How Firm a Foundation - Luke 6:46-49 - November 27, 2022

 Luke 6:46-49 How Firm a Foundation

Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 6, verses 46-49, that’s on page  863 in the pew Bibles.

Over the last few months it seems like we have been talking a lot about old time Sunday school and flannelgraph and all of that. Well I’d like to teach you all or maybe remind some of you of an old timey Sunday School that I remember from my youth.

“The wise man built his house upon the rock, The wise man built his house upon the rock, The wise man built his house upon the rock, and the rains came tumbling down.

“The rains came down and the floods came up, The rains came down and the floods came up, The rains came down and the floods came up, and the house on the rock stood firm.

“The foolish man built his house upon the sand, The foolish man built his house upon the sand, The foolish man built his house upon the sand, and the rains came tumbling down.

“The rains came down and the floods came up, The rains came down and the floods came up, The rains came down and the floods came up, and the house on the sand went SPLAT.”

Let’s pray together.

As you may have guessed today’s text from the Gospel of Luke concerns the wise and foolish builders, the one who built his house upon the rock and the other that built his house upon the sand.

Let’s look at the text and try to discern the Lord’s message for us today.

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. 49 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.”

Now again, just like last week, we can’t remove this parable from its context. Jesus had been teaching on blind guides and those that followed them, on the hypocrisy of examining our brother’s and sister’s faults without dealing with our own, and, most recently, good trees bearing good fruit and bad trees bearing bad fruit.

This parable about the wise and foolish builders is most closely related to that last one, knowing a tree by its fruit.

Now just to state the obvious, we all want to be good trees, right? We all want to bear good fruit? And likewise, we all want to be wise builders with houses that don’t go SPLAT?

I love that song, and there is a third verse but it misses Jesus’ point in this parable, and pretty much the one point of this sermon.

I’m happy to give away the ending at the beginning. What is the rock that the wise builder built on?

Our Sunday School answer is: Jesus, the song’s answer is: Jesus, build you life on the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessings will come down…

But is that what Jesus said? No, it isn’t.

Jesus asked a very important and introspective question, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”

We all said that we want to be good trees that bear good fruit, here is a question that will expose whether or not we are in fact a good tree and whether or not we can bear good fruit.

JJ vanOosterzee wrote that this question from Jesus exposes a “fourfold relation to the Lord; there are men who 1. Neither say Lord! Lord! nor do His will; 2. say, indeed, Lord! Lord! but without doing His will; 3. do His will, indeed, but without saying Lord! Lord! (upright but anxious souls); 4. as well do His will, as also say Lord! Lord! The last, the concurrence of deed with word, is in every respect the best.

It’s clear that two of these conditions do not make for good trees, it is impossible to be a good tree without confessing Jesus as Lord, without saving faith in Him. It is the other two conditions that Jesus is most concerned with in this parable, saying Lord, Lord, but without doing His will, and doing His will as well as saying Lord, Lord.

As Martin Luther said, “It is faith alone that saves, but faith that saves is not alone.”

So what is the rock that the wise builder built on?

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.

Other places in the New Testament say that Jesus is the Rock not made by Human hands, the Chief Cornerstone that the church is built on, but here Jesus says that the rock that the wise builder built on was His Word, calling Him Lord, Lord, hearing His words, AND doing them.

I want to point out that Jesus does not make a distinction between the two houses other than the fact that one has a foundation and the other doesn’t.

This reality still exists in the world and, most troublingly, in the church.

There are those who build lives of apparent faith, those who appear to have a relationship with Jesus because they do all the right things and seem to say all the right things. They faithfully attend church, they know all the words to the songs, they have a lot of Scripture memorized, and seem to have the Lord’s best interest at heart, they know all the right things to say. These are the folks that JJ van Oosterzee said, “do His will, indeed, but without saying Lord! Lord! (upright but anxious souls).”

So how do we know for sure which one we are? Christian Ludwig Couard, a German Lutheran theologian born in 1793 wrote on “The confessing of Jesus Christ in Christendom. It comes to pass that 1. With many the confessing of Christ is wholly wanting (they deny the Lord); 2. with many this confession is the thoughtless language of custom (they are Christian in name); 3. with some only an assumed pretence of godliness (hypocrites); 4. with others a matter of the heart and expression of living faith (true Christians).”

And that’s all well and good but how do we really know if we’ve truly built our house upon the rock?

The rains came down and the floods came up… And the house on the rock stood firm…

It is adversity that exposes the true nature of our building, whether or not we have a firm foundation.

John Calvin wrote, “True piety is not distinguished from its counterfeit till it comes to the trial.”

When the rains come tumbling down, what happens then? When trials come we often ask the question, why me? Why is this happening? Why God, what are you doing? He is exposing our foundations.

Jesus didn’t say that it wouldn’t be hard, that the trials were a piece of cake. Nowhere in Scripture are we instructed to paint on a smile and trip around like giddy idiots. But if our life is built on the Word of God, if our understanding of the world is based on how God has defined it in the Bible, when trials come our house will not collapse. Exposing our foundations is a good thing, Jesus bring the rain!

When people walk away from the Lord because things didn’t go according to their plan, God somehow didn’t come through for them in the way that they wanted, or somebody who claimed to be a Christian did or said something awful to them, that’s evidence of a house with no foundation.

This is how we can measure what kind of tree we are, what kind of fruit we will produce, if our faith is in Jesus and our life is built on His Word, not just knowing His Word but doing it.

James 1:22-25 says, 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Paul wrote in Colossians 2:6-8,

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. 8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Amen.

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!

Trees and Their Fruit - Luke 6:43-45 - November 20, 2022

 Luke 6:43-45 Trees and Their Fruit

Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 6, today we are going to look at verses 43-45, a section entitled, “A Tree and Its Fruit.” That’s on page 863 in the pew Bibles.

This is an extremely difficult passage. It’s short, seems relatively simple, but it is a hard one. It’s hard for several reasons not the least of which, as a woodworker, is the statement from Jesus, “Each tree is known by its own fruit.” What about the bark and the leaves and the grain, that’s how I know what kind of tree I’m dealing with!

Though Jesus was a carpenter, he knew His audience and they clearly weren’t carpenters so He just stuck with knowing trees by their fruits. Whatever.

Let’s look at the text and get to work.

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.

Let’s pray.

It’s not by accident that this parable comes right on the heels of the last one. To refresh your memory, just a few verses back Jesus said, “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.”

I’m not going to repreach last week’s sermon but I just want to remind us all that the picture of the plank in our own eyes and trying to help others with the speck in theirs is an invitation to introspection.

Introspection simply means to take a look at ourselves, to examine our own lives and make sure that we deal with our own sins and defects before we go pointing out anybody else’s.

And so this picture of knowing a tree by its fruit starts with a bit of self examination.

It starts simply with the question, “what kind of fruit am I producing?”

First of all, what is fruit? Jesus gives us that answer in verse 45. 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.

Jesus used the term, “good,” in the moral sense much like we do all the time when we say that somebody is a good person, He isn’t declaring anybody righteous based on what they do or say, he’s simply saying that decent people do and say decent things, and lousy people do and say lousy things.

So fruit in this context is the things that we do and say, our fruit is our effect on others.

Paul further explained this idea in Galatians 5:22-23

22 …the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

So if this is an invitation to introspection, we have to ask ourselves, “What kind of fruit am I producing? Does it look like the fruit of the Spirit? 

Do I speak and act in love with joy? Do I exhibit peace and patience? Am I kind and good to others? Am I faithful to the Lord, to my spouse, can I be counted on to keep my word and do what I say that I’ll do? Do I control myself when faced with temptation or difficult circumstances?

Good trees produce good fruit. 

In that same passage in Galatians Paul listed off some bad fruit as well to give us a little better definition and make it easier to discern a bad tree.

19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So the first step is to examine the kind of fruit that we produce, which list does it look like, the first one, the second one, or somewhere in between?

This is how we deal with the planks in our own eyes, we have to examine ourselves, our own fruit, and ask the Lord to deal with it so that we can move from being a bad tree to being a good tree.

But in the context of the rest of Luke 6 we know that Jesus is not just talking about just individual people but who they would look to as teachers as well. 

“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.

If our teachers are blind they certainly cannot lead us in the right way, we’re both going in the hole. A disciple is not above his teacher but when he is fully trained he will be like his teacher and if his teacher is blind and produces bad fruit guess what that means…

We must carefully examine the fruit of our teacher’s lives as well is it good or is it bad? Don’t expect to find good fruit growing on a bad tree, there are no figs nor grapes in the brambles and briars.

This sounds silly but it happens so often. People admit their need for God and go looking for Him where He will not be found. 

We want to be closer to Jesus so we start transcendental meditation or reading garbage books by garbage authors and we end up believing garbage and it’s reflected in the garbage fruit that we produce.

When we consider the fruit of our teachers in order to discern whether or not they are a good tree we have to examine the fruit that is their character, the fruit that is the content of their teaching, and the fruit that is the impact that teaching has on those who hear it.

How many of us have diligently followed a man that was a great speaker, with great charisma, and drew great crowds but cheated on his wife, or embezzled from the ministry, or abused those that worked for them? 

Or maybe the content of their message, as easy to listen to as it was didn’t point people to Jesus and their need for repentance, their need for the cross. 

They may have impacted thousands but the only real impact they had was making people feel good about themselves all the while they were still bound for Hell.

We have to measure the fruit of our teachers. We have to learn to discern the good from the bad.

And I tend to make a big deal about those we look to as teachers in the formal sense, teachers that we listen to or watch online that know that they are teaching, that’s what they are trying to do, but we must also measure the fruit of those that we look to as teachers in an informal sense, those that we look to for advice, those that influence us and how we live. Are we still looking for good fruit from bad trees?

This is much more difficult. 

If you don’t want to listen to that tv preacher anymore you can just turn it off but freeing ourselves from the negative influence of friends and family is much more difficult, it’s much harder... Just because it’s hard doesn’t make it bad.

Look for good fruit and you will find a good tree. 

So we know what good fruit looks like, but what makes a good tree?

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.

Jesus doesn’t switch pictures here, it’s the same thing. The good tree out of the good treasure of his heart produces good fruit, likewise an evil tree out of his evil treasure produces evil fruit, for out of the abundance of his heart his fruit is produced.

What makes a good tree good, what makes a person good, what makes a teacher good, what makes fruit good? The simple answer is the best answer, it’s Jesus!

We were all bad trees producing bad fruit. On our own we are nothing but brambles and briars. But as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:17, …if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 

It is God who makes trees good and it is God that enables and empowers those trees to bear good fruit. The fruit of the Spirit cannot truly be produced without the Spirit Himself living inside of the believer and being the good treasure of his heart. He is the only source for good fruit through us who trust in Jesus!

So what kind of fruit are you producing? Where are you looking for fruit and what kind of fruit are you taking in?

These are important questions to consider as we examine ourselves to see whether or not we are in Christ Jesus and whether or not He is us.

And as we seek to bear good fruit we have to do the things that help trees produce, we have to dig deep in the good soil of His Word. 

In the words of the prophet Jeremiah 17:7-8,

7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 8 He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Amen.

Willful Blindness - Luke 6:39-42 - November 13, 2022

 Luke 6:39-42 Willful Blindness

Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter six. Today we are going to look at verses 39-42 and that’s on page 863 in the pew Bibles.

The text for today is a difficult one, at least it is for me because of the role that the Lord has called me to in His church family here. Jesus has some stern warnings here for those who presume to be teachers as well as those who would be students as well as those who claim to be just trying to help.

I don’t have much by way of introduction other than that so let’s just jump into the text.

39 [Jesus] 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.

Let’s pray.

So let’s not dance around this too much, Jesus is really only dealing with one principle here and it’s that of spiritual blindness. That spiritual blindness here comes in three forms because we all know how Jesus loves a three point sermon.

39 …“Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?

So before we get too far we need to understand what spiritual blindness is. 

First and foremost spiritual blindness is blindness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the refusal to apply the truth of the gospel to life, an unwillingness to confess one’s sin and turn away from it and trust in Jesus.

In the context given here, Jesus is not only speaking to the Apostles and other followers but to the Pharisees as well. In Matthew 15:14 Jesus specifically calls the Pharisees blind guides. And He said if the blind lead the blind they will both fall into a pit.

The Pharisees notoriously rejected Jesus’ teaching in order to protect their own influence, power, and control in society. There may not be an official job title of Pharisee in the world today but the attitude of the Pharisee is alive and well.

There are plenty of teachers in the world, plenty of leaders who are spiritually blind, some out of ignorance and some willfully blind. What I mean is that there are some who have never heard the gospel of Jesus and there are others who have heard it and reject it. It seems that most people just prefer to wander in the dark without the light of the gospel of Jesus.

Jesus’ words here about the blind leading the blind is a challenge to both teachers and students, leaders and followers.

It may seem foolish to us that know Jesus that people would willfully reject Him and choose spiritual blindness. It’s also foolish to presume to be a guide if you’re blind.

There are also those who presume to be guides that claim to know Jesus but choose to be blind to His Word and its truth. They stand in pulpits week after week espousing God’s love but reject any kind of standards of behavior based on the Bible. They are willingly and willfully blind to the truth of God’s Word and presume to lead others.

Alistair Begg said, “In order to avoid being a blind teacher we must first place our lives under the divine search light.”

As a friend once said, “All we can do is try and make sure we’re not like that.” And I would add, make sure you don’t follow them either.

It’s foolish to presume to be a guide if you’re blind and it’s even more foolish to blindly follow them.

In the words of Jedi master Obi Wan Kenobi, “Who is more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him?”

Jesus words here are a challenge to those who would be guides and teachers about their spiritual blindness but also to those who would be students and followers. This was a warning to the Pharisees and an encouragement to the disciples.

40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.

I used to think these two statements were separate with separate meanings but they are in fact connected. The challenge from Jesus is to choose your teacher wisely.

If the master is blind and falls the student will be no better off.

Time after time people searching for wisdom choose teachers who are blind, and time after time they are disappointed when the teacher falls or is exposed. It’s like Toonces the Driving Cat. Back in the eighties on Saturday Night Live there was a series of sketches called Toonces the Driving Cat. Every time some dummy would get into the car and Toonces would drive and every single time they would drive off a cliff. Every. Single. Time.

It’s the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We see it at work in the world as people chase after teachers that will give them spiritual enlightenment or fulfillment and time after time are disappointed. But it’s just as prevalent in the church because time after time people choose the wrong teacher. We lift up some individual to a place that they don’t belong, we read all their books and we watch all their videos, only to learn that they are in fact human and make some mistake that exposes them and knocks them off that pedestal.

So the challenge to the student is to choose your teacher wisely, don’t choose the wrong teacher, make sure you choose the right teacher, and I’m here to tell you friends, it isn’t me. It isn’t Alistair Begg, or Ray Steadman, or John Calvin, or Martin Luther, JP Lange, or JJ vanOosterzee, It’s Jesus!

Choose Jesus to be your teacher, listen to His teaching in His Word the Bible.

I’m not telling you to stop listening to other preachers and teachers, but what I am telling you is to read the Word, know the Word, so that when one of those teachers gets it wrong you’ll be able to see it. 

The Word of God is such a gift to us, here we have the very words of God, read it and let Him be your teacher. He is the only guide whose vision is not impaired by sin, whose motives are not selfish, whose desire is for His glory and our good!

40 A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.

Isn’t that our aim, to be like Jesus?

And Jesus, like any good teacher, sometimes pushes and stretches us to learn and do things that make us uncomfortable so that we grow. These next two verses are proof of that.

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.

I said at the beginning that the blindness that Jesus refers to in this passage is spiritual blindness, a willful turning of a blind eye to the truth of the gospel. This example of the log and the speck falls under the same category.

First of all, let’s recognize together what a ridiculous picture this is. It is intentionally ridiculous. It looks to stupid in our minds because it really is stupid to act this way… and yet, we do it all the time.

This ridiculous picture of a carrying beam jammed in our eye verses a speck or splinter in our brother’s eye is Jesus’ invitation to introspection. It’s Jesus’ challenge to His disciples to diligently examine ourselves according to His standards.

The reason that many of us go through life with logs stuck in our faces is that we don’t use Jesus’ standards to measure ourselves by, we measure ourselves by other people, and since we can always find people worse off than us or find a problem somebody else has that makes us look and feel better, we continually prop ourselves up as better off than we really are.

Do you know what that is called? Self-righteousness.

The speck we see think we see in our brother or sister’s eye is some moral defect, but the plank in our eye is our own self-righteousness.

Self-righteousness is being willfully blind to the gospel. The truth of the gospel is that we have no righteousness of our own, all we have is moral defect, but we are clothed with Christ’s righteousness through faith in Him and His atoning work on the cross.

So in considering your own plank be honest with yourself, don’t be a hypocrite, don’t pretend to be something that you are not. Why on earth would we think that it’s ok to point out the faults of others when we are so unwilling to deal with our own?

Do you know what the number one reason people give for being unwilling to go to church? They say that the church is full of hypocrites. Who are the only ones that can change that perception? Us! And the best way that we can do that is to purge our eyes from any self-righteous planks!

The Pharisees, in their pride, were willfully blind to the gospel and their need of it, blind guides that led their students into the same pit as them, in their self-righteousness they pointed out the faults of others while ignoring their own darkness. 

Let’s not be like that. 

In humility let us examine ourselves before the Lord and allow the light of His Word and the truth of the gospel to expose the logs in our eyes, to expose our darkness.

5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:5-11

Amen.

Judge Not, Condemn Not, Forgive, Give - Luke 6:37-38 - November 6, 2022

 Luke 6:37-38 Judge Not, Condemn Not, Forgive, Give

Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter six, this morning we are going to look at verse 37 and 38, page 863 in the pew Bibles. Just two verses this morning which is always an indicator that it should be a nice, easy, quick sermon…

We’ve been looking at Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount over the last few weeks. Incidentally, it’s called the “Sermon of the Mount,” because it was given by Jesus on the Mount of Olives which overlooks the city of Jerusalem.

The difficulty in preaching through the Sermon on the Mount in little bits like we have been doing is that Jesus didn’t, He gave it all at once. This means that each little bit that we look at must be connected to the little bits that came before it. This is especially true of our text this morning as it is a kind of explanation of the end of the text that we looked at last week.

So let’s read our text, we’ll pray and see what it is that the Father has for us today.

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.”

Let’s pray

Have any of you heard these verses before, ever heard anybody say, “Judge not lest ye be judged?”

The phrase, “don’t judge me,” is one of the most misused and abused ideas out there. I don’t think anybody really knows what this means anymore.

I like to eat my M&Ms by color, yellow, brown, red, orange, blue, green. Don’t judge me. People say stuff like that all the time. Is that what Jesus meant? Can you guess the answer?

If Jesus said, “Judge not, and you will not be judged;” we ought to have a good handle on what He meant by judging so that we can avoid it, right?

We ought also to have a good handle of what Jesus meant in this context by not judging because in John 7:24 he instructs His followers to judge with right judgment, and Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:15 that the spiritual person judges all things. So what did Jesus mean, “Judge not, and you will not be judged,”?

There are at least two things that He didn’t mean. 

He didn’t mean that we are prohibited from the exercise of judgment and justice in the court of law. If you’ve ever had to serve as a juror in a court case, you have been responsible for making a judgment whether a person was innocent or guilty. Jesus is not forbidding us from participating in the justice system.

Jesus also didn’t mean that we are forbidden from forming opinions or being critical of others as if to turn a blind eye to sin. If a brother or sister is stuck in a particular sin, the most unloving thing we could do is to ignore it and let them drown in it.

Matthew 18 is very clear, if your brother or sister sins against you go and show him his fault between you and him alone. Refusing to point out error or discern good from evil in another person’s life is not what Jesus is forbidding here. We are not commanded to set aside good judgment.

What Jesus is forbidding here is the kind of judging that only sees faults, a kind of look at a person that is sharpened by mistrust and not tempered by love or self awareness.

Jesus is telling us, don’t be self-righteous, hypocritical, harsh, and self-exalting. 

We all tend to do this, ok, maybe it’s just me. 

Alistair Begg tells the story, “I said this morning that I have this sin, this is very hard to preach about. The person I was talking too said, ‘I have it too, I just don’t have it as bad as you,’ thus proving that they have it worse than me. Actually not worse than me, I am now worse again because I told the story!”

The kind of judging that Jesus is forbidding is the kind that avoids self examination by highlighting and condemning the faults of others, bitterly seeking out those faults.

I’ve found the Scripture most helpful with combating this attitude is Romans 3:23-24, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…

When I recognize that it’s me that’s bad I climb down off that pedestal, that judgment throne and see that we are all on equal ground.

When we judge others in this way, we wrongly exalt ourselves as if to say, “at least I’m not like them.” But the truth is that we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, all unworthy of His grace.

In the same way that Jesus commands us not to judge, He also commands us not to condemn. The words are so similar, judgment only sees the faults of others and condemnation declares their guilt and unworthiness of redemption.

But just as we are unqualified to judge others we are also unqualified to condemn them and the reason is the same: we cannot read other people’s hearts.

John Stott said that when we condemn others we “Create the worst possible construction of another person’s motives, we delight to pour cold water on their schemes, and we are ungenerous in response to their mistakes.”

In other words, that person just can’t do right by us no matter how hard they try, no matter how pure their motives are, we just refuse to see anything good in them or in what they are doing. Have you ever experienced that, been guilty of that, or been the recipient of that kind of treatment? This is not the way of Christ!

Jesus commands us to not judge, to not condemn, I say that these are commands because they are in the imperative, He commands us not to judge, not to condemn, but then He commands us to forgive, and to give.

Aren’t these pretty much opposites? Instead of judging others we should forgive them, instead of condemning others we should give them grace.

Again, here is another example of the strength in acknowledging our sinful condition. If we recognize our own sinfulness and unworthiness of God’s forgiveness we will be all the more free to forgive others because we ourselves have been forgiven. 

Jesus told a parable in Matthew 18:23-34,

23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. 24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, [which is a much smaller amount] and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. 31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. 32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.

Jesus is telling us here in Luke, “Don’t be like that guy!” We have been forgiven so much, we ought to forgive others. To not forgive is a cold and deliberate choice, and it is a choice to sin.

The last command of Jesus here is to give. I think this is a very misunderstood verse. 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.

It sounds like a promise of blessing doesn’t it, reward for our good deeds and generosity? It sounds that way because it is a promise of reward for giving generously, but it is also a warning that what it is that we give will revisit us.

Far too often prosperity preachers con people out of their “seed money” in order to reap God’s blessing by misusing this verse and others like it. 

While it’s true that the Father will repay us in one form or another in this life or the next for our willingness to give the warning here is to beware of what you give because what you give will be repaid in abundance even if what you give is judgment, condemnation, and unforgiveness.

Is that the kind of thing that you would like given to you, in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, put into your lap? 

Matthew Henry said that, “we must expect to be dealt with ourselves as we deal with others.”

And that’s really the whole point, this little bit of the Sermon on the Mount is connected to the last little bit, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

Alistair Begg said, “If I am prepared to put myself in the other person’s shoes, and if I am prepared honestly to wish for them what I wish for myself, then I will be prepared to replace meanness with generosity, harshness with understanding, and cruelty with kindness.”

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.”

Do unto others what you would have them do unto you. This is the law of love.

Amen.