Latest / HBCWestminster / 5.3.23 Matthew 7:1-12 Pastor Sam Porges

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5.3.23 Matthew 7:1-12 Pastor Sam Porges · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Matthew chapter 7, we are going to cover the first half of the chapter tonight, and then we will wrap up our study next week with the final words of Jesus in this sermon. But I want to ask you a question. Did you hear the teaching of Jesus' little rabbis this last week? Yeah? You hearing the birds?
• 0:25
  If you're looking at the, I was telling Danny, you know, the dandelions, I know that they're a weed, but still they're speaking to us, right? God is even clothing them. But I hope that you did get the chance to hear the teaching of the birds and the flowers this last week. Now, let's review really quick what we talked about last week. Now, someone tell me, what did we talk about from Matthew 6, verses 19 to 34 a week ago? What was the big point?
• 0:54
  Okay, good eye and bad eye. What did we mean by that? What did we mean by good eye and bad eye? Okay, yes, it's how you see the world. Jesus introduces this concept to us in chapter 6, verses 22 and 23, about the good eye and the bad eye. And if you remember, the names of the good eyes and bad eyes, there's ayin tovah, which is good eye. And Jesus says the bad eye is ayin ra'ah. And he says there are two ways that you can look at the world.
• 1:26
  You can look at it with a good eye, right? The optimistic, hopeful perspective that sees the kingdom of God. It sees God's provision. It sees potential in people. It's hopeful. It's driven by faith and love and trust. Or you could look at the world through ayin ra'ah.
• 1:43
  The bad eye, which is a pessimistic perspective on the world. It doesn't see the kingdom of God. It doesn't see God's provision. It doesn't see God's open hand. And so it clings to the little that it has, right? We said resents those who have more and is not willing to help those who have less. And we said that God has one of these eyes. Do you remember which one it is? The good eye. Certainly God looks at the world with a good eye.
• 2:12
  He doesn't view it as a hopeless failure, right? No, he's doing something in the world that is good. And if we want to be the kingdom people that God has called us to be, then we too must have ayin tovah. We talked how these perspectives affect our views on money and worry, right? We said that ayin tovah, the good eye, has no problem letting go of earthly treasures. Why? It belongs to him, and what are they storing up?
• 2:42
  Treasures in heaven, right? Not treasures on earth. We also said that ayin tovah, because it views the world through God's perspective, essentially, it is free to cast worry aside. Why? Don't be anxious about your life. Why? Because God has you in his hands. Listen to the birds. They're telling you, ah, don't worry, God's got you, right? Listen to the flowers. No, God's going to take care of your needs, right?
• 3:06
  And so we introduced this concept of the eyes last week, and this week we'll see that living with a good eye not only affects how we treat money, but also how we treat people. I'm sure many of you have heard this story. It's a popular one, I think, but nevertheless, I'm going to tell it. It goes like this. A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
• 3:36
  The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection. As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The police officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door.
• 4:06
  She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects. He said, Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car. Judging people seems to be part of human nature.
• 4:42
  Doesn't it? Sometimes we make judgments that are wrong, and sometimes we make judgments that are right. And sometimes we're on the receiving end of a wrong judgment call, and sometimes we're on the receiving end of a correct judgment call. This can be a difficult area of life to navigate. In the passage before us tonight, Jesus invites us to let our good eye inform and transform three types of relationships we have in our lives. Those are with our brothers,
• 5:13
  with others and with God. So that's what we're going to study tonight. How does the good eye transform our relationships with our brothers, others, and with God? I'm going to read the passage for us, the whole passage, verses 1 to 12 of chapter 7. And so if you are able, would you stand with me in honor of God's word? And I'm going to read beginning in Matthew 7, verse 1. Jesus says this. I think we have the passage as well, if you wouldn't mind clicking through that. Awesome. Thanks, dude.
• 5:48
  Jesus says, Do not give dogs what is holy.
• 6:18
  And do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. And the one who seeks, finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
• 6:47
  How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Father, I do ask tonight that you would humble our hearts, but humble us in a joyful way. When we stand before you small and needy, we can trade all of our weakness for your strength. Help us to have good eyes and to understand what Jesus is saying tonight, we pray. In Jesus' name.
• 7:18
  Amen. Amen. Well, let's begin with the relationship we have with our spiritual brothers and sisters. You may have noticed as we read that the word brother is used in verses 3, 4, and 5, which tells us that this beginning section teaches us how to relate to those within our spiritual family. Now, I want to read verses 1 to 5 again. So follow with me. Verse 1, Jesus says,
• 8:11
  This section begins with that famous statement, right?
• 8:17
  Judge. Considering the frequency with which this verse is quoted in our world, one would think more people actually know what it means. Unfortunately, it's often used as a rebuttal to accountability. Isn't that true? When verse one is quoted, it's quoted as a rebuttal to accountability, right? Someone is called out for a wrongdoing and the response is, hey man, don't judge. What they're essentially communicating is something akin to, you don't get to tell me what's right and wrong.
• 8:48
  And for you to even do that is wrong. Do you agree? That's what's being communicated. But we must answer this, church. Is Jesus teaching here that we shouldn't discern between what is right and wrong? Is he teaching us to be moral relativists? You get to decide what's good for you and what's bad for you. And I'll get to decide what's good for me and what's bad for me. Is Jesus teaching us to live in a world that is a moral free-for-all?
• 9:20
  No, Jesus can't be teaching this because he himself has drawn distinctions between what is good and bad in this sermon. You guys will remember the passage in Matthew chapter 5 that we talked about a month and a half ago or so, where Jesus offers us transforming initiatives in place of our vicious cycles of sin. You remember that?
• 9:42
  anger and lust and retaliation, loving your enemies, that whole thing. So Jesus himself has drawn lines between what is good and what is evil. He even taught in John 7, verse 24, he just says, judge with right judgment. This is Jesus, right? So rather than teaching us to erase the line between right and wrong, what Jesus is getting at here is that the person with a good eye doesn't assume a position of judgment over his or her brothers. Notice.
• 10:12
  what the incentive is in verse 1 for not judging. Why should we not judge according to verse 1? Because you don't want to get judged. That's the reasoning he gives here. He makes clear in verse 2 that the judgment you deal out to others will be dealt back to you by God. With the measure you use, he says it will be measured back to you. Now the rabbis taught that God had two measures, if you will. Mercy and...
• 10:45
  justice. And it's possible that Jesus here is alluding to that idea to teach that if you treat others mercifully, you will receive mercy from God. But if you treat others with justice and no mercy, then you will be treated with justice and no mercy from God. An important principle lies at the heart of these simple verses, and it's this. Catch this. There is a difference between making a judgment and being judgmental.
• 11:17
  There's a difference between making a judgment and being judgmental. We make judgments every single day about every single topic in our lives, from what time we wake up, to what we wear, to what we eat, how we drive, how we speak to others, how we work, how we take care of our families, how we spend our money, how we spend our time, how we seek the Lord, and on and on we could go, right? You and I are constantly prioritizing and reprioritizing things in our lives.
• 11:44
  We're constantly weighing competing values, dividing between what is right and what is wrong. And as kingdom citizens, it is our duty to discern what is good and evil according to the standard that God sets, not according to our own standard. And we must not only believe in what God has said to be good and right and wrong, we must not only believe those things internally, we must be willing to call them what they are.
• 12:14
  It will not do for the people of God to agree with God silently. We must agree and then call right and wrong for what they are. So making this kind of judgment, right, discernment, is good. It is a godly thing to do. But how many of you guys know that being judgmental is a completely different thing? Judgmentalism not only divides between right and wrong, but it possesses a particular attitude that belongs to ayin ra'ah.
• 12:47
  the bad eye, and not ayin tovah, the good eye. A bad eye sits in judgment over others. The person with ayin ra'ah is excessively critical, fault-finding, and self-righteous. They are quick to deal out death and judgment. He sees the imperfections of others but is ignorant of his own. He discerns between right and wrong in others but does so with a hard heart. He is graceless, unforgiving, harsh.
• 13:17
  and aims to put others down by pointing out their sin. This is judgmentalism. Now, something happened to me this last week which I don't think I ever thought would happen. I got rebuked for driving my car to work and not walking more and for being a Baptist. I was here at the church. Lori had left for lunch. Normally, we keep the doors locked just for security purposes.
• 13:51
  And so when we're in our offices, you can hear when someone tugs on the door, but it's locked, right? It makes that sound. And so I hear the door tug. I get up. I go to the door, and it's some guy I had never seen before. And I open the door, and I'm standing there like this. The door's propped open. He's standing, I don't know, 10 feet in front of me. And I say, hey, what's going on? And this dude just starts preaching. He had a message, and he was determined to tell it to me, okay?
• 14:18
  And so it was, man, churches just don't keep their doors open anymore. And I'm standing there with it open. And I just go, and he says, well, not you. And I mean like just churches. And he just starts ranting about how the church doesn't care about people, how the church doesn't want to help people who are suffering. And at one point I just said, are you mad at us? I'd never met this guy before. Are you mad at us? And he says, no, I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at the world. I'm mad at the church. And then he continued on his whole thing about how,
• 14:51
  He walks around the city and doesn't drive. He walks like Jesus walked. That's what he says. I walked just like Jesus did. And I said, well, I'm pretty sure if Jesus lived in the day with cars, he probably would have used a car. And that was like the button, right? I'm sure you guys have heard if the disciples had a car, it would have been a Honda because they were all in one accord, right? That whole thing. But it set him off. How dare you?
• 15:23
  Advocate for the destruction of the planet. How many miles do you walk a day? And I said, well, I live a 15-minute drive from my work, so I don't think it's really feasible for me to walk. And he's the kind of guy where you couldn't get in a full sentence without him cutting you off, right? And it was, no, I walk 30 miles a day. I walk not by faith but by sight. You drive your car, you walk by sight and not by faith. And I was just like, all right, dude. All right. So he starts walking away because he's just mad.
• 15:52
  And I say, hey, can I tell you one more thing? He turns around and I just say, you know, you should really get to know a church before you just start judging them because you have no idea anything about this church and you don't know anything about me. And then he just started rebuking me. Oh man, I rebuke you in Jesus' name for all of these certain things. And as he walked down the sidewalk and that way, the last thing I heard him say was, and I rebuke your anti-woman ways.
• 16:24
  And I just thought how funny it is that this would happen the week I'm studying, judge not that you be not judged, right? Now, half of me feels bad for him because you're like, dude, you're controlled by your anger. You are not controlled by the spirit, right? But then I thought, what did you expect that to accomplish, right? Like, do you think that I was just going to fall on my knees and change my life?
• 16:51
  With you yelling at me? You don't even know me, right? And I thought, dude, that's ayin ra'a. That's a bad eye, right? It's judgmentalism. That's what Jesus is getting at here in this passage. So this is ayin ra'a. It's judgmental, right? On the flip side, the person with a good eye, with ayin tova, knows that there's one judge and it's not her. This is what James 4, verse 12 says. Who are you to judge your neighbor? You don't sit on the judgment seat.
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  She's aware of her own shortcomings, this person with ayin tovah, which has made her humble. She treats others with the benefit of the doubt, assuming the best of them. She doesn't assume she knows the motives of another person, but gives them an honest chance. One rabbi who lived about 100 years before Jesus said this, and I really like this. He said,
• 17:51
  That's wise, right? This is what the good eye does. Ayin tovah not only leads to open hands, and we discussed that last week, right? Good eyes lead to open hands, but good eyes also lead to an open heart. Jesus illustrates the difference between these two perspectives with an analogy about specks and logs, right? Which I just read in verses three to five. Now, notice that he brings our attention back to our eyes, and specifically,
• 18:21
  to discernment of sins in our lives, the logs, and in the lives of others, the specks. Just as Jesus addressed hypocrisy in chapter 6, verses 1 to 18, right? Hypocrisy as it relates to giving, praying, and fasting. He addresses it again here by asking us how we could possibly attempt to remove a speck from our brother's eye.
• 18:48
  If we have a log in our own, and his language here is obviously hyperbolic, but it's effective, okay? Think about it like this. Okay. All right, Tim. You don't have to do anything. Just hold that next to your face. Okay. So, Tim is holding a toothpick. Hold it up for everyone to see, okay? This is a toothpick. It's not a speck, but I needed something that you all would be able to see, okay?
• 19:20
  So Tim has got a toothpick, and let's say this is a problem in Tim's life. And I see the problem, right? The toothpick is there, right? And I think, man, I'm going to fix Tim. So I'm going to point this thing out in his life. Meanwhile, I have this in my eye. And I'm going to go, hey, brother Tim, you have something in your eye. You should really get that out. It's probably affecting your vision.
• 19:57
  And I want you to see clearly, and so I'm going to be the spec police, and I'm going to tell you, you've got to get this thing out of your eye, right? Now, it's dumb, but think about that image. What do you think Tim's response would be? Do you think that the likelihood of him changing and taking me seriously is good? Why? Yeah, right?
• 20:33
  It's like, obviously this isn't happening. You can't be serious, right? The good eye and the bad eye handle the sins of other people very differently. They handle them very differently. If I have a log in my eye, the only thing I can do for others is point out their specs from a distance. Did you notice how close I could get to Tim with this in my eye? I can only point.
• 21:05
  and shout from a distance, Tim, you got something in your eye. You should get it out, right? I can only stand back and do that. To see a speck in the eye of my brother but fail to notice the log in my own, Jesus says, is a discernment problem. I can't see clearly. Now, notice that someone might actually truly have a speck in their eye because Jesus says after you've removed the log from your own eye, what are you supposed to do? Help them remove the speck. So it's not just like we're making this up.
• 21:35
  The toothpick, you can keep that, by the way, Tim. It's your souvenir for tonight. The toothpick is there, but I've got a log in my own. The issue is not whether or not they have a speck in their eye. The issue is whether I see clearly enough to take it out. Imagine for a moment an eye surgeon who does not see clearly. Would you want that surgeon to operate on you? Absolutely not. Why?
• 22:05
  Because they could do a great deal of damage, right? So too can the bad eye and hypocrisy cause relational damage. Ayin ra'ah keeps us from seeing ourselves and others clearly, and it walks us down the path of judgment and hypocrisy, not down the path of right judgment and humility. You ever notice that most judgmental people are not good at receiving criticism, right?
• 22:37
  They can dish it out, but they can't take it. When their measure is used against them, the response is not good. This is a heart that is out of alignment with the heart of God. Hypocritical judgmentalism manifests itself in things like shallow friendships, an inflated ego, a deteriorated spiritual life, gossip, insults, criticism, cynicism, contempt, and complaining.
• 23:06
  This is how the bad eye shows itself. One commentator has said that this passage about judgment is connected to the previous verses about worry, which we ended with last week, right? In this way, why would we not forgive someone for the speck in their eye? Why would we only deal in justice and not mercy? Maybe because we worry that they won't learn their lesson if I forgive them. You ever feel that?
• 23:38
  Maybe it's because we get satisfaction in calling them out. Feels good, right? Man, you got a speck. To do either one of those things comes from the bad eye. It comes from ayin ra'ah. The good eye, however, sees the log in its own eye as a bigger deal than the speck in someone else's. Now notice, we've all seen a real log and we've all seen a real speck. Which one is actually bigger? The log, clearly.
• 24:08
  And I've wondered if maybe Jesus compares personal, like your personal sin to a log because it's closer to you. Like you should see this as a big problem, but I haven't fully thought that through yet. But the good eye removes hypocrisy and sin from its life so that it can see clearly enough to actually help remove specks from others' eyes. And because it doesn't have a giant log crowding its vision,
• 24:36
  The good eye can actually get close enough to someone to have a relationship and actually help. The distance caused between me and Tim in that illustration was caused by this. But if I remove that, then I can actually get close enough to Tim as a brother to develop a relationship and then to talk about what's going on in our lives and to help lead him into godliness, right? That's what the good eye attempts to do. It doesn't point from a distance.
• 25:06
  Colossians chapter three, verses 12 to 14, give us some evidences of the good eye and how it relates to brothers. Paul writes this, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and catch this, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
• 25:35
  That sound familiar? Just covered that a couple weeks ago, right? Sermon on the Mount. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. You know, the longer I walk with Jesus, the more aware I become of the logging company that has set up shop within my own head. It's just like, it's producing logs, right? I have a lot of logs in my life, a lot of blind spots I can't see.
• 26:08
  And those blind spots require not only the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but the honesty of community for me to remove them. The more I seek the leading of the Spirit and the more I press into community, the more quickly I can put that logging company out of business. When we develop a healthy awareness of our own logs, and catch me when I say this, church, when we develop a healthy awareness of our own logs, not a self-deprecating, self-absorbed depression, okay?
• 26:39
  But when we develop a healthy awareness of our own problems, our own shortcomings, what we're doing is we're sowing seeds of humility and mercy and forgiveness that eventually grow into a harvest of Christ-like compassion that is able to help others grow in the faith. That's what it does. As we think about using our powers of discernment to divide between right and wrong, let's remember that ayin ra'ah, the bad eye,
• 27:11
  distorts discernment into judgmentalism and wants to put others down by calling out their specs, right? But the good eye, ayin tovah, uses its powers of discernment redemptively in order to build others up. The motivation is completely different. The good eye is the better portion that belongs to kingdom citizens like you and me. It's ours for the taking.
• 27:39
  So now that we've received wisdom about relating to our brothers, what about those who aren't our brothers? What about those who aren't in the spiritual family? What about the others? Look at verse 6. He says, In Jesus' day, pearls were a figure of speech for teaching, for Torah.
• 28:07
  for the wisdom of God. And dogs and pigs were also figures of speech used to refer to Gentiles because both dogs and pigs were unclean animals. Now, lest we get offended, those terms, dogs and pigs, didn't carry quite the negative connotation in Jesus' day as they do in ours. Remember the Syrophoenician woman in Matthew chapter 15 asking Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus says, it's not right. What does he say? To give the...
• 28:38
  children's bread and throw it to the dogs. And then she responds, I ain't a dog. No, that's not what she says. Even the dogs eat the crumbs under the table, right? So it didn't carry quite the negative connotation. But nevertheless, John Calvin points out, I think rightly, that based on the final phrase in this verse, right, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you, that these aren't just unbelievers in general. These are
• 29:07
  People who are adamant in their rejection of God and of the gospel. These aren't just dogs. They're wild dogs. These aren't just pigs. They're pigs with tusks, right? What Jesus is teaching here is that to throw God's teaching at people who clearly don't want it is pointless. And it shows a lack of discernment on our part. In fact, he says they may respond negatively if you continually
• 29:33
  force God's teaching on them. And maybe you guys have experienced this when you're evangelizing, or maybe with adult children who have walked away from the Lord, or with family members who may not believe, right? You bring up the Bible and it doesn't produce anything good. Proverbs 9 verse 8 says, do not reprove a scoffer or he will hate you. Brothers give pearls to one another because they're both submitted to God. But what would throwing pearls at a pig do?
• 30:03
  I mean, imagine going to a farm. There's a little pig pen, and you've got pearls in your hand, and you lower them and place them at the feet of the pig. What would that do? Nothing. The pig doesn't care, right? Because it doesn't see their value. Like, I wouldn't quote the Bible to someone who doesn't believe in the same way that I would quote it to you. Because we're brothers, not others. Does that make sense?
• 30:34
  It's our relationship with God that changes that dynamic. And when dealing with others, we need to look out for the same vicious cycle we saw in the section on brothers, right? Verses one to five, which is judgmentalism. Church, we don't get to sit in judgment either over those who agree with us spiritually, either with them or with people who disagree with us spiritually. We do not get to sit in judgment over them, to look upon them negatively, to judge their value as a person. We don't get to sit back and go,
• 31:05
  I have the teaching of the scriptures. Look at these dogs. Look at these pigs, right? That crosses a line. That's a bad eye. Also, it completely dissolves our testimony, right? We avoid throwing pearls before pigs because it doesn't produce anything good. And here's what I would encourage you to do. If there are people in your life who you're going, man, they adamantly reject the teaching of God.
• 31:31
  I think what Jesus would have us do is rather than just quoting scripture at them all day, Jesus says, why don't you live out what it means to live in the peace of God and just let them examine your life? That will be a word enough for them. And maybe God would change their heart. We come now to the final relationship that is transformed by the good eye in verses 7 to 11.
• 31:58
  It's our relationship with God. I'm going to read those again. Look at verse 7. He says,
• 32:26
  Give good things, excuse me, to those who ask him. Like we discovered last week, the good eye is the perspective that sees God's provision. It sees the kingdom, right? It sees God at work. It's the optimistic, hopeful perspective that trusts God to provide for every need. And the good eye prays in a way that the bad eye doesn't and even cannot. It prays with faith.
• 32:56
  It prays with expectation. Now, depending on where you put the emphasis in these verses determines what you walk away believing about them. In our English translations, we naturally, I think, put the emphasis on it will be given to you. You will find. It will be opened to you, right?
• 33:19
  As if all we need to do is ask, seek, and knock, and God promises to give us whatever we're wishing for. And this passage, if we interpret it that way, very quickly turns into a name it and claim it passage. God wants to bless you, and if you just ask, he will open the floodgates of heaven. You just need to pledge your hundred dollars right now, right? Do it now. Three, two, one. Do it. God's going to bless you, but give, right? Whatever you name, it's yours. Whatever you claim, it's yours.
• 33:50
  Yours. Now this idea may sound nice initially, but our experience tells us that it's not true. Any people in here prayed for something that you didn't get? Right? Everyone. Anyone grateful that you prayed for something and God didn't give it to you? Yeah. In his wisdom, God knows what every praying person needs better than they even do. In the Greek, the emphasis in these verses is not on it will be given to you.
• 34:19
  you will find and it will be open to you, but on the commands, ask, seek, and knock. Translating the tenses of the Greek verbs here to English is difficult, but one scholar words it this way, and this is really helpful. Look at this, he says, to understand their meaning in English, we have to turn them around. To receive something, ask. To find something, seek. To get the door open, knock. For everyone who receives has been asking.
• 34:49
  Those who find have been seeking, and those for whom the door is opened have been knocking. I like that. Jesus is inviting us to go to God in prayer with confidence, knowing that he hears us and he answers according to his will. There's no harm in asking and seeking and knocking. Ayin Tova, the good eye, prays with faith, believing that the good God of all creation hears our voice.
• 35:18
  Man, I love Psalm 5. In the first few verses, it says, in the morning, I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. Lord, I'm going to bring something to you. I'm going to bring my requests to you. I'm going to ask, I'm going to seek, and I'm going to knock, and then I'm going to watch for what you're going to do. I'm just going to cast them your way and then forget about them, right? No, I'm watching.
• 35:50
  Father. One commentator I was reading this week says this, God is not a reluctant stranger who has to be cajoled into generosity. Like you're standing at the intersection and God pulls up in his car and you've got your sign and you're begging and God is like, all right, here's a little bit, right? Like that's not who he is. Neither has God a malicious tyrant who delights in playing tricks on you.
• 36:21
  nor is he an indulgent grandfather who gives everything that is requested of him. No, our God is the all-wise, all-knowing, all-good father who loves to give good gifts to his kids. My son is only five months old, and already I want to give him just everything. And Jesus says, if you who are evil, right? Like, Jesus isn't...
• 36:50
  pulling any punches. He assumes our depravity. But he says, if you who are evil, you even know how to give good gifts to your kids. Why? Because you take delight in it. You take joy in it, right? God's joy in giving you good gifts so far surpasses your joy as a parent giving your kid good gifts. They can't even be compared, right? He delights in this. Now, beyond providing general principles for prayer, remember that these verses are situated in a context.
• 37:21
  We can't just remove them and say these are kind of about prayer but not related to verses 1 to 6. No, they are related to them. As we navigate a life filled with specks and logs and pigs and dogs, we should remember and pray that God would give us wisdom to relate to brothers and others in a kingdom way. I mean, it's so difficult really trying to apply verses 1 to 6 in your actual life. And when it's hard, Jesus is saying, man, pray. Ask.
• 37:54
  Seek, knock. This passage is paralleled in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 11, but Luke ends it a different way. Rather than ending it with, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? Luke writes, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? We should ask for the Holy Spirit to guide us, to, as we just covered on Sunday, right? To whisper wisdom to us.
• 38:23
  as we relate to our brothers and to the others, right? To help us develop discerning relationships. We'll end tonight with the final statement here in verse 12. Look at that with me. He says, If we were to boil down the message of the law and the prophets as it relates to how we treat people, the heart of the message would be this statement.
• 38:54
  Love your neighbor as yourself. You know, when Jesus quoted those words to the lawyer in Matthew 19, he wasn't making it up on the spot. Those words weren't original to Jesus. He was quoting Leviticus 19 verse 18. He was quoting the law. This had been written into the code of conduct for the people of God for a really long time.
• 39:20
  The law assumes that we love ourselves and tells us to love others with that same kind of love, with the same commitment and care that we show ourselves. And so if you desire to be treated with respect, Jesus says treat others with respect. If you desire to be treated with love, treat others with love. And if you desire to be treated with generosity and without judgment, then treat other people that way. Let's leave judgmentalism behind.
• 39:53
  And as a kingdom people, let's let God be the judge. For as Genesis 18 says, shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right? Yeah, he will. Instead of judgmentalism, let's you and I judge with right judgment, receiving the mercy of God as we take logs out of our own eyes and we walk with discernment when God tells us to address the specks in the eyes of others.
• 40:21
  Let's be wise where we keep our pearls, and in everything, let's always look with a good eye toward heaven, asking, seeking, knocking, knowing that our good heavenly Father is eager to meet our needs according to his perfect wisdom and his perfect goodness. Let's pray. Father, how we desire to have the perspective on the world that you have, to view people with the eyes of Jesus.
• 40:57
  not judging by outward appearance, but really look into their heart. Father, we ask that this would be a church that is led by your spirit. Help us to treat each other with mercy. And if we have a complaint against one another which will come up, that we would just be compassionate, selfless, that we would be willing to give up our own rights and to put aside our own thoughts for the building up of others.
• 41:33
  Lord, I pray that you would make us a humble people, that where we have specks in our eyes, if someone would come up and address it, that we would be willing to change, not sinking down into defensiveness, but just open to how you would have us change. Lord, help us to put the logging companies in our own heads out of business as we read your word, as we enter into community, into honest community.
• 42:08
  Help us to treat others outside of these walls with respect and with compassion. Even for those, Lord, who are hostile in their rejection of the gospel, I pray that our life would be like a living word striking their heart with the reality of Jesus. And Father, in everything we take confidence in the fact that when we pray, you hear.
• 42:44
  There is no ceiling between us and you, hindering our prayers from rising. What a comfort that is. So even tonight, as undoubtedly the men and women here are thinking about a number of prayer requests, Father, I pray that this passage would stir them up to confidently ask and seek and knock, knowing that every response from you is perfect. We place ourselves in your hands.
• 43:19
  Give us good eyes. Help us to hear your teaching this week as we go out once again. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Yes, we are going to, before we dismiss, we're going to pray for Chris and Caitlin. They are waiting to have their baby, and it's been a week and a half past the due date.
• 43:43
  And so they are ready for the child to come, and we're ready for the child to come. And so we are going to pray for them real quick, and then we'll let you guys go. So let's pray. Father, thank you for Chris and Caitlin, for the wonderful joy that they bring to our hearts. And we do pray, God, that you would let this little baby girl come soon. God, you look out for them. You know exactly what they need.
• 44:16
  And so we just ask, God, that the baby would come soon, even in the next day or so. We are so excited to meet her. We pray that you would ease Caitlin's discomfort, but prepare them as they step into this next stage, knowing that it's going to happen. And so we pray that through all of it, there would be no complications, that you would make the way straight before them to walk into parenting. We love you and we trust you. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.