Pray: that Jesus be exalted and that He would search our hearts and reveal to us our anger and in that revealing there would be genuine repentance where we would lie broken at Mt. Calvary

[Matthew 5:21-26] "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny."

If you've forgotten we're in a series right now entitled "Life in the Kingdom" and we are studying the Sermon on the Mount. In this sermon we are being addressed by the King of the Universe on how life looks like as subjects in His kingdom. It is a radical life in comparison to the religious culture of the day and it is equally a radical lifestyle to the religious culture of our day. Jesus is always radical whether in 30 AD or 2008 AD. The reason Jesus is so radical and so seemingly difficult to understand to many is that He operates in the spiritual as well as the physical. The people hearing this for the first time were highly concerned about externals. They honored God with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him. The popular leaders of their day by all outward means looked like they had things figured out: they looked spiritual, they looked like they knew God, but Jesus exposes this external religion completely and goes straight for the heart. In this sermon He was reorienting everything and especially their hearts so that they would not have a religion that was about appearances and externals but that they would have a religion that was about the hearts appearance before God. Life in the Kingdom is about the King and it revolves around the King and is lived in dependence upon the King. The King is absolutely essential and if the King of the Universe isn't the King of your heart, then you've got no King.

So Jesus from the beatitudes, to the section about the identity of the subjects, in that we are salt and light, to the way Jesus relates to the Law and how we are to relate to the Law is all pointing to the absolute necessity of the King and also the fact that we need the righteousness of the King if we are to be subjects in this kingdom for the standards are far too high to meet by adhering to externals. We must have an exceeding, surpassing, and overflowing righteousness when compared to the most righteous externalists and this can only come through the King who will lay down His life for His subjects.

For the rest of chapter 5 Jesus will distinctly reveal how desperate we are for Him by confronting the heart and showing how wicked it really is. He will say anger is the same as murder, lust is the same as adultery, divorce is inexcusable, all the words you say must be true in word and in spirit, there is to be no retaliation if you are wronged, and you are to love your enemies.

The Need For True Repentance
In these following sections of the Sermon on the Mount you can go ahead and anticipate conviction over your sins. If the Spirit of God opens our eyes to rightly understand what Jesus is saying then we will experience the painful joy of conviction and discipline from God. And before we dive in, I want to make sure that we understand what true repentance looks like because it is easy to simply say, "I'm sorry for messing up because I broke Your rules God" when you go through this section. But that will not be genuine repentance. Subjects in the kingdom aren't sorry for breaking rules, it's more than that to them...they've broken the heart of the King whom they love. Tim Keller writes this about what true repentance is: "Legalistic remorse says, 'I broke God's rules,' while real repentance says, 'I broke God's heart.' Legalistic repentance takes sin to Mt. Sinai, gospel repentance to Mt. Calvary. Legalistic repentance is convicted by punishment, gospel repentance becomes convicted by mercy."

This is important to understand and especially as we come under the sharp words of the Surgeon-King who speaks and operates for the benefit of His subjects. And what does the sharp sword of His words say to our hearts?

Anger is Equal to Murder
Now that might sound a little strange to our ears, probably as strange as it sounded to their ears, but remember who we're dealing with here. We're not dealing with some man giving his opinion on social issues, but rather we are dealing with the All-Wise God, who searches hearts and motives and judges what He sees in the heart as strictly as what that heart outwardly does. That's what Jesus is saying in verses 21-22 when He says, "You have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry wit his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire."

When He says, whoever insults his brother, He uses the word "Raca!" This means empty and it is call to someone a nothing or "a nobody". When He says that calling someone a fool is liable to the hell of fire He is speaking about slandering someone's reputation with words. Middle School is notorious for this...everyday hundreds of murders are committed according to God's standards. Making fun of and slandering people created in the image of God is a constant and it is excused even among Christians but not according to God. MacArthur writes, "To slander a creature made in God's image is to slander God Himself and is equivalent to murdering that person."

Later in Matthew 15:19-20a Jesus will tell us where murder originates when He says, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person." So this comes from our heart and our heart is what is judged, not just our outward actions. Therefore, murder can be and is equal to anger because that is where it starts.

How Serious is Murder?
Genesis 9:6 is the first passage that speaks to this and it says, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image." The issue of murder is that you shed the blood of someone made in the image of God, so murder is ultimately and chiefly against God. In Exodus 20:13 in the 10 Commandments (Decalogue) we read, "You shall not murder." John 8:44 says that Satan is the original murderer so all murder follows in the footsteps of the Original. When one murders one acts like Satan. In Romans 1:28-32 we see that murder comes from a lack of acknowledging who God is and then God gives them up to a debased mind and to do what ought not be done and therefore they deserve to die. In Proverbs 6:16-19 we see what God hates...And then in Revelation 22:15 we get a glimpse of those who will not be in the kingdom of heaven...

And remember, if you think you're innocent of murder, that murder is equal to anger. You're not as innocent as you might like to think you are before God.

What is This Anger that is Equal to Murder?
Jerry Bridges in Respectable Sins writes, "My dictionary defines anger simply as a strong feeling of displeasure, and usually of antagonism (dislike). I would add that it's often accompanied by sinful emotions, words, and actions hurtful to those who are the objects of our anger." Anger is a serious issue and it goes deeper than just those outward bursts and fits that we might associate with it. Anger is deadly even if it is never expressed outwardly. That's why Bridges would say that much of anger is a respectable or acceptable sin. We think we need to repent only for the extreme forms of anger, but God looks further. That's what is going on here in the Sermon. The Scribes and Pharisees taught that if you didn't physically murder you didn't break the commandment, Jesus is saying, "Wait a minute! Murder is just one side of anger and all sides and forms make you equally guilty before God."

Further in Bridges book he has a chapter entitled "The Weeds of Anger" in which he exposes the subtle forms of anger and which exposed my heart to how serious this issue is and I think might expose yours as well. He calls these weeds "poison in our minds," and what are they?

A) Resentment: This is anger held on to. Most often it is internalized. It arises in the heart of a person who is ill-treated in some way but who does not feel in a position to do anything about it.

B) Bitterness: This is resentment that has grown into a feeling of ongoing animosity. Whereas resentment may fade over time, bitterness continues to grow and fester, developing an even higher degree of ill will. It is usually the long-term reaction to real or perceived wrong when the initial anger is not dealt with. A person who has bitterness in their hearts will usually say something like, "I've forgiven, but I'll never be friends with that person again." You see true forgiveness results in a restored relationship, not ongoing animosity. This can happen in churches and it can happen in your family. You may think that your parents show favoritism to one of your siblings and then you become bitter...this is sin and it is not an option and is equal to murder.

C) Enmity and Hostility: This involves a higher level of ill-will than does bitterness. Whereas bitterness may to some degree be marked by polite behavior, enmity or hostility is usually expressed openly. Often it is in the form of denigrating or hateful speech toward or about the person your angry with. Enmity and hostility are also spread and usually involve other people. You're upset and you want others to know how upset you are.

D) Grudges: This occurs 5 times in the Bible and in the two places it occurs in Genesis (27:41; 50:15) the ESV uses hate instead of grudge. Holding a grudge is equal to hating that person. A person with a grudge aims to get revenge by doing something to the person who is the object of their anger. They cannot forgive but seek to do something. In those Genesis passages Esau planned to kill Jacob and Joseph's brothers feared that he would hate them because of the evil they had done to him and feared for their lives. But even if we're not planning to kill someone we can still be guilty by thinking about how good it would be to get revenge on them somehow. If only this would happen or that would happen then I would feel better...that too is murderous sin in the eyes of God.

E) Strife: This describes open conflict between two parties or two opposing groups. It happens a lot among friends, even in church. This group will be upset with that group and they will say evil things about the other group or even think things about the other. This happens in several ways, but Bridges says it often occurs between self-righteous Christians who never consider the possibility that their own attitudes or heated words contributed to the strife. In their minds, it is always the other party who is in the wrong and is causing the strife.

(Most of the explanations were direct quotes from his book "Respectable Sins" a must read!)

This is all a piece of anger or what contributes to anger and what is equal to murder. All this is serious and makes us all guilty before the King and it has no place in the Kingdom of God.

So Are You A Murderer?
I would say we all are. According to the King's definition we are guilty of murder. As James Boice wrote, "We lose our temper. We harbor grudges. We gossip. We kill by neglect, spite, and jealousy. And we would learn that we actually do worse things than these if only we could see our hearts as God is able to see them. It is no accident that even in our own speech such things sometimes are termed character assassination, or that we speak of destroying a person by words. This is literally true, and we do it. Jesus says we are not to be that way as Christians."

So here you are this morning. The King of the Universe is searching your heart and revealing your anger that to Him is murder...will you go to Mt. Calvary? Will you deal with your sin by seeing that Jesus has been killed for it. All the forms of your anger have crucified Jesus! Every evil thought, every angry word, every angry attitude was a thought, word, or attitude that Jesus had to die for. All you murderers come and see the One who has died for you!