Introduction
Let me begin with a discipleship question: will we trust and obey Jesus in the real decisions of everyday life? Christ forms us through truth received, repentance practiced, and obedience lived out.
Main Points
Grace and Justification
matthew chapter seven if you have a bible we're starting a new chapter as we go through the entire sermon on the mount in a series that we're calling summer on the mount as we were praying and processing where in god's word he wanted to just speak to us in the times that we live in the state of our world it's time to just sit at the feet of jesus as he explains through this longest recorded sermon of his many people call the greatest sermon ever preached what does it mean to just be a follower of jesus the disciple of christ how does that make us look and how do we are we blessed by god how are we people who trust in god so the whole sermon on the mount has been very refreshing and yet very challenging and we're going to start a new version of that challenge as we as we come to this closing chapter in what might be the most famous verse that you'll hear quoted outside of the church as before i read it let me ask you a question have you ever come to a church service listened to the sermon heard some really great points that were made and thought man that would have been perfect for my friend you know you we just in the sermon on the mount you get some really great moments where jesus just holds the mirror up to the soul and he tells us you know don't be a hypocrite don't be like the hypocrites who do everything for the praise of men and you hear that sermon and you're like wow i gotta get that into an earshot of a buddy of mine because he really struggles with hypocrisy uh or last week we looked at worry and the lord's like listen if your treasures are in heaven they're secure if you trust in god he's going to take care of you nothing to worry about and as you listen that message you may have thought oh my goodness i've got to share this message with somebody that just came to my mind because they are just full of anxiety just absolute worry all the time i got to get it to them and we all have a tendency uh to really see the truth of god's word or the need for correction or an area where a life can be improved we're really good at noticing in other people's lives and sometimes we're not as good to say oh that sermon was for me too and that brings us now to a portion in this sermon where jesus is going to call that out in matthew chapter seven verse one so read along with me because that's going to be the topic of conversation this morning it'll come with another sledgehammer to the face as c.s lewis calls the sermon on the mount but what is this saying to us this morning verse 1 of chapter 7 judge not that you be not judged for with what judgment you judge you will be judged and with the measure you use it will be measured back to you so why do you look at the spec in your brother's eye but do not consider the plank in your own eye or how can you say to your brother let me remove the spec from your eye and look a plank is in your own eye if you have the esv version it says a log so just imagine the difference between sawdust and the log from which it comes jesus says hypocrite first remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye do not give what is holy to dogs nor cast your pearls before swine lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you into pieces i've heard it said that maybe a generation ago the verse that was just kind of everywhere if you were to know one verse from the bible it was john 3 16. you'd tune into the football game and you'd see somebody holding it in the back of the end zone for god so loved the world that he gave his only son and it's just such a powerful verse to really kind of portray the heart of the gospel and yet if you think about what this generation a verse for this generation that you're going to see in all of the public squares it may very well be don't judge me bro like stay away from telling me how to live my life and i'll stay away from your life and this verse is oftentimes what people love the most about the teaching of jesus because it's like if i got that one then you really can't tell me anything about my life and so this morning in some ways we have to define what's going on here jesus in one word is going to say don't judge and then he's going to give a example of when you do judge so there's in some ways another riddle or proverb that we need to unpack this morning to help us understand what jesus is getting at so to do that i'm just going to look at this in three ways for us to take this thing that all of us have inside of us the ability to look out and make judgments in some ways good judgments and do it in the right way it comes up in this sermon because there's something about the way we size each other up that needs to be corrected and redirected and that's what we're going to look at first that first statement don't judge we're going to look at judgment reserved if you hear this sermon preach and this will be a portion of this morning you'll hear the qualifier what jesus is not saying is to never judge he says judge not lest you be judged for with your judgment so he's not saying never judge but there is a judgment reserved there's a way that we should hold back our judgment so that it's just not something that we're broadly throwing around that's why he says careful giving pearls to swine you don't just give jewelry to the to the barnyard animals there's in the truth and wisdom that gives us our motivation for judgment there is a reservation to it to do it the right way and then we're going to look at judgment refocused because then he'll say when you judge focus it like this and much of the sermon on the mount can use the word focus if your eye is good then you take in light there's a focus that happens when you study the sermon on the mount into how we're supposed to see what god sees and the same is true of the god-given instinct for judgment we refocus it and as we refocus it we then redirect it which will be the final part of the passage of scripture that we read but first it's judgment reserved and i'll say it now the bible doesn't say to never judge and it doesn't say to always judge it's giving us the framework by which we take the wisdom god gives us and applies it to the world around us and throughout the chapter that will unfold before us there will be times when jesus assumes sound judgment or and in put another way wise discernment of things in fact i just listened to another pastor share at a youth camp and the pastor was asked the question which i think many of us are asking so i think his answer is worth sharing because it was good what would you tell this next generation how would what advice and counsel would you give them so that when they leave the household of faith that they're raised in or the church that they're raised in and they go into the world to college or career how can they survive becoming one of the statistics of what's happening all around us that the culture just swallows youth whole and spits them out on the other side as an atheist or a jaded christian or someone who has nothing to do with the church what's your advice to young people and he said i have two and i'll share both with you one is you've got to have convictions you've got to know what you believe and you got to stand up for what you believe because as soon as you go anywhere your worldview is going to collide with somebody else's they always do you're going to have convictions that other people don't have know what yours are and believe what you believe and let your belief in your convictions be visible by the way you live your life what are the convictions that we find from god's word we stand on them and we believe that they're true so advice for parents counseling young people what are the convictions of their life what's ultimate reality what is the life what is the way what is the truth and the second thing is he says you have to have sound judgment this advice is for all of us living in modern culture sound judgment is something that all of us need to have because when your worldview is tested you need to know what is gold and what is dross you need to know what the tradition of man is and what the reality of god is and worldview is colliding can sharpen things but you've also got to be wise enough to know when you're giving you're presented with an opposite world view or a philosophy of man that actually has no grounding in the truth of god's word and with sound judgment you have to cut truth from lie discernment is really good in fact here's a verse for you as we preach from the word about discernment in first thessalonians chapter five it says do not quench the spirit i love that we are people of the spirit of god made alive by the renewing of our mind by the accepting of the spirit because god did not give us a legal code book he gave us the power of his spirit by which we filter out flesh for spirit he says do not quench that the spirit will convict the spirit will give wisdom the spirit will give application don't quench the spirit test all things and hold on to what is good living in the culture you're going to leave church live in the spirit and test to see what's part of reality the bible says that god founded the world with wisdom it's built into the fabric of the design so find out if something is true by discerning by the power of the spirit what works and what doesn't so sound wisdom is something that we promote and yet jesus says there's a different kind of judgment than just discerning how to apply wisdom and understanding for this judgment he says judge not or you will be judged and we have to view this through the lens of our entire study the more we go through the sermon on the mount the more we're reminded of one of the grand themes which is jesus saying at the end of all of the day of the day what really matters is who you are before god it's better to be poor in spirit and come to god with need than to pretend you have it all put together and never ask him for anything that's part of the theme it's better to allow god to reward you than to find your reward in religious theater that's part of the theme to be a genuine person and part of the way that you're that you know you're living in a genuine pursuit of a relationship with god and not religious theater and not the glory that could be received from the praise of man is found in your judgment why because one of the hallmarks of self-righteous religion is comparing your work to someone else's in fact oftentimes we find ways that jesus teaches something on the sermon on the mount and then tells a story that completely illustrates the teaching so for this moment matthew chapter 7 verse 1 the story is found in luke chapter 18. you can turn there if you have your bible but i'll read it to you now this is what it says in luke chapter 18. it's a story it's a story that is standing on the truth of not judging lest you be judged he says this starting in verse 9. two men went up to the temple to pray one a pharisee and the other a tax collector the pharisee stood and prayed within himself god i thank you that i'm not like other men built into his own evaluation of himself and the gratitude of who he is he's not thanking god for grace and sanctification he's not great thanking god for washing him by the power of the word he's saying i'm so grateful that i've elevated myself above other men and the pharisees stood and prayed thus with himself other men are extortioners they're unjust they're adulterers or even this tax collector compared to him i got a lot to be thankful for i fast twice a week i give tithe of all that i possess one of the ways that this lesson always comes out in the teachings of jesus that you find in his life expose found in the gospels is jesus going up against the guards of religion of his death oftentimes it's the scribes and the pharisees in fact we get a picture of that as he pulls his disciples aside and says god's going to judge your heart do not think your righteousness is going to be good enough if you're like the scribes of pharisees you've got to be better than the pharisees he says it in the sermon on the mount but i have to tell you in all of the years i've preached a sermon warning against self-righteous religion that judges others to exalt yourself i don't think i've ever preached to an actual pharisee i would love to be surprised this morning and someone comes down with the robes of affairs i am a pharisee i took offense to your message it's never happened because this is really a moment in history where there were religious people represented in the righteousness of pharisees but the message is just as valid this morning as it ever has been the message is for anyone who looks around and sees the failures of others in their judgment and looks at themselves and says i'm so glad i'm not them it happens brace yourself in this setting too you guys are doing very well compared to non-church-goers this morning you're going really well right now you're listening to a sermon preach from god's word that's a lot better than what other people can say this morning and yet when you read the story with a modern emphasis i hope that we find ourselves listening now to the words of jesus with a warning for our own tendency to judge others do it this way two men went up to the church at calvary chapel boise to attend the sunday service one of them went to church every sunday and always and he helped out in every way that he could he went to the midweek service and the community groups and he helped on all the ministry stuff and when the basket went around he always tithed the other guy had never stepped foot in church in his life he has no idea how to look the part and the church person says man i'm so grateful for them because i'm pretty sure they're hungover from last night's party i'm pretty sure word on the street is they are sexually immoral in choose the buffet of sexual immorality that you could point at someone i'm pretty sure that they're brainwashed by the lies of this culture and they are going to hell in a hand basket because they are part of the problem with the world that i see man i'm just grateful that you can call me somebody who goes to calvary chapel every week not that guy there's a tendency for every single one of us to find the person that we're better with better than and exalt ourselves and jesus says don't do that kind of judgment here's the first truth for all of us this morning your sin will never be dealt with by pointing someone else's out you're never going to get right with god you're never going to deal with all of the burdens of guilt and shame and the things that you rightfully need to be cleansed of by proving that you're better than the next guy over and in that regard jesus says judgment shall be reserved don't judge like that there's uh there's kind of a lesson for this within one of the policies of our own cities when's the last time any of you ever got a speeding infraction see some hands go up um if you get a speeding fraction they'll give you a ticket the californians among us goes we go slower here so just slow down and be cautioned and if you are from california welcome that's a that's a boise pro tip just go safe go slow if you do get a speeding ticket and you do you decide to fight it they're going to give you a couple very good things to edit out your defense by meaning there's only so many things you can say in traffic court and they've probably heard most of them over and over again so they started printing out some excuses that they don't want to hear from you one of them is this one of the excuses they say here's not a good reason to fight this ticket is i was just going with the flow of traffic meaning if you come to the judge and you say i was speeding but there was other people speeding worse they were going faster in fact compared to them my speeding's nothing they were going like 20 over i was only going 10.
Grace and Justification
that's legal gray area everybody goes 10 over the court will say you now stand for judgment and judgment you will receive no one else's cases will help you and this is what we say this morning if you come to the lord and say i'm not as bad as that guy what you're saying is judge me by my works judge me by the way that i have become righteous in myself and judge me in contrast of someone that i found worse than me and what jesus says if you play that game you will lose and don't we know it that we're always looking for the next person to judge to make ourselves feel exalted if we still live within the ocean of judgment and here's the quote of the morning if you're swimming in the ocean of judgment you will drown by the burden and the weight of your own standard your standards will drown you judge them and then it will come right back on you and god says you want to go by righteousness you'll fail the sermon on the mount is to say we are part of a different kingdom we don't come to god expecting good things because we ourselves have been good enough for long enough we come now as a child comes to a father and the father knows your needs before you ask so you no longer have to live within the court of public opinion so judgment is reserved in that sense and now jesus will go on to say but let's refocus that thing inside of you that wants to judge let's refocus it verse two for with what judgment you judge you will be judged and with the measure you use it will be measured back to you jesus is doing what's called flipping the script we love to see the failure in others to diminish the failure in ourselves and jesus says you do that and all you're doing is pointing out what's happening in your own life and now he gives us an illustration verse three and why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye but do not consider the plank in your own eye how can you say to your brother let me remove the speck from your own eye and look a plank is in your own eye the refocusing the good light shined from the sermonal amount on your life is to take your judgment away from others and back to yourself that's why that illustration exists what you see in other people is a speck of dust compared to what is found in your own life now again this is a riddle that needs to be unpacked slightly because all of us should be hearing this on the same steady ground meaning jesus did not pull out the worst disciple from the crowd right now and say this guy's got a log he shouldn't be judging anybody because he is a retribute all of you others after he's cleaned up i'll talk to you next he says it all equally all of us should be hearing this and thinking of the person next to us or the person that we have a tendency to be harsh to and say they've got a spec i've got a log your neighbor has a spec you've got a log we all have a log in our eye compared to the speck in someone else how is that possible how can jesus broadly say that this verse applies to every one of us think about it what you can see in someone else's life is a dimly lit angle of what is portrayed publicly one of the challenges of judging from our perspective is we actually don't know very much about the lives we're judging we see big moral failures size it up moral failure we see people aligning with political ideals and different tribes that we don't agree with and it size them up i see a public angle that's dimly lit that i don't agree with and now i can judge you and what jesus is saying what you know about people's public sin is nothing compared to what you know about your private sin you have complete access not just to a dimly lit angle of your life but you can go all the way to the depths of your heart and what you've actually thought about and the motives of your life and things that are going on inside of you that with the right circumstances you're gonna snap what you know about yourself is a log compared to what you can see in somebody else there's a really interesting reminder of the healthy cleaning of this in hebrews chapter 4 says the word of god is living and it is active it's sharper than two any two-edged sword it separates even the dividing of the soul and the spirit joints and marrow the word of god judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart some of you know this verse to be true just by coming to church sometimes hearing a message preached and thinking how did they know that about my life that's something that i didn't think anybody knew well the word of god does and is able to penetrate into the deep inner part of your life and that is part of the message of the sermon on the mount you better not be judging yourself and your worthiness based off what is seen outside people can judge you on the outside god judges you on the inside and when you read the word of god it's applied to your thoughts and the attitudes of your heart now newscast for you this morning even the best discernment in the world cannot always accurately judge the attitude of someone else's heart you can look at them you can size them up and you can make your best bet as to what their motivation was or what they were thinking about but in the end the only person's thoughts and attitude of heart that you can judge is your own and what's deep down in your heart to really allow god to cleanse that and his word of god to be applied to correct that to go through the process of what the bible calls sanctification to cleanse you and heal you from some of those logs that exist in your heart is a full-time job it's a lot of work there's a lot of cleansing that needs to be happening between you god and his word before you are supposed to broadcast all of the ways that god wants to cleanse someone else's life matthew henry the famous commentator has a really interesting moment in his personal life journey he wrote a commentary on the on the whole bible many of you may read it very helpful up through the book of john and then someone else finished it for him and it's not as good just as a side note if you're interested in that commentary it says a man once stole matthew henry's wallet and in reflecting on the incident he examined himself isn't that an interesting way to reflect on an incident that someone wronged you in and this is what he found four things he said first i'm thankful that he never robbed me before that's nice first time offender hopefully he never robs me again i'm thankful that although he took my wallet didn't take my life wallets can be replaced the picture here is a reminder from matthew chapter 6 where thieves are going to get your earthly treasure so don't worry about them because it's a matter of time and if the thief doesn't get it the rust will money will grow wings and fly away he says i'm thankful he didn't take my life number three although he took all i had it wasn't much homeboy robbed the wrong guy so if you're broke this morning it's like cherish that there's not much to take from you and then finally he said i'm glad that it was i who robbed and not the one doing the robbing interesting perspective of wrong and offense how easy is it to stand on his rightful just judgment to say that guy is a sinner who deserves hell and i want my wallet back instead he says there are a lot of things about self-examination that i can be thankful for how different would we look to the world around us if we asked god to search our heart before we started searching the hearts of everybody else this happens on a personal level all revival from the soul to the heart to the mind in your life starts when you allow the light of god to penetrate your life before you're waiting for the people around up around you to clean up theirs so tempting to look around and say the problem with the world is that party and that group and that tribe and what the people of god are being called to do this morning and say lord we're the light and we're the salt y
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.
Conclusion
We return to the opening teaching: discipleship is not just information, it is transformation through faith and obedience to Jesus. If we receive His Word and walk it out, He will shape us into people who endure and bear fruit.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, help me hear Your Word, obey it with faith, and grow as Your disciple. Amen.