We are guilty of murder when what comes from our heart damages another’s heart...

If we are honest, when it comes to having a relationship with God, we often are tempted to make our lists and charts for what we believe is spiritual and what we believe meets God’s standard of obedience, yet so often the reality is that our lists and standard looks nothing at all like God’s standard. So, at the church where I serve, we are spending the weeks leading up to Easter in a series entitled “Jesus Uncut”.

During this series, we are going to see Jesus reveal to the crowds listening to a famous sermon the He preached, which we refer to today as the Sermon on the Mount, the true nature of what God demands of humanity in order to experience a right relationship with Him. During this series, we are going to see Jesus reveal for us the true nature of what it means to obey the message and teachings of the letters that make up the Bible.

During this series, we will see Jesus uncut, as He reveals the lifestyle that should mark a person who is living in a right relationship with Him.  So this week, I would like to look at a section of perhaps the most famous sermon that Jesus ever preached, called the Sermon on the Mount, which is recorded for us in a section of an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of Matthew, beginning in Matthew 5:21:

"You have heard that the ancients were told, 'YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER ' and 'Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.'

As Matthew gives us a front row seat to this famous sermon that Jesus preached, we see Jesus quote from a section of a letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in the Old Testament called the book of Exodus. In the book of Exodus, a man named Moses had been used by God to deliver the Jewish people from slavery at the hands of the nation of Egypt.  After spending over 400 years living as slaves in a nation that worshipped a multitude of false gods, the Jewish people had been delivered from slavery by God and were now a free people.

However, while free from slavery, the Jewish people were not free from the influence of living in a culture that worshipped other gods instead of the One True God. And because of that reality, in this section of the book of Exodus, God began to enter a covenant relationship with the Jewish people as His chosen people. In other words, God and the Jewish people agreed to enter a committed relationship with one another that was based on the fulfillment of various promises and responsibilities.

God promised the Jewish people that they would enter a special relationship with Him as His treasured people that would live lives that were distinctly different from the other nations of the world in that the Jewish people would be wholly devoted to God and God alone. As part of that special relationship with God, the Jewish people were to live according to a set of principles that would establish them as being distinctly different from the other nations of the world.

As a result of this special relationship with God; as a result of living their lives according to a set of principles given to them by God that would result in them living lives that were distinctly different than the world around them, the Jewish people would be the vehicle that He used to reveal Himself to the world around them. In Exodus 20, God began to give these principles to Moses, who would in turn deliver these principles to the Jewish people to follow.

The entirety of these principles were referred to by the Jewish people as the Law. The Law contained the list of commandments that revealed to the Jewish people God’s nature, God’s character, and the type of nature and character that humanity would need to possess and display in order to live in a right relationship with God. The first set of these principles we know today as the Ten Commandments.

Here we see Jesus quote from the sixth of the Ten Commandments, which is recorded for us in Exodus 20:13. In Exodus 20:13, God commanded the Jewish people “You shall not commit murder”. Now, to commit murder is to knowingly and willingly act in a premeditated fashion take the life of another. You see, the letters that make up the Bible makes a clear distinction between killing and murder. From the perspective of the letters that make up the Bible, there is a significant difference between a person whose actions accidentally cause the death of another, which is defined as killing, and a person who plots and plans to take the life of another, which is defined as murder.

In addition, Jesus quoted from another section of the Law, which is found in Deuteronomy 5:17: “Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.” Jesus here is reminding the crowds listening to Him that the person who knowingly and willingly plots and plans to take the life of another will be required answer for their actions and will be held accountable for their actions. Jesus is basically saying here “Whoever knowingly and willingly plots and plans to take the life of another will certainly be found guilty before the court”.

Now for those in the crowd listening to Jesus sermon, no one would be surprised at Jesus words here. For those in the crowd listening to Jesus sermon, no one would disagree with Jesus words here. For the Jewish people it was a common and accepted principle that a person who knowingly and willingly plots and plans to take the life of another will certainly be found guilty before the court and would be punished by the court. However, what the crowds listening to Jesus were not prepared for was what Jesus had to say next. We see what Jesus said next in verse 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.

Now to fully understand the impact of Jesus words here, we first need to understand the concept of anger and then define some terms. When Jesus talks about being angry here, He is referring to an inappropriate anger towards another person.  A great definition of anger is that anger is an emotional response that occurs when a person's desires are blocked. Think of the last time you were angry. What caused you to be angry?

In almost every case, we experience anger because we had a desire for what we wanted to be doing or to have happen, but that desire was blocked by some person or some experience. Our emotional response to that desire being blocked by someone or something is anger. The issue of anger is further complicated by the reality that, far too often, we tend to not get angry at things that should make us angry while at the same time get angry at things that should not make us angry. I mean we can blow a head gasket over a waiter messing up our order in a restaurant while not being the least bit upset when multitudes of women are taken advantage of through human trafficking.

The letters that make up the Bible command followers of Jesus to make sure that they respond in anger to the right things and respond in anger to the right things the right way. And we see this principle modeled by the life of Jesus. Jesus never sinned, yet He went into the temple and turned over the tables of the moneychangers not once but twice. Jesus responded in anger to the right things and responded in anger to the right things the right way. Here, however, Jesus is referring to a person who responds in anger either to the wrong things or in the wrong way.

Jesus then provided three examples of responding to anger to the wrong things or in the wrong way. First, Jesus states that whoever is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. Now when Jesus uses the word brother here, this word actually refers to one’s neighbor. Jesus point here is that anyone who responds in anger to their neighbor for the wrong things or in the wrong way will certainly be found guilty before the court and will be punished by the court.

Jesus then provided a second example of responding to anger to the wrong things or in the wrong way: “and whoever says to his brother, 'You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty before the supreme court”.  When Jesus uses the phrase “good for nothing”, this word, in the language of the day, was a quasi-expletive in the culture of the day to call one a numskull or fool. This phrase was a term or abuse or put down in the culture of the day that related to a lack of intelligence. This phrase was a type of verbal bullying.

Jesus point is that anyone who angrily verbally bullies another, whether that verbal bullying is face to face or on social media; anyone who verbally abuses another so as to demean and degrade another will certainly be found guilty before the supreme court and will be punished by the supreme court. When Jesus refers to the supreme court, He was referring to the Sanhedrin. Now the Sanhedrin was the senate and Supreme Court of the Jewish nation. The Sanhedrin comprised the political, judicial, and religious leaders of the Jewish people that formed the governing body for the Jewish people. These were the most powerful people in the nation gathered together in one room. In our culture today, this would be the equivalent of having the members of the house, senate and the justices of the Supreme Court together to pass a judgment of guilt on another.

Jesus then provided a third example of responding to anger to the wrong things or in the wrong way: “and whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” In the culture of Jesus day, the phrase “you fool” was used to speak disrespectfully about a person by claiming that they were an immoral or godless person. This phrase was used to speak slanderously of another person in hopes of damaging their reputation.

Jesus point is that anyone who angrily slanders another person will certainly be guilty enough to be sentenced to go into the fiery hell”. With this phase, Jesus was pointing the crowds to a place called Gehenna. Now Gehenna was the place where the Jewish people of Jesus day believed that God would exercise His final judgment. In other words, Jesus is proclaiming that those who angrily slander others are in a position where they could be judged worthy of the eternal punishment that one would experience from God in Hell.    

Now I want us to take a minute and imagine ourselves in the crowd listening the Jesus words. Can you imagine what the response must have been like? Can you imagine the body language? The facial expressions? Can you imagine the pushback? Maybe you are here this morning and you find yourself pushing back.

Maybe you are wondering, questioning, or even challenging Jesus words here and if we could have a conversation, the conversation would sound something like this: “Really? Does Jesus actually think that gossip, slander, or even verbal bullying is the same thing as murder? I mean Jesus can’t really be serious here. After all, to shoot someone with a gun in the heart on purpose is not remotely the same as simply being angry and saying things out of that anger that slanders, disrespects, or demeans another. So, what is Jesus point here?”

If those questions or pushback is running through your mind, I want to let you know that those are fair questions. And my response to that question and pushback is this: Jesus is addressing the temptation that we all face, which is to look at the message and teachings of the letters in the Bible as though they simply address external behavior. Jesus here is addressing the temptation that we all face, which is to make our lists and charts for what we believe is spiritual and what we believe meets God’s standard of obedience, while missing the reality that our lists and standard looks nothing at all like God’s standard. Jesus here is taking an external commandment and is internalizing the true meaning of that commandment. Jesus here is revealing the true intent of this commandment as given by God.

And it is here that we see Jesus reveal for us a timeless truth about the true nature of what it means to obey the message and teachings of Jesus and the true nature of a lifestyle that is living a right relationship with Jesus.  And that timeless truth is this: We are guilty of murder when what comes from our heart damages another’s heart. The timeless reality is that our words and our actions are the overflow from what is going on inside of our hearts. And as the wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon stated in Proverbs 4:23 “Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.”

And because of that reality, we are guilty of murder when we respond to our desires being blocked in a way that damages another. We are guilty of murder when we respond in anger either to the wrong things or in the wrong way in a way that damages another. We are guilty of murder when we angrily verbally bully another, whether that verbal bullying is face to face or on social media, in a way that damages the heart of another. We are guilty of murder when we angrily speak in a way that disrespectfully slanders another person in a way that damages the heart of another.

We are guilty of murder because Jesus is not simply concerned with our external behavior. We are guilty because at the end of the day Jesus is concerned with our internal heart condition. Jesus is concerned with our internal heart condition because Jesus knows, and human history has shown, that what is in the heart will eventually spill out.

And because of that reality, as Jesus continues His sermon, we see Jesus reveal how we are to respond when what spills out of our heart reveals what is inside of our heart in a way that results in us being guilty of damaging another's heart.

We will see Jesus reveal what are response should be on Friday...