Unrighteousness is Murder

1. Unrighteousness is Murder

2. A Review of the Emotions and Your Life

3. Wise A Believer Makes a Choice Based on Truth + Glorifies God + - Does Not Glorify God THOUGHT THOUGHT Truth You Decision Fool emotion emotion - - Does Not Glorify God Ps 143:10, Jn 14:26, 1 Cor 2:12-16 Ps 143:10, Rom 8:4, Gal 5:16 Teaching Quenching/Grieving Leading Quenching/Grieving The Holy Spirit

4. A Believer Makes a Choice Based on Emotion Glorifies God Flow Interrupted + Irrelevant Broken thought Truth You FOOL Decision EMOTION - - Disconnected From Thought and Truth Does Not Glorify God Subtle Arrogance, Rom 6:13 & 12:1 thought EMOTION Teaching Quenching/Grieving Leading The Holy Spirit

5. The Law: What You THINK Matters as Much as What you Do.

6. Matthew 5:21-26      21     “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be guilty before the judge.’      22     “Now I say to you that _________________ everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the judge; 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. prohibition Ex 20:13; Dt 5:17 Commandment Not a quote of the OT consequence Interpretation progression?

7. Application: Priority for Others  23“Therefore IF You are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, THEN 24Leave your offering there before the altar and go; First be reconciled to your brother, and Then after coming backpresent your offering.

8. Reconciliation 25“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. 26“AMEN I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the last cent.

9. The Teaching principle murder Judicial GUILT anger verbal attack application Judicial GUILT any sin against a brother or reconciliation

10. Evaluations

11. Mt 5:27-30: Adultery You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery” Now I am saying to you that Everyone who looks at a woman towards the goal of lusting after her has already adulterated her in his heart. Ex 20:14, Dt 5:17

12. Adultery again! • Adultery is a sin that an individual can commit! • The woman who has been “adulterated” is not necessarily party to the sin, though she can be. • What would be viewed as a physical transgression is moved again to the heart of man. • The point of sin is the motivation for the act. • Looking at a woman is not a sin. • Looking at her in order to lust after her is a sin. • You can be perfectly “clean” physically and yet rotten to the core. • And though you have made mistakes both mentally and physically, you can be “cleansed from all unrighteousness.”

13. Mt 5:27-28: Adultery 27You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery” 28Now I am saying to you that Everyone who looks at a woman towards the goal of lusting after her has already adulterated her in his heart.

14. There is NO PLACE in the Christian Life for “water cooler” conversations about people of the opposite sex.

15. A Tough Remedy... 29Now if your right eye causes you to stumble (SKANDALIZW), tear it out and throw it from you; FOR it is profitable to you that one of your members be destroyed, and the entirety of your body not be thrown in Gehenna!

16. ...Repeated! 30And if your right hand causes you to stumble (SKANDALIZW), hack it off and throw it from you! FOR it is profitable for you that one of your members be destroyed And the entirety of your body not go into Gehenna!

17. A Literal Interpretation of a FIGURE • This passage is not recommending self-mutilation. • It also does not teach that you go to Gehenna for committing adultery. • All people are unrighteous by God’s standards and so fall short of the Law’s righteous requirements. • Remember the context: the Law demands righteousness inside-out, and adultery is an example of inner unrighteousness. • The remedy for the inward sin is portrayed by the remedy of outward sin: removal of the cause of the offense. • How can you remove the heart, the real cause of sin? • The remedy for sin here deals with separation from the cause of the offense.

18. Put nothing before your eyes or hands that tempts you to sin! • gambling • drinking • entertainment • Yet this does not address the heart of the problem. • We need HELP! Jer 17:19 • In other words, you are going to Gehenna whether you have committed adultery physically or not. • The only solution to our unrighteousness is the gift of God’s Righteousness.

19. Let’s Do Some Theology • Q: What is lust? • A: Desire for something you should not have. • Therefore it is a mental attitude sin. • Why do we have it? • The Fall—our Old Sin Nature supplies us with plenty of lust. • Were we not created with the capacity for desire?

20. Biblical Anthropology • We were made to desire God. Prov 8-9 • Yet now our desires tend towards sin: Matt 5:27-30, Jer 17:19, Gen 11, etc. • What was given to us as a capacity for worshiping God is now corrupted as a desire for self-gratification. • Desire for rapport with God has been replaced in the “natural man” with lust for self-promotion. • So now the only real promotion of man—fellowship with God—has been cut off by man’s efforts to promote himself! • This is the irony of the sin nature. • Summary: What you really want is not always what you “feel like.” What you really want is what God wants for you.