Marc Hunter - Class 4: Judge Not

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1. 0:08

   Thank you brother. Well hopefully they will be among those who have ears to hear and eyes to see as we give our attention to really Market. Good morning once again, I’m

2. 0:50

   still awake. Nice. We started on two mountains. The Mountain of Fire and Thunder and the mountain of the righteous men made perfect. And we discovered that keeping the law does not guarantee righteousness. You can keep the law and not be righteous. You discovered you can love and not necessarily be righteous. You can be charitable and not necessarily be righteous. You can be prayerful and not necessarily be righteous. You can be full of self-sacrifice and not necessarily be righteous And we said at the start that if we approached, Jesus words with new eyes that he’s going to surprise us and he’s going to challenge us and then he’s going to crush us if we let him.

3. 1:50

   What does it mean to be righteous? It’s just really hard to tell. Sometimes it seems so obvious what righteousness is but the closer you look, the more it seems to sort of flee from you. And then Jesus says, Matthew 7 verse 1, judge, not I have to tell you that I believe this is impossible. We’re constantly judging, why does Jesus come and give us an impossible commandment?

4. 2:25

   Well, you’ve been here all week. Jesus has been giving us impossible, commandment after impossible, commandment after impossible, commandment, he’s giving us another impossible to Nim. Jesus is giving us this message for, it’s crushing power. But the thing that needs to be crushed with this message is ourselves. And this tremendous tool that has been giving us in this chapter can also be a tremendous weapon.

5. 3:04

   And we weaponize it by shifting it off of ourselves and applying it to the people around us. Because they will not be able to withstand it anymore than you will. You will find flaws in their obedience, you will find flaws in their charity. You will find flaws in their prayer. Flaws in their love, nobody can withstand this pressure. Judge not.

6. 3:35

   And a lot of people stop right there and they’re like that’s it. We’re not judging anymore ever again and ironically this is a form of legalism, right? Like noro know, there’s a rule. The rule says you don’t judge and therefore it’s all good. Doesn’t work that way, right? You know, you can’t make an agreement with an evil person and say, well, you don’t judge me and I won’t judge you.

7. 3:58

   And then, you know, judge, not that you be not judged and we both get a get-out-of-jail-free card. No, that’s that’s not, that’s not what he means. So what does he mean, right? Why does he come with this bold statement? Well, like we said before, you have a bias, you have a tendency to make her wrong choice and he’s trying to smack you out of that bias.

8. 4:22

   She’s trying to wake you up, he’s giving you an extreme statement. It says you have an instinct to judge and before you act in any way on that instinct, first consider the possibility that maybe you shouldn’t even judge. Maybe you don’t have to go there.

9. 4:42

   But it’s not here as a tool to deflect personal criticism. If somebody comes up to you and says, you know, I think you’re overbearing. You don’t go to Matthew 7 verse 1 and say judge not right to shave Shield can never criticize me because I can counter criticize you with judge. Not and and know that. That’s not why it’s here.

10. 5:10

    Or in the way you judge, you will be judged. And by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. There’s an interesting question in the way you judge, you will be judged. Now, who, who is doing the other judging in this verse? I can’t dive sleep-wake. Tell is this sort of like Proverbs saying you know if you behave in a certain way, other people will behave this way towards you, be aware of that if you walk around life being judgmental and then you fall in a pit, don’t expect everybody to be really sympathetic, right? It could be that.

11. 5:48

    But we also know in Scripture that in the case of forgiveness, for instance, that God makes it quite clear that if you go around, not forgiving people. Don’t turn to God later and say, oh yeah, I want you to forgive me. So there is a Divine element to this.

12. 6:10

    When we talk about the mercy journals, this is day one or day two, right? The amount of Mercy that you’re likely to extend to other people appears to be directly correlated to how long since you’ve made a big mistake. How long since you have recognized your insufficiency, one of the goals of these chapters is to try to get you to walk around every day, feeling your own insufficiency.

13. 6:37

    Being your own inadequacy and what this will do for you is it will make you more humble, it will make you more patient. It will make you more grateful to God. For the love that he has expended you in accepting you in spite of all the ways in which you fail.

14. 6:57

    Why do you look at the speck? That is in your brother’s eye. But do not notice the law that is in your own eye. When they do surveys that people to itemize their strengths and weaknesses, okay? So if we send out a survey say what’s your greatest strength and what’s your greatest weakness and then they send out another survey and they asked other people to evaluate you on the same question, okay?

15. 7:23

    Now you may agree but if you say I have this strength Other people around. You will say, you have this strength and if you say I have this weakness, the people around, you will say, you have this weakness. Okay? We are simply unable to perceive the extent of our own weaknesses. Sometimes they call this, the shadow sort of, you know, psychologists will call it the shadow.

16. 7:50

    You go through life. And there’s this thing that follows you that you can’t see and it has all these side effects in your life. And you’re constantly surprised. Why do people react this way to me, right? Like, oh, why does this happen to me all the time? Why do I keep getting fired? You know, just to pick an example. That’s very strange and, and, and the people around you are watching you and your Shadow.

17. 8:14

    And they’re like, oh boy. But depending on who your friends are, they might not tell you and depending on who you are, if somebody Rise today, to give you some subtle information about this shadow in your like judge. Not I don’t want to hear it. We block ourselves to the information which would most help us and we all know it.

18. 8:40

    And so we all actually quite cautious about sharing our walls with each other. There are serious problems in your character that you are not fully aware of.

19. 8:57

    Do you really believe that can you really accept that? Do you really accept that? There’s actually a plank in your eyes, not a plank beside you, right? It’s not a plank over there and I’ve got it, you know, that it’s in your eye. It’s affecting your ability to perceive the information, which is a rocket being in your brain is faulty. You’re not getting the whole picture. Is what Jesus is telling you here, you don’t have the full picture.

20. 9:30

    How can you say to your brother? Let me take the speck out of your eye and behold. The log is in your own eye.

21. 9:38

    If you can’t see properly, what makes you qualified to nitpick at other people, you can’t see, right? What do you want a surgeon with poor eyesight doing brain? Surgery on, you know, right. You Toronto me, 19 515 by the mouth of two or three witnesses that the matter shall be established. I really want you to internalize this. Your individual opinion on what happened or what was wrong is not good enough.

22. 10:24

    Under no circumstance, is your opinion. Good enough. But under the law of Moses, no important decision or fact can be established by one person. You need two witnesses. At least to you. At least need a second. Please go for a third. If you can Matthew 18, they just say, keep making the pool bigger and bigger, the more serious. The thing is because you can’t be trusted, you cannot be trusted with serious decisions.

23. 10:57

    Do you believe that you don’t, I don’t have trouble believing them. Like I know what I saw, I underst like our instinct is betraying us. We think we’re trustworthy or not, we absolutely need each other. We need two or three Witnesses for every important decision. First five, 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.

24. 11:28

    You hypocrite. Why does he use the word hypocrite here? What does it mean to be a hypocrite? It’s not a rhetorical question. I am actually inviting the audience participation. What is the meaning of hypocrite? He’s two-faced not necessarily, but the root is actually in the actor, right? So, in order for there to be hypocrisy, there’s some kind of pretending going on some kind of pretending now, How is verse 5? Pretending you hypocrite?

25. 12:07

    Okay, 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. That just looks like a nice. How is that relate to hypocrisies? Where does that look hypocrisies come in? I think that you’re qualified running. If you’re pretending, if you’re going around saying I am an eye surgeon, let me take the speck sort of all your eyes. It’s pretending.

26. 12:39

    It’s play-acting. You are not an eye surgeon. You’re somebody walking around with a big beam in your eye, right? It’s an act. It’s a charade and most other people can see through it.

27. 12:53

    This is one of these things. It’s very it’s another one of these shocking principles very hard to live first. Remove the plank from your own eye. First, if you’re going to prioritize here here is my spiritual life for the next year. Here are my objectives first first first, before you before you start going out there and fixing other people first.

28. 13:19

    Jesus says, can we really do this? It’s, this is another one of these practically impossible things to do. But every time you find yourself picking up, the specs of the people around, you come back to this verse, can you let Jesus shake you a little bit? First, take the log out of your own eye.

29. 13:40

    And there’s some question about exactly how all the rest of the elements of this chapter fit together. And what I’m going to choose to do for the purpose of this presentation is to suggest to you that everything else in this chapter has to do with this concept. First, take the plank out of your own eye.

30. 14:03

    How do we go about doing that? What are the mechanisms? What are the pros and cons exploit? On both sides of the equation. How do we handle interpersonal, correction right before you say, let me, you know, before you say to someone else, let me take the speck out of your eye. What are the prerequisites that are involved?

31. 14:26

    Do not give what is Holy to dogs? And do not throw your Pearls Before Swine, or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. I struggle with this person for a long time because I’d never thought of pigs Tearing Me To Pieces. That’s a really awesome thing, right?

32. 14:45

    And it turns out, I finally read somewhere that this is actually a chiasm. Have you guys heard about chiasm ‘s and introverted parallelisms? Okay, they’re all trendy now. So I won’t spend a lot of time, but the point is that they’re bookends Around each other and the thing at the end actually relates to the thing at the beginning rather than the thing immediately before it, which is how we usually organized thought in our case. So, in this case, the, the carrying you to pieces is actually the dog, not the big, the pig trampled, you and the dog tears you to pieces.

33. 15:18

    And then we see this, you’re no man can serve two masters, you hate, the one and love, the other be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve, God and money. And you will find this. All over scripture. A once you start to see it, it starts to pop up all over the place. But what does this mean in the context of specs and planks, right?

34. 15:41

    Normally I’ve heard this verse used in the context of preaching to people and IQ don’t go into that this go as or disco, know that nightclub, I guess they call them nowadays and and start trying to preach there. Really, you don’t throw your Pearls Before Swine, that’s not the right place and and that, that may be true. but in the context of specks and planks, I propose to you that Jesus is asking you to consider whether people launcher help or not, when you’re walking around with that blank in your eye, are they looking for you to help them with their respects? Like if you go into an occlusal situation and started trying to correct everybody else, yeah that you may cause a whole lot of problems there and you may want to consider first whether it’s the appropriate time like there’s an appropriate time and place.

35. 16:33

    For each kind of behavior. So Jesus used the word beware earlier and I proposed that we should beware of judging, always we presume more Mercy than we give. OK, we expect others to be more merciful towards us. That we are inclined to be merciful towards them. We underestimate the magnitude of our flaws.

36. 16:59

    We can’t help it. It’s the way our brain works. We underestimate how we’re flaws inhibit our judgment. We Get that our flaws, our perception laws, what you saw with your own eyes, there’s not actually what happened, okay? Like the police know, this lawyers, know this, if you have a crime scene or an accident scene, when you get an eyewitness report, the jury goes.

37. 17:28

    Wow. Yeah, that’s it. If people saw it with their own eyes completely unreliable, the most unreliable form of evidence evidence in criminal trials. Owls is an eyewitness report. Turbo like in that moment you like you think you saw it and some people go to their grave with that conviction that what they saw was true?

38. 17:50

    No, And this is a great tool by the way. In terms of forgiveness, you think back to what that brother said two years ago or what they did and it still Burns you up inside. There’s a chance that never happened and I’m not kidding. There is a literal chance and that little story that you play in your head never actually happened. Okay.

39. 18:15

    Every time we recall a memory rebuild it and modify it a little bit it’s scary but true. This is tested stuff like they go out there and they test people’s memory. Your memory is way worse than you think it is. So you know what, let it go right? Forgive the past. We resist fixing ourselves before, trying to fix others. We presume that others want our judgment. I think everybody’s looking for our opinion, but we hardly ever ask them for their opinion, right? And sometimes they say, well, wait for someone to ask you, for your opinion, it’s like nobody ever does. So I better go just find a way that injective On the other hand, you know, don’t throw your Pearls Before Swine. Are we slime?

40. 19:09

    You know, we’re so I go if we throw our opinion and and, and are we try to help people with their specs and they react. So negatively, how do you react when people bring things to your attention, you turn on them and trample them, you tear them to pieces. If they happen to point out that maybe there’s something you need to work on in your life.

41. 19:33

    We need to work both sides of this Olympic athletes. Paid big money to hire somebody to sit there and watch them and point out every flaw in what they do is bizarre, right? We can get that for free by just coming in meeting on some important but we don’t write when it happens.

42. 19:59

    We’re like whoa back off right, judge not who are you? I can I can find a lot of flaws in your eyes too, right? It’s bizarre. Judge not I mean, it’s an attention getter. It’s there to set the bias but we know and, you know, and you’re arguing with me in your head that you can’t just judge, not like there has to be circumstances where we judge. And so we have to face this difficult question, right? Do we judge your?

43. 20:31

    Do we not judge or better? Said, when do we judge? And when do we not judge? So I’m going to just roll through a bunch of scriptures. You were not going to settle this question today, but I’m just going to put some of the pieces on either side of the fence Revelation, chapter 2, verse 14. I have a few things against you because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam who kept. Teaching balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols. And to commit acts of immorality. So we have one of the seven occasions and there is someone there teaching immorality and they had failed to properly, judge to make a judgment call revelation, 22 verse 20. I have this against you.

44. 21:22

    You tolerate the woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and she teaches and leads my bond servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. First Corinthians 5 is really interesting. It starts offers 12 what have I to do with judging Outsiders. He starts off in an anti judging position, but he’s like, if you have a guy at work who’s an atheist and he’s drinking too much going around, judging him and staying. No, parading in front of his whole to the big placard saying, you shouldn’t drink and drunkenness. It’s like he’s, he never made a commitment to Christ like that. That’s not your problem, right?

45. 22:06

    What have I to do with judging Outsiders? Do not, do you not Do you not judge those who are within the church? Those who are outside? God, judges The Atheist, drunkards God’s going to take care of that. Remove the Wicked Man from among yourselves. 1st Corinthians 6, verse 3. Do you not know that we will judge Angels how much more matters in this life? So if you have Law Courts, dealing with matters of dislike, you appoint them as judges were of no account in the church. So he’s talking about conflict within the church here, right? We have two members of the Ecclesia that are in some sort of controversy, and I say this to your shame, is it so that there is not among you, one wise man who is able to decide between his brothers We have this problem in our community. They had it back.

46. 23:01

    Then, it’s tragic that, with all the scriptural wisdom that we have in our communities frequently, we end up in conflicts, where we can’t even find one person that both sides will trust to make a judgment call. That’s the we need that judgment. That’s a judgment that were laughing.

47. 23:27

    So those are my verses. Did indicate that we need a certain amount of judgment in our community and then you have Romans 14 verses 3 and 4. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt, the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat, is not to judge the one who eats her God accepted him, who are you to judge the servant of another qualifications. Who are you?

48. 23:56

    What exactly qualifies you to? Go to your brother and be telling him what he should eat and what he should be eating, right? Are you pretending? Are you being a hypocrite? To his own Master. He stands or Falls and he will stand, right? God Will Make A different judgment than you in many cases.

49. 24:18

    To his own Master, he stands or Falls and he will stand for the Lord is able to make him stand. Romans 14 verse 10 but you were, why do you judge your brother? Are you again? Why do you regard your brother with contempt? We will all stand before the Judgment seat of God for it is written. As I live says the Lord.

50. 24:37

    Every knee shall bow to me every tongue. Shall give praise to God. So then let each one of them. So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God, therefore, Let us not judge. One another anymore or rather the determined this not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in their brothers way. James chapter 4, do not speak against one, another Brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges, his brother speaks against the law, and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge of it.

51. 25:13

    There is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and Destroy, who are you to judge your neighbor? You just have to be very careful. When we judging judging is a very dangerous situation and many ways, we need it. But when it happens, we should go into it with tremendous, trepidation, humility, and fear.

52. 25:44

    We need minimum standards of behavior. But we need to make sure we’re not recreating the Mosaic Covenant. And we banish people from our community for being angry. Do we banish people from our community for being lost home. We banish them because they have not given up all their possessions, as Jesus commanded, do we banish them for not being perfect the way Jesus commanded.

53. 26:18

    But there are other things in this category that we do banish people from our community for We’re somewhat inconsistent in our judgment and that should be very unsettling to us. It’s not about calling wrong things. Good it’s about determining if we’re being compassionate and merciful and fair in the way we judge, How do we maintain the health of the equation? Let’s go to Matthew Chapter 13.

54. 26:52

    We’ve referenced this before this week. Brother, Nathan brought this up in his evening address. Verses 24 to 30, he presented another. Parable to them saying the Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares. Also among the wheat and went away.

55. 27:20

    And when the wheat sprang up and bore grain, then the tears became evident also and the slaves. The landowner came to him and said to him, sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tears? And he said, Add to them. An enemy has done this and the slave said to him, do you want us then to go and gather them up? Do you Jesus wants us?

56. 27:48

    You go among the Ecclesia and gather up the tares. Do you want us to be evaluating each other and trying to decide exactly how much weaker tear? Each one of us might be and he said, no. He said, no.

57. 28:13

    Why not? Well lest, while you are gathering up the tears, you met root up. The wheat also, You aren’t qualified, right? You sent you simply don’t have the skills. I mean, Jesus knows Jesus knows exactly whose recent are but you don’t. And so if you go in there, prematurely before the Harvest, trying to sort of sit there, everybody into the right category, you’re older reaching.

58. 28:46

    Jesus is telling you you are not qualified. That’s staggering. What do we do that, right? What this tells us is that our completions should have tears. If you somehow have an equation that doesn’t have tears, then you have been too invasive. You have been too aggressive and it’s possible heaven forbid that you have destroyed wheat.

59. 29:20

    In the process and you should be very scared of that. You should be very worried that you have taken a brother or sister who Christ died for and driven them away from the pulled because you had a plank in your eye. That you didn’t even realize you have that should terrify you. None of us should want to stand before the judgment and faced the implications of you. Having driven away, one of God’s terpenes. I’ve allowed both to grow together. It’s against every intuition we have allow both to grow together until the Harvest.

60. 30:04

    How do we do that? It’s terrifying, right. Interesting point, brother. Nathan made is, how do you protect the wheat? You make it strong, you make the wheat strong, so that it can grow up right beside a tear and survive. Right? We need to focus primarily on strengthening. The wheat, is the true of our children as well.

61. 30:35

    There’s, there’s a certain stage and stage at which, we need to protect our children from outside influences. We need to build a shield, right? Our Shield cannot be sustained Forever at a certain point in time, our children will face the reality of the world around them. So, in that period, we have to strengthen them so that when they end up among the weeds, they will be able to withstand the pressure of weeds.

62. 31:09

    We need to build a community that is stronger and not a community, that is pure because we’re afraid. We shouldn’t be purifying our ranks because we’re so afraid of being contaminated, we should be strong enough. And if we’re not work on that first, the plank in your own eye, if you are. So weak in your faith that you can’t tolerate, someone who might have a opinion, that might be over the line, and it might be, it might be it there.

63. 31:42

    Is your face. So weak that you can’t, you can’t be there on a Sunday morning with someone like that. You might need to work on your head. You should be able to withstand Now, this isn’t an anything-goes principle, right? It’s not like, oh, well, you know, let’s bring the Catholics and let’s bring that like no, no, the wheat and the tares are similar right bit.

64. 32:04

    Like it’s not like there’s an apple tree in the middle of my field of week, right? Like but, but the point that Jesus is making is when you draw a circle and decide, these are going to be the edges of our community, the circle should be wider than you think it should be.

65. 32:23

    And your instinct to go. Well, this is the community of the saved of. That’s that’s what you think and you have your opinion with your plank, in your eye, you should draw a bigger Circle, a circle that you are not comfortable with That should be your circle because it’s better for you to be uncomfortable than that. You should rip out some wheat in your fear and anxiety, right? If you’re, you know, inner insecurity is causing you to tear out the wheat that Christ died for. You are in trouble.

66. 33:00

    Who wants to face Christ in that situation. I know I do. when in doubt judge Donald, Jumping to the next section, verses 7 to 11. Ask and it shall be given to you. And I mean this passage has been taken out of context and so many ways that people just assume that you know, whatever I want. You don’t hear about kids train for a new bike and I think get a new bike.

67. 33:35

    Let’s think about this in context. Right? What are we asking about? And and I’m going to choose the lens here and it may not be the only ones to read this chapter, but if I’m saying, I have a plank in my eye and I’m not sure what to do about it. Jesus is saying ask like you’ve got flaws and you’re trying to figure out how to work on them and you see the dogs and the pigs. Don’t be a dog and a pig like go to your brother and say, what can I do about the plank in my eye? And said, maybe maybe he doesn’t know. Well, then seek Go out.

68. 34:17

    Put some effort into it right? Invite information. That will educate you about your shortcomings. Okay, don’t don’t be the other category that doesn’t want any information. Verse 12. Therefore however you want people to treat you. So treat them for this is the law and the prophets. They call this the Golden Rule and again, I find there for like, what’s that word there? It’s a connecting word.

69. 34:57

    How does this, you know, Golden Rule have anything to do with knocking and asking and seeking I Think Jesus is giving you a hint, okay? If if you’re not getting the information, if you’re having trouble understanding how to deal with the plank in your eye, here is a good rule of thumb, right? If you’re behaving in a way that you find unacceptable, People and other people work on that first. All that great Insight you have on other people’s flaws will make a list and say, okay, how am I doing you in every one of these categories?

70. 35:35

    Why does this work? Why does it work? It works because we have double standards, okay? This is what Jesus is trying to tell you. You have a double standard, you have one standard for others, and you have one standard for yourself. And Jesus is trying to take that standard. You apply to others swinging it around.

71. 35:53

    Come on, let’s turn it around. Shine that light on yourself, that’s a great. Starting point. And in Psalms says, a quick me of Hidden Falls. The most terrifying thing is they is this notion that you have these big problems. You know, I can nobody’s telling you about them. It gives us another hint enter by the narrow gate if you have an ambiguity about which path you should take. A rule of thumb is, are you taking the easy way or you taking the hard way?

72. 36:34

    And if the thing that you’re doing is easy, as should be a big red flag waving. This is a moment you should double-check with your brothers and sisters. I’m taking the easy route. Almost always the wrong choice. Almost always the wrong choice, seek out. The difficult choice. This applies across So many so many ways. Verse 15, beware of false prophets. Who come to you in sheep’s clothing, and individually inwardly are ravenous wolves.

73. 37:09

    You will know them by their fruits. What does this have to do with clients in our eyes? I think what he’s saying here is, if you’re going to go and ask people for advice, make sure it’s people who are credible. And they have a credible basis for the advice they’re giving and you may not know that right away, right?

74. 37:29

    The the outworking of someone’s philosophy of life doesn’t bear fruit right away. Sometimes it takes some time, so be very cautious. There’s a lot of messages. That sounds very nice, but end up in tragic consider that possibility. Observe you will know them by their fruit. Not everyone who says to me, Lord Lord. Well, enter the kingdom of heaven. He who does the will of My Father, which brings us to the next section, which is the wise man. Built his house upon the rock, so hard to you, this one without the singing it and you have to ask yourself, okay? This is the grand finale.

75. 38:10

    Jesus is put together this tremendous, you know, talk presentation on righteousness and he ends with this concept and a fastest, l fly. Well, when you go to the aquarium and there’s a sign up there that says do not tap on glass, why would they put that up there?

76. 38:37

    But why would they bother writing on a piece of paper and putting it up? Because everyone wants to know is everybody keep stopping on the glass, right? So when you When you see Jesus giving giving advice, you have to understand that the reason is doing is because this is what he thinks you’re going to do after. I’ve given you all this information through all these chapters The most likely thing for you to do is to be like, Amen, brother, and go home and do absolutely nothing about it. Make no change at all.

77. 39:16

    You’re like this is the most predictable, human reaction to Divine Insight. It’s great. So it’s a greatness. We love it. We agree with it. It’s wonderful and then do nothing about. So at the end of this chapter Jesus is saying, please please, I’ve tried to shock you, I’ve tried to surprise you. I’ve tried to educate and go cry to warn you and Only going to be useful to you.

78. 39:46

    If you actually turn this into decisions in your life, you have to turn it into behaviors. You have to do something different in the next few months. Then you would have done before because of these words of Christ, if you don’t do that, you have built your whole religion on the sand and the moment, some kind of tragic event happens. Your whole structure will collapse. Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and acts upon them.

79. 40:25

    It’s a prerequisite will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock. To manifest God’s character. We have to do things. We have to engage in behaviors.

80. 40:53

    But we know from these chapters, that were imperfect. So we have a paradox because we are called to manifest God’s character and our behavior. And yet we can see conclusively that we are in perfect, what’s going to happen? When we put these two things together, what’s going to happen, when you take a bunch of imperfect people and you ask them to manifest perfection. Just going to have a lot of mistakes, right? Is going to be a lot of mistakes. Now, there’s a way to avoid the mistakes and that is by simply not doing anything, right?

81. 41:36

    And this is the one Talent, man. I’ve got a hard Master, he wants me to be perfect. The master wants me to be perfect, if I go and try to do something with the talent, he’s given me. I have to take a risk. I might do it wrong, I might fail. And so the best way to never fail Is to never do anything at all to never take a risk. And and Jesus, clearly condemns this Jesus. Clearly says you should be a risk taker. You need to take a risk of failure. Okay.

82. 42:18

    It’s a risk of failure. It’s a risk. That the thing that God gave you, you may do something inadequate with it. I bet that’s what the other ones did. They took a risk?

83. 42:36

    This is the situation. We find ourselves every morning, right? We wake up. And we can try to move closer to God and closer to perfection. But we start off on a hunter, with this, Chasm between us and where we should be and the path to get there. Seemed so difficult and narrow. and we know that nine times out of 10, when we step out We’re going to slip or stumble, in some way. And so we Face an incredible temptation to do know the sit back to not make believe. but we forget, There’s actually. A safety rope attached.

84. 43:30

    Okay. if you step out and you fall, God has built in a mechanism for you to get picked back up again. Michael 7:8 do not rejoice over me. My enemy, though. I fall. I will rise though. I dwell in darkness. The Lord is a light for me. Romans chapter 5 verses 20, the law came in so that the transgression would increase.

85. 44:04

    But where sin increased Grace abounded all the more so that as Sin reigned in death even so Grace would Reign through righteousness to eternal life. Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord Grace is our safety net. Okay, we know we’ll never reach Perfection. God has agreed to help us bridge the gap. But He only Bridges it.

86. 44:29

    If we’re moving, he requires us to take those steps. And if we fall on that Journey, he will pick us up. But if we don’t start the journey, he’s not just going to teleport us there either. It takes courage to leave. Mesopotamia takes courage to leave Egypt. it takes courage to set step out of a boat in the middle of the storm, and sometimes what we do we sink and sometimes Jesus has to reach out and browse Whole is back into the boat.

87. 45:07

    Give us a talking to But then expects us to get up. Try again. We have to be able to move from crushing the blessing. We started in the mountain of blessing. We go through a crushing process, but we need to end in the mountain of blessing.

88. 45:35

    There is no condemnation for those in Christ. That’s what Romans 8:1 says there is no condemnation. That’s an absolute statement 0. Do you have the faith to believe that verse? That burst takes when you look inside yourself and see what’s going on? Can you actually believe scripture? When it says that there is no commonly.

89. 46:06

    This is a test of faith. To be able to say there is no zero condemnation, not less, not now. No condemnation for those for those in Christ isn’t Universal salvation. But what this verse does is it can take you from crushing to blessing.

90. 46:31

    So, I’d like to end where we started and Hebrews chapter 12. And remind you that you have come to Mount, Zion. The city of the Living. God the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriad’s of angels. You have come to the general assembly, and the Church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.

91. 46:58

    You have come to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect. You have come to the spirits of righteous men who didn’t have what it took, but God bridged, the Gap because they were willing to take the step. You have come to Jesus the mediator of a New Covenant and to the sprinkled blood. Which speaks better than the blood of Abel, see to it, that you do not refuse him.

92. 47:31

    Who is speaking? Her those did not Escape when they refused him who are warned on Earth much less shall we escape if we turn away from him. Horns from heaven.

93. 47:45

    What do we do in the crushing? Do we turn away from him? We do. We pick ourselves up and turn towards him. Verses 28 and 29. Therefore since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken. Let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire.