[00:00:04] And we’re going to be hearing now the Word of God from Luke chapter six, both as a preparation for the Lord’s Supper, but also a preparation for ministry.
[00:00:19] We believe as a congregation that everyone here is a minister. Now we know that doesn’t mean that you now have an official appointment and that kind of thing, but each of us is a servant of Jesus Christ to one another and in the world. And so we all are servants of God, we all have a calling, we all have things that he wants us to do. We’re all significant in Jesus Christ.
[00:00:54] So we’re going to be reading from—the way to begin to express that—in Luke chapter 6. Now, starting with verse 27, Jesus has had a great deal to say about loving your enemies. He’s come on in this particular form of the Sermon on the Mount very strongly on this point about loving your enemies.
[00:01:21] And then in verse 37, he turns to a kind of a negative way of expressing that about not judging others. And he’s talking here about a harsh attitude, not about the idea that you might want to, in your life or ministry, to correct sin in others. I don’t think he has that in mind at all, but rather is dealing with a harsh attitude.
[00:01:45] Verse 37 then of Luke 6: “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, shaking together and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 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 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 failed 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 brothers eye.”
[00:03:04] Now, as we look at God’s Word, we rely on the Holy Spirit to interpret it to us, to help us really to understand it and to apply it to others. Now, as you look at this passage, what we’re going to be concerned about is God’s helping you and me to learn how to shepherd one another. Now the passage has to do with a particular form of shepherding, and that’s correcting one another.
[00:03:38] Now you’ve always wanted to do this anyway, so here is your sort of your constitution, or your authority for correcting others. Like the brother who was asked what was his spiritual gift, and he says, “Well, I think my spiritual gift is criticism.” So for those of you who feel that your calling is to criticize other people, well, here you’re told how to do it.
[00:04:08] Now, as we think about the shepherding of one another, if we put it in that more positive light, Jesus does tell us, starting clear back there with verse 27, how to do it. And so we’re going to be looking, first of all, at The Meaning of the Passage and then Some Practical Ways to Carry That Into Action.
[00:04:29] And so The Meaning of the Passage. It starts out in verse 37 and the previous verses with a command. And the command is that you have a life of love. If you want to be correcting others, make sure that you begin with a life that is filled with the love of God.
[00:04:53] I remember one time I was speaking at a Christian college not so far away, and I was telling about how God had done a wonderful work in our family in restoring one of our children to Christ. And a person came up afterwards and said, “That’s really wonderful. I wonder if you’d be willing to pray for our family. We’ve got a similar problem” … And so the problem came tumbling out. And I listened, I was all ready to pray, until I listened a little more. And I said, “Wait a minute. Let me ask you a question. You’re praying for this daughter that’s gone astray, and would you be happy if she returned? Would the whole family be happy if she returned?”. And the person stopped and said, “Well, no, I don’t really think so.”. Because what I sensed was coming through the report was bitterness and judgment. Those prayers weren’t going anywhere because they were bitter, they were condemnatory. They weren’t being filled with a life of love.
[00:06:13] So we had to do some dealing with that before we could really talk about how to win back, you know, an erring member of the family. So that was a real shock, that I just couldn’t pray until we had dealt with that problem, which was so much on the surface. In fact, what was really in their minds was the fact that they had been insulted, that their rights had been violated as a family. And the compassion was was not really there for the person who was erring. So we had to get that straightened out.
[00:06:48] And that’s really what Jesus is after here. And so he says here in verse 37, “Do not judge and you will not be judged, Do not condemn and you will not be condemn, forgive, and you will be forgiven.” So he’s really saying that those who have heard the good news about my powerful salvation, they’ve been forgiven already. That’s a fact. Therefore, there’s a command for you. If you’ve been redeemed by my blood, says Jesus, or will be through his Word, then what you need to do is to have a lifestyle of love which flows out of it.
[00:07:24] And therefore, here he says on the negative side, then the way that love expresses itself is that when you try to help others, when you correct them, you must make sure that you’re not condemning them harshly, as though your right was the basic thing in the situation—that you have been offended, you’ve been wrong, and that’s so much in your vision that you really cannot lead a life of love.
[00:07:52] And then he goes ahead to spread this out a bit and says, Let this characterize your whole life. In your giving, let your life be a life of giving. What is love worth if it doesn’t give something? And so he says Give. And the spirit and generosity with which you give will be the measure you get back. And so what he gives us then is a command and a reward, teaching us that if we obey the command to lead this life of love, there will be many good things flowing back into our lap as we give—an abundant life.
[00:08:31] Then as he moves down the passage, he directs this to those who want to be leaders, those who feel that they really want to do a better job of leading in their family, who want to do a better job of leading in their work, or in their teaching, or whatever it might be. He says, Let’s talk to you now.
[00:08:57] And in verse 39, he gives a warning, and the warning is directed to leaders. He 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.”
[00:09:20] In a previous congregation, there was a young man up there speaking and I had gone down into … it was a more formal church situation than ours, and I was sitting in the front pew. And his speaking was really odd, you know. His manners were sort of eccentric and so on. So after the church service was over, I said to my kids and wife, I said, “You know” … I forget the man’s name. I said, “You know, his behavior was really strange this morning. What do you think was wrong?” And the kids said, “Well, Dad, didn’t you know he was trying to act like you?” I said, “Thank you! You mean I act like that?” They said, “Well on you it’s you, but on him it’s not him. So on him it looks really strange. On you it’s all right.” So they got out of it. That was clever on their part.
[00:10:20] But you see what dawned on me as that happened is that we’re constantly imitating one another, aren’t we? That even mannerisms we pick up from one another. That we’re constantly shaping and influencing people, whether we’re up in front, or whether it’s in the home, or the way we do our work or whatever it may be. We’re constantly influencing people. And Jesus says that … He told them this parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man?”
[00:10:59] Now, the old King James translated this: “They’ll both fall into a ditch,” you know. And for years I had a kind of a Laurel and Hardy view of this passage. You know, two guys staggering along. You know, straight man and a fall guy; the fall guy goes in the straight man pitches in too, and it’s a rather shallow ditch. But that’s not a very good view of what he’s talking about because it’s not a comic scene at all.
[00:11:28] It’s rather … The setting is more of the what the topography, the geography of Israel, where there’s a lot of pits around like … Oh you might have a deep well or you might have a stone quarry. And so when you topple into one of these, you’ve had a disaster. And so what he’s talking about is disaster in the shaping of other lives through your teaching and your example. When people become like you, he said … When you teach them; he says they will become like you. Not simply in just our manners or mannerisms, but they will become like you in that they will begin to become like your inner spirit.
[00:12:17] So that’s a warning, you see, as you teach; be careful as you teach. James says the same thing in chapter three, verse one. He says, “Brethren, be not many teachers.” Now, he doesn’t mean we don’t need teachers in the church, but it really means watch out what kind of teacher you are. And so this is what Jesus is saying.
[00:12:41] And so then he goes ahead. We look down to verse 40. I’m sorry. We come down to verse 41 and Jesus gives now another warning. And also he follows it by a bit of a promise, or rather a strong one. He says, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
[00:13:05] Now, the language here is very striking, very interesting, because the speck of sawdust means a very small dry piece of wood, something that might blow into your eye as you were walking by a sawmill or some construction work. Very small. And then the other, the plank here, is a rather substantial piece of building material. It’s really the central plank, the beam in the center of a house that holds up the other beams.
[00:13:40] Now, Jesus, I think, has a bit of a sense of humor here. Obviously, you couldn’t get that large a piece in your eye. I mean, you know, you’d have to cut it up and all the rest. But nonetheless, he wants to drive home a point that you will not forget that you have … You’re looking over at somebody else. You’re going to correct the other guy. And boy, can you see his fault. You can spell it out. You could draw a diagram on it. You could write a report on it. And then there’s this huge plank coming out of your eye. And Jesus says, you ought to take that situation into recount. And he says that’s a warning. He says, Obviously you’ve got a vision problem.
[00:14:28] Now, if you look at the text, as it is very specific here, he’s saying, “You see the other person does not really grasp reality. There’s something in that person. He’s not in tune with the real world. He doesn’t understand himself, people, or God.” And you’re really eager to correct him. Now, Jesus didn’t say “Don’t correct him.” He says, “Start out” … By what? “Getting the log, the beam out of your own eye.” And He says, when you do that, take it out of your own eye, there in verse 42. And then He says, the language is quite strong, “You will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
[00:15:17] And so what we have here then is the warning turned into a promise in which Jesus says, “Don’t go around correcting people without first correcting yourself.”
[00:15:36] And as you do that, as you correct yourself, which is always a big job, you might not even have any time left for correcting other people, I don’t know. But however, that would work out, the thing is, he’s not saying do not correct other people, because we do need to shepherd and help one another.
[00:15:57] Next week we’re going to be talking about how to affirm other people, how to see good points in them. This is a little more negative today. We’re talking about how to see things in them that may hinder them. Things that may frustrate you. So Jesus says you don’t need to close your eyes to those things in the other person. Just make sure your own eyes are clear. So he says you will see clearly. It’s a promise.
[00:16:26] And so the form of the text then is this: a command at the beginning: Don’t be having a wrong attitude towards people condemning them. And then the reward as you lead a life of love. And then there’s a warning for leaders: Don’t lead people in ditches. And then there’s a warning: How to get your own eyes cleaned up before you start cleaning up others. And then a promise: That you will see clearly how to do this work. And so that’s pretty much then the meaning of the text.
[00:17:03] And so now we’re going to go to the whole question. How does this all come together? Well, let’s ask myself this question. “Have I done it myself?” I’d like to share with you a bit of my own testimony about God’s mercy to me.
[00:17:23] I think it’s harder for leaders, especially people who are always up front, always guiding other people to correct themselves in a fundamental way. If you’re … If you have been accustomed to be the boss, it’s really hard for the boss to correct himself. Isn’t it true? And all of us have got our little places where we’re boss, or if we don’t have them, we’re sure looking for them. Right? And so we all … We’re all kind of in that. And so about seven years ago, I was teaching in you know, that nearby seminary where I teach up on occasion. And there I was teaching some pastors at night and I gave them an assignment. I said, “Men, I want you to go home and ask your wives this question. ‘If there’s one thing about me you would like to change, what would it be?'”
[00:18:23] Well, they all did this. So they all went home. And this was on Tuesday night. They all came back Thursday night. And, boy, their arms were in slings and they were limping, complaining, you know, and oh they looked terrible. They looked like they just lost the Battle of the Bulge or something. So I said, “Well, brothers, what happened?” And it turned out every last man got the same answer. You know what it was. “You don’t listen.” Every last one of them.
[00:19:02] And of course, in the meantime, I knew I didn’t have a problem with this because I’d taken care of it several months before. I wouldn’t have dared give the assignment if I hadn’t thought I’d solved it pretty well. You see about nine months before I had gone to my wife with that question. I just sort of took my courage in my hands, and I said “if there is one thing about me you’d like to change what it would be?” So she had said to me, “You don’t listen.”.
[00:19:29] So I felt I’m on pretty secure grounds. I had been working on this for months now. So when I got to the home after I’d given the assignment, I came in and Rose Marie was sitting. It was in January and she was sitting next to the heater. And so I drew up, and I said, “Dear,” I put my feet up on the couch, really relaxed, you know, end of a long day. And I said, “Dear, if there’s one thing about me you’d like to correct, what would it be?” And she said, “Jack, you don’t listen.”. And I about fell off the couch. You know, I was … I was crushed and stunned.
[00:20:13] Well, I thought maybe I misunderstood her. So I thought I’ll explain what I mean. So I explained what I meant. And she came back, and she says, “You don’t listen.” And I said, “That’s what I thought you said” … “But don’t you know all of the things I’ve been doing?” And I sort of unraveled them a little bit. And she said, “You still don’t listen.” So I was crushed. I really … You know, Oh, man. I couldn’t believe that I was that blind. And at first I felt, “She must not just understand,” but finally, “Yes, she really meant it, and she could back it up with a few facts.”
[00:20:51] And so oh boy. So this started us on a road in which once the ball got rolling, I don’t know whether she wouldn’t stop or that I found it was helpful to me; I guess a little bit of both. And so we went through a kind of a development between us, which I felt was very useful. And here were some of the things she said.
[00:21:17] She said, “Sometimes you have a tendency to treat me like a secretary.”.
[00:21:24] Now, I found that hard to believe. You know … Me? You? Oh dear. Well, we worked on that. So, you know, I had this big log up here that was practically a saw mill going full time.
[00:21:43] And then she had another one. It was about the amount of time I spent at home with her. And she says, “You pastor others. You’re an excellent pastor. You really, you know, if people hurt, you go in there and you work through the problem.” But she says, “You don’t have time for it here with me. I wish you’d pastor me more.” Now, remember that expression She learned to regret that later.
[00:22:14] She says also, she says you have a typical Presbyterian Minister’s Sin. Now she didn’t unload this on me all in one day? It took her about a year to get, maybe two years to get all of this out, and I couldn’t have handled it all at once.
[00:22:29] So I wanted to know what is typical Presbyterian Minister’s Sin is? Well, it’s being very nice, but then being just slightly easy to annoy. You know and to just give off your annoyance a little bit. I said, “Is that really true?” You know, so again we went on, and it was really true.
[00:22:48] So these things went on. And the thing was that God used this for a great blessing in our lives, because I did begin to listen to her. And the amusing part about it was, after I listened to her, I began to understand her better. She kept saying to me, “I want you to understand me better. I really want to be understood.” And finally, the day when I came to understand her—and she agreed that I had really changed, that God had done a work in my life, it was purely grace and through prayer.
[00:23:25] I said, “Dear, could I talk to you a minute? I think you have a problem. You don’t listen to me.” And she said, “Well now” she didn’t know about that. So it sounded very familiar to me, and having had her training, I was really, you know, at least able to go through some of the steps. But the amusing thing about it was she finally said, “I don’t want so much pastoring please.”
[00:23:57] But it became very exciting to me because the thing that God did for her out of this was that I was able to penetrate, that she had a basic thing in her life—she’s told this to many of the rest of you and shared it here in public—that she has a basic struggle with unbelief. And many of the things that God has been doing through our lives lately, and many lives both here and in Uganda, has come because she and I have both had to struggle with unbelief. I don’t mean she had a problem with it. I had discovered it first in myself. And as I wrestled with it, I saw it in her.
[00:24:45] But I don’t think if I hadn’t learned to listen to her a little bit, I ever could have spotted where her root struggle was. And, you know, you hear the Millers teaching about “Don’t be like an orphan, praying out there in the night, be a partner, be a son of God. Pray with faith. You’ve got Jesus’ free justification. He’s pardoned your sins. He’s done all these glorious things for you.”. Well, I saw that she hadn’t entered into this very far. And so what God did in a beautiful way was give me enough love for her, kind of … the kind of love that she had for me in which she kept after me until I began to face up to some things.
[00:25:29] And I kept after her then until she faced up to the need for her to believe, to believe in the promises of God. Because you see, for you in this text, how are you ever going to get together unless you really believe. Unless you believe the one who’s giving you this passage is Jesus himself. Unless you really believe he wants to give you the truth that’s given here. Unless he is able to give you a life of love. Unless he’s able to deal with judging in your heart, severe condemnation: how can you be helped. Unless he’s able to first forgive your sins and take them away, so they’re really forgiven, and you know the joy of his salvation. How can you function in correcting anyone else? You’re out there like an orphan, crying in the night in your loneliness, and you don’t know what the answer is.
[00:26:37] And so now what do you suppose Rose Marie does for other people? In ministering to them, again and again, I’ve heard her say to people, “Whatever your problem is, you’re acting like an orphan. You don’t seem to be part of God’s family. Have you really believed? Have you really seen the power that comes through believing through faith?” And would you even be surprised she even says it to me sometimes.
[00:27:03] And you see, then this is where shepherding begins. A mutual humbling. And I don’t mean this by want of any way to give the impression that I’m saying that Rose Marie is now totally humble, and I’m now totally humble, and we really listen to each other all the time the way we should, or we do everything right. Sometimes we do have something of this harsh spirit coming back in us.[00:27:29] But what I do want to encourage you with is that God can make big changes in your life. But you’ve got to start out with believing it. If you don’t believe it, you’re not listening to God.
[00:27:48] You see that was the big problem we had behind it. It wasn’t I just wasn’t listening to her and she wasn’t listening to me so much. But behind it all, we were refusing to listen to God. And when this passage is given to us, we need to listen to it. And if it cuts in kind of deeply, if it searches us out, then we need to be searched out. And that’s the application really. That’s the application. Do you believe?
[00:28:19] And if you really believe that, then you’re able to change those relationships with people. And I just want to say, in the name of Christ, if you submit in faith, the world may not have seen yet what God can do with your life. You may have such a low opinion of yourself, you may think you’re utterly insignificant. And you may never be up on some great big mountain top waving the flag for Christ, but you might be used to be the person that got somebody else up on a mountaintop.
[00:29:06] The way you do your work, the way you live with your family. Oh, how our generation needs to see salt. You see if you come in here to New Life Church, you can’t but be impressed by how many young people are turning to Christ. You know, another group in the afternoon. Not the same group. But you see, this isn’t going through our society the way it should. There are a lot of people being converted. In the past, it’s always affected our society more than today.
[00:29:45] Now, there may be some sociological reasons for that. Communities are just broken up more and people may not have those old-fashioned contacts. But I tell you, I believe one reason the gospel is not going forward with more power today is it’s not being lived out enough on the job. If that’s so, if its not being lived out enough on the job, in the home, wherever you are, of course, then what Jesus needs is to get into that inner spirit in my life and your life and fill it with love. And then out of that, a willingness to be bold and daring in dealing with sin in the lives of others. You can see clearly to correct others, and you can have a zeal for the holiness of the church. But it won’t be harsh coming down on people, but it will be coming around people and with tears. Just so humbled by the knowledge of how much God has loved you.
[00:31:09] When we come to the Lord’s Supper, it’s familiar to all of us, of course. We’ve seen it so many times. But what is it really saying to us? It’s really saying to us, God loves you. It’s saying God loves you more than you can ever take in. It’s saying you are a partner in fellowship. Why do we call it a fellowship of the Body and Blood of Christ? Because we’re partners with him. We have the Spirit that Christ purchased in His death and resurrection. Our sins have been atoned for. We have assurance that we’re saved. We know that we belong to Christ. I know that if I were to die out here in the street or somewhere else, you needn’t worry about me, because I’ll be with the Lord. A home run, if you will. And so that kind of assurance is reinforced by the Lord’s Supper. Jesus is saying to you and me, this isn’t just an ordinary meal. It’s a meal of my love and my fellowship. Does that encourage you a little bit?
[00:32:47] Okay, let’s pull it together a little bit once more then. We’re really on “How this is Applied,” where before we talked about “The Meaning.” But I think we’ll begin to see that it all pulls together as far as the meaning better for us if we ask ourselves exactly “What is the beam in my eye?”. What ties together the whole passage of not judging, of being able to give, having a life free to give to others, the blind man leading the blind man into the pit, the plank in the eye—what pulls it all together?
[00:33:30] I believe it simply this: that where there is a strong spirit of condemnation in a person, that’s the beam.
[00:33:45] And so what you got back there in verse 37, do not judge, you do not condemn … That when you get to the guy falling in the pit, and when you get the person who’s got the beam in his eye—he can’t see anything and yet wants to correct others—that what brings this together is a spirit of condemnation of others.
[00:34:11] Now, it doesn’t mean that we agree with evil, or we should agree with it, or never defend what is right in ourselves or others. There’s plenty of times where we have to do that, but it’s talking about the spirit and the attitude.
[00:34:33] In Flannery O’Connor short story “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” she gives a picture of a young man named Julian, and there’s a conflict. They are on a bus. It’s in the South, and his mother is sort of the genteel past—the person who is a bit of a snob and racially she feels superior to black people. And he’s been away to college, and he feels superior to her. And there’s an altercation on the bus. And when they get off, he thinks the altercation in which she got hit by a black woman’s purse provides him with a great opportunity to correct his mother.
[00:35:25] But Flannery O’Connor, in talking about Julian, says he lived in a mental bubble. And in this mental bubble, he could reach out and judge others, but nobody could get into the mental bubble to attack him. He made sure they didn’t. He let no one in there into his inner life.
[00:35:55] As the story unfolds, she is condemnatory, the mother towards black people, and he sees that as a fault needing correcting. And he’s right. It needs to be corrected. But he’s worse than his mother is because he’s much harsher. And so when the story ends or climaxes, his mother has a stroke, and as she’s having the stroke, he doesn’t know it. He’s walking down the street trying to correct her, and he’s so blind he doesn’t see this woman is very close to dying.
[00:36:31] It’s a horrible story. Flannery O’Connor knows how to put them together—a very powerful Christian artist, very exposing of the inner heart. And the thing you see was that because he had such a condemnatory spirit, he couldn’t really understand black people. Flannery O’Connor, in passing, says he didn’t have any black friends either. So he was no better, really than his mother on that point. The other point was that he really didn’t love his mother. He merely condemned her. He didn’t love anyone else. He merely condemned them. And he even condemned himself. And he’d utterly immobilized himself because the center of it was this condemnation of his mother. He couldn’t work, he couldn’t do anything else, because he preferred to live in this bubble in which he could judge people.
[00:37:33] And you see, that’s the thing that’s in the eye, the spirit of condemnation. If we correct ourselves here then we can correct others. We’ll be bolder, we’ll be freer, we’ll be more tender, we’ll be more loving. And then we’re just really begin to appreciate others.
[00:37:54] I just look back and I say, I just praise God for a wife that had the courage to tell me the truth. You know, I just praise God for that. I think that was such a gift. Well, that’s not like me naturally. Are we naturally thankful for people who come and criticize us? Or do we prefer to live in the bubble?
[00:38:23] And so that’s the significance then: Are you going to let Jesus puncture your bubble? And now what brings it together is that he does it by love. Now he can put a big pin into your bubble if you don’t let him sort of peel it back, but don’t do it that way. Let him, let him take you by the hand and say, “Look, I love you so much. I died for your sins. I atoned for them. I gave my body, my blood was shed. And you have now sonship with me. You’re alive through faith. You believe in me and you follow me. And then you don’t need to fear anyone criticizing you again.”
[00:39:34] Let me put it in a way to you that might be helpful as you think about your own relationships with people and coming to the Lord’s Supper. The bottom line is we don’t like criticism. Right? Because some of it, of course, is destructive, but we just really like to criticize other people. We always enjoy that. That’s what gossip is all about. If we didn’t enjoy criticizing, we’d never gossip.
[00:40:07] Now, but when you come to the cross, when you see what Jesus did for you, that’s the most ultimate criticism you could ever have received. What is God saying about you on the cross? God is saying of you on the cross that your sins, the inward life, was so evil before God, so rebellious, so self-centered, so without faith that I had to give my son to pay for all of those bad things you’ve done. And so really the cross exposes me terribly.
[00:41:01] But then it also exposes God’s love in that Jesus died there. And in that dying, I met God as my own Father. I mean, if God is my own Father, the Father who loves me unconditionally, the Father who reached me when I was lost and foolish and blind, the Father who persists with me, who comforts me, who guides me, who shepherds me, who speaks of His love to me in everything. And therefore, should I be then defensive when I’m criticized by others? Maybe I might even have the courage to go home to ask my wife or husband, “If there’s one thing about me you’d like to see changed, what would it be?”. Brace yourself you know. You could do that because you know God has already criticized you on the cross. You’re so much worse than anything anyone could ever say about you. How comforting.
[00:42:15] That’s what the Bible says. The Bible doesn’t say you’re morally neutral. It says we’re sinners. But that’s the good news then. God loves sinners. Grace is for sinners. That’s what this is all about.
[00:42:28] Now, can that give you a new mindset? My heart is partly on fire with prayer, that it might be so. Partly it’s weeping tears. I don’t know whether the fire puts out the water, or the water the fire. But they are both there. And I believe the Holy Spirit’s yearning, profoundly yearning, for new growth in you.
[00:42:55] Or if you’ve never come to Christ, if you’ve never come and experienced the cleansing of the heart, the taking out of the eye the things that blind, you come now. God is for you. The cross is reconciliation ground. Its ground of peace. No matter what enemies we have been, at the cross through faith in Jesus, God becomes my friend.
[00:43:27] Well, I would just like to commend to you then my friend—my friend and your friend Jesus, the senior partner in your life adventure. The one who wants to use you and to make your life count. And to change America, to make us a land where we really again have a moral majority. We don’t have one today. We have an organization of moral majority. We have a moral minority. So God wants to use you in His campaign. He wants to make you a salting salt. Jesus loves you. That’s all I can say. Jesus loves you. Yield to him in His work.
[00:44:12] Let’s pray. Father in heaven. We just come here now to praise you for the mystery of these good things. That we had thought by seeking our own life, defending ourselves, working out our own plans that we would find peace there. And we’re taken by surprise when we don’t find peace there. And then, Lord, you come and you unsettle us and you make us restless. And you bring us to yourself. And oh God when you bring us to yourself, we find there’re things that alarm us about ourselves. We have the feeling we’re losing our lives. We think that you’re pushing us into quicksand or deep water, and we don’t know what you’re doing.
[00:45:22] And then, in the midst of this struggle of soul, we hear your voice saying, I love you. I love you and I want to change you. I want you to submit to me in partnership. I want you to be my friend. I want you to walk with me. And I want you to talk with me. I want to take out of your eye the heavy beam of condemnation of others and even condemnation of yourself. I want to show you how much … how precious is the blood of my son. I want you to see what He did when He died for you. I want you to believe that, and in believing that to be broken in heart, and to forgive others, and to have the freedom of my presence. I want you to find your life by losing it.
[00:46:17] And, God, we can hear you speaking in that because, by faith, the Spirit has worked in our lives. And we come to you with some fear and trembling. And we say, “Lord, can you really be that good and that gracious? Do you love me just as I am? Just as I am, Lord. You know me from the end to the beginning. You know the inner parts of my life where I lie, or maybe I cheat, or where I lust. Lord, you who know us that way, do you really love us?”
[00:46:53] And we hear Your great voice saying, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
C. John Miller, “Correcting Yourself Before Others” (1982). Audio Transcript
