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Never thought about it that way, Tim, but I kind of want to be part of the younger generation. I'm kind of in that in-between. Good morning. For those who don't know me, uh my name's Tim. Um Tim G, 2 Timothy, uh not the original. Uh I'm the uh, I guess I'm the newbie elder here. Um in my first time up here, so uh pardon the nerves. That wasn't an applause line. Now I'm uh I'm here to talk about judging um on Mother's Day, so happy Mother's Day guys. Um and I'm trying to decide if I should have my feelings hurt. If I'm some kind of subject matter expert. Um I think it's discrimination against attorneys, but I am a professional judging people person, so I guess it fits. But um that being said, this passage means a lot to me. I do consider it a privilege to be able to uh speak to it, and um at the end I'll share some of my story and how this really was pivotable, pivot of pivotable. I'm not that kind of lawyer, I guess. Um let me read the passage. Um it's Matthew 7, 1 to 6. Judge not that you be not judged, for with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. I think, and I have no way of measuring this, so go with it, but I think this is probably one of the most well-known uh passages or illustrations in scripture. Um, judge not that ye be not judged. Uh, it's one of those famous verses that I even still hear in the King James, like, judge not lest ye be judged, kind of way. Um, and I also think it's one of the more misunderstood uh verses in the Bible. I think uh as people um hear it and read it and think about it, there tends to be a camp that sees that as like, yes, like don't judge me, man. Like only God can judge. I don't want to hear it from you. The Bible says, do not judge me. Don't tell me what I'm doing is wrong, don't tell me I need to change. Uh I think on the other end, there's the camp that they kind of come to that and it's just like, it can't possibly mean I can't tell someone they're wrong, or I can't decide what's right or wrong, or kind of advocate for one over the other. Like we're not called not to be to be blind to those things. Uh so the solution tends to be uh I'm just gonna dial it back maybe 25%, or I'll not just say what I'm really thinking because hey, I'm not gonna judge, or maybe you'll even say what you're thinking, you just slap that label, hey, I'm not judging, but um and we kind of reconcile it that way. And I I don't think either one of those camps is is the right way of looking at that. I think there's a little bit of a truth in both, but ultimately I don't think that's what this passage is is getting at. Um and we're gonna explore why, but um, ultimately both of those approaches are self-focused. Um let me just pause here. I'd like to pray uh for the rest of our time together. Uh Father, I I thank you for the chance to be here, the chance to open scripture together, the chance to pour over it. And I pray that the Spirit here just gives us that gift of illumination, help us to see, help us to hear and understand, soften our hearts and um help us to see where we need to grow and where we need to change and how we can uh ultimately together uh be the people you're you're calling us to be and asking us to be, Father. Um I confess my my own nerves here. I pray that you would help me find my grasp, my uh purpose in you, God, um, and not uh some kind of self-measure of performance, God. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Before we uh dive in here, just with anything else in scripture, we need to examine the context. And for those of you who've been coming, uh we're in the middle of this Sermon on the Mount series where uh Jesus is just speaking to these crowds and he's calling people to reconsider who God is and what he desires for his people. Um as we listen to the or the original hearers and we read the this sermon, we see this emerging picture of how God cares about the human heart and not just an external following of rules and an attempt to pacify God or attempt to show ourselves worthy to God or attempt to avert God's anger. Um and we're, as we've gone through, I just to help illustrate this, we we see these examples of Jesus focusing on the human heart. And so we see with fasting, there's this uh teaching to not fast in a way where we show how miserable we are, and we want to show off how holy and righteous we are, so people see, wow, that guy must really love God. He's fasting and he's miserable, like be like him. You do it for the acclaim of people. We see the same thing with giving. Uh, Jesus was speaking against people who like to publicly they, you know, they'd take their money, then break it into the small denominations so they could rattle it down that offering, you know, basket, and people could hear it and see it, and it would make them think, wow, that guy must really love God. And they were doing it for the applause. Um, same thing with praying. People would, these very elaborate prayers with big words and a lot of fancy theological sounding things to show off to people um how holy they are and how much they love God and how much they can use these words. Uh it's about drawing people in. Um and we see uh also in the Sermon on the Mountain Jesus teaching us to take our eyes away from ourselves and toward God, to lift up from uh kind of the day-to-day and when we're big and to look and to consider God. And we saw that last week uh when Nick was talking about worry. Uh, we all have these regular, these these uh very real, you know, what am I gonna eat? What am I gonna wear? How am I gonna have shelter? How am I gonna get by and be consumed with this day-to-day? And Jesus is telling people, like, like, look up, look, look at the nature and character and heart of God. He knows you and he loves you. And put your focus, put your trust in him, and things will work out. Um, maybe not the way you you intend, maybe not the way you want, but it'll work out. Uh, we saw it a few weeks ago with storing up treasure, where people uh were just wanting to find meaning and find ease and comfort and and um just how they want to live their lives and focusing on storing up treasure. And Jesus is saying, like, no, no, there's there's look at God, look at what's available there. These things can rust and go away, but what you store up with God, trust him. That's the better way. And so against that backdrop, we we come to this place on judging. Um, and all of these topics in the Sermon on the Mount, they're very practical, right? I mean, it's very like people 2,000 years ago were struggling with these same things. We're struggling with wanting to get people to like them, wanting to show off how important they are, how godly they are, showing off their their possessions, showing off um just their their righteousness, all of these things. And it's this the same uh dynamic today. And so people judged back then, and people judge today. It's something that we do. Um so I think it raises the question um, where did it all go wrong? Uh if judging is something we all do, and it's something we all do poorly, uh, where did it all go wrong? And I wanted to uh draw our attention back to the beginning. Right? You want to know where it went wrong? Go back to the fall. Um and you you don't have to turn there. I'm gonna read uh a passage out of Genesis chapter 3, verses 4 to 7. But the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. So, what was that original sin? Rather than trust God, Adam and Eve wanted to be like God. Uh and we we've inherited that nature. We we uh left to our own devices, we want to be like many gods, sovereign over our own many kingdoms. We want to exert control, we want to make the law, and we want to enforce that law. It's very self-focused. We're very mindful of ourselves and our wants and our desires. Um we look at it through the lens of what we want to achieve and how we want to achieve it. Um, and against that standard, we assess ourselves. And so um, when we we kind of create these standards, being our many gods and our many kingdoms, um, so if we want to be a good person and good people do good deeds, we, whatever those good deeds are, if we meet them, we feel good about ourselves. Because we've judged against our own standard, we've exceeded or met that standard, therefore I'm a good person. Uh we can also fail to meet that. Uh we can set that standard, we can fail to meet that standard, and it produces despair in us. And the common threat on both of those things is it's it's self-focused. We're we're funneling it through ourselves. We're setting the bar, and we're either raising, or we're either meeting it, or we're failing to meet it, and we um feel accordingly. And this leads to that self-righteousness or that despair. Um and I was thinking about this, and um yeah, just uh a couple days ago. I live in a cul-de-sac, and in that cul-de-sac are a lot of kids, and I will keep the names confidential for the sake of those involved, but suffice it to say that there are uh a collection of second and third graders and a kindergartner in the mix. And the other day I was in the kitchen and I was just doing my thing, and I could overhear them in the room, and the second and third graders were talking to the kindergartner and just peppering them with math questions. Just like, hey, what's 100 divided by four? And the kindergartner's just like I don't know, like kind of leave me alone. And they would go and it kept gaining steam. The three of them were just like, what's 900 minus 14 plus 72 minus 18? And the kindergartner's like, I don't know. And what they would I couldn't help but smile, because I recognize that dynamic. Like the older boys were wanting to feel smart, they were wanting to feel good about themselves, they were setting this standard that smart people know the answers to these questions. And they were doing that to the to the younger one who had no way of knowing that. You're the kindergartner. And the the ironic thing that they weren't appreciating, when they were in kindergarten, they would not have gotten those questions right. And they're also not aware of the fact that in these moments, the sixth grader could be saying the same thing to them, right? The ninth grader talking to the sixth grader, and so on and so forth. It's these ways that we try to separate ourselves to make us feel good. We look down and we have that posture towards those who don't know. So we set that standard, we measure ourselves and others against that standard, and then we, depending on how that standard's met or not met, it's how we feel. Um and so uh wanted to go back to the passage, uh, verse two, uh, it says, For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use it, it will be measured to you. And that's getting at this idea. We we set these standards and we judge. And when we do, we ourselves will be kind of we fail that same standard. And uh I was thinking about this, and um I naturally naturally I thought of the office. Uh I hope that show's not too old for this crowd. Uh I'm going out on a limb. It's not from the 90s, which is most of my uh wheelhouse for references, but um for those of you familiar with The Office, there's a character named Dwight. And I tried to think of a concise way to describe Dwight, and Dwight's just Dwight. Um for those unfamiliar, we'll we'll go with in this in this scenario, he's kind of the self-righteous one who looks down on everyone else and um thinks he's sort of better than everyone else. Um yeah. And in this one particular case, uh HR comes and they're giving a training, and they're trying to tell the people in the office to not steal time, to kind of tamp down on the cigarette breaks, tamp down on the personal phone calls, and you know, really just try to be respectful about you know not using company time for personal matters. And Dwight is hearing that, and he's just, you know, because people are asking clarifying questions about what is and isn't allowable, and he's just like, Y'all are a bunch of lazy, no-good workers. I never steal company time. You need to be like me. And so one of the other characters, a guy named Jim, starts calling him on that. And he's just like, You never steal time? And he's just like, I never steal time. So he gets a stopwatch out. And Dwight at one point yawns and he gets the stopwatch. And Dwight sees it and he he's like, Oh, and he gets back to work. And Jim logs the three seconds. And uh it goes for the rest of this episode, this you know, these little small things, and and you see it's a kind of humorous effect. So Dwight like trains himself to sneeze with his eyes open, um, even though it's supposedly like physically impossible, and he stops taking bathroom breaks and starts like going under the desk and grossing out everybody, and it's this escalating thing where he's trying to reach his own standard of righteousness, and and Jim keeps showing how he's falling short. And by the end of it, he had to acknowledge he couldn't perfectly never steal a moment of company time for personal reasons. Um, and that's the kind of illustration of like what Jesus is talking about. We set these standards, but even if we forget God existed and then forget of God's law and God's way, if God just said, look, you're in charge, you set the standard, you make the law, we would still fail. We cannot even meet our own law. Um I think we see this sometimes, there's a lot of ways, a lot of applications. Um we can kind of see this um this dynamic of upsetting these standards. Uh I was thinking about like uh, we're in Austin after all, like like food. So you'd have someone who's gonna say, I I I I I don't eat processed foods. It's like, oh okay. Like I'm a good person, I don't eat processed food. And then the next person's like, you monster. Like, I only eat fish, I don't eat red meat. And then the next person's just like, you monster, I'm a vegetarian. And then the next one, you monster, I'm vegan. And then the next one is just like, you monster, I and I knew a guy like this once, I only eat vegetables that that aren't root vegetables, because the root kills the plant. So you're a plant murderer, I only eat plants, that doesn't say that. And then meanwhile, over here you have the guy who's just like, I like Doritos. Like, I I you know, yum or then he's judging them and they're judging each other and everyone, because this idea of like what you eat and how you eat it makes you a good person. Now, does it mean that you can't have convictions or opinions about that? Not at all. But when that's your standard of righteousness and how you decide how people are good or bad, that veers into this territory. Um so coming back to this passage, there's two ways uh I think to approach it, um, as that's laid out in the scripture. Uh picking back up, uh, why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, where there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Um so, not earth shattering. There's there's two ways, right? There's uh trying to take the speck with the log in your eye, and removing the log and trying to take the speck out without the giant sticking log in your eye. And Jesus is intentionally using uh kind of exaggeration here with this notion of a log. It's comic, right? Like walking around with this big log. And what he's referring to, well, here, before I get there, there's those two, right? And I think trying to do it with the log in your eye, it's as if you're you're face to face and looking down on someone. It's adversarial. Um, and and what you're doing, um, the log, it's it's your pride, it's your self-righteousness. It's you're not recognizing the humanity and dignity of the person because they're offending your standard. You're more aware of your standard being violated than God's standard, and it's just it's adversarial. Um your interaction with this person tends to primarily be in a self-centered framework. Um, you need to change what you're doing because I think it's important. It's it's coming back on me, or it sort of violates one of my core principles. Umrighteous, it blinds you, right? The way that log, it blinds you to who that person is as an image bearer before God. Um you're the mini god of your mini kingdom, right? And your sight's uh clouded. Um so that's that face-to-face or kind of adversarial position. The other one is that shoulder to shoulder. You you kind of come alongside someone with your arm around their shoulder. Um, you've taken that log out, and by that I mean, right, like you you kind of confront the self-righteousness. You you see that that's separating you, and you want to kind of come alongside. It's less aware of violating your personal standards and more aware of trying to help connect that person to God. Um there's a gentleness, there's an empathy, there's uh a focus on helping that other person thrive. Um and you can see, you can see the spec because you're not blinded by your own self-centeredness. Um it doesn't mean that we we don't go for the spec, it doesn't mean like we don't care about helping someone, right? It means that it's it's all on how we approach it. It's that heart excuse me, that heart posture of how we approach it. Um and so if if there's this face-to-face looking down on someone, and there's this shoulder-to-shoul kind of coming alongside and trying to help posture, how do we like this? It's like, okay, I get it. Don't be this way, do be this way. But how do we travel? How do we make that journey? And there's a temptation to just be like, okay, I'm gonna stop doing this and I'm gonna start doing that. Uh okay, that that that's that's good. It's better than kind of blowing it off, I guess, but that's not the recipe for lasting change. That's that's an appeal to, and ironically, it's setting your own standard. You're just changing your standard to that standard. You're not losing yourself in it. And change comes from the inside out. That's one of Jesus' main themes, is what I was trying to walk through on that when we were walking through the Sermon on the Mount. It's we want to approach it in our flesh from an outside in. I'll change my behavior and hope it kind of changes me at the heart level. And it starts at the heart level. Um so, what do I mean by that? And I I think this is this is where the gospel comes in. This is um, I like to say, and we talk about it in our group all the time, but we're all equals at the foot of the cross. Um we're all equal. We there there are two kinds of people who have ever existed in this world: there's Jesus and there's sinners. There's Jesus and there's people who need Jesus. Um we're all just we're all in this camp, okay? Um and the gospel it reorients us. When we are focused with ourselves, and we're the many gods building our many kingdoms, and we're using our standards, and we're like the the kids with the the math questions. We're trying to get up on others, and we're trying to shrink from those who might go down, where we're constantly trying to slot our place in the world, and we're not aware of what the gospel says. None of us are worthy. It's absurd to be trying to show how, you know, as if God would care that I know more math or less math. It doesn't matter. We are all sinners entirely saved by grace. And uh Jesus gets us this notion um in his interaction with with Nicodemus in John chapter three. And uh, we talked a little bit about this at the men's retreat, um, but this this idea that we don't clean ourselves up and make ourselves attractable to God, at which point he decides, you know what? You've now convinced me you're a good prospect and I'm gonna draft you into my team. It's not that. And Jesus uses the language of needing to be re-born. Um and it's it's as if, right, if someone asks me what month was I born in, I'm like, hey man, I was born in June. Um great. If they followed up that question by saying, What made you decide to be born in June? Like that's a really weird question, right? Like it doesn't make sense. We don't choose what month we're born in. There's a whole chain of events that that happened. I don't even need to know about, but I a whole list of things happened, right? And it's I I can't look at that person and be like, you know, I I I considered October because I like the fall, but uh considered you know April because I like the spring, but ultimately just that midpoint between Christmas and birthday and really spreading out the presents and baseball seat. Like June was where it's at. Like, it's absurd, right? Like you would look at that person like they're crazy. And we act that way with our rebirth in Christ when we think that we somehow absorbed enough information to be able to make ourselves acceptable, or we cleaned ourselves up enough to make it as if we had anything to do with the act of God touching us in our heart of stone and bringing it into this place of a heart of flesh, to be able to receive and uh and and perceive his love and forgiveness. Like we didn't move ourselves there. So if we had nothing to do with that, how are we then holding it over on anyone else? Okay, there's no room for that. And we tend to see that in that same sense. Um I was comparing it to a job interview. You always get that question where it's like, what's your biggest weakness? You gotta you gotta prepare that one. And you kind of go and it's like, well, you know, I'm a man of many weaknesses. I think the biggest is I just I care too much and I work too hard. And it's like, right, like that's that's the right. It's a weakness that you're framing and spinning as a as a strength. You're you're confessing it as a weakness, but really in your heart you see it's a strength. We can do this with with good deeds. We can do this with our our growth, our um kind of serving and doing legitimately good things. Like we can say, hey, hey, it's not my good works that makes me appropriate or makes me acceptable for God, but then we do them and we're just kind of like, God, do you see that? Like I'm doing good. And it it smuggles in there, and we don't see how offensive it is. Um we don't see that it's effectively saying to Jesus, yeah, the cross thing, awesome. Thanks for the assist. Right? It's saying that it wasn't enough. It's it's that you did your part, I did mine, and we're an awesome team together. So really, thanks. Like, it's not that Jesus did it all. All of it. And so we respond, and our our good deeds, our our wanting to serve it, it comes from a posture of gratitude. It doesn't come from a posture of wanting to feel better or worse of ourselves. That's our own standard, not God's standard. And as we internalize and then let the gospel sink deep, we we start to recognize where our own standard comes in, and we can repent of that, and we can take solace, we can take refuge, we can feel the warmth and the security of God's eternal acceptance for us. We're freed from that. Um so as that comes in, right, you can start to see how that that changes our orientation from I'm looking down at you, or I got something to say to you, I need you, right, to kind of come along or to adopt what's upsetting me, to that we're both sinners saved by grace. I'm no better than you. I might be stronger in this area and this one, and you might, you know, I might be able to give insight to you, but I'm the same. I am also a sinner. I am also prone to throw God overboard. We need to come together to glorify God, to worship God, to respond to God. Um and I I mentioned earlier how this um particular passage was meaningful to me. And um I just wanted to share a little bit of my story. Um I I was raised Christian, I was uh, you know, the whole thing. Um and I had a very my my orientation towards the gospel was very much I was now justified before the God. I was a sinner, Jesus died for me, I'm saved by grace, I'm one with God, I get to be in heaven, and then it's just life's about being the best person you can. I was justified. And like I I was I was good at it. I mean, all the things, right? The you know, don't drink, don't smoke, you know, be pure, all these things that were easily observable, I nailed all those. Um and like any good, self-righteous, judgmental person, I went to law school and I did it in law school. I made it through high school, I made it through undergrad, I made it through law school, and I uh kept nailing those standards. And I I saw myself as strong. I saw myself as loving God, and my love for God made me strong. And I met all of these easily observable kind of metrics that people look to see that you're good. Um and I I graduated law school and and I still I'm 15 years into being an attorney. Uh, for those of you who don't know, I um I work for the state, I prosecute child abuse and neglect. Uh I represent um just effectively like those kids and in trying to bring that in. Um I I yeah, uh short aside, that's what I do, that's my life's work, it's what I'm passionate about. Statistically, I know um abuse happens. Uh here before you, um, some of you might have have uh dealt with that or been subject to that or are doing that, or not doing it, uh hopefully, but uh are are wrestling with these things. Um I care. Um this is my my passion. I I do do this, I do want to know you, I do want to hear your story. Um you have an advocate. Um and so aside, done. Um so that's what I was. And I came into um New York City, near the Manhattan family court, full of myself, doing good. Um I uh there was the whole law school thing where people, you go work for those corporate things and then make your six figures. I, me, and my fellow compatriots doing public service, we are gonna make the world a better place. It's already kind of, you can see how it appeals to that, right? Um and I got there and I looked around and I saw a lot of weak people in my way of seeing things and using my standard and judging people against my standard. And I saw people who were legitimately doing uh bad things to their kids, uh legitimately abuse and neglect, and um, I'm not gonna tell stories up here, but uh hard stuff, real hard stuff. And I looked around at my coworkers and I saw a lot of uh bitterness and anger and like hard attitudes, and it felt right at the time. Um and around this time I I was part of a church plant in Brooklyn, and I I started uh learning more about the gospel and how it reorients me, how it's not just unjustified before God, but how that's true, but that it's also how I grow, it changes my reference points, it changes how I see myself, it changes how I see others. And as I was God was working on me in helping the gospel sink deeper into my heart and changing how I saw things, and gradually I I came to see what I was just describing, that I was no different, that I also sinned against God. Mine were maybe more hidden, easier to kind of put on a face, it was easier to um you know think of myself as strong. The self-righteousness is hard uh to self-diagnose. Um but it was at work, and and I remember one day in particular, I had my stack of cases, and I just looked over at the person that I was bringing the case against. And she was a drug user, and she, I don't remember all the details of the case, but she just was a broken woman. And where I used to see someone who was a drug user and was weak and needed to know the right things, and if only they could kind of summon the strength that I had done, if only they could have walked the steps that I could step, they too would be able to do well in life. And instead, I I saw how how how ugly that was, how sinful that was, and I saw her as a sinner in need of grace, just like me. I am no different. And her desires, I I didn't necessarily know the woman perfectly or personally, but whatever it was, whether she wanted comfort, escape, if she wanted acceptance, whatever it was, she had hurts that that she was responding to. It might have gone in the way of drugs. Um mine just went in another way. Equally sinful, equally unholy, equally offensive to God. Um, you know, just it could be anything. I I find solace in then watching TV or movies or eating too much or whatever. It could be anything. The point is, yeah, her thing maybe went towards drugs, and yeah, I still did the case. I didn't stop prosecuting cases. To this day, I still do cases. There are consequences to sin, and there are civil kind of remedies to things. This passage isn't saying take the log out and walk away. We can still address the spec. But my orientation to her, and then by God's grace, the people since um to this day, I see them as people who have the same heart issues, that's to have the same worship issues, that's to want meaning in things that I do. I struggle the same way. We are the equals at the foot of the cross. And just because God woke me up, God touched my heart, doesn't make me better than her or anyone else. And that that's the journey, okay? And I'm not there. I still, right? There are times where it's just, you know, in um New York was particularly challenging because there's so many Yankee fans there. Um that's gonna be a hard one, I'm not gonna lie. Um, but it is, right? We need to grow, we need to repent of our self-righteousness, of our ways of trying to be acceptable to God. We need to see the humanity of the people. Um, we're all the same. We all have broken hearts that want to find meaning. We all are many gods trying to build our many kingdoms. See through that. Bring the gospel to bear, change how you see people, right? And kind of going back, right? There's that that the people who are like, don't judge me, man. Right? The gospel says, like, no. Like, like, we need to change. We need to grow. We are not perfect on our own. Okay. And the other ones who are just like, I'm just gonna judge you, but I'm gonna say, I'm not judging you first, or I'm gonna dial it back a little bit. Like, no. You need to see them on this journey together. You need to see their humanity first and foremost. You need to see them as God sees them, not as you see them. They're not an obstacle. They're someone who needs grace, who needs love, who needs to be affirmed in their basic humanity. Um, and so as we um absorb this by God's grace as it reorients us away from ourselves in our own personal standards and towards God and towards how He sees things and His standards, we have the chance to love each other in this. We get to work this out in community. We need that. Okay, if you hear this message and you're just like right on and then go and don't interact with other Christians or other people, there's no way of having it rise to the surface and being able to repent to see where it falls short. We need that. And what would it look like if we can do this and grow in this together? Like, think of how often you're you're afraid, maybe you had a bad church experience because there were judgmental people and there were people who were constantly hunting for sins to smack people down. But if we're a community of grace where we can come alongside and not have that orientation, think of things that can come to the surface. Think of the ways that we can grow, think of the ways that we can walk together and honor God, because we all need grace. We are equals at the foot of the cross. And when we absorb that in the kind of community where we can be open and we can walk in the light together, because we don't need each other's approval. I don't need to be respected, I don't need to rise and fall on whether you think I'm a good person or not, because I know I'm accepted in God. What that shows the world, right? We increasingly are in an age where you are who your beliefs are. And if you have wrong beliefs, boom, you're a subhuman. I don't have to direct you, I don't have to deal with you. I don't, you know, you you are just wrong and broken, and you're labeled, and you're away from me. And we can cut through that. That's compelling. That's being the people of God. Okay. Um yeah. Um praise God. Um I think that's it. That's not a rousing ending. Or I wish I could go back and like and then drop the mic, but um let me let me pray. Uh Father, I I I thank you that we are all relieved from this burden of showing how worthy we are, of showing um each other that we're worthy, of showing you that we're worthy. Um I pray that that we can believe, we we can know it as a theological concept. I pray that it sinks into our hearts that we have nothing to prove. That I pray that it it brings out gratitude in our hearts, God. When we know that we are more broken than we even realize on our worst day, we're more loved and accepted than we can hope, God. And I just pray that that that would trickle into our hearts, that we don't want to believe that. There's a part of us that that wants to have a hand in it. There's a part of us that wants to show that we're worthy because of what we are and how good we're doing and um how we can measure up. Um we repent of that, God. I pray that we can um repent of that and take that log out of our eyes and see uh the brothers and sisters around us with new eyes. Uh see them. Uh we're all we're all broken, we're all hurting in some ways, um, and we all um can can come under your grace. We can all be healed, we can all be restored, God. Uh it's not about keeping score, and it's not about keeping records that we can gently deal with each other because uh of the love that we have together in you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

unknown 33:54

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