Sermon
Luke 6:37-49 - A New Community: Foundation Issues
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama.
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Our passion is to experience and express grace.
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Join us.
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Turn with me to Luke 6.
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Luke 6.
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We look this morning at a powerful and challenging conclusion to Jesus' sermon.
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Before we read, let's remember the context of this sermon.
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Jesus is speaking to crowds of people who have gathered around.
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Some of them His new apostles.
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Others coming from great distances away just to get a glance.
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Just to touch Him that they might be healed.
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To hear this new teacher they've heard so much about.
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And Jesus has begun to shape this new community of followers.
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Others imparting to them radically new values.
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Blessed are the poor.
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The have-nots.
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Calling them to a strikingly new ethic.
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Love your enemies.
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Sacrificial generosity.
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And here's what I think Jesus is doing in our passage this morning at the end of this sermon.
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He's issuing a clear challenge to all these people who've come to hear Him.
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Not merely to hear, but to follow Him.
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Perhaps knowing all the motives of the people in the crowd.
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Curiosity.
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Desire for healing.
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Entertainment.
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Sincere faith.
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Jesus wants to make very clear the need to have one's life reshaped by Him and by His kingdom.
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And He does so with clear warnings for those who don't.
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For those who would hear Him, as they all would, but would choose a different path.
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Many of you have expressed what I've felt these last couple of weeks.
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As we've talked about the new values and the new ethic that Jesus has called us to.
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That they're very challenging.
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That need is difficult for us.
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We feel it.
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And the call is hard.
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Lord, perhaps this week Jesus' words should be sobering for us.
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Everyone here this morning has in some way come to hear Jesus.
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Whether to get something from Him.
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To see what He's like.
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To be entertained perhaps.
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Whatever the mixture of things that have brought you here this morning.
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Jesus wants to speak clearly and directly to our hearts.
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Listen to Him as He picks up on that new ethic of love that He's been talking with His followers about.
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At verse 37 of Luke 6.
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This is God's Word.
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He also told them a parable.
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Can a blind man lead a blind man?
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Will they not both fall into a pit?
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A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.
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Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
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How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,
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when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?
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You hypocrite!
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First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.
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For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit.
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For each tree is known by its own fruit.
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For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.
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The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good,
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and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil.
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For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
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Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I tell you?
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Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like.
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He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.
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And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it because it had been well built.
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But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.
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When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.
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Pray with me.
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Father, we thank you for your word.
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Even words that are hard to hear and that are warnings and challenges to us, our hearts need them.
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Would we come to your word this morning as those dependent upon you and expectant to hear from you.
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We ask that you would speak and that we might listen and hear and do your word.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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It's hard to miss as you read that Jesus is wrapping up his sermon with a strong warning, isn't it?
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I mean, when you close this way, but the one who hears my words and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.
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When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.
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End of sermon.
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It's hard not to hear a warning issued to those who are listening to those words, right?
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It's actually in all these verses building up to that last one that Jesus is warning very clearly.
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Eight plus years ago when Christy and I moved to Huntsville and bought our home, we loved the location of the home, the neighborhood.
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We loved the backyard, the home itself.
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But there were these cracks in the walls.
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I don't know how well you can see them, but there are cracks there in the walls.
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You may have seen some like that in your house.
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And I learned then that these are warning signs, right?
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When you see cracks like this in the wall of your home, you need to check, especially if they keep growing, for foundation issues.
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Now, the foundation of a house is of vital importance, isn't it?
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It's what holds everything else up, what everything's built upon.
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It's what will allow the house and the things in it to stand or fall when storms come, when there's strain on the house.
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But you don't typically go around looking at foundations, do you?
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You don't see much of the foundation itself.
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What you see are cracks in the walls when there are problems.
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They're warnings to you of issues that need to be addressed.
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That's a big part of what Jesus is doing here in these preceding verses.
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He's still building on his new ethic of love that he's been teaching.
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Teaching what it looks like to live in his kingdom, to follow his ways.
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And as he comes to the conclusion of this and of the sermon, he's increasingly pointed.
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While he lays out the true path for us to walk, he also creates sharp distinctions.
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Distinctions between two approaches to life.
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The way of his kingdom, which I'll call the Jesus ethic for our purposes this morning.
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And the other way.
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Perhaps the way of self or the world or just of not Jesus.
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Some other way.
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In other words, what Jesus is doing is he's telling us what a stable house,
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a healthy life following him actually looks like.
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As well as what is the danger in the other way.
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Over and over you're going to notice in this passage pairs of things that are contrasted.
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Some of them I'll admit are a bit confusing when you read through them.
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Jesus is using imagery and humor and parables and so forth to teach these things.
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So I want to walk through them with you to understand and apply that new ethic he's calling us to a little bit further.
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What does Jesus mean with each of these individual sayings?
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Then as we get to the end, we're going to revisit Jesus' bottom line.
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What's he using all of these things to get at in us?
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We'll see the bigger picture that these smaller parts combine to paint.
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So along the way you may want to write words down that describe the ethic Jesus is teaching.
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And words that describe the other option.
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What are the two things Jesus is showing us?
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What's on this list and what's on the other one?
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You can already start the Jesus ethic list with things from last week, from earlier.
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Like love your enemies.
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Pray for those who abuse you.
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Sacrificial generosity.
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Those sorts of things from last week.
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Now Jesus adds to that picture.
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What does it look like?
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The new ethic he's calling his followers to.
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Verse 37.
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Judge not and you will not be judged.
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Condemn not and you will not be condemned.
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Forgive and you will be forgiven.
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Give and it will be given to you.
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Good measure pressed down, shaken together, running over will be put into your lap.
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For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.
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Boy, some great verses to pull out of context right here if you're so inclined.
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If you really wanted to hear something that Jesus doesn't actually mean, these are great verses that are easy to do that with.
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Judge not and you won't be judged.
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You've heard people tell you that, right?
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Christians should never judge, says the person who wants you to leave him alone so he can live any way he good and well pleases.
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Judge not.
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Judge not.
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Is that what Jesus is saying?
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Christians should never judge, should never be thoughtful about things?
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Well, no.
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Multiple times just in these verses we're commanded to be discerning.
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To distinguish truth from error in beliefs.
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To distinguish right from wrong in behavior.
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Just right here, the next words.
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How can you forgive unless something has been determined to have been wrong and need forgiveness?
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No, Jesus is not saying don't ever evaluate something.
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Instead, Jesus is fleshing out verse 36.
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Be merciful as your Father is merciful.
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You should be looking to love your enemy, not to destroy him.
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Don't be judgmental, condemning, dismissive, assuming the worst of others.
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Christians are actually pretty good at those things, aren't we?
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We do that pretty fast just with other Christians.
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We do it on social media.
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Especially if you want to talk politics on social media.
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Every other perspective from mine is suspect.
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Motives are assumed.
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Dispersions are cast on anyone else who would see things differently.
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How many times recently have I read the statement,
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Any real Christian would support fill in the blank.
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Meaning all of those of you who don't see things my way, of course,
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must not really be Christians.
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Is it that simple?
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Is condemning others what makes you feel significant?
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It doesn't have to be politics.
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We can do it over schooling, eating, worshipping.
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Whatever is really important to you, whatever you're passionate about.
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Do you condemn those who do it differently?
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Do you think that they're less than you?
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Less of a person, less of a Christian.
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Are you quick to judge?
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Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no.
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Instead, my people are to be forgiving and giving.
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Patient and generous to others.
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Seeking their good, not to harm them or catch them.
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This is what it looks like to be a child of God.
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Forgiven people, forgive people.
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This is not earn your forgiveness by your performance.
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See how well you do.
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Jesus is saying, you can tell a child of God who will not be judged or condemned,
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but who will instead be forgiven and given to because he treats others that way.
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If you don't forgive others, you evidence the reality that you haven't received
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the gracious forgiveness of God for yourself.
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Then there's the last part of these two verses about giving, which is another one people love
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to misuse regularly.
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It's actually a picture there of harvesting grain, of what you would do harvesting the grain.
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I don't know much about harvesting grain, if I'm honest.
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I do rake leaves, though.
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And I'm very particular when I rake leaves because I'm pretty tight-fisted.
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No, I'm really tight-fisted.
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And so if you can cram more leaves into a bag in the long term, you're going to save yourself money.
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And in squeezing leaves into bags, I believe I've probably saved nearly 73 cents in the last 10 years.
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So if you work really hard, it can pay off.
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But how do you do it?
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Because it's the exact same picture that Jesus is giving.
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How do you squeeze more leaves in?
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You press them down, right?
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You shake the bag so that they settle out and fill it up more.
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But then when there are a lot of leaves, they still come overflowing out the top and all over the place.
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Those are the words Jesus is using here.
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That's what happened when you did the grain.
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This is how God will give to us.
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So graciously that it's overflowing into the folds of your garment all in your lap.
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You've got more than you know what to do with.
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And so people say, just give money to my church and God will give you more back.
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Just tithe and God will bless your business tenfold this year.
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Just give and God will quid pro quo give you back.
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He'll get you back exactly as you do.
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Maybe even more.
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That's what it says, isn't it?
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Rich Christians, all of us.
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If you really love Jesus, you'll keep getting richer because you'll be giving and he'll just give more back to you and so we'll all be rich.
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And if you don't think this passage is used that way, you haven't been listening to much of what is said in our culture.
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Church culture.
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Really?
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Is that what Jesus is saying?
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Right here in the same breath with blessed are the poor and woe to the rich?
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I think we may be missing something.
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There's certainly no need to deny God's good promises of provision for us.
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But we must not treat him as though he is controlled or manipulated by our giving.
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Nor as though he pays back in the same currency that we give in.
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You may have read this week the story of a young man in Florida who was caught for stealing $7 billion through fraudulent wire transfers.
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That may happen.
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I don't know how common that is.
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This one was really unique though because you know why he did it?
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According to the Huffington Post story, he did it because Jesus wanted him to be rich.
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He said he was just, and I quote, obtaining the wealth Jesus Christ created for him that belonged to him.
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This has nothing to do with the sermon, but the best line of the whole article was this.
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Jesus was unavailable for comment on this matter.
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Thought you would appreciate that.
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Except the reality is what?
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Jesus is available for comment on this matter.
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He says, blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of God.
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Jesus says to us and even to the $7 billion man who thinks that's what he has coming to him,
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your view of fullness is too small.
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You don't have a big enough picture of what I intend for you.
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Your understanding of the riches I promised my children is too limited.
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I have a kingdom of eternal wealth awaiting them beyond anything they could ever give away.
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Pressed down, shaken together, overflowing.
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And yes, it starts now.
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Yes, you begin to get a taste of it.
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But in particular, eternally, lasting you forever beyond your wildest dreams.
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That's what Jesus has been promising.
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That's the way God gives back to us, right?
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He cares for his children, but he blesses us beyond what we think we could come make for ourselves in dollars and cents.
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That's how I'm going to bless you.
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So forgive, give, share.
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That's what he means.
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Verse 39.
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He also told them a parable.
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Can a blind man lead a blind man?
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Will they not both fall into a pit?
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A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.
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Here's a warning.
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Again, it's a warning against pride in one's own performance.
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I don't think you'll outperform Jesus.
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That's not even the goal, verse 40 says.
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If you can't see your own weaknesses, your own sins, you're blind, and you will mislead others, verse 39 is saying.
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That's a good reminder for all of us, particularly for church leaders, as we look toward ordaining church officers next week.
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Don't be a blind guide who is puffed up with pride.
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We'll talk more about that next week.
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It's a reminder to all of us.
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Are we following spiritual leaders who think too highly of themselves?
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Ask yourself, how human is your hero?
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Perhaps here, as you're thinking through what Jesus is calling us to, you're adding to the list of the other ethic, the not Jesus is one.
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Not only judgmental, but now words like prideful, self-righteous, and so on.
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And Jesus is going to drive that point home deeper with a memorable image.
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Verse 41.
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Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
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How can you say to your brother, brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,
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when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye?
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You hypocrite.
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First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.
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Ever walked around seeing somebody with a log sticking out of his eye?
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It's a crazy image, right?
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What Jesus is saying here, his ethic involves deep humility.
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Seeing your own sin as bigger than your brother's sin.
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Being slow to find faults in others and quick to see your own faults.
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While I was in school, I did a lot of journalism.
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Spent a lot of time copy editing.
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I loved copy editing.
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Made me feel so good.
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You get the red pen out.
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Some of you have graded papers.
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Yeah, a comma here.
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A split infinitive.
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A dangling participle.
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A few ideas.
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And by the time I get through, oh, if I've made your paper look bloody, I feel proud of myself.
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Like I was important.
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Do you sometimes live that way?
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Copy editing?
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Spell checking other people's lives?
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Catching all the wrong?
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Does that make you feel better?
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Most of us are ruthless with others' sin.
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And very patient and understanding with our own weaknesses.
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We've got lots of reasons and explanations for why we behave that way.
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Jesus says flip that around.
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Be ruthless with your own sin.
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Quick to acknowledge it.
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Quick to repent of it.
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And patient.
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Understanding with others' sin.
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You may get to help them.
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They may have a speck in their eye.
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But not until you've dealt with yourself.
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The log.
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See, some teachers in Jesus' day were making these detailed lists of religious things for God's people to do.
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The goal that they had was that they would get God's people to do all of these things and not do other things so that they would be holy.
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And therefore protect themselves from the nations around them.
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That was the heart behind it.
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That we're going to be different and separate and protected from others who don't do these things to be very holy.
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They were dealing in specks, right?
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All these details of laws and ways they were going to live.
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But the problem was they were missing the log.
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They were missing the big picture that the law of God was given to them.
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Not to protect them from other nations.
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But to make them into a light to the other nations.
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That was the heart behind it.
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That was the big picture.
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And they missed that entirely.
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In being self-protective.
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We can miss God's heart.
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And not deal with our own deep sin.
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And so Jesus adds to the other list.
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Hypocritical.
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You hypocrite.
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He says.
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One definition of a hypocrite is someone who sees his own sin only in others.
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He knows how to pick that one out.
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He loves to criticize the materialistic while denying his own materialism.
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He loves to catch cheaters while getting away with it himself.
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He loves to yell at those who are losing their temper.
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Calm down!
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Calm down!
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Any of your parents ever done that before?
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Calm down kids!
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No, no.
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Jesus says.
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You're seeing sin.
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But you're missing the log.
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You've found a speck.
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But you've looked right past a log in your own eye.
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Deal with your own log.
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Confess.
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Repent.
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Find healing.
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So Jesus lays out this ethic.
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What it's like to follow him.
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And he would push us this morning to self-examination.
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After showing us the true and beautiful way.
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How he would call us to live.
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He says.
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Verse 43.
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No good tree bears bad fruit.
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Nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit.
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For each tree is known by its own fruit.
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For figs are not gathered from thorn bushes.
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Nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.
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The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good.
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And the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil.
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For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
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Your deeds and your words reflect your treasure.
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What's really in your heart.
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There's that word that we talked about a couple weeks ago, right?
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Your treasure.
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Do we treasure Jesus?
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Jesus?
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Or is something else more valuable?
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For asking that question honestly, we find that our lives reveal the answer pretty reliably, don't they?
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Jesus says, look at the fruit.
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Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.
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But we love to say, oh I didn't mean it.
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What I said or what I did, I didn't mean that.
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Most of the time you did.
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You just have realized you probably shouldn't have.
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So will you do honest self-examination this morning?
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Good fruit or bad fruit?
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What do your actions reveal about your character?
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What do the cracks say about the foundation?
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Jesus says they're so connected.
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The tree and the fruit.
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The heart and the actions.
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It's maybe not the actions you'd think of.
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It's not religious performance that is on the good list here, is it?
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What do you got written down for Jesus ethic?
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I don't know how your list reads there if you've been writing things down.
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But it probably says things like loving enemies.
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Giving sacrificially.
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Repenting quickly.
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Forgiving deeply.
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Not necessarily performing perfectly.
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Don't see that on the list.
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In fact, no points for hanging around Jesus a lot.
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For calling him Lord, Lord.
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Verse 46.
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Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I tell you?
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Lots of people show up at a church on a Sunday.
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Ask yourself honestly.
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Is the pattern of your life one of love?
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Repent.
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Forgive.
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Give.
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Does that characterize you?
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Or not?
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Young people.
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Are you one of the so-called Christian kids at school?
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Who are actually what they're known for is being hateful.
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And exclusive.
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Of others.
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Have you decided that you know best.
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And you can do what you think is best with your body.
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Regardless of what God's word might have to say about it.
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Adults.
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Adults.
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Are you a critical spirit.
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That makes others feel unsafe.
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And unworthy.
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To be around you.
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Are you impossible to critique yourself.
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Because you've always got an explanation.
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Or a defense.
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Is your lifestyle above the critique even of God's word?
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Or a defense.
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Or a defense.
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Or a defense.
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Or a defense.
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Or a defense.
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Or a defense.
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Or a defense.
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Or a defense.
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Or a defense.
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Maybe write something down there on self-examination.
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What do you see when you look at the overflow of your heart?
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Do you see any patterns of cracks beginning to show up?
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There's a danger we all tend to fall into when we see these cracks.
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You can do it with your home for years and years.
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I've heard the figures on foundation work.
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The dollar amounts it can cost.
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I don't want anything to do with it.
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I've watched the lengthy projects across the street.
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As they go to fix the foundation of the other homes in the neighborhood.
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I don't want any part of them in my yard for months.
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Digging everything up.
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It's so much easier just to hide the cracks.
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You know?
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A little bit of putty up there.
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Some good paint.
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Maybe.
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Maybe a few coats.
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It's a lot easier than all the pain of the foundation work.
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It's a lot cheaper.
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That's our tendency, isn't it?
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You know, just be a little nicer here.
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Bite my tongue there.
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Not going to say that anymore in front of her.
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Maybe they'll think I'm getting better over time.
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I'll just hide what I'm indulging in from my parents.
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You know, I was a church kid.
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Church kids really like to do that.
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It makes us feel better about ourselves.
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We think if our parents don't know if we can hide what we're doing from them,
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then everything's really okay.
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Adults do that too, don't they?
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I'm just going to hide this from my spouse rather than confess it to him or her.
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It'll make me feel better.
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Everything will really be fine if they just don't find out about it.
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Just a little bit of paint over the cracks.
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We spend most of our time thinking that's the solution, don't we?
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Brush up the image on social media.
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Stand in front of the mirror long enough.
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Work on the externals.
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Everything's going to be okay.
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That's our natural tendency in all of life.
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And everything in this passage warns us against that.
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Jesus says if the heart is bad, if the foundation is problematic,
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the cracks will split right through the new paint.
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No matter how many coats you've put on, that will come out.
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You can't hide.
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If you see things in your life that are warning signs,
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you've got to be willing to address the foundation issues.
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That's the only solution, Jesus says.
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You see how Jesus makes that clear?
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You've got to start at the heart, at the foundation to address the real issues.
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Because Jesus says here as he gets to the end, floods are coming.
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You see, the landscape in Israel where Jesus would have been looking out as he taught
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had lots of really smooth sand where it was tempting to think there was a quick building project ready.
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You could go and you could build there very quickly and easily.
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But to reach solid rock, you had to dig much deeper.
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It took a lot more work up front.
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And only that would actually withstand the floods that happened when the nearby rivers flooded.
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The sand, of course, washed away.
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If you hadn't gotten down to the rock, you were in trouble.
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There are floods coming in this life, yes.
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But in particular, these would refer to the floods of judgment and eternal destinies.
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And you won't stand in that day if you've just done touch-up work on the external exterior cracks.
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You've got to address the foundation.
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Y'all, it would break my heart beyond what I can express to you if you sat in here in this room
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week after week and year after year thinking,
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I'm safe eternally.
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I'm in.
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I'm good.
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I come to this place.
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Only to find out on that day that you were not.
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That you didn't actually trust in Christ.
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That you had a house without a foundation.
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To your eternal grief.
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How tragic that would be.
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In verse 46.
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Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I tell you?
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The one who hears my words and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground
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without a foundation.
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When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell.
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And the ruin of that house was great.
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Maybe you would call yourself a Christian.
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And by that, what you mean is, well, I'm not a Muslim.
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And I'm not an atheist.
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So, I mean, I live in the Bible belt and I want to kind of be socially respectable.
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And I want my family to be moral and upstanding.
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And so, yeah, I'm a Christian.
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But if you're honest, you don't really love Jesus or have a relationship with Him.
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You've just called yourself a Christian for other reasons.
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You don't see Jesus as that glorious.
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Maybe you don't see God's mission as that central to your purpose.
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You don't see God's Word as that essential for directing your life.
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Jesus says this is what it means to follow Him, to be a Christian.
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That you come to Him, that you hear His words, and that you love Him so much because of His
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great love for you that His words shape the direction of your life.
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That's what He's saying.
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Listen, don't leave today without talking with someone about the foundation issues.
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Pray that God would give you the courage not merely to paint over the cracks until it looks
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better, but to deal with eternal questions, to examine the treasure of your heart, what you
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really love and value, to address foundation issues.
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I think the great English preacher Charles Spurgeon was right on when he spoke about the danger
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for people like you and me who've been around church a lot.
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And we've heard sermons like this before.
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And the danger is that we wouldn't actually engage.
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We would just talk about it.
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The common temptation, he said, is instead of really repenting, to talk about repenting.
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Instead of truly loving, to talk of love without loving.
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Instead of coming to Christ, to speak about coming to Christ, and profess to come to Christ,
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and yet not come at all.
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Y'all, how tragic would that be to spend your life doing that?
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God has so much more in mind.
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He wants a relationship with you where you get to be everything he's created you to be,
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where you love him and you know of his love for you beyond what you can imagine.
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How tragic would it be to spend your life talking about Christian things?
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We're just not that interesting, honestly.
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Spend your life talking about church stuff and not know the one we're all talking about.
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Jesus invites you this morning, truly, to come to him.
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Verse 47.
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Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I'll show you what he's like.
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He's like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock.
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And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it
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because it had been well built.
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It doesn't involve your perfect performance, but rather your complete trust in his.
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Because you're not the foundation.
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You trust him to be the one that holds, the only thing that holds you.
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So you can actually have moments of failure without the house crashing.
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Because you're not the foundation.
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And you can have moments where the house actually looks like everything he designed
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and intended for it to be and not get prideful.
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Because you're not the foundation.
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Jesus offers himself as the sure foundation.
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He invites us into a transformed life in relationship with him.
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Where we're fully human giving and loving and repenting and forgiving.
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All of that.
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But his perfect life is the one we trust in.
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His death on the cross covers all our failures so that he declares it is finished.
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There's nothing else left for you to do.
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Nothing more we have to earn or achieve.
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He has done it for us.
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That's the kind of Savior invites you into relationship with him this morning.
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That's the Savior we celebrate at this table.
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That we know a foundation like that.
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One who has never failed and will never fail us.
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Listen to how Paul records the institution of this supper we're about to celebrate.
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He says,
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I'm going to read a little bit further.
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Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner
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will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.
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Let a person examine himself then.
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And so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
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For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body
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eats and drinks judgment on himself.
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It may be hard to come to this table
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having just heard a sermon and a warning like that.
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Having just heard a call to self-examination
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and a warning of partaking unworthily like Paul writes there.
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Because we all examine our lives and see some cracks, don't we?
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All of us who are willing to look honestly,
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we see some of those cracks
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and wonder what's the foundation issue.
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So it's good to examine ourselves.
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Paul says examine yourself before just coming thoughtlessly to this table.
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But let me tell you this,
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if you examine yourself and you see those cracks
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and what they make you do is to cry out to Jesus for forgiveness
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because you have no other hope,
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then come to this table and find that He is indeed your foundation,
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the one you would hope in rather than yourself.
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When you have no way to defend yourself
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or hope in yourself any longer,
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pray for His forgiveness.
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Pray that He would give you more love for Him
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and come eagerly to this table.
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Come to His body and blood
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given to cover the cracks permanently for you forever.
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To come to this table,
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you don't have to be Presbyterian.
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You just have to be repenting of yourself
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and trusting in Jesus.
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May you pray for us and then we'll come.
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Father, thank You for such a table.
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Thank You for a foundation
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that is not one we have built.
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We see all the places that we have messed up.
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Father, would You show us the beauty
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of a foundation built by another.
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Show us for those of us who have never known Him
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our need for it,
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that we may come and find Him
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to have lived that perfect life
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and died for all of our failures.
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Father, use these elements in our hearts
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for a spiritual purpose
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that they would strengthen our trust in Christ again.
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We ask in His name.
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Amen.
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For more information,
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visit us online at southwood.org.
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website or at southwood.org.
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www.funkful.org.
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irian.org.
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