Last week we looked at verse 20, where Jesus tells us that if our righteousness doesn't go beyond that of the scribes and the Pharisees, we're not going to make it. That's what he tells us. We pondered that. We realized that humility is the most compelling trait of real Christian character. Humility. See, it's possible to be a good person. As I said last week, a pastor's a fool who doesn't want a church full of Pharisees. Pharisees work hard. Pharisees give a lot. And they're there in attendance regularly. Pharisees are good people. And you can build a growing, vibrant church with Pharisees. I'm not saying that tongue-in-cheek. I'm not joking. That's true. You see, we often look at the Pharisees as bad people because in the Gospels they get a bad rap. But what I want you to realize is that the defective thing in the character of the Pharisee and the scribe is something you and I struggle with too. Let's take the one trait that Jesus sets before us today. God willing, next week we'll look at verse 27 where he deals with a second trait. How that works out. How does it work out in life? Today we want to think about anger. And I want you to understand how Pharisees are good, normal people. They're good neighbors. And I want you to understand that God calls you and me to not be normal. He calls you and me to be abnormal. You see, Phariseeism is a natural response to God's law. But what God calls us to do is to have a supernatural response. When you really read the Sermon on the Mount and study it, If you're really honest with yourself, your reaction time and again is going to be, that's ridiculous. Think about it. Turn the other cheek. I mean, he says that, doesn't he? At the end of this chapter, he kind of comes back to anger. If you turn to page 1116 and you go to verse 38, he turns to anger in a little different context. Anger where we're currently dealing with abusive people. And he says, listen to this, verse 38. You've heard that it was said, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but I tell you not to resist an evil person. Whatever slaps you on your right cheek, he says, what? What does he say? Turn the other one. Let him hit you there too. Neuropathy does have its advantages. Turn the other cheek. Did he mean it literally? I believe he did. I believe he did. And if you look at the history of Christianity for 300 years, you see that the church took it literally. See, there's a great difference in Islam and Christianity, not only in the teachings of Jesus as over against the teachings of Muhammad, but in the history of the two things for the first several hundred years. Christians may have served in the Roman army, been converted while they're there, they didn't resign their commissions, but no Christian that we know of ever tried to use force, physical force, to compel anybody else to become a Christian for 300 years. For 300 years, Christians practiced nonviolence when it came to personal living. Again, I'm not saying that there weren't people who became believers who were serving in the Roman military. I'm talking about people in their private lives. People practice turning the other cheek, literally. And isn't that what Jesus did? Think about it. Does Jesus set an example for you and me? Or is He the exception? I mean, what happens to Jesus? He displayed anger on an occasion, drove the money changers out of the temple, fashioned a whip out of cords. But there's nowhere in the text that suggests that Jesus hit anybody with that whip. He just cracked the whip. I guess you could say he was a cracker. He cracked the whip and got a response. Jesus is every man, and he speaks to every man to follow in his bloody footsteps. When Jesus is arrested, he offers no resistance. Jesus literally turned the other cheek when he was arrested. When people said terrible things about him, he didn't answer them. When they spat in his face, he didn't spit back. When they crowned him with thorns, stripped his clothes off, and put a mocking royal robe on him, he didn't respond back by cursing them. When Pilate, the consummate politician, trying to manipulate the crowd in order to have justice done as long as it didn't cost him his career, when Pilate washes his hands of Jesus, Jesus doesn't curse Pilate out. When he hangs on the cross and two malefactors are crucified beside him, and they curse him, He doesn't curse in return, but when one of them says, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom, he says to him, and I think this is such a great thing, today you'll be with me in paradise. No good deeds, no living a sacrificial life, just a moment of repentance and faith in dying, and that man goes to heaven. So that's the life of Jesus, turning the other cheek. So we go back to Matthew 5 and verse 21 and dealing with anger. Radical Christianity is unnatural. I'll say it again. Radical Christianity is unnatural. The problem with Christianity is Over the centuries, we've tried to make it natural. But it isn't. It's unnatural. Christianity calls you and me, Christ calls you and me, to live a life that is not natural. Look at what he says here. This is the kind of righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of Presbyterian pastors, and elders, and deacons, and Baptist deacons, and preachers, and Catholic priests, and you name it. It exceeds all our righteousness. Because the bottom line is, we're all alike. And it's just not natural to love people that hate you. Boy, I wish I were preaching to Shiloh. I need a witness. I'm going to miss Shiloh. It's been a wonderful time together. I was privileged to help them with the breaking of the ground for their new sanctuary over by Lee Street, on Lee Street, across from where Herbie Cage used to be. It's not natural to love people who hate you. But that's what you're called to do. Listen to what he says, verse 21. You've heard it was said to those of old, you shall not murder. And whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. And what's he telling us? He said, do you think that that's all that's about? Do you think it's just talking about literal murder, the literal taking of a human life unjustly? That's what murder is. Murder is, biblically speaking, the unjust taking of a human life. Is that all it is? Listen to what he says. I say to you, verse 22, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause. Now that's interesting because some of you are sitting here with Bibles that don't have without a cause. And why is that? What's the cause of that? The cause of that is this. I don't want to go into great detail, so listen to a two-minute synopsis of textual criticism. The vast majority of Greek manuscripts contain the phrase, without a cause. But a few old manuscripts don't contain that phrase. The question is, how do we deal with things like that? I'll give you my theory. My theory is that when the Gospels were first written, they were hand-copied by many people. When the epistles of Paul and James and John and Jude were written, they were hand-copied by many people. And what happened is, as a manuscript was handled and copied and made many copies from, over the decades, over the centuries, it wore out, kind of like an old Bible. What do you do with an old Bible? It gets worn out. worn out with use. And so what happens is that these manuscripts, the oldest and most reliable manuscripts, were worn out and ceased to exist. And in their place, first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of copies replaced them. But there were a few old manuscripts that survived. According to tradition, When the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity from paganism, after he saw that sign at the battle, just before the battle of the Milvennian Bridge, where he saw a cross, this is the story, in the sky, and he saw him blazoned on that cross in Latin, because he did speak Latin, in hoc signo vincis, in this sign conquer, Christianity was issued an edict of toleration once he won the battle. and became the Roman Emperor. And that was the Edict of Milan around 313. Then later on, about 12 years later, he made Christianity the legal religion of the Empire. At that time, he saw it was important that Christian churches have copies of the Bible. And so what he did was to take the old rabbinical text of the Hebrew Scriptures that had been translated into Greek about 100 or 150 years before Christ. We call it the Septuagint. He took that and he took Greek text and he had scholars compile them into a group of books. We call an ancient book a codex. Many of those codices became worn out with use, just as the little manuscripts were worn out with use. But sometimes, the scholars who used those manuscripts came to grips and said, this is not a good copy. And so they placed that particular codex on the shelf and didn't use it. And so it was preserved. One of those codices, called Codex Sinaiticus, survived for hundreds of years, until in the late 19th century, a textual scholar named Tischendorf was visiting the monastery at Mount Sinai, St. Catherine's. Sandy and I have been in St. Catherine's Monastery. And it has the second largest library, old library, in the entire Christian world. The greatest library is in the Vatican. And so Tischendorf is there visiting the monks, and he notices the monks, in order to keep warm, are tearing pages out of a book to get the fire going. And he looks at that book, and being a very astute biblical scholar, he realized that it was one of the codices, evidently, that was created under the Emperor Constantine. And immediately he started drooling, And he figured a way to get a hold of that thing. First of all, he got him to stop burning it, and then he stole it. And it made it away from the Sinai Peninsula. Why did the monks burn it? Why did they burn a book that was at least 1,500 years old? The reason is they thought that it was an imperfect copy of the scriptures. That's my theory. And so my theory is this, that the vast majority of manuscripts are the more reliable manuscripts even if they're not old. that the Bible scholars who dealt with them put the really old, put the ones that were not good on a shelf and never used it and therefore it survived because it wasn't handled by people who were opening it and hand copying it over and over again. That's my theory. I don't have any trouble if somebody disagrees with me. I don't agree with myself sometimes. I mean, you know, what I've written 20 or 30, 40 years ago. So, with that elaborate explanation, which some of you found boring and maybe I've lost you, I just want to say, I think that without a cause is there. But, why did somebody decide to remove it? Why did a copyist sitting there as somebody would read it out, read the text out, and maybe a dozen or twenty people or a score of people are sitting there hand copying what's being read, why did someone leave it out? I think they left it out because the moment you think there is a cause, you can always justify being an angry person. Can I say that again? The moment that you think that the Lord gives you an exception clause, you're going to seize on it because you're just like a lawyer. I don't watch television trials, because there's nothing more distorting of reality than watching a trial on television. You say, that's ridiculous. They're just showing you what's happening. No, they're not. They're showing you that thing through their own lens. I saw a film years ago that illustrated, it was a film done by Francis Schaeffer, that illustrated two camera angles dealing with a mob and a group of policemen. And if you film it one way, as you're watching it, you completely side with the police. But yet if you film it the other way, especially if the camera is down near the ground and you're looking up at the police as they're coming with their shields, their batons and whatnot, the police look like SS stormtroopers or something. In other words, it's all in the perspective. It's all in the angle. It's all in the narrative. It's how you frame the narrative. But listen, listen to me, folks. I have a better defense attorney than Mike Small, who lives in my heart and can always get me off the hook. Always. And he doesn't charge $100,000 to do it. I'm not putting Mr. Small down. Great lawyer. If I ever get charged with a capital crime, please have a fundraiser and hire him. I'm just saying. That where there's a clause that allows an exception, I'm going to seize on it. I'm going to make the most of it. I'm going to say I'm justified in my anger. And I'm telling you that anger is sometimes justified. But the problem is, I lack and you lack the objectivity to deal with that. And that's why I think that that phrase was left out of a few old manuscripts. But listen to what he says, because we don't have to worry at that level. He goes on and he says, you're going to be in danger of the judgment. And he says, whoever says to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the council, and whoever says, you fool, shall be in danger of hellfire. Here's the problem with taking the Bible literally. And I do take it literally where it's obvious that it's meant to be understood literally. There are a lot of superstitious people that will never call somebody a fool, but they'll call him an idiot. And I'm just going to ask you, what's the difference? The word fool is not in the original Greek. It's the Greek word for fool. And I'm not going to tell you what it is, because then those of you who are really literalistic and want to keep yourselves off the hook will never say that particular Greek word. The bottom line is, abusive language is forbidden. You numbskulls. Idiots. We say it all the time. Do you understand what I'm getting at when I say that Matthew 5.20 nails us all to the wall? Because Jesus takes Matthew 5 20 and He expounds it in terms of our issues with anger. We can always justify it. He's a degenerate. Take any term of abuse, any term of abuse, and it's covered here. That's the point. And the problem that we face is that I like to think I'm not in danger of going to hell. over the fact that I'm better than somebody else because I don't say fool. And you know, I'm superstitious about it too. May I say, you know, why am I a preacher? I'm not saying I'm a good preacher, but why am I a preacher that often hits things that people struggle with? Because I struggle with those same things. Okay. You see, I get that thing. I don't use the word fool. I'll say, well, he sure did act like a fool. Sure did act like a fool. I got to say this. Why are you going to leave preaching and go to meddling? I think a guy is a fool to carry a firearm on his person walking around on the street even if he has a concealed permit. That's your business if you want to do it. I'm not going to carry one on my person. You know why? I'm so afraid that my temper will get in the way and I'll pull that gun and use it. I took martial arts, so why'd I need it? No, kidding. I'm just saying, don't go looking for trouble. I'm not saying it's wrong to own a gun. I own a gun. I'm just saying, mind your own business. Stay in your car. Don't go looking for trouble. If you go looking for trouble, trouble will find you. If you're law enforcement, that's a different matter. Thank God for law enforcement. You're looking for trouble. Wow. I've had a gun pulled on me. I've told you the story. I had a shotgun pulled on me while I was preaching. I did. You know what that does? It does a whole lot more than that stupid clock. It does. What was my response when that shotgun was pulled? Bowed my head, said a quick prayer, and nodded in agreement. It's quitting time. Said no more. I shuffled off down the street. It was street preaching. It was in front of a bar. And my opera trained voice coach taught me how to breathe and speak loudly, so I projected. And there they were in the bar, guzzling booze and looking for someone to get frisky with, and they're hearing this booming voice talking about judgment to come. And they were saying things, I'm assuming, like, I'm getting out of here, man. I can't take that, because we're reminding them what the grandmama taught them. I'm just saying, the practical ethics of Jesus are nonviolence. I'm talking about your personal life. I'm not talking about defending your wife and children. I think that we need to be prepared to use whatever force is necessary to defend our wife and child. But I'm talking about defending you. I mean, what in the world are you doing? Jesus calls you to turn the other cheek. He calls you to walk away. He calls you to ratchet it down. He calls you to speak peace to other people. That's what He calls you to do. I'm not talking about law enforcement. I'm not talking about defending your wife and children. I'm talking about your personal defense. I'll say this. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as God is my witness, I would rather be shot and killed than to take someone's life just to protect myself. I'll say it again. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I swear to God, I would rather be shot and killed than to take someone's life simply to defend myself. That's not true for my family, but myself. It's a nonviolent personal response. You don't take up arms against the government, and you don't defend yourself. Law enforcement, that's a different matter. Then look at something in verse 23, because it's profound. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift." What is that saying? It's saying that people are more important than God. What? No, no, listen to me. Please listen to me. I say statements that are designed to be crazy sounding so you'll listen for what follows. Always listen to me in context. What do I mean that people are more important than God? I mean that the natural person, I'm talking about me, I'm talking about my inner Mike Small, justifying my bad behavior, getting me off the hook. I'm saying that I can always dismiss a conflict I've got with a brother or sister in Christ and say, well, I've got to deal with God now. I've got to have my quiet time. I've got to make a living. I've got to do this. I've got to do that. And what Jesus is telling you is that not even the things that pertain to God are more important than your relationships with other people. See what I said? The Sermon on the Mount sounds nuts when you really hear what Jesus is saying, because it's not natural. After all, God is more important than anybody. After all, God comes first, right? And Jesus is saying, you know, that sounds right, but that inner attorney that you've got will twist that idea so that you can be oblivious to the conflict you've got with somebody else. saying, God comes first. You know, that's part of the story of the Good Samaritan. You ever thought about it? In the story of the Good Samaritan, there are three people that are walking down the road to Jericho. And I've been on the road to Jericho, and I did fall among thieves. I fell among Bedouin trinket merchants who were selling and loading me up with stuff, sticking it in my pocket, putting a headdress on my head, and if it hadn't been for the former IDF tour guide that we had, I would have probably been left with no money and a sack full of trinkets. But anyhow, it's a lonely, desolate stretch from Jericho to Jerusalem. And a man is traveling there, and he falls among thieves. And he's beaten and left half dead. And three people go down the road. The first one is a priest. The second one is a Levite. Now what do you see here? If you understand, as in Chronicles and so on, the importance of this thing, You don't get to serve in the temple every day of your life. You're on a rotating basis and because there are a lot of people who are descended from Levi, certainly 1400 years later, because there are a lot of people descended from Levi, this is like your one and only chance. You know how the lot fell to Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist? It was his time to serve in the temple. So what I want you to understand is this is not just a guy that's going to work like you're going to work. This is a guy that's going to work maybe for the one and only time in his life to serve in the temple. Pretty serious business. A missed opportunity is a missed opportunity. The priest and then the Levite. And what's wrong with stopping to help the guy? If you touch a dead body under the holiness code in Leviticus, you will become unclean to the end of the day. So if you go over to help somebody and you turn the guy over and you discover that he really is dead, you just removed yourself from being able to serve in the temple. because you're unclean for the rest of the day. So you see, they have real justification, don't they, to pass by on the other side. What can we do anyhow? Don't stop. It may be a trap. Don't stop. You may get contaminated. And for God's sake, don't stop, because you're on a mission from God. You're going to the temple of God, and if you get contaminated, You won't be able to serve and they'll be shorthanded. You've got to put God first. And so they pass by on the other side. Are they bad people? No, they're just like you and me on I-49, right? They're normal people. Come on, I'm telling you Christianity is abnormal. And so here comes the Samaritan. Who was the Samaritan? The Samaritans were a mixed race group of people. When the Northern Kingdom fell in 722 to the Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian emperors deported a lot of the people from Israel and then deported people from other places and moved them in there and they began to mix. So they were racially mixed. But there was something else. They also had what we might call a syncretistic version of biblical faith, because they mixed some of the pagan beliefs with the beliefs of the Torah. So they're both a mixed race and a mixed religious group of people. It isn't it interesting that the hero in Jesus' story, and don't infer anything about what I'm about to say, because I'm not going to tell you beyond this, the hero in Jesus' story is wearing a hoodie. Think about it. He's the last person you expect to do you a good deed. He's the last person you expect to do you a good deed. But he does. The Samaritan, this person whose religion is corrupt and whose race is mixed and who is viewed with utter contempt by the people down in Jerusalem. He's the one person that stops. And he goes over and he checks the guy, and he discovers he's still alive. And he picks him up, and he puts him on his own donkey, and he takes him to an end, having dressed his wounds, and he spends the night with him, to see him through the night. Can you imagine that? What kind of goofy nut does something like that? Think about it. Let's get rid of our pious, silly approach to Christianity and get real. What kind of an idiot takes a stranger and personally puts him into a hotel room, well an inn room, and personally takes care of this guy throughout the course of the night and then when it's time, because he's got business obligations as well, he reaches into his purse and he leaves the innkeeper a certain amount of money and he says, you take care of him and when I come back If there's any money outstanding, I'll pay you. Come on, that's weird, that's crazy. Do you understand where I'm going with this? Radical Christianity is just so contrary to the way I am. So I'm a pretty sorry Christian. I'm not saying it tongue-in-cheek. If my Christianity is my practice, I've got to tell you, I've got no hope of making it. I flunk at the Sanhedrin, that's the council, and I flunk in front of the Lake of Fire, Gehenna. Because people come first, and relationships come first. And he tells us in verse 25, And here's where we get to that without cause thing. Agree with your adversary quickly while you're on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, and 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. What's that saying? Here's what it's saying. And boy, is this relevant in the rival narratives in popular American news. Hear me very carefully, because I'm really going to meddle now. I always believe I'm right and believe you're wrong in a conflict with you or with my wife. That's the natural thing, isn't it? I think if I go to court, for sure I'm going to win, because you've got to understand something about all those liars on the other side. They think you're the liar. They really do. And they can swear on a stack of Bibles that their narrative is the true narrative and yours is the false one. Because when it comes to conflict, there's no objective truth in this life. Only God has the objective truth. I look at it through my spectacles, and my spectacles have been crafted at Mike Small's optical shop. I've got my defense attorney, and he's the best there is in central Louisiana, in the whole state, and he can defend me, and he can convince me that I'm right, and he can persuade a jury, and I'm using that somewhat as a joke, but there's the point. When you get into a conflict, you always tend to justify yourself. It's human nature. It's human nature. Do you understand what I'm saying when Jesus says in Matthew 5.20, when it comes to anger issues, that Christianity is unnatural? Wow. Why do you agree with your adversary before you go to court? Because you're going to lose, baby. You're going to lose. That's what he says. You think you're going to win, but you're going to lose. That's what he's saying. You're going to lose. And you know who your real friends are? Your real friends are the people that tell you, hey, listen man, you're going to lose. You don't want to hear it and I don't want to hear it. I want a cheering section, don't you? I want one of those guys that advertises on TV and billboards, starving to death, and he says, man, you've got a terrific case, Bob. That's what I want. I don't want somebody to say, Bob, why not rather be defrauded? Are you kidding me? Why not rather be defrauded? Hold your hand there. We're almost done. Coming straight back. Look over at 1 Corinthians 6 for a moment. 1 Corinthians 6. Listen to what he says. Why not rather be defrauded? Listen to this. Here's St. Paul commenting on this thought of Jesus. And he says, page 1314, verse 6, But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers. Verse 7. 1 Corinthians 6, 7, "...now therefore it's already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another," he says. It's a failure. When you go to court, you're already a loser, he's saying. You see what he's saying? You've already lost before you go to court. Therefore, he says, it's already an utter failure for you, not a 20-80 fault. It's a 100% fault. It's an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Listen to what he says, because he's reflecting the words of Jesus. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? Are you kidding me? That's nuts. You understand Christianity? It's a religion for nuts. That's why I'm a Jesus freak. I determined a long time ago when I first came to Jesus and began to study Scripture, that I was going to follow Him, even if it made me look like an idiot to other people. So I come back to these words in closing in Matthew chapter 5. It's all about verse 25. Be reconciled to other people. That's what it's about. Your Christianity is worthless. If you've got people out there that have a grief against you, and you haven't done all you could do to be at peace with them. Notice how I worded it at the end. And you haven't done all that you could do to be at peace with them. Hey, am I laying a guilt trip on you? You're absolutely right, I'm laying a guilt trip on you. But I'm laying it on myself too. Because I'm just like you. A self-centered, self-absorbed, narcissistic man who justifies himself. I can always excuse any behavior as I think about it in terms of my own self-interest. So what am I asking of you? I'm asking of you one thing for me. Make me accountable. Because I'm a jerk. And I need people to say, hey Bob, Bob man, you're out of line. Because when I can't hear that, you know where I'm going. And I'm asking you, beyond that, to do one thing. As we close with this last song and prayer, ask God to show you any conflict in your life, not whether you're right or wrong. But ask him to show you what you've left undone to be on good terms with your adversary. Maybe you've done everything you could do. Fine, that's great. Let it go. But have you done everything you could do? Usually how it fails is this way. I want to apologize to you for getting angry at you when you did so-and-so. Think that works well? Notice that. I want to apologize to you for getting angry when you did this to me. What you need to do is this. I need to ask your forgiveness because I did this and let it go at that. You don't need to tell them about their fault. You don't need to remind them of their role in the conflict. You can't prove it anyhow because they got Mike Small working for them inside their own hearts. You just tell them where you were wrong and let the chips fall and go in peace. And if we can help you or pray for you, we'd love to do it. Maybe you're here and you're not a believer. This all sounds totally ridiculous. Well, I'm trying to tell you the difference between real Christianity and that church stuff. And on the day of judgment, I want to be a real Christian, not just somebody that's bought into the church stuff. How about you? Let's pray. Lord, help me to take seriously just how radical what you teach in the Sermon on the Mount really is. That I'm incapable of living up to it in my own strength. And so I pray for two things for myself as we close. And I pray that everyone here would pray it. Give me more discernment by your Holy Spirit and power by your Holy Spirit to live a life with a conscience void of offense before God and men. and wash me, Lord, from all my sins thoroughly and completely. For Jesus' sake, amen.