“Make friends quickly with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.” (Matthew 5:25-26)

The time for reconciliation with others is always now, just as it is with salvation. Tomorrow may be too late. No excuse is valid to allow bitterness, anger, hatred, or any other sin to keep us separated from another person. Jesus illustrates here that we should make good on any debt or settle any grievance before it’s too late and we’re imprisoned.
In the Roman Empire, two opponents at law could settle an issue on the way to court, but not after a judge became involved. To avoid judgment and imprisonment, the guilty person had to pay “the last cent,” or everything owed in debt.
Being thrown into prison and not being able to get out until a debt is paid is Jesus’ analogy to the Father’s punishment. We can’t miss the Son’s teaching here: we must make every effort possible, with no delay, to mend any broken relationship with a brother or sister before we can avoid divine chastening and have a right relationship with God.
We know that because of sin, none of us is ever completely at peace or perfectly related to one another. And since it’s impossible to have perfectly right attitudes toward others or God, no worship is ever fully acceptable. All of Jesus’ teachings in this passage and the rest of the Sermon on the Mount show us again the utterly perfect standard of God’s righteousness and the absolute impossibility of our meeting that standard on our own.

Ask Yourself:
There’s no denying the pain of strained and severed relationships. But there’s nothing like knowing you’ve done everything you can to make it right.Can you live in the Lord’s peace even if nothing changes?

“Leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.” (Matthew 5:24)

No matter who is responsible for a severed relationship — and often both sides bear some guilt — it’s essential to reconcile before going to God in worship. Even if you have nothing against the other person and the fault lies entirely with them, you should do everything possible to settle things. You can’t change another’s heart attitude, but you should desire to close the gap between yourself and the other person and hold no grudge against him or her — then you can enter freely and fully into divine worship.
Better music, more eloquent prayers, or more classic architecture — none of these will enhance true worship. Even better or more biblical preaching will not of itself improve our worship experience. However, a contrite and religious attitude toward God and our brothers and sisters will enhance genuine worship. Sometimes the drastic measure of staying away from church for a time until a broken or strained relationship is right is the only action that will make our worship God-honoring.
Long before Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, the prophet Samuel said, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22). After that, the psalmist said, “If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear” (Psalms 66:18). If sin remains unconfessed and relationships remain broken, there will be no integrity in our worship.

Ask Yourself:
Again, you are responsible only for the condition of your own heart, not another’s. But can you honestly say today that you have made peace in your heart with those who have been at odds with you? Have you forgiven? Have you sought renewed relationship?

“Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you.”

Outward acts of worship are unacceptable to God as long as we harbor internal sin. They are particularly offensive if we retain a hateful attitude toward a brother or sister and yet attempt to come before God.
Worship is important for most religious people today. They can spend much time in places of worship, offering prayers, giving tithes, and doing all sorts of religious activities. But, as with the scribes and Pharisees, none of it is meaningful if carried out with the wrong attitude.
Presenting an offering at the altar was a familiar scene for Jesus’ listeners. On the Day of Atonement, for example, worshippers would bring animal sacrifices and give them to the priest as sin offerings. But that process must halt if the worshippers were to remember some hatred between themselves and someone else. Unresolved conflict has priority over external ceremony and must be settled.
Sin between us and other brothers & sisters must be resolved before we can bridge the gap of sin between us and God. The Lord told Israel, “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me? . . . I have had enough of burnt offerings of Rams and the fat of fed cattle; and I take no pleasure in the blood of Bulls, lambs or goats. . . . Wash your selves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, learn to do good” (Isaiah 1:11, 16-17a).
Not to be at peace with someone else and yet to attempt to worship God is a hindrance to genuine fellowship.

Ask Yourself:
This is a call for worship to matter, and for relationship with God to be taken seriously. More than a Sunday morning verse, it’s a principle demanding conciliatory action in the days prior to the Lord’s day. Is there such a matter occurring in your life situation right now?

“Whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into fiery hell.” (Matthew 5:22c)

No one wants to be called a fool, and on the other side of the coin, no one should fix that label on someone else. That’s especially true when we realize that the word in this verse translated “fool” is from the Greek word from which we get the word moron. The word also denotes one who is stupid or dull of mind. Greek literature sometimes used it to refer to a godless or obstinate person. And it was perhaps parallel to a Hebrew word that means “to rebel against.”
Twice the psalmist tells us “the fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’ ” (Psalms 14:1; 53:1; 10:4). The book of Proverbs contains many negative references and warnings to fools (Proverbs 1:7; 10:8, 10; 14:9). Jesus used a related but less severe term when He reprimanded the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25).
Because of these and other testimonies in God’s Word, we know people engage in foolish thoughts and actions. Therefore it is not wrong for us to warn or rebuke someone who is acting or speaking foolishly and clearly opposing God’s will. In fact, we are supposed to take this action! The Lord is warning us here, however, that it is sin to slanderously call someone a fool out of personal anger or hatred. Maliciously calling another a fool is again equivalent to murder and worthy of eternal punishment in hell if not repented of.

Ask Yourself:
Most of our slanderous remarks are not made to others’ faces but rather behind their backs. What guiding principles can you set in place to guard yourself from being ugly and unkind to others, even when speaking about them in private conversation?

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“Whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court.” (Matthew 5:22b)

The word (RACA), translated by the New American Standard Bible as “good-for-nothing,” has been variously rendered elsewhere as “brainless idiot,” “worthless fellow,” “blockhead,” and the like. It was a term of malicious abuse and slander that really has no precise modern translation. David graphically described persons who use slander as those who “sharpen their tongues as a serpent; poison of a viper is under their lips” (Psalms 140:3). The Roman soldiers who tortured and crucified Jesus could well have used the term to mock and disrespect Him (Matthew 27:29-31).
According to Jewish legend, a young rabbi had just come from a session with his famous teacher. He felt especially proud of how he had handled himself before the teacher. As he basked in those feelings of superiority, he passed an especially un-attractive man who greeted him. The young rabbi responded, “You Raca! How ugly you are! Are all men of your town as ugly as you?” “That I do not know,” the man replied, “but go and tell the Maker who created me how ugly is the creature He has made.”
To slander someone made in God’s image is to slander God Himself and is the same as murdering that person. Jesus called such harsh contempt murder of the heart. The contemptuous person was as much as “guilty before the supreme court” (the Jewish Sanhedrin, which tried the most serious cases and pronounced the ultimate penalty — death). We dare not trifle with any kind of contemptuous language toward others.

Ask Yourself:
Remember, this is not just an injunction against speaking unkind, judgmental words, but also of thinking them in our minds. When God has led you to seasons of victory in your thought life, how has He accomplished it? What stopped evil thoughts from ever coming up?

“Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.” (Matthew 5:22a)

From Jesus’ own life, we know He does not forbid every form of anger. In righteous indignation, He twice cleansed the temple of its defiling, profaning influences (Matthew 21:12-13; John 2:14-15). The apostle Paul instructs Christians to “…be angry, and yet do not sin” (Ephesians 4:26). Faithfulness to Christ sometimes demands that we exercise a righteous anger. Many of the current cultural trends, the surges of violence and grossly dishonest and immoral practices, and the un-biblical ideas promoted even within supposedly evangelical circles need to be opposed with righteous anger. That’s because such things undermine the kingdom and glory of God. The psalmist wrote, “God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day” (Psalms 7:11).
In His sermon, Jesus did not speak against legitimate, righteous indignation, but against a selfish anger toward someone for doing something against us, someone who’s just rubbed us the wrong way. The word the Lord used for “angry” indicates a simmering anger that a person nurtures and refuses to let die. Examples of such anger are the long-standing grudge or the smoldering bitterness that refuses to forgive someone. This kind of anger does not want reconciliation and can become so profound as to be a “root of bitterness springing up” (Hebrews 12:15).
Jesus says anyone who harbors such severe anger against another person is the same as guilty before the civil court of murder and deserving of the death penalty in God’s eyes.

Ask Yourself:
So, are there names and faces that come to mind when confronted with this stark reminder from Scripture? Is there personal anger that needs instant removal from your heart?
(BEF)

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court.” (Matt. 5:21-22a)

With just two sentences, Jesus shatters the rabbinic view of murder, which was so complacently sel-righteous. Because of their externalism and legalism, the Jews had an inflated view of themselves. But Jesus destroyed that thinking with the declaration that a person guilty of anger, hatred, cursing, or defamation against another is guilty of murder and worthy of a murderer’s punishment.
All anger, hatred, etc., is incipient murder, as the apostle John writes, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15a). By that biblical standard, we are all guilty of murder — after all, who has not hated someone at one time or another?
Not only does Jesus here sweep away the rubbish of the rabbinic, traditional view of murder, His total indictment blasts away any notion of self-justification so common to everyone. The way the Jews thought in Jesus’ time is identical to people’s prevalent thinking today. Even believers can feel proud that they are “…not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers…” (Luke 18:11) — and we could add “murderers.” Jesus, in that parable and in this passage, says we are all potentially capable of the worst sins, even murder, because of the sometimes evil attitudes of our hearts.
Not to consider the state of your heart and confess thoughts of anger and hatred, which can lead to taking someone’s life, is not to consider that the Lord can hold you guilty of murder.

Ask Yourself:
What benefit is found in knowing that you and I are capable of the most heinous crimes imaginable? Does recognizing this startling piece of information have an effect on your relationship with God and your manner of living?

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you 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 say, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into fiery hell.” (Matthew 5:21-22)

Throughout history, most decent people rest assured that at least one sin they have not or never will commit is murder. The conventional wisdom limits murder to physically taking another person’s life. But Jesus’ teaching on murder shatters the self-righteous complacency of so many good people.
God’s original command, “…you shall not commit murder,” was, of course, scriptural (Exodus 20:13). But the Jewish practice of taking murder cases to civil court fell well short of the biblical standard in 3 ways: it did not prescribe the death penalty (Genesis 9:6), it did not take God’s holy character into consideration (His role in meting out judgement, the sinfulness of taking a life made in His image, or the general disobedience to the law), and it said nothing about the heart offense of the murderer. These omissions ignored David’s statement in Psalms 51:6, “You [God] desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part, You will make me know wisdom.”
With the transitional words, …But I say to you…”, Jesus begins to point us to a scriptural understanding of murder and its implications. Murder goes much deeper than physically taking someone’s life. It originates with evil thoughts in the heart, and is still a serious sin, whether or not it culminates in violent action against another person.

Ask Yourself:
If Jesus is making this harder than before, then what is so freeing about being free from the law? Why is this more helpful than a black-and-white statute?

“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)

Many people today — and sadly, more and more within the church — have re-defined biblical concepts to fit their own human perspectives. Like the scribes and the Pharisees, they know they can’t match God’s righteousness, so they simply change the definition of holiness. A prime example from Old Testament times is how the Jews re-interpreted God’s command, “Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44). They turned this from a call for inner holiness into a requirement to perform certain rituals.
The godly person will never rely on self-centered, re-defined righteousness. Instead, he will focus on the kind of holiness Jesus taught. He will be broken about sin and mourn over the evil bent of his heart. Such people long only for the righteousness God can give through His Spirit. They will never rely on their own strength or wisdom for what they can do spiritually.
God has always been focused on inner righteousness. When Samuel was ready to anoint David’s oldest brother, Eliab, to succeed King Saul, God told him, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him, for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). And that inner righteousness must be perfect: “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). To be truly qualified for entrance into Christ’s kingdom, we must be as holy as God Himself through His righteousness!

Ask Yourself:
Being broken over sin is certainly a crucial part of dealing with its appeal and presence in our lives. But be sure you’re not choosing to remain in perpetual inactivity and introspection. How well is your grieving over sin being translated into renewed obedience?

“For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)

The righteousness practiced by the religious leaders in Jesus’ day further displeased God because it was partial, falling way short of His perfect standard. Again, in Matthew 23, Jesus illustrates this phony righteousness: “You tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness, but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others” (vs. 23).
The Jewish leaders were conscientious about making non-essential tithes of the smallest plants and seeds, yet they totally neglected showing justice and mercy to others or having heartfelt faithfulness to God.
To a large degree, the sin of partial righteousness flows directly from externalism. Unregenerate people disregard justice, mercy, and faithfulness because those traits basically reflect a divinely transformed heart. Without a new heart, no one can accomplish “the weightier provisions of the law.”
In a separate encounter, the Lord quoted Isaiah and further warned the Pharisees of their empty and misdirected religion: “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” (Mark 7:6-7). Like the religious leaders and many of the people of Jesus’ day, professing believers today can be constantly exposed to Scripture but only superficially responsive to it. Their watered-down, partial obedience to God’s commands, demonstrates their failure to grasp the profound spiritual intent of God’s law and their probable unsaved condition.

Ask Yourself:
Realize afresh today that the only obedience which interests God is total obedience — the kind that can only be accomplished through Christ’s righteousness, given to His redeemed children. What instances of partial obedience need to be converted to full obedience in your life? (BEF)

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