Thank you, and God, that's why we're here today, because our eyes need to be fixed upon you. And Father, I know I'm guilty of this as I sing that song, but sometimes our eyes get so focused on this life, and sometimes our eyes get so focused on the hardships that we face each and every day, the trials that encompass us, the different things that we look to in life for hope and security and safety. Our eyes can be on a lot of different things, but Father, just like the song says, just as we sang and proclaimed it here today, God, I pray, Lord, that every person in here for just a moment would turn our eyes to you, to gaze towards you today. Father, speak to our hearts today, Lord, we love you, for it's in your name we pray, amen and amen.
You can have a seat here today. It is so good to see you in the house of God. It is a holiday weekend, and I am grateful that you are here, and grateful that you are here.
Maybe you're out in here and you're wishing that you were at the beach, or wishing that you were at the mountains or somewhere else and everything, but I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're worshipping with us here today. I do want to take just a moment in case this is your first time here. I'd love to introduce myself.
My name is Josh. If I've never met you before, I'm the pastor here, and we are delighted that you are here if this is your first time here. I'm reminded every week we have different people kind of slipping in, which we count that as an honor and a joy, and it is our desire to make this place feel like home to you, and so I hope that you feel a part of the family here at our church. At the conclusion of the service today, we are going to have just a brief point of business, and just to vote on the budget for this year, and so I'll give you some instruction about that.
It'll be really brief, and I will make that. If you're not a member here, it won't be awkward, so don't get nervous or uncomfortable, and we'll make it as normal as possible, but if you have your Bible, go to Matthew chapter number seven. Matthew chapter number seven, as we are continuing our series entitled The Greatest Sermon Ever. I want to be very clear that I am not at all trying to tell you that the sermon you're going to hear in this room today is The Greatest Sermon Ever. The reason why we call this series The Greatest Sermon Ever is because we are slowly unpacking what Jesus had to say in his famous sermon on the mount, which is the longest sermon that we have recorded that Jesus ever preached, and it is the greatest sermon that he ever preached, and because he is the greatest teacher that has ever taught, and so we are slowly working through that. We call this the Sermon on the Mount, but honestly, as I've kind of unpacked this slowly and worked through this, I feel like a better title of this would be just The Mountain of a Sermon, because in this sermon, Jesus, he really addresses many cultural things that are so, so practical, and so I would tell you, if you ever talk to somebody that would say, hey, the Bible's not relevant to my life, the Bible doesn't really speak to the things that I have going on in my life, it doesn't really speak into the cultural things that we see in our world today, all you need to do is take them to this passage, Matthew chapter 5 through 7, because he deals with giving, he deals with praying, he deals with where joy and happiness comes from, he deals with sex, he deals with divorce, he deals with lust, he deals with keeping your word, and all these different things, he just kind of goes through and he's firing off all of these thoughts for us. And then as we come to chapter number 7, we're going to see a passage of scripture that I would say is definitely in the top three most quoted passages of scripture by people in the church, but also outside of the church. You have John 3.16, whether you're a church person or not, everybody in here probably knows that, a believer or not, they've heard that verse and things like this, well this is probably right up there with that. Here in Matthew chapter 7, I'm going to just give you the first two words of what Jesus says here, it's this, judge not, judge not, and don't judge, very direct in how Jesus is talking about this, and here's what I want you to know, these two words are very misused and misunderstood.
They're misused and misunderstood. None of us like to be judged, am I right on that? None of us like to be judged, but what we find is we can be very judgmental people, you know, Christians, we can be judgmental. In fact, you've probably talked to somebody who doesn't want to attend church, and one of the reasons is because church is full of a bunch of judgmental people. How many of you have heard that before in your life?
And why is that true? The word judge, I thought it would be a good thing for us to start here, the word judge is a Greek word, it is the word krino, and here's what it literally means, it means to call into question somebody else. In other words, what he's saying is when he says don't judge, here's what he's saying, don't size people up and then cut them off. Don't size people up and then cut them off, and don't we do that from time to time, right? And I thought about getting you to raise your hand, how many of you are, let's do that, how many of you find yourself from time to time, you find yourself to be judgmental, okay? If your hand didn't go up, we're judging you right now, okay? We're judgmental people, nobody likes to admit that they're judgmental though, it's one of those things that just kind of sneaks into your life, but here's what being judgmental sounds like, okay? Have you ever said something like, did you see what they posted on Facebook?
Ever said that to somebody? Or how about this, did you see what so and so was wearing? Can't believe that they would wear something like that. I can't believe their mom and dad would let them do that. Did you hear what so and so listened to? Did you see what movie they watched? Did you see what they let their kids do?
I can't believe they would do something like that. Now, let's just be honest, how many of us from time to time find ourselves saying things like that? And most of the time, the person you're talking about isn't there, are they? It's private. Can you believe that the church is doing what they're doing?
Can you believe the song that they sung? Isn't that normal conversation on a Sunday afternoon, right? We love to judge and we find ourselves to be so judgmental. We find ourselves to be so judgmental where we look around with our eyes and we're sizing everybody up.
We're sizing them up and we're casting them aside and we're cutting them off in a lot of ways. And Jesus is saying, judge not. In other words, don't compare me.
Have you ever said that? Don't compare me to anybody else. You can't tell me what to do.
You can't tell me how to live. And Jesus is saying, judge not. But why do we find ourselves to be so judgmental from time to time? Why do we find ourselves to be so judgmental? When I was thinking about this, because I'm as guilty as anybody in here. I can be judgmental. I can sit around and probably find something to talk about with every single one of you in this place. Just like you could of me. Some of you are judging me right now.
I can feel it, okay? And we all can kind of say things and judge one another. Why do we find ourselves to be so judgmental? Here's the biggest reason that I think, I know this is true of me and it's probably true of you. The biggest reason that we judge is because many of us are self-righteous people.
Right? We're self-righteous people. You say, what does that mean? What does being self-righteous mean? Self-righteous people put down someone else in order to elevate themselves. They say, I can't believe she let her go there.
I can't believe they did fill in the blank. And the point is, self-righteous people say that so that they can put somebody else down in order to elevate how people perceive them. You see, self-righteousness, when you are self-righteous, what happens a lot of times is you begin to see other people's problems and you sometimes forget your own.
That's why, you'll see up on the screen, self-righteous people, and this is what Jesus is talking about and he's going to get there, self-righteous people are rarely self-aware. You ever found that to be true? You ever been around somebody where everybody else is always the problem? Everybody else, it's them, it's them, it's them, it's the school, it's the coach, it's this, it's this, it's this. It's never them, it's always somebody else. I'll tell you this, if that's how you are, the scripture would say that you are a self-righteous person because self-righteous people are very rarely self-aware.
They can't see their own problems and their own mess because they're too busy looking around at everybody else. And so Jesus is saying, judge not, but here's the thing, and this is what I want you to know is this, is that a lot of us, we love those two words, judge not, right? Like we love that. That means that if anybody in here goes up to you and says, hey, I don't think you should do that, I don't think you should go there, I don't think you should post that, I don't think you should listen to that, I don't think you should watch that, I don't think, whatever it is, right? We love this verse because it kind of gives us a defensive mechanism, doesn't it? It's kind of like, hey, don't judge me, right? Some of you have probably said that from some time.
You knew it was in scripture, but you never knew where until today, right? You're like, I know it's there, we're going to use it. We're going to use it because we don't want anybody telling us what to do a lot of times. And so we use this as a defense mechanism to say, hey, don't judge me, you can't tell me what to do. But here's what I want you to know is this, is that after judge not is that there is not a period. Don't you wish there was? Don't you wish that after the judge not it was over?
Thank you, Jesus, that's all we need, right? Anybody that calls us out about anything in our life, we can put a period, doesn't matter. It's none of your business. But Jesus didn't put a period there. Here's why. Judge not, what we love to use, very rarely do people know what's after it.
Judge not is not all that Jesus said. And so we're going to do things a little bit different. Here's what we're going to do. I never do an invitation at the beginning. But we're going to do an invitation at the beginning. And here's why. It's because I guarantee you, every single one of us, every single one, pastor, deacons, leaders, Bible philosophy, every single person in here is guilty, probably Matthew Chapter seven. And when we hear about being judgmental, here's what happens.
We immediately put walls up. You probably thought, I hope so and so is in the room, right? Was that just me that thought that? OK, my bad.
But a lot of us, you probably did. I hope so and so is listening good today. He's talking directly at him.
He's talking directly to her or directly to him. And you probably are thinking, I hope that they are in the room. Listen, you need this message today if that's you. You need it. And if you're in here and you're kind of sizing people up and you're you're kind of cutting them off and you're sizing them up for different things and you're judging, you need it.
But I want you to know that if you're the one on the other side that uses this as a defense mechanism, anytime somebody calls you out for something, hey, who do they think they are? Son of your business. I can do me and you do you. Let me tell you this.
You're going to need what he has to say, too. And so for just a moment, here's what I want you to do. I want you to bow your heads. And I know this is different. Don't don't. I know that our bodies are transitioned, that when he says bow your heads, we're getting closer to lunch.
You're not. OK, but here's what I want you to do in just a moment, because we all are critical, judgmental people, myself included. I've spent all week in this. So I've been able to pray and ask the Lord to seek my heart because this has been such a convicting message. I just want you for just a moment to ask the Lord to open up your hearts, to tear down the walls of resistance, the walls of judgmentalism that is in your heart today.
And if you're one of those that sizes people up and you're one that's always criticizing and saying, I can't believe they did that, I can't believe she did that, I can't believe the church did that, I can't believe they sang that, I can't believe they listen to that, I can't believe they watch that. If that's you, here's what I want you to do. Ask God to soften your heart and to open it to what he has for you. And then if you're on the other side and you're saying, hey, I use it as a defense mechanism, I can do whatever I want.
Nobody can tell me what to do. Don't judge me. Right. If that's you, I want you today to say, God, soften my heart to see what maybe I need to see today. Father, we love you.
God, we need this today. I need this as the pastor of this church. And Father, I believe that if we open up our hearts today, that what we're going to hear from your word, it could change not only our church, our relationships, it could also change the world.
I believe that. God, forgive us for when we're judgmental and open up our hearts to what you would have for us here today. I pray for every soul in this place, God, that they would open up their heart to exactly what you would have for them today, regardless of if they're on the judgmental side or if they're on the defensive mechanism side. God, that you would speak to their heart today so that the word of God could fall upon good ground. We love you, for it's in your name we pray. Amen. So listen, Judge not is not all that Jesus said. Those two words that we use when somebody calls us out on something. It was just the beginning of a discussion of what Jesus said about judging.
So let's dive in today. Matthew seven, verses one and two. Here's what he says. Judge not. Notice the comma.
It's not a period. That ye be not judged. In other words, here's what Jesus is saying. Judge not. Don't judge. Thou shalt not judge. Or you too will be judged.
Right? Or you too are going to be judged. Verse number two. For with what judgment, listen to this, ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. In other words, what Jesus is saying is he is saying that you will be judged according to the measure of the way you judged other people. So if you're one of those that sizes everybody up for what they do, what they listen, what they watch, what they wear, what they let their kids do, you know, all those kind of things. If that's you and you're in that judgmental box, here's what Jesus is saying. Judge not because it's coming back on you.
It's coming back your way. And so to summarize those two verses, here's what I would say. To summarize them, you could say it this way. Jesus is saying judge others the way that you would like to be judged. Right? Judge others the way that you would like to be judged.
Which begs the question, because if Jesus is saying this, so here's the question. How would you like to be judged? Let me answer first. I would like to be judged not.
Right? Isn't that everybody in here? We don't like to be judged. Nobody likes to be judged.
We don't like for other people to call us out on something. But if you think about this, judging others the way that you would like to be judged, let's think about how you would like to be judged. But if you were going to judge me, here's what I hope that you would do. I hope that you would take into account a lot of my life, and not just the one thing that you're kind of calling out in my life.
Right? Here's what judgmental people do, is they don't take into account everything and they only take into account the one thing they don't like. And what they do is they see that, and then they cut somebody off because they disagree with them on one thing. That's what Jesus is talking about.
About cutting people off. And so we would love to be judged. If you want to be judged, here's how I would love to be judged.
I was thinking about this this week. I want you to judge me mercifully. Right? Don't you want to be judged mercifully? I do. I want to be judged gracefully.
Right? I want you to extend grace to me the way that you expect me to extend it to you. Isn't that how we should be for others? But when we're judgmental, we all want grace, but we sometimes judgmental people struggle to extend the same time of grace. I want to be judged kindly. I want to be judged fairly. I want you to take into account all of me and not just the one thing that you notice or the one thing that you are judging me for.
In other words, I want you to take all the good stuff along the way and not just the one bad thing that you see. Jesus is saying judge others the way that you want to be judged because the measure that you judge others is going to be the way that you get judged yourself. He goes on, verse number three, and then he gives us some illustrations. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but consider'st not the beam that is in thine own eye? In other words, he's saying, why do you look at the sawdust and the speck in somebody else's eye and you forget that there's a big two by four in your eye? Like it makes no sense.
He's asking this question. Why are you looking at the speck in somebody else's eye and you're ignoring the beam that is sticking out of your eye? It doesn't make sense. But here's the answer really if you answer it truthfully. The reason why it's easier to look at everybody else's problems and everybody else's specks and ignore the beam that is in ours is because it distracts us from the problems that we have going on.
Doesn't it? It's much easier to notice your problem than to deal with mine. It's just the truth. I'm just being real with you. I love to talk about your problems, but I don't like to deal with mine.
Okay? That's the point. That's why judgmentalism is so easy is because we love to point out what's wrong with everybody else because it distracts us from dealing with the problems that are within us. So he goes on verse number five or verse number four. Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of thine eye and behold a beam is in thine own eye. In other words, how in the world can I help somebody else with their speck when there's this big beam in my eye? In other words, how dare us point out the problems in others when we have problems in ourselves.
And by the way, church people are great at doing this. Right? Like we point out all the problems with everybody else and we do not want to deal with all the problems that are within. We don't want to deal with our own mess.
So what we do is we distract from our own mess and we just look at all the problems. They did this. They did this. They did this.
They did this. And next thing you know, it's like, wait a second. Did you not notice the two by four that's sticking out of your eye right now? Right.
That's what he's saying. But then he goes on in verse number five and he says two words that nobody wants to hear. You hypocrite. We don't like to be called hypocrites, right? Don't you hate that? By the way, you guys are looking at me like, aren't you glad you came to church today? You really wish you're at the beach right now. The winners of today are the ones who are just not here.
I mean, we missed out on a good one. OK, listen, Jesus says, you hypocrite, you hypocrite. He calls us out. You say, what's a hypocrite? Here's what a hypocrite is. A hypocrite is more fascinated with everyone else's problems than they are with their own problems.
They're more preoccupied with fixing the problems around them and they ignore the problem within themselves. That's what a hypocrite is. A hypocrite is somebody that's just really good.
You get with them and they can solve everybody else's problems except their own. That's what a hypocrite is. And so Jesus is saying that here, a hypocrite, he illustrates it.
A hypocrite is somebody when they have a lot of mess in their own life and they're not willing to deal with it, but they're really good at dealing with all the other specs and everybody else's lives. And here's what I want you to know is for us, as we're receiving this, I kind of wish Jesus had to just stop there. You hypocrite. Period.
Done. Move on to the next thing. And the reason is, is because for us, we love what Jesus has said so far because this is the exact defense mechanism that we need. You come to me with a problem, here's my thing. Judge not. Scripture says it. I'm good.
Right? You can't tell me what to do. What you have to say towards me is just relative. I can decide what I want to do.
Nobody needs to tell me anything. Judge not. Isn't that what Jesus said? But after you hypocrite, I want you to notice there's not a period.
It didn't end there. Jesus is getting to something that I want you to see that I've never really paid attention to here in this passage, because probably I had too much self-righteousness in my life. I didn't want to look past the judge not. I just wanted to use those two words. Anytime somebody came to me with something that I'm doing, I can just say, Judge not. Judge not. Judge not. And I didn't want to read exactly what Jesus had to say after that.
You see, after thou hypocrite, there's a comma and he says, first. Here's the thing, and I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this. I'm going to be very brief. Believe that or not. And I know you're not believing me right now.
But here's what I want you to do. Here's what Jesus is about to do. If you have a question about what judgment really looks like, what biblical judgment really looks like, here's what it's not. It's not sitting around your house saying, I can't believe they did that. I can't believe they wore that. I can't believe that school let them do that. I can't believe the church is doing that.
I can't believe, and it's pointing fingers and stuff. That's not what Jesus is saying is right. But he's about to give us what biblical judgment looks like, because it's probably not what some of us think. He says first, then he gives us three points that I want you to see. First, in verse number five, it'll be up on the screen.
Biblical judgment. And if you're taking notes, this might be a good one to write down. And if you're not taking notes, we're just the ones who are judging you about it.
Sorry, that was a joke. Here's the point. Here's what Jesus says. He's going to give us the pattern for what biblical judgment looks like. Biblical judgment starts with you. Or let me say it a little bit more honestly, biblical judgment starts with me, starts with us. Starts with you, starts with me.
It starts with us. Biblical judgment, the way that he's talking about, it doesn't start with looking at everybody else's problem. That's not what Jesus said. Look what he says. First, he says, you hypocrite.
First, here's how you can judge. First, cast out the beam out of your own eye. In other words, deal with the two by four that's sticking out of your eye. You need to deal with that before you point anything else out in anybody else. Deal with your own problems, deal with your own marriage, deal with your own Facebook page, deal with your own children, deal with your own family, deal with your own sin, deal with that. We're really good at judging everybody else's problems, everybody else's family, everybody else's church, everybody else's school, everybody else's music taste, everybody else's movies that they watch and the shows that they watch.
We're really good at judging everybody else's problems. But here's the thing what he says biblical Judgment doesn't start with your eyes everywhere else Biblical judgment doesn't start with your eyes on other people and other people's Facebook and Instagram feeds It does not stop there or start there. It actually starts in here That's how we start that's what biblical judgment looks like It means dealing with our own problems instead of judging their Facebook page post. Look at your own post Instead of instead of judging how they dressed judge your dress Instead of judging what they listen to Judge what you listen to instead of judging what they watched Judge what you watch you see the right way to judge. There is a right way So if you're in here today, and you're like don't judge me don't judge me. Listen, that's not what he's saying You're gonna see that here in just a moment.
But here's the deal. There's a right way to judge and it always starts from within It always starts from within but the problem is a lot of us our eyes are on everybody else that we don't look within He says deal with your own mess Before you look at other people's and then the second point that he says here's also all three of these are in verse number five biblical judgment first starts with you, but biblical judgment helps us see everyone's mess clearly Look at what he says in verse number five. He says first get the beam out of your own eye Why? so that you can see clearly so that you can see Clearly, okay. The point that Jesus is making is when we look at ourselves When we look within here's what we find You're a mess just like them In that true you find that you are broken just like them But we don't like that. That's why we don't like to look within That's why we don't like to look underneath because it's way easier to look at everybody else's problems Because we stay distracted from our own problems But here's what biblical judgment looks like it starts with you And the reason is in the goal it helps us to see everyone else's mess Clearly because we realize that we're a mess by the way, if you're a mess Can you raise your hand anybody willing to admit that? Some of us aren't you know, we're like, you know, I'm too self-righteous to raise my hand right now, right?
Right. We don't like to admit that we're a mess. We love to say hey that pastors a mess We love to say that, you know, this person's a mess We love to say wow their Facebook feed. They're a mess Wow, that school's a mess.
Wow, that coach is a mess that mom's a mess You know all these different things. We love to point that out because it distracts us from dealing with the mess that is with within but what Jesus is saying is that when we look internally we find that we're a mess and it helps us to See in the right perspective It gives us the eyes and the vision to look at everybody else around us the way that he intends to You see the message of Jesus. It's all about motive.
What's your motive in looking at everyone else's mess? Is it just to judge him because when you're sitting around your house judging everybody here's what I'll tell you that is not the right motive The motive is found at the end of verse number five, which brings us to point number three biblical judgment It starts with you It helps us to see everyone's everyone's mess clearly gives us eyes But here's what he says and this is what will surprise you biblical judgment ends with others And that's not what we like, right? Wait, no, Jesus said judge not period Jesus says what I do is my business and nobody else like no. No, no, no. No, why Jesus?
We don't want any more than that. That's why we wish that there was a period after you hypocrite because we loved that We loved that right but here's what Jesus says and this is gonna be surprising to you because it was to me when I studied it this week let's Read verse 5 the whole thing together you hypocrite first cast out the beam out of your own idea with your own mess and Then thou shalt see clearly in other words. It gives you the eyes to see everything around you the right way.
Why? What's he say at the end to cast out the moat out of the brother's eye? It isn't that interesting like Jesus is saying that once you deal with yourself It gives you the eyes to look around you with the purpose and the goal to see everyone else's moat and specs to be dealt with as well You see judgment. We don't like to think of judgment, but here's the thing Judgment when done properly it ends with you dealing with your mess so that you as a follower of Jesus can go to your friends And you can warn them and you can confront them and that you can help them in love when done properly By the way in your house in the privacy of your house. That's not the right way to do it, but if it's done properly Jesus is saying that the reason we deal with our mess is so that we can see clearly so that we can help others deal with their Mess you see for us We don't like this part of it because we like mind your mind your business and that is it Right. We all would be okay if everything stopped there Right, but Jesus didn't stop there.
He didn't stop after judge not he didn't stop after you hypocrite No, he goes on and says here's the right way that we are to judge is It starts within why so that you can have the eyes to see around you clearly why so that it can help other Other people you see Jesus turns everything on its head because everybody else is probably sitting there like yes Get them Jesus get the Pharisees tell them they're wrong Point at him yell at him if you have to end it there and when Jesus kept going after you hypocrite He tried to tell us that minding our business and leaving everybody else alone is not What we need to do You see there is a right way To address and to judge one another you see Jesus is commanding us to address the mess in us To prepare us to help others with the mess in them That's biblical judgment So listen, I know a message like this. Here's what I know up front I knew this coming in today. This is not a message where I'm gonna say, okay, let's all stand If any of you struggle with being judgmental, I want you to hit the altar.
I Knew it wouldn't work. Well because some of you are like man everybody's gonna judge me if I go forward So I thought a better response would be this I bet you you're gonna fall in one of these three categories I'm gonna mention three categories I think all of us are in the first one is this some of you today and I know you don't want to admit this But I want you to hear me out. This is why we ask the Lord to open up our heart at the beginning Because I know this is gonna be difficult for some of you to take in We're we're all Baptist in this room.
And here's what I'll tell you. I get it I've been in a Baptist Church my whole life and a lot of us fall in this first category And if this is you we're here to help you. We're all a mess. Listen, we're not trying to say you're right wrong Whatever. No, the point is we all need help.
We're all messes. Here's the thing the first group this could be you the self-righteous crowd Okay, the this is if this is you here's what you do. You judge others and you cut them off Someone does something you disagree with you judge them you think differently about them you delete them from social media You avoid them. You don't respect them. You cut them off forever Because you disagreed with one thing that they did everything else now is in question because of the one thing that you saw That's what Jesus is saying.
And listen, here's what I want you to know. That's self-righteous behavior And by the way, Jesus hated it Hated it. Here's your next step if that's where you are self-righteous. You're like, man, that's me I sit around and by the way, we're here to help you I'm here to pray for you But if that's you today I want you to admit it because you're never gonna move past that until you admit the plank of self-righteousness in your life The plank of self-righteousness in your life if that's you here's your next step today. It's to repent it's to repent to ask God to change your heart to stop pointing fingers at everybody else and Ask God to turn around the finger and point within That's where it begins. He says first deal with the plank or deal with the the stuff in your own life That's where it begins. So if you're in here and you're self-righteous listen repent repent repent deal with yourself There's no reason if you're self-righteous for you to point a finger at anybody else. You need to deal with yourself The second crowd because some of you are self-righteous. Here's where a lot of us fall And if you're a church person, here's probably where you where you fall You're in the none of my business crowd You're kind of like you walk around and you have friends making a mess of your life.
And and here's what you might say And I'll pray for him By the grace of God I am where I am and those things are true. Don't get me wrong But here's the thing Jesus didn't change your life so that you could keep it all to yourself Everything he told you to do about your own life is when I change it is always a Commission out to go and help the ones around me, right? It's to go around because when you fix your life And you deal with the mess within The the plank is gone and now you can see clearly Right, you can see clearly the plank is gone.
Isn't that what the song says? You can see clearly. Okay, that's a joke.
That was a bad joke But here's the point. It's like we can see it The planks gone now that we've dealt with our own our own mess now you can see when you go to your friends in your bible fellowship class and you go to your friends at school and you Can see what sin is doing to them and you can see what the mess is doing to them when you've dealt with yourself? It prepares you to go to them and to say hey listen, I think you need to watch out the direction you're going You see if you're in here and you're just like man, I dealt with myself and everybody else can do them I'm going to do me. That's not what jesus is telling us to do jesus says when you deal with yourself It gives you the eyes so that you could look around you at your family at your children At your friend group and you can say hey listen Some of the direction you're going Is not the way listen. Jesus did not say that Is not the way listen.
Jesus did not save you and change you to just say hey, i'm good Doesn't matter what everybody else is doing No He changed you so that you can take what he did inside of you to everybody else around you and impact the people around you So listen if you're in here and you're just like man, i'm good. All I care about is me. I'm selfish. I'm me It doesn't matter what everybody else is doing. I'm never going to confront anybody because that'll be awkward listen.
It is awkward, right? right But you should have friends around you that when they're dealing with their junk and their mess That they're spiritually mature enough to apply matthew seven five They can see clearly and they can go to you and here's your next step if you're the none of your business crowd You need to learn to confront in the right way Here's here's not the right way I don't know that person, but I don't like what they're doing So i'm just going to go up to them after church and say I don't really like what you're doing Right Hey, what's your name? Right lead with that Listen, but we should I have people around me That can come up to me and listen the minute that I lose that circle around me That can speak into me Then listen i've lost my ability to lead because i'm telling you this as a follower of jesus You need people close to you that are willing to come into your life and say hey the way you're headed is not a good way God dealt with me I can see it I dealt with my plank and I can see the direction you're going I can see what sin is doing to your children I can see what sin is doing to your personal character. I can see what sin is doing to your reputation That's what biblical friendship and companionship is that's what jesus is getting at See the problem was there was a bunch of people just walking around saying I can't believe them can't believe them can't believe this And they're pointing all these fingers.
Jesus is saying no no biblical judgment has its place in a church Biblical judgment it starts within and when you deal with yourself The reason is it opens your eyes to deal with everybody else around you and that you can biblically confront them the way that he tells us to the third crowd and And you're probably not going to admit if this is you you're in the refuse to listen crowd By the way young person if you're in here today, maybe high school or middle school or college student, whatever And this is possibly where you're at Your parents have come to you. I remember this my parents used to come to me all the time with stuff and they'd warn me Right the girl you're dating Girl, you're dating or the music you're listening to the places you're going The things you're doing the things you're saying and people would come to me and here was always my Defense mechanism and some of you this is you if you're a young person you probably do this The defense mechanism comes up. You can't judge me I'm an adult Now if you're young, you can't say that lindley.
You can't say that. Okay So but here's the point it's for us when we're older. What do we do? You turn 18? I'm an adult. I can do whatever I want. Nobody can judge me I can make my own decisions and your parents are coming in and they're trying to help you and they're warning you and they're saying Things like hey, I don't think you should go this direction They're trying to still steer you a little bit because they can't control you like they could when you were younger And that's hard for parents by the way, and they're doing all this kind of stuff Here's the thing if you're in the refuse to listen crowd somebody comes to you and says I don't think you should be doing that One of your close friends and if your first response to your close friend is this you can't judge me Nobody tells me what to do I do and by the way, anytime we do that we kind of point our finger don't we right? Here's the thing if you're in here today and you're in the refuse to pay it refuse to listen crowd Here's what I want to challenge you to do pay attention Listen Listen the person around you if they're dealing with their mess and they're getting changed by the power of the gospel within them They have their eyes. Jesus is saying when we deal with ourselves our eyes can be open to our closest companionships and friendships And they should come to you and say hey the direction you're going I can see it because I've dealt with myself They're not coming to you saying I can't believe you did not judgmental They're coming to you out of help saying the direction you're going is concerning And I think you need to pull back. Listen, if you're in the refuse to listen. Nobody can judge me crowd. Here's my advice listen Pay attention Don't put up the defense mechanism and get in front and here's the goal is so that every single one of us in here can see clearly That's the goal to have sight To be able to see things To be able to see things Right some of you only see what is in everybody else What jesus is saying is biblical judgment has its place and here's what it looks like It starts within some of you you need to just forget everybody else.
You can't control them and you need to deal with you The reason maybe your kids respond the way it is is because you haven't dealt with the mess in your own life Maybe mom dad they need to see you dealing with the mess in your life And when they see that maybe that'll help that relationship. I don't know But listen, there's things in our life that we have to be willing to deal with before we go to everybody else don't police everybody else without start without starting to look with In and you say what do we need to see? What is it that we need to see? It's simply the gospel It's the gospel. It's the gospel at work. You say i'm new. I don't understand that Here's what the gospel says. We we use this all the time. It's in it's the scripture It's the bible from cover to cover.
Here's what it means. The bible is telling each one of us that we're a mess Look to your neighbor right now and say you're a mess Okay We're all a mess And listen listen, we're all a mess Nobody in here is not a mess Right every single one of us we have issues. We have a mess Here's what the gospel said the gospel is not about a messy person finding themself to a holy god The gospel is about a holy god coming to a bunch of messy sinners like you and me And he came to us and here's what he did. He lived the perfect life You know what the uh, the jewish people struggled with and he came to us and he came to us And the reason why the people struggled with is they tried to live based on the law in order to inherit eternal life And here's what the law showed them.
They all fell short Nobody could live the perfect life that way nobody could be perfect. We're all sinners We're all in need of a savior. So god saw us. He sent his son jesus to die for you and to me He lived the perfect life that you and I could never live and he died the debt that you deserve so that if you trust in Your life if you've trusted in jesus, he took your messy Fragmented pieces of your life and he put it all back together and made a beautiful masterpiece of his very son. Jesus christ That's the gospel That's the gospel and he did that for you.
Why? He put you back together Why if the reason is is so that you could just die and forever be with him and that's part of the reason Then why did he just take us at that point at the moment of your salvation we get caught up? No, I believe this is that when he put you back together He commissioned you to go and to tell those That are a mess What jesus can do in their life? That's the gospel. That's what we must see That is what biblical judgment looks like. Can you pray with me?
Nobody looking around I just want For just a couple of moments. I know that this is not a message that you're just like man I can't wait to get to the altar because I know it's hard because we don't like to admit things like we're self-righteous We don't like to admit things that that were judgmental We don't like to admit things that we refuse to listen to the people around us. They can't judge me They can't tell me what to do. Listen, jesus said that the reason biblical judgment is important is so that all of us Could be a picture of jesus that we can turn our mess Upside down and we can all fix the issues in our life because of the gospel that is a work in our heart If you're in here today and you say pastor josh I'm in one of those three categories might be self-righteous It might be hey, i'm just dealing with myself. I'm not willing to confront anybody around me because none of my business Or possibly you're in the the boat where you're refusing to listen You put a defense mechanism up around you if that's you If that's where you're at today one of those three things if you would just be honest before god I had to deal with this and that's one of the things as a pastor I get to deal with some of this early before I get here But if that's where you are today, would you be honest before god just keep your hand raised anybody say i'm in one of those three Categories i'm there. Listen. I i'm so judgmental sometimes i'm with you hands going up.
Don't be ashamed. Listen, we're all there We all and if our hands couldn't go up We're probably dealing with one of those things right now and we're resisting the work of the holy spirit Let's do this. Let's all stand at this time. Nobody looking around i'm just going to pray And if you want to do business with god in an altar you can If you want to do business of god right where you are you can But here's the deal deal with your mess and what's amazing is then you will see not with judgmental eyes You're going to actually see with eyes Through the lens of the gospel saying man i'm a mess and now I just want to help you fit like let's all fix our mess That's biblical judgment.
That's what it looks like father. We love you speak to our hearts in this invitation time god Speak to our hearts in this invitation time god. I pray for our judgmental hearts That we don't judge one another that we don't look around.
I hope someone says listen, but god we would deal with our own sin So that we can help others so that we can just reach a world that is a mess With the gospel that can change our mess into a masterpiece We love you for it's in your name. We pray if god speaks to you. Come this altar's open That's where you are today.
I feel you. I've been on my knees this week praying through this That's you maybe your hand was raised on one of those things. Listen, you do business with god. The altar is going to be open If you're in here today and your life has never been changed with the gospel Maybe that's where you need to be Maybe you're in here and you say man. I've never been saved Listen, you can go out of here and you can work your very best and you're never going to achieve what you're looking for You're never going to find safety. You're never going to find security Never going to find those things all of that is found in a relationship with jesus christ If that's where you are today, listen, I would love to show you from god's word how you can be saved You can see me now or after the service and we would love to show you how you can know jesus as your savior
