MK040 Sermons
How to Judge (Audio)
to keep him as well as Mike and Sherry and their family in your prayers. Well this morning we're going to tackle a passage of Scripture that is probably the most misused passage of Scripture of anything that Jesus said in the time that he was here on the earth. And it's a passage of Scripture that you will hear from people who are not people of faith over and over and over again. In an era in which we live in tolerance and acceptance, it's caused many people who are Christ-fowers to almost cower in fear because of uncertainty of knowing how do I navigate what I'm hearing people say and I know that Jesus said as well as trying to live this out in my own life. Let me ask you a question. How many of you in this room have been called for jury duty? Let me see. How many of you have been called for jury duty? Okay. All right. How many of you have served on a jury? Okay. Anybody serving on a jury tomorrow? I had someone in the first service. I've got to go to jury duty tomorrow, you know, so anybody here been the four women or four men on a jury, anybody been the four person on a jury, nobody here, so. I've never been called for jury duty in my life, never. I don't know why, I don't know if it's because of my job, I don't know if it's because of the color of my hair, I don't know why, I've just never been called for jury duty. But a couple years ago, I had the opportunity to sit in through the course of a trial and I was even actually asked to testify in that trial and then I sat there and listened to the verdict being delivered by the jury to the judge and then the judge delivering the verdict and then even sat and listened to the sentencing phase as well. As a very sobering experience to sit and listen to the direction of someone's life being pronounced by this judge via this jury and regardless of what this individual had done, regardless of their history, their past, the jury determined what they believe to be the truth versus error of all that had taken place and the jury determined what the judgment was going to be, or excuse me, the judge determined what the sentencing was going to be for that particular individual. And this morning we're going to talk about this concept of judging one another because it is something that Jesus actually said and it is something that's in the Bible and it's in something on the Sermon on the Mount and so we want to take some time and wrestle with us. But before we look at that I want to remind you, I want to remind you that before we look at this issue of judging that God has created each one of us and He's created each one of us in His image and in His likeness and the Bible indicates very clearly that God has a purpose and a plan for our lives. God doesn't say you can be anything you want to be. That's not what God says. God says I have a plan for you and this is my plan for you to live out your life and if you follow me to live it out in such a way that you'll be able to find great joy and great delight and fulfillment in living out who I have created you to be. Sadly individuals have been told and maybe some of you have been told that your life would not amount to much or maybe words that are derogatory or demeaning have been said to you to describe your life or your efforts or your way of life and someone else has deemed themselves to be judge and jury about your life. Well this morning as we look into this passage and look at what Jesus has to say I hope that it gives you the ability to understand what He has to say but know how to navigate this in the world in which we live in. If you haven't been here with us we started last fall a series entitled Sitting at the Feet of Jesus I'm listening to His message called the Sermon on the Mount. If you have your Bibles, if you want to turn to Matthew chapter 7 that's where we're going to be in just a few minutes. If you don't have a Bible our guys have some they'll pass them out. We'd love to have you follow along in the Bibles that they're passing out. Matthew chapter 7 is where we're going to be in. If you weren't here with us two weeks ago, P.V. Joseph who serves God faithfully in the country of India was with us. He looked at the previous passage and he really challenged us. He said you have a choice, you have a choice. You either worry or you trust. You can't do both. You can't do both. You're either worrying or you're trusting. And if you weren't here with us two weeks ago I encourage you to go online and listen to his challenge that he provided for us there. Quick review of the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus most well-known sermon and in this well-known sermon he begins this sermon with this statement, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near." The kingdom of heaven is near. We kind of understand that because he's saying that there's going to be an opportunity in the very near future where he will reign as king over this entire world. That hasn't come to happen yet. But he says it's close, it's getting closer, but he makes this statement at the very beginning that's a bit confusing and that's the word repent and he uses this phrase over and over again throughout the time when he was here on the earth, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near." Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near. And repent does not say I'm sorry or apologize, that's not what it means. It means to go the opposite direction. And he's saying this to religious people, to good folks, and he's saying that to them not do something else in addition to what you're doing, but I need you to stop doing some things and I need you to change your direction and start doing something different. That's what the idea of repentance is. And so each week as we've looked at these passages, the challenge has been no matter where you find yourself relating to the subject at hand, what does repentance look like for you in this passage? And so this morning as we look at this subject of judging for some of you, some of you are going to have this sense of, "Well, I kind of get it, you know, I'm a little bit on the judgmental sign, I probably need to tell them that back a little bit." And you're like, "Okay, I kind of understand that one." Some of you are not very judgmental. You get people to benefit the doubt all the time. But the truth is, you have probably abdicated some of your role by saying, "I'm not going to say anything." And this morning I think God's Word is going to challenge you to look at that approach very strongly as well. If you're there in your Bible's Matthew chapter 7, let's read which if you follow along as I read and then we'll take a look at it. Jesus says this. He says, "Do not judge, or you'll be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of solbus in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye when all the time there's a plank in your own eye?" You hypocrites, first take the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls to the pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and return and tear you to pieces. Jesus begins with a statement. He says, "Do not judge." And the idea here is really a broad term. It could mean a lawsuit, it could be something that the government establishes. It could be a judgment of God on people. It's not very specific. But he says to his followers, he says, "I want you to drop your judgment of other people." One of the reasons for that is found in James chapter 4, look what James writes about this whole idea of judging. He said, "Anyone who speaks against his brother's sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you're not keeping it, but you're sitting in judgment on it." Meaning you're the one that's determining right and wrong. He says, "There's only one lawgiver and judge who's able to save and destroy. But you, who are you to judge your neighbor?" You see, James reminds his readers that there's only one true judge and that judge is God himself. And the only thing about God is judges, God is a judge, is not influenced by a jury. He's not influenced by sentencing guidelines. He's not influenced by past history. God is called a righteous judge. Meaning God always makes the right decision about what the response, what the consequence for the action is going to be. He never gets it wrong. He never gets it wrong. And he says to his readers, he said, "Why don't you leave the judging up to God?" In the history of people Israel, there was a time when there were individuals set up as judges. There's a book in the Old Testament called the Book of the Judges. And these were men and women who were set up to make determinations about what should be the response in this particular situation. They were the ones who were judges. Later in the history of Israel, wise men were set up as judges. So the kings were ruled, sometimes the kings were put in those place to make judgments. So why does Jesus say, when Jesus says, "Don't judge," he's obviously speaking to a problem that's existing. So why do we judge? Why do we judge? What do you think? Why do we judge other people? They did something wrong, of course. Why wouldn't I tell them what they did wrong? It's plain as they, right? Point as they. But there's something going on underneath of all of that. You see, I think what happens is when I judge someone else, I've kind of set myself as the standard. As it says in James, "I'm actually above the law. I've become the standard and I'm pointing to someone who's below the standard and telling them what they've done wrong because they need to come up to the standard that I have now set." Sometimes judging others has to do more with my own sense of worth and value. If I can point out your faults, because I don't have those faults, guess what I feel? A little better about myself. The truth is, none of us like to be judged, do we? None of us like to have someone point the finger at us, none of us like to have someone say, "This is what you're doing wrong." So we don't like to be on the receiving end, but on the giving end, we often do it to make ourselves feel a little bit better. The problem with this issue is because of the way our culture has moved towards tolerance, which certainly has some values in the way people are treated, it's made it very, very confusing to know, "What do I do with this? What Jesus says?" As I was trying to make some sense out of this, I came up with this diagram and I was like, "I'll put it on the screen and maybe it'll help you navigate through this." You see, what happens is, initially, when I see something that's not right, I observe an action. That's the first thing that takes place. So I observe an action that takes place. Then the next step that happens is after I observe that action, I determine whether that action is right or wrong. That's what happens. What our culture does is our culture says, "After you observe an action, nothing." Tolerance have to accept it, it's just the way they are, it's who they are, it's their background, their life experience, it's their genes, nothing, can't say anything, and that's what our culture says. So tolerance steps right in there. The problem is, there's a whole bunch of things in our world and then the country that we live where there's laws, there's right and wrong, there's morality, and yet the culture says you can't say anything, but we live in a culture with morality, a culture with rules where we have to evaluate an action. This is where a divergence starts to take place, because the next step that we do is after we evaluate something that has happened, then we assign motive, that's the next thing that we do. We assign motive to why that person did what they did. And then the last thing we do is we cast judgment. We cast judgment. Let me give you a scenario that happens in my life regularly where this occurs. When my wife and I are traveling in the car, and I'm driving, and I observe someone who is not driving very well, they cut me off, they cross in front of me, they don't see me, whatever the issue is, and I gently tap on my horn to alert them that I am there, so there's not a bigger accident, generally I'm holding both hands, so I'm not waving my hands, I'm gently holding and tapping the horn. So that happens and I make an evaluation, that was not the right thing to do when you're driving. That was a dangerous thing to do, so I make an evaluation, that's all I've done. I've seen what's happened, made evaluation not very safe. But then the next thing I do is I assign a motive. I say that person shouldn't be driving, you know, I don't know who gave them their license, but they shouldn't have been given a license, you know, what are they doing out on the road? And so I assign a motive and then I say cast judgment, they don't even deserve to be here on the road, that's where the conversation usually goes. My wife observes the same thing happening, she's sitting in the car, she observes the same action, she has a sense of that wasn't necessarily a safe thing that took place, she takes a very different approach. She says, maybe she's got kids in the car and she's trying to pay attention to the kids and make sure they're not killing one another and drive at the same time and she just in see you out of the corner of their eye, you know, or maybe it's someone that's a little older and their debt perception is a little bit off and she gives them the benefit of the doubt of, oh, she has this whole long grocery list that she goes through with me every single time and what does she do? She extends grace to that person. She doesn't say this to me, but maybe she's thinking it. You aren't God and you don't know everything, there may be more to this than you know. And she's willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and consider some scenarios that might be very different and say, why don't you just give them a break this time? And she's willing to extend and show some love to them. You see the difference, you see the difference, you see how quickly that can happen? And what I've done in my, in my response, I've determined I'm a far better driver than this idiot that just did this thing on the road, you know, I don't know what in the world they were doing or where they got their license, you know, I'm a far better driver than they just knew how to drive like, I know how to drive than we wouldn't be having this problem right now. I have set myself up as what, judge and jury and I have judged them, I've judged them. And what our culture says is don't even, don't even evaluate it, don't even evaluate, we're going to talk about that in a few minutes, but I think there's a different approach that Jesus invites us to consider and we're going to look at the rest of this passage and understand why he invites us to consider a different way. Look at verse two, he says this, he says, "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." I think this is most kids' favorite verse in the whole Bible, you know, because they see mom and dad do something and they point out that mom and dad are doing something that they're not allowed to do and if they were doing that same thing, they would be in big trouble, but mom and dad are allowed to do it and whenever they confront mom and dad, why are you allowed to do it? What do mom and dad say? Because I'm what? The parent, right? Because I'm the parent. And that can work when your kids are younger and even when they get in their teenage years, but this principle that Jesus uses here, he says this is the way life will work. When you set a standard and you judge others who don't meet your standard, you're going to be held to that same standard. Some of you are sitting there thinking it's about time, you know, everybody should be held to my standard. The problem is we can't all keep our standards all the time, why? Because we're human, we're sinful, we make mistakes, we blow it and Jesus said that same standard is the standard that is going to be used by me on you. You know, really what Jesus is inviting his followers to do is he's inviting them to come to a place in their life where they are not willing to hold others to a standard, but they're willing to extend grace to them, where they're not willing to come to quick conclusions, but they're willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, where they're not willing to make premature and arrogant assumptions, but they're willing to extend grace and compassion to other people. When a follower of Jesus is someone who is consistently judging others, there's one thing that is lost, and that is the component of love, which is that the foundation of everything that Jesus taught and was all about. So instead of judging, what does he call us to do? Look at verse three. He says this, "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" Last weekend, not this past week, in the previous weekend, we were up at Reinholds, and we're taking some more drywall out of some spaces that was going to need some additional work, and so we're not going to drywall out in our glasses, but I still got a little dust in my eye. How do you get dust out of your eye when you get something in your eye? What do you do to get dust out of your eye? You blink, right? You blink a couple times. Sometimes you rub it like that, and what happened? It's gone. Just like that. It's gone, right? That's all it takes. Small, only takes a second or two, and it's gone. But as Jesus said, he's saying, "Why are you worried about this speck that could be gone like that in someone else, and you're not paying attention to this plank in your eye?" When you think of a plank, I think of a beam, I think of something heavy, I think of something that might require a couple people to pick up. It's going to require effort, and I'm going to have to strain, and it's not going to be easy, and it's going to be hard. Jesus is saying, He says, "Why are you consuming yourself with the things that can be dealt with just like that in the life of another person, and you are not willing to examine the hard, deep, difficult struggles in your own life?" No comparison, right? No comparison. He goes on in verse four really to restate it and almost say the same thing. He says, "How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take that speck, let me help you with that,' when you've not even paid attention to the plank in your own eye?" It's almost as if Jesus says, "How dare you? How dare you? Why would you? Do you really think that's going to do any good?" Someone points something out in your life, and you know it's true in their life. Do you listen to them? I don't kind of dismiss it. Who were they to say this to me when, "Why would I pay attention to that?" Jesus says, verse five, what he said repeatedly, he said, "You're just a hypocrite. You're a hypocrite. You're an actor in the Greek theater where you put on a mass with a certain face. You think you are someone and you are not." And what does he say? He says, "First, do something about that plank." Why? Because then you will see clearly to help remove that speck in their eyes. What does that imply? It implies when you have not looked deep in your heart, when you have not examined your core struggles, when you have not faced them and walked into them and sat and lived in your own brokenness, you do not have the capacity to help someone else deal with the sin in their own lives. You don't even have the capacity to do that. You say, John, it sounds like what Jesus is suggesting is that we've got to deal with our own stuff and we just need to let everybody else deal with their own stuff and you just got to deal with your own stuff. Well, that's part of it. I think what Jesus wants us to understand is that when I have not paid attention to the plank in my eye, when I have not paid attention to the struggles of my soul, then my response to other people about things in their lives comes across as someone who is arrogant, someone who is angry, someone who is filled with self-contempt and self-righteousness because I can't see the sin in my own life. So is he saying that we're supposed to not admonish people, not judge, not show discernment, not speak into things, just deal with my own stuff and ignore everybody else? The Bible has a lot more to say about this and I want to take a couple minutes and look at what it has to say before we come back and finish up what Jesus has to say. In 1 Corinthians 5, a little bit later, Paul is writing to the church in Corinth and look what he says in verse 11 and verse 12, he says, "I'm writing to you that you must not associate with anyone," look at that next phrase, "who claims to be a brother or sister." This is people that are Christ followers and there's someone who believes what you do who is sexually immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slander, a drunker, a swinderer, or don't even eat with such people. Verse 12, "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?" You know what Paul's saying? He's saying, "People who don't believe like you do, people who don't claim to follow Jesus, what are you doing judging them? What are you doing with that? God will take care of that. You don't need to worry about it. They're going to see 50 shades of gray. Who cares? You know? I'll take care of that stuff, but what I do need you to do is I do need you to pay attention to those who are on the inside. Those who claim to be followers of Jesus, those who claim to say that he's the one that's the most important person in my life, and he said, "If these are actions in their lives, then you do need to speak into that, and you do need to confront that, and judgment should take place when that occurs." A little bit later Paul says this in Galatians chapter 6 verse 1. He says, "Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently, but watch yourself, or you also might be tempted." Jesus is not advocating here, that you pay attention to your stuff and you zip it when it comes to everybody else. It's not what he's advocating here. He's saying you start with paying attention to your heart and your life, but if you're a follower of Jesus, if you're part of a faith community, you have a biblical responsibility. If you observe reoccurring sin in a person's life to say, "Can we talk about something I have observed?" Sadly, this is done done very poorly, and some of us have a lot of pain. From people that we've loved, we've seen this happen to them in bad ways. People who were not willing to address the sin in their own lives arrogantly and self-righteously confronting sin and others. What we've done is we've gone to the other extreme and we've gone way over here and say, "Not my business, I don't know them, I don't have relationship, I keep seeing what they're doing." That's really bad, but it's not mine and I'm just going to, I've seen anything. Notice who's supposed to talk to him, he says, "You live by the Spirit." He doesn't say, "If you're coming to church all the time and you see stuff in people's life, you should..." That's not what he's saying. He doesn't say, "If you give a lot of money or you serve all the time, then you can go into..." That's not what he's saying, "You who are spiritual, if you go back and read the end of chapter 5, right before Galatians 6-1, he's talking about walking according to the flesh or the way I want to live versus walking according to the Spirit, the way God wants me to live. And when we would walk according to the Spirit, the Bible says that there is fruit that is shown in our lives, fruit that is love and joy and peace and kindness and gentleness and self-control. He says, "Someone whose life reflects those things, those are the men and those are the women and those are the students that their lives reflect that, that they can have the capacity to come alongside of someone because they've looked in the mirror and they've seen the sin in their own lives. And they're humbled by their own sin and they're amazed that God has forgiven them. And they say, "Can we talk about something that I've noticed?" That's who God says has these conversations. Jesus talked about this as well, it wasn't just Paul. In Matthew 18, a few chapters after where we are right now, he says this, "If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault just between the two of you. If you listen, if they listen to you, you've won them over." It's the passage of Scripture that Jesus is describing how the church, the Echlesia, is to relate to one another when someone falls into sin, when sin occurs in their life. He doesn't say you ignore it, he doesn't say you say it's not my problem. He doesn't say, "Well, I don't really know them." I was talking with someone about this recently and they said to me, they said, "Well, isn't that for the pastors and the elders or the small group leaders to do that?" I said, "I don't think that's the qualifier that's given there." We don't like that, do we? We want to stay private, we want to keep our stuff to ourselves, we don't want other people to know. That's uncomfortable. But Jesus is talking to people who are going to make him the rule of their lives, who are going to say, "I want him to be the king and the ruler of my life." He says, "If you have signed on to that part of the protection, part of the safety, part of my plan for you is when you begin to drift, there's someone that's close to you, that's connected to you, that says, "Hey, do you realize where you're going?" And he says, "Can we all talk about that and invite them back?" I said, "John, this is really confusing. It's hard to figure out because Jesus says on the one hand, don't judge." And yet Paul says, "Judge those on the inside. When you see someone and sin, you need to come alongside and you need to ask God to use you in their lives." I absolutely agree with you. This is not black and white, there's a lot of gray and fuzziness in this. But you see, that's what people who judge don't allow any space for, they don't allow any of that space. How many of you know what the Keystone Pipeline is? Anybody know what the Keystone Pipeline, a number of you, the pipeline from the Canadian oil fields running down across our country, down into South America, down to Mexico, excuse me. You might have heard the controversy over it, that the U.S. House and Congress, the House and Senate have passed a bill to authorize that being put in place, and the president has said that he's going to veto that because of the potential harm to the environment. And so what's happened, and this is what's happened often in politics, is there's a line, and you're on one side or the other. So if you are for the Keystone Pipeline, what does that mean you hate? The environment, right? It means you hate the environment. And if you are for the environment, if you love the environment, what does that mean you're opposed to? Keystone Pipeline, right? See, there's no space in the middle for there to be gray, for there to be conversation, for there to be disagreement, for there to be say, let's talk about this and see if there's a way we can both come to understanding on this. And it's fascinating to me that what the church was so bad at for so long that everything was black and white, black and white, black and white, our culture has become the same way, especially politically. And when you judge, there's no space, there's no room for grace, there's no gap in the middle. And the way that you have to navigate this issue of not judging versus coming alongside and speaking into the lives of others that you see something that's wrong and sinful is you have to wrestle with this, it's not always black and white, it's difficult, it's difficult. But what God says He says, the first thing Jesus said, the first thing you need to do is you need to look in the mirror at your own life. You need to see your sinfulness, you need to see the plank, the big things in your life that are your struggles, you need to see your own brokenness and then out of that you need to ask God to give you the capacity to speak into the lives of others. You see what Jesus is not calling us to do is He's not calling us just to be okay with everybody doing whatever they want, that's not what He's saying. He's saying if they're people that are not people of faith, leave them up to me, I'll take care of them. But if they are people of faith, then you need to carefully and discerningly enter their lives and have these difficult conversations only after you have looked in the mirror at your own heart and your own life. And only then God might use you to help them see the speck of dust in their eyes. You know I wonder if part of our struggle is that we not only live in an age of tolerance but we live in an age of acceptance and it's really important for us to be accepted by other people. And I think we all know the risk that when you enter a conversation with someone and you talk about something that's an issue in their life, we all know the risk, right? Who are you to what judge me and just dismiss us, push us aside, put a relationship at risk and unfortunately most of us struggle with being willing to do that. But I think what God wants us to do is He wants us to carefully examine our own heart, to deal with our sin in our lives, to not resolve it and not be over it but to recognize that it's only because of the grace of God that I am not the one, someone speaking to me and then humbly and gently have those difficult conversations. You know when we do that I think what happens is we find ourselves ignoring a lot of little things. We let the minor things be the minor things and we let love cover those things and we look at the things that are really, really important. Jesus ends in a very odd way. If you're there looking verse 6, He says this, He said, "Don't give dogs what is sacred. Come through your pearls to the pigs. If you do they may trample them under their feet and turn and tear them to pieces." Now when we think of dogs we kind of think of some nice puppies, that's kind of what we think of when we think of dogs. We don't think of these kind of dogs that are going to come up on the screen do it. You're like, "Oh that's a little frightening, seeing that thing." But that's what Jesus is talking about, kind of a wild dog that just tears things apart. And we think of pigs, some of you think of pigs, you might think of porcupic, or you might think of a nice little picture like that, maybe that's what you think of when you think of pigs. Maybe you've got one of those in your home or somebody you know has one in their home. You don't think of pigs like this, this is what Jesus is talking about, we're talking about pigs. You throw something in and they tear it apart, they destroy it, that's what He's talking about. And so what is Jesus saying here? He's saying, "Don't take something valuable. Don't take something that you treasure and give it to dogs that are going to destroy it and pigs that are going to tear it apart." So what is Jesus talking about here? Well I'm going to suggest to you that what He's talking about is what He's been talking about for the last two chapters and that's life in His Kingdom, that's a relationship with Him, that's what following Jesus is all about and that's what begins with the message of the gospel. I think what Jesus is saying to us is He's saying, "I don't want you to judge other people and I also want you to be careful when and where and how you offer the gospel to other people." Seems a little strange, doesn't it? Because in the church we talk about sharing our faith and we talk about being salt and being light but what Jesus seems to be more concerned is how we go about doing that and not the outcome. He's in charge of the outcome, right? He's the one that controls whether someone chooses to follow Him or not. When I was in grad school one of the things that we had to do was we had to take a class that kind of coached us and how to share our faith with other people and in those days in that setting it was very formulaic and there were certain steps that you would go through and certain things you would say to people, certain verses you had to memorize and I had gone through that process and I remember being in the setting with a couple guys that I worked with at the local restaurant and one of the guys was a friend of mine and he had come to Christ and we were there with another buddy and I saw an opportunity and I shared the gospel with this other guy and as he sat there and listened he said, "That's a good spiel." He said, "If I was interested I might take you up one of it, not interested." And I've never forgotten that experience because it was almost as if I took something that was valuable and something precious and something that was life-changing to me and he just took it and threw it out in the street and he got smashed by the cars driving by. Now you say, "But John, couldn't God use that? God can use anything but it's like I threw a seed on a concrete floor and there was no way that seed was going to take root." When you put these two things together and you think about what Jesus is saying, the first thing he says is he says, "I don't want you judging people until you've taken a hard look at what's on the inside." And then he says, "And I want you to be careful with this treasure called the gospel and I want you to offer that only when there's opportunities for you sense God's Spirit open for them to receive them." Say, "John, can I know that all the time? No, you can't." This past summer, we had this explosion of growth of tomatoes in our little garden we have in our backyard and I'm not really sure why, I don't know if there's the plants or the soil or that I was on the sabbatical and I could watch them grow, you know, I don't know what it was, you know, but we just had hundreds of these tomatoes and I gave a bunch of you them, but you know how you know when the tomato was ripe, when you go out there and the tomatoes on the vine, all you have to do is touch it and it would fall off and then you knew it was ripe. If you touch it and it stayed on, it wasn't ripe, it wasn't ready to go yet and I think what Jesus is reminding us is saying, "Don't just toss the gospel out there and have it be trampled on and destroyed. Recognize that there is going to come a time in people's lives, someone that God has divinely placed into your life. It's no accident that the people you work with, the neighbors you have, the people in your family, God has placed you in their lives to be light and salt, to love them to serve them and to be there when life crashes and there's nowhere else to turn and you say, "There's someone I know that can walk with you in this and that person is Jesus." You know the number one reason why people don't want anything to do with Christianity? Because they're judgmental, because they're judgmental. Maybe it's no accident that Jesus put besides being careful how we use our words to point out others wrong right next to being careful about how we share the amazing gift and treasure of the gospel. As you think about your life and think about what Jesus has to say here, maybe you're someone that is prone to being judgmental. You make quick conclusions and in some arenas of your life that's very valuable and important and helps you be successful, but not with people and their motives. Maybe some of you have been silent, you know stuff is going on, you've observed things, you pay attention to things in your heart, but you just assume it's someone else's role as someone else's place because I don't want to judge. So you've been silent and God saying to you, you need to have the courage to step up and degraciously and humbly after you've looked at the things in your own life have hard and difficult but loving conversations. And so instead of judging, I think what God is calling us to do is to show love, to show love. You know, I just wonder what would have been the effect on our culture. If over the last 50 years the church was marked by their love for one another and their love for people instead of their judgment and their hypocrisy, I wonder if the gospel would be any further than it is today, I don't know, but I wonder. Second thing he wants us to do is look in the mirror at our lives, look in the mirror at our lives, you know parents when our kids are struggling with something, our teens are doing things that are hard for us to navigate, you know the most critical thing you could do in parenting them, look in the mirror first. This is not just with people in the church, this is every part of our lives, this applies. And then lastly, wisely share the treasure of the gospel. Don't just assume that because Jesus says don't throw it out there that he doesn't want you to share this message. In just a few moments we're going to remember the sacrifice that Christ made on our behalf. It's what gives you hope, it's what gives you life, it's what gives you joy and peace. These place people into your life so you can share that with them. As we prepare to come to this table, I'm going to invite you in just a moment to listen to a song with me and one of the things that can help us deal with our own pride, our own sense of judgment is to remind ourselves that the foot of the cross, the ground is level. When we come to the cross we all come at the same place, recognizing our need for a Savior. [BLANK_AUDIO]