Thank God I’m Not Like You // The Prison of Comparison //Read
It’s shocking how often our suffering is self-inflicted. In fact, sometimes the worst thing the Devil does is wake us up - then we take it from there! And in our day and age, there’s one specific way we shoot ourselves in the foot time and time again: Comparison. We live online, sharing the highlights (and lowlights) of our lives. We’re more aware than ever who our literal and metaphorical neighbors are, what they have, and exactly how we fall short or outshine them. Comparison may seem harmless, but it’s a serious threat. It’s a prison that will rob us of the life we were made to live. So it’s time for a jail break! It’s time to get freedom from Comparison’s toxic mindset! It’s time to start seeing ourselves and others as Jesus intended!
Generally the first thing that comes to mind when we think of comparison is envy. But there’s a comparison prison cell that’s even more insidious: Self-righteousness. We search out comparisons that make us feel better about ourselves because, “At least we’re not like those people!” But what if Jesus called us to view ourselves as the “Chief of Sinners?” How do comparisons change if we see our own sin as a log and another’s sin as a speck of sawdust?
Church, we serve a faithful guy if you're thankful that we serve a faithful God, why don't you make some noise right now if you're watching online, if you're watching online, praise him in the comments, because that is exactly who we serve a God of mercy and a God of grace. I want to start off today reading this to you guys real quick. This is from the Apostle Paul. This is him writing in First Timothy, listen to the mercy in the grace that he was shown. I think Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength that he considered me trustworthy appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blast femur, and a persecutor, and a violent man, I was shown mercy. Because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus. And here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason, I was shown mercy so that in me the worst of sinners, Christ, Jesus might display his immense patience as an example, for those who believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the king, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be the honor and the glory forever and ever. That's the God that we serve a God of immense patience, a God of unknowable mercy, and grace. That's who we serve today. And that's who we're going to pray to today if you would bow your heads.
And let's join together in prayer. Father, God, we are thankful for who you are, that you are a God of immense mercy, a God of immense grace, a God of immense love. It's who you are. It's who you are. And God, we can know that as we go through life. That's the kind of God that we're following. We can know as we go through life, that we can have confidence because we know that's the kind of God that we're following. A God who sees us and doesn't look at us with hate, or with judgment, or spite, but a God who looks at us with mercy, and with love, and with grace. Help that to just cover us today, God, help us to remember that's who you are when we don't feel it. That God in these next moments, I know that you have something you want to say to us, and I really don't want to screw this up today. God, I ask that you would go before me that your grace would go before me and help me to speak today that I would speak your words and nothing else. We're not here to hear pastor Jacobs's opinion today. We're here to hear from you. And that's exactly what we want to have happened. So if God is with me, be with all of us as we listen today that we could clear hearts and our minds of anything that would try to distract us so we can be present right here right now to hear a word from you. And we will give you all the honor, all the glory, and all the praise that no other name deserves except you and it's in your name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Why don't you guys go ahead and grab a seat? It is so good to see you, everybody. Hey, while you're sitting down, and you're grabbing your seat, while you turn to your neighbor real quick, and tell them what's the worst sin you've ever committed? Plus, if you would, online, I don't know why you're laughing. If you would online, can you? Can you post it in the comments as well? We don't want to leave you out of anything that we get into today. Oh, man. If you believe that after that has happened if you believe the worst sinner is sitting next to you just point out them real quick so we can identify who's the chief of sinners in here today. Man. For real though, we start a brand new series today called the prison of comparison, the prison of comparison.
Speaking of comparison, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it right now. There's a lot of lovely people in here. But I believe as I'm doing some comparison right now, I might be the best-dressed person in here today. Rockin' the Bernie COEs our little throwback. I'm feeling it I'm so like, I'm so excited for today that the Buckeyes losing yesterday. I was like, Oh, well, alright, whatever. Like we got the Browns today. I am so so excited for the Browns game today. But anyways, the prison of comparison is what we're starting today, this series looking at how comparison really is a prison. Right? Whenever we think of all the ways in life that we can suffer and there's a whole variety. We've been introduced to a whole variety, especially these last 18 months going on two years.
There are so many ways that we can suffer in life. But isn't it depressing whenever we suffer because we've shot ourselves in the foot Like that's incredibly infuriating like whenever we suffer because of what someone else has done, of course, it's terrible? whenever it's self-inflicted suffering, it has its own kind of just to it. And let me tell you, there is no way to inflict yourself with suffering quicker than comparison. comparison. We'll do it every single time. You heard Maddie and Donny talking about a little bit in the pre. It's absolutely something we all struggle with. Now, this is what I'll say. Typically, when we talk comparison, what do we think of envy. Right? That's typically what comes to mind. Whenever we think of a comparison, we think of, wow, look at what they have, I wish I had that or look at their life. I look at their Instagram, and they're always going on trips, how can they even afford to go on all these trips and look at the kind of car that they drive? That's typically what comes to our mind whenever we think about the comparison. And don't worry, we'll get to that.
So if you're, if you're someone who that's an area you struggle with, and that can be mean to the next week, that's what we're going to be focusing on. But today we have something important that we need to hit on first, as we talk about comparison, and that is self-righteousness. Already, you can tell there's gonna be a fun sermon today, right? self-righteousness. It's not typically something we think of when we think of a comparison, but we should because it is so deadly. And it is so insidious. Self-righteousness is the sin of the Pharisees, the people who Jesus criticizes, almost think about this, I was looking this up as I studied this sermon, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees, just about as much as he criticized the devil. pretty shocking, right? If you read throughout the Gospels, and you see Jesus's words against Satan and against the devil against the accuser, there are just about as many condemnations towards the Pharisees and the religious leaders who thought that they were better than everybody else, self-righteousness, is that deadly? And it's that disgusting? Because it does something to us, doesn't it?
Whenever we're self-righteous, it makes us harsh. It makes us judgmental. It makes us people that you just don't want to be around right? Chances are you may have thought of someone whenever you heard that today's topic was self-righteousness. How? Yep, wish they were here. wish they were tuning in today, right? Because it's so pronounced. It's so hard to be around, that whenever we're around it, it stands out to us because it's that serious. It's that big of a deal. And here's the thing. I'm just going to say this right now, we all struggle with it. All of us. All of us. The most humble person in the world can struggle with this can feel self-righteous and can feel like well, I would never Well, not me, maybe them but not me.
I want to let you know and I want to let you know watching online. Today is an all skate involves all of us. All right? Ain't no solo is going out on the ice rink today. This is an all-skate. This is something all of us, your pastor included can struggle with the sin of self-righteousness, the prison cell of self-righteousness.
And so what our goal is for today, if we had like a mission statement for where we want to get by the end of today's sermon, we want to be able to echo what Paul says, but I just read from First Timothy, chapter 115. Listen to this. Again, this is so stinking good. If you're looking for a tattoo, get this tattooed on your body, because this is something that we all need the constant reminder of, in fact, it's so important. This is how Paul introduces it. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. That right there and theologians will say, well, maybe Paul was just talking about himself. He was talking more specifically about him and not generally, but there are plenty of theologians who read that and go know that. That's what Paul is saying. Paul is saying that as Christians, as believers, all of us should fully accept this statement that you know what, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And you're looking at the worst of them right here. When I look in the mirror, you're looking at the worst sinner there is, as I'm saying that you're probably thinking to yourself, okay, that's like a little. It's a little fake humility, right?
Like, oh, I'm the worst sinner but I'm not really the worst sinner. like come on and just turn on the news. Like there's plenty of worse sinners out there. You may not have to turn on the news. Maybe you're like I'm married to a worse Sooner than me, like, I, I don't laugh too loud. Don't laugh too loud. I'm married to the worst enemy, I work for a worse sinner than me. I'm related to worse centers than me. So there's I get with the Apostle Paul saying, but a little bit of false humility. Of course, he wasn't the worst sinner in the world. And of course, I'm not actually the worst sinner in the world. Because that's what we do, isn't it? I say something like that. I say I'm the chief of sinners. And instantly my mind in your mind goes to other people. Know, I know who's worse. Now, I know, I know, we're sinners. I know worse people. That's where we go. That's where our mind goes, we instantly go to comparison to comparison to comparing ourselves to other people, we like to find someone sin, categorize it, but put it in a category, right, label it, put it in a category, make sure that it's worse than ours. And then we can feel a little bit better about ourselves. We do this all the time. You see people who abuse alcohol, and they won't admit it to themselves. They won't admit it. But you know what they will do? They'll find someone who abuses it worse. Hey, look, yeah, I like a few drinks. But you've seen Shane. Do you see how he drinks? I'm not that bad. So maybe lighten up on me go talk to him. But don't talk to me because I'm not that bad. I know worse people. Yeah, no, I get it. I lie a little bit. Who doesn't? I've been the truth here and there. You want to know a liar though. You want to know someone who you just can't trust this person. You got to take everything they say with a grain of salt. Because you never know what they've said about you. You never know what they've said about this other person. You never know if they're actually telling you the truth. I mean, can we at least relate to this one fitness?
Man, this has been me for the longest time, like I can start feeling really bad about myself. Like, man, I gotta get into better shape. And then instantly try to be like, Okay, well, is there anybody? Is there anybody about my age and stuff? Who's not as fit as me? So I can just take the excuse off, right? Like I can just well, never mind, I'm good. I'm doing good, right? Can you relate? That's how things work. When we're self-righteous. That's how things work.
When we're self-righteous. We look for other people, we look for sin, we look for shortcomings in their life because it helps soften the blow of our own sin of our own shortcomings. Now, Jesus actually talked about this exact issue like this exact issue that we're talking about today. He talked about this. In the book of Luke, we're going to be reading from Luke chapter 18, verses nine and four through 14 today. Listen to this story that Jesus told this is exactly with what we're talking about today. This this this idea of self-righteousness of thinking we are better than we actually are. This is what Jesus says, starting in verse nine, to some who are self-confident of their own righteousness and look down on everyone else. Jesus told this parable. parables are our stories that Jesus told. And so Jesus told this story. Two men went up to the temple to pray one faricy and one tax collector, Pharisees were some of the religious leaders of the time, very well schooled men, they knew the Jewish scriptures, inside and out. So this faricy, that's religious leader goes up there and a tax collector tax collectors were the worst of the worst. They worked with the Roman Empire, they worked with the pagan government that had their thumb on the Jewish people, oppressing them and keeping them down. So you have these two people, this great, great, godly religious leader of heresy, and this scum of the earth tax collector, who is keeping his own people down, they go to the temple, verse 11, the Pharisees stood by himself and prayed. And he said,
God, I thank you that I am not like other people, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I give a 10th of all I get, but the tax collector, he stood at a distance, he wouldn't even look up to heaven. But he beat his chest and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Jesus says I tell you that this man, rather than the other went home justified before God, for all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exhausted. You see, the sermon title for today is thank God I'm not like you. And it's exactly where that title came from, from Luke. Chapter 18. The prayer, right the prayer of the faricy thank God I'm not like other people, thank God, I'm not like this, this tax collector thing. Thank God I'm not like a robber or an evildoer. Thank God, I'm not like you. You see what's essentially happening here is you read the Scripture, you see what the Pharisees are doing. And what we can tend to do is he treated his faith as an audition. He was performing for God. God, look, see my little dance. It's good, isn't it? Right?
You see, I fast, I fast twice a week, I give a 10th of all I get Isn't that good? applaud me. Come on upon me make me feel good. I'm such a great person, thank God, I'm so good. And I'm not a sinner, like this guy over here, treated his faith as an audition, he performed, while the tax collector prayed. He was performing that was a performance that he was putting on. The tax collector. On the other hand, he was truly praying, he was truly pleading to God for forgiveness. And you see, that's exactly what the prison of self-righteousness does to us. When we get in this comparison game where we're trying to compare our righteousness to other people, what ends up happening is, we tether our faith to what we do instead of who God is. And that is not a good place to be.
We tether our faith to look how good of a person I am. Look at how much I give look at how much I do this, and how much I do that. And look, I say please, and thank you, like, Look, look at the stuff that I do. We tether our faith to what we do instead of who God is. And what we do at that moment is we shift the focus and we put the spotlight on our goodness, instead of God's grace. Can I just ask a quick question, who is here wants to bet the rest of their life and their eternal life? On your goodness? Exactly. But we do it so often, don't we? We do it so often. We just slip back into it. We just slip back into this mindset of Yep, like man, I'm such a good but look how good I am. Especially compared to them. I mean, look how good I am. Especially I thank goodness, I'm not like my brother-in-law. Oh, man, thank goodness, I'm not like my boss, man. What a terrible person.
Thank goodness, I don't think about things like this guy. We just slip right back into it. And when we do that, we put the spotlight on our goodness, instead of God's grace. Let me read again, the prayer of the Pharisees. All right, this was the Pharisees said, God, I thank you that I am not like other people robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or even like this tax collector, I fast twice a week and I give a 10th of all I get Did you hear how many times you use the word I and his prayer? Four times, four times in two sentences? Where is the focus of that prayer? Is that even really a prayer? Or is that just a monologue? Right? This is an audition for him. This is a performance for him. This is God look at how good I am. And not just God, other people look at how good I am. Because I do things I hold a standard I hold the line. I'm a good, godly person.
We focus on our goodness instead of God's grace. And on the other hand, we have the tax collector who is crying out to a merciful God who won't even look up to the sky, out of shame that he feels. You see the main issue here and the main problem whenever we tether our faith to what we do, instead of who God is. Here's the main issue when we focus on what we do. Here's a news flash for us. We never live up to our standards. We just don't the ways that you think you're so good, you'll go against that standard one day or another. Well, I mean, I give who I've typed ever since I was little, which is a by the way. Awesome. I do too. I tithe tithing is great. It's a biblical command. I'm not downplaying tithing, but we'll say, man, tithing is so good. You know what, anyone who doesn't tie I don't know how they sleep at night. I don't know how they sleep. I don't know how they call themselves a Christian. I don't know how they get to this place. And then you hit hard times. The pandemic has affected your job. Suddenly the money that was kind of expendable, and you were always pretty good going month to month, suddenly it's a little bit tighter and a little bit tighter.
And suddenly you're looking at your budget and realizing Oh, shoot, I won't have enough to cover my expenses next month. And the month after that even gets worse. Suddenly, that time looks a whole lot more expendable than it Did, doesn't it, and you get scared, and you get scared and you're like, oh man, I've held up a certain standard forever. There are people that if you don't do this, you're not really a Christian. And if you don't do this, there's really no commitment in your life and you don't really trust God, you don't really believe God. And suddenly, the self-righteousness creeps in. like Wow, I've been tethering My goodness, to what I do, instead of who God is, as a scary place to be. You do not want to have to live and die on the standard of goodness, trust me. That is no way to live. And you'll never make it. You'll never make it. No one has ever made it. You can't live up to your own standard. I can't live up to my own standard. Let's jump to another scripture real quick.
This is Matthew chapter seven. This is Jesus talking during his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. This is Jesus talking in chapter seven. Starting in verse one. This is what Jesus says about trying to live up to your own standard, Jesus says Do not judge or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others and this should scare the living daylights out of you for in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Yikes, that's some scary stuff. If you even remotely think back on the times that you've judged other people and you've thought certain things about them and you've assigned motives to them. And if you believe the worst about them, that should scare you silly.
Because you don't want to be treated that way that that kind of standard man you don't want that apply to you. Nobody does nobody wants that standard to apply to you. Because we all fall short of even our standards. Even the measures we set up don't meet them. We fall short. How many times? How many times has this happened? You're driving down a road. There's traffic and you're just seeing the cars heading you're trying to get somewhere and you're like these idiots What do we move and you're like you're putting your head out and you're Oh my word and you're texting people show I'm gonna be late. Bunch of morons up here. rubberneck and it's maxed and I don't know what they're doing. And then when it's your turn you do the same thing you get up to the accident and you slow down you What's going on? Oh, hope everyone's okay well it looks bad you do the exact same thing you were just criticizing everyone and killing everybody over right and then you'll still drive to work and that guy Sorry I'm a late bunch of people don't know how to drive on the highway I don't know to tell you and you were one of them. Right because someone seven cars back were just saying the same thing about you. You can't live up to your own standard.
I'll give you one more example and I have to do it somewhere I'm wearing the Browns jersey um, if you watch the Browns final game last year, playing Kansas City in Kansas City divisional round of the playoff just know to live and die with every play which is a new experience for me I've never had my heart rate that high for Browns games before usually, usually by Paul says right on there with like my Apple watch things. I'm asleep. It's like eggs. Time to stand up a time to take gets some exercise. But watching that game and you're living and dying with every play, everything was just so like, Ah, it was so intense. And there was a play that like it just completely swung the game. The Chiefs have been playing really well. They had a pretty solid lead going almost to halftime. Well, the Browns get the ball and they start driving down the field. Right they start driving down the field. They're like man, if we can get some points right before halftime, that would be huge. That would be huge for us. And so we're driving. Baker Mayfield hits Rashard Higgins one of our wide receivers with a deep pass rusher on the sideline, he's about to dive into the end zone, he literally leaves with the ball towards the end zone, and a defender for Kansas City. Daniel Sorenson, he's coming this way. So they're headed for a collision, and he leaps Everhard Higgins and just levels him and causes him to fumble, and Rashard fumbles the ball into the endzone and likes out the back, which if you know football rules, it's a, in my opinion, I'm a Browns fan too. It's a really stupid rule. But what happens is if you fumble out of the endzone, you lose possession. Like it's not like oh, well the Browns get the ball back right there where they had it. No, it's the Chiefs ball now. Now the Chiefs have the ball and so the Browns who were about the score seven points instead, the Chiefs got the ball good field position, drove down, and kick the field goal. So it's a 10 point swing in a final and a game where the final score was less than 10 points. It was less than a touchdown.
And so I'm watching this game and the thing that was so like, just infuriating about it is the guy who hit our wide receiver. He went to hit him like this he leaped You can see they have still shots of him leading with his head leading with the crown of the helmet, which is a rule in the NFL, you cannot do that. It's illegal to use the helmet. It's a 15-yard penalty. It's like a serious, serious deal. Not only that he could have been ejected from the game for doing that. Until as we're watching this level replay. We're like, Oh, this is great. They're going to review it and be like, Oh, well, he this is targeting it's if you look at targeting in in the dictionary, this is the picture they show. But guess what? It wasn't targeting, they didn't call anything.
I mean, I wanted to punch my TV. Like I'm like, No, like, I'm freaking out. Right? And in the thing that had me after the game. I didn't say this out loud cuz I knew how stupid it sounded. But I was thinking myself watching this game after the final went through. I'm like, chiefs fans shouldn't even be happy about this win. Like they should have their heads hung low because they didn't even deserve to get this win. Yeah, right. If those jerseys had been switched, and it was a brown who leveled that kind of hit on the Kansas City Chiefs, the ball went out the Browns ended up winning. Do you think I would have to that game be going? Yeah, it's great. The Browns are on their way to the AFC Championship, but man, it just doesn't feel right. I wish we would have done it the right way without the hit. Yeah, right. I would have been like, oh, clean, clean. No, no, no. Dilation. Sorry. Sorry.
Do you see how this works? It's unbelievable. The standards that we put up the standards that were like, Nah, I would live and die on this hill, and how quickly we give up on them. You do not want to live based on your goodness. You don't want that. You want his grace. Do you want his mercy? Because you need it to the Jack Nicholson, you want his mercy. You need his mercy. Right? You, you need it. You need it. We all need it. Because no single person in here nobody watching online man, you're not good enough.
I'm not good enough. We are not good enough to even live up to the own standards that we set for ourselves. Jesus warns against this. He knows that about us. He's like, Look, I know I made you. I know how you people work. You can't even live up to your own standards. Don't try to live out of your best life out of my grace. Jesus warns against self-righteous comparison. But we'll talk about this more in the coming weeks. But Jesus doesn't warn against all comparison. He doesn't warn against all comparison, Jesus warns be against being self-righteous in our comparison, but he doesn't say all comparison is bad.
As I said, we're going to hit on this more in part three of this series. But let's continue reading in Matthew verse, chapter seven. Let's look at the very next verse. This is what Jesus says, Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye? and pay no attention to the plank in your 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 eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Now, this is a very well-known piece of Scripture. Most of us have heard this teaching from Jesus before. And you know what we typically do? We typically run to the end of verse five. We run to the end of verse five. Let me read the end of verse five again, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. We love that part. Right? We love that part. Because it's still about Yep, let me help you. Let me help you and you have a ton of my eye now let me correct where you're going wrong which has to happen from time to time, right? It has to happen from time to time, but I believe we are in such a rush to get to the end of verse five to where we can get back on judging and get back on correcting and get back on reproofing and rebuking we love that stuff in the church right we love all those words, rebuke who what a great word like reproof, like we're, we're gonna hold you up on this.
We rushed to the end of verse five. And we missed the broader point of what Jesus is saying here. Let me read it one more time. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your 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 eye then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. You see what Jesus that this broader point that he's making before we get to the end of verse five.
The broader point is Jesus saying this. When you are comparing sin. Just remember, yours is worse. I don't care who you're talking to. I don't care what they struggle with. I don't care what name their sin has when you're talking to them. every conversation. You enter I want you to remember, your sin is worse. Jesus wants you to be so consumed with the sin in your life that when you look at it, it looks like a plank compared to the speck that other people are carrying around. Yes, even your boss, yes, even your brother-in-law. Yes, even your husband, even your wife, he wants you to be so consumed with the sin in your life, that it looks like a plank and other people's looks like a speck. Do you know why we should do that?
Do you know why Jesus saying hey, when whenever you look at other people, a speck when you look in the mirror, a plank? He wants us to do that? Because it's very simple. Actually. I don't know anyone else's heart. I don't. Someone can even explain to me exactly how they're feeling exactly where they're at. And I can't completely comprehend it. Because I'm not them. I can practice empathy as much as I want to, but I'm still not them. I still don't know their experiences. I still don't know where they've been and what's happened to them and exactly how their thought processes work. I don't know anyone's heart. I can't know anyone's motives. Purely. I do not know any of that. So how in the world can I completely accurately not?
Again, not saying we never help people, we never kind of iron sharpens iron and you know, kind of work things back and forth. But man, Jesus is saying, Look, your sin is the only one that you really know. You don't really know what's going on with other people you think you do. But you don't really know what a core core core level is. And so when that is taken into consideration, their sin should look like a speck. But you know your sin. You know exactly what you're struggling with, you know exactly where your goat is tied. You know, you know your heart, you know your motives. And so that is why it should be a plank in your eye when comparing sin. Remember, yours is always worse. I'll just say this, someone may have a sin that's just more visible to you, or you know them better than other people do.
But they're doing better than you think they are. Can we say that there are people who think these two things can happen at the same time? We can walk and chew gum at the same time. Some people can be in sin, but still, be growing Christians. Isn't that amazing? It's a process called sanctification. Salvation happens in a moment. sanctification happens over a lifetime. It's a process. It's a process. And so some of the people that you're going, Oh, man, I just I don't know about them. They're doing better than you think they are. They're doing better than you think they are. So maybe backup. pump the brakes a little bit. And remember, you know what? spec, log spec, plank spec, Sequoia, like, gigantic tree. Like, let's put things in perspective here. When comparing sin, remember, yours is always worse. Because you know yours.
Now again, I want to hammer this because I don't want people walking out here saying, oh, the pastor said we never judge ever. There are never any judges. There's never any that I'm not saying that Jesus says judging isn't always wrong. He warns that hey, whatever judgment measure you take, that's what's going to be applied to you. So be careful. But judging isn't always wrong. Because we know from Scripture, there is the fruit of the Spirit. And so we're able to see if someone is following Jesus because we see fruit evidenced in their life, right? We see that these things manifest themselves in a certain way. So external fruit of the Spirit, and either does or does not manifest. But again, we can only see so much. We can only go so far. And again, I'll say, what standard Do you want for yourself? What standard of judgment Do you want for yourself? Do you want people to believe the best about you? Do you want people to believe that I can give you an example from today? I had me and my wife my wife's serving over here on camera. Can you say hi Jesse? Isn't she so pretty? And she's so pretty. And she's blushing? Yes. Me, me, and Jessica. We're both serving today. I'm preaching. So we have three kids. And the kids had to come with us. Jessica had to be here right at seven for the run-through. I was able to get here a little bit later. Because my part in the service didn't come up until later. And so the kids were all hungry. So I'm like, Okay, I'll drop Jessica off. Then I'll go get food and so I went and got food at McDonald's. Whenever I came back. I've got the two girls, Griffin, I've got all my stuff. I've got the food, I've got drinks, and I'm like, I'm coming down. And as I'm getting ready to park what we started doing if you're a volunteer Here are staff, we parked across the street over here at Shapur else. Just to create more room, we want to create more space. We're contributors, we're not consumers, right? We're here to say, you know what, we'll sit over there. We'll Park over there. That's not bad. And we'll open up more space for new people for visitors. But right. But I was like, I'm not navigating Arlington road with three kids, and all this stuff in my arms, like trying to go, let's go. I'm not. That's not happening today. So I pulled in, and it's so funny. As I pulled in, I parked the car, and I got out, brought everything in. I forgot something. So I ran back out just me now. And two other volunteers were walking in.
And you want to know, it's crazy. I felt a little bit of like shame. Because look, there goes the pastor to his car, parked right by the door. We're parking over here. And he's parking right there. You know, I felt that like, Oh, man. Oh, man. Like, I hope they do not like you feel like you have to yell across the parking lot. It's been a crazy morning. Like, don't judge me. And that's the thing. I don't want people judging me over that. I don't want that standard set up on me. So you know what that means? I but better be careful when I see some other volunteer Park over here and walk into not jump to excuse. What are they doing? Don't they know? We're supposed to park over here? Man selfish. I just approved? Like, no, I need to give the benefit of the doubt. I need to believe the best about people I need to say, You know what? They probably ever they were probably bringing stuff in. They were probably bringing stuff in? Or even if not, maybe they didn't know. Or maybe they forgot. Like, there's a whole lot of reasons, it could be something way better than what I thought it was. So anytime you start feeling like a man, what about that, just remember, people are doing better than you think they are, you've just got to start giving a little bit of the benefit of the doubt, a little bit of believing the best about people not always jumping to the worst. I want that standard for myself. And if I want for myself, that's the standard I need to give to other people as well.
So Jesus also here in Matthew seven, he Institute's another idea. Another concept. Now, we've been told this many times before. You may have heard this before. I'm gonna see if you can finish the phrase. We've been told we say it's Latin church circles. Love the sinner. Wow. Yep, we've all heard it. We've all heard it, right? Put it in the comments. I know if you could hear it. I want to see if you can finish it out. Love the sinner, hate the sin. Right, hate the sin. That's something that we hear a lot. And honestly, whenever you read the entire arc of Scripture, whenever you see God's character expressed through Jesus, and Paul's letters, and James and Peter's letters, throughout Scripture, we see that concept doesn't have a lot of biblical grounding. It just doesn't. It's something that we've said because it kind of sounds good, right? And it makes us feel good to be like, Oh, no, well, I love the person but who I hate what they're doing. Oh, I hate what they're doing. It makes us feel good, but it's not a biblical concept. What we see from Jesus, here in Matthew seven we see we've seen from Jesus is this position and I believe is the correct position.
Love the sinner. hate your sin. Love the sinner, love the sinners around you and man, hate your sin. hate it, let it bother you. Let it keep you up at night. Let the Holy Spirit just dig his thumb into your back so you can't sleep. But you love the people around you. You love the people with grace and with truth as Jesus did. And you hate your sin. Love the sinner hate your sin. I mean, I've heard. I've heard this more times than I can tell you people at church, which I mean, obviously means they're probably not really paying much attention.
But we don't talk about sin anymore. The church doesn't talk about sin anymore. We do. We do. We've been talking about a lot this morning. Actually. We do talk about sin. What I want to say a lot of those times as you know what, okay, let me know yours and I'll make sure I fit it into my next sermon. All right, you. You let me know your sin of choice and I'll make sure we slap it up here on the screen for everybody to see. We do talk about sin. What happens is a lot of us want to hate other people's sins. We want to love the sinner. Love ourselves because we're good and hate that other sin that I never have to worry about.
Man pastor, can you preach about divorce, preach about divorce? Have you ever been taught No, No, No, No, I haven't. But man, it makes me feel I can kind of take a Sunday off. I just kind of sit back and give you a hearty amen from the back row. And I've never ever gotten through the pain of a divorce? I've never gone through the struggle. I've never gone through how much it hurts. I don't even know what it's like to still have to deal with it today and grapple with it. But man, I would love to hear you preach on it. I want to hear you preach about how it's wrong. I want to hear it. We love to hear about other people's sins.
That's why Jesus is saying, You know what? spec, log, spec, plank, love the sinner hate your sin. In fact, this, this is something you may have heard this verse before to second Timothy Four, three, it's a very often repeated verse that talks about, you know, in the coming days, there will be a time when people don't want to hear sound doctrine anymore.
They don't want to hear it, they will only turn their ears towards what makes them feel good and what fits them. And typically, what that's taken to mean is kind of like, the doctrine is very conservative. And anything that doesn't sound very conservative is going to be Yeah, Second Timothy Four, three, itching of the IRS. But actually, that kind of goes both ways. Because see, for some people, itching of the IRS is going somewhere where they never ever, ever, ever, ever are going to be called to account to follow Jesus's command and john 1334 and 35. I'm never going to have someone tell me, you know, what if you want to know if Jesus is really Lord of your life. You love people like Jesus loved you, who by all accounts you should hate. People don't want to hear that. That's a little too challenging. That's a little too on the nose. Right? So let me go somewhere where I don't have to hear that.
Let me like, all avoid that Sunday. I'll be back here next week. And hopefully, we're preaching about somebody else. So I can feel a little bit better about myself. because let me tell you what, that's the hardest thing you'll ever hear in your life. If you want to talk about hard teaching, we think hard teachings are our naming people specific sin.
The hardest teaching you'll ever hear is Jesus's calling john 13. A new command I give you love everyone, as I have loved you. That self-sacrificing love, I want you to give it to people who voted for Joe Biden. I want you to love people who you know voted for Trump, I want you to love them the same way I loved you. I love that went to the cross for you. That's hard teaching. That's something that a lot of us don't want to hear.
So let's get back to specific sins. Let's get back to stuff that I can just kind of tune out on and I don't have to do anything with. But Jesus says no, no, no, no. hate your sin. hate your sin. Don't you dare categorize Don't you dare try to make this sin in this following me and us versus them. game. Pump the brake whenever you feel yourself starting to do that. Whenever you feel yourself starting to get on that high horse of saying, Oh man, I'm just thankful I'm not like them. just thankful I don't have to do that. Just God thank you for making me a better person than they are.
So I want to ask you, are you hating your sin? Are you hating your sin? Or are you too busy hating the world? I know I get it. I grew up in the Christian world. It is so much easier to just take those stones and just cast them out there and just be appear and every single Sunday. Yeah, you know, the culture is trying to do to us. You know what the world's trying to do to us, you know, those people are trying to do to us. It's very easy. It can build some really big churches that way. People love coming to hear that how every problem in the world isn't theirs.
But I want to ask you, are you hating your sin? Are you too busy hating the world? This is not what I'm talking about today. This is not a popular talk. I have a feeling this will be one of them unless I'm completely off base. This will be one of the lowest viewed sermons after the fact it will be my God. It was a one-and-done for me. It's not a rewatchable I'm good. Stomach down once don't need to hear it. Again. It's not popular. And let me tell you this. It wasn't popular for Jesus either. This was not a winning message for Jesus. Jesus took constant heat and constant pressure for the people that he surrounded himself with. From the self-righteous people to the people who thought that they were just so so good. Jesus constantly took the heat. Those are your disciples. Those Are the people who are the closest to you? You give them things to do. They get to go walking around with your authority. You send them out to do things those people who Jesus I don't know about that. Jesus took constant heat for his friends, he took constant heat for his inner circle.
And guess what? Same Cornerstone man, we have caught him. We've caught heat simply for trying to do the best we can to mirror Jesus's model. I want to let you know, I don't know. It's this is something I have to run, remind myself of too. The Bible was not written by perfect people. Not even after the fact, like the Apostle, Paul did not have his road to Damascus moment and then never sinned again in his life. That's not how it works. James, Jesus, his own brother didn't from the moment he realized who Jesus never had a moment of sin in his life going forward. The disciples were not perfect people shoot, they weren't perfect people. For the vast majority of the three years, they were following Jesus, they saw the Son of God Colossians tells us the full fullness of God in flesh.
They walked around, they ate, and they drank with him. And they were as best friends for three years and still missed it and still messed up and still send. There are no perfect disciples. And yet Jesus surrounded himself with them. Think about it, he didn't even need to think about the whole idea of a disciple. Did Jesus need anyone to fulfill his mission? If we believe what we say about him? No. He could have just shown up and instantly been like, hey, believe, and we're just all converted, right? It's and it just all happens. It could have worked that way. Because he's God, right?
He could have, he could have worked in certain ways. But he didn't. He chose to work through us through fallen people through imperfect people and surround himself with imperfect people. That's how he modeled his entire ministry. And so we've done the same thing here at cornerstone. We're like, you know, what, we are going to allow people in whatever place of their walk if they are brand new, or if they're a seasoned vet, we're gonna get we're gonna say, you know what, this is your home. Like, this is actually your home. We're gonna we're, we're going to actually allow you to come and call this your home.
And please hear me this is not all churches. There are so many amazing churches out there. I don't mean this to sound like I'm railing against other churches. But there's, there's a common thing in the church world and they're in the grand Christian world. Where churches we just talked about this at MP rally a few weeks ago, where churches talk about their like, a tagline is Welcome home. Like Welcome home. This is your home. Welcome home, which is awesome. It's a great tagline. It's great. The problem is, we have a temptation to tell people Welcome home, but actually, be telling them. Welcome to the hospital. Before you come in, make sure did you get your COVID test first? Okay, well, okay, get that up. sanitize first. Put some gloves on first. Okay, you good now? Awesome. Now you can come in. How often is that what church is like, not welcome home, but Welcome to the hospital. Let's clean you up. Let's not get you sick anymore. Let's make sure you don't infect anybody else, then you can come and be a part of the family then we'll let you in. Or how often do we say welcome home? But we mean Welcome to the hotel. We'll take your money. We'll take your money for sure. We'll take your good reviews. You can put that online, you can blast us all over social media. That helps. But we'll take all that definitely. We'll take your attendance. We'll make sure you show up at our numbers. Oh, but you want to like really be a part of the church?
Yeah, not here. Sorry about that. You said you're divorced. Yeah, sorry. There are some other churches down the road. Maybe try it, maybe try them. Cornerstone is trying as hard as we can. to not follow feelings to not follow what oh, it just is what feels good. To follow Jesus to follow his model. And what he shows us is how to live, how to interact with people how to build the church, that is what we are following. And so we don't care if we catch heat. You come here and you are trying to follow Jesus, you get family privileges. You just do. You truly are at home. You truly are a part of the family. And this is the key and this is what we all need to remember.
I've had people ask us, man, you will let someone who's, who sinned? Or who is insane. Be like a member of the church, you'll let someone who's insane or is sin be, like, serve in the church or volunteer, you'll allow that. So yeah, absolutely freely. Why? Why?
I have to tell them I'm like, wow, this is why because, um if we didn't let centers serve, I'd be the first to go.
It's really that simple. I want a paycheck. So I guess we're just rolling with this, right? I need a job. But if we say no, you're a center. Now. This isn't really your home. Oh, you're not really there and you walk with Jesus yet? Sorry about that. Just go sit in the back. Make sure you drop off your type check though. No, no, no, no, no. That's not how we do things. Here. You come, you belong. Because that's what we see from the ministry of Jesus. And if we didn't let sitters join, if we didn't let centers serve, if we didn't let centers give, we all would be the first to go.
And it all goes back to First Timothy 115 here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save centers of whom I am the worst. I am the worst. And guess what? So are you hate to break it to you? Happy Sunday. Happy you were here. We need to get a T-shirt made like the whole like I saw my house from this ride. Like they have an amusement park. Like I was told I'm the chief of sinners at cornerstone. And all I got was this lousy shirt. Right? But you are. And you know why you're the chief of sinners. Because you know exactly how you have sinned against God. No one else does. But you know. That's why plank speck, right? That's why other people sin doesn't mean it's not there. But man compared to what you know, you've done. It seems so small. Because you are so focused on killing the sin in your own life. We vastly underestimate how much God accommodates our own sin. We just do. We miss it. So often, we just underestimate we think Well, yeah, other people, you know, they've got a lot man, I sinned here and there. I did this one time, but then I changed but it was different for me, I changed and we just completely miss how much God has accommodated us. We just miss it. Or can we just say our memories are terrible? They just are men. We paint these rosy pictures.
And it's just not that way. nakum Gladwell, he's a social scientist and an author, and speaker. He was talking about he interviewed people about 911. We just had the 20th anniversary he had he interviewed people about 911, just to test memory because he had had his own experience about man, it was such a vivid day, everyone remembers where they were in all different stuff. And he and a couple of his friends were all living in the same apartment building on 911. They lived in New York at the time they put out they had, you know, taking this little questionnaire because he wanted to see how well do we actually remember saying what they thought they were doing that day. All three of them had different narratives. But they had all interacted with each other that day. But they all place it at different times at different places. One lady said like no, I remember I was doing the laundry. And then and that's whenever we saw the second plane hit and knock. I was like, No, we were together standing outside when we saw the second plane hit, like, our memory is just so untrustworthy. And so when we look at other people in the scene in their lives, and we just forget man, God accommodates a lot for us to God forgave a lot for us, too. And so maybe we should pump the brakes before we become too self-righteous. Because our staff doesn't mistake.
Our stuff isn't well we struggle with that. Our stuff isn't well I had a misstep here and there it is sin. It's sin and it's the worst kind of sin. It's yours. Do you know that the worst sin in the world is your own? That's the worst kind of sin? Mine. Mine. How different would our world be? If just people who claim the name of Jesus truly, truly saw and didn't mean it in a humble brag kind of way, but truly looked at themselves every single day and said, You know what? Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And I am the chief. God breaks my heart. Oh, My son, and change me, How different would our world look? If we were so concerned with ourselves that we saw our own sin as a log and other people as a speck, our world would change overnight. And you know how our world would change? one gigantic word, kindness, kindness, suddenly kindness would be ushered back into the planet and the world honestly wouldn't know what to do with itself. If just people who claim Jesus would say, you know what, Jesus came to save sinners, and I am the worst. I want to start by saying that if you do too, Let's bow our heads and let's pray together.
All right, Father, God, thank you for being your God who came into the world to save sinners. And I am the worst. Because God I know every single way I have failed you I know every single way I've gone against your command. I know every single time I have not loved the people around me with the same love that you've shown me. And God, I repent of that today. Help me Help everyone in here today, everyone watching online for us to remember, every single day that we make wake up, that our sin is the worst sin that we know about because it's ours, and that we need to deal with it. We need to deal with it. God help us to get off the self-righteous high horse for us to stop this comparison game because we know that it leads to nowhere but legalism, but judgmentalism. But harshness and hatred for people who aren't us. God, we forgive the ways that we've done that we ask for your help, to help have the Holy Spirit not just today, but every day going forward. God thank you for being so good for setting such an incredible example through your Son Jesus. Help us to live up to that example this day and every day. We love you, Father, we pray all of this in your name. Amen.
