Go Then Come

Meditation May 31 2020

Matt. 5:23-26

23“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.

25“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. 26Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

We live in the age of, I don’t have time for that, I don’t have time for negative people, I don’t have time for people filling my life with their drama, I will unfriend. Sometimes there is good reason(s) to unfriend/ cut off relationship with another person. Most often, it seems to me, we just need to adult them. I don’t mean challenge them to act like adults. I mean we need to act like adults ourselves. That is what Jesus is getting at here.

The Lord knows the heart of man. He knows our weaknesses and temptations. He was tempted in every way we are. (Heb. 4:15) We are to obey the law of God but we can’t. The point of the law, apart from being God’s directive for the way we are to conduct our lives, is that it reveals to us our sin. our utter inability to be obedient and therefore drives us to seek mercy by grace through faith in Christ. In Romans 7:7, where we find Paul wrestling with the old man of sin and the continual violation of the law we all face, we find him saying also that except for the law he would not have known sin, he would not have known his need of Christ. At the end of his agonizing over his failure to keep the law he cries out “Wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of sin? I thank God through Jesus Christ….” But none of that relieves us of the obligation to repent, to strive against sin, to labor daily to put off the old and put on the new.

Therefore, Jesus brings us now to repentance. Men are very prone to fall into rash anger. Sometimes it is over serious matters but contrary to reason, which is not surprising, in my observations, most rash anger is over more trivial matters. Almost without fail, on the heels of rash, irrational anger comes contemptuous, abusive name calling and accusations. We tend to make little of such speech as sin but Jesus makes much of it. He says it is murder. This is not a sin to be rectified by religious devotion. Regular attendance at church, Sunday School and prayer meeting is not going to relieve you of your guilt and duty in the face of this sin. Your daily prayers and devotions are not sufficient. All that without repentance is an offense to God. It was such as that of which God said “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; they are a stench to me.” (Amos 5:21) You suppose yourself coming to worship, God says, “who asks this of you, this trampling of my courts? (Isa. 1:12)

This is a serious matter. Jesus says, if you come to Gods courts, if you come to worship, to offer prayers and gifts of devotion and remember that you have said opprobrious words about a fellow man, stop, stop right where you are. “Leave your gift in front of the altar…go and be reconciled; then come and offer your gift. The right time to seek reconciliation is the moment you realize you have made enmity between yourself and a fellow man. You are in church? Get up and leave. You are on your bed for nightly prayer, stop, get up and go to you phone or dress and drive across town but do not trample the court of God by continuing without repentance and reconciliation. Harsh words are a serious matter not to be differentiated from murder. We may feel they were justified. We way feel the person against whom we speak did or said something that justified our anger. We should have settled the matter then. But instead of reconciling we retaliated. Now sin is at the door and now it is our sin.

Several years ago, there was a man, Alvin Straight, who had become estranged from his brother. This is a true story. They had not spoken in years. They lived now 300 miles apart. Alvin lived in Iowa and his brother in Wisconsin. Alvin, now 73, heard that his older brother was sick. He thought perhaps he would lose his older brother. He did not want him to die with them still on the outs, as they say, with one another. Mr. Straight’s eyesight had become too poor for him to any longer get a driver’s license so he got on his lawnmower and began the 300-mile trip to see his brother. Twice along the way he had to stop and make repairs on the mower and at last, only two miles from his brother’s the mower broke down again and, having spent all his money on previous repairs, he had to push it the last two miles to his brother’s house. But push it he did and the two were reconciled. Such a matter of urgency Jesus places on this issue.

Jesus is addressing the one who has spoken rashly. If that is you, stop where you are and go. Go and get friendly with your adversary, the one against whom you harbor resentment; the one against who you have spoken ill. The charge is to the offender, to you if it is the case you have spoken ill of someone. You who have made and adversary of a fellow man by speaking ill of him. Don’t wait for him to come to you. Stop what you are doing now, even if it is in the midst of leaving your gift at the altar, and go make friends with him. That is what the word translated “be reconciled” indicates. It is not a matter of just saying to him, “I got a little upset and said some things I didn’t really means, things I shouldn’t have said. Sorry about that, OK?” That isn’t at all what it means. It means to thoroughly change things. You made an enemy of him, now go make a friend of him, do it quickly, and don’t continue with your offering until you have done so lest you be found guilty of trampling the courts of God.

Jesus is not indicating that by doing this or not doing this we earn or lose our salvation. He is indicating that if you are saved, if you are blessed, if you are poor in spirit, meek, a peacemaker etc. this is what the indwelling Spirit will urge you to, “do not quench the Spirit.” (1 Thess. 5:19) Therefore…do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. (Eph. 4:30-31)