August 16, 2026 - The Gospel of Luke - Week 16 - Measure for Measure

When Jesus says, do not judge, I promise you that it's the most memorized scripture by non-believers on the planet.

It is the most memorized passage by most believers on the planet who get it wrong.

Don't judge, right?

That's what a believer says when they're doing something they know they shouldn't be doing, and another believer comes up for you to judge.

Don't judge me, the Bible says it, Jesus said it.

We have no clue what we're saying when we use that statement.

Welcome in everyone.

My name is Jason, and I'm one of the pastors at the Christian Church.

And on behalf of our team, I just wanted to say thanks for taking some time to journey with us through the scripture.

Our hope is that these words would cause you to think carefully about this Jesus we proclaim and that you would choose to trust him in your day-to-day.

And as always, if you're in the Asheville area, whether you live here or you're visiting, we'd love for you to come join us at the corner of Livingston and Depot Street in person at the Dr.

Wesley Grant Senior Southside Center.

Our prayer is that God's words would equip you for every good work that He's prepared for you to do today.

Specific sound effect that I think is defining us as a society, and it's a strange thing about our society, is that did you know you can be defined by a screenshot?

Did you know that?

Teenagers, are you aware that if you send something to somebody, you better be ready for it to live forever?

Teenagers, did you know that if you upload something on the internet, you better be ready for it to live forever?

And if you're not okay with it living forever, I would recommend not sending it.

Because even your closest friends will screenshot you.

So even if you delete something, it's gonna show back up.

And even if you only sent it to one person, you know it's gonna make its way around.

We live in that time.

That's the day we live in right now.

So a screenshot is defining us.

And because a screenshot can freeze one moment, one comment, one bad decision.

Like I'm dead serious about this.

It's defining us.

One stupid thing that you said, one angry response via text.

And it doesn't matter that that single moment may have something that happened before or after defining it.

That screenshot has begun defining you.

It may not matter that you apologized, or maybe that you changed direction, or there's more to the story.

The screenshot has become the person.

We've gotten really good at doing this to one another.

We find the worst thing someone has done or said, we freeze it in time, and we decide that's who they are.

I mean, I cannot emphasize this enough about the condition of the ugliness of the human heart today.

Many of you have probably seen it, you've experienced it, you're watching people go through it.

Social media has certainly made this easier, but social media didn't create this issue.

We've been doing this to each other forever.

We do it in families, we do it at work, we do it with neighbors, and unfortunately, we do it in churches.

We can reduce an entire human being to the worst thing we know about them.

And you know what we do?

We go, you really need to hear this, rather than looking at our own hearts.

See, it's how we escape from actually dealing with what Jesus is going to point us to this morning.

What makes today's passage so uncomfortable is that Jesus doesn't simply ask, How do you see that person?

Jesus goes deeper.

What does the way you see that person reveal about how you see God?

That's ultimately what's going on here.

It's the way that you see people has everything to do with the way you see God.

Most of us eventually become like the God we believe in.

It's just the way it works.

If we believe that God is harsh, that God is suspicious, that he's difficult to please, and he's constantly looking for what's wrong in us, the vision of God will eventually shape the way you treat people.

If you are harsh and critical and pointing out everything, there's a good chance you believe God is doing that to you.

And so Jesus will take us to a deeper place this morning.

But if we believe that God is merciful, that he's compassionate, that he's patient, that he's generous, that he's eager to restore people, that's gonna shape us too.

What kind of God do you believe in?

And are you becoming like him?

Last week we ended our portion of Jesus' sermon on loving our enemies with this incredible passage, Luke 6, verse 35.

Luke 6:35

Love your enemies, do good to them, lend to them without expecting to be repaid.

Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.

You must be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.

It's easy to hear all of that as a Christian to-do list.

Many people do see it that way.

Many people see Jesus coming into the world as giving us more things to do.

Ultimately, what we're listening and we're hearing is think of the best thing you can do for the worst person you know and do it.

That sounds insane.

Think of the best thing you can do for the worst person you know and do that.

Yo, collectively, we all go, Jesus, seriously.

Really?

You don't know the worst person I know.

There's no reason for me to do the best that I can do for them.

Think of what you would want done for you and what?

Do that for them.

Hmm, Jesus, I just don't know if you know them like I know them.

I mean, that's what we say, right?

God, you don't possibly have any clue about who this person is.

That's what we say.

Because if Luke 6 is mainly a list of behaviors that we have to manufacture or come up with, it will sound impossible.

When you read the gospels, you read love, give, forgive, don't condemn, be generous, be merciful, all of that sounds impossible.

And to be quite honest, the scripture never tells us that it is possible apart from the power of the Holy Spirit.

Some of you will try and do the Christian living thing without relationship with God, and you'll find yourself crushed by that.

But some of you will learn that surrender is the way forward, and you'll go, God, I can't do that.

And somehow you'll find yourself doing those very things.

There's two ways to live under your own strength or under the power of the Holy Spirit.

And the power of the Holy Spirit introduces us to a whole nother way of living.

It's exhausting to simply live Christianity's to-do list, but when Jesus gives us the center of it all, be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.

This isn't first about what you are supposed to do, it's about what God is like.

And maybe, just maybe, we've forgotten what God is like.

Maybe for some of us, that's the crux of our issue.

We have forgotten what God is like.

The Christian life doesn't begin with try harder, it begins with discovering how God has treated us.

Only when we understand that God has been this way towards us will we begin to understand that we weren't meant to live that we were meant to live that way towards others.

So, the question for you this morning is what kind of God do you believe in?

And here's why that's an important question.

You will become like the God you imagine.

For some of us, that's great news, and for some of that's really difficult.

I heard I remember hearing a guy say that the more false your view is of God, and the more committed you are to that false view of God, the worse off it will be for you and for those around you.

I have seen that come play out a thousand times in the church.

When we have an incorrect view of our Father in heaven, it absolutely determines our view of ourself and our view of others.

That is why Jesus came into the world.

Because we all have a false narrative, we all have a false view, we all have warped views, we all have mixed up views, and it's okay that we come to Jesus with those because his intention is to change the way we see God.

And it's so important.

Verse 37 Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.

Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you.

Forgive others and you will be forgiven.

Give and you will receive.

Your gift will return to you in full, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over and poured into your lap.

The amount you give will determine what you give back, get back.

Then Jesus gave the following instruction Can one blind person lead another?

Won't they both fall into the ditch?

Students are not greater than their teacher, but the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher.

And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?

How can you think of saying, friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye when you can't see past the log in your own?

Hypocrite.

First get rid of the log in your own eye, then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.

Jesus begins by showing us something simple but uncomfortable.

And here's what you need to hear.

You will tend to treat people like you believe God treats people.

It's unfortunate, especially when we live in a world that has so many views of what God is like, when we adopt a false posture or a false narrative of what God is like, we will treat people like that view.

It's really important that we hear this.

When we hear, do not judge, do not condemn, forgive, give, Jesus is saying, This is what I'm doing.

Jesus said in John, in John 3, I didn't come into the world to what?

Condemn the world.

I came into the world to what?

Save the world.

There is coming a time when judgment will be, when God chooses to wrap all up all eternity.

But right now, we stand in that moment of mercy and grace and all of those good things because it says when we put our trust in Christ, now we step out from underneath of judgment into grace.

We are in grace and mercy period right now.

Now is the day of salvation.

That's what scripture says.

We are to step out from under judgment and condemnation.

Why, when, and how?

It's by believing that Jesus is who he says he is.

Trusting that our Father sent his son into the world, not to condemn the world, but to save the world through Christ.

Jesus isn't saying simply stop being mean.

He's describing the behavior of people who have discovered what their Father in heaven is like.

That's where he's moving all of this.

Now, when Jesus says, do not judge, I promise you, that is the most memorized scripture by non-believers on the planet.

It is the most memorized passage by most believers on the planet who get it wrong.

Don't judge, right?

That's what a believer says when they're doing something they know they shouldn't be doing, and another believer comes up.

Who are you to judge?

Don't judge me.

The Bible says it.

Jesus said it.

We have no clue what we're saying when we use that statement.

Jesus is not saying we can never recognize right from wrong.

In fact, there are multiple passages that say you are to discern good from evil.

You are to discern and pay attention to false teachings.

Be aware that they're out there.

Be aware that believers are going to sin and know how to approach them.

That is the scripture is full of that.

What he is talking about here is Jesus is stepping in front of that harsh, critical, dismissive posture that seems to put somebody's failure front and center.

And you have no desire for them to be restored to God or people.

All you want to do is to see them destroyed.

So here's the question: What if the way we treat people exposes our theology?

What if it does?

What if your view of God and your theology?

That's what theology is just thoughts on God, right?

Everybody has them.

Everybody's a theologian, ultimately.

What if the way you treat people reveals your theology?

So, if you're constantly harsh, judgmental, eager to punish, is it possible that somewhere deep down you believe God is harsh, judgmental, eager to punish?

Or if you're becoming merciful, compassionate, gracious, could it be because we're finally discovering that God has been merciful, compassionate, and gracious towards me?

Two important questions.

In church, what if one reason the church has modeled criticism and judgment is because we know very little of the God Jesus is talking about in the Gospels?

What if that's our issue?

Jesus is taking it deeper.

Maybe you imagine God as a penny pinching God.

Right?

He's reluctant to give.

Maybe he's a God looking for reasons to keep people out.

Maybe that's your view of God.

Maybe you're like, nah, he's so particular, and I don't, I just don't think you measure up.

I don't think you qualify.

I don't think you're in.

Maybe he's a God who makes grace really difficult to receive.

It's like dangling the carrot in front of a horse's face, and you're just moving them along, and maybe they'll get to it, maybe they won't, but God's really difficult.

And Jesus says, Let me tell you what your father is like.

Verse 38 is ridiculous.

Give and you will receive.

Your gift will return to you in full, pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over and poured into your lap.

The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.

I want you to imagine you're going to the grain, you're going to the market for grain.

Maybe you bring your basket or your bag, it's empty, and you're trusting that when you get to the market, there's going to be enough grain to fill that bag up.

He pours the grain, the grain guy pours the grain in.

And then what he does is when he starts pouring it in, he stops pouring for a second before it gets full and he shakes it up a little bit so that there's no air pockets or nothing's blocking grain from getting all the way into the basket.

And then he just begins pouring again.

And then if you got a generous grain guy, he wouldn't just fill it up to the top so that it was kind of rounded on the top.

He would push his fist down the middle so that when there would be there'd be an expansion so he could pour more grain into that grain basket.

And as you're walking home, there's so much grain in it that it's kind of spilling out over, and you're like, oop, no, no, you know, you know, that grain guy is not trying to be stingy, he's wanting to make sure you leave with enough.

So, what do you do?

You make sure you go back to that grain guy every time you need grain, right?

Like you want as much as you can possibly get.

That's what generosity is.

You just want more of it once you experience it.

Jesus isn't only talking about money here, and I and it drives me insane that this passage only gets used when somebody wants your money.

It bothers me.

As a teacher and as a pastor, we get lumped, I get lumped into crews that are always saying, if you give, you gonna get.

That's not even what he's talking about here.

The beautiful power of the gospel is yes, your resources are included and that you give it away because it's not yours and you're a steward of it.

But this is so much more.

This is everything that God has poured out on us: mercy, grace, forgiveness, patience, compassion, second chances.

I want as much mercy as I can carry.

And here's the reason I want as much mercy as I can get it's because if it's if it's filling my hands, I can't pick up anything else.

I can't pick up bitterness, I can't pick up rage and anger and outbursts and selfishness because if my hands are full of mercy, I just don't want anything else.

That's how the gospel begins to transform.

And when we experience that, God doesn't just give stingily.

If that's a word, I don't even know if it's a word.

He pours it out so that it's overflowing and it's spilling around you as you're carrying your basket of grain home.

That's who God is, and Jesus says, if that's the mercy you want, stop divvying it out in teaspoons to other people.

That's our problem.

We want it in buckets for ourselves, but when it comes to other people, I have a teaspoon for you.

This is where Jesus is taking it.

The God that Jesus reveals throughout Luke is extravagantly loving.

The extravagant love of God creates the lavish life of the believer.

That's it.

It's the extravagant love of God that creates the lavishness in us that desires to pour it out on other people.

That's where it comes from.

We should absolutely be generous with resources, but most days, generosity that Jesus is talking about is gonna look like us being merciful to people, patient with people, forgiving with people, hospitable to people, compassionate with people, giving people other chances.

That's how it's gonna come out of our lives.

And that raises another question.

Who taught you to see God the way you see him?

Verse 39, then Jesus gave the following illustration.

Can one blind person lead another?

Won't they both fall into a ditch?

Students are not greater than their teacher, but the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher.

Jesus isn't abruptly like changing subjects.

He's asking, where did you learn to see God the way you see God?

The Pharisees were teachers, and teachers do more than pass along information.

They form imaginations.

That's what teachers do.

They form imaginations and views and the way people are going to see things.

They teach you what God is like, what God values, and who they believe deserves mercy.

And Jesus says, blind teachers produce blind students.

They both fall into the ditch.

It was meant to be a humorous picture.

Blind leading the blind.

And then he gives this warning: the student who is fully trained will become like the teacher.

If you are being taught by a blind teacher, you become like that blind teacher.

That is a warning to you and to me.

You become like the one who teaches you.

If your teacher is blind to God's compassion, eventually you become blind to God's compassion.

If your teacher sees sinners as the main problem, eventually you see sinners as the main problem.

If your teacher is obsessed with finding specks in everybody's eyes, eventually you become a spec finder.

But Jesus always gives us the kingdom alternative.

What happens when Jesus becomes your teacher?

You become like Jesus.

That's what it means to follow Christ.

Jesus shows us what the Father is like, and the Father is compassionate.

So here it is.

Jesus reveals the Father, we become like our teacher, and then we begin to treat people like our Heavenly Father treats people.

That's Christian formation.

Not simply did I learn the rules, but am I beginning to look like my father in heaven?

And this is where it gets personal.

Mercy changes the way you see a speck in someone's eye.

Verse 41 And why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?

How can you think of saying, friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye when you can't see past the log in your own eye?

Eye hypocrite.

First, get rid of the log in your own eye, then you'll see well enough to deal with the speck in your friends.

It's incredibly easy to hear everything we've said so far and think, I know somebody who needs to hear this.

Right?

And Jesus essentially is saying, exactly that's the problem.

We all do it.

We all sit in here and go, I know someone.

You're like elbowing the person sitting next to you, right?

Pay attention.

Oh, he's saying you pay attention.

You pay attention.

Knock it off with the elbowing and this and that.

And looking at somebody else and texting somebody, you really need to hear this sermon, right?

Like just go, Hart, you need to hear this sermon.

I need to hear this.

This is for me.

That's where Jesus is going.

I want you to, if you can.

Uh I just took an art piece off the internet, the girl with the pearl earring.

This is supposedly one of the top 15 personal, like individual paintings of an individual in the world, right?

And then what I did was I just put a blemish on this picture.

Okay.

This is what criticism does.

Go back to the first picture.

The person who's like the critic is like, ooh, wait, what's on her nose?

You've got one of the most the top 15 portraits ever painted in the history of the world, and a critic goes, wait, what's on her nose?

And then that blemish takes up the entire frame.

Right?

So rather than seeing the person or the artwork, all the critic sees is that blemish.

How would you like to be defined by your blemish?

That's the critical heart.

That's the judgmental heart.

That's what Jesus is pointing at.

The speck may actually be there, okay?

The speck is there.

The problem is that I become so consumed with what is wrong with you that I can no longer see you.

That's what criticism and judgment does.

I don't see your fear or why you're acting out for the reason you're acting out.

I don't see your story.

I don't see what God may be up to.

I don't even see my own failures anymore.

I just see the speck.

And eventually the speck becomes the person.

This is condemnation.

That's what it is.

And that's why it's so dangerous.

But notice something important.

Jesus actually wants the speck removed.

He says, I can give you clarity to help with the speck removal.

He does not say, you have a plank, so mind your own business.

That's what we would like Jesus to say, right?

I've got my own, I've got the log in my eye, I just gotta mind my own business.

That's not what he says.

He says, I'm gonna help you see clearly.

He says, first get rid of the log in your own eye, then you'll see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.

Following Jesus does not produce people who no longer care about sin.

I need you to hear me say that.

Following Jesus does not produce people who no longer care about sin, and we're like, ah, it's not a big deal, nothing's a big deal.

No, it produces people who know how to care for sinners.

That's what the gospel does.

There is a difference.

When I was a youth pastor, we went to a camp in Jacksonville, Florida, I think it was, and we were at one of those camps where everything was like mud runs and crazy, like obstacle courses, and and and everybody ends up soaked, filthy, and throwing mud.

There was one kid in my group who was genetically designed to catch mud directly in the eyeball.

Like if there was a person who was going to catch a fistful of mud in the eye, it was this kid.

And sure enough, he came running up to me with one eye swollen shut.

He had taken a fistful of wet mud right in the eye.

Mud was packed underneath his eyelids.

It was gross.

I took him to the restroom and I did whatever youth pastor probably did, the most hygienic thing, and I started digging my finger around in his eye to get the mud out.

Like it's super hygienic, and I know it was probably the smartest thing to do, right?

It was clean because water was involved, right?

Running water.

And I almost got most of it out.

One little piece stayed underneath.

I can remember, I still remember the view from this day.

Like I was pulling his bottom eyelid out and taking my finger.

Right.

You're supposed to do that.

Like doctors and nurses probably say you should do it this way.

And I did.

I was like digging in there, and it was just this one little piece that just kept moving back and forth.

And he was like, It hurts so bad.

I'm like, shut up.

I'm I think how awkward this is for me.

Like, I'm sticking my finger in your eye.

I can't believe you know, I'm I'm being super ungracious at this point, and hopefully the illustration won't be lost in this.

It was difficult and it was frustrating, right?

But honestly, like all I could think of in this moment was this teaching.

Like all I could think of, as mad as I was at this kid for getting hit in the face with a mud mud ball.

Like, right?

I'm just so frustrated.

It took me getting that close, like, and I can still feel like underneath the skin.

It's gross.

I'm sorry if it's causing you all to be like, ugh.

I did it though, okay?

So feel bad for me, not for yourself, right?

You have to get close.

Like the only way I was able to do that was he trusted me.

He was like, You have to get it out, JC.

You're my youth pastor.

You have to get, I don't want to go to the doctor, I don't want to miss any more mud runs.

I don't want to, you know, he was like complaining.

I was like, I'll get it, I'll get it, I'll I'll help you, you know, whatever.

But you had to move in a way that you were able to come close.

There was a trust relationship, and the whole time I wasn't trying to convince him there's something wrong with your eye.

He already knew that.

He already understood.

That's why he came running to me to help.

What I wanted him to have was sight again.

That moment gave me a picture of Christian correction.

Because your own plank changes the way you approach somebody else's speck.

You don't walk toward them saying, How could you possibly get mud in your eye?

Which I did.

Sorry.

Sorry.

You come saying, I've had plenty of mud in my eye, which I never had.

I didn't, not in that situation.

Let me see if I can help.

This is there's a difference in the way we approach.

And as the band comes and we close our time, what if we really believed God was like this?

Like he came close, not to tell us that we couldn't see, but to help us regain sight.

What if?

What if he actually, what if we believed God had treated us with more mercy than we could ever deserve?

Because when a critical culture develops, whether it's at home with your kids, right?

At home with your kids is a critical culture, or with your spouse, or at your workplace, or with your teammates, or with your school, or with your friends, or in your classroom, if that's developed, nobody will admit weaknesses, nobody will confess, everybody hides, because everyone knows that if weakness is exposed, somebody actually may pounce on them.

And in that kind of culture, nobody gets healed.

The person being criticized stays wounded, and the critic becomes even harder.

But what would happen if an entire community really believed in the God Jesus has described to us?

Imagine a community where weakness could be admitted because nobody was waiting to attack, where sin could be confessed because restoration matters more than someone's humiliation, where people were generous with forgiveness, where connection could happen because you knew this person's not trying to condemn me, but they're trying to see me.

What if our instinct towards even the undeserving became, what is the best thing I could do for them?

This is the kingdom Jesus came to reveal.

During Hurricane Helene, everybody's needs list got really short.

Food, water, safety, and a way to help somebody else.

That was it.

As our church began meeting needs with very few questions asked, something began to happen.

Generosity became contagious.

People from the neighborhood would find would come and find what they needed, and they would say, I know somebody else who needs this.

Can I take it to them?

People who had just received help became helpers, and when everybody was being gentle with everybody else's need, people felt safe saying, I need something.

This is what mercy does to a community.

Somebody has to start modeling it.

Somebody has to start modeling what the father is like, and when people experience it, generosity becomes contagious, mercy becomes contagious, compassion becomes contagious, grace becomes contagious.

Until eventually people begin asking, where did these people learn to live like this?

And our answer is our teacher, Jesus, he taught us what the Father is like.

So as you go home this week, maybe you need to unpack a couple of questions.

What is God like?

Maybe you need to be like just deep diving.

What is God like?

Because the problem is, if we don't view Him as extravagantly compassionate, that's not how we're gonna treat others.

So maybe we need to do some diving there.

Second one is how has God treated me?

Gospels tell us He's treated us with overflowing mercy rather than the condemnation we deserve.

Maybe the third question is who am I becoming?

Students eventually become like their teacher.

Who are you becoming and are you okay with that?

If you're not, surrender it.

Be like Jesus, I am that.

I am so critical.

I just want to be gracious.

I want to be more gracious.

Help me.

Help me understand it.

The last one, how will all of those things change the way I treat people?

I'm gonna give away the mercy I've already received.

You know, these are all questions that come right out of this text.

To be able to deal with the speck, to be able to deal with the log in the eye, the blind leading the blind, it's all connected.

And it has to do with how we view our Father in heaven.

Jesus came to transform how we see God.

Father, I ask that as we consider your words, it is not an easy conversation.

Because we're dealing with how we grew up and people that we've known and church experiences that we've had and relationships that we've known.

And there's so much at work, but God, you are bigger than those things.

And so this morning, Lord, if there are people in this room that have understood, I just I don't view God the way Jesus reveals him.

I have a harsh view of who God is.

Would you help them?

Would you minister in these moments by your spirit to people who need to know you are extravagantly lavish with your love on people.

And the mercy and grace that they will find if they will but just surrender to you will be shocking.

And Lord, if there are people in this place who have been treating others with a critical eye and just judgment and consistently seeing the speck and not the person, forgive us.

We can be people like that real fast, especially when we've been offended.

Make known to us how you want to minister this morning.

As we sing, as we pray, as we can conclude our time together, would you just meet us here?

We just wanted to say thank you for listening to the Highly Christian Church podcast today.

And if you ever want to connect with us, send a prayer request, ask questions, or for any other reason, you can visit our website, www.highlychristian.com, or you can send us an email at info at highlychristian.com.

That'll bless you guys.