Sermon on the Mount (Part 5)

to do so, and the grace to do so. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right,

Matthew 5, verses 21 through 26. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.

But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

And whoever says to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council.

But whoever says, You fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way.

First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.

Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.

So I want us to think about how this passage, this portion of the Sermon on the

Mount is structured. I want us to think about how significant it is, and then think a little bit about the setting in which it is given.

The structure is one in which we first hear the antithesis itself. Here's what you've heard of old, but here's what

I say to you. So you have the antithesis proper, and then you have its application.

He says, so here's how it, this is what it looks like, this is what it means to live out what I'm saying to you, and here's the wisdom of it.

And this is the first of the antitheses that we have in the Sermon on the

Mount, and in many ways it sets the tone, sets the pattern, gets us ready for everything else that comes.

And it's kind of like that in Matthew 13, in the parables, the very first parable sets the tone, gets us ready for all the parables that follow.

And indeed, when we think about Jesus showing what his relationship is to Moses and the prophets, what kind of kingdom is he bringing, what kind of authority does he bring to bear, what kind of instructions is he going to give, it is of no small significance that he touches on the very bullseye of the old covenant.

Those of you who have been through the Ten Commandments study know Ten Commandments are set up as concentric parallels that move into the bullseye, and the heart of the

Ten Commandments is, thou shalt not murder. So Jesus starts with that in his antitheses and deals with the most significant commandment, given the concentric parallels.

Not to say that thou shalt not murder is more important than worshiping God alone, which of course is of preeminent importance, but the way that the commandments are structured are all around that concern about murder.

And so this has some great significance. Now, also, we should think about this.

When Jesus is teaching the multitudes and his disciples, it's important for us to remember the setting in which he does this.

We should recall that simply by the birth of Jesus, the old covenant was not set aside.

Simply by the miracles of Christ and his teaching and his anointing by the

Holy Spirit and his baptism by John the Baptist, that doesn't mean that the old covenant has now been set aside.

It is still active. It is still lively. This is prior. Jesus is talking about his kingdom, mind you, prior to his death and resurrection.

He's talking about his kingdom prior to the advent of the Holy Spirit, the sign and seal of the new covenant.

He is talking about his kingdom prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, prior to the cessation of the old covenant.

And so we have to keep that in mind as we read through, and I think that'll be clarifying. So, first of all, let's think about the antithesis in verses 21 and 22.

And Jesus begins with the old saying and then gives his new saying.

He compares the central commandment with a righteous principle that he illustrates in three ways.

So, first of all, the old saying, Matthew 5, verse 21, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders shall be in danger of the judgment.

Now, why does Jesus say, you have heard, rather than say, you have read?

Remember, he often was talking to some scribes or Pharisees or so on, and he was fond of the expression, have you not read?

Right? That's the name of our podcast here at the church, Have You Not Read? Okay. But here he's talking to the multitudes and the disciples, and he says something a little bit different.

You have heard. Well, why does he say it that way, do you think? Yeah. We're not talking about a society that had a 90 % literacy rate, and more important than that, you're not talking to people who own personal copies of God's Word in their home.

If you wanted to know what God's Word said, you went to synagogue and you listened to the scriptures being read to you.

That's how you learned. And then scripture memorization would be extremely valuable, because how else would a mother give the

Word to her children other than by quoting it to them as they are there at her knee? They didn't have copies of God's Word.

It was too expensive. And plus, of course, it would be high difficulty in reading amongst the common people.

And so Jesus is talking to this particular audience. You have heard, notice, that it was said to those of old.

Now, Jesus is doing something there. He's basically saying, you have heard the scriptures being read that it was said to people long ago, you shall not murder.

Jesus is taking note of Moses's words to the original audience. He's not saying this isn't important for today, but he is saying, this was said to people a long time ago.

He's stressing the oldness of the old saying. He's referencing the origin of when it was given.

Hey, think way back. Come with me. Think way back to Sinai. Think way back at a different mountain where God's Word was being handed down, and one of the things that was said to them was, thou shalt not murder.

You shall not murder. And then he summarizes. This is something that's going to happen later on in the antitheses.

Jesus is going to say, it was said to those of old, or you have heard it said, and then he'll summarize parts of the old covenant.

And we're not going to have verbatim quotes from what

Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, but we're going to find lots of examples in the Scriptures that say, here's an example of where that was said.

Here's an example of the same thing. So, sometimes Jesus will summarize the basic idea.

In this case, he says, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.

Now, think about what Jesus does there in the first part of the verse. He's having them remember what was said to Israel at Sinai, what was said to those of old.

You shall not murder. And then he says, whoever murders shall be in danger of the judgment. Now, what judgment do you think he refers to?

Any ideas? You may immediately go, well, God's going to get them.

Well, for sure, yes. But there are a lot of passages in the

Old Testament that deal with what happens when there's a murder. There are a lot of considerations.

Mosaic case law, here's how you proceed in the case of someone being murdered. Here's the process that you take.

And he says, you shall not murder, but what happens if you do? Then you're in danger of the judgment.

Now, we won't have time to read through all of these, but I would say the critical passage to read on how the

Israelites were to handle an issue of judgment concerning murder is in Numbers 35.

In Numbers 35 verses 16 through 34, which I think is probably just the second half of the chapter,

Numbers 35 verses 16 through 34, a lot of other passages that elaborate on the original thing that God said about the matter in Genesis 9 -6 to Noah.

It says, if man sheds the blood of another man, by man his blood is going to be shed.

And how's that going to flesh out in the life of Israel? Well, there are specific instructions about how to proceed in that instance.

And so he's putting it to them. He says, you have heard it said of old, you shall not murder. If you murder, here's the penalty. He's laying out the basic way the old covenant worked.

Don't murder. If you do murder, you're in danger of the judgment. And if you're found out to be the murderer, what's the penalty?

It's death. You will be executed for murdering others. Now, in that, he is not saying that any of that is wrong.

He's not saying that's bad. What God said in Exodus and Numbers and Deuteronomy agrees with Genesis 9 -6, agrees with the principle of what life is and the gift from God, and God has the authority as creator from Genesis 1 -2.

All of that agrees. So he's not saying this is wrong.

What he's going to do now is he's going to proceed further.

He is going to go, you might say, beyond, you might say deeper. He doesn't destroy what was said to those of old.

He fulfills. Remember, his commandments flow from a righteousness that is superior to that of the scribes and Pharisees.

Remember, he's already laid down that structure in verses 17 -20. So look at the new saying in verse 22,

But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

And whoever says to his brother, Raka, shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says,

You fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Now, so what

Jesus is saying is essentially a principle that he illustrates in three related warnings.

In Christ's kingdom, we are to think beyond the joss and tittles of murder and murder trials.

Now, the joss and tittles that explain what murder was and how the murder trials were to go are full of wisdom, and ultimately they point forward to the righteousness of Christ.

But what Jesus is saying is, we're going to go beyond the joss and tittles here, and we're going to think about what the real issues are.

Isn't murder rooted in anger? Isn't murder preceded by bitterness?

Isn't murder fueled by hatred? So the righteous standard of Christ is not found in the absence of murder, but in repentance from anger and hate, the eschewing of bitterness, and it's logically expressed in this positive move towards reconciliation in the second half of this passage.

Remember that in some ways you can sum up the righteous standard of the

Old Covenant akin to the Hippocratic Oath. First, do no harm. How many of the commandments in the

Old Covenant are about avoiding doing the wrong thing, avoiding hurting somebody else, making sure that you don't do any harm to those around you, and that's good.

That's very good. When Christ comes with a new covenant, very often he's pointing at this principle of the

Old Covenant of don't do any harm, and he says, and I say to you, do good, do righteousness.

The love your neighbor of the Old Covenant was expressed in do no harm to them.

The love one another as I have loved you in the New Covenant is far more than do no harm.

It's lay down your life and do good for them. You see, there is an acceleration that is consistent with the

Old Covenant, but it certainly goes beyond it. Well, so to be clear on that, so let's talk about that first line.

When Christ says, but I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

First of all, look at the word judgment and the way in which Jesus uses the very same word that he says in verse 21.

You're in danger of the judgment either way, he says, when you think about it. Now he's using some wisdom here.

He's being well -reasoned here. Murder certainly places you in danger of the judgment and following execution, but do you know what is on the path of murder and thus a murder trial?

How about subjective anger, or shall we say unobjective wrath in this sense?

If there's no cause, then there's no possibility of restoration and reconciliation. Now you can have cause against someone and be sinfully angry against them.

You can also have cause against someone and be righteously angry. Jesus was righteously angry, and he had cause, and we see that more than once.

He was angry, and it wasn't he was angry in general, angry at the ether. He was angry at people, and it says so in the

Scriptures, but he did not sin against them. There was cause, and we know how many warnings are in the

Scripture about handling your wine, just as many warnings in the Scriptures about handling your anger.

So easy to not handle it well, but Jesus, of course, is Shiloh, and he always handles his wine, and as a man of peace, he always handles his anger and never ever gets away from him.

And so he was angry with a cause, and he did not sin. Now we can be angry about and have cause and still sin, but here's something to think about.

If you're angry without a cause, is it ever righteous? No, and that's the real issue, isn't it?

So just focusing on that in particular, what if there's no possibility of restoration?

What if there's no possibility of reconciliation? Then what happens? Well, it puts you on a path towards bitterness, anger, growing hate, and what's the outcome of that path?

Hey, what path are you walking on? Isn't it the same path as murder, when you think about it? Jesus is shining a light of wisdom.

Remember how the Sermon on the Mount begins, and maybe this will help. As you're reading through the Sermon on the Mount, very intentionally from the very beginning, there is a parallel drawn to wisdom calling out from the high hill, and you're going to find

Jesus using the principles of wisdom, the patterns of wisdom in his speech to bring light to the situation of his audience in which they live.

Now, who here has heard of the Pig War of 1859? One of my favorite historical wars.

The Pig War of 1859 was a border dispute between the United States and Britain, and it was about Canada, and there are some islands between Vancouver Island and the state of Washington, which is now

Washington. We used to be Washington territory, and what happened was an American settler by the name of Lyman Cutler shot a

British -owned pig who was rooting around in his garden getting his tubers, and he was very mad at this tuber -eating pig, and he shot it as any good

American would, and the

Hudson Bay Company said, hey, that's our pig. You got to pay for your pig, for our pig that you killed, and he refused to pay compensation.

He says, no, he was eating my tubers, and I took the compensation out of your pig's hide. Tensions escalated until both nations sent military forces to the island.

The U .S. managed to dispatch a grand total of 64 soldiers under the command of none other than Captain George Pickett of Pickett's Charge, and the

British responded with five warships, 2 ,000 troops on the ships just off the coast of the island until finally they were able to find some arbitration from the

Chancellor of Germany to say your treaties are not very well written. The islands belong to the

U .S. Stop fighting. Now, nobody died, but at least they knew what the issue was about.

It was about a pig. It was about tubers. It was about the fact that the treaty wasn't written well, and it needed to be clarified who got what in the big breakup and the subsequent further fight between the

U .S. and Great Britain, and so they settled it, but if the responses of Lyman and the

U .S. were not about pig compensation and isle ownership, no peace could have been made.

If the Hudson Bay Company had said, well, it's not about the pig. It's about a thousand issues, some of which we can't fully articulate.

We just hate you. Well, then the hatred has nowhere to fully foment other than in continued evisceration, bitterness, and ultimately murder.

Anger without a cause, meaning in this case it's not about an actual issue.

It's about when it comes down to it with God's light shone upon the heart.

I kind of like feeling angry. It makes me special, right? Being offended is what makes me me, and being upset has given me a sense of power, and people pay attention to me when

I'm upset. Anger without a cause. Jesus says, you know, that is on the road to murder.

You say, yeah, murder puts you in danger of a judgment. Jesus says, I tell you, anger without a cause puts you on the road to judgment, right?

That's wisdom. That's the wisdom of Christ getting to the heart of the matter.

Now, he continues with another example. He says, and whoever says to his brother Raka shall be in danger of the council.

So, Jesus here is supporting his first observation, which is dealing with the greater principle, but he's proving the matter now from a lesser level.

Jesus often makes arguments from the lesser to the greater. If it's true in the lesser, it's true in the greater. True in the greater, how much more in the lesser?

So, this is an example of that, and he says, isn't it true that when you gravely insult one another, the conflict escalates to be heard by the

Sanhedrin? When you all fight so much that you all can't get along, who holds together the piece of your societal fabric?

Who irons out all those wrinkles in your society's fabric? Isn't it the council? Isn't it the Sanhedrin?

So, what if two of you are in a big fight that's disrupting the social calm and peace?

Ultimately, where does the fight end up? Well, in our culture, you do what?

You sue them, you take them to court. Civil dispute, right? Well, Jesus is saying the same thing.

If you all can't get along, and you're insulting each other gravely, and you call somebody these names, and Raqqa basically is calling them a witless, brainless, empty -headed, full of wind, basically writing them off and saying, there is no hope of us ever getting along, right?

We're never going to be at peace. Then what's the end result?

You're going to end up in front of the Sanhedrin, aren't you? I mean, where else is this going to go except to the courts?

And what happens when you disrupt the peace of the society to the point where you get brought before the

Sanhedrin? What does the Sanhedrin do with troublemakers who put wrinkles in their social fabric?

Well, ultimately, they did try that from time to time, but in general, their main tool of ironing things out is beating people who make trouble.

Now, we see an example of that in Acts chapter 5. The apostles would not stop preaching that Jesus of Nazareth was the

Christ, the Son of the living God, and the Sanhedrin says, you're making all kinds of trouble. You're disrupting social peace.

And so what did they do? Even despite the advice of Gamaliel, who said, you better leave him alone.

If it's of God, then you're going to be resisting God. If it's not of God, it'll fizzle out. Why don't you leave him alone?

They said, that's great advice, Gamaliel. Beat him. And so they just beat the tar out of him and then let them go.

Well, Jesus is pointing it as, what's the end result of you all not getting along?

Aren't you in danger of the council? Aren't you in danger of the Sanhedrin? Aren't they going to beat you for causing problems? So, if you're not concerned about whether or not you're on the path to murder, on the path to execution for murder, maybe at least you'd be concerned about getting beat by the

Sanhedrin. You see how he's arguing lesser and greater, bolstering his wisdom.

In a sense, we go from Defcon 1 and backs it all the way back to Defcon 3.

At the beginning, you have actual murder having taken place. You're in danger of a murder trial and being executed.

Defcon 2, you're hating people without cause on the road to murder, on the same road to that same kind of court trial, if you take it all the way logically to its end.

And then he backs it up to Defcon 3. Okay, what about if you just can't get along with people and you're calling them hopeless, and then you're going to end up in civil court, and now you're going to get beat by the

Sanhedrin? By the way, in our society, we put troublemakers in the county jail or put them away behind bars for a while, and then they get back out.

Back then, they just beat them until they got tired of being beat, and then they did something else. But, of course,

Proverbs says the fools never tire of getting beat. That's their job. Proverbs is hilarious, by the way.

Now, Jesus comes to the last of the three that He mentions, and He comes to the root concern.

So now He says, okay, we're not going to think about what the Sanhedrin may say or what might occur in a murder trial.

Really, honestly, shouldn't creatures be more concerned about what the Creator thinks? Now, think about what

He does here. He says, you know, you're in danger of the judgment, but what is the judgment? It's a murder trial and sentencing evidence is going to be given, accusations are going to be made, and there's going to be a rendering of the verdict, and then the sentencing.

Same with the counsel. The counsel, there's going to be a hearing, they're going to hear out all the problems, and then they're going to make a decision, and then the punishment's going to come.

But notice the last bit. Whoever says you fool shall be in danger of hellfire.

Gehenna's fire, hellfire, refers to sentencing and punishment only. There's no court case here, folks.

There's no giving evidence. There's no arbitration. It's just, shouldn't you be concerned about that?

Now, Jesus' teaching style here, I think, is very effective.

In a sense, He's, you know, you have heard it said to those of old, you know, you should not murder, and if you do murder, you're in danger of the judgment.

And He starts de -escalating. So, okay, well, true, but if you hate someone without a cause, then you're in the same road.

And isn't it true that if you can't get along with people, you're going to end up before the Sanhedrin? And by the way, don't you realize that calling someone a fool puts you in danger of hellfire?

All of a sudden, you've been just de -escalating, and all of a sudden,

He just hits the afterburners, and you're going full speed again. Like, whoa. Yeah, am

I concerned about a court trial? Am I concerned about the council? But shouldn't I be more concerned about what

God thinks? And if I'm just walking around saying, well, I didn't murder anyone today, how righteous am

I? You know, it's like, I haven't murdered anybody in 40 years. Wow, I am very righteous.

Jesus is like, no, have you thought about how you're using your words and how you're relating to other people? Doesn't that matter to your

Creator? Whoever says you fool shall be in danger of hellfire.

Now, Jesus uses a term here in the original of Gehenna, which is a known valley outside the city walls of Jerusalem, actually southwest of Jerusalem, and it's first mentioned as the

Valley of Hinnom by Joshua in the tribal allotments. And it's a valley, it's a rift.

What happens there could be kept somewhat secret, and so that's where the worship center to Molech was installed.

They would go down into this ravine, and they would worship Molech. And many little children were horrifically destroyed in that valley, sacrifices to demons.

The Old Testament is very clear on that. God's justice would later be satisfied, and in the same valley,

God would affect a great slaughter of the Jews in their destruction by Babylon.

And the name of the valley was changed to the Valley of Slaughter. Jeremiah 7 talks about that, and also

Jeremiah 19. Now, during the days of Josiah, the wicked practice of infant sacrifice to Molech was ended.

The cult shrines in the valley were destroyed. The valley itself was repurposed as a place to dump all kinds of garbage and waste, had really easy access from the dung gate, so it made a lot of sense.

Let's just turn it into our landfill, turn it into our garbage dump. And so there was always trash being added, so the fire was always burning.

So you have a wicked place that is desecrated. It is full of fire.

It's always burning, and so what a great metaphor to talk about the eternal punishment of the wicked.

Interestingly enough, Isaiah chapter 30, verse 33, references the Valley of Hinnom by its other name,

Tophet. And Isaiah says, "'Tophet was established of old. Yes, for the king it is prepared.

He made it. He made it deep and large. Its pyre is fire with much wood. The breath of the

Lord, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it." And so Isaiah is taking up this valley, this place, and he's talking about it now, and he says, this area is something that is set on fire by God.

The king has prepared the valley. Now, Jesus does tell us that God prepared a place for the devil and his angels, but notice that this prophecy has no interest in Josiah's trash -burning program.

Isaiah says that Tophet is set on fire by the very breath of Yahweh, a river of brimstone.

And when you read the whole context of Isaiah 30, we discover that this is an oracle of judgment against Assyria, who had marshaled its mercenary armies to destroy

Jerusalem, and we find out that their 185 ,000 Assyrians were killed by an angel in one night when they were at Libna, nowhere near Tophet, but Isaiah says they were all burned in Tophet.

So what is he saying? They all burned in hell, right? This is an example of, you'll hear people going around there, oh, there's no doctrine of hell in the

Old Testament or in the New Testament. It's pretty robust when you look through and you read.

Now, why is this important? Jesus is saying that God is holy, that God is righteous, and yes, of course, it is true that you should not murder, but isn't going back behind all of that the reviling of people?

Isn't that on the same road? In 1 Corinthians 6 and Galatians 5, amongst the works of the flesh that by which people identify, which people embrace, is that of reviling and jealousies and contention and hatred and outbursts of wrath and dissensions.

All of this is characteristic of those who are not in the kingdom of God, those who are not in the kingdom of heaven, those who are exposed to the wrath and judgment of God.

And so this is what Jesus is saying here in the Sermon on the Mount is something that the apostles also say.

Now, this prohibition is, of course, okay, you've heard it said, do not murder.

Jesus says, I'm saying you don't even hate and revile, but the prohibition is itself incomplete without the positive application.

So we have that in verses 23 through 26. He's saying, you've heard it said do not murder, but I say to you, be a peacemaker.

All right, blessed are the peacemakers. He says, you're the peacemakers and you're blessed because of it. So here's how you do it.

Here's how you prioritize peacemaking in your life. So verses 23 through 26. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way.

First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly while you were on the way with him.

Lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, you'd be thrown into prison. Surely I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you pay the last penny.

Now, remember when Jesus starts giving instructions to his audience about offering sacrifices and being at the altar, he is not, and what you do about your brother being offended, he's not talking about church.

That ain't an altar. Okay, the steps up here, that ain't the altar. All right, this rain shelter is not a sanctuary.

Our altar and sanctuary are in heaven, right? In the new covenant, we are the living stones of the new covenant temple.

Okay, that's not an altar. This isn't a sanctuary. This is a rain shelter. Thanks be to God, it's now insured.

Try to be good stewards of it. What is

Jesus saying here? He is showing once again that pattern of, you have heard it said, but I say to you, here is the old covenant, but I give you something that is better.

Praise God. Think about how this works. Well, here's the thing, who's his audience?

And remember, it's interesting, Jesus already gave us the principle of interpreting the scriptures according to their original audience.

You have heard it said to those, you have heard it said to those of old, right? So he's telling us, pay attention to the text.

Jesus is talking to a group of Jews, okay, who are trying to understand what is the relationship of what

Jesus is saying to the old covenant, okay? Old covenant says what? Do not murder.

Great, that's good. Jesus says, let's go further, let's be peacemakers. Now, when he says the term brother, he's not saying that so as to try to limit everything, okay, but he's talking to them about the practical application of what he means by living in his kingdom.

Now, so again, it's not say, there is a practical application, okay, but let's hear it in its context.

God's concern is that we not live in hatred, reviling, and bitterness.

So what happens when it is time for these, the multitudes and Jesus' disciples, what happens when it comes around that time to observe the jots and tittles of sacrifices and offerings?

And what do those have to do with how you live with others around you? So Jesus, just like John the

Baptist before him, gives some practical instructions here of this is what the fruits of repentance look like. So what did it look like for his audience?

Altar and the offering. Now, Jesus is somewhere up in Galilee, way up north from Jerusalem.

How often would Jesus' audience be participating in offering sacrifices at the temple?

How often do you think that would happen in the lives of those folks? If they were really good observant Jews, three times a year.

Three times a year. You know how much money, time, and effort would take for these folks who have barely anything at all to go all the way up to Jerusalem and offer a sacrifice and get there and have to go through the money -changing thievery and having to buy the special lambs that they have there and just get through the whole process and you finally go through the entire queue, you've been swindled the whole way, and you've got your very overpriced sacrifice, you finally get to the altar, and there you remember something.

You know, oh yeah, back in Nazareth. You know, I, you know, when

I built that cover for the town, well, I really did do a bad job, and I skimped.

I used rotten wood, and they were right to be angry with me, and, you know, I didn't do the job

I said I would. I really did, I really was selfish, and I didn't do it right. My brother, my fellow

Jew, okay, in this case, Jesus is talking to his original audience, he's got something against me.

Bored as he ever is. You know what? I'm going to leave my special Sadducee -approved, priest -approved, overpriced lamb right here.

You stay there, lamb. I'm going to interrupt the sacred ritual right here and right now. I'm going to turn myself around.

I'm going to leave Jerusalem. I'm going to go all the way back to where my brother lives, the people

I live with on a normal basis, and I want to make that right before I do any of this special temple stuff.

Whoa! Did you see how Jesus is shifting the priority all of a sudden? We're in what could be more righteous, what could be more important than offering a sacrifice at the temple?

Isn't that the most highly esteemed thing ever in the minds of those to whom he is teaching?

But Jesus is saying, here's what you ought to prioritize. You ought to first be reconciled to your brother, and then come offer your gift.

He's saying, let's make sure that the priorities are correct here.

Now, so Jesus is not talking about the patterns of what happens in an offense and needful reconciliation in the life of the

New Testament church. Application, I must tell you, is fairly easily made from this passage, to be sure.

I think the application is there. You know, it's like we can't just be moseying along and doing our

Sunday religion and going through all the things while at the same time wronging one another, right?

The application is there. It's so easily made, but that's not the interpretation of the text.

The meaning of the text, Jesus is talking to his audience and saying, where's the priority supposed to be?

So, what is he saying? He's showing how there is a righteousness that is far more superior to that of the scribes and Pharisees.

What he's talking about in his kingdom is different than, though not in contradiction to, is indeed different than what they have so far heard.

So, here's the basic thing he's saying. If you have wronged or gotten sideways with a fellow covenant member, don't just offer a sacrifice, wash your hands, and say, well,

I didn't murder anybody, so I'm fine, right? How many people could you possibly wrong and have all these people mad at you because you treated them poorly and say, well,

I didn't murder any of them, and I offered a sacrifice. See, I didn't murder my neighbor, and I paid off God.

I'm righteous. And Jesus said, no. No, no, no, no, no, no.

That's not how it's going to work in my kingdom. So, notice that there's the three relations of the image of God here.

You have the gift, you have the thing that you've been steward of, you're trying to offer it to God, but then there's a relationship with others.

So, if you're going to love God supremely, it's not about giving him something that you have alone without consideration about those with whom you are in relationship.

You also must love others rightly. There's no loving God supremely while hating others sinfully.

Now, just a little note. One of the reasons why this

Sermon on the Mount gets read as scripture not meant for us, but for only

Jews living in the millennium, is this passage right here, because Jesus is saying, go offer your gift, go offer your sacrifice after you get reconciled.

But we don't have to interpret it that way because Jesus is talking to his audience where they are right now.

It's prior to his death and resurrection, right? It's prior to the cessation of the old covenant, and he's doing something where he's showing the superiority of the new covenant over the old.

So, this is easily applied to our concerns about communion and our need to be in unity through church discipline.

The instructions that Jesus does give to the church are very similar, are they not? If your brother has something against you, you go and speak with them.

And if he's sinned against you, you go talk with him and win your brother and try to be in reconciliation together.

The instructions about communion in 1 Corinthians 11. What are you doing, wronging each other?

No, you need to come together in unity, discerning the body of Christ, recognizing the value of one another in Christ, and being at peace with one another.

We come together as having one Lord and one faith. We have one cup of blessing in which we share.

So, the applications here are abundant, but Jesus is showing the superiority of his kingdom, and he's stressing not only the nature of peacemaking.

You can't have peace with God if you are sinning against others. You can't simply do what you want to other people and then say, well,

God and me are good, so you all just, you know, get in line, file your complaints and triple kick. But that's the nature of peacemaking, but now also there's the need for peacemaking, the wisdom of Christ in verses 25 through 26.

Here's the wise counsel of Christ. Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on the way with him.

Lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.

Surely, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny. So, his words here are like native to Proverbs.

They're so chock full of wisdom and sage observation, and they even in connection to that contain the richness of even a parable.

So, his point that he makes here is very similar to verses 22 and 23, where it all began, the old saying and the new saying.

Maintaining adversity with someone, maintaining the contest.

There's been a wrong here, and I'm holding on to it. Maintaining the adversity may seem right in the moment.

It may even seem right on the way. Yeah, let's go to court. Let's do this. I'm going to take you all the way.

I'm in the right here. You're in the wrong. Jesus says, but have you considered the outcome?

Right? Isn't hatred on the path of murder, which is on the path to judgment? Have you considered what path you're on by pursuing this?

What is the outcome of hatred and reviling? Well, it's murder and hellfire. Well, what's the outcome of maintaining offense and adversity to the bitter last?

Punishment and payment to the last penny. What were you doing on the way except,

I'm not going to let you off the hook not one least bit. Well, the standard with which you judge, you shall be judged.

And guess what the judge says? You're not going to be forgiven one little penny, one little bit.

You see what Jesus is saying there? It's like, have you thought about what path you're on? You know?

And I think there's something of wry humor here regarding the injustice of what justice system is available.

The injustice of the justice system. We can just call it the injustice system. Isn't it interesting that it's not simply in our own modern times, but the sinful instinct is to reduce justice to monetary profits?

It was that way in Jesus' day, too. What is the point of the justice system?

Apparently, it's making sure that those involved get paid their last penny. Anybody who's had any experience of walking through a series of incidents in the justice system will know they cash you out every single time you show up.

Here's your bill, here's your bill, here's your bill, here's some more bills. Got to pay to keep it going.

And so Jesus is saying, holding on to a fence to the bitter end is bitter indeed. And so we see the wisdom, the wisdom of Christ.

The need for peacemaking is in accord with wisdom, makes a lot of sense given the light that Christ shines on it, but also the nature of peacemaking is one in which we cannot pretend to be right with God and be wronging the people around us.

And the call to peacemaking is really what

Christ has called us to, rather than simply sitting around saying, well, I didn't murder anybody.

What if we were then to take the follow -up that Christ gives and says, well, hating someone without a cause is also on the same path to judgment.

And, of course, given the social context, saying, raca might get you a hearing by the

Sanhedrin and a beating from them. And I tell you that saying, you fool, will put you into hellfire, put you in danger of hellfire.

So, if we treated Jesus' statements there in verse 22, and we said, well, what

Jesus is saying is, in addition to do not murder, we're going to add three more thou shalt nots.

And this is the meaning of his righteousness. In addition to not murdering anyone, I also vow, being a good follower of Jesus, to not hate somebody without a cause.

Give me a cause, I'll go hog wild. Additionally, if I am in the process of hating people with a cause,

I will refrain from using the following two cuss words, raca and fool. Other ones may be available to me, like whitewashed wall.

That was a good one from Paul. But I won't use fool or raca. And having followed these instructions now,

I have elevated my righteousness to the new Christian standard. That is not the point that Jesus is making, right?

Especially since later on, he called the Pharisees fools. His point is, we ought to be peacemakers.

That's the positive side of striving to make peace rather than taking the paths of conflict and hatred.

Okay, so there's the first antithesis. Any questions or thoughts as we close? So he said that we're supposed to be salt and light, right?

And so here's practical example one. Being salt and light is more than refraining from murder.

There's a lot more to it, isn't there? What makes sense of the way in which we live? It's Jesus the one who's telling us, right?

Who is it who's telling us this, right? What did he do? How did he live?

How did he love? Makes all the difference about the one who's telling us this. And so we know what that looks like and how we can follow.

All right, let's close with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you so much for the time you've given us in your word. I pray that it's been a blessing to us, an encouragement to us.

Lord, we thank you that indeed we are blessed to be peacemakers. And thank you for showing us how and telling us how important it is.