Sunday message · That’s What He Said series
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Message Summary
In the eleventh message of That’s What He Said, the church’s series through the Sermon on the Mount, Pastor Phillip Santillan turns to Matthew 5:21–30. The church studies Scripture, he says, to ask how it would guide the way we live if what it says about God and his mission is true. So far Jesus has described the blessed life he himself modeled, called his followers salt and light, and said he came to fulfill the law, closing the gap between God’s standards and our tendency to live our own way.
So what are God’s standards for living life his way? Jesus answers with six examples, and this week covers the first two, murder and adultery. Some things only make sense once life forces us to understand them, Phil says, like how much his father loved him, which he grasped only after becoming a parent. Jesus was about to change how his listeners understood God, using two subjects everyone thought they already understood.
Jesus quotes the command against murder, then says anger and contempt also bring judgment. Pastor and seminary professor Kent Hughes calls murder the ultimate fracture of human relationships, and Jesus moves beyond preserving life to preserving relationships. Raca was a slang insult calling someone brainless, while calling someone a fool attacked their heart and character. Phil once said Jesus raised the bar here, but now sees that Jesus simply upheld the standard God had already revealed, which the religious leaders had lowered with rules they could keep. God’s goal is reconciled relationships with him and with others, summed up in loving God and loving your neighbor (Matthew 22). So Jesus tells listeners to be reconciled with anyone they have wronged before offering their gift, and Hughes warns that worship is merely pretense if others hold grudges against us.
Adultery is wrong, but it too starts in the heart, and Proverbs 4:23 says to guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. God wants his people to honor him from the inside out. Few people set out to become murderers or adulterers, Phil says, yet most of us can quickly recall contempt, anger or desires we would never act on, and he admits failing many times in these ways. That makes God’s love through Jesus all the more striking: all are welcome to come as they are, not to stay as they are, but to become God’s masterpiece, created anew in Christ for the good works God planned long ago.
Noting that the New Testament church repented together, Phil invites everyone to search their hearts for where they have fallen short. To anyone resisting, he asks who wins when we refuse to repent. Not us, and not God’s glory or mission, but sin and the powers of darkness. Are we okay with that? He calls for a renewed commitment to increasingly submit all of life to Jesus as master and savior, and closes in a prayer of confession, asking for courage to live by God’s word so that Jesus becomes greater and we become less.
Questions about anger and lust in Matthew 5
Raca was an insult, an Aramaic expression of contempt that, as Pastor Phil explains, called someone brainless (Matthew 5:22). Jesus said anyone who says it to his brother will answer to the Sanhedrin, and anyone who says “You fool!” to the fire of hell. Where Raca mocked someone’s mind, “fool” attacked their heart and character, and both show the contempt Jesus says brings judgment.
Jesus said anger and contempt bring judgment, just as murder does: “anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:22). He wasn’t raising the bar, Pastor Phil says, but upholding the standard God had already revealed, which religious leaders had lowered to rules they could keep. God’s goal is reconciled relationships, so Jesus moves from preserving life to preserving relationships.
It means making things right with people comes before worship. Jesus said that if you remember at the altar that your brother has something against you, “leave your gift there before the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23–24). Kent Hughes, whom Pastor Phil quotes, warns that worship is merely pretense if others hold grudges against us.
It means adultery, like murder, starts in the heart: “anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Few people set out to become adulterers, Pastor Phil says, yet most of us can recall desires we would never act on. God wants us to honor him from the inside out, and through Jesus everyone is welcome to come as they are, but not to stay that way.