In this 8-part series, Dr. Michael Youssef helps us discover the complexities and implications of Jesus’ profound Sermon on the Mount message—where Jesus shares the keys to happiness by giving us the Beatitudes and teaching us how to embody or appropriate them in our everyday lives.

Preaching verse by verse, Dr. Youssef demonstrates how Jesus came to fulfill all that God taught His people in the Old Testament—showing us how to be salt and light, how to control our anger, and much more. He truly has given us all that we need to live a blessed life in Him!

if somebody would come to me and said, Michael, I’ve never been angry. I think what I would want to do is feel your pulse. If you have a smoldering hatred in your heart, stop it from smoldering. Don’t let bitterness destroy your relationships. The time of reconciliation it is now the only way to get rid of anger is by dealing with up next. Yeah, I think most of us know that anger takes many forms. In fact, anger wears many faces. Anger is an emotion that’s interwoven in many aspects of our lives. Anger ranges from a slight irritation to a full blown uncontrollable rage. But I need to hate it to say that all unrighteous anger. Listen carefully, all unrighteous anger you say. Is there a righteous anger? Yes, I’m going to come to that. All unrighteous anger stems from pride and self righteousness. When we don’t get our way. When someone criticize us, whether fairly or unfairly, really in the end doesn’t make any difference or when we get overlooked or feel being undermined. This all stems from pride for anger. Self righteous anger, and it must be nipped in the bud and placed in the wounded side of jesus. Can I get an amen how, by openly confessing it and asking for God’s strength to repent of it? Remember I said he already took all of our sins on his cross, on the cross, on his body. See, the sooner you do this, the better off you are because of the seriousness of that issue of anger. I personally believe this is why our Lord jesus christ starts with that command. The commandment thou shall not murder. He starts with it because it’s a very serious issue. As I said in the last message, the rabbis made a mess of the 10 commandments. I mean they added to them, they are undermined them. They came up with some more stuff to the point where the well over 600 additions to the 10 commandments and so the purpose of the coming Of God The Son, the Lord Jesus Christ from Heaven is to show us the original intent of God the father of these 10 commandments. He wanted to show us the original intent. God the Son wanted us to know what the God the father meant by each of these commandments. God the son was letting us know that these are not listen carefully. These are not mechanical set of rules. Um bum bum bum bum no, no, no no. These these are not mere cold and calculated ordinance, but rather there are the reflection of God’s character. They are the reflection of God’s character. That’s how our Lord jesus christ was explained. That is why he and he alone was able to obey all of them all the time without breaking one. And that is why all of us who know and love, jesus can only make it to heaven by hanging on his coattail. He’s the only one who can get you to heaven. And that is why today he tells us that all premeditated murder. All of them start with anger. Um he tells us that the route of wanton destruction of life emanates from selfish anger, that the very first murder that took place in the bible, it was anger by Kane and jealousy of his brother Abel and he killed him. But let me hasten to say That when God said in Exodus chapter 20 verse 13, you shall not murder. He was not referring to capital punishment or the act of authority in exercising their authority or is even war because in war you’re not angry at that person. You are fighting for your country. Why am I saying this? Because later on the bible said that when someone sheds the blood of another, the authorities must make that person pay with his own life. Hear me right in explaining the original intention. The commandments are Lord Jesus said all murder stems from selfish anger, but I have to say it is not irredeemable. Like all sins. When you bring him to the blood of jesus christ and you confess and repent, he will forgive you. Can I get an amen now the most important thing, I always remind you of doing this is to place yourself among those people sitting on that little hill and you’re listening to jesus And you are either a pharisee or a disciple of Pharisees and you’re listening to Jesus talking about the 10 commandments and before he gets to this point. You’re patting yourself on the back, Oh, I’m a good boy. I am really good. I I have never killed anybody. I’m very good. I’m righteous. That’s called self Righteousness. I never murdered anyone. I kept the law of God, hmm. And Jesus said, is the use of translation not so fast, not so fast. Let me explain to you the father’s original intent of these commandments. He’s saying that because anger is the ghost that is always lurking in the dark in every murderer’s heart. And because God is interested as much in the ghost as he is concerned about the murder itself, you need to deal with anger. You need to deal with anger. three things I want to show you here from these verses Matthew 5 21-26 In verses 21 and 22, he says that anger destroys that destroys the person who’s angry. Secondly in verses 23 and 24, he says, Anger desecrate your worship. And thirdly, he is saying, anger devastate relationships. First of all, anger turns on the angry person and destroy him or her. Here’s what Jesus said. You have heard it said, You shall not commit murder, but I say to you now, I want you to miss and now most of you have not missed this, but some of you may have So I want you to listen carefully. You have heard it said, That’s what my father said. But I say to you, you notice the equality between the father and the son. God the father and God the son are equal. They have co existed before the foundation of the earth. As a matter of fact, the very reason why jesus was crucified on the cross is because he made himself, they said equal to the father. And so you’ve heard it said and I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother shall be guilty. Now in the Greek language, there are two words for anger. Two words, one word is famous. Um It’s a quick anger. It is like lighting a match to dry straw burns quickly and then stops. It’s like the anger that kind of blazes up and quickly died down. But there is a second word in the greek language called or gay which means the smoldering anger. Some of you know what I’m talking about? I’m seeing elbow flying all over the place, Smoldering anger. This is the type of anger that you cuddle and you keep warm in your bosom. You know what I’m talking about? The stop of anger is brooding and brooding and brooding and every time that person’s name comes up when you go mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm mm And you get stomach cramps. It’s the type of anger that you would never allow to die down. The word Olga is the one is used here. That’s what the Lord is talking about and he’s telling them that murder has deeper roots. It has deeper roots. Murder originates from a heart, not from my hand. That Murder starts with angry thoughts. That murder starts with selfish prideful motive. And Jesus is saying these two, these self righteous Pharisees, he’s saying to them, righteousness is not only external righteousness is not just on the surface. Righteousness is not only when people are watching, no a person guilty of murder when he or she nurses their anger when he or she hates with intensity when he or she started maligning and while murder, the act of physical murder is judged in the civil courts. The anger is judged in the heavenly courts. Why? Because small living anger leads to murder. God take smoldering anger very, very seriously. Why? Because unless you stop anger in its tracks, it will lead to murder at least in the heart. Because unless you pull up the anger like weed by the roots. That’s why the bible talks about the roots of bitterness. It’s underground. You can’t see it’s not the fruit that you see on the tree, it’s underground. And unless you pull them by the roots is going to get worse, Jesus tells us about two people, two people, one is a pharisee religious guy. I mean, he’s very religious kept all the external stuff And the other one is a sinner Republican. And they both went to the temple to worship. And the Pharisees almost got a tennis elbow from patting himself on the back. Yeah, you know what I mean. Oh, I thank the Lord, I’m not like this guy and I’ve done this and look what I’ve done for you, God, I’ve done this and I’ve done this and I’ve done the other thing and Jesus said, the Publican pounded on his heart, he said forgive me a sinner, and Jesus said, it’s sad, repentant sinner who went home justified before God, Not only anger destroys physically, it destroys your personhood. Verse 22 Being angry with another person saying Raqqa to him, calling him a fool is very serious in God’s eyes. Now, by the way the word Raqqa is untranslatable, but I can tell you that it represents all forms of verbal abuse. Are you with me? It represents all forms of treating others with contempt. It represents all forms of contempt, whether it be verbally or nonverbally, because I know there are some contempt that are non verbal, How many of you know that verbal and non verbal abuse adjudged a sin in the courts of heaven, and the only way to deal with it is to repent of it and place it under the blood of jesus. So anger is destructive. Secondly, I want to tell you that anger desecrate worship Michael, how can that be. Well, thank God, I don’t make the rules, I just told you what Jesus said, Okay, Jesus said that selfish brooding and constant nourished anger inside of you, strained your relationship with the Lord paul calls this grieving the Holy Spirit. We must always interpret the scripture with by the scripture with the scripture, so I’m going to hasten to say that not all anger is sin, if you heard that say amen, because I want to make sure I already told you I’m going to come to it and I’m coming to it now. Not all anger. Since, not all anger impairs our relationship with the Lord, for example, righteous anger is not sin. Righteous anger against injustice and rebellion against God’s moral laws is not a sin. Righteous anger against abusers of Children, abusers of women or anybody for that matter is not a sin Ephesians 4 26 Paul explained this righteous anger by saying be angry, but sin not be angry, but sin not. Jesus became angry when he saw these money grabbing people who are making a mess of his father’s house and he kicked him out of his father’s house, he kicked him out. He’s probably we expect jesus to do at least in our culture, jesus walk up to these guys said, hey fellas, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but really what you’re doing is not good, It’s not right. Oh, you know guys, I don’t want you to reject me, I don’t reject me or who wants to be rejected, right, don’t reject me, I don’t want to offend you, but this is not good. No, In his holy anger, he kicked him out in the use of words and he said, hit the road, Jack and come back no more. No more. That’s righteous anger. But even with holy anger, it must not cause us to sin or get out of hand. You can certainly be angry at false teachers and heretical teaching. You can certainly withdraw fellowship from false teachers. You can certainly be angry at their misleading of so many people. You can certainly be angry with injustice and with violence. You can certainly be angry with the media’s constant use of false narratives. But listen to me, You and I are not free to hate period. Can I get an amen? You and I are not free to wish anybody ill, will you and I are not at liberty to take matters into our own hands that will hinder our worship. Listen to me. No one who claims to know Jesus as savior and Lord nurses hatred toward another person. I know that’s not very popular. I know. Listen, I honestly don’t care what rationale they use. I don’t care what explanation they give. I don’t care what excuse they have. Hatred is not of the Lord. Remember this, The jews to whom jesus was speaking. There were all familiar with how to take care of restoring the breach of the relationship with God when they sinned. They were all familiar. They’ve done it the year after year, they walked through the outer court into the inner court up to the rail, the rails and then they hand their sacrifice to the priest and that sacrifice. Is there a way of saying We repent of our sin and we want to restore our relationship with God. And here God the Son is saying therefore to them and to us and to us, we need to settle the breach between us and our brothers and sisters in christ before we can truly settle the breach between us and God. The father beloved, Let me tell you that if you are hearing these words today, some of you might be hearing this for the first time around the world and you have a smoldering hatred in your heart or nursing deep grudge. Or maybe you are sitting on your anger on your smoldering anger and keeping it warm and you’re refusing to let go. You will not be able to get rid of that anger with better music or better sermons or better communion or better giving No. The only way to get rid of that persistent anger is by dealing with him. How if you’re wrong someone, you ask for their forgiveness. If someone wronged you, you forgive them. Now don’t shoot the messenger. That’s what jesus said. But having said that the scripture does not say that you have to agree with that person, you got to get that right. Please you don’t have to agree with the person. Nobody says anything about agreement here. The scripture does not say that you must be cheated by Joel with everybody. Hello to my knowledge, the apostle paul and Barnabas never went on another missionary journey after they had their disagreement over john Mark, but I am absolutely convinced they would reconciled. As a matter of fact, toward the end of his life, paul said, bring john Mark for his helpful to me. Now he they made their peace. They didn’t go on missionary journeys together. That’s fine. You don’t have to agree with everybody, but they’re forgiven one another. Please please, please do not confuse agreement with the absolute necessity of disposing of your anger. Listen to what the psalmist said In Psalm 66 18, he said, If I regard wickedness in my heart, where his heart, if I regard we can, that’s if I keep it in there, hold it in there, I nursed it. I never confess it, I never turned my turned my back on it. The Lord is not going to answer my prayers. So where did God not me? So, first of all, anger destroys secondly, anger desecrates? And thirdly, And it devastates vs 25 and 26. Make peace with your opponent while you are on the way to the court, you have to understand that in ancient times the plaintiff had the authority to arrest the defendant and the way he does that he’ll take his rope, not rope robe and he wrapped it around the neck of the event. And they take him to court. So if he tried to wiggle out of it causes himself to choke and what jesus is saying is this the time of reconciliation is the same as the time for salvation and it is now, now tomorrow may be too late, do it now please, I plead with you, don’t let bitterness and anger and hatred destroy your relationships. Members of one family, listen to me, Members of one family of God deal with anger and stop it from smoldering for nothing will enhance your worship, nothing will enhance your worship or mend your relationship with the Lord until you reconcile to one another. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger. That means deal with it before evening. If you can’t reach the person purpose in your heart that you will take care of it. If the person is dead, you can still do it and ask somebody else, confess it to somebody that’s dear and near to you resolve here and now to dig up these roots of bitterness by its roots, get it out. I think you’ll be amazed at what the holy spirit of God will do in you when you angry viv, the holy spirit Mhm leading the way has provided God’s truth a huge way in my life on my way to work. I just play a podcast on leading the way I have to fill myself up with that spiritual truth, so I can pour out spiritual truth. I was born with very christian parents, we went to church every week, I thought what it meant to be a christian was really just to say, I believe jesus is God, but he wasn’t my lord. I have been screaming, screaming, screaming at God for years. Why won’t you talk to me? Why can’t I hear your voice? One sunday I woke up and I thought I’m going to go to church today and in retrospect, I know that was the Holy Spirit. The whole sermon is about how grace precedes forgiveness. I was taking notes and halfway through the sermon, I start pouring out my heart like all this revelation the Holy Spirit had brought to the service. I have been holding this bitterness, I’ve been holding this brick wall above my head and keeping myself from God right after I truly repented and I truly made jesus king of my life. I was just so hungry. I was starved for spiritual truth. One of the pastors started listening to was Michael yussef. Pastor, Michael, Youssef preaches straight fire sermons. He’s not afraid of the offensive nature of God’s word. He wants God’s love to convict and to save people rather than to just tell them what they want to hear. He’s preaching straight from work. He’s not preaching from some devotional book and imagine the impact on the world today. If my generation not only passionately proclaimed that truth in our day to day lives, but if we were uncompromising in proclaiming it on our social media, like leading the way God has equipped, dr Michael yussef to reach my generation with a passion for the truth that is so, so important and it’s so rare In a world so desperately in need of truth and hope leading the way is meeting the challenge through our Vision 2025 campaign, we’re witnessing dramatic impact across new technologies and audiences. One of the most challenging Vision 2025 initiatives is to reach the next generation for Christ As a part of that effort. Leading the way launched a podcast, candid conversations with Jonathan Yusef which is now approaching its 150th episode already, candid conversations is in the top 5% of podcasts worldwide and has listeners in 95 countries with candid conversations, Jonathan Yousef and a guest each week bring a biblical worldview to popular topics such as evangelism, sexuality, false teaching, apologetics, dating and marriage and more leading the way is also expanding on the newest digital platforms, reaching the next generation right where they are with the hope of jesus, with each passing year, the world keeps changing, but our calling is the same, leading the way is right there on the cutting edge adapting to the new tech and media landscape, using every tool to reach the world with the hope of jesus, contact us today to find out how you can join with leading the ways global outreach and become a part of what God is doing through this worldwide ministry. He is the same Holy Spirit who is our tutor and our teacher and our instructor. He is the same Holy Spirit who’s willing give you discernment to give you wisdom to give you understanding, to give you anointing, to give you a favor with God and man passionately proclaiming uncompromising truth. Leading the way with Dr Michael Yousef thanks you for your faithful support through your continued prayers and gifts.