A Greater Righteousness (2)
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Announce text: Matthew 5:21-32
Key Text: Matthew 5:21-32
Review
Play BibleProject video: JESUS Fulfills the Law
KOG Series
partner with GOD in HIS Reign
started as gardeners
Adam & Eve broke trust with GOD
GOD’s mandates remained but much harder under a curse
Cain begins a shift where man completely removes GOD & sets up his own kingdoms
GOD constantly tries to invade man’s kingdoms to invite him under GOD’s rule
GOD chooses Israel to be a light to the nations
They fail to live up to those expectations
So, GOD comes to earth in the form of HIS SON, YESHUA (salvation)
KOG is arriving through JESUS (John, then JESUS)
JESUS tempted in the wilderness, picks HIS disciples, & begins teaching them on a hillside HIS SOTM
Went through the introduction which includes the Beatitudes
Last message, we transitioned to the main message
The review we just watched was what we covered last week
Announce text again: Matthew 5:21-32
Scripture Reading
Scripture Reading
21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to 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, ‘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.
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 cent.
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’;
28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
29 “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
30 “If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
31 “It was said, ‘Whoever sends his wife away, let him give her a certificate of divorce’;
32 but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Prayer for added blessing to the reading of the Word
Message
Message
Introduction
Introduction
Big Idea: GOD’s command against murder reveals HIS heart for humanity, challenging believers to guard their hearts and relationships against anger and to honor the dignity of all people as created in GOD’s Image.
Righteousness in the Bible describes a world where individuals treat one another with dignity and respect, diligently resolving conflicts by doing right by each other. To discern this way of living, JESUS, in line with Israelite teachers, pointed to the ancient Scriptures—the Torah and Prophets, the Hebrew Bible—as the source of GOD's Wisdom. Meditating on the laws given to ancient Israel uncovers divine principles for relational harmony.
These timeless laws remain relevant today, to guide us, who are believers, in righteous conduct. In the Sermon on the Mount, JESUS exemplifies this by citing a Torah command and unveiling the deeper wisdom it embodies.
In Matthew 5:21-48, JESUS reveals six teachings, or what the BibleProject calls “six case studies”, with a literary structure that follows a formulaic pattern: a variant of the phrase (depending on your Bible translation), “You have heard that it was said ...” followed by a variant of the phrase, “but I say to you ...”. The former phrase is a quote or paraphrase of a Torah command or interpretation of the command, while the latter is JESUS’ expansion of it. The quotes sometimes derive directly from Torah commandments, sometimes paraphrase multiple commands, or reflect contemporary interpretations like those of the Pharisees.
Amongst Bible scholars, there exists two views of what JESUS is doing here:
Antithesis View: JESUS contrasts HIS teaching with the Torah, establishing HIMSELF as a new authority. This interprets "but" (δέ in Greek, de, as pr. in de-ath) as opposition, suggesting JESUS initiates a new movement superseding the Torah, despite HIS earlier claim to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17).
Fulfillment View: JESUS affirms and expands the Torah, revealing its deeper wisdom and intention. The conjunction de functions as a connector, not contrast, showing how commands point to a broader way of life aligned with GOD's will.
The fulfillment view aligns with JESUS' overall emphasis on Torah observance, treating the commands as incomplete pointers to a more expansive righteousness. So, JESUS is going to offer a teaching about how that command of the Torah is fulfilled. In other words, the command is important, but the way it’s thought about and being observed is incomplete. It needs to be fulfilled or realized in some way. JESUS said HE was here to fulfill the Torah and the Prophets. So, the commands point to a way of life—a way of living—that is bigger, more expansive, and deeper than just the words of the commands themselves.
What JESUS is doing in this approach is modeling a relationship of what HE is saying to the commands of the Torah that HE wants HIS followers to emulate, so that they display the Wisdom of GOD. HIS followers then live a life that fulfills the Torah, and they become the light to the nations - the salt of the earth, light of the earth, city on a hill - the kind of humanity GOD intended us to be from the start. When we apply these Words of JESUS to our every day life - living them out as HE intended - observers might not agree with our theology, but what they see in us will resonate with them. Yes, JESUS expects we will be persecuted, but HE also expects people will respect the way we live, and how we relate to one another within our community.
Over the next several weeks, we will look at each of these case studies, and today, we will begin with the first case study. As we have seen before, the structure of JESUS’ sermon is filled with tie-togethers. The first three case studies are connected, thus our reading this morning included these for context. However, we will begin by reading the text for today’s case study by itself to help frame today’s message. So, here is our text:
21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to 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, ‘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.
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 cent.
The title for today’s message is:
Cherishing Human Life: The Heart of God's Wisdom
Cherishing Human Life: The Heart of God's Wisdom
This morning, we’re going to dig into the original command JESUS is highlighting and the Wisdom of GOD that JESUS draws out from the original command. Probably, most of us here recognized the Scripture JESUS was quoting, when HE started with the phrase, “You have heard it said ...” The command is one of the original Ten Commandments - number 6, in fact.
13 “You shall not murder.
In this section of the Sermon on the Mount, JESUS challenges the traditional understanding of the commandments, revealing that the root of murder lies in unresolved anger. HE emphasizes that maintaining a pure heart is crucial, showing that GOD’s commandments are concerned not just with external actions but with internal motivations and relationships.
Today, as we dive into JESUS' radical expansion of the commandment against murder, we'll uncover how HE calls us from superficial obedience to profound heart change. This morning, I am going to give you three points about GOD’s Wisdom JESUS draws out from the command, “You shall not murder.”
So, these are three transformative truths from the text that challenge us to move beyond surface-level righteousness toward a life of love, forgiveness, and urgent peacemaking.
The first transformative truth is that we must surpass superficial standards.
Three Transformative Truths:
1. Surpass Superficial Standards
1. Surpass Superficial Standards
Have you ever held a grudge against or felt resentment toward someone for something they did or said? Maybe you have never “acted on it,” but it is always there in the recesses of our mind ready to reveal itself the next time you see this person or have a negative exchange with them. JESUS says this is where the real danger lies.
21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’
Okay, we still live in a country of law and order, though, we’re seeing that eroding before our very eyes. We are slowly becoming a lawless country. Rogue judges who have been appointed - according to sources, some of whom have never even studied law (think about that) - are rendering verdicts not based on the law of the land, but on a political agenda - a preference for what they want. Fortunately, these verdicts are being struck down by the Supreme Court as they apply the law, but these actions waste resources - time and money - before they are resolved. There is chaos and confusion. That’s the unfortunate state we are living in today, but we know how it is supposed to work - how our founding fathers designed the framework of the Constitution and the laws of the land. So, we understand when someone commits murder, there are legal (as well as moral & spiritual) consequences for those actions. We understand the statement JESUS is making here - quoting the original command of the Torah.
As I mentioned before, this is one of the ten commandments found in Exodus 20:13 and repeated again in Deuteronomy 5:17.
17 ‘You shall not murder.
So, this is the command JESUS is going to expand on, and the way HE expands on it is very interesting. By the way, we talked about the antithesis view of what JESUS is saying? The antithesis would be something opposite, like “But I tell you, it’s okay. Forget about it.” What JESUS is going to do is agree with the Torah, but invite us to see there is a deeper meaning that is valuable underlying the command—it’s the driving force behind it. So, pay attention to the words JESUS is using - the actions and the consequences. I have done my best to highlight these in a way to, hopefully, help them stand out.
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, ‘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.
I’m going to leave that verse there for a few minutes, so we can analyze it further. This is a rhetorical question - meaning, I don’t need you to answer out loud - but what do you notice about these statements?
I like a quote I read about this verse from Dr. Tim Mackie of the BibleProject:
So, congrats. You never murdered anyone, but everybody in your life hates you, because belittle them and devalue their contributions at work. You think you're better than everybody else, and you're mean. In Jesus’s mind, that is a human being who's just as distorted [it’s a punishable offense]. And that matters to God just as much as murder.
Dr. Tim Mackie, BibleProject
I wonder if you notice a pattern here, though it might be surprising to you.
First, JESUS starts off with equating anger with murder (draws from Cain & Abel story). Being angry with someone is not the same as committing murder, but JESUS says the consequences are the same: they will be held accountable in a local court of law. Next, HE states that someone who calls his brother a “good-for-nothing” (Gr. rakah, from Aramaic word, reika) is going to be found guilty before the supreme court (Sanhedrin) - a higher court of law. HE then concludes HIS work expanding on the original command by stating anyone who calls someone a fool is guilty of the fires of hell (Gehenna).
Now, what you might notice about JESUS’ teaching here is an inverse in the intensity of what we might expect to hear HIM say. Notice how the intensity of the actions decrease from murder to anger to insults, but the consequences increase in intensity from local court to supreme court to eternal fire?
a. Anger == Murder
So, JESUS is stating that anger should taken just as seriously as murder. The kind of anger JESUS is talking about here is a contemptuous anger—a murderous rage—that overtakes someone. This kind of anger evaluates another person and judges their life to be of no value. This type of anger draws from—ties-together—the story of Cain and Abel that we have talked about several times before. GOD warned Cain to get his anger under control or it would master him—lead to further and greater sin—to greater consequences.
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
7 “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
So, JESUS then gives examples of the contemptuous anger as we continue reading.
b. Contempt == no value in someone
We see this leads to calling someone a “good-for-nothing” which we said came from the Greek word, rhaka.
Greek word rahka
pronounced: rhak-ah’
translation: foolish
definition: empty one
note: some translations - maybe your’s - uses the actual Gr. word, raca (NIV, TLV, NKJV)
This comes from the Aramaic word, reika, which is an Aramaic term of contempt. Then, HE continues with calling someone a fool. This comes from the Greek word, more.
Greek word more
pronounced: mor-eh
translation:
definition: fool
note: where we get word moron from
Note, also, how each of these actions of offense target the worth or value of a person. This isn’t simple name-calling. This is about relational posture towards somebody, where I sit in the seat of the evaluator. Why does JESUS go from murder to anger—not just anger, but contemptuous anger? When we don’t value the life of another person, we’re happy to declare to that person that we are the judge of their value. What does murder, anger, and contemptuous insults all have in common? It puts one in the evaluator seat of another person’s dignity—of their worth, of their value.
This is a perspective that the person who is being insulted has no value in life at all - they add nothing to this world, and the world wouldn’t even know if they didn’t exist anymore.
c. calling someone an idiot == hellfire
What does JESUS mean when HE says, “guilty enough to go into the fiery hell”?
Greek word Gehenna
pronounced: gheh’-en-nah
translation:
definition: fire of hell
The Greek word, Gehenna, is actually a Hebrew word spelled with Greek letters—a transliteration of a Hebrew phrase with multiple layers. This is actually a location outside Jerusalem in the valley on the south-southwest corner of the city named Ben Hinnom.
The deliberate paradox of Jesus’s pronouncement is that ordinary insults may betray an attitude of contempt, which God takes just as seriously as the heart attitude that leads someone to take another's life.
R.T. France
He points out that JESUS links a casual insult—calling someone an “idiot”—with the severe judgment of Gehenna, whereas ordinary murder merely lands a person in legal trouble. France explains that even seemingly harmless insults can reveal a contemptuous attitude, and GOD regards that inner disposition with the same seriousness as the mindset that drives a person to kill another.
Think of it like a river: the violent act of murder is the downstream result of a heart‑posture that originated far upstream. JESUS is drawing attention to that original attitude. The shocking, jaw‑dropping element of his teaching is precisely the pairing of a petty verbal slight with the fiery destiny of Gehenna.
The Valley of Ben Hinnom, pivotal in JESUS' New Testament imagery for divine justice and ultimate reckoning of wrongs, became a symbol in Israelite and Jewish tradition for final judgment, though sparingly used by writers; scholarly surveys like Kim Papaioannou's *The Geography of Hell in the Teachings of JESUS* (on second-temple Jewish literature) and Richard Bauckham's analysis of apocalyptic afterlife depictions trace its roots to monarchy-era events in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles. In the mid-8th century BC, King Ahaz rejected righteousness, emulating Canaanite practices by erecting Baal shrines and sacrificing his sons in the valley's fires, followed by King Manasseh's similar immolation of his sons there amid temple idolatry and divination—acts of child sacrifice (infant incineration on altars) common in the Ancient Near East but abhorrent to Hebrew prophets. Jeremiah, contemporary with Manasseh, condemned Judah's syncretism in Jeremiah 7:30–32, where Yahweh rejects such Topheth pyres for the living as uncommanded abominations, foreseeing Babylon's invasion inverting the site into the "Valley of Slaughter": a mass grave of slain perpetrators' unburied bodies devoured by scavengers, embodying measure-for-measure retribution where the fires lit against innocents consume their igniters, rendering the valley a sobering emblem of consequences rebounding upon evildoers.
The point is that the flames lighting this valley were kindled by human hands, yet God will answer that grave injustice with divine justice. Just as the proverb says the one who digs a pit falls into it, or “eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” the fires the leaders ignited in Gehenna will ultimately turn back on them. They will meet their own demise in the very valley where they took innocent lives, and God will be recognized as the one who brings upon them the death they themselves inflicted on the blameless. If you set fire and wreak destruction on others, that very flame will ultimately be the instrument of your own downfall.
So, pj … What’s the point?
Conclusion
Conclusion
Have you ever felt anger and contempt for someone that way? Have you ever considered that you are placing yourself as an evaluator of the value of a person’s life—seeing them as having no value?
Yet, to the FATHER and HIS SON, JESUS, every life has value! This is why you have heard me say when talking about GOD’s Love, Mercy, and Grace: “I (or we) don’t deserve it, but we are worthy of it.” Why? Not because of anything we’ve done, but because the FATHER said we’re worth it, and it was demonstrated through CHRIST!
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Even when we were undeserving, GOD’s Love reached us through CHRIST’s sacrificial death.
9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
In 1 John 3:1, we see GOD’s Love adopts us into HIS family, granting us a new identity.
1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
In Ephesians 2:4-5, we see that GOD’s Love makes us spiritually alive, rescuing us from death.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
It is because we are a child of the family of GOD, we have HIS DNA in us - we’re now made spiritually alive and more than capable of living like JESUS did because HIS SPIRIT lives within us - the same power that rose JESUS from the dead!
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
So, we can meditate on GOD’s Wisdom, and the work of HOLY SPIRIT transforms us, so that we can become true “lights of the world.” We can live differently than we used to (or still do?) - differently than the world. In this text from Matthew, JESUS scrambles conventional values to provoke reflection on the command's underlying heartbeat—valuing human life and relationships—revealing GOD's Wisdom for KINGdom living.
As we draw this message to a close, let the echoes of Jesus' words linger like a warning siren over that 1894 Boston blaze—a single spark of anger that engulfed a ballpark, a city block, and countless lives in its path. Today, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus doesn't just douse the flames of murder; He traces them back to their source: the smoldering contempt in our hearts that devalues the image of God in another. From the inverse shock of anger equaling court, insults scaling to Gehenna's fire, to the urgent call to reconcile at any cost, we've seen how God's wisdom flips our superficial standards on their head. The Valley of Ben Hinnom isn't just ancient history—it's a mirror to our own souls, reminding us that the fires we kindle against others will one day circle back, unless quenched by Christ's forgiving grace. The big idea stands firm: God's command against murder reveals His tender heart for humanity, summoning us to guard our inner worlds against resentment, to cherish every life as sacred, and to pursue reconciliation with the speed of a debtor fleeing prison.
Beloved, what if this moment is your spark of transformation? Right now, in the quiet of your spirit, name the grudge, the unspoken wound, the person you've sized up and dismissed. Don't let it fester into a conflagration—reach out this week with humility, a gentle word, or a listening ear, embodying the peacemaking Jesus modeled on the cross. Empowered by the Spirit who raised Him, we can live as salt and light, drawing a fractured world to the warmth of God's family.
Let's pray: Father, in the shadow of Gehenna's warning and the glow of Calvary's mercy, root out our contempt and ignite Your love within. Teach us to value as You value, reconcile as You reconcile, and walk in the dignity You bestow. Through Jesus, our Peace, amen.
Time of response & introspection before Communion
Closing prayer & benediction
24 The Lord bless you, and keep you;
25 The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
26 The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.’
Scripture records the following words in v.27:
“So whenever they use my name to bless the Israelites, I will bless them.”
So, receive and go with the blessings of YAHWEH!
