[0:00] We're continuing the sermon series that I'm calling the way of the kingdom and it's just simply going through the sermon on the mount.
[0:11] ! So today we're going to be in Matthew chapter 5 verses 13 to 26. Last week if you're with us we're going through the beatitudes and it's like it was like the Lord was telling us this is who you are.
[0:27] This is a new way to be human. This is a new way to do church, a new way to fellowship, a new way to be with one another and around one another. And now it's like he's telling us what to do with all of that. It's an important step.
[0:43] So I'm going to read verses 13 to 16 and dive in. You are the salt of the earth but if salt has lost its taste how shall it saltiness be restored?
[0:54] It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
[1:06] Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
[1:19] When Jesus says this he gives Christians a compliment and a responsibility. The compliment comes in that there's two other places in John where Jesus says he himself is the light of the world.
[1:36] And now he's saying you and I are the light of the world. It's not because we're so fantastic. It's because he is God. He is the Lord. And if he is in our hearts then we are the light in the world as well because of him.
[1:52] That's a pretty big compliment to be considered like that by our Lord. Nothing to be proud of. Something to be thankful for. But it's also a heavy responsibility.
[2:04] Because not only do we receive the light from Jesus but we are the light givers. We have to be more concerned with those around us than ourselves.
[2:15] We have to be more concerned with the world around us than ourselves. Because this world is an incredibly dark place. And I always ask him. But you'll definitely notice that there seems to be a darkening or a quickening of this darkness.
[2:31] And all the more for Christians to be Christian. It's a challenge. There's a compliment in there and responsibility. I like how Jesus never actually challenged us to become salt and light.
[2:45] He said you are salt and light. So it's not about like okay well what book do I read? What course do I take to become a little more light? You are the light of the world.
[2:58] And some of us quite frankly. And I'm going to say of myself to pick on myself. There's moments where I'm a dim light. Okay. There are moments there where it's like it's not shining through.
[3:09] Because my own stuff. My own filters. My own gunk. And I will dare to say that sometimes. Sometimes you and I both are dim lights and bright lights.
[3:20] You just don't want to be like that old joke if you've ever heard it. Like the light's on but nobody's home. Right? You don't want to be like that. Anyway. Thanks. You are light. The word of God is the light of God's truth.
[3:34] Psalm 119.105. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. See the people in the world don't want to read the Bible.
[3:48] It's something that I've tried to teach over and over again to other pastors. Is that typically on a Sunday morning. The average person who doesn't believe in God is not waking up and thinking.
[4:00] Oh. I should go to church today. Right? Or on a Tuesday or Thursday morning and saying. Yeah. I really should read the Bible. More often not. People are looking at our lives.
[4:12] And as it's been said many times before in the past. Our lives are the only Bible they'll read. Right? How we are. Who we are. That's the Bible people read first.
[4:24] Before we actually get to have those conversations. Being the light is like that. Your life is the Bible they look at. Your light of the world.
[4:35] It's a compliment and it's a responsibility. So if you feel like your light is dim one day. Come to God's word. Let it fill you. Let it be a part of your life.
[4:47] Day by day. And I'll just repeat this challenge again. If you don't know where to begin. Start reading chapter by chapter. A chapter a day.
[4:57] Through the book of John. And start taking notes. Okay? Just start writing down. Is there a sin to confess? Is there a prayer to pray? Is there something to give thanks for?
[5:09] Is there a message to pass on to someone you know? Right? Start making notes like that. And see that the light of the world is in you to shine. And shine brightly. Because there's always a temptation to hide our light.
[5:23] When there's a price to pay for living it out loud. There's a temptation to dim our light when there's persecution that's about to happen. We have to live brightly for him.
[5:35] There's a quote by Charles Spurgeon that I came across. Christ never contemplated the production of secret Christians. Pelgrims who would travel to heaven by night who would never be seen.
[5:48] If you're going to be a follower of Christ. It's not in isolation or secrecy. It's a life to be lived out loud. It's a light to be shown around.
[6:01] It's for people to see. And you know. And a funny example. And for whatever reasons I'm coming up with these old military examples from my background. My past. One of the funniest things I've seen in a while.
[6:14] Is that we had two patrols that were heading on two different. Roads. And this was an exercise. Not live of course. I was always taught.
[6:25] That if you're going to look at a map in the middle of the night. Right. You don't take a big flashlight. And you shine it. When it's the dead of night. And nobody else is around to see. That light is basically saying. Here we are. Right. You put a jacket over yourself.
[6:38] Right. You have a little red filter on your flashlight. Because it's harder to see that. And you cup it. So you can just kind of see this. You know. And I'm doing this. And I hear this laughter. Like it had to be not. Like real loud.
[6:48] But like. I'm snickering. People trying to keep it quiet. And I'm like. Would you guys shut up. Right. I pull off the jacket. And I could see. Somebody is like. Hey. Look at the trees.
[7:00] Like this kind of thing. With their flashlight. Guess which team got nailed first. Right. We can't hide our light. The way that I was trying to hide the light. We have to shine it out.
[7:12] Right. And there's a threat there. Because the moment we shine it out in the darkness. It's just like the guy that was shining it out in the trees. You see him from everywhere. You become a target.
[7:23] You really do. You step up into ministry. You start serving the church. And you notice just the heat in your life. Just gets turned up a little bit. You know. And that can happen.
[7:34] Because you're shining your light. I think the one thing that I always take solace in. Is that you're not alone in this process. There are others that are shining their light.
[7:45] There are others that are serving the Lord. It's not just you. And so when we come together. We can celebrate in that. Be a part of that family. In that community. In church. And know. Okay. We're touching base.
[7:56] We're loving the Lord. We're praising his name. And we're going to get ready to get out there. On a Monday morning. And start again. And that's a beautiful thing. About doing communion together. And being a part of a church together.
[8:11] When they see our lives. When people look at our lives. It shouldn't be. Oh so and so. They're so great. It should be like. Wow. God is awesome.
[8:24] God is amazing. When people look at our lives. Let's let them see the Lord more than ourselves. Verse 17. Do not think.
[8:35] That I have come to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them. But to fulfill them. Jesus is not against the Old Testament. There are some who have believed in the past.
[8:47] That's all. You just can ignore that part of the Bible. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Jesus never came to abolish that. Not one bit. He doesn't want anybody to think. That he came to destroy.
[8:59] The law of the prophets. He's just trying to correct our vision. Because he came to fulfill it. It's a very very very different take on it. Jesus came to fulfill the law.
[9:11] And that's an important thing for us to consider. Because there was so much wrong understanding. Of the word of God in Jesus' day. And that's what he's talking about here. And I also think that Jesus only added for one thing to the law.
[9:29] People will say, oh, he's added things or he's taken away. I think he's only done one addition. And that is perfect obedience. Because there was nowhere, no one before and no one after that has perfectly obeyed the law of God but him.
[9:45] But that's the one thing he added to it was perfect obedience. And even though Jesus often challenged man's interpretation of the law, he never broke it.
[9:56] Even though it may have looked like that on the outside. In some ways you can consider Jesus an outlaw. Not because he looked to broke the law. But because his law is higher.
[10:08] So I want to read just this little snippet from Matthew 12. We'll get there in a few weeks. But verses 1 to 8. At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry.
[10:20] And they began to pluck the heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath. He said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with him?
[10:36] How he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which it is not lawful to him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?
[10:54] I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless.
[11:05] For the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is our Sabbath. If you are called to practice the Sabbath, and I'm talking fasting, like Friday midnight to Saturday midnight, Lord bless you, right?
[11:19] But if we're in a place where we think we are more spiritually mature because we do it, that's a problem. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. He is our Sabbath.
[11:32] He fulfilled the law and the prophets in every way. And he brings a more complete revelation. He fulfills the promises of prophecy. He fulfills the moral and legal demands of the Old Testament.
[11:43] And he fulfilled the penalty of the law with his death on the cross. Romans 7, 6, and I said it last week, for we no longer live by the written code, but by the Spirit of God.
[11:56] I'm paraphrasing, but that's it. Please look it up. Be a people who check and fact check my stuff, okay? I think it's really dangerous when a preacher just says, just believe what I'm saying to you.
[12:11] No, no, no. Double check, okay? Look it up. Read the Bible. Get into it. And if I make a mistake, and I will, please be loving enough to come and say, man, you blew it.
[12:23] Okay? Or I found it. There was a difference. Or you misquoted that. I don't take offense to that. I'm grateful, okay? We do this together in so many ways. Verse 18, For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until it is accomplished.
[12:41] Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law. You could say it, that not one i will not be dotted, and one t will be crossed. I mean, basically what you can look at is that without Jesus, we are held account to the law of God.
[12:56] Without paying that price for that speeding ticket, you pay it in full. With Jesus, he's paid that price. And that should spawn gratitude.
[13:08] It should spawn a relief within our hearts. Thankfulness that the Lord has paid that for us. We're not held accountable to that law as someone who does not know Jesus.
[13:20] We'll be judged, but we'll be judged for different things. I don't know, and this is, this is, you know, my little take on the world, so take this with a grain of salt.
[13:33] But I often wonder if the Christian, when we're called home and we're standing before the Lord, if the one question isn't just simply this, have you learned how to love yet? Well, God shows us all of the things in our lives where he has loved us, seen and unseen.
[13:50] I wonder. I wonder. Verses 19 to 20. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.
[14:04] But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
[14:16] This would have been a shocking statement because essentially, based upon understanding religion alone, people would have just said, Jesus, didn't you just say it's impossible to get to heaven?
[14:29] I'm never going to be as righteous as this guy in the fancy robes. I'm never going to be as righteous as these people that are the professionals. That means I can't get to heaven.
[14:40] But that's not what he's saying. Jesus is saying that he is our righteousness. And unless our righteousness is rooted in Jesus Christ, we don't get to go home to heaven.
[14:54] It's not about what you have on the outside and your perfect or near perfect or faking it perfect example of how you follow the law.
[15:05] It's not whether you wear the high priestly robes. It's not any of that. It's what happens in here in the heart. Jesus shows us a new way of being human that instead of judging from the outside and just seeing what looks like something that might be acceptable to God, Jesus is challenging us that it starts from the inside out.
[15:26] If our inside is filled with hatred and corruption and bitterness, okay, we have things we've got to sort out and it doesn't matter how holy we look on the outside.
[15:37] That's corruption. Funny enough, that's one of the things that salt is good for is preservation. You are salt of the earth.
[15:49] You are salt of the earth. Preserve that which God has given you. Don't let it go. It's really important that we grab hold of this.
[16:03] The commandments are to be obeyed and to be fulfilled by Jesus' life and teaching not by legalistic thinking of the Pharisees of the day. I'll give you an example of one.
[16:13] We have some mothers in here, right? Did you know the Old Testament law you're supposed to sacrifice a dove or a lamb when you birth a child?
[16:27] Raise your hands if you did that when you birthed your child. Oh, I hope nobody raises your hands. No. You broke the law. Right? You broke the law based on following religion like this.
[16:41] Jesus brings us a new way because he is the only sacrifice necessary. No other sacrifice is needed or required. It's one in all. He has a fulfillment and a promise.
[16:54] Jesus did this for us and it's a one and done. His sacrifice was enough. You know, when we were in Jerusalem, one of the funniest things, and I encountered many things that kind of made me chuckle, but one of the funniest things was the Sabbath elevator.
[17:10] Okay? And if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. There'll be two elevators side by side. One is for the Gentiles, right? Where you can just push a button and go to the floor you want.
[17:21] And the other one is on the Sabbath. It's turned into a Sabbath elevator where the buttons don't work. It just stops at every single floor. Now, do you want to take a guess of how many people I saw take that on a Sabbath day?
[17:36] Nobody. I mean, it'd take forever. If you're going up in a hotel that's multiple, you know, floors, it would take forever. You're basically just sitting there like, you know, okay, here we go.
[17:46] Right? Get to my bedroom sometime. No, you want to go in the elevator and press the button because that just makes sense. We can get so lost in the minutia of the law that we lose the love of people.
[18:02] It can be really good to stand at the door and just kind of do a check. It's like, okay, how'd you dress today? What'd you look like? You know, are you okay? Or, you know, that kind of thing. We can get that and feel good about that we're measuring up to some standard.
[18:13] But unless the heart is in the right place, it's misplaced. It's misplaced. It's from the inside out. This does not have to be repeated by us, this sacrifice, because through the Old, even though the Old Testament commanded it, simply because Jesus is our sacrifice.
[18:36] Verse 20, for I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. There's no way we can be more righteous than one of the scribes and the Pharisees.
[18:48] They were pretty right in their own rightness. They thought they had everything figured out and had it down, and they were not afraid of telling people about it. The average person would feel defeated hearing this without explanation.
[19:02] And Jesus is telling us that all the righteousness that the Pharisees and scribes has was not all that it appeared to be. Because from the inside out, there was rot.
[19:16] From the inside out, they weren't clean. They were having struggles because they did not see the Messiah in front of them. See, following the law is one thing.
[19:29] And we have to be very, very careful with how we do it, recognizing that no one other than Jesus has perfectly fulfilled it. You won't, and I won't.
[19:41] And there's laws, I mean, I could go in, I could spend all day on it, where if you have a refrigerator in your house, you're already breaking the law. Because you're not supposed to keep meat more than three days. You're already breaking the law.
[19:54] It's not capable, we're not capable of perfectly doing this. We need a rescue. We need to lean on Jesus' righteousness and not righteousness that we make up our own or that's dictated by man.
[20:10] We need something more than human understanding and righteousness from the law. Jesus himself was there, and the greater than the righteousness of the law, the scribes, the Pharisees, greater than religion, Jesus is.
[20:22] And we have this righteousness credited to the account of our heart. Because in Jesus, we are more righteous than the Pharisees and the scribes.
[20:34] Not because of who we are as people, but because of who he is as our Lord. And Jesus was letting them know that we're not able to make ourselves righteous by keeping the law.
[20:46] We won't get there. Not without him. So we should be thankful that Jesus offers us something better, greater, more full, more real.
[21:00] Verse 21 to 22, 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.
[21:14] Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council. And whoever says, you fool, will be liable to the hell of fire. Now in some translations you may see the word raka there, okay, but it's the same thing.
[21:31] Jesus is now explaining the true meaning of the law. What it really means, okay, because you see at the time they had said do not murder.
[21:41] That's a part of the law. I think we can all agree here right now without a lot of discussion or argument, that's a pretty good standard to live by. Don't murder. The problem is by the letter of the law when it's just external, you can do anything to someone right up to that point of not killing them.
[21:59] So you could actually say, well, I didn't kill the guy, right? I hated him. I committed character assassination. I did everything I can to make his life difficult, but I didn't kill him, right?
[22:09] You're still painfully wrong in the eyes of the Lord. You sinned. And that's what Jesus is trying to get across is that, look, you can obey the law right up to the corner of the letter of it and still be in error because you're not looking at it from the inside out.
[22:29] And that's what Jesus is trying to correct us here. This is not Jesus against the Ten Commandments, not at all. This is Jesus against the false and superficial interpretations that man has put upon them.
[22:45] So you can do anything to anybody, just don't kill him and you'll be good, right? No, that's not at all. The scribes and the Pharisees make two main errors here.
[22:56] They restrict the law of God in the way they shouldn't and they expand on it in a way they shouldn't. And Jesus is now correcting those errors. In Jesus' day, the people didn't really, on a personal level, study the law of God, the law of Moses.
[23:14] They didn't really do that. They had other people teach them. Okay? All they had was the teaching of the law from the scribes and the Pharisees. And all they had heard about anger was you shall not murder.
[23:28] Okay? That interpretation, anything around that was something that if they would just, you know, like I said, they would either restrict it or expand on it to an unhealthy place.
[23:39] We know it's not right to murder, but shouldn't it also not be right to murder someone in spirit? Right? This is where Jesus goes back.
[23:51] It's like, it's not about the act. Jesus is saying, let's go back to where it starts. Anger. Anger is a healthy emotion. There's nothing wrong with anger.
[24:03] We should get angry at some stuff. We should get angry when things, you know, are in front of us and difficult and make us angry. It's what you do with that anger that can turn to sin. I do believe there's something called a righteous anger.
[24:16] I believe I've experienced it on mission before. Where you look at something and you're broken by what breaks God's heart and just inside, you're like, no! I've felt that before.
[24:27] Right? That righteous anger that this is just wrong what's in front of you. And maybe these days you're seeing it on Instagram reels. I don't know. But we can have that anger.
[24:39] If the people would have been reading the law, reading the Bible for themselves, it might have been different. They would have been looking at it and thinking, well, hold on a second. The gospel spread like wildfire through the ancient world.
[24:56] And Rome is a fascinating subject to study on this. Of how the gospel spread through Rome. And you know how? It's because people like you and me had access to the word of God without education and without priests.
[25:13] For lack of better terms. Or rabbis. Okay? We could access the word of God. We could read it. We could hear it. We could stand on the street and hear it. And that changed the world forever.
[25:24] Because we were able to read the word of God. We have that ability now. It's a sad thing when a religion, a church, or a government forbids its people from reading the word of God.
[25:37] That's a dangerous place to be. Because in the word of God there is freedom. There's freedom from religion in the word of God. There's freedom from back-breaking, spine-breaking, soul-crushing rules.
[25:50] in the word of God. There's freedom from oppression in the word of God. There's deliverance in the word of God. So please read your Bibles.
[26:03] Devour them. Read them as much as you can and often as you're able. Let that word soak into your heart. Because you're not going to find much room for anger, bitterness, jealousy, malice, hatred, selfishness.
[26:18] That doesn't have any room for the heart that is bursting with light for God. There's no room in the heart for those things when God's light is you.
[26:29] A biblically literate people are a free people before God. Take away the word of God and people become enslaved by politics or religion.
[26:44] They really do. And you'll hear things and you're hearing them now. People saying God wills this, God wills that. I don't know about that. I don't know about that.
[26:55] But I'm going to read the word to find out. And I encourage you to do too. Verses 21 to 22. You've heard that it was said to those of old you shall not murder and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.
[27:12] 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 counsel and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.
[27:22] Whoever is angry with his brother without a cause is wrong. If you're angry at someone and you're just letting it fester and just letting it stir, it's wrong.
[27:37] It is. What did the Pharisees and scribes teach? You shall not murder. Like I said, we can all agree on that. But check your heart at the beginning of that process.
[27:51] When you're feeling angry, when you're feeling bitter, when you're feeling that just sense of grrrh for someone, check your heart at that place. Surrender it to the Lord.
[28:02] God has given us such clear rules. It's unbelievable how little we pay attention to. And when I mean rules, I mean guidelines for this new human life that we experience in him.
[28:16] And one of them is just simply from Matthew 18. If your brother sins against you, go to him. Go. Do it. Confess it. Say, look, you stepped on my toes.
[28:26] This hurt. And if the person says, oh, I'm really sorry. I had no idea. You know what? It also says, you've gained a brother. Don't let anger fester and say, well, I hate that guy now.
[28:40] Right? I mean, I've joked with some of my best friends before. You know, there was a guy that was having a real problem with someone at one point and I just said, I, you know, I look at loyalty as a very important thing in my life and he is one of my best friends and I said, okay, so what's the problem?
[28:56] Who do we hate now? Right? You know? And it was that kind of thing that was just like, look, I want to be here for you as a friend. Right? And sometimes those friends, they say the hard things to correct us.
[29:08] And so I'm saying it as a bit of a joke but I kind of meant it too. It's like, if you need somebody to ride or die, I'm your guy. Right? That's what loyalty means to me. So, the next step is is that if that person refuses to listen, like, I don't know what you're talking about, you're all crazy, you take someone else.
[29:25] Jesus said this himself. This isn't me thinking this up. Matthew 18. Here's an idea. Go and read it. Right? And I know most of you have. I know that. I know I'm preaching to the choir.
[29:36] But if there's someone who hasn't, I'm begging you. Check it out. It's good. Okay? And you take that other person because if that other person is suddenly able to make some sense or bring clarity into the situation, perhaps offer a different perspective than the person that rejected it before is like, oh, okay, I didn't really understand what you're talking about but now I get it because they gave me this example.
[30:04] And you know what the Bible says? You might have gained a brother. Right? And the problem's solved. There's no bitterness, there's no resentment, there's no buildup or a nuclear bomb that goes off relationally or anything like that.
[30:18] But there's also a chance that the person might reject it and say, no, you're crazy. I'm right in my own rightness. Nothing you can do is going to convince me. So you know where it says there? Go to the church.
[30:31] You go to the church and so are the elders, myself, maybe even the deacons at times. Right? You bring it to us and we try and find a resolution.
[30:42] And we come to that person and we say, this is hurting unity in the church. This has got to stop. This has got to change. We need to work with this with you. Let's pray together.
[30:52] Let's get through this. Okay? And you know what happens after that? If the person still thinks you're crazy, refuses to repent, well, then you have to ask them, is this your church?
[31:07] You seem to hate it here and everybody else here. Why are you here? There's good churches across the street, down the road, all this kind of splashed. You know, why this one? And I'm very blessed to say in my long career of the ministry, I have not had to have that step three very often.
[31:27] But the Lord gives us a prescription for dealing with conflict that's simple. Because the worst thing to do is say nothing and let it build. And let it build to the point where even the reaction, like Sean said this earlier, I thought it was really good, where the reaction is worse than the offense.
[31:47] Right? Anyways, rabbit trail. I will be closing soon. Jesus says that God's morality addresses not only the end result, murder, but the beginning, which is anger.
[32:01] To call someone raka, or you fool, is to attack their intelligence. It's to go for the throat. It's like, you're stupid. That's something we have to be careful of.
[32:13] To say you fool is to tear down someone's character. Now, I don't want anybody to think that you've got to somehow remove the word fool from your dictionary and then go around saying, oh, they said the F word, the fool word.
[32:27] Right? No, you don't have to get like that. It's a heart check on the inside. Is this what we think of someone? Do we think that their character is that bad?
[32:39] Do we think their intelligence is that bad? Why do we think that of them? There's an example that I brought up earlier in discipleship class and I'll bring up right now too. I will be closing soon, I promise.
[32:53] But you know what? It's this idea of the pit people. Okay? We talked about this earlier. Sometimes we can resent someone so much we want to put them in a pit, like a deep one.
[33:06] Or we can kind of stand there and go, ha, ha, ha, you're down there and I'm up here. Right? And we want to keep them there. Isolate them. We want them to feel miserable for what they've done to us.
[33:16] And you know what happens is we can't stop thinking about them. We obsess over them. Oh, I wonder if they're going to be there. Oh, I hope they've had a bad day. I hope this is going wrong, right?
[33:27] And our pit people, more often than not, have no idea that we feel this way against them. So who's really in the pit? It's us.
[33:39] We're imprisoned by our resentment. We're imprisoned by our anger. We're imprisoned by our unforgiveness. We are the people in our own pit, not the person we think is down there.
[33:51] Because like I said, nine times out of ten, they have no clue what's going on. I've seen that Matthew 18 process work so beautifully in the past and I've seen it done horribly. And when it's beautiful, you come to it and you say, look, yeah, you stepped on my toes.
[34:05] I feel bad and I don't know why but I kind of lost sleep over it last night and there's hugs and there's like, I am so sorry. I never meant that in a thousand years that I mean for it to sound like this, to come off like this.
[34:19] I never meant to hurt you this way. I'm so sorry. And that's the beauty of it is that it doesn't take much effort but a little courage to go. I think sometimes as Christians we can be a little too nice.
[34:33] Right? We can be a little too nice, peaceable. I talked last week and I'll say it a little bit now that there's a huge chasm of a difference between a peace lover and a peacemaker.
[34:46] The peace lover is like, let's just all get along. Everything's just fine. Everybody just, nobody moves, nobody gets hurt, everybody shuts up, nobody's going to get offended, right? That's peace loving, that's peace at any price.
[34:56] It's not actually being a peacemaker. Blessed are the peacemakers. It's a courageous role. It's stepping into a situation and saying, you guys are both crazy. Right?
[35:06] I want to help with this but you're both acting stupid. We need to get to the bottom of this. That's the role of a peacemaker. It's not the role of winning friends necessarily because if you've been in that role before you know sometimes that when people are at odds with one another they might attack you.
[35:24] That happens too. That's a risk. But blessed are the peacemakers not the peace lovers. verses 23 to 26.
[35:39] So if you're 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.
[35:52] 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 to the guard and you to be put in prison.
[36:03] Truly I say to you you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. Jesus has in mind someone who is walking up to the temple to bring their sacrifice to go and do their worship and on the outside doesn't that look like a lovely picture?
[36:20] Someone going to church they're driving up they're pulling up they're getting out they're just like you know ready for church this is great and Jesus is saying hold up a second. If you have something against someone stop what you're doing go figure that out first.
[36:37] Have it right in your heart before you do all of this stuff. Have it right in your heart. That's how important this is. That's why I take communion as seriously as I do because there are moments where and I've even confessed to it up here where I've not taken communion on that day because there's something going on that's unresolved.
[37:00] Okay. where I am able to be a part of it I would rather skip that okay and have it be true in here than just go through the motions because well you know the pastor's supposed to do this.
[37:12] If I'm not the most broken person in the room I'm doing this wrong. Okay. Because you should see honesty from the pulpit. You should see brokenness from the pulpit.
[37:24] And that's exactly what I try to talk about when I'm talking about this kind of thing from the inside out. That's how we have to live this life to be the light in the world because you can't have a light that's fake.
[37:40] Right. It's like the difference between an LED light and the sunlight. How much different is that? Be the real light because that's what Jesus shines through us.
[37:50] Jesus is saying stop. Don't take your sacrifice. Go and make things right with your brother or sister first. Yes. God cares about us observing communion.
[38:02] He cares about us tithing. He cares about us going to church. Of course. But he cares more about damaged relationships than us trying to put on a mask.
[38:13] Romans 12.18 If possible so far as it depends on you live peaceably with all. I hope there's people that are coming to your mind right now. I really do.
[38:25] I hope the Lord is bringing up some relationships that need to be healed or even just the air cleared. Go and do. See Jesus is saying that when you have anger or hatred towards someone get rid of it quickly.
[38:41] He's not saying put it on that jar and that shelf of anger in your heart that's just behind that Jesus is not saying that. He's saying air it out get it dealt with quickly. Ephesians 4.36 and 27 Be angry and do not sin.
[38:58] Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. The devil looks for these opportunities. He does. I mean you can say anything you will against him but I will say this he's a hard worker and he does look for opportunities that we give him.
[39:13] Festering anger resentment and bitterness are wide open doors. He doesn't have to actually work that hard. I'm just going to let this fester for a bit and rot and then I'm going to come at it when it's too late.
[39:29] Do not let the sun go down in anger if you can. There should be an urgency to getting things straightened out. Now I know that there are some things where it's just better to sleep.
[39:40] And there's a good rule that if it's 10pm or over just go to bed. You know you don't have to fight until 2 in the morning. Just go to bed. Approach it fresh in the morning.
[39:52] But have a heart as you lay to sleep of forgiveness as best you can. How many of us are imprisoned by something we have against someone that we haven't yet reconciled?
[40:04] Maybe today is the day. Maybe you're saying okay Lord if you send me a sign this is it. Today is the day. If that's the one that you're hearing right now.
[40:18] Be the light of God. Read your Bible to be free from religion and free from law and love one another. Let's pray.
[40:30] Our Heavenly Father I want to thank you for passages like this that just remind us that there is a new way to be human. And I think our minds kind of struggle sometimes with how simple it is.
[40:41] Because it isn't complicated. Lord I think the challenge I know I'll say for myself is to have the courage to say what I need to say to do what I need to do.
[40:55] So Lord if there's anybody here that's feeling that too that you'd give us all the courage to say what we need to say to do what we need to do. Thank you Lord that you are our righteousness. Thank you Father that we need to believe in you and we can be free once we do.
[41:10] Thank you Lord that we have your word as it is right now. And we can read it and have freedom and liberation through it. Thank you Lord. In Jesus name.
[41:21] Amen. I just want to read number 6 verses 24 to 26 just as a blessing. This is the Aaronic blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
[41:35] The Lord has turned his face toward you and give you peace.