The Gospel of Luke 6:37-49 Eyes, logs, trees & fruit

Good morning. We're going to go into this passage here and go through it step by step. I just want to bring up a few items that were just brought up this morning. One is that Debbie Tracy and Jenny Doan headed down to Albuquerque apparently Debbie's mom is probably in her last days or hours so we can pray for them. Ruth is also in the hospital with some gallbladder trouble and I guess the pain levels are getting pretty intense so we can pray for her. And also Tom Mallinson's sister-in-law went home to be with the Lord. So anyway, several different things that just kind of cropped up this morning, and so we can pray for them.

Let's do that right now. Lord, we bring up those concerns. We think of Tom Mallinson and Ruth. and of Debbie, and we just hold them up to you, Lord, and thank you that we can just come before you, our Papa, Lord, and just run into the throne room. We thank you for that privilege. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's go into the passage here.

As we mentioned last week, there is some debate, but I would call it the Sermon on the Mount. I believe it's the same account as in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, which is much more lengthy. Dr. Luke here records a shorter account, but I think there's some good reason for it. This is the likely location. This is the traditional location of the Sermon on the Mount called the Mount of Beatitudes. And this is a shot that Courtney got.

It's very likely the same place as the account recorded in Matthew, but Matthew wrote as a Jew, writing to Jews directly, and so he, you know, has his words and situations chosen in that account in order to get across to his Jewish audience. Dr. Luke, however, is a Gentile writing for his own audience of God-fearing Gentiles throughout the Roman Empire, There were God-fearing Gentiles who respected the Old Testament as scripture, and they would actually come to the synagogues and attend. Luke is one of those, apparently, who has become a Christian believer, and he writes about the God-fearing Gentiles in the book of Acts. So that appears to be his audience and so he edits out some of the things that Matthew had included.

So Matthew has 137 verses while Luke has only 30. So what did Dr. Luke leave out of the Sermon on the Mount here? Dr. Luke left out a lot of the detail about the law that Matthew included. Matthew had things like, you've heard that it was said but I tell you and Luke dropped that out entirely. It's important for us to recognize that Jesus is talking, however, only to Jews in the land of Israel. So while Dr. Luke has a more brief account of the Sermon on the Mount, and they're both recording what took place, that behind the scenes Jesus is focusing his message to Jews there in the land of Israel. So let's look at Luke 6, 37 and 38.

It says, Do not judge, and you will not be judged. And do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Pardoned, and you will be pardoned. And as we're going to see, this is possibly a quandary. Verse 38, Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour it into your lap, a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return. So, to judge or not to judge? That is the question, right?

Jesus tells his listeners that they are not to judge here in this account. We're soon going to see, however, Jesus is going to give us a priority for judging. So, this is a head-scratcher. Who were to judge first, and who were to judge second? So, are you to judge first, second, or not at all? Well, we'll see. So that leaves us with a bit of a problem. The law of Moses requires them to judge themselves and others. So that really gets to be a head-scratcher.

The next things that Jesus will give are the principles of judging. Oh boy, okay. Now, so here's John 7, 24. Jesus said, do not judge according to appearance, but judge, you must judge, okay, imperative, with righteous judgment. Now here's John 8, 15 through 18, and he's talking again to the Jewish leaders. You judge according to the flesh, and he's talking to these Jewish leaders in the way they judge.

I am not judging anyone, but even if I do judge, my judgment is true. For I am not alone in it, but I am the Father who sent me. Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. I am he who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me."

One of the things when we see something that appears to be conflicted in God's Word, it tells us we need to look more carefully. If you have something that appears to be conflicted, What is it trying to say? Human beings can tend to embrace things that conflict. However, something like this also makes some people just throw up their hands. I don't know. Pick one.

But what it ought to do is cause us to examine God's words more carefully and to see what it was He intended. The Law of Moses commanded at multiple points. Remember, we said there are 613 laws in the Law of Moses. 365 of them are things to not do, just like the number of days in a year, right?

Christ himself used the word judge, as we saw there in John 7.24, as an imperative. So Jesus must have a particular quality of judging that he's talking about here when he says, do not judge, right?

Now, context is always helpful, right? And one of the things we did last week, we finished off with 636. It says, be merciful just as your father is merciful. And then we head into these verses. So what this set of words is telling us about not judging is intended to clarify what does that being merciful look like? See that?

In Matthew 5-7, blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. So mercy is a theme in both Luke's and Matthew's account. James, Jesus' half-brother, who by the way wrote the book of James, it follows the outline of Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount. They run in parallel.

James 2.13 says, for judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Alright, so we have this insight from Dr. Luke, Matthew, and James. So what's the issue here with judging? What's the big deal? We see from these passages that the judging that Jesus is warning about is judging that is on the surface. Remember, Jesus told the Jewish leaders You guys need to judge with righteous judgment, which means that they weren't.

It's superficial, according to the flesh and being from a human viewpoint. One of the things we pointed out recently is the Jews would read, oh, I have to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, and therefore I should not work. And so then they had various definitions. They had 39 points of consideration as to whether something was work or not. and it was very complex.

Jesus, in order to point out the hypocrisy of all their little laws, man-made laws, would purposely heal on the Sabbath again and again. In fact, one account we read earlier in Luke, he just healed and healed and healed and healed until the sun went down on the Sabbath. He made sure that he violated their laws. And so he healed and healed and healed and healed until the sun went down to do as much healing as he possibly could on the Sabbath. The Jews, however, had different rules that they had cooked up, and it was not a good thing, according to their laws, to heal on the Sabbath.

You may remember the account at the pool of Bethesda where the man couldn't get into the water fast enough. Jesus didn't address that by saying, hey, my disciples will help you or anything like that. He healed the man who was lame and told him to pick up his pallet and walk on a Sabbath. Problem. See, the Jews had very interesting rules.

You could have two men carry this lame man on a pallet next to the pool on a Sabbath, and that was okay. But when Jesus healed the man on the Sabbath, that was not okay. And when Jesus told the man, pick up your pallet and walk, that was not okay. So you're going to have two men carrying him to the place on the Sabbath, and that's all right. But if the man gets healed and picks up the pallet on the Sabbath, that's not okay.

Very complicated set of rules. Instead, judging is to be just, righteous, and true. And there must be an authority and responsibility for a person to judge. It is not fitting for us to step into places where we have no responsibility or authority. The basis for judging must be out of God's character, which includes mercy. The basis for judging is out of God's character. That's key. Now, the next verse, verse 38, talks about giving graciously.

And there's a part of it you may say, well, what's that? Press down, shaken together and overflowing. Any volunteers would be pressed down, shaken together and overflowing? Nobody. Okay, let's take a look at what that means. These terms were used of a grain purchase, okay, where a generous seller would fill the measure, okay, you take your container, you fill it up, And he'd press it down, and he'd shake it, make sure it got some more in there, and then he'd pour more over the top until it was falling on your lap. And if they didn't do that, you went to another cellar. So that's what this is talking about. It's not going to press you down and shake you together and overflow you. That was the idea. That's the standard of generosity, of giving. So, then the generous seller would fill it again to the top, the overflowing grain was falling on to the lap of the buyer. That's what these words are referring to.

So, giving generously and graciously is also God's character. Verse 37 is about mercy in judgment. Verse 38 is about grace. Now, in order to distinguish between mercy and grace, mercy is withholding judgment or punishment that may be due. Grace is giving and gifting beyond what is due. So you see the distinction there?

And I use this analogy, and I'm sorry if you've heard it too many times before, but let's say that I drive down Holly Street here at 60 miles an hour. If there's a policeman nearby, he's very likely to pull me over for doing that. And so, mercy comes and says, Vern, I could give you a ticket, but I'm not going to. I could give you a ticket, but I'm not going to. Or it may be that mercy is at the courthouse. That might be where mercy is shown at the courthouse when I go to show up before the judge. Grace, on the other hand, has the policeman paying the ticket and saying, what are you doing for dinner? Right. OK, that's grace. All right.

So now both mercy and grace are called for in these verses because they're part of God's character. Now we come to the application of the Golden Rule. He's earlier made reference to what's called the Golden Rule. I will call it, because rule sounds like law, the Golden Principle. The Golden Principle.

Luke 6.31, which was in the previous passage here, says, Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. So that's what we call the Golden Rule. I call it the Golden Principle.

The Sermon on the Mount also says, in effect, treat others the way that you want God to treat you. That's a consistent message. So it's not just treat others the way you want them to treat you, but treat others the way you want God to treat you. The principle for us in the church age, for believers in Christ, is treat others the way God has treated you. Do you see the distinction?

So for example, Ephesians 4.32, forgive one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. So the Sermon on the Mount under law says forgive in order to be forgiven, but under grace it's forgive because you've been forgiven. See the distinction there? Forgive because you've been forgiven.

Alright, so here's Luke 6.39.

He also spoke a parable to them. A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit? This is the blind leading the blind, to put it in other similar words. So as Matthew 15, 14, Jesus makes this very same statement, and there it's in the context of referring to the Pharisees. In Matthew 23, 16 through 26, Jesus says that the Pharisees are blind five times.

So this is the hazard. It's a spiritual hazard. The problem with the Pharisees presented is that they were judging and giving in ways that were wrong. And being the Jewish cultural heroes, they were leading many astray who followed them. The Pharisees were the group that survived the Roman attack in 70 AD.

Because they were missionary and they'd actually gone out into other parts of the world two-thirds of the Jews Actually living outside of Israel at that time and the Pharisees would would go out in they were very missionary about their telling People their message, but they were the blind leading the blind So here's Luke 640 a people is not above his teacher, but everyone after he's been fully trained will be like his teacher and Now, Dr. Luke does not use the more Jewish terms, and that is, rather than teacher, rabbi, and rather than a pupil, a disciple. So those are parallel terms. So the pupil would be a disciple, and the teacher a rabbi. So like teacher, like disciple here.

Especially in an oral culture, and although they were very literate, there's a high level of literacy often in multiple languages. The Apostle Paul, for example, probably wrote and spoke Greek and Latin and Hebrew and Aramaic. So probably those four languages at least. But nonetheless, they were an oral culture. People related to things orally. Whatever you said was what was most important.

And for a disciple, his assignment was to orally memorize everything that his rabbi said. They didn't have the availability of printed books, so relying on things that are written and recorded and pulling out of a library was less common. The disciple would then pay very close attention to Jesus' words. It would have been fairly typical, for example, for the disciples to get up early in the morning and drill one another over the things that Jesus said the prior day, until they would get it right.

And there are various things that we say, if somebody gets a word wrong, you would say, well, wait a minute, that's not right. If I said, four score and seven beers ago, you're going to say, wait a minute, got one word wrong there. You're going to catch it. OK, let's look at this.

So the principle of the disciple becoming like his teacher is one for the disciples and others to consider carefully. If the disciple is going to become like the teacher or the rabbi, you better be very careful which one you're following. Better be very careful which one you're following. Jesus' disciples would be like Him.

And as a matter of fact, some of the things that God is carrying on among us is that we would be like Him. We are being conformed to His image. We are, as we behold the Lord through his word, being transformed into his image. So being like him is exactly what God has in mind. But the Pharisees' disciples would be like them. Blind. Blind. Now, we make the point here there are disciples and then there are disciples.

The Pharisees had disciples who learned to be like them, just as Paul, Known as Saul, in the early part of the book of Acts, was a disciple of the Pharisee who was called Gamaliel. Gamaliel, we have from outside of biblical record, had about a thousand disciples over his lifetime. A thousand Jews who followed him. He was a Pharisee. And so those who followed him, like Saul, until he was confronted on the road to Damascus, would be like Gamaliel.

The disciples of Christ during the time of his earthly ministry called the Christian believers disciples throughout the book of Acts, but they were disciples of Christ, not of Peter and Paul and John and the apostles. We ultimately are disciples of Christ. There's a very interesting pattern in the New Testament. All four of the Gospels use the word disciple or disciples. The book of Acts uses the word disciple or disciples and even we who are believers in Christ in the church are called disciples. And even by the Apostle Paul is recorded in the book of Acts.

But the word never occurs one more time after the book of Acts in the rest of the New Testament. Not once does it ever show up again. What does show up is the verb form. of disciple. And when it talks about you learned this or you learned that or you did not so learn Christ, that's the verb form. Very interesting. We're disciples of Christ as we look at the New Testament, not of whoever is our leader. All right, here's Luke 6, 41 and 42.

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that's in your own eye? Or 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 the speck that is in your brother's eye. And Jesus is obviously making a hyperbolic statement here, hyperbole, an overstatement to get the point across. I would even say there's some humor in this, right? Okay, so let's talk about logs and specs.

These verses actually place a priority on dealing with sin that is judging. A priority on judging, okay? So right after, just verses after saying, do not judge, now he's going to tell you here's the priority on judging, okay? The one to judge and deal with first is oneself. First. First. The Apostle Paul writes to the church at Corinth, they had been having tragedy, even death take place because they were not first judging themselves. And so God had to step in and judge among some of them. The one to judge and deal with first is oneself. This would be under the law. as well as under grace. First oneself.

John 8.7, He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. Who's first? Under the same principle of law and grace. Both. Valid under law, valid under grace.

Here's Galatians 6.1. This is exactly the circumstance he's talking about.

Galatians 6.1, Paul has written, Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, and that word for trespass means to fall off and alongside the path. To fall off and alongside the path. So here's someone, the path of fellowship with the Lord, the path of fellowship with other believers, this person has fallen off and alongside the path, but they're not on it. If anyone of you is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted."

Is there judging involved here? Yes, there is. It's a recognition. This guy is not on the path of fellowship with the Lord and with his brothers and sisters. So there's a judgment there. What is the purpose of the judgment? Is it looking at, boy, this person is really off track and boy, I just can't wait to just nail him. I'm going to pulverize him. Is that the idea? Restore. Restore.

That word restore was a word that was used in the Gospels for the disciples mending nets. A net would get a tear or rip and they'd mend it. It was used by Dr. Luke himself when a bone would be broken to put it back in place so that it could heal up properly. That's that same word. So the goal here is restoration. Matter of fact, I'll put it this way. The goal of love is restoration. We have in our church policy manual a statement several pages long of what's called church discipline. But one of the things we point out is just like this, and we make reference to this verse, just like this, the goal of love is restoration.

It's not, I gotcha, and I'm going to nail you. That's what the Pharisees did. Here's Peter. He denies Christ three times. At one point, he and Jesus meet eyes. Right after that, Peter is stung to the heart. After the Lord is resurrected, the Lord takes a little walk with Peter. He says, Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. And he goes around with that three times. And he restores Peter to service. He restores him. He doesn't say, Peter, you denied me. I'm going to nail you. Peter, you denied me, you're just washed up now.

No. He restores Peter. But look at the last part of this verse. Each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted. Tempted to what? Tempted to have a pharisaical mindset. Gotcha! Tempted to fall into the same sin. Tempted to fall into pride. So, the same principle is carried out here among us in the church.

Here's Luke 6, 43-45, For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor on the other hand a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. The good man out of the good treasures of his heart brings forth what is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil, for his mouth speaks from what fills his heart."

Fruit trees produce fruit according to their kind. That's pretty much what I've seen. You can do some tricks with grafting and whatnot, but in general, what you find the good and bad character is consistent with the source of the fruit. It's consistent with the source of the fruit, which is the tree itself.

In the time of Christ's earthly ministry, bad fruit came from bad trees who were the Jewish leaders, the Pharisees. Again, he's talking about the Pharisees in a deflected sort of way. There are two applications of this principle, however, in the Christian life for us who are believers in Christ.

One is false teachers are fruitless. Jude, verse 12, they are fruitless. They may produce fruit, but it's bad. But it's not good fruit, certainly. And secondly, the Spirit produces good fruit, and the sin nature produces bad fruit. And we reference Romans 7, 4, and 5, and also at the top, Galatians 5, 22, and 23. The source determines what kind of fruit results.

In Luke 6.46, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? Now, one of the things to make note of here, Hebrew double names and titles. The Hebrews would double up words and they would use it for emphasis. One way of making an emphasis in the Hebrew culture is to say it twice. And we give some examples here.

Here's the Lord speaking to Jacob, Genesis 46.2, Jacob, Jacob. Luke 22-31, Jesus, and this is telling Peter ahead of time, you're going to deny me. Simon, Simon. And Acts 9, 4, Saul, Saul, when the Lord talks to Saul there on the road to Damascus.

And we can give other examples. One instance, we will sing a song, for example, thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee. And that's quoting out of Isaiah. And we'll say perfect peace, but it's actually peace, peace. the emphasis by doubling. So that was a Hebrew manner of speaking.

The hypocrites that Jesus is referring to in Luke 6.46 say to him emphatically, Lord, Lord. Okay, double it up in order for emphasis. But it's all talk. There's no spiritual reality in what they're saying to him by calling him Lord. It's all talk. Double talk, as a matter of fact. Hebrews 6, 47-49 completes the passage, Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like.

He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid a foundation on a rock, and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation, and the torrent burst against and immediately collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great." Now, as Matthew has this same account, there are a few distinctions to be made. One is that it's not just a house without foundation, but it's a house on the sand, right? And the other is that he calls the one who builds on the rock wise, and the one who builds on the sand without foundation, Foolish.

Okay, so there's a distinction there and a little bit of additional insight So the real question is here is where do you build your house? So this is this well-known passage about building a life upon the rock rather than the sand in order to remain standing after the flood Without a doubt the flood will come you notice in each instance There's a flood. You know, it's it's going to happen. It eventually will happen and So both here, both here are the words.

The difference is what do you do with what you hear? The illustration that Jesus makes, both here what Jesus says, the one who is wise, and that's the term that Matthew uses, Luke only implies it, is the one who acts on what he has heard Christ say. Put it into action. That's wisdom. In contrast, the foolish one, is the one who hears what Jesus says and just does nothing with it. Does nothing with it.

To get the point across, Jesus uses a potent illustration. And I can imagine that various people had seen both circumstances. Two men, two houses, two foundations, two soils upon which they're built. So the wise man builds his house on the rock. The pivotal issue is where the house is built. Notice he doesn't say anything else about the construction or anything else. It's where is it. The house built upon the rock is built on a solid foundation that will hold up under the certain flood that is going to come.

God is called the Rock in the Old Testament. Several books of the Old Testament, as a matter of fact, do that. Christ is called the Rock in several books of the New Testament. And so there's some confirmation there. Contrasting wise and foolish is a common Old Testament and a New Testament theme. That's something that we'll find both in the Old and New Testaments.

The foolish man builds his house on the sand. Now, what's interesting, you could also look at building the house of sand. Building houses on sand or of sand is actually pretty easy to do and kind of fun. People have done some fantastic things with sand castles and building things on sand.

And for a time it may look rather impressive. Here's another one. I thought this was phenomenal. People have really done some amazing things the sand castles but eventually what happens you know tide moves in and the sand castle for all of its glory is gone and all you have left is pictures and memories so the foolish man built his house on the sand and what was interesting you might notice I pull a number of photos off of you know the internet and things of that sort and there are quite a few floating houses pictures of floating house where the whole house is going down the river So Jesus hasn't made this point for nothing. Houses on sand, however impressive for a time, will fail, and they will fail catastrophically.

There is an application of this principle in scripture for us in the body of Christ. And it turns in an interesting way. There are some larger principles to be drawn from this passage. Even though Jesus was speaking to the Israelites in the land of Israel, all under the law of Moses, We can draw some critical, important, key principles from the words he spoke to them. When we use the word principles, and I like to clarify here, it either refers to a fundamental truth, or perspective, or the way things work, and sometimes both. In this case, both. It's a fundamental truth, and it's the way things work.

One is not everything in life and eternity is grayscale or inconsequential. Notice he's got two, two houses. There are some things where it really doesn't matter a whole lot. We can take any part of the spectrum and it's okay. But there are things in life that are extremely important. They're not grayscale. They're not inconsequential.

And one of the things to take note of is that it can take a long time for it to become apparent how important something is. Have you noticed that? You go down the path of life and you discover, oh, this back there, that was really important. That was really significant. I didn't realize that until now. It's part of the challenge of raising kids. You're trying to get across what's important, and they don't get the distinction. You try to keep emphasizing, this is important, this is important, right? And it takes time for that to become apparent to them.

God's Word reveals to us what is of little consequence, what doesn't matter very much, and also what is not of little consequence. God's Word tells us what's important. And God tells us those things, tells us what's important because He loves us. Just the same as a parent would try to tell their kids what's important because the parent loves the child. The Bible tells us what is important, what is not, because God loves us and all wisdom is ultimately from Him. All wisdom is ultimately from Him.

For us in the church, Christ is the builder. Jesus' illustration here in the Sermon on the Mount, it's the wise man who builds on the rock and the unwise man who builds without foundation and on the sand. Christ is the builder, as we see in the New Testament, and He's also the cornerstone. He's both builder and cornerstone, the starting stone for the construction. You and I are part of the building that Christ is building. You and I build our house upon the rock by placing faith in Him, and then He does the rest. He's the builder. We place our faith in Him for salvation, and being built into a holy temple in the Lord, and He does everything else.

Here's Ephesians 2, 19-22. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, Paul writes, But you are fellow citizens with the saints, where? You have a heavenly citizenship, right? And are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, and there's a Hebrew poetry pattern here, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. God's doing the building here. And there's one place to be built upon and that's Christ as the cornerstone and the apostles and prophets as a foundation.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what Jesus had to say here. And we look at the various applications to our lives and just thank you for what you've revealed because you love us and care for us. And you do want us to understand what's important and what is not. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.