ATTN: Before I became a pastor, I was an engineer. Immediately after college, I worked two years for a small company that produced data backup drives for computers. I worked 40 hours a week, and I had the weekends free. I rarely worked more than 40 hours a week because I was being paid a salary and I wasn’t getting paid more for overtime. So, 8 o’clock I clocked in, 5 o’clock I clocked out. 8  hours a day, 40 hours a week. No more. Fast-forward 6 years, and now I was working as a youth pastor in Tacoma. I clocked in at 6 am and didn’t clock out until 8 or 9 or even 11 pm on some days. Easily working 80, 90 hours a week. Was I getting paid more? No! Then why would I work so much? Because as an engineer, my main motivation was duty. But as a youth pastor, my main motivation was love. When you do what you love,  no one has to tell you do the work. I think most of us understand this.

Last week, we said that Christ came to complete the original intent of the law. And that was such that human beings would love and respect one another and live in harmony. If we were motivated by love, then we would be civil to one another. We would not harm, take advantage of, or be jealous of one another. But since we are sinful human beings, we were selfish, and driven by self-love only, we broke not only the spirit of the law which is love, but also the minimal duties of the law. So, there is murder, adultery, stealing, lying, etc. How do you change people so that they will be driven by love rather than duty? How do you get their hearts to change so that rather than meeting the minimal requirements of the law, they would go above and beyond and treat one another with kindness and self-sacrifice such that we would not need any laws?

That is what Christ came to do – to change our hearts. He came not only to show an example of supreme love, but also to usher in a new kingdom, with new people with new hearts to fill that kingdom. So, being a Christian isn’t about having new behaviors, but it’s about having new hearts. Our new behaviors come from having new hearts. We go from being a dutiful daycare worker to a loving parent. We go from a dutiful engineer to a loving pastor. We go from a dutiful church-goer to excited and loving worshippers. Duty to love. That is how our righteousness can exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. They were focused on being dutiful. They were very meticulous in carrying out their duties. But there was no love in it. Their law keeping was like a beautiful Rolls Royce without an engine! Looked great on the outside but missing a soul.

TRANS: The next 6 or 7 paragraphs that Jesus addresses are examples of what having love will look like in our lives. He shows what having love will do to: anger, lust, divorce, taking oaths, retaliation, dealing with enemies, and helping the poor. Today, we focus on anger. How does a person who belong to the kingdom by way of love deal with this issue of anger? What does it look like?

1. What doesn’t fit in the kingdom of heaven?

An external conformity to the law but no inward heart change – this doesn’t fit in the kingdom of heaven! This is from people who are keeping the law just to avoid getting into trouble but whose heart has never changed. Jesus says in Matthew 5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.” Of course this is the 6^th commandment on the Ten Commandments. Jesus here is not repudiating the Ten Commandments that God gave to the Israelites through Moses – Remember, He didn’t come to do away with the law but to fulfill the law. But He is repudiating or rejecting the way the Pharisees have taught this law. The way they taught it is, “As long as you do not kill others, you are a law-keeper. In other words, as long as your external behavior conforms to the minimum requirement of the law, you are acceptable before God.” Jesus is repudiating this. But He corrects it or completes it by saying, “Not only are you not to murder, but you are not even to hate the person from your heart!“ That is what He is saying when He says, “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.” In other words, Jesus is going beyond the latter of the law to the spirit of the law – what the original law intended. And last week, what did we learn how Jesus fulfilled the law? By love! If we love, then we are completing the original intent of the law and thus fulfilling the law. So, Jesus is giving an example of this. A person who loves his brother will not only not murder him, but he will not even insult him, or say he is a fool!

So, if we reverse this, if you are a person who frequently blows up on others, calling them names, have contempt for them, that might be a good indication that your heart does not fit the kingdom of heaven. And as far as God is concerned, you have murdered that person. Why? Because God looks at the heart and anger and murder have the same source. In a sense, a murderer is more honest with his feelings than a person who intensely hates another person but doesn’t kill. At least the murderer acted out what he was feeling, but a person with hatred wants to kill, but for fear of getting into trouble, he doesn’t. But in God’s eyes, they are the same because He looks at the heart and not just at the behavior.

So it won’t do any good in the end for us to say, “Oh, I’m a pretty good person. I haven’t murdered anyone. Oh, I get angry with people, but I didn’t kill them!” And God will say, they are the same thing. Since your heart never changed, you are not fit for the kingdom.

2. What does a person who is fitting for the kingdom look like (When it comes to conflicts)?

            [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. Matthew 5:24

Observation A) He is a worshiper. He is at the altar about to give offering to God. So, a person who belongs to the kingdom of heaven is first of all a worshiper of God. However, up to this point, he is no different than a Pharisee or a scribe that Jesus is speaking against. They were worshippers also – at least on the outside, they looked like worshippers. Which tells us that not all people who go to church belong to the kingdom of heaven. Then, how is this person different from those who are pretenders?

Observation B) This true worshiper of God will actively seek to make peace with his brother and it doesn’t matter who’s at fault! Jesus, carefully selects his words and says, v. 23 “…. There [if] you remember that your brother has something against you…”  He doesn’t say, “If you remember that YOU have something against your brother” but rather, “If your brother has something against you.” The reason why I believe Jesus says it this way is because 1) Jesus is assuming we have already made peace with God and has forgiven that person so that we have nothing against that person in our heart and 2) Jesus doesn’t want us to think, “Well, I have nothing against that person. But if that person has a problem with me, that’s not my problem. It’s between him and God!” And be standoffish because we don’t think it’s our problem. Jesus wants us to be active in making peace with our brothers. Even if we think it’s not our fault – because let’s face it, in all conflicts, don’t we always think the problem is with the other person and not with us? – we are to initiate making peace with that person. Now, what do you do if after making your best effort to make peace with that person with humility and compassion but that person doesn’t come around? Then, you are free to leave that person alone. That is why Paul puts it this way in Romans 12:18, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

A person who belongs to the kingdom of heaven can’t stand the tension between brothers or sisters. Even if you have forgiven that person and you are at peace, but that person is not at peace with you, that should bother you for the kingdom sake. And love dictates that we put that person at peace with you and with himself and with God. If he has something against you, then he’s not straight with God either and you care enough to help him with that.

3. How do we do it? (how do we look like that?)

That sounds all ideal and all but in reality, how do we become that kind of person? I mean we are hurting too! And we have barely gotten over it and how do we go past our own hurts and go to that person who was the source of our hurt and help that person be at peace with us and with God? That’s walking the extra mile for our enemies! Maybe you have someone in your life that you have been at cold war with. Last time you were with that person, there was a huge fight and you haven’t spoken to each other ever since. And you are absolutely convinced that it was his fault. (As everyone does!). And in your mind, if that person begs you for forgiveness for all that hurt and pain he/she caused you, maybe, possibly because you are a Christian, you can forgive. But not before. And you have every justification under the sun to feel that way you do about that person and act the way you do. But how would Jesus handle this situation? Would He justify your heart?  And if we are not to be like that, where do we get the strength?

The story of the prodigal son comes to mind. The younger son put a knife to his father’s heart when he left with his assets and lived a licentious life style. Think of all the thoughts that must’ve gone through the father’s head – “I have not taught him to live that way. I’ve given him everything he needed to be happy and yet he has rejected me and wished for my death and couldn’t wait to spend all my money! He didn’t love me. He loved my money. And to think that I wasted all those years taking care of him…!” If you were a average father, this is what you would be thinking: “If he ever comes back, with his tail between his legs and begs for forgiveness, and shed bitter tears for at least an hour, maybe, just maybe I might make him work in the field as a slave for a year after I feel he has sufficiently paid for all the pain he has caused me, then I might forgive him.” But this was no average father. This father represented the heavenly Father – the merciful and loving. What doe He do? I imagine in heaven God our Father and our older brother Jesus both looked at this insolent and idiot of a son, representing us, who was completely oblivious to their love and concern for him. And Jesus, our true older brother, says to the Father, “Father, I will go bring him home.” And the Father says, “Son, you know what they will do to do when you go.” The Son: “Yes, Father. But I’m willing. I will go bring him home.” And so He came after us. Not as a conquering king with fire blazing from his nostrils to make us fear him and beg for mercy, but as a most vulnerable of all beings – as a baby to make peace with us. To bring you and me to God. We, who, didn’t even acknowledge the existence of God. Who lived only for our pleasure and freedom, who wasted all the gifts and marvels of being a human being on our pleasure. Being so wasteful and careless of all that the Father has given to us like that prodigal son… Our older brother came and picked us up, paid for all the debt we owed to loan sharks, got beaten up, got speared and left for dead… just so that He can bring us back to the Father…

If there was anyone in the history of the world who could say, “I have every right to hate them and I do hate them,” it would be Jesus. But He didn’t. Instead He loved. And He initiated the reconciling process.

And that is how we kill our anger. That is how we deal with injustices that were done to us. That is how we turn hate into love. It was us who hated God and killed Him and yet He still loved, forgave and adopted us as sons. When that truth pervades your heart, your heart melts and you now can do what you could not do before. That coldness melts away and hostility is replaced with love. Now, you are fit for the kingdom.