Pray: that Jesus be exalted and that by the grace of God He would weed out anger in us by making us more aware of its sinfulness and the damage it does on others

[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."

Last week we began by asking the question "Are you a murderer?" At the beginning of the message, we all were convinced that in no way were we murderers, but by the end I believe we were all convicted to the reality that before God and according to His righteous standards we are murderers. There's no way around it: anger is equal to murder in the eyes of the King. We cannot excuse it, we cannot get away from it and we cannot dismiss the charge against us.

Jerry Bridges gave us a good definition of sin when he wrote, "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."

He then went on to describe more fully what anger was when he said, "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."

We then looked at the shades of the anger Christ was talking about by seeing that it includes resentment, bitterness, enmity and hostility, grudges, and strife. It also includes making fun of or degrading someone made in the image of God, which is one of the most common expressions of murder. Also I want to include another form of murder as well, and that is suicide. Someone asked me this week after I had explained to them what we had talked about last week in here and they said, "What about if you get angry with yourself or you make fun of yourself?" I had never thought about it until that moment, and the first words that came to my mind were suicide. Anger directed toward yourself is suicide. You see, anger anywhere even if it is directed toward yourself is sinful in the eyes of the Holy One. There are no passes and excuses when it comes to anger and you are not free to be angry with yourself apart from breaking the King's law. So beware of anger directed toward yourself!

You see, in the Kingdom of God the standard by which the subjects must live is absolute righteousness. Faking it won't do because God sees through that and He won't allow us to get away with anything, therefore for those who are subjects in His Kingdom through faith in His Son, He has punished His Son for every sin we have committed, even the secret ones in our heart. And if we are united to Christ then we have the righteousness of Christ and God looks at us and sees that we have fulfilled the Law at every point with the flawless obedience of Jesus. In passages, like the Sermon on the Mount, the gospel is sweet music to our hurting hearts that seem to continually hit sour notes.

As I said last week, these verses of the Sermon on the Mount from 5:21-48 are unavoidably convicting, but conviction is a positive thing that the Spirit of God works within us so that we may have unbroken fellowship with Christ. And when this conviction comes we must repent where we have broken not only God's rules but even more so God's heart. I gave you this quote last week, and I give it to you again because it is so helpful. 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."

So as we continue our study let's not forget the gospel, and when the Spirit of God flashes our sin before our eyes exposing our hearts let us go to Calvary and see the Son of God bearing our sin and God's wrath against our sin and may we continue to walk as sons and daughters freed by the Son in the Eternal Kingdom of Heaven.

The Problem of Anger and the Solution of Reconciliation
So this morning we're going to be looking at verses 23-26. If you wanted to split this passage into 2 parts this is how you would do it: 1) The Problem: You're a Murderer (v.21-22) 2) The Solution: Be Reconciled (v.23-26). In other words, the verses were looking at this morning instruct us on the damaging effects of anger and how to deal with it and that is reconciliation.

What does reconciliation mean? Well, reconciliation first implies that there are 2 parties at odds with one another. In the greatest sense, they are enemies. Each person hates the other person. So with these two parties being against one another they are opposed to one another but they are meant to be one with another. It's kind of like magnetic force. We've all played with the positives and negatives of magnets right? Well, if you take two positives the magnets repel each other right? You can't even get near the one without the other shooting of the table or out of the range of the other. Only when the magnets are turned the right way does reconciliation take place and the magnets are united together.

That's what Jesus is getting at here in verses 23-24 when He says, "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."

Now the whole offering of a gift at the altar was about the sacrificial system of worship that was still in effect in Jesus' day. It probably refers to how the people would take their offering and lay their hands upon the head of the sacrificial animal and symbolically transfer their sin onto that animal and it would then be killed. Jesus is saying, "Before you give that gift to God, you need to get the issue with your brother fixed first." The same goes for our worship of God today, and that doesn't mean before you worship in the sanctuary either. New Testament worship is different. It isn't about a location it is about spirit and truth and about our hearts before our Creator. All of life is worship, and what this means is that if there is any one who is upset with us or we are upset with someone, we need to go and be reconciled immediately with that person so that our worship will be acceptable to God.

John MacArthur writes, "As long as there is internal sin, outward acts of worship are not acceptable to God...Reconciliation must precede worship." (NT Commentary, Matthew 1-7, p.296) There is no way to ignore this. If we are harboring anger against someone or we know that someone is angry with us, then reconciliation must be sought and it must be sought soon. You can't just sweep it under the rug and let time heal it...you must let the Timeless Spirit of God perform a miracle and bring about true healing. Anger ignored is not reconciliation. At best it is hypocrisy and worship will be hindered. Be reconciled!

But here is where our own self-righteousness and self-justification raises its ugly head. We say, "Why is it really all that important? It's not really going to solve anything." Or we say, "I wasn't the one who started it, they should come to me." Or another comment is, "It doesn't matter, it's not that big of a deal." The truth is, it really is important, and it will solve the issue, it doesn't matter who started it and it is a big deal and does matter. The reason why it does is because...

We Are Connected at A Deep Level
Especially in the kingdom. Scripture says that we are one body in Christ Jesus, and being part of one body means that there are deep connections. Think about how your body works. Isn't it amazing how you can stump your little "pinky toe" and then your whole body is immediately involved? That little fella' way down there, hanging out on the side of your foot can move your whole body. It gets hit on a chair, you spin around, hopping on your good foot, your mouth is moving and saying, "That feels great!" Your hand then reaches down to grab that little pinky toe, then you sit down and gain your composure and then move the chair that you hit. Immediately, without even really thinking about it your whole body is involved. That's the point Jesus is making with our anger and our relationships with one another.

Anger cannot exist if we are to have a healthy body, and if it does exist then it must be dealt with immediately because if not then it will hinder worship to some degree whether we are aware or not. Usually, it hinders in this way: anger consumes all your thoughts. You think about how that person has wronged you, you think of why they did it, of what you might have done, you justify your actions and blame it all on them. You then resolve not to talk to that person until they approach you and deal with it because they are the one who started it. Each day that the issue is not resolved it builds up within you and you get more angry and more callous and further from God. Soon you don't think about God anymore. You are a one-man army, consulting no one, and angry. You aren't worshipping God anymore, you aren't reading your Bible anymore, and you definitely aren't sharing the gospel anymore because all you can think about is yourself and the other person and how they have injured your precious self.

And going back to our "body" illustration...it looks pretty silly! You're punching your knee and wearing yourself out or you're a useless arm that refuses to move. And when this takes place and anger rules the result will be that we will be a dim light, not a city set on a hill, and we will not be the salt of the earth but we will lose our flavor and our influence and identity in this world. The issue of anger must be dealt with, and even if you're not the one who is angry.

Notice what Jesus says, "If you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift and go." That means that you might not be the one angry at all, but if someone has something against you then you need to seek reconciliation. You need to go to that person and make things right, and even if they aren't accepting you still must go and try because you must obey God over man.

The Court Illustration
In verses 25-26 Jesus uses an illustration from their day to make the overall point very clear. "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."

This illustration ties everything together and shows them the necessity of handling the issue soon before it goes to the Judge. The point here is for the guilty to person to settle the issue. Earlier the focus was more on the innocent party, but here it is the guilty. If you are guilty of anger it is your responsibility to go to them. The result of what was said earlier and this illustration is that both parties will be meeting each other to seek reconciliation and when this takes place so will reconciliation and restoration.

The Reconciliation Solution
Reconciliation then is what we should seek when it comes to the issue of anger: reconciliation with God and man. James Montgomery Boice in his sermons on these verses gives an outline for what he calls the "Cure for Anger." I think what he said will help us practically apply this passage. Here is what he said:

1) Admit that We Do Get Angry: This is not one of those things that we can skip over and say, "Well, I've got this one under control...next." That is what our sinful flesh says, but not what God's righteousness says. We are all too quick to dismiss our sin or blame it on something or someone else. We must take responsibility because God holds us responsible. He is far too Holy to just let something go and we need to see this.

2) Correct the Wrong Done: If we have hurt someone in our anger then we must seek to correct the wrong and experience reconciliation. We must also go before God in confession and repentance.

3) Do This Immediately: There is no time to spare. Ephesians 4:26 says, "Do not let the sun go down on your anger." The point is that it needs to be dealt with immediately. Time doesn't heal...it makes things worse. There will be consequences if we wait so we must seek reconciliation as soon as possible.

4) Ask God to Change our Heart: Reconciliation will take a miracle from God. Just think about what it took to bring you and God together: it took the death of the Son of God and the supernatural work of the Spirit to replace your heart of stone with a heart of flesh. It will take God changing your heart for anger to be dealt with. You cannot do this on your own. Nothing can be done in the kingdom without complete dependence upon the King. So pray that God will change your heart even if the person who is angry with you never changes. You must love relentlessly even if someone is angry with you.

But there are also some other things to keep in mind when it comes to anger...

Killing Anger at the Root
In the book I mentioned earlier by Jerry Bridges he gives 3 instructions for killing anger at the root.

1) Look to the Sovereignty of God: "God doesn't cause people to sin against us, but He does allow it, and it is always for a purpose--most often for our own growth in Christlikeness."

2) Pray that God Will Enable us to Grow in Love: 1 Peter 4:8. "Love enables us to overlook a lot of the sinful actions of other people." 1 Corinthians 13:4-5

3) Learn to Forgive as God Has Forgiven You: Matthew 18:21-35

Oh, you who have been forgiven much forgive! Do not be easily angered and when angered resolve it quickly for the glory of God and the light of the city set on a hill.