Let's have a word of prayer. Lord, as we consider your word again for a moment, may you speak by your spirit through the words of your word that we may be changed by it. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, we're looking through Luke, and we're on the Sermon on the Plain, and we're at the point here where I believe Jesus is fundamentally saying, examine yourself. Examine yourself. Luke 6, 37 through 45. Examine yourself. Luke 7. Luke 6, 37, but looking back a little bit, he had already said that we should look forward to the future, even if we are suffering now or have difficult situations because those things will be remedied in the future. Look to the future. If you do that, then you'll be able to love people who don't deserve it. And the fact is we don't deserve God's love. So that's a reminder. So we should love those who are our enemies, those whom are not deserving of our love and naturally of God's love. and doing good to those that can't necessarily return the favor. Expect nothing in return. And then you will be sons of the Most High, he said in verse 35. Now in verse 37, He says, do not judge and you will not be judged. Many focus in on this one phrase, or the next part also, do not condemn and you will not be condemned, and just end it there. As we observed in the book of John, Jesus said, judge with righteous judgment. So there's a good judgment that we should perform that's righteous and correct. and just. And if we just read a little bit further on here, you'll see that we need to do some judging. But we just got to remind ourselves that just like it says here, given, it will be given to you, you know. By your standard, it will be measured to you. Don't be surprised if someone comes to you and points out one of your sins. You've got to figure it's going to go both ways. What? I did something wrong? It's so hard for people to admit they've done something wrong, even when confronted. okay we should be willing to be corrected and and uh there's a point for us to confess our sins to each other and in fact the bible says if you have something against someone you're not supposed to not judge them if you have something against somebody you're supposed to go to them and tell them Doesn't that mean you're judging them in a sense? You got to evaluate the situation and say, hey, you've done something to me and I want to forgive you, but you have to admit to it before I can truly forgive you. But I have to have an attitude of forgiveness, willingness to forgive, right? But if they won't agree with me, then I need to take another person. And then if that doesn't come through, then maybe I was wrong, maybe I'm wrong, and I'm the one wrong. And this third person can help us resolve that. If not, we take it to the church, Jesus says. And so there's a process. So there's gotta be judgment, right? But we just gotta recognize that it goes both ways. So can we receive criticism? Can we receive criticism? Yeah, correction, right? Can we be corrected, right? Let's not think of it as criticism. Good point. You know, it's a correction and we want to help each other and that comes in the next section here. So, but as I said last week, you know, how we do things, it's gonna come back on us, right? Now, we know that that may be waiting until the future, until the final state or until heaven, either one, but But by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return. Now let's look at verse 39. Now he also spoke a parable to them. A person who is blind cannot guide another who is blind, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit? A student is not above the teacher, but everyone, when he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher. It's just obvious, and yet this is what we try to do, right? Now, others say, well, only God can be my judge. No, we need to be willing to be corrected and not just bandy about this thing, you don't judge me, you know, and this sort of attitude. But, on the other hand, we need to be the other guy. We need to be able to receive correction. So if we're trying to lead, we need to look at ourselves first and make sure we can see. The title of the message is, what was it? Examine Yourself, okay? Examine Yourself. The emphasis that Jesus is saying is to examine yourself and then you can do the other. Now, look at the Lord's Supper. He says, examine yourself, right? And then take of the elements, right? not examine yourself and then say I'm unworthy and leave okay examine yourself and then take of the elements of the Lord's Supper so here examine yourself and then you know correct and then see if what you can be helpful to somebody else we all love to Be the one who's the best or the one who's knowledgeable or better than everybody else. That's sad. Uh, we need to be humble with humility, help another person. So here we go. Uh, so you don't want to fall into a pit together with the other person. And literally that's going to happen when, when you, you know, you don't know what you're doing and you're trying to correct things. You haven't corrected yourself. Verse 40, a student is not above his teacher, but everyone when he's been fully trained will be like his teacher. And someone has said, if you're a strong leader in a corporation, whatever you portray and emphasize, that's going to trickle down. If you're not a strong leader, it might not. But if you're trying to lead, then you're going to rub off on everybody. It says, you know, everyone's gonna be like their teacher, not better. You know, you're gonna be like your teacher. That's what I mean. Yeah, don't hang out with the wrong crowd. Yeah, that's right. That's right. It's going to rub off on you. So if you want to help another person, at least try to be humble and also be correcting yourself and examining yourself. Verse 41, why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? It's just so ridiculous. And yet it's not even hyperbole, I think, right? It's not even an exaggeration. Okay? Hyperbole is an exaggeration to try to get an effect. I mean, just imagine a log coming out of your eye. Oh, there's nothing in my eye. I don't see it. It's really not there. You're making that up. It blinds you. It blinds you. It's blocking. And so here's the thing. Not only do we need to examine ourselves, but people need our help sometimes because they can't see it. And so, you know, why are you helping them with that spec? Well, either they don't even know it. You know, so you're helping them by letting them know there's a speck in your eye. Or it's irritating their eye and they haven't figured out it's that speck that's doing it. And you can maybe see something for them if you don't have the log in your own eye. Okay. So, you know, you got to be judgmental in a sense. You got to evaluate and be discerning. Exactly. Good. So, there's a place for it, you know. And we need to be able to receive it. Okay. Verse 42, How can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye, you hypocrite? 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. And it's so easy for us to see that speck in the other person's eye. Seems like there's a lot of videos on Facebook or whatever. It's like, who was wrong here? These cars are colliding, you know? They just want someone to watch it, because they get a lot of likes or something, I guess. But they're interesting. But yeah, we love to judge. Yeah, that guy was wrong. That guy was wrong. We want to see that, and we want to see cars being wrecked, I guess, too. Why else do people go to hockey games, right? Okay. Ice hockey. But we can see somebody else's problems. Verse 43. So, you know, we need to please be loving in our approach. Truth and love. Truth and love. They don't have to be opposed to each other, right? They can work together. Truth and love. Now, verse 43, For there is no good tree that bears bad fruit, nor on the other hand a bad tree that bears good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush, The good person out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good, and the evil person out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil, for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. In a class I took at RPI called Philosophy of Mathematics, they asked us, could a computer ever be a human? This was in 1986, I took the class. Could a computer program or software be essentially a human? Boy, we're getting closer to something that could simulate a human, right? But my answer was, the computer has no spirit and no heart. It says in the Bible, What you produce from your mouth as a human being comes from your heart. And that's not this organ that's beating. It's your spirit and your mind and your personality that is spiritual and not entirely physical. And so a machine could never be that because God didn't make it a being that would do that. A spiritual being, man is a spiritual being in addition to physical. So that was my answer to that question. I doubt anyone else answered it that way. To me, the class was philosophy of math. And so, it's a philosophy class. I certainly want to answer it with a philosophical answer, and that is a philosophical from the Bible answer, okay? Not man's philosophy. All right. I always remember that, because that was interesting to me, that question. Of course, it interests a lot of people with what's coming now, and all the drones that are going to be controlled by AI, it's going to be Skynet. You know, it seems like that's coming. But anyway, uh, but, uh, where, so where does, where does what we do and say come from? And it's coming from our heart. And so, uh, you know, if you got a log and you got a bad heart, I mean, you're just not, you're just not a believer in God. Okay. And, and that needs to be fixed. That's the first step. Right. Uh, Before you can even get to this thing you're taking the log out of your eye. You have to Be saved you have to have a heart that's been changed, you know And so we want to we want to have our hearts change and being changed because it's not just one step, right? there's a beginning but there's a there's a progression and a process of sanctification and we're gonna have to be examining ourselves and Examine yourself to see if you're in the faith even the Bible says and so so there's a there's a there's an aspect of checking up on ourselves and Definitely of helping others, you know, we need to be helped able to help others and not merely Focusing ourselves, but we need to examine ourselves. That's what Jesus is emphasizing here most of the commands of Scripture, maybe all of them I'm not talking about the Ten Commandments. I'm talking about Christ and the New Testament especially here, but the commands, we like to reverse it and say, why aren't you loving me? Why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you doing this? Those are commands for us to understand and act on, right? And so we need to examine ourselves in the light of the commands of Scripture, New Testament especially. We're talking about the New Covenant here, and we recognize that ultimately, without the forgiveness of God, there's no life, there's only death, right? But so we come to Him for forgiveness, but we come to Him also you know, for healing and for cleansing as we've sung. So there's a place for correction of others, but we need to correct ourselves, first of all. Let's have a word of prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, thanks, Lord, for these words, difficult words, maybe not so hyperbolic here about the log, Lord. We all have shortcomings. May you, by others and by ourselves and by your spirit, correct those things by your word, ultimately the standard, and we ask it in the name of Jesus, amen.