The Sin Beneath the Symptoms / Matthew 5:27-37
Good evening, friends. How are you? It is good to be with you. Happy New Year! You made it through 2018—some of you more successfully than others. I was talking to a few people before the service, and you could see some weary eyes saying, “I finally got the family out of my house. I’m glad they’re gone.” Family is great, and it’s always wonderful to have them around, but there is definitely a sense of exhaustion that comes with it.
I’m Mike, and if I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you yet, I get the great privilege of opening the Word tonight with you and studying through the Gospel of Matthew. If you have a Bible, turn with me to Matthew chapter five. We are stepping into the third week of our look at the Sermon on the Mount, which has rightly been identified as the greatest sermon ever preached. Matthew chapters five through seven capture Jesus’s words spoken to the people in Galilee. This was the heartbeat and the epicenter of everything He believed and taught.
A Righteousness That Goes Deeper
As we journey through this series, it is essential to carry with us what we have already studied. Last week, we looked at the call for God’s people to be salt and light. Jesus calls His followers to live distinctly and differently. We are called to a high standard. In Jesus’s day, the scribes and the Pharisees set the bar for what people thought righteousness looked like. Yet, Jesus offered a stunning and condemning statement in Matthew 5:20 where we left off last week. He said that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:20 (NASB)
’For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses [that] of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus was saying, “You need a completely different type of righteousness.” The Pharisees adhered to a self-righteousness that they brought before God to earn His favor. God says, “No, you need a righteousness that I provide on your behalf.” It is for those who are bankrupt in spirit, who recognize their desperate need for God.
Beginning in Matthew 5:21, Jesus gives six classic examples of what this greater righteousness looks like. He addresses six areas of the Old Testament law that the religious leaders had misinterpreted. Six times He will say, “You have heard it said, but I say to you.” He flips their entire system upside down. He deals with anger, lust, divorce, oaths, retaliation, and love. In every area, He rejects their external oral traditions and reveals God’s original, heart-level intent for the law. As one commentator noted, Jesus establishes a new covenant where God’s law is internalized, claiming sovereign authority over Moses and the religious leaders to declare how the law applies to His followers.
The Root of Murder: The Heart of Anger
Let’s look at the first illustration, where Jesus addresses the issue of murder and anger.
Matthew 5:21 (NASB)
’You have heard that the ancients were told, ’YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT MURDER ’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’
When we hear that, most of us breathe a sigh of relief and think, Okay, I’m good. I haven’t killed anyone. The ancients Jesus referred to were the original recipients of the Mosaic Law at Mount Sinai, where the Sixth Commandment, “You shall not murder,” was given.
Exodus 20:13 (NASB)
’You shall not murder.
Jesus notes that anyone who murders is liable to the court—the Sanhedrin, the highest ruling council in Jerusalem. But then Jesus raises the standard completely.
Matthew 5:22 (NASB)
’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 says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty [enough to go] into the fiery hell.
Those are strong, piercing words. Jesus moves past the external action of murder straight to the internal condition of anger. He uses the Aramaic insult Raca, which means “empty-headed” or “airhead.” He speaks of calling someone a “fool,” from the Greek word moros, which implies a godless idiot. Jesus is saying that hurling insulting, contemptuous words at someone exposes a heart of murderous anger. And that anger makes you guilty not just before a human court, but before God, liable to the fire of Gehenna—the burning valley outside Jerusalem.
Jesus is showing us that God does not merely look at the symptom of murder; He looks at the disease of anger that causes it.
Back when I was in high school, I played on the soccer team. I spent a lot of time warming the bench because I played alongside some incredible players. One morning, we were in the weight room doing bicep curls, and I looked down at my hands. It looked like someone had inserted golf balls into every single joint of my fingers. My fingers were swelling rapidly. I excused myself, called my mom who worked as a dental receptionist, and asked, “Mom, is this normal?” She said, “No, that sounds very strange. You need to see a doctor immediately.”
It turned out I had rheumatic fever. I had contracted strep throat days earlier and, being a stubborn sixteen-year-old, I had ignored it. The strep throat developed into rheumatic fever. The swelling in my fingers was just a symptom of a deeper disease that was actively attacking my heart. Without antibiotics, it could have caused permanent damage. That is exactly what Jesus is exposing here. The external act of murder is terrible, but the internal disease of harboring anger and contempt in your heart is just as deadly before God.
When Relationships Trump Ritual
Jesus immediately gives two practical illustrations of how to deal with anger urgently. Here is the first:
Matthew 5:23-24 (NASB)
’Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.
Picture a Jewish worshiper standing at the altar in the temple, about to present a sacrifice to atone for sin. Jesus says that even in the middle of this vital religious act, if you remember that your brother has something against you, you must stop everything. Leave your gift right there, go be reconciled to your brother, and only then return to offer your gift.
Jesus is telling us that relationship supersedes ritual. God does not want outward religious motions when your heart is harboring bitterness or when you have unresolved conflict with a brother or sister. The command to “be reconciled” is an imperative. God desires internal purity and relational reconciliation over religious performance.
This hits close to home for me. My biological father was an abusive alcoholic, and our home was ruled by anger. My earliest memory is of him screaming at my mother and the violence that filled our house. As much as I despised that growing up, I have realized the older I get that the same tendency toward anger lives within me. I don’t explode or become physically violent, but I constantly battle internal frustration. When I am doing mundane chores like mowing the lawn or taking a shower, I will catch my mind fabricating arguments with people who have wronged me, saying things in my head that I would never say to their face. Even though I have never wished someone dead, that same seed of anger is present. God tells me, “Mike, the most godly thing you can do is stop, repent, and make things right.”
Jesus gives a second scenario highlighting the urgency of reconciliation.
Matthew 5:25-26 (NASB)
’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.
Jesus paints a picture of someone on their way to court with an adversary over an unpaid debt. He urges them to settle the matter quickly before they reach the judge, get handed over to the officer, and end up in prison until every last penny is paid. The point is simple: do not let relational grievances linger. Deal with conflict quickly and aggressively before hardness of heart leads to severe consequences.
Radical Amputation: Going to War with the Heart
Next, Jesus moves from anger to the issue of sexual purity and adultery.
Matthew 5:27-28 (NASB)
’You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Once again, Jesus quotes from the Ten Commandments.
Exodus 20:14 (NASB)
’You shall not commit adultery.
People in His audience might have thought, Well, I have never had an affair, so I am righteous. But Jesus says that looking at someone with lustful intent means you have already committed adultery with them in your heart. The physical act of adultery is simply the fruit; the root is cultivated in the heart and the imagination.
Jesus then uses startling, graphic hyperbole to illustrate how seriously we must treat internal sin.
Matthew 5:29-30 (NASB)
’If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. ’If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
Why does Jesus mention the right eye and the right hand? Because the eyes and hands are the primary instruments through which sexual sin is pursued, and in the ancient world, the right eye and right hand represented strength and defense. Is Jesus advocating literal self-mutilation? Of course not. Gouging out an eye or cutting off a hand would not stop lust, because lust originates in the heart. Rather, Jesus is demanding that we take drastic, radical measures to eliminate the avenues of temptation in our lives.
I had a friend in college who struggled with compulsive spending on his credit card. His creative solution was to place his credit card in a cup of water and freeze it solid in the freezer. He reasoned that whenever he felt the urge to buy something, he would have to wait for the ice to melt, which would give him time to cool down and make a wise choice. But sure enough, the next time he wanted to buy something, he pulled the cup out of the freezer, grabbed a hammer, smashed the block of ice, retrieved the card, and spent the money anyway!
External tricks do not change a deceitful heart. What Jesus calls for is a relentless willingness to wage war against the flesh and dismantle sin at its root.
The Danger of Playing with Sin
In August 2018, an eighteen-foot African rock python asphyxiated a thirty-one-year-old man named Daniel Brandon in England. What made the story so shocking was that this did not happen in the African wild; it happened in his own bedroom. The snake, named Tiny, had been Daniel’s pet since it was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. He had raised it for sixteen years, keeping it in his home alongside several other reptiles. Over time, Tiny grew from a harmless little pet into an overpowering predator. One day, the python wrapped around him and suffocated him to death.
That is an accurate and terrifying picture of how sin works. We often adopt pet sins. We play with them, keep them around, and convince ourselves we have them completely under control because they seem small. But left unchecked, sin grows, gains power, and ultimately destroys us. As Ravi Zacharias wisely said, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.” Disciples of Jesus must deal ruthlessly with sin before it consumes them.
The Sacred Nature of Covenant
Finally, Jesus addresses the issue of marriage and divorce.
Matthew 5:31-32 (NASB)
’It was said, ‘WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for [the] reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Jesus references the Mosaic provision found in Deuteronomy 24:1, where a certificate of divorce was permitted if a husband found “indecency” in his wife.
Deuteronomy 24:1 (NASB)
’When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts [it] in her hand and sends her out from his house,
In Jesus’s day, two major rabbinic schools fiercely debated what “indecency” meant. One school taught a very loose interpretation, arguing that a man could divorce his wife for virtually any reason—even if she burned his dinner! The other school held a much stricter view. Jesus cuts through the debate and goes straight to the heart: looking for legal loopholes to abandon your spouse reveals a hard, unfaithful heart.
Jesus elevates marriage back to God’s original design. Marriage is not merely a social contract; it is a sacred covenant. In the Old Testament, covenants were unconditional promises. God made covenants with Noah, Abraham, and David based on His own unchanging faithfulness. In ancient covenant ceremonies, animals were cut in half, and the covenanting parties would walk between the pieces, declaring that they would rather be torn apart than break their word. When God covenanted with Abraham, God alone passed through the pieces, signifying that He would fulfill His promise regardless of human failure.
When a husband and wife stand at the altar, they are not exchanging flimsy contractual promises; they are establishing a covenant that reflects God’s steadfast, unilateral love. Jesus is calling His followers back to that profound sanctity.
We recognize that divorce is deeply painful, and many people have walked through the heartbreaking reality of broken marriages, abuse, or abandonment. Scripture recognizes specific instances where divorce and remarriage occur due to marital unfaithfulness or abandonment. As a pastoral team, we desire to walk alongside and shepherd anyone who has experienced this pain. Yet Jesus’s fundamental point across all these teachings remains clear: God cares deeply about the state of our hearts.
Dealing with the Disease
Jesus is continually pulling back the curtain of our external behavior to examine what is happening inside us. Have you ever murdered someone? Perhaps not. But have you harbored hatred and spoken contemptuously toward another person? Have you committed physical adultery? Maybe not. But have you nurtured lust in your mind? Have you treated sacred commitments casually?
Paul summarizes our calling as believers in Romans 6:
Romans 6:12-14 (NASB)
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin [as] instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members [as] instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
As citizens of the kingdom of God, we cannot be satisfied with mere outward morality while our hearts are infected with hidden sin. We need the courage to be honest before God about the symptoms we see in our lives and invite Him to heal the underlying disease.
Let’s pray together.
Father, thank You for Your Word, which is living, active, and penetrating. It searches our hearts and exposes the areas where we have settled for surface-level righteousness. Forgive us for harboring anger, indulging lust, and treating our commitments lightly. Give us the humility to seek reconciliation with those we have hurt, the courage to wage war against the sin in our flesh, and the grace to walk in the righteousness that only Jesus provides. Shape our hearts to reflect Your kingdom, and lead us into true holiness. In Jesus’ name, Amen.