Sermon Title: The Danger of Anger
Scripture: Matthew 5:21-26
Matthew 5:21-26 “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ 22 But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell. 23 “So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, 24 leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God. 25 “When you are on the way to court with your adversary, settle your differences quickly. Otherwise, your accuser may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 And if that happens, you surely won’t be free again until you have paid the last penny.
Engage:
The Fire Within
In 2021, a wildfire in California known as the Dixie Fire scorched nearly a million acres, destroying homes, livelihoods, and entire communities. Investigators traced the cause back to a simple, overlooked problem: a tree leaning against a power line.
No explosion, no massive storm—just a small spark from something that should have been taken care of long before it became deadly. Left unattended, that spark ignited one of the largest and most destructive wildfires in state history.
In the same way, anger often begins small.
A harsh word.
A misunderstanding.
A wounded pride.
At first, it seems manageable—easy to ignore, easy to justify.
But left unchecked, it smolders under the surface of our hearts until, one day, it explodes into words or actions that destroy relationships, families, churches—and souls.
TRANSITION
In Matthew 5:21–26, Jesus warns us about this very danger. He makes it clear that anger is not a minor issue. It’s not something we can afford to excuse or let smolder. In God’s eyes, anger is deadly serious—because it sets the fire for far greater destruction if we don’t deal with it at the source. Today, Jesus invites us to take a hard look at the anger within and calls us to pursue reconciliation before it gets out of control.
BOOK: Matthew 5:21-26
1. The Law says…
You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ (Matthew 5:21, NLT)
Jesus refers to what was said “to the people long ago,” which can also be translated as “in ancient times” or “by those in earlier generations.” He’s pointing to the Sixth Commandment from the Ten Commandments given at Mount Sinai.
When Jesus says in Matthew 5:21, ‘You have heard that our ancestors were told, “You must not murder.” If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment,’” He is referring to the Torah, specifically the Sixth Commandment found in Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17 — “You shall not murder.”
The phrase “You have heard that it was said to those of old” points to the teachings given to the Israelites — the Law given through Moses at Mount Sinai. So Jesus is referencing the ancient commandments given by God to the people of Israel, the covenant community at that time.
Additionally, by mentioning being “subject to judgment,” He alludes to the traditional Jewish understanding that murderers would face trial by local courts (the Beit Din, Jewish judicial bodies consisting of seven men) and, ultimately, God’s divine judgment.
In the broader context of Matthew 5, Jesus isn’t discarding the original command; instead, He is deepening and expanding its meaning. He moves the discussion from just outward actions (physical murder) to the inner heart attitudes (such as anger and hatred) that lead to those actions.
You must not murder. (Exodus 20:13, NLT)
The proper translation of the command is “Do not murder,” not just “kill,” because the Hebrew word ratsach excludes actions like self-defense, divinely sanctioned warfare, lawful executions, or accidental deaths.
2. But I say…
But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell. (Matthew 5:22, NLT)
Jesus, like Moses, condemns murder (Matthew 26:51-52)—but then takes it further by pointing out that even being angry with someone is sinful and worthy of judgment (reference to local court). He doesn’t say that anger is as bad as murder, but He does show that it matters deeply to God. The phrase “subject to judgment” means that someone is currently guilty and in danger of being judged, though that judgment isn’t guaranteed if the person seeks the right solution or repentance.
Some ancient manuscripts add the phrase “without cause” after “anyone who is angry with his brother,” translated above as “with someone.” While this phrase may not have been in the original text, it helps clarify the point: not all anger is sinful. There is such a thing as righteous anger—Jesus Himself expressed it when He cleared the temple of money changers (Matthew 21:12–17), and God’s wrath against sin is always just (Psalm 72:11). Paul instructs believers to
And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry (Ephesians 4:26, NLT)
However, human anger is rarely pure and often comes from pride, selfishness, or a desire for revenge. In Matthew’s Gospel, the term “brother” almost always means a fellow believer or member of the faith community—not just a biological sibling. So, Jesus isn’t saying it’s acceptable to be angry at nonbelievers; instead, He starts with how we treat those within the family of faith, where anger is especially damaging. Christians, who themselves have received mercy from God, should be the last to hold grudges or lash out at fellow believers. (As a side note, these practical instructions will lead us to Jesus’ calling to even love our enemies.) This warning about controlling our anger is just as vital today as it was then.
To drive His point home, Jesus gives two examples of how sinful anger can become apparent in our lives. First, He mentions someone calling another person “Raca,” translated as “idiot” in the NLT, an Aramaic insult that probably meant “empty-headed” or worthless, which leads to an appearance before the Sanhedrin (the court).
Then, He brings up calling someone a “fool” (mōros), a word that not only implies stupidity but also moral corruption and godlessness. The NLT translates the latter as “cursing someone.” These insults reflect more profound contempt, not just annoyance.
Still, there’s an implied understanding that Jesus is referring to unjustified anger and name-calling—after all, Jesus Himself uses the term’ mōros’ in Matthew 23:17, 19, and 7:26 when it accurately describes a person’s behavior.
But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. (Matthew 7:26, NLT)
“Blind guides! What sorrow awaits you! For you say that it means nothing to swear ‘by God’s Temple,’ but that it is binding to swear ‘by the gold in the Temple.’ 17 Blind fools! Which is more important—the gold or the Temple that makes the gold sacred? (Matthew 23:16-17, NLT)
Jesus may be outlining an escalating scale of judgment—moving from simple judgment by the local court, to appearing before the Sanhedrin (Israel’s highest court), and finally to the fires of Gehenna, which symbolized hell. Gehenna was a valley outside Jerusalem known for pagan child sacrifices and later associated with constant burning refuse. However, because each example follows a similar structure, Jesus may simply be emphasizing that all of these expressions of anger lead to the same serious consequence: the danger of eternal judgment. The latter seems likely when we recall Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:
“But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven! (Matthew 5:20, NLT)
3. So, live according to the following principles
3A. Unresolved and unrighteous anger hinders our worship, really our relationship with God.
3A. Reconcile with others before worshipping with others.
Other ways to say the same thing: Unrighteous anger hinders our relationship with God. For our worship to be right, our relationships must be right. Right worship requires right relationships. God accepts our worship when our hearts are acceptable before Him.
Jesus’ listeners are warned to take urgent action to avoid God’s judgment by confronting their sins directly and seriously. Jesus offers two vivid illustrations. The first paints the picture of someone about to offer a sacrifice at the altar but who remembers that someone has a legitimate grievance against them.
“So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, 24 leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God. (Matthew 5:23-24, NLT)
Jesus’ teaching in this passage doesn’t just humble our view of ourselves by showing that we are guilty and deserving of judgment—it also highlights how deeply sins like anger and hatred damage our relationship with God. In Jesus’ time, worship was a significant focus for the scribes and Pharisees. They spent countless hours at the synagogue and the Temple, offering sacrifices, praying, giving tithes, and performing various religious rituals. But for many of them, it had become an empty, external tradition without the real heart behind it.
When Jesus says “So,” He’s tying it back to the idea that righteousness—and sin—are first and foremost issues of the heart. As long as there’s sin festering inside, no amount of outward worship will please God. Jesus especially zeroes in on hatred toward others. He makes it clear: reconciliation with others must happen before real worship can take place.
Every Jew understood that sin created a break in their relationship with God and that sacrifices were meant to restore that relationship. But over time, with the heavy influence of rabbinic traditions, people stopped thinking much about unseen sins, such as hatred or lust. These weren’t celebrated, but they weren’t treated as seriously as murder or adultery either. Jesus flips that thinking upside down, saying that anger and hatred are just as severe as the physical acts themselves.
The image Jesus uses would have been very familiar: a worshiper approaching the altar with a sacrifice, maybe during a major event like the Day of Atonement. As the worshiper reached the court of the priests—where only priests could go—he would stop, lay his hands on the animal to symbolize his guilt and hand it over for sacrifice. Jesus says, “Don’t even hand over your offering if you remember your brother has something against you. First, go fix that relationship. Then come back and offer your sacrifice.” In other words, making things right with others takes priority over religious rituals. If you’re holding onto anger or division, offering a sacrifice without first seeking reconciliation would be pure hypocrisy—asking for forgiveness without true repentance.
God’s expectation for this kind of sincerity wasn’t new. He had already told Israel in Isaiah that He didn’t care for endless sacrifices without true repentance and justice. In Jeremiah, He called out people who sinned blatantly but thought sacrifices would cover it. The people should have known that God values a clean heart and right relationships far more than religious ceremonies.
Interestingly, Jesus says even if it’s the other person who holds something against you, you should take the initiative to make peace. We can’t force someone to forgive us, but we should do everything we can to fix the situation and hold no bitterness ourselves.
No matter who caused the rift, it’s our responsibility to seek reconciliation before coming to worship. True worship isn’t made better by our preferred music, coffee bars, modern facilities, or even creative sermons. It’s made better by healed relationships among the people worshiping. Sometimes, the most genuine act of worship is to stay away from the altar—or church—until we’ve made things right with someone we’ve wronged or who has something against us.
If there’s unresolved sin or anger in our hearts, we can’t truly worship with integrity. Long before Jesus taught this, the psalmist wrote,
If I had not confessed the sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened. (Psalm 66:18, NLT)
Even Samuel told Saul, “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22). God has always cared more about our hearts being right than about our religious rites and rituals. In this case, Jesus instructs that reconciliation with the other person should come before continuing the act of worship. While we can’t control how others respond, we are responsible for doing everything we can to make peace—as Paul writes in Romans 12:18:
Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. (Romans 12:18, NLT)
The phrase “has something against you” likely means the other person has a valid complaint, not just a misunderstanding or unknown offense. This also implies that we shouldn’t unnecessarily dredge up our own issues with people but instead focus on situations where someone else is still hurt by something we’ve done.
If Christians took this instruction seriously, many church services might be temporarily empty, as people would need to go make things right before worshiping. Still, Jesus isn’t saying worship doesn’t matter. Worship is vital, beginning with faith in Christ—but it must be paired with a lifestyle of reconciliation. One without the other isn’t true discipleship, and as 1 John reminds us, genuine faith leads to a transformed life in which we walk in love with others (1 John 1:8–9; 2:9).
3B. Unrighteous and unresolved anger is dangerous because it hurts us.
3B. Reconcile with Others Quickly
In His second example, Jesus presents the urgency of making peace through the image of a legal dispute.
When you are on the way to court with your adversary, settle your differences quickly. Otherwise, your accuser may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 And if that happens, you surely won’t be free again until you have paid the last penny. (Matthew 5:25-26, NLT)
These verses are an explanation of what Jesus just taught earlier. Using an example from everyday life—someone being thrown into prison over an unpaid debt—Jesus shows that if someone has a legitimate claim against us, we should settle it immediately before it becomes too late and we face serious consequences. Just like with salvation, the time for making things right is now, not tomorrow, because tomorrow might be too late. We can’t let bitterness, anger, hatred, or any other sin keep us separated from other people, no matter who they are.
While earlier Jesus talked about reconciliation applying to both the innocent and the guilty, here He focuses specifically on the guilty party. In Roman law, someone could grab their accused opponent and drag them to the judge. If they could settle the dispute on the way to court, great—but once the court got involved, it was out of their hands. Jesus’ point is clear: if you’ve wronged someone, make it right quickly before it escalates to judgment. The chain of events—judge, officer, prison—was how the Romans typically handled those found guilty. And once in prison, a person had to pay every last penny, symbolized by a small Roman coin, before they could get out.
An additional note: verse 26 doesn’t teach the idea of purgatory, as if someone could ever pay their way out of hell. The “last penny” mentioned, a kodrantēs, was a tiny Roman coin—worth just 1/64 of a day’s wages—highlighting that in spiritual terms, we could never repay what we owe. The message is clear: settle accounts with God and with others now, before judgment comes.
Examples of Judgment:
- A hindered relationship with God (Matthew 6:14-15)
- The Lord’s discipline (Hebrews 12:4-11)
- Unacceptable worship (Matthew 5:23-24; 1 Timothy 2:8)
- Inner turmoil (Hebrews 12:15)
- Without Jesus, eternal damnation (Revelation 21:8, 22:15)
TRANSITION
In a world where violence can erupt from unresolved anger, Jesus’ message is a call to examine our hearts, to let go of bitterness, and to pursue reconciliation. It’s a reminder that true righteousness involves not just our actions but our attitudes and relationships with others.
REFLECTION / INSPIRATION
“The Hard Choice of Forgiveness”
After the tragic shooting at the Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania in 2006, the world watched in disbelief as the families of the victims did the unthinkable—they forgave. They didn’t just say it; they showed it. They visited the shooter’s widow, comforted her, brought her meals, and even helped support her family after the loss.
Imagine that. The person who stole your child, your future, your peace—and your first move is forgiveness? No rage, no revenge, no lawsuits, no bitterness brewing for decades—just grace.
Now, be honest: How many of us struggle to forgive a rude comment, a betrayal at work, or a cold shoulder from a friend? How many of us let anger stew in our hearts for days, weeks, even years over far less?
Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:21–26 hit like a hammer: He says it’s not enough that we avoid murder. If we harbor anger, bitterness, and resentment, we are already guilty before God.
We like to measure righteousness by what we haven’t done: “Well, at least I didn’t kill anyone.” But Jesus says the real battlefield is in the heart. That sharp word you spoke last week? That grudge you’ve been nursing for years? That cold war you’re still waging against a brother or sister? In the eyes of heaven, those are just as serious as physical violence.
ACTION
1. Follower –
In a world where violence erupts from anger left to rot and fester, Jesus is calling you—and me—to something radical. He’s not just telling us to be peaceful people on the outside but to ruthlessly deal with the anger inside before it grows into something deadly. He’s calling us to forgive quickly, to pursue reconciliation urgently, and to worship with clean hearts, not just clean hands.
The real question today is simple but challenging:
Who do you need to forgive before you stand before God in worship again next Sunday?
It will require humbleness, a submission to God’s Word, and a love for God and others. But you’re up for the challenge and can do so because of Christ in you (Philippians 4:13).
2. Far from God – be reconciled to God
For, There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5, NLT)
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