Sermon on the Mount
“Eye-to-I”
[read Matt 7:1-6]
These verses can be especially puzzling – and even confusing.
We read the opening words “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged" (Matt 7:1).
From this many slap their hands over their mouths and declare that Christians ought not to judge.
(Even though the words of judgement still slip out of the sides of their hand clasped over their mouth).
It is puzzling though – because we continue to read the words of Christ and then we come to verse 6.
“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces." (Matthew 7:6)
So one moment Jesus is teaching His followers not to judge and in the next breath saying “Oh incidentally – there are some people who are “dogs” and still others who are “pigs”. Don’t give what is of God to them…and don’t forget not to judge.”
You see the apparent problem here don’t you?
I think actually – many of us have missed it.
I know I have. I’ve read Matt 7:1-5 many times and then when I get to verse 6 my mind changes gear and treat it as an entirely different topic.
“This is not about judging.”
Yes it is.
Here’s the thing…
Matt 7:1-5 is not saying do not judge. It is saying do not judge as a hypocrite.
It is saying do not condemn.
For those who know the wonder of Romans 8:1 - " Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," – we have no right to inflict condemnation on others.
It is not saying to surrender moral standards established by the Word of God.
But to approach matters of judgement with – as one commentator puts it – with “all caution and consideration.”
There is a place, if not Christian responsibility, to make judgments that speak to issues and weigh up what’s happening.
To confront the spirit of the age.
However, such judgements are made without a spirit of criticism and condemnation.
Judgements made with humility and love – acknowledging that we do not always have the maturity and knowledge to make such judgments without being hypocritical.
We need to ensure we are in a place of integrity before trying to remove a speck from someone’s eye.
So – there is a time to remove the speck from someone else’s eye. And that time is once you’ve removed the log from your own eye.
There is a time to make a judgement.
In Jesus’ day there were those He deemed “dogs” and “pigs” who would trample the Good News and then seek to destroy those who proclaimed it.
There are many examples in scripture of our responsibility to make a call:
(e.g. John 7:24; 1 Cor 5:5; Gal 1:8 Phil 3:2)
"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1, NIV)
When we consider the whole story Matthew tells – there are instructions on how to discipline a person in the church (Matt 18); as well as instructions on how to deal with each other.
The key thing in view here is the spirit with which we deal with other people and their issues.
We are looking to do it with integrity. Without hypocrisy. With love.
This is a difficult issue. Not so much difficult to understand. Difficult to live.
Difficult to recognise and remove that plank from your eye.
Let’s hear some stories to help us with this.
(2 Sam 11-12)
King David stays home one spring time. During the time Kings go to war. On this occasion he sent his general and army but he stayed home.
And war broke out in his heart.
One night he walked on the roof of the palace and saw in an adjacent house a beautiful woman, Bathsheba, bathing and he lusted after her.
He summoned her and committed adultery with her. She fell pregnant.
Her husband was a man of valour in his army. Uriah. So he called Uriah back from the frontline in the hope he would sleep with his wife and that the child would seem like his.
Uriah was much too loyal to the king and his brothers in the frontline and stayed at the palace gates.
So David sent him back literally clutching his own death warrant in a sealed envelope.
Uriah was killed in a staged attack which deliberately left him isolated.
David then took Bathsheba as his wife.
Sometime later the prophet Nathan visited David and told him a story.
There was a poor man who had a lamb. This lamb was like a daughter to the man. It drank from his cup and grew up with him and his children and would share their meagre food.
There was a rich man with many flocks and herds and one day a visitor turned up. But the rich man didn’t want to slaughter one of his many animals so instead took the poor man’s lamb and killed that and fed his guest.
David became very angry. He declared that the man deserved to die and must pay back 4 times the lamb.
Nathan said “You are the man!”
(John 8:1-11)
One day, early in the morning, Jesus was teaching in the temple. And the scribes and Pharisees brought in a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery.
They had a strong case.
The religious law (the Law of Moses) demanded that she died.
Their plan was to trap Jesus and find a charge against Him too. So that the woman would not be the only one to die.
So they said “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”" (John 8:3-5)
They had a point you know. At least as far as the Law of Moses went.
Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with His finger.
They kept questioning Him and badgering them.
Then He straightened up and said “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”" (John 8:7)
Starting with the older ones, they left one by one until just the woman was there.
Jesus asked where her condemners were; was no-one condemning her. “No-one” she said.
“Neither do I” said Jesus, and without a log in sight told her to go and sin no more.
(John 12:1-8)
One day Jesus was in the house of his friends Lazarus, Mary and Martha.
It was about a week before His crucifixion.
And Mary had a very expensive jar of perfume worth about a year’s wages.
She broke the jar and anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair.
Scripture says the fragrance filled the whole house.
Judas complains and says surely that it could have been sold for the poor. His point is that she is being extravagantly wasteful and uncaring.
John records that Judas was not concerned for the poor. The thing was he was in charge of the money bag and would steal from it.
Jesus responds by saying she had anointed Him for His burial and that while the poor will always be with them, He would not.
(Luke 18:9-14)
Jesus told a parable.
A tax collector and a Pharisee went to pray in the temple.
The tax collector would not even look towards heaven let alone approach too far into the temple – but just prayed – “God have mercy on me a sinner.”
Meanwhile the Pharisee prayed with one eye on the tax collector and one eye on himself and seemed utterly unaware of heaven and prayed:
"The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’" (Luke 18:11-12)
The story is told [“The Sermon on the Mount” by Carl G. Vaught (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2001), 161]:
“A farmer was once standing beside the road when two travellers passed by. The first traveller was trying to decide whether he should settle down in the town up the road. The farmer said to him, “What kind of people were in the town where you lived before?” “Oh,” the traveller said, “it was the worst town imaginable; there was bitterness, adultery, gossiping, discord, and worst of all, insincerity among the so-called religious people living there.” The farmer replied, “All things considered, I think it would be best if you not stop in this town because it is the same kind of place.” However, when the second traveller asked the same question, and when the farmer asked him about his past, the traveller replied, “The people where I lived before had their faults as most of us do, but they were sometimes kinds and sympathetic, and from time to time love could be found there, In fact, all things considered, I would say that it was a good place to live.” This time the farmer said, “I believe that you will be happy here, for that is exactly the sort of town we have here.”
Not too long from now – it will be 31st October. And as has been the increasing case in NZ society in recent years, Halloween will be celebrated by many people.
And many people will go to the Warehouse and buy masks, and costumes and the like in order to dress up and embody the whole Halloween thing.
And as has been the case, many Christians will object to that given the origins of Halloween and the evil that it sounds for.
They will make a stand and some will even arrange an alternative event to Halloween and hand out pamphlets educating people about what is behind Halloween.
And the 31st October and Halloween will come and go and within the week, many of those Christians who made a stand will go to the Warehouse and buy fireworks in order to commemorate a failed terrorist plot in the 17th Century when Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the House of Lords during the state opening of Parliament and so assassinating James I, his family and the aristocracy.
I guess many would say they are celebrating the failure of the attempt, not honouring those involved in the plot.
Maybe.
I just don’t get the impression that those who have researched Halloween have done the same for Guy Fawkes.
But given the torture that Guy Fawkes endured once caught – it’s as messy and inconsistent, as say, that in years to come people letting off fireworks commemorating a failed Al Qaeda plot and celebrating what’s going on at Guantanamo Bay.
I had a conversation just this week.
In talking with someone from another church I expressed surprise that they didn’t seem aware of the copyright requirements for worship songs and that they didn’t appear to be aware of the existence of the Christian copyright organisation to whom churches pay license fees to.
I said that each year our church would be paying in excess of $600 in licensing to cover worship songs; photocopying of the music; as well as a licensing fee to another organisation to cover off secular songs; and as well as a fee to cover the showing of movie clips.
Yes – I would be very surprised (I said) if the church he was attending was not aware of this.
And while you’d be desperately unfortunate to be prosecuted for copyright infringements it is a moral issue afterall.
An issue of integrity.
And further more, given we both are engaged in study, there’s the restriction that you do not photocopy more than 10% of a book.
Which, upon further conversation it was established that I do. But I was quick to add I destroy those copies very quickly.
(Is it just me – but I feel like I might have something in my eye).
We lament the disregard young people have to property and people; the lack of respect they show those older than them.
We complain to our children that they need to show responsibility and respect by doing more around the house and not expecting so much so easily.
And yet we speak to them dismissively, and rudely, and work such long hours that the time we do have with them needs to be used to its most effective – so we speak bluntly and angrily to them. There’s not much time to get our point across afterall.
And I’m very tired.
And they see the log in our eye smashing into our spouses as we disrespect them with inattentiveness and abuse.
“Someone tells the time they heard Millard Fuller of Habitat for Humanity address the National Press Club on public radio, and he recalled a workshop at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary with 200 pastors in attendance.
The assembled pastors quickly pointed toward greed and selfishness as the reason the church never had enough money to assist others creatively.
Millard then asked this seemingly innocent question: "Is it possible for a person to build a house so large that it's sinful in the eyes of God? Raise your hand if you think so."
All 200 pastors raised their hands.
"Okay," said Millard, "then can you tell me at exactly what size, the precise square footage, a certain house becomes sinful to occupy?"
Silence from the pastors. You could have heard a pin drop.
Finally, a small, quiet voice spoke up from the back of the room: "When it is bigger than mine."
(sourced from “preachingtoday.com”)
I guess as pastors we hear of things that happen and we frown upon them.
Like theft and the like.
When I was lecturing at the Bible College of NZ, a student in class began talking about a sermon he had heard called “It all goes back in the box.”
“Ah yes” I responded “the sermon by John Ortberg. The American pastor.”
“No” came back the response. “The sermon by my pastor in Invercargill.”
Over the dinner break a student downloaded the sermon and showed it to the other student. It was the very same sermon.
I have since heard the same story involving the same sermon but being passed off by different pastors as their own work.
I was in a Christian bookshop the other day and saw John Ortberg has now written a book entitled “It all goes back in the box.”
Maybe now the practice will stop. I doubt it somehow.
(Matt 26:31-35)
"Then Jesus said to them, “You will all become deserters because of me this night; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.” Peter said to him, “Though all become deserters because of you, I will never desert you.” Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.” Peter said to him, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And so said all the disciples."
One reason why this is so important, is because shortly the Sermon on the Mount begins to address the issue of false prophets.
This passage today has begun to challenge us to get to the place whereby we can speak with integrity.
Whereby the church retains the right to speak prophetically.
It is a horrendous mistake to read this passage and think that the church’s voice is to be silenced.
Silenced in speaking to one another and silenced to the world.
Satan would love that!
[Read Matt 7:1-6]
Presented By: Rev. Geoff New