Sermon on the Mount -08- 2X4's and Sawdust

Reading: Matthew 7:1-6

3 “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? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Matthew 7:3-5 (NIV)

I.   Who made you Judge?

Jesus doesn’t tell us not to make judgements, but simply not to presume to be someone’s judge.

     A.  There is One Judge

           1.  To judge others is to usurp God’s unique role.

           2.  We don’t have the need, nor the right to stand in judgement upon others — and when we do we do so at our spiritual peril.

11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor? James 4:11-12 (NIV)

Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

Romans 14:4 (NIV)

           3.  Be careful what you say about people!

                 a.  Never presume to know, or venture to guess out loud what’s in a person’s heart.

                 b.  Never pass on negative information about someone when your intention is something other than helping that person. (Let people make up their own minds about quirky people.)

                 c.  Never say about someone what you’re not prepared to say to their face.

     B.  We will be judged by our own Standard

           1.  With the measure you measure you will be measured.

                 a.  If you reject people because of something they do that’s out of character, you are giving God permission to judge you when you act in ways that are inconsistent with who you really are.

                 b.  If you condemn people because they have spiritual weaknesses which are obvious to you, be ready for God to judge you for your spiritual weaknesses.

                 c.  If you marginalize people for whatever external or incidental mannerisms that just bother you, be ready to be marginalized by God for your mannerisms He might find distasteful.

           2.  Hey! How about a new standard!

                 a.  You and I all know how feeble, inconsistent and weird we can be.

                 b.  Let’s accept both ourselves, and those like us.

                 c.  Let’s relate to them after the pattern we want God to relate to us — unconditional love and acceptance.

II.  The importance of Mirrors

     A.  Dirty Nitpickers

           1.  A nit picker is someone who picks lice, or lice eggs out of someone’s hair.

                 a.  Lice are extremely small critters.

                 b.  What of a person concerned about what might just be dandruff in someone else, when they haven’t had a bath in a month?

           2.  Jesus point about the 2X4 and the sawdust is that the one with the 2X4 has a bigger problem to deal with.

     B.  Surgery while visually impaired

           1.  There’s a second side to this 2X4 and Sawdust metaphor — the one with the 2X4 in his/her eye is not capable of effective and efficient removal of the speck of sawdust.

           2.  We are blinded by our own faults. We are visually impaired so that we can neither see clearly enough to make a proper diagnosis, nor clearly enough to perform the proper procedure.

           3.  Even the fact that the sawdust in others irritates us, let’s our 2X4's show.

     C.  Attention to Self before attention to others

           1.  Notice that Jesus doesn’t tell us never to pay attention to the little things that impair our brother or sisters vision - he just says get the board out of your own eye first.

           2.  There is a natural priority to paying attention to our own healing before we are qualified to help others.

                 a.  We gain patience with the slow progress of others, when we realize our own gradual, sometimes lethargic pace.

                 b.  We gain compassion for those who still lack the maturity to progress in some areas, when we reflect on those stubborn parts of ourselves that still resist change.

           3.  Our motives change from removing specks that irritate us, to helping to remove specks that irritate our brothers/sisters.

III. Don’t feed the Truth to the Lie scavengers

     A.  Who are the Dogs & Pigs?

           1.  Talk about judgmental language!

           2.  2 Possibilities:

                 a.  People outside our “camp” who actively resist the Gospel.

                 b.  People within the camp who can’t handle sacred/precious things.

           3.  Dogs — People who have no sense of propriety and treat holy things (like a person’s reputation) the same as garbage.

           4.  Pigs — people who can’t take good advice, like the pigs who think you’re throwing stones when your giving pearls. They turn on you and go on the attack.

     B.  Appropriate Behavior

           1.  Be careful how you talk to people who can’t take criticism.

           2.  Be careful how you talk to people who blabber the pain and imperfections of others as easily as their opinions on the weather.

The Bottom Line:

.