The Sermon on the Mount – Session 3

You Have Heard That It Was Said

Reading: Matthew 5: 21-32

AUDIO

Lecture Handout

Sermon on the Mount Handout – Session 3

Lesson Notes

Introduction

• Jesus has defined the values and character qualities of His followers – the Beatitudes
• He has said we are to be a visible and impactful part of the world around us so that non-believers will see and begin to worship God
• He has said that He came to fulfill (=complete, perfect) the Old Testament Law
• Now He makes 6 statements in which He quotes the Old Testament Law then says His followers must go much higher and deeper, because we must fulfill the heart requirement behind those laws
  • These address deeply felt matters of love and hate, promise and frustration
  • These teachings weren’t just counter to the culture then – they are radically counter even to established Christian behavior in 2019!
  • We must come to terms with them, because Jesus wasn’t joking!
• Hence the statement we concluded with last week, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Anger & Contempt (Matthew 5: 21-26)

• Verse 21 – the 6th Commandment – “you shall not murder” – the murderer is to be judged
• Verse 22 is the shocking part, at several levels
  • 1st – Jesus is adding authoritatively to one of the 10 Commandments! Radical!
    • Bonhoeffer, “But – and this is where he is at one with the law of God – he makes it perfectly clear that he, the Son of God, is the author and giver of the law.”
  • 2nd – He equates our thoughts and words to our actions in God’s eyes!
  • 3rd – He indicts most of us under the 6th Commandment!
  • Angry with a brother is just as liable to judgment as actually murdering him
    • Bonhoeffer, “In this context ‘brother’ means more than ‘fellow-Christian’: for the follower of Jesus there can be no limit as to who is his neighbor, except as his Lord decides.”
  • Insulting a brother is punishable – “Raka” = “empty”
    • Just saying “You fool!” (“more”) makes you liable to Hell?!?!?!?!
    • Gehenna -a the place where filth and dead animals were thrown and burned
    • These thoughts and words go beyond anger to contempt – condemnation for the person as a person
    • These attack their identity as someone created in God’s image and worthy of dignity and respect
    • Bonhoeffer, “Every idle word which we think so little of betrays our lack of respect for our neighbor, and shows that we place ourselves on a pinnacle above h im and value our own lives higher than his.”
    • That’s opposite the meekness and other qualities of the Beatitudes
  • Most of us think and say this stuff on the road with some frequency in Northern Virginia, at the TV, on social media, and to and about coworkers, etc!
  • Christ’s condemnation is upon most of us for these sins – think on that!
  • We have undisciplined thoughts and tongues and think it’s OK, but it isn’t
  • That should be terribly convicting and heartbreaking for us! Is it?
  • It reveals our real heart condition – Matthew 15: 17-20
  • It doesn’t matter how sanctified we think we’ve become, our thoughts and rushed, stressed, exhausted, and scared words reveal what poison’s still left in our hearts
    • Our anger isn’t holy anger like God’s – we’re indignant and angry because of perceived offense toward ourselves – James 1: 19-20
    • We’ve got to come to terms with these verses, because many Christians are angry people – angry towards our families, toward members of our church, toward coworkers or neighbors, toward unbelievers – it’s sin
• Verses 23-24 – Our highest priority is to deal with this stuff when we discover it within us
  • Higher priority than worship or religious appearances!
  • If you’re in conflict with someone, particularly where you share part of the blame, which is most every conflict – deal with it ASAP
  • It isn’t an option to shut them out of our lives permanently because of harsh words or actions on our part or to pretend they don’t exist, etc.
  • Unresolved conflict taints our worship and our witness, keeps us from properly worshiping God, hinders our prayer and spiritual life, etc.
  • Bonhoeffer, “He erects a barrier not only between himself and his brother, but also between himself and God.”
  • Bonhoeffer, “So long as we refuse to love and serve our brother and make him an object of contempt and let him harbor a grudge against me or the congregation, our worship and sacrifice will be unacceptable to God.”
• Verses 25-27 – Don’t focus on being “vindicated” or proven “right” in this world
  • God will vindicate His people in the end – we don’t need to worry about it
  • Figuratively we’re all on our way to court – we will one day all be judged by God
  • We will be judged for unresolved conflict
  • So reconcile, reconcile, reconcile!
  • Bonhoeffer, “There is therefore only one way of following Jesus and of worshiping God, and that is to be reconciled with our brethren.”
  • That means, as we’ll see in a few weeks, recognizing, dealing with, and asking forgiveness for our sins and mistakes FIRST, time after time
  • Bonhoeffer, “This is a hard way, but it is the way Jesus requires if we are to follow Him. It is a way which brings much personal humiliation and insult, but it is indeed the way to him, our crucified Brother, and therefore a way of grace abounding”

Lust & Divorce (Matthew 5: 27-32)

• Verses 27-28 – Jesus turns to the 7th Commandment, “You shall not commit adultery” and like murder, makes it clear that adultery is about far more than action, it is about sinful thought and intent that includes most of us
  • If you look at a woman lustfully – you’ve committed adultery
  • Whether in-person or electronically in a picture, show, or movie
  • This is important as we consider the plague of pornography in our culture!
• Verses 29-30 – Take extreme measures to avoid not only sinful actions but thoughts
  • Figuratively do whatever it takes to acoid indulging in sinful thought or action
  • Whatever sacrifice must be made
  • Hyperbole – we aren’t actually supposed to chop off body parts, because they can’t cause us to sin – per Matthew 15, it’s our heart that causes to sin
  • The point is clear – whatever safeguards that must be erected – get dumb phones, turn off internet during key hours, don’t keep a private computer, let your spouse have access to your email, texts, and private messaging apps
  • Don’t flirt with, play with, indulge in temptation – put it to death or flee it!
  • It’s worth any inconvenience, perceived weirdness, or embarrassment to avoid sin
  • Sin leads to hell, so we must deal with sin
  • Bonhoeffer, “Jesus does not impose intolerable restrictions on his disciples, he does not forbid them to look at anything, but bids them look on him. If they do that he knows that their gaze will always be pure, even when they look upon a woman.”
• Verse 31 – Here Jesus refers to Deuteronomy 24: 1-4 on writing a certificate of divorce
  • Like today, divorce was rampant in 1st century culture
  • In the Ancient Near East, men could leave a woman for just about any reason
  • Unless they wrote a certificate of divorce, the woman couldn’t remarry and her options for survival weren’t great
  • So the Law mandated writing a certificate of divorce that left women free to marry again – this was an act of mercy!
  • But a husband could write a certificate of divorce for literally any reason
• Verse 32 – Lays the burden of sin on a man who divorces his wife for any reason other than sexual immorality (porneia) – a broad range of sexual behaviors
  • He causes or commits adultery if divorcing for any other reason followed by remarriage.
  • Like the rest of the Sermon, this is hard, especially in our casual no-fault divorce culture! But we can’t shy away from it just because it hits close to home!
  • God’s vision and intent for marriage is lifelong union bound up with Him unless someone has violated it by bringing a third party into the relationship – either physically or in spirit (back to the previous verses).
• Bonhoeffer, “The disciple’s exclusive adherence to Christ therefore extends even to his married life. Christian marriage is marked by disciple and self-denial. Christ is the Lord even of marriage. There is of course a difference between the  Christian the the bourgeois conception of marriage, but Christianity does not therefore depreciate marriage, it sanctifies it.”