Jesus regularly uses metaphors because he wants to reshape the way we think about ourselves and our lives. He is a Master Teacher, and great teachers give us memorable images that can guide and transform us by guiding and transforming our perception of God, ourselves, and the world.
Join our guest, author, theologian and seminary professor Dr. Jonathan Pennington, as he teaches us through Luke 6.
“The judging that Jesus condemns here is thinking about another person in a way that is contrary to love.”
John Wesley
“Jesus creates self-awareness leading to self-judgment; this leads to humility; which in turn leads to repentance and sanctification; this leads to the kind of humility that treats other sinners with mercy; it creates a kingdom society shaped not by condemnation but humility, love, and forgiveness.”
Scot McKnight
“Grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning.”
Dallas Willard
To begin today, I’d like you to imagine a couple with me. These are fictional names here, so if these are your names, I apologize. These are not really your names, but Michael and Samantha. Imagine a couple who are parents, and they have a child named Brayden. Again, I am just totally making up names here. You may or may not be a parent, but I think we can all understand that this scenario of Michael and Samantha having a bit of a conflict with their son, Brayden, is actually a normal kind of conflict that occurs. Maybe it’s over grades, or a girlfriend, or a perceived bad attitude, or how late Brayden’s able to stay out.
Regardless of the situation, how this conflict between the parents and the teenager work out is actually not about the details. It’s actually about the frame. It’s especially about the way that the parents perceive what’s going on. Michael and Samantha can think about this conflict with Brayden in a number of ways. First of all, they could think about it in terms of a financial metaphor, investment terms. Something I’ve often thought about with our kids is that if you need to make a withdrawal from the relationship with someone like your child, make sure you’ve invested a lot. You’ve put a lot of deposits in that relationship, so if you have to make a withdrawal in terms of saying they can’t do something – good.
But Michael and Samantha could think about their relationship with Brayden in terms of something like a war that we have to win. Or they can think about their relationship in terms of growth like a tree. What if Michael and Samantha thought about Brayden as a tree that’s growing over time, that has needs just like a young tree? Maybe it needs to be constricted and have some wires on it, but over time, for that tree to grow, you have to take that wrap off and remove those wires. Or they can also think about their relationship with Brayden in terms of a story, that Brayden’s life is a story that is probably going to go beyond theirs. Then they could think about what role they’re going to play in the story of his life, whether they’re going to be characters in it in the future or not.
Now, each of these ways of thinking about this situation is very different, and the ways of framing it actually has a huge impact on what happens in that situation, what happens in that conflict. Whether Michael and Samantha realize it or not, their relationship is framed and shaped by a metaphor, an analogy that is mashed up against this situation. Maybe they’re conscious like I was. I’ve often thought of it in those financial terms, investment. Maybe they’re not conscious of it, but either way, the framing that they have, whether they’re aware of or not is actually affecting what’s happening.
You see, the conflict between them is one thing, but how it plays out is largely influenced by this frame. Now, you’re saying, what does this have to do with the Bible? Well, the reason I’m talking about this today is actually not because I’m going to be talking about parenting, though maybe that will help you, but the reason I’m talking about this is because I think that’s an example of something we see all throughout the Bible, including in Jesus’ teachings. He regularly uses metaphors or analogies to help us make sense of who God is and who we are. Jesus is a master teacher, and so He’s constantly using these metaphors or analogies to give us memorable images that will shape how we perceive our lives and who God is.
Now, so far, if you’ve been coming around for a while, you’ve been hearing preaching through the wonderful Gospel of Luke, and today, you’ve been for a couple of weeks in what we call the Sermon on the Plain starting back in Luke 6:20. You’ve been hearing some powerful and challenging teachings from Jesus about money and prayer and loving our enemies. Today, I have the privilege of wrapping up Jesus’ Sermon on the Plane from Luke 6:37 to 49. I hope you have a Bible, as you could follow along with me. What I want to do is walk through these images that Jesus gives us, and just ask, “How is He seeking to shape how we perceive reality through them?”
So, the first metaphor, the first image, we can call… It’s actually a combination of them. We can call “Pits, Flecks, and Planks.” Let me just read for you these verses here that are very powerful. I’m going to read from Luke 6. I’ll be reading the ESV. Jesus says, “’Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.’ He also told them a parable, ‘Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?
“’A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,” when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You, hypocrite. First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.’” Now in our culture, as most of you know, it’s very, very common for people to say, “Don’t judge me.” They don’t even realize probably that they’re actually quoting Jesus here from Luke 6 or Matthew 7:1.
On social media, you’ll see this a lot, of course, “Don’t judge me,” as they show themselves eating a whole cake for breakfast, which is okay. As I always say, last night’s cake is this morning’s coffee cake. That’s okay or wearing flip-flops to a job interview or whatever it is. They might try to ward off criticism by saying, “Don’t judge me about these things.” One person I saw online described, “Don’t judge me,” as what she says when she gets drunk in the middle of the day while watching Bluey. I don’t know, but the question is #don’tjudgeme. What does Jesus mean by this statement of not judging?
Well, I think it’s a lot of times when we’re trying to figure out what Jesus is saying, it’s actually sometimes good to ask, “What’s the opposite question? What is He not saying?” Well, when we ask ourselves “What is Jesus not saying,” I think it becomes clear that He’s not saying that we never form an opinion about right or wrong. I mean, the Bible is full of teachings about things that are good and things that are bad, things that are right and things that are wrong, including in Jesus’s own teaching. So, He’s clearly not saying, “You can never say that something’s right and something’s wrong.”
In fact, He’s saying, “Don’t judge because that’s a wrong thing.” So, don’t judge, or you too will be judged cannot mean just simply don’t judge me. Meaning, how dare anyone say anything’s right or wrong, but what is He saying is that we need to understand it. We just need to keep reading. If you look at the verses right after that, He’s clearly not making a general statement about not judging in a blanket way. He’s saying we have to be very wise and careful in whatever judging or discernment we use, and especially that we have to realize that whenever we discern that there’s great potential to be self-deceived, that image is a haunting one.
The image of focusing on a speck or a fleck of a problem in someone else’s eyes while ignoring the log or stick that is in our own, this is, I think, meant to be somewhat humorous. There’s a version of Jesus films you may have seen that has a very happy smiling Jesus, which you generally don’t like. We like our Jesus to have a British accent and to not be smiling, right? But there’s an American accent one, and in that version, he holds up a staff to his eye, and walks around, and it is quite funny to think about it – that it is what we do. We have huge planks or staves sticking out of our eyes, and we still try to think about what’s wrong with someone else that we can take out.
The point is that we have to be really aware that it is very possible to be that self-deceived, even when we are sure that there’s something wrong with someone else. I was sitting in my hotel this morning thinking about a situation that is really frustrating to me, and I just had to think about these verses that came to mind again. It was just to say, “What’s the log or what’s the stuff in my eye that I just don’t even want to look at while I’m still insisting that I fix this other person’s problem?” So, how do we do this rightly? Well, what Jesus says, if you keep reading these verses, is that we must judge with the same measuring stick, the same criteria, that we would want to be judged with ourselves.
Jesus is talking about how to go about discerning what is right and wrong, and He reminds us of the golden rule from Matthew 7:12 or right before this in Luke 6:31, that we should treat others as we want to be treated. So, a good question to ask yourself when you’re upset with someone else or sure that there’s something that you need to correct in someone else or just be upset about, ask yourself, “How would you want to be treated in that situation?” I think you and I would all want to be treated fairly and with the benefit of the doubt, and with generosity and kindness. How would we want to be treated?
We wouldn’t want to be judged and evaluated by someone who doesn’t maybe know the whole situation. I think even when we are clearly in the wrong, and we’ve messed up, we want to be treated with mercy and kindness. Jesus is saying, “Be careful. Be wise because the tendency in all of us to judge others is self-deceptive and is not falling through on how we ourselves would want to be judged.” As John Wesley said, “The judging that Jesus condemns here is thinking about another person in any way that is contrary to love.” In fact, ultimately, the standard we should use in measuring others or evaluating others should be God’s own standard toward us. What is God’s view toward us?
Do you remember what Jesus says just before this? In Luke 6:32 to 36, He says, “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that, for even sinners do the same? If you lend to those whom you expect to receive, what credit is that? Even sinners do that, but instead, love your enemies, and do good. Lend expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you’ll be sons of the Most High. Listen to this, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. So, be merciful even as your Father is merciful.”
So, that person, that situation, that speck, you might be agitated to remove in someone else’s eye even today – can you think about it? How does God view us? Even in our worst moments, He is merciful toward us, and so should we be as well. Then look at the second metaphor image He gives us in verse 43 to 45. He says, “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit, for figs are not gathered from thorn bushes nor grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.”
Now, if you start looking through the Bible at trees and fruit, there’s a lot of it. There’s a lot of trees. This is a very common image that God uses. Think back to Genesis 1 and 2. The main command that God gives when He makes the world is that we should be fruitful and multiply. Listen to that fruit language. Of course, in Genesis 3, then the whole tragedy of humanity that we are all bearing the fruit of and eating the fruit of, all comes through the issue of a tree whose fruit Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat, and yet they did in disobedience to God. It is giving head to Psalm 1. This really beautiful important Psalm that starts the whole book of the Psalter speaks of two ways humans can live: either focusing on what God has constructed for our good or not.
The difference is chaff, or meaninglessness of life, versus a tree that is fruitful. Skip ahead to Matthew, Chapter 3, where John the Baptist appears, and he warns the religious leaders that they need to bear fruit that keeps in accordance with God’s coming kingdom. You think of John 15, where Jesus says that He is the true vine, and we are the branches, and we need to stay connected so that we might bear fruit. You think of the Apostle Paul in Galatians 5, when he describes the difference between a Christian and non-Christian is the ones who bear a certain kind of fruit, the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
We can go all the way to the end of the book of Revelation where the story of the Bible culminates mimicking Genesis, where there’s a new creation, and we read that on each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. So, this is a really big deal in the Bible, the idea of a tree bearing fruit. Jesus’ point is really clear, that the kind of tree that something is bears that kind of fruit, and the health of a tree bears healthy or unhealthy fruit. Peach trees produce peaches. Grape vines produce grapes. Olive bushes produce olives. The Caribbean Manchineel tree, the world’s most poisonous tree, produces the Manzanilla de la Muerte, the little apple of death.
The hemlock plant, poison ivy; they reproduce after their kind, and a healthy tree will produce healthy fruit. In verse 45, Jesus actually changes the image slightly, but He’s making the same point. He talks about a treasure house, and His point is that our words which appear as the fruit of our mouths reveal the health of our heart. I feel some conviction in that. Now, of course, this fruit tree imagery that’s really important to the Bible is it’s a general principle that holds true. Of course, it’s also true that our lives are mixed. We do and say stupid things. There are plenty of ways in which the things we do and say don’t fully reflect who we are. We all make mistakes, but the principle still stands.
The point is that there is an intimate connection between who we are as people and what we do. Sooner or later, the true nature of who we are will come out through our lips and through our actions, and the kind and health of our tree will eventually bear that kind of fruit. I can’t remember if it was Tom Wright or somebody else makes the distinction, it’s really helpful, between a fruit tree and a Christmas tree. Jesus wants us to pay attention to the health of our souls, and to say, “What kind of tree are we? Are we diseased, or are we thriving? Are we full of sap and vitality or of death?”
A healthy tree will have seasons of dryness but will produce fruit. But there’s always a temptation as Christians, especially once you’ve been coming around the church for a while and learn to live a respectable life or whatever; it’s very possible to actually stop being a fruit tree and to be just a Christmas tree. What is a Christmas tree or a Christian tree almost? It’s cut off. It was living, but it’s now been cut off from the root and is on display, and it might have beautiful lights and ornaments, but it’s not alive. Jesus is saying, “I want you to bear fruit.”
This leads to the third and final metaphor image in our text. Sorry about that. In Luke 6:46 to 49, He says, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I’ll show you what he’s like. He’s like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock, and when a flood arose, and the stream broke against that house and could not shake it because it had been well-built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
Another image we find throughout the Bible, in addition to trees, we find a lot of buildings. We find a lot of houses, very important ones, tabernacles and the temple eventually in Jerusalem. Of course, the idea that Deuteronomy talks about of that in your house and on the way, the family home is the place where the next generation is raised, and the passing on of the faith. In the New Testament, the home and the temple images become the way that the church is described, that we’re the household of God. The temple is the gathering of God’s people by the Spirit with Jesus as the chief cornerstone.
All of these images are built in the idea that a house can be either built well or built foolishly. We’ve all heard stories, even very recently, of beautiful homes that have been swept away into the sea by a hurricane or by surges of water, because they were foolishly built too close and without sufficient bracing and foundation depth, as if we humans keep thinking that mother nature will not win. I’ve got news for you. The ocean house always wins eventually no matter where you build. So, too many people, many of us live foolishly and rashly and pridefully neglecting wisdom. You can do it for a while, but in a time of crisis, the result is destruction.
I was thinking, there’s actually a more subtle way in which this works out in our lives. I noticed a couple of years ago that inside our old house, there were some cracks in the drywall. Then when I remodeled our basement, I noticed, “Yeah, there’s a crack here.” Then I went outside and looked, and there were a bunch of bricks that were not quite lined up anymore. It’s not because there was a hurricane or a tornado, but because over a very slow and long time, my gutters had clogged and were leaking just a little bit, so for a long time, rather than directing the water away from the house, it was directing it near the foundation, and causing erosion, slowly but surely.
I’ve since fixed my gutters, so it won’t happen anymore. I’m actually a little scared to know what other damage there’s done. If you happen to own a foundation repair business, and want to give me a discount, come on up. But what I do know is that if the foundation of a house gets eroded even very slowly, over time, almost imperceptibly, eventually it will cause major problems. The walls won’t square. The doors won’t close. The floors can buckle. It can eventually ripple through the whole structure causing cracks and leaks in other parts of the house. So too are our lives. It’s the little choices about how we’re building our lives that have a long-term effect. It’s a powerful image.
So, do you see that Jesus loves these metaphors? He loves these images, and the question we have to ask then is: “So what do we do with all of this? Does this all fit together, and how are we supposed to respond to this?” Well, I have to wrap this up with a challenge and an encouragement. Here’s the challenge. I am going to come up with my own metaphor today. Put your hands on the rudder of the sailboat of your life. Okay, what does that mean? Well, this is unoriginal of me, but I love this image. I want you to imagine three different water vessels. One will be a raft. One will be a sailboat, and a third will be a galley ship.
A raft – it is just floating, and the water is directing it wherever it is going, and it’s not in control. A galley ship is this hard work of laboring to row in a certain direction. I’d suggest to you the way to think about your life is as a sailboat. That is that we can live our lives, but it’s not wise to just be drifting through and not being intentional, not thinking about it. But we can also do the opposite, which is also not good, and just think, “Well, I just need to keep working hard and just keep at the rows, and just keep at the oars, or just keep at it.” The reality is that your life is actually a sailboat in the sense that it really cannot go apart from God’s breath, from Him breathing and guiding you.
He is, from the beginning to the end, the only hope you have for any kind of meaningful and rich life now and for eternity, but we do have a responsibility not to energize our lives, but to put our hand on the rudder, and let God guide us not aimlessly, also not working. I love this great line from the wonderful Dallas Willard to remind us that what we’re talking about here is our lives do require some intentional effort, but we’re not earning God’s favor. As Willard says, grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning. To be within God’s grace doesn’t mean we live like a raft to just say, “Well, it’s all God’s grace. I’ll just do whatever.”
We do have to have effort, but that effort isn’t earning favor with God. We don’t energize it. We didn’t start our relationship with God. We can’t end our relationship with God. It is His breath, but we do have a responsibility as Jesus is teaching to think and to live in certain ways. This is not saying that we need to do a bunch of moral things to acquire a relationship with God. That’s not the Gospel, but neither is Jesus saying that what we do is irrelevant. Our choices, our words, our habits, our decisions do matter. They shape us. They determine our destiny. Jesus is telling us with all these instructions that contrary to our natural tendencies, we really do need to pay attention to our character and the kind of people we are becoming.
Legalism commands that we work hard to do a bunch of moral things. The Gospel invites us by the power of the spirit to become a different kind of people, a tree that bears fruit. I love the line of Sarah Groves, the Christian musician. She says, “This is grace, an invitation to be beautiful.” I love that. This is God’s grace to you today, an invitation to not earn your favor with God, but to pay attention and to live in a certain way. So, how does that happen? It happens. Our character is formed by actually making steps, listening to Jesus, building our lives in a certain way. As again Willard says, these are my words, but based on his idea, “No one becomes a great golfer or a great violinist or a race car driver by just thinking about it, and talking about it, and reading manuals about it.” You have to go to the golf course and to the practice room and to the racetracks. As we do so, we become, imperfectly, not by our own power, but by stepping towards, listening to, what Jesus has to say. With these wise and foolish builders, the difference is not whether they came to church and listened and took notes copiously. It’s whether they responded, and that’s God’s invitation. Jesus isn’t guilt tripping us to scare us into Heaven. He’s inviting us to recognize the potential for self-deception and to live foolishly which He doesn’t want for us.
There’s no life there. So, if we’re going to take Jesus at His word, we can’t just ignore or live our lives like a raft, but we need to put the hand of our lives on the rudder. That’s the challenge. Here’s the encouragement. Every Christian, all of you here, if you’re a Christian and if maybe you’ll become a Christian, every Christian can do the work of the inward journey. You don’t have to have flashy spiritual gifts or talents to be a faithful Christian. Whether today you are a CEO, or a kindergarten teacher, or a writer, or a number-crunching accountant, or a medical doctor, or a financial-planning wizard, or a bus driver, or a pilot, or a mechanic, or watch repairman, whatever you do; all these things you can do with goodness and beauty.
Here’s the deal. All those things can be great, and they can be full of life and wonderful, but God’s not impressed or unimpressed by your titles and your work and your income. What does God really care about? He cares about your inner person. Did you see that in all these? In every one of these metaphors, the idea is who you and I are becoming on the inside. The encouragement is that you don’t have to be awesome at everything or even awesome at anything. Someone will always actually be better at what you’re good at. Even if you are actually the best at whatever you are, at the top of your game, just give it time, and you will fade.
The good news is that God doesn’t care about any of that. The good news is that what God cares about is your inner person being reshaped into His image. That’s what He cares about. So, this looks like being faithful in your marriage. It means responding in mercy and compassion towards others even when they wrong you. It means loving your enemies, not judging and condemning them. It means praying in private, even if you don’t feel like you’re very eloquent. So, what I’m encouraging you to do today is to value what God values, to value, love, and mercy, and peace, and patience, and kindness, and goodness and joy. Let those fill your days.
This is what Jesus is saying, “Look inside. Step towards by the power of the Spirit being transformed into the way of Jesus.” So, I began today by talking about the power with Samantha and Michael of how by being given an image, it helps us see things in a different way. Well, Jesus is using all these images, and I’ve added some now as well too, to invite you and me to open our hearts to Him and let His vision transform how we’ll find life. What I want to make sure you understand as I wrap this up is that all of these instructions, they might sound really hard or difficult. These are invitations.
These are an invitation from God based on His love for you. As His children made in His image, He wants you to know mercy. He wants you to know love. He wants you to bear fruit, not just as a duty, but because that fruit is something that will enrich your life and the lives around you as well. He wants you to dig a deep foundation so that you can live your life in a beautiful, safe, dry, warm, and peaceful house. This is based on God’s love for you and the invitation to listen to Him and receive the power of His spirit in your life.
Let me pray for us: We thank You, God, that in all of our inconsistencies, in all of our seasons of dryness, seasons of fruitfulness, in our great moments of faith, and in our just foolishness and smallness of soul often; thank You that You don’t change. Thank You that Your love for us is bigger than all of that, and that while we were dead, You set Your covenant love upon us and have made us alive by the power of the Spirit. So, I pray for myself and my brothers and sisters that You would, by the Spirit, enable us to see you clearly. Even today as we encounter opportunities to judge and act as fools, would You, by the Spirit, seal us and heal us? We pray in Jesus’ powerful name. Amen.
“All Hail The Power Of Jesus Name“ by Oliver Holden, Edward Perronet, and John Rippon
“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty“ by Joachim Neander; tr. Catherine Winkworth
“Christus Victor (Amen)“ by Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty. Matt Boswell, Matt Papa, Bryan Fowler
“Christ The Sure And Steady Anchor“ by Matthew Boswell and Matthew Papa
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois
All songs are used by Permission. CCLI License #200369
All: The word of the LORD is right and true; He is faithful in all He does.
Men: Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the skies.
Women: You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
Men: The LORD is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.
Women: O LORD, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in Your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief.
Men: The LORD is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made.
All: For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Excerpts from Psalm 33, 36, 86, 100, 143 and Romans 8
Leader: What do we believe when we say: We believe in God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth?
People: That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and all that is in them, still upholds and governs them by his eternal counsel and providence. In him we trust so completely as to have no doubt that he will provide us with all things necessary for body and soul, and will also turn to our good whatever adversity he sends us in this life. He is able to do so as almighty God, and willing also as a faithful Father.
Heidelberg Catechism, Question 26
Dear God, send us your Holy Spirit, that he may take the Word we have heard and write it in our hearts, so that we grasp it, believe it, and find our joy and comfort in it forever.
