Automatically Generated Transcript
What do you have to say to get a group of sleepy, tired, hot people to be alert to the Word of God?
Well, maybe I need to introduce the murder story or something like that to have our interests spark up.
In actual fact, in our passage today in Matthew’s Gospel, it is about anger and murder.
And so that’s what we’re talking about today and let me cut straight to the chase
to use the right language, never mind, and to talk about the words in the Bible that are used in this passage
in Matthew 5 about murder.
And there’s two major words. There may be a few other extras,
But the major words that are used about murder, two words and one of them is thumos and the
other one is orege so if you remember thumos and orege, they both do mean wrath or anger
and Jesus is the one who links them to murder.
In actual fact, they mean anger but I’m going to bring to you the connection that links
them to murder.
We all know the ten commandments and the ten commandments of the Old Testament.
The law as given under Moses has one commandment that says you shall not kill.
That is at least how it’s worded in the old King James Bible, which, a little bit of a
mistake caused an awful lot of people in World War I and World War II to become
conscientious objectors because when drafted into the armies to protect their
nations they felt that they’d be breaking the commandments of God to kill.
Now the actual truth of the matter is the word means not so much kill as to do
unlawful killing. It means to do criminal killing. If you go back into the Hebrew
Old Testament and the Book of Exodus where it says you shall commit no
murder, is a literal rendering of it. The word that’s used there can include when
people let others die because of the irresponsibility or failure to do
something that they should have done. But it doesn’t mean killing as in warfare
killing it means criminal murder, and that misunderstanding from the Old
Testament causes a lot of people to have a lot of unusual feelings and thinking
and philosophies around this question. But even though that’s one word that has
is being used in the Old Testament.
Remember, Hebrew and also a Greek translation.
They’re of both languages, the same story is to be heard.
When we come to the New Testament,
the word Thomos, which is the first one that I mentioned,
is not really the chief word
we want to concentrate on about anger.
Jesus is the one that linked
this idea of murder and anger and connected.
When he upped the ante, when he raised the temperature, if you like, when he called on
people to have a stricter paradigm as to how they lived, by saying that it wasn’t sufficient
to please God that you just don’t murder, but he went on to say that anger is actually
the earlier stage that leads to murder.
He spoke about anger as being something that is totally unacceptable to God, particularly
when it was the second type of word, which is not awe geer.
I mean I better get it right.
Not Th drone O.S., the first one I told you, but awe geer.
And awe geer is an Anger that, the word that’s often used is inveterate.
That really means its stuck there.
It’s made like a permanent fixture in your personality.
So it’s unlikely to change.
If you develop an anger at someone and it’s not ever going to change, Jesus says you’re
in danger of hell.
He says it’s the same thing as murder, just a lesser form, before it happens.
And he increased, when he used this word, orgeir, as about murder being something that
that God will never accept, it’s that long lived anger that this word Auge is over, thummost.
Thummost just means some anger that flames up real quickly and is then blown over,
and you can be sorry I was angry with thummost.
It’s a quick blaze and then it’s gone.
But Auge is something where a person has themselves worked on their anger
preserve it, where they’ve made it a long-lived anger, when you nurse your
anger, when you keep it warm so that you won’t forget to be angry. It’s a brooding
anger in you because you don’t want to let it go. And that’s the anger that
Jesus is talking about with the Word or there’s various forms of that Word. But
It’s the Bible tells us that we’re not
To have that angry and if you do you’ve got to do something about it. Don’t even go to bed on the anger
Do something before you go to sleep
And so on Matthew 5 in verses 21 and 22 we have here you can see it on the screen
You’ve heard that it’s been said Jesus started out
That you shall not murder
whoever murders is liable to judgement.
He actually goes through three levels of punishment.
Not necessarily because of levels of anger but
there’s three drastic results that come,
one is to the judgement of a local group of elders
or a local group of people
who reprimand you
but I say that anyone
who is carrying this with his brother
is liable to judgment and he goes through various levels of response that
come because of your nurture of anger and don’t you think about it. And the
final one he uses a word that was a word used for south west of Jerusalem a little
valley area there had a constantly going incinerator. It was a place back in the
Jewish history where a foreign God was taken on board
and in his worship you burned your children
to death. Some of them is a part of a sacrifice
to that God and there was an old testament event where the prophet had to
till off the nation never for that to ever happen again.
That area where there was all the rubbish thrown out of Jerusalem
and where there was a lot of smoke always to be found a lot of worms there
there was a special type of worm that got into people that was very ugly.
And so that is used as a metaphor for the final punishment of God, where the decay of
humanity suffers its final punishment, where the rottenness of sin gets declared to the
world in the judgment of God.
So that metaphor of lightening it to the valley of Hinn and sometimes called it South West
of Jerusalem is what God says.
If you nurture your murder for your anger and you don’t repent of it, that’s where
you’re headed.
And so He upped the anteous as far as what the Old Covenant had said, you shan’t commit
any murder.
Jesus said that you won’t even be allowed to get before God and be acceptable at the
end of the age at all, or if you didn’t do something about your anger.
The anger which brews.
The malice that puts people into being bad between you and them.
The slander that spreads lies about them and destroys their reputation.
the foul talk that dirties the conversation
in connection to why you’re so angry.
There’s actually a verse in the Book of James
that talks about this.
It says, the anger of man does not work
the righteousness of God.
So don’t kid yourself.
Know this, my beloved brothers,
let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak,
slow to anger, and it’s the word there
talking about. For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.
There are some people who say oh well, love your friends but don’t love those that don’t love you.
That’s the opposite advice. Jesus talked about the fact that God loves us and he pours his good
things on the bad as well as the good and he asks us to develop so that we become like him.
We become like the Father. In fact, another verse is in Colossians 3.8.
Which says put off all, this all-gare, this anger that’s a wrath.
And this goes on with the lesser word anroff and then malice.
There are all other versions, what comes out of an angry, brooding heart.
Slander and foul talk, that sort of going down hill in the severity of the words
but they’re messy words, and they’re words of the outcome
or something that someone stored up in their heart
and fed and brooded over.
So clearly, in the language that Jesus gave,
he has made the standard of acceptance with heaven
so much higher and extreme.
Now last week, we did talk about,
in this chapter five
of the book of Matthew,
in the Beatitudes
about six areas of behavior
that Jesus was going to comment on.
We did the second and the third last time
and that was about sexuality and immorality,
et cetera, those things.
And this one is on anger
and it comes first
because sometimes in the Western world,
maybe not as much now,
but once upon a time, it seemed like the worst crimes
or the ones that the Christians found out
were when people were immoral.
But in fact, Jesus is putting anger first
as one that is so important
not to let ourselves even have it named amongst us.
Well, it’s interesting about this, you know,
because it immediately confronts us
when you read Jesus’ requisites.
How is it that he has increased the standard from the old covenant days that Moses gave us?
How is it that he’s made it even harder when it was painfully clear from the history of
the children of Israel that they were able to keep the law of Moses and they found that
the more it was stamped down on them, the harder they found to do it.
Even later on the apostle Paul and the new covenant area found the same thing, that when
discovered from all the list of the commandments, that one that really got
him it was, Thou Shalt Not Covet. We talked last week about coffeting, and
what it means when you’re longing to have something that’s not yours to have,
and coveting can not only be in sexual matters, but in life. We sometimes can
find ourselves covered in that word we were on last week. But, why is it
that Jesus could up the ante and yet think we would ever be able to do,
know, rich. The answer is, in the Old Covenant, there are the rules, the laws, and if you
did them, then you got to tick, if you didn’t, then you were in trouble. There were sacrifices
for you to do something about the ones you’d failed. The Old Testament and the Old Covenant
were very much a legalistic affair in terms of if you’ve done the deeds, you’re going
to get the punishment.
but Jesus here, of the new covenant that he introduced and at a communion service,
which we were just rehearsing about earlier.
At the communion service, he made it
that’s the communion service and the acceptance we have with God
and the fellowship that’s ours with him, is all due to the grace of God
and is something that we have never earned
But it’s all because of Jesus and as was correctly mentioned in the Communion, Jesus is the Chief
Person about the Communion.
Because of him you could be acceptable to God and more than not him and who he is because
he’s the one that came into the world and took upon him humanity.
He’s the God man.
And by the way, he lived under the old covenant because he was the one who was going to handle
being under that Old Covenant and be the one who can succeed.
Because of his success in keeping the law he qualifies to be the representative of humanity
before God, so that God can re-accept humanity, not always be angry at us.
God can accept us because we have someone who stands between us and our sin, the God
who is angry at sin.
The Bible says there’s one mediator between God and man,
the man Christ Jesus, and under the Old Covenant
he obeyed it, and he succeeded.
And because of him we can get in the door.
What about our sins?
Well, the thing that he was doing in succeeding
was by so living out the obedience to the Old Covenant
he became someone who was a sinless sacrifice.
And on the cross as he hung there God placed on him
sin of all the world and God’s wrath fell on him.
He cried in the darkness, My God my God how you have forsaken me, Jesus
forsaken of the Father because this spotless sinless man bore our sins and
because he lived the perfect life to represent humanity and because he bore
our sins He has become our Savior.
As Jared was telling us what we need is the Savior.
Praise God in the middle of history!
The God who loves us and saw us heading towards perdition, saw us heading
towards judgment, saw us having the whole of our life undue.
That God has sent his Son to be our Savior.
And because of that the gospel, which is the gospel of grace-grace is when you don’t deserve
it-calls us to come.
Receive reconciliation.
Get right with Him.
And getting right with Him, why Jesus is also able to raise the standard is because that
grace isn’t just through getting in the door in the first place.
That grace is what continues in your Christian life thereafter during this time on earth.
grace whereby even though you might fail he still accepts you and keeps you. That grace whereby
his great love is not stopping because of your sin and your your hesitations and in fact um,
tonight I have a mind to speak about just how from the book of romans we can see the apostle Paul
went through that realization of him being such a failure in so many ways
and yet God had to get him to see his failurehood if I can use that word
order for him so lean on God’s grace to continue the operation of salvation and
I’ve been talking about this justification when God accepts you back
to him and then he sanctification the rest of the Christian life where
gradually God has taken on board you as someone a bit of a difficult person to
have every one of you me too gone took onboard asked that he might
then begin to sanctify us you know there’s a little verse in the Bible says
for us it’s as workout your own salvation with fear and trembling so one
of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible why misunderstood this verse work
out your own salvation and fear and trembling is because somehow or other
people think that it’s so encouragement that you’ll get saved if you work hard
to it. You’ll get saved by your trying to do good things and if you could do more as many good things
as you’ve done bad ones you might you know just get over the line. That’s a total misunderstanding
of the verse because the verse is talking about the fact of the second stage of your salvation
where the Bible says this is the will of God even your sanctification, even your holiness,
even that progress through many failures and the apostle Paul had his failures. I’m going to talk
about that tonight and but the sanctification is what we’re getting at last to where God wants
each of us to be and as last week I made a notice to you of how and there’s a verse on the screen
and therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed so now not only in my presence but much more in
my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling that’s the sanctification
and if you cooperate with God, He’ll get you to all where you’re meant to be,
where the time arrives for you to go to glory.
For it is God who works in you, it’s not because you’ve achieved it,
it’s because He will work in you,
and the one who worked to have you justified
is the one who’ll work to get you sanctified,
both to will and to work of his good pleasure.
Do you see that this salvation is actually God’s salvation coming by grace.
The progress of salvation in your sanctification is a grace work of God
Or how to learn to stop trying to do it in your strength to give you something to boast about
But to learn how to trust in His work in you
That’s one of the secrets of the Christian life. That’s the light. I want to talk about now five o’clock service
well anyway
at the end of the passage in Matthews
Gospel Chapter 5 at the end of this very chapter is just a very interesting
statement. Last week I went on about it. I’ll just touch on it again. If we put
up the final verse 48, I think it is, of the Matthew 5, and Jesus finishes off
these six areas of Christian behavior He wants to up the Antion. And He says,
you therefore must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.
Now we often stumble at that word PERFECT because we do not understand it’s meaning.
The original Greek, as I explained last week, is the word teleos.
Teleos is when not so much you’ve got a perfect score on the test, but teleos is when the
process has come to its completion.
The process has come to its maturity.
the purpose has been brought to final being into effect.
And this salvation begins with your coming to Christ
when you get justified, when you get in the door.
When you receive Christ, and you let him be your savior,
then discover you’re actually still not perfect.
How many of us would have to report that we came to Christ
and thought, now we won’t be sinning much.
And only to discover that we still had lots of struggles.
Know the perfection’s at the end
The sanctification process.
The word Tele-osmos, we use it in that word telescope.
It brings something very distant suddenly present when you look through it.
That’s why you call it a tele-scope.
You look as if you’re right there.
Sometimes you can get a shock when you look through a telescope and suddenly see someone
is also looking back at your way.
They go, Oh, you can see me, but you can’t because you’re just a little dot.
But you must therefore be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.
He is telling you the purpose.
Tileos is about the completion of the purpose.
Did you know that becoming a Christian had a purpose of you becoming like the Father?
You’re the son or you’re the daughter and you become like Him.
You become like Jesus.
When alas we get to glory, that’s where we’re aiming at.
God is the One who says, by His grace, he’ll help you get there.
And that’s why Jesus can talk about being perfect like your Heavenly Father is perfect.
Yet He has raised the standard and that’s why anger is something you can’t stick with.
Especially the anger that you got because you brooded over it and you wouldn’t let it go.
You wouldn’t forgive.
And so the end of our passage, just for today, in those verses 21 and 22 and thereabouts it says what we’re to do…
If you’re going to church and you’re trying hard to offer your gift to God, or you’re
trying to give your worship, and you remember that there’s a brother that you’re not right
with.
You’ve been angry with him, or he’s been angry with you, then leave your altar.
Don’t bother taking it.
Don’t take your gift to the altar.
Go and get right with your brother.
Don’t leave the anger unresolved.
You can’t stop other people being angry with you.
But if you’re the one who has this type of anger that’s kept and you are keeping it warm
so you can always think a bad thing about them, all right, that will get you damned,
is what this passage says, and Jesus uses the illustration of you’ll be going to Gehenna
is the word.
It’s that valley of Hinnom out southwest of Jerusalem where there is a constant incinerator
burning. Jesus says, don’t live with your anger, go and do something about it.
That was our message today from Jesus and he’s talking there on the first of
the list of six of these ones. Six of these behaviors that he’s upping the
Antion and we do well to go through them all and see how we can seek to
to be what Jesus wants us to be and to know we’ll get his help
or in the process of sanctification that will take us there.
If you’re interested about that, tonight come at five o’clock.
The Apostle Paul, he had a real problem and he speaks about it in anguished terms of how
he wasn’t able to live out the Christian life.
It all got worse when he got older and got someone given the status of being a proper
a Jew, and had to know all the Jewish laws, the Ten Commandments. But the little one
coveting got him because he found himself full of coveting, and I don’t know whether
there are other sins that he had. He did own up to the facts of his anger in that he murdered
Christians, and because he persecuted the Church of God. So he said he was the least
to the Apostles.
Not because he had a lesser job description,
but because of how he had done a lot of wrong things.
He didn’t start the Christian life
as though he was someone that would be a great success.
The start of his sanctification,
as he puts it in the Book of Romans,
is when he recognized and admitted his big failure.
We’ll be talking about that tonight.
Let’s have a moment of prayer.
Heavenly Father we give you praise this morning because we’ve been here together and we’ve
been here to worship you and we’ve been here to listen to Jesus.
And he’s the one who talked about the Teleos.
The end result that he wants, that needs a sanctification.
It’s your word that talks about where to work out our own salvation, which is including
the sanctification with fear and trembling.
And you call on us to do it in Jesus’ name we pray, amen.