Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Luke 6:37-42, emphasizing the core value of "growing together" as a church. He highlights the importance of living in fellowship, vision, and purity, urging the congregation to avoid judgment and condemnation while fostering forgiveness and accountability. The practical application encourages church members to engage in community, support one another in spiritual growth, and recognize their own imperfections as they strive to reflect Christlikeness.
Welcome and Church Information
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Thank you, choir.
Church, this morning, if you'll open your Bibles to Luke chapter 6 is where we'll be at. And today we are continuing our talk through our core values. Guys, if you'll throw the core values up there, the circle of that. And we're beginning to talk through,
last week, in the last couple weeks, we've been talking about glorifying God. And this week we'll begin talking through our second core value, which is growing together. And I like that first verse of that song.
I want to read it to you. You may not be able to hear it. It said, What's interesting about that song that they just sang is the same person that wrote Amazing Grace is the same person that wrote that song.
John Newton wrote Amazing Grace. And four years later, he penned the words of I Ask the Lord. So it's sort of you begin to see his progression in his life of Amazing Grace. He wrote that song. He's living in that song.
But then years later, it's I ask the Lord that I might grow just from where I'm at. And then it begins to go back and forth of how there was torment, there was pain, there was sin. But yet the Lord was there to help him grow all throughout his life.
And so as we begin looking at growing together this morning,
we'll be in chapter 6 of Luke. And I've got a couple of illustrations we'll give and begin talking through why and how do we grow together. And next week, the practical way of what are the ways that we grow together here at our church.
And so if you have your Bibles, we'll stay in Luke chapter 6, verse 37 through 42 is where we'll be at. Luke 6, 37 through 42.
The Bible says, Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and it shall be forgiven.
Give, and it shall be given unto you good measure. Press down, shaking together, and running over. Shall men give in your bosom for what is the same measure that you might with all.
It shall be measured to you again. He spake a parable and said, Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they both not fall into a ditch? And the disciple is not above his master, but everyone that is perfect shall be his master.
And why beholdest thou the mote in your brother's eye? When you perceive it's not the beam that's in your own eye.
Either how canst thou see, say to your brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in your eye. When you yourself have a beam in your own eye. You hypocrite. Cast out the beam that's in your own eye.
And then you will see clearly to be able to pull the mote out of your brother's eye. Lord, we thank you for this day.
I pray, God, that your hand of blessing will be upon the message today. I pray, Lord, that you would give us wisdom and guidance in everything that we do. In your name we pray. Amen. You may be seated.
Years ago, in the early 1980s, a guy by the name of Steve Jobs decided that he was going to come up with, a friend of his, Steve Wozak,
was going to come up with what we, most, 90% of probably us in here have in our pocket, the Apple iPhone.
And he began to discover and began to put together a project.
The computer industry was on its rise. And he wanted to make an accessible computer for the everyday person.
That was his goal. That was his vision. And in 1984, he created what was called the Macintosh.
The Macintosh came out and it was a personal device that you could legitimately carry around. This was pre-laptop days.
And you would have to plug in a screen and then you would be able to control that with the Macintosh that was there. Later on, Steve Jobs got fired from his company.
And if you want the history of Apple and Steve Jobs, I've got his biography. But in the late 90s, they brought him back onto the company. And in 2001,
the most revolutionary device that's probably ever came out, Steve Jobs held in his pocket and he said, this device can hold 2,000 songs on it.
And he pulled that device out, if you've ever watched that keynote, and he pulled out the iPod and shocked the world, revolutionized the world. It revolutionized the way we listen to music. It revolutionized the way we do everything around us. But then, just six years later,
he gave the keynote. Now, watch this keynote again this week because the Lord laid upon my heart just to remember this time. But he got up and he said, we're going to create a phone. We're going to create a computer.
We're going to create an iPod. We're going to put them together into one device that is going to reinvent the way we communicate with each other.
And they, of course, unveiled the iPhone in 2007. In 2008, I got my first iPhone. But we began to look at this and we've seen the revolution of the way bringing things together can revolutionize the way we do things.
Importance of Community in Church
And this morning, I'm not saying reinvent the church. I'm not saying we revolutionize the way we do things.
But I think there's a point where we can get back to saying everyone should be a part of everything and everyone should be welcomed. And the thought of growing together is bringing this in a sense of bringing things together.
And as we look through this scripture today and as I begin to give some opening illustrations, I want us to ask our question, why should we grow together? Why is it important that we as a church grow together?
And I simply put it like this. We exist to make disciples growing together into Christlikeness. We exist to make disciples growing together into Christlikeness. There's three aspects to the statement. There is making disciples. Making disciples.
Bringing people into the knowledge of Jesus and beginning to disciple them into a way where Jesus discipled his disciples.
He did life with them. He spent time with them. He was with them when they were at a funeral. He was with them when they were at a wedding. He was with them when things were hard. He was with them when things were great. He went fishing with them.
He hung out at the store with them. That's what Jesus did. That's what making disciples do.
But then it goes on a step further. And not only do we make disciples, but we should be growing disciples. We ourselves should be growing. We ourselves should be growing in and of ourselves, but we should be helping others grow as well. And the last part of the statement is together disciples.
We should be growing together as disciples. We should be interacting with one another in a way that is community and as a way that is ultimately becoming more and more like Jesus in our attitudes and our actions.
So as we begin to think through this, we've got to ask ourselves, is this occurring in our church? Is the local body of believers here choosing to grow together?
Because this is the problem when it comes to this. In order for us to grow together, people are involved. And if you know anything about people, people are messy, right? Have you ever met a messy person before? I have. I'm one of those messy people. People are messy.
And when we begin to think about interacting with people, it begins to get sometimes out of our comfort zone. We begin to,
man, if I hang out with that person, eventually I'm going to have to start talking, right? Me and Mark, we went on about a 40-minute drive. We went over in the Alexandria County area. We had to pick something up. It was a 40-minute drive there.
It's a 40-minute drive back. If anybody does the math, it's an hour and 20 minutes. We didn't sit in the vehicle for an hour and 20 minutes and didn't say anything. We had to talk at some point.
And all of a sudden, if you sit there long enough, you're going to talk and you're going to say things and you're going to do things. And you're going to be like, man, maybe Pastor James isn't as perfect as I thought he was. Okay?
I know none of you have thought that. I know. You think I'm perfect.
But all of a sudden, you sit down for a while and you begin to realize, man, we're messy people. And then these aren't the, do I want to open up?
Do I want to share my intimate part of my life with them? And this is the thought of what Jesus was saying when we began to grow together.
Understanding Church Imperfections
People are messy. Spurgeon said it like this. Guys, I didn't pull this up. It's on the desktop, Scott.
It's a black video. It says, Spurgeon. I'm going to read a quote here. But Spurgeon said the adage of if you find a perfect church, don't join it because you'll mess it up. Right?
Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, he said there's no such thing as a perfect church. Spurgeon, so we're going to show this video if he can bring it up. I forgot to tell him, but it's on the desktop. You should be able to pull it up real quick. It's only 30 seconds.
Yes, that's it. That you feel almost glad that you have not. If I had never joined a church till I had found one that was perfect, I should never have joined one at all. And the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I should have spoiled it.
For it would not have been a perfect church after I had become a member of it. Still, imperfect as it is, it is the dearest place on earth to us. The church is God's vessel to reach the world. I was raised in church. My mom's here today.
I was taking to church as a baby. There's a picture of me somewhere.
My mom, I'm sure she's got it somewhere in one of her about a million scrapbooks or picture books that she's got. Me in my car seat on a church bus with my mom driving and my dad leading the bus.
And we're going and we're out in the community. We're picking kids up and we're bringing them to church. I was born on a Thursday. And if my mom tells me correctly, on Sunday I was in church.
My best friends were in church. I still talk to some of my best friends at church.
I have some of my best memories. I was saved in church. I was surrendered to preach at a church camp. Every part of my life goes back to the church having an impact on my life. I've been hurt in church.
People said things that were hard to me in church. I've gotten mad at church. But yet the church was there to join us together. And since we're all imperfect and we all operate inside the body of Christ,
Jesus himself gives this word to us of how we as the church should grow together and how we can live in this purpose of what he's got for us. I was thinking as I was thinking through this, I was talking to Allie a little bit.
But I can remember back when I was maybe fourth or fifth grade. And at the time I didn't really understand it.
But now as a parent I understand it even more. But I remember as a kid I would wake up and my legs would begin to hurt. My legs would begin to just be in pain. And I didn't realize that it was my body growing and stretching. Right?
Brody, he's in fifth grade. He's going through that. And he'll wake up and he'll say, Dad, my legs are hurting. My arms are hurting. And we'll give him some Tylenol. And Hudson now, and even at his age, he begins to, something hurt.
I don't know what it is, but it's hurting. And it's a symbol of us growing. It's a sign to remind us that in order for growing to happen, sometimes pain is involved.
And so in our own spiritual life, this should be true. If it's real in the physical life of us growing, there's pain. When it comes to spiritual growth, there's also got to be a little bit of pain.
Growing Together as a Church
Or there should be or can be a little bit of pain. So the question bears of what Jesus says in Luke chapter 6 is, How do we grow together? How can we grow together as a church?
And he lays out it here basically in three different subparagraphs in a couple of verses. The first way we do this is by living in fellowship. Right?
He says living in fellowship. And how does this look? He begins with giving us four commands. He says don't judge and don't condemn. And he says do forgive and do give.
And so Jesus begins with this imperative. It was a Hebrew way of writing, a Hebrew way of talking, where you would begin to give some contrasting statements. And then you would give sort of a response in a masterful way that Jesus would teach. And he would say okay don't judge, don't condemn.
And instead of doing those things you should love and you should forgive and you should give. And so what does it mean? Does it say here that I can't let anyone tell me what's right or wrong? Does it say okay I'm going to live my life and don't judge me. Don't condemn me.
You don't have that right because that's what Jesus said. But oftentimes that's how people will say. People will say well it's not right for you to tell me what to do. The Bible says don't judge. Don't judge me.
I'm going to do whatever I want to do. And that's not what Jesus was saying here. Jesus is giving this couplet of poetry of saying judge, condemn, forgive, give.
And he uses it this way, the same way we would use the word judge. Okay? Me and my wife we like watching Law and Order, SBU, criminal shows.
And all of a sudden there will be some times where there will be a trial with a jury. And the jury will sit there and they'll pay attention and they'll listen. They'll take notes.
But there's often other times where the judge is the judge and the guy that gives the execution, that gives the punishment. It's called a bench trial. Where the judge is the one that is going to listen to the responses. There's no jury.
And he bears the responsibility of saying, is this person guilty or innocent? And if they're guilty, then all the blame is on him to give the punishment.
And this is the term that it's saying here. It says that no person, I was studying this a little bit. There was the two jobs of the judge. And I was studying this and it was profound to me because when we are declared guilty,
no one is declared 45% guilty. Right? No one says, well, you were 45% of this crime. No, you were either 100% or you were zero. There's no partial there.
And oftentimes we begin to get in this area where we have this judge and we have this person that pronounces sentence to us. And we want to abstain from this in the Christian world because,
well, what if someone does judge me? What if someone looks at my actions and they declare me guilty?
I won't be able to talk with them. I won't be able to hang out with them. I'm not going to be able to open up in a way that's vulnerable. I'm not going to be able to have fellowship with them because I'm guilty of these things. And Jesus says this.
He says, we don't live in a way where we are the judge and the jury and the executioner, but we live in a way where we don't judge, we don't condemn.
Forgiveness and Generosity
What do we do? We forgive and we give. Again, these words appear together because he's showing us forgiveness. He's showing us that we are to forgive.
And not only are we to forgive and give, he goes on and he continues by saying, press down, shaking together, a measure that you use, we measure it back to you.
As I was thinking about this, I like to cook, I like to bake. And I can remember back when I was maybe like five or six years old and my mom was making sweet tea. Okay, and she's here so she could verify this a little bit. Okay, so I'm not lying this morning.
Okay, my wife often accused me of exaggerating my story.
She told me that I had to apologize because she had done laundry before and she didn't break the washing machine. I'm just now getting around this, that she didn't break the washing machine because she had done laundry before.
It was just getting old. Okay, so I apologize for that.
But I can remember we're making sweet tea one day and I asked my mom, I said, okay, and Birdie will do this too. Dad, how do you make this? How do you do this?
And I said, Mom, how do you make your tea? And she used to make it really, really good. She doesn't make it good anymore because she doesn't put the sugar in it the way she's supposed to. She taught me one way and she changed the recipe.
You're not supposed to do that. Okay, but we have this measuring cup and the cup, you've seen this before, the cup line is here but there's about this much space above the cup line. Y'all seen these before? Little glass ones.
And she would say this, she would say, we fill it all the way up.
That's a cup. We don't just stop at the line. We fill it all the way up, we pour that in and we do that one more time. And we do two full cups of sugar. Okay, not just to the line but all the way up.
Man, we would probably drink a gallon of sweet tea a day if, probably more than that. I don't remember. I just don't remember.
We went through a lot of sweet tea as a kid. And I remember when we'd make it, I would make it and I was like, whoa, that's so much sugar. I was like, no, no, no. This is how we measure it.
This is how we do it. We don't do it any other way. We measure it all the way to the top. We pour it in. That's how it is.
When we begin to think through this, this is how it is in our life, right?
We teach other people. We train other people. And the Bible says how you measure things, other people are going to measure that. Same way.
And you're going to be measured back to you. And he begins to go through this of when you give out negativity, when you give out the judgment and the condemnation, there's a time for that. I'm not saying we don't have that.
You're going to have that in return. But when we give this forgiveness and we put this in our life, it's God's economy of sowing and reaping. And God says, whatever you pour out, he's going to return it with an abundance.
If we measure that measuring cup this way, God says, I'm going to return it that same way, right? You farmers in here, no one goes out and plants one kernel of corn and one kernel pops up, right? One kernel produces a stalk.
That stalk has two or three ears. And each of those ears has six or 700 kernels on it. So one kernel of corn is producing hundreds and hundreds of kernels in return.
And God says the same thing when we begin to pour out on other people, that same blessing will be poured back into us. It may not come from the same person. It may not come in the same manner. But God is saying that his forgiveness and his grace is upon us.
But what happens is we live in a culture of skepticism, skepticism, okay? Skeptics. We're a culture of that.
Where when someone does something good for you, you automatically ask the question, why did you do that? What do you want in return?
Well, why are you being nice to me? Well, what did I do wrong? All of a sudden you're being nice to me.
I did something wrong, right? And we get in this manner where we assume the worst in others. And Jesus is saying if we're going to live a culture of Jesus, we must assume the best in others. Rather than making accusations, consider the person and then go and talk to them.
When we do these things, it begins to build us in a fellowship of one another, a cultivating, a friendship of one another. Because all of a sudden we are living in community with one another. And we're growing together.
And we care about other people. And we want to go out. We want to have this fellowship with each other. And it's saying, listen, there's a time to go out.
And we're going to talk about that in a couple of weeks. But there's also a time where we must come together and we must work on each other.
Avoiding Spiritual Blindness
And Jesus continues to talk about this as he goes through this parable where he begins to say, we're not going to judge. We're not going to condemn. But we're going to forgive. And we're going to forgive. And we're going to give. And we're going to give mercy. And we're going to give grace.
And then he continues on by saying, not only should we live in fellowship, but we should live in vision. Verses 39 and 40 gives an amazing parable.
He says, can the blind lead the blind? Or will they both fall in a ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is trained to be like his teacher. It was a game.
You may remember this game when you were a kid in elementary school. But it was a game called Red Rover, Red Rover. And you would all band arms and you would call someone to run over.
And if you were all banding arms and you were stronger, the object would be to call someone over that was maybe a little weaker so that you could add them to your line of strength. Well, when we were youth pastors in Idaho, Allie introduced me to a game called British Bulldog.
Have any of you ever heard of British Bulldog? Brody has heard of it. Okay, one person. British Bulldog is like Red Rover except there's one person in the middle and everyone stands on one side.
And as they run from one side of wherever it is to the other side, the person in the middle, if they tackle you, you become part of the middle. So it's a very aggressive, very hard game. Okay?
And we did this actually one time on ice, which I don't recommend ever doing this because no one can stand and you get hurt.
And we had many, many broken things and blood happened. But you would stand there and as these people would begin to run back and forth, you're watching.
Well, Scotty's running here. He's a little bigger than me. I'm not going to go after Scotty. Okay, I'm going to go after Jade. I'm going to tackle Jade. Jade comes through there. I mean, I mount up. Boom. We're tackling her. She's part of the middle now. Okay?
This is vision, right? You're looking out. You're seeing who you're going to attack when they come. This is vision. And Jesus in the same way is saying, how can the blind lead the blind? Jesus is looking out over the landscape of Israel and he sees blind teachers.
He sees Pharisees on one side, Sadducees on the other side, and they're both leading followers astray. And he said none of these people are going to be followers of him because they'll never rise above blind spirituality.
They will only lead above where their teacher's at or where their teacher's at. And if their teacher's blind, they will always be blind. And Jesus says that as both of these people are there, he gives this warning. Listen to me, church. He says, you will follow people. You will listen to people.
And those people will influence you. And he says, you as disciples must understand this.
People are going to follow you. People are going to listen to what you have to say. Then people are going to follow what you have to say. And in this context, he's saying this. He's saying, give them this warning.
If you're spiritually blind, you're going to be fought to judge. You're going to be fought to condemn people. But if you rise to this level of spirituality where we begin to live in community, you're going to want to give and you're going to want to forgive.
And he says, we must not be people who are spiritually blind because if we are spiritually blind people, we will not see people as the image of God. We will see people this way.
We will see people that are not the image of God and we will treat them with contempt. We will treat them with anger. We will treat them with disgust.
But if we see people as someone who is the image of God, we will treat them with love, with honor, with dignity, with respect, and we will care about them. And we've got to ask ourselves, how do we view people?
Are we those who are blind, who are spiritually blind, who are just sitting up on our horse and just looking down and saying, I'm going to judge that person? I don't care what they do. Or are we looking down and we say, God, they're sinful just like I am.
Embracing Accountability
I want to go down. I want to give them love. I want to care about them. I want to give them the love that you gave to them. Because the reality is we're all broken people in need of a Savior. We're all broken people in need of Jesus.
And when we look at the world through the eyes of Jesus, we show them love and compassion. We don't show them hate. We don't show them mistreatment. But we look and we show them love and compassion.
This is what happens when we live in vision. This is what happens when we live in fellowship. But then lastly, he begins to say we must live in purity. Verses 41 and 42. Jesus used a sense of humor here. I like when Jesus begins to joke a little bit.
Jesus was man just like we were. He sees things. And sometimes there's some sarcasm.
But I'm almost imagining Jesus looking here and saying, why are you looking at the speck in your brother's eye when you've got a log? The way this was actually interpreted was like a massive tree.
It wasn't like a stick. It was like both hands would have to hold this log up and would be put in your eye. You could not move your body without holding this log up in front of your eye. This is what Jesus said.
You are holding this log and you're like, hey Terry, there's something in your eye. Can I help you get that out?
Like you can't even help do anything because you're holding this up and you're wanting to somehow manage this and this at the same time. He says, why don't we deal with this massive thing here before you deal with what's over there? And of course the log is standing for sin.
There's different amounts of sin. We're not going to go through all that. But we began to see that there is this sin in our life and there's something wrong. And he's not saying that we need to be perfect. But he's saying identify the sin in your life before you begin to help other people. Okay.
But before you begin to judge other people, judge yourself. And then you've got a right to go out and to judge other people. And to be a part of the church, we must expect accountability. Accountability, right? We live in a fellowship and fellowship means accountability.
Okay. My wife, she's really good at this. James, you did that wrong. I know. I know. You did that wrong too. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. Okay. I know. You told me. And then all of a sudden the list gets longer and longer and longer.
I'm like, well, man, what did I do right today? And so all of a sudden we live in accountability. And if the church is going to grow together, we must be willing to accept that accountability for other people. We must be willing to say in humility, I'm going to listen.
But we also have to be having the humility to approach other people. Right?
We've got to have the humility to say, hey, I'm not saying I'm better than you, but can I just come and help you out today? I ask this often in our deacons meeting. Men, how am I doing? Tell me the negative. Tell me the positive.
I want to help. I want to make sure I'm leading properly. I want to make sure that I've been effective in my preaching and my teaching and my leading. And if there's everything I'm not doing right, tell me.
Because I want to make it better. I don't want to just live in the status quo. I want to become better. I'm not going to get mad. I want to give that opportunity for them to tell me those things.
Because Jesus, again, is not saying that we are sinless, but we can offer assistance to other people. Removing the speck in our eyes before we remove the log in someone else's eyes, he simply says here, that is hypocritical.
And he says, you should be working on yourself to rid your sin in order to help other people. You see, this effect is not just inward, but it's outward. And for the church to be effective in its advancing of the kingdom, we must have a good reputation as well.
We must have a reputation where people are going to say, you know what? But the church over there, they love me.
If I have a need, I know I can call them. I know they're going to be there to help me because they have a reputation of being willing to help other people. Or are they going to say, no, they just care about the people inside there. See, we're called to live in purity.
We're called to live in honesty. We're called to live above reproach in every area.
It's not going to be perfect. We're going to have mistakes. We're going to do things that are wrong. But we must get to the point where we are able to say, you know what? This log is here.
I'm going to deal with this first because I need help over here in something else. And so the Bible lays out here in Luke chapter 6 of a way where we can grow together and how we can grow together.
Conclusion and Next Steps
And next week, church, we're going to talk about the methods of how we can grow together.
So as Terry comes, and I know it was a little bit of a different message this morning, but I want to conclude with giving one more illustration as time is getting away from us. They tell us often in our house that we should change out our filters.
And if you don't change out your filter, you're going to mess up your air conditioner. You're going to mess up your heater.
It's going to blow up and you're going to have this massive amount of money that you're going to have to spend. And if your air conditioner filter is clogged, the basic term is this. It's ineffective.
It's not working right. And the only way to make it effective again is to clean it or get a new one. And followers of Jesus,
we're transformed. We are being made new in the image of God. We're, the term we use, been born again. We've been accepted into the family of God by the sacrifice of Jesus. And so therefore, we are made new. And by being made new, we should, in effect, be made effective.
We're not like the blind Pharisees who are leading people into a ditch. But we have the gift of eternal life. And our desire should be for us to be holy and for others to be holy. The church is the greatest gift that God has called us to.
And it's the greatest way for us to experience spiritual growth. But ultimately, just as salvation is a gift that you must choose in order for us to grow spiritually, it's a choice that we must make. It's a choice to say, I'm going to live in that messy world.
I'm going to live in accountability. I'm going to live in a way where I'm okay with people correcting me. I'm okay with people coming and saying, hey, I think you're wrong in this area. And we respond in humility because we know they love us. We know they care about us.
See, I know my wife loves me. And when she comes to me and she says that I'm doing something wrong, I don't say it as, well, you just hate me. That's why you're telling me that.
No, I know she loves me. I know she cares about me. And the same way should be as when someone comes to me or someone comes to you, we should know they love us because they have enough confidence that they can come to you and address something so that we can grow.
And as a part of the church, we should be concerned of our own purity and the purity of others.
And lastly, church, if we're growing as disciples, it must include our own purity.
We must be determined to say, God, I'm going to live as effective as I possibly can under your guidance and under your supervision because I don't want to be, as you said, a hypocrite.
I've got to remove what's in my life before I can help someone else because how can I lead others if I am spiritually blind? We've got to ask ourselves, am I existing to make disciples growing together into Christ-likeness?
Because I'm telling you, church, if we can get to that point, the growing together takes care of itself. God said he'll take the rest. If we just give it to him, he'll give the increase. But it's simply, are we willing to give him control?
Father, we love you. We thank you for what you've done. I pray, Lord, that you'll be with this time of invitation, that your will and way will be done.
Closing Prayer
Clear our hearts and minds. Help us to deal with whatever we may be struggling with this morning. Lord, we love you. In your name we pray. Amen.
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