Reflect God in Your Heart

Most of you know that I have a second part-time job in retail in addition to being pastor at Liberty Spring Christian Church to help my family make ends meet.

What you might not know is how much I love that job. I have often told Annette that it feels like a mini-vacation when I’m at the shop, because I’m engaged in an activity that is completely distinct from what I do in ministry here and what I do as a seminary student.

The weird thing is that what I love most about that job is the very thing I once would have hated most: dealing with people.

On any given five-hour shift, I might interact with 40 or 50 different customers. With some of them, I ring up their purchase, and they’re quickly on their way. But with others, I get to spend a few minutes — or even a half hour — chatting with them and getting to know them and just hearing their stories.

There’s the one young lady who confided to me one time that she was carrying a body around in the back of her Mini. It turns out she is a medical student, and the “body” was an anatomy dummy that she had borrowed from school to study for a class.

There was the engaged couple one time who came to buy gifts to give to guests at the surprise wedding they were holding the following weekend. When they heard that Annette and I were married at just such a surprise beach wedding, we became fast friends.

There’s the Puerto Rican man who stops by nearly every time I’m working to chat. He’ll go on for 10 minutes about work and family and whatever else is on his mind, and I just nod and smile. Mostly that’s because he speaks only Spanish, and I do not.

He knows this, and yet he insists on talking to me as if I understand what he’s saying. He’s told Annette when she has visited me at work that he’s trying to teach me Spanish. It’s not really working, but he seems invested in the effort.

We have customers who are police officers and drug dealers, doctors and morticians, country singers and rap artists, pastors and pagans, truck drivers and used car salesmen, young and old alike.

Occasionally someone comes through who is a complete jerk, but for the most part, folks are friendly, and my shifts go by pretty quickly.

It’s surprising how often I get to talk about spiritual matters with people, and I’ve even been able to pray with a few people who were in the midst of hard times.

As I said, the weird thing is that dealing with people would have been the very thing that kept me from taking such a job in my old life. Back then, I hated people, and I hated myself.

But something changed when I was saved. Well, lots of things changed, but for the purposes of today’s message, the thing that I want to concentrate on is this: I now understand that every person I meet is someone whom God loves, someone whom He has made in His image.

And when I am walking in the Spirit — when I am walking in fellowship with Jesus — I am able to put that new understanding to use in my interactions with others.

When I see each new person I encounter as one who bears the image of God, I am more apt to respond to them according to the fruits of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

As we continue our study of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 today, I want you to keep in your mind that idea of people being made in the image of God, because it is at the heart of the rest of this chapter, where Jesus talks about how His followers are to relate to others.

We’re going to be looking this week at verses 21-30, where He calls subjects of the Kingdom of Heaven to reflect God in their hearts. Next week, we’ll talk about the remainder of the chapter, where he calls Christians to reflect God in their relationships.

And it’s significant that Jesus opens this section on personal relationships with a look at the hearts of His followers, because our true allegiance — whether to sin or to righteousness — is revealed not so much in our outward actions as it is in our hearts.

So, before we can talk about how we are to reflect God in our relationships, we have to talk about how we are to reflect God in our hearts.

Jesus, who said earlier in this sermon that He had come to fulfill the Old Testament law, takes a look at the sixth and seventh of the 10 commandments in this passage, and He does a bit of exposition to explain the true intent of those commandments, and what we’re going to see is that, in both cases, what the commandments were addressing was less about the external than about the internal.

Let’s look at verses 21-26 to start.

Matthew 5:21–26 NASB95

“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. “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. “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. “Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.

Now, the first thing to understand about this passage, as well as the others in the rest of this chapter, is that Jesus is not setting the law aside or saying that it no longer applies. Remember, He said that He had come to fulfill the Law, and He said that the Law would not pass away until heaven and earth had passed away.

What He is challenging, in each case, is what the people had been TAUGHT about the Law by their religious leaders.

“You have heard that it was said.” This describes how the disciples had received their religious instruction — orally from the rabbis, just as Jesus was teaching them orally.

But what He reveals to them is that the rabbis had interpreted the Law narrowly to suit their own purposes and that God had much more in mind with the commandments than simply prohibiting certain actions.

“You have heard that you shall not commit murder. 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.”

Why would Jesus connect anger to murder?

Well, it’s not hard to see that murder is the ultimate outward manifestation of the internal problem of anger.

Does this mean that we should never be angry? Scripture tells us that Jesus, Himself, got angry. But His anger came “out of outrage at injustice, sin, unbelief, and exploitation of others.” [D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 149.]

And if we, as subjects of the kingdom of heaven, are people who hunger and thirst for righteousness, then we might be justified in being angry about the injustice and unrighteousness we see in the world.

But the fact is that our anger is far more likely to arise out of a feeling that we have been personally disrespected in some way, and it is this kind of “unrighteous anger, the anger of pride, vanity, hatred, malice and revenge” that Jesus is addressing here. [John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 84.]

It’s the kind of anger that responds to disrespect or other personal affronts by calling the person who has hurt us a “good-for-nothing,” which is one English translation for an Aramaic word that can mean imbecile or blockhead.

One commentator wrote that “Anger and insult are ugly symptoms of a desire to get rid of somebody who stands in our way. Our thoughts, looks and words all indicate that, as we sometimes dare to say, we ‘wish he were dead’.” [John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 85.]

And that kind of anger, Jesus says here, is evil enough to merit eternal condemnation.

Now, in verses 23-26, Jesus gives two illustrations to show how kingdom subjects are to handle situations that might be expected to result in anger.

But notice that in both hypothetical cases, it is the people He is talking to — His disciples — who have created the offense. In other words, it is the other, offended party who would be angry with them.

In the first case, the offended party is a brother, a fellow believer.

Think of what Jesus says here in modern terms: Suppose you are in church and the worship music is playing and you realize that you have done something to hurt a fellow Christian. You should leave church right then, and go and find that brother or sister and make things right. You should reconcile yourself to him or her before coming back to worship.

The second hypothetical situation supposes that a Christian owes a debt to a creditor who has sued for the money. In that case, you should go to the debtor and make arrangements to pay him before things wind up in court, even if it means catching him on the courthouse steps before the trial.

So, why did Jesus make the disciples the bad guys in his illustrations?

The point is that “If we want to avoid committing murder in God’s sight, we must take every possible positive step to live in peace and love with all men.” [John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 86.]

A Christian who finds it hard to apologize is not walking closely with Jesus. A Christian who is not willing to pay his debts is stealing. And a Christian who is consumed by the anger of pride, vanity, hatred, malice or revenge reveals not just that his heart isn’t right with God, but that his heart isn’t right with people, either.

You see, this kind of unrighteous anger suggests that we believe other people owe us something — respect or restitution or something else.

In other words, it suggests that we approach our relationships with others from a transactional point of view. We will treat others well if they treat us well. We will love others if they love us. We will give to others in accordance with what we have received from them.

When you’re living this way, other people have value only insofar as they serve your needs and desires. When they do, then you’ll be nice to them. And when they do not, then you feel you have every right to be angry with them.

But when we see others as people who bear the image of God, we are forced to recognize that they have an intrinsic value completely apart from how they might serve us.

When we see them as people whom God loves — no matter how they might have hurt us — then how could we ever, in good conscience, wish them ill? We might not like them very much, and we might never be able to be friends with them, but we simply must not allow ourselves to treat them as anything but God’s image-bearers.

Now, having discussed the sixth commandment, Jesus moves in verse 27 to the seventh.

Matthew 5:27–30 NASB95

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; 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. “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. “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.

Once again, what we see here is that sin begins in the heart. It’s not JUST a matter of outward action. Rather it’s an inward disposition that CAN manifest itself in action, thought it does not always do so.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ time equated adultery with stealing. The adulterer was stealing another man’s wife. Therefore, private thoughts about what would be sexual sin if acted upon were OK from their point of view.

What Jesus said here, though, was that lust of the heart is already adultery.

God gave us both imagination and sex as beautiful gifts of His grace. But, as with all of His gifts, we can desecrate them by using them in ways that He did not intend.

And what Jesus says here is that the offense of a lustful heart is evil enough to merit eternal condemnation.

And the danger of this kind of sin is so great that He resorted to a bit of overstatement to make His point.

If you gouged out an eye because of lust, you’d still have another eye to cause you problems, wouldn’t you? And if you gouged out that eye, too, then you’d still be stuck with the heart and your imagination, where the sin originated in the first place.

I think what He’s saying here is that those who deal with this kind of sin need to go through their lives AS IF they had gouged out an eye, AS IF they had cut off a hand.

They should act as if they are blind, turning from the images that might bring them temptation. They should act as if they do not have the hands to do the devil’s work.

Remember, though, that sin starts in the heart and that we who follow Jesus Christ in faith are called to reflect God’s heart.

And here is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to sexual sin.

Sexual sin comes from assuming that MY pleasure and MY gratification are the most important things.

Think about pornography, for example. Studies show that problems with pornography are at least as prevalent within the church as outside of the church. The problem is only getting worse, and during the last generation or so, it has become a problem for women, as well as for men.

Pornography presents others — whether women or men — as objects of our own sexual gratification. We used to say that pornography objectifies women, but it objectifies men, as well. I am reminded, for instance, of the popularity of a movie a couple of years ago called “Magic Mike.”

Whether the objects of sexually suggestive and sexually explicit images and movies are women or men, they become objects of sexual desire and gratification for those who are viewing them.

And what does this say about Christians who are ensnared by pornography?

It says that they have a problem of the heart in relation to God, and it says that they have a problem of the heart in relation to others.

It says that instead of seeing others of the opposite sex as people whom God loves and people who bear the image of God, they see them as tools to be used for their own gratification.

Consensual sex between a husband and wife is a beautiful and sacred thing. It is a gift from God. But sexual acts and thoughts outside of that sacred marriage bond are sins of lust that strip others of the dignity and value they have as God’s image-bearers.

Sexual acts and thoughts outside of that sacred marriage bond suggest that my own sexual gratification is more important than their dignity and that their value is found only in my own gratification.

Judging from the statistics, it is safe to assume that there is someone in this room today — and probably more than one — who struggles with this sin, and I want to give you a strategy today for overcoming it.

When you are out in the world and find your thoughts turning to lust, remind yourself that the person you have seen or remembered was loved by God so much that He made them in His own image and they deserve the dignity implied by that fact.

And, instead of dwelling on the thing that might incite lust, dwell on the things of God — as Paul put it , “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”

This is how you can reflect God in your heart.

Whether the context is unrighteous anger or lust, the foundational problem is the same: a heart that is not right with God and that sees others as a means to an end, rather than seeing in them the very image of God.

And until we see others as so beloved by God that he made them in His own image, we can never truly be salt and light in this tasteless and dark world.

Turn to your neighbor and say, “You are made in the image of God.”

Good. Now let’s resolve to go out this week and treat others with the dignity and value that they deserve as God’s image-bearers.