But we thank you this morning for every remembrance of you and
of your Son and Father God. We thank you that those of us
who have trusted in you as our own Saviour could say this with
Paul in the book of Galatians, that we have been crucified with
Christ. And so far this morning, this
occasion that we have had a rod around your table, the bread,
the cup that we have taken, ohh. God reminds us of the fact that
Christ has been crucified on our behalf and we or Lord God have
been crucified with him. So we thank you, Lord God, for
the life that we now have in our Lord Jesus Christ, and as Paul
says, for the life that we live, we live for him, for the Son of
man who loved us and gave himself for us.
So Father God, what a privilege this morning to be able to come
into your presence to remember what your Son our Lord and
Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us.
And Father God, we pray a Lord, this morning as we now read your
word and as Billy speaks to us from your word.
Lord God, we pray that we through Your word become to know
you day by day more clearly and more dearly.
Or Lord, that He would speak to us, Father, through Your Word,
that Your Word, the Lord, may have an impact in our hearts and
our lives. We pray that You'll open up our
understanding as we seek Your Word, and we play a lot for your
hand upon Billy as he speaks. Father God, that the words that
are spoken may be afraid, that the words that are spoken, the
Lord may not return void as promised in the Scriptures.
We also thank you, Father, for our Sunday School kids.
Each and everyone of them are not player for each of those
children. Is that they too, Lord, may come
around under Your word this morning, that they alone,
through Your Word and through all of the activities in the
Sunday School, we get to know You that much more dearly.
And our prayer is for each and everyone of those kids as they
grow up to not only come to know you personally, but grow up a
lot in the ways of the Lord to be tremendous men and women for
the Lord. We thank you for us and the
school teachers and for the commitment that they have made.
We pray, Father, that you will bless them this morning as they
interact and as they share your world with these Sunday School
kids. So, Father, once again we thank
you for the morning that you've given us, and we commit this
time once again into your hands and save us, precious, and in
his worthy name, Amen. I mean, good morning, Church.
Hey, open with me to the Book of Luke chapter 6.
We're gonna be in Luke Chapter 6, continuing on where we are in
our series and the book of Luke. And in the last two weeks we
have been looking at a specific section in the book of Luke,
which is the sermon that Jesus gives, which we call the sermon
on the plane. You'd see the same or similar
sermon in Matthew chapter 5 through 7.
It's assuming that Jesus gives and he brings to his disciples
and a group of people who were listening.
And this morning we are going to finish off that section of Luke
the sermon that Jesus preached. And, and simply as we've been
seeing the summon, Jesus is showing us the life of a
believer. What is the the life of a
Christian? The life of a follower of Jesus.
What does it look like compared to the way that the world lives?
So let's read this morning's passage.
We're going to be in verse 37 through to the end of chapter 6,
verse 49. We're mainly this morning.
We're going to focus in on mainly versus 41 and 42, but
we're going to read the whole passage.
This is this. This is the words of our Lord.
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, 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 spick 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 is in your 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'll see clearly.
To take the spec, take out the spec that is in your brother's
eye. For no good tree be as bad
fruit, Nor again does a good or bad tree bear good fruit.
For each tree is known by its own fruit.
For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes
picked from a Bramble Bush. For good person out of the good
treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of
his evil produces evil. For out of the abundance of his
heart, his mouth speaks. Why do you call me Lord, Lord
and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and
hears my words and does them, I'll show you what he's like.
He's like a man building a house who dug deep and laid 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. But the one who hears and does
not do them is like a man who built his house on the ground
without a foundation. When the stream broke against
it, immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was
great. I mean, well, last week, if you
remember back to last week, we looked at the passage before
this and we, we looked at what Jesus had to say to us about
love. And one thing we found, and we
spoke about it at the start is the world and the society around
us loves love, at least what it thinks love is.
And Jesus had a, a different vision for love for us.
But the world around us loves love.
And, and this week we're turning to this concept of judgement and
judging others. And if the world loves love, I
think what we're going to see is the world hates judgement.
The society around us hates any form of judgement.
And in fact, I think in this passage, verse 37, we've got
what what is I think one of the most misunderstood verses in the
Bible, one of the most misunderstood.
And it's probably widely known. Judged not, judge not.
In fact, I think many, yeah, many people in society are
familiar with this verse. Maybe you've heard someone quote
it to you. When when they find out you're a
Christian. And maybe they find out some of
your views and they go, didn't Jesus say judge not?
You said judge not. So you shouldn't really be
saying anything about the way I'm living.
Or maybe someone else has made a comment about you and the way
that you're living your life or some of the decisions you're
making. And this is kind of a wall you
put up. Well, what Jesus said judge not.
Okay, so back off. You live your life.
I'll, I'll, I'll live mine. And it's often said, and I think
it's important for us to understand the society we live
in. It doesn't really believe in
truth. Some would call this we live in
a post modern society, we live in a pluralist society.
Essentially what what that means is that I think in our society
that the the main view is no specific religion or no specific
claim of truth can be seen as superior to any other claim.
So simply there's no basis for truth, there's no standard for
truth. And I think the outcome of that
is any form of judgement is, is prohibited because there's no
basis to make a judgement if there's no truth, if there's no
common absolute truth, I have no basis to make any form of
judgement about the way you are living.
You mind your business, all mine, my business.
You live your truth and and I'll live my truth.
I think it's inevitable that this kind of thinking, it seeps
into the church as well. It can be tempting to want to
live as isolated Christians. I'll live my Christian walk.
You live your Christian walk. You don't comment on mine.
I won't comment on on yours. But I think when I, when I look
and I think about the church and I look at my own heart, I think
my bigger concern is that we have fallen too far in the other
direction. Because as Christians we
believe, right? We have the word of God.
We have a standard for truth, and my concern is that often we
jump too far the other direction.
We say, well, no, we have truth. So I'm gonna call it like I see
it. That's wrong.
I don't like that. You didn't say that right.
That wasn't good because you know what?
We've got truth. We should call it like we see
it, right? I don't think so.
And this is the question that
that we've got to think about as we come to this passage.
As followers of Jesus, in what way should we make judgments on
other people? As followers of Jesus, in what
way should we make judgments on other people?
There are two extremes laid out before us, and I think Jesus is
telling us in this passage that they're both wrong.
These two extremes, and he's telling us they're both wrong.
We can fall off the boat from either side.
We can either be isolated and say we're not going to judge
because Jesus is judge not or or or we could say no, no, no.
The Bible says what's right and wrong.
So we need to be judgmental and and Jesus is gonna speak to that
and the main versus we're gonna spend most of our time and as
verse 41 and 42 where he's gonna use this analogy of saying it's
like we've got a log in our eye and we're pointing out a spig
and our brother's eye. But it's important to understand
as we go into this that Jesus isn't telling us to make no
judgments. In fact, end of verse 42.
I guess the end goal of this is that we would see clearly to
take out the spec and our brother's eye, which in itself
is it's a form of a judgement. The end goal is not that we
won't judge. The end goal is that we would
judge well, that we would judge faithfully, that we would judge
lovingly. And so I think the way that
Jesus is crafting this is he's helping us to understand what do
we need to do before we remove the spec?
What do we need to do before we make judgments on each other?
And I think the claim he's making is that we are all far,
far too quick to remove the spec.
He's not saying don't do it, but he's saying maybe we need to get
there a whole lot slower than we do at the moment.
What do we do before we remove the spec?
And it's, it's a big question to ask.
And I think as I've assist my own heart this week, I feel like
it's easy when Jesus is giving us instructions, he's giving us
the way that we, we, we should live our life.
It's very easy to turn it into A to do list.
Okay, what do I need to do this week?
Jesus to not judge, but actually in this process, Jesus is asking
us as we come to this passage to really perform heart surgery
here. It's not a do this, do this.
He's really asking us to dig deep, assess our motives, assess
our desires, what is going on in our heart.
Jesus is after our hearts. He's not just after our actions
or our obedience. He's after our hearts.
O what do we do before we remove the spec?
Well, firstly we're going to look at versus 37 to 38.
Before we remove the spec, we must know that we will all stand
before the true judge. We must know that we will all
stand before the true judge. He sees this inverse 37.
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 for with the measure you use it use
it will be measured back to you. And so he starts here by giving
us 4 commands. Two of them are negative and two
are positive. So judge not condemn not.
And then he says forgive and and give and, and the main principle
he's saying here is he's pointing us to the reality.
When we think about judgement before we think about judgement
this way, we need to understand that each of us will be judged
by God. We are not the final judge.
And it's interesting.
And this is going to, this is going to make us think because
it seems like he's saying there's some form of reciprocity
here. What I mean by this is that you
kind of summarises it at the end of verse 38.
He says with the measure you use, it will be measured back to
you. So to the extent that we judge
critically, we will be judged critically.
To the extent that we judge, we we forgive and we are gracious,
it will be given back to us. And that's an interesting thing.
And that's going to make us think.
And I want to wrestle with what he's actually saying here, but I
just want to understand when you're speaking about judgement
and, and condemn what he's Speaking of here.
This is a fault finding mentality.
This is the kind of mentality that is looking to other people
and, and looking to find the worst and other people.
And as we're going to see, there's a right way to judge.
He's speaking here of the wrong way to judge.
And the principle that we're going to see here is, is this
pretty simply. We must judge others with the
reality in mind that one day we will be judged by God.
We should judge this way with a mindset, knowing we will be
judged against God and God has got plenty of evidence against
us. God has got plenty of evidence
against us. We certainly want God to judge
us with grace. In fact, we're banking on the
fact that God is going to judge us with grace because if he
doesn't judge us with grace, he would judge us based off our
sin. And so how could we then turn
and judge others without any drop of grace?
How could we then turn and judge others, only assuming the worst,
only looking for the worst, when we actually are going to stand
before God and we need Him to judge us with grace.
And I will say this, and we need to know this, if you've believed
and put your faith in Christ, we have confidence.
We have more than confidence. We have assurance that God will
judge us completely with grace. We don't have to be anxious as
God gonna judge me with with with grace or judgement.
If our faith is in Jesus Christ, the judgement that God will pour
on us, it's completely lopsided. It's completely gracious.
In fact, he's going to give an example here.
He speaks about this this, it will be given to you and he says
good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over
will be put into your lap. This is a lopsided amount of
grace. And so the analogy here is that
of grain. If you're pulling grain and any
saying the person here who's giving you the grain as is
pretty much packing it in all of the grain that they can get in.
So I picture it like this with you having ice cream on a cone.
I haven't had this since I was a kid, but there's two ways you
can put ice cream on a cone. You could get the scoop and you
can put it right on top. But I remember as a kid, mum and
dad would do that. I'm like you, this, this hollow
cone in there. You've got to get the little
scoops and fill up the cone and then you put the ice cream on
top. I think this is the kind of
picture here is using with the grain.
It's like good measure pressed down, really jammed in there.
This is an abundance of grace. That is how God if, if we put
our faith in Jesus Christ, that is the kind of grace God has
poured on us and will pour on us when we are judged.
And so the idea is we need to understand this and what we've
received should be should be reflected in the way that we
judge others. Many of you would be familiar
with a parable Jesus uses in Matthew chapter 18 where he
speaks about the servant who who had owed their master and
incomprehensible debt. You're talking millions upon
millions of dollars and the master forgave the debt.
There was a date he could never repay.
The master forgave the debt and then the servant, he just been
forgiven of his debt. And he goes out and he finds
someone who owed him about 3 months wages and he pins him up
against the wall by the scruff of the neck and he says when
you're gonna pay me? And he says, look, just give me
some time, I'll be able to pay you.
I can pay you back. He's like not good enough, not
good enough any any seems them to gaol.
And the point Jesus is saying here is he's this guy who's been
given this, forgiven, this unbelievable date, and yet he
didn't go and extend it to those around him.
And I think the warning here is this, if our life is is
characterised by a harsh critical judgement of others,
that should give us pause to ask whether we have truly trusted in
Jesus Christ, whether we have truly tasted of the freedom of
forgiveness. If there's nothing going this
way, if we're not extending any form of grace, we need to ask.
And this should be a mirror to us.
Have I truly tasted forgiveness? We should judge others how we
would want God to judge us and ultimately how God has judged us
through Jesus Christ. Imagine if if you got caught
speeding down, why did you drive and what is its eighty?
Why did he drive? So imagine you got caught going
100 and the cop pulls you over and he goes, look, this is
actually a bit too much for a ticket.
I'm gonna give you a court summons and you have to go to
there, the Hamilton District Court and you go and, and and
they say, OK, you need to wait in the courtroom.
The judges kind of filing through the different cases.
You've gotta wait. And then when it's your turn,
you'll come and stand before the judge.
And so you're sitting there waiting and the judge is
actually dealing with the case before yours.
And it's a very similar case. They were going 15 caves over.
You're going 20 days over. This guy was going 15 caves
over. And the judge is mulling over
the case and he's trying to work out what kind of punishment he's
going to hand down. And he's looking through it and
he's kind of can't really work out what to do with this one.
He's thinking, he's thinking, and then he looks at you,
sitting waiting, He goes. What do you think?
What kind of punishment should I hand down?
I I would guarantee that you are not gonna go.
You know what, Judge? You should really make this one
sting for him. He should learn his lesson.
Then you'll never do it again knowing that you're right up
after him. You're probably going to be
like, look, you probably didn't mean it.
You should be kind to him. I I think what Jesus is saying,
he's putting us in, in the seat of understanding.
We judge others, but we will be judged.
How are we judging others? And in light of that, we should
judge others. Before we think about judging
others, we should know that we will stand before the true
judge. We will be judged.
And secondly, we need to understand this before we remove
the spec. We must recognise and remove our
own log. We must recognise and remove our
own log. And verse 41 and 42, Jesus is
going to use an illustration essentially diagnosing the
problem of what's going on in our hearts when we judge.
And it's a familiar illustration and it's familiar to the point
where I think there's a danger it loses its humour.
And I guess what Jesus is trying to portray here, he's saying,
imagine he talks about a log and a spec.
So someone's gotta speak. So let's say Gavin here's gotta
spec. And it's like Gavin, Hey, he's
got a spick and he's talking like a like a wood chip, a tiny
little spick. And, and, and the word for log
is actually the Greek word, you think for like a load bearing
beam and a house. So like, I almost picture like
one of these big beams that are going across here.
So imagine literally I've got one of these honking out of my
eye. I'm like trying to keep my
balance and I kind of come up together and I'm knocking him in
the head because of this big beam in my eye.
I'm like, hey, Kev, I couldn't help but notice.
Let me just help you out. You got a little spick.
Right there in the corner. I maybe I'll just help you get
that out. And you can imagine Gavin's just
being like, are you serious right now?
You've got this, you got this house sticking out of your eye
and you're pointing out this spick in my eye.
I kind of happened as a child growing up, you know, we'd be
saying grace and I'd always want to catch my siblings during
grace before dinner and, and, and grace would finish.
I go, Dad. Blake had his eyes open during
grace. And here you go.
Well, how do you know it's not important?
How I know it's important that Blake had his eyes open during
Grace? What's going on here?
I mean, it's pretty obvious we are completely ignoring what's
going on with ourself, but we are so captured by pointing out
what others are doing wrong. And it's I mean, this is a great
analogy that Jesus uses because it really gets right to the
heart here. And look, notice this can happen
in two ways. It happens silently and it
happens verbally. Look at verse 41.
He says why do you see the spec? And then in verse 42 he says how
can you say to your brother so this can happen in our hearts
silently or verbally? I think for most of us, the
problem we need to deal with is the silent judgement.
In fact, we can often go, well, this isn't really for me.
I don't often say stuff to other people.
I think in our hearts we are judging all the time.
It's it's prevalent. Even think about today, how
often today have you made some sort of judgement towards
someone else in your mind, really, you're wearing that
shirt. You chose to wear that shirt to
church. Well, as someone kind of cuts
you off in traffic and you wanna get up beside them at the lights
and kind of make some eyes at them, maybe you're going, why
are we singing that song? I don't like that song.
Maybe even right now, maybe you're thinking that was a good
point. I hope so, And so is listening I
and I'll actually admit in my own heart there were some points
this week when I was studying this passage.
In the back of my mind, I thought, I hope so and so's
there. And what I want to suggest to
you is when our mind goes there, that means that we're the one
who needs to hear that. When our mind says, I wish
someone so heard that. I wish I should send this sermon
to so and so. I think that means that was for
us. We need to hear that.
But verbal judgement is also a real problem.
Being quick to point out to others their faults and their
sins. Being very quick and I think we
take a joy in it. Often this is where gossip comes
in as well. And I think this often comes in
the false pretence of good motives.
Did you see what science has been doing?
I'm worried about them. Are you worried about them?
You noticed that too? What else did you notice?
Yeah, it's a bit of a concern. Ohh dear.
So often I think verbally, silently, we are so full of
judgement and the diagnosis I think of this is that what we
are doing is we are circumnavigating our own hearts
and jumping right to the faults of the other person.
Why? Well, because to us they have
got a log. They've got this huge log
sticking out of their face and we've got nothing.
Maybe we've got a little spick, but the most urgent thing is
that I deal with their log and that's the loving thing for me
to do. I think behind this, often we
want to feel superior. We judge others because we want
to feel better about ourselves. Maybe there's an underlying sin
in our lives and it actually makes us feel better about the
sins we're tuning through by actually highlighting the sins
and other people's lives. At least.
At least I'm not doing that. Maybe I can help them by by
pointing that out, especially when someone's dealing with
maybe an era of sin that we aren't.
Maybe someone's wrestling with anger and that's not an area of
sin that I'm dealing with, but there's plenty of areas I'm
dealing with that they're not. But let's just focus on the
arranger for a moment. That'll make me feel better
about myself. And Jesus is saying that this is
it's sinful judgement. This is sinful judgement.
When he's saying judge not, This is the kind of judgement he's
Speaking of because we've got the wrong motives and we're
doing it all in the wrong order. We're looking outward before we
assess ourselves. And that's why he says in verse
42, you hypocrite. It's the height of hypocrisy.
And yet I think it's one of the most prevalent sins that that we
struggle with as Christians. Many of you would be familiar.
It's it's, it's a fascinating example of this and Second
Samuel chapter 12, how we have King David, who's just committed
adultery. He has committed adultery with
this woman named Beth Shebe. She's fallen pregnant and to try
to cover this all up, he's committed murder.
He's murdered Beth Sheba's husband and in the Prophet,
Nathan comes to David and Second Samuel chapter 12, and he
doesn't like come forward and say exactly his motives here,
but he says to him, hey, David, I want to tell you a story.
There were two farmers, One farmer, he had flocks and flocks
of sheep, he had tonnes of them. He was rich and wealthy, had
sheep everywhere. And then his neighbor was a
small farmer and he only had the 1 little you a little sheep.
And he actually loved this shape.
He raised the sheep like his own daughter and the kids love the
sheep. They they bring the sheep.
They let the sheep sleep inside. The sheep is precious to them.
And in this this rich guy, he's got a friend coming to town and
he goes, well, OK, well, I need to kill a sheep to feed my
friend and so he sees to the servant.
But no, don't go into my fields. I don't want to use one of my
sheep, go into the poor man's field, kill his sheep.
We can feed my friend with that sheep and all my sheep can stay.
And he and Nathan sees this to David and David jumps out of his
seat and he goes, well, that man should die.
He's he's angry, he's going, then you can't do that.
That man should die. What's he doing in the night?
And sees David? You are that man.
And what's going on there is David has got this huge log in
his eye, Adultery, murder, lying, deception, and he's
beside himself about what is really a far smaller sin.
So often we've got this this log in our eye that that we try to
move and shift out of the way because we want to be focused on
other sins. We need to look inside, we need
to recognise it and we need to remove it.
Need to remove it. Just want to ask what what is
this log? If we if we were to remove this
log, what is this log? As I look at the passage, I want
to suggest to you that this log itself is a judgmental spirit.
The log that is in our eye is a judgmental spirit.
Now say that because of this, the log, he says in verse into
verse 42. That's what's stopping us from
seeing clearly to judge well. And so if what we need to remove
in order for us to judge well, I believe that would be a
judgmental spirit. It's a it's a spirit or an
attitude of sinful, prideful judgement of assuming that I'm
up here and they are down there. And So what do we need to do to
remove this log? We need to humble ourselves.
We need to look inward before we look outward and assess our own
spiritual condition, assess our own motives, assess our own
desires. I wonder how it would change our
attitudes of whatever room we're in.
We assume that we are the most sinful person in that room,
removing that log of a judgmental spirit so that we can
judge well. And then when we confronted with
us and we worked to confess it, we worked to kill it, We work to
to hate it. And and I will say this can only
be done in the context of the gospel.
As people who have been forgiven by Jesus Christ, we've had his
grace lavished upon us. That's the only context that we
can actually deal with our sin. That's the only context that we
can pull out this log from our eye because we can fix our sins
to Hermes faithful and he's just to forgive us from from all
unrighteousness. Only then, once we have looked
at ourselves, assessed our heart assist, our motives, can we see
clearly to then remove the spic from our brother's eye.
And I will say this, and I want to speak about what it looks
like to remove this spec because Jesus isn't condemning this.
He isn't condemning the act of, of, of correcting someone else,
of removing their spec per se, but rather he's going to reframe
the way we get there. And he's saying often we just
get there far too quickly and far too often.
And I think if we treated our logs as as logs and everyone
else's specs as specs, and actually if everyone did that,
then by the time I've pulled my log out, Gavin here is actually
already assessed his speak and he's pulled out his spec.
But if I'm viewing his speakers a log and he's viewing my speak
as a log, we're just gonna be judging one another.
Jesus says there's a better way. There's a better way, but it is
important that we correct one another because actually we need
one another. We need one another to point out
our logs and point out our specs, but we need one another
to do it with the right motives and and in the right order.
With the right motives and in the right order.
We see this in in First Corinthians chapter 5.
There is rampant sexual immorality within the Corinthian
church and Paul's actually saying to them in First
Corinthians 5. Why did no one deal with this?
Why did no one address this? Why did no one call this out?
Why did no one judge this? If we will just say, OK, I'll
mine my business, you mind your business.
It's actually not helpful because as a church we should
care about the effects of sin. We should care about the effects
of sin and each other's lives. And Paul sees and 1st
Corinthians 512, he says, is it not those inside the church whom
you are to judge even and, and in seeking Timothy 316, when
Paul is talking about the value of the word of God, he says what
it's valuable for rebuking, it's valuable for for correcting.
So, so we should do this, but we need to do this well.
We shouldn't run from judgement, but we shouldn't judge harshly
and arrogantly. Jesus is offering us a better
way. It's judge well.
It's assist our motives. Let's do it in the right order.
Let's let's look at ourselves, let's pull out our log and then
and, and this is kind of going back to last week.
Everything we do, we do and love.
With the motive of love and humility, we confront one
another about the sin we see. We speak to one another with
love. I've been seeing this with the
with the genuine heart to call one another higher.
We we should be at people who who care deeply about sin, but
also who who respond with grace. So before we confront someone's
and we must confront our own, but then we should also be
prepared to confront the ears. And I wonder this morning which
side of that spectrum you need to be called inward from with
the you actually need the challenge this morning to end
love, be willing to address someone else's sin, to have a
difficult conversation with someone out of love and saying,
I've been noticing this. How can I help you with this?
But I think for many of us we also need the reminder to be
much, much slower and have far better motives to come to that
point as well. So before we pull the speak, we
we need to know we are not the ultimate charge.
We need to recognise and remove our log.
And I think we need to remember in this our Lord Jesus Christ,
who face the ultimate judgement of God and our place.
Jesus is the ultimate example of one, of an action, of one who
cares deeply about sin. He's not pushing it aside.
He cares deeply about sin. And yet we were judged with
complete grace, because on the cross, Jesus Christ, He paid the
full weight. Judgement was not withheld.
He paid the full weight of our punishment with sin so that God
may judge us not based off the way we've lived, but by grace
and we judge one another in the way that we have been judged.
And as I close in, as we kind of close this zoom and that Jesus
preached and Luke 6:00, I've got 2 quick thoughts and I'm talking
a couple of minutes and then I'll be done. 2 quick thoughts
as I finish. And I just want to look at the
last two sections as we think about how we alley this because
Jesus, he puts these sections that about the tree and its
fruit and about the the, the foundation that we build our
house on. He puts them at the end of his
sermon for a reason, because he's essentially asking, OK,
I've given you this information. What are you going to do with
it? What are we going to do with
this? Say this firstly, as we think
about how we're applying what we've talked about the last few
weeks, I'd say this as we look at versus 43 through 45, Jesus
is after our hearts. He's after our hearts.
He's not after our obedience. It's after our hearts, but not
after our obedience. He uses this example of a good
tree and a bad tree. He's a good tree is going to be
a good fruit and a bad tree is going to be a bad fruit.
It can be easy when we see these instructions to go, okay, I need
to do, I need to do. And then the question comes,
well, what do I do if I have been that judgmental person?
How do I address that if I have been confronted with the fact
that I'm super, super judgmental?
Jesus is not looking for obedience.
He's after our hearts. He's He's looking for fruit.
But the secret to good fruit is a good tree.
Secret to good fruit is a good tree.
He sees in verse 45 from the abundance of his heart, his
mouth speaks. And the good news of the gospel
is Jesus Christ has come not to say do this and do this and do
this, but he's come to give us new hearts that if we put our
faith and trust in him, he will replace our wicked broken heart
with a new heart, give us his Holy Spirit.
And and to use another analogy, in John 15, it says Jesus is the
vine. And when when we're connected
and with the vine and we're a branch off of Jesus, we're going
to produce fruit. So Jesus is not just after
obedience, He's after our hearts.
And he's saying that fruit will come.
And so if you're worried this morning, if you're thinking,
man, I can't do that, I'm not doing well at that, Jesus is
saying, come to me and be a good fruit.
And if you follow Jesus, I'd encourage you continue to be
connected in with with the vine. Continue to be a fruit from him.
And the last thing I'll say is I look at the last three verses of
of Luke 6 is that to follow Jesus words as to be on solid
ground. To follow Jesus's words is to be
on solid ground. He uses this analogy.
This is a verse 46. Why do you call me Lord?
Lord and you don't do what I tell you?
Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them,
I'll show you what he's like. He's like a man who built his
house on a good foundation. He dug down and built his
foundation on the rock so that when the storms come, the house
stands firm. I mean, it's easy for us to hear
these words and these instructions and what Jesus
Christ is saying about what it means to follow him.
It's easy to hear it. It's even easy to say, yeah,
Jesus is Lord, but Jesus saying if you think I'm, if you really
believe that I'm Lord, man, we, we ought to listen because the
way that he's calling us to live, it is a firm foundation.
It is a firm foundation in which we should build our lives.
And, and, and closes in the Matthew account.
He's gonna close with us as well because he's essentially asking
what are we gonna do about this? Are we going to just hear it or
are we going to hear it and are we going to do it?
And this is my refer us as we consider the last few weeks on
the Sermon on the Mount, especially as we consider what
we've talked about this morning around judging one another.
May we be people this morning with new hearts.
Judge slowly, who judge with the right motives, who judge in the
right order. Building our foundation,
building our house on a foundation that will last.
So let's pray as we close. Gracious God and King, we thank
you for your word, we thank you for your goodness to us, and we
thank you for the gospel. Jesus is not just calling us to
blind obedience, but He wants our hearts.
God, I pray that we may be people and we may be a church
community who judges one another well with the right motives.
God, would we deal greatly with our own sin?
Would we care deeply about our own sin and then and and love
seek to help one another? God private and practise.
You would just remove ego, would you?
Remove false motives. Lord, would we love one another
well in the way that we judge one another well.
Jesus name, we pray these things.
Amen.