The Words of Jesus

On Sunday mornings we’ve been looking at the early chapters of Luke’s Gospel, which tell how Jesus called his first disciples to follow him. And I want to start by looking back at the call of one of those disciples, because it’s essential background for today’s passage. So would you turn in the Bibles to Luke chapter 5 and v27:

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. [And tax collectors then were notoriously crooked and seen as morally the lowest of the low. And yet, read on:] "Follow me," Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'? [Ie, how can you possibly accept them?]" (5.27-30)

So the Pharisees thought of God as the great Examiner, and of life as the entrance exam to heaven – and that if you were good enough, God would accept you. And they thought they were good enough. But read on, v31:

Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous [i.e., people who think they’re good enough], but sinners to repentance." (5.31-32)

I don’t know about you but I’m hopeless with needles and often faint after injections. And the last time I did, I keeled over in the surgery waiting room. And I came round to find myself on the floor staring up into the terrified eyes of a toddler – whose mother had probably spent the whole morning saying that going to the doctor was nothing to be afraid of, and then the first thing he sees on arrival is a dead body. Anyway, while I was down there, I noticed one of the posters which said:

ARE THEY REALLY SICK? ONLY CALL OUT THE DOCTOR IF ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY

And in vv31 and 32, Jesus is saying, ‘Like a doctor, I wouldn’t have come out on call, from heaven to earth, to die for you on the cross, if you were all morally healthy. But you’re not. You’re all morally sick. And I’ve come to offer you forgiveness, and then start making you better.’ So he’s not the Examiner, but the merciful doctor. And in chapter 6, Luke then shows us what it means to have Jesus as our merciful Lord. So turn over to Luke 6 and v20:

Looking at his disciples, Jesus said... (v20)

And we’ve been working through this bit of Jesus’ teaching, and we pick it up again today at v36, where the Lord Jesus says:

‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.’ (v36)

I.e., ‘Remember: your relationship with God my Father depends entirely on mercy, on forgiveness. And everything you do should flow out of that and reflect that.’ Which gets us to my first heading:

Firstly, BE MERCIFUL, RATHER THAN PLAY THE JUDGE (vv37-39)

Look down to v37:

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (vv37-38)

So this is about how you react to other people’s sinfulness – including their sins against you. And for the Pharisees the answer was simple: you condemn the sin and withdraw from the sinner. After all, isn’t that what they suggested to Jesus at Levi’s party? ‘Why do you eat and drink with them? Why don’t you just condemn their lifestyle and leave?’ And that reaction comes from thinking that God is the Examiner, that life is an exam, and that you’ve passed – so that you can now look down on the failures of others, and even act as an assistant examiner, giving out certificates of condemnation where you think they’re needed.

But that picture of God and ourselves and others is totally false. The Lord Jesus says that we’re all morally sick; that none of us comes near to passing God’s standards; and that every moment of every day God’s acceptance of us depends entirely on his mercy. And he’s saying: so treat others the way God treats you.

But look down at v37 again. What does he mean when he says:

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (vv37-38)

It might sound like he’s saying, ‘If you forgive others, that will earn God’s forgiveness of you, as a consequence.’ But he can’t mean that because you can’t earn or deserve forgiveness. And in fact, he’s not talking about what earns God’s forgiveness. He’s talking about what is evidence that you’ve been forgiven by God. And he’s saying, if you forgive others, that’s evidence that you’ve been forgiven by God: it’s evidence that you know you depend entirely on God’s mercy even on the best day of your Christian life (let alone the worst) –and that’s why you extend mercy to others. Because you know you’d be sunk if God withheld mercy from you. And because you know that he won’t stand for us asking him for mercy, while we’re withholding it from others.

Now I realise we’re not just talking about little things here. Life is full of little things that need constant forgiveness – that’s the story of marriage and family and church life and all our relationships. But we’re also talking about very big and painful things, where forgiveness is hard, and not just a quick matter of, ‘Sorry I’m late’ – ‘That’s OK, apology accepted.’ Sometimes it’s a massive struggle and takes a long, long time to get to the point where you can say to someone, ‘I forgive you,’ and where you can keep saying to yourself, ‘I have forgiven them.’ But even with those big things, we’re called to forgive as the Lord Jesus has forgiven us. And remembering how he died for our forgiveness on the cross is what stops us saying, ‘I’m sorry. You’re asking me to do something too hard. You just don’t know what this feels like.’

Forgiveness can be hard because the other person has never properly understood and acknowledged what they’ve done to you (and they may never do so). But it can also be hard to know exactly what forgiveness means in terms of treating the other person. E.g., what does it mean to forgive someone who’s sexually abused you; or a spouse who’s left you? Here’s wisdom from one writer:

In some contexts, forgiveness is bound up with reconciliation; but in others, it is simply about the stance of the one who forgives, even though no reconciliation with the other party has taken place… The person who forgives refuses to demonise the wrongdoer and recognises the wrongdoers common humanity; the person who forgives quietly surrenders vengeance, the ‘right’ to get even. (Love in hard places, Don Carson, Crossway – from chapter 3, ‘Love and forgiveness: thinking about basics’)

It’s important to add that forgiveness does not mean necessarily feeling or relating towards the other person as we did before. And as another writer says:

We must keep reminding ourselves that my forgiveness of another person is not nullified if I remember the hurt, but only if I choose to act in a vengeful manner. (Going the distance, Peter Brain, Matthias Media – from chapter 6, ‘Anger: using it constructively’)

So, be merciful, rather than play the judge. Onto my second heading:

Second, FOCUS ON YOUR OWN FAULTS RATHER THAN THE FAULTS OF YOUR FELLOW-CHRISTIANS (vv39-42)

Look on to v39:

He also told them this parable: Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye [ie your fellow-Christian’s eye] and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (vv39-42)

Now remember, Jesus was originally talking here to his first disciples – including the twelve apostles he’s just chosen (see vv12-16) – i.e., the future leaders of his church. Which is why he starts talking about leadership. Look at v39 again:

He also told them this parable: Can a blind man lead a blind man? (v39)

So who is he calling ‘blind’ here? Well, strictly speaking, I think the answer is: all of us. After all, look again at v42:

How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see [ie, you’re blind to] the plank in your own eye? (v42)

Well, hands up who’s never done that? Who here has never pointed out a fault in someone else that you yourself were also guilty of? If you don’t put up your hand it means either that you haven’t got the guts to say you’re the exception to the rule. Or that you accept, along with me, that we’re all still to some extent spiritually blind – sinful, and often not even able to see it in ourselves.

So, v39, can I be your spiritual Leader with a capital ‘L’? No, because I’m just a sinner like you. I’m just a work in progress, and if you’re a believer, you’re just a work in progress – and Jesus is the spiritual Leader with a capital ‘L ‘that we both need working on us. That’s the way we’re to see things. And then look at v40:

A student [i.e., a student of Jesus] is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. (v40)

And that’s a call for none of us to get above ourselves. It’s a call to remember that however long you’ve been a Christian, whatever leadership you have in JPC – small group leader, youth leader, staff member – you’re still just a sinner in the Lord Jesus’ school of correction, just like everybody else. And, as Jesus says with his picture of the specks and the planks, that means you won’t think your first priority is to sort out other peoples’ sins and faults. You’ll know your first priority is to keep co-operating with the Lord as he sorts out yours. It’s like the emergency procedure video on a plane where they tell you to put on your own oxygen mask first, before trying to help anyone else with theirs.

So, e.g., if you find yourself preparing Home Group and thinking, ‘Boy, Fred really needs to hear this,’ or, ‘I really hope Barbara’s there to get that,’ then beware. Beware of that attitude. Remember that you’re a Christian first, and a leader second. Remember that you need the Lord to keep working on you as much as anyone in the group. And remember that the best thing you can do for your group is not to help them understand the Bible – very important as that is. The best thing you can do for them is to set an example of responding to the Bible humbly and repentantly and practically, yourself. As the great Scottish minister Robert McCheyne put it, ‘My people’s greatest need is: my own personal holiness.’

So this applies to being leaders; but also to how we regard leaders. So one application is that, whatever respect is proper, we should never put Christian leaders on a pedestal or think of them as anything but fellow-sinners. And another application is that if we find any sense of superiority in a Christian leader – any sense of ‘holier than thou’ – we should be worried. Because that’s not the attitude of someone who knows they’re just a fellow-sinner who, moment by moment, depends entirely on mercy.

So, the Lord says: focus on your own faults rather than the faults of your fellow-Christians. And how many marriages and homes and churches would be the happier if we set ourselves to do that.

Onto my third and final heading:

Third, CHECK THE REALITY OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS, RATHER THAN BE DECEIVED (vv43-49)

Look on to v43:

No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognised by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn-bushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. (vv43-45)

How does that follow on from what the Lord Jesus has just said about leaders?
Well, leaders are the ones most in danger of being hypocrites most in danger of what Jesus warns against in v42. So, e.g., I could preach like this and then go home and be the most ungodly, unforgiving, critical husband and father. Which reminds us that you don’t recognise a real Christian by his sermons or by his leadership position or by her Bible knowledge or by the fact that she’s come to church all her life. Jesus says you recognise a real Christian by his or her fruit – i.e., by character and behaviour that reflects (albeit imperfectly) what God is like. And he’s calling on all of us who’d say we’re Christians – not just those in leadership – to check the reality of our relationship with him, on that basis.

And, by the way, in v45 where he talks about ‘the good man’ and ‘the evil man’ he’s not going back on what he said earlier about us all being morally sick. In Jesus’ book, we’re all by nature ‘the evil person’, that’s the condition in which he finds us – which doesn’t mean we’re as bad as we could be, but that we’re never as good as we should be. And in Jesus’ book, ‘the good person’ is the person he’s forgiven and in whose heart he’s working by his Spirit to make them good – working from the inside out. And, end of v45:

For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. (v45)

So one area we’re to check is our words. E.g., going back to v37, how free are they of judging and condemning? Or how free are they from anger or complaining? And so on. But then Jesus says, ‘Check your whole obedience to me – words and actions.’ Look on to v46:

Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When the flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete. (vv46-49)

So that’s a picture of two people. Both coming to church. Both hearing Jesus’ words. Both thinking of themselves as Christians. Both here this morning. But if the flood stands for the day of judgement, it becomes clear then that one of them was actually self-deceived now. Because one of them never really had this relationship with Jesus as their merciful Lord. One of them had never really admitted their sin to themselves and to him. One of them had never really asked Jesus for forgiveness. One of them had never really asked him to come into their life by his Spirit to help them live for him. And so they hadn’t really lived a life of trying (albeit imperfectly) to put his words into practice.

And once again: Jesus is not saying that living that kind of life earns you his acceptance and a place in heaven. He’s saying that kind of life is evidence that you’ve already experienced his forgiveness and acceptance and are wanting to respond by pleasing him. And to illustrate that, let me end with one of my favourite stories – about Abraham Lincoln. The story is told that, in order to demonstrate his opposition to the slave trade, Lincoln once went to a market to buy a slave and set her free. The slave he chose recognised him, and misunderstanding what was happening as she was handed over to him, she spat at him for what she thought was total hypocrisy. And he simply responded by saying, ‘You’re free to go,’ and walked away. And a moment later she pulled him to a halt and said to him, ‘Sir, if I am free, I want to serve the person who set me free.’ And she apparently did so into her old age.

If you know someone has been merciful to you like that, it makes you want to serve them. And this part of Luke’s Gospel is saying: Jesus offers the greatest mercy of all –forgiveness for everything through his death on the cross. And those who know they’ve received mercy like want to serve him, and to treat others as he’s treated them. Is that you? Is that me?