Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 7:1-12

“The best defence against hypocrisy is love.”- Søren Kierkegaard (Danish Philosopher)

John was a beloved pastor a small-to-midsize church. On Sunday mornings for over ten years he preached with passion, humour, and biblical accuracy and it filled the souls of the congregation. When he met people for coffee at Starbucks or visited them in their homes or at the hospital, people felt like he really cared for them.

On a Friday afternoon, John was in the church office, working on the final touches of his sermon. It felt like he had preached this passage a thousand times and he found it hard to find a way to make it fresh for everyone. After a few hours, he was getting no where so he grabbed his laptop, headed home and decided to spend some time thinking and praying in the hammock in the back yard. Maybe his brain just needed a restart.

As John laid lay in his hammock, he felt himself starting to relax. Just before sleep overtook him, he was startled alert by the sounds of yelling next door.

Instinctively, John rolled his eyes. That new couple that had moved in recently were always fighting and yelling. John had seen this type of thing too many times and knew that it was only a matter of time before either the cops were called or a moving truck arrived to move one of them out. Relationships with that much fighting rarely survived.

Sure, he and his wife had had their arguments and it got pretty heated at times, but they always figured it out. That’s what made their marriage better than so many others, he thought.

So John did the only thing he could do: laid back down in the hammock, put in his Airpods, turned on the noise cancelling and listened to some calming music as he tried once again to figure out how to approach the sermon for that week.

Eventually, he got his sermon done and on Sunday he preached from Matthew 22:37-40 on what it means to love your neighbour. The next day, he got an email from Daniel asking if they could meet for coffee that week. Daniel said that God had spoken to him through the message so he wanted to process it more. They met at a Starbucks that wasn’t too far from the church.

Grabbing their pumpkin spiced lattes - yes, those are acceptably manly drinks for two men secure in themselves - Daniel then told John about the problems he’d been having with his neighbour.

The neighbour, who wasn’t a Christian, had a little yippy dog and that dog would bark all day. Often, Daniel, who worked from home, would get frustrated and angry at the neighbour about it. It’s not that Daniel didn’t like dogs. It’s just that this one barked all….day….long. Sometimes, when his anger overtook him, Daniel would do little things to get revenge. He’d play music too loudly in the back yard to annoy the neighbour. He’d even tossed some of his lawn clippings over the fence when the dog was there, burying him in grass and dirt for a minute.

John was taken aback. Daniel was such a calm and patient guy. “Daniel,” John said, “That’s really un-Christlike behaviour. I expect better than that from someone like you. You should know better.”

Daniel slumped his shoulders, feeling the weight of the judgment and disappointment from John, whom he respected so much. He took a deep breath. “I know. I actually have been feeling a bit guilty about that since the last time I did it. That’s why I reached out. God really convicted me through your sermon on Sunday that I haven’t been acting very Christlike towards that neighbour. I wanted to ask you, what should I do?

After taking a moment to think, John said, “Well, to love your neighbour well means you need to get to know your neighbour, not just react from over the fence when the dog barks. Why don’t you try actually talking to them, instead of judging them from afar?”

Daniel sat back, contemplating what John had suggested. You know what? You’re right. I’m going to go home and talk to him. I’ll email you and let you know how it went.

Later that evening John got the email from Daniel. In it, Daniel said,”I was pretty nervous, but I prayed for courage and then went over to my neighbour’s place and confessed what he has been doing and apologized for being unkind.

My neighbour was so taken aback. He not only forgave me, he apologized for the dog barking. He also told me that he had been fired from his old job and his new job had him working crazy hours. He wasn’t able to care for the dog well lately, which is probably why it was barking so much lately. Even though he really loves the dog, he had been thinking that it was time to take it to the shelter.”

The email continued, ““It was weird. As he was telling me this, I felt the Holy Spirit say “Love your neighbour.” So, I offered to take the dog. Then, at least the dog will still be around and he can see it when he wants, but because I work at home, I can care for it. So now I have a dog, I guess. And the funny thing, even in the last couple hours, as I have spent time with the dog, it doesn’t seem to bark so much anymore. Anyways, thanks again for the great advice.”

John closed his laptop and smiled. He felt good that he was able to help Daniel. But then he scowled as he heard his neighbours arguing again since their kitchen window and the window of his little office nook were both open. He shook his head at them, and rolled his eyes as his wife came into the nook.

“They’re fighting again” she said. “I wonder what we could do to help them? Should we invite them over for dinner?”

“That’s a nice idea, honey.” John said. “But I’ve got so many church meetings lately, plus small group so I don’t think we have the time. Besides, they need professional help, not dinner.” And with that, John stood up, closed the window and then turned up the TV loud enough he wouldn’t have to listen to them anymore.

If there is one thing that is killing the church, it’s hypocrisy. It’s when we create standards of behaviour for others, and fail to even try to live up to those same standards, ourselves. Throughout the sermon on the mount, Jesus has been criticizing the Pharisees and the “teachers of the law” - those responsible for the spiritual state of Israel at the time - for their hypocrisies.

As we enter into this last chapter of the sermon on the mount, Jesus starts it off by warning us to be on guard against spiritual and moral superiority, as it is often the dark byproduct of a religious life.

He commands us “Do not judge others.” And here, unfortunately, too many people stop and so they believe that Jesus doesn’t want us to judge anyone but simply accept everything. But that’s not what Jesus is teaching. In fact, he commands us to judge others in this passage, in verse 6 when we are to determine who is holy and who is unholy. And in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul teaches us that while we aren’t to judge non-believers, we are to judge believers and expel the immoral and unrepentant brother or sister from the church.

So we are to judge, in some cases. Therefore Jesus is not saying “never judge.” What he’s saying is that we are not to make “final judgments” on people. We aren’t supposed to yell at strangers and non-Christians that they are going to hell or anything like that. The job of final judge belongs to God and to God alone. When we do it, we are saying we don’t trust God to handle his business.

We are of those who have received mercy. Jesus, through his death and resurrection, saved us, not because of the righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy. And so we are to be merciful to others. If we aren’t merciful, we are hypocrites.

And to illustrate the point, he gives a hyperbolic example. Instead judging other people for their little sins, we need to look at ourselves. We need to deal with the sins we have that obscure our vision before we try to help others. Like Pastor John in the story, who was ungracious and unmerciful to his neighbours we become hypocrites when we experience God’s mercy and don’t offer it others.

When we live in hypocrisy, we reject Jesus, who calls us to live out his commands and follow his example.

Jesus then concludes the judgment section of his teaching on doing unto others with an odd statement about not wasting what is holy on people who are unholy and how we shouldn’t throw our pearls to pigs.

And I was reflecting on this verse, as it has always struck me as a bit odd, and I realized that we have an perfect example of this in today’s world.

Have any of you ever seen someone start throwing out Bible verses and arguing with others about Jesus in the comment section of a social media post? I think that’s a great example. Those people think they are “fighting the good fight” but what they are doing is throwing the Bible at people who are hostile and who then use it to denigrate other Christians.

Jesus is calling us to use discernment as to when and how to share the good news with people so that it is received well.

Then Jesus seems to switch topics like a teen with ADHD and starts talking about prayer. And it’s tempting to see it as unrelated, but, it’s more connected than how it looks. It’s all part of Jesus’ teaching about doing unto others what we would have them do to us.

So why does Jesus teach about prayer again here? Because living the life Jesus calls us to is not easy. It’s easy to slide into arrogance - It’s easy to slide into judgmentalism - it’s easy to look at everyone else’s problems and ignore your own.

But living the Jesus way - the kingdom life- out every day is hard so we need God’s help to do it. We need to pray and to keep on praying every day for God’s help to live his way, believing in faith that God, who loves us as a good, good, Father, WILL empower us to live authentically - He’ll give us good gifts so that we can do to others what we would like them to do to us.

Comparison Slide

That empowerment is the Holy Spirit. In verse 11 of our passage Matthew says that our Heavenly Father will give good gifts to those who ask him. But in Luke’s gospel, he tells us specifically what the gift is: the Holy Spirit. So what should we keep on praying for?

Keep on praying that God helps you deal with your sin instead of judging other people’s sin.

Keep on praying for opportunities to love your neighbour

Keep on praying to be filled with the Holy Spirit so you can experience the fruit of the Spirit.

Conclusion

I hated writing this sermon. I hated it because I know how much of a hypocrite I am. I can’t tell you how many times that I have been just like Pastor John - I have preached and counselled people on living God’s way and yet I was stuck in the very sin I was trying to guide others out of.

But I have realized two things:

First, I realized that the mark of a true hypocrite is not a one who tries to help people while they are struggling. A true hypocrite doesn’t even know there is a log in their eye. They have stopped struggling and are staying blind to God’s transforming work in their lives. The person who is struggling IS removing the log from their eye - that’s the struggle.

So it begs the question to you church - do you have a log in your eye - an area where you have stopped trying to submit to Jesus? If so, if God has spoken to you about what that is, even as I speak, then he is calling you to pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that you can have what you need to remove it from your life.

Second, I realized that God hates hypocrisy, but he still loves hypocrites like you and me. If we are honest, most of us are probably hypocrites in one way or another. But the good news of Jesus is that he died for all our hypocrisies, all our sins and that by our faith in Him we are forgiven, we are saved and by the power of the Holy Spirit living in us, we are being healed - pressing on day after day becoming more like Jesus our Lord and Saviour.

If Kierkegaard is right and the best defence against hypocrisy is love, then my hope is that today, you see that God’s love for you is so big, not only does he forgive you of all your hypocrisies, he will, if you ask him to, fill you with the Holy Spirit, who produces the very anti-dote for our hypocrisies:

Galatians 5:22–23 NLT

22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Pray.