Time to Come Clean

Matt 7:1-5

I had vs 1-2 come true to life for me when I was a teenager. When our family moved to Alaska, we met a couple of brothers there that at first, we weren’t too impressed with. They seemed kind of goofy and sissy-like. The four of us actually became really good friends after a while, and I told them of my initial assessment of them. Russell and Mike started laughing. Russell said they had the exact same conclusions about my brother and I! Be careful how you judge, because you will be judged with the same measuring stick.

Most, if not all of us have been guilty of judging other inappropriately. It was no different in the days of Jesus; that’s why he addressed this issue in his sermon.

PRAYER

I. A Blaming Spirit

A. Judging motives

1. You often hear this scripture quoted by people who say we shouldn’t judge anyone else’s action.

2. Several scriptures talk about the appropriateness of judging someone’s actions.

a) 1 Jn 4:1-6

b) Matt 7:16-20

c) Jn 15:2

3. What Jesus is addressing here is judging one’s motives

a) We cannot read their hearts and so have no idea what their motives are for what they do.

b) When you start trying to imply motive to someone else, you will find plenty of others willing to do the same to you.

B. Fault finding

1. I have always been amazed at how good we are with finding fault in others and being so oblivious to our own faults.

2. In the summer of 1989, a North Carolina man accused his estranged wife of being married to two men. When the woman was arrested, she didn't deny the charge of bigamy. According to a news report, she not only admitted her guilt, but she also told authorities that she must have been crazy to get married twice without going through divorce or widowhood. That was only half the story. What surprised her, she said, was that her husband would turn her in, because he was guilty of the same crime. When the countercharges were explored, the husband admitted that he too was legally married to two women.

3. This husband was like the person Jesus described in Matthew 7. While having a "plank" in his own eye, he pointed critically to a "speck" in the eye of his wife.

4. Both had broken the law by being married to two people. His sin, however, was the greater because he was arrogant enough to think that he could get away with judging another person for the same sin that he was committing.

C. Don’t blame others

1. As you read this passage, it’s very clear that Jesus says we shouldn’t blame others for our troubles.

2. That’s not really politically correct today

a) blame is the name of the game.

b) We blame everyone for our problems.

c) society, parents, children, anyone but ourselves.

D. Blaming ourselves doesn’t solve the problem either

1. It doesn’t do any good to just blame ourselves for problems either.

2. If all we do is stop at blame, the problem never gets fixed.

3. Jesus says, take the sin out of your life.

4. Get the plank out of your own eye first.

II. A Confessing Spirit

A. A parallel passage

1. READ 1 Jn 1:6-10

2. John builds on what Jesus had to say with the idea that cleaning our lives starts with a confessing spirit.

B. A confessional spirit

1. There is a difference between a confessional spirit and simply confessing you did something wrong.

a) Saul often confessed he did wrong to David, but still tried to kill him over and over.

b) A confessional spirit admits the wrong and works to stop doing that wrong.

2. a confessional spirit is a cleaning house spirit.

3. We don’t want that sin in our lives anymore and work with God to remove it.

4. Larry Calvin gives a good example of a confessing spirit. A good friend of his hadn’t always been above board in his dealings with others before he became a Christian. Shortly after becoming a Christian, he realized he needed to make things right with those whom he hadn’t treated fairly. He started by scraping the money together to fly from Dallas to Chicago and telling his old boss that he had defrauded the company of several hundred dollars. He didn’t have the money at the time, but would make monthly payments with interest until restitution had been made.

Second, he got with his dad and told him he had taken money from the register to buy comic books when he was a teenager. Of course his dad said that was okay, but the man was determined to pay his father back as well.

Last, he went to his university and returned his diploma to the president because he had cheated on several tests to get through school.

This man showed a confessional spirit even at a great financial price.

5. That’s what Jesus and John were talking about when they said don’t play the blame game and practice a confessing spirit.

C. How about you?

1. Do you see yourself in these passages?

2. Don’t like what you see?

3. You know you can change that.

4. Make a commitment today to quit judging others and deal with your own life and relationship with God.

5. Jas 5:16 tells us to confess our sins one to another.

a) I don’t think it is talking about telling everyone every sin you have committed.

b) It’s dealing with that confessional spirit.

c) Admitting your sins to someone helps you be accountable for stopping those sins.

d) We aren’t out to embarrass each other, we are out to help each other be right with God.