Judging

Matthew chapter 7 Judge not that ye be not judged for with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged and with what measure ye meet it It shall be measured to you again Why beholdest Thou the mote that is thy brother's eye, but considereth not the beam that is in thine own eye Or how wilt thou say to thy brother let me pull out the mote out of thine eye and behold the beam that is in thine Own eye thou hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye And then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye Give not that which is holy unto the dogs neither cast ye your pearls before swine Lest they trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you so Let's pray Father we do want to thank you and praise you for your wonderful word that you have given to us and Lord as we look at this topic here tonight Jesus as you taught really an awfully wonderful insight here into ministry Caring for other people how to help other people Lord. We ask that you would give us great understanding Lord the issue of judging and what it is all about And how to deal with these things in our own heart that we may be more effective and really helping other people And so as we open our hearts to your word We ask you take it minister to us teach us from it in Jesus name. We pray.

Amen Well the Sermon on the Mount as we have been saying for a long long time now, it's the most complete sermon ever given I believe the greatest sermon ever given and Essentially, it covers virtually everything that there is within the Christian life in one way or another It's so powerful. It's so far-reaching and So deep in its message and so precise verse after verse comment after comment how powerful and how wonderful it is and There's something here that everything from our personal life just before God there in the Beatitudes poor in spirit Mourning over our own sin becoming meek before God. These are the fundamental characteristics that are Required even begin the Christian life somebody that's hungry and thirsty for God's righteousness God's power God's presence within their life Somebody that desires to be merciful pure and heart a peacemaker It's the salt of the earth the light of the world somebody's only say God take my life Use it work within it.

He then goes on and he speaks not only about my my Identity with God my fellowship with God my relationship with God the foundations of it But also dealing with issues under my own skin and my own heart Whether the issues of anger and being angry with your brother coveting lusting after that which isn't yours Building and making commitments keeping your oaths and your promises to other people Learning what it is that when people don't treat you, right? Learning what it is to turn the other cheek and to walk the second mile what it is there to stay simple and pure Before God be in your own heart in your own thinking your own behavior under your own skin as Well to know what it is how to live Publicly around other people within the body of Christ in our service whether it's in the giving Of our ministry of our service of our gifts of our alms Giving they're just quietly wonderfully to the Lord whether it is learning to pray and how to pray How to keep a close fellowship with God Dealing with fasting and in maintaining a life that's close to Constantly being surrendered to the Lord. These are what the the Sermon on the Mount is so much about They're dealing with another great master of the world The other greatest essentially mammon there and the God of this world materialism and wanting to stay free from the gods of this life And the gods of this world and stay in a right place of full surrender to God in the Sermon The mount it deals with so many many wonderful things. Well here as we kind of entered into Chapter 7 here kind of coming towards the end of the sermon we come across a tremendously important Topic a tremendously important issue here.

And that is how to minister to other people I know oftentimes we're so used to maybe our own opinion Oh, we've heard about judge not lest ye be judged and we will look at this in a moment But there's an initial thought that usually we have when we look at this text that I think is is out of context There's it may be correct thinking But it's oftentimes not within the context of the the Sermon the Mount what the message that has been flowing all the way through of my life being offered to God living in a right relationship with God living in communion with him and Maintaining it and then also wanting to minister to other people and here Jesus He's really wanting here in this message here to teach us in a sense how to help other people. I Very desirable and important to us is we want to serve God what Christian wouldn't like to help in a minister to other people and they encourage their lives and be a blessing to their heart into their life and this is really what is the tremendously important part of a Message here that Jesus is really talking about notice here in verse 3 He says why behold us thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye here. He's talking about here Somebody that is judging or dealing there you what are you doing? They're doing this to your brother who you ought to be you want to help him You're trying to help him you think but you're judging your brother in verse 4 He says or how wilt thou say to thy brother? Let me pull out the moat out of thine eye Thou hypocrite first cast the bean out of thine own eye and then thou shalt clearly See clearly to cast the moat out of thy brother's eye here He's talking about two fellas and essentially here one is looking at the other The other is having trouble the others got problems within his life And he's got sin perhaps in his life and one of them is looking at him and he sees something that is wrong But there's a natural behavior that many times we have that absolutely Obstructs or corrupts the capacity to effectively minister to somebody else and that is we judge them we find yourself coming off and we're judging other people there and The very person that essentially we may think initially I'd like to help people then God puts people in front of us that have needs And instead of recognizing people that have needs we usually immediately recognize what's wrong We see the problem.

We see the sin and we so easily just begin to To judge them naturally for it and here we're hopefully though again in this subject in the topic in the Sermon Mount We're talking about a Christian that's wanting to minister to other people and is what it's really all about in verse 6 It tells us something about hey the other people outside of the body of Christ He said he goes on and he's he's gonna the first five verses are all about dealing with people within the body within the family Don't judge them But then the people outside he says give not that which is holy unto dogs neither cast you your pearls before swine unless they Trample them under their foot and turn again and rend you I mean here on one hand There's II if you're dealing within the body of Christ You're dealing not those that are without in a sense The the the the dogs or the heathen or those that are not part of the family of God Here he goes on to say here's how you deal with some of those But when you are dealing with with other Christians people within the body of Christ You got to learn not to judge now first just some general comments on judging that is I Think important to kind of look at a little bit and that is that that this is really not I think also is something that It generally appears on the surface in the sense that this doesn't suggest that we don't judge at all. We do and It's a lot of people I can remember well back into the 60s in the 70s in the hippie You know movement that was kind of going on and it was kind of an I'm okay You're okay, you know sort of a philosophy of life back in the 60s and 70s and everybody was just to see life however They wanted to seek their own experience as out kind of however that they wanted to do them and we're not to judge You know people for seeking their own identity or doing what it was. It's kind of to each his own sort of a philosophy a little bit and and if somebody was into drugs or sex or orgies or Whatever their behavior may be you're just say you leave them alone Everybody's gonna wants to live However, they want to live and then whatever they do along the way if they lie or cheat or steal or to carry on now Their life or whatever.

Hey to each his own almost as you don't go around Judging people and we had people like dr Timothy Leary who was kind of a spokesman for the psychedelic generation a little bit there and his kind of almost the drug guru at the time a little bit with the LSD and tune in to Turn on and drop out, you know, and you know sort of a thing and just everybody just go find yourself and whatever you had to do to find yourself and to do whatever you wanted to that was just fine and During this consort of a generation if anybody didn't accept what everybody wanted to do if Somebody would look and say hey, that's not right That's wrong immediately that seemed to be judging and There's a lot of people that I'll shall not judge, you know that went around, you know saying these things And that sort of a spirit really is around very very much still today in kind of the more liberal philosophy of life in our country There's a tremendous segment of our society is very liberal There's also a tremendous segment or not a tremendous or some segment, you know, I don't know the numbers. I'm not one of these statisticians for stuff like this, but Essentially one of the main differences philosophically between what we think of as a conservative and a fundamentalist or a liberal is is that a Conservative person the conservative mindset essentially knows that man left to himself would destroy himself Man has to be governed. That's the conservative mindset primarily and thus it believes in a strong national defense It believe drew believes in strong laws Police departments strong judges, you know prison systems You know correctional facilities and things because people if you let them go on their own They'll destroy themselves and you got to govern him The conservative knows there's fundamentally something wrong with man.

You need laws. You need structure You need society you need behavior, you know controls within it That's essentially one of the fundamentals of a conservative thinker where the liberal on the other hand is just the opposite The liberal mindset looks there and says there's nothing wrong with man Whatever man has to do to find himself to discover himself to experience himself Whatever he's into it's right because there's nothing wrong with him He's fine Just leave him alone in any time The only the one that the the liberal really hates is the conservative who points at him and says you're wrong You're judging me You're you're now you're telling me how I can live and how I can't leave you want to tell me who I can do what? I want to when I want to or however, I want to and regardless of Anything you got these standards and they're negative and they're trying to put guilt in a society and it's people like you that are messing us up and So there's I and this is very prevalent in our society today And that's they look at the conservative and they said the only thing really wrong is you People that are conservative and looking and saying you're wrong if we could get rid of you We'd all be right You know or sort of a thing or we'd all be fine. That's a very Fundamental truth about the two groups and it's a world in which we live in tonight there are a lot of people that look around says judge not less G be judged in that they're looking there and Saying anybody that would say that somebody's behavior as a human being is wrong And if they say, you know, they don't that you don't have any right to tell me that Leave me alone.

You're judging me and even Jesus said thou shalt not judge. Well, that isn't what he's saying here. We must judge some things and There's a certain amount of judgment.

We must have Jesus judged He judged the Pharisees. I mean when you want to look at judgment Jesus, he looked at the Pharisees He called him some terrible nasty things. He said you're a bunch of white and sepulchers, you know sort of a thing You're hypocrites.

You're blind. You're dead. You are your murderers.

He looked at me says you're of your father the devil Those are they're not the nicest things. Those are a little judgmental You could look at somebody and say do you really mean that and yes, he did He was very very clear when he when he judged it was very righteous judgment that he did Peter judged Ananias and Sapphira When you look at there in the book of Acts John the Apostle in third John, he judged a fellow diatribes He said the man loves the preeminence. He's got some problems James judged Paul Judged the churches and and what was right or wrong and what they needed to do and repent of he judged people He listed a lot of people by name look out for this guy There's wolves, you know that are coming along and what they're all about In only a few verses on down here in the very message.

We're in Jesus in verse 15 He says beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but they inwardly they are ravening wolves I mean here Jesus he's judging and he's teaching that there is judging that is to be done He teaches you and I that we are to judge to know man's fruit Said a good tree doesn't bring forth bad fruit and we are to discern between good and evil There's there's a tremendous amount of life that has to do with the concept of judging in the general sense Paul instructed Timothy and Titan Titus in these letters. They're what to look for in leaders in their life in their walk their credentials and if they don't have them you need to deal with it and So judging is to be going on but here what Jesus is talking about here Is it just being able to look at an issue and make essentially a judgment about it here Jesus? he is speaking in a sense, you know the issues that we are not to judge with a Condemnation about it in a sense to judge with a hopeless judgment where we look at somebody and essentially we write them off a Judgment under condemnation is what it means here and This is a judgment that we are never to have God is the ultimate judge. He knows the hearts of all men and the final Separating judgment is God's business not ours, but we're never to think that way There's always hope The Christian is somebody ought to be able to look and say for another human being as long as your heart is beating and blood Flowing there is hope You know as long as you are still alive, there's hope all the way to the very gates of hell There's hope that your life can change It isn't over it isn't done.

It isn't hopeless It isn't something there of which you know You're locked into it as far as we know and thus our attitude is To be one there that we ought to have a hope in an attitude that there isn't a person That God can't help If we're ever going to help somebody that's got to be our thinking that has to be our attitude Even the thief on the cross that hanging there next to you by virtue of a capital punishment the world judgment the world Look that says you're out of here. It's kind of the way we tell people you're out of here We kill them, you know and here you're done. You're we're through you can't live here any longer You gotta go We reject you from the planet That's kind of a final judgment you might say that men can do and by the way, I'm not speaking against capital punishment at all I mean we're because there are bases we do it But even for the person going right up to that heart last heartbeat that is There to be dealt with in a certain way.

There is always the hope That God can change them Even the very thief on the cross who hung right next to him that the rest of the world had written off Jesus looked at and says today You'll be with me right at the last moment of a life lived in darkness in Misery, who knows how many lives he you know wrecked how many people he may be hurt or wounded or stole from or Killed or whatever the penalty was that he there was being condemned to death But there at this with all of this with the whole world looking at him is saying finished done out of here still Jesus The last moments here the devil who'd had him caught in his snag for his entire life Every heartbeat that the man had ever known now in the last few beats of his heart Jesus reaches over Retrieves him out of the pit ale grabs and pulls him into eternity with him. That's the love of God And a Christian is to have that concept of life That as we look at people, we don't write them off We aren't through with them It's a common problem. Even the Saul of Tarsus later, of course to become Saul I mean Paul as we know, but here's Saul of Tarsus there the church had written him off.

He was breathing fire He had so much hate and murder within his heart And here the the havoc he had brought within the church and then even when God After he dealt with Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus brought him to repentance brought him into town He goes to Ananias Ananias. He says here. I want you to go over and deal with Saul.

He's ho-ho. Wait that guy's hopeless God says to me Not so He's praying He is Yep, and here is all of a sudden realizing somebody the entire church had looked at probably prayed a lot about him But never for him or maybe a long since they'd quit praying for him Now they did Nepal or Saul of Tarsus was a guy, you know pray for him. You just pray about him He's coming to town.

Oh God, you know and he's sort of a thing, you know and kill him, you know slow fast Medium rare. I don't care. I've just done with him.

That's how easily we can be we have a hopeless thing Peter looked over at people that God wanted him to minister to the the Gentiles God has to literally put Peter to sleep, you know, and where he's just a he's having a dream Lower down food out of heaven and here's he looks at it. It's none of its kosher. It's not good Jewish diet And here he's his rise Peter taking these he's not so I've never eaten like that.

I don't you know Well, let me take another look. No, he didn't do that. But he said never eating that stuff and he's no good bad hopeless He says don't you call? unclean what I call clean and Here God is constantly Wanting to be when we write somebody off we can never be used to help them We God has to find another vehicle.

He's got to find another agency through which to work Another thing though about judgment when it does happen In a sense Jesus here. He says in verse 2 He says with what judgment you judge you shall be judged and with what measure as ye meet it Shall be measured unto you again In other words as you go out and you start condemning you go out and write off you go up and judge people They're through finished history over with You do that to the measure you do it to them You'll see there's a strange principle in life on how it comes back to you And I think one of the things sometimes that we as Christians can do I Remember not that many years ago a very famous televangelist very powerful preacher Powerful preacher he'd when he loved to take on the world. He'd go after the drug cartel He'd go after you know, all the breweries in the nation He'd go after you know The pimps and the prostitutes and all the wicked things in societies had tremendous sermons you know just on the wickedness and the evils of society and that and He could just he commonly would say you won't hear this from other preachers No, sorry, you know, I'm out there preaching a trope to the world, you know, and he was good at it very good at it Until one day he got it got caught with a little lady and then it was the world measured it back At him he then took it in the end later on said about it.

We'll see there. This is persecution No, just measuring it back So often we look and when we write somebody off and the cause for whichever we write them off You know, we go out there and this is right and they're no good and this is terrible and on and on we can go When write off all sorts of segments of society or people and we're done with them But there's something there that Jesus said it'll come back to you You'll get it. I Teacher Yeah, I knew this scriptures in such a way.

It absolutely amazed me What a brilliant student he was but he got into a thing with the FCC Years ago and then you know and and he started taking off after them Judging and getting angry with all the government's things next to you No, you watch this guy going out and he kind of went crazy if you remember he hasn't come back yet either But he's still on TV But he I remember him taking little monkeys mechanical monkeys in a sledgehammer on TV and saying this is governor Duke Magian and this is all of in he's beat these monkeys to death you're saying well I think you're you're losing the battle here, you know sort of a thing when you watch this But he got so angry and he's writing them off. They finally ultimately, you know, the law wrote him off Found a way to deal with him and with what measure we measure Things have a way of coming back and you know upon us when we when we do these things and and What a tragic thing it is But here Jesus he goes on hearing he tells us about how judgment should be done He asked though an interesting question as he begins it in verse 3 Which is a wonderful question asked. He says why behold is thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye but consider not the beam that is in your own and Here he's looking he says why is it that you see you look at the speck in somebody else's eye and you don't consider the beam in your own and You know when you stop to think about this, this is a tremendous insight tremendous truth and You know when you look at this Tremendous insight has its John Corson would know how to make a pun out of that, but I don't know how to do it but anyway He'll tell me to afterwards I'm sure but anyway But have you ever noticed in this analogy what an interesting thing this is that whenever there is whatever is a speck Literally in a sense in somebody else's eye It's a beam in your own It's something there that you know Something there that ought to when we look at somebody else's eyes something that ought to be a speck You know in somebody else's eye it ought to be very hard to find Very very difficult to find you know here on one hand tonight.

I'm sitting out here, and I don't know how many eyeballs I see there's roughly Two times as many bodies as there are here yeah, unless you're like me where you got the eyeball, but it went on strike or something, but the But essentially I mean there's maybe you know two three thousand eyeballs here anyway And the thing is I guess I don't see a speck in any of you I Can't see it. It isn't there for me to see I'm not saying that some of you don't have a speck in your eye You may very well have one, but at the same time if you do have a speck in your eye It's bothering you right now It's killing you. I know me when I get a speck in my eye It hurts the whole world stops.

I don't care about anything You know if I'm driving you get a spare pop pull off the road I don't pull off the road for many people a policeman down then but no I don't I've been very good, but the But I mean is there some things you just stop you fix it You get a speck in your eye. You can be you know you know talking to somebody and everything else whoa wait a minute I got a speck in my eye, and you're there to where here Would you look and you're opening your eye pulling your eyelid back? Please can't you see it? It's killing me. No I can't see your boy.

You know and they're looking in there and When we in the night in the flesh Jesus I believe he said wouldn't it be wonderful if when we looked at one another at a speck in somebody else's eye We realized and thought of it the same way we would with a speck in our own eye And that is it's a you know. It's a pretty painful thing It is something there that when we have this It's like Paul what what what Jesus here is saying is is that it's something that may be very little in somebody else's eye Little teeny thing that I can't even see in yours And I got to have a magnifying glass to try to find in yours, but you put that very thing in mind and it's a very big thing in a healthy person a Healthy person with a healthy body who gets a speck in his eye is paralyzed. He can't go on a Healthy person has something there that gets in in there that it's it rubs it irritates it Frustrates it brings pain and brings suffering and it is magnified in their life more than anybody else's life It that's around Because it's me That's the interesting thing as far as I think I've said this before but Paul on one hand Paul was somebody and on one hand We're all sinners, but Paul looked at himself.

He says I'm the chiefest of sinners It ought to be that you and I look and realize that we are the greatest sinner we know Because you see we don't know anybody like we know ourselves We don't know anybody else this may be coveted today or hated today or been angry today or killed a brother today But Jesus said if you know that if you're angry with your brother You've committed murder or if you lust after a woman you've committed murder John says if you you know Are you committed at all you sinned? All right, whatever I'm saying here, but the But whenever you know, if I do something in my heart my attitude Towards another person that ought to be something that is like a speck in my eye What you may be thinking tonight, I don't know but my potential of what I may be thinking that ought to disturb me greatly and Here Jesus is saying there before you go around judging other people for things in their eyes. Does this disturb you in your own life? Is this something there that when it's in your own eye it may it has an effect Upon you. Is it something there that when you see that same speck in your own life? Because here Jesus looks and he says if you really want to help somebody he says there in verse 5 He says thou hypocrite He says if you really want to help somebody says first cast out the beam out of thine own eye Then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye He said if you really want to help somebody get something out of their eye that little speck And he says you got to know how to do it in your own eye first something there On one hand that you see somebody at what Jesus is teaching.

You're very simply to me Is that the only person that is really qualified to honestly help another is? The person that God has already helped him in that very area of his own life the greatest copy the greatest, you know person of understanding when somebody else has had something in their eye and They've known the suffering and they've known the pain and they've known it at all man. Don't do And it's sensitive and they know what it's done and they knew what it was to get it out And they knew the project they knew the for how God did it And how God was merciful and gracious and powerful and wonderful and this is how he dealt with my life This is what he did to me. This is how he helped me This is how he got this back out of my eye that then Jesus saying this is how you'll know how to help another Because the interesting thing I'm convinced that most of us when it comes to being helped this illustration here that Jesus gives is wonderful That is Before you and I really usually open up our heart to another person Just say help me It's almost the same category to me of somebody opening up their eye to somebody else and say here Would you get this thing out of my eye? You just don't easily do that You don't easily, you know, just turn to somebody and say here, you know, I mean just for the think right now Maybe it'd be to turn to somebody next to you say would you do me a favor? I got a speck in my eye would you got a ballpoint pen or something? You stick it in there and see me and pull it out, you know or something you would you just turn easily to somebody? Just trust him say by the way, what do you got? You got anything to take it speck out of an eye? Well, I just got these tweezers here.

Oh, yeah, take the tweezers go after it, by the way What's your name, you know, or you ever done this before? Nope, but I've always wanted to you know, or whatever on how you know, I consider myself really good I see I'm a I love specs. I've been a I'm a spec hunter on the Side, you know and And how you immediately before you're gonna let somebody touch your eye There's something about us before somebody's gonna touch my eyeball Now did some people that really bothers my wife she's one of these she her father had glaucoma and so she used to have to go in to get these tests and Just the thought of going in on them to the doctor where they put this thing right on your eye to test somehow another the Pressure and your your pupil. I mean the thought of it for days ahead.

I gotta go the doctor He's gonna touch my eye pray for me. She's on every prayer list. She's telling everybody I'm gonna go to the doctor He's gonna touch my eyeball, you know, and the I mean you thought she was going in for well touching the eyeball, you know or something, but the but it was something there that just That she'd faint she'd get in there and the guy would be coming at her and she just please kill me You know, then you can do whatever you want to the eye, you know, or whatever, but the we don't let people touch our eye But we also are very reluctant to open up to somebody until we know They know What they're doing? They know how to handle it and we have a trust within them and here she's saying if you want to help somebody You Gotta evaluate why you're doing it.

Are you just upset? Hey, look at you're a mess You're a mess and your life is a mess and you're in real trouble You know, I mean how many people there if that are that know maybe truth about you Do you trust that just because they can tell you stuff a? Lot of people maybe know stuff About you, but do you trust them because they know it Or do you trust people because of the fact that you know? They know what they're talking about and they've got an answer for you and they care for you and they want to help you They're really caught up in it. They're not just sitting there telling you, you know what they this is, you know, this is how it is They care And if they don't care or they're just judging you you you you pull your eye back You close your lid and say not my eyeball or you're not gonna tell me Could you imagine on one hand even if they know truth it to say tonight, you know, you're getting a car accident You know and you ran a red light You're getting a car accident hit a telephone pole and all sorts of stuff and next thing you know, you're you get a compound fracture of the leg or something and they come and pick you up and Bloody mess and they rush you off to the hospital and the doctor comes in there says so You're the idiot that ran the red light area Really? I'll bet you feel stupid now, don't you? You know and then you know the what were you thinking about were you drinking? What are you up to? You know It's sort of a thing going through I understand you hit a telephone pole and knocked out the light and power for three square miles I'll bet man. Is that ever stupid look at this here.

You got a femur sticking out the leg here, you know blood spurt He may be a great technician He may know the name of a femur the artery that was broken the blood that is spurting. Let's see it at this rate You've been bleeding here about 20 minutes That's probably a couple of pints here at this rate. You're bleeding.

I'd say you got about 20 Five minutes before you run dry, you know or something the guy may really be he may really know what's wrong But do you does that somebody you'd really trust do you look at him and say boy am I glad you're my doctor or do you you Look around for a weapon and want to go for his jugular and say hey, let's see who goes dry first You know, or I mean sort of a thing. I mean you look at people they may know what they may be saying truth And but they may be very judgmental and when people are judgmental other people don't receive it They don't receive it And it's interesting the Apostle Paul tells us the to speak the truth in love The truth in love One of the things I've noticed I mean you until you get those two things together. Nothing happens But when you get truth and love together something can happen I did one of the things I've noticed in marriage counseling things people have a great capacity to be very honest very truthful I seen husbands and wife they can sit there and say you know something they get mad and they can give a lot of Truth you are a no good lousy Bum, you know and you haven't worked and you don't do this and by and you and boy they can go on for 20 minutes And it's all true Well, let me tell you about you You're ugly and your mother's ugly, you know, and then that may be true I don't know all the cases but but I mean on how people that you can just be really truthful but truth without love does nothing Then the amazing thing is the very same people oftentimes the next day try the opposite They throw out all the truth that they use the day before and they're just real loving honey.

I'm sorry I just love you. I didn't mean any of that stuff. Oh, it was all that truth.

I didn't mean it really I Just so I'm so excited that you're my little lovey-huggy, you know, whatever and they're this real lovey Touchy snuggie thing, but the truth is all gone and it doesn't work Nothing happens, but when you can get the truth and love together when somebody lovingly patiently kind Like Jesus with you and I how has he been dealing with us as long as you've been a Christian? He's been dealing with you in truth and love He gets in a little bit of truth you get offended Lord. That couldn't be true about me. I'm better than that honest well, okay, we can maybe so I will just wait and See what the rest of the world thinks, you know or whatever and and if they you know And in little by little we come back and Lord remember what you told me it might be true.

Oh well What should we do about it? Oh, I don't know when but he he is so gracious He tells us the truth and then he spends an entire lifetime With you and me loving us Hasn't written us off if anybody could write us off he could if anybody's got the evidence the goods but rather than that he loves and he says I care and So often I see people that we get there and how easily we be judgmental How easily we can be so hostile we can be so angry work where we're in and all we are is just writing them off Throw with you they don't need you who needs somebody like you around and That's judgmental or we can just lay him out and write him off But when we realize Lord, I don't want to write anybody off. I don't want to give up on anybody You haven't given you haven't given up. I don't want to give up Give me the love Being judgmental is pretty easy the Bible actually even when Adam sinned, what's the third first thing the Lord had to say? Well They now good no good and evil they know right and wrong they can discern between it I Can come down after a car accident I could see it down there I could look at your you know Your leg and said man, it's a compound fracture.

I know a couple words bloody mess. Can I fix it? Oh, no, but boy was that stupid or you know, or what did you do? And I could I could lay out the truth may be very well. I Don't I don't have the the capacity to fix it This is what love has in the spiritual realm.

It is something that looks and says I I think God show me what's wrong and Then Lord, how did you get that? Very thing in there in that I see in their life. How did you deal with it in mind? And then you'll find out one or two things you'll find out Either how he did it or you may find out he hasn't done it yet He's still trying to do it in your life That's what James actually says in the book of James says what know it's not that when thou judgest thy brother thou judgest thyself There's something about our human nature that the thing that we see in another person that we are most like are the things that we are most angry at and Here Jesus said don't write people off rather than that find out how to get that very thing out of your own Eye, then you can sit down with somebody and you can say, you know something. I know the pain.

I know the suffering I Know the sorrow I know what it is like to have that very same Speck in my eye and I know how God can get it out and how he does these things and So often because we don't know these things and because we don't desire these things or work on these things We find ourselves again just writing people off. Jay or Paul writes in Galatians He says brethren if any man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual Restore such a one in the spirit of meekness considering us thyself Lest thou also be tempted when you're looking there and you see an error in somebody else. He says before you get upset When you see this realize Human nature That we all have it There is such a nature of all of us all of us to do this But so often we get upset sometimes maybe you may be here tonight You're angry with your wife or you're angry with your husband.

You're angry with your job you're angry with your kids or you're upset and They did this and they are this kind of a person if I had known I was marrying somebody like you You know or something and this man. I Nobody told me you know or whatever Well, God's telling you now This is who you married And now when you look there and God gives us to each other and he says now, what do we do? Do you sit there and just tell them you're a this and a this and this and this is that stuff worked with you? It hasn't with me but when somebody comes along and they love and they care and they're looking at the same things and they have that way of Caring and praying and that patience and that gentleness Then is when I believe the day comes that person looks there and he says, you know to their husband their wife Do you see something in my eye? Oh, I don't know, you know, I Mean, there's the you mean the four by four is sticking out that little thing, you know, or whatever Yeah Well now that you mentioned it Yes Because I've been praying about it for 20 years, you know, but the But when we can look instead so often we get so upset or we get angry and we judge each other and now and then we tell him you're at this and you're at this and you're at this and It's just that that gives us the right to write them off somehow And set us apart But when there's somebody that says Lord you show me how I want to be an ophthalmologist I want to be somebody there that you cleanse my eye in such a way train me So well that now and I'm sitting down with that person that I'm having such a difficult time with How do I help them? What do they need to see or hear or know for me? But oftentimes we go on with these great periods of time with all this struggle All These games that we play and arguing and fighting and judging Rather ridiculous Like the couple Heard about gotten an argument, but they they'd fight by not saying anything the silent treatment You know, you'd be ignoring and you don't say a word So here's this couple they had some squabble the next thing, you know, they're giving each other the silent treatment It goes on for a week, you know what I'm saying a word the other finally one night the fellow realized Oh, no, I got a plane to catch tomorrow Chicago. I got to get up at 5 and the alarm clock my wife's inside But not wanting to say anything to her and break the silence and lose He writes her a note Says I have to catch an airplane, please wake me up at 5 a.m Goes to bed Next morning he wakes up.

It's 9 o'clock. He looks over this 9 o'clock And he's furious and he's getting up to go tell her a thing or two and he looks in there next to his bed There's a note that says it's 5 a.m. Wake up You know, we got all these things that we there we write them off or we deal with them this way Rather than how do we build in love? Instead of throwing away a week And these games these foolish things we do where we write each other and other people off God give me this love and the ability there to help Anybody because the wonderful thing there's nobody Jesus can't help and even when there's somebody he knew He that wasn't gonna be helped Nobody else could suspect it When they're after three years with the disciples and Jesus says one of you is gonna betray me They didn't all sit around says Oh Judas. Hello You know, they didn't look around as if wonder who that is.

They actually looked and said is it I? They realized that Jesus's love had been the same to all of them His capacity and his desire to help every life even for the ones that he knew would never respond Nobody else knew it because his love was so thorough and Consistent in his ability to help and to care. That's the love that you and I ought to want and Jesus said don't judge Ruin you'll get you off track spoil a lot of things Get the beam out of your own eye Then you'll have the joy of being able to go to somebody and say I'm so excited God took this out of my life. God changed.

This is my life The next thing, you know people are coming. So I understand God did this for you. Yes, he did And how wonderful it is Amen Father we thank you for your word Lord we thank you for your desire to help us and Lord.

I pray that Maybe some of us tonight just need to come and say Lord. I'm so negative. I'm so judgmental So easy for me just to write off whole segments of societies Whole populations I can look at whole people groups No good done with them and Then immediately Lord all we've really done is just completely write off our capacity to ever be used in any of their lives That as soon as we look at somebody and says you're too far gone You're hopeless All we've really done is didn't make them hopeless at all Just made ourself hopeless to be able to help them And Lord, I pray that you would just give us such a love that we would look anywhere and say Lord There is no one without hope Their heart is beating and the blood is flowing Lord give us this hope and Lord give us the word from heaven Teach us Lord how to see our own eyes our own understanding so touched in Such a way is that we can really love and minister and care for our brother That many people we actually start off actually wanting to go help our brother We see some wrong and there's something so immature about us so often Lord It seems like we can just go to him and we think they need to hear the riot act They need to be told What person with a speck in their eye ever needs to be told? Nobody's ever yet in my life had to tell me there's a speck in on my eye that I didn't know it before they did What I'm looking for is somebody that I can trust that loves me enough to say Don I love you.

There's everything I can do I'm here Lord may we be ones like that in that then one day somebody that we love and care for might actually come up to us and open their eye and Say here Do whatever you think is necessary. I trust you Lord may we have that kind of love that kind of patience that kind of care That would develop a trust in people like that that we could help them Jesus, thank you for your word may it liberate and strengthen and bless many of us even tonight in your wonderful name We pray Amen