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Hi, this is Pastor Tom and I want to welcome you to day two of our look through
the first part of Matthew chapter seven. We began looking yesterday at what
Jesus had to teach us about judgment, at what He had to teach us about living
the kind of life that He's made for us to live. We live in a world that's
confused about what judgment is and what it's not.

We are all limited human beings who have a hard time judging even our own
motives, let alone those of others, which is exactly why we need this expertise
of Jesus. In these verses from Matthew's gospel, Jesus is teaching us three
things about what it means to be nonjudgmental. Let me share what they are and
then read these verses one more time.

He's teaching us number one, don't say one thing and do another. Don't be a
hypocrite. He's teaching us number two, judge yourself rightly and be willing to
make changes.

Show that you have integrity. And He's teaching us number three, give to others
the same kind of understanding, grace and forgiveness that God's given you. Be
sure that you show mercy.

Verses three to five, listen to what Jesus taught about this. Here's the picture
He gave us. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and
pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when all
the time there's a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank
out of your own eye and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck
from your brother's eye. Hypocrisy, integrity, mercy, these are the words we're
going to focus on together the rest of this week.

And Jesus here uses a simple picture of wood planks and sawdust specks in the
eye to cut through all of our confusion. Hypocrisy, he says, is focusing on the
speck in somebody else's eye while ignoring the two by four plank in your own
eye. Integrity is removing the board from your own eye and mercy is removing the
speck from the other person's eye.

When I think of judgment, I think of the story of Jesus and the woman caught in
adultery. This woman who was dragged to see Jesus by a pack of hypocrites who
pointed their fingers at her obvious sin but refused to look at their own
obvious sins. And Jesus stood in front of this crowd and he challenged them to
have the integrity to look for the sin in their own lives.

If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her, John
8, 7. Instead of throwing a stone, they all left beginning with the oldest. Once
everyone was gone, Jesus expressed redeeming mercy.

He said, "Neither do I condemn you, but now go and sin no more. Leave your life
of sin. " When we think about hypocrisy, Jesus said, "Don't be a hypocrite.

First take the plank out of your own eye. " When you think about hypocrisy,
hypocrisy is really an easy target for humor. We remember stories like the one
about the woman in the airport who sat down to wait for a plane with a good book
in hand and a bag of chocolate chip cookies she'd bought at the airport store.

She hardly noticed when a man sat down two seats away from her and began to read
his newspaper. But seeing the bag of cookies on the seat between them, she
opened it up. She took a cookie.

In the next moment, she couldn't help but notice the man because he reached his
hand into the bag and he helped himself to a cookie. She didn't want to create a
scene, so the woman didn't say anything. The next few minutes, she would eat a
cookie, and then he'd eat a cookie.

Her indignation increased with each cookie that he took. When only one cookie
was left in the bag, he actually reached in, he took it, he broke it in two, and
he smiled as he gave her half. "Of all the nerves," she thinks, "it's amazing
how people act.

" Just then the announcement came, her flight was boarding. The man got up, he
headed toward the plane, and the woman grabbed her satchel. She opened the bag
to put her book away, and she saw in the bag her bag of chocolate chip cookies
tucked in the way in the bottom of her satchel.

It's easy to laugh at stuff like that. In fact, sometimes it's good to laugh at
our hypocrisy. It's an admission of just how ridiculous it can be.

In fact, when Jesus talked about hypocrisy, he actually did so with a touch of
humor, which we may not recognize because we're not familiar with the humor by
exaggeration of Jesus' day. These words about planks and sawdust, plank in the
eye, they would have prompted a smile from those who first heard them. How can
you say to your brother, "First take the speck out of your own eye," when all
the time the planks in your own eye?

You hypocrite. That would have made people laugh in that day. It was a form of
humor.

Hypocrisy is looking at the speck in another person's eye and ignoring the board
that's in your own eye. Jesus talked a lot about hypocrisy. In another
conversation, he said, "You are hypocrites.

You wash the outside of your cups, but inside they're full of things that you
got by cheating others or by pleasing only yourselves. " Matthew 23, 25, he said
this. No humor in that one.

Just a clear-to-the-heart challenge. Hypocrites are more concerned about
appearances, washing the outside of the cup, than the reality of what's on the
inside. So they love to put requirements on others that they're not willing to
live up to themselves.

Now, we easily think of hypocrisy as being something like holding an Alcoholics
Anonymous meeting in a bar or a Weight Watchers meeting in an ice cream shop.
But Jesus expands this definition. Hypocrisy is pointing out the wrong in
someone else's life and being unwilling to consider or admit it in my own life.

Hypocrisy is saying to our kids, "Do as I say, not as I do. " And you might know
that this word "hypocrisy" is derived from the Greek word for actors on the
stage who spoke from behind masks that they held in front of their faces. So
"hypokritos," that word "hypocrisy," is about the mask.

It's all about hiding behind a mask. Now, why do you hide behind a mask?
Oftentimes because you think people will be more impressed with the mask than
they are with you.

Otherwise, why not let them just see you? And most likely because you're doing
something behind that mask that you don't want other people to see. Truth is,
it's easy, it's less threatening to wear masks.

And so we find ourselves doing it too often. Here's the question. Do you want to
be known for the mask or for the real you?

Do you want to take a road that leads to people having to think well of you but
not really know you, only know the mask? This path of being trapped in a life of
pretending to be what you're not? That road leads to a place where you hear
someone say, "They love you," and a voice inside of you says, "You say you love
me, but if you knew the truth about me, you wouldn't say that.

" It's a wearying road to travel. Each night your head hits the pillow,
exhausted from pretending to be something you're not. And you can take that road
or you can live a different life.

You can take a road that leads to a freedom of a life without secrets, a life
where you know that people respect and love you for who you are, not who you're
pretending to be. So how do you do what Jesus said here? How do you reject
hypocrisy?

The only way to put into practice these words of Jesus is one day at a time, one
relationship at a time, one conversation at a time. So instead of judging people
in your mind, you choose to love them with your words and actions. Don't just
pretend that you love others.

Really love them, Paul wrote in Romans 12, 9. It's easy to pretend. In fact, I'm
shocked at how often I pretend to listen to the people that I love the most.

My mind wanders off to something that just seems so important. I don't hear
what's being said. So they see this glassy-eyed stare that I have and they say,
"Did you hear what I was saying?

" And that is the moment of truth. Do I continue to pretend or am I going to
come clean? And I've got to admit, far too often I've said, "Sure, I heard you.

" And then I try to put together the pieces of the conversation in my mind so I
can act like I've been listening all along. Why don't I just stop pretending? It
would be so much more refreshing and real to say, "I'm sorry, I wasn't
listening.

Can you please say that again? What you have to say is important to me. " Jesus
once said to some people who were good at pretending, "Don't do your good deeds
publicly to be admired.

" We looked at that earlier in the Sermon on the Mount. Their life was all about
show and not about substance. The truth is, people can often feel trapped in
hypocrisy.

Your life becomes like one of those shows that plays on Broadway year after year
and you wake up every morning and the curtain goes up for another day, another
show. You know you're pretending, but you just don't know how to play it any
other way. This week, this day, you can start to change that.

This is one show that does not have to go on and on and on. You can close it
down. You have the freedom to say, "It was all for show and that's going to
change.

" Where do you find this freedom? It's found in asking yourself, "Who are you
living to impress? " God declared to Samuel in 1 Samuel 16, "Man looks at the
outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

" You're not masking anything to God. He knows everything. You live to impress
people and you're going to end up focusing on the outward appearance because
that's what impresses people.

Let's be honest. You'll spend your life painting a better mask, but if you live
to impress God, it will immediately be apparent that because he sees right
through the mask, there's no need in making a mask. God is not impressed with
our pretending.

There's tremendous freedom to be found in living your life for the sake of the
one from whom you can't hide, for the sake of the one in whom you're most deeply
loved, the one through whom you can live a life of significance, the one with
whom you're going to spend eternity. Let's talk to him together right now. Our
Father, we don't want to pretend.

We really want to live the life of freedom, the freedom of grace, the freedom of
being able to say, "This is who I am. These are the problems that I'm facing.
I'm not perfect.

I am a sinner. I struggle to live a life of faith. " Lord, instead of living a
life of pretending, help me to live the life of freedom, the life of faith, the
life of trusting.

Teach me how, Jesus. I pray this in your name. Amen.

Tomorrow we're going to look together at the power of integrity.