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Redeemer Women's is a discipleship ministry of Redeemer Community Church. We exist to help women celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
For more information about our church, visit rccbirmingham.org. To get in touch with our team, send a message to women@rccbirmingham.org.
Hey, everyone. It's so good to be with you all this morning, and it's just crazy. Crystal saying January, like, it's really crazy that we are really nearing the end and already looking towards what we we will be doing next year, which is just a while. It still feels like we're in July to me, honestly. But, we really have, as we're rounding the corner in Matthew seven, we really have like, just sped through our time in Jesus' sermon on the mount.
Chase Able:It feels like we had just begun but we are in the final, the third chapter of the sermon and we've come to that this morning. And, as we walk through the sermon on the mounts this fall, I think one thing, a lot of things have been, you know, repeated over and over again, but I think one thing has really rung loud and clear, and that that is that our God, he's after our hearts. He cares about our hearts, our affections, and our where our attention is set. And, that's what we've seen and heard. Right?
Chase Able:The gospel is not about moral conformity, but about hearts transformation. As God promised to do long ago in Ezekiel 36, we looked at this as a church family earlier this year. In Ezekiel 36, Christ and the Holy Spirit, through them, our hearts of stone have been turned to hearts of flesh and we're invited into this kingdom living that Jesus is outlining for us here in Matthew five, six and seven. This is the overarching message of the sermon as we have studied it. And, while each chapter, chapter five, chapter six and chapter seven has had its own emphasis and distinctions and flavors.
Chase Able:There is unity and there is flow from one part of the sermon to the next. But, for me, and I was talking about this with Crystal earlier this week, tracing the theme or the organic flow from chapter six to chapter seven and even through these four kind of sections of chapter seven verses one through 12, tracing that has been a lot harder for me this week. The flow has felt less organic than previous transitions and jumping from this topic at the end of chapter six of anxiety, all of a sudden to this place of judgments and wrong and right judgments and then prayer, all of them like the golden rule, like that felt very disjointed for me. And, I was kind of frustrated about it because I was like, this doesn't feel like it fits Jesus, like why didn't you write this better, which is terrible, that's like my sin. I was just like, this doesn't this doesn't make sense to me.
Chase Able:And, so that question that the homework asked us, has asked us every single week. We've been asked the same question of how does this week's passage follow logically on the heels of last week's? But, that question was harder for me to answer. And, my desire in my flesh was to just rush past this question and just look at well like, what's being said rather than like, how do these things connect to one another. And, my desire to skip over it kind of was the Holy Spirit, I think, inviting me to press into it a little bit more and really see what Jesus is saying under the surface because he's been intentional in how he's ordered and how he's written this message.
Chase Able:So, if he's been intentional up to this point about the flow, I think the flow here must be intentional, purposeful. I think it matters here too. So, ultimately, in wrestling with how this passage, chapter the first half of chapter seven fits into the flow of the overarching message, I think we need to look back again to the Beatitudes, where we started in the first place. For chapter seven verses one through 12, our passage today is considering truly what it is to be poor in spirit, what it is to be meek, what it is to actually hunger and thirst after righteousness. For the blessed life is the life that recognizes one's need for God in all circumstances.
Chase Able:And, thus, I think the theme that's flowing throughout this morning from last week into this week and probably into next week as well is this theme of pride and humility. Again, I'm tired of Jesus talking about these things too because it's just shining a mirror and a light on my sin and my heart. But, again, what Jesus is saying here today is not new. Our attitudes towards kingdom living, our heart postures, they actually and really do matter. He's again telling us at all costs that we must root out the pride that is growing within us when we can't see it and when we can.
Chase Able:The kingdom mindset and the kingdom seeking, what we looked at last week when we looked at chapter six verse 33. Those things kingdom seeking must guide our kingdom living. And, so this morning, we'll be spending our time in the first 12 verses of Matthew seven, as you all know because you all just spent time there together in your small groups. And, these verses highlights our propensity towards pride and the invitation to live into humility as Christ has done for us. And, so this this morning, we'll see four major movements in our text together.
Chase Able:We're going to kind of walk through our text in these four chunks. First, we're going to look at verses one through five, which consider wrongful judgments. Wrongful judgments. In verse six, we're going to look at where Jesus commends appropriate discernment. So, that's what's happening in verse six.
Chase Able:In verses seven through 11, we'll consider and we'll remember our Father's character, who it is that we come to when we pray. And, in verse 12, the final verse of our text this morning, we'll name the cornerstone of kingdom living. And, so, let's jump in. And, as we do so, I do want to just offer a disclaimer that a lot of what I will be sharing with you all today, I'm indebted to D. A.
Chase Able:Carson and to Sinclair Ferguson. They're wise theologian pastors who have written a lot, who know way more on these things than I do. And, so, I'm not going be directly quoting them a lot throughout our time together this morning, but a lot of what I'm saying is coming from them. So, I just wanted to give honor where honor is due. But, our text today, our text today holds some of the most quotable parts of scripture, doesn't it?
Chase Able:Right? Lines repeated in our culture even by non believers and we see one of those principles at the very start of chapter seven where Jesus says, judge not, that you not be judged. Right? We hear that a lot in our culture and generally, our culture loves this idea. We live in a moment where non judgmental attitudes, where tolerance is esteemed as a cultural value almost above all others.
Chase Able:A quick Google search, I did this yesterday, a quick Google search will show you that like the ideas, the values, and the virtues of tolerance and of individualism, those are almost as highly esteemed in our nation as the ideas and the values of freedom and family. You might have heard our culture say, put Jesus' words in a different light, spin his words a little differently, where our culture might say, just accept all, love all, be tolerant of all. But, however, this isn't what Jesus is saying when he tells us not to judge. He's not saying, wave the flag of don't judge me or you do you or live your truth. That's not Jesus' message here.
Chase Able:For tolerance, for the sake of tolerance, is not what Jesus is getting at. But, what Jesus is doing is he is calling us to honesty and to humility. He's calling us to honest self assessments and that is going to dictate how we interact with others. And, that's what he's been doing this whole time since the beginning of chapter five of Matthew. For Jesus knows our flesh and as he talks about in Matthew seven verses three through five, tendency is to pay way more attention to the sin of our brother or our sister than the sin that is in me.
Chase Able:Right? It's so much easier to see the speck or the sawdust in someone else's eye rather than to notice that there is a log obscuring all of my vision. For we, in our flesh and apart from the spirit are so blind to our own sin. So, here, in these first five verses, we are given the invitation to confession, not to condemnation. We're also given the invitation to humility rather than to hypocrisy, just like we saw earlier in chapter six a couple weeks ago.
Chase Able:And, really to understand what Jesus is getting at here, I think we have to look a little bit more deeply at the words that Jesus is using. These words of judge and judgment, what he's actually saying. And so, the Greek word, the Greek root of this word judgment is the Greek word krino. And, it has many nuanced definitions. I was like looking at researching it and there was like, not just like a one line of a definition, it was like paragraphs of like what this word krino, to judge what this word means.
Chase Able:But, in this context, the context of Matthew seven, krino, to judge means to pronounce judgments, to subject, to censure. One scholar has defined this word in this text as to evaluate fairly. To evaluate fairly, which I think is a helpful translation for our text today. So, we see in verse one of Matthew seven where Jesus says, judge not. He's specifically referring to those who judge severely or unfairly.
Chase Able:Those who find fault, who are looking for fault in others. And, in verse two, where Jesus talks about judgment, he is referring to the act of playing the judge. And, just common everyday affairs, playing the judge without a fair case. Right? So, thus, by telling us not to judge, not to cast judgment on others, Jesus is telling us essentially, don't be judgmental.
Chase Able:That's more of what he's getting at. Don't judge another unjustly. He's not saying that we shouldn't discern right from wrong. For as we'll see later in verse six, he's actually calling us to do this. But, we aren't to evaluate others unfairly.
Chase Able:We're not to condemn is essentially what he's saying. As d a Carson, a pastor notes, the caution here is against adopting a critical spirit or a condemning attitude. The danger is against adopting a critical spirit or a condemning attitude. So, what is fundamentally at stake here is attitude. Right?
Chase Able:And, this is the heart of the matter, the heart of the matter, the heart itself. And, are we surprised? This is what we've seen in chapter five, chapter six, and now, in chapter seven. Jesus is again guiding us beyond the scene to behold what's unseen in our hearts just like our Father who sees in secrets. He wants us to see the secret things of our own hearts as well.
Chase Able:In these first couple verses of Matthew seven, they feel kind of like a proverb. The way they read kind of feels like the wisdom literature of the book of Proverbs and Jesus is showing us here that naturally, instinctually, how we judge others is is really how others and perhaps how God himself will judge us, how evaluate us as well. Consider it this way. Alright. Continual condemning judgment of others, it really just shows that one has not understood the grace that they themselves have received.
Chase Able:For we can only give grace to others if we ourselves have received grace from the Father, and if we have understood that grace that we've received. Right? Again, we're hearing echoes of the beatitudes in Matthew five seven where Jesus says, blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. Similar to judge not so that you be not judged. It's a similar language, a similar repetition.
Chase Able:The classic biblical illustration for what Jesus is talking about here comes from second Samuel seven. Where there, the prophet Nathan confronts king David after his wickedness with Bathsheba and Uriah. We don't have time to unpack this entire story, but this narrative where where the prophet Nathan is calling out to David for his sin in by doing so by way of parable. This narrative is playing out exactly what Jesus is describing here. He's describing King David is showing us what it looks like to be so obsessed with another sin that you cannot see the own wickedness that you yourself might have committed.
Chase Able:And, in that story, in second Samuel 12, spend time there this week if you're wanting to dig into this a little bit more. In that story and in so many other places throughout scripture that our homework had us explore, we see the beauty and the kindness of calling out one's brother or sister in both grace and truth. And, throughout scripture, we see that we are to call one another out, but we're to do so not for the sake of condemnation like we've seen, but for the sake of calling one another to grow in Christ likeness. Right? We're doing this for one's edification, for building up, for one's sanctification, making others more holy, not for condemnation.
Chase Able:And, in our homework again, we were we were asked to consider in the application questions where we ourselves are most prone to cast judgment. And, I know for all of us in this room, the answer to that question will probably look really different. But, I do think it's an important question for us to consider as this outworking of pride can be so subtle and so sneaky, but so harmful for our relationships with others. We often talk about the evil of social media and being how it leads us to envy or jealousy, but maybe the real envy or the real problem with social media is that it leads us to judgment, to judging others, to condemning others. Or, maybe that's the real problem with the gossip because gossip can be an outlet for us to indulge in self righteousness rather than building others up in love.
Chase Able:So, as you're continuing to reflect on this passage this week, pay attention to this question. I I know I was convicted by it myself. Let's look for the log in our own eyes as we examine the specs in our sister's eyes and as we consider the log, the sin that we might be committing, let's then live into the freedom of confession that Jesus is inviting us to here. Alright. Once you've identified that log, don't leave that to yourself but share it with your home group.
Chase Able:If you're in a home group or share it with your closest friends so that we can find freedom and life and lights in the place of confession. So that's Yes, sorry. I'm so sorry. That just came on, yeah. Thank you.
Chase Able:Thank you, because yeah, that was loud and I speak very quietly, so thank you. Further, as Jesus' illustration this morning has shown us, we can't deny the presence of sin. The speck of sawdust in another's eye because we can see one another's sin. That that often is so evident to us. Instead, we need to deal with, we need to confess and repent of our own sin first before we call out one another's sin.
Chase Able:And, for Jesus, was himself a carpenter, this metaphor of the the speck or the sawdust in the log would have felt really familiar to him and probably a lot of his audience too. And, he's telling us here something about the nature of sin. For when we're living in sin, our vision, our ability to see the kingdom clearly, our vision is obscured. Unless, we can't call attention to one another's sin without first seeing our own, Only then, can we help restore one another to grace. And, without grace, the one who speaks judgmentally has no desire to build up or to edify his brother or his sister.
Chase Able:As Paul would later write in Ephesians four, he says, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up, so that you can give grace to those who hear. This is what Jesus is inviting us to in Matthew seven one through five. To give grace, not judgments. Entrust judgments to the judge, to God himself. And thus, as our homework guided us towards evaluation of others isn't off the table, but a condemning attitude is.
Chase Able:And, with that, we come to verse six of chapter seven, which gives us the invitation to wise evaluation. The invitation to wise evaluation. And, this is the warning that Jesus says, don't give dogs what is holy and don't throw your pearls or your treasure before pigs or swine. I was reading about this and one scholar has called this verse, Matthew seven six, the most difficult verse to understand in the whole sermon, which I was like, that's just great for us today. So, we'll try to we'll try to work through it together.
Chase Able:And, this verse is like initially confusing because it, again, it doesn't seem to flow rightly after the following passage. Right? At first glance, it can feel like the inverse of the previous verses that we've just read. But, again, what was helpful for me in remembering, trying to understand what this means is remembering the definitions of what it means to judge others. The definition that we looked at earlier from the Greek karino, it can mean to evaluate fairly.
Chase Able:And, I think that also is what Jesus is calling us to here in verse six. While these verses, verses one through five and verse six, side to side, feel confusing, I think the concept is the same. We're to evaluate, to look at others rightly. Be it your sister who has a speck in her eye, or the evildoer, the wild dogs who have the power to attack you. We're to look at them rightly.
Chase Able:And, so note here in our text who Jesus is describing. In verses three through five, he says, to cast judgment on one's brother. And, in verse six, he calls us to look out for the dogs and the pigs, which really probably referred to like the wild boars who could actually like really attack and hurt people, not just like cute little pigs. Even though he was probably talking about that too because of Jewish culture, but whatever. Wild boars is the image in my head that was helpful.
Chase Able:Wolves and wild boars. And, there's a distinction in who we're dealing with here. Right? We're called to call higher those who are in the family of faith, our brothers and our sisters. But, we're to watch out to be wary for the dogs, who according to Philippians three are the evil doers who are enemies of the cross of Christ.
Chase Able:And, this is the distinction that Jesus is drawing for us here. We're to help our wayward brothers and sisters return to grace. But, we can't expect those who hate the gospel to live in step with the gospel. So, Jesus is calling us to be discerning and wise. After having been told throughout the sermon to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek to accept persecution, and now to not be judgmental towards sinners, it'd be easy to assume that we're just We can just turn a blind eye towards evil and sin and just pretend like it doesn't exist, but that is dangerous to do.
Chase Able:That's not what Jesus is saying here. He wants us to know that while it's not ours to condemn others, we should rightly discern who we're interacting with, who we're speaking the gospel to. D. A. Carson, again, I really love this guy.
Chase Able:He gave us a helpful illustration to kind of unpack this point for us. And, he did so by describing like, when you're out hiking or when you're out camping in the woods or in the wilderness, like consider, you know, Montana or Colorado or Western North Carolina, somewhere in the mountains, you might see signs, or you won't see signs that say, don't feed the birds, or don't feed the deer, or don't feed the squirrels, but you will see signs that say, don't feed the bears. And here's why we might we'll see, don't feed the bear signs, because if we feed the bears, ferocious wild animals who have the power to kill us, if we feed them and they're not satisfied with what we give them, then they'll just turn and attack and eat us. That's the principle that Jesus is getting at here. And, that's what's also painful about this verse.
Chase Able:Right? Not all, not all people will receive the gospel. Some, even in hearing the gospel proclaimed rightly, will reject the truth of the gospel. But, this doesn't mean This passage doesn't mean that we shouldn't share the gospel with those who haven't received it yet. For clearly, in Matthew 28, when Jesus gives us the great commission, we are called to go to the lost and proclaim the good news.
Chase Able:But, what this passage is saying in it, is it does mean that when we recognize someone's hatred towards the gospel, we shouldn't condemn them. We're not called to do that. But, we can remove ourselves from them. We can back away, we can quit sharing with them, stop sharing with them, so that we can be freed to pursue others who might have a softened heart towards the gospel. So, Jesus here, he's allowing a boundary in evangelism.
Chase Able:He's saying, don't exhaust your riches on those who hatefully will reject them because they could destroy you. And, just a couple chapters later in Matthew 10, Jesus lives this principle out with his disciples when he sends them out to share the gospel on their own for the first time. In Matthew 10 verses 13 through 14, Jesus tells his disciples this. He says, if a house is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But, if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.
Chase Able:And, if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. And, we see this this idea, this principle played out again later in Acts 18, where Paul himself, he's practicing the same thing. He goes to the Jews in Corinth and there they revile him and they oppose him. And, in their rejection, Paul tells them, he says to them, your blood be on your heads. I am innocent.
Chase Able:For now, I will go to the Gentiles. So, in the face of opposition, like hostile opposition, Paul said, I'm gonna stop proclaiming the gospel here and I'm gonna go to those who will receive it. And ultimately, right, we cannot discern these things on our own. Those leaf blowers really are loud. I'm sorry y'all.
Chase Able:Ultimately, we can't discern these things on our own. For as we've seen in Matthew Matthew seven one through five, our own judgments will cloud our vision and we'll be in danger sometimes of being like Jonah, the prophet who in the old testament who didn't want to go to Nineveh because of his own prejudice against people, not because of their hardness of hearts. We need the holy spirit to give us wisdom. We need his wisdom so that we can see with eyes unclouded by the sawdust of our own judgments to know to whom we should go. And so, we've seen in these first six verses, two do not commands.
Chase Able:Right? Do not judge and do not throw your pearls to the swine. And, there we've considered God as being the judge of all. And, now, we move to verses seven through 11 where we're going to remember together God's character. And, Jesus here, he's making kind of a hard turn, a hard pivot again to what feels like an entirely new topic.
Chase Able:But, here he's reminding us that for those seeking the kingdom, God is not only judge, but he's also loving father. And, for his children, his judgment on us is mercy. Throughout the sermon, we've seen God describes, Jesus describes God over and over as king and judge. But, the name Jesus uses most throughout the sermon is that God is our father, our heavenly father. And, here, in this part of Matthew seven, Jesus is reminding us that God, while a judge to be feared, while be judged to be feared, is also the father who loves us and delights to give his children good things, the good things that we need for our flourishing.
Chase Able:But, in a world filled with anxieties, and judgments, and sin, and persecution, it can be so easy for us as daughters of the king to forget our kingdom identity. Our identity is children of the Father in heaven. So, often when we come to this place of prayer that Jesus is inviting us to in these verses, we're we're confronted with insecurities and doubts and lies that ask questions like, does God actually know my needs? Will he actually answer my prayers and will his answers be good? And, in this passage, in Matthew seven seven through 11, Jesus shows us the answer to each of these questions is yes.
Chase Able:God is good. He hears us and his answers will be good. By calling us to honest prayer, followed by an example of a father providing for his own children. Jesus is saying that we, when we pray, we can trust God. And, we can trust God on the basis of his own character, who he has revealed himself to be.
Chase Able:And, thus, like Jesus did when he gave us the Lord's prayer just a few verses ago, Jesus is teaching us again how to pray the posture that we should come to the Lord with. And, in so doing, he's inviting us to believe that God is our good father who hears us and loves us. And, he does so, Jesus does so by giving us three commands. He says, to ask, to seek and to knock. First, he calls us to seek and when he when he says seek, he's implying Or, I'm sorry, skipped that one.
Chase Able:He first asks us to ask. He calls us to draw near to God and to name our needs. And ultimately, this is an invitation to relationship with God to actually realize that God is our father, that he knows our needs and he is giving us the dignity of naming those needs. This is what Jesus did with the blind man that he encountered in Mark ten fifty one. When he encountered this man who was clearly blind, Jesus didn't just automatically heal him, but he asked the man, what is it that you want?
Chase Able:He made the man name his need, name his desire to Jesus, and in so doing, he was inviting this man into relationship with him. He wanted this man to name his need to participate with Jesus in trust and likewise. When Jesus tells us to ask of God, that's what he's doing for us as well. So, we're called to ask. And second, we're called to seek.
Chase Able:And, seeking implies pursuit to pursuing God. And again, this is calling us back to Matthew six thirty three, where Jesus told us exactly what to seek. Seek. Remember with me, he said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. We're called to seek God, the treasures of the kingdom, which is the very presence of God himself.
Chase Able:And, finally, we're called to knock. In this image of knocking, it's a persistent, a continual knocking on the door of the Lord. This is a call to persevere in prayer. This is what the writer of Hebrews meant in Hebrews four sixteen when that author wrote, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Alright?
Chase Able:We can draw near, we can draw close to God with boldness because of what Christ did for us on the cross. So, we're called to ask, seek, and knock and after Jesus tells us to do these things, he gives us a promise. He tells us, those who ask will receive, and those who seek will find, and those who knock will have an opened door. And, taken out of context, I think we all know this verse can be really dangerous. We can we can misinterpret this.
Chase Able:We can use this verse wrongly because this can be interpreted through the lens of a prosperity gospel. The idea that God is a genie who we can just ask anything and he will give us what we ask for, but that's not who God is and that's not what Jesus is saying here. He's again pointing our gaze backwards to Matthew six thirty three, reminding us that that the tell us the direction of our prayers need to be seeking the kingdom, seeking the place where God is. But, as our homework has pointed out for us, God, he doesn't always answer every prayer that we pray. And, for those of you here who have been asking, who have been seeking, who have been knocking for years on end and haven't been met with an answer, this verse can feel less like a promise and more like a cruel joke.
Chase Able:And, it's true that on this side of eternity, we might be at times met with the silence of God. We might be answered by God with a no, with seemingly unanswered prayers. But, here in this passage, Jesus' focus isn't only on answered prayer, but it's on the promise that we have a God who is with us. A God who hears us, who sees us even if his response for a time, a season, even if it's a long season can be silence. Of this, again, D.
Chase Able:A. Carson, he writes that persistence is required. But, persistence in what? The answer is persistence in prayer. Not prayer envisaged as an occasional pious request for some isolated blessing, but persistence in the context of the sermon on the mount is that it is a burning pursuit of God.
Chase Able:This asking is asking for the virtues that Jesus has expounded. The seeking is a seeking for God. And, this knocking is a knocking at heaven's throne room. It's a divinely empowered response to God's open invitation from Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen that says, you will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your hearts. End quote.
Chase Able:Again, just like with the verses that we first considered earlier this morning, Jesus is calling us to abandon our pride and to take up the banner, the posture of humility. These verses on prayer, on asking, seeking, knocking, they're inviting us to name our needs and to bring them to the father, the father of love, and just as a child who asks for bread from her father. And ultimately, this passage is reminding us that we ourselves are beggars. That we are beggars, we are the poor in spirit, and thus, we must never stop asking. Never stop asking, never stop seeking or knocking.
Chase Able:And so, this is the tone of the passage. It's an invitation to remember God's kindness and to live into that knowledge that God is a good, good father. And, in that knowledge, we can live in such a way that sums up the whole law, which brings us to our final verse this morning. Matthew seven twelve, which is the golden rule. The golden or the primary rule, meaning that is the pinnacle of all rules or commands.
Chase Able:As our homework had us do, it had us, go to the NIV to read this first, which I think is helpful, so I'll read it for us quickly. The NIV reads, it translates Matthew seven twelve, by reading, So in everything, in everything do to others what you would have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets. Again, our homework had us notes other ancient writings that have similar proverbs or versions of their own golden rule. But, if you notice in looking at those, those ancient proverbs emphasize what we are not to do.
Chase Able:What we do not want done to us. These other rules are negative. They carry a tone of passivity, not of participation, not of action. However, as one theologian has noted, the golden rule here is given to us in Jesus' gospel. It doesn't forbid action but it instead prescribes action.
Chase Able:And so, as he does, he takes this verse, this concept even further than not just doing evil to our neighbors, but instead intentionally doing good to them. Doing to them what we would desire being done to us. This is not a command of restraints, but a command of action. In all things, do to others what you would want them to do to you. Or in other words, pour blessing out on all you encounter.
Chase Able:And, why does this command follow this passage on prayer and on remembering who God is? And, I think because in remembering who God is, we can rightly remember who we are. Remember, we're beggars in need of God's grace. The grace of our Father, and our Father doesn't call us to hoard hoard up, to store up this this grace for ourselves, but instead to pour it out on others. Because He won't stop being a good Father who lavishes goodness on us, we can do the same.
Chase Able:Because of the mercy we've received, we can extend this mercy to others. That's what this entire passage in Matthew seven verses one through 12 has been about. The grace we've received in the gospel should lead us to thanksgiving. To blessing, to generosity, not self righteousness, pride, selfishness or judgment. The grace we've received should change us at a heart's level and that's what Jesus has been getting at this whole time.
Chase Able:So, I'll close our time together with a quote from Sinclair Ferguson who ties up this whole passage really beautifully. He says, the Christian life is indeed demanding, but in essence, this principle is simple. It is knowing the grace of God working so powerfully in your heart that you are free from the mastery of sin and self over your life. You can now serve others and bring blessing to them as the Lord has brought blessing to you. This is the kind of clear sightedness that arises from living in the light of the judgments of God who is your father.
Chase Able:Amen. Let's pray together to close our time. Father God, we thank you that as your children, your judgments over us is mercy and love. God, we thank you that you have done for us exactly what you invite us to do for others. And so we ask that you, by your spirit, would give us the strength to not live into self righteousness, to not live into condemnation of others, but instead, to live with a posture of bestowing blessing, and love, and kindness, and grace upon others, just as we have received from you.
Chase Able:God, confess together our neediness, our need for you to help us, and we trust that you will do so. Lord, let these words that we have spent time together this morning change us, transform us more and more and more into your likeness even today. We pray these things in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Amen.