Did Jesus Really Say “Don’t Judge”? Here’s What He Actually Meant

I'm glad we're together today in this space. My name is Mark Cummins. I'm the pastor at Church of Hope. And if you're a regular attender, welcome. So glad that week after week, we join together in this space. And if by chance, this is your first time, I'm really glad that we're beginning our friendship today. Understand that this broadcast literally goes around the world for free. See, we believe that life's at its best when people discover hope in Christ. There are people who give generously so this broadcast can be reached across every continent. If you've never given, I would invite you today to give. You can go to our webpage, HopeInOcala.com and drop down on the giving bar and give a one-time gift. Or you can give generously beyond just today. And if God's blessed you, help us as we give hope around the world. But for now, I want you to open up your heart and your mind. Let Jesus speak to you because what I believe is that when we open up our minds and let Jesus speak to us, life doesn't become perfect and all the problems don't go away, but you experience his presence in you, with you, and for you. Open up your heart. Let Jesus speak to you today.

Peace. What if, three words. Three words that Jesus spoke are the most misunderstood words and most destructive words. Three words. Do not judge has become perhaps the most quoted statement of Jesus. And I would also suggest it's also become the most misunderstood and unfortunately, the most destructive. Misunderstood in that is Jesus telling us that we just need to not be aware of anything that's happening in the world. And it's evil or sinful, we just need to turn a blind eye to it. I think you're gonna see that Jesus isn't talking about that at all. And most destructive, that when people who would say that they're not believers, and maybe you're here today and you've yet to become a believer, follower of Jesus. When asked, what keeps you from following Jesus? What keeps you from believing in God? The number one response is judgmental Christians. In your copy of God's word, we're in Matthew chapter seven. It's where we find those three words, do not judge in verse one. Judge not, that you be not judged, right?

In our culture, we hear it all the time. You got no right to judge me. Who are you to judge me? We say it, but on the flip side of that, right? Our culture does a lot of judging. Think about my 10th grade English teacher. I like to have a conversation because if you're not supposed to judge me, then what were you doing judging my essay and not giving me the kind of grade that I wanted? How about coaches? Coaches make a judgment call on who gets to start, who gets more playing time. A lot of parents don't always agree with the judge's decision. I did that conversation with that police officer who pulled me over. And in his judgment, I was speeding. I was driving recklessly. Who are you to judge? Hey, if you've ever been asked to sit on a jury, what are they asking you to do? To judge. But we live in a culture that confused about this judgment. And then on the other side, in a culture where as you just heard the statistic, many people feel distant from God because if those people are God's people and they're so- Judgmental I want nothing to do with that God. It seems like our problem the pressure point that we live in is

Either we are too assertive and we're judging people that we don't like judging people who don't you know? Speak the way we want them to speak vote that we want them to vote Identify whether we're judging them or we are permissive. I don't want to get involved. I don't want to say anything I don't anybody be upset with me at all I think we're gonna discover from the words of Jesus that there is a better way and That what Jesus is teaching us it really has very little to do with judging and a whole lot more to do with our Hypocrisy here go back to the Bible Look what it says in verse 3 for with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged and the measure you use it'll be measured to you Why do you say? It's almost like Jesus getting snarky right here. Why you say? Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye? but you don't notice the log a big old two-by-four or that's in your own eye or How can you say to your brother? Hey, let me take out the speck that little piece of dust Out of your eye when there's this big old log In your own eye and notice what he says you hypocrite first take the log out of your own eye and notice the order and then You will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye Jesus isn't saying that you should ignore sin pretend that evil doesn't exist Except everything that's happening around us later in this very chapter Jesus tells us to recognize false prophets by their fruit that we should use discernment to understand in in verse Number 15 beware the false prophets who come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves You will recognize them by their fruits our grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles He's he's saying Allison. I'm one verse don't don't judge and that's become kind of like the The cultural statement no, don't judge me who you to judge me. Yeah, I do my thing You do your thing you do your truth is your truth. My truth is my truth But then he tells us in the very same chapter. Hey, listen, you need to judge whether or not these false prophets Are telling you the truth or not? The challenge is how do we deal with our own mess our own log in our eye? First and

then have a conversation with a friend or a family member about a speck in their eye The problem is we really we don't know it's kind of like what we just talked about a moment ago that we feel caught in The middle am I aggressive and I'm looking at their behavior saying this behaviors wrong You need to change kind of setting them straight. I'm setting the record, right or Or Permissive I Don't say anything. I don't want to be upset with me. I don't want to get in the middle of it at all You know everybody in this space Online you want relation we want healthy good relationships. You want good friendships? You want a good relationship with a significant other? With your parents with your kids, but here's the tension right? It's human beings are messy You have a relationship you have a friendship, but then he says something she says something it's not exactly what you thought and conflict arrives Failure someone doesn't show up the way that you thought that they should you feel betrayed by them and Our culture says well listen, you don't don't judge me. Don't don't don't cast your opinions on me And Then there's other people they're just gonna criticize you for no matter what you say what you do whatever is going on there there's this spew of criticism and And the problem and the tension and the pressure point is how do you? in your relationships How do you deal with that own? Log in your eye, and then at times when someone else has a speck in their eye It's a problem we all face it and what's at stake this morning is is really how you decide to move forward from from here because Do not judge is Misunderstood and it's destructive and we don't have to stay stuck in this we can leave here today and be more

Like Jesus and what I really want us to know as we walk off the campus today as we go on with our lives Is this there is a? between discernment and judging. There's a difference. Jesus is telling us we should discern what's best and what's less than best. He's telling us not to judge. So what's the difference? Discernment is, I see what's happening. I'm aware of what's going on. I'm not blind by it. I understand something has happened. Judging is already drawing a conclusion. Judgment says, I know why you did it. I know what's behind it. So let me see if I can illustrate it. Some of you, maybe that's why you're here at 1130, is you stayed up last night to watch Conor McGregor's comeback. Yeah, baby, here we go, right? And if you stayed up late to watch or you looked online this morning, you found out that in round number one, he tweaked his knee. Now, discernment is, he tweaked his knee. He couldn't continue the fight. You had stayed up late. Now, judgment would be like, I bet his knee was already hurt. I bet that Dana White,

it was all just a promotional thing to make a bunch of money, whatever it is. There is a difference between discernment. Jesus calls us to discern, to see what's going on around us without the judgment saying, I'm going to draw a conclusion. And I'm going to say, this is why the person did that. This is what they're trying to do. See, often, not every time, but most often, more often than not, your assessment of someone else's choice is usually just your own unhealed wound talking. Somewhere you got hurt. Somewhere something broke. There's a wound. And what we often see in someone else is that wound. And instead of dealing with that wound on the inside and really taking it to God and letting him be our source of healing, we think all this energy in judging what they're doing, and if I can correct them, then somehow I would feel better. So what I want us to do is this. I want us to look at two examples of how Jesus balances being in someone's life, loving them, caring for them, without crushing them because of the behavior or the decisions that they're making. Jesus modeled this for us.

And what's at stake is this, is if you are a Christ follower, that means we're going to follow Christ and do what Jesus did. We're not gonna just talk about what Jesus did. We're actually going to engage people the very same way that Jesus engaged people. So let me give you two stories, two illustrations in Jesus. One is in John chapter eight. There's a woman caught in adultery. Remember, Jesus is teaching more about hypocrisy than judging. And these religious leaders, these men, they dragged this broken woman out into public. I find it interesting. They only dragged the woman and then where's the guy, right? And they throw her in the street. They've already judged her. She's just a piece of evidence. She's not a person. They asked Jesus, should we stone her? Because they knew the law. The law was if you were caught in the act of adultery, again, the hypocrisy, the log in these men's eyes, it takes two to tango. There was a guy who was involved. He's nowhere to be found. And there, should we stone her? And then the Bible says, Jesus kneels in the dirt. He begins writing.

We don't know exactly what he wrote, but then he said this, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. The first stone. And then one by one, those stones fell to the ground. And each of those men walked away. And then Jesus to the woman, startnated believing she was about to be stoned to death. He asked her, woman, where are your accusers? And notice her response in verse 11. She said, no one, Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, sin no more. Jesus loves her too much to condemn her and too much for her to stay stuck in her current condition. Jesus never condones adultery. But he also doesn't condemn her of her behavior. Grace, the grace of God doesn't pretend that sin isn't serious. Oh, it's very. serious, but grace offers a new future. Mercy, God is giving, Jesus is giving her mercy. It doesn't erase the truth. She was caught in the act of adultery. She's stark naked in the middle of the street. She was about to be stoned to death. Jesus says, where are your accusers? They're gone. And Jesus says, neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more. Mercy doesn't erase the truth. It changes the ending. You know, it's hard. It's hard to throw stones when your hands are full of grace. When you've experienced the grace of God, that you realize that you were caught, fill in the blank, whatever it is that you did, because the Bible says we've all sinned. So whatever that thing is, our tendency is we like to judge other people's sins, and we don't want to deal with our own sins. That's exactly what Jesus is dealing with us here.

And so when your hands are full of grace, the grace that God gave you, it is really difficult. It is impossible to pick up those stones. Jesus never asked us to carry stones. You can look all throughout your Bible. No word does he say, pick up stones and stone people who are behaving in a wrong way, who are sinning, who are doing bad, despicable things. He just doesn't say it anywhere. What he does say is, pick up your cross. Matthew chapter 16 and verse 24. Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. When you focus on the log in your own eye, it's impossible to see the speck. Jesus isn't talking so much about judging people as he is about our hypocrisy. Because on the flip side, he's going to come back and say, once you got that log out of your eye, now you can lean in and partner with your brother, your sister. You can partner with your friend. You can partner with your employee. You can come alongside of them and help them remove the irritant from their own eye. There's a second story. It's in John chapter four. Jesus begins this story with a conversation with a woman that people had been judging. Some would even say rightfully so. It's high noon and she's gone to the well to get water. Now, in the culture of that day, in the setting of that day, it would be like the heat that we're experiencing right now in Florida. The time to go get water is early in the morning. That's when all the other ladies in town went to the well was early in the morning. You're not going to expend as much energy. You're not going to sweat as much. You're going to be able to go at a time where it's more comfortable. But she had a reputation and people had judged her. And so now she's going to the well all by herself. But Jesus starts a conversation with her. He's listening to her. He chooses to value her, to respect her regardless of what she said and what she's done. Look at verse number nine, John chapter four, the Samaritan woman says to him, to Jesus, how is it here the judgment that she's lived under? How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jews would look down on someone from Samaria because often it was in their bloodline. Someone was Jewish. One of the partners was one of their moms and dads was Jewish. And the other was from a different group. And so they were Samaritans. They were a mixed breed. They were judged. And Jesus knew everything about her, but he still sat down beside her. Jesus didn't avoid her. He approached her. Jesus isn't ignoring her. Jesus is inviting her in

closer. Again, I think Jesus made a little bit snarky in John chapter four and verse 16. He says to her, hey, go call your husband in our language today. Hey, text your husband to come here. I want to get to know him too. So text your husband. The two of you, let's talk and kind of find out what's going on in your world. And now she's feeling trapped. She's wondering, what am I going to do? What do I do? What do I do? And she responds, I have no husband. And Jesus says to her, girlfriend, you're right in saying that you've got no husband. By the way, you've had five husbands. He's calling out the truth. And the one that you have right now, the guy that you're living with right now, he's not your husband. What you said is true, but it's how he said it. His response, he's not trying to shame her. He's not trying to humiliate her. He's not trying to stand over her to say, I'm so much better than you. Jesus revealed her past without reducing her to it. I'm grateful that my past, your past, that he hasn't reduced us to back to it. He doesn't hold us over it. He has forgiven us. He has changed us. You know, people change faster when they encounter grace more than they experience shame. Parents, this is a great insight in parenting. Instead of just kind of dressing your son or dressing your daughter down, telling me all that they've done wrong. When you step into their life and value who they are, understand what's going on in their life. It takes more effort. It takes much more energy. But the response that you're looking for happens when we are valued more than we are shamed. And Jesus, he's not ignoring the sin. He simply loves her enough to tell her the truth. So look at verse 27, just then his disciples came back. This is ironic. The woman who has the sin issue, her response, and now these disciples who are being trained and developed by Jesus. The disciples come back and they marveled, feel the judgment, how they're looking down on this scene. They marveled that he, Jesus, was talking with a woman. No one said, hey, what's going on here? What do you seek? And there's no curiosity. They already draw a conclusion. See, your biggest blind spot might not, your biggest blind spot might be believing that you don't have one. We don't think that we have one. The disciples here, they can't see. They have their own blind spot. Notice what happens to the woman in verse 28. Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, come see a man. Listen, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be a Messiah? Come see the man who told me about my sin, all my choices,

how I've lived less than best. Could this be the Messiah? And then the Bible says the town all came to see this man. They knew about her choices. They knew about her reckless living. They had been judging her, but something changed. Something's different in this moment, the way that Jesus interacted with her. See, the truth should feel much more like a lifeline than a hammer. It is possible for you to be right about someone else's behavior and wrong with God. You're speaking what's right. It's wrong what they're doing. It's wrong what they said. It's wrong, but your truth has become a weapon. It's become a hammer. But the truth that Jesus reveals is much more of a lifeline. That's what the truth is. It's a lifeline that gives us hope. It gives us grace and it gives us mercy. So the question this morning is this, how are you in your life, in the story of you, how are you going to step out this week? Because I promise you, there'll be a moment today sometime, tomorrow, where it's easy to judge somebody else, their intentions, their motives, to cast that judgment on them. And we want to be the kind of people where when it goes to people who are not followers of Jesus, I don't want anybody saying, well, I would give God a shot. I'd give God a chance if Mark wasn't so judgmental, or you put your name there. We can remove that from the storyline today. We can live our lives in such a way today that people see us, not perfect, but they see us dealing with their own log in our eye. And in us, they see the hope that we've discovered in Christ that there is a better and a brighter way to live. So there are two action steps. If you're ready, you can write them down. Number one is this, is we got to deal with ourselves first. You got to judge yourself first. We got to take this log that's in our own eye out. And it's just so tempting to deal with all the specks that are around us, rather than just saying, I need God. I need help with this log in my eye. Remember the circle, the gospel that I taught you, this beginning. You start, you come from a place that God, I need you. I can't do this without you. I'm stuck. I'm broken. It's not this. I'm at the end of my rope, I have no rope. We need God, we've got to deal, we've got to judge ourselves first. Psalms 139 and 23, search me. Can you pray this to God? Search me, oh God, and know my heart.

Test me, try me, and know my anxieties, and see if there's any wicked way in me. Our tendency often is to deal with others with our head. They should have been on time. They shouldn't have done this. They shouldn't have, we deal with logically, and then we deal with ourselves with our heart. Well, I mean, I had this issue and the dog was sick, and I had to clean up the dog's vomit, and that's where I got out of the house late, and there was more traffic. We deal with others, we should flip that, and deal with others with the heart. I had a guy, he asked to come see me. I said, Sharon, he was really troubled. He goes, I've got to get rid of my roommate. I said, what do you mean, you got to get rid of your roommate? He said, well, this apartment's in my name. It's a two-bedroom, two-bath, and so I've subleased it out to him to kind of help with the bills, but, and then he just went like, off the chain, angry. He's in his room at night, and I can hear through the walls, he's watching all kinds of porn. I can hear, I can hear it, it's just wrong, and then he just, he starts getting angry. He's upset.

This is so wrong. I don't want that in here. I want God to bless me. I don't want this to happen. I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I just, and so I'm like, oh my goodness, well, I'm sorry. You're going through this. I, it's two sides of the story. You share what you heard, and he really wasn't there for counseling. He just wanted to spew, and he already knew what he was going to do. I kid you not. The next day, I get a phone call from a man who's married to a woman in town, and he's, he's emotional. Hey, Mark, can I come see you? Well, what's up? I just found out that my wife is having an affair. Oh, dude, man, I am so sorry, and then he named the man that she's having the affair with, and it was the man who was in my office the day before, who was upset about his roommate watching porn. Do you think we have a log issue? We've got to deal with ourselves first. Lamentations 3, let us test and examine our ways and return to the Lord. Test ourselves.

We have to ask ourselves, what am I blind? Where, what sin have I minimized? Where do I need repentance? I can tell you from my life, one of the areas I need repentance in is patience. I don't know, maybe you got the gift of patience. I don't. I know it's the fruit of the spirit. I can give you all the Bible verses, but I struggle with patience. I just, I'm just always on the move. I don't know where it started, how it started. I just want to go and get things done. Even in my marriage, I struggle. Like Linda, she'll make a great meal for us. She's going to make a great meal this afternoon, and she's going to put it on the table, and it's going to be, I mean, it's going to be hot. It's going to be right out of the oven, and I'm like, girlfriend, we've been married 37 years. Don't put that food hot on the table. Why? I can't eat it fast. I got to sit here. I got to wait for it to cool down. Don't call me to the kitchen table until the food is cold. Why? Because I want to eat it fast. I'm out of here. I'm done, right?

And it's like, I mean, it's just another area. I'm just telling you, you got to ask yourself. I don't know. You might have patience down just fine. Maybe it's something else. It's just like patience. It's just like getting in my car. When it's time to leave my house to go someplace, hello, hashtag, let's get there already. Have you driven in Ocala lately? I don't know. Everybody's got no place to go. And it's like, I just want it, right? And then the downside also is like, there's not a lot of people in Ocala who drive a periwinkle blue convertible. And I always have the top down, so it's not like I can hide, right? And there I'm just kind of zipping in, zipping out. But my biggest pain point is Sunday mornings. Now, I don't live far from here, but I'm driving and I'm always thinking, is that person in front of me on their way to hope? Zipping in, so it takes me the longest ever to get to hope on Sundays because I'm behaving. Hey, come on out right now. On Mondays, I ain't looking left or right. I ain't letting nobody in. I'm just getting there. I don't know what your log is,

but you gotta do the work. You gotta take the time to look and to see. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 11, but if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. The greatest blind spot is believing that you don't have one. Ask yourselves, what am I afraid of? Okay, Mark, what are you afraid of that is causing you to be impatient? What are you afraid of, of sitting here and letting the food cool down, what is it that you're afraid you're going to be missing out on something? That somehow your value, Mark, you'll be less valuable if you don't accomplish that, and you don't accomplish that. And if you don't have this big, long to-do list done today, so you got to rush through sitting here and having a conversation with Linda, you have to ask, what is it that you're afraid of? Your uncertainty about others might be coming from your fear about you. Where do I struggle with this?

Why do I struggle? Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark, why are you struggling about driving around in traffic in Ocala? Why are you so worried? I mean, that person is going to speed limit, they're actually obeying the law. But then in your mind, you're saying, yeah, but everybody knows you're really allowed to go 10 miles over. So why can't you do, like the real speed limit isn't 35, it's 48. because they're going to give an allowance in case of speed. I mean, why are they going? Mark, what's really going on? You know what's really going on? Is I kept doing a few more things at the house because I wanted to be seen like I'm successful. Like I'm accomplishing things. And instead of leaving the house on time, or dare I say even early. If I'm early, I'm not stressed out. I mean, life's good. So you have to ask yourselves

these questions, where am I afraid of? Where do I, why am I struggling with this? And the reason this is so important is God has created you on purpose for purpose. As he said, he said deal with that big old log in your eye, so that on the other side, he never told us to ignore the speck. The irritants that are in people's eyes, when you have an irritant in your eye, when you've got dust, it causes the eye to water. You can't see clearly. We have friends and coworkers and family members who have an irritant in their eye. They're living less than their best life. Jesus created you. He designed you. He's gifted you to help them, to partner with him. But what he wants first is for you to deal with the log in your own eye. Why? Because this is the proving ground.

This is where you do the reps. This is where you do the work. This is the energy and effort that you do before the starting line. This is the space that qualifies you to actually help someone else. But too many times, relationally, we are lazy. We want to barge into people's lives, and we want to fix them. Why? Because often that pain point, that wound is speaking. And we think if we can get that fixed, somehow I'll feel more secure. People come to me sometimes, hey, Mark, man, I went to this doctor, spent all this money, I had a knee replacement. And it ain't working at all. I spent thousands, tens of thousands, or they got a hip replacement. And I always ask the same question. I ask, did you do the PT after the surgery? And most of the time,

you know what they tell me? Well, I ain't got time for that. I don't have time to do the physical therapy. You got to have the time. That's the log. The log in your eye, it's doing the physical thing. It's doing the spiritual therapy. Now to be ready to earn the right to be heard, and here's the second step, is we choose to restore, not destroy people. Once the log is removed, Jesus says now help your brother, your sister, your neighbor, your co-worker, your friend. The goal was never ignoring the speck, it was removing yours first. Jesus doesn't tell us to ignore the speck, he tells us to earn the right to be heard. See, truth without love crushes people, that's what people who aren't followers of Jesus, what they feel like. You're speaking the truth, but there's no love. It doesn't feel like you care for

them, and it's just crushing them. And they're like, listen, if that's who your God is, I want nothing to do with him. But then also what's true in the culture that we live today is that truth without truth deceives people. We live in a culture today where people believe there are no consequences for their actions. Have you ever seen on Instagram these different? different reels or videos where someone's been pulled over by a police officer and he's asking for their ID or whatever it is. And it just goes from like 2 degrees to 211 degrees in five minutes. It's because people don't believe there's a consequence. They can say and do whatever they want to do. And he doesn't have a right, you can't touch me and you can't do this. And before you know it, there is an escalation. Love without truth deceives people.

Jesus never separated the two. Let me give you a couple of things just to write down. Number one is this, when we're talking about discerning people around us, even the word judging. Never judge superficially. A lot of times people will judge someone superficially by just the outward appearance, by the car that they're driving, by the clothes that they're wearing. By jewelry they may have on. If they have a hoodie on and the hoodies up all of a sudden somehow that becomes a judgment that that person is this. The Bible says that we should never ever judge somebody superficially. Listen to the word of God, John chapter 7. Stop judging by mere appearances. But instead judge correctly. There's actually a correct way. We're not trying to destroy the person. We're trying to restore the person. Never judge hypocritically.

Jesus is speaking to this. Deal with the log in your own eye before we deal with the speck. Third, never hold a non-believer to a follower of Jesus standards. People are shocked. I can't believe they think this way. Mark, I can't believe they act this way. Can you hear what they said? My goodness, I want to say just time out. They're not a believer. They're not a follower of Jesus. First Corinthians 5, what business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. A lot of people come to me and say, Mark, I just can't stand it. At work, my boss or my coach, or I hear people take the name of the Lord in vain. My goodness, that makes me so mad. I get so angry when they take God's name in vain. And I always say this, hey, listen, are they a believer?

Are they a follower in Jesus? I said, they'll say no. I said, well, why are you angry? They can't take God's name in vain. God's not their God. See, you need to know your Bible. In Exodus, it says thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. An unbeliever is not taking God's name in vain. It's like one day they were God, damn it, they were taking God's name in vain, but they're not believers. So I started to have some fun. I started saying, Buddha, damn it. Buddha, damn it, what the Buddha? Right, and they were looking at me like, what in the world are you saying up there? Well, I was having some fun. But we don't hold someone. Before I met Jesus, for example, the reason I am who I am today is because I met Jesus Christ and he changed my life. The Holy Spirit now lives within me. If I'm not a follower of Jesus,

last night I am staying up to watch the Conor McGregor fight. But I got some buddies in the house. I got some chicks. I got some alcohol. We might have some other things that we're going to enjoy. I mean, we're going to get the party on. We're going to have fun. It's going to be good. You know what I'm saying? But I'm not a believer. I'm not a follower. When I became a follower of Jesus, I changed. That's who I was. Stop holding an unbeliever to a believing person's standards. And then always we've got to just restore. We need to have a picture, a model of restoring people who have fallen. People who have made decisions that's less than best. We want to see them recover. We're not trying to destroy them. Galatians 6 and 1,

brothers and sisters. If someone, a family member, co-worker, if someone that you know is caught in a sin, you who live by the spirit should restore that person gently. There's discernment. Somebody said that they're a follower of Jesus. They're living in a way that is outside of what God's word has to say. So we are going to speak gently. We're going to earn the right to be heard in their life gently so that they are restored. And notice the warning, but watch yourselves or you also may be tempted. It's the picture, literally. The Greek language is the picture of a freshly digged grave. And that person that has a sin, made a choice that less than best has fallen down in that grave. You come alongside, you see they've fallen, so you want to restore them. You want to reach down and help them. But you know that around the perimeter of that hole, the ground is unstable. So you have to kind of position yourself on stable ground, right? So that as you reach down to help pull them up, you yourself don't lose and fall into the hole.

Is that how you restore people? We restore people, we don't destroy people. And I know what some of you are thinking. Some are like, yeah, but Mark, what about, okay, I'm dealing with the log in my eye, and I've gone gently, and I'm trying to restore somebody, but they're just not listening to me. They're ignoring me. They're like, that's fine. That's your truth, and you can have your truth, and you can believe it or you want to believe it, but your truth, I'm just not gonna listen to you. Well, I'm glad that you asked that because Jesus actually addresses this too. Look what he says in verse number six. Now for clarity, he's not calling people dogs and he's not calling people pigs, but he wants you to understand how to deal with somebody who's not going to hear what you're sharing. Do not give dogs what is holy. You doing the hard work of dealing with your own sin with that log that is in your eye, that's holy work. That's sacred work. You're going to God and you're saying, God, I'm struggling with this, and I want God you to do a work. I want to repent of this. That's holy work. What he says is don't give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls, what's valuable, your counsel, your commitment to come alongside of them to remove that irritant that's in their eye. Don't give that to them, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. They ignore, they devalue the work that you're doing and then actually attack you more. God says, listen, stop overreaching. Stop trying to convince them. Stop yab-butting them.

Stop arguing them. Stop litigating the case against them. You just pull up. Love sometimes knows when to speak and when to remain silent and giving somebody insights to a blind spot after you've dealt with your own blind spots is holy, valuable work. Not every battle deserves all your energy. What I know is this, the depth of the relationship that you have with the person, it's got to be deeper than the depth of truth. This is where we miss it a lot with people who aren't followers, parents. This is where we often get it backwards with our kids, all managers in the house. You want to create a culture in your work spot, develop depth of relationship. You know it this way, people don't care how much you know till they know how much you care. When you get to know your employees, you know about their home life, you know about their spouse, you know about their kids. When you build depth, coaches, when you know about your players, when you understand who they are, now you can walk in and talk about a deep truth. Your performance, the things that you're saying at work, the culture that you're not keeping. Now you can speak to a truth because you have depth of relationships. We often do the opposite. We just want to barge in and set them straight. It's criticism with curiosity. Exchange the word why with the word how or what. This is how you get curious. And instead of criticizing, you look at it and you just criticize them, you tell them what they've done wrong. You can't believe you did this. Get curious. And so instead of saying, why did you do this? You say something like this, hey, I'm really curious, how did you come to the conclusion

that that was the best decision? What was your thought process in going in this direction? It removes the stinger, allows for a conversation, and then just be motivated to restore more than proving that you're right. Speak the truth wrapped in grace, truth without anger, without all that emotion, without superiority, without gossip, without humiliation. Because what Jesus is teaching us is that the mirror you're avoiding and seeing that log in your own eye is more important than the mistake you're exposing. The mirror, the gospel, that the mirror of back of who you are and what's going on in your life, that is much more important than the mistake that you're exposing. I'm glad we're together today in this space. My name is Mark Cummins and I'm the pastor at Church of Hope. And if you're a regular attender, welcome. So glad that week after week we join together in this space. And if by chance this is your first time, I'm really glad that we're beginning our friendship today. Now understand that this broadcast literally goes around the world for free. See we believe that life's at its best when people discover hope in Christ. There are people who give generously so this broadcast can be reached across every continent. If you've never given, I would invite you today to give. You can go to our webpage HopeInOcala.com and drop down on the giving bar and give a one-time gift. Or you can give generously beyond just today. And if God's blessed you, help us as we give hope around the world. But for now I want you to open up your heart and your mind. Let Jesus speak to you because what I believe is that when we open up our minds and let Jesus speak to us, life doesn't become perfect and all the problems don't go away, but you experience His presence in you, with you, and for you. Open up your heart. Let Jesus speak to you today. Peace.