Mission Hills Church
Jesus may be the most frustrating man to have ever lived because he consistently challenged people to take their lives to the next level. Getting comfortable meeting the minimum standards is never an option for those who choose to follow Jesus. As part of his famous “Sermon on the Mount” message, Jesus upped the expectations on serious, real life issues like anger, lust, marriage, and promise-keeping, causing even the most religious people of his day to sit up and exclaim, “He said what?!”
God doesn’t want people who always follow the rules, he wants people for whom the rules aren’t necessary.
Matthew 5:21-22 NIV
1 // Jesus clarifies the spirit of the Law. -- God wants us to be people who live in constant respect of the value of other human beings.
2 // Jesus demonstrates that the spirit of the Law is unattainable without transformation. -- The moment we turn what Jesus said here into another set of boxes we can check off, we utterly fail to understand what Jesus is actually doing.
Matthew 23:17 NIV
3 // Jesus gives us practical ways to cooperate with his transforming work in our lives. -- Anger devalues and destroys relationships, but love values others enough to sacrifice in order to bring reconciliation.
Matthew 5:23-24 NIV
Anger devalues and destroys relationships, but love values others enough to sacrifice in order to bring reconciliation.
Matthew 5:25-26 NIV
There are consequences for failing to value others in a way that lines up with God’s standards.
The best anger management is people valuation. -- Learn to value people!