 Okay, we're in chapter six here, verses 27 through 38. Let me read that to you and we'll get into our study. Luke chapter six, beginning at verse 27, reading to verse 38. Luke writes, verse 27, but I say to you here, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, off to the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back. Now this sounds like a father and his kids, but anyway. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. But love your enemies, do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the highest. For he is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will it be put into your bosom? For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. Now as we're reading this, does it discourage you at all? I mean, does it? I mean, as I was reading this, and just a moment ago I was just talking to my wife, Marie, I said, oh my, this is one of those messages that just cuts straight to the heart. I mean, all I have to do is read it, and I realize that I'm incapable of doing any of this. I mean, maybe one or two of those things I might succeed once every 10 years at doing, but the rest are very, very difficult. And so as I'm looking at this, I'm realizing that this is the picture of a true Christian. This is what a genuine believer is intended by God to be. And I realize, of course, that not a single one of us in this room, and nobody in history outside of Jesus Christ has ever been 100% able to say all of these things were done by that one person. And so it emphasizes to me the need for grace, grace from God. And so that's what the Lord is teaching us. He's teaching us what it means to be a Christian. And he's showing us what he can do in our life if we yield ourselves to him. Now, when he begins in verse 27 and says, I say to you who hear, you know, a lot of people can hear the words spoken, but not every person is receiving with understanding and with faith and a desire to put into practice. And so when you hear something, it's more than simply allowing the sound to enter into your consciousness. He's speaking about somebody who's listening with the intent to obey. So he says, I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. If there's anything that is intended to reveal faith in God, it's going to be love. If there's anything intended to reveal that we have a relationship with God, it will always be that we are loving people. Jesus said that love is the mark of the believer. And you commandment give I unto you that you love one another as I have loved you. He said, by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have love, one for another. So the mark of the believer has always been love. The Bible says, beloved, let us love one another for love is of God. And he who loves, knows God and is born of God. And he who loves, knows not God, for God is love. And so the mark of the believer has always been the fruit of the spirit, which is love. And so Jesus Christ is teaching us that if people are gonna see that we are truly his followers, if we're really Christians, then we're gonna be those who love. The interesting thing about that is this. This love that we have is not simply for those who already love us. The love of the Christian is a love for people in general. And that even includes those who hate us. Jesus is saying, love your enemies. And you say that's impossible, and I say amen to that. But Jesus did, Jesus loved those who killed him. He loved the world so much he laid his life down. And so love is not just a philosophical sentiment. When I was a young man into kind of the hippie philosophy and all, love was a philosophy. It was something we spoke about but didn't do very well. We like to talk about love, but we didn't love very effectively. We loved ourselves, but we didn't love other people very much. And so as I became a Christian I discovered that love is revealed by action. And love revealed by action has always been a standard test for its reality. If you take notes first to John chapter three verse 18, beloved, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and truth. Or in James chapter two verses 15 through 17, if a brother or sister is naked in destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, depart in peace, be warmed and filled. But you do not give them the things which are needed for the body. What does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. So love is always revealed and has always been revealed by an action. And the reason that Jesus is speaking concerning love here in verse 27 and he says love your enemies and do good and all of that is because the standard of love has always been the kind of love that God has shown to the world. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Or God demonstrated his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And so love has always been the standard and you see that throughout scripture. And so Jesus is teaching here in these verses, verse 27, that were to love. And he says, not just those who love you, but love even your enemies. And notice what he says. He says, I say unto you here, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who spifily use you. And so basically love is demonstrated in three basic ways here in this passage. One, he says, do good to those who hate you. Well in Proverbs 25, verses 21 and 22, the writer said, if your enemy's hungry, give him food to eat. If he's thirsty, give him water to drink for you will heap coals of fire on his head and the Lord will reward you. Now when you read that and you will heap coals of fire on his head, then at first you might be thinking, well that's good, if I do a good deed for somebody, then God's gonna burn him up with fire. That's not what he's saying. In ancient Egypt, when someone demonstrated shame and guilt, they publicly carried a pan of burning coals on their head. This represented pangs of conscience that burned their heart. So when you love an enemy, you shame him because he hates you. And so we're to love one another. That's why Romans 12 21 says, do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. So love is demonstrated by doing good to those who hate you. Second, he says, bless those who curse you. The word bless there means to speak well of. In other words, if somebody has hurt you, if somebody has cursed you and said things about you that are evil, resist retaliating through gossip. Resist it. So many people find it so easy to retaliate by saying evil things about the person who said something about them. Jesus is saying that's not the response of a Christian. The response of a Christian is to bless or speak well of. Romans 12 14 says it like this, bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. And so when you speak well of the individual who's speaking evil of you, the person who's heard both, you speak well of that other person and that person speak evil of you is gonna be forced into a decision as to whether or not what he's hearing concerning you is true. But if somebody approaches you and says to you, you know, somebody was saying this and that about you and you say, well, I don't doubt it because there's such a pig, I can imagine they'd say that and you say bad things about them, then they basically will just say, well, yeah, maybe you are that way. You know, it really is a true story. I mean, when somebody is speaking evil of you, the very first thing you wanna do is speak evil of them. That's the first thing you wanna do, you wanna retaliate with words. Jesus says, don't do that. I've discovered, and this is the truth, I have discovered that when somebody says something evil concerning me, if I don't say anything in retaliation to them, it usually dies out, it usually dies out. And there are people who actually love to tell you the bad things that others say about you, some of you know that. There are people who just can hardly wait. Once they hear something, they have to go and tell you what this person just said, and that's the way a lot of people are. But you know, and some people will do that, oh pastor, did you know that so-and-so was saying this about you? And what do they want me to do? They want me to say something bad about that person? So if I say, well, that's too bad, whatever, and I leave it alone, they don't take it any further. And so you don't want to gossip, and you don't wanna retaliate by using your words. And then thirdly, he says, pray for those who use you and persecute you. When Jesus was dying on the cross, Luke 23-34, he said, Father, kill them all, cause they're monsters. Now he said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Forgive them, forgive them. We have in the book of Acts, the story of a man by the name of Stephen. And Stephen is the first Christian martyr. And Stephen has given a defense of the Christian faith before those who are intent on killing him. And so after he has shared concerning Jesus Christ and who Jesus Christ is, the Bible makes it very clear that the people who were hearing him speak were so enraged that they killed him. And according to Acts chapter seven, verses 59 and 60, it says, they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And that's what Jesus is speaking about. Rather than trying to retaliate, pray for them. Pray for them who use you, pray for them who persecute you. Why? Because this makes us genuine sons of the Father. You see, God shows impartial love and so should his children. God does a work on behalf of people because God in general loves people. Matthew 545 says, you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. I was reading something that I found interesting. It was in a book called Fox's Book of Martyrs. And there was something recorded about a Scottish reformer by the name of George Weishart who lived in 1513 and was martyred in 1546. And George Weishart was sentenced to die as a heretic. He was condemned to be burnt at the stake and the day that he was to be martyred, the captain of the castle in Edinburgh invited him to breakfast and gave him bags of gunpowder to put in his clothing. Because the executioner knew of Weishart's selfless ministering to hundreds of people who were dying of the plague, he hesitated carrying out the sentence. When Weishart saw the expression of remorse on the executioner's face, he went over and kissed him on the cheek, saying, sir, may that be a token that I forgive you. When the burning began, the gunpowder exploded but did not kill him straight away and his agony was prolonged. But when he was there burning at the stake for being a man preaching the gospel, the executioner seeing the good works that he had done how he was caring for people who were dying of the plague didn't want to carry out the sentence, but Weishart looks at him and says, and kisses him and says, you know what, I forgive you. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ is talking about, guys. Having a walk with him that is so solid that you can actually pray for those who have hurt you, you can actually pray for those who spyfully use you and you can do this because you are sons of your father in heaven. Now notice in verse 29, he says, to him who strikes you on the one cheek offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Now it says when he strikes you on one cheek, he's speaking of being slapped and to a Jewish man, a slap on the face was a great insult to his personal dignity. That's the truth even to this day, there are some cultures that take that slap so intensely, intensely personally that it's a declaration of war to the death. And so when he's speaking about here is retribution and he's saying something concerning the desire for retaliation. How do you treat someone who has had an angry reaction to you and even go so far as hitting you? And his answer is do not seek to retaliate. Why not? Well, because when you do not seek to retaliate, it reveals a gentle and humble spirit. It reveals a spirit that's been touched by God. Jesus Christ once again, greatest example, Isaiah chapter 50 verse six, the Bible refers to Messiah in this way. I gave my back to the Smiders, my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I did not hide my face from shame and spitting. If they did that to Jesus, he's saying, then what's gonna be difficult with you turning the other cheek in a personal level when somebody attacks you in that way? And so if he strikes you, offer the other also. In other words, be slow to retaliate. Second, he goes from him who takes away your cloak, don't withhold your tunic either. A cloak is an outer garment. It's served as a blanket. A tunic is an under garment. It's similar to what we would call a t-shirt. And what he's saying is make every effort in the spirit of sincere love to conquer evil with good. And rather than being quick to retaliate, hold your temper and seek the Lord. Rather than saying I'm gonna get even with this person, you know, if it takes me the rest of my life, we have to have a spirit that is quick to forgive and has a resistance to retaliation. Now that's a very difficult thing, by the way. Especially when you're young and filled with energy and physical ability to retaliate and sometimes to do so, doing great damage to the person who has harmed you. I have a friend of mine who studied martial arts, three or four different forms, and was pretty good, pretty good at it. And I was speaking to him on one occasion and I said, you know, you've pretty much got some expertise in quite a number of forms of various martial arts. And I said, it must be very difficult for you if somebody attacks you to not just instantly just, you know, do away with them. It must be very difficult for you. And I said, now see, for me, it wouldn't be hard at all because I don't know any of that stuff. So you hit me in the head and I'll say, I'm sorry, but you, I said it's a little bit different, isn't it? He said it is different. He said the more you know and the more power and ability you have, he says quite obviously it's more difficult to restrain. Well, think about it for just a moment because the Lord Jesus Christ had all power. He had all ability, and yet he restrained himself. When they hit him, when they spoke of him, when they spit in his face, he restrained himself. And why did he do that? He did so because he loved them. And so what he's speaking about here is having a sincere spirit of love. Listen, when I was a young man, just saved 20 years old, I got drafted, went into the military, I can still remember being at a place called Fort Bragg in North Carolina. I can still remember. I would go off by myself every afternoon after work and I would walk and I would jog through this particular forest that was right there next to our barracks every day. And I can remember walking down this pathway as I was going to a dirt road so I could begin my run. And I remember praying often. As I was walking through this place, going to the road, I can remember praying often, the same prayer that I've been praying now for many years. And it was this, God teach me to love. God teach me to love. You know, God teach me to love because that's something I don't do very well. That's something I'm not very good at. And I remember praying like that and I still pray like that. God teach me to love. I wanna learn how to be gentle. I wanna learn to have a spirit that doesn't seek to retaliate instantly. That I'm not so thin-skinned that when somebody says something that's hurtful to me, that the first thing I wanna do is retaliate, get even and say something even worse than what you said to me, pile it on if necessary. God help me. See, one of the things about being a minister that you may not know is, and as I say it, you'll say, oh yeah, that makes sense to me, is that ministers have a tool, an instrument that we have. It's called our voice and our vocabulary. And because what I do all day long, every day basically, is I study and write and read every day, I have developed over the 34 years of teaching an ability to pretty much put my thoughts in perspective quickly and to disarm people in combat verbally fairly easily, quickly, because that's what I do, that's what I'm trained to do. And so when I get into an argument, if I get into an argument with my wife, that's what I do for a living, and so I can be unkind. And I can go to the point and I can say these three things and this is why, I can do that. Take an offering afterwards, she usually doesn't wanna give me an offering after we've had a fight, but I can do that. And what happens is the Lord has tried to teach me a gentleness of spirit, because when you do that, when that's what you do, you can get pretty good at it. And you can become even proud of your ability to see through things and get to the point and make strong statements you see. And when somebody is saying something to you and they're unkind, it really isn't difficult to just cut right through that, go to the heart of the matter and sometimes to hurt them. And you can do that. Jesus is saying, listen, the mark of a believer, it goes all the way back to verse 27, and you can start with the one word, love, that's the mark of a believer. Now you can love your closest friends, you can love your children if you're a parent, you can love your mom and your dad, you can love your husband or your wife or whatever. You can love your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your best friends. You can love those who love you. But Jesus isn't talking about that. Jesus is talking about those who hate you, those who are your enemies, those who are wishing evil for you to have this love for somebody on the job, to pray God as I get into that office. This person has been working overtime to try and get me fired. Lord, this person, and you know it, has been gossiping behind my back constantly and turned people against me because I'm a believer. This person has been working hard to get close to the boss so they can get a promotion even though I've been here longer than them and do a better job than them, but I know that because they're taking them out and they're buying them drinks after work and oh, I'm not gonna get the promotion because this person is cozied up to them. How do you react to those kinds of things? And Jesus says, what you do is you pray for them. What you do is you love them and you say, I can't do that and so I say along with you, that's right. That's why I need the grace of God. That's why I need to die to myself. That's why I need what Jesus has to offer and as I read this, I realize I can't do anything without his help. I can't because my propensity, my natural desire is to get even. If somebody is saying evil about me, I don't wanna do good to them. I wanna get back at them. I wanna find a way for them to hurt as bad as I'm hurting or maybe even worse if possible. That's my natural reaction and yet Jesus is saying that's not the way of a believer. Look what he says in verse 30. Give to everyone who asks of you and from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back. Our personal attitude should be free of a desire for revenge and sometimes it is simply wiser to release what the person desires. Now incidentally, what he's referring to here would be when somebody's stealing from you something. Sometimes it's wiser to give the thief what they desire. Sometimes it's wiser to forgo your rights in order to save your life. And sometimes when people are fighting so hard for the purse of their car and they're willing to die for it, it doesn't make much sense at all. He says, release these things, let go of those things. Notice in verse 31, he says, and just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. That's called the golden rule. God's love is revealed in his children when they treat others as they themselves would be treated. Because love seeks the other's well-being and when you're seeking somebody else's well-being, you're actually demonstrating the kind of love that God has, the golden rule, loving others, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. And that gives to us some insight, by the way, that love is actually something that is an activity. It's something that occurs. It's not something that is passive. It's something that actually you do, that you do, you openly do. You don't wait to do good. You don't do good to those who've already done good to you. You are out there proactively doing good to somebody else, caring for somebody else. Why, because that's what love intends to do. That's what God did for us. Before we loved him, he loved us. And the way he demonstrated that was when he gave his son Jesus Christ. So love is proactive. He goes on in verse 32, but if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. You see, you look down on people that are called sinners, he's saying, but you're not any better than they are because they love those who love them. They do good to only those who do good to them. And they only make safe loans expecting their money back and sometimes with interest. And because of this, you're no better than any person you consider to be a sinner. Sinners love those that love them. I was watching years ago now one of those history channel or discovery channel specials on a particular gang that used to exist on the East Coast. It was an Irish gang. And it was a vicious Irish gang, similar to what we have seen revealed concerning some of the organized crime gangs. And this particular gang happened to be made up of Irishmen. And they were speaking about this one guy, this Irish gangster. And how that he was at his dinner table and he was enjoying a meal with his kids and his wife. And they're talking about how he reaches over to one of his sons and he touches his head, gently loving his son and eating with them and speaking to them and just enjoying family time. And then this gangster gets up during the meal and goes into the bathroom, opens the door to check on the guy that he had hanging in his shower that he had slit his throat and was letting him bleed to death in the bathtub. And he checks on him to see if the blood's fully left his body, it hasn't yet closed as a door, goes back to dinner. Once again, being just a nice dad, loving husband. And the guy is saying, that's how these people can be. On the one hand, he's got a dead man in his bathtub and he's waiting to bleed him so he can go and dump his body. And yet there he is with his kids, ruffling their hair, telling him he loves them. Jesus says that. He says even sinners love those who love them. So what good is that? The big thing is loving those who don't love you, caring for those who don't care for you. That's Christianity and that's the way it works. And that's how it works best. Love, love your enemies, do good, land, he says. Notice that in verse 35, hoping for nothing in return. Your reward will be great and you will be sons of the highest for he is kind to the unthankful and evil, therefore be merciful just as your father also is merciful. When he says love your enemies or do good and land, et cetera, that speaks of a habit. Be in the habit of loving, be in the habit of doing good and be in the habit of lending with a pure heart. So what happens if they hate us and they're still in need? Do we lend to them under normal circumstances? Jesus would say yes. Now, not always. Because if one of my neighbors came over and said, excuse me, do you have a gun that I can borrow so I can kill you? I'm not supposed to lend under those circumstances, you know. There are incidentally, probably should deal with this as I'm thinking. As Jesus is speaking here and giving to us these things here, these are under general social circumstances. We're speaking of living in a neighborhood, being in a town, we're talking about being in regular society. If there's a terrorist who wants to take my wife captive, if there's somebody who tries to injure my grandson, if there's somebody who's gonna harm one of my children, Jesus is not teaching pacifism here. There is a time for peace and there's a time for war. There's a time when you respond with equal measure and equal force because the situation demands that. There is a place for just retaliation. There is a place that if I'm standing here and somebody is injuring somebody next to me, that I have a moral responsibility to get involved somehow. And if I have the capacity to save a life, then that's what I'm to do. You see, I'm saying this because as I read this, I was thinking, now how does that really apply? And that's what I'm trying to give to you. You see, I heard a debate between a pacifist who is a Christian and another Christian who is not a pacifist. And in part of the debate, a question was asked to the pacifist, if a man was raping your wife and you entered into the room and discovered that, would you use violence to save your wife? And the pacifist's answer was no, I would pray for the man raping her. I would too at his funeral as I buried him. I don't see anywhere in scripture that teaches pacifism. There is a time to respond. What Jesus is speaking about is normal circumstances. You got a neighbor who can't stand you, but they're in need. How do you deal with them? Do you hate them? You know they've been gossiping about you all through the neighborhood. Do you hate them? Do you talk about them to your neighbors just to defend yourself? And what happens if you see their kid walking down the street and it's pouring rain and you just picked your kid up at school and you know that little boy's gonna walk for three quarters of a mile in the pouring rain to get home, do you say, well, that's that woman's kid and I hate her, she hates me, we'll let that little rat drown? Or do you pull over and say, son, can I give you a ride? And put him in the car and bring him home safely. How do you do? Well see, it's just very basic things, isn't it? You treat them kindly. If the neighbor's getting all worked at you and yelling at you, you know, I had some guy come up to me one time years ago, a brother and our fellowship and with his wife and they said, we don't know what to do about our neighbors. Well, what's happening? Well, they're picking up their dog's mess from the backyard and throwing them into our backyard is getting kind of old, you know. How do you deal with that? Well, I don't wanna tell you how to deal with that, but what's your natural inclination? And what do you do? That's what Jesus is talking about. Got somebody on the job who doesn't like you? They might even take it out on you. They might even push you and try and start something with you. How do you handle that? How do you handle it when they insult you? How do you handle it when these things are going down? And Jesus says, the way you handle it is praying for love that you might love them because that's what God would require of you. Now that I understand, that I do understand and that I have done for a long, long time. God, help me to not wanna retell you. Help me to not want to repay evil for evil. Help me to learn to bless those who are cursing me. Help me not to take it out on them. And you don't wanna know something? God does change your heart. God does change your heart. You see, under ordinary circumstances, we lend without the expectation of receiving in return. And that's especially true in cases of lending to those who are poor. In the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, in chapter 15, verses seven and eight, in the Old Testament, it says, if there is anyone, if there is among you a poor man of your brethren within any of the gates in your land which the Lord your God has given you, you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother. But you shall open your hand wide to him and willingly lend him sufficient for his need whatever he needs. Well, why is that important? Well, Proverbs 19, 17, he who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord and he will pay back what he has given. That's what Jesus is speaking about in verse 35 when he says, your reward will be great and you will be sons of the highest. Your reward is great. God's grace upon you will abound. So the reward is from God for performing a good deed and caring for other people. When you minister to somebody in need, God takes note of what you've done. Now obviously Christianity is based on us being saved by the grace of God. You are saved by grace and not by works. You are saved by grace. And still it's the grace that saves that also enables us to work. It's interesting, if you look at Ephesians chapter two and you were to look at verses eight and nine which everybody quotes and we pretty much in this congregation know this scripture for by grace you've been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast. We know that God's grace and faith in all is what has enabled us to have a relationship with God. So our Christian life begins with grace. Now I want to make a real quick point here. Our Christian life begins with the grace of God. That's where it begins. It's not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us. So it's not by works of righteousness for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God and not by works lest any man should boast. We know that scripture. But he goes on in verse 10 and he says we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. The grace that saves you is the grace that enables you to live a life of good works. And so when you're saved by the grace of God you receive the spirit of God and the power of God the transformation that comes to relationship with God that enables you to love those who hate you and to do good to people even those that may not deserve having good done to them. You do it because God is a gracious God who showed grace to you. He causes his son to shine on the just and the unjust alike. He causes his reign to fall on the just and the unjust alike. Meaning that you're a Christian and you have a farm and you're growing a certain crop and God's reign comes in the proper season and it reigns on your field and it also reigns on your next door neighbor who is an ungodly person. There's not just this all of a sudden just this barrier and there's only reign in your field and the next door is just going to seed. No, it's a picture of the common grace of God how that God does good to all men, to all people and therefore if God does good to all, we do too. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is saying listen the works that you do, there's a reward for them is a proper reward for them. You're not a mercenary for doing something and receiving a reward. There's a reward that is proper because God has established you that you might do good works in order that you might truly be his children, reflecting how good he is to a world and ultimately what he does is though he gave you his grace and he rewards you for your works. One day we all stand before the throne of God to receive. Second Corinthians chapter five verse 10 says it we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. And so we stand before the Lord to receive from him our rewards. So he says in verse 36, therefore be merciful just as your father also is merciful. To be merciful is to be compassionate. To be compassionate means to be filled with sympathy and the sympathy is revealed by your life. So he says imitate God. God is merciful. God is compassionate to those who are in need and therefore you should be too. Psalm 145-8, the Lord is gracious, full of compassion, slow to anger, great in mercy. Judge not, verse 37, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, you will be forgiven. Now before we look at what he is saying we have to consider what he's not saying. He's not saying never evaluate or discern make a judgment about anything. I think that that mentality of just, well I don't want to judge that person has become a convenient excuse to avoid confrontation and having to deal with issues. There are a lot of Christians who will see other Christians do something wrong and won't say anything about it. They won't bring a correction, they won't say a word. They just let them continue because they said I don't want to judge them. Didn't Jesus say judge not? Well I don't want to judge them. I don't want to bring condemnation to them. That's not what he's saying here. I think what we have today in the church is what we would call a superficial unity. It's glossed over with a sentimental tolerance. That's an evidence that there's a lack of strong convictions about things that are right or wrong. And normally a person who isn't willing to encourage someone to do right is a person who doesn't read the Bible and they simply don't care about other people. Every message you hear, every time the Bible is taught, you need to judge it. You need to make a discerning judgment for soundness of doctrine. You have to ask yourself a question, does this line up with the common testimony of Scripture? Is this something that I can find in the Bible? You see in second John in chapter, second John verses 10 and 11, it says if anyone comes to you and doesn't bring this teaching, you do not take him into your house or welcome him, anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work. There needs to be a discernment. You need to listen to what's being said and you need to ask yourself, does that line up with what God says? And so when Jesus is speaking about not judging, he is not saying for us to suspend discernment. There are too many Scriptures that say we need to be discerning about things that are being taught and also discerning concerning the way people live in order that we might know who is a sheep and who is a wolf, who is a sheep and who is pretending to be one. And there's a requirement of discernment. You need to have that. All of us should have a discernment. What Jesus is speaking about is habitual fault finding. What he's speaking about here is an unmerciful condemnation of other people and that makes them a judgmental person and so practicing that kind of judgmentalism, what happens is you replace God as the final judge because you become the judge yourself. And so that's what he's talking about. In Romans chapter 14 verse four, there's a great question, who are you to judge another man's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand for God is able to make him to stand. There's another Scripture, James four verse 12 that says there's one lawgiver who is able to save and destroy. Who are you to judge another? And so we don't know another person's heart. And that is a very important thing. Now listen very carefully. Hopefully this will make some sense to you. There have been times in my early walk with the Lord within the first three years of me getting saved and without trying to make an excuse just by way of explanation, I got saved in December, went into the military in March. So I had approximately three months in my early Christian life to prepare to go into the military. And I know that we have military veterans in this church and perhaps I might have some here tonight. And if you're a military vet then you might wanna look back at your experience and try and remember basic training and try and remember what it was like to be permanent party and to be placed in a particular location where you had no friends and you had nothing else to do and there aren't a lot of churches to go to and you don't have Christian fellowship and begin to think about that with me for a minute. And you'll understand how my life did not grow that much when I was in the military. Though I did seek out fellowship and I did start fellowshiping with a group of people called the navigators and all. It still didn't meet the need that constant fellowship in the word of God and prayer and a church that I could have been or taken in being taught in and serving in didn't have any of that. And so for the first two years of my walk with Jesus Christ I was basically stunted in my growth, stunted in my growth and temptation was everywhere. I mean, I came out of an alcoholic background and so when you're in a barracks and you've got a beer machine the way other places have Coke machines and you can buy a beer anytime you want you begin to stumble and it's easy to do that and I struggled off and on when I was in the military and I got out of the service, I still was struggling and I would do right and I'd go to church and then I'd do badly and I didn't really straighten out until September of 1973 when I started teaching the Bible and God started saying, look at, I'm gonna teach you some things that you're not practicing right now and just the discipline of studying and then learning to be an example began to change my life. And that's how my life began to change but I have to be honest with you two and a half years of it it was up and down, up and down constantly. So if you encountered me, there would have been times that you as a believer might have encountered me as a young believer and you would have been absolutely sure that I wasn't saved because I had no outer appearance of being saved. There was no fruit. I went to my cousin's wedding, Leanne, when Leanne got married, her father, I don't know that he was a Christian at that time so he brought out some champagne and I was 23 years old, 22 years old and they brought out some champagne and I drank one after another before you know what, I'd had a few and I was in the front room there and I was starting to get a little lightheaded and all and here come two Christians, my cousin Leanne's a Christian, here come some friends she invited to her wedding who were Christians, one sits on my left hand, the other sits on my right and I'm sitting there and my eyes are kind of like glazed because I've been drinking a lot of champagne to be honest with you and they start witnessing to me. And they're sure I'm not a Christian and I'm just sitting there looking at them trying to focus and I'm talking with slurred speech and I don't remember of course what I was saying but I do remember them saying something about, you know Jesus died on the cross for your sins, I do remember that and I remember looking at him with that champagne buzz and smiling at them and I said I'm already Christian, like that, I'm already Christian. And they said sure of course and anyway you know sin, you know and I'm just, yeah I know. I was a Christian but you would not know it and I still remember what I said when they got up, I mean they thought man this foolish to talk to this guy, he can't even understand the word we're saying and they get up and they say you know what, okay brother we'll talk to you again sometime, maybe we'll see you and I go yeah, here or there or in the air because I had heard that somewhere and it sounded pretty Christian to me. There were times that you would have seen me not every day, not every week, not every month, not even every year but there were times when I was not doing well with Jesus Christ and you would have been 100% sure I could not possibly be a Christian but the one thing you couldn't read is my heart and you didn't know that people like me would go home and weep and say God I'm tired of this. It's always up and down. I prayed like that and I would fall and I would go home and I'd weep and that's the truth before Jesus Christ and I say God help me. Look at what I am, there are no changes taking place in me Lord. You see what you see now is a result of the Lord working for 36, almost 37 years and I began to learn those lessons. You can't put yourself in a position of being tempted. You can't for me, you can't drink that one glass of champagne because you'll drink the whole bottle if you get an opportunity. I had to learn that, I had to learn that and so the self discipline, the dying to self but you can't make that judgment. You can't look at somebody and say oh you can't possibly be saved because God knows the heart. I remember I was in a, I led a guide to Christ. He used to live right up the street. His name was Steve and Steve was an alcoholic, confirmed alcoholic in his early 20s. He used to bring home a case of beer and down that case by himself very quickly and but I lived in this house and he was a roommate there. We started having a Bible study. Steve started coming to the Bible study after work and before you know it, Steve's bowing his head at a Tuesday night Bible study that we used to have just down the street from here asking Christ to come into his life and then now that he's come to Christ, one day he comes walking up to me and he says, David, I have to talk to you. It's been weeks since he's saved and I said, sure, Steve, what's up? He goes, I wanna tell you something. He says, I can tell that every time you're looking at me that you're trying to figure out whether I've been drinking or not, I can tell that you're doing that. And I said, Steve, he goes, David, you are. He says, and I know that you're judging me. He says, I know that you get close to me to see if you can smell alcohol on my breath. I know you're doing that. And this is what he said that really, really pierced my heart. He said, you loved me more before I became a Christian than you do now that I am one. And the Holy Spirit pierced me because that was right. As long as he was in his alcoholism and as he was down, I loved him because I wanted him saved, but I stopped really loving him when he got saved because now I'm afraid he's going to backslide and I stopped accepting him. I started judging him. I didn't judge him as an alcoholic. I started judging him as a Christian. And I've learned some hard lessons over the years about loving people. And that's what Jesus is saying, judge not, condemn not, let God be the judge. Somebody here probably has somebody you know that you're worried about. Lift him to the Lord and love him for Jesus' sake and trust God and see what the Lord will do in that person. But if you're constantly policing him, you're constantly calling him into, you come into the office and talk to me about this, I promise you, you're going to quench the spirit in their life. And then finally, he says, give and it will be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. This is an interesting picture. You go to the market and you get a basket and you start filling it with grain. Anybody here knows that you take that grain and you fill it up. If you start shaking it, it starts to settle. When it starts to settle, you can start pressing it down. When you press it down, you can fill it with more grain and press it down. And you keep filling it with more grain until basically it overflows. That's what Jesus is talking about. He's saying, and I want you to see it, give it will be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. I will bless you if you're generous. I'll take Marie to a place called the, what's it called, Mongolian barbecue? You guys know where that is? The Mongolian barbecue? Tell me, I want to know. You guys know where Mongolian barbecue is good. But you go there and you order and they'll give you a list of meats and you can have four different kinds of meats and all that. Once in a while, Marie and I'll go. The first time she came with me, I had already been before. The first time she came with me, they bring the meat and it's all kind of piled up on that plate. And she saw me take my fist and start pressing it down. And she says, what are you doing? Oh, you're touching, I mean, I said it's gonna get cooked and I washed my hands. Well, what are you doing? I said, you gotta press it down. Why? Because you're gonna go up to this place and you're gonna get these shoots and you're gonna get some celery and you're gonna get some carrots and you're gonna get onions and mushrooms and there's so many condiments there that if you leave this like this, you're not gonna be filled it up. And by the way, when it's cooked, it all shrinks anyway. And so I was pushing it down like that and then you go get the condiments and you shove them down like that. And there are some people who are black belts at this and you'll see them and they'll have a plate like two feet high, you know? You've seen it, maybe you're one of them that I've admired from afar. That guy knows how to pile it on. And that's basically what he's talking about. He's saying, given, it will be given to you. He says, generosity is always repaid with blessing when you have a generous heart. In 2 Corinthians chapter nine, verses six through eight, Paul said, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity. God loves a cheerful giver. God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always having all sufficiency and all things may have an abundance for every good work. You see, there is one who scatters yet increases more. There's one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty. Generosity is the mark of the believer. My son David's going to college and he's taking a class and the teacher said to the class a couple of weeks ago, I hope I don't offend any of you. It's a secular school. I hope I don't offend any of you, but the greediest people in the world are Christians. And my son's sitting there and he's fuming, fuming. And he comes and says, you know what? My professor said today, Dad, I said, what's that son? The greediest people in the world are Christians. I said, is that right? Are we? I guess everybody in Enron were born again. I guess Exxon must be filled with evangelical Christians. I said, what a ridiculously, excuse me, stupid thing to say. I said, son, I said, your church, do you know how generous your church is? One church. I said, you know that tsunami that took place in Indonesia and Thailand and all? I said, did you know that your church without us ever taking or asking for an offering? And some of you don't even know this. Do you know that the church without an offering was able to donate a hundred, I think it was $110,000 to take care of them? Did you know that? Did you know that when Katrina hit that you, your church, you guys gave close to $100,000 in relief without an offering being taken? I said, your professor is saying we're greedy. One church gave almost, well over $200,000 without even being asked. I said, we are not greedy at all. We are givers, because that's what believers are. Believers are generous. I said, by the way, when Indonesia was wiped out by that tsunami, how much did Saudi Arabia give? Another Muslim country, they didn't give anything. They gave hardly anything. I said, this greedy nation was very generous to help the world, which Americans have always been. I said, but the church has been exceptionally greedy, not greedy, generous. He thinks we're greedy. And I said, I cannot believe that. We'll have to strike that from our tape. See, see, he admitted it. We have been very generous. And you can look out, you can look out and you can see generosity. I have discovered that people who've been touched by the Lord are generous people. That's why we don't have to beg. We just let you know. That's why. Oh, you know, but the picture is always those greedy Christians, you know. Jesus said, listen. There is one who scatters, yet he increases more. That generous person will always be watered. That generous person will always be taking care of. God always makes sure that things are bound to you. Now, I did hear about a guy who heard a message where the pastor had said, if you tithe, the Lord is gonna bless you. And so what he did is he gave 10% for a year, didn't see an increase. This is a true story. And sued the church for false promises. And actually took it to court. Took the church to court several years ago now. Cause he said, see, I gave 10% and I never got anything back. Duh. What kind of heart is that? You know, like God is some heavenly stockbroker who's gonna give you great dividends. And what is wrong with that kind of thinking? But I have discovered that when you're generous, God's word, it doesn't come back void. God's word is true. He says, if you give, if you give, he says the Lord will bless you to the point that it overflows in your life. And that is absolutely true. The Lord will always bless. Why? Because you can never out give God. Generosity is repaid with blessings.