Pearls and Planks

Uh as promised, we're jumping back into the Sermon on the Mount series.

We're in Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Those of you who are not familiar with the Sermon on the Mount, it's a it's a compilation of some of great Jesus' greatest teachings delivered through an eyewitness.

So you have Matthew who would have followed Jesus town to town, would have heard these messages probably on repeat and wanted to make sure that what Jesus uh intended to get out there was gonna be received and and and would stand the test of time.

And so he he wrote the wrote it down.

Um it's Matthew 5, 6, and 7, and we've we've gone pretty much just straight through uh Matthew 5 and 6, and now we're gonna spend the next few weeks in Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

So if you have your Bible, you can turn there.

Uh I've got a little bit of a challenge today because it's we started this, I want to say, in April.

So we've been talking about it for a while, and then we had four weeks where we didn't talk about it at all.

So I don't want to just jump into the middle of the conversation and expect you to remember everything.

I don't expect you to remember anything, I said.

But um but but that's that's true actually.

I don't expect um, but but I I do want to uh without re-preaching um eight messages or whatever, I want to uh give you a couple things that I think will help set the foundation for this conversation.

Uh one of them is I want to talk about the audience that Jesus is talking to.

So if you go back to chapter four, you're gonna see that um Jesus has a group of people that he's talking to on the Sermon on the Mount that have something in common, but then they have a lot of things not in common.

So what they do have in common is that they all have a need.

Okay, Jesus is healing people, and so people who needed something healed were showing up.

And um, or or they they were coming with some someone they love who had a need.

And so you have uh everybody there is needy in some way.

Um, these are people that often would have been at the low end of the social strata, uh, people that had uh something they couldn't solve themselves, they probably were struggling financially, a lot of these people, and so they had that in common.

But the other element was that these people were really diverse, they came from a lot of different places, um, and so it actually mentions the towns, and to us the towns don't mean anything about where they came from, but to the listener in Matthew's day, it would have it would have absolutely been significant because it represented not only like people from different towns, but different ideologies, different uh worldviews.

And so, um, real quick, just to give you kind of a snapshot of this, uh, we talked about this early on.

Um, their culture was really centered around Hellenism, and so you had Hellenism was essentially the Greco-Roman way of living, and so it was an emphasis on education, it was an emphasis on entertainment and sports, it was an uh emphasis like on theater, it was an emphasis on health care, um, were huge emphasis, and so it was just a better way of living.

And so within the Jewish community, you had a spectrum of perspectives on how to respond to Hellenism.

And so, on one end of the spectrum, you had people that would be considered more liberal, they would have been more accepting of Hellenism and the Greco-Roman culture.

These are people like the Sadducees and the Herodians, if you hear those names.

Basically, they're people that say, you know what, I can love God and I can, you know, have my Jewish traditions, but also go to the theater, also be educated in this way, also um, you know, embrace their the the culture and the style.

And I might have some art in my house that that is Hellenistic and it's it's fine, I can do both.

Then you have people like the Pharisees who wholeheartedly rejected Hellenism, they saw it as a threat to their tradition, and so they doubled down on tradition.

And so they went to the most strict adherence to the Torah, the 613 laws of the Old Testament, and not only did they obey those, they created thousands of other rules and laws to support that, essentially saying, if God wants us to obey the Torah, we're gonna do it, you know, 10x.

And not only did they do it, but they created tremendous social pressure to anybody, uh, to everybody around them to do the same.

Otherwise, you're you're bad, you're evil.

You have the zealots, the zealots were were people who felt the same way the Pharisees did, but they just added some violence to it.

And so they were trying to start a revolution.

Essentially, we we're gonna get, we're gonna drive Rome away.

And then you have the Essenes who basically think everything's hopeless and everybody's corrupt.

The Pharisees are corrupt, the Sadducees are corrupt, the temple's corrupt, Rome's corrupt, everybody's corrupt.

So they go out to the Dead Sea and they start their own little commune, their own little community called Qumran, to basically hide out from the world and you know, write their own little memoirs.

Okay, so that's the culture.

So when Jesus is speaking at the Sermon on the Mount, you got understanding this is a big deal because when we understand these dynamics, everybody has a need.

So our need brings us together, but then we all see the world very, very differently as it relates to Hellenism.

And so as so you can feel that undercurrent as he's talking about essentially ultimately bringing people together, helping people see through each other's lens.

Okay.

Also, again, just to backtrack, two weeks before uh I went out of town, we we looked in, we finished up Matthew 6.

At the end of Matthew 6, um, it talks about a clear eye, if you remember that message.

The term eye, like an eye, is referred to in in uh Jewish culture to talk about the heart.

So the idea of aein tovah, which means a good eye.

If you have a good eye, it means you see the world through a good lens.

You see people through a good lens.

Well, man, there's so many good people out there.

Um, if you have aein raha, which is a bad eye, it means you see both people and situations in the world, you see it all as bad.

Oh, you know, it's only a matter of time before they get you.

Don't trust anybody ever.

Okay, it's the other shoe's gonna drop.

So you see doom and gloom everywhere you go.

The good eye is optimistic.

And in Matthew 6, it talks about a clear eye.

What's a clear eye?

Well, a clear eye, it's not rose-colored glasses, and it's not doom and gloom.

Ultimately, it's understanding that sometimes moth and rust can destroy your business.

Sometimes you catch a backhand and somebody makes you feel less than them.

Sometimes you get sued in court and you lose the lawsuit.

Uh, it goes through all these different things.

It says sometimes things go up, sometimes things go down.

But he said, ultimately, what will free you from your worry, your worry, this is that's what the end of chapter chapter six is about.

What will free you from your worry is when you store up your treasures in heaven.

In other words, you find your identity in who God says you are, that you know that He'll not leave you or forsake you.

Now, this doesn't mean you're always gonna win, win, win no matter what.

It also doesn't mean that they won't ever, uh you know, you won't ever be lied on, talked about, okay, taken out.

It's not saying that.

It's saying ups, downs, and everything in between.

They're gonna happen to you, but God will be with you, and if you'll put your faith in him and you'll anchor yourself to him and put your treasures in heaven, you will maintain peace and confidence and calm and even generosity in the middle of people doing bad things to you, and you'll come through it.

And on your worst day, you look out and you'll see a bird flying, and you'll go, God takes care of that one, he's gonna take care of me.

And you'll look at uh the lilies of the field and you'll look at the flowers and go, man, they're beautifully clothed.

You know what?

God's gonna take care of me.

And so he's talking about getting rid of your worry, and he's talking about your eye.

Okay, now that we have that, let's get into Matthew 7.

Matthew 7, verse 1 says, Do not judge others and you will not be judged.

Matthew 7:1

For you will be treated as you treat others.

The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

Now look at this, verse 3, based on everything we just said.

And why worry?

There's that worry word again, right?

He just talked about worry.

He just talked about how you have peace.

He said, Why worry about a speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?

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

And then verse six says, Don't waste what is holy on people who are unholy.

Don't throw your pearls to pigs, they will trample the pearls and then turn and attack you.

Okay.

Let's get into this.

What is this talking about?

Okay, so the word judge here is the word krino, and actually I have a definition for that, so go ahead and bring up, uh, bring up the definition.

Krino is the Greek word that means to judge, and it means to distinguish.

Really, it means to decide.

So to make a decision by implication.

Now look at this to try, to condemn, and to punish.

So what you see there just at that definition is the word krino has a pretty broad application.

It's everything from just simply making a decision, like which brand of tortilla chips are you gonna buy this time?

Okay, you have to make those types of judgments.

Um, all the way from that to then a judicial term, a judicial term which is essentially dropping a gavel and sentencing someone to a punishment, declaring someone ultimately guilty.

So it's pretty broad.

Um, when you think about crino, all right, let's think about a few things.

One is, again, it means to decide.

It also has uh uh the connotation to discern.

To discern.

So so if we think about deciding, deciding, um this is not speaking that you shouldn't be uh making decisions.

Like you have to make decisions.

In fact, we we would say this when you think about judgment, like when especially in high-stakes situations, um you you have to make judgments, and that's why we would say you should not operate a vehicle if you have had your judgment impaired.

Because you you you could you could kill somebody.

Happens all the time.

You kill yourself, you could do tremendous damage, and so you have to be in your best decision-making mind to be able to do that.

Well, the Olympics are about to kick off, and they're gonna they're gonna have a panel of judgmental people, judge, judges.

And and and Simone Biles is gonna do her flips and she's gonna land it, and the judges are gonna give her a score, and they don't just have one, they're gonna have a whole squad.

They're gonna have, I don't know, I even know how many, maybe you wouldn't have five, I don't know, something like that.

Because we know that even an expert might get it wrong.

And so we got five people, and we're gonna do a composite score, and we're going to make decisions about how well she stuck the landing, so to speak.

So decisions have to be made all the time.

You're making them part of life, is is decision making.

Then you have discernment, right?

Which is, again, this is supported in scripture.

I could literally take this whole sermon and just talk about discernment.

I mean, there is a lot of places, both from the mouth of Jesus and into the Apostle Paul and all the epistles, where they talk about discerning.

And sometimes you have to make discerning judgments about people and who you're gonna associate with and who you're not gonna associate with, who you're gonna marry and who you're not gonna marry, who you're gonna go into business with and who you're not gonna go into business with, who you're gonna work with, and what position they have in your lives, you're going to have to discern about people.

But the third part of that definition is what we saw at the last part, which is to condemn.

The idea that you're making an ultimate judgment about somebody, about who they are, where they stand with God.

And so knowing the context of who Jesus is talking to, think about it now.

You have Jesus talking to a group of people, and the Herodians are condemning the zealots, and the zealots are condemning the Sadducees, and the Essenes are condemning all of them.

And so you have these group of people that are actually, the the term he uses here when he talks about the speck, he said, when you deal with the speck in your friend's eye, I just read, but the the the word is actually Adelphos, it's like Philadelphia, it's brother.

Some of your Bible translations, when it talked about the speck in someone's eye, it says your brother's eye.

Um, so the first part of this judging, uh judging uh message where he says, Don't don't ultimately condemn or judge, he's actually talking to them about their own community.

He's talking to them about their own tribe.

Now, this is pre-Jesus dying on the cross and the church and everything we have now, but he's talking to a group of Jewish people that all honored Yahweh, loved God essentially, right?

Like honored God, but yet had different feelings about Hellenism and what were they doing, but ultimately condemning their own brothers and sisters.

They were condemning their own people and causing tremendous polarization even internally.

In a moment, he's gonna talk about well, what about the people that don't agree on our values?

But he starts with those who do.

You and your brother essentially, okay, in this, agree on values.

And so he says a few things here.

One is he starts talking about, he starts talking about sort of the cause and effect of judging, of being, you know, condemning someone or or or you know jumping to a conclusion on someone.

And he says, you know, if you if you judge, if you don't judge, you won't be judged.

And he says, the same way you judge others, it's gonna come back to you.

And he's saying essentially the culture of the world around you, the community around you, when you rush to judgment.

Have you noticed like gracious people tend to get grace?

And people who are quick to judge, when it comes their time, everybody's glad to give it.

They're glad to give it back to them.

It's like, you know what, you reap what you sowed.

You're always talking about everybody else.

Okay, now it's your time, now we're it's coming back to you like a deluge of judgment.

And now understand what Jesus isn't saying here.

Jesus is not saying throw your moral compass out the window.

He's not saying don't use your logical, intelligent brain to discern and make decisions.

That's not what he's saying.

But he's saying that if you condemn people, you condemn people based on your judgment, you're making a mistake.

Think about our judicial system in this way that uh when it works perfectly, when it works at its best the way it's designed to, the higher the stakes of what's being accused or what the punishment might be, the more extensive and intensive the process.

So if someone's on trial for murder or you're suing somebody for a hundred million dollars or something like that, that's not just like somebody sitting there making a decision.

There is a, if you're on trial for murder, it is a massive process.

It is um, you know, you gather all the evidence, multiple witnesses, you get a jury, technically, that that must that should be fair and impartial, that start with the presumption of innocence.

You have a judge that should be impartial.

And so everybody comes with an open mind, they look at the evidence, they hear everything that's said, they listen to all the witnesses, and at the end of that, this panel of people get together and discuss it until they all come to agreement beyond reasonable doubt.

Here's the judgment.

In our world, what happens is we often condemn somebody based on pretty much no evidence.

Somebody told you something about somebody or you saw something on the surface, boom, here's a condemnation.

We're sentencing them ultimately to being evil.

We're sentencing them to be on the other side uh of the situation from God.

And he says, you're rushing to these judgments and you're putting these condemnations, and the Herodians are getting the Scenes and the Essenes are getting the you're doing this, he goes, and and and it's just like you're just putting yourself in the place of the one who is designed to condemn.

He goes, You that's not your job.

That you don't have the equipment for that, you're not built for that, that's not what you're supposed to do.

And we see it in our world.

People uh literally in the judicial system, you'll have people that sit there, hear all the evidence, everybody agrees, and they still get it wrong.

They still get it wrong, and it comes out later, some new evidence came out, and and and they didn't see the full complexity of what was happening.

Something was missing.

And so he's saying, you you don't put yourself, we do not, I do not, you do not put ourselves in the position of condemning somebody that is God's job.

I'm gonna show you a really interesting cross-reference.

This is this happens six chapters later in Matthew 13.

Matthew 13, Jesus tells a parable.

Now, um it it right before the one I'm about to read you is what's called the parable.

It's like the parable of the seed in the soil, but it's basically this uh Jesus says, hey, there's a farmer who's kind of like God, and he had seed, which is like the word of God, and then soil, which is human hearts.

And he said, and the the farmer put good word, good seed, and some of the soil had it was rocky, and so it just never took root.

And some people they hear it never takes root.

He said, the second, they were like thorny, so there was enough soil there that it took root, it started to grow, but the roots were shallow, life happened, and and they lost the whole thing.

And he said, but then the third was fertile soil, and that good seed from a good farmer hit that good soil, and it grew and it produced like a hundredfold return.

So that's what Jesus has just talked about.

He says in verse 24 here's another story Jesus told the kingdom of heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field.

And that night, as the worker slept, his enemies came and planted weeds among the wheat and then slipped away.

When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew.

Verse 27.

The farmer's workers went to him and said, Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds.

Where did they come from?

An enemy has done this, the farmer exclaimed.

Should we pull out the weeds?

They said.

No, he replied.

If you do it, you'll uproot the wheat if you do.

Let both grow together until the harvest, and then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie into the bundles, and to burn them and to put the wheat in the barn.

In other words, when there's time for condemnation, he's saying, I'll do it.

If you're not careful, yeah, there's wheat growing up, and there's tares or weeds growing up, and in your desire to please the farmer and to get rid of the weeds in the field, we run out and we start yanking weeds out, and he goes, What's happening is good wheat is being pulled up too, and you're making a big mess.

Things that we're supposed to grow.

He said, ultimately, have faith.

Trust me.

When it comes time for condemnation, I'll be the one to discern the heart.

I see things that you don't see.

I know things that you don't know.

Condemnation is not our job, it's God's job.

90% of you agree with me, and the last 10%, I'm gonna give you one more shot.

All right, I'm I'm I'm going to a cross reference.

Romans 1.

Romans 1.

Oh, Romans is so good.

So good, so good.

It starts out in Romans 1, and he's talking about just when you look at the world and you just see lots of bad happening.

Just bad people doing bad things.

Look at this.

Romans 1, 29 through 32.

This is the end of Romans 1.

It says their lives became full of every kind of wickedness.

Sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.

Have you ever seen those things?

Absolutely.

Every day.

On my way into church today.

Alright.

Verse 30.

Look at this.

Look at this.

They're backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, meaning highly disrespectful mockers, proud and boastful.

I love this part.

They invent new ways of sinning.

Come on, you gotta admit that's funny.

I've been doing this job 20 years.

Often, like someone will share something, they're really worried that I'm like this prude pastor who's just never heard about anything bad and I'm gonna clutch, you know.

Oh my goodness.

And it's like, man, come on, man.

I heard that three times a day.

But every so often someone comes in and I'm like, I didn't even know you could do that.

That's a new one.

Add that one to the list, okay?

Since they invent people, and you know, you know what this is.

I mean, every once in a while, something makes you blush, you're like, I'm 50 years old, I haven't blessed in a while, and you're like, that's a new sin.

So they invent new ways of sinning.

They disobey their parents, they disobey tradition.

Verse 31, they refuse to understand.

Oh, there's one.

You ever talk to someone who isn't it amazing the human capacity to not understand?

You've ever been talking to somebody and you're like, no, two plus two is four, I swear.

And they're like, no, it's five.

Like, no, you see, one, two, three, four.

They're like, no, it's five.

I mean, have you ever been talking to somebody and they just will not?

They will not see it.

So you have these people who are who are malicious and deceptive and hateful and making up new sins, and they refuse to see, they refuse to learn, and it said they break their promises, they're heartless, they have no mercy.

Verse 32, it said they know they know God's justice requires that those who who do these things deserve to die.

In other words, what he's doing is he's he's showing sins that would break the Torah, that would break the law, that would be considered capital offenses, you die for this.

He said, and they know that, and they do them anyway, worse yet, they encourage others to do them too.

So you come to the end of chapter one, and it's kind of familiar territory, right?

You're you're going, like, man, that's what I feel about the world.

So what in the world do I do about it?

Because I see all this quarreling and I see all this, you know, this the this insolence, and I see all these bad things.

Like, what do I do?

And if you keep reading, just go ahead.

That was the last verse in chapter one, go ahead and just flip over to chapter two, because it answers it.

It says, verse one, you may think you can condemn such people.

You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad and you have no excuse.

When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself.

For you who judge others do the very same things.

To which they would essentially probably say, No, I don't, no, I don't.

I've never killed anybody.

Go back to the Sermon on the Mount.

You remember when we talked about when he said, when you with your mouth call somebody stupid, you say somebody's brainless, you call somebody a fool, you you tear them down with your tongue.

He said, It's like you're you're in danger of the fires of Gehenna.

In other words, it's like you're burning someone alive with your mouth, and you didn't even chalk it up as a mistake because you thought you deserved to be able to do that.

But you might have pulled up a wheat and tares, and you didn't know the difference between the two because you took condemnation on yourself.

So he says so.

These people that thought they hadn't really done anything wrong or that their sin wasn't as bad as this person out here in the world, he says, what you don't understand is when you put yourself in the place of the one who is the condemner, you're just as bad.

This is where everybody's like, Pastor, just preach the word.

Are you sure?

Because I verse two, and we know that God in his justice will punish anyone who does such things.

Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God's judgment when you do the same things?

Verse 4.

Don't you see how don't miss this.

Verse 4.

Don't you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you?

Does this mean nothing to you?

Can't you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your repent uh to turn you from your sin, to lead you to repentance, his kindness to lead you to repentance.

When you look at Matthew 7, clearly the the uh desire to get our hearts right, and and he says, you know, he uses this kind of wild example of like a plank in your eye, and this other person has a speck, and it's this really, you know, almost ridiculous, cartoonish type um illustration that he's using.

But ultimately what he's saying is there's something that's obstructing your eye.

So when you look at this person, you don't see the full picture, you just see the speck, and something's obstructing your vision.

And what is the plank in your eye?

It could be a lot of things.

It could be sin.

Maybe you have sin and you're knowingly sinning and you're accusing them and you're not dealing with your own sin and all this.

It could be that.

I think sometimes, I think sometimes people are judgmental, they have that air of you know self-righteousness, and they do it from a place of it makes them feel elite, it makes them feel holier than thou, makes them feel better about themselves.

I think there's that.

I'll be honest with you, I don't think there's a ton of that here.

Maybe there's a she knows somebody that does, but I'm I'm so I'm not saying there's none of that.

Sorry, I had five jokes jump in my head, I shouldn't say any of them.

Um I I think I think what's what probably is the most common plank in the eye in our community is worry.

Fear.

You're afraid of what's gonna happen to the world, you're afraid of what's gonna happen to your kids, you're afraid of what's gonna happen to the country, you're afraid of what's gonna happen to your community, you're afraid, and so that worry, and it might be plausible worry.

Jesus has already talked about this, friend.

This is why we're going straight through the Sermon on the Mount so we don't miss any of it.

He went through and said, You might be in court and get your clothes suit off, you might have ongaria and be told by the government you've got to carry something you don't want to carry in front of your family, you might catch a backhand, which is meant to disrespect you, you might lose your business to the economy, a moth and rust might destroy.

He goes on to sell these things and he goes, You've got to take all of that worry and all of that fear, and you have to submit that to God.

You have to bring it to him and to give it to God and and and receive what he gives you.

Take the peace that passes all understanding.

So I'm not saying throw your moral compass out the window.

I'm not saying you don't ever have to discern and make decisions.

I'm saying it's never our job to condemn.

And I think that if we'll give our worry to God, a big plank goes out of our eye, and now we have a clear eye.

And with that clear eye, when you have a clear eye, guess what?

The person with the speck often will come to you.

Have you ever had a speck in your eye?

You don't need something big in your eye for it to be tremendously irritating.

You ever had like a like a little, you know, eyelash or whatever gets in your eye?

Okay?

It's it literally takes over your life.

You're like sitting there, you're just like.

And what do you do?

You you try to get it out.

What happens?

Have you ever had something little in your eye and you can't stink and get it out?

What do you do?

You go to somebody.

I'll tell you who you don't go to.

Person walking around like this, you do not go up to this person and ask for any help with your eye.

But somebody who's dealt with their plank and their worry and their fear and is kind, patient.

You find that person and you go, Can you help me out?

And I think there's a lot of people in our world that know that something ain't right.

And they've got something irritating their life.

May we be the kind of people who have a clear eye, who have submitted our worry and our fear to God.

That He is the omnipotent one, He is the all-loving One.

He is the one who has been patient, kind, and tolerant with us.

And I think that's what it looks like.

If you're kind of asking yourself, how do I know if I'm plankless?

I think you, I guess you would go, do when I look at the world, am I just wanting them to get what they deserve and get what's coming to them and can't wait till God zaps them and scorches them and everybody's gonna break, or am I in a place where I really my heart breaks for them?

That I want to see them redeemed, I want to see them free.

I I'll I'll give you this last part because there, because there's a, and I'm gonna have to summarize it, but you know, the the whole thing he talks about casting your pearls before pigs or whatever, pearls before swine.

Um, and the first part of when he's talking about judgmental, he's talking about your own, your own community, right?

So we would say, like us.

In this room, we have people that would be like Herodians or Sadducees, and we have Pharisees, and we got all this.

And so even within brothers and sisters in Christ, we condemn, condemn each other if we're not careful, right?

And he's like, that's not your job.

Make discernment, hold your moral compass, do live your life, let your light so shine before men that they would see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.

But it's not your job to condemn one another.

But then he flips to the other side, which is he's talking about the people from the Decapolis and the Ten Towns and all of this.

And and um, these are people who don't hold your value system.

In the Jewish culture, there was a uh concept of pearls and stringing together pearls.

That's a term you can look it up and read about it.

It was it was the the term was stringing together pearls.

So if you think of for them, pearl would be like a pearl of wisdom.

It would be a value, something they really valued, and all of it was really related to the Torah and to God's word.

And so when you think about it, this would be like our lives, right?

Like every time you get a revelation about God, or every time you have a value that you really care about, and all this, it's like your whole life is like every day, every week, we're adding a new pearl about who God is and and and how we should relate to him and all this truth.

And so now your whole life becomes this string of pearls.

And so, if you think about that, if that's what this represents, is a lifetime of wisdom connected to God, this becomes invaluable, they're priceless.

And so in the text, he talks about casting your pearls before swine.

And again, I don't have time, but the bottom line is he's basically saying it's really a parable about you going up to someone who doesn't see the world the same way you do and trying to force your pearls upon them.

So he's creating this sort of ridiculous picture, but it really makes a lot of sense.

It's like imagine if these these are my pearls and this is this map, this is the most valuable thing in my life, and I go up to a pig.

It's not a sin to be a pig, it's not wrong to be a pig.

A pig is a pig, a pig sees the world the way a pig sees the world.

So if I go and I take my pearls and I try to put them on this pig, okay, what is a pig gonna do?

A pig's gonna look at the pearls.

What do pigs value?

Because you you just gave me your values.

Well, what does a pig value?

Food?

What else?

Mud.

Food and mud, right?

They don't value pearls, they don't care about that.

So you go and try to force your pearls on the pig, and the pig sees food and mud.

And so they try to eat your pearls and try to stomp them in the mud.

And of course, you're like, This is my this is my life's wisdom.

This is the most priceless thing I have.

And you just put this priceless thing in front of this being that does not value what you value, doesn't see it the way you see it.

And so now they start doing what they do, they take it into the mud.

So, what do you do?

If a pig is eating or stomping your pearls in the mud, you freak out.

You disrespectful pig.

And I don't know about you, I'm getting in there pushing this pig off, okay, and getting going for my pearls.

Now, if you're the pig, all I know is I was minding my own business in the mud.

I was in my happy place, I was in the mud, I didn't ask for your pearls, you just came and started forcing your pearls on me.

And then when you forced your pearls on me, I just did what I do and I started playing with it in the mud, and then you attack me.

And then what does it say that the pig would do?

Would turn and attack you.

Because through their lens, all I did was sit here and mind my business, and now you threw something on me I don't really understand or want to understand, did not ask for.

And then you attack me.

But through your lens, they were disrespectful and you were protecting something sacred, and yet there's this huge misunderstanding.

And so, what Jesus is giving this incredibly powerful concept of, you know, before you go do this, you might want to understand the psyche of a pig.

Let your light so shine.

This is not saying that you should never share your values.

This isn't saying you shouldn't stand for what you believe.

This isn't saying that you shouldn't be moral.

This isn't saying that we should stand idly by as the world does things.

That's not saying that.

This is not only what we say, it's how we approach it.

Because you you you keep reading, Jesus is about to say, I'm sending you into the world.

Go into all the world and to preach the gospel.

But in the same sermon on the mount, he says, Let your light shine.

That people see your good works, glorify your Father.

Get your eye so clear that you don't have to go force your pearls on people.

They know they've got irritation in their eye.

They come to you because your eye is clear, they see you in peace when everybody else is melting down, that you have confidence when everybody else is shaken, everybody else is afraid.

You've dealt with your worry, your eye is clear, your heart is clear, you have a desire for their good.

You're patient, kind, and tolerant and loving.

And that kindness leads people to repentance.

And when they come to you, then you share the good news of how you got your eye so clear.

So, friends, I I don't think it's time we stand down as a church.

This is not, this is not that we we don't have any concerns about things happening in the world.

We absolutely do, but we we do understand condemnation is not our job.

Ultimately, I see things imperfectly, I see things partially.

I've got my opinions.

Part of wisdom in life is you learn to discern better and better and better.

But I've also lived long enough to tell you there were some times I was dogmatic about what I thought I believed, and I look back and I was dead wrong.

So I'm so we operate in a sense of humility that God sees the complexity.

We trust God's character that God will preserve what he needs to preserve, he will condemn who's supposed to be condemned.

That's his to do, that's not ours to do.

It's our job to get our eyes clear, to get our hearts right, and to let our light so shine before people that we impact the world around us and ultimately point them to our Father in heaven, point them to Jesus.

Amen.