The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
Psalm 100:1-2opening call to worship before singing, 'make a joyful noise to the Lord... serve the Lord with gladness, come into his presence with joyful songs'
1 Shout for joy to Yahweh, all you lands!
2 Serve Yahweh with gladness. Come before his presence with singing.
setting the scene for the sermon on the plain, the crowd gathering to hear Jesus and be healed
17 He came down with them, and stood on a level place, with a crowd of his disciples, and a great number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases;
18 as well as those who were troubled by unclean spirits, and they were being healed.
19 All the multitude sought to touch him, for power came out of him and healed them all.
20 He lifted up his eyes to his disciples, and said, “Blessed are you who are poor, God’s Kingdom is yours.
command to love enemies, do good, lend expecting nothing in return, because God is kind to ungrateful and evil people; be merciful as your Father is merciful
35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back; and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil.
36 “Therefore be merciful, even as your Father is also merciful.
commands not to judge, not to condemn, to pardon, and to give; the measure you give will be measured back to you
37 Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Set free, and you will be set free.
38 “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be given to you. For with the same measure you measure it will be measured back to you.”
the speck and the log: why look at the speck in your brother's eye while missing the log in your own; Jesus calls the person a hypocrite and says to remove your own log first
41 Why do you see the speck of chaff that is in your brother’s eye, but don’t consider the beam that is in your own eye?
42 Or how can you tell your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck of chaff that is in your eye,’ when you yourself don’t see the beam that is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck of chaff that is in your brother’s eye.
the good person brings good out of the good treasure of the heart; out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks
45 The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings out that which is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings out that which is evil, for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.
everyone who comes, hears, and acts on Jesus' words is like a man who built a house on a rock that withstood the flood
47 Everyone who comes to me, and hears my words, and does them, I will show you who he is like.
48 He is like a man building a house, who dug and went deep, and laid a foundation on the rock. When a flood arose, the stream broke against that house, and could not shake it, because it was founded on the rock.
the one who heard but did not act is like a man who built on the ground without a foundation; when the flood came it immediately collapsed
49 But he who hears, and doesn’t do, is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream broke, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This message worked through the closing illustrations of Jesus's Sermon on the Mount in Luke 6, covering the blind leading the blind, the speck and the log, the tree and its fruit, and the two houses. The preacher traced how each illustration supports the same central demand: that those who call Jesus Lord actually do what he says. The sermon landed on the question of foundation, asking whether we are the kind of people who hear and act, or hear and do nothing.
What was said
The passage opens with Jesus giving four blessings and four matching woes to a mixed crowd of disciples, Pharisees, and ordinary people. The commands in the surrounding verses, love your enemies, bless, pray, give, do not withhold, do not demand back, are not suggestions. The preacher noted that he had deliberately left those commands in the congregation's lap the week before, because Jesus was about to illustrate all of them.
The first illustration is the blind man guiding another blind man. The Greek construction of the question, the preacher explained, demands a no answer: of course a blind guide cannot lead safely. The follow-up, will they not both fall into a pit, demands a yes. A pit in this context is a cistern, a hole with no built-in way out. Someone has to come and help you up.
The illustration then shifts to student and teacher. A student is not above the teacher, but when fully trained will become like the teacher. The application the preacher drew was direct: your teacher's blind spots will soon be your blind spots, so choose your teacher wisely. He pointed to Paul's instruction to follow him only insofar as Paul follows Christ, as the model for how that accountability should work in practice.
The speck and the log follow. The preacher noted that a speck is a tiny sliver of sawdust and the log is a structural beam, and that the gap between them is the whole point. The word Jesus uses for hypocrite comes from Greek theater, a performer acting behind a mask, someone whose profession does not match their practice. The answer Jesus gives is not to ignore your brother's speck, but to deal with the log in your own eye first, so that you can actually see clearly enough to help.
The tree-and-fruit illustration ties the blindness theme to what comes out of a person's mouth. Whatever fills the heart will eventually escape through speech. The preacher applied this plainly: if someone claims Christ but what comes out of their mouth is condemnation, unforgiveness, and judgment, that tells everyone what is actually in the heart. He connected this back to the teacher illustration, pointing out that if someone is habitually angry and bitter, it is worth asking who they have been listening to.
The sermon closed with the two houses. Everyone who comes to Jesus, hears his words, and acts on them is like a builder who digs deep and lays a foundation on rock. Floods will come regardless. The preacher mentioned a building project in a community in Costa Rica called El Precario, where volunteers came in, poured proper foundations, and stabilized houses that had been built precariously on a muddy hillside. The community changed its name to El Mirador after that work. The one who hears and does not act builds on bare ground, and when the flood hits, the collapse is immediate and total.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
The preacher described two ditches on either side of the road, one being legalism and the other licentiousness. Have you ever caught yourself overcorrecting from one extreme and landing in the other? What did that look like?
The sermon raised the question of who we are listening to, pointing out that a teacher's blind spots will eventually become our blind spots. Who are the main voices shaping how you think about faith right now, and how do you evaluate whether they are pointing you toward Jesus?
Speaker 2All right. I think we're live, my friends. Good morning, everybody. Hey, guess what? What, Carl?
It's the first Sunday in Advent. Does it feel like it? A little bit? Well, it is. Whether you believe it or not, it is.
We're gonna light candles. There's... We're even gonna have a couple of Christmas songs. And as people are coming in here, I'm gonna share a verse that lead us into worship. It says, make a joyful noise to the Lord.
It doesn't even say you have to sing well. You could just make a noise. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with joyful songs. Shall we do that?
Let's stand and sing. Joyful, joyful, we adorely.
Speaker 1Amen. Y'all can have a seat and Nick, I don't have a clicker. So, click through em if you will. The announcements this week are these. We have Monday nights.
Speaker 2Yep. Monday night is on. Tomorrow, meal meal, music, and message. We're finishing up the last of John 13. So the second part of John 13 where Jesus says, love one another.
As I've loved you, you should love one another with that self giving, others focused love. So please feel free to join us tomorrow at 06:00. At the same time, Ez?
Speaker 1At the same time as Awana. And this is not the right clicker. Sorry. Awana because kids matter to God. We're pouring scripture into the hearts and the minds, actually through the minds to the hearts, hopefully.
Kids, so Awana happens in this room starting out and then spreads out all over most of of the church. That's fun. It's a good time for kids ministry. There's a tree out there. If you saw it coming in, there's a tree set up in the foyer and there are white tags.
At this point, it's only decorated with the white tags but Tanya will be home soon. And the white tags are for gifts if you would. If you wanna join in and help out with local families who are in need at Christmas, you can grab one of those tags or a few of them if you want to and go and get presents. You bring them back to the church with that tag. So wrapped gifts are great with the tag on the outside of them so we can see what they are, and that helps us to be able to distribute those to the families.
So that's the angel tree. Everybody kinda is familiar with that concept now, I think. Their connect hours happen in between services. I saw Mike setting it up down there. Looks like a good time between to get to hang out and see one another and maybe even see some of those second service people that you don't get to see very often.
There is a chili cook off. Now I see that the announcement is caroling is under the chili cook off, but they're both on the same night, okay? We're going to go do traditional Christmas caroling. We start off at 04:30 in the evening, 04:30 caroling here, but bring in your chili and we'll let it simmer in there in the kitchen. A few folks will stay back and then prepare that.
And typically, it is a contest. So it's all kinds of categories, but chicken and caroling. December 12, that's two weeks from today, 04:30 in the afternoon, we'll start the caroling. Usually, have a couple of trailers with hay bales and whatnot on a couple of liters of singing. And then we might have a specialized task here and there to send out emissaries to some, maybe the living center or we'll see how that goes, if they'll let us in.
Nursery helpers are needed. This is pretty much a constant always in every church. Kristen Galloway is the person in charge of the nursery here at First Bee. So if you would think, hey, I wanna do that. I wanna do something to help out with that.
There's her number, 30741300223. If you would, call her and let her know you're interested. We'll take you through the process of, kinda safety training and that sort of stuff. But nursery helpers are needed. There is going to be on December 19, so that's three weeks from today.
There is gonna be a birthday party for Jesus is what they're calling it. It's gonna be a Christmas pageant. We're gonna do one one one service that Sunday. Okay? Just one.
It's not gonna be nine and eleven. It's gonna be at ten. It'll be a pageant with a potluck to follow. So, please plan on being here. You could see up there and in your Email if you get the Emails.
A through L families are bringing a side dish and M through Z to bring a main dish and everybody bring a birthday card for Jesus, alright? I'm not getting a whole lot of response out of y'all at all this morning. This sermon has not started yet. This is the this is the fun part, okay? No, I'm just kidding.
Oh, advent reading. It is the first Sunday of advent. I'm gonna invite the Yates family up. So if the Yates would come on up and kind of this mic. And of course, it just blinked off.
Everybody on the Internet will wonder what you're talking about. Not everybody on the Internet, that's the ones who are tuned in. Go ahead and do it though, sorry. Amen. Thank you, Yates family.
Speaker 2Great job, Yates. Wonderful. Let's stand and sing that.
Speaker 1Hope y'all.
Speaker 2We'll sing. Hope was born that night. God, we do sing this morning of your infinite worth truly. God, you are holy other, and so we stand to sing that. We we proclaim that with our voices, God, but may what we know in our heads travel to our hearts.
In Jesus' name. Amen. You can have a seat here for just a moment. This is the worship through giving part of the service, and I'll invite the ushers to to come on forward. Here's a good word from first Peter this morning, and and it says this.
It's a small verse, but it truly is profound. It's meant to be put into practice. It says, cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Speaker 1Hey. Would you pray?
Speaker 2If
Speaker 1A little green light came on. That's good. How are you all this morning? Good. I am glad to be here.
It is hot up here. I don't know if it is out there. I dress for the season, not for the temperature. I had to come out of a sweater.
Speaker 3Hey, Ray. This is Nick up in the sound booth. This is my first time running in a while. I need a little grace. Your slides have disappeared.
Oh boy. So I know. Can we can we just vamp for just a second?
Speaker 1Having a great day, aren't we? Anybody have a testimony?
Speaker 3Yeah. Does anybody want to run the sound booth? Anybody want to run the sound
Speaker 2booth? So,
Speaker 1it is the Christmas season but we are going into Luke six and we're going to discuss verses 39 through 49. Actually, through seven one but the what we're going to discuss about it is these are the illustrations that Jesus uses to make his point. The whole point of the whole sermon. So, Nick, are you looking for it under that or they just disappear? They were there and they're not there now.
November, whatever the date is today. I hope. But that's in there somewhere. So, anyway, Jesus's point, the last week it was the end, this was a whole message last week from 36 to 38 was judge not so that you'll be not judged. And then condemn not.
So there are two negative things. Right? Condemn not so that you'll not be condemned. And then there are two positive things. And it is forgive so that you will be forgiven and then give, give, and they will.
It says not God, but they, everyone else. If you live generously, people will also give back to you with the same measure that you give. If you're generous, generosity is what that produces. There's a fellow who's been here to speak before named Ken Sandy. Ken Sandy says that the golden result rather than the golden rule, the golden result after you're living out the golden rule, that's what happens is it kinda does come back towards you.
I'm gonna run down the hall and get the sermon and make sure it's in the it's in the drop box. It was put in yesterday, Nick. So, y'all just talk amongst yourselves. Play something pretty, Florine. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3Let's give him a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen. Pastor Ray McDaniel. And if he doesn't talk about forgiveness today, then
Speaker 1I needed to. So, Jesus is illustrating his point. This is the whole of the sermon on the mount. I'm going to I'm going to trust that you know this part but we're going to read it through together because he's making his point, and this is the end of the sermon on the mount in Luke. Okay?
So, Matthew has three whole chapter or two and a half chapters on the sermon on the mount. Luke has from 17 down to 49 of chapter six. Then Jesus came down with them. That's the 12 apostles, disciples he had just named, and stood on a level place, and there was a large crowd of his disciples. So that's beyond the 12.
There were others and a great multitude of people from all over Judea and Jerusalem, probably Jewish, pharisees, Pharisees, scribes, and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, Gentiles too, who had come to hear him message and be healed, miracle of their diseases, and those who are troubled by unclean spirits were being cured. Christ has the power over physical circumstances but the spiritual realm too and all of the people were trying to touch him because power was coming from him and healing them all. So, he's setting the scene right there in Luke. He raised his eyes toward his disciples and began saying, blessed are you who are poor. These are four blessed statements.
Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you who are hungry now for you will be satisfied. That's future looking. Blessed are you who weep now for you will laugh in the future. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and when they insult you and when they scorn your name as evil on account of the son of man.
For Jesus' sake, if you're hated or excluded or insulted or scorned, blessed are you, he says. And then he has four statements of woe that exactly correspond to those blessing statements. Now, he's got a mixed audience and so when he looks to his disciples and says, blessed are you. I don't know. It doesn't say he turned his eyes and he looked at the Pharisees or he turned his eyes and looked at anybody else.
He doesn't say that but he does say, woe to you who are rich for you are receiving your comfort in full. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will be hungry. For woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and you will weep. And woe to you, when all the people speak well of you, for their fathers used to speak the same way about the false prophets. Boy, Jesus's sermon is really punchy and he's gonna illustrate this today and you might think, well, I'm safe.
I'm one of his disciples. You you are safe in being one of his disciples But he's got a message for everybody in this room today. Every single one of us. I say to you here, so anybody who's listening, be loving your enemies. Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you and pray for those who are abusive to you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him your other also, and whoever takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic from him either. Give to everyone who ask of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, don't demand it back. Jesus is announcing a revolutionary kind of love, and he's commanding it. These are all commands.
Love, bless, pray, offer, do not withhold, give, and do not demand back. Those are all commands from that. I I happen to have an extra one out of the slides if anybody wants one today. Treat people the same way that you want them to treat you. Oh, that's the golden rule.
We're used to hearing it from Matthew, but treat people the same way you want them to treat you. If we learn nothing else today, that'd be a good one. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?
For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those who expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in the mortuary to receive the right same amount back. I'd say that's just duh. Duh.
What credit is that to you? Everybody does that. But he says it again. This is a command. Love.
Be loving. Your enemies and do good and lend and expect nothing in return. Love and do good and lend. Expect nothing in return for he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil people. That was a sermon two weeks ago right there.
Be merciful just as your father is merciful. Do not judge and you will not be judged. That was last week. And do not condemn. You won't be condemned.
Pardon. You'll be pardoned. Give and it'll be given to you. Those are all commands. I didn't harp on that last week, but they are.
I told you I was gonna let it sit in your lap because Jesus is gonna illustrate this this week. And they will pour into your lap a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return. That one is a little ambiguous whether it's from the people that you are treating this way or whether it's from God. By the standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return.
And then it goes on verse 39. Jesus uses illustration here. Now, he also spoke a parable to them. Now, we know what a parable is but I'm gonna give you the... It's a comparison, parable, obviously, a proverb, or an adage.
What it actually means is close beside and to cast or throw. Throwing something alongside. It reinforces the message. It's a teaching aid cast alongside the truth that is being taught. It cast additional light by using an arresting or familiar analogy, which is often fictitious or metaphorical, but not necessarily so.
I feel like some of Jesus' parables were kinda ridiculous on purpose, and others were probably real real things that had really happened, and he was just highlighting. Now, he also spoke a parable to them saying this, a person who's blind cannot guide another who is blind, can he? And this in Greek, it's more obvious. I think it's obvious in English too that it's rhetorical question but this is me. Me.
Me is a negative particle. Me or me. It's a negative particle that demands a no response. Okay? So if you're saying, hey, person who's blind got another who is blind.
Can he? Well, no. Of course not. He couldn't do that. If someone's if someone's blind, and I know there are exceptions, and I know we've got schools for this, and I know there are blind teachers and schools for blind people.
I know that. But Jesus is saying, in normal life, if you need a little help, you need a little help from someone who can see. It's that simple. A blind man cannot guide another blind man. Can he?
So that it demands the no response. And then he follows it up with, so this radically obvious to meti, dunatai, tuflais, tuflon. No. Will they both not fall into a pit? And this is ooki.
I love ooki. Ooki, that's the Greek word for that. Ooki is a negative particle also. And so ooki demands, in this sense, it demands a yes response. Will they not both fall into a pit?
Well, yes. They will both fall into a pit. Because of where it's placed, it's emphatically obvious that this is the answer. I'm going take a breath. A pit.
A pit or a ditch. If you've been here for a long time, about probably seven or eight years ago, I started talking about having ditches on both sides of the road. There's a ditch on both sides of the road. The very first Sunday I used it, I used it as an analogy when I was in high school, had a '69 Nova, way overpowered, rear wheel drive. And I...
Reaching over the seat for a bad company tape in the back, I took my eyes off the road and I veered into the ditch on the right hand side of the road. And when I looked up, I was in the ditch pretty good ways. And I saw a culvert coming really fast, And so I swung it over and got up into the middle of the road and started to go sideways, and then blew out the passenger side rear dragged grooves grooved drag slick on the back and slid down the road and off into the other ditch. And so, when I hit that ditch, I was stuck in that ditch. I had been in this one, but I over corrected and ended up in that one.
So I started talking about the ditches. Now there's legalism on this side. I've been using the stage, and there's legalism over here, and there's license over there, licentiousness where you just feel like you can do anything you want to do. Any desire, any temptation, you go for it, or you keep on building hedges around the law and you get to be more and more self righteous. So the ditch on both sides of the road.
This word, buthanon, actually buthanon means a hole in the ground, especially a cistern, which a cistern being a hole in the ground, To fall into it, there's not a way out. You have to have somebody help you out of it, or you have to have a ladder to get out of it. It wasn't designed with stairs to get into it in hardly any cases. It's a ditch or a pit or a cistern. When I was little, I grew up in rural Georgia, they used to tell us when you're walking around and you see boards on the ground, old rotten boards, don't ever get anywhere near them.
It's a well, and you don't want to fall into that well. It'd be... You would have to run Atlanta to get a rope long enough to come get you out of there. You cannot just go around not knowing. So the pit or the ditch or the well or the cistern is a real hazard that is really there.
And if you're blind and you're wandering around, you can't see anything there, so you might fall into this pit. Will they not both fall into a ditch? Now, I like this image. Look at those. There are two buses or a truck and a bus, and they're both heading the same direction actually on that highway.
They're heading towards the photographer here. And one of them went off on the left side of the road, and to avoid him, one of them went off on the right side of the road, and both of them ended up stuck, bad stuck off to the side. And I think that our tendency, if we find out that we're in one ditch, in all of our human understanding, most often what we do is we overcorrect and we end up in the other ditch. Now, the gospel is the answer for both parties. And when Jesus is preaching the sermon on the mount, he's preaching to some of these folks and some of these folks, and he's got some disciples there who have already recognized that his way is the way.
Will they not both fall into a pit? This is a continuation of the same analogy. For me, I thought, well, one of them is talking about blind men, the other one is talking about students and teachers, but it's a continuation of his same thinking. It says a student is not above the teacher. Do you agree with that?
I mean, we are all individualistic Americans, on the first day of class, a lot of us go in with folded arms and we say, I'm gonna see what this guy knows. Right? I mean, if if you take the role of student versus teacher, the teacher is the one who knows, the student is the one who learns. He goes on with this and says, but everyone, when he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher. Now, we're going to immediately go to a different, analogy here, a different illustration.
But think about that. A student is not above the teacher, but everyone, when he's been fully trained, will be like his teacher. So examine this one. The parable portion and then the instruction portion. I think the parable portion was the two blind guys right there.
It's obvious. The blind men leading each other will end up at some point in a pit, both of them in a pit. But the instruction portion is this, your teacher's blind spots will soon be your blind spots. So choose your teacher wisely. Think about that.
Now I could come back to it then, but I'll forget. Who are we listening to? Who are we listening to? Hopefully, Jesus. I mean, that's the answer we want to...
We know that that's the right answer, but there are folks on the right that we could be listening to, know, on the right politically or theologically even in some cases, in that case. And there are folks on the left, and if that's all that we're listening to, their blind spots will soon become our blind spots. Jesus was able to see problems on both sides and point them out. So, choose your teacher wisely. I think of right here that Paul, when he said, follow me how?
As I follow Christ. Follow me as I follow Christ. If you're following me and you see me step off the path towards the legalistic ditch, you pull me back on to the good old gospel way, brother. You know? If you see me starting to just act beyond liberty in Christ to libertarian...
Oh, I'm sorry, not political libertarianism. Libertine. Libertine, that's the word. Libertine. Libertine or licentious behavior, if you start seeing me heading that direction, pull me back on the path.
May we be concentrating our eyes on Jesus. He's the author and the perfecter of our faith. He's the one who will finish this thing for us. So, your teacher's blind spots will soon be your blind spots. Choose your teacher wisely.
Now, different analogy. Still has to do with blindness, but here it is. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but you do not notice the log that is in your own eye? So, let's take a moment with that one before we move forward. Let's answer that question.
Why is it that we do that? Do do you do that? I think we all do that. It's easier to see where someone else is off the path than it is to see when we're off the path. Now, we have a standard.
Jesus is the standard, and when we see that we're not acting like Jesus, we should be able to say, you know what? My my vision's getting a little fuzzy here. I gotta look to him. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. He's the only one that can really help the situation.
If you need somebody with skin on them, then you follow after someone who is following Christ. Why is it that you look at the spec? Speck is a tiny little thing. It's a little bitty piece of sawdust, just tiny. And then the log is a beam.
It's like one of these beams. It's a big beam. So it's either a little bitty sliver, like one of those irritating splinters you get under your skin, to have that in your eye. Now, getting those things out of your eye for those of you who are married or those of you who are Boy Scouts. I remember the only thing I remember from the Boy Scout manuals, take your clean kerchief, fold it up into the corner, open their eye wide, and you can see where it is.
Then with the clean kerchief, you can get that little speck out. It's not saying that people don't need help getting specks out of their eye. You can't always do that for yourself. They're blind spots. You can't see them.
But first, make sure that you can actually see. Well, we'll get to that. He's going to say that in a minute. How can you say to your brother, brother, hey, let me take that speck out of your eye. Do you all have a friend who loves to get splinters out?
Let me do it. Let me do it. They're a little amateur surgeon. They can't wait. How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take that speck out of your eye when you yourself do not see the log that's in your own eye?
You... You're just missing it. It's a blind spot to you. And Jesus, I said it was punchy. You hypocrite.
Boy. Now, hypocrite, hypocrite is a hypocrite. We know that. Know what it means. It's a dissembler.
That's a liar. It's someone who is a pretender. Literally, it's a stage player. It is from hupa and krena, which is judge to a judging underneath, like a performer that's acting up underneath a mask, a theater actor. An old Greek tragedy, you know, they had the smiley face and they had the sad face, and it didn't matter what the actor was really feeling.
Whatever they had on was what was their role in the play. And there are people on this side who are playing a role, and there are people on that side who are playing a role, and Jesus is saying, let's just be who we are in Christ. Two faced person, hypocrite, a person whose profession does not match their practice, Someone who says one thing but does another. So, if you are just joining us for the first time, this is kinda like Jesus's sermon on the mount. It's one of the punchiest and best delivered sermons ever and I'm trying to say exactly what it says.
So, when he says, you hypocrite, he's speaking to everybody, not just a few, but specifically, he's called the Pharisees hypocrites in the past, and he'll do it many times again before the crucifixion. So, for visitors, this is primarily when it's used in the in the New Testament. When he says hypocrite, it's usually for the religious folks, for the churchy church folks. So, boy, that's tough. It can be anybody.
Don't get me wrong. It can be anybody, but anybody that's profession is not matching their practice. First, it says, take the log out of your own eye. Jesus is a great physician. He can do that.
He has opened the eyes of literal blind men by this point and will do it again. First, take the log out of your own eye. Deal with your own stuff, and then you'll see clearly to take out the speck that's in your brother's eye. One of the hopes for small groups, for small groups even of friends, but small groups, one of the hopes is that we would be able to help each other with our blind spots. It's one of the best things.
I had a... One of my first classes in seminary was called the foundations of spiritual development. And I told them when they gave the survey at the end, how'd you like the class? What would you improve? I said, change the name of it.
Change it to Mote Pulling one zero one because it really is about seeing the beam that's in your own eye and then being able to help with your brother who does have a problem. So examining that second illustration to get its application, it still has to do with blindness, but the circumstances of the blindness are are what we're seeing. We all have issues. Oh, a t shirt. So this is just to remind me to get this t shirt.
I've had this for a while, and I like it, but it's a little preachy. Right? Be humble, you could be wrong. Just keep that in mind. So I wanted to do my own version of it.
This is a better version of this shirt right here. Put that on and look in the mirror in the morning because we gotta do that first. Right? We've gotta look at ourselves first. God help me to see what I'm not seeing.
Help me, lord, when I start to vault myself in pride. Help me to recognize that any good thing that's in me is a gift from you. And then help me if anybody else is struggling. Help me be able to help them. He goes on, for there is no good tree that bears bad fruit nor on the other hand is a bad tree that bears good fruit.
For each tree is known by its own fruit. I grew up in a sawmill. Y'all hear y'all hear that from time to time. And pecan and hickory. Pecan and hickory look exactly alike, pretty much.
When you cut them up, they smell exactly alike. But one of them produces pecans and one of them produces hickory nuts. They're just horrible, honestly. One of them is... Has some value, and the other one doesn't have as much value.
Hence, dishonest people sell one for the other all the time because you can't tell. But if you look at the fruit, you can definitely tell the difference. For each tree is known by its own fruit, for people do not gather figs from thorns. Figs are good. Thorns, not so good.
Nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. Thorns and briar bushes are problematic. Figs and grapes are great. It's a, you know, bounty. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good.
Now, I know no one is righteous except for God alone. Jesus answered him back. No one is good except for God alone and I know that we have had various places where we see that, yes, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So, we all start out as one thing, but Jesus transforms us and makes us into a new creation, a new creature in Christ, and he can transform us to be good. So, the good person out of the good treasure of what is in his heart put there by God is good, and the evil person out of evil treasure of their heart brings forth what is evil.
That brings forth is the fruit part of it. They manifest in some way what's in their hearts. And the way that they do that is, for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So how convicting is that?
How convicting is that? What is coming out of our mouth? Is it grumbling and complaining? Oh, and we've already got New Testament. Paul says, do all things without grumbling or complaining.
Right? Is what's coming out of our mouth bringing life, or is what's coming out of our mouth bringing turmoil, strife? Whatever is in our heart eventually is gonna escape our mouth. So if you're wandering around and you're just cussing mad all the time, there's a whole lot of ugliness in there. I think you go back further in the thing and you figure out who your teacher is because you're turning into your teacher.
When you're fully trained, you're going to be like the people you're listening to. So the third illustration, to its application. What's in your heart will eventually come out of your mouth, and that lets everyone know what you are. And so if you're claiming Christ and what's coming out of your mouth is vile condemnation, unforgiveness, stinginess, and judgment. That lets everybody know what you are, and Jesus has already had harsh words for hypocrite.
Pair that with the speck and moat story. Pair it with the other. Now, Jesus goes on. If it were not punchy enough, if I were to stop the sermon right now, you know, it'd be bad enough. But he then says, now, why do you call me lord, lord, and yet you do not do what I say?
Oh, this is a message that's directly for those who claim to know him, but don't act like it. Don't allow him to actually be the teacher. Why do you call me lord, lord, and yet you don't do what I say? This is what he says to do. Be merciful.
And don't judge and don't condemn and pardon and give. That's what he says to do. For by your standard of measure, it'll be measured to you in return. Why do you call me lord, lord? You don't do what I say.
We'll close with the last three verses here. Everyone who comes to me, everyone. This is to a wide ranging audience. We've already discussed that several times. Everyone who comes to me and hears my words, and I'm reporting exactly what Luke wrote down.
Alright? I'm reporting exactly what Jesus' words are. Every single one of you who comes and hears the words and acts on them, I'll show you who he's like. He's like a man building a house who dug it deep and laid a foundation that's on the rock. It's solid.
And when there was a flood, the river burst up against that house, and that's gonna happen. The storms of life are gonna come. But if here, you come to Jesus, you hear his words, you act on him, you'll be like someone who's dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock. And when there is a flood, the river bursts against that house, It can't shake it because it's been well built. It's got a good foundation.
I've looked around at four people since I've been up here who have had floods, since I've lived here. That seems odd for the Desert Mountain West, doesn't Floods are coming. They're coming. If your foundation is deep, you won't be shaken. But...
Oh, extra large adversative conjunction here. But there's an option. The one who has heard and not acted accordingly is like the man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. We've been in a lot of different places in the world and helped with building projects. And in one particular place in Costa Rica, there was a town that was called El Precario.
El Precario. And precario means precarious. It was on a mountainside. It had actually a beautiful view of Arenal Volcano. You could see it from a distance, and it's on this hillside.
It was on the hillside where it really... You probably ought not to build anything because mudslides happen during rainy season, and the folks didn't have the money to put together a decent foundation. And so a lot of times, the houses are just ramshackle, put together whatever they can find, and they're just put there precariously to the point where they name the community El Precario. In the space of one year, there was another organization that was down there. We came alongside them, and we went in and tried to take funds that were donated and volunteers who were willing and went in and put foundations, flattened off spaces, put foundations in, tied together these little houses with something that really would stay.
And they changed the name of the community in just a year. They changed the name of that community from El Precario to El Mirador, and El Mirador means the lookout because they had this great view of this volcano. It's a beautiful, beautiful place. The foundation makes all the difference. The one who has heard and has not acted accordingly is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, and the river burst against it.
Floods are gonna come. And it immediately collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great. So this morning, we have all heard the words of Jesus. I think if we've been paying attention, they've been convicted for every single one of us. So we should act accordingly.
We should act accordingly. Lord, where I'm not trusting you, would you teach me to trust you? I want you to be my teacher. I don't want anybody else to be my teacher. I don't want to just ingest something that somebody's told me and immediately start defending that instead of just humbly following after you.
God almighty, would you help me with that? And when he... This is seven one. This is kinda getting away from the Sermon on the Mount in Luke. We'll be back to it after Christmas.
I'm gonna go back to the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew, so y'all have that to look forward to. Luke seven one says, and when he had completed all of his teaching, in the hearing of the people, in the hearing of the people, for those of you who come to me and hear and act. Right? So he says, after he completed all of his teaching, he's the teacher. They're the ones hearing and hearing of the people.
He went on to Capernaum, which was kind of home base for him. And that's where we'll pick back up in Luke when... After Christmas. But I I skipped the Christmas story when we started the synoptic gospels recently. So for the next three weeks, we're gonna go through the synoptics version of the Christmas story.
I think Take Take My Life and Let It Be is probably for the second service. Right? Lord, I Need You is the next song. Would you all stand? After hearing that, I think that this is the most appropriate hymn of invitation and response.
Lord, I need you. Without you, it's impossible. It's not like just there are some good people and there are some bad people throughout life. You take dead men and you turn them into living new creations. Lord God almighty, would you bring forth out of the treasure, your deep treasure, all of the riches in Christ.
Would you, lord, would you transfer that to us? You've already imputed it to us positionally. We are right. I pray lord that we would begin to live it out following in your footsteps. You are our teacher.
We want to be your good students. Amen. Lord God almighty, I pray that we would be good students this week, that we would practice what we hear you preach, lord, that we put it into action in our own lives. Lord, may we be humble just as you are humble. May we be merciful just as you are merciful.
Lord God, show us where we're judgmental and condemning. Show us where we're unforgiving. Show us where we're stingy. Lord, give us the opportunity this week to live outside of ourselves. Lord, allow us the strength under your transformation to live out the good old gospel way.
