MATTHEW 5:21-26 - A New Way of Being Angry

Bethel Baptist Church

A New Way of Being Human: The Sermon On the Mount • Sermon • Submitted 8 months ago • Presented 8 months ago • 47:44

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Introduction

We live in an angry age, don’t we? It seems like everyone is angry about something or other, whether it’s politics or the economy or race or any number of other issues. And that general atmosphere of anger means that people are far more on edge, far more likely to blow up at one another. It’s easy to find clips online of customers blowing up at drive-through fast food workers or motorists ramming other cars in fits of road rage, airline passengers flying into full-blown temper tantrums. And at its worst, that anger can escalate into tragic acts of violence where lives are lost because of uncontrolled anger and rage.

Of course, psychologists and counselors offer all kinds of techniques and strategies for “anger management”—the Mayo Clinic website, for instance, suggests getting more exercise, walking away from “triggering” situations, deep-breathing exercises, practicing yoga or meditating on a calming word or picture. (Penn State DuBois offers a meditation room, complete with Tibetan singing bowls and incense to help you manage your anger!)

But as you read through their directions on how to manage your anger, what you find is that they are all external methods. Lowering your blood pressure, slowing down your breathing, going for a walk—all these things do is manage the physical manifestations of anger. Other suggestions seem to go deeper—one website suggests “Using ‘I’ statements” so as not to place blame, or “looking for solutions” or “not holding a grudge”. And while those things may be helpful, all they’re really doing is giving someone the pretense of dealing with their anger.

If you are in a heated argument with a co-worker, the thinking goes, and you turn around and walk away you can calm down and not punch them. If you are screaming at the driver in the other lane, turn on your meditation music and count to ten so you don’t sideswipe them out of rage. If you feel like shoving your professor down a flight of stairs, go burn some incense and listen to some Enya CDs in the meditation room and calm down. Find ways to cope with your anger so that you won’t lash out and actually commit violence—if you learn those techniques, you are said to be controlling your anger.

Here in the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus is addressing the topic of anger, it is striking to note that the scribes and Pharisees of His day seemed to have a very similar method of dealing with anger as we do today: As long as you don’t kill someone, you’re good:

Matthew 5:21–22 (ESV)

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 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.

Through the rest of Matthew 5, Jesus is going to be expanding on the statement He made about His kingdom in Verse 20:

Matthew 5:20 (ESV)

20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Through the end of this chapter, Jesus will present six “antitheses”—six statements of contrast between what the religious leaders of the day—the scribes and Pharisees—said about righteousness, and what He says about righteousness. (And notice here that Jesus specifically singles out what these religious leaders said about Moses’ Law, and not the Law itself! He says, “You have heard it was said...” NOT “It is written...” Jesus is not arguing with the Law of God; He is arguing with those who have claimed to be the final authority on the meaning of the Law.)

Here in our text this morning, the scribes and Pharisees had taken the position that anger is only punishable if you physically lash out: if you murder, you are “liable to judgment”. Really, that’s not much different than our day, is it? You can want to murder someone, but you can only be arrested for murder if you actually do it. Wanting to kill someone is not a crime punishable by law in Moses’ Law (or in ours).

But Jesus is saying that in His kingdom, being anger itself is a punishable offense!

Matthew 5:22 (ESV)

22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment [same phrase]; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

The righteousness Jesus requires to enter the Kingdom of Heaven is a greater righteousness than required under the Law of Moses—what these verses teach us is that

Unrighteous anger is INCOMPATIBLE with a REGENERATE life

A heart that has been born again by the Gospel, a life that has been transformed by the renewing power of the Holy Spirit through repentance and faith in Christ does not relate to anger the same way anymore. First off, a regenerate heart understands that

I. Anger is more than just OUTWARD BEHAVIOR (Matthew 5:21-22)

The scribes and Pharisees said that you were not guilty as long as you didn’t actually act on your anger. Keep it “under control”, keep it from causing you to actually commit violence, and you’re innocent. But Jesus makes it clear here that you are not innocent of murder just because you lack the courage, strength or opportunity to carry out the anger that lives in your heart! As John McArthur put it, There are people who have never been in so much of a fistfight that are more murderous than a serial killer.

Just because you have refrained from physical violence doesn’t mean that you have conquered anger. Just because you have counted to ten or gone for a walk or worked out with a heavy bag does not mean that you are innocent of the kind of rage that would kill if it had the chance.

Anger is not merely a physical manifestation--

It is a DISPOSITION of the HEART (v. 21-22a)

Now, you’ll notice that we have summarized these verses by saying that unrighteous anger is incompatible with a regenerate life. Because the Scriptures are clear that anger itself is not sinful—God is a God who is “angry every day”, Psalm 7:11 tells us. And our Savior Himself was angry in Mark 3:5 when the Pharisees would not agree that He should heal the man with the withered hand:

Mark 3:5 (ESV)

5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

The word in the original language for anger here in this verse is the same as the word Jesus uses for anger in Matthew 5—so clearly, there is a way to be angry that is not sinful. (This is why some ancient manuscripts add the words “without cause” In Matthew 5:22—in effort to clarify Jesus’ words. So depending on the Bible translation you have, you may or may not have that phrase included.)

It’s helpful here at this point to come up with a working definition of anger—what does it mean to be angry? A good working definition of anger is that it is an instinctive emotional response to having your plans, desires or goals impeded or opposed. This fits with Jesus’ anger that we see in Mark 3—His desire and His intent was to bring healing to the man with the withered hand, and the Pharisees refused to acknowledge His intent, and opposed His showing mercy on the Sabbath to someone who needed it.

And so it becomes clear, doesn’t it, that since your plans, desires, goals and expectations are all governed by your heart, then the nature of your heart will govern the nature of your anger:

Luke 6:45 (ESV)

45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Christ’s anger arose out of His righteous and pure heart that desired what God desires—mercy on the Sabbath. But when your heart is governed by your own passions and desires and lusts and self-worship, then your anger will not be righteous anger, will it? Unrighteous anger will flare when our personal desires or preferences or plans are interfered with—and one of the sure signs of unrighteous anger, Jesus says here in our text, is that

It employs an ATTITUDE of CONTEMPT (v. 22)

Look again at the rest of verse 22:

Matthew 5:22 (ESV)

22 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.

The phrase that the ESV renders as “whoever insults his brother” is literally worded “whoever says raca to his brother”. The word raca is an Aramaic word that literally means “empty”—the idea is that you are calling someone “empty-headed”. And the word for “fool” here in Greek is moron. In the context of Jesus’ words to a Jewish audience, calling someone a fool is to associate them with all of the evil, worthless rebellion of the “Fool” in Old Testament wisdom literature (like Proverbs).

This, then, is the kind of unrighteous anger that Jesus warns against—the kind of anger that demonstrates a heart that is unregenerate. The anger that wants to hurt someone; you would kill them if you thought you could get away with it. It is anger that pours contempt on someone—you don’t care whether you hurt them, because they aren’t worth caring about: They are stupid, evil, unredeemable idiots that should just be wiped out of existence because they oppose what I want. Unrighteous anger is incompatible with a regenerate life—Jesus makes it clear that Indulging that kind of anger will land you in Hell.

And so that’s why in verses 23-26 Jesus says that

II. Anger must be URGENTLY FOUGHT (Matthew 5:23-26)

Jesus says that you can give no quarter in your fight against unrighteous anger—in verses 23-24 He says that

You cannot choose it over your WORSHIP (vv. 23-24)

Matthew 5:23–24 (ESV)

23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

In the context of Jesus’ day, this refers to a faithful Jew going up to the Temple with an offering—Jesus says that even if you are in the middle of making that offering and suddenly remember that there is anger standing between you and another worshipper, you drop everything and make it right with them first.

Consider the urgency of that reaction—bring it forward into our day for a moment. Jesus is saying that if you are standing here in worship, and in the middle of singing a hymn you suddenly remember that you had let your unrighteous anger break fellowship with another person, you drop your hymnal in the pew and go make it right! Jesus says that a heart that is born again loves God enough to do anything to have unfettered worship with Him, even if it means having to walk out of worship if necessary to put an end to the anger that stands between you and another believer! But a heart that wants to be angry more than it wants to be right with God—is not compatible with the New Birth that Jesus is teaching about.

You cannot choose to hold on to your anger over worship—and Jesus’ next illustration goes on to show that

You cannot choose it over your PRIDE (vv. 25-26)

Matthew 5:25–26 (ESV)

25 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 be put in prison. 26 Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

I read an online article a couple of years ago that has stuck with me—the title was something like “What to expect when you report to Federal prison”. It described the process of being processed into a prison in very specific, distressing detail. And I remember the sense of foreboding and anxiety that descended on me as I read it—how awful it would be to be reading that article knowing that I would be going through all of that in the morning.

Jesus uses this kind of imagery—Roman prisons were immeasurably more horrible than modern American prisons!—to drive us to loathe the thought of living with anger. Just as a convicted criminal would do anything to escape his imprisonment, so we should be willing to do anything to get out from under our unrighteous anger! Jesus says “come to terms quickly with your accuser”—the image is of someone throwing themselves at the mercy of an accuser. Pride doesn’t matter; ego doesn’t matter; admitting you were wrong and they were right doesn’t matter—what matters is that you would rather do anything than hang on to that anger.

Because, in fact, that anger can imprison you, can’t it? You can easily think of people you know who are absolute prisoners of their anger and bitterness. Feed that anger, hold on to it, refuse to let go of anger against a family member, co-worker, church member, neighbor, and you will wind up as isolated and cut off and shackled to that anger as if you were in jail, estranged from your brothers and sisters, and estranged from God. Jesus says far better to humiliate yourself and beg for mercy from those you have angered than to allow that anger to consume you.

Unrighteous anger is incompatible with a regenerated life—a heart that has been transformed by the New Birth in Christ is inhospitable to sinful anger. You cannot say that you have “dealt with” your anger just because you have successfully camouflaged all physical manifestations of it—what is in your heart governs what you get angry about. If your heart is full of unregenerate passions and delight in sin and indifference towards God, if your heart is set on your own comfort and success and fame, then you will be angry when those sinful passions and desires and priorities are interfered with (thus so much anger in our society when a woman is told she must not murder her unborn child, or when a parent is told that they must not mutilate their five-year old son because he likes to wear pink.)

But if your heart is governed by the Spirit of Christ in the New Birth, if you have come in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ for salvation according to the Gospel, then your desires and delights and priorities will be increasingly aligned with His will and His Word. And as you grow in maturity in Christ you will be angry when God’s desires and delights and priorities and commands are hated or maligned or interfered with or disregarded.

And so let us draw from our Savior’s words here in our text some guidelines by which we can evaluate the state of our hearts this morning by evaluating why and how we get angry—I can think of at least three:

III. Four signs of GODLY anger (Ephesians 4:26)

As we noted earlier, it is possible to be angry and not sin—Paul commands the church in Ephesus using those very words in Ephesians 4:26:

Ephesians 4:26 (ESV)

26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,

So what does it mean to be angry and not sin? From what Jesus tells us in His Sermon, one sign that your anger is a godly anger is that

You are FREE from BITTERNESS

Jesus was angry with the Pharisees in the synagogue in Mark 3, but He did not revile them—in fact, if you look closely you will see that He was simultaneously angry with them and saddened by them:

Mark 3:5 (ESV)

5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart...

You aren’t grieved over the condition of someone you despise—but Jesus was simultaneously angered and saddened by their behavior. Can you be angry, for instance, at the way our politicians casually dismiss (and even mock) God’s commands, without despising them at the same time? Once again—it’s one thing to be angry over the way the president casually dismisses the righteous pleas of God’s people to end the administrative state’s support for abortion, it is right to hate the way he actively tries to accelerate the bloodshed of innocent children, it is right for that anger to motivate you to fight and oppose and stand athwart his every attempt to further those policies, but it is another thing entirely to despise him in your speech and posts as an empty-headed fool. Jesus says you may not do that. Jesus says that to delight in that sort of contempt of someone you are angry at is a sign that your anger is unrighteous anger that has no place in the heart of a Christian. He says, in short, that that is a characteristic of a heart that will be damned to Hell.

Godly anger is anger that does not sin in bitterness and contempt. And Ephesians 4:26 gives another indication of godly anger—when you are angry in a godly way,

You are EAGER for RECONCILIATION (v. 26b; cp. Romans 12:18)

Jesus says that you should be so eager to reconcile with the one you are angry with (or who is angry with you) that you will go to any lengths to make it right. If you are angry over their ungodliness and sin, then pray eagerly for their repentance. You cannot remain angry at someone that you are praying for, earnestly and regularly. You simply cannot. Do everything you can to reconcile—as Paul says in Romans 12:18:

Romans 12:18 (ESV)

18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

A few years ago our family was getting ready to go to our family Christmas party with the Carlson side. We had arranged to go out to eat at a nice restaurant and exchange presents in one of those gift-swapping games. But then a few people came down with the flu and we had to cancel. And so through the rest of that winter we had a shopping bag full of presents already wrapped that sat on the floor waiting to be handed out.

Now, in this sorry and broken world there are far too many times when you would be entirely ready to give the gift of forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration, setting aside your anger with someone who has wronged you (or you have wronged). But the problem is that the other party simply refuses to let go of their anger or bitterness or hatred. In cases like that, Romans 12:18 tells us to do everything you can to reconcile—and so, make sure that that reconciliation and forgiveness and restoration is like those Christmas presents on our floor—sitting there, neatly gift-wrapped and tied up with a bow to give to them at a moment’s notice!

Godly anger is free from bitterness, it is eager for reconciliation. And both Jesus and Paul exhort us to another characteristic of godly anger:

You put it DOWN before it BURNS you (cp. Jonah 3:10-4:2)

One of my favorite pieces of kitchenware is a cast iron skillet that we use all the time. Cast iron simply can’t be beat—but the problem is that that handle gets hot! And it doesn’t matter how great a glove I have on, I can’t hold that skillet for too long, or it will heat right through the material and burn me—so I have to move quick when I am picking it up or pouring it out into another pot.

This is the same reason that Jesus tells you to make peace quickly, and why Paul says not to let the sun go down on your anger. Because the longer you hold on to it, the worse it will burn you. Unrighteous anger will (of course) scald and scar and destroy you if you refuse to let go of it—but even godly anger is perilous for the likes of us in our fallen but redeemed state. Consider the story of Jonah in the Old Testament—it was right for him to be angry over the sin and wickedness of Ninevah, wasn’t it? It was a godly anger that led him to declare that the city would be overthrown. But then, when the people repented, instead of letting go of his anger, he held on to it, sitting on a hillside overlooking the city sulking over God’s graciously granting them repentance:

Jonah 3:10–4:2 (ESV)

10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.

Jonah went from being angry that God was being dishonored by Nineveh, to being angry that God was being worshipped by Nineveh!

Godly anger is free from bitterness, it is eager for reconciliation, you put it down before it burns you. And there is one more characteristic of godly anger to consider—if your anger is a righteous anger,

You are most angry over YOUR OWN SIN

You anger over the sin of others does not compare with your anger over your own sin. You are angry over how constant and relentless your battles are with sin in your life. You are angry over the way your sin poisons your prayer life, freezes your fellowship with God, cripples your relationships with others. You are angry over how easily your resolve to fight sin will collapse like a house of cards. You are angry over how your sin threatens your family, your marriage, your ministry. You are angry that you are so indifferent to the agonies of your Savior on that Cross that you think nothing of giving in to the sins that put Him there. Godly anger is angry at sinners who abuse the grace of God; and godly anger means that you are most angry over your own sin.

Because your own sin is the object of the most holy, most fearsome, most destructive anger of all. God is the only One for whom all anger is righteous, because He alone is perfect in all His desires and all His decrees and all His purposes. And there is absolutely nothing standing between you and that wrath but the blood of Jesus Christ. All of your bitterness and unrighteous anger, all of your lost tempers, all of your angry name-calling and humiliating attacks on the objects of your rage, all of the loss of control and violence, all of the seething hatred that fantasizes about hurting and destroying that person you hate, all of the times you would have killed someone but were prevented only by your own cowardice or weakness. Look at your heart from God’s perspective and you will understand exactly why His anger is raised against you.

And you only have one refuge; you only have one plea—that Jesus Christ was nailed to that Cross, where He suffered the anger and abuse and hatred of men so far inferior to Him in every way that He would have been utterly justified to lash out in them in completely righteous anger. But instead, He cried out for them to be forgiven for their wickedness. And the death that He died, beloved, He died in your place. The anger that murdered Him was your anger. The hatred that watched Him die was the same hatred that you indulge when you watch your enemy die in your mind’s eye.

Unrighteous anger has no place in a heart that has been washed by the blood of Christ. Christian—repent of that unrighteous anger. Lay it all down at His feet, name it for what it is without any spin, without any self-justification. And call on Him for the holiness and obedience to love what He loves, to fight for what He prizes, and to be angry, yet without sin.

And if you realize as you hear Christ’s description of unrighteous anger and you realize that it is a perfect description of your own heart—that there is no presence of God’s righteousness in you, that you have come to understand that you are completely given over to the kind of anger that will damn you to Hell for eternity, then the Good News for you this morning is that you can receive a new heart this morning. When you come to Christ in repentance, when you confess before Him all of that unrighteous anger and call on Him for mercy, He will hear you, He will forgive you, and He will give you a new heart to love Him and obey Him. Drop that rebellious, sinful anger before it burns you for eternity—plead for mercy purchased by His blood, take refuge from the anger of God by hiding in the righteousness of your only hope for salvation. Come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION:

Jude 24–25 (ESV)

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

What is the significance of Jesus beginning these antithetical statements by saying “You have heard it said”, and not “It is written”? How does the way He words His statements support His words in verses 17-20 of Matthew 5?

Read Mark 7:20-23. How is the nature of your anger governed by the nature of your heart? How does the New Birth create “a new way of being angry?” according to these verses?

Is Jesus teaching that murder and anger are equal sins? Why or why not? What is the relationship between anger and violence according to Jesus’ teaching in these verses?

Why does Jesus warn against calling someone a “fool”? What does this action reveal about your heart toward your brother or sister?

What are the four signs of godly anger that we can learn from Jesus’ teaching here? Which of those signs are most visible in your life? Spend time this week asking God to give you grace to overcome ungodly anger in your heart.

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