Two weeks ago, we looked at Jesus
teaching about the Old Testament. Jesus said that he did not come to abolish
the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them. He did not come to throw out the
Old Testament as if it were obsolete, but he was what they pointed to all
along. In that passage, Jesus said that whoever relaxed the least of the
commandments would be counted least in the Kingdom of Heaven.
In today’s text, Jesus begins to
correct our misunderstanding of the law. In this section of the Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus shows that the way that the Pharisees read the Law was insufficient. He
goes back to the ten commandments and tells us how rather than being relaxed,
they are ratcheted up. He says, “you have heard that it was said…, but I say to
you…” in a series of six statements. Today we will look at the first.
Let’s look at our text:
21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not
murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’
22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be
liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council;
and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that
your brother has something against you,
24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to
your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him
to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the
guard, and you be put in prison.
26 Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the
last penny.
Jesus begins, “You have heard that it
was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be
liable to judgment.’ His hearers were familiar with what it said. You shall not
murder was found in the ten commandments in Exodus 20:13 and in Deuteronomy
5:17. As Jesus statement continues, he says, “whoever murders will be liable to
judgment.” The later part of the verse refers to the consequences that are
spelled out in the Old Testament for murder. And what are those consequences?
Genesis 9:6 tells us that “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his
blood be shed, for God mad man in his own image.” Clearly the Old Testament
taught that the only appropriate consequence for murder was capital punishment.
The reasoning for this is based in the fact that human beings are created in
God’s image. Human beings are of inestimable value because we are made in God’s
image and we were made to reflect God’s glory. To lash out in attack on a human
being made in God’s image is to lash out in attack on God. Therefore, to murder
another human being was the most serious crime and could only be justly
punished by the most serious penalty—capital punishment.
It is not hard to understand this
command. It is basic; it is clear. As it is written in the 10 commandments it
contains no elaboration. It is simply, “You shall not murder.” This is accurately
translated as murder and not as “you shall not kill.” There is a difference
between murder and killing, and in Hebrew there is a different word for both.
Within the 10 commandments, it does not use the word for merely killing, but it
uses the word for murder—the deliberate and unjust taking of a human life. The
Old Testament recognized that there were forms of killing that did not
constitute murder. For instance, when soldiers fight in battle and kill, that
is not considered murder, and when the rightful governing authorities carry out
capital punishment, that is not murder either.
The only problem we have with this
passage is that it is so clear, and it is so basic, that we are prone to read
it just like the Pharisees did. We read it as though all it refers to are the
actual physical actions of carrying out murder. Most of us, can sit back and
say, “I’ve never killed anybody,” and we feel justified. We hear the command,
“you shall not murder,” and we feel morally superior. “See…! I’m a good person.
I’ve obeyed that command.” It is in our nature, that when we hear the commands
that we have obeyed to begin to be filled with pride…to begin to feel as if we
are better than those who have not. Just as Jesus turns our idea of happiness
on its head, so he turns our image of goodness on its head.
Jesus finishes the thought he began
in the previous verse. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You
shall not murder…,’ but I say to you that everyone who is angry with his
brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable
to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of
fire.”
With these words, Jesus dashes all
our hopes of self-righteousness. We can be puffed up with pride and think that
we are good, but Jesus shows us that we are not so good as we thought we were.
While human beings look at the outside…at external actions and behavior, Jesus
looks at the thoughts and the hidden recesses of our hearts. Jesus says to us,
“You think you’re good. Have you ever been angry at someone? Have you ever
called someone a blockhead—like Charlie Brown? Have you ever had anger rise up
within you and you call someone a moron?” Jesus tells us that all these things
fundamentally deserve the same punishment as murder. Jesus teaches us that the
root of murder is anger within our hearts.
Sins are not content to be small.
Every sin that we have dwelling in our hearts seeks to get out; they seek to be
expressed in the greatest way that they can get us to act on. While we may
think that our annoyance with someone is only a small sin, if it is allowed to
fester and grow, and if we do not recognize it for what it is, our sin would
take us all the way to our graves, and all the way to Hell.
We may think we are alright because
our sins are small, or because our sins are more socially acceptable, but Jesus
is speaking to us here a word of warning. He is warning us that carelessly
calling someone a hurtful name can send us straight to Hell!
Jesus continues with an application:
“So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your
brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and
go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
What Jesus is teaching us here is
that reconciliation between one another is more important than our acts of
worship. This is not new with Jesus teaching. It is rooted in the Old Testament
as well. For instance, Isaiah chapter one says:
11 "What to me is the multitude of your
sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the
fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or
of goats.
12 "When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you this trampling of my courts?
13 Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an
abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-- I
cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my
soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands, I will hide
my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your
hands are full of blood.
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct
oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.
18 "Come now, let us reason together,
says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as
snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall
eat the good of the land;
20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be
eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
God hates hypocritical worship. What
he primarily wanted in the Old Testament wasn’t sacrifices and offerings, but a
contrite heart. The people in Isaiah’s day thought they could just keep on
bringing their sacrifices and just keep on having their appointed festivals and
feasts as if everything was ok, even though they were guilty of evil deeds. The
LORD said to them that he hides his eyes from their worship so that he doesn’t
even see it. The things the people were doing to appease God’s wrath wasn’t
doing any good at all—rather, it was making it worse. He says “Your offerings
and incense are an abomination to me.”
This isn’t because God didn’t require
a sacrifice or offerings. They were doing exactly what they were told in the
Law to do, but they were doing it as hypocrites. They were doing religious
activities, but God saw their hearts.
And so for us, when we come to
worship God and we have anger, bitterness, and resentment toward others, God
will not see our worship. In fact, it makes our sin all the worse. We stand and
sing the songs, and maybe raise our hands—and when we harbor resentment within
our hearts all that religious activity just makes God even more angry with us.
We put money in an offering plate to contribute to the needs of the church and
to the cause of missions throughout the world, but if we stubbornly refuse to
reconcile with another, we are only giving God hypocritical worship.
So, what does Jesus say to do? Drop
your gift at the altar and go be reconciled to your brother. This is what the
Christian will do. This is what it takes to obey the voice of Jesus. God wants
us to be reconciled to each other more than he wants our worship.
Now I’m going to start meddling. What
is it that people often do when they get personally offended in church? 1. We
often do things like gossip. We spread it around, and we say “Did you hear what
this person did? Can you believe that? I can’t believe he calls himself a
Christian.” 2. Or we get upset and leave. You think of the past in this church.
Think of all the people who were personally offended over one thing or another,
and rather than be reconciled, they just left. They may have moved on to
another church, but as long as they harbor anger toward people that offended
them they are guilty of hypocritical worship. When you get upset, the thing to
do isn’t to leave, it’s to be reconciled.
Jesus says to us, if you get upset
with people, don’t gossip, don’t leave—be reconciled. Go to the person and talk
it out. Maybe it was a misunderstanding? Usually it’s selfishness. We want our
way so much that we are willing to disrupt our relationships with our brothers
and sisters and in the process, we cut our connection with Him.
Then Jesus continues: “Come to terms
quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your
accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put
in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the
last penny.”
There is a principle that things will
go better for us if we admit our own faults openly instead of waiting for them
to be exposed by someone else. My family and I were watching Leave it to Beaver
this week, and one of the episodes illustrates this point. Wally and Beaver
were left at home alone over night while Ward and June were going away for a
business retreat. While they were alone, Beaver left the water running in the
bathtub and it flooded over. Not only did it get all over the floor, but it
came through the floor and came through the plaster ceiling and onto the
kitchen floor downstairs. They cleaned up the mess so that it was barely
noticeable, but the water coming through had weakened the plaster. When they
were at the dinner table the next day they heard a crash and when they went to
check what it was they saw that they ceiling had fell in. Wally and Beaver were
then left with a choice, they could admit that it was their fault, or they
could conceal it. They felt the weight of the choice and chose to tell the
truth themselves rather than to let their father think that it was some other
cause. You can imagine, the consequences that they faced, having told the
truth, were lighter than they would have if they had concealed the truth and
been found out later.
This illustrates a spiritual
principle. There is a judgment coming when all of our sins will be revealed.
Everything that we have ever done will be laid bare for all to see and we will
answer to God for every careless word we have ever said. We will even answer
for any time that we may have simply called someone a fool. God knows all
things. He doesn’t just know what we have done and said, but he knows the
thoughts and the intentions of our hearts.
With this judgment in mind, we have a
choice, we can confess our sins now, repent, and accept the free gift of God’s
forgiveness. Or, we can conceal our sin. We can put on a good image. We can
show up at church and put on a good show before people, all the while hiding
our hypocrisy and storing up greater wrath on our sins.
You can say to yourself, “I’ve never
killed anyone.” You can feel good, prideful, and superior to those who have,
but remember that God sees through our actions to our hearts. He sees that if
we do harbor anger toward our brother, the only thing that separates us from
someone who has murdered is that we fear what people will think, or we fear the
external consequences. We are all guilty. We are all sinners. There is none
righteous—no not one.
Look unto Jesus, for he has
reconciled us to God. Only believe on him and his death can be counted as
payment for your sins.
(Preached on May 21, 2017)
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