Say More about Being Free to Bless

This week we talk about Fullerton Free's sermon from May 3rd, 2026 titled "Free from Judgment, free to bless" 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Hello, everybody. Sorry, I was a little late on the uptake there this morning. I didn't quite get it on time.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

I learned a more, but there was no say. There was no first say. Just more. Just more. More, please.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Give us some more. Welcome to the Say More podcast, where this is a weekly podcast with Fullerton Free that uh discusses the teaching that we had on Sunday, gives us a chance to interact with it. We love getting your questions about the message and the scripture that we're studying. And we are entering into something from May 3rd, which means we've already passed May 5th and May 4th. Two big days in the history of America.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

I could hear it in the headphones.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Sorry, everybody. Should we start over? No, just keep it going. Anyways, we're talking about May 3rd, which was this the title of that passage was Free from Judgment and Free to Bless. Free from Judgment, Free to Bless. And our um special guest, but not really guest because he's preached several times before. It was our one of our elders, James Hampson, and he's here with us today. Hi, James.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Glad to be here. Yay! Hey, that song was awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

It's a great song.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

It's gonna be stuck in my head. And literally, you had it stuck in my head for a while.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Because I just kept playing it. You know what's funny is I didn't hear it at all. So maybe my hearing is going. Yeah, maybe my hearing is going. That's what I'm the gift I'm getting for when I turn 50 this summer.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Bless you with better hearing. I would. Oh, God bless you, Kyle.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah, please. So, James, before we get started, why don't you tell us? And I didn't prepare you for this, like a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Oh, sure. Yeah, but we'd love to hear. Yeah, I like to say that um, well, I mean, I've been at this church for my my whole life. Whoa. Uh I was I was probably born some in some pew back there. So in fact, we were uh dangerous. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Don't go to that pew. What sanity?

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Okay, the pews are all gone. So they they got rid of those pews because of that reason. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

No, uh, we actually for four years I was at the Malvern campus, so before this campus. So deep roots here. Um, I've loved growing up at this church and um was part of the youth group and um been teaching at Sunday schools a lot, and my kids grow up here. Like it's just it's it's our home, it's our family. Um but other than that, um, I have wife Chrissy. Uh we've been married for 23 years. I hope they have that right off the top of my head. So if she's listening. And then four kids, one at Biola and two in high school, one in junior high. And um, yeah, we just we love the journey in life that we have. I do Bible translation for the Opkause People Group in uh southern Russia and work with refugees as well. So we love we love the journey we're on, the adventure we get to do.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Thanks for sharing that and thanks for being with us today because it's fun. Like for example, last week Darren was out of town, and so we discussed his sermon and that those scriptures and that pass the passages, but we did that without him. So the fact that you're here is awesome.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Yeah, it's really beautiful. Uh with the speaker can recap what it was.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, why don't you go ahead and give our listeners a little recap of what the message was about and and what this topic meant to you?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah. Well, first of all, I love this series. I think this is so important for us. Um we live uh so often in our Christian life in little prisons, and um just the freedom that we can be having and the abundance that Christ has for us, just within reach, but we have to work through those prisons. So we talked um um really all the way through different parts of the Sermon on the Mount, which is a particular passion passion for me. The Sermon on the Mount itself is just a call to a deeper, narrow way. And um, if we want to go deeper in our faith and be really challenged, I think the Sermon on the Mount is a really great place to just sit in and let it speak to you. Uh Jesus starts the sermon with what we call the Beatitudes, which is a series of blessings. And um, in fact, when we read it in church, uh we uh translated the Greek word blessing as happy.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah, I noticed that. I wanted to ask you about that. So yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yeah, so so um makarios, the Greek word, can mean happy, and it's within this the sort of meaning range of this ver version of blessing. There's another blessing word in in the Bible that's that's more like eulogize, um, but it's it's it's also another form of blessing. But what Jesus is doing there is he's inverting um our view of who is blessed, and or expanding it even to areas of of people that we feel maybe like you look at them or you're in that space yourself and you go, how in the world could they feel blessed in their life? Well, God is a God who blesses in unexpected ways. And so you think about the first Beatitude where it says, Blessed are the poor in spirit. Well, do we think that those who are down and out, who are going through difficult times, are blessed? Well, that person can be happy and happy in a sense of not just cheerful, but having a deep peace and um uh abundance from God in the midst of their struggles. So Jesus sets this groundwork in the sermon, and um, and everything, all the sort of uh commands after that flow out of this platform of blessing. So I started the sermon out talking about um, you know, that we're blessed. We stand on eternal uh word that says you are blessed, and that I am a God who meets you with blessing. And we're blessed not because of what we do, um, but we're blessed because God is a God who's been blessing ever since Abraham, he's been blessing, and his mission is to bless. So from that platform, we talked about um three ways that we judge. So three three ways, through aspects or even roots of judgment. And the first area was from Matthew 7, where we talk we judge out of hypocrisy. And um Jesus is you know talks about not judging and setting up judgment seats against each other. We set up these measures where we're trying to um uh set like almost these judgment seats where we're we're trying to judge others, but we're not actually looking at our own sin.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

And the freedom from that is um uh attending to our own sin, the planks in our eyes, and making sure that we're constantly looking at these spaces and giving them to God in grace. Um, not living in shame and looking at our sin, but opening up to the grace of the cross. The second area is we judge through anger, which I like to call bitterness in this passage in Matthew the first part of uh or the the next section in Matthew 5, uh, and then demeaning words. We really like we we like Jesus compares it to murder. We like murder relationships and communities when we put people down. And the um the solution to that is to walk a path of reconciliation and to mind our uh the impact of that anger, demeaning words, bitterness, um, seeing that that can actually create a prison around you. It makes world your world constricted. Uh you're you're living in walls when you do that. And the last one is the pinnacle of um Math the section in Matthew 5 where Jesus talks about deep righteousness. He says, Do not hate your enemy. And hatred is another part of judging, where we we really um despise the person, we have malice towards them. And uh Jesus basically says that the Father, Father's perfect love is what we want to attain. And his perfect love is that he died for enemies, he died for those who sinned against him, uh, who were cursing him, who were pending him to the cross. All of our sin have done that, and um that is the pinnacle of our love, and it gives us freedom from judgment.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Wow, thanks for wrapping that up for us.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Yeah, I mean, two thoughts on that. One, wonderful wrap-up. Two, you have a great, like uh soothing radio voice. Oh, look at that. I know you want to give that up. He belongs here. Yeah, yeah, for the car is like, oh, I was just like resting into the description. It was wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

So I'm trying to like make it deeper.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Yeah, it's good. I I wake people up with my like hi, and they're like, oh, feel like I have a feeling like our listeners are gonna be on a bit of a vocal roller coaster then.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Bit of a roller coaster because I am like, hey God, it's good.

SPEAKER_03 9:23

Uh-huh. Hey fam, what's good? Good fam. That's Kyle. Very Kyle. That was awesome. Uh so tell me more about that. There were a few questions that's I've been trying to my wife really gave me a hard time because uh our very first episode, I just kept saying, well, let's say less about this. And uh she was like, You are so cheesy. And I really felt blessed by her uh by her words to me. But um bum. Which brings my question. Which as you were talking about being free from judgment um and free to bless. When we say we're free to bless someone, what does what does that even mean? What does it mean to bless someone?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Like Yeah, we as we were talking before, Kyle and I both said we have these, like even in your your message, there's the blessing that's in the Beatitudes that which we you so beautifully pointed out can be translated as happy. But that's not exactly how we use it in vernacular here. Or you know, it's not on the pillows, hashtag blessed or whatever that American Christians kind of do.

SPEAKER_03 10:28

To bless to be stressed or whatever. Like there you go. Like it's not yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

So yeah, yeah, what yeah, in your view, what does it mean to bless someone?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah, I I think as as we talk about it in this context, and what we're trying to get at is um first the posture. Um when I look at somebody else, um do I see their sin or my perception of their sin? Or am I leaning towards them for their good? And um if if my heart's desire is for their ultimate good, not the good that maybe I um have already written for them, right? But my posture is to hear and to find a way that I can encourage, I can uplift. Um think about somebody who's poor in spirit. How can I have um closeness with them and comfort? So I think blessing is ultimately um a posture of I'm here for your good. And I will discover what your good is with you in intimacy. Uh and takes that that takes listening and um that sort of step forward. I'd say in our prayers, um, like when Jesus says to to pray for your enemies, um, I like in our context, those who differ with you, maybe, or you know, uh those who've hurt you. Um I think it's just simply starting the process of asking or the practice of asking, God, will you bless them? And let God figure out how he would like to bless them. And then as you practice that, you start to see them more instead of that um that little speck of dust in their eye, right? You see them and who they are, and then you're able to receive them.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Yeah. I have I appreciate those words because um it's easy to give a blessing or to say to someone like, um, gosh, that's a nice shirt, or you have a great smile, or something, you're saying something nice to them, but there can be no feeling behind that. There can be nothing really authentic in that sort of like it can be just a trite compliment and we think of it as blessing. But what you're what you're bringing out is to think and to speak well of others is to give them a blessing, to be in a posture that like assumes the best of them and wants good things for them. Um that's really a that's a beautiful thought.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

I had um, you know, I talk about my resolutions sometimes that I have uh different years.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

You never stop talking about your resolutions.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

One of my favorite ones is on that line, but it was I loved giving third-party compliments um for a year. So whenever someone said something nice about someone, so if if you weren't here, James, and Katie was to be like, I just really, you know, the way that James is is like genuine with people, I just really like that. I would go to you and be like, hey, someone yesterday was talking about how you are uh genuine and like honest and how much they enjoyed that, just always pass them on because it felt so like real and uplifting. And we think in our little simple mindsets that people either never say anything about us or they only say negatives about us and they're not around and to be able to be like, oh, like that, it feels so so much more real because they weren't just giving it to you as a here feel good now, but they genuinely meant it. And it was really to me, it was so uplifting that year.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Well, think about how that rolls out when you are the giver of a blessing. You and even it's not something you said, you're just passing it along, how that feels to the person. They know you were talking about them, but that it was good.

SPEAKER_04 14:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

And the the opposite of that, think about how it feels when you sit down in a room and someone says to me, you know, someone told me the other day they really hate you, or they think you are a total idiot, you know, or whatever it is, the same kind of spiral happens, but it's in a downward slope. It's it's a total opposite in terms of reaction and how that sits in a person, in their soul, all of that.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah, words, words can make or break like uh your relationship with somebody, but also like just man, they're like life to people. And I and I think um it could be in all cultures, but maybe I'll just speak to ours. Like we're sometimes we're few on those those encouraging blessing words. Like being intentional in that can help overcome those times where they've really you you felt the words like a dagger, right? That'll put you down.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

There was a mentor in um I was in a Sunday community for many years, and there was a mentor couple in that group, and I remember so clearly the um the gentleman saying uh that it was because we were this group was a lot of people were starting to have kids and we were doing a lot of discussion on parenting, and and he said, um, you know, truthfully, I can remember a few of the really harsh things my dad ever said to me, but I know he gave me a lot of compliments. I just haven't held on to them as tightly as I have the things that um I heard from him that were cutting words. So, you know, I mean, that that's just uh an example of how different trajectory a judgment is versus a blessing.

SPEAKER_03 16:04

Yeah. And I think that um I was reading some. I have no stat, I have no backing to my stat. This is the same as someone saying I did research on Facebook about it, but um, this is in Kyle's third book of opinion. Yes, but someone uh was talking about the discrepancy in the amount of like compliments that men and women receive and like how low it is uh in men and how much like shaping of their lives that is, that they get a lot less of like not praise for you did this well, but like a compliment or a genuine like nicety. And I do know that when I have received like a good word from someone, gosh, it stays with me. Like uh like I uh it's so funny that he said that your that mentor couple said that about the dad, because I remember with my dad who recently passed, like I I have a really hard time remembering any of the niceties, and uh, and uh and so we had a strained, sometimes great, sometimes bad relationship. But there was I I can remember like with vivid memory two or three times where he said something genuinely nice to me, and like because they were rare and uh shocking, yeah, and I like held on to it so much. So it it it is interesting how big of a deal those are. I I don't know, as we're talking about being free to bless, I'm like, I I just want to be the sort of person that isn't that that isn't a minority uh you know blessings, but that that becomes standard. I really like that. I like that idea.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

I I think the I mean the hurts in our lives, those like signposts of words and actions, they really um they really curve our story a certain way. And what what if we as we move through church and move through um our workplace, our families, we assume that everybody has some of those signposts. And this free to to bless and free to run with blessing to have a posture of blessing is a way of speaking life back into those places of hurt. Um I think we all have in this room, we all have them. We have those spaces that have written our story, unfortunately, for us. And we'd like that story to be rewritten with those words of blessing.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

One of the things that we encountered last week in discussing um free from division and free to disagree, I think can be at play here where folks really want to know, okay, but when is it okay for me to say the thing that is true? And uh I don't even know that we need to go there because we spent so much time last week talking about it, maybe listen to last week's message. But I would just encourage us to try to sit in the reality of what we're saying about blessing rather than worry so much about how far can I go in this negative space before it becomes sinful, but rather think how far could I go in a place of blessing others that would spread love and kindness and the fruits of the spirit? And um, because those are the things where God says there's no law against those. You can do those as much as you want. So, like, let's try to, as believers and as community, I'm not saying never think about the line on the other side, but rather let's think about how there is no other line on the other. There is no line on the other direction instead and focus our thoughts on like how far could I go in giving someone the freedom of a blessing?

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Such a fun picture. Like, yeah, well, have I reached my like uh maximum amount of like love I can show people yet? Like I'm not there yet.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

I gotta keep trying, like there's there's still a further line to get to.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

I got no there there is no law against those things. There is nothing we can do, those as much as we want. And so, like, how much kindness could we show? How would that bless others? How much forgiveness could we offer? How would that bless others? You know, how much gentleness, etc., etc.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

So Yeah, on the one hand, we have abundance, we can run with abundance, the other hand we have scarcity, right? But you only have so much of this. And living in that's that sort of world of scarcity, it creates those those walls. And you're it takes a lot of energy to always be thinking about that. Right. Whereas it it takes a different type of energy, an abundant energy that like sort of reproduces itself when you're thinking, How can I bless? How can I move forward?

SPEAKER_01 20:36

We did get a really beautiful and practical and also like philosophical kind of question that we really want to talk about today. So let me just um read it for our listeners and for us in the room. It says, I love Matthew 7, 3 through 5, until we get to the end. Verse 5, you hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. It's hard for me to believe there will ever be a time when I don't have a plank in my eye, making it so that I can see clearly to remove the speck from my brother's eye. Do you think there is ever a time where we can see clearly enough to judge another?

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Great.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

That's a great question. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

I read that question last night and I kind of went preach. That'll preach, as uh others might say. I don't know if the youths are saying that. Oh, okay. But yeah, I just felt like what a beautiful way to help us really get to the heart of it. Like where you spoke of hypocrisy. So, what part does that play, you know, deeply in our own souls when we think about judging other people?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that that's that's a great question. I think the first picture that comes to mind, and it will be a little bit off strange, maybe, but But um it's actually from a different uh topic, but it it maybe applies here. So the um uh Henry Nowen writes uh Wounded Healer. Maybe you guys have read that. The picture at the end of Wounded Healer of this this wounded healer sitting and attending to his wounds as he attends to the wounds of others. That's the picture of like how we're attending to our sin. We're attending to these planks and we're we're working them off. And I I want to say clearly, like, it's not I'm just trying to be better or I'm trying to like I'm living in shame. It's I'm sitting before the cross and continue to receive grace and forgiveness in the power of the spirit. Like I'm doing that regularly or daily. As I attend to those things, I'm able to attend to the other, but I'm able to attend to that that space with the other in the form of blessing. And so maybe we put we take uh attending to sin with somebody out of the place of a judgment seat, and we put it in the place of blessing. And I'm I've done I've done I maybe this is not the best word, but I've done the work where I've lived the life where I have tried to bless this person, I've sought their blessing, I've seen their good, and they know that from me. And then I can come alongside that person with gentleness, respect, honor, and we could we could talk about this together. We can invite each other into deeper ways. That's I think the picture where we move into blessing. So I think I mean the question is will we ever get there? I don't think so. We're we'll never get there. We'll be always attending to ourselves, but I think I think we go wrong when we set up that judgment scene. When we say, okay, I have created a measure, and I'm looking at my brother and sister through that measure. Instead, I'm looking at them through the measure of blessing. And when we get into that space and we are realizing, hey, there's there's a wrong course here, there's sin, there's there's struggle. I'm able to really be in a space of intimacy and love and respect and honor. Uh, and we can walk through that journey together. It's the same with suffering. What people need in suffering is closeness, relationship, and we can walk through that space together out into a new part of our lives.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

I this Matthew 7 passage is like one of my favorite. Um You really like judging people. That's right. It's so interesting to me because I had never thought of the sp uh sawdust and the plank as judgment. Um, like in conclusion to the earlier sentence. Like I had always read it, and this is how we had discussed it, like that if Katie, if you have a speck of sawdust in your eye, like you need help getting it out because you can't see, and like, and I being someone who's like, it's like loved you, wants to help you get it out. And what I need to do is like get rid of the things that keep me from being able to, like, I have viewed it as such a love passage, such a community passage, not as a well, now I have the right to judge what you're doing wrong. But like, if there are things that are keeping me from, like, as you're discussing, like intimacy, closeness, there are things that are like a plank to take the metaphor way too far, maybe a plank in my eye is doing two things. One, it's distorting my vision. Um, and two, it's keeping me physically separated from someone else. Like, I can't get close enough to you to remove a speck if there is something poking out of me that is uh not allowing me to get there. So I'm like, if I can remove this thing, and then it's a question of like, what is that? Is that like bigger sins, smaller sins, whatever? I'm like, I just don't think that that's how it works. So what I assume it is, is anything that is keeping me separate from other people, which would be lies, which would be deception, which would be uh secrets, which would be any of these things that if I have this holding on to it, how can I ever love you well enough to help you see better if I'm like content being distant and separated from you? That's good. And so it changed my whole mind of what it looked like. And then judgment doesn't even enter into the equation. It's like not even part of it at all.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Well, you think about it, we often think about this area in um it's like when we read the text, we think me and somebody else. Like we're so individualistic, right? But but this this is a community text, right? And so you think about your your analogy, Kyle. Like, what is keeping me from blessing you? Like when you're in community, this is what divides these communities, like every every community has these planks dividing groups, dividing individuals. And um a community can't live into abundance, it lives in scarcity in that space. Yeah, and I I love that attitude where you're just you're looking at somebody and go, What's why the distance? What's how can I overcome that distance? And what's what about me? Not about them, what about me is keeping me from that pursuit of blessing.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

And I know that when I have something that I'm not saying to someone, like that I have like uh or I'm trying to hide something from them, then no other part of our relationship is as close, you know, like uh, because I I'm never free from that thing that I'm holding on to. And if I can just let it go, right, then you have real intimacy, real closeness. And it's and in that time, then you can be like, let me grab that speck from your eye, let me be there with you. Cause like, dude, don't you want to see better? It's freaking awesome, you know? And uh, but you can't do that until you're close enough. And when you're holding on things that make you separate, how do you get closer? I just I really enjoy that that that passage.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

And that idea of how you're interpreting the the closeness is is a good reframes. Yes. Um, I kept thinking as we were talking about from 1 Peter, um, where he says they hurl this is about Jesus. They when they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate. When he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins, his body on the cross, so that when that we might die to sin and live for righteousness, by his wounds you have been healed. I mean, all of that fits together so well because part of understanding that you are free from judgment is just knowing that we as human beings are not able in our own interpretation of events and our own perspective and our own distance to actually accurately judge another person's motives. We have to entrust them to Jesus, who is the only one with the pure heart who can see clearly a person's motivation, what's coming, what their how their behavior is rooted or what it's rooted in, all those things. We we are kind of incapable of that. So it speaks to that question too, that says, like, is there a place where we will ever see clearly? I mean, no.

SPEAKER_04 29:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

And having that kind of attitude and heart posture is really helpful because it prevents us from lashing out at people and it helps us to instead come try to come closer when possible. Sometimes distance is actually the best course of action because the other person uh has a bigger plank and it's gonna hurt you. You know, we have to sort of be careful to have discretion and not even this sounds cliche, but don't judge people who are creating distance in some of their circles. Maybe there's some trauma involved, maybe there's some abuse. We have to just sort of be able to say, I don't know everything. I don't know everything.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Right, but right, but as long as we're not holding on the things that keep them from, you know, like uh so I I understand I under totally understand that aspect. If they don't want you to come close, don't come close to animals that have roared at you and said, Don't come close to me. You know what I mean? But like uh, but if we're holding things that say, you know, that that that to me is the freedom of I got you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Can I go back to the the Peter passage? That's such a great passage. I just just imagine the freedom that Jesus had in that in that moment where he is at almost his worst. I mean the cross comes next, but these these um leaders are reviling God right to his face. And he is in a space of abundance and freedom that he does not need to answer. Like he is so rested in God's will for his life, his own uh justice, uh his love for him, that he can actually overcome the moment and and be there and and be silent.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

And just just to receive and know God knows. I I think there's just a beautiful freedom in in a low point for Jesus' life, right? A place of of deep suffering. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

That's gonna come up this Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 31:21

Oh, teaser. Yeah, that's gonna show that and show that little trailer.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

I can't like the way you just said that. I'm just thinking a lot of thoughts that are like, wow. Doo doo doo doo. Yeah. In sync, in sync. Um, do we have any other thoughts that we really want to talk about this morning? Anything left over that's like just killing you to say, Kyle?

SPEAKER_03 31:45

I um feel blessed to have been part of this video. Amen. Oh blessings to you. Yeah, say say more of the word. Um you just had to. I had to. Thank you. It was uh I thank you for being with us today, James. Oh, my pleasure. This was fun.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Can we can we just do it every week? I'd love I'd love this.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

I mean Well, and the goal, I mean, we say, yeah, joke, like, hey, let's do this every week, but this is actually the goal is to model this kind of healthy dialogue to say to you, who are you talking about? This, what you're learning with? Like, we're not just individuals um sort of soaking in a preacher's words. We're a community of people trying to be um doing this together. And so keep talking. Say more. More of this, more of this. Let's see if I can get this right.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Is she gonna play the right song?

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Goodbye.