Chaos & Peace

Matthew 5:21-26

INTRODUCTION

A famous story from England concerns Lady Astor and Winston Churchill. Lady Astor, a former member of the English parliament, once said, “Mr. Churchill, if I was your wife, I would put poison in your coffee.” Then Mr. Churchill said, “Lady Astor if I was your husband, I would drink it.” That’s funny! Broken relationships are a great source of funniness, as long as you’re reading about them instead of actually going through them. There are a lot of people in this room who are miserable right now because of broken relationships. We all struggle with broken relationships.

Jesus's teachings often deal with relationships by quoting Old Testament Scripture. Then, he expresses his opposition to how that Scripture has been interpreted. Jesus probes behind the original Scripture into God’s mind and reveals what that intent is and how his followers are to live.

Jesus reveals a fuller expression of God’s will for God’s people. In our specific text today, the prohibition of murder is the surface expression of a deeper divine intent: God’s people aren’t to be angry and insulting toward one another. If one masters one’s anger, murder will never occur.

Traditional Christianity tends to squelch all anger as sinful. Such an attitude has caused many believers to grow up emotionally undeveloped, unable to be honest in their hearts with God, people, or even themselves. This attitude leads to some of the worst forms of hypocrisy. Anger is a valid human emotion, especially when it is felt because of some offense against God. Injustice and mistreatment of the vulnerable can be valid causes for anger. In all cases, the anger must be short-lived and handled Christlike, or it will turn into harmful and sinful bitterness. So we must present our hearts continually to God, so he can examine us and show us what is accurate and what is inaccurate in our perspectives.

The text we’re talking about today isn’t talking about righteous anger; it’s talking about the other kind of anger. Just in case you’re wondering if that explosion you had on your friend, co-worker, spouse, or children was somehow righteous anger, without knowing all of the details, let me just venture out and say, “Probably not.” That anger is what Jesus is talking about.

Jesus’ topic of anger is just the key to getting us to open the door to what really matters: relationships.

Matthew 5:21–26 ESV

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 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. 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. 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.

SCRIPTURAL ANALYSIS

Verses 21-22

Like Moses, Jesus condemns murder, but he goes on to claim that harboring wrath in one’s heart is also sinful and deserving of punishment. When we are inappropriately angry with people, we attempt to take their identity and value as God’s creation away from them, the ultimate form of which is the physical act of murder.

“Anger,” here, refers to a seething, brooding bitterness that constantly threatens to leap out of control, leading to emotional hurt, increased mental stress, spiritual damage, possible violence, and, yes, even murder. Anger keeps us from developing a spirit pleasing to God.

It is unusual for human anger to be free from mixed motives and not be, in some sense, self-avenging. Jesus traced murder back to disposition, attitude, or intention. The overt act of murder has its roots in anger, hostility, or contempt for another. Jesus’ words are not to be turned into a new legalism. They are to be understood as radical protests and warnings against wrong feelings toward another. This is not to say that it is just as wrong to murder as to have ill feelings or ill will toward another. Jesus doesn’t say anger is as bad as murder. A victim would prefer being hated to being murdered. Jesus is saying both are sins and offenses to God.

The guilty, Jesus says, are liable to judgment in “the council”—the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish court. They are also, more importantly, liable to God’s judgment in “the hell of fire.” The point is not that varied forms of contempt obtain varied punishment. Instead, every form of disdain is a punishable form of sin. John later writes in I John, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15).

Anger keeps us from developing a spirit pleasing to God. Jesus added, “If you say to your friend, ‘You idiot,’ you are in danger of being brought before the court.” To engage in insulting or calling someone a derogatory name makes one liable to prosecution. Angry words and name-calling reveal a heart far from God.

Insults, anger, and murder lead to judgment because all are sins. God’s judgment goes beyond the act to the inner attitude that produces the act. Kingdom righteousness demands the removal of any desire to harm at any level, including both physical and emotional.

Christians who have themselves been spared God’s wrath are commanded to show grace. Restraining one’s wrath against a fellow human being is a virtue still desperately needed today.

Verses 23-24

Jesus’ listeners, therefore, urgently need to escape this judgment by dealing decisively with sin. Jesus drives home his point with two dramatic illustrations. First, he envisions a worshiper who is called to place interpersonal reconciliation above the correct ritual.

In the Old Testament, God accepted only sacrifices offered with a pure heart toward him and one’s neighbor. The expression “offering your gift at the altar” assumes a sacrifice being made in the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus explained that those who come into God’s presence to worship must come with pure hearts, not hindered by broken relationships that they had the power to mend. Jesus explained that if the worshiper remembered someone’s anger against him or her, that person should leave the gift and go immediately to be reconciled to the offended brother or sister.

To leave immediately indicates the importance of reconciliation because Jesus’ audience was from Galilee, and the effort to attend the temple sacrifice was significant. Then, you can return and worship God. Settling a grievance with someone takes precedence over ritual activity. That amount of travel and demand meant reconciliation was of the highest priority to God.

Verses 25-26

Jesus’ second illustration of the urgency of reconciliation pictures an out-of-court settlement between fellow litigants. These verses offer good advice at the literal level of legal proceedings, but in light of verses 21–22, they obviously refer primarily to the spiritual goal of averting God’s wrath on Judgment Day before it is too late to change one’s destiny.

Fulfilling the law’s command, “Do not murder,” is not accomplished simply by avoiding legal homicide. Jesus reveals that the law intends to nurture relationships. Jesus’ disciples must have a daily urgency about maintaining a healthy life in their relationships, both with other disciples and with non-disciples. Anything we do that strips away the personal distinctiveness of a brother or sister is a sin, and it is our responsibility to become reconciled. Reconciliation is a follower of Jesus’ highest priority.

TODAY’S KEY TRUTH

Choose Peace over the Chaos of Anger

APPLICATION

The command, Do not murder, comes straight from the Ten Commandments. But from Jesus’ contrasting clarification, we can surmise that the scribes and Pharisees limited their interpretation of murder to its most literal meaning—wrongly taking a human life. We have done the same. Jesus broadened their understanding of murder to include wrongful anger that might, in some cases, lead to literal murder. He included cutting harmful words that can kill a person’s spirit. To call someone a fool, which means “empty-headed,” was to cross that boundary. Essentially, Jesus instructed his kingdom servants to value every aspect of another person’s well-being and to treat each person in keeping with this valuation.

When you’re angry, insulting, and obstinate toward anyone, you are, in essence, saying, “I’m interested in wounding your soul. That’s what I want to do. I want to hurt you in a way that’s haunting. Ten years from now, I want you to replay that sentence in your head.” Jesus is calling out this type of anger and hostility.

Jesus is teaching this principle: Lovelessness is a sin, just like murder. Jesus is saying that every human being is infinitely precious, of infinite value, made in the likeness of God, and can never be treated as an object, discarded as a thing, used or abused. A Christian is never condescending but only compassionate.

The Sermon on the Mount is all about the kingdom of heaven. The point of the Sermon on the Mount is to say that for believers, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven! The kingdom of heaven is a gift that is given to those who believe in Jesus Christ and come in under his royal power. When you come in under his power, you change, and your life is completely changed. Christianity is about nothing if it’s not about total life change. If you don’t see a change in your life, you’re not in the kingdom. That includes changes in your emotional control and your relationships.

A disciple’s relationship with God is partly contingent on how the disciple treats others. Jesus’s disciples must conquer their anger and seek reconciliation.

Jesus wants his followers to live radically reconciled lives. Jesus isn’t talking about theological differences or petty human disagreements but anger, insults, and hostility. So, we must keep our eyes on our anger. Jesus is for reconciliation, even if it means interrupting sacred actions and legal judgments. The prohibition of anger here is not so much hyperbolic as it is a foretaste of kingdom realities. Nothing expresses kingdom realities more than reconciled relationships.

God is telling us here that we can transform relationships. Transformed relationships are critical. Broken relationships are sources of misery. Jesus Christ here says, “My kingdom power can bring about a righteousness that transforms those relationships.” Jesus is laying down a principle for all relationships.

What Jesus is saying is that you still have not really begun obeying this commandment until you see it’s your job to reconcile relationships as far as they depend on you. When you see decaying relationships around you, you need to go to that person and try to make it work.

The Bible says to go, repent, and reconcile. Don’t wait for that person to bring it up. You know you’ve done something wrong. Repent. Conversely, in Matthew 18, it says if you have something against your brother, go to that person. Don’t wait for that person to come to you. Go and forgive. It’s your job as a believer to initiate the reconciliation of relationships. Reconciling relationships is a defining character trait of Christians.

Choose Peace over the Chaos of Anger

CONCLUSION

I’m always very calm playing golf. That’s based on my understanding that unrealized expectations are the root of all frustrations. I don’t expect to play great golf, so I’m generally not frustrated by a bad golf performance. Bad day or good day, I don’t get too wound up about my play, except for a round two weeks. I was all kinds of frustrated and got a little angry. Now, that wasn’t about golf; it was about the stress of work and some demands I was dealing with during this stage of my company. I was angry, and it was coming out in my golf. I looked and played that way. Then, yesterday, driving home, I was listening to an audiobook on Golf while simultaneously mentally processing today’s message based on Jesus’ teaching about anger. The audiobook had a chapter on the emotional side of golf, which corresponded to my sermon. It struck me as the book made a simple but accurate point: “Anger makes you stupid.” It didn’t take a prolonged analysis of that round of golf or other times in my past to realize both the book and, more importantly, Jesus had it right. “Anger makes you stupid.”

That day of golf was chaos. Anger made me a stupid person and a stupid player. That's a perfect analogy in life. Anger makes us stupid and leads to chaos. Anger never leads to peace and serenity. Anger never makes life easier or more pleasant. It is impossible to be both at peace and angry. Anger, insults, and hostility are all agents of chaos in our lives. We have seen it when we have been angry, and we have felt it when others have expressed anger at us. Insults and hostilities act like category 5 tornados by completely stirring up everything within us and around us. And when a tornado picks up something and throws it somewhere, it lands as wreckage. Anger does the same thing. It leaves a trail of wreckage.

Jesus knew how anger leads to destruction. From Cain and Able to Saul and David to the religious leaders and Jesus, anger has always led to chaos. Your relationships reveal that reality. Explosions on your friend, co-worker, spouse, or children create chaos. When someone explodes on you, chaos. That is what anger does: it makes us stupid and creates chaos.

Choose Peace over the Chaos of Anger

As we said earlier there can be righteous anger. But let’s be honest: the vast majority of our anger isn’t because of an offense to God, defense of the vulnerable, or injustice. The majority of our episodes of anger are the results of injured pride, denial of our way and wishes, perceived insults, and disrespect. That is what makes us angry 90% plus of the time. And that anger makes us stupid and acts as an agent of chaos in our lives.

Listen, no one has injured your pride more than we have sinned against God. No one has denied your wishes and requests more than we have disobeyed God. No one has insulted or disrespected you more than we have done the same to God. And yet God withheld His wrath from you and acted in love by sending Jesus. God showed love despite what we have done. God chose to reconcile the relationship with you through Jesus.

You have a choice. You can choose anger or reconciliation. You can choose insults and hostilities or restoration. You have a choice. Jesus is clear throughout his ministry that reconciliation of relationships is primary in the life of his disciples. Jesus taught reconciliation of relationships and then gave his life to reconcile us in our relationship with God. Choose reconciliation. Choose peace.

Choose Peace over the Chaos of Anger

A spirit of anger cannot reconcile relationships. Anger usually leaves a trail of wreckage. In anger, we say things we don’t mean. In anger, we do things that are destructive, not constructive. We burn bridges that are imperative to our lives. Anger creates an atmosphere where stress, anxiety, depression, and the dissolution of relationships thrive. Anger, more often than not, creates chaos. Our lives reveal that. Our relationships reveal that. Our world reveals that. Anger produces chaos. Look around us. Anger produces chaos.

As we discussed a few weeks back, The Beatitudes were introductory and summary statements of the entire sermon on the mount. In those Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers. Peacemaking is neither just being “nice” nor “tolerant;” instead, it is an active entrance into the middle of warring parties for the purpose of creating reconciliation and peace. The peacemaker, as the person whom Jesus blesses, seeks to reconcile relationships. Not by pretending there are no differences or by suppressing differences, but by creating and demonstrating love for others that transcends differences and that permits people to join hands in spite of differences.

Many of Jesus’ teachings turn the world’s ideas upside down. This is one of those teachings. Set aside your damaged pride. Set aside your disrespect. Set aside your feelings. Set aside the past and seek reconciliation. Seek peace. Give and request forgiveness. Show grace and mercy. Let go of who was right and who was wrong. Choose peace. Choose to live as Jesus lived.

Choose Peace over the Chaos of Anger