind fools! And in Mark 3, 5 it says Jesus was angry and it used this exact same word for anger he used here. When should we follow Jesus' example in Matthew 23 and call people fools and when should we refrain from calling someone a fool lest we go to hell? or be deserving of hell? What's the right way and the wrong way to call someone a fool? For one thing, Jesus' rebuke of the Pharisees was not a response of selfish anger. It was not retaliation. Secondly, what Jesus did was necessary. Third, Jesus' heart was full of compassion. Another thing I'll throw in, for Jesus it was rare. You look and you find it there in Matthew 23. You don't find it very many places where Jesus calls someone a fool. Fourth, Jesus' anger over sin never pushed Him into sin. He responded to it with righteous actions, righteous words, never sinful actions and sinful words. If your distress over evil pushes you in the direction of retaliation, mocking, belittling, contempt, gossip, it's not like Jesus. And then fifth, Jesus' rebukes were only one side of the coin. Jesus, in general, was not a negative person. He didn't walk around rebuking, criticizing, complaining about everyone and everything all the time. He certainly had the right to. He was the one human being that actually was better than everyone else. And yet, he didn't look down on everybody. In fact, quite often, Jesus actually praised people and was impressed with people. One time, he even marveled at one man's faith. I mean, talking about a sinful human being. How could Jesus do that? Think of this for a minute. Think for a minute about why righteous people get angry at sin. Why is righteous anger righteous? Why do good people get upset about evil? Isn't it because they love what's good? They hate what's evil because they love what's good. Isn't that what makes righteous anger righteous? And if the person really does love what is good, then he's going to be just as quick to praise good things as he is to criticize evil things, right? If all he does is rail against evil and never rejoices in good, then it probably isn't coming from a heart that loves the good. His railing against evil is probably coming from just pride. Does that make sense? Do you understand that? Think of Jesus' assessment of the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. We were talking about this recently in a small prayer group leader meeting. Do you know off the top of your head Out of those seven churches, how many were good and how many were bad? According to Jesus, five of the seven were bad, and six of the seven were good. He rebukes five of them, he praises six of them. And if that sounds to you like it doesn't add up, then maybe it's because we're so prone to think that if a church is bad, then it can't also be good. We're simplistic. We're like children in our judgments. We find something bad and we write off the whole church as just bad. We find one thing good, we call the whole church good and we're blind to what's bad about it. Jesus is not like a child. He is a judge who is capable of complex judgments. For example, the church in Thyatira was terrible and great, wasn't it? I mean, they were a church that tolerated false teaching, sexual sin, and idolatry. That is terrible for a church to be like that. That is an awful church. But then Jesus praised them for their love, and for their faith, and their service, and their perseverance, and their progress in the faith. That's great! And Jesus has that same kind of complexity of judgment when he evaluates individual people, not just churches, but people. And so if we're going to have affections like Christ, then we're going to have to rise up out of our mental laziness and make complex evaluations like Jesus did. Jesus was simultaneously grieved over what was bad and delighted by what was good. Aren't you glad that he's like that? Aren't you glad Jesus is like that? Aren't you glad God is a God of complex perception and judgment? I love it that God doesn't just take one sin in my life and smear it across all of his thoughts about me as though that were the one thing that just defined me. It's because of this attribute of God that you can be guilty of a terrible sin and deserving of punishment in hell forever on the one hand, and at the very same time, you can be in the right. and some minor little issue over here, and if you're treated unfairly, you're in the right, and you're treated unfairly for that thing, you can cry out to God for justice. God, give me justice in this area! Just this area, not this other one where I deserve punishment. And He will keep that separate, this area where you're in the right, He'll keep that separate from this other big evil in your life, and grant you justice in this one area where you are in the right. I love it that God can look at the big horrible sins in my life and be angry over those, but at the very same time be pleased with me and even commend me and even reward me for areas of righteousness in my life. What a wonderful thing it is to serve a God who has the attribute of complex perception. If it weren't for that attribute, God would be absolutely impossible to please. We need to remember that when we find ourselves It's starting to become impossible to please. You know, when you get to 80% of your speech is just criticism, and the other 20% is just small talk, and there's almost no praise, no acknowledgement of the work of the Holy Spirit in people's hearts, no appreciation of God's sanctifying ministry in the lives of His people, no real delight, no joy in the righteousness of God's working in His people. When that starts to happen in your life, it's a symptom that your anger or grief over evil is rising up out of pride rather than out of a love for the good. If it comes from loving the good, then where there is good, there's going to be plenty of joy and lots of praise of that good. Do you praise more than you criticize? Now that's a question that might be hard to answer without asking someone else's around you. Ask someone close to you what they think, because a lot of times critical people don't think they're critical people. So ask someone close to you, do I criticize a lot? Am I negative? When people do what's right, do you just tend to think, well, that's what they're supposed to do, and so you keep silent? Or do you praise them for it? Do you point it out and make much of it? And if you're an especially critical person, what kinds of attitudes about others and about yourself is at the heart of that sin? You won't be able to change from a critical person to an encouraging person until you deal with those attitudes. So ask God to show you, do I have too high a view of myself? Is there some pride that I need to deal with so that I can be an uplifting plus person instead of a minus person? If you're listening, we pray that in this series your life will be transformed by the soaring ethics, deep insights, and glorious promises of the Sermon on the Mount. We are a crowdfunded ministry, so if you would like this podcast to continue, please consider supporting us with a tax-deductible gift. Just go to treasuringgod.com and click on Give. Until next time, rejoice in the Lord always and set your mind on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Thanks for watching!