Laundry Day

Well, this morning it's back to Matthew 7 as we begin verses 3 through 5, and I want to briefly recap what we've laid down as we began chapter 7 with two messages focused clearly on the difference between judgment and judgmentalism, and that was what we established, and really in some ways we're moving forward between verses 1 and 12 as a unit, and really verses 1 through 5 are largely how we deal with one another inside our relationships within the church, within the family of God, and then we'll look at how we relate to those outside of the church, those who are not believers, and then we'll look to prayer and how we relate to our

Father in heaven above, how we ask and seek and knock, and that comes full circle with verse 12 as we're reminded of the golden rule, that we are to treat others in the way that we would be treated, and we're to do this in such a way that we fulfill the law of God, to love one's neighbor is the fulfillment of God's law.

And so, here we are in Matthew 7, and as I said, this difference between judgment and judgmentalism is the framework for what we're looking at this morning.

In verses 1 and 2, Jesus says, judge not, so that you will not be judged. For with the judgment you judge, you will be judged, and the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

As we said, these are passes, what are called divine passes. It's essentially saying, for with what judgment you judge,

God will judge you. With the measure you use, God will measure it back to you. And so we've seen that God's judgment, the prospect of standing before the judgment seat of Christ, is meant to have a sobering effect on the lives of God's people.

How I regard my brothers and sisters in the faith, how I think of them, how I act toward them, how

I regard them, not just with my mouth, but even in my heart and the secret thoughts of my mind and conscience, these things are open before the judgment seat of Christ.

And whatever judgments I have, whether spoken or just formed in my own thinking, that is something that will have to be reckoned with.

Whatever measure I use in my regard of them is what will be measured back to me. Whatever judgment

I bring out toward them will be the judgment that is brought out toward me. And so we saw from James 2, two weeks ago, in verse 8, if you really fulfill the royal law, according to Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well.

James on the one hand is saying, are we doing well? This is not an easy thing if you understand it fully.

It's not an easy thing to do the golden rule of verse 12. It's not an easy thing to love your neighbor in the same way that you love yourself.

And so James says, if you really fulfill the law, and he's essentially asking, are you really aware of what it means to love your neighbor?

Do you really love them? Do you really love them? That's what James is doing in chapter 2.

And he says in verse 13, judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy.

And in this way, in the Christian life, mercy is meant to triumph over judgment. Our mercy, especially in the household of God, is meant to triumph over judgmentalism.

Judgmentalism, of course, is the enemy to mercy, the enemy to Christian unity and Christian fellowship.

Those things that occupied our attention two weeks ago. If you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law,

James says, you're a judge. But there's only one law giver. There's only one who's able both to save or to destroy.

So who are you to judge another? Just like Jesus, just like Paul, just like Peter, James is reminding us of this vertical view, this

Godward view, not just the prospect of God's judgment, but a Godward perspective that we need to look at every relationship in our life through the lens of how

God views every relationship in our life. We need a Godward perspective, a Godward way of viewing our relationships.

To think in this way is to land with Romans 14. Why do you judge your brother? Why do you show contempt for your brother?

Notice this repetition. We're going to see it in Matthew 7, 3 through 5. Your brother, your brother, your brother.

A Godward view in light of God's judgment brings out our common hope.

We're saved by God's grace. Our sins, our guilt not held against us. We're saved by God's grace.

We've been taught that mercy wins triumphs over judgment because mercy triumphed over God's judgment upon us.

The mercy of Christ's sacrifice on the cross helped us escape the wrath that we deserved.

And so we're taught by the grace of God to judge not lest we be judged, especially we have escaped the righteous judgment of God through the mercy shown to us in Christ.

In this way, we'll be ever focused on the mercy we receive because we're ever mindful of the mercy we continue to need.

Mercy that renews every morning, strength for the day, mercy I need at every hour.

I become conscious of this. I become focused on it. This matures me as a Christian to be merciful like my father in heaven is merciful.

Mercy received, mercy sought, ever greater depths of God's mercy at work in my life.

Therefore, ever greater depths of mercy in every relationship that's part of my life. So we asked the question two weeks ago, are we mature?

Are we mature? And we said one way to answer that question is are we united? Are we unified?

We looked at various passages that bring out the relationship of unity and maturity. And we established two points.

First, where there is judgmentalism, there will not be unity. A church that has a judgmental air, a harsh critical ethos will not be a unified church.

It'll be rabid. It'll be like, I went to Boston Aquarium some weeks ago for Elsie's birthday and they had a tank with red -bellied piranha.

Have you ever seen piranha go after a scrap of meat? That's a judgmental church. Where's blood in the water?

And there's a feeding frenzy. Where there's judgmentalism, there will not be unity. And where there's a lack of unity, there cannot be gospel fellowship.

Gospel fellowship is a unifying thing. The gospel unites.

The gospel heals division. The gospel reconciles. There cannot be gospel fellowship where there is a lack of unity.

And so we said, Christian maturity comes through the unity and fellowship of believers.

What does it mean to be gathered together? What does it mean to be called into this holy calling as a corporate body?

It means I'm not a lone ranger. It means I have obligations and responsibilities to whoever else

God has called to Himself. God's spirit is the one who adopts. That's not my decision.

I've never had a sit -down meeting with God and He goes, so Ross, what do you think? Should I allow so -and -so into my kingdom?

What do you think? Should I adopt so -and -so to be a blood -bought believer? He's never consulted me in this matter. He saves as He sees fit.

He adopts whoever He will adopt. It's my responsibility and obligation to love them in the way that I've been loved.

And so we're reminded of who it is who calls us, who it is that has adopted us into this household of God, who it is that unifies us by showing us mercy rather than bearing judgment against us, where our fellowship consists in the gospel.

We recognize that we've been called out into this gathering. And so we come into His gates, as we said two weeks ago, with thanksgiving.

We come into His courts with praise. That's a hard thing to do sometimes, isn't it?

Sometimes we mope into His presence. We come into His courts with groaning. And usually that has to do with our relationship horizontally.

Oh, great, I have to go be around these people for half a day. But normally that horizontal view that is so powerful has actually begun because of a relationship above that has deteriorated.

It is impossible, as we'll see toward the end with 1 John, it is impossible to have a right relationship with God and simultaneously have a wrong relationship with the people of God, with our brethren.

It cannot be. These things don't survive. They don't coexist. Christians make this explicit every time we worship.

We gather in the mercy of God. We're reminded of the fellowship and the commonality we have by His adopting grace.

We look around and we see brothers and sisters that would not be brothers and sisters if it were not for the grace that God has shown us in Christ.

And so our worship celebrates that grace. Our worship ought to highlight that mercy. How then should we relate to one another?

What takes place on a Sunday morning ought to dictate what takes place Monday through Saturday and how we think of the body and how we regard one another and how we relate, how we act, how we treat one another.

Because every time we gather, we're declaring our love for God as a response to God's love for us.

And we face the fact that we're doing that with a bunch of other sinners, just like ourselves. Undeserving sinners, recipients of the grace of God.

And God has commanded us to love one another for His sake, even as He has shown us love. And so here we are with sometimes lovely sinners, sometimes with unlovely sinners, but we're all sinners, saved by God's grace, called into fellowship.

And this brings us out of judgment and judgmentalism into verses 3 through 5. Jesus says,

Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but don't consider the plank in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye? And look, a plank is in your own eye.

Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

That's Matthew 7, 3 through 5. That's what we're going to be looking at this morning. Now, I don't know if anyone ever looks at their bulletin, but I've titled this message

Laundry Day. In the household of God, there's a number of tasks and chores that have to be done.

And I don't think I ever appreciated laundry day as much as having a family of six now and realizing that there's always mountains of laundry to do.

And essentially, you have sort of a triage effect where you just do a sniff test and go, all right, let's start with this pile of clothes.

What happens in a household where laundry isn't done is the rooms start to stink. Things pile up and sometimes it feels overwhelming and it's always hard to deal with it.

But if you don't deal with it, the stench just begins to spread. And so I'm looking at Matthew 7, 3 through 5 as Jesus' instructions for church,

Jesus' warning about what needs to take place for Christian fellowship to flourish. And I'm recognizing that for our church, this is a laundry day.

This is laundry day in the household of God. In other words, if we're not laundering in this way in Matthew 7, 3 through 5, things are going to start to smell if they don't already.

So we need to take to heart what Jesus would have the church hear and receive in Matthew 7, 3 through 5.

We need to actually do the work of going through all the garments and plunging them into the cleansing waters so that our fellowship can flourish.

Jesus wants us to be concerned about the way we see one another. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but don't consider, don't see the plank in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look, a plank is in your own eye.

Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

This whole passage is about seeing, seeing clearly, seeing rightly, seeing mercifully.

Jesus already spoke earlier in the Sermon on the Mount about the need for a good eye. He says, listen, if you have a good eye, your whole body will be full of light.

But if you have a bad eye, your whole body is full of darkness. And so this is another step forward in this metaphor.

The one thing that darkens the body of Christ is plank eye. It's people in the church of God who are ignorant to the beams they have protruding out of their face because they're so preoccupied with looking, straining for the splinters in the eyesight around them.

Jesus asks the question, why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye? But you do not consider the plank in your own eye.

Another translation, you don't notice, you can't see the plank, the beam in your own eye.

The language here, just to help us understand speck, sometimes translated splinter or chip or in the old

English, the moat. And then the plank, it's more than just a little piece of balsa wood.

This is like a architectural beam. And of course, Jesus is trying to make this ridiculous contrast between something almost microscopic and something so immense that it's almost ridiculous that you wouldn't notice it.

In fact, every time you turn your head, everyone's kind of ducking so they don't get clotheslined by it. That's the idea, the plank, the beam versus the splinter.

Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye? But don't consider the plank in your own eye.

Let's just start with that question. The Bible asks great questions. As we heard from Jonah 4 last week, the whole ending of Jonah ends as an open question.

Is it right for you to be angry? Why are you angry? It's meant to be a disarming question.

Why are you angry? Is it right for you to be angry? The point there being, if you understand

God's mercy rightly, it's almost scandalous. Not that kind of mercy,

Lord. Not mercy in that way, Lord. Not mercy now. Not in this way, Lord. Mercy is a scandalous thing.

Mercy is a shocking thing. You see the speck.

There's the question we have in Matthew 7. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye?

Why is it that someone would notice the speck in his brother's eye?

Well, a speck is something so small. I mean, it really is something only noticed by one of two people.

I would venture to say the only person that would notice a speck in someone's eye is either their lover or their enemy.

Because those are the only two types of people that look intently enough to notice those kinds of things. They're so small.

Someone passing by, someone on the opposite side of the room, someone in the remote corner of the workplace isn't gonna notice an eyelash in the cornea.

But someone who is constantly face -to -face, someone who has a vested interest in noticing and being attentive to someone is going to notice that speck.

It's going to notice that splinter. Either a lover or an enemy. I think that's very helpful for us to understand that it's not wrong, as we'll see in verse five,

Jesus actually wants us to be in the business of removing splinters. But he wants us to do that with clear sight.

You need to see clearly if you would do that. So he wants us, in other words, to be faithful friends.

He wants us, in other words, to be lovers of others' souls so that we'll be faithful with clear sight to remove those splinters.

Have you ever had a splinter in your sight? Have you ever had an eyelash or a piece of grit or something in your sight?

It's very disturbing, isn't it? You have to kind of stop whatever you're doing until that's dealt with.

It's very hard to carry on. You try to after a few minutes, maybe you constrain and you have tears pouring down your face.

But it's incredibly hard to carry on if you have something obstructing your sight. A faithful friend, a lover of your soul is going to be concerned about that.

They're going to help you address it. The only other person that is vested in your speck is an enemy.

If you go to the border of North Korea and South Korea at that parallel division, that no man's land that has been erected between these two warring nations, you will find rows and rows of soldiers with all sorts of drills and readiness at command.

And you will find they all have rifles inside arms, grenades, tanks, rocket launchers, everything they would need to launch into a full assault.

But do you want to know the most utilized military equipment at that border? Binoculars, binoculars.

They are staring down every square foot of that no man's land.

That's what happens when relationships are fraught. That's what happens when there's a deterioration and the love covering is removed.

And now there's a offense, a grievance, a complaint. The binoculars come out.

The magnifying glass gets turned on. Jesus asked the question, why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye?

Just pause there and try to answer that question. It's a good question. Why do you even notice it?

Why do you notice it? Why do you notice that splinter in your brother's eye? What caused you to notice it?

Compassion, concern, care? What caused you to notice it? The man with binoculars is prone to invent splinters that don't even exist.

I think I saw something. I think I noticed something. I don't know if that's a shadow or a splinter.

It's probably a splinter. There's a difference between noticing a splinter and trying to create a splinter.

Something you wish was there because it would vindicate you or show yourself to be in the right. You see, again,

Jesus is asking these disarming questions. Why do you even notice a splinter? Why do you even notice it in the first place? What causes you to have eyes in this place in this way?

Do other people notice this? Do other people see these things? The person with binoculars will see a lot of things that no one else sees.

You see, this is part of, again, asking the question, why do you notice the speck?

Is it because of a certain hypercritical, prejudiced, or merciless judgmentalism?

Well, that's what Jesus has just warned us against in verses one and two. Why do you notice the splinter? Well, let's be honest.

As John Calvin says, there's hardly any person who is not tickled with the desire of inquiring into other people's faults.

Why do we notice splinters? Because we love to exaggerate the faults of others and minimize our own faults.

That's why we notice splinters. That's why we ignore the beams and focus on the splinters, the failures, even the sins of others.

We love to flatter ourselves and minimize our brethren. We love to exaggerate their faults and pay little attention to our own.

Think of how we charge others while we excuse ourselves. It's something that is almost magical in its transformative prowess.

You have sinful anger. I have righteous anger. You're a hothead.

I'm just bold. You have a critical eye. Unlike me,

I'm just honest and blunt. You gossip. I just share prayer requests.

You're bitter. I'm just concerned. You're overbearing, but I'm just zealous.

You're slothful. I'm restful. Do you see, we play these little games where we slightly flatter and excuse ourselves and condemn those around us.

Why do we do that? Why do we notice these splinters? Being critical of others is a very cheap way of gaining moral superiority.

I can feel better about myself wherever I'm at if I can think little of others around me.

It's a very cheap and easy way to improve your self -esteem. It's an easy way to claim the high ground morally.

We criticize others, maybe, in order to bring them down to our own perceived level. We wanna knock them down, or worse, we wanna tear them down.

Why? We wanna show to ourselves, if no one else, that they really are beneath us. They really are beneath us.

Now, what does this reveal? On the one hand, it reveals a certain backward envy, that we can't appreciate them or be grateful for them, but we either have to bring them down to our level because of our perceived envy, or even put them beneath us for a sense of spiritual superiority.

So on the one hand, envy, a sort of backhanded envy. On the other hand, spiritual pride.

Spiritual pride. If you ask me, what is the beam in Matthew 7 .3,

my answer would be the beam is spiritual pride, or another synonym, self -righteousness.

That's the beam, self -righteousness. And so we stare down the splinters of our brothers and sisters as we ignore the beam in our own eye.

Now, what comes out of this? What's the effect of this? Staring down the splinters of others tends toward cynicism.

Someone who is keen to notice the defects and failures of others generally will have a cynical spirit.

We come to believe and even expect the worst things about our brothers and sisters. That's a spirit of cynicism.

I'm looking for splinters, I'm expecting to find splinters, and there's almost a satisfaction when they appear.

I notice them and I expect to see them, and so I'm very cynical. I can't find anything praiseworthy to meditate upon.

I can't find any note to be thankful for. I can't appreciate my brother and sister for any of their gifts and graces.

I can't appreciate them just for being my brother and sister, and so I'm very cynical toward them. Listen, nothing will more quickly drain your joy as a

Christian, nor the joy of a Christian body than a sort of cool and detached cynicism. And cynicism, in my mind, is the creature of this kind of pride and tearing down others.

Ray Pritchard very wisely likens this to being a spiritual vulture. He says, like the vultures of the air that live off of rotting flesh, there are some who thrive on the sins and failures of others.

They fly across the landscape of the church, keeping a close watch for the failures of others, a spiritual vulture, feeding on the rotting things of other believers.

The problem is, in a church, these creatures will rarely be solitary. Fault -finding, splinter -seeking, is almost always a group activity.

It might begin with a solitary observation, but it never ends that way. It's always able to spread.

If you notice, one vulture might spot the carcass, but that's not the only vulture that eats. All the vultures will gather around to pick and pull apart the carcass.

There is, then, a fellowship of fault -finding that exists. I mentioned the danger of cynicism.

The one who expects failure and cannot show charity, often that cynic will enjoy his view or her view being demonstrated before others.

See? I told you. I told you. There's almost a gloating, almost a joy in viewing others and causing others to view others in a certain way.

If we're being honest, we all tend to align ourselves on a certain scale.

We tend to be able to come into a room, and it doesn't take very long to build relationships, and you get a sense of, where are these people in relation to me?

Rightly or wrongly, we think of some people above us. Rightly or wrongly, we think of some people beneath us. And if you're being honest, sometimes you'll fixate on the people you think that are beneath you because it's a comfort to you.

Well, God's not gonna do anything with me until he deals with them. They need it far more than I need it.

God needs to deal with them. If he deals with them, maybe then I'll have things to grow in, but not until they grow, not until they deal with things.

And even the people that I can view above me, there might be an envy or a pride that causes me to tear them down and put them beneath me for that same reason.

I want to escape my own sense of inferiority. I want to revel in my own sense of envy.

I want to nurture my own spiritual pride. So why do you notice the splinter?

I mean, that's the question. Why do you notice it? It's a question to an individual.

Why do you notice it? Well, let me ask it in this way. Do you notice it and then go to others because you want them to notice it too?

That doesn't exist in verses three through five. You notice it and you examine yourself so that you can deal with it clearly.

Nowhere in verses three, four or five is there a step where you go to others so they can all see it too.

And then some poor brother or sister is in the corner of a room and there's 40 people coming at their eye.

We need to be very weary of, in other words, we need to be very weary of telling others about the splinters that we see if our heart is not actually to help our brother or our sister who is struggling with that splinter, whether they realize it or not.

Imagine going to an eye doctor's appointment. Maybe you have some injury to your eye.

You go to the eye doctor's appointment and the doctor goes and he looks intently and he takes some notes. He looks it under magnification and he goes,

I can't believe it. I can't believe it. And then he calls the staff to come in. A few nurse aides come in and they all point.

It's unbelievable. Wow, how's he getting on with that? That's just, it's hideous.

It's honestly hideous. And then they all kind of go off talking about it and they close the door.

And then a nurse aide comes back and says, you're free to leave. I have a splinter in my eye and the whole point was just for people to notice it and talk about it.

Right, you're going to the eye doctor so that gets dealt with. So Jesus asked the question, how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look, a plank is in your own eye.

Jesus is showing us a difference between a peacemaker in that Matthew 5 sense and a warmonger in that James 2 sense.

Most of the difference between a peacemaker and a warmonger relies on this, seeing clearly, seeing clearly.

Most of the difference between those who sow peace, those who are peacemakers and those who are warmongers, those who stir up strife, relies on seeing clearly.

Are you able to see things clearly? Jesus says, you will not be able to touch any splinter if you're not seeing clearly.

If you've got a beam in your own eye, you're the last person that could possibly get near that splinter.

You're not able to deal with that rightly. So it means you don't play

Orwellian games with your thoughts or with your motives or with your intentions. If in the

James sense, you're setting the forest ablaze with a fiery tongue, you don't come and say, these are mostly peaceful riots, nothing to see here.

Nothing's on fire, everything's fine. And notice in verses three through five,

Jesus does something. He gives a perfect parody between yourself and your brother.

Three times, he says, your own. Three times, he says, your brother. Three times, he says, you've got something in your eye.

Three times, he says, your brother has something in his eye. The difference is planks and splinters.

The problem is this. I think I'm the one with the splinter and everyone else has planks.

Jesus flips that on its head. You're the one with the plank, everyone else has splinters. You see what he's doing there, don't you?

He's trying to train us to have a certain gravity in his mercy. When Paul says, if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged, that's essentially a variation on what

Jesus is getting at. If you would rightly understand that your splinters are always planks and what you call planks are almost always splinters, you will probably see clearly enough to deal with that.

There's a perfect parallel between yourself and your brother. When we have our metrics of ranking,

Jesus flattens it all out. When we say, in that Luke 18 sense,

I'm so glad I'm not like this one, Jesus says, you're right, you're nothing like them. You're far worse. You're looking at their splinter and you're grieving.

You've got a plank in your own eye and you can't even see it, that's worse. J .R.

Miller, the great preacher of the 19th century, he draws out this insight, this is such a good insight.

And as I'm now a father, I can see with each child more and more the truth of what

J .R. Miller is getting at. Listen to this. The man with the beam is the very one who sees the speck and thinks himself competent to pull it out.

I'm the man for the job, I can see it, I'll deal with it. So it is in all things moral.

No man is so sharp at seeing a fault in another as he who has that same fault. If you're a parent, you can amen that.

The things that annoy you about your children are the qualities that you gave to them. The things they learned from you. The thing that you react to, the thing that you notice is actually in part condemning yourself.

It's a thing that irritates you, it's a thing you hate about yourself, though you often don't even see it. No man is so sharp at seeing a fault in another as the one who has the same or a similar fault of his own.

A vain man is the first to detect vanity in another. A bad -tempered person is the most apt to be short toward a neighbor with bad temper.

One with an uncontrolled tongue has the least patience for someone whose speech is sharp. A selfish man always finds specks of selfishness in others.

Rude people are the first to be offended by the rudeness of others. So it is always.

If we're quick to perceive blemishes and faults in others, the probability is we have these same faults and blemishes in ourselves.

This truth, Miller says, ought to make us very careful about what we notice and how we respond to it.

For when we're critical of the faults we see in others, we actually expose to the world our own faults.

That's very, very insightful. Again, I ask the question of verse three.

Why do you notice that splinter? Why do you see it?

Why do you notice it? Verse five, hypocrite,

Jesus says. Isn't Jesus essentially agreeing with J .R. Miller's point?

You're noticing the very thing that you do. You're a hypocrite. You're condemning or judging in another the very thing that would condemn and judge yourself.

Hypocrite, Jesus says. There again, we're reminded from verses one and two, the frame here is

God's judgment. Jesus is telling it like it is. Jesus is passing judgment.

Hypocrite. A fault finder's a hypocrite. A spiritual vulture is a hypocrite.

We spend all of Matthew six being warned, don't be like the hypocrites. Hypocrite, Jesus says.

First, remove the plank from your own eye. Only then will you be able to see clearly and remove the speck from your brother.

So again, notice Jesus wants the splinter to be removed. Jesus actually wants his people to be sincere.

He doesn't want us to be so distant that we don't notice splinters. He wants us to have the kind of relationships that in sincerity we can go and help our brother or sister.

Not in hypocrisy, not with self -promotion, not for self -indication, but to actually remove the thing that is hurting or harming our brother or sister, whether they realize it or not.

So the desire to remove the splinter is born out of a desire for healing. Anything less than that, to use

James' language, anything less than that is from the evil one. It's not a desire for healing.

It's an attempt to gouge out the eye and vindicate yourself. Maybe it's to flatter your own ego.

Maybe it's to fuel your spiritual pride. Whatever it is, it's more about you than it is about them. Jesus says you need to see clearly and if you're seeing clearly in sincerity, you will know what to do with your brother or your sister.

The point is this, specks must be removed. Jesus does not say everyone keep to himself and just keep having splinters in the eyes and it'll all work out fine.

Splinters need to be removed, but we need to see clearly in order to do that. That's the point.

Now, splinters need to be removed. What's going to happen? It's going to be very awkward, very uncomfortable, downright painful.

Isn't that true? I was a young man, we used to every summer go out to Nova Scotia.

I remember one year, I think it was for some national holiday, I forget exactly what it was, but the equivalent of the

Boy Scouts in Canada was putting together some parade float and somehow my parents recruited me to go be an assistant and so I got there, all my cousins were involved in it and so I got there and someone was using a chainsaw to cut up logs into chunks for the float and I was maybe eight feet away from this action.

The chainsaw was spraying wood shavings everywhere and all of a sudden like a bullet, something went into my head and I was disoriented.

When I came to, I had the splinter lodged in my sight and of course for the next three hours,

I was just in agony and in fact, it took about three days and I remember getting back to the

RV, we were staying in my grandparents' RV and I can vividly remember sitting in the stairwell, tears and blood streaming down my face, staring through the porthole and being enraged with my parents.

I didn't wanna go and do this. Now look at what's happened. I couldn't believe it and for three days, it's all

I could think about. For three days, it's all I could fixate. I couldn't think about anything other than my eye and the splinter in my eye and finally, realizing this might need some extra care, we took like a two -hour ride toward I think

Halifax to find an optometrist and by then, with the air on the highway, whatever had been lodged in my eye came out and we were able to turn around on the highway and that was the end of that.

Well, I can tell you it was awkward, it was uncomfortable, it was painful. The eye is one of the most sensitive parts of the human body, isn't it?

No wonder Jesus points to this in terms of Christian fellowship. A splinter in the eye is an awful thing.

Dealing with a splinter in the eye is even worse. It's like a child when they get a wound or an injury and you come near it, what do they, get away from me.

Another childhood story. I had a little toy that closed in on the web of my hand and I couldn't, it was a little 1950s vintage toy and it had this closing mechanism and it clasped onto the web between my thumb and my pointer and I could not for the life of me get it off.

It hurt so bad. It was like a lobster claw from hell and blood was trickling down my forearm and I was turning white as a ghost.

So I go to my dad and he's, what's going on? He takes my hand over to the sink without speaking words, right, just all action and he's putting my hand in the faucet with one hand and the other hand, he pulls out his pocket knife.

No words. In my mind, for some reason, I wasn't thinking rationally he's gonna use the knife to wedge and try to break open this toy.

I thought he's just gonna cut the webbing out between my thumb and my finger. And so he, again, we're men, no words spoken.

He's dragging my arm with a knife and I'm pulling away and he's like, come on, Ross. I'm like, no, dad.

It's like, what are you, you're gonna make it worse? You're gonna, I'll deal, I'll live with this, please.

Just don't amputate me. That's what it's like when you're dealing with splinters, isn't it?

Don't come near me, get away from me. You're gonna make it worse. It's too painful, don't touch it, get away.

No wonder Jesus uses this imagery, this metaphor. An eye is so delicate, so sensitive.

You know what's more delicate? You know what's more sensitive? Someone's soul, their undying soul.

Far more delicate, far more sensitive, infinitely more valuable.

So how much care, how much reassurance, how much comfort, how much wise persistence is required in removing a splinter spiritually?

So let me ask from the other side of this equation, not for the North Korean guard with big binoculars, but for the person who has the splinter in their eye.

Are you approachable? Are you approachable when, so to speak, your hand is under the faucet and the knife is coming out?

Are you trying to run for the hills? You have to be reminded that however painful, awkward, intrusive, uncomfortable it is, the alternative is losing your eye, or at least never being able to see clearly again.

That splinter has got to go. But the person you will kick and reject and refuse to hear may be the person that's actually trying to deal with that splinter.

And maybe you don't fully trust them. Maybe in your mind, they're not seeing as clearly as they could.

Maybe you're noticing a little bit of beam in their eye as well, but can't you regard them as part of your own physician's hands, your physician in heaven, part of his dealing with what's in your eye?

There's something for everyone. No one has their eyes untouched. In this language of Matthew 7, every member of the church of God either has a beam or a splinter.

We've all got something in our eye, right? So you need to ask yourself, am

I approachable? When a brother or sister comes near to me, and I understand it's because there's something that they're seeing in my life, something they're seeing in me spiritually that they are concerned about, that they wanna deal with, do

I hiss like some possum when the trash lid goes off? Do I try to scare them away?

Or do I swallow my pride, go, I don't even know if I fully agree, whatever, but I'm gonna take it as from the

Lord at the very least. And I'm gonna pray, Lord, give me a heart to receive what you would have me receive, even from them.

Examine me and show me if there's any waywardness within me. In other words, the humility that you would want to imagine a person approaching you is the humility you need to be exhibiting toward them.

Why? Because the measure you use will be measured back to you.

Do you wanna be shown mercy? Then you need to be merciful. Do you wanna be treated with humility?

Then you need to treat with humility. It's the golden rule where we're getting in Matthew 7 .12. So that means that when a brother or sister is getting closer and we can understand, even if it's through the game of telephone, even if it's a little bit garbled, even there's a few pockets of flesh in that, if they're getting closer for the sake of healing,

I should not regard them like some video game character getting closer to do a sweep kick. I should regard them as one who's getting closer to actually help me, even if that help is awkward, uncomfortable, and downright painful.

Some splinters, of course, are harder to deal with than others. An eyelash is easy.

You can just blow it out or splash some water in it. Something lodged, that's very hard to deal with, isn't it?

And some things are lodged and they're lodged for such a long time that they're that much harder to deal with. It's a reminder, and of course, one of the things that Laundry Day requires in the church of God is that you keep a short account.

You don't let things get buried. You don't let them fester. You keep a short account.

Everyone should have a Rolodex container with only one card in it. The whole thing's empty. You shouldn't have a mental file where you can pick through the past 13 years you've known someone.

No, you keep a short account. Listen, the best thing you can do is take that, however it looks, and dump it out.

Dump it out. What are you doing when you do that? You're removing a ton of footholds that Satan has in your life, a ton of them.

So you keep a short account. Because if something gets in that person's eye, if something gets lodged in your own eye, and it gets lost, it gets buried, it gets forgotten, it's not going away, it just gets harder to deal with.

You keep a short account. It's better to have 1 ,000 paper cuts, brothers and sisters, than some sort of prison shanking 10 years down the road.

You keep short accounts. I was watching this documentary of farmers in France around the battlefield of Verdun from World War I, and the documentary was following a group that's tasked by the

French government to deal with unexploded munitions from the battles of World War I.

Because every year, thousands of warheads, thousands of bomb canisters, grenades, artillery shells, are plowed up by French farmers.

Even 110 years later, occasionally a French farmer will be killed while he's plowing his fields.

So even after the warfare is over, a century later, there's still things that can explode.

Do you see what I'm saying? You keep a short account and you deal with things as they come.

This means that we trust even harmful fingers of a faithfully wounding friend.

Listen, you ought to know who your friends are. Remember I said there's a difference between fellowship and friendship, right?

Fellowship is an obligation you have to everyone that's a Christian. If they're your brother and sister, you have gospel fellowship with them.

That's an obligation, that's a responsibility. You don't necessarily have friendship with all of them. You might want it, not yet, you don't have it.

You don't have friendship yet, but you do have fellowship. Within that fellowship, you have friends, and you want to know in those friends who are the ones that are willing to come toward your eye.

Those are the kind of friends you want. Every Christian ought to know the friends that will faithfully wound them.

Let me ask the question, do you have friends that will faithfully wound you? If they were interviewed, would they say,

I know, even if it's uncomfortable and awkward, I know that they'll allow me to come after that splinter, to go for that speck?

I know that they understand I love them. Or do they have to deal with the no man's land of the battlefield?

Nope, I won't hear it, you can't say it, the conversation stops here. Get away from my eye, get away from that splinter.

How dare you? There ought to be no

Greta Thunbergs in the church of God. This means that you trust even the harmful fingers of a friend that's willing to do the hard work of faithfully wounding you.

Don't run from that, thank God for that. You may do it through tears. No optometrist appointment ends with sunshine and cotton candy,

I'm sure our brother Marty can attest. You're leaving sore, you're leaving in discomfort.

You've been poked and prodded and weird colors have been dropped in your eyes, lasers and mirrors. So that means that on the one hand, we need to be those who can be approached, be approachable.

On the other hand, we need to be faithfully wounding friends. We might not have that relationship with everyone, we need to have that relationship with someone.

What kind of hands will remove the splinter? Well, Jesus is saying very clearly if we keep verses one and two with verses three through five, not hypocritical hands, those hands can't remove splinters, not self -righteous hands, not sanctimonious hands, not hands that flatter themselves, not hands that feel that they're more righteous because they've noticed a splinter that they can, those aren't the hands that actually remove splinters, those are the hands that can't even find the splinter because they've got the beam through their forehead.

The hands that actually remove splinters are humble hands, gracious hands,

God -fearing hands, sin -hating hands, grace -loving hands, mercy -prizing hands.

And why is that true? Because think of it, brothers and sisters, the hands that faithfully remove our splinters are those gracious, patient, humble, merciful, meek, lowly, gentle, nail -pierced hands of our

Savior. Haven't we learned from Him not to shrink away when we see that nail -pierced hand come toward our eye?

There's nothing to respond, it's just, we humble ourselves in dust and ashes, Lord, you know, and you do all things well.

We feel that we have something that we can respond to, to anyone else, who are you to come, oh, this is rich, a pot calling a kettle black, who are you to come anywhere near me, are you kidding me, on what planet are you living?

We automatically have this one -upmanship toward one another, but when that nail -pierced hand leans down out of heaven to come toward our eye, is there any response on God's people?

No, we just hang our head low and we say, Lord, forgive me. So maybe it's hard to see a brother or sister come near your splinter, but you have to see the hand of your

Savior behind it. He is the physician of your soul. The danger in the church of God is that we can all be toward each other, not faithfully wounding friends, not those who have examined ourselves in a way that we recognize real mercy and are brought so low in humble repentance that now we have a desire for our brothers and sisters to find that same mercy, to be led to that same repentance, and so we're approaching their eyes.

We're compelled to, we have to do it, out of love for Christ, out of love for their souls.

But the danger is we don't do that, and the church is just full of a bunch of blind eye doctors. You wouldn't feel very confident if you were sitting in the eye exam room, and Dr.

Magoo comes in, and he hits the door on the way in, and he's feeling around the desk for his clipboard, and then he talks, you're over here, and he's talking to you, and he's like, so what's your problem?

You'd be going, whoa, you're not the eye doctor for me. But we can be like that with each other if we're not seeing clearly.

If we would see clearly, we must first remove the beam that we can almost never see from our sight, the spiritual pride, that self -righteousness.

Have you ever tried to scoop water out of a bowl with a fork? That's what getting rid of spiritual pride is like in your life.

Spiritual pride wells up so quickly, and it blinds us, and because we're blinded, we cannot see others rightly.

We certainly can't deal with their splinters rightly. However grievous the other person's offense may be, if we would be optometrists for the

Lord God, we must remove the beams of self -righteousness and pride. You recognize it's sovereign grace that allows you to see as God sees, to see yourself as God sees you is a

God -given thing. As something so wretched that you deserve everlasting hell, and something so beloved that the peerless son of God would expend his blood for your soul, that is a heaven -wrought discovery.

There's nothing good that dwells in me, Paul says, and he loved me and gave himself for me.

So if I have that view of myself, how am I gonna view other people around me? When sovereign grace allows me to see myself rightly, see myself as God sees me, for the first time

I can begin to view others rightly. My brothers, my sisters, adopted by the rich and free grace of God, gouge an eye

I cover in love, put in a chokehold, pay me what you owe,

I give what I have. This whole mindset means

I'm able to be gentle because the Lord has made me gentle, he's brought me low, he's given me a spirit of gentleness.

Now I can fulfill Galatians 6 .1. So who's gonna receive mercy? Who's gonna receive mercy?

I know a sermon like this, when whenever we're doing laundry in the church of God, the big question is, well, who's gonna do the laundry?

Don't talk to me, those aren't my clothes, that's not my pile, it's not my turn. Who's gonna do the laundry? It's like saying, who's gonna show the mercy?

It's like that Spider -Man meme, you, no you, no you. Who's gonna show the mercy?

The one who's received the mercy. The one who recognizes what they receive from God will be the one who shows what they've received from God.

And that person will be the person that repents, because it's impossible to receive mercy without repentance.

God doesn't wink at sin, do you think he winks at sin? He crucified his son for sin, he doesn't wink at sin.

But he's so full of grace and mercy that even an hesitated half turns toward repentance, he's running like the prodigal's father, he's running.

The one who repents is the one who receives mercy, the one who receives mercy is the one who shows mercy.

This repentance is not a hollow repentance, it's not a threadbare repentance, it's the real

McCoy. It's not the repentance of, well, if no one else is gonna repent,

I'm so righteous, I guess I'll repent, hmm, look at me, the righteous repenter, it's not that kind of repentance. It's a repentance that begins in the soul.

It's the repentance of Psalm 51 that blacks out every other person in the realm. It's just between you and God.

Against you only, Lord, have I sinned. Lord, it's not that I haven't noticed the beam,

I've pretended my eyes are perfectly clear. Forgive me, forgive me,

Lord. I don't see things clearly, I don't see myself as you see me, I certainly don't see others as you see them.

With real repentance comes real mercy, with real repentance comes the real fruit of repentance, and the fruit of repentance will be fervent love, fervent love, not hypocritical love, not self -righteous love, not self -serving love, but just fervent,

Christ -honoring, other -preferring love, love without hypocrisy, as Romans 12 says, the harmonious love that we spoke about two weeks ago, lives of love that adorn the gospel.

That's the kind of love that comes out of this kind of repentance. It's a love that bears with one another.

It's a love that forgives one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, it's a kind of love that forgives, even as Christ forgave.

It's an above -all love, above everything else, there's this love. It's a love which is a bond of perfection.

It's a love that doesn't just allow, it invites the peace of God to rule in one's heart.

I mean, that was what we memorized at Monadnock back in May, wasn't it? Colossians 3. To what end, if we're not doing the laundry, brothers and sisters, if we're not taking

Matthew 7, 1 through 5 to heart, to what end did we memorize that? To what end does

Colossians 3 even exist? Listen, when

Paul was writing to the Colossians, as he had to write to every church, there was offenses, there were grievances, there were complaints, there were wounds, there were sins, there were failures, some half -acknowledged, some not acknowledged at all, some things didn't even exist.

There was harm, there was slander, there were grievances, there's all those things, and all the churches have gone. But you know what?

There was no other church in Colossians. There was no other church in Corinth. There was no other church in Philippi.

Traditions emerge, theology emerges, and different congregations form out of those things. That's all fine and well.

We all came from different places, but listen, if you were a Christian reading this letter at Colossae, your only choice was to do what it said.

You actually had to repent and do it. It's either that or you leave the church entirely. There's no other option.

You either bear with and forgive, as Christ forgave, and above everything, put on love, and grow in the peace of God that's to rule the body in this bond of perfection.

If you can't do that, you can't be the church. So we need a

Godward view. We need God's help. We need real mercy borne by real repentance. We need to do the laundry at Grace Reformation Bible Church.

And let me give you a little pointer and maybe an encouragement as we close. You can only ever find splinters if all you do is look around you.

We've got people that are relatively new here. Maybe they haven't gotten to know the body. So they haven't noticed as much.

The binoculars haven't come out. Let me take away the surprise. Like every other true and pure church under heaven, we're a group of sinners saved by grace.

And if you stick around long enough and look around close enough, you'll find plenty of splinters to spare in all of us. That's just the

God honest truth. But if all we ever do is look around, all we'll ever find is splinters.

The only way you can see a plank is when you look up. If all you ever do is look around, you'll only find splinters.

The only way you see the beam is when you look up, when you look to God, when you let

God's judgment, God's mercy frame the way you see yourself and see everyone else around you.

When you look up, you'll find the beam and that will help you not only cover, but even deal with the splinters that you see all around you.

Let me close with this. I wanna exegete for us a hymn. I wanna exegete for us a great hymn.

We sing it every time we rehearse our church covenant together. Blessed be the tie that binds.

It's a beautiful hymn. The pastor that wrote it had been a little country church pastor, faithful for a decade or more.

And his ministry was so celebrated that he got called to a church in the big city in London.

And so after a season of prayer, him and his wife, his household, they packed up everything onto the cart and he composed this hymn and they sang it.

And at the last church service at that little country church, he and his wife were so moved by the words that they unpacked the wagon and said, we're not leaving, we're not going to London.

Are you kidding me? Let me exegete for you this blessed tie that binds the hearts of Christians in love.

And I want you to notice something. There's six stanzas. The first three are primarily occupied with what exists toward God.

This Christian love that's like above the Father's throne, it's largely as we are together looking up to God.

And then there's a switch. If this is all the present things now, where we are and what we're like now and looking up to God, the last three stanzas are all about the future hope, where we're going, what it will be like on that day.

I want you to pay attention to that shift. Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.

The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above. Before our

Father's throne, we pour our ardent prayers. Notice again, the whole church collectively coming together before the seat of God.

And what's taking place there? We're all as one pouring out our prayers. Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one.

Our comforts and our cares. Notice what's being united in this church fellowship. Cares, in other words, worldly needs, worldly troubles.

Comforts, where there's trial, where there's discouragement, where there's difficulty. Aims, hopes, fears.

All of these things are held together before the throne of God above. And what does that look like?

We share our mutual woes. Our mutual burdens bear. And often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.

See, it's all mutual, all mutual. Before the judgment seat of God, before the throne of our merciful

King, it's all mutual. And now look, there's a shift to the future. When we are called to part, it gives us inward pain.

But we shall still be joined in heart and hope to meet again. We don't reflect on that line very deeply, do we?

We're all dying. We all will part. Is that gonna cause us inward pain?

Because of the mutual woes, the fears, the aims, the hopes that we've all shared together in our walk? Are we gonna mutter as we flip over the obituary, that old prune died, good riddance.

When we're called to part, it gives us inward pain. There's a real loss there. But we shall still be joined in heart and hope to meet again.

They're gone from us, not gone entirely. We'll be together again. This glorious hope revives our courage, by the way.

We've got something that we're going together for. While each one in expectation lives and waits to see that day.

So again, the heavenly prospect, that future glory is what's driving the aim, the hope, the comfort, the sharing of woes and cares and needs and fears.

Each one in expectation waits to see the day. And listen, what will that day look like? From sorrow, toil and pain and sin, we shall be free.

No more sorrow, from broken discouragements, from failures, from sins and grievances around us, within us, toward us, against us.

From sorrow, from toil, from pain, from sin, we'll be free. And what will that look like?

What will be in its place? Perfect love and friendship reign throughout eternity.

At this place, corporately, just like Colossae, just like Philippi, Corinth, Galatia, you name it, there will be sorrow, toil, pain and sin.

A lot of that's within us. A lot of this is outside all around us. And some of that's even among us.

There's sorrow and there's toil and there's pain and sin, brother and sister against brother and sister.

But the glorious hope that revives us, the day that we live in expectation toward, will be a day where perfect love and friendship reign throughout eternity.

Are you struggling to relate to someone? Are you struggling to view someone in a charitable light?

Are you struggling in a friendship with someone or even fearing the thought you'd have to be friends with someone?

Do you know a day is coming for the people of God where friendship will reign in perfection forever? Where you couldn't possibly snub or snipe or step on a toe or say the wrong thing at the wrong time or not say the right thing at the needed time?

That all of those things will be behind us? What will it be like to be together in glory with perfect friendship?

The end of all things is at hand, therefore be serious, sober, watchful in your prayers and above all things, have fervent love for one another because love will cover a multitude of sins.

And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye? But you don't consider the plank in your own eye.

How can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look, a plank's in your own eye. Hypocrite.

First remove the plank from your own eye, only then will you see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace and the

God of love and peace will be with you. Brothers and sisters, let's do the laundry in the house of God, amen?

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word,

Lord. As James reminds us, Lord, we need to look very carefully and intently at what we see in the mirror of your word.

Help us even now, Lord, not to turn that mirror and deflect it to gaze at others, but help us to stare at ourselves, stare at our own reflection in light of your word.

And for all that ought not to be, for all that is hideous, all that is deformed, every blemish and fault,

Lord, may we not forget that we've seen it. But even as we approach your table now, may you bring us to true, genuine, sincere repentance that we can be comforted and encouraged by your once for all sacrifice that we partake of.

And may that sacrifice, Lord, coupled with our humility and repentance for what we've seen in your mirror, so change our will, our disposition, our perspective of one another.

Lord, we have things that need to be cleansed in this church, but we're reminded you are the one ultimately who does all the cleansing.

You wash with your own blood every spot and wrinkle in the garment of your bride. Render her glorious,

Lord. I pray for this church that we would ever inch toward the vision of the blessed tie that binds us together, that where it's difficult in this life because of our flesh, because of our pride, because of our sin against you, against one another, we wouldn't be so dissolute and discouraged as to shrink away from what you've called us to be and to do, but that the glorious hope of a love and friendship that will reign through eternity would revive us along the way.

Thank you for faithfully wounding friends. Forgive us that we don't allow them to approach as we ought.

We don't invite them or ask them or welcome them to approach as we ought. And forgive us, Lord, for not being those faithfully wounding friends when opportunities have called for it.

Help us in this way, Lord, to keep short accounts. Help us to have a love above all things and a charity in all things.