Matthew 7:1-5

Speaker 1: Hey, man, thank thank you for the good singing here this morning. Glad to be back with you. Take your Bibles and turn to Matthew. Chapter number seven. Matthew, chapter number seven. You'll better be good today. I do not want to have to call your parents to tell you to come. Tell them to come get you. Rather rich. Are you talking about you? I'll give that to her. I bet she could still use it. Magic number seven if you're there. Just hold your spot there. A couple of things. One, talking about first, oh eight, doesn't the parking lot look good? It is looking really good. We still got the driveway to do. They're going to finish that up tomorrow, Lord willing, but very happy with the way the rest of it has turned out. Just so you know, we will be adding some guest spots on the front front section there. So if one of your spots is potentially going to be taken, please make sure you park there tonight. Say goodbye to your spot unless you're a guest, unless you're a guest, and then you can keep using it. I mean, maybe that's incentive not to join the church, you know, because you keep using the guest spots. But anyways, we did add a couple of handicapped spots. You may have noticed we added another van accessible spot and just want to make sure that we were staying right with where we need to be as far as the Americans with Disabilities Act. So I appreciate the work that's gone in to that. We've been waiting for it for a while. The weather wasn't cooperating, supply chain wasn't cooperating, but is getting done and should be completely finished by Wednesday hopefully. So, you know, there is that. And so, yeah, we're glad that it's it's all coming together. All right. 97, if you're there, go ahead and join me in standing. In honor of reading God's Word, we're going to read from verse and more one down to verse number five. Yeah. I can tell you this too. Don't forget, Tuesday is an election, so you should go vote. And this year, for the first time in a long time, I think our church is actually going to be a polling place for this immediate area. And so a lot of a lot more people from the community will be coming here onto the church property. They'll be set up in the fellowship hall. And so any opportunity we have to welcome the community into our church building, we try to take advantage of those things. And so that'll be going on this week, on Tuesday. And so pray for that and I'll probably see some of you here, I would assume. And then, of course, I would be foolish to think that everyone here would feel the same way about this. But I'm praising God for the decision that was passed this past week and just when it came through. I thought that there's no way I would ever get to see this happen in my lifetime. And. We. We are all born. With the image of God. That's why human life is valuable at all stages, because it bears the image of God. And. It's not something we talk about a lot. But it is integral in. Why we're different, why we're not animals, why we're not like the rest of creation. It's because God has blessed us and has put in us His very own image. And, um, anyways, I just, I didn't want today to go by without mentioning that. And rather Jeremy and I were talking beforehand and he made mention, I think rightfully so. He said, You know, I wish Pastor Kate were here to see this. Because as many of you know that we're here for a long time. Every year that was a point of emphasis that was dear to his heart that he would remind the church family of. And I know many of you have been praying for this day to happen. And maybe like me, you really didn't think it ever would happen. But anyways, I just wanted to acknowledge that and thank God for the lives that will be saved because of that. But that means. We have some work to do as a church. Let's not be guilty of what Christians are often accused of in only caring about getting the kid into the world and not what happens to them afterwards. We're looking at a couple of options. Are you spoken to one or two of the men? Just some things that our church could do to leverage the resources. We have to be a blessing and a help to families that are struggling. So pray for us about that and hopefully we'll be having more information coming in about that in the near future. All right, that's in Chapter seven. I'm sorry. You guys been staying in for a while. It's for this judge. Not that she be not judged for. With what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. Why behold us now? The moat that is in my brother's eye. But consider, it's not the beam that is in thine own eye. Oh, that's why he has the two by four. Or how will it? I'll say to my brother. Let me pull out the moat out of the Sinai. And behold, a beam is in thine own eye, thou hypocrite. First cast out the beam out of thine own eye. And then thou shalt see clearly the cast out the moat out of that brother's eye. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for the opportunity you have given us to come here, Lord. Together with your people. To look in to your word. God, I pray that you would help us as we spend the next few moments considering this passage. Give me the words you have me to say. Use your Holy Spirit to work on the hearts of the people that are here, in Jesus name that I ask these things. Amen. Thank you. May be seated. All right. Chapter seven, the last chapter of the Sermon on the Mount. We're coming to a close. I mean, I'm thinking we probably only got three or four months left to deal with. This chapter was a joke. I'm not really going to take three or four months to deal with the chapter. I don't think. How long is it? It's not that long. All right. So it's wrapping up. And I loved looking at the Sermon on the Mount. I've heard people preach on parts of the Sermon on the Mount. I don't think I've ever sat through an entire series on the Sermon on the Mount. So I hope it's been helpful to you. But I want to remind you just a little bit about what happened in the previous chapter. Chapter number six. If you were here for most of it, you might remember some of these things. If not, this is just a quick refresher. The whole chapter is about our relationship with God, our following of Jesus, the exercising of our faith, and how that is accomplished. Jesus spends a lot of time dealing with the motivations for the things that we do as Christians. Why do we give? Why do I pray? Why do I fast? And then towards the end of the chapter, he deals with trusting God to take care of us if we're going to trust God to reward us for our spiritual activity and not trust men, then God says we should also trust Him to provide for our needs and not have our hope in the provisions of people. And so if we take Matthew six seriously and we try to apply Jesus His words to our life, then we're going to have to face some hard truths about ourselves. No one here would probably dare stand up and say, My motives and my intentions are only pure all the time. I mean, every time I come to church, my heart is in the right place. Every time I serve in my ministry, my heart is in the right place. We all struggle with this if we were honest. Much of our giving prayer, fasting, other spiritual exercises may be done for the approval of others. When this is the case, we have to realize that we actually have less faith in God than we claim that we do. You don't seem to be on the same page as me. So I'll just say this. I have to face the reality that I don't always have the faith in God that I should have. Not only that, but our ideas of rewards don't always line up with his idea of rewards. We're interested in laying up treasure here on Earth. Meanwhile, he is seeking to help us lay up treasure in heaven, treasure that would be eternal. And so, as we are faced with our own struggles, if we're not careful, we can begin to read or assume that other people are dealing with the same things that we are. So let's just, for example, God convicts you about your prayer life and why you pray, or God convicts you about your giving and why you give. And perhaps you are doing those things for selfish reasons. So you then look at other people and assume that they're doing it for the wrong reason too. If you give so that other people will give you a pat on the back and say thank you. Then you will come to the conclusion that others are doing the same thing. If you pray only so that others will see you and think you're spiritual, then you conclude that your fellow disciples are doing the same thing. If you are convicted about your materialism and lack of trust in God's ability to provide for you, then you will look for that same fault in other Christians. This is something that is true for all of us. We tend, though not always, but we tend to see our faults in other people. We assume that other people have the same faults as us, and we see those faults in them. This leads us into chapter number seven. The final chapter of this sermon. And as we read verse number one, you will probably look at that verse and agree with me that this could potentially be one of the most misused verses in the whole Bible. Judge not. Just stop it right there. I think all of us understand that there are differences in judgments. There are good judgments. There are bad judgments. How many of you have a social media account? You were subjected to bad judgment. Maybe even your choice in having a social media account is bad judgment. That hit hard. How many of you have ever gone to see a doctor? How many of you have ever witnessed a law enforcement officer upholding the law? People make judgments on social media. A doctor makes judgments when you go to visit him. An officer makes a judgment. When someone breaks the law. Some judgments are ignorant. Some judgments are wise. Jesus wants to help his followers with the matter of judgment. Now I know this is an independent Baptist church, and so we're all experts on judgment and judging other people. But I think there's probably some things that we can learn here in Jesus words this morning, Jesus words to his disciples begin with this, this, this phrase, judge, not. And like I said before, if that ended with a period there was nothing after it, that would be a hard thing for us to take. But these words cannot be just simply removed from the context of Scripture without considering everything that came before it and everything that's coming after it. Surely we don't think that Jesus is telling His disciples that they are to never judge anything. I mean, that just is easily, logically false. Um. Does this mean that they're to turn a blind eye to all matters of sin, injustice, inequality? Because after all, Judge not, does this mean that we are to just turn our heads and look away any time there's something that is going on that shouldn't be going on? It is Jesus saying that the disciples answer to murder is supposed to just be. Oh, well. Judge not. Is the disciples answer to rape supposed to be. Oh, well, Judge, not. What's true for you may not be true for me. You do. You you live your truth. Judge not. Do we think that that's really what Jesus is condoning? I don't think that we're willing to accept this type of Christian approved lawlessness in the name of a judge. Not. In fact, there are other passages where Jesus's followers are, in fact, commanded to judge. In first Corinthians six, for example, Paul rebuked the church at Corinth because they were taking each other to court to be judged by nonbelievers. In response to this, Paul tells them in verses two and three, Do you not know that the Saints.

Speaker 3: That's us.

Speaker 1: Shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? No, ye not that we shall judge angels. A couple of words for my guardian angel from back when I was a kid. I hope I get to judge. And. How much more things that pertain to this life. Paul is saying, listen. It's not that we are not to judge, because one day it will be our job to judge. But even in the verses that we read a moment ago, we can see that Jesus is command, or Jesus commends His followers to the ability to clearly point out and remove the imperfections of the brothers. He says at the end of the whole passage says, then shout. I'll see clearly the cast out the most out of that brother's eyes. So what does Jesus mean then, when he tells us to judge? Not how are we supposed to understand these words? Well, we first have to understand what the word judge means in the Bible. In Sunday school, we were talking about the word hate and how what you hear as hate may not necessarily be the same picture that the Bible is trying to communicate when it uses the word hate. And so what does the Bible mean when it says are uses the word judge? Well, what do you think of when you think of the word judge? Do you think of crimes being judged? Do you think of punishments being doled out? Probably that's what some of us have as our image of judgment. And so if we were to take our image of judgment and apply it to how I respond to other people, well, then I'm going to judge you by seeing if you've committed any crimes, and then I'm going to make sure you get punished for those crimes that would. God is really. Talking about here. What about the doctor? What about the doctor who has a patient come to visit them? As a doctor, I'm not. I'm not feeling well. There's something wrong. I can sense it in my body. And he says, okay, well, tell me your symptoms. And you begin to tell him. And he does some checking and he checks your your blood pressure and he does all of these tests and then he judges. What is wrong, and he judges what the proper treatment is. Would you say that that's. Bad. You say that that's harmful to the person that's being helped? No. Strictly speaking, the word that is used here for judge means to come to a conclusion. Come to a conclusion. Jesus says, judge, not actually be not judged. What might Jesus's disciples be trying to come to a conclusion regarding? What are they trying to come to a conclusion on? Could it be based on the previous chapters topics? Might the disciples be tempted to judge other people's motivations? After all, they know that their motivations aren't always pure. So I'm going to come to the conclusion that probably your motivations aren't pure either. Judge not. Lest you be judged, might they be tempted to look at others and what they have and come to a conclusion about their priorities? Remember, Jesus said, Well, you're not up for your souls, treasures on earth, but in heaven. And so you're here in church. You're interacting with other brothers and sisters in Christ. You walk out in the parking lot and you see what people drive and say. I conclude that that brother is laying up treasures here on Earth. Look at what he drives. Judge not. This should be judged. You see, it doesn't have so much to do with us. Passing punishment on to someone else. But it does have for us to do with coming to conclusions about other people and the unseen motivations and priorities in their life. Things that are left up only to God to decide. Remember, Jesus already said that in Matthew five seven. He says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. And I believe that is absolutely revisited here in Jesus as reinforcement of this whole sowing and reaping principle. If you show mercy, you receive mercy. If you judge. You should be judged. Someone who makes a habit out of judging others can expect to receive the same treatment. Someone who makes mercy a priority in their lives will also be shown mercy. Could the main thrust of this statement be restated to say, let God be God? When it comes to judging the thoughts and intense of someone else's heart. Let's just play quick game. Okay. I'm going to think of something. All right. What did I think of? Huh? Ice cream? No cowboys? No, but that would've been a good one. Once. You're close, but not quite. I mean, you guys don't know what I'm thinking. You don't know what I'm what my motivations are. I don't. In the same is true for you. I don't know. I mean, I look at your faces. Most of them are blank. I would assume what's going on inside is not similar, but you know. I believe all of us need to be reminded of Paul's instructions for how Christians and disciples are supposed to interact with each other, how we're supposed to show love for each other. You remember I've said this before, but first Corinthians 13, The Great Love chapter of the Bible. It's not about a husband and wife relationship. It's about a church members relationship with other church members. And Paul said first, Randi, in 13 five, that charity does not behave itself unseemly. Seek, if not her own, is not easily provoked. And then the last phrase, I think, is no evil. It doesn't come to the conclusion that what you're doing is is motivated by impure priorities. If you're giving I am to assume that you're doing it out of the right heart because it is not my place to judge you. Charity among Jesus's followers is seen when we abstain from coming to an evil conclusion about our brothers and sisters actions. This does not negate. That your judgment may have been true. Well, let's consider the reality of picking apart someone else. And some people are really good at picking apart someone else and what they're doing. They can pick apart someone else's parenting skills. They can pick apart someone's driving ability. Husbands, then. You know. Have you ever written with your wife? Scary. But as soon as she gets in the passenger seat, she becomes an expert. She can teach driving school. Some people are. I'm not, you know, just in general, I would assume that that's true for other people. A word. Kill their kill. Hey, you know, this this actually is pretty normal life, too, so I think most of my life is normal. But I mean, we're good at picking apart politicians. How many of you have ever been a politician? Not many. Nobody. Well I mean school board count that. Yeah. I mean, but but we can criticize what they're doing and we can find fault in, in all the things that they're not doing that we wish they would do. I mean, we're.

Speaker 4: Really good.

Speaker 1: At judging other people and coming to conclusions about them. But Jesus goes on and asks his listeners why they're so enamored with everybody else. And their faults and their problems. Probably because it's easier to criticize somebody else's faults than to actually deal with our own. Right. He uses this illustration that you've heard before about the moat in the being. Why are some people? So enamored. Where to go. Out there. It is so small, I couldn't couldn't find it with the motes in other people's eyes. How many of you familiar with a moat? Like Castle note. You know, it's that body of water around the castle to prevent the enemy from coming in. That's not the moat that Jesus is talking about. So I came and grabbed it. Okay. So this isn't even a good representation of a moat because it's too big. Do you see this? In the back with Jared. Can you see this? Yeah, I'll give you. It's a tiny piece of straw. And really, this isn't even right. It's it should be a fragment of this size. But a moat is like a grass clipping. Okay. Minuscule hours. Were they. Angelo, do your goggles when you mow. Safety glasses. I'd love to see you out there with some goggles. You know. A moat is when you're mowing your yard and you know, it's not super green because it's summer and so it's kind of dry and then it's Oklahoma, it's all this wind. And so you mow over a path and the wind, the, the, the offshoots of the grass clippings. And you turn and you drive right back through the haze of grass clippings. You know what I'm talking about here, okay? And you get.

Speaker 4: Motes.

Speaker 1: In your eye, you get these tiny little blades of grass, these little pieces of straw that are so small, any little wind would just pick them up and carry them around and they end up in your eye. And when I move my yard, it's like for the rest of the day, I'm rubbing grass out of my eye, you know, is gross. But it's small. Really doesn't hurt. Just kind of. Inconvenient annoying. Um. Makes your eyes water. I've seen things falling apart. It's like nothing to it. You know, the other day when I mowed, I got motes in my eye. I think I didn't go to the doctor to have them removed. I can still see in its drive and continue on. It was just an inconvenience. But I did have an impurity in my eye. I could have asked my wife to look at my eye and see what was in it. She'd have to look pretty close to see what was in my eye. I was aware that it was there. But if I was to be standing there talking to you. Just normal. You wouldn't probably notice anything in my eye. That's the most. And some people are super, super concerned about the moats that other people have in their eyes. While all the time they've got a much bigger problem. How can you expend so much energy on someone's mode when you yourself are suffering from a beam? Now I understand that there are different understandings of this. And so you've probably heard different illustrations. I've heard someone say a beam is like a telephone pole sticking out of your eye. I don't know about that, but I finally heard that a beam is like a two by four sticking out of your eye. All right. Can you imagine as your eye moved around, the beam moves? Pretty sure there's not enough leverage in your head to keep the AI inside a pop out. Yeah. That's that's an exaggerated instance. Let's be quiet. Sorry. This is really exaggerated, and probably not at all what Jesus was referring to, because there are other instances of this word being being used. And, you know, it almost always refers to. Someone who gets a puncture wound. From a stick. One time I was afraid I was going to die from lead poisoning because I stuck myself with a pencil at school. Then my teacher told me they don't actually use lead in those pencils anymore and it's totally safe. So I did it all the time. No, I didn't. It's much more likely about this beam comment is I was going to get a toothpick and a grape, but I thought I was too graphic for some of you. A boiled egg would have been better. So I just grabbed the piece of mulch. But the beam is person who has a stick, a toothpick, a sharp object that has punctured his eye. And that's why he wore glasses. Protect yourself. But, okay, now, this is much less than than a two by four. But can you imagine having your eye punctured by a stick? I mean, how would that feel? My dad has glaucoma. He has a lot of eye surgeries that are done. He sends me videos of those surgeries and it is gross. I mean, they're cutting flaps and putting release valves in his eyes so that the pressure can dissipate. If the pressure goes up and those valves are activated, you can actually hear his eye whistling. You know, it's weird. I don't know how optometrists do it. You know, to put a syringe in somebody's eye as gross. The person with the beam in his eye has his eye punctured. And yet he's going around looking for tiny little specks of grass that might have floated into everyone else's eye. There's a video out there. You should look it up. Men write this down. It's called. It's not about the nail. Okay. Write down. Yes, Jonah. This will help you in your life. You're like, Hey, you got something in your eye, you know? Yeah. You see what you got in your eye? You can't see the moat. You can see the beam. Everyone sees the be. The beam is unavoidable. You can't ignore it. The person who has the beam knows it's there. The person who has the beam needs someone to help them get the beam out. If you puncture your eye with something, don't try to remove it for yourself. Go somewhere and have a doctor. Try to remove. Same is true with knives and generally all puncture wounds. Not that I would know from experience. Some of our nurses maybe can help us with that. Just leave it right. Yeah. Okay. How does the beam compare to the most? The mote is uncomfortable. The beam is painful. I can still operate with the moat. The beam is prohibitive. No one else notices the most except for me. The beam. Everyone notices. Jesus describes two different types of problems here. One is annoying. The other is painful. One is relatively unseen. The other is obvious to everyone. People with beams need to focus on their beams, not someone else's mote. He says, How will you say to your brother, Let me pull out the mote that is in your eye and behold, a beam is in my own eye. People with beams need to focus on the beams. You know what happens when the beam is dealt with? Jesus teaches that. True judgment can only occur once self judgment has occurred. Says Now hypocrite. First cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then shout Thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye. We mentioned that judgment is a necessary part of life. The justice system judges crime to promote a healthy society. A doctor. Judges. Sickness and disease. To promote a healthy body. Parents judge the actions of their children to promote a healthy home life. In our church, we judge the presence of sin to promote a healthy ministry. Jesus is not against judgment. But what is clear from verse number five is that Jesus is against hypocritical judgment. Is against uninformed judgment. He is against impaired judgment. This is why he tells his disciples to judge themselves first. Deal with the beams in your own life. Then and only then will you be able to help your brothers and sisters see clearly also. Consider this. Are any of us being free? That saying I promised. Cross my heart. Hope to die. Stick a thousand needles in my eye. Was that look like? This guy is making me uncomfortable with.

Speaker 4: The visual.

Speaker 1: Imagery in the sermon. Are any of us being free? No. But do we all struggle with the same beams? We all have blind spots, don't we? Some people have different blind spots. You see, I may have cast out of being that you're still dealing with. And if I've dealt with my beam in a certain area, then I can help you deal with your mode in that same area, even though I may have other beings that still need to be dealt with. Judging each other is a necessary part of fellowship. The warning here. Is that how you judge is how you will be judged? If you're a hypocritical judge, you will be the victim of hypocritical judgment. If you're to judge, then you must do so without hypocrisy. It's not wrong to admit that you're not always right. It's not a sign of weakness to admit that you struggle with things. Right. I'm not less of a of a preacher because I tell you, I got issues. That's just the truth. And if you saw it differently. What's wrong with you? I mean, we're all sinners. We all deal with temptation. We've all got things in our past and present. That we'd rather not the whole church know about. We have things that we're ashamed of. We all have things that we wish were different. Let's not act like we don't. Jesus warns his disciples, the unjust, hypocritical judgment must be replaced by merciful and helpful conclusions. Real quick, let's give some application. How do you know if you're engaged in bad judgment? Okay. We don't want to do bad judgment, Jesus said. That's not good. So we want to avoid it. So how do we know if we're engaged in bad judgment? Here's a quick test. Number one, if you're making assumptions about someone else's motives, you're probably engaging in bad judgment. If you're talking about your diagnosis for someone else. To everyone except the person that you have diagnosed, you're probably engaged in bad judgment. If you are nit picking their life while ignoring the blatant problems in your own life, you're probably engaged in bad judgment. So how do we practice good judgment? Number one. Assume the best about others. Think well of your brothers and sisters in Christ. Don't assume the worst. Don't assume they're out to get you. Don't assume they're attacking you. If they say, Hey, I'm doing this out of love, believe the. Think on things that are true, not things that you think are true. How to practice good judgment. Assume the best. Number two. Go directly to the person that you have judged and speak only to them. Don't build a coalition of other people who all you think are just as critical and unhappy as you are, and get all of them on your side and then go to the person and say, Hey, I've got so and so and so and so and so and so. Who all agree with me and we think you're the worst. Oh. You must be right then. Thank you for telling me that I'm the worst. That's not the way to engage in good judgment. To engage in good judgment. Assume the best. Go directly to the person and no one else. And then practice regular, honest self judgment. Spend time in God's word. And if you ask God's Holy Spirit to convict you as you spend time with him in His Word, guess what he'll do? It will point out to you where you are wrong. Self judgment. It's essential. The Holy Spirit was given to us to help us to know the truth and apply it to our lives. It's times like this where we're together. Where the Holy Spirit. Points out things. And we were left with the choice. Looks like our kids at camp to either obey God and believe his word or not believe God and disobey his word. This morning. We have a warning. About judgment. Hypocritical judgment. Unjust judgment. The way to avoid these things. Is to practice self judgment. Think the best of your brothers and sisters in Christ. And if a moat does need to be removed. Go to the person who has the most. And not everybody else. That's right. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for the good attention of the folks that are here. But I think all of us can probably take this this message and apply it in some way to our lives. So, Lord, I ask that you use your Holy Spirit to convict us and show us where we need to make. Changes in our life. Lord, I pray that we be honest in our self-assessments. You would use your Holy Spirit to help us to see things more clearly, or that we would deal with the beams in our life before we try to deal with the motes in other people's lives. Thank you for these words from your son. Help us now as we go to this time of invitation. It's in Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

‍