"The Verse Everybody Knows... And What It Really Means" by Neal Pollard

Good morning. I hope

at 6 o'clock tonight that you will make it your business to be back here.

We are blessed with a robust and growing group of

those that we call the crew, those who are in the college age group attending

college or perhaps already out into the workforce, but in that same stage of life.

We do this on many of our 5th Sundays as we have

either our high schoolers or those who have already graduated

and are in that crew group who lead our worship. And we have 3

of our young men who are going to be preaching lessons from

the general theme of Jesus the Master Teacher. And so

I know you will want to encourage them and you will be encouraged as

a result of your having been here.

You know, it's very difficult for you to read online, maybe news

media or news articles, without seeing this come up.

This verse is used all the time with

regard to some potential controversy or something where it seems that

people have made up their minds without having all the facts,

or at least that would be what was presented.

Judge not. That you be not judged.

I noticed that there were several articles that either had this in the title or

in the byline just in recent times on

subjects as diverse as Olympic skiing or

with regard to the history of transgenderism or Justin

Timberlake's DWI arrest or

the Alaskan Bush People in some burglary charge.

Or someone who is a star on the show Impractical

Jokers. It comes back around.

We see it all the time. Judge not that

you be not judged. I think one of the challenges that

I face in preaching a lesson like this is that the words are too familiar.

And what does Jesus really mean when he says it?

What we want to do is to set it into its context. This is

something that Jesus is saying as part of the greatest sermon that was

ever preached. And Jesus is reaching toward the conclusion of

that sermon. And if you really want to know what Jesus is trying to

say as the thesis of his sermon, I really believe that

you've got to go to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 20 where Jesus is speaking

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

to those who would follow him and he would say, unless your righteousness

exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will in no wise enter into

the kingdom of heaven. And so Jesus is talking about how

do you have true righteousness? And we want to be right in

God's eyes. And so Jesus goes about to

fulfill that objective. Now, there are several things

that we see as we walk through that sermon. And one of the things is,

is that Jesus in this sermon uses the phrase

do not repeatedly. If my math is

right, 22 times in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is

going to say that. He'll say, do not let your left hand know what

your right hand is doing. He will say,

do not use vain trumpet repetitions. Do not sound a

trumpet before you. He'll say, do not lay up for yourselves treasures

on earth. He'll say, do not worry.

And then he'll say the words that we read in our text, do not

judge so that you will not be judged.

For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged. And with what standard of

measurement you use, it shall be used against you.

If you see a brother and you say, see the speck

in your own— in your eye, and you do not behold the beam that is

in your own eye, you hypocrite! First take the beam that

is in your eye out so that you can see the speck that is

in your brother's eye. Do not give what is holy to the dogs,

and do not cast your pearls before swine, else they

will trample them under their feet, and they will turn and they will tear you.

Matthew chapter 7, verse 1 through 6. He uses

Matthew 7:1–6

that phrase, 3 times here, but it's that first verse

that we know best. Judge not that

you be not judged. Now, that word judge that we see there is

a word that means to think. It means to consider, or it

means to come to a conclusion. And when we see

this word in the New Testament, we have to understand that it falls into at

least 2 categories, that sometimes there is a judgment

that we are forbidden to do. As we see in this verse.

There is a judgment that we'll talk about this morning in this lesson,

and the Lord doesn't want us doing this. He's going to say it again through

James. And James is often reflecting back, it seems, on the Sermon on the Mount.

And in James 4:10-11, he says,

James 4:10–11

there is one lawgiver and one judge. Who are you to judge your

brother? And so Jesus will say, there's some judging I don't want you participating

in. And then there is a judgment that

we are encouraged to do. While we might look at

a passage like John 7:24, look, there's 2 kinds here.

John 7:24

He says, do not judge according to appearances,

but judge righteous judgment. John 7:24.

John 7:24

He says, will you not judge rightly? Luke 12:57.

Luke 12:57

And with regard to the church's obligation to honor the

Lord's will and to purge out the leaven that doesn't belong. He says,

you're to judge those who sin among the church, 1 Corinthians 5:12.

1 Corinthians 5:12

Now let's think about the contrast that exists that

sets the background of our lesson. On the one hand, we'll find ourselves

in a situation where the world will say, if you

say that anything, literally anything that I do is

wrong, then Jesus is condemning you in this

passage. But don't miss the fact that on the other side of this,

that Jesus would say to those, even those who would be His

followers, you can unfairly and

unrighteously judge.

And so, with all the controversy that exists, at least in

our day, it pays for us to go back into this text that

we've already seen together. And I hope you'll open your Bibles to Matthew 7:1-5.

Matthew 7:1–5

We'll do our very best to stay right here for the majority of this lesson.

And I want us to unpack that and see what Jesus teaches us

and see if we can't strike that biblical ground that

God wants us to with regard to this. For that purpose,

I want us just to notice 3 things. The first thing I

want us to notice is the process of unrighteous judgment.

I think you'll find as we walk through the text that Jesus shows

us that this is something that progresses. It starts in

one place and then it winds up somewhere else.

And I don't think it's the case that anybody ever wakes up in the morning

and says, I think I'm going to go out and unfairly and

unrighteously judge somebody. I don't think it works that way.

And yet, as we go through Scripture, we see that sin

is always progressive.

Progressive, not in the sense that it makes progress, but that it grows and it

metastasizes and it moves from where it begins.

James lines that out for us. You remember in James chapter 1 and

James 1 · chapter mention

verse 13 when he says, let no man say when he is tempted, I am

tempted of God, for God does not tempt man of evil, neither is he himself

tempted, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of

his own lust and is enticed. And lust, when it has

conceived, brings forth sin, and sin, when it is finished,

brings forth death. James 1:13-15. Now take

James 1:13–15

that idea and walk through scripture for just a moment and see

if that's not the case. Here's Eve in the Garden of Eden

before sin has even entered into the world, and she entertains the serpent

and she listens to him and she sees the

fruit and she touches the fruit and she takes the

fruit and eats it and she gives it to her husband. She shifts the

blame. And then she is punished. But as we continue to march through the Bible,

the next perhaps clear example of this we see is Lot.

Lot and Abraham are standing out over the plains and Abraham

gives Lot the first choice and Lot makes a selfish choice.

And the Scripture tells us that they go literally and figuratively down

into Sodom and Lot loses his family. And after he

loses his family, he gets drunk, he commits incest.

And out of this, he helps to start 2 wicked nations.

There's Joseph's brothers. They hate him.

They envy him. They mistreat him and they sell

him into slavery. Or there's Achan. Achan, in his own words, who says,

I saw, I coveted, I took, and I hid.

There's David. And when David does what he does, he breaks

the 8th, the 7th, the 6th, and then the 5th commandment.

There's Herod. Herod enters into an adulterous marriage.

He lusts after his stepdaughter, and then he makes a rash

vow, and then he commits murder. And that's not to say anything about Judas

and about the prodigal son and about Ananias and Sapphira,

and on and on it goes. It starts here and it winds

up here. And all of us need to recognize that

this can happen in our own lives, that we can allow sin to grow.

Maybe it's one sin and maybe we think we have it under control, and before

you know it, progresses beyond our ability to get our arms around it.

Now we think about that perhaps with some red-letter sins that we might say

these are big deals. These are the who's who like we've just

seen in some of the instances we saw, murder, adultery. But apply

this to what Jesus says in Matthew 7:1-5,

Matthew 7:1–5

the process of unrighteous judgment. Now what I want to do is

I want to, if you will allow me respectfully and reverently, to put

some words in Jesus's mouth. He is saying this.

Let's put it in the first person. That someone who might be

in the process of becoming an unjust judge will have to,

at least in principle, say these things. The first

thing that he says in his mind is, I think,

verse 1 and 2. Jesus doesn't use those words

in this particular text, but notice what happens here.

The person judges and the person applies

a standard, a measurement, on someone.

And so where unrighteous judgment begins is in the heart and in

the mind. And what we may not be able to recognize

sometimes is that when we are forming that judgment in our

mind, we are doing so from a place of ill will. And maybe

we're looking for that which will confirm the very unjust thing

that is forming in our mind. And so Jesus says, you want to

know where it begins? It's in your thoughts. And of course, the Bible tells us

how important it is for us to keep our thoughts under control.

I think Now notice what Jesus shows next. I see.

There is a great emphasis in this text on seeing.

You'll notice that Jesus talks about seeing and taking notice.

Now the word there that is used, see, is a word that Jesus is going

to be using repeatedly in the course of this sermon. It means to

take very close notice of, to look to such a degree

that one can analyze. Now notice how Jesus uses

that elsewhere. It's the word Jesus uses to talk about

if someone looks upon a woman to lust after her, to look

closely enough that unrighteous thoughts begin to form, Matthew 5:28.

Matthew 5:28

It's the same word that Jesus is going to use to

speak of the Father as He's analyzing why we do what we do.

He says, your Father sees in secret. He uses it that

way in Matthew 6:4, 6, and 18.

Matthew 6:4

And so Jesus says, here is the person who sees a

speck that's in his brother's eye. That's what he's doing. He's looking down

so closely. Jesus uses another word.

He says, take notice. It's parallel to see clearly.

Now this is to look so carefully that it engages our

heart and that it should matter to us and begin to shape us and

to move and And if change is needed, that it makes that

happen. But do you notice who Jesus wants to be taking notice

and of what and seeing clearly?

Jesus wants the one who may be struggling with this progress or process

of unrighteous judgment to take that kind of close notice in

themselves, to see clearly in themselves and

to do the yeoman's work that's needed to get to a better place

to judge. Someone else. But the unjust judge

gets this backwards. They analyze with emotion

the one who is the object of their judgment,

and they look at themselves in a much less critical way.

They look at themselves like James speaks in James 1:23-24.

James 1:23–24

They look at themselves in a mirror and then go their way, and they

immediately forget what manner of person that they are. Jesus says, don't do that.

And we'll say more about that later in the lesson. And so I think,

and out of my thinking, I see, and I'm seeing with the thoughts that I've

already been forming. And then what do I do? Naturally, I'm going to say something.

I'm going to feel the need to express to

you what I've been thinking and what I've been seeing.

Notice that what's in the heart, we speak out of that which fills the

heart, Matthew 12:34. And then this process

Matthew 12:34

is not done because we can say at least in principle that the person is

saying, I do. It strikes

me that the unjust judge that Jesus is painting the picture of through

this illustration does not go up and humbly ask, hey,

may I help you with the speck that's in your eye? There's other problems,

but he doesn't even do that. He says, let me do it. I'm going to

do it because I have been thinking about your problem.

I have been seeing your problem, which confirms what I've been thinking. And boy,

I got to say something about it. It and I'm going to make sure I

intervene until I take care of it. That's how

sin progresses in our lives.

It was Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher who said,

watch your thoughts, they become your words.

Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions,

they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character and watch

your character because it becomes your destiny.

Jesus wants us to get down to root causes. And with

regard to unrighteous judgment, there is a process that is

always at play that we've got to recognize.

Now, having said that, I want us to second acknowledge that there are some problems

with unrighteous judgment. As Jesus

lays this out, I'm sure I'm not being exhaustive, but I want us

to think about at least 3 of the problems. The first

problem that comes in trying to judge others when it's un— and as

we're trying to determine, is this righteous or not, is that we

all suffer from biases.

Jesus says as much. I look at what you're dealing with and

I know it's a speck and I have a beam,

but I'm looking more carefully at your speck, your little fleck,

than I am at this huge log that's coming out of my eye.

What would cause us to do that? If not

bias? You know, it seems to me that in bias we

are going to be much more apt to excuse

our loved ones or ourselves than

we are the same thing in others. I know

this is outdated and very simplistic, but I read an illustration

about a woman whose daughter and whose son got married within a month's time

of one another. And somebody asked her how that was all going.

And she talked first about her daughter's marriage.

And she said, oh, what a wonderful husband that he is. He lets her sleep

in every day. And he insists that she goes to the

salon, the beauty shop at least once a month. And she— he

won't let her cook. And he'll take her out to eat every night.

But my son doesn't have it so well. His wife

sleeps in, lazy girl that she is, till late.

And you know what? She insists that she go to the salon to have her

hair done, and she won't cook, and she makes him take her

out to eat all the time. Now, I ask you, what's the difference between the

two? One is how the in-law is treating

the one that she loves or the one that she thinks is getting abused.

You know, when it comes to biases, we all suffer. There are tests

that say that we act differently when we're looking at someone based

on their body type. Are they heavy or are they thin?

Are they black or are they white? Are they male or are they female?

But even the bias tests so often are skewed.

But Jesus is revealing that we have an unbiased judge

who sees all things perfectly. But one of the

problems with unjust judgment is we have a natural bias that

we've got to watch. But another problem with unrighteous

judgment is that we struggle with hypocrisy. This we

don't have to guess because Jesus comes right out and he says it in verse

5. He says, you hypocrites. And I want you to think

about how hypocrisy impacts unrighteous judgment as we see it in scripture.

First of all, hypocrisy may show itself by deflecting attention from

ourselves to others. Can you

think of a Bible example of that? Seems to be in John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

There's Mary who has made this expensive sacrifice

and she takes this ointment and she anoints Jesus who's about to go

and be crucified. And it's Judas that speaks out in criticism and

he says, why was this not sold for 300 denarii

and given to the poor? This he said not because he was concerned for the

poor, but because he was a thief. And as he had controlled the money

box, he would often pilfer the things that were put into it.

Sometimes what we'll do is, is if we can put the focus on

the faults of others, maybe they won't look quite so closely

at what's going on with us. You see how hypocrisy leads to

unrighteous judgment? Maybe we are deflecting, or maybe what we're doing

is we're justifying our own sins or soothing our

own conscience. In Romans 2:1,

Romans 2:1

Paul asked the Jews and he says, you who condemn

others, do you not do those things yourself?

Ever found yourself there? That you found yourself critical of

someone else and yet that very fault existed in you.

Isn't it helpful to try to find apathetic people if you

yourself are wrestling with apathy or unfriendly folks

if you yourself are not practicing friendliness the way the Bible does in that the

hypocrisy of this. But there's also the idea of building ourselves up

by tearing other people down.

That can be so much a part of the hypocrisy of unrighteous judgment.

However it comes into our lives, we've got to

guard against it because it is such a problem.

But another problem that comes with unrighteous judgment is

that we struggle with a distorted view. We see this in

verse 5 because there's a look at the brother and there's the look at ourselves.

When I preached in Denver, occasionally we would have professional athletes

that were members of the church and that were— attend the congregation.

Seemed like we had more baseball players than others. And one was Jeff Baker.

He was a utility infielder. He played with the Rockies

and was later traded to the Cubs. And I kept up with him. And when

he was a Cub— now he suffered from ocular migraines. I don't know if any

of you have ever had that before. But ocular migraine doesn't necessarily

come with a headache where you have to go into a dark room, but it

can be for somebody like Jeff even more dangerous. He was playing third

base in a game against the Dodgers, and a batter named Russell

Martin came to the plate, and he hit a screaming line drive right at

Jeff, but he was suffering from an ocular migraine. He lost vision in

one eye. Thankfully, he heard it, and he didn't move.

Just a few feet from his head, that ball whizzed by.

If he had moved or reacted in some way, it might have done serious

injury or even killed him. Because there was a problem,

it gave him a distorted view.

And at the heart of what Jesus is saying here is unrighteous

judgment is going to distort our view of things for

at least a few reasons. First of all, because we never fully know the facts

of the situation. We don't know the circumstances.

That are involved. Yes, maybe we hear that baby

that's crying or that, that toddler's tantrum. We ask

ourselves, do we know if those parents even were given any kind

of training or any kind of background with regard to knowing how to care for

children? Does that child have a medical condition? Are those parents

overwhelmed? Are they looking and needing some help? There may be

a dozen facts involved in a situation that we don't know. We never

have all the facts. Very rarely, if we ever do.

I was reading about in May in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that there was a

girl who contacted her dad and said that she had been the victim of a

sexual assault. And the dad was so outraged that he left home with his

loaded firearm. And when he got there and he assessed

things, he saw a man there. He shot the man he thought was the attacker,

but this was a Good Samaritan who had stepped in and had intervened

and was trying to protect the girl. You know, snap judgments

very rarely make sound judgments. And so Jesus would

say, in the spiritual realm, let's be careful because we don't always have

all the facts in the situation. But another thing

that should help us with regard to this distorted view is that all we see

is the outward person. We don't know what's going on inside. We don't know their

intentions. We don't know their motives. We don't know their hidden battles. We don't

know their desires.

Jesus says, make sure that you exercise righteous judgment,

but let's make sure that we are.

Eliab is a great example of this. Do you remember in 1 Samuel chapter 17,

1 Samuel 17 · chapter mention

Israel's fretting about Goliath and nobody is ready to take

up arms, but here comes David with his passion and his love for God.

And as he comes down into the battle, he wants to know, hey, what'll happen

to the guy who takes him on? And Eliab, the older brother who's known

David all of his life, he says, hey, who have you left those few sheep

with in the wilderness? I know the insolence and the wickedness of

your heart. You have only come down here to see the battle.

Hey, was Eliab right? Not according to God.

God had just looked down into his heart just before this in

1 Samuel 13:14 and says, here is a man after

1 Samuel 13:14

my own heart. Oh, that's the problem with unrighteous

judgment is we don't know what's going on inside of others.

The problem with unrighteous judgment is that it blinds us to

our own faults. And when that happens,

it makes it harder for us to repent and to confess. 1 John

1 John 1:8

1:8 and verse 10. It also blinds

us to the good that's in others and it keeps

us from being happy. How happy can you be if you're feeding yourself

a steady diet of negativity? And so as Jesus is helping

us to distinguish in judgment, he says,

you've got to see what the problems are. But finally,

and of course, as Jesus always would do, he'd never just leave us hanging like

that. Aren't you thankful that both in this text and in the context that

Jesus gives us a prescription for unrighteous judgment?

It's a sickness. It's a problem. And so what can

we do? Preventatively to keep it from happening or

proactively if it's happened and we've got to do something about it.

Look at what Jesus shows us. First of all, what you got to do is

practice self-examination.

Jesus drives the judge back into himself or

herself and says, I want you to look clearly

at yourself. You know, there's a word used in the New Testament that

23 times it's a word that means to test or to prove

or to analyze or to examine. It's the word to describe what we just

did in the Lord's Supper a few moments ago. 1 Corinthians 11:28,

1 Corinthians 11:28

sometimes we read it, so let a man examine himself.

In Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 10, we are to understand

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

what the will of God is. Or in 1 Peter chapter

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

1 and verse 7, that the testing of your faith may

be found to be praise and glory to God. Now sometimes that

word is used for us to use on others. Test the spirits

whether they be of God. 1 John 4:1. But with

1 John 4:1

the personal pronoun and the imperative, it's to be used on us.

Examine yourself. 2 Corinthians 13:5.

2 Corinthians 13:5

Prove your own work. Galatians 6:4.

Galatians 6:4

And so the first thing that will help us is to actively do

a close, deep dive on what's going on inside of

us. Examine yourself. Number 2,

practice brotherly love. Does it— is

it remarkable to you that in these 5 verses Jesus twice uses the word brother?

And really, it doesn't matter if it's a brother in Christ or a brother

in Adam. The principle is the same because there we

see this principle that we have— we're in the same family. Acts chapter

Acts 17 · chapter mention

17 and verse 26. Or if we're in Christ, Ephesians chapter 1

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

and verse 3, we have the same Father and that ought to soften our view

of our brother. And then we can practice the golden rule.

In verse 12, Jesus says, treat other people the way

you want to be treated, for this is the law and the prophets. What if

you took the word treat out and put in the word judge? Judge others.

Wouldn't that change the way that we look? If we

Actively thought, I am going to think about— I'm going to

treat them the way if they were in my position, I would

want them empathetically to look at me.

Then number 4, ask God to help you when you're struggling

with this sin. Matthew 7:7, Jesus will say,

Matthew 7:7

ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you shall find. I don't

think it's just confined to what we're looking at here, but it's the next

verse. Is that a coincidence? You're not stuck

in unrighteous judgment. Maybe you have a problem with negativity.

Maybe you find yourself very often looking for those specks

through those bean-colored glasses, but you don't have to stay there.

You can ask God and he will help and then look

for the good in others. If you can be speck detectors,

you can be sparkle detectors. Here is Paul who says,

I was before violent, an aggressor, a persecutor. 1 Timothy chapter 1

1 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

and verse 13. But what changed that? He said, the grace of our God God

was more abundant. We can do that.

We can find the good in others. We can look for it. You know,

there's an old myth out there that says that it takes 43 muscles to frown

and only 17 muscles to smile. That's not right.

Best science says that the number of muscles is about equal, about 17

for both, 13 to 17. But that tells you that you could just as easily

do the one as you can do the other. You can spend as much time

or more focusing on the good in others than you can

on the bad in them. And who tells us that better than one that we

studied in this quarter, Barnabas? Barnabas saw

good in Paul, Saul as he was, when no one

else did. Acts chapter 9 and verse 26. He saw good in

Acts 9 · chapter mention

the church at Antioch of Syria. Acts chapter 11 and verse 26. He saw good

Acts 11 · chapter mention

in John Mark when Saul, Paul, couldn't, Acts 15:36.

Acts 15:36

His first name is not how we know him, but by his nickname,

the son of encouragement.

And if we can get ahold of that, it will take care of this problem.

Now, having said all that, as we close, I want us to recognize

that there is some judging that God does not condemn.

This goes back to what we saw in the very beginning when the world would

get up in arms about any kind of a moral judgment that's made.

That's a different sermon, a sermon that needs to be preached, but we'll make it

a PS on this sermon. God tells us, each and every one of us,

that we have got to use the discernment to be able to see what

is sin and who a sinner is. Now, that begins within,

but God also tells us that we've got to do that with regard— there's a

standard that must be upheld. It's God's, not ours.

And he has given us the ability, the insight to see what sin is

and who a sinner is. But we can

do even that in love, Ephesians 4:15.

Ephesians 4:15

Preachers are— in fact, if you want to look at it this way, I've made

a judgment this morning that there is judgment that is righteous and there's

judgment that's not righteous. God is counting on the preacher to

say to all of those to whom he proclaims the Word of God that this

is what sin is, this is what righteousness is,

there's wrong, there's right.

But we can do even that with a spirit of gentleness.

2 Timothy 2:24-26.

2 Timothy 2:24–26

You know, one of the most overlooked commands

of the Bible is that judgment that we have to do with regard to those

who are walking disorderly. 2 Thessalonians 3:6.

2 Thessalonians 3:6

But even that, to be done right, must be done in love.

Hebrews 12:6. You know, there have

Hebrews 12:6

been a lot of people who have had this nickname in time, but I don't

believe anybody exceeds Isaac C. Parker.

Isaac C. Parker was a district judge in Missouri.

Later, he would serve briefly in the cabinet of Ulysses S.

Grant. And in his 20 years on the bench,

he sentenced 160 men to die.

And so he got the reputation far and wide. You know what he was called?

The hanging judge. That is not a reputation

we want, not with God and not

with one another. We're not hanging judges.

We're humble disciples. And James chapter 2,

James 2:11

verse 11 and verse 12 says that we're to conduct ourselves as those

who are going to be judged by the perfect law of liberty,

for judgment will be without mercy on those who show no

mercy. And mercy triumphs over judgment.

And so not only will we be judged in the way that we judge others,

but we will stand before a judge who will judge us according to

our works perfectly without any flaw or any shortsightedness

or farsightedness. But aren't you thankful

that he will judge mercifully? He helps

us because all of us have flaws and problems and sins.

And the judge is the one who first extended grace.

What we're about to do is we're going to sing a song of invitation.

David has picked it out. He's going to lead us in that. It's an expediency.

It's a custom. I think a very good one rooted

in biblical wisdom. And that is, as we consider

God's Word, maybe as we've been considering it through the week, maybe as

someone has been studying the gospel with us, We come to a realization

that Jesus died to save us from the sin that we all have, but we

must be obedient to his will. That means that we must respond by faith,

a faith that obeys God's will, that causes us to repent of

sins and to be baptized to have those sins washed away.

But our judge is anxious to

forgive. He doesn't want any to perish. 2 Peter 3. In verse

9. Hey, and those of us who are already in Christ and maybe we're struggling

with this or some other sin, he's a merciful judge

who wants us to make things right. He illustrates it through

the prodigal son as of an anxious father who will run to the penitent

who come back home to him. Maybe that's a need you have this morning as

a child of God. This is an invitation to which you need to respond.

Won't you do so right now as we stand and sing?