SPEAKER_00: Church will be in the book of Luke this morning again, Luke chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: We'll begin in verse 37, going through verse 42.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible this morning, I encourage you, there's some on the welcome table back there to grab one.
SPEAKER_00: It's wonderful to have a Bible.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't own one personally, that's a gift from us to you.
SPEAKER_00: Love for you to have a copy of God's precious word.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke chapter 6, as Jesus is teaching his disciples, he's instructing them and helping them learn how to think.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying a lot of things that are contrary to the culture, they're countercultural, they're revolutionary.
SPEAKER_00: And here Jesus is encouraging them and teaching them.
SPEAKER_00: The theme that we'll see that we see in this text this morning is about mature humility.
SPEAKER_00: Mature humility.
SPEAKER_00: It's the smallest things, the smallest lie that we tell ourselves, or the small lies that others tell us that we believe that can cause the most damage.
SPEAKER_00: And these lives can be shaped negatively, things that are untrue, or I mean things that are saying things about us that we're not worthy of love, we're not worthy of these things, or we're not good at this.
SPEAKER_00: Or these lies can be even to the positive.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not so bad.
SPEAKER_00: At least you're better than these people.
SPEAKER_00: These small little lies.
SPEAKER_00: Over time, they can blind us so much that we don't even see.
SPEAKER_00: That our ability to see things for how they really are has been so diminished that we're blind.
SPEAKER_00: That one thing we talk about is blind spots.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone has blind spots, right?
SPEAKER_00: Things about yourself that you just don't know, things that you do that you're unaware of.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a loving, gracious, kind person who points out your blind spots.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a humble, Christ-like person who receives that word and has the wisdom to discern and to apply what they're being told.
SPEAKER_00: When we ignore these lies, we just believe them, we don't deal with them, we don't acknowledge them as lies.
SPEAKER_00: When we ignore people's words about blind spots, we become blind, unable to see.
SPEAKER_00: We become judgmental, immature, and prone to prideful ways.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in this passage, Jesus is first and foremost going after the religious leaders of the day with this text, and anyone who might be following their pattern of living.
SPEAKER_00: So he's revealing to his disciples and whoever is listening what they are doing, the religious leaders, and how it's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: He's going after their judgmental spirits, their attitudes to be quick to condemn, their inability to see their own blindness.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is kindly revealing this to his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're not, if you're familiar with the Bible or really just human history in general, you know that people are prone to making up their own rules and then judging others by their new rules.
SPEAKER_00: This is a pattern we see throughout all of human history, especially in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You probably see this in your own heart, in your own life as well.
SPEAKER_00: So here Jesus begins in verse 37 of Luke chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Judge not, and you will not be judged.
SPEAKER_00: Condemn not and you will not be condemned.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Give and it will be given to you.
SPEAKER_00: Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.
SPEAKER_00: For the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
SPEAKER_00: Pause there for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Can you think of a more popular or often quoted verse of the Bible by people who actually hate the Bible in order to justify their sin than verse 37?
SPEAKER_00: Judge not, and you will not be judged?
SPEAKER_00: They make this appeal from a book that they hate and reject in order to live out a lifestyle that they want to live and justify their behavior to a bunch of people around them.
SPEAKER_00: And obviously the irony is pretty thick here, but it's real.
SPEAKER_00: People who desecrate their bodies live lives of complete sin.
SPEAKER_00: They manipulate, they steal.
SPEAKER_00: And then they turn to the book that condemns all these things and they say, Listen, only God can judge me.
SPEAKER_00: You can't judge me.
SPEAKER_00: Only God can judge me.
SPEAKER_00: And they misquote and misuse God's holy and precious word.
SPEAKER_00: But lest we be also immature and blinded by our pride, we are prone to similar kinds of thinking, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00: We hold a theological position or a political position.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't really use the Bible to understand these things and arrive at these things, but we use the Bible to prop it up and to lead up against our position, to justify our position.
SPEAKER_00: We turn to God's word to make sense, or not to make sense of the things around us and understand the Bible's teaching on things.
SPEAKER_00: We turn to God's word to just defend our position.
SPEAKER_00: Find a verse here, find a parable there, string them together, and here's the theology that I already came into the room with before I opened God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: So we must be careful, humble.
SPEAKER_00: That although we're here gathered as a church, we're not also doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: We're not defending ourselves, being blinded by our own pride.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why we need accountability.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters who love God and love his word and love us enough to come to us and say, listen, there's a thing going on in your life we need to talk about.
SPEAKER_00: There's something happening here that's a troubling to us.
SPEAKER_00: This is why church membership is so vital.
SPEAKER_00: Because we've made it very clear from the get-go, there's a commitment to praying for one another and encouraging one another, and then calling each other out on our sin graciously and lovingly.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who has read the Bible knows that what Jesus is saying here is, well, you're don't judge ever.
SPEAKER_00: Just don't judge.
SPEAKER_00: We're told of a story of a man who's sleeping with his father's wife.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul writes to the church, not just to the elders, the pastors, to the congregation, and he says, talking about first himself and then them in verse 12, he says, For what have I to do with judging outsiders?
SPEAKER_00: Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?
SPEAKER_00: God judges those outside.
SPEAKER_00: Purge the evil person from among you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how are the church at Corinth to obey the teaching here if they're to just not judge?
SPEAKER_00: It's rather ludicrous.
SPEAKER_00: We think about using this text as a justification for just not judging at all.
SPEAKER_00: Because no one could do that ever.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to finding a spouse, taking a job, working with someone in business, all these things require judgment and wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: But what Jesus is getting after, when he says, do not judge and do not condemn, what's he going after?
SPEAKER_00: He's going after the heart, right?
SPEAKER_00: The heart of the Pharisees and the religious leaders who are making up their own laws and then judging others by them, and then even worse, condemning them based on not God's law, but their own law.
SPEAKER_00: And how quick it is for us to do this ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not in drastic ways, like the Pharisees and the religious leaders.
SPEAKER_00: But similarly, we make up ideas of how you are to parent and how you shouldn't parent, how you are to use your money and how you're not supposed to use your money, and all these things.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to say there's great wisdom in that.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible speaks about all these things.
SPEAKER_00: But then we can add on expectations.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm doing it this way, you should be doing it this way.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I use my money this way, this is how you should use your money, this is how I spend my time, this is how I serve the church, this is how I bake bread, this is how you should do these things.
SPEAKER_00: There's something in us that we're just little lawmakers.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We just make law and make law and make law.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's a way for us to make feel good about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We make laws so that we can feel good.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I've made a standard and I'm meeting it pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, not 100%.
SPEAKER_00: No one will do that, right?
SPEAKER_00: But pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: I'm passing, I'm getting a good grade, and you're getting a failing grade.
SPEAKER_00: And how quickly we let those little laws dictate our relationship with other people.
SPEAKER_00: And when you leave that undone or undealt with, unconfessed, you even turn from that, over time, you do take another step where you begin to do something even worse.
SPEAKER_00: You begin to condemn.
SPEAKER_00: You begin to write people off.
SPEAKER_00: Condemn them.
SPEAKER_00: Well, they're they're beyond forgiving.
SPEAKER_00: They're beyond hope.
SPEAKER_00: They're hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: Surely the Lord isn't going to save them after all these years and everything they've done.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not that dramatic in your own mind.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a little less, maybe it's just you and your place of work or in school or with your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: And you're just like, ah, they probably don't want, they probably have someone else has shared the gospel with them and they've probably rejected it, or they would be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: You know.
SPEAKER_00: Someone's already been there, someone's already told them the good news.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a different thing, but it's a similar thing.
SPEAKER_00: We're judging.
SPEAKER_00: And our withholding God's means of salvation in a sense is us just letting them go to their own condemnation without being warned, without being told that they will face a holy God and be judged for their actions.
SPEAKER_00: So we might not be condemning them with our words and saying, well, they're going to hell.
SPEAKER_00: They've broken my law.
SPEAKER_00: But in a similar way, we just think they've broken God's law.
SPEAKER_00: They probably don't want God.
SPEAKER_00: We write them off.
SPEAKER_00: How easy it is for us to have these kinds of blind spots, to become judges and to condemn.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, again, is going after the heart, and we can know this in our own attitudes.
SPEAKER_00: Think about, again, your life.
SPEAKER_00: Think about a week, seven days of your life, and where you go, and the people that you're around, your job, your people you live with, your own family, neighbors, all the just people in your life, people in your church, in your community.
SPEAKER_00: And how easy it is to have kind of a narrow thinking, uh, uh, uh, a miserly, tight-fisted mentality with these people.
SPEAKER_00: You're just, you're close-handed.
SPEAKER_00: You're not overflung because God has been gracious to you and He's loved you and He's lavished His mercy upon you.
SPEAKER_00: Your actions and your words don't reflect that kind of mercy and grace having been lavished on you, but rather you exude pride.
SPEAKER_00: You exude maybe arrogance or apathy.
SPEAKER_00: You just don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Sure, God's given you all these things, but your heart is just not too satisfied with God right now.
SPEAKER_00: How faithful was God to the Israelites for generations and generations and generations.
SPEAKER_00: Faithful, delivered them again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't read through the book of Judges recently, I encourage you to read through the book of Judges.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll see what is in some people's minds the darkest bottom for Israel.
SPEAKER_00: It's just like this downward cycle of depravity and wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: You just think you think, when's it gonna end?
SPEAKER_00: It just keeps going.
SPEAKER_00: Yet God was faithful.
SPEAKER_00: He delivered them out of that, he brought justice to them.
SPEAKER_00: God's faithful.
SPEAKER_00: And here, yet the religious leaders in Jesus' day are judgmental.
SPEAKER_00: They condemn, they write people off.
SPEAKER_00: But rather we are to have broad and generous hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this doesn't mean we just accept whatever is going on around us.
SPEAKER_00: I think so many times we have that fear, like, well, we can't be generous and kind because what if people think we're affirming something the Bible doesn't teach?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a that's a really a problem we don't have in our culture.
SPEAKER_00: It's a problem that we don't have as a as a church, as Christians, that are going around holding up high God's word, saying we love God's word, we're faithful to God's word, and at the same time being kind and gracious.
SPEAKER_00: God's word never, never, ever makes room for sin, allows sin, and says it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: But God is kind.
SPEAKER_00: As we talked about last week, how God is merciful to the ungrateful and the evil.
SPEAKER_00: So we likewise should be grateful or should be merciful to those who are ungrateful and evil around us.
SPEAKER_00: Not for their blessing, even per se, but for God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: Not so that we can feel good about ourselves and say, well, at least we're the kind of Christians who are kind and gracious to people.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: That we would be the kind of Christians that glorify God, that would represent that people say, This is the God of the Bible, and they're acting like the God of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: They're holding fast to truth, and they're kind and gracious and merciful.
SPEAKER_00: Broad and generous are their hearts because God has been so merciful and gracious to them.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's this blessing that Jesus says, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.
SPEAKER_00: For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
SPEAKER_00: In the culture, then, when they would, when they would sell things, they would measure them, not the same way we do, but what is the idea that Jesus is teaching them is when you would measure, you'd hold something out, or even a shirt, and you would press it down, you'd shake it together, like when you're filling a jar, right?
SPEAKER_00: You just you're filling it and you're getting all the air out.
SPEAKER_00: Trying to understand or not understand, but get all the air out so everything settles in.
SPEAKER_00: So you can fill that up.
SPEAKER_00: So you're getting the right amount.
SPEAKER_00: Getting a full amount.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus saying, Listen, you do these things, forgive them, give, and it'll be given to you.
SPEAKER_00: Live contrary to the world.
SPEAKER_00: And what comes good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.
SPEAKER_00: For the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
SPEAKER_00: Just in case anyone here might be tempted to think Jesus is talking about prosperity, gospel, God's gonna give you all these things.
SPEAKER_00: From what we understand in church history, all the apostles were killed, were martyred.
SPEAKER_00: All the people that Jesus is saying this to directly, those apostles and whoever else might be following him, were going to face extreme persecution and suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And most of them death.
SPEAKER_00: Violent, painful death for their obedience to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't even saying, listen, you do good and you don't judge others, and you be kind and you give a little bit here and there, and then you'll have some money in this life.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll probably have a good job and a nice family, and yada, yada, yada.
SPEAKER_00: He isn't saying any of those things.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is, you live as the Father has loved you and you love others.
SPEAKER_00: You live as Christ is modeled, has not modeled for you.
SPEAKER_00: There is a blessing that will come to you that is beyond material good.
SPEAKER_00: It's a joy of the heart, it's a living in a lifestyle that is blessed and is aware of God's blessings.
SPEAKER_00: How grateful, how different we would live as Christians if we just opened our eyes and could see more clearly the blessings God has given us.
SPEAKER_00: If we could take time to renew our minds and understand this has already happened to us.
SPEAKER_00: This, what's going on here in verse 38, this good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over, it's already, if you're a Christian, a reality in your life, whether you see it or not.
SPEAKER_00: And so the blessing is that you do see it more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: That you're alive another day to glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what happens if tomorrow you die or at the end of the day, you died today?
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord because you're with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: There isn't a bad situation here for Christians.
SPEAKER_00: There's just hope before us.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's difficulty and there's trial and there's sickness and there's death and there's tragedy in this life, all those things, but it will all be overshadowed with the hope that we have in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's the blessing, this good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over.
SPEAKER_00: It's an abundance that God will give you.
SPEAKER_00: Just stop having narrow, closed off, condemning hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Because God has been gracious to you.
SPEAKER_00: This requires good judgment, good vision.
SPEAKER_00: If you have that judgment, you will eventually go blind, and you will judge falsely, and you will condemn others.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 39.
SPEAKER_00: He told he also told him a parable.
SPEAKER_00: Can a blind man lead a blind man?
SPEAKER_00: Will they not both fall into a pit?
SPEAKER_00: A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye?
SPEAKER_00: But do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
SPEAKER_00: How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?
SPEAKER_00: You hypocrite, first take out the log of your own eye, out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.
SPEAKER_00: Blind teach blind leaders, blind men make bad leaders and bad teachers.
SPEAKER_00: Can Jesus rebuking the religious leaders?
SPEAKER_00: Can a blind man lead a blind man?
SPEAKER_00: This idea comes in Romans chapter 1, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Therefore you have no excuse, O man.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of you who judges, for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you judge you as a judge practice the very same thing.
SPEAKER_00: You're blind.
SPEAKER_00: You judge others on standards you do not meet or keep or even intend to meet.
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, you've so rejected keeping God's standards that you start to make your own.
SPEAKER_00: You start to make your own law and you become blind.
SPEAKER_00: And where do blind people lead other blind people?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna fall into a pit, they're gonna be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: There's something they cannot lead them to safety, they cannot offer them hope.
SPEAKER_00: So it's remarkable in this time where Jesus has come as the Messiah, and the religious leaders are going to reject him and crucify him.
SPEAKER_00: The one who could truly see, the one who had perfect sight, the one who could deliver.
SPEAKER_00: But they were so blind, so caught up in judging others and condemning others, that they didn't realize that their own condemnation had come, their own judgment had come.
SPEAKER_00: Humility is required.
SPEAKER_00: If you're going to be a faithful leader, a teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 40: a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.
SPEAKER_00: How different were the Pharisees and religious leaders in Christ, the one who had given them the law, him who had come to deliver the truth.
SPEAKER_00: How different they were than him.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, they they thought that they had superseded him again by making their own rules.
SPEAKER_00: And judging the law giver as if he broke the law.
SPEAKER_00: This is wild when you understand what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ, the lawgiver, the word.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: In Genesis, he's given us the word.
SPEAKER_00: He is the word.
SPEAKER_00: He made the standard, the law.
SPEAKER_00: And now the Pharisees are here to condemn him for breaking the law.
SPEAKER_00: As if he did not or could not keep the law.
SPEAKER_00: They're blind guides.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, the disciples, the apostles, Christians, followers of Jesus are to be marked by their humility.
SPEAKER_00: Not that they're thinking just always that they're nothing and they have nothing to bring.
SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard this phrase really helpful when it comes to humility.
SPEAKER_00: It's not thinking less of yourself as if you're a nothing.
SPEAKER_00: It's just thinking about yourself less.
SPEAKER_00: It's not thinking less about yourself, it's just thinking about yourself less.
SPEAKER_00: You're not caught up with yourself, you're not worried about these things.
SPEAKER_00: You're trusting and following Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This idea of logs and specks.
SPEAKER_00: How easy it is to have a log or a plank in our own eye.
SPEAKER_00: And we just don't even see it.
SPEAKER_00: We're blind to it.
SPEAKER_00: And we see this speck in someone else's life.
SPEAKER_00: This is so abundantly clear in the story of David and Bathsheba and 2 Samuel.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know the story, David, King David, right, God's anointed one, the warrior, does all these amazing things.
SPEAKER_00: And when the armies go out to battle to fight, and he's the leader of the army, he doesn't go.
SPEAKER_00: He says I'm just gonna take this one off, take a season and chill, chill here in the palace.
SPEAKER_00: And he sees a beautiful woman bathing, and he brings her to his chambers, and they conceive a child.
SPEAKER_00: And the child dies.
SPEAKER_00: But the prophet, Nathan, comes to David.
SPEAKER_00: He tells David about a story of a man who had tons of flocks of sheep, just dozens of them, plenty, plenty, plenty.
SPEAKER_00: He had a friend who came to visit him.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of sacrificing one of his sheep, he goes to this poor man who had one sheep.
SPEAKER_00: One sheep.
SPEAKER_00: He loved it, he cared for it, he raised it, cherished it.
SPEAKER_00: And the rich man came and took the poor man's sheep, slaughtered it, and fed it to his friends.
SPEAKER_00: Nathan comes and tells David this story, to which David says in 2 Samuel 12, beginning of verse 5, then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man and said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die.
SPEAKER_00: And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he has no pity.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Nathan said to David, You are the man.
SPEAKER_00: How easy it is for us to look at other people's sin, other people's pride, other people's failings.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see the giant log in our own eye.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see what we've done.
SPEAKER_00: We condemn, we write people off, we judge them.
SPEAKER_00: We assume they don't want anything to do with the Lord, or they're not really loving the church, or they're not serving, or they're not this, or they're not that, or they're out doing those things, or they're doing this with their time, and all these other things.
SPEAKER_00: Some of those might very well be true.
SPEAKER_00: But you don't know.
SPEAKER_00: You're too busy looking and all these other things around you to understand the log in your own eye.
SPEAKER_00: That when the word said a few verses earlier that God was merciful to the great, ungrateful, and evil, that you are the ones who are ungrateful and evil, that I am the one who is ungrateful and evil, that we are the ones.
SPEAKER_00: And even as the Lord saves us, he takes all of our sin because Christ died on the cross, paying the price for that.
SPEAKER_00: The cross wasn't just a display of love and affection, it was that.
SPEAKER_00: But it was an actual transaction happened there.
SPEAKER_00: Your literal sins were paid for by the blood and body of Christ, broken for you.
SPEAKER_00: They were paid for, they were atoned for.
SPEAKER_00: You are justified before God the Father, made right with him.
SPEAKER_00: Christ bore the wrath for you.
SPEAKER_00: So that then you can walk with the Lord in newness of life, no longer a slave to sin, no longer bound up in the thinking and the ways of this world.
SPEAKER_00: So that you can do this.
SPEAKER_00: Be merciful, be kind, be generous.
SPEAKER_00: So that you would not be blind, so that you could see clearly.
SPEAKER_00: But even as Christians who've been born again, Christ has saved us, we're still prone to this old nature.
SPEAKER_00: Where we just we just walk around with logs in our eyes, we're blinded, our eyes, we can't see.
SPEAKER_00: But what we can see, the little bit we can see, we see what's going on in your in your life, we see the way you're messing up.
SPEAKER_00: So we repent.
SPEAKER_00: We repent.
SPEAKER_00: It's a challenge, though, to do this.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be reminded as hard as it is of our own sin.
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes when you're uh Christians and you're you're preaching the word, it's just like all we talk about is sin and sin and our sin.
SPEAKER_00: And is there anything, is there any hope?
SPEAKER_00: There is hope.
SPEAKER_00: But we see it because we understand our sin.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't understand our sin, the hope of Christ seems dismal to us.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like an insurance policy at best.
SPEAKER_00: And a waste of time at worst.
SPEAKER_00: We must know our own hearts and our own sin.
SPEAKER_00: If we're gonna take the log out of our own eye, we've got to understand how many times we sin.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many times in your heart a day do you sin?
SPEAKER_00: How many times in a day do you have lustful thoughts?
SPEAKER_00: How many times a day do you have prideful thoughts?
SPEAKER_00: Do you view someone around you as inferior?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you look around and you covet what someone else has and you want it for yourself?
SPEAKER_00: How many times in one day do you disregard God's commands?
SPEAKER_00: Because you're just too tired or you're just too busy?
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts are so prone to sin.
SPEAKER_00: Yet we have this amazing ability, really, to overlook our own sin and see sin in others.
SPEAKER_00: To look down and see their sin for what it is, which is sin.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see our own sin.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells a story in Luke chapter 18 that captures this.
SPEAKER_00: It says in verse 9 of Luke 18, he told this parable to some who trusted themselves that they were righteous and treat others with contempt.
SPEAKER_00: It says two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus.
SPEAKER_00: But beat his chest, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.
SPEAKER_00: For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful.
SPEAKER_00: You are not like the Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: Once we have identified a log in our own eye, what do we need to do?
SPEAKER_00: We need to remove it, right?
SPEAKER_00: We need to remove it.
SPEAKER_00: So how do you take a log out of your own eye?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the first thing is confess your sins.
SPEAKER_00: Confess your sins.
SPEAKER_00: Confess them to another brother.
SPEAKER_00: Confess them obviously first to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Confess them to others as well.
SPEAKER_00: If you find yourself regularly confessing the sin to the Lord, but to no one else in your life, you're not really removing this log in your eye.
SPEAKER_00: You're not really dealing with your sin because your pride is still keeping you from sharing sin, what your sin with others, that they might pray for you and encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: So you might feel better for a moment because you've confessed to the Lord, the log is still there.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: One thing I find interesting in pastoral ministry is how much people trust themselves.
SPEAKER_00: This is, I mean, we all do this, we just trust ourselves so much.
SPEAKER_00: You bring up an issue or a sin that's going on in someone's life, and as their pastor, I love them and I pray for them and I encourage them, and they're like, ah, I just don't see it that way.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't a wisdom call.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't a judgment call.
SPEAKER_00: This is a right or wrong sin issue.
SPEAKER_00: We're so quick to trusting ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: So quick to being thinking that we have the wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Why do I need to confess to others?
SPEAKER_00: What are they gonna say to me?
SPEAKER_00: I have God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Why do I need to tell other people where I'm at?
SPEAKER_00: I have all these YouTube preachers and teachers and podcasts and books I can turn to.
SPEAKER_00: Those all might be wonderful things.
SPEAKER_00: Those are things are not the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They have not been instituted by the sovereign creator of the universe for your own good and accountability and encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the church is for.
SPEAKER_00: So be quick to confess your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Be humble.
SPEAKER_00: Few things are as frustrating as someone who's really blown it in life.
SPEAKER_00: They've really messed up.
SPEAKER_00: And they're just kind of still prideful.
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, I blew that one, but good times are ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Smooth sailings ahead.
SPEAKER_00: You're just like, well, did you realize what you just did?
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize the damage that your sin caused?
SPEAKER_00: Do you see the catastrophe around you, the relational damage around you, and now you're just being prideful again?
SPEAKER_00: So confess your sins and be humble and be teachable.
SPEAKER_00: And this doesn't mean just wait for someone to come up to you even.
SPEAKER_00: Go to people around you who who interact with you, who who love the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They're not perfect, they don't have infinite wisdom, and they might be wrong, but just ask them.
SPEAKER_00: Ask them, hey, do you see blind spots in my life?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm struggling with this.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see a pattern of this in my life?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you see things I'm not aware of?
SPEAKER_00: Being humble isn't just a mindset in and of your own head.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to walk itself out among the church and among your family and friends.
SPEAKER_00: So be humble, be teachable.
SPEAKER_00: Be willing to hear direct hard correction from people who love you.
SPEAKER_00: People who actually care more about your sanctification than they do about you just feeling comfortable or liking them.
SPEAKER_00: Find and cultivate relationships with people who will speak truth to you, regardless of the cost.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you begin to remove these log from your own eye.
SPEAKER_00: And be ready.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as you deal with that log, you're like, all right, this is an amazing thing.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has answered my prayer, he's removed the log.
SPEAKER_00: Another log comes right in.
SPEAKER_00: Feels discouraging, it feels defeating, but this is a Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: We're continuing to humble ourselves as the Lord reveals these things.
SPEAKER_00: But there is a task that we're given in this passage, and that is to also, when necessary, remove the speck from someone else's eye.
SPEAKER_00: So we are, we do have a responsibility here, church, to say to others when they are not following God's ways, and they're off or they're discouraged, and we need to encourage them and build them up or fix their eyes on the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: To give them wisdom, to give them encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: We have to do the work of removing the speck, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: So just a few words on that.
SPEAKER_00: Be humble and be gentle.
SPEAKER_00: You know, a few verses earlier when it says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't want someone just walking into your house, sitting at your table, and just saying, listen, you're really blowing it.
SPEAKER_00: And here's how.
SPEAKER_00: Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
SPEAKER_00: Now just repent and do better.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna respond to that?
SPEAKER_00: Probably not very well.
SPEAKER_00: You might respond well outwardly, maybe, probably not, but inwardly you're not gonna hear them.
SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna hear you when you say those things to them.
SPEAKER_00: So when you help remove a speck, first thing is to be humble, to be gentle.
SPEAKER_00: You are caring for their soul in a sense.
SPEAKER_00: You do this with wisdom and discernment.
SPEAKER_00: Is this a speck?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I have a log and I'm not seeing correctly.
SPEAKER_00: Let's spend some time praying about it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: Be discerning.
SPEAKER_00: How will they receive this?
SPEAKER_00: When should I tell them this?
SPEAKER_00: Should I tell them some on Sunday when there's five kids running around them and they're needed somewhere?
SPEAKER_00: Probably not a good idea, a good idea to deliver the news then, right?
SPEAKER_00: Should I show up at their house at 5:30 in the morning before you head off to work and just say, I got 15 minutes, I just want to tell you real quick, you have this big log in your eye, maybe it's a speck, I don't know, but here it is.
SPEAKER_00: Then get off to work.
SPEAKER_00: No, probably not a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you have to like roll out the red carpet for this.
SPEAKER_00: That would be a little bit awkward.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a, if there's a speck in my eye and you need to remove it, just treat me to a nice dinner, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Take me up to dinner, then tell me the news.
SPEAKER_00: No, but be wise in this, be discerning.
SPEAKER_00: What's going on in their life?
SPEAKER_00: Did they just have a really hard season of life?
SPEAKER_00: Is there something else going on?
SPEAKER_00: And then when we do this, and this is extremely difficult, but the only way you get better at this is with practice, is to be clear and precise.
SPEAKER_00: There should be clarity, doing with clarity and precision.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you're a failing at all of these things in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that if you don't correct this, you're probably gonna go to hell.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying just big, broad, general things.
SPEAKER_00: What I am saying is you said this thing, or I've heard you say a similar thing these times, and it's concerning.
SPEAKER_00: And here's why it's concerning.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe I'm off on this, I'm not really good at this, so be understanding, but I love you and I care, and here's the problem that I see.
SPEAKER_00: I could be wrong, could be way off, but here it is.
SPEAKER_00: Correct me, rebuke me, tell me I'm wrong if you want.
SPEAKER_00: But I love you and I want you to follow Jesus faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: So if we're going to go about being faithful to Scripture, and when the occasion comes, removing a speck, we need to do it with humility and gentleness, with wisdom and discernment, and with clarity and precision.
SPEAKER_00: And why do all these things matter?
SPEAKER_00: Is this passage just about how to live a nice life in a kind society?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Even in our politeness, in our kind, polite society, of which I'm glad to be living in, Christians are prone to have bad judgment.
SPEAKER_00: If we're not careful, all of our religious knowledge, our head knowledge, our Bible knowledge, keeps us from seeing the truth and following Jesus faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: Say that again.
SPEAKER_00: If we're not careful, all of our head knowledge, our Bible knowledge, our religious knowledge will keep us from seeing the truth and following Jesus faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: While on earth, Jesus was teaching and revealing to the people the way of the kingdom of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He was not bringing in social reforms, although some of those things would follow naturally from Jesus' teachings.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was going after the heart, the disciples' heart, the apostles' heart, those who adhere to your heart in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: He's going after the heart that we would not just be rule makers and rule followers, but that we would be worshipers of Christ, obedient to him because he's worthy, because it's the way that brings life to us.
SPEAKER_00: See, when sin entered the world, and when you enter the world with a sinful nature, it distorts and you can't see clearly.
SPEAKER_00: Christ came and died on the cross so that you could see clearly.
SPEAKER_00: And so that those little lies that you hear, the little lies that you tell, would be destroyed, that we'd have God making clear to us the way of life, that we, as his people, would be maturing, that we'd be growing in our humility, maturing in our faith, able to judge rightly, to remove logs and to remove specks.
SPEAKER_00: That we would be growing in this as a church.
SPEAKER_00: That we would not be content with just kind of walking out good Christian living, that when we look to God and the mercy that He has lavished on us, that we then would judge with a right, loving, gracious judgment, but holding fast to his word.
SPEAKER_00: That we would look to those around us and say, man, there's a lot of blind people in our culture telling us what to do with our time, telling us what to do with our money, telling us how to raise our children.
SPEAKER_00: No, we're not gonna follow those things, we're gonna follow God's word, we're gonna follow his instructions, and we're gonna be humble and gracious with one another.
SPEAKER_00: Admitting when we're wrong, confessing when we're wrong, and turning to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That we might enjoy this life that He's given, that we might worship Him more faithfully and honor Him with our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Church, let's pray together.