37 “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;38 give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”
39 He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.41 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?42 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? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
A Tree and Its Fruit
43 “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit,44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
Build Your House on the Rock
46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like:48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.149 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
37 “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;38 give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”
39 He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.41 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?42 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? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
A Tree and Its Fruit
43 “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit,44 for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.45 The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
Build Your House on the Rock
46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like:48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.149 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:
Judge not and you will not be judged. Condemn not and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap.
Speaker 1:
For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. He also told them a parable, can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. 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?
Speaker 1:
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? You hypocrite. 1st take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.
Joel Brooks:
You can pray with me. Father God, we ask that you would speak to us. I pray that You would send Your spirit, that He would come, and He would invade our hearts and our minds. That He would enable us to understand these things. We need spiritual eyes and spiritual ears.
Joel Brooks:
Grant us these things. Lord, I I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, Lord, but may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. We just read probably the most quoted verse in the Bible, at least by non Christians, judge not lest ye be judged.
Joel Brooks:
And it for some reason, it has to be in the King James, judge not lest ye be judged. People have no idea where it is in the Bible. They don't know the context of it in the Bible but people can certainly quote it. It's like the trump card for all of your non Christian friends that they pull out. If ever you call them on any sin, you know, they might be in a, a sexually immoral relationship.
Joel Brooks:
They might have blatantly lied, to get out of something. They might be, people of another religion, and they're gonna pull out, boom, trump card. Don't judge me. Your holy book says, judge not lest he be judged. I find it ironic, and I encourage you to do this next time somebody quotes that to you.
Joel Brooks:
Just say, well, do you think it's wrong for me to judge you? When they say, well, absolutely. We'll say, well, isn't that a judgment? Aren't you now judging me? And then let good discussion follow.
Joel Brooks:
This passage here, it's not talking about making moral judgments. This is not about moral judgments because there are so many New Testament text that say how we are supposed to make moral judgments. A lot of the New Testament would not make sense if we couldn't make moral judgments. It's okay to call something right and to call something wrong. For instance, without moral judgment, what are you going to do with Galatians 5 when Paul says, those who practice sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like this will not inherit the kingdom of god.
Joel Brooks:
He's making moral judgments. He's saying that these things, they're wrong. And it's okay for you to say that they are wrong. In 1st Corinthians 5, we looked at a couple of weeks ago, when someone was sleeping with his father's wife, with his mother-in-law, Paul says, I've already judged such one, and you should judge him too. Kick him out of the church.
Joel Brooks:
It is okay to judge. Later in chapter 6, Paul says, do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more are we to judge things pertaining to this life? So if some guy at the office comes up to you and he's like, you know, hey, here's some, you know, crack heroin or something, you know, obvious, you know. Here it is.
Joel Brooks:
Take it. It's okay for you to say that's wrong. No, that's that's wrong. And if he says, judge not, say, well, go get a Bible, understand it in its context, that's wrong. This is not talking about moral judgments here.
Joel Brooks:
I think the best way to understand this command is to understand the sermon last week, which Benjamin did a fantastic job with on love your enemies. Love your enemies is a positive statement, judge not is a negative statement, but they're saying the same thing. Judge not is just love your enemies stated negatively. Jesus is saying that we are not to predetermine or we are not to judge who will be the recipient of God's kindness and of God's grace. We cannot make that judgment.
Joel Brooks:
And so the only way really to understand this, and I'm gonna backtrack just a little bit. Benjamin, he said, I know you're just gonna, like, read the entire text again that I preached from last week. I'm not. We're just gonna go back a few verses and touch about something different. Look at verse 32 chapter 6.
Joel Brooks:
Says, if you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you?
Joel Brooks:
Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount. But love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great. And you will be sons of the most high, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful as your father is merciful. Now notice how Jesus uses the word sinners in that paragraph.
Joel Brooks:
Look how he uses sinners here. He doesn't use sinners this way at any other time in the New Testament. Jesus never uses this kind of language, never treats the word sinners like this, because he is defining sinners the way we define sinners, not the way he would define sinners. He's using our definition of sinners. A sinner being someone other than us.
Joel Brooks:
Other people who are sinners. I mean, look at what Jesus is saying here. He's going, you don't want to be a sinner now, do you? I mean, even sinners do good to those who do good to them. Come on.
Joel Brooks:
You're not like one of those sinful people, are you? He's using our definition, and you're not going to find him using it this way any place else in the New Testament. And what he's doing is he's he's roping in the disciples. He he's bringing them in because he is just about to explode their self righteousness.
Jeffrey Heine:
Look at verse 35
Joel Brooks:
again. But love your enemies and do good and lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great and you'll be sons of the most high, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Jesus tells His disciples, you are gonna be sons of the most high, for he's kind to the ungrateful and the evil. And so what he's doing, he's saying, yeah, you're not sinners. You're just ungrateful and evil people.
Joel Brooks:
That's who you are, and God's grace extended to you. In Luke 11, Jesus, when he was talking to his disciples, he says, if you then who were evil know how to give gifts good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the spirit to those who ask him? And he calls his disciples, those who have left everything to follow him, says, you're evil. You are evil people. And so Jesus here is going, you don't want to be like these sinners, do you?
Joel Brooks:
Because we know you're ungrateful and evil, and God had mercy on you. God showed kindness when you did not deserve it. He did not judge you according to how you should be judged. And so in return, we are now not to judge others. We do not decide.
Joel Brooks:
We do not choose who is a recipient of God's grace, who's a recipient of God's kindness and his mercy. We don't decide that. We don't withhold kindness from anyone because we remember that we are ungrateful and we're evil people, and if we were judged by God, we would not even be here. Now, I think, the word judge might kind of throw some of us off because, you know, you picture, you know, probably a bald guy with a black robe and a gavel and making judgments, and that's not judging here. But we we've all judged to some extent.
Joel Brooks:
We've all sentenced people. Let me give you a couple examples, some silly examples maybe, but I bet some of this has happened to some of you. You send a birthday gift or a wedding gift to somebody, and they don't give you back a thank you note. They don't acknowledge it. You might even say they were ungrateful.
Joel Brooks:
And so that's the last gift they're ever getting from you. I'm not gonna give them another gift. I mean, they didn't even say thanks. Or maybe the next time you see them, you're not quite as kind as you normally would be. I mean, you're not unkind.
Joel Brooks:
You're just not as kind. And what you're doing is you've just pronounced judgment on them. You You have found them guilty, and their sentence says, you're no longer getting a gift, and I'm no longer going to be kind. I am judging you. A coworker takes credit for some of your work.
Joel Brooks:
So you say some true but negative things about them behind that person's back. That's judgment. You hear another mother say something critical about the way that you are disciplining your child so you don't invite that mother to your next playgroup. That's judgment. 1 of your friends is the most arrogant guy you know.
Joel Brooks:
So arrogant, and so you see it is your duty to occasionally humble him. That's judgment. We judge all of the time. We decide, no, no, you receive grace and mercy, and you do not because you're ungrateful, or because you've done these things. When we think of others as sinners, but not us, we begin to play the part of a judge.
Joel Brooks:
So we need to remind ourselves that only God judges. Only God judges. I love the the scene in Genesis 50, of Joseph. It's the last chapter in Genesis, and most of you are familiar with the story. There's Joseph who was sold by his his brothers into slavery, and he spent years as a slave, years in prison, but God in his providence raised up Joseph to to save all of Egypt and the surrounding lands and be the 2nd highest power in all the land and so there's Joseph way up high and exalted and his brothers in the in Genesis 50 are coming to him and their father has just died and now they're scared that Joseph was only kind to us earlier because our father was around.
Joel Brooks:
Now that our father's dead, now he's gonna judge us. So in Genesis 50, it says, Joseph's brothers also came and fell down before him and said, behold, we are your servants. But Joseph said to them, do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. And you look at Joseph, and he had the power to judge, and he certainly seemed to have the right to judge there.
Joel Brooks:
I mean, his brothers threw him in a pit. They sold him to slavery. Most of his life was utterly wasted in the dungeons there. He's got a right to judge. And when finally it seems as God, in all of His providence, brings his brothers groveling before him, he says no.
Joel Brooks:
Because I don't sit in the seat of judgment. And my god, god sits in the seat of judgment. There's a number of us in here who need to get out of god's chair. We're sitting in his throne, and we're pronouncing judgments on all of these people, and And some of us think we're actually doing the Lord's will in doing that. God brought this person to me to humble them.
Joel Brooks:
I'll show this person. I'll teach them this, but judgment is the Lord's. It's not ours. I'm kinda reminded it's, it's like the Lord of the Rings. Everything goes back to the Lord of the Rings.
Joel Brooks:
Now, there's that ring of power. You know, anything when you get the ring of power and you want to use it for good, I could use this for good, but if you use it, you actually become evil. And the the the best way for you to become like Satan or to become evil is actually try to become like God. For you to try to become like God in your judgment, try to pronounce judgment on people, you'll actually become evil, and it will own you. That's God's right alone.
Joel Brooks:
Now this is kind of hard stuff to deal with because I mean, really, who lives this way? I don't live this way. I want to live this way, but I don't. It's a hard teaching. It's not what the world teaches.
Joel Brooks:
It's not popular teaching. I think this is one of the reasons that Jesus talks about teachers right after this. Look at verse 39. He tells them a story. Can a blind man lead a blind man?
Joel Brooks:
Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that's in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own? Can a blind man lead a blind man? There's a lot of bad teaching out there.
Joel Brooks:
I mean, a lot of really bad teaching. Usually, if it's popular, it's bad, just as a general rule. It's not a concrete rule. But usually, if it's popular, it means people are being told what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. Jesus, he compares bad teaching to people blind people leading others into a pit.
Joel Brooks:
It's obviously a knock against the Pharisees here. He's saying Pharisees, you're blind. You're giving blind. That's false teaching, and it makes you blind. It makes you blind.
Joel Brooks:
Now let me give you a brief warning against some bad teaching because, it's everywhere, even here in Birmingham. And Romans 16 says that, by smooth talk and flattery, false teachers will deceive the hearts of the naive, and I do not want you to be naive. Just this past week, I don't know if any of you read the paper, one of the first things I do is I get my cup of coffee and I'll read the paper. There's an article on the front page of the Birmingham News about a pastor, of one of the largest churches here in Birmingham who just just wrote a book on how to, how to endure suffering, how to handle grief. And he told the paper that when he was thinking about this book and he was talking with people, he said, most people, he found, make the mistake of thinking that God's in control.
Joel Brooks:
He said, but God's not in control of the things on this earth. He is only in control of the things in heaven. So God's power only extends in heaven, and we shouldn't expect His power to extend the things on this earth. And so when a tragedy happens, God's not involved, he's not around in any way, and that's his comfort. This is one of the largest churches in Birmingham.
Joel Brooks:
The only problem that I have with that is that it goes against almost all of scripture, and that a God like that gives no hope at all. Really? In my darkest hour, you're telling me that God's nowhere, and yet somehow I should trust this powerless god. I'm sorry, that is no hope. In today's paper, so you could go back and you could check-in today's paper, in the main section, there's not a religion section on Sundays.
Joel Brooks:
The main section, there's an article about how the prosperity gospel, those who preach it, are prospering during the these economic times. How they are just busting out of the seams, and and let me quote one of the pastors. Says, God knows where the money is, so He can tell you how to find it. He knows it's just hiding. God can tell you where to find it.
Joel Brooks:
And then they took an offering for his private jet. This is a large church. They brought in over a $100,000,000 last year. It's terrible teaching, and it's the blind leading the blind straight into a pit. I mean, but typically, you know, we're in the Bible Belt, and so things gotta be a little more subtle.
Joel Brooks:
There's gotta be at least some scripture thrown out there to be twisted and, you know, turned. Here, there's religious people, but here in the South, we on the side of Phariseeism. We want law. Give us law. We thrive on the law.
Joel Brooks:
We want to feel good about ourselves. We want that checklist to say we're doing all of these good things so we compare ourselves to others and say, see, our lives are in order. Much of the bad preaching in the South, it focuses on what you should do, but not what Christ has done. And it puts your salvation squarely on all that you're doing instead of what Christ has done for us on the cross. And let me tell you the gauge to tell whether a a teacher is blind or not.
Joel Brooks:
1, is the Bible their authority, and is the gospel the central message to their teaching? Is the Bible their authority and is the gospel the central message to their teaching? And if not, you are following a blind person no matter how good looking they are, no matter how much they flatter you with their speech. Paul tells the Galatians, says, there are some who want to distort the gospel of Christ, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one preached to you, let him be accursed. And so that means tonight, if you're going to bed and you sleep and you wake up and there's a glowing, you know, seraphim or cherubim above you, that says, Hey, you know what?
Joel Brooks:
All you need to be saved is to believe that Jesus died and rose again, and you really need to pray harder, and you really need to give to the poor. Even if an angel were to say that to you, you were to say, be accursed. That's not the gospel. That's the gospel plus something, and that's not the gospel. Don't give me law.
Joel Brooks:
So you can curse an angel, if an angel ever says that. Anybody who adds anything to the death and resurrection of Jesus as the central message adds anything to that, that is anti gospel. That is false teaching. Always ask, is the Bible their authority? Is the gospel central to their teaching?
Joel Brooks:
These things go hand in hand. So if you hear some pastor get up and say, hey. God's really not in control of this world. He's only in control of heaven. Say, you're wrong.
Joel Brooks:
You're blind because the Bible doesn't teach that. Don't be naive. Know your Bible. And if you hear how you have to give to the poor, and how you have to abstain from sexual immorality, and now you have to pray to God in order for him to love you, they say you are blind, for that's not the gospel. You're a false teacher, and if I follow you, I will end up in a pit.
Joel Brooks:
When a teacher preaches law but not gospel, and I preach this at just ordination service. If a preacher preaches law but not gospel, people are gonna walk away feeling either a lot better about themselves or a lot worse about themselves, but they're not gonna love Jesus anymore. They're either gonna feel better or they're gonna feel worse, but they will not know Jesus any better when it's all said and done. Teachers are needed in the church. I've got good teachers in my life.
Joel Brooks:
They're needed. That's why God gives the church teachers. Just make sure the Bible is
Jeffrey Heine:
their authority and the gospel is their central message.
Joel Brooks:
Only follow a teacher who is in turn following Christ. Jesus, he gives us one more parable here, and it's related. These go hand in hand because he's talking about a blind teacher, and now he's talking about a person with a mote in his eye. Now, if you have a mote or a log or a huge, you know, beam in your eye, you're blind. Okay?
Joel Brooks:
These are related. It's a continuation of this. When he says, 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? How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take out the speck that's in your eye, when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite.
Joel Brooks:
First take the log out of your own eye, then you'll see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye. This is one of my favorite parables that Jesus does because one, it's funny. I mean, Jesus was a humorous person. There's, you know, I mean, you gotta admit, this is kind of a humorous story. You're gonna walk away.
Joel Brooks:
Both of these stories are. You know, blind people following blind people into a pit. You know, it's funny. It's funny to me. Y'all are looking like, what kind of person are you?
Joel Brooks:
You know, a person with this huge beam out of their eye. It's funny. It sticks with you. I like these parables because they're short, they're fairly easy to understand, and man, they hit me. Jesus is being funny, but extremely serious at the same time here.
Joel Brooks:
He saw hypocrisy as such a fundamental problem with people. He put it in his most famous sermon, Sermon on the Plain, Sermon on the Mount. Put it in there. Everybody struggles with this. We don't laugh at this.
Joel Brooks:
And Jesus, he could have used a lot of illustrations to deal with hypocrisy and with false teaching, but he chose this one right here, and I think he chose every word very carefully. Have you ever gotten some dirt in your eye? You know, just some dirt in your eye or a little maybe a splinter in your eye? A few years ago, most of you know, I stepped on a hoe and the hoe handle popped up, smashed my cornea. I've heard every hoe joke there is.
Joel Brooks:
Do not come to me afterwards and tell them I've heard them all. You're wasting your breath. So the ho pops me in the eye. Go ahead. Get it out.
Joel Brooks:
Alright. And so I've got pieces of wood and debris and all these things that are just smashed into my eye, and there's so much in there that it led to this 4 month infection. It was just terrible. But I could tell you something. When you have something in your eye, you know that there's something in your eye.
Joel Brooks:
There's no mistaking it. And I realize I just said that like it was so profound. You really do. Something's in your eye. You know it.
Joel Brooks:
You're painfully aware something is in my eye. Here's the the ironic thing, you can't see it. You don't know what it is. You're painfully aware that there's something there and you would think that you could see it but it's so close to you. You can't see it.
Joel Brooks:
You don't know what it is. It's right where you should see. It's on your eye but you can't. It's too close. It's too painful for you to see correctly.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus compares that to our condition, who we are as people. Now notice Jesus, He does not say that we fail to confess, we fail to acknowledge that there is a log in our eye. No, he says we fail to see it. We don't even notice it. It's too close.
Joel Brooks:
Now, we're painfully aware that there's something wrong with us. There's something fundamentally wrong with us, but I can't see it. I don't know what it is. And the word log here, in Greek, it means builder's beam. It's a builder's beam.
Joel Brooks:
It's it does not mean, you know, just big stick or big pole or twig or something like that. It's a very specific term for a builder's beam. For in a house, it's the main support that goes to hold up the house or or in a a large structure there. And then once again, I think Jesus is very carefully choosing his words. And what he's saying is that, deep within us, deep within us, there's this foundational thing.
Joel Brooks:
This at the very core of our being, we know something is terribly wrong. We know it. We feel it. We feel the pain of it, but we don't know what it is. We go our whole lives and we we we can't see it clearly, but there's something wrong with us.
Joel Brooks:
Something that we've we've built our lives on. Something that we depend on, and yet it's flawed, And we we know it's there because the the few times in our life that we actually stop, get the other voices out, and we think, we become aware of it. And what we typically do when that happens is we try to cover it up. We try to cover it up, you know. We're we're we're the hypocrites who pretend there's nothing wrong.
Joel Brooks:
We got this huge boom coming out of our eye, and, you know, we're putting on makeup, you pretending like, oh, I can make myself beautiful. Nothing's wrong. Nobody's gonna notice this, and you got a beam sticking out. And that's all of us. All of us are hypocrites.
Joel Brooks:
We have enormous flaws in our life that we're hiding. Now some people, they try to hide these flaws by by being as bad as they could possibly be, acting like they don't care. I mean, they will just give themselves to evil, and they will just do it now, like, it doesn't matter. I don't care. None of that stuff bothers me, and that's hiding.
Joel Brooks:
You're hiding because you know you feel the pain. And then there's others who go the opposite route, and they become very religious. I'm gonna be really really good. I'm gonna be so good. I'm gonna be the church on time.
Joel Brooks:
You know, I'm going to pray. I'm going to give a lot of money to the poor. I'm gonna be really really good. Then maybe nobody will notice this flaw, but it's there. I mean, for 1000 of years, people have been trying to cover themselves up.
Joel Brooks:
Ever since Adam and Eve covered themselves up with fig leaves after they sinned. That's all a lot of our religiosity. That's all that Phariseeism is. It's fig leaves they're covering up. And Jesus says, you do the same thing as Adam did when I shone the light on you and said, let's deal with your problem.
Joel Brooks:
Diversion. What about Eve? The woman you gave to me, she's the one. I mean, it was her fault. Point out to Eve the speck in another's eye.
Joel Brooks:
Diversion, because when God shines his light on you, it's too painful. So you divert. That's what this passage is about. Diverting attention away from ourselves. The reason we want to judge others is because we cannot stand it when the light of judgment comes on us.
Joel Brooks:
So let's get the focus elsewhere. Now, this thing in us and this fundamental flaw we have is sin. Now I know you you can apply this text in a lot of different ways. I I think the basic big thrust of it is sin. I listened to a message where the the pastor applied it this way.
Joel Brooks:
He said, he was meeting with a guy who was smoking nonstop. I mean, absolutely nonstop. He would drink, and he'd keep a cigarette on the side, and he just kept drinking. And then he went to put a sweet and low in, and the guy goes, hey, those will kill you. He's like, really?
Joel Brooks:
Those will kill me. It's like, why don't you try getting the beam out of your own eye, alright? And and there's a certain degree that, yes, you could apply that. But I think Jesus taught about something much more fundamental here. Something about the very heart of our existence, and that is that we are sinful people.
Joel Brooks:
And if we truly understand that, we're not going to judge. We truly understand that we're going to love our enemies. Our hearts are evil. We are the very sinners that we look down on. That's us.
Joel Brooks:
But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus says, we can become children of the most high, for he is kind to the ungrateful and to the evil. He's kind to us. We don't have to try to hide our depravity. We don't have to. God doesn't love the person you try to be.
Joel Brooks:
He loves the person you are. So don't hide that. This is who I am. God's already seen it much more than you will ever see. He's already judged it through the death of Jesus, so we don't hide it.
Joel Brooks:
And that's the good news of the gospel because in the good news of the gospel, we are we are both more aware of just how sinful we now are, and we're also more aware of just how loved we are. Both of those come together. And when those things meet, that is when we love our enemies. That is when we don't judge. That's when we offer kindness to those who hit us, when those two things meet.
Joel Brooks:
There's things we can only know through the gospel of Jesus. Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for your word. Man, your word hurts sometimes. Just means you're chiseling away from us the parts of us that don't look like you.
Joel Brooks:
Sometimes your word is abrasive, but that just means you're making us into your image. I thank you that we worship and serve a God that's not like us. That gives me hope. God, I pray for us as a church, you would make us into a loving people no matter what the world throws at us. We will love our enemies.
Joel Brooks:
We will bless those who persecute us. People steal from us, we'll rejoice. We'll try to meet their needs. When people do terrible things, we won't judge them, but we'll still offer kindness. We acknowledge the sinful log that's in our eye.
Joel Brooks:
It's there.
Jeffrey Heine:
I pray that through your gospel and your spirit, you would allow us to spiritually see again,
Joel Brooks:
and we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.