When Empty Pews Mean Progress- Matthew 5:23-24

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Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

Matthew 5:23-24

Can you think of anything more important that worshiping our Lord and Savior, the Creator of the Universe, and the King of Kings? Now, I have to clarify that I am actually asking "should there be anything more important?" I must insert that should because in practice most of us seem to find many things more important than worship including rest from a long weekend, school projects that are due and have been procrastinated, entertainment, sports, or any number of other things that might come up and trump our desire to worship. But we are not thinking about what we actually practice; we are talking about what we hold as shoulds and oughts. Can  you think of anything in this world that should take precedence over worship? Is there any use of your time that ought to be listed as a higher priority than praising God?

I think most of us would say, "no." But Jesus says there is one thing that absolutely must be done before we come before the Almighty God to worship. In fact, he says that reconciling with those we have wronged is so important, that it is worth actually interrupting our worship to fix the matter immediately.

Why does Jesus present this matter with such urgency? Why must apologies happen right now instead of later?

I believe the answer to that lies in the passage that precedes this one and that we looked at last week. The one that says uncontrolled anger in one's heart is equivalent to murder in God's eyes. But still the question remains...why is the way we treat others so important to God?

Perhaps James 3:9-12 can help shed some light on God's perspective for us:

"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. ¹¹ Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? ¹² My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water."

I liken it to the "Mother Bear Syndrome" that I've heard my dad talk about. Mother Bear Syndrome refers to the fact that my mom is one of the most patient people I know (she had 5 children!). She does not anger easily and she is quick to believe the best about someone...until you mess with one of her five children! If she feels that someone is hurting one of her cubs, then you'd better look out! Mother Bear just might pull her claws out and show some fangs! Can you imagine someone who has purposefully-- or even just carelessly--hurt me or one of my siblings approaching my mom and telling her how wonderful she is as a person and as a mother as if nothing had happened between that person and her child!? Do you really think my mom would care to hear from that person at that moment no matter how sincere the praise for her was!?

If we recognize that about a human mother, then why do we dare to approach the throne of our heavenly Father with praise on our lips when we have made no attempt to repair a relationship that we have damaged with one of His children who is created in His image !

Maybe one of the reasons the Bible Belt has so many different congregations on every block, and so many fluctuations in numbers as members of the body of Christ "change membership" when things get rough is that we have never really taken this instruction from Jesus seriously. Maybe one reason young people leave the church in huge numbers is that they have witnessed their parents abusing each other and their children over being late to worship and tempers are out of control until the car pulls into the parking lot of the building where we praise God. Maybe the church across America is struggling to grow and gain new converts to Christianity because Jesus said that others will know we are His disciples by our love for one another, and yet we have been content to hold worship services without first doing everything in our power to mend broken relationships before we bow in worship on Sunday morning.

People worry about numbers declining in churches all the time. But I can't think of anything I'd rather thank God for than if next Sunday church buildings across the nation were only half full because the folks who usually fill the pews have left their offering at the door of the church building in order to track down a brother or sister that they know...or just think they might have wronged.

Can you imagine the joy of worship that would result when all of those who are fulfilling Jesus' command here in Matthew 5:23-24 returned to worship arm in arm with the one they had been at odds with on Saturday!?

The hardest teaching of Jesus for brothers! Matthew 5:21-22

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ ²² But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Matthew 5:21-22 

I am the middle child of 5 and all of my siblings are about 1.5 years apart...and we are all pretty competitive. Let's just say the quote below from Phillip Yancey's The Jesus I Never Knew hit close to home!

"Growing up with an older brother, I fretted this verse. Can two brothers weather the storms of adolescence without relying on words such as "stupid" and "fool"?

We must remember as we look at this verse what we talked about last week...that Jesus introduced this part of the sermon by stating that unless our righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees we will not enter the kingdom heaven. I like what Yancey wrote about the six "You have heard that it was said/ but I say to you" statements that Jesus makes in the sermon on the mount. In fact, I like them better than I feel that I can write about them, so most of this post will be his writing. First he points out that,

"Using the Torah as a starting point, Jesus pushed the law in the same direction, further than any Pharisee had dared push it, further than any monk has dared live it....Jesus made the law impossible for anyone to keep, then charged us to keep it."

But then he says,

"For years I had thought of the Sermon on the Mount as a blueprint for human behavior that no one could possibly follow. Reading it again, I found that Jesus gave these words not to cumber us, but to tell us what God is like....Why should we love our enemies? Because our clement Father causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good. Why be perfect? Because God is perfect....How could I have missed it? Jesus did not proclaim the Sermon on the Mount so that we would...furrow our brows in despair over our failure to achieve perfection. He gave it to impart to us God's Ideal toward which we should never stop striving, but also to show that none of us will ever reach that Ideal. The Sermon on the Mount forces us to recognize the great distance between God and us, and any attempt to reduce that distance by somehow moderating its demands misses the point altogether.

The worst tragedy would be to turn the Sermon on the Mount into another form of legalism; it should rather put an end to all legalism. Legalism like the Pharisees' will always fail, not because it is too strict but because it is not strict enough. Thunderously, inarguably, the Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper throwers.... We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace."

We say we know it...that all sins are equal before God. But we never think twice about losing our temper with our families or with a particularly worrisome, annoying, or selfish person in front of us. And we typically feel justified in our lashing out. Do we not take seriously Jesus' instruction about bursts of anger being liable to the fires of hell? Are we willing to bet our eternal souls that He didn't really mean what He was saying and was simply exaggerating to make a point!? Or do we despair, because try as we might to change our attitudes and control our tongues, the fire keeps fanning into flames that burn our families and neighbors occasionally?

The answer in Christ...is a resounding neither.

We aim for God's "absolute Ideal," as Yancey calls it, with everything that we have...not out of legalism, but out of desire to imitate the love that we have seen and experienced in God. Picture it as a child who looks pitifully cute standing in his daddy's clothes that are way too big for him to fill. But he puts them on anyway because he wants to be like his daddy. And the scrawny little boy trying to fill his daddy's full-grown clothes couldn't possibly make his dad any prouder.

Yes, we aim for the absolute Ideal and when we fail and fall short of it, we glory even more in God's grace as we see through scripture his smile at our desire to "wear his clothes." And that smile causes our desire to be as forgiving and as loving to others as our Father is to us grow even more. And one day...even if it is the day we meet Jesus in the air, we will finally fill out those clothes and they will fit perfectly naturally for the rest of our eternal lives.

BUT WE MUST AIM AND NOT SETTLE FOR BEING "GOOD ENOUGH" AND/OR BETTER THAN THE MURDERERS 

FOR OUR GOD IS PERFECTLY RIGHTEOUS!

What are you aiming for? What are you trusting in? What would it look like for you to aim for God's patience, God's "slow to anger" nature, God's love, and God's forgiveness this week?

Quit Being Angry about Being Angry. Try a New Approach."- Proverbs 15:1

"A truism like this needs no comment. Quiet, unoffensive speech has been effective in preventing many a violent encounter."

That's the only comment made on this verse in the Coffman commentary series. It almost made me feel foolish for even bothering to look it up since the proverb really doesn't need much of an explanation. And yet, the truth contained in this proverb may be one of the most difficult principles to apply even in the most mature Christian life. We can all think of those moments when we absolutely lost it. We can all think of even more moments that happen on a daily basis where we are simply short with our spouses, or our children... the moments where we're not exactly out of control, but we say something in a tone of voice that is just a little more harsh than is beneficial. And the result is to simply stir up the anger that is already in the person we are trying to put in their place. What good does that do!? Well...that's the whole point of the proverb! So how do we begin to exercise this principle and not simply give mental assent to it? How does the Christian finally stop using harsh words and start using gentle words?

Let me say at the very beginning that this is an area I struggle with. I don't have it down, and I'm not speaking from expertise. However, I have noticed a pattern of when I am more and less successful and it coincides exactly with the wisdom written centuries ago by other inspired writers. I've posted Colossians 3:1-17 below. I urge you to take the time to read it, and then pick up your own Bible and read it again, because I'm convinced that the answer to our anger issues and a host of others lies within these words.

3 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³ For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

⁵ Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶ Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. ⁷ You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. ⁸ But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹ Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹ Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³ Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴ And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
¹⁵ Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Here's the point that I hope you saw as you read through this. When I am more disciplined about my time with God, I can tell a difference in my level of control with my words, emotions, and attitudes. When life has gotten so busy that my times in study, prayer, and quiet have taken a back seat, my family especially suffers for it. Maybe we spend too much time feeling guilty about past "harsh words" and vowing to not use them again, only to get to the next stressful situation...and do it again! Maybe we spend too much time going through that cycle without actually simply spending time with God. Paul wrote in the passage above about the new self that it is being "renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator." If we want to start looking more and more like Christ, then we need to start looking more and more at Christ. We have tried long enough to fix ourselves. It doesn't work. Let's instead VOW to go before God in scripture, prayer, meditation, and quiet and let Him start molding us into the image of His son. After all, are we actually silly enough to think that our tools are more efficient than His!?

We've recognized the truth of Proverbs 15:1 for a long time now. We've seen the way our rudeness and harshness only makes the situation worse and the relationship gap wider. It's time to move past agreeing with the truth and start acting on it. But maybe...just maybe... the first action step needs to be blocking out a time each morning, afternoon, or evening, to gain a more intimate knowledge of the One we are trying to imitate.

Arghhh! She calls me "Dosh!"

Fools show their annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult.

- Proverbs 12:16

Recognize this face? I do. I feel like I've worn it constantly for the past couple of days at home. Let me explain. I'm a fool. That's all there is to it. I've taught teens and adults alike about the importance of not giving someone the power to "make you mad." But I have recently found something that gets under my skin just about worse than almost anything I've faced up till now. I'm only telling you this because it is in type and you can't laugh directly at me, so please be gentle when you actually do see me and I'll spill the reason for my face looking similar to the picture.

Sophie has learned something new. Everytime she disagrees with me or refuses to do something that I am asking her to do, she decides to change my name. Instead of saying "daddy" while arguing and refusing to obey, she has stared saying "Dosh" which is her version of my name . Now this wouldn't bother me quite so badly if she also called me "Dosh" at other times. She doesn't. It is only when she is being defiant that she- as a 2 yr old!- refers to me in a rather condescending and beliggerant way as "Dosh." It may sound like a silly thing, but my blood boils. It's not so much the word as the specific reason she does it...she does it because she has seen me act like a fool.

Unfortunately, when it first began, I let her know very clearly that "Dosh" was not my name for her. She was to call me "daddy." When she did it again, I let her know that I did not like for her to call me that at all...and I'm pretty sure I let my frustration show...which was very foolish. Because now, AS A 2-YR OLD, she has a weapon that she knows she can use if she wants to get under my skin.

Here's the point. If a 2-yr old can recognize and utilize (and for those of you who think I'm making this up or exagerating, ask my wife!) something that I have shown annoys me, how much more capable of wrecking my emotions is someone that is emotionally, mentally, and socially equal to me and has a real reason to want to manipulate me other than simply not wanting to go to sleep!

Whether you believe the Bible is God's words for living or not, you cannot argue with the wisdom of this proverb. People who give full vent to their anger and carry their emotions and annoyances on their sleeves for all to see leave themselves in a position to constantly look like a fool because all the world knows exactly how to get to them. And the world, as you well know, is probably not as loving as my sweet little Sophie! I am working now to completely ignore it when she calls me "Dosh." But the damage is already done. It is going to take a while for her to unlearn that little trick of defiance. And what I'm more ashamed of is that she has already learned that her daddy is a fool that didn't control his annoyances. I am confident, though, that God will continue to work on me to make me more prudent, to enable me to not show my frustrations quite so quickly, and to give me the peace to hear an intended insult and overlook it. And I am confident that she will grow knowing the difference between her imperfect dad that loves her tremendously even while loving her imperfectly, and her perfect Abba who both knows how to, and actually does love her the way a dad should.

May we all seek this week to be the "prudent" people that we are called to be because we are no longer slaves to our emotions and pride; we have been called to be slaves to righteousness. And the righteousness that comes from God is quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry (James 1:19). In a word, God's wisdom is love. Maybe our growth this week simply needs to be a focus on slowing down enough when we feel our cheeks redden to remember God's love and then respond in light of that love knowing that whatever someone else (child, co-worker, friend, enemy) may have meant, it does not change who I am in Christ.

Questions for discussion:

• What "tricks" or methods have you found to help you control your emotions?
• When is the right time to display your anger visibly as opposed to the wrong time?
• If anger is from God, then it is a good thing. What is the Godly purpose of anger and how can we as Christians use it in a Godly way as opposed to the destructive self-serving way that we usually do?

Post your comments or answer(s) to one or more of these questions by clicking the comment button below to encourage others in their walk and further the discussion.