From Anger to Peace #1

A man with an angry temper, with an explosive outrage that can be set off at the drop of a hat, so to speak, is not someone who is manifesting a heart that is living out the righteousness that God requires.

Jesus makes this plain. When we get angry, it's easy to blame others for our emotions and the consequences they bring. But we can't be angry towards others and be right with God at the same time.

We must invite the Holy Spirit to X-ray our heart and address the root of our spiritual condition. Hi, I'm Bill Wright, and today on the Truth Pulpit, Pastor Don Green continues the series titled, Why Are You So Angry? So, Don, let's say someone has professed Christ but has a terrible temper.

What then? Well, thanks, Bill. That's a great question. And you know, my friend, if you have problems with your temper, let me answer Bill's question for you in a couple of different ways here. First of all, someone who maybe has a temper but feels horribly about it, wants to turn away from that, longs to show the meekness of Christ, and trusts in Christ to cleanse him from sin, that person has a reason to be encouraged because your hatred of sin is an evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit within you. My concern as a pastor is for somebody who has a bad temper but seeks to justify it by saying something like, Well, that's just the way I am.

You all are going to have to get used to it. No, that doesn't work, because the fruit of the Holy Spirit who indwells every Christian is a fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If the Spirit is at work in somebody, the Spirit is indwelling a true Christian, there's going to be a desire for those things even if you fall short. So somewhere within the spectrum of those things, test your heart, and we'll unpack God's Word for you today, and this will help you do so as we study Scripture together on The Truth Pulpit.

Thanks, Don. And friend, we look forward to learning more about this truth in Scripture today, so let's join our teacher now in The Truth Pulpit. I invite you to turn to Matthew chapter 5, beginning in verse 21.

In this very practical passage, Jesus is giving us the first of six illustrations that help us understand that God requires an inner righteousness from his people, a heart righteousness, a righteousness of thought, motive, and deed. God looks at the heart, not simply at mere externals as man is tempted to do. You know, there was a comedian one time long, long ago, I'm dating myself as I say this, but he said it is better to look good than to feel good. As long as you look good on the outside, the point was it doesn't matter whether you're sick and feeling crummy on the inside. And that's just a reflection of the way that man thinks about things.

As long as things are externally seem to be okay, and things look pretty on the outside, then there's no reason to worry about what's on the inside. And what we need to see as the people of God is this, is that God views it in completely the reverse manner. God looks on the heart.

And Jesus is making this clear in his passage in verses 21 through 48, talking about different ways that God makes it obvious that he looks on the heart. He says it's not enough for you not to have committed murder. Let's talk about your anger problem. Let's talk about your temper.

Let's talk about the continual conflict that you inject into your family. Let's go there, Jesus says. He says it's not enough for you to simply maintain physical distance from another human being. He says let's talk about your adulterous, lustful thoughts and the things that you ruminate on in private in your mind and in your imaginations and the things that you fill your thoughts with. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about the way that you look at people around you and the motives with which you look at, Jesus says let's talk about that.

Not simply the externals. And so as we are going through and beginning to walk through this passage in the last half of Matthew chapter 5, we are in the presence of the great physician of souls who is, as it were, putting us under the x-ray machine of the word of God. And all that is there will be exposed as we submit ourselves to his word. Now, that's not always comfortable.

You know, these things can be convicting. But you can mark the reality of your own spiritual condition by how you respond to it. You see, Jesus made it plain in Matthew chapter 5 verse 6 that the one who is truly in his kingdom is someone who hungers and thirsts for righteousness.

Someone who desires the kind of inward purity that God calls us to. And when we come to the word of God as his people with a heart like that, then there's something inevitable that takes place. Whenever God's word convicts us of unrighteousness and calls us to a higher standard of righteousness, we don't resist that. We don't push against it. We don't close our ears to it.

We would never do that. A true Christian would never, ever, ever, ever, ever do that because a true Christian hungers and thirsts for righteousness. And so while it may be painful to be convicted by the word of God and to say, ooh, there's a lot of ugliness inside me, the true Christian says, ah, but I'm grateful for it.

While it's painful and repulsive to me to see what I'm really like under the searchlight of God's word, I'm grateful for it because the greatest desire of my life is to aspire after the righteousness of God. And so when it convicts me, I respond. I don't reject it. I don't resent it. I don't suddenly find ways that I can disagree with the speaker and say, well, that's just his opinion. Good grief. Are you kidding me? To have the word of God explained and then just dismiss it and say, oh, that's just the opinion of the speaker?

I'm not under obligation to respond? What kind of approach does that to spiritual life? That's just a man saying, I'm on the throne of my life, and no one can assault the throne that I sit on.

Not for us, beloved. We gladly come to God's word and let it speak to us. So Jesus starts as he's expositing the theme of the inner righteousness that God requires.

He starts with the sin of anger. We looked at the first two verses. Let me just remind you of what Jesus said in these early two verses. He said, you have heard that the ancients were told, verse 21 and 22, you shall not commit murder. And whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.

The human emphasis of the teachers of that day was on the physical act of murder and on human accountability to the court that ruled over such things. In verse 22, Jesus says, I want you to know that they're missing the whole point in what they say and how they limit the scope of the word of God. He says, but I say to you, he says, let me tell you what that commandment really means. He says, what that commandment really means is that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court and whoever says to his brother you good for nothing shall be guilty before the Supreme Court and whoever says you fool shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. He says, you may not have blood on your hands, but if you have blood on your tongue, if you have blood on your heart, you're guilty enough to go to hell. That's what the sin of anger does. That is how seriously God views it.

And you see, here's what you've got to understand. That because God looks on the inner man, because God requires sincere worship from a sincere heart, from the inner man, from the internal attitudes and motives of our existence, because that's what God requires. He requires purity there. It's not simply a ritual purity that, oh, I went through the motions of sacrifices or I attended church or I did my quiet time and having gone through those externals, everything's okay. God says, well, let's brush that away and ask about your heart. And all of a sudden we realize, as I've said many times in teaching the Sermon on the Mount, in which I will gladly say, every opportunity I get until the Lord takes me home to glory. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is teaching for keeps.

He's talking about who you really are. And he doesn't accept false pretense. He doesn't accept hypocrisy.

And let's be more specific and more direct. He does not accept hypocrites into his kingdom. He's exposing hypocrisy in what he says here. And so the Pharisees minimize this commandment of murder and just made it about the external act of which few people were guilty. Jesus comes and says, no, let me tell you that the law prohibits not only the external act of murder, God's law prohibits the anger that leads to murder, whether you actually kill somebody or not. If there's blood in your heart toward another person, then there's blood on your hands in accountability toward God. And so Jesus takes us to what the law really taught, to what God really requires on this, and says anger incurs eternal guilt, a standard which is unheard of in any discussion that the world would ever have about such things.

And so Jesus now, that's a little bit of review of what we talked about. Now as we go to verses 23 to 26, Jesus draws out the implications of what that means for how you live. Notice the verse as it begins in verse 23. He says, therefore. What he's saying is because anger is such a serious sin, because anger incurs eternal guilt on a soul, then because that's true, here's what you need to do. Here's how you should respond to the reality of the authority of God's word on the inner man. He says, therefore. This is the conclusion.

This is what you should do in response. What he's going to do is he's going to show us, he's going to show the people of his kingdom, those that are under his rule, he's going to show us God's way to deal with anger in a righteous way. Stated a different way, when there is conflict in your life, here's what you do with it. And he's going to tell us two main principles that we can draw from this text in verses 23 to 26.

First of all, he says this. Very simply, point number one, seek peace first. Seek peace first.

As we come to this text, you need to remember something important. Jesus had already emphasized the priority of being a peacemaker in the Christian life. He says in Matthew chapter five, verse nine, look at Matthew chapter five, verse nine, he says, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. It is the peacemakers alone who are truly in the family of God. Those who are a perpetual fountain of conflict should not comfort themselves with any Bible verses they've heard or memorized in the past and think that they belong in the kingdom when an honest examination of their life says, this is a man or a woman who has a perpetual flow of conflict in relationship. Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers, for they and they alone shall be called the sons of God. So when Jesus was talking about character in the Beatitudes in the first section of the Sermon on the Mount, he named this as one of the primary themes of true Christian character.

Now, going along, he is expanding it, having stated the theme in a general way in verse nine, now he is coming along and picking it up in verses 21 to 26 and expounding on what exactly that means and what exactly that looks like. What does it mean to be a peacemaker? Well, Jesus says that for those who are truly in his kingdom, the ones that truly belong to him, peace in human relationships is a priority. It is a matter of surpassing importance to them, and this is what God requires.

This is the kind of righteousness that God requires. Now, when we talk about peace, we can think about it in two different ways, and in our overly saturated emotional context of the world and even in the church at large, we would tend to think of peace in a sense of inner tranquility, my emotions, I'm calm inside and I feel good like that. That's not the meaning that we're using here and it's not what Jesus has in mind as will be evident in just a moment. There's also a sense in which peace means that there is righteous harmony in relationships. When a nation is at peace with another nation, they don't feel good about each other, but it's saying that there's no conflict between them. And here, Jesus speaks of peace in the way that it works out in harmony in human relationships.

And so, for those of you on the livestream listening in, for those of us here in the room, let me say this. Just as plainly and with as much care and compassion for your souls that I can, an angry temper or ongoing conflict in life breach the peace that God requires in the heart of his people. A man with an angry temper with an explosive outrage that can be set off at the drop of a hat, so to speak, is not someone who is manifesting a heart that is living out the righteousness that God requires. Jesus makes this plain.

And so, as we come to that, we realize that for some of us, for some of you, this is really confronting you at the very level at which you live. Are you known as an angry person who everybody understands, don't cross him or you'll pay a price? Well, if that's your reputation, if that's what you're known for, you should humble yourself before God in broken tears of repentance and saying, I'm not a peacemaker.

I'm not at all what you require me to be. And with that said, for those of us that try to live with a tender heart before God, but inevitably conflict comes and you're dealing with issues in relationships, Jesus here graciously shows us how to deal with that. And he starts in verse 23. It's understanding the priority of peace that we have to come to grips with. In verse 23, he says, therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go. First, see the priority? First, be reconciled to your brother. And then, second priority, come and present your offering. Jesus says, anger incurs guilt before God.

Therefore, seek to restore broken relationships and do it as a priority of life. And when he says this here in verse 23, when he says you, it's very interesting the way that this works out. Here in verse 23, you know, you in the English language is a little bit ambiguous because we use the same word to refer to plural.

I could say I'm speaking to all of you, plural, or I could say I'm speaking to you, plural, meaning that I'm speaking to Sam in the third row. So you in English is ambiguous this way. When you look at the original language in verse 23, Jesus is using the singular you from the Greek language, saying, therefore, if you have find yourself in this position, here's what you need to do.

He's saying that it's very personal. We should especially feel the weight of his pronouncement and the seriousness with which he addresses us. God's word is not simply addressing us collectively in the room here today. He's addressing you individually with what he says.

If you are in this position, you singular, here's what you need to do. God exercising his authority over the human soul with what he says here. And so Jesus here supposes a Jewish worshiper approaching the altar to present a sacrifice, and there he remembers before the sacrifice is offered, before he offers up his lamb for the sacrifice by the priest, he remembers, ah, I've got a conflict. It comes to his mind that I have a broken, unresolved conflict in a relationship in my life.

It's very practical, isn't it? You all know what it's like to come into church with unresolved conflict. You know, look, we're honest enough and we're not critical, but we understand that people fight with each other on the drive to church and quickly turn their frown upside down as they walk through the doors and smile and everything's okay by outward appearance, but inside, you know, there's this simmering conflict that goes on. Well, what do we do in times like that?

How should we think, first of all, about those things? Well, the answer that Jesus gives highlights God's priority. Look at those two verses again. He says, when you remember that your brother has something against you, here's what you need to do. This is the priority of peace in the Christian life. So important that you would leave your offering at the altar and go and find your brother and do what you can to resolve that conflict. That it's so important that you would step away from worship in order to resolve the human horizontal conflict that is at hand. Now, beloved, what this does for us is so many things, but one of the things that it does is it convicts us of our casual approach to worship and the casual approach that we bring to life.

It's easy, isn't it? It's easy to separate what's happening in life from the manner in which you approach God, not just publicly but privately, to go to prayer with unresolved conflict and to say, well, that doesn't matter. Let me now worship God. You know, when you come, look, when you come to worship God, you're presenting the entirety of your life, not simply your external presence or your words of the moment.

You know, what's the entirety of your life say? Is there this commitment to peace of which God speaks? You know, in 1 Peter 3, you don't need to turn there, but in 1 Peter 3, it makes this point to husbands.

It says, husbands, you need to live with your wives in an understanding way, granting her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, lest your prayers be hindered. You know, a guy that lives in a perpetual, broken state of relationship with his spouse should not deceive himself into thinking that he's getting anywhere in prayer with God in that circumstance when he's hard-hearted toward his wife and unwilling to compromise and ask forgiveness and to grant forgiveness. You know, let's just not play games. Jesus doesn't play games with us. We play the game, but Jesus isn't sitting down at the board to join in. And so, what Jesus does, whether it's in private prayer before God or in public, you know, with the people of God, in this verse, what he does is, he cuts, watch this, he cuts our carelessness off at the pass and says, don't bring that here. Don't bring your conflict here and think that this is acceptable to me.

And so, it just puts a big stop sign on us and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's happening in life here? And says, you must deal with these things in life as you approach God in worship and not think the two are separate and that you're somehow worshiping acceptably to God when you do that. He says, you should seek resolution first before you worship. The greater priority is reconciliation. That's not what you would guess if you thought carelessly about God's word.

It's not what you would guess if you didn't carefully study God's word. So, what Jesus says, when you're coming to worship, what you must do is you need to clear the air with men. Do it first.

Make that your priority. Despite the inconvenience, despite the potential embarrassment that it might cause, despite the interruption it is to your plans, despite the fact that it will mean humbling yourself, you know, and basically what this does for us is it forces us to choose between our pride and a true worship of God. Say, I don't want to humble myself. I'm too angry about that. This has been going on too long.

I ain't going to do it. To which Christ says, then let's not kid ourselves about your worship. You see, here's where you see the seamless nature of the Sermon on the Mount coming together. For the true disciple of Christ, he longs the presence of God. He longs to worship God in spirit and in truth. Those are the true disciples who worship in spirit and truth. And so, because that is the supreme priority, because he seeks first his kingdom and his righteousness, Matthew 6.33, as the concern of his life, then it's easy for him to humble his pride, comparatively speaking. It is not a choice of equal, competing priorities when Christ says, go be reconciled. The disciple says, oh, that's painful, but you know what?

That's what I'm going to do. Why? Because the supremacy of worship is more important to me than my pride. I'm willing to swallow the conflict. I'm willing to set aside what I was holding against that person. I'm willing to confess my angry temper before those that it has hurt. I'm willing to confess and forsake all of that.

Why? Because I've got to be in the presence of God to worship. Because I desire his righteousness. I desire his presence. Nothing is sweeter to me than the presence of Christ.

And I must have his smile on my life no matter what it costs me. Proverbs 29.11 says, fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end. So the Bible is clear that we must continually seek peace with others in order to be right in our relationship with God. On our next program, Pastor Don Green will continue teaching what it means to go from anger to peace. So join us for more from our current series, Why Are You So Angry? here on The Truth Pulpit.

Right now, Don's back in studio and he has a special message. You know, I'm mindful of the fact that Jesus said that there would be many on the day of judgment who would call him Lord and yet be shocked to find that he was going to send them away because he never knew them. Do you realize that Christ died for sinners just like you? Have you turned from sin and put your faith completely in him? Have you been born again? Jesus said you must be born again in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. My friend, my prayers are with you that if you're not saved, God would open your eyes. And if you are a brother or sister in Christ to me, God bless you. Continue walking with Christ. Trust him because he will deliver you into heaven and it will be far more wonderful than you could ever imagine. Thanks, Don. And friend, thank you for listening to The Truth Pulpit. I'm Bill Wright and we'll see you next time for more. Join us then.