MURDERERS AT HEART

Introduction

-{Matthew 5}

-For those who don’t know me that well, I was born and raised in Wisconsin and stayed there until I moved to the Promised Land of the South in 2000. But during the summer of 1991, I was home from college between my Sophomore and Junior years. I worked at a local golf course, but didn’t have a car, so I had to wait for a ride.

~One day, while waiting for my ride pick me up, I decided to watch some TV. When I turned on the TV, every single channel was breaking the news that in Milwaukee, a mere 30 miles or so away from where I was, they had captured a serial killer who did some pretty sick stuff.

~Jeffery Dahmer had for years been murdering and doing all sorts of stuff. And my first thought was about the fact that I went to college in Milwaukee...so I began wondering if I ever crossed paths with him. Gave me the heebie-geebies. Then I started wondering how in the world anyone could do such things.

-Now, at the time, I wasn’t saved. And when I heard stories about somebody as evil as Jeffrey Dahmer, I started to feel pretty good about myself. Since I’ve never killed anyone (and still haven’t by the way), and since I’ve definitely didn’t do all the stuff that Jeffrey Dahmer did, I must be a pretty good guy. I prided myself in the fact that I was not a murderer. I may have done stuff and thought stuff in life, but I could always justify myself by saying, Hey, at least I’m not Jeffrey Dahmer.

-And there’s a lot of people like that—thinking that if they don’t literally commit a certain crime or sin, that they’re pretty good, and they get all self-righteous. In Jesus’ day, that’s where the Jewish religious leaders’ minds were at—we don’t literally break the law so that must mean we’re following it. But Jesus brings us all back down to reality about the fact that we’re not quite as righteous as we think we are. We may not have ever done the actual, physical action of murder, but Jesus says that on the inside there is a murderer in all of us.

-Now, some people will get all insulted about that and say: I’ll never murder anybody. But that’s not the point Jesus is making. It’s not that you just fall off your rocker one day and start killing people. It’s the fact that even if you do not ever do the act, the murderer is still inside, and it is inside all of us, in the heart, and it is still sin even without ever actually having done the deed.

-Let me explain. The verse that I looked at last week says this:

Matthew 5:20 LSB

20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

-That would have been very profound in Jesus’ day because the scribes and Pharisees were supposedly the poster children for righteousness. But it was the wrong kind of righteousness. It was a fake righteousness. It was a self-righteousness. They followed God’s law in one sense, and yet they were so far from actually fulfilling what God directed and desired. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is explaining Kingdom values and true righteousness. The right kind of righteousness comes from a new heart that develops the character. It is God-glorifying rather than man glorifying. It is codified for us in Scripture, not man-made tradition.

-And beginning with the passage that we are looking at today, Jesus explains what righteousness that surpasses the scribes and Pharisees looks like. It’s not external appearances, but inward integrity. This is real obedience to the Law—to Scripture. It’s not merely keeping the letter of the law, it’s keeping with the spirit of the law.

-So, just because you have never done the outward act of murder is not necessarily something to be proud of, because there is still something down deep within us that’s not right. What we want to learn from this passage (and really, it’s the main lesson from all the rest of the chapter) is that the righteousness that God looks for is as much about having a right heart as it is about having a right action. God looks at the heart as well as a person’s works.

-We may not physically murder, but we can have an inner spiritual attitude that can be just as deadly, destroying lives, destroying relationships. We can all be murderers at heart. So, what is it that Jesus teaches?

Matthew 5:21–26 LSB

21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not murder’ and ‘Whoever murders shall be guilty before the court.’ 22 “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, ‘Raca,’ shall be guilty before the Sanhedrin; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. 23 “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. 25 “Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. 26 “Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last quadrans.

-{Pray}

-As Jesus gets to the heart of the matter, what do we learn about our own hearts and God’s Word and God’s righteousness? First, we are warned to:

1) Beware of the bitter root of anger

-Jesus starts out by quoting from the Ten Commandments along with what is probably some Rabbinic commentary that would draw out the consequences for breaking God’s law. He says:

Matthew 5:21 LSB

21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not murder’ and ‘Whoever murders shall be guilty before the court.’

-This is what has always been taught, and that is what Jesus’ disciples and the crowds listening in along the fringe were always familiar with. And everybody would agree giving a hearty Amen and Hallelujah.

-But Jesus doesn’t stop there, he goes on to say: BUT I SAY TO YOU----By saying this, Jesus is claiming to speak on His own authority. We know that Jesus is God and has that authority. Several times in the gospels it says that the people were amazed because He taught as one with authority and not as the scribes. Jesus has every right to say I SAY TO YOU, because it would have been the equivalent to the Old Testament saying, THUS SAYS THE LORD.

-But we note that Jesus did NOT contradict the law by what He says. The law says YOU SHALL NOT MURDER, and that’s the truth. But by speaking with authority, He is going further and drawing out the spirit of the law—the meaning of the law that was always intended. So what does Jesus draw out of this law for us? Jesus tells us that if we are angry at someone in our heart we are liable to the same judgment as if we murdered them.

-Now, when Jesus says this, we have to put this in perspective of the entire Scriptures. Jesus is not saying that you can never be angry. Jesus Himself got angry. The Bible tells us that He was angry at what was going on in the Temple courtyard, so He drove out the sellers and the money changers. And when He was teaching in the synagogue and asked them if it is alright to heal people on the Sabbath, which they did not think it was right to do, it says He was angry at the hardness of their hearts.

-But what this demonstrates is that there is a righteous anger for God’s glory, for God’s Word, and for God’s Messiah. When there is something that blasphemes any of those, then yes, there is a righteous anger.

-But that’s not the anger Jesus is talking about in the passage. Some translations add the phrase that if you are angry with your brother WITHOUT A CAUSE—and that cause would be related to God. But if you are angry at someone such that you want harm to come to them or you hold them in contempt because of something that they did to you or what is yours, that is the heart of murder.

-And He says it in three different ways which I believe are synonymous ways of making the point, although each one seems to go up a notch. He says that if you’re angry, then it’s the same consequence as murder—you’re guilty before the court. If you hold someone in such contempt that you say RACA, which means empty-headed, stupid, idiot, then it’s the same consequence as murder—guilty before the Sanhedrin. If in your anger you question their morals, and you call them YOU FOOL, which meant that you slander them by calling them godless, then it’s the same consequence as murder—guilty enough to go into fiery hell. It’s about what’s in the heart.

-And there’s two lessons under this point that I think are worth noting:

a) Angry hearts lead to angry actions

-When you get so angry with someone it will often lead you to do something about it. Some people get so angry that they do murder another person. Other people get so angry that they start calling them names. Some people get so angry that they start gossiping about the other person trying to persuade other people to think the same way about the person as they do and slander their name. Some people get so angry that they have to plaster it all over Facebook or X or YouTube or whatever.

-On and on it goes. You see why Jesus shows that it is in the heart? Actions flow out of what is contained in the heart. Jesus says elsewhere in Matthew:

Matthew 15:18–19 LSB

18 “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. 19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false witness, slanders.

-It’s not like murder or slander or anything else just came out of nowhere. It all starts with the heart, and when anger is allowed to snowball and snowball it leads you to do something wicked. An angry heart left unchecked leads to sin.

-This made me think of something that comes out of Star Wars. But when a young Anakin Skywalker is first brought before the Jedi council and they test him to see if he has any force powers, Yoda says something that almost turns prophetic. He says: “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” And as you go through the Star Wars saga, it was Anakin’s fear that led him to have such anger at the Jedi and others that he turned into Darth Vader, the baddest of all the bad guys.

-Your anger will snowball. You might think that Jesus is exaggerating when He equates anger to murder, but Jesus knows that every hateful or murderous action began with a heart that was angry.

-Do you actually think that the anger in your heart, that is stewing and festering and leading you to hold on to bitterness, will not lead you to do something damaging either to yourself or others? Do you not think that your anger will obliterate a relationship?

-And then we see another lesson that leads from this; if angry hearts lead to angry actions, then:

b) Angry actions lead to judgment and alienation

-Jesus doesn’t hold back or pull punches. If you are angry with someone because of your own pride and your own issues, you are liable to judgment. If you are so angry at someone that you call them empty-heads, you will face judgment (He refers to the Sanhedrin, the Jewish court, which is just a picture of judgment in general). If you are so angry that you slander someone and call them a godless fool, you will face God’s wrath, as pictured by fiery hell.

-You cannot be someone who holds on to anger and holds on to anger and holds on to anger and somehow think that you are right to do so. Just because you don’t murder someone, but you hold anger and bitterness and call them names and gossip and slander them, you can’t think then that somehow you are still keeping God’s law / Scripture. Jesus says that is not God’s righteousness. That is the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and yours is to be better—yours is to be of a different kind.

-Your sinful anger alienates you from God, who really is the only one that has any right to be angry. And not only that, your anger will alienate you from the people around you. But Jesus does show us that if we did something out of anger, that we can then, in turn, demonstrate that we have a grip on Kingdom values and on the right righteousness. So, the second point that Jesus makes is to:

2) Cultivate a heart of reconciliation

-In verses 23-26 Jesus gives two pictures or stories to encourage people that reconciliation demonstrates a repentant heart for the anger that reared its ugly head.

-There are three quick lessons that I want us to glean from these verses:

a) Seek to fix what your anger broke

-Since Jesus tied these pictures in with what He is saying about anger in the heart, I think it is right to make the connection that Jesus is saying that if you did something out of anger (that if your angry heart led you to do an angry action), then the impetus for seeking reconciliation is on you.

-It used to be that when you went into stores that had a lot of breakable stuff, there would be a sign posted that said: IF YOU BREAK IT, YOU BOUGHT IT. Well, God has just given us a sign: IF YOU BREAK IT, YOU RECONCILE IT

-There were times when I’d get so steamed at my kids that it led me to say some things I later regretted, so I’ve had to bite the bullet and find them and apologize and make it right. I could have just said: You know what, I’m the parent, they’re the ones that made me mad, and if they hadn’t have done what they did I wouldn’t have done what I did or said what I said----But it was my angry outburst that broke the relationship, so it was up to me to fix it.

-You know what, someone may have done something that annoyed you, hurt you, and made you angry, but if you do something back at them out of your anger, you are still in the wrong, it is still a murderous heart from which that flowed, and you are the one that needs to make it right. It doesn’t matter what they did—what concerns Jesus here is what you did.

-That’s why in these verses, the emphasis is on the word YOU—Jesus is speaking directly to His listeners. Look, if you caused a break in a relationship, you need to fix it. Then a second lesson we need to learn is that:

b) Broken human relationships hinder communion with God

-Do you see what goes on in this first story? Jesus is picturing someone going to the temple to give one of the sacrifices and leaving it in order to reconcile with someone. So, Jesus is saying that if you know that someone has something against you (because of an angry outburst or anything else), then you will not be able to worship God rightly. You need to stop what you are doing, and get it right first before your heart will be right to worship.

-How many people here and in churches all around the land are sitting in pews and their heart is so far from God because they have the burden of a broken relationship that they caused out of their anger and haven’t done anything to fix it. You will never truly have the freedom to worship God, your heart is going to be closed up to the Word of God, until you get that fixed. Jesus says to leave what you are doing, go make it right with the other person, get reconciled, and then come back and do your business with God.

-What needs to happen to all those people sitting in all those pews is for them to get up and leave church and reconcile, because they’re not having any true communion with God in church anyway. If your anger broke a relationship, then go reconcile the relationship, and then you can come back and worship God rightly. And then a third lesson under this point is that:

c) Unrepented anger leads to judgment

-In the second story, Jesus gives the picture of someone who is being taken to court for something they did. He advises that you better make things right before you are brought to the judge, because if you don’t you will have to pay the price in full.

-If you in your anger did something that hurt someone and the relationship is broken because of it, they actually have a legitimate gripe against you before God. So, before you have to face God as your judge, do whatever you have to do to make it right. Otherwise, God will not judge you guiltless.

Conclusion

-You see, the Sermon on the Mount is all about living as a member of the Kingdom of God, and living a righteousness that God defines. Now, Jesus is not saying you will never be angry. We will get angry, and Jesus died to forgive us for our anger. But those who are in the Kingdom will recognize whether or not it is righteous anger or selfish anger, and will hopefully give it to the Lord before it snowballs into something else.

-And if it did snowball into something else, then members of God’s Kingdom will swiftly seek reconciliation.

-When you do that, you are more like your God and Savior. God has every right to be angry with the humanity He created. He has every right to act on His anger, because our sin is like spitting in God’s face. Our sin is an insult to His character. Our sin is a slander to His holy and righteous name. And we have broken the laws and standards of the Holy One. And in His justice He alone has the right to act on His wrath.

-But instead of acting out of anger, God offered humanity a way of reconciliation. Even though God is the offended party, and we are the offenders, He is the one that took the step to fix the broken relationship.

-Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, God made the way for relationship to be restored. However, if you turn your back on God’s reconciliation, you will pay the price for your sin until it is all paid for, which is eternal.

-Unless you repent of your sin and trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection, you will experience God’s anger forever. But believe in Him and you are delivered into His love.

-But maybe there are some here today who need to get up and get reconciled with someone. I invite you to do that. Maybe you have an issue with your anger, and need to turn it over to God—the altar is open.