Obey Murder (4 of 35)
Series: Obey Everything
Steve Jones
Matthew 5:21-22
SERMON SUMMARY: This sermon explores Jesus' prohibition against murder and its attendant motivations. We'll look at the stages of 1) Anger, 2) Contempt, 3) Loathing and 4) REDRUM.
INTRODUCTION: I'm bringing you a message today from inside a prison jail cell. Why? I'm glad you asked. Because today we're going to talk a little bit about the Bible's prohibition against murder. In Mt. 5:21 Jesus quoted the Old Testament law saying, ''You shall not murder.'' If we WERE to commit murder and get caught (and you if you've been watching ''Forensic Files,'' ''CSI'' or the like, you know that you WILL get caught), then we could expect to wind up in a place like this.
I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, ''Steve, I think I can probably skip the sermon today because it DEFINITELY does not apply to ME. I've never murdered anyone. I'm never GOING to murder anyone and I'm NEVER going to wind up in a place like THAT.'' That would be my first reaction, too. And on the surface, I'm sure that's true of MOST of us. But, you know, Jesus has a way of getting BELOW the surface, doesn't he? And in the sermon on the mount, while Jesus STARTS out with the O.T. law prohibiting murder, he doesn't FINISH there; he winds up convicting us, not of murder, but of something else altogether, something much more COMMON to our experience and our tendencies - anger and contempt. My friends, the message of Jesus today is one that we ALL need to hear for there is a WORSE prison than the one in which I stand today, and that worse prison is the prison of the HEART.
Before we get going on Jesus' teaching about murder, anger and contempt today, we need to revisit the concept of ''kingdom righteousness.'' We touched on this a few weeks ago in our series on the beatitudes but you might benefit from a reminder and I KNOW that I would. This comes from the verse immediately preceding Jesus' teaching about m ...
Series: Obey Everything
Steve Jones
Matthew 5:21-22
SERMON SUMMARY: This sermon explores Jesus' prohibition against murder and its attendant motivations. We'll look at the stages of 1) Anger, 2) Contempt, 3) Loathing and 4) REDRUM.
INTRODUCTION: I'm bringing you a message today from inside a prison jail cell. Why? I'm glad you asked. Because today we're going to talk a little bit about the Bible's prohibition against murder. In Mt. 5:21 Jesus quoted the Old Testament law saying, ''You shall not murder.'' If we WERE to commit murder and get caught (and you if you've been watching ''Forensic Files,'' ''CSI'' or the like, you know that you WILL get caught), then we could expect to wind up in a place like this.
I know what some of you are thinking. You're thinking, ''Steve, I think I can probably skip the sermon today because it DEFINITELY does not apply to ME. I've never murdered anyone. I'm never GOING to murder anyone and I'm NEVER going to wind up in a place like THAT.'' That would be my first reaction, too. And on the surface, I'm sure that's true of MOST of us. But, you know, Jesus has a way of getting BELOW the surface, doesn't he? And in the sermon on the mount, while Jesus STARTS out with the O.T. law prohibiting murder, he doesn't FINISH there; he winds up convicting us, not of murder, but of something else altogether, something much more COMMON to our experience and our tendencies - anger and contempt. My friends, the message of Jesus today is one that we ALL need to hear for there is a WORSE prison than the one in which I stand today, and that worse prison is the prison of the HEART.
Before we get going on Jesus' teaching about murder, anger and contempt today, we need to revisit the concept of ''kingdom righteousness.'' We touched on this a few weeks ago in our series on the beatitudes but you might benefit from a reminder and I KNOW that I would. This comes from the verse immediately preceding Jesus' teaching about m ...
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