Summer On The Mount: Judgment and Discernment | Matthew 7:1-6 | Jarryd Cole

Welcome to the Ambassador Church Podcast, a church in the city for the city, on Milwaukee's east side.

We pray this message meets you where you are, challenges your faith, and draws you closer to Jesus.

You guys can go ahead and find your seats.

Take a seat, take a seat.

And if you have your Bibles, you can go ahead and grab those and meet me in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter seven.

We're in our Bibles, Gospel of Matthew, chapter seven.

This is where we're gonna be beginning this morning.

We'll continue our series in the Sermon on the Mount.

And just a heads up, we didn't talk about this in announcements, but I just want to let us know, okay, with Citigroup starting up coming up in the fall, just here literally in the next couple of weeks, Citigroups will be going.

We have our next and final uh Citigroup interest meeting right after second service today.

And so if you're on the fence about city groups, if you want to know more information, maybe you signed up and you're just like, no, I just want to know what I'm getting myself into.

This is a great meeting for you to come to, okay?

Come and hear some of the vision for it.

Come here, what we're asking you, the expectations, all that kind of stuff.

It'll be really helpful for you, okay?

After second service today, uh come back and we'll be jumping into that.

All right.

Well yeah, I'm excited to get into it this morning.

And we are three weeks away from shutting this series down, okay?

I'm excited to be doing that.

We're heading into the fall, lots of really good things coming up.

Uh last week I wasn't here.

Micah held it down up here this uh for that morning.

And I was back in Madison, Wisconsin at our Sunning Church Doxa, and it was really fun to be there because I got to share a little bit about what's happening here in the life of Ambassador Church, and we are excited about that.

And so I just want you to know and encourage you uh that, like, man, we're a small church plant, but we need to know there's people in our corner backing us even hours away, saying, hey, man, we care about the stuff happening at Ambassador Church in the city of Milwaukee.

And I was really warm to my heart about the welcome and the greeting and the encouragement that I received uh back in Madison.

So I hope you know that.

All right, like we're not here alone doing this, but we have a family of people who are also behind us.

So this is encouraging to me.

And even as we think about coming into the fall, city groups kicking off, I want to kind of give you a map of where we're headed as we come into the fall.

Right after this sermon series, we're gonna be doing a three-week sermon series on uh discipleship and our discipleship strategy, specific ways that we're praying that God shapes us here in the life of Ambassador Church.

And I think this is important as we kick off city groups, right?

Because we want to hone in on okay, groups are kicking off, discipleship is happening.

What are we hoping is happening in the life of ourselves as we're being formed in the image of Jesus?

So we're gonna go through that.

And then we're gonna celebrate our one-year anniversary.

Anyone excited about that?

Ambassador Church turning one.

I can't wait for the very first birthday.

And then after that, we'll jump into a series and proverbs, okay, for the next several weeks as we get into the advent season right there before Christmas.

And so lots of fun things.

If you're like a person who needs to know, maybe you need to know God, need to know girl, uh, this is it for you.

This is where we're headed for the fall.

It's full.

College ministry starting, so many groups, men's and women, so many different things.

And we've been praying for this season.

Y'all, I don't know if you were here from the very beginning, but we have been saying, hey, we're withholding a year to do all these things so that we we can rally together and become this kind of people, and now it's here.

And I can't wait.

I hope you guys are excited as I am to be getting into this.

All right, well, if you're in the Bible, Matthew chapter 7, I want to begin reading this for us.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

We're starting in verse 1.

Uh, I'm right in and then we'll unpack this here in just a minute, okay?

Here's what Jesus is saying at this point in the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus says, Hey, do not judge so that you won't be judged.

For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure that you use.

Why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, but don't notice the beam of wood in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, Let me take the splinter out of your eye and look.

There's a beam of wood even in your own eye.

It's a favorite word from Jesus.

You hypocrites! First, take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother's eye.

Then he says, Don't give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them under their feet, turn and tear you to pieces.

A very fun passage we have this morning, King.

Right?

Many of you have heard this passage before.

This isn't new to many of you, but as we think about this passage, how many of you know that this might be like one of the most common verses that we know from the Bible, but it's also one of the most taken out of context verses and passages in the Bible?

Like, I don't have to take a poll, but how many of you have ever heard someone say, or maybe you've even said this at some point in your life, hey, don't judge me?

Or maybe it's something like this, only God can judge me, right?

Maybe you said this before, shout out Tupac Shakur, right?

For all you hip hop heads from back in the day.

Only God can't ready for the for the 9 a.m.

service, man.

But when you think about that, like I actually understand where they're coming from, and maybe you can get to a place where you understand where they're coming from too, because there is this reality that there is an ultimate judge.

When we think about the ultimate judge, we are not that.

God is that, and so, in some sense, there is this truth that judgment in its ultimate form only comes from God.

However, that doesn't mean there shouldn't be any dealing with proper judgment between one another.

There should be.

But here's the crux of the issue.

Okay, here's the problem.

We're generally just really bad at judgment.

We're bad at judgment.

Have you ever wrongfully judged anybody before?

Yes.

Me too.

I'm raising my hand.

Or maybe you've been wrongfully judged.

All heads should be nodding about this.

Like we live in a time and place where our lives are curated to put us in places where we're making judgments and even snap judgments.

I would say most of the time.

I heard someone talking about online dating the other day.

Okay.

Um, hinge, bumble, I don't know, Tinder, all these different kinds of things, whichever ones.

I don't know them.

I'm just saying I know people that know them.

Okay.

By the way, nothing says judgment like being able to swipe left or swipe right for a potential relationship based on a face and bio that you like or don't like.

Hate it or love it?

It's a little bit genius, okay, but it's wild at the same time.

But did you know that studies have shown there's a completely different way that men and women tend to judge one another on dating apps?

Unfortunately, for the single men in the room, of which I used to be one, okay, uh, you're just on average, way simpler than single women, okay?

You see pretty, you press like, all right?

That's just how it works.

Like literally, on average, about 80% of the time, here's what some studies show is that women swipe left on dating apps.

80% of the time, swipe left.

If you're new to the room, new to what this means, like the concept, swiping left means disagreement.

I don't like pass, move on, okay?

80% of the time, women are like, you ain't the one, bro.

They judge more strictly.

Or you could say women just have higher standards, all right?

Which is alright.

But guys, hear this guys only swipe left about 50% of the time.

Okay.

We're like, cool, every other one, at least I didn't click all of them, all right?

Like just every other one, I'm doing, I'm doing pretty good with that.

Self-control, right?

Which, if you're a guy, this paints a pretty grim picture, right?

Because what it means is that women are competing for a very small pool of desirable men, and guys, chances are, unfortunately, you're not one of them.

Sad, sad, sad.

Sad.

But we live in a culture of judging and snap judgments.

Jesus is obviously not talking about your dating life in this text.

He's talking about something much grander, much deeper than that.

Okay.

And if we're honest, we can tend to swipe right or swipe left on some other matters.

You might be a person who came in here this morning, you look at your own life, and you're like, man, I'm a pretty good person.

I show up to church every week, at least most weeks, most weeks, I tithe, recurrent giving.

I show up to city groups every week.

We don't have them yet, but you think this is what you're gonna do?

You won't, by the way, but you think so?

You read your Bible all the time, and everybody who's like that in your mind, you're thinking, hey, I'll swipe right on that.

But everybody who's not like that, they're getting the left treatment.

I'm I'm swiping left.

Have you seen the way that they raise their kids?

Can you believe he travels that much?

Can you believe she bought that bag?

Any of those things resonate?

Like we can have these lists of the ways that we're looking to judge other people around us.

Listen, I'm immediately repenting right now because of the way I treated the Super Bowl crowd a couple weeks ago.

Do you guys remember that?

I'm repenting right now in my heart.

Okay, like that's that's wrong judgment.

But we can make whatever list we want.

And if you're honest, you have them.

And this is the type of judging that Jesus is talking about here.

He's actually warning against it.

I want to show this to us.

Look back at verse one.

Jesus begins by saying, Hey, do not judge so that you won't be judged.

For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure that you use.

And y'all, this isn't rocket science to understand what Jesus is trying to say here, but you want to know what?

It is hard to hear.

Because Jesus knows he's casting a wide net.

And any of us that hear this, our ears should all buckle up.

Like if you're wondering if this message is for you, this is for anyone who's made any judgment ever, made any wrong judgment ever.

This is for you.

And I'm kind of like a room splitter.

Okay, I like to give us frameworks to understand this.

I think there's at least two different kinds of people in the room.

There's one person who says, Yeah, Jesus, I 100% agree.

That's why I just stick to myself and I never judge anybody.

I don't have any opinions about anything.

Like, of course.

So I don't want to be judged like that.

But then there's another group of people who are like, Well, Jesus, you don't really mean it like that.

And you don't mean it like that for me.

Like, you want to justify everything that you think and everything that you do.

You either hear it and you're quick to shut down it, or you hear it and you're quick to justify yourself.

So here's what I want to do this morning.

I want to draw both of those parties, whatever end of the spectrum that you're on, I want to draw you to the middle because what Jesus will unpack for us for the rest of the time is not that we shouldn't judge, but that there is a right and a wrong way to do it.

So, two questions we're asking today.

What is the wrong way to judge?

What is the right way to judge?

Before we get into that, first we have to understand what Jesus isn't talking about in this passage, okay?

If you're a note taker, take these notes.

Jesus isn't talking about being a judge in the court of law, okay?

He's not talking about being the judge in the court of law.

Right and upkeeping the law, so long as it doesn't offend the moral law of God, this is actually good.

Which means, Alex, you're off the hook, okay?

The only judge friend that I know ever, okay?

You're good, bro.

But he's also not talking about making moral evaluations.

He's not talking about like witnessing and making a moral evaluation on someone that you know who's maybe cheating on their spouse, or same-sex romantic relationships, or injustices like abortion and mass incarceration and genocide, or any other type of wrongfully taking of a life through death or imprisonment, even if it's legal, right?

Like those things are wrong.

Racism, ethnocentrism, sexism, or any other type of exercise supremacy over another, like Jesus isn't talking about like not making moral evaluations based on these things.

He's saying, hey, that's good to do.

We should be doing those things.

He's not talking about using right discernment to make good and right judgments and decisions.

Parents, when you think about vetting your babysitters, that's a good thing for you to do.

People with a lot of friends, noticing a friend's chronic lying pattern and not trusting them with importance information that's actually good and discerning to do.

And so when Jesus says, don't judge so that you won't be judged, he's not talking about not developing and holding your convictions on these things.

We should do that.

But even if there are people, here's what Jesus saying, who are clearly morally wrong, he doesn't give us the freedom to judge and treat them just however we want.

He wants to give us some guardrails this morning, specifically letting us know that there is a right and a wrong way to judge.

And I want us to see Jesus clarify the wrong way for us right now.

Look at verse three.

This is the wrong way to judge.

Jesus says, Why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, but don't notice the beam of wood in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the splinter out of your eye and look, there's a beam of wood in your own eye.

See, Jesus painting for us a picture here, and he's saying, Wrong judgment looks a little bit like this.

It looks like someone who has a big, huge four by four stuck in the middle of their face, looking at someone who has like a speck of chocolate smudge right here on the side of their lip and being like, Hey men, there's nothing wrong with your face.

There's something wrong with your face.

The type of judgment that Jesus is guarding against is this type of hypocritical judgment where you're pointing things out about other people, but you have just as much, if not more, going on with you.

Like you are unable to see the thing that's wrong with you, but you think you can clearly see the thing that's wrong with everybody else.

There would have been a group of people in the audience Jesus talking to in this moment.

They're called the Pharisees.

Many of you know who the Pharisees are.

They were the people in the days of Jesus who uh they would have been called the religious elite.

If anybody wanted to know anything about God, the word of God, anything about God, the law, the prophets, all of that, they would have gone to the Pharisees.

They were the people who had the monopoly, not on just right thinking, but right living, or or so they thought.

But more than point to people to God, what they tend to do was point people to their own traditions.

They pointed people to their own interpretations of the things of God, holding themselves as the gatekeepers of all things religious.

And what they were famous for, they were famous for doing this.

They were famous for policing and judging everybody around them.

Like they were some of the most judgmental people of the day.

For example, there's a parable in the Gospel of Luke, often called the Pharisee and the Tascollector in your Bibles.

You know this story as well.

It's in Luke chapter 18.

Luke 18 · chapter mention

If you have your Bibles, you can flip there with me really quick, 9 through 14.

If you want to keep a finger where you are, get there with me.

So I'll also pop up here on the screen.

But there's a tension in this story.

Because the people Jesus is talking to in this story, they don't expect the turn that Jesus is going to make in the story.

To the audience of the day, he's going to be putting to against each other Pharisees and tax collectors.

And if you were to ask the crowd, which one of these people are the good people, which one of these people are the people that are on the right path?

They all would have said it would have been the Pharisees, not the tax collector, but Jesus makes a turn in this story.

And I want us to kind of see where he's going.

Here it is, and pop up here on the screen.

Jesus begins to tell this story.

He told the parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else.

He said this.

He says, Hey, two men went up to the temple to pray.

One a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

And the Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself.

The greedy, the unrighteous, the adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week.

I give a tenth of everything.

But the tax collector, Jesus continued, you standing far off, will not even raise his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his chest and he kept saying, Hey, God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

And so I tell you, Jesus says, this one, the tax collector, went down to his house justified rather than the other.

Why?

Because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Jesus is flipping the script.

He wants us to know that the judgmental attitude does not stand in the kingdom of God.

And we have to know this distinction was characteristic of the Pharisees.

Looking down on others and lifting themselves up while neglecting all the things that might be wrong with them in the process.

They were searching for splinters in the eyes of other people while they had logs even in their own eyes.

And Jesus is like, yo, this is what I'm talking about right here.

I remember a season when I would have been like, Yep, I'm definitely a Pharisee.

And maybe you in the room are thinking, like, well, maybe that's me too right now.

But I remember this distinctly.

I was on staff at a different church, and I was in this state in my life where I was looking at the world around me and all this kind of stuff.

And I was just thinking, like, man, I can't believe they're like this.

I can't believe they're doing that.

I can't believe that they don't understand this.

Why are they doing it that way?

Can't they see?

Are they blind?

I remember having these conversations with people around me, and I must have had it with the wrong person one day because one day I come into my office.

I look at my desk, and on my desk were two books.

One of them was called Total Forgiveness, okay, by R.T.

Kendall.

Amazing book.

You should read it if you have the time.

The other book was called I Might Be a Pharisee if dot dot dot.

Also, a great book you should read if you have time.

But read at your own risk because your feelings will get hurt.

This is the reality of the Pharisees.

And honestly, any of us can raise our hand at any moment and be like, hey, I think this could potentially be me, but we have to heed the warning that Jesus is talking about here.

He's guarding against a prideful heart, a heart that judges hypocritically, a heart that judges to condemn, a heart that judges in a way that's self-elevating.

It's the guy who judges someone about their money and their spending habits when they're up to their eyeballs in debt.

It's the girl who gossips but gets on other people about gossiping.

It's the parents that yells at their children about not losing their temper while simultaneously losing their temper on their child.

It's the person condemning other people's sexual activity and their sex lives when they're in a current daily battle with romanticism and pornography themselves.

And Jesus is saying this is everything a person who claims to follow Jesus ought not be.

This is the wrong way to judge.

And so this is the wrong way to judge if that's the question.

Then what is the right way to judge?

And the right way to judge, if we can put it in one sentence, would be this is judge gently with integrity.

The right way to judge is with is gently with integrity.

So Jesus is saying it's not that we shouldn't address people, it's not that we shouldn't make judgment of the people around us.

It's not that we shouldn't approach people about money and their spending habits or gossiping, the things they say with their mouths or their parenting.

If you notice something right, he's not saying we shouldn't do those things, especially here in the body of Christ.

It's that we need to be people who first look in the mirror.

Why?

So that we can do these things gently with integrity.

Look at verse five.

Jesus says, You hypocrites, first take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother's eye.

Jesus saying the purpose is to help, not just to point out.

The irritation, the annoyance of that?

I know you have, I have too.

But imagine having something stuck in your eye, and then the thing you do, you would what would you do?

You would look in the mirror and confirm there's something in your eye, yes, but then you'd probably try to get it out, you couldn't get it out, you'd go to somebody else and say, Hey, I have something in my eye, could you help me get this thing out?

What if you were to do something like that?

You go to somebody and say, Hey man, I have this in my eye, can you help me get this out?

What if they were just like, okay, cool, hold on one second, be right back.

I'm gonna go grab my hammer really quick.

Right?

You'd be like, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Don't grab the hammer.

Why?

Because you know that the way that you want to be addressed is not with a hammer, not with like all this strict kind of things.

You want to be handled gently.

There's something wrong with you.

You don't want people mishandling you, beating you.

You want people to handle you gently.

You want people to do something that's helpful.

The goal is to be helpful, to be the most effective you can be with minimal damage.

This is the whole goal.

Have you ever heard the phrase before?

Love the sinner and hate the sin?

It's a phrase that we often use as Christians in spaces like this, okay?

Love the sinner and hate the sin.

I think it's a helpful Christian phrase that we use, okay?

I think it's good and right, but I also think it leaves a little room for uh different ways that we can behave.

And specifically, I think it even leaves room for some of us to reach for a hammer rather than reach for something soft to be gentle.

Like when we say, love the sinner and hate the sin, we're saying, hey, love the sinner but hate their sin.

And we can get that stuck into our minds.

But I think a better phrase would be this love the sinner and hate your own.

Sin.

If you want to be a person who goes to someone and judges and corrects gently with integrity, I think the first thing we have to say and know and recognize is that we also have sin.

And that if this were us, this is how I hope someone would come address me in my own sin.

It helps us recognize that we love the sinner and we hate our own sin.

Some of the commentaries I was reading this week said Jesus is saying it this way because it helps guard against censorious judgment.

Is censorious a new word for you this morning?

It was new for me when I was studying this week.

But censorious means severely critical or quick to condemn.

Jesus is guarding against our ability and desire and even inclination to be severely critical and quickly condemn the people around us.

And so if we want to be people who aren't like that, we want to be people who go to others gently with integrity.

We first have to look in the mirror.

We first have to do the hard work of being like, who am I?

And what is God working on in me?

And then I guarantee that as you go to approach other people, what you will be able to do is walk in a new manner.

You'll be able to walk in a new manner of grace.

And that's exactly what we need.

We need to be people who check our lives.

Because if not, we're not gonna like the type of judgment that Jesus will have on us.

And so before you judge, the question you should be asking yourself is can I judge someone else with integrity?

And judging with integrity means simply this you're consistent even when it comes to yourself.

What is integrity not?

Integrity is not perfection.

It's not like I have to get everything right about myself before I go to someone else.

No, I'm not talking about perfection here.

What I'm talking about is awareness.

It's not about withholding your hopefully gentle judgment until you have everything right in your life, everything figured out about you.

You're living this kind of perfect existence.

No, no, no.

It's about awareness.

Because awareness will begin to change the way that you approach people.

You need integrity that builds awareness so you can guard against the hypocritical and the hypercritical judgment that Jesus is talking about, so that you can go to them in a gentle manner.

In other words, it's better to be a coach than it is to be a critic.

It's better to be a coach than a critic.

And we think about that as a fine line between coach and critic.

Those of you who know sports and other things, right?

Like, and I can either be one or the other at times.

This is what's true of me.

I think it's true of you too.

But I want to break this down a little bit for us because there's a difference between critics and coaches.

Critics do what Jesus is talking about not to do.

They judge hypocritically and they judge hypercritically.

They judge externally.

They look at the outside and say, man, hey, this is what I see.

This is what's happening, and I'm gonna judge externally.

They judge harmfully.

They're not looking at a way to meet the middle ground.

They're not looking at a way for actually to help.

They're looking for harm.

They judge quickly, they're quick to it.

They don't take into account the slow grace of God that's coming towards them whenever they're looking at others, but they go to them quickly.

I love how Colossians 3 exhorts everybody to put on these things compassion, kindness, humility, judgments, patience, bearing with one another in love.

A person who is more of a crit than a coach, they do the complete opposite of that.

They are quick to judge, they judge unfairly, they look at their own opinions and preferences and personal convictions, and like, man, I'm gonna judge according to these rather than what Romans 14, 19 says, to let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

They judge proudly, like the Pharisee in Luke 18.

At least I'm not filling the blank.

At least I'm not doing this, at least I'm not doing that, at least I'm not him, at least I'm not her.

This is what it means to be a critic.

Wrong way to judge.

So I think it's better to be a coach.

Here's what coaches do coaches judge gently with integrity.

This past weekend, my family and I, we do family movie nights on Sunday nights, and we watched Remember the Titans most recently recently.

Um, it was before the whole Hayden Peniteer thing, but um, wild story.

Um, but I remember watching this movie, one of my favorite movies growing up, okay?

And coach Herman Boone, Denzel Washington's character.

You guys remember that?

Love me some Denzel Washington, okay?

Any movie Denzel's in, catch, catch, catch your boy watching that.

I've seen it all, done it all, right?

But I love this character Denzel plays in this movie because he's this kind of coach.

And he comes and he's like, he's got this new job, TC Williams, high school, all this kind of stuff.

It's a real story, by the way.

Uh, in preparation for this message, I was looking up like what's the difference between the real life and the movie, and the movie was highly dramatized, okay?

But it was still fun catching up on what all the real stuff was all about, all right?

But anyway, I loved Coach Boone because he was the kind of coach that I think everybody in here would look at and be like, yo, I need that kind of coach in my life.

Someone who didn't like shirk back from responsibility.

They didn't beat around the bush, but they were direct, but they were also gentle.

He didn't let you run through things all by yourself, right?

I remember the the training camp scene.

You guys remember that?

I hadn't seen the movie in a long time, but I remember watching that this past week, and I'm like, man, this this scene is a lot longer than I imagine remember it was back in the what 90s, 2000s, right?

But he's at the training camp, and these guys are running out, they're doing these things, and Coach Boone is right there with him.

He's running with them.

He doesn't just say, hey, go run these miles and come back here, and I'll see you here in just a minute.

Nope.

He looks at them relationally.

He's helping them bridge the relational tension and the racial tension between them in this time.

And he's not just saying, hey, you guys do that, I'm gonna sit back here and wallow my own racism.

No, but he gets into the mist, he gets into the muck and the mire, and he's with them wrestling.

This is what a good coach does.

Because a coach looks at something to point it out, not just to point it out, but to also help, to encourage and to build people up.

And so, coaches, here's what good coaches do.

They don't judge externally, they judge internally, they look inward first.

They look and see, hey, how is this impacting me first before I say, hey, here's something that you need to work on.

They judge helpfully, not harmfully.

They don't point out just to point out, but they point out to help and see you improve.

They don't judge quickly, they judge patiently.

They know that they need the same grace and the patience that you also need.

They don't judge unfairly, they judge generously.

They're willing and ready to give it at any moment.

How much do you need?

I'm gonna give it to you, but yet still press in, but they don't judge unfairly, they judge generously.

And they don't judge proudly, they judge humbly.

They know that hey, this could easily be me, just like it is you.

See, coaches understand that once they were someone who knows what it's like not to have what they're trying to give, they understand this main fact that they once were a player too.

And they might even be struggling with things right now that players often struggle with, and so they come in this way gently, with integrity, not hypocritically or hyper-critically.

Good coaches give the benefit of the doubt.

Good coaches assume the best.

Good coaches are direct but gentle.

And this is important for us to know that it's better to lean coach over critic.

Why?

So that we can judge gently with integrity, first hating our own sin so we can rightly and gently address the sin of others.

And so, if you're a practical person, these examples, I have some practical examples for you.

So if you're asking, what does this look like practically in a sentence?

It should be this we should lead with our luck.

If you're looking at someone and you notice their marriage, maybe you're married and you say, hey, I've noticed the way that you talk to your wife lately.

I want to let you know that my wife and I, we've been through several years like this in our marriage.

And the only reason I know how to talk about this is because what we've gone through and what I'm capable of, and here's what's worked for us.

I wonder if this can work for you.

Or maybe you have children and you're noticing a family and you see their children, you're like, hey, I've noticed your children.

And they're lashing out quite a bit lately.

You know, one of my biggest struggles is how to discipline my kids with love.

I don't always get it right, but I wonder if what's been working for me might be working for you.

Do you mind if I share with you?

Or maybe as we're coming into the new season, you're talking about city groups.

Some of you city group leaders in the room, maybe you're gonna have to have some hard conversations about people who are finicky about showing up to your groups.

And here's what you could say.

Hey, I've noticed you're missing a lot of weeks of city group.

Maybe you're in college, you have a campus group, maybe you're missing campus group.

Hey, I know what it's like to have a busy schedule.

It's a school night, the kids are up, you're doing some other things, you're trying to find some time for yourself.

Listen, I remember when I had to find time to decide if I was going to prioritize showing up to group and being in gospel community when I was going through the same thing.

And even now, I'm tempted to not show up.

But here's what I've learned: it's always worth it to show up.

Would you consider pressing in?

This is the way.

You don't just say things to point out, and you don't just shirk back, but you come in in a way to have a conversation and and and judge, as Jesus would say, gently with integrity.

So the key takeaway for the morning is this we need to be people who judge like a gentle coach, not like a harsh critic.

Judge like a gentle coach, not like a harsh critic.

You might be hearing me just saying, okay, Jared, I hear you, I get it.

But I've done these things before, I've had these kinds of conversations, and what happens is that people don't really take it that well.

What if I'm having these conversations and people just push me away?

What if they don't listen?

What do I do now?

What do I do when people don't receive the gentle and the filled with integrity coaching that I'm giving?

I'm glad you asked.

Jesus has an answer in verse 6.

Look at this on the land of plain here.

Jesus says, Don't give what is holding to dogs or toss your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them under their feet.

Turn and tear you to pieces.

Talk about making a judgment here.

Like Jesus is literally using his mouth to call people dogs and pigs.

And he uses dogs here because, like dogs in Jesus' time, these were wild and untamed animals.

They weren't like the sweet domesticated dogs that you might have in your house.

If you ever come to my house right now, I have a little cute brown golden doodle, really sweet.

Her name's Coco.

She's a little wild and active, okay?

But she's mainly tame and domesticated, all right?

But dogs in Jesus' day were not like that, they were different.

And the pigs, pigs, even today, are notoriously known for being filthy animals.

Pigs don't care about what they have, care about what they get.

You could toss a pearl to a pig, or you could toss slap to a pig, and they'll treat it the exact same way.

So what Jesus is trying to say.

And the holy things and the pearls that Jesus is talking about here is the wise and gentle coaching you have and to give to others.

And he's saying, if you're being rejected, if the people you're bringing those things to are more agitated and welcoming, they're not listening, they're continuing to justify themselves, or they downright get violent with you, maybe they just turn against you.

He's saying, Hey, you have permission, wash your hands of the matter.

And this isn't even the only time Jesus says something like this.

He says something like this throughout many of the gospels.

He gives this command to his disciples.

Remember when Jesus was sending his disciples out two by two to go and do ministries, like, hey, go into all these towns, go and share the good news of the gospel, preach the gospel, do amazing works, give good tidings to the people, stay in their homes of the people who welcome you.

And then he says, Hey, but you want to know what?

If you show up and people are rejecting you and they're ready to kick you out, they're not listening to the things that you're saying, he's saying, Hey, you're not required to stay there.

You can actually wash your hands of the matter.

He says, Shake the dust from your feet.

You're done here.

And I know for many of us in the room, this is hard for us to hear because there's people that you're thinking about.

It may be people you're anticipating in your mind that you will have to have hard conversations with.

And you're the kind of person that wears your heart on your sleeve.

Yeah, you might have tough skin, right?

But you have a soft heart.

So, like, you wear your heart on your sleeve.

You're like, I hear you, Jesus, but I want to be the kind of person that presses in.

Right?

Jesus is talking about dogs.

Maybe you're the kind of person that got that other kind of dog in you, right?

Like, you just want to stand in.

And you want to be that person that just goes and continues to go, and you're the kind of person that says, Hey, eventually truth is gonna win out.

Truth, truth, truth, truth.

I'm still gonna go, I'm still gonna go.

Here's my encouragement to you.

You can actually lay at the foot of Jesus and you can trust God with that.

You don't have to be the one through which transformation comes.

You don't have to be the one in which that takes place.

One of the hardest things in the Christian faith to realize as you're being changed and compelled by Jesus to go and do the things He might be calling you to is that you're gonna get a couple things confused.

You're gonna get your obedience and your outcomes confused.

You're gonna be thinking, I'm gonna have to be obedient and I'm gonna have to control the outcome.

If the outcome doesn't happen when I go, then I've failed.

That's not true.

There's one thing that you are responsible for, and it's simply your obedience.

One thing.

The outcome is up to God.

And so, what do you do?

Do you back up completely?

Just leave them.

Maybe.

At least for now.

But you want to know what you can do?

You can be a person who prays.

You can continue to pray for the people in your life that you're wanting to continue to go towards, but who are consistently repelling you.

You can continue to pray, and you can believe that God can do the things that you can't do.

Because here's what's true: the best thing for your witness for Jesus won't be trying to develop this wild defense to tackle people into the kingdom of God.

That's not how it works.

It's not how it works.

But here's the best thing it's to reflect on how truth became real to you.

Reflect on how you even got it.

Like if you just took a couple moments and you reflected on how it became real to you, it wasn't when somebody just like came and tackled you with all this truth and kept bugging you and nagging you and all these different kinds of things and all these different ways, and ways that you knew that you would never be able to receive it.

That's not when you got it, if you're honest in the room.

I mean, that's not how I got it.

I can tell you that right now.

But it was when people met me gently with integrity.

I felt the love of Jesus.

I began to see it in his word, and I began living it in gospel community and experiencing it there.

That's when it happened for me.

And you would probably raise your hand right now and say, hey, this is when it happened for you too.

This is the thing that got you.

Like no one and no one can self-righteousness themselves into the kingdom of God, and no one can be strong-armed into the kingdom of God.

And so I hope you feel relieved by that.

That your responsibility is obedience, not outcome.

You're only in by recognizing, believing in, and receiving the gracious love of Jesus Christ through the gospel.

So, by way of application, I just want to spend just a moment and apply the gospel to the room.

Because maybe you came in here this morning today, and what's most true about you is that your heart is hard, and that it's difficult for you to receive the words this morning.

Whether it's an encouraging word, whether it's a sharpening word, whether it's the gospel of Jesus Christ Himself.

Didn't you know that's the hardest word that you'll ever have to receive in your entire life?

That there is, in fact, a God, and you are not Him, and that your primary mode is that you are a sinner and that you are in need of saving, and there's nothing you can do to save yourself, and the only thing you can do is fall on your knees, fall on your face, and cry out to a holy God who can save you for you.

That's the hardest news that you'll ever have to hear.

And the truth is, every single one of us will have to decide what we do with that.

And listen, you can be like dogs and pigs, and you can push that good news away.

Or you can be like a third animal.

Jesus didn't talk about in this past a sheep.

And you can be led and you can be guided, and you can desire a shepherd.

You can know your ways to stray, you can know your inability to do the things that God has for you to do, and you can fall on your face humbly and say, God, I can't do it, you can do it, will you do it for me?

Some of us need to receive that this morning.

The gospel of Jesus Christ, that you are a sinner in need of saving, and Jesus Christ can save you.

Would you receive that news this morning?

So, church, let's be people who rely on the Holy Spirit to help us lean coach over critic.

Why?

So we can be people who judge rightly, gently, with integrity with the people around us.

Would you praise may this be true of us?

Father, we love you.

And we're grateful for this morning.

We're grateful for your word, we're grateful for the Sermon on the Mount, we're grateful for the difficult words of Jesus to know that there's a right and wrong way to judge.

And that every one of us, if I'm a betting man in the room, need to wrestle with and grip with this fact.

Hey, is what I'm doing, is the way I'm seeing the world, the way I perceive the people around me, maybe a person around me, is this the right way to judge?

Or the wrong way to judge?

Holy Spirit, would you search our hearts this morning?

And would you help us become people who desire the right way to judge?

Gentle with integrity, not pulling back and saying, no, this isn't the place for me, but leaning into you, God, wholly dependent on you, asking for discernment to say, God, would you help me rightly see the world around me?

Would you help me enter into relationship and have tough conversations that I may not want to have?

Would you fill us up and would you help us with this reality?

Only you can do it.

Only you can do it.

And so we ask you to do it.

Thanks for listening to the Ambassador Church Podcast.

To learn more, visit ambassadormke.org or follow us on Instagram at Ambassador MKE.

And if you're in the Milwaukee area, we'd love to see you this Sunday at 9 or 11 a.m.

at 2308 East Bellevue Place.

Grace and peace.