Okay, let’s get out our Bibles and turn to Matthew 7:1-5. Matter fact, let’s stand while we read God’s word tonight.
Matthew 7:1-5
1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 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.
Let’s pray… All right, have a seat.
This is the 26th week that we’ve been covering the Sermon on the Mount.
It all started in Chapter 5.
- In the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “This is what it looks like to be a Christ follower.” He said, “You want to find the kind of blessings, the kind of happiness that does not fade, does not rot; then conform to this template.”
- Then He said, and it’s not all for us. All those blessings are for more than our happiness. We aren’t born again, you and I are not adopted in the family of God so that we can have our best life now.
o No, we are saved, we are made right with God in order to bring glory to God and draw others into His loving arms – to be the salt and light in a dark and rotting world.
o From that, from fulfilling that mission we find true happiness.
o But the happiness is not the end, it is a byproduct of being on mission.
- Then Jesus makes it clear to anyone who might have had doubts, that He was not in town to get rid of the Law that He (God) had handed down to His people centuries ago.
o He wasn’t shaking the etch-a-sketch and starting a whole new picture.
o He said no, I’m here to fulfill it. But the religious leaders of the day had so twisted the Scriptures that He had to straighten us out.
- Then He started going on the attack of false or wrong-headed teachings on anger and murder, on lust and adultery, on divorces and oaths. And revenge.
o And over and over and over, he said, it’s the heart. He said look at your heart, stop trying to tiptoe to the very edge of the rules as you understand them. Instead get you heart right, submit to the will of the Father.
- Then Jesus hits us square in the eye with the COMMAND at the end of chapter five, Be Perfect, as Your Father in Heaven is Perfect!
o And the point we made there, the point we make every week, the POINT OF THE GOSPEL is that this is an impossible command without a faith in Christ.
* It’s not about morality. Because doing all the right things apart from Christ makes all of those right things like filthy rags in God’s sight.
* We all fall short of the perfection – and that’s why Jesus had to come down to Earth; that’s why He had to live a sinless life — even though He was tempted in all the ways that we have been; that’s why He had to allow Himself to be killed on the cross.
* All of that because we can’t pay the debt for our sins on our own.
- Moving on to Matthew 6, Jesus goes back to heart motives, He says yes as His people, we should be the first to give to the needy, we should fast and we should pray — absolutely, that’s all basic Spiritual existence.
- BUT
- Don’t do it like the hypocrites. If we do any of those things for the recognition of others — if any of that is done for reasons except to glorify and commune with God, and represent Him to a world trapped in their sin, than it is all for not.
o And remember brothers and sisters, that goes for anything related to serving God, If you are singing, showing compassion, helping the sick, tending to the orphans and widows, or what ever, if your doing it for applause than that’s all you are gonna get, because that reveals a wrong heart. Amen?
It’s the heart, the heart the heart.
- And Jesus closes out Chapter six in the heart, saying where your treasure is there your heart is also.
- If it is on the things of this world, know that they are gonna fade, they are gonna rot.
- If they ever give you satisfaction it will be short lived. So again, put your heart — set your attention — pledge your allegiance to our God in Heaven.
- He will never leave you or forsake you. He will complete the work that He has started in you.
When we know that, when we know we are on God’s side, then we can face each new day, each new hurdle, each new battle, each new trail, each new relationship with a Christ centered framework that helps us to remember not to worry, but to walk boldly into the mission.
That’s a long introduction but
we’re getting close to the end of this series so I wanted to catch us all up and keep us all together as we move forward in the next couple of weeks.Now, back to tonight’s passage.
There are few other passages that are as often quoted by believers and non-believers than this first line. And I would guess that there are fewer verses that are as badly misused than this one. Let’s read it.
1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
So when we look at the word judge in this verse, we see judge as any correction any rebuke and thing that calls out my faults or failures.
And in and outside the church, the way I used this verse as a Non-believer and the way I’ve heard it in the church — especially when church discipline has been brought up is:
Don’t you tell me I’m wrong. Don’t you tell me I need to change. Don’t you call this thing I’m doing sin. Don’t you judge me.
Now, there is a key element to interpreting Scriptures that we must point out before we move on. It’s this: interpret Scripture with other Scriptures.
Now, if we look at this verse in it’s context we find out very quickly that this is a reproof against harsh, self-righteous, indignant, criticism and brow beating. And we’ll get to that in a moment.
But, to interpret this as, “No one can ever tell me I’m wrong, No one should ever call me out on my sin” flies in the face God’s word.
We would have to throw out a chunk of the New Testament in order to make that understanding or interpretation make sense.
Turn with me to Matthew 18:15-17.
15 "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16 But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
So if we are never to come to a brother or sister in Christ and LOVINGLY correct. And if we are never to accept anyone else trying to lead us back into a sanctifying walk with the Lord, how does this make sense?
We’re going to talk about that passage some more next week. Let’s keep moving…
Galatians 2: 11-13
11 When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. 12 Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
Now listen, most of us don’t like sermons on church discipline. I don’t like them. But I am accountable to God for what I preach. James says that not many of us should want to teach because we will be judged by a higher standard.
I want to make it clear that church discipline is both right and necessary at times. And it is hardly ever fun. Dealing with sin in our own lives or having the awkward conversation to bring it up to a friend is hard to do.
But, when done appropriately, it is a path that leads to closer intimacy within the body.
And a church, as demonstrated in the New Testament was used to help one another in this way.
But I think you and I both have a knee jerk reaction to say NO to church discipline because we’ve seen first hand or heard stories of how this can go very badly and can destroy relationships and sometimes, entire churches when it’s done wrong.
But as we read on in Matthew 7, we will see Jesus’ safeguard against that problem.
Remember the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Remember who the targets of most of Jesus’ rebukes are.
It is the Pharisees and other religious leaders who had perverted the word of God ands twisted it into this mangled form that kept them on top and the rest of God’s people in a groveling position and kept non-Jews completely out of the picture.
They are the ones who put themselves up as perfect and righteous in their own eyes and scorned and shamed the other Jewish people for not toeing the pharisaical line.
So this context goes right along with the warnings about praying fasting and giving to the needy. Jesus doesn’t say throw church discipline out the window any more than He would say stop fasting, praying or giving.
No, He says when you go about correcting a brother or sister, don’t be like those Pharisees.
Are we tracking? You may not agree and I am okay with that. Are you at least to a point where you understand my view and by proxy, the stance of the church in the grass?
With all that said, let’s get back to Matthew 7.
1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
In other words, when we see something wrong we must be very careful how we address it. Because Jesus promises that the same will come to us WHEN we fall or fail.
In the History of the time of Judges in the Old Testament you can read of a king named Adoni-Bezek, (Judges 1) who would cut off the thumbs and big toes from the kings of lands his nation conquered.
So when He was conquered by the Israelites, what happened? His thumbs and toes were lopped off. The way he judged was the way he was judged.
Are there any of you who have done that? Lopped off toes and thumbs? If so, we’ll pray for you and maybe call the cops, I don’t know.
No, we aren’t severe. But remember, the way we deal with the sins of others is the way we will be dealt with for our sins against God and others.
I could go into it, don’t gossip, don’t slander, don’t post angry facebook updates, don’t discredit and vilify them. Don’t beat them up, I could go on and on, but instead I’ll take you back to Matthew 5:7 and remind you that God has promised to show you mercy — so that is how we approach others in sin — with Mercy.
I say it often, we don’t want what we deserve for our sin. We want God to love us in spite of our sin.
Remember that when you say, “Yeah, but they deserve to get what they gave! Any eye for an eye! I want justice!”
Do you really? Lets go to verse 3.
3 "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
Here we go. Let’s get to the heart of it. You are broken. You are a sinner. You need correction. If you don’t yet know Christ, You NEED Him, whether you realize that or not.
And those of you (AND ME) who are already in a relationship with Christ still have areas where we are FAR from perfect.
What Jesus says to each of us through His word is, Self-righteousness KILLS relationships.
Self-righteousness and pride in our hearts completely takes us out of the game. We are put on the bench, we are sent back to the dugout because we are not able to get the job done. We are hurting the team.
I’m going out on a limb here with sports metaphors, but I think I’m doing this right. You’ve seen the pitcher who just can’t get right. He knows the motions, He knows his stance, his technique, he knows how to hold the ball and where to place his fingers on the seams, but for whatever reason, he just can’t get right and he can single handedly destroy his team’s chances.
We see this all the time in the church. We know the commands of God and we understand, hopefully by now, that we have systems and procedures in place to deal with problems in the body of the church.
In all likelihood, we should be able to follow Jesus’ instructions so that the team wins (winning in this metaphor is reconciliation within the body of believers).
But, even though we have been given clear cut instructions, even though we may know all the right moves and even though we may have provided correction correctly in the past — Jesus warns that self-righteousness will throw us off and we will have to be taken off the mound, before we hurt the team any further.
Brothers and sisters, the planks have to be recognized and dealt with in our own eyes otherwise we can never come alongside our family and help them with their twigs or specks.
Many times I am more keenly aware of other people’s sins when I am losing a battle with sin in my own life. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Are you tracking with that? I don’t want to look at my problems, because that means there is a chink in my armor; that means that I am still painfully far from perfection; that means that there are still areas of my heart that the Holy Spirit is trying to cut away and that is sometimes a painful process that I don’t want to go through.
And quite frankly, there is a sin of caring what other people think about me when they see sin in my life so:
- I am going to divert their gaze.
- I’m going to send up a smoke screen.
- I’m going to cause a distraction by instead pointing out their sin.
That, is a plank. And that takes me out of the game. And if that is where you find yourself today, then you’ve got to go to the lumber mill and have them get that out of your eye, Amen?
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.
Once we recognize our plank and we deal with the corroding sin in our lives, we once again become useful to God. The passage says we will then see “clearly” to remove the speck in our brother’s eye.
By clearly, we can read humbly, lovingly, and compassionately. Because once we’ve dealt with our own brokenness, we are brought down to a place where we are not looking down on our brother or sister.
We no longer ask stupid questions like “how could they do such a thing?” We no longer say, “Thank you God that I’m not like THAT GUY.”
No, we come along side and say, “I think I see something here that needs dealt with. I’ve been there too. Can I help you.”
We are shown God’s mercy and so we show mercy in order to reflect God.
We are gentle. We are loving. We are kind.
But don’t miss the fact that we must then help them with the speck. Call it discipline if you want, call it correction or just call it love. But, whatever you call it. Do it. Do it Do it.
Because if a brother or sister sees me walking in sin, if that speck has blinded me to the reality of my identity as an image bearer of God, then it is an act of neglect, it is an act of un-lovingness, it is an act of heartlessness to let me continue walking in that.
Don’t say, we should not correct because so many churches have done it wrong. Co-labor with the Holy Spirit, walk in humility, remember we are no better and we are no worse than the next person, remember that we are here for each other and offer correction in love.
There are times when we will go to a brother or sister and find out that we did not have a clear picture and there wasn’t sin. Praise God.
There will be times when we will go to a brother or sister in love and they will thank us and repent to God and be brought back into fellowship. Praise God.
But there will be times when they will absolutely rise up and reject the correction. Sometimes that means they will walk away from the fellowship, sometimes that means they will attempt to sabotage you, sometimes that will mean character attacks.
But none of that changes the call on your life and the call on my life to deal with our sin and then help others with theirs. It is what we do if we love one another. It is historically, one of the key reasons for the church.
Next week, we will address what happens when we face rejection when our words fall on deaf ears and the like.
If you have any questions from this week’s message, call, or email me or just talk with me after today’s service.
In the meantime; maybe this message, maybe this scripture has brought to mind a time when you have been on the giving or receiving end of un-biblical church discipline.
Maybe you were the one who was hurt by an unloving, self-righteous yo-yo, or bunch of yo-yos. Or maybe you were the yo-yo.
I would just ask that you go to prayer with God before you leave here tonight and ask how that issue might be resolved. God desires reconciliation especially among the church. If you need to talk or if you need prayer in that area, that’s one of the reasons I am here.
Let’s pray and then you’ll be dismissed…
