Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: There’s a lot of things that Christians can agree to disagree on, but the main thing is to know Christ and to make Him known. The main thing is to love God and to love people. Rather than taking this side or that side, I think we ought to get on the page of what the main thing is, which is about knowing Christ and making Him known.

Greg: Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in biblical studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled The Religion of Jesus. Let’s listen in as JP gives us part one of The Golden Rule.

JP Jones: If you have your Bibles, would you open to Matthew chapter 7? We are going to continue in our discussion on the Sermon on the Mount, which is the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived. In this sermon, Jesus is contrasting the prevailing attitudes both of our culture and of religion. It’s a countercultural message. He says that the message of religion only has it partially right, and the message of our culture is a message that only has it partially right. If you follow those messages, you’ll get it totally wrong.

The only truth is found in Jesus Christ and His teaching of an inner heart transformation which produces a change of life. It’s being called a Kingdom Disciple, and that’s what we’re looking at here in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. The other day, I found myself in one of those no-win conversations. I was asked a question by someone, and I knew that whatever answer I gave, it wasn’t going to be a satisfactory answer.

Here was the scenario: what has happened is that a major Christian leader who is well-known has made a stand on some issues and is moving in some directions. There are some people who are really excited about what he’s doing. But then there are other people in the church who aren’t excited about what he’s doing; in fact, they think the way he’s doing it is wrong. Another outspoken Christian who represents that group has come out very publicly criticizing what this other leading Christian is doing.

This person that I had this conversation with came up to me, told me about this scenario, which I was familiar with, and then said, "What’s your take on it? What position do you take?" Now I knew if I said I support this guy in what he’s doing, then all the people who support this group will be opposed to me. And I knew if I said, "Well, no, I support this guy in his criticism of that guy," then all the people who think that’s a good idea would be opposed to me.

I have an opinion on the issue, which is really that the issue is not that big an issue. And so I told the person, "There’s a lot of things that Christians can agree to disagree on, but the main thing is to know Christ and to make Him known. The main thing is to love God and to love people. So I think, rather than taking this side or that side, we ought to get on the page of what the main thing is, which is about knowing Christ and making Him known." And then that guy got ticked off at me.

So here’s one guy being critical of another guy, and another guy being critical of someone because they’re not critical of anybody. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to judge other people and to gossip about them? Jesus here in the Sermon on the Mount says that is the one thing we cannot do as Kingdom Disciples. It will set us apart from our culture, and it will set us apart from religion by making a choice not to judge, not to be hypocritical, but instead do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

That's what Jesus teaches us. Listen to what Jesus says here in Matthew chapter 7: "Do not judge, or you too will 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 sawdust 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 is a plank in your own eye? 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. 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. So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

Jesus is telling us how to be Kingdom Disciples, how to have inner righteousness which is expressed in external righteousness, how to have a transformed heart which leads to a transformed life. He deals with our personal relationships with one another, and He gives us three don'ts and one do. Here’s the first don't: don't judge. "Do not judge, or you too will 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."

The context of what Jesus is talking about following up chapter 6 is judging others in relation to their acts of righteousness—judging others as to how spiritual we think they are—and judging others with respect to their values. Because Jesus talks about, "don't store up treasures on earth, but store up your treasures in heaven. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you." So judging people not only in terms of how spiritual we think they are, but judging people by the priorities they live and the choices that they make. Jesus says, "Don't judge."

Now, there is probably more nonsense per square inch on this one scripture than any other verse in the Bible. Because many people have wrongly understood that Jesus is saying you really can't say something's true and something else is false. You really can't say that something is sin and something else is righteous. In other words, Jesus robs us in this statement of making any moral judgments or any theological judgments, and He doesn't do that.

Jesus is not affirming religious pluralism—you can believe whatever you want to believe as long as you believe it. Jesus isn't saying you can live any way you want to live as long as you personally have ownership of that. That’s not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is talking about Kingdom Discipleship. He’s talking to people who've crossed the line and given their lives to Him in faith and have surrendered their lives to Him and are trying to live a life that pleases God and blesses people. He says, "Don't act as the judge, jury, and executioner of someone else. Only God has that right."

God is the only one who ultimately can judge the secrets of men's hearts. Only God can really look at somebody’s motives. Only God can really look at the heart. Remember that's been the theme of this whole sermon—that true religion is a religion of the heart, and a transformed heart leads to a transformed life. Several years back when my son was real little, I saw on the sports page and saw on the TV network that they were going to have a big fight tournament. I'd never been somebody that was really into fighting or boxing or anything.

But the novelty of this tournament I found interesting because the principle behind it was they were bringing people from different martial arts disciplines together. They were going to have a big tournament, and the point was to discover which is the most effective self-defense, the most effective martial art. So they had somebody who was a boxer, and somebody who was a Kung Fu fighter, and somebody who was a karate fighter, and somebody who was a kickboxer, and somebody who was a wrestler. They had a Sumo wrestler there. They had somebody who practiced what was called Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and had this big tournament.

It was the first Ultimate Fighting Championship. A lot of guys are really into that now. We got guys in our church who compete in that. The first one, I remember watching the first one and as I was watching it, they interviewed the fighters and they talked about the various fight disciplines. I looked at these guys, and I quickly assessed who I thought was going to win the tournament. And who do you think I thought was going to win the tournament? The biggest, strongest, baddest-looking guy. That’s who I thought.

Well, that guy didn't win. In fact, someone you would never pick to win a fight at all was the guy who won the whole thing. He talked about how his particular style of fighting, which was Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, was a superior style of fighting. See, I looked at these guys as fighters and thought, "Well, obviously the biggest, strongest is going to win." And that wasn't how it happened. I made the same mistake as Samuel made in the book of 1 Samuel thousands of years ago.

Samuel was the prophet to Israel, and God had told him to anoint the next king because Saul, the first king, had waffled and no longer was following God's ways. God said, "You need a king after my own heart." So Samuel, "I'm going to tell you to go down and anoint this guy, and he’s one of the sons of Jesse." So Samuel goes down, and he sees Jesse, and Jesse has all his sons line up. And who does Samuel look to? The biggest, strongest, best-looking guy. And he starts to anoint him with oil to anoint him as the king, and God says, "No, it's not him."

Then Jesse looked at the second studliest-looking guy, and God says, "It's not him." And he went down the pecking order. And then this runt of the litter guy comes up, the youngest who's been out watching the sheep. It says he was ruddy, means tanned, and handsome. He was a pretty boy. He’s a metro kind of guy. He comes up and God says, "That's the guy. I want you to anoint to be king." And then God spoke to Samuel and said, "Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart."

See, that's the essence behind what Jesus is telling us here in Matthew chapter 7. God is the only one that can really look at another person's heart. We can't. And when we judge, we usurp the role of God. We get a God complex when we judge other people. We put ourselves in a position that only God can occupy. In fact, there's a warning associated with this. It says, "Do not judge, or you too will 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."

In other words, when we put ourselves in the position of presuming upon another person’s motives and heart, and we put ourselves in the position of judging another person, we open the door and in effect say to God, "God, you can do the same thing to me." A couple of years ago I was struggling through an issue where I felt like I'd been wronged and I was having a hard time forgiving someone. I was in a conversation with a friend and telling him about it, and he looked at me and said, "Well, be careful. You better not pray that God judges them."

I said, "Why?" And they said, "Well, if you pray that God judges them, you're basically giving God permission to judge you the same way. So do you want God to treat you with judgment or do you want God to treat you with grace?" I said, "Grace." And they said, "Well, you better ask that God would give them grace too." You see, that's in effect what Jesus says in the previous chapter, in Matthew chapter 6, when He talks about the Lord's Prayer or the Disciples' Prayer and He says, "If you want God to forgive your sins, you need to be able to forgive the sins of others, forgive those who've sinned against you."

Here in Matthew 7, He states it in the negative and says, "Don't judge or you'll be judged." In fact, this is a teaching that's consistent with all of what the New Testament reveals about the way we are to respond in behavior with one another. In Romans chapter 2, the Apostle Paul is painting a picture about how all of us are in need of God's grace in our lives. Nobody’s life measures up to the holy standard of God. In Romans chapter 1, he's just talked about the person whose behavior has spiraled away from God, whose behavior obviously is a violation of God's commandments. They are obviously a sinner.

Romans chapter 2, he turns the corner and says, "Well, what about the person who really lives a moral life and they think they have moral superiority over the sinner?" This is what Romans 2 says about that person: "You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet you do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of God's kindness and tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is so that you will be led to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed."

James chapter 4 says this: "Brothers, don't 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. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who's able to save and to destroy. But you, who are you to judge your neighbor?" These are penetrating passages of scripture, and there are many more basically saying the same thing, echoing the words of Jesus not to judge or we will be judged ourselves.

When we judge others, we are making false assumptions about God, false assumptions about ourselves, and false assumptions about others. When we judge, in effect, we’re saying, "God, You don't know what You're doing because You're letting this behavior slide. So let me help You out." When we judge, we’re saying, "My stuff doesn't stink, therefore I am in the position to be able to look down on you." When we judge, we are categorizing people with one stroke. So we look at one particular behavior, but we want to paint their whole life with that.

When we judge, we're not thinking rightly about God, about ourselves, or about others. And it’s not the way of Kingdom Disciples. So Jesus says, "Don't judge." Here’s the second don't. He says, "Don't be a hypocrite." Verses 3 to 5: "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? 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? 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."

Jesus is speaking in exaggerated terms and He’s giving an illustration of hypocrisy. Nobody likes a hypocrite. In fact, Jesus had the strongest words of rebuke for religious hypocrites. Matthew chapter 23, read that sometime. It's seven statements that Jesus says, "Woe you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. Woe you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites." That English word "woe" is onomatopoeia—a word that sounds like something. In the Greek, we say "woe" and we understand what that means. In the Greek, it's "ouai." "Ouai." "Ouai." I mean, you can almost sound the way it’s coming out. It’s a statement of utter designation for judgment.

And only Jesus Christ could do that. What He reserves it for is religious hypocrites. Don't be a hypocrite. Then He gives this illustration here. By the way, the word for hypocrite in the Greek culture and the Greek language was an actor—someone who's on the stage, who wore a mask, had different masks that represented different emotions. They put up a different mask, but you never saw the real person. So being a hypocrite is putting on a false front before people.

The illustration that Jesus gives is from carpentry, because Jesus was raised as a carpenter; He understood those terms. He said if there's a little splinter in your eye, and you see a big beam in somebody else's eye, don't disregard the splinter in your eye because you want to take care of the beam in the other person's eye. Don't act like, "Well, comparatively, it's just a little splinter so it doesn't really matter, but I really need to deal with that beam in your eye."

Deal with your own stuff. That’s what Jesus says. In fact, someone came up to me after the first service and said, "I think you had it wrong in the way you explained that, because you said you've got to deal with the speck and he deals with the plank." Well, if you actually read the passage, Jesus changes it. He says, "Why are you trying to deal with the plank in the other person's eye when not dealing with the speck in your eye?" and then He says it again and reverses it: "Deal with the plank in your eye and then you can take the speck out of the other person's eye."

Did Jesus not know, did He mess it up? No. He did that on purpose to be able to point out that's the problem with being a hypocrite. You don't judge things accurately. You minimize your stuff and maximize somebody else's stuff. You think your stuff really isn't that bad, and somebody else's stuff really is bad. Therefore, I’m justified in talking about their stuff or dealing with their stuff. See, judging and being a hypocrite are very closely tied to one another.

Why is it that we would even do this? We look at it, and we objectify it, and we say, "That’s just not the way of Jesus Christ." And I want to be a Christ-follower, so that’s not the way I want to live. But we all have to own to some degree we all do that. Why is it? One of the reasons is just pride. We struggle with pride. We think we’re better than other people. Very few of us would think we’re better than Jesus, but what we would think is, "My particular struggles really aren't that bad, but that other person's stuff, that’s really bad."

So we feel justified in our hypocrisy. Another reason is not understanding what many people call the good-bad split. We tend to demonize some people and idealize other people. So we think some people are all good and other people are all bad. People that we see as all good, we really give them a lot of grace. We see their struggles and their faults and their sins, but we really think they’re a good person, so we don't judge them because we think they're good. We make them all good.

On the other hand, people that we think are bad, we discount any positive contribution about their life and we maximize the parts we don't like or the parts we think God doesn't like. We make them all bad. And then we feel okay in our hypocrisy because they're bad. "Well, they're bad. That’s why. They're bad. It's okay to talk about them because they're bad." The point is, there is both good and bad in every person. I hope they're not judging me right now in baby talk. That means, "That stinks. That’s a terrible sermon."

Which, by the way, I said this to the first service and I'll say it to you. I’m not a prophet, I’m not the son of a prophet, but I'd be willing to bet that some of us will get in our cars right after church, and before we get home, we will break these commandments of not to judge and not to be a hypocrite.

Greg: What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we’d like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We’ll send it your way for just five dollars. Or if you’d like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653, or give us a call at 949-916-0250. That’s 949-916-0250.

For your gift of 25 dollars or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP’s new book, Facing Goliath. Please join us every Sunday at 9:00 or 11:00 AM at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653, or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We’re going to get to the address and phone number again in a minute. But before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today’s message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. The teaching of Jesus is countercultural. It cuts through the cloth of religion and it cuts through the cloth of secular worldview. The teaching of Jesus is calling us to radical discipleship. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says this: the Law and the Prophets teach that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. That is a positive command. We are to be proactive as followers of Christ, demonstrating God's love, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

But there’s also the negative aspect of that command. Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7 that we shouldn't judge and we shouldn't be a hypocrite. When we judge others and when we act hypocritically, we act completely in opposition to the law. The law of Jesus sets us free. The law of Jesus transforms our lives. The law of Jesus leads us to a life of obedience to God and love towards our neighbor. That means we practice the Golden Rule. We do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

That’s the high calling that God has for us in Jesus Christ. If it's your desire to be a follower of Jesus Christ, then practice what Jesus says: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If that’s your desire, I invite you to pray with me right now. Jesus, we ask You to transform our lives. Give us a new heart and fill us with Your love. Help us walk in Your steps, not judgmentally and not with an attitude of hypocrisy, but authentically help us do unto others as we would have them do unto us. And we pray for that in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Greg: We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653, or call us at 949-916-0250. On the internet, you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.