Let me mention that in tonight's service we're going to continue exploring our theme of families in the battle for the glory of God. You know that's part of our larger theme of our philosophy of ministry and what kind of conduct on the part of a church radiates and praises and displays the unique excellence of our God, and so we're considering families. And last week, we started to look at children. And this week, Lord willing, this evening, we're gonna consider those that are kind of in that older children category, the young adults, and those of us that are outside of perhaps even our parents' home. and how do we have a conduct that glorifies God in that time period. So we're going to look at that this evening. We don't typically make a lot of personal remarks on a Lord's Day morning in particular, but sometimes there are some that really stand out as being especially worthy of recognizing. So this morning I do want to have our church family rejoice that today is the 51st anniversary of John and Leanne Kavanaugh. And they are with us this morning here in our service. So when it falls on this very day and we have opportunity to rejoice with them, we want to just do that. And so we thank the Lord for you folks and your ministry to the church. But just the testimony of God's grace in your life and your marriage. So thank you for being a blessing to us. And I trust you have a wonderful day. I was going to wait to the end, but sometimes I get to the end and forget everything else at the end of preaching. So do greet the Kavanaugh's later. Take your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5 in our Bibles this morning. And if you have been with us in our study of this book, or you even just kind of know the lay of the land in the book of Matthew, you may be thinking already as we're turning here that we're turning to the first chapter of the Lord's Sermon on the what? the Sermon on the Mount. It's back in chapter 4 and verse number 17 that Matthew told us the Lord's preaching theme was repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And if you want to know what it would have sounded like to hear Jesus preach on that theme, then you continue reading into Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and we have a sample of the Lord's preaching. And there were definitely some questions about the preaching ministry of Jesus. For one thing, he is out there preaching to the crowds in the open air, but he had not been to any of the seminaries of the day that were run by the Jewish rabbis. It also didn't seem like he was quite as concerned as they were to live by some of the rules and regulations that the Pharisees had been living by. And those Pharisees were regarded as the most conservative and respected religious citizens in the nation at the time. And in addition to all of that, there would be times where Jesus would reference the Old Testament, but a fair amount of his teaching wasn't occupied with expounding Old Testament texts. And so all of this combined is leading some of the people to wonder whether this new teacher, you know, maybe didn't have a great deal of regard for the sacred writings of the Old Testament. And if you look here in chapter 5 and verse 17, you can see Jesus anticipate that that was a question some had in their minds. He actually said, think not that I am come to destroy. Apparently some were thinking that maybe that's what he was going to do and perhaps you have a note to yourself They are in your margin from when we went through the the word destroy is kind of picturesque It talks about throwing something down so that it breaks into pieces Was Jesus as it were gonna kind of throw the whole Old Testament down and just be done with it. I Well, instead of treating the Old Testament scripture like that, continuing on in verse number 17, Jesus affirmed through direct statement that he came to what? He came to fulfill it, which remember was to reveal the full depth of its meaning and its substance. And he further affirmed the Old Testament in verse 18 by promising its written preservation right down to the smallest of letters and punctuation. And then into verse number 19, he affirmed the Old Testament by attributing, you can see it there, greatness to those who honor the entirety, even parts that some might say were the least, not that big a deal. So Jesus' posture was very far away from just dismissing and doing away with the Old Testament. On the other hand, none of that means that his approach was the same as the scribes and Pharisees. Those men, again, were regarded as the scholars, the guardians. They were, we've already said it, but they were regarded as the most religiously devout of the day. But as you move into verse 20, Jesus said that to enter heaven, and look at it again, I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. In order for a man to go to heaven, he's gonna have to have a righteousness that exceeded the most religiously devout and scrupulous of the day. One Pharisee testified, that he tithed off of everything he possessed. He fasted two days a week. And he even was able to say, I'm not an extortioner, and I'm not unjust, and I'm not an adulterer like so many others are. Saul of Tarsus, who, as we know, became the Apostle Paul, was a Pharisee. And after his conversion, he actually said that concerning the righteousness that was in the law, he was blameless. So how do you have a righteousness that exceeds theirs, the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees? Well, beginning in verse 21 and occupying a significant portion of this sermon, Jesus gave some illustrations of a righteousness that was different. Remember, it exceeded not in that it did more, but it exceeded in that it was different in its kind and different in its focus than the Pharisees. We overviewed the rest of chapter five in our last message and in the chapter six and we saw that the Pharisees had a righteousness that was occupied with the external and even superficial. So the pharisees felt like it's okay as long as you didn't commit for instance the the technical act of adultery But jesus said I say unto you that seventh commandment god intends to apply to what's going on with your eyes and in your heart and your passions and even down to what you might touch because You could just say, I haven't committed adultery, but I'm saying whoever looks on a woman to lust after her in his heart has committed adultery there already. So the Pharisees had just a form of righteousness that was external and superficial. In addition to that, the Pharisees also practiced their quote unquote righteousness to be seen of who? to be seen of men and in one place Jesus said they actually justify themselves in the eyes of the others. So as long as I as long as others are seeing my virtue my righteousness and saying I'm okay then that's fine with me. Jesus was pointing to a righteousness that had to be in the eyes of God, who knows the condition of the heart. That's the one that we answer to. And with all of that background and understanding that Jesus is going to probe our hearts, that he wants us to think about not how we look in the eyes of others. but he wants us to think about the God who knows our hearts. We wanna explore the exposition he gave of the law, beginning in verse 21. And the arena of life that Jesus draws attention to, if you were gonna mark it off, verses 21 through 25, I would encourage you to mark something like personal, relational conflict. Alright verse 21 is going to reference murder. But verse 22 is going to make references to anger. And to insulting words. And then verse 23. Going to make reference to somebody having real offense with us. They have something against us All right, so I Don't want anybody to raise their hands this morning Okay, but but I just want to ask you have you in the past week had any personal? relational conflict Anything that was a rub with somebody and offense where you were getting heated and maybe said something really insulting to or about them, or you were at least thinking it, or somebody did with you. When it comes to personal relational conflict, how would you know, for instance, if somebody is guilty of unrighteousness? according to Jesus well we're gonna start in verse 21 with even what the Pharisees taught that the law has to say about this so verse 21 ye have heard that it was said by them of old time thou shalt not kill and the law said that in the sixth of the Ten Commandments and continuing on whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment Now right away to make sure nothing leaks out of our mind in the wrong direction this morning, I do want to have us note that the killing under discussion was not any and all forms of killing. So even in the law, there were clear distinctions between killing in self-defense or the taking of life accidentally. or even the taking of life as part of the function of a duly constituted civil government. There were distinctions between that kind of killing and what was murder. And the Sixth Commandment was forbidding murder. Then I would also add that if we were just this morning, if where we were was the sixth commandment and it's prohibition against murder, then we would be spending some time talking about the killing involved in abortion. Or the so-called mercy killing of euthanasia. And even exploring what the Bible has to say about suicide. I do believe the scripture points to all of those actions as also forbidden by the sixth commandment. But because of the indications in our text of personal offense. with others in relationship dynamics. We're gonna be a little more restrictive this morning to the kind of description, I don't want you to turn, but it's Numbers 35 that gives the best description of this. It uses expressions like laying in wait for someone, pushing them or striking them or hurling some object at them with hostility in the heart. And in that kind of context, I have hostility and so I have pushed or I've hit or I've hurled something or shot something, however you would do it, at them and they die. Those are the actions of a murderer. The Bible says it black and white. And the blood they have shed, the Bible says, defiles the land. In that passage, there's also a standard that is set up of evidence confirmed by two or three legitimate witnesses. And then there is the facing of what the law prescribed as the penalty for that in capital punishment. And I know that what I'm about to say will sound like a dramatic understatement, but the fact is we should know that someone who commits murder is guilty. of unrighteousness in the realm of interpersonal relationships. And sadly, brethren, we are becoming increasingly accustomed to bloodshed in our streets, and in our movies, and even in our video games, and celebrated in some of our music. Several years ago, I made a copy of a Time Magazine article that was entitled Satan's Little Helpers. And it was featuring the Marilyn Manson rock band. The article relayed the fact that all of Manson's band members had adopted the names of celebrity idols and serial killers. Murder is so commonplace today in the United States of America that the majority of those crimes just go unreported. And the ones that do get reported often have the purpose of just sensational, you know, news making, or they have some political agenda behind them. And it is possible to get desensitized. David did say, the wicked and him that loveth violence, my soul what? My soul hateth. And brethren, we ought to be repulsed with murder in any form, in any fashion, and God help us when people that name the name of Jesus Christ are celebrating it in their movies and in their video games and have any part to do with music that highlights it. When the Bible says right here, that you've heard it said of old time, thou shalt not kill and whosoever kills shall be in danger of the judgment, the very mention of liability for judgment reminds us of just how offensive this is in the eyes of God. The penalty of capital punishment for murder actually predated the giving of the law. And the rationale was right in the statement. You don't need to go back there, but Genesis chapter nine and verse six, you're familiar with this, even if you didn't know the reference, but it says, whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. That's capital punishment. And then says, for in the image of God made he man. That's the rationale for it. Murder is so egregious in the eyes of God because it is an attack on the image of God himself in man. Sin, as we know, has marred God's image in man. But God still values even that marred image. I'm not taking the time this morning, but I noted earlier that the law made a difference between murder and self-defense. And right in the passage that establishes that, Exodus chapter 22, you may even want to put that somewhere in your notes and go back, but in Exodus 22, it says that if a thief is found breaking into your house in the night, And in the night is the setting being emphasized there. So it's dark and you can't see what's happening. And in the effort to defend your family, that thief ends up being killed. You aren't liable for his murder, for his death, as if it was murder. That's self-defense. But that very passage also makes a distinction between what happens in the nighttime from what happens in the day. And the communication there is, it's daytime, that thief is running out of your house with whatever valuable possession it is, and you see that he's fleeing, and he's no threat to your person, even though he's taken your property. If you shoot him, you are liable for murder. Do you know what the Bible is saying? The Bible is saying that even the life of that thief, the criminal that he is, is still more valuable than any possession or property you have. Because even the life of that thief still reflects the image of God in man, as messed up as it is. And we ought to value life for God's sake. That's what's behind all of this. God alone has the right to end life. None of us have that right. So murder in every form is unrighteousness. The law said that. But now notice in verse 22, that murder is not the only form of unrighteousness in relational conflict. Look at verse 22, I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, raka, and you maybe have a note, that's the idea of empty head, good for nothing, shall be in danger of the council, which the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court, Whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire. That is Gehenna, the place of eternal damnation. So according to Jesus, it's possible to be guilty of unrighteousness by the presence of an angry spirit and by the uttering of insulting words. And for us to, again, reach proper conclusions, there are some words of explanation and clarification that are in order. We do know that there are circumstances where, I mentioned it, David expressed an anger that the scripture commenced. The wicked and him that loveth violence, my soul what? My soul hate it. That was a commended statement. Paul expressed anger on several occasions and went back and looked at some of those and there's no, I don't think you go to them and regard that as anything other than a righteous anger that was commended. All right, Jesus himself expressed anger on multiple occasions. Anger can reflect a conviction for what is honorable and a proper revulsion for what is dishonorable. Some have made, and I started to spend some time, I read an article, it was almost two years ago, but wrote that people can't even get angry anymore. And it actually made a case for the proposition that the inability to get angry in some contexts does reflect a lack of conviction. for what is right and wrong. I would even say David should have had enough anger to deal with Amnon's sin against Tamar. And if he had, it would have prevented other death and other destruction in the family. I can think back to occasions that I'm pretty well guessing that my mom and dad fit what Hebrews 12 says. We have had fathers of our flesh that have chastened us for their own what? Okay, there sometimes I'm sure that I just irritated my parents to the point that they were just exasperated with me and let me have it while they were blowing off steam. Okay, but I can also think of a couple key occasions in particular where my dad and my mom had an anger that had a very edifying effect on my life. And I remember one to this day where I was entirely inappropriate with my grandmother and my dad had overheard it and I didn't know he was listening. And he had a proper anger that taught me something very important about lines that should not be crossed. I've watched other leaders get appropriately angry and learned something even as an observer. We can see those things commended in the scripture but with that kind of clarification there We do also need to acknowledge that the weight of warning in the scripture points to the danger and devastation of what in men is most often a carnal and destructive passion. James 1 verse 20 says, the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Proverbs 27 verses three and four, a stone is heavy, the sand is weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than both. Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous. The destructiveness of anger is why dads in both Ephesians six and Colossians three are told not to provoke our children to anger. And in the context here of our Lord's sermon, The anger that is under discussion goes with the rest of the description, which speaks of uttering these insulting words, raka, and fool, and so on. And even when we turn our thoughts in that direction, especially with this one fool, we do need to add, again, another clarification. The scripture does describe certain actions as foolish. And the Bible does label certain men as fools. It's appropriate to teach and preach those texts and to apply them. But when you put all of these expressions together, the picture is really not that hard to identify with. We are personally irritated. convinced that some problem is their fault, and I'm sick and tired of it, and I'm not going to take it anymore, and we issue a rebuke, and it has no chance of being edifying and no chance of doing any good. We are just blowing off steam. We're going to give somebody a piece of our mind. And when we do that, we have assumed a position of personal superiority. And the passions of our heart and our derogatory speech reflects that. I hope and I believe, by God's grace, that my kids have been on the recipient end of some edifying anger. But I know that far too often what has happened is just blowing off steam. And it's not helpful. It's devastating. And honestly, when that happens, wherever we are, we are being jerks and proud and acting superior. And it's like I've got the right to say whatever I want to whoever I want. This is what Jesus is going after and condemning. And saying that the law was always intended to deal with. Now brethren, all of this, all of what's in our heart, maybe that never came out, and certainly all of what comes out, all of this makes us guilty of unrighteousness. All of it makes us liable. Listen, I mean, you can see it, right? He walks through. If you kill, you're in danger of the judgment. And if you harbor this kind of thing in your heart and you say these kind of things with your mouth, you're in danger of the same kind of judgment. All of this makes us liable for the same punishment in the eyes of God as somebody who has committed murder. Those attitudes and those words, they aren't the same thing as murder. I will say that very often they're the first steps in the direction of murder. Cain, as you know, who was the first murderer, he murdered his brother Abel, but it began with anger in his heart. And again, to the point at hand in this text, those attitudes and words aren't murder, but they are displays of unrighteousness under the same umbrella. They make us liable for the same penalty. And one impact that ought to have, and we said this as we overviewed all of this section, We'll say it again with really every specific part of it, is one impact all this ought to have on me is the realization that I need a righteousness with God that I don't have on my own. Because I may never have laid in weight to try to end somebody's life, but I am still liable and I'm in trouble with God because of the sin of my heart. And I'm going to have to have a righteousness that's given to me. I'm gonna have to have the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to my account with God, or I'm in big trouble. But that isn't the only application that the Lord wanted his hearers to make of that theme. He didn't want everybody to just hear, you're guilty, you need Jesus, and I don't mean to make light of that at all. We know that, though, because he went on. He didn't just stop there. He wanted people that knew their righteous standing with God, depended on their faith in Christ. He wanted those of us, can I say it this way? He wanted those of us on the other side of the cross, so to speak, and our relationship to it, he wanted us to still deal with our passions and with our mouths and to do right by his grace practically. Much as lies within us verse 23 exhorts us to reconcile right now. Look at verse 23 therefore If thou bring thy gift to the altar which in this case what the altar would be what an act of an act of worship act of service and worship and And there remember us that thy brother, I'll just say this way, even if you go to personal private prayer as an act of worship, you're gonna go to God in prayer or you're gonna come to the gathering of the assembly on the Lord's day. And you start to go through an act of worship and remember that your brother has ought against thee. You could put right there unresolved conflict. Verse 24, do what? Leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother and then come and offer thy gift. James says, how do we bless God whom we've not seen and curse man who we have seen? Right, out of the same fountain comes forth sweet water and bitter, out of the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. I'm gonna gather for worship of God while in my heart there is this hostility and enmity towards another that is made in the image of God. And when that happens and God brings those things to our minds, listen, he doesn't want us to go, well, I blew it again, I hope that I get over it. And there's no point in going back and addressing it. No. He doesn't want us to put it out of our mind and forget it. He wants us to act upon what he brings to our mind. You've started to pray, and God's bringing to mind unresolved conflict. You can think that whatever I've done to them is so small in comparison to what they've done to me. You may even think that, you know, if I go back to them and I acknowledge my offense and try to make it right, you know what they're going to do. They are going to run with my apology and they're going to claim that I've acknowledged that the whole thing is my fault. Have you ever been in conflict where honestly you look back on it and in the main big picture you still are really convinced after mature judgment and counsel and the scripture that in the big you were right but in some of the details you were what? The way you handled it was wrong. And God starts to convict about the part that you did that was wrong in the thing. And you start to fear, but if I go back and acknowledge that, they're going to say that I've acknowledged it was all my fault. You know what? That's likely to happen. It's happened to me. It's probably going to happen to you. Then I can tell you as personal testimony that even where that thing has been used against me, my own heart has been cleared to really worship God. And I have seen God step into the picture in ways that I never could imagine. Here's the bottom line though, brethren, you never lose when you take the Lord's own counsel and act on it. You never lose. But, if you don't address the matter, And you let it sit, and I'm not talking about letting it sit for the sake of being the most wise and appropriate time and so on. But I'm talking about letting it sit, just hoping it goes away. You let it sit, and you let the thing just continue to grow in the other party. The day may come where they take it much further. Look at verse 25. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him. Lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison, verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. So you don't deal with it hoping it goes away and the day is gonna come where you may pay a really severe price for that. Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter 4 that when we let the sun go down upon our wrath we are giving place to what? Remember that? Be angry and sin not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. What kind of price are we gonna pay in our marriages if we leave the door open to the devil? What kind of price will we pay in our parenting if we leave the door open to the devil by a whole series of unresolved conflicts? And the same thing can be applied to every major relationship in your life. We saw it in our family series. 1 Peter 3 says that when a husband is bitter against his wife, his prayers are hindered. Allowing those things to remain, Ephesians 4 later says, grieves the Holy Spirit. And here's what's interesting. You and I don't get to negotiate the price we end up paying. Right? Look at what he says here. You're not gonna come out till you have paid, the end of verse 26, the what? Till you have paid the uttermost farthing. That's like saying, paying the very last cent. Brethren, you could lose everything. You could lose everything. Well, I don't think it was that, excuse me, I don't think it was that big a deal. I don't think it's going to end up being that big a deal. Well, we choose our sin, but as someone said, we don't choose the what. We don't get to negotiate the consequences. Now the true citizens of Christ's kingdom, I'm coming back to the message, this is the king and he's preaching repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand and he's talking about what are the marks of true citizens of his kingdom. And the true citizens of Christ's kingdom aren't without sin in this arena and they won't be without sin in this arena, this side of heaven. But what they do is they acknowledge what the standard really is. And they yield in their spirit. And they seek the grace of God to be transformed in their inner man. And they earnestly seek to obey. God, change me. Transform me. change what's going on in the passion on the inside, and put a guard over my mouth that's not just about, you know, how do I look in the eyes of others, but more of Christ seen in me. More of Him being displayed, more of His image stamped on me, more of my life renewed in His image for your glory. And where they have blown it, They confess it. I'm guilty. They say the same thing about it that God says about it. And that kind of broken and contrite heart God never despises. But he gives grace. And brethren, what true citizens of Christ's kingdom will do is they will apply the gospel to personal relational conflicts. They will be thinking like this. They'll be thinking. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away with all malice and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath what? Hath forgiven me. I'm not superior in the sight of God to anyone else that's made in his image. Paul said to the Corinthians in verse Corinthians four, he said, what do you have that you didn't receive? And if you didn't receive it, then why do you boast? The fact is, this is what I am. The fact is that I am only a sinner saved by grace, and that truth needs to govern how I respond to others in personal relational conflict, and the true citizens of Christ's kingdom will be governed by that. by the grace of God. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?