SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: I uh hope this finds you well this Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: And uh welcome to you if you're uh tuning in from uh outside of Dublin, across the world.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us as we continue our sermon series in the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: And really, from uh from this week, the sermon series almost gets uh kind of topical as we look at some of the issues that uh that Jesus raises in the Sermon on the Mount, which is why Andrew read from uh from two passages that we're kind of uh drawing from today.
SPEAKER_00: So today we're going to be thinking about anger uh in just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Uh next week we'll be thinking about uh lust, uh then uh let me see integrity, uh prayer, and then two weeks on anxiety uh and worry.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a really important season uh and sermon series, uh, I think for us.
SPEAKER_00: So that's where we're going.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be thinking about anger today.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you're welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I hope you have a nice hot cup of something in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: And please do have that passage in front of you as well.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray uh together as we come to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Father, help us now as we consider uh this uh this teaching, these verses uh that inevitably will uh cut to the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Father, would you see us, would you show us our need uh of you, our great need of your grace?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you send Jesus not only to teach us these things, uh, but to live the life that we could not live in order to bring us to you.
SPEAKER_00: So help us now, we pray, in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I want us just for a moment, right at the start, to think a little bit about werewolves.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, maybe you have uh never ever seen a werewolf movie, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but everybody should know what a werewolf uh is.
SPEAKER_00: Werewolves, uh werewolves live their life as uh most of their life as normal people, uh normal human beings, men and women.
SPEAKER_00: They're even uh in some of the best ones, uh some of the best movies, or uh, if you want a recommendation, you'd watch the TV show Being Human.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they are extraordinarily kind, really shy, mild uh mannered people until that uh that once-a-month trigger, till that that full moon and the transformation occurs, and uh they cannot help but but give way to to the beast uh who does uh untold damage and destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Something triggers them and they lose control.
SPEAKER_00: They're no longer in control of who they are, of their emotions.
SPEAKER_00: And the werewolf myth, like many uh myths of that genre, are actually a reflection on human beings, and they're a reflection on how we deal with our anger, how we deal with our rage.
SPEAKER_00: How do you feel when someone wrongs you?
SPEAKER_00: Or how do you feel when someone is just wrong?
SPEAKER_00: How do you feel when you have been slighted?
SPEAKER_00: When you find out that somebody has been saying something about you behind your back?
SPEAKER_00: Do you seethe and brood?
SPEAKER_00: I do.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think badly?
SPEAKER_00: Do you think bad thoughts about the person who's wronged you or who you perceive to have wronged you?
SPEAKER_00: Do you think vengeful thoughts?
SPEAKER_00: I do.
SPEAKER_00: I have lost many arguments in my life, but I've never lost a rerun.
SPEAKER_00: You notice that?
SPEAKER_00: You get into an argument with somebody, but then afterwards you play it back in your head and you think, oh, I said that thing and that thing and that thing.
SPEAKER_00: I would have got them.
SPEAKER_00: I would have really stuck the dagger in, I would have won that argument.
SPEAKER_00: I've lost many arguments.
SPEAKER_00: I've never lost a rerun.
SPEAKER_00: I tend to be good with words, I tend to be quite quick on my feet when I'm talking to people.
SPEAKER_00: And that, in I hope, contexts like this, uh, can be used for good, but that can also, like the one ring, be used for tremendous evil.
SPEAKER_00: I know that I can unleash my words and take somebody down.
SPEAKER_00: I know that I am a werewolf.
SPEAKER_00: I also know if I'm not going to do it overtly and offensively, I know how to do it slyly.
SPEAKER_00: I know how to hide my daggers in jokes.
SPEAKER_00: I know how to hide my daggers in jest and frivolous comments.
SPEAKER_00: Do you?
SPEAKER_00: Not only uh am I, speaking personally, uh married, I have children.
SPEAKER_00: You add children into the mix, and that makes the uh the beast all the more pronounced.
SPEAKER_00: You being in a relationship with another human being, yeah, brings out it brings out the good in you and it brings out the bad in you.
SPEAKER_00: Being a parent brings out the best in you and the worst.
SPEAKER_00: We were in person, I might even say, can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_00: That is all to say that as we think about anger today, I want you all to know, if you haven't perceived it through your interactions with me before, that I have skin in the game.
SPEAKER_00: I know what it is to be angry, to speak in ways that are uncharitable, downright rude.
SPEAKER_00: And so I feel the weight of today's passage.
SPEAKER_00: To say nothing of the fact that don't you feel the world around you feeding your anger and your sense of frustration?
SPEAKER_00: Every social media platform that you go on is designed to fuel your frustration at the world.
SPEAKER_00: Facebook tends to kind of uh fuel your frustration at people.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta hide them and mute them because you're you know, how could they think such a thing?
SPEAKER_00: Twitter should just never, you should just never go on it.
SPEAKER_00: It is just a a you know a fire in a bin.
SPEAKER_00: It's a dumpster fire that feeds and fuels anger.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what this person said, look at what she did, look at what Trump did, look at what Biden said.
SPEAKER_00: It just feeds the anger and the bitterness and the rivalry and the vengeance.
SPEAKER_00: And don't you feel as you're trying to you know relax and settle down to get better you know, go to bed and go to sleep, that you're like, there are people who are wrong on the internet, and we get swept up in it.
SPEAKER_00: We get swept up in all of the rage, I think of the rage in our in our world right now, in our country right now, the people that you know, I can't believe that they aren't wearing a mask, or I can't believe that the government is cracking down and taking away our rights, and I have rights, and I should be able to you know wear whatever I want to wear and go wherever I want to go, and how dare they do that, and how dare they set up checkpoints and the and eight kilometer tailbacks along the road, and it just spirals and spirals and spirals.
SPEAKER_00: Or is that just me?
SPEAKER_00: Like, am I the only werewolf at City Church, or are there others?
SPEAKER_00: The Sermon on the Mind is as we have noted in previous weeks, it is Jesus' manifesto for a Christian counterculture, a new society, a community of people that operates differently, that thinks differently, that works differently, that thinks and feels and values things differently from the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: But I guess before we can live differently, what Jesus has to do and what he does here and throughout the Sermon of the Mind is he holds up a mirror and he bids you to look at yourself as you truly are.
SPEAKER_00: This is a kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is being kind to us this morning as he shows us the seriousness of our anger so that we might turn from it.
SPEAKER_00: But not only that we might turn from it, but that we might turn to the only one who can offer us true help, true transformation for you and your inner werewolf.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that Jesus shows us is that our anger is murder in miniature.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus shows us that our anger is murder in miniature.
SPEAKER_00: Read with me uh again at verse 21 and 22.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking to his disciples, those who have followed him.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You've heard it said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.
SPEAKER_00: But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be liable to judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel, and whoever says, You fool, will be liable to the hell of fire.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever is angry is guilty of murder, guilty of the same judgment, liable to the same judgment.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: Now, whenever we hear something like this, whenever we hear something critical of ourselves, I know what's happening in all of your in all of your heads because it's happened in my head this week.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever you hear something critical, something so stark like this, uh, the first thing that happens is that you contact the lawyer that lives in there.
SPEAKER_00: You contact your little mental solicitor, and he jumps to your defense, and he comes armed with rebuttals and questions and says, Well, what about this scenario?
SPEAKER_00: And what about this, and what about that?
SPEAKER_00: And I know that you're doing that, and I know that there are there's more to say.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're you're thinking, Well, what about anger at injustice?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, what about when the Bible says that God gets angry?
SPEAKER_00: What about when Jesus got angry?
SPEAKER_00: Those are all legitimate questions, and yes, we have to answer the fact that there is a distinction between godly anger and injustice against another or against God and the anger that Jesus is talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is not, he's not explaining all of that now.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not offering any caveats or exceptions.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he wants you, he wants me to feel the seriousness of the anger that resides within us, because most of our anger is not aroused at great injustices.
SPEAKER_00: Some of it is, but the majority of our anger in the day-to-day is thrown up in the in the little actions of people around us, of our of our children frustrating us, and then we we blow up.
SPEAKER_00: We're like uh we're like the uh we're like the emotion and inside out the movie, you know, we're like and then our top just blows.
SPEAKER_00: That's most what our our anger is.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that comes because we perceive that something has been done against us.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an injustice out there, it's that I've been hurt, my ego's been bruised, I've been slighted, I feel like I'm losing control.
SPEAKER_00: And so we we are wrapped like little mini volcanoes.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus wants us to feel the seriousness of that, that that is murder in miniature.
SPEAKER_00: Religious people always want to make sure that the externals are right.
SPEAKER_00: You always want to make sure that you look clean and speak cleanly and act cleanly on the outside, that you're doing the right thing, saying the right thing, and that's all that matters.
SPEAKER_00: Religious people are always concerned about the outside.
SPEAKER_00: And so what uh you know what happened here was that the people of old, the religious leaders, they're saying, well, as long as you don't actually go through the act of murder, as long as you don't uh do the external thing of actually striking down the person, then then you're golden.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you haven't broken that law.
SPEAKER_00: You can go tick uh to the sixth commandment of the of the Big Ten.
SPEAKER_00: Religious people always ask, how far can I go before I'm sinning?
SPEAKER_00: How close to it can I get before I've broken God's law?
SPEAKER_00: That is toxic religion, and that is not Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: So people looked at the commandment and said, Well, I haven't murdered anybody, so great, you know, one down, nine to go.
SPEAKER_00: Tick.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing pretty well.
SPEAKER_00: Or uh what was happening in the latter issue.
SPEAKER_00: So if you can scan your eye down to verse 38, you have heard it said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
SPEAKER_00: That was given.
SPEAKER_00: The idea of that was to restrain violence.
SPEAKER_00: It was given to the to the uh to those who were supposed to administer justice, not to individuals, and it was supposed to restrain violence uh and give a kind of principle of proportionality.
SPEAKER_00: So if you know if somebody, you know, somebody slaps you on the cheek, you don't then go and lop off their head.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's proportionality.
SPEAKER_00: But what toxic religion does is it twists it and it says, how much vengeance can I exact?
SPEAKER_00: How much of my pound of flesh can I take before I'm sinning?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, it's the wrong question.
SPEAKER_00: You're you're approaching it with exactly the wrong attitude.
SPEAKER_00: Religion is always about the outside, the external, making sure that the external rule keeping is there and getting as close to that line, that boundary of sin as possible without actually crossing it.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not about mere external rule keeping, it's not about outward expression, it's about inward transformation, nor is it about how close to the line of sin can I get?
SPEAKER_00: It's about how far can I run away from it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you imagine that line of sin is a cliff's edge, you know that the ground below you is unstable.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a question of how close to the cliff's edge can I get before I fall off and fall to my death, it's how far away from that cliff's edge that I am safe, can I be?
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus tells his followers that you've been thinking about it all wrong, that we think about it all wrong.
SPEAKER_00: It's not simply a matter of never murdering someone, of never taking a person's life.
SPEAKER_00: If you are angry at your brother or sister, and I take it to mean any you know fellow human being in the in the family of humanity, if you are angry at another person, Jesus says that you are liable to judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Did Jesus get angry?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Is there a time for anger at sin and injustice?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: But do you know about what the difference between Jesus' anger and our anger is?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' anger was never wrapped up with ego.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' anger was never wrapped up with self-justification.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' anger was never wrapped up with entitlement.
SPEAKER_00: And a moment's reflection, a moment's honesty, is that our anger, by and large, is it's because we're wrapped up in ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: How often is our anger or contempt of a person kindled because we feel bruised?
SPEAKER_00: Our ego is hurt.
SPEAKER_00: We want to justify ourselves, make people see right.
SPEAKER_00: We could get all high and mighty, but a moment's reflection tells us that our anger so often comes out of a place of self-love.
SPEAKER_00: When I raise my voice to my kids, which I do far too often, it says much more about me and about where my heart is at, and about what I prioritize.
SPEAKER_00: I you know, I just want peace and quiet and compliance to my lordship.
SPEAKER_00: It says so much more about me than it does about the thing that they have done.
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, like children need to be need to be disciplined, right?
SPEAKER_00: But to fly off the handle.
SPEAKER_00: It says so much more about me than it does about them.
SPEAKER_00: There's no doubt that parenting is hard, and I'm certainly not taking any shots at parents who are simply trying their best.
SPEAKER_00: God knows we are here, and we fail.
SPEAKER_00: And every parent knows that they fail.
SPEAKER_00: There's no doubt that parenting is hard, and that relationships in general are often fraught and fractious and afraid because you're having to contend with another human being who happens to be sinful as well, and two human beings who are sinful does not make a sinless relationship.
SPEAKER_00: But doesn't that all the more show us our need of inner transformation?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't the fact that like that we find it so hard to control ourselves in those exhausted moments show us all the more how much we need what Jesus is talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: We need his grace, we need his help.
SPEAKER_00: We don't just need to clean ourselves up on the outside, we need a heart change.
SPEAKER_00: Your anger, my anger, is murder in miniature.
SPEAKER_00: Think right back to the start of your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Why did Cain kill Abel?
SPEAKER_00: The two the two brothers, the first.
SPEAKER_00: The first murder in the Bible is there in Genesis chapter four.
SPEAKER_00: Why did Cain kill his brother Abel?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it wasn't an accident, it came out of his heart.
SPEAKER_00: He envied and resented his brother.
SPEAKER_00: And because he felt hard done by his anger was aroused.
SPEAKER_00: And out of his anger he struck his brother down.
SPEAKER_00: That same envy, that same resentment, and jealousy, and anger resides in each of us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus this morning is being like a master surgeon.
SPEAKER_00: He is reaching into your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And seeking to remove that resentful, egocentric, self-loving heart.
SPEAKER_00: And to transform you because the consequence of continuing to live out of a heart that is bitter and angry is that we are liable for judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Is that we are bound for hell.
SPEAKER_00: And nobody likes to talk about hell.
SPEAKER_00: But the stark reality is that if you were to do a uh a sermon series um based on Jesus' teaching in the Gospels, say you did it over a month, you'd do uh three sermons warning people about hell and one sermon on money.
SPEAKER_00: That is the warning.
SPEAKER_00: The werewolf deserves hell.
SPEAKER_00: And so do we.
SPEAKER_00: So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go.
SPEAKER_00: First be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
SPEAKER_00: Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest the accuser hand you over to the judge and the judge to the guard, and you'll be put in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
SPEAKER_00: Think of that first illustration of that person who is uh who is in in worship, in church is what we would say, right?
SPEAKER_00: They're in church, hands raised in worship.
SPEAKER_00: Well, all the while outside of church they have done something wrong, they have hurt a brother or a sister.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, don't stay.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Religious people like to exchange inner goodness for outward ceremony.
SPEAKER_00: Because outward, external ceremony, outward show is so much easier.
SPEAKER_00: It's so much easier than internal goodness.
SPEAKER_00: People love to substitute ceremony for true love, true integrity, true purity, but Jesus will have none of it.
SPEAKER_00: For Jesus, it is much more important to be reconciled with your brother or your sister than to be in public worship, than to participate in the ceremony.
SPEAKER_00: And note, if you would, the direction of accusation.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is saying that you're there in church and you remember that you have done something wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I bring that up is because somebody might think, Well, I have been hurt, I have been the victim of hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that I can't participate?
SPEAKER_00: No, that's not what Jesus is talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is talking about you know that you've said something, that you have done something, your brother, your sister is hurt because you've said something either wrong or the tone that you use was wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us might say the right thing, but we struggle to say it in the right way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's you know, maybe one of the things that I have to deal with.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' teaching here is that when it's on you and you know that it's on you, it is up to you to leave, to excuse yourself from the ceremony and go and be reconciled to your brother, to your sister, to your relative, because that's more important.
SPEAKER_00: It is more important that you are reconciled to them than you come and take communion whenever we are back and able to take communion.
SPEAKER_00: Because to sit there while you know that you have done something wrong, while you know that you have been intemperate is a sham.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a pretense, it's just you being an external religious person.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, No, get up, walk out of the room, go and apologize, repent, ask for forgiveness, plead for grace, hope for reconciliation, and then come back and worship with a clear conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you need to go and reconcile with?
SPEAKER_00: Are you sitting beside the person that you need to now pause this feed and say, look, the way I responded yesterday, I I am sorry, please forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: Go and do it now.
SPEAKER_00: So be on Facebook later.
SPEAKER_00: If you need to send a WhatsApp message and say, can I talk to you this afternoon?
SPEAKER_00: Do it now.
SPEAKER_00: Why does Jesus tell us to do this?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells us to do this because God has never wanted merely your outward obedience.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what God is after.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't want your perfunctory performance and your pretense and your sham religion.
SPEAKER_00: He wants your heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's all he's ever wanted.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to worship out of a pure heart, out of spirit and truth.
SPEAKER_00: Similarly, the second illustration about you know reconciling on the on the way to court before you get it's probably debtor's prison, which is not a thing that we have now.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're um if you were in debt to somebody, you would have to go uh to prison if you didn't kind of settle it out of court um until they the debt was paid.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is this Jesus says you need to reconcile as a matter of urgency.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a kind of uh I'll get to it or I'll let this kind of rumble on a little while longer.
SPEAKER_00: No, you deal with it now so that things don't escalate.
SPEAKER_00: They say that's you know, to the to the judge, the judge to the guard, and the guard into prison.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to make things worse for yourself, you want to deal with it as a matter of urgency to settle the grievance quickly.
SPEAKER_00: So, brothers, sisters, don't let things fester.
SPEAKER_00: Deal them quickly, and maybe there's wrong on both sides.
SPEAKER_00: You apologize for the stuff that was on you, you go and say, Look, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: And see if that doesn't melt the ice a bit, such that the person then says, Do you know when I said that and I did that, look, I'm sorry too.
SPEAKER_00: And if they don't, that's not on you.
SPEAKER_00: That's not on you.
SPEAKER_00: The desire for reconciliation, the desire to be friends again, reunited again, will only come from a heart that is loosening its grip on its own ego, on its own sense of entitlement.
SPEAKER_00: Such a person will become less self-serving and more self-giving.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the second reading is about from verses 38 to 42, when Jesus is talking about you being so look at verse 39.
SPEAKER_00: But I say to you, do not resist the uh one who is evil.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him also the other.
SPEAKER_00: And if anyone would sue you and take your chinock, let him have your cloak as well.
SPEAKER_00: And if someone forces you to go a mile, go with him two miles.
SPEAKER_00: Give to the one who begs for you from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
SPEAKER_00: People often get angry because their sense of entitlement has been ignored or contravened.
SPEAKER_00: I am entitled to this and I didn't get it.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to stand on this and I'm going to pound my fist on the counter of the restaurant or the shop that I'm in until my rights are heard.
SPEAKER_00: They get angry because they don't like to feel like they're being taken for a ride.
SPEAKER_00: How can this person do this to me?
SPEAKER_00: They're just taking advantage of me.
SPEAKER_00: The follower of Jesus counters the culture of entitlements by willingly laying aside their rights.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the three illustrations that Jesus gives.
SPEAKER_00: In turning the other cheek, Jesus is not saying, listen to this, Jesus is not saying that Christians should willingly endure physical violence.
SPEAKER_00: He is not saying that.
SPEAKER_00: If you are enduring physical violence in a relationship that you are in, you need to extricate yourself from that relationship.
SPEAKER_00: You need to get out and seek help and contact us if you are in Dublin and we will help you.
SPEAKER_00: This is not if you are struck in the cheek by a violent partner, you turn to them the other.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: Slap on the cheek in the inch in the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it was uh it was like in Robo and Juliet, you know, you kind of do you bite your thumb at me, sir.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's kind of it's uh it's a sign of insult.
SPEAKER_00: So it would have been just a code.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus saying if somebody insults you, not assaults you.
SPEAKER_00: If somebody insults you, you don't give back to them as good as you get.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you're just a how dare you say that to me, you piece of Jesus is saying, No, no, you don't give as good as you get.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, he's saying, you absorb the heart, you absorb the insult, you walk away.
SPEAKER_00: Your cloak in the ancient world, so you've been sued for your chinock, and Jesus says, Give them your cloak as well.
SPEAKER_00: Your cloak, which was uh one of your outer garment, one of your outer garments.
SPEAKER_00: You had two main garments.
SPEAKER_00: If you were a guy, you had your chinock and you had your outer cloak, and everyone was legally entitled to a cloak, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: You were legally entitled to your cloak, you couldn't be sued for it, somebody couldn't take it from you.
SPEAKER_00: It was your right.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying, you give the guy suing you your cloak.
SPEAKER_00: That is, the follower of Jesus needs to be prepared to abandon those things that are his right for the sake of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: We set aside our rights, we set aside our entitlements in order to commend Jesus to others.
SPEAKER_00: The third one about uh you know forcing to walk a mile, you go to that comes from the uh the Roman world.
SPEAKER_00: So a Roman soldier could commandeer you.
SPEAKER_00: Say you're kind of you're walking one way and a Roman soldier is coming you the other way, and he's carrying his backpack, right?
SPEAKER_00: He can stop you, he has the right to stop you and say, You need to turn around and come with me for one mile and carry that for me to give me relief.
SPEAKER_00: That was a legal obligation in the ancient world, and that's an inconvenience, right?
SPEAKER_00: If you're walking here one way and this Roman soldier's coming along telling you, actually, no, you've got to double back and waste another mile, Jesus is saying, go with them too.
SPEAKER_00: Go with them too.
SPEAKER_00: Be prepared to be inconvenienced.
SPEAKER_00: That is that the followers of Jesus will not feel hard done by or irritable, but that they go the second mile.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're thinking at this point, how does anybody keep this?
SPEAKER_00: How does anybody live like this?
SPEAKER_00: Can I say you're supposed to?
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of the Sermon on the Mount, and that's why, thirdly, Jesus' teaching on anger shows us our desperate need of grace.
SPEAKER_00: All of this taken together shows us that external rule keeping isn't what Jesus is after.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what a counterculture is.
SPEAKER_00: But what it also shows us is that it is impossible to live like this without his help.
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible to live the way that he is describing without him intervening.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is requiring here a change of heart for everyone who would follow him.
SPEAKER_00: Because we all default, don't we, to defending ourselves, to retaliating, to harboring grudges, to feeling hard done by and resentful.
SPEAKER_00: How do you take a heart like that and make it willing to be forgiving, willing to be generous?
SPEAKER_00: It's right that you should listen to the Sermon in the Mind here this morning and feel helpless because you are, and that's the point.
SPEAKER_00: The Sermon in the Mind is not a checklist to be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to make you stop and say, How can any of us escape hell if this is the standard?
SPEAKER_00: You later on the Sermon of the Mind, Jesus says, Your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: The answer is none of us.
SPEAKER_00: And then we remember that Jesus didn't come just to make you a bit more moral, to clean you up on the outside.
SPEAKER_00: He came to reach into your chest and to remove that angry, resentful, jealous, self-loving, grudge-harbouring organ from your chest, and to give you a new heart is a gift of his grace.
SPEAKER_00: It's a gift of his grace.
SPEAKER_00: Those of you who are particularly studious will notice that we skipped over a section.
SPEAKER_00: We skipped over the section where Jesus says that uh do not think that I have come, this is verse 17, to abolish the law or the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
SPEAKER_00: All of Jesus' teaching subsequent to that hangs on this idea that Jesus is the perfect law keeper for us.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is the one who fulfills all of the requirements of never looking resentfully or with bitterness or with egotistical anger at another person.
SPEAKER_00: He fulfills it for you.
SPEAKER_00: The werewolf in the werewolf myth so often tries to control his inner rage.
SPEAKER_00: He knows his triggers, it's the full moon, right?
SPEAKER_00: He knows what's going to set him off, and so he takes measures to counter it.
SPEAKER_00: He restrains himself, he locks himself in a cage so that when the triggers come, he doesn't do damage.
SPEAKER_00: There is value in you knowing what makes your blood boil, what's your full moon.
SPEAKER_00: There's value in you knowing what your cages and restraints are, but it is not enough.
SPEAKER_00: What the werewolf needs, what the werewolf wants, is to be freed from the curse.
SPEAKER_00: What you want, what I want, as I have studied this this week, is to be freed from the curse.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what Jesus offers in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the only one who has ever lived who did not allow his ego to cause him to lash out.
SPEAKER_00: He suffered false accusations, blows of violence, and never spoke words of vengeance.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he spoke words of forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus died for angry people like me.
SPEAKER_00: He experienced the hell that I deserve for my resentful, egocentric temper.
SPEAKER_00: And in exchange, he has shown me grace.
SPEAKER_00: He shattered and is shattering my ego by showing me that I am helpless without him.
SPEAKER_00: He is bidding us all to look in that awful mirror this morning.
SPEAKER_00: That mirror of our own sin.
SPEAKER_00: And then to look to him for grace.
SPEAKER_00: What he means to cultivate in us is a look 18 attitude.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke 18, he tells the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisee stands with puffed out chests and says, Oh God, I thank you that I am not like this Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you that I am better than other men.
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisee cannot even lift his eyes to heaven and beats his breast and says, Have mercy on me, God, a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: We turn aside from our anger.
SPEAKER_00: God uproots our anger when we see that we have nothing in ourselves to claim entitlement over, that it all comes from Him, that it's all in service to Him.
SPEAKER_00: He took my hell and gave me His heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He took my murder in miniature and gave me His fullness of life.
SPEAKER_00: That is not to say that I am now perfect.
SPEAKER_00: That is not to say that I will now no longer ever again raise my voice to my children.
SPEAKER_00: But by God's grace, I'm not what I once was.
SPEAKER_00: And by God's grace, the Father looks at me with all of my faults and failings and sees not my egocentricity, but sees the perfect righteousness of his son.
SPEAKER_00: Thank God he does.
SPEAKER_00: And that he now has given me his spirit so that I can turn aside from anger.
SPEAKER_00: Because I can turn aside from my own desire for control, desire to be right all the time, and not just to be right all the time, but to be seen to be right all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that he would work that more.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reality of every Jesus follower.
SPEAKER_00: And it is from that transformed heart that we live lives that are now filled with gratitude, that are generous and forgiving, they're willing to set aside wrongs and hurts.
SPEAKER_00: They're willing to forgive because we know the depth that we have been forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: We long to be reconciled with our brothers and sisters that we have harmed because we know the sweetness of being reconciled to our God.
SPEAKER_00: We cultivate self-sacrifice rather than self-service.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus has generously, by his death and resurrection, given us a heart like his, as he lavishly laid down, set aside all his rights, and laid down his life for us.
SPEAKER_00: That's the heart that the Christian now has by the grace of God, empowered and fueled and energized by the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to leave you with a note of hope.
SPEAKER_00: Do not feel that at the end of this, that you cannot turn aside from your anger, that you can make no progress in the rage that you feel.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe some of your rage is so deep that you scarce want to look at it.
SPEAKER_00: Progress begins by a recognition of our own need, of our own helplessness.
SPEAKER_00: And what God lavishes on you then is his abundant, undeserved kindness and grace.
SPEAKER_00: And so he gives you new desires.
SPEAKER_00: He gives you a new heart.
SPEAKER_00: That is no longer addicted to self.
SPEAKER_00: That is willing to set aside all things in order to follow the one who loved your soul.
SPEAKER_00: If you need in this time, and with this I'll finish, if you need in this time to talk to somebody about the way that you feel, about the anger that you scarce want to look at, but who behind closed doors it erupts, it erupts in your relationships, it erupts towards your children as well.
SPEAKER_00: Would you reach out to me, to Duncan, to Ben, to Peter, someone, another brother or sister at City Church, to say, can I talk to you about the sermon on Sunday?
SPEAKER_00: And by God's grace we will make progress together.
SPEAKER_00: And one day God will complete that good work, and the curse will be lifted, and all of our werewolves will be dead.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for his kindness that he shows us that our anger is murder in miniature.
SPEAKER_00: May we feel the weight of that, and may that weight both drive us away from indulging those emotions, but also drive us to Jesus, who soothes our angry hearts and transforms them into hearts of flesh that are sensitive to him, that are made after his own heart of self-giving, generosity.
SPEAKER_00: Help us, we pray.
SPEAKER_00: We need it, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Give us your spirit afresh, we ask in the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.