38 The Log in Your Eye Is Bigger Than You Think (Matthew 7:1-5)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for downloading Wednesday in the Word, my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. I'm Krisan Marotta. This is the 38th talk in my series on the Gospel of Matthew. We will be studying Matthew chapter 7, verses 1 through 5. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast, or you can find them by going to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 3 8. The lecture notes contain links to everything mentioned in the talk and an outline of all the main points. You can also find all previous episodes in this series on wednesdayintheword.com and many other series as well. Thank you so much for listening today. We are nearing the end of the third major section of the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew, and we're starting chapter seven today. As always, we want to remember where we are in this sermon and in the book. I have argued that the entire Sermon on the Mount has been about one topic, who will be saved, who will be accepted by God. In the first section, the Beatitudes, Jesus told us who the blessed or the fortunate ones are, who will receive a place in the kingdom of God. The Beatitudes essentially tell us the kind of saving faith that a person must have to inherit a place in the kingdom of God. Then in the second section, the antithesis, Jesus warned that we must seek God differently than the Pharisees seek him if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven, and he gave several examples to explain that. In this third section, Jesus has been looking at worldliness, not those who are materialistic, but those who are too concerned with the things of this world. And in the last section, immediately prior to this, at the end of chapter six, Jesus warned us not to let our concerns for our physical needs overwhelm us such that they become our priority and we forget the promises and goodness of God. Now he continues in Matthew seven verses one through five, judge not that you be not judged, for with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. You'll probably notice right away that this sounds like a familiar theme. It's a concept we've discussed before in this sermon, but here Jesus goes into more detail. To understand this section, I want to review three foundational truths that are taught throughout Scripture. I think these truths undergird the gospel and everything Jesus has been teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. One of those truths is that God, our creator, is going to judge us. As human beings, our destiny is in his hands. The second of those fundamental truths is that we are evil people and we are going to stand condemned on judgment day unless God is merciful. From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture is clear that none of us get an automatic pass on judgment day just for being human. The third foundational truth is that mercy only comes to those who have saving faith that we've been describing throughout the sermon. There is something that characterizes those who will receive the mercy of God and so find life. And we've talked about this as the four core convictions of saving faith and how mercy characterizes those who will receive the mercy of God and so find life in his kingdom. People who have saving faith are not free from sin. It is not that we steadfastly and courageously overcome our sin and therefore God acknowledges our intrinsic worth and grants us life in his kingdom. It is not that people marked by saving faith are fifty one percent good. We don't tip the scales so that the good we've done just outweighs the bad we've done, and therefore God will let us into his kingdom because, hey, we're good enough. It's not that we are sincerely religious enough to impress God with our piety and dedication, and therefore he grants us a pass on judgment day. It is none of those things. Rather, we are open to and embrace the truths of God. In particular, we embrace these four core convictions of saving faith that we have seen Jesus teach throughout the sermon. And those are one, we recognize and agree with God that we are sinful. Two, we long to be free from our sin and we want to be made holy. Three, we recognize and agree with God that we cannot make ourselves holy and God owes us nothing. And four, we trust that God will forgive us and grant us life through the blood of Jesus Christ, and because God is profoundly merciful and gracious. The person who holds these convictions will ultimately be forgiven and granted eternal life. Now I would argue that the Sermon on the Mount has been grounded on these fundamental truths. They come up over and over again. Everything Jesus has been teaching has been answering the question who is going to be saved, who will find life in God's kingdom? And he has been arguing it is those with saving faith. They recognize there is a holy God, they recognize they themselves are not holy, they cannot make themselves holy, and they need God's forgiveness. So now we come to a passage that explicitly connects God's judgment with our having a merciful attitude. This passage clearly states that God's response to us is connected to the way we respond to others. And that should be no surprise. Jesus has implied this connection already in this sermon. To explain how I understand this passage, I want to give you an analogy. I learned this analogy from one of my mentors years ago when I was in exegesis school, and I use it frequently. If you've listened to many of my podcasts, you may have heard me use it before. Sorry for the repetition, but it works, so I'm going to use it again. Look up at the night sky. Our universal experience suggests that everything revolves around us. The sun, the moon, the stars, they all appear at one horizon, travel in an arc overhead, and disappear on the opposite horizon. They never stop doing this. At night we see the stars and planets moving. Everything we can see suggests to us that the Earth is the center of the universe. If I stand still, I can see that the sun is moving, my shadow changes. I may start with the sun hitting me full in the face, and then as I continue to stand there, it's not hitting me in the face. And then I'm suddenly in the shade even though my feet haven't moved. From my vantage point, it makes sense to say that the Earth is at the center of the solar system and everything is moving around us. That's what we see. That's how we experience reality. By analogy, this is how we view God and each other. I am here looking out of my eyes with my needs, my desires, my background, my sensations. Like the sun, God is out there, but he's out there, and I'm right here. And all of you are out there, like the planets, all revolving around me, because of course I am the center of the solar system and the universe. Clearly, I'm the main character, and all of you are the supporting caste. I just know it with every inch of my existence. By nature, that's the way it feels to each and every one of us. By nature, I think if I'm not happy, what good is it if God out there is happy somewhere? It's I mean it's nice that God's happy and all, but it doesn't do me any good. If I'm hungry, it doesn't do me any good for you to eat a sandwich. It's not going to get me anywhere. I'm still gonna be hungry, and after all, it's all about me. From my perspective, I'm the center of the whole thing, and God and other people move around me, just like from our vantage point the sun revolves around the earth. But then along came Copernicus. Among this completely uniform motion we see some erratic movement that we can't explain. Puzzling balls of light, which we call planets, slowly wander back and forth among the stars. Now why do they do this? Well a man named Copernicus proposed a very satisfying but counterintuitive solution. He concluded the sun is at the center of our solar system and we are on one planet circling the sun just as the other planets also circle the sun. When I look up at the sky, it may look and feel to me like the Earth is the center of the solar system, but actually our planet is circling the sun. With this new understanding, this strange dance of the planets is explained in a simple and satisfying way. Although our experience still suggests the sun and the planets revolve around us, we now understand that in reality the sun is at the center. We are just one of a number of planets circling it together. Even though common sense experience tells us that everything revolves around the Earth, Copernicus tells us in fact the sun is at the center of the solar system, and we on Earth are in fact just one of the planets, one of those wandering balls of light orbiting the sun. The Copernican revolution is striking in the way that one simple change of perspective so completely changed the way we think of the relationship between the heavenly bodies and ourselves. Now, the two great commandments love God and love your neighbor as yourself are like a Copernican revolution. It is a simple change of perspective that completely changes the way we think about ourselves and others. By analogy, God is the sun at the center of the solar system. We human beings are like the planets that orbit around the sun. My creator is at the center, and I am just one of the planets circling him. I am one of his creatures, no more important than any other human being, and no less important than any other human being. This is revolutionary in two ways. When I shift the center of the universe back to God, two truths emerge. God has priority over all his creation, and I am not more important than my fellow human beings. This shift in perspective is central to becoming a believer in the God of the Bible. First, I must acknowledge that God is at the center of the universe, not me, so that changes my perception and my relationship to God. And second, I acknowledge that I am just like every other human being. I am no more and no less important than my other fellow sinners. I am just one of those planets out there. Now it's good to be a planet. Planets are important, but they're not the sun and they are not the center of the solar system. Now my analogy breaks down a bit because you can argue that the Earth is more important, at least to us human beings, than the other planets. But for purposes of my analogy, just grant me that planets are of like kind and equal importance. The point I want to make is this shift in worldview to seeing that I am equally important as my fellow human beings. I am no more important, I am no less important than anyone else, despite my inward pull to the contrary. This is one of the fundamental moral questions of human existence. How do we see ourselves in relationship to God and other people? Will we accept our place in the world, not above others, but beside them? Will we admit that we are in the same boat as everyone else? We are equally worthy of respect as God's creatures. We are equally sinners. We need the same grace, mercy, and forgiveness. This is a fundamental part of what it means to be a sinner. Why do I sin against God and other people? Because I think I'm the sinner of the universe. I am most interested in benefiting myself. If you end up losing when I benefit myself, well, hey, that's okay because you know I'm the sinner of the universe. That is the fundamentally flawed perspective of every sinner. The second great commandment says love your neighbor as yourself. That is, put yourself in your neighbor's place and ask how you would want to be treated. That involves a fundamental recognition that the appropriate and right thing to do is for me to recognize that my neighbor's needs are just as important as mine, and that's a fundamental worldview shift. Now I want to be clear, all of us have already failed this test. As sinners, we all fall far short of loving our neighbors as we should, and we continue after conversion to act selfishly and foolishly. But even though we fall short of living this out, there is a fundamental principle involved that we do not reject and we accept as true. Becoming a believer involves accepting truth from God. We acknowledge that God is right and we are wrong. We acknowledge that we may not be able to love our neighbor as ourselves, but it is the right thing to do. We believe the way God says things ought to be is the way things ought to be. Being a person of faith means accepting this truth, this essential sense that my neighbor and I are of equal importance, that what applies to me applies to you and vice versa. It means accepting this as true and trying to live in light of this truth. If I reject that principle as true, then I'm not just a selfish sinner, I am an unbeliever. I am rejecting the truth from God. Now with that perspective shift, it begins to make sense why Jesus tells us that the two greatest commandments are love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Loving God involves recognizing that He is the sinner of the universe, not us, and loving our neighbors as ourselves involves recognizing that we are no more important than our neighbors. This fundamental truth lies behind the issue we encounter in our passage today. Judge not lest you be judged. There's a connection between how I treat people and how I am going to be treated by God. That connection is based on whether or not I accept the truth that my neighbor and I are equivalent. We are both sinners before a holy God. And I only accept that conviction if I have saving faith. Now that sets us up for the passage. Let's walk through it. Matthew 7 1, judge not that you be not judged. This Greek word judge can have several different nuances, just like our English word judge. Sometimes the word judge implies merely that an assessment is being made. For example, in Acts 2016, we read this for Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost. That word translated decided, for Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, is our word judge. Paul made a decision. He made an assessment. He made the judgment that he didn't have time to stop in Ephesus because he needed to be in Jerusalem by Pentecost. Now sometimes this word has the further idea that not only is the assessment made, but a sentence or conclusion is reached. You either pass or fail the judgment. For example, this is in Acts 16, after Paul has baptized Lydia, she says to him in 1615, and after she was baptized and her household as well, she urged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay, and she prevailed upon us. The idea here is that Paul is going to reach some kind of assessment. He's assessed Lydia and her household and decided, or judged, that they had sincerely embraced the truth of the gospel. That's a conclusion Paul reached based on his assessment or his judgment. Sometimes this word focuses on the negative conclusion and the sentence that was reached by the assessment. That is to be judged can sometimes mean to be condemned. For example, this is in the parable of the ten minas, the nobleman rebukes the servant who did nothing with his minor, saying, This is Luke 19, twenty two, and he said to him, I will condemn you with your own words, you wicked servant. You knew that I was a severe man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. That word condemn is our word judge. He's saying, I judge you with your own words. By your own words I assess you and find you guilty, find you condemned. I think that's the sense we find in Matthew 7 1. Jesus says, Judge not that you be not judged. And the implication is judge not lest you be condemned by God. Obviously, God is going to judge us in the sense that one day we will face him and he will decide our eternal destiny. God's day of judgment is going to happen, and Jesus is not giving us a way out of that day. Rather, he's saying that you won't be condemned on that day. I think in this context, this word has that last idea of being condemned, lest you be judged, lest you fail the judgment by God and be condemned. And I think he means the same thing in both places. Do not condemn others lest God condemn you. Especially when we add in the next several verses, I think that becomes pretty clear his point is this idea of condemnation. I point that out because that helps sort out a very common confusion about this verse. The question often arises, what does it mean to judge? In American society today, many people think that the absolute worst thing you can do is be judgmental, and they define judgmental as merely suggesting that another person is wrong, did something wrong, or believes something wrong. If you take any kind of stand that A is right and B is wrong, you're accused of being judgmental and banned from social media. I don't think that merely making an assessment of some kind is what Jesus means here by judge. That would contradict his other teaching. Just to give you one example, later in Matthew, Jesus says this in Matthew eighteen, verses fifteen through seventeen. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother, but if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Now we can spend a lot of time talking about what that kind of church discipline is supposed to look like and what it's not supposed to look like, but my simple point is that we are going to have to make those kinds of judgments. Situations will arise where someone is doing something that God says is wrong and we are to reprove them for it. If Jesus means here to forbid us from the get go to judge that something or someone has been in the wrong, then how could we ever take anyone aside in private and reprove them? When he says judge not, I don't think Jesus means recognizing and acknowledging right and wrong behavior according to God's word. Rather, he's talking about condemning someone else. If I condemn you, I stand to be condemned myself by God. Now he's going to use the word judge again in the next verse, explaining what he means, and I think here we're going to see a slightly different nuance. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Here I don't think he's saying in the same way you condemn others, you also will be condemned. Rather, he's talking about the standard of measure. The way you evaluate the situation is the way you will be evaluated. And here we see that basic principle of equivalence I was talking about earlier. What applies to my neighbor applies to me as well. I have also failed any standard that I used to measure my neighbor and find her lacking. And this is a big theme for Jesus. We've already seen this several times in the Sermon on the Mount. The first was in the Beatitudes, Matthew 5 7, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. As we talked about then, only those who are merciful stand to receive mercy, and we talked about why that connection is there. The next place we saw it was in the Lord's Prayer in Matthew six, twelve through fifteen, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. That statement about forgiveness is the only statement in the Lord's Prayer that Jesus explains after the prayer or comments on. And we also saw this in the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew eighteen, which we talked about while studying the Lord's Prayer. In that famous parable, the master forgives a huge and impossible debt that the servant owes him. The servant then turns around and fails to forgive a tiny debt that his friend owes him. And this is a very important theme in Jesus' teaching. We also see it in the teaching of the apostles and the other New Testament letters. I would argue that all these passages are talking about the same kind of thing. The kind of judging he's talking about is to be condemning, unforgiving, and unmerciful toward my fellow sinner. I condemn you in some way and refuse to forgive you. The problem with that attitude, as we've seen, it contradicts one of the fundamental truths behind the gospel. To go back to my analogy, God is at the center of the universe, and we human beings are planets who orbit Him. We are of equal importance. I am not the main character. My needs do not have any kind of priority, and I am no better than anyone else. We are all sinners who have the same need for mercy and grace, the same Father and the same Lord and Savior. There is no standard by which I can condemn someone else that does not also condemn me. And that's the point Jesus is making. Now let's look at the analogy that Jesus uses to make his point here. Matthew seven three through five. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is the log 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 out of your brother's eye. This particular analogy is clever and then it's also really funny. The picture of someone with a log in their eye is ridiculous. You can't really have a log in your eye. I mean it's physically impossible, but it beautifully makes his point. He sets up an absurd picture to make a really profound point. In this situation, there is this giant log in your eye and a teeny tiny speck in your neighbor's eye. Very much like the parable of the unforgiving servant, there is a huge disparity in the size of the problem. Yours is enormous and his is a tiny speck. Now notice he does not say, Why do you look at the log in your brother's eye when you've got a log in your own eye? He does not say, Why are you concerned with his speck when you've got a speck too? He emphasizes this difference. Why are you concerned about his teeny tiny speck when you've got this gigantic log? Like the parable of the unforgiving servant, I think he's making the same point. If we're honest with ourselves, we recognize the magnitude of our own sin. We owe an enormous debt to God. God has the right to condemn us a thousand times over. And here, this other person has done something bad to us. And let's assume it's bad. We don't have to assume it's good. We're not excusing the other person, but he or she has committed one sin against us compared to our infinite number of sins against God. If I'm honest with myself, I can look back over the course of my life and see how selfishly and badly I've treated so many people over the years. I can look back and see neglect piled on thoughtlessness, piled on arrogance, piled on selfishness, piled on pride. There's just so much I need to be forgiven for. The log versus the speck clues us in that we're not saying, oh, you know, hey, I messed up once or twice. I I have a few problems too. That's not the attitude. It's I take a clear and honest look inside. And if I do that, I recognize how deep the debt is I owe to God. I am a rebellious sinner and He can justly and rightly condemn me over and over again. I have a metaphorical log in my eye. The debt is enormous. One thing that strikes us, then is this disparity in size, but the other point that ought to leap out of this analogy is given the fact that I have a log in my own eye, why am I concerned with my neighbor's spec at all? I think he picked this analogy because we all know what it's like to get something in your eye. If a piece of grit or an eyelash gets in your eye, you have to deal with it immediately. It hurts in a way that commands all of your attention. You have to stop what you're doing to take care of it. If you're driving, you have to pull over and clear your eye. It hurts, you can't see. No matter what you're doing, you've got to stop and deal with it. So Jesus imagines a situation where I have a log, not a little tiny speck of dust, but this huge branch in my eye, and somehow I have managed to ignore it, to point out this little tiny speck in your eye. How can I possibly be more concerned about the speck in my neighbor's eye when I have this big, gigantic, painful log in my own eye? I think he means the situation to be absurd. I mean, think about having something in your eye. How can you possibly ignore it? It would be so painful, you couldn't think of anything else at all. In the same way, my own sin ought to be really obvious to me. How can I possibly ignore it? And that's the point. When I'm condemning someone else, I am fundamentally ignoring the magnitude of my own problem. And Jesus is pointing out, how could that possibly be? Just like the servant in the parable of the unforgiving servant, how could the servant who has been forgiven a debt that could crush and destroy his life forget so easily the mercy that he has been shown? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. Now I have struggled with what this word hypocrites means in this context, and I think it means this. In seeking to deal with another person's speck, I am presenting myself as motivated by a concern for what is right and a concern for the other person. But if I have not come to terms with the fundamental reality of my own sinful log, then I'm a hypocrite. How can I be concerned about what is right and what's wrong and what's sin and what isn't if I am willfully ignoring my own sin? If I was truly concerned with sin and right and wrong, then I would be more concerned about dealing with my own behavior. If I was truly concerned about your welfare, then I would be more concerned with the selfish way I'm treating you because I have this log problem, then I would be concerned about the speck in your eye that's bothering me. It's hypocrisy in that sense. Now I may be deceiving myself, I may not realize how hypocritical I'm being, but in that situation I'm presenting myself as one who is concerned about sin and the speck in your eye, but if I was truly concerned about sin, I would deal with myself first because there's a log in my eye. Putting this all together then, this is a powerful image of willfully living a lie. He's saying if you condemn other people for their sins, you're ignoring a fundamental truth about yourself in a way that is almost impossible to imagine. Now, as impossible as it is to imagine, we do it all the time. We all do. Marriage is one of the great teachers of this truth. We expect a lot from our spouse. We expect our spouse to love us, cherish us, make us a priority in their lives, treat us the way we want to be treated. After all, my husband took a vow to do that very thing. I heard him, I have it on tape. He said it in front of all our family and friends. It's really easy to start complaining and criticizing and pointing out all my husband's flaws and imperfections in the way he's treating me. But if I'm honest, I'm guilty of everything I accuse him of doing or not doing. I don't know how many times I've found myself making a federal case out of his behavior, and then I suddenly realized that I committed the same offense just the week before. I wanted him to overlook it when the tables were turned, but when he's the guilty party, then I want to throw the book at him. It sounds funny, but it reflects a fundamental truth that we all need to come to grips with. Forgiveness is at the heart of the gospel. To ask God for forgiveness is to embrace the truth that I need to be forgiven. I need mercy. But when I condemn someone else, I have forgotten I'm just as guilty. This is a picture of an impossible to imagine situation, and yet in our relationships with each other, this is what we do because we fundamentally don't want to acknowledge that we are in this together. We are equal and equivalent before God. My selfishness and everything inside me tries to tell me that I'm different, that my needs and my wishes matter more, and everything needs to work to my advantage. My selfishness insists that in any given situation, the most important principle to ask is how does this benefit me? And that's a lie we tell ourselves. And this metaphor is a powerful image of trying to live that lie. As I've said in earlier podcasts, this is a fundamental issue of faith. One of the core convictions of saving faith is knowing that I am a sinner and that God owes me nothing. This is a truth that we recognize when we embrace the gospel for the first time, and then we mature into a deeper and richer understanding as we go through this life. We grow in our knowledge of our need for mercy. Or you could say we begin to see how big that log is that's in our eye. At first we think, oh, it's not that bad, it's just a little speck, and slowly we begin to realize the problem is way bigger than that. Then when we encounter other sinners and they sin and hurt us, at some fundamental level we start to realize we're looking in a mirror. Yes, the sin was wrong, yes, it hurt. It's not that I'm lowering the standard, it's not that wrong behavior is good. It's a problem, but I'm a problem too. If I need mercy, then so do they, and who am I to condemn? That's the point Jesus is making here. Your standard of measure is going to also measure you. If you think that that particular kind of sin deserves condemnation, well great, let's use that same standard to measure your behavior. Guess what? You've got that kind of sin too. On the other hand, if you're willing to show mercy because you know you need the same kind of mercy, then mercy will be shown to you. Jesus raises one more issue in the last two verses. Let's look at those again. Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is a log 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 out of your brother's eye. I think he's extending the analogy here into a little bit different issue. The issue now is how am I responding to my brother who is sinning in some way? I want to say here, let me take the speck out of your eye. Now we all know this situation. This is what I was talking about earlier with marriage. In marriage, in friendships, in work relationships, we all face situations where someone is doing something wrong. Whatever it is, big or small, it's not right, it's creating problems, and it's hurting other people. Especially if the sin is hurting me, I feel called upon to act. I feel that I must remove the speck. I must deal with the sinful behavior in the other person because it's hurting and bothering me. So I want to say, let me tell you where you're going wrong, let me tell you how you can improve. And notice Jesus does not say in that situation, don't ever attempt to remove a speck from someone else's eye. He says, deal with the log in your own eye first. And I would argue that dealing with the log in your own eye is not get your act together and make yourself perfect first. Rather, dealing with the log is coming to grips with this fundamental truth that I've been talking about. Recognize who you are. Recognize the very big reality of sin in your own life. Recognize your own need for mercy so that as you approach your brother or sister who is sinning, you approach him or her in humility. In other words, rather than responding with impatience or superiority or anger or wrath or something like that, I respond with the understanding that I am just as sinful. I approach the other person with humility and mercy and respond with the quality of understanding, hey, I'm a sinner too. I think that's what he means by then you can see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. First, stand squarely on this fundamental truth that you are equivalent. You are no better than your neighbor, your debt to God is enormous, you have been forgiven a great debt, and so has your brother or sister with the speck. And when you clearly see the truth of the situation you're both in, then you are in a position to be helpful. So to summarize, I think there are two aspects to this metaphor. The first is do not condemn lest God condemn you. Those who are merciful will receive mercy from God. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Part of saving faith is acknowledging and embracing the fundamental truth that I am a sinner before a holy God. I recognize that I am not the sinner of the universe, and deep in my soul I embrace the truth that I need mercy before God and that all my neighbors are just like me. We're equivalent. That's his first point. I need to understand at some profound level my own need for mercy, and I'm striving to learn to show others that same mercy. When I believe the gospel, I also come to believe that I am a sinner who needs mercy, and therefore I strive to show mercy to others. I look at the world through that perspective. His second point then relates to how we deal with each other and the idea that is I deal with the log in my own eye before I attempt to help you with the speck in yours. That is, I stand squarely on acknowledging this fundamental truth that we are both sinners before a holy God and that I am no more important than you. Now if I'm understanding this rightly, I think Paul makes the same point in Galatians. This is Galatians six verses one through five. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor, for each will have to bear his own load. I think that Paul is saying here in Galatians what Jesus is saying in Matthew. Paul has been talking about how their emphasis on law keeping has a tendency to lead to what he calls biting and devouring one another. If they focus on the idea that they are proving themselves to be good people by keeping the law, they have a tendency to think highly of themselves and to compare themselves to others. And when they see others messing up, then they become impatient with these other screw ups and it leads to conflict, boasting, and strife. Instead, Paul is saying live in a way that reflects your understanding that you're being saved by grace through faith. He says if anyone is caught in transgression, even if you're dealing with a situation where someone has clearly done something wrong, how should you respond? And he says, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual, that is you who aren't committing that sin, should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. There's going to be a response, you don't just ignore the problem, it's appropriate to respond, but the response should be from a place of humility and gentleness, recognizing that you too could easily commit that same sin. Rather than responding with competition or condemnation or arrogant superiority or something like that, respond with mercy. So instead of saying, Well, fortunately for me, I have not screwed up like you have done here, so let me help you from my vast wisdom. That's not the right attitude. Instead, he says in 6 2, bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. I want to approach this person who's been caught in a sin with the understanding that they have a burden and so do I. To the extent that I can help them lighten their load, call them back to mercy and grace and the word of God with an attitude of humility, then I ought to do it. But I don't bear their burden with the superiority of, oh well, I've kept the rules and you haven't, so let me correct you so you can be perfect like me. Rather, I lighten their load by showing them mercy and grace and forgiveness coming from the recognition that I am a sinner. Being a sinner is hard and we all mess up. For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor, for each will have to bear his own load. If you think you're something, you're deceiving yourself. If you think you're better than your neighbor, you're going into this situation on the wrong foot. If you think you'd never commit the same sin or that you are somehow better than your brother, then you're deceiving yourself. And let's be honest. In this kind of situation, it's easy to be self-righteous because hey, I'm not the one who messed up, at least not this time or not in this way. In this situation, you're the one that's fallen into trespass. I'm up, you're down, and it's easy to get puffed up about yourself. And Paul wants to nip that attitude in the bud. He says, examine your own work. Before you go into that situation to correct your neighbor, take a long, hard look at yourself. God does not grade on a curve. In this particular test, maybe you got a better grade because you didn't fail this particular circumstance, but you're not passing. You failed just as your neighbor failed. Forget about that other person and take a long hard look at yourself. Boast about yourself alone, not how you compare to your neighbor. And when you do that, you see there's not a whole lot to boast about. When he says, for each will bear his own load, I think he means here we each are responsible for our own actions. When I take that long, hard look at myself, I realize I'm a sinner too. I don't have a leg up because I avoided this particular sin in this particular day. I don't end up better because you messed up here. How you're doing is irrelevant to my standing. I bear my own load. I'm responsible for my own behavior, and it doesn't really matter in that sense how you're doing. So when it comes to other people's sins, I should seek to bear their burdens, to lighten their load by being merciful, by humbly correcting them with the goal of helping and encouraging them, not condemning them. But when it comes to my own sins, I need to be brutally honest and accept responsibility and recognize my own need for mercy. I think Paul could have ended this. First remove the log from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to deal with the speck in your neighbor's eye. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. You can hear all the episodes in this series on my website, WednesdayandTheWord.com. There is no charge, no spam, and no ads. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe, leave a positive written rating or review wherever you listen, and most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Thank you to Reggie Coates for the use of his beautiful song Tenacious. You can hear more of Reggie's music and find his CDs on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krissan Morana, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.