Don't Get Mad...Get Leavin'--Sermon on the Mount Series

            There are certain activities in life that can really get my competitive juices flowing—like mini-golf, for example, or bowling, ping-pong, and tennis. I can also get very competitive when I play board games, which has often made me wonder how I’m going to react when Adrianna reaches that age when she will want to change the rules of every game so that she can win.

            That’s actually an attitude that we all struggle with in our lives—we want to define the standards of life so that we come out looking good. That’s exactly what the Pharisees in Jesus’ day had done with God’s commandments in the Old Testament. The Pharisees, you will remember, were basically the pastors of the Jewish people at that time, and in a time when people did not have their own copies of the Old Testament to read, the Pharisees functioned for many people as the official interpreters of God’s commands.

            Ironically, their efforts to interpret God’s commands came from a sincere desire to follow them closely, but what their efforts produced was a set of arbitrary guidelines that did not capture the heart of God’s commands, yet they allowed the Pharisees to tell themselves that they were being perfectly obedient.

            In Matthew 5:17-20, we saw Jesus launch the opening volley of a thorough attack on the Pharisees’ mindset and traditions. Beginning now in v. 21, we will see him discuss some specific examples from the Pharisees’ traditions and reveal how those examples fail to capture the true spirit of God’s commands. He begins with their interpretations of God’s commandments against murder. Let’s read all that He has to say here about this subject, then we’ll break it down a bit more [READ Matthew 5:21-26]. Let’s look at a few points in this text, then we’ll discuss some implications of Jesus’ teaching.

            Notice how Jesus says in v. 21, “You have heard that it was said to those of old.” That’s an important phrase because it reminds us that Jesus is not critiquing the Old Testament itself—He is critiquing what the Pharisees had said about the Old Testament; their interpretation of it. When Jesus referred to the Old Testament itself, He would say something like “it is written” or “haven’t you read…,” so this little phrase reminds us that Jesus was exposing the Pharisees’ teaching, not any deficiency in the Old Testament itself.

            Notice also that Jesus countered that phrase with the phrase in v. 22, “But I say to you.” That little phrase made two very important points. First, Jesus was clearly setting himself up for the people as an alternative to the Pharisees. It becomes crystal clear in the rest of the sermon that Jesus wants the people to accept his teaching as authoritative rather than the teaching of the Pharisees, and this little phrase effectively puts the people at a fork in the road. What are you going to follow—that which was said to those of old, or that which I say to you?

            Second, with this little phrase, Jesus was claiming to have the authority to accurately express the mind of God. That’s an incredible claim that lays the groundwork for Jesus’ later claims that He is God. This point was not lost on Jesus’ audience, because Matthew reports at the end of this sermon that “the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes (Matt 7:28-29).”

Now let’s take a look at some implications from Jesus’ teaching.

1. Don’t use superficial standards to assess your relationships with other people.

            What the Pharisees taught about murder was okay as far as it went, but as Jesus reveals, it didn’t go far enough. Their teaching was, “You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.” God certainly did condemn murder through His commands, but He went beyond that to the very root of murder, which is anger. In Leviticus 19:17, the Lord said, “You shall not hate your brother in your heart,” but that point was apparently lost on the Pharisees, which is why Jesus criticizes their teaching here. Their traditions focused only on an external action like murder, and apparently, to them, any attitudes or even actions that stopped short of murder were okay.

            But Jesus declares that the mere attitude of anger is just as serious in God’s eyes as the act of murder itself, and actions like insults that we might think are less serious than murder are actually serious enough to make us deserving of Hell. That is a very penetrating assessment that calls us to consider not just our external actions toward others, but the attitudes that we hold about them in our hearts.

            This lesson holds an important implication for the way that we assess our relationships with each other. Let’s face it—its so easy for us to excuse anger in our hearts by looking only at superficial standards. Perhaps I’ve been angry at someone for a year but I’ve told myself, “What’s the big deal? I’ve never punched him! I’ve never slashed his tires!” Well, what a wonderful person I am! Let me pat myself on the back because I haven’t punched someone!

            But Jesus says we had better stop patting ourselves on the back and we better start examining our hearts, because the attitudes we harbor there are just as serious as if we had murdered someone. And if we have expressed our anger to another person through even something as “small” as an insult, Jesus instructs us to make it our top priority to ask forgiveness from that person.

2. If you have expressed your anger against someone else, make it your top priority to ask for their forgiveness.

            The Lord uses a very vivid example to get this point across. He was speaking at a time when the Jewish people were still offering animal sacrifices in accordance with the Old Testament laws, and He tells His audience that if they were standing at the altar of sacrifice, preparing to hand their sacrifice over to the priest, and they remembered that they had expressed their anger to someone else, they should immediately stop this ritual of worship and leave to go and be reconciled with that person.

            In other words, anger is such a serious matter that if I’ve expressed it against another person, I must make it my top priority to make things right with that person. It should even be a higher priority than performing a ritual of worship to God, and the reason for that is simple—God won’t be pleased by my ritual of worship if I am not at peace with other people. As Samuel explained to King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:22, “to obey is better than sacrifice.”

            So imagine that you are driving to church one Sunday morning when you remember that you had insulted someone the previous week and had not yet asked for their forgiveness. It would actually be a greater act of worship to go and make things right with that person than to come to church. That is the kind of priority that we should give to confessing our anger to the people whom we’ve hurt and asking their forgiveness.

Jesus gives us a further illustration of the urgency of making things right at the end of this section.

3. It is much easier to be reconciled to someone sooner rather than later.

            This lesson is the point of Jesus’ words about the judge and the guard and the prison. Some people have wanted to conclude that Jesus was telling a parable here with the judge standing for God and the prison standing for Hell, but there doesn’t seem to be any need to make that connection. Jesus is simply pointing to real-life circumstances to encourage us to make peace with other people quickly after an offense has taken place.

            Its never easy to swallow your pride, confess your sin, and ask someone else to forgive you, but it is almost always easier to do so soon after an offense rather than later. Its just like a physical illness in many ways—if you deal with it in its earliest stages, your odds of beating it are much greater.

            Proverbs 18:19 describes how difficult it can be to reconcile with someone you’ve sin against: “A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.” That observation only becomes more and more applicable with each passing day after an offense has taken place.

With each day that passes, you better believe that Satan is hard at work to multiply the offenses and misunderstandings between you and that other person. He’s going to tempt that person every day to become more bitter, to build more bars around their heart so that you can no longer get in.

            So my friends, we must realize what a serious matter anger truly is. In the eyes of God, it is every bit as serious as murder, and when we have succumbed to it and expressed it against others, we must make it our top priority to heal that breach in our relationship quickly before Satan has time to exploit it. Obeying God in this matter is actually a greater act of worship than any ritual that we might perform, such as attending church, praying, or singing hymns. And if we know we’ve expressed anger toward someone else and we’ve not yet made our peace with them, God won’t be pleased with our rituals of worship, anyway!

            Now, let me answer a question that may have popped into your mind at this point—do I need to confess my anger to another person if its only been in my heart and I haven’t expressed it to them? That’s a good question, and I think the answer is a cautious “no,” and I say “cautious” because we need to remember that there are many ways in which we can express our anger beyond just the obvious ones like assaulting someone.

            Let me describe a scenario to help us think about this question. Suppose that I get a text message from Carmen one afternoon that says, “I made plans for us to go over to Billy Bob’s house tonight. Hope you don’t mind!” Now suppose that I start to think, “Oh man! There’s a big KU basketball game on tonight, and Billy Bob is a K-State fan so I know he won’t want to watch the game. How could Carmen be so inconsiderate? She’s just always thinking about herself and what she wants to do! You know, I remember a time six years ago when she did the same thing! This is twice now in six years! This is becoming a bad pattern in her life! She’s ALWAYS doing this kind of thing!”

            Now imagine that I allow myself to go on like this for a few minutes, just stewing in my anger. Then the Holy Spirit convicts me, and I repent of my anger and put it away. Would I need to confess that anger to Carmen? I think the answer is no, because I haven’t expressed it to her in any way. I still need to confess it to God and ask for His forgiveness, but I don’t think I would need to ask for Carmen’s forgiveness in that situation.

            Now suppose, however, that I held on to my anger until I got home. Perhaps I don’t say anything about it, but instead I just don’t say much of anything at all. I don’t give Carmen my normal greeting, and instead I just get ready to go over to Billy Bob’s house. Then I joke around with Billy Bob for a couple of hours, and we leave to go home and I’m silent again. We arrive at home and I just get ready for bed and go to sleep.

            Now would I need to confess my anger to Carmen in that situation? You bet I would, but why? How did I express it to her? First of all, Carmen knows that its out of character for me to be quiet like that and say nothing at all. She’s would know that something is wrong, and I’ve probably caused her some worry by leaving her in the dark about what it could be. Second, even though I didn’t say any harsh words to her, I didn’t speak any kind words to her either. I know I should speak kind words to her, and James 4:17 says “whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

            Third, I am commanded to love my wife, but just think about the definition of love from 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient—have I been patient? No! Love is kind—have I been kind? No! Love is not rude—have I been rude? Yes! Love is not irritable—have I been irritable? Yes!

            You see, we have to remember all of the subtle ways in which we can express anger. Remember the first implication from today’s sermon—don’t use superficial standards to assess your relationships with other people! In that light, we probably need to confess our anger to others more often that we might initially realize. Are there times when it may not be necessary? I think there are, but they probably occur less often than we want to admit.

            Its never very hard for us to find ways to excuse our behavior, is it? We’re just like children playing a board game—we can always find a way to adjust the rules so that we come out on top. But my friends, we must not play that game. That is precisely the mindset that Jesus is going to dismantle here in The Sermon on the Mount, and He has begun with the ways in which we might justify our sinful anger against other people. We must take a sober look at ourselves in the penetrating light of God’s Word and allow it to reveal our hearts as they really are.

            If know that you need to make peace with someone because you’ve expressed anger against them, don’t delay. Don’t wait another day; don’t leave yourself or your neighbor vulnerable to Satan’s temptations. Do what you can to repair that breach, and pray for God to help your neighbor to be willing to do the same.