Let’s pray…
Read Matthew 5:21-22 together
Why has God laid out commands for us? What is His moral law for? Why did He give us the 10 Commandments? Why did Jesus give commands during His earthly ministry?
Did he say do this and do that or else?
No.
He gave us the moral law to show us the way we are to behave. The way we were designed to live. And, to make us aware that we were not living within that framework in the first place. As we go over the principles of the 10 commandments look at it as a path to freedom not a bunch of do’s and don’ts.
— We are to Love God above all else.
— We are not to bow to anyone or anything besides Him.
— We are to honor His name. We don’t take it in vain.
— We are to take time out to rest. And if we are in any place of authority, we allow others to do the same, to rest.
— We are to honor our parents and we lead our children to the things of God.
— We are not to kill people.
— We are not to have sex with people we aren’t married to.
— We are not to take things that aren’t ours.
— We are to tell the truth.
— We are to be content with what God has blessed us with and we are to celebrate the ways that He has blessed others.
And, Jesus gave us a Cliff Notes version of His moral law by telling us to Love God and love everyone else as we love ourselves.
If you go down the list you can see the heartache that can spring from disobedience to those commands. These commands provide us with the worldview that God wants us to have. And far from limiting us, these commands provide us with freedom from the entanglements of this world.
But, the law is not only an owner’s manual. It’s got some teeth. It is a teacher. The Holy Spirit uses the Law to help teach us about our sin.
You see, anything outside of this standard, anything outside of His will for us, is sin.
And any sin in our lives results in judgment and death.
But, The good news of the Bible is that once we understand our sinfulness, and once we understand that we can’t get right on our own, It is then that we will recognize our need for a savior and then we can put our trust in Jesus Christ — God the Son — who came down to our level, lived the sinless life that we could not live and died to take the penalty that was due to us.
That’s the gospel! That’s why we have hope in this hopeless world.
With all that said, let’s look again at Matthew 5:21, where Jesus teaches on one of the big 10.
Now, most of us read that command and we say, “No problem, I’m good on that one.”
We pat ourselves on the back and get a little bit of pride.
This is exactly how the Pharisees and the teachers of the law looked at it back in the day. And that’s why we are reading about it now.
You see the Pharisees had made the Law into an idol. They were under the impression that if they kept all the laws, if they did everything right, they would be right with God.
The problem with this is that they didn’t understand that God looked at the heart and not at outward appearances. They took this thing that He gave us — the Law — and put their faith in it, not in Him.
And, as Jesus teaches here, they may not have murdered someone, but their murderous thoughts produced evil words, which were sin enough to separate them from God.
Remember, God doesn’t have a sliding scale for sin. Without the saving work of Jesus Christ, a little white lie or a word of gossip gets you to hell as quickly as murder.
Let’s move on to Matthew 5:22…
We’re going to break this verse down into three sections.
1. Anyone who is angry …will be subject to judgment.
—As believers, we can look at this judgment as the as the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Here we may get the nudge back toward love and away from anger. Because murder usually begins with anger, it is a sign we must guard against. If we do not heed the nudge, we may be led by the anger into sin.
—We always have to add the caveat, that anger in itself is not the sin. The warning here, and throughout the New Testament, is that anger can cause sin if we dwell on the anger. So watch out.
2. Anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin.
— Raca would amount to cussing at someone. An empty headed insult that just seems to leap out of your mouth before you now it’s coming. — It can also be something else that’s less crass, but still hurtful. If we are quick to call our children or our spouse a name when they don’t fall in line or we lash out verbally at a momentary problem at work, we can count those as a Raca moments.
—It springs from unresolved anger in our heart, it is usually reactionary and we may not even know how it came out of our mouth. But Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 12:34 that those words are the overflow of the heart.
—And our passage tonight teaches that we will have to answer for it. Jesus mentions the Sanhedrin, who for all of their faults, they were still the authority that the Jews submitted to, and the Sanhedrin had the duty to guide their people to God. To keep them on track.
—As Christians, we can look at this as being similar to church discipline.
—In other words, if Andy and I are riding in the car up to Wal-mart and somebody cuts me off and I start screaming at the guy or saluting him with one finger. It is Andy’s obligation as a brother in Christ to address that as possible sin. Not out of pride, or self-righteousness, but out of Love for the Father and love for me. It is more unloving to quietly watch a brother or sister turn from God.
3. Now the third piece says, “Anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.”
—The difference of what we say here “you fool” verses “Raca” seems slight. But the consequence sounds a lot worse.
—All the studies indicate that this last part refers not to a spur of the moment reactionary comment like Raca, but instead it is a premeditated verbal attack.
—It’s a word or words designed and planned out to hurt someone emotionally, or to discredit them or to otherwise abuse them. And the reason this kind of attack could lead to Hell is not because it is a different kind of sin, one that God will not forgive.
—Instead it is a clear sign that the person doing the attack may not yet be saved and must repent and turn to Christ before it’s too late.
—Jesus is clear and we are going to spend a great deal of time later in this series about His teaching that if we are truly His we will produce the good fruit.
—Now, we’re all going stumble in this life. But if we are planning out attacks, that’s a sign of the bad fruit that will be cast off into the fire.
—Regardless of how long you’ve been in church. No matter what you did at VBS when you were 12 years old; If you are calling yourself a Christian, but the you go out and rip into people or spread hurtful gossip around about your enemies (whether the gossip is true or not), if that is you and you still say “Yep, I’m a Christian.” Then Jesus seems to imply that you are like an apple tree who denies it’s produces apples and says instead, “Nope, I’m an orange tree.”
So, with that all said, what does this look like in the world? I’ve never used the word Raca in conversation until tonight. What do we walk away with from this text?
The first piece seems pretty easy, right? Anger is anger. If you aren’t sure about that, get with me after the service.
Moving on…
If we are in the Raca stage, it may be visible in areas like how we react when the kid spills soda.
You know, it may leave a stain and this may be a time for discipline, but if you have to scream, or cuss or if insults fly quickly and easily from you mouth over a beverage and some fabric, you need to get with a brother or sister and get help.
Another area this may be evident may be in that low grade anger that people pick up on. That vibe you put off with a scowl or short answers to where they say, “don’t talk to (mom, or don’t talk to dad or the boss or whoever YOU are) because they’re in one of their moods.”
You can also see it in areas where you are overtly sarcastic and you use that as a weapon to maintain an upper hand.
I know we are all trained to be sarcastic in today’s culture. I actually enjoy sarcastic humor, but if you are using it out of spite for a person check yourself.
Now to the biggest warning from Jesus in this passage. We already hit on it with the tree and it’s fruit. But, let me make it as clear as the New Testament makes it.
First, being a “good” person will never get you to Heaven.
Good is relative and if we judge our “goodness” to that of Hitler or Stalin, then we look Good. But that isn’t God’s measuring stick. We will one day be in front of Him and Our “goodness” will be compared to that of God. Pure and Holy and completely Righteous God.
We believe that a lot of people who thought they were “good enough” to go to Heaven are going to Hell when all this shakes out.
It is not our works that save us. We are saved by Faith in Christ and even that faith is given by the grace of God.
Our salvation has nothing to do with our behavior.
And this is key. This is something we talk about all the time. You don’t need to worry about cleaning up your act, or even controlling your words and anger before you can be saved.
But if you call yourself a Christian and your words and, by extension you heart, is in direct contradiction to the will of God as expressed in the commands of God, you are falling for a lie.
In James 1:22, we are told to be doers of the Word and not just hearers. If we are just hearers we are deceiving ourselves, James says.
In other words, you can come to church on a Wednesday or on a Sunday or both. And you can watch Joyce Meyer every morning and you can even know more scripture than anyone else. But, as Jesus says at the end of Matthew 7, everything ends with a crash and destruction if we don’t put that knowledge into practice.
Let’s pray…
