Matthew 5:21-26
It is good to once again be able to post a new sermon. I 'm not looking forward to Sunday. I just heard the weather report is calling for freezing rain that morning. This is my all time least favorite weather. I hate freezing rain.
I don't know how many are interested, but I thought I'd mention again that I'm posting one chapter a week( on Wednesdays) of the book I wrote about my friend Toby. I hope several people will read it. He was a great friend. The introduction and chapter one have already been posted, and I'll post the next chapter on Wednesday if the freezing rain hasn't knocked all the power out for days like the last time.
In last week's message, I discussed what it meant to have a righteousness greater than that of the Pharisees. The only way that we can be righteous enough in the sight of the Father is to be clothed in the righteousness of His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. We can never do enough good works to earn our way to heaven or find favor with the Father.
When I worked in evangelism, it always distressed me to hear people who went to church say that they believed that they had eternal life and were on their way to heaven because they were a good person, or they were just as good as anyone else. Believe it or not, this idea is very prevalent among people who go to many churches. People just aren't taught about salvation by grace through faith. They aren't taught about justification and the imputed righteousness of Christ.
Another thing along this same line that frustrates me is that many in church believe that they can do good things in order to get God to do something for them. We are to do good because we love the Lord, but everything that we receive from the Lord is through His grace. We can never earn anything. We need more teaching about grace.
Last week, I also went over some of the ways the rest of the verses we will study in chapter five are interpreted. I won't review that this week. Please refer to last week's message if you need more information on that subject.
In today's message, we move into Jesus establishing Himself as one who is greater than Moses. Jesus is reinterpreting ,changing and some cases strengthening the law. By they way, if anyone wants to do further study on the superiority of Jesus Christ, the book of Hebrews is a great place to study the way Jesus is superior to Moses, the way that Jesus is a superior high priest and how Jesus is the mediator of a new and superior covenant.
Jesus begins this section of the Sermon in 5:21-22 by saying, "You have heard that the ancients were told you shall not commit murder and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court, and whoever says to his brother, you good for nothing, shall be guilty before the supreme court, and whoever says you fool shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell."
Everyone can easily recognize that murder is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Every society that I am aware of has laws against murder.
As we saw last week, one of Jesus' objectives in this passage is to keep His followers from violating the commandments. Many murders committed are committed in the heat of the moment and are not premeditated. Often, someone will get angry and strike out against someone. At other times, people let old grudges fester and the anger grows and grows. Eventually, they plot ways to destroy the one that they are angry with.
If people could learn to control their anger and not dwell on past injustices, many murders and assaults could be avoided.
I believe that Jesus wants us also to be a people who aren't always angry and responding to others with anger. He wants us to respond to others with love.
Jesus wants His followers to be people who forgive others who have offended them. Jesus said that forgiveness and reconciliation are so important that even if we are preparing to worship God and we realize that we have an unsettled dispute with our natural brother or our brother in Christ, we should leave our act of worship and go and be immediately reconciled with our brother.
Practicing this teaching of Jesus will solve a lot of problems. It will also keep our lives from being eaten up by bitterness.
I'm not sure whether or not Jesus had this specifically in mind, but I believe that this passage has an application to more than just physical murder. Sometimes, the hurtful and nasty things we say to each other cause people terrible pain throughout their lives.
It seems to me that we can be praised for something over and over and it doesn't really sink in, but if we are harshly criticized or berated by someone, we seem to remember that instance for years and years into the future.
Those of us who are followers of Jesus should pattern what we say after the example of the Lord. The only harsh words that Jesus had were towards the religious leaders who hypocritically tried to exclude people from the kingdom of heaven.
We should all try to practice the golden rule given to us by the Lord. We should speak to people and treat others the way that we wish to be treated.
James tells us that the tongue is a deadly weapon. Our speech should lift people up and encourage them not humiliate them and make them feel terrible.
There is a good book on this whole subject that I recommend. It was written by a Jewish Rabbi named Joseph Telushkin. The book is called "Words That Hurt, Words That Heal."
Next week, Lord willing, we will continue our study in the Sermon on the Mount. Please continue to pray for peace around the world. God bless you . Amen.
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