The Way of Seeking

Welcome to week seven of our Bible study, and today we're gonna study Matthew chapter seven. The first half of it, we're in our final chapter, so we're gonna divide it among this week and next week. I called this week in our study The Way of Seeking. And I've been asking you questions the last few weeks as we get started. Couple weeks ago I said, are you ever a hypocrite? We worked through that. Last week I asked you, are you ever anxious? Do you ever worry? We worked through that. And so are you ready for your question this week? Do you like mushrooms? If you do, it's okay to say so. We can still be friends. If you like mushrooms, I will probably pick them off of the pizza at your house. But I'm not a big fan of mushrooms. I never have been. Paul's sister came to stay with us when we lived in Seattle about 37 years ago. She came to stay. She had spent time in Japan, like years in Japan teaching English, and so she had really grabbed a lot of that culture. We got on this conversation and she goes, the only reason you don't like mushrooms is no one has ever prepared them properly for you. So we drove down to downtown Seattle to an Asian market, got a big bag of shiitake mushrooms, came back, she sauteed them in butter and garlic, which anything should be good in butter and garlic, right? And so we sat down and I was super excited. I thought, I've fixed my life. It's just that no one has ever prepared them well for me. And so I took my first bite and I thought, no, no. I still hate mushrooms. I don't know if it's a texture thing. But some people do like mushrooms. Some people like them so much that they'll even go out and forage for them and find their own mushrooms. Apparently you can do that here. Eastern and Western Oregon have different varieties of mushrooms and you can go get your own, but you need to know what you're looking for or you can make a bad mistake, okay? What do mushrooms have to do with a lesson on judging, evangelizing, and asking? Well, listen, not all mushrooms are good mushrooms, but some of them are. Not all judging is bad judging, but some of it is. Not all evangelizing is productive evangelizing, but some of it is. And not every request we ask of the Lord is his will, but some of it is. It all requires discernment. It requires maturity. I contemplated changing the name of this lesson to The Way of Discernment. In fact, I was almost there. And then I thought, no, I'm just gonna leave it the way it was, The Way of Seeking, because seeking and discernment are similar. They both lead to maturity. They're both necessary. And they're both really about growing in the Lord. So I wanna take us back to a proverb that we started with in the first lesson. I'll put it on the screen for you. It's Proverb 14.8. The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way. To discern his way. Every week, we're talking about the choices of the way that we take. Now, for example, if we go back to mushrooms, I read on one mushroom hunting website this quote. If you're a beginner, don't forage at all without a skilled guide. It's not that mushrooms are especially hard to identify. It's that until you get familiar with mushrooms, you're likely to overlook key details, thus a greater chance of a mistake. When you make a mistake harvesting and preparing mushrooms, it can be bad. And when you make a mistake in how you relate to others, it can also be bad, too. Whether it's people inside the body of Christ or people outside the body of Christ, we need maturity. Being a Christian, following the way of Jesus, doesn't mean that we just get to roll through life and do anything as we please and say anything as we please and relate to people as we please. Our life requires seeking God's attention, seeking his way, and having discernment. So with that in mind, now we are going to start our lesson. Matthew chapter seven, verse one.

And then he starts with a common possibility that could happen, especially maybe for new Christians.

All right, let's talk about that passage. The word judge or judgment came up four times. It means to conclude, to decide, to pass judgment. The word measure was used twice. It means the standard. It is the measurement. And the word brother was used three times, which signals to us that we are, what type of a relationship we're talking about. We're talking about a relationship in, as we New Testament Christians would say, in the body of Christ. Inside the fellowship of believers here. Now, women don't go around doing a women's Bible study and calling them brothers. So we'll call them siblings, okay? Siblings in Christ. But these sentences are about the fact that we tend to see and observe what we see and observe in other people. There's a great possibility among Christians that we're going to see something out of place in somebody else's life. That is the speck. And at the same time, there's a possibility we won't notice the same thing that's out of place in our life. Jesus called it the log. But listen, Jesus wasn't saying, don't notice that speck in their eye. Kind of like the Wizard of Oz. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. He wasn't saying, just let it go. Mind your own business, okay? That's not the message. Look at the final words in verse five. Take the speck out of your brother's eye. Shockingly, we are called to action. We are called to help in these situations. Remove, help remove the problem, the speck in the eye, before it gets all infected. Who wants that, you know? It needs to be removed. The key is, how do we do that? That is the key here. So Jesus said two things. First of all, he warned us, so don't do this like the hypocrite. Almost every single lesson, that's been something that we've talked about. Don't do it like the hypocrite, who would draw a conclusion, make a judgment about someone else's actions and attitudes, while at the same time, concealing those same actions and attitudes in our own life. That would be what the hypocrites do. In my case, I have an even bigger speck. It's the size of a log, but I'm working on you. It's kind of like the little girl with the little chocolate on the side of her mouth that tells her little brother, don't take any of those cookies. Mom said we can't have any before dinner, right? Like the big expert that she is. And we kind of like to be experts. Some of us are geared to that a little bit more than others. We like to know the rules, teach the rules, tell other people how to abide by the rules, while yet cutting ourself some slack in that. In fact, I heard Pastor Chuck Wednesday night, I would listen to the message he brought, and he said this exact sentence. We tend to judge other people by their actions, and we judge ourselves by our intentions. Isn't that the truth? I realized how true it is. We'll sit there and say, well, she never called. She could have at least texted, but she never connected with me at all, judging this person by her actions. And yet of ourselves, we'll say, yeah, I just got so busy. We had these ball games, and then I had to do this and that. Our intention was we were gonna connect, but we never got around to it, so we're off the hook. And yet the judgment came down hard on them because they didn't carry forward with the action that we expected. I think we can all relate to that. The other thing that Jesus said is that of how to help someone else. So what do we do if we do have the same problem? He said in verse five, first, step one, take the log out of your own eye. So really, this passage is a call to action on our lives, and isn't every single lesson in the Sermon on the Mount a call to action in our lives? We're getting used to this now. It's always pointing inward. What are we gonna do? What am I going to do? So I always like to find those passages in the New Testament, particularly where the Apostle Paul says the same thing. that Jesus says in a little bit different words. So I'm gonna show you Philippians 1, verses 9 and 10. And the Apostle Paul, writing to those people, said, it's my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and, look, all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. And that is the action in their own life, to have discernment so that you can be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, to take those logs or specks or whatever we have out of our own life. So the recap here of these verses, what do these verses not mean? They do not mean that we pretend not to notice when someone else is sinning or merely has a problem. Like what was some of our recent topics in the Sermon on the Mount? Anxiety, last week. So I'm gonna pretend not to notice that you're worrying all the time. That doesn't make any sense. That is a speck, okay? That is a speck, that is a problem in your life. You're worried about these things. I'm not gonna pretend not to notice it, but it also doesn't teach us that we toss a standard out the window for these things. Well, that doesn't make sense either because Jesus said three times last week, do not be anxious. That's our standard. So we can't toss out the standard and we can't pretend not to notice. So what should these verses lead us to do, okay? They should lead us to notice the problem, but what did Jesus say? First, evaluate ourselves so that we can be of use to someone else, so that we can help, okay? This solves the problem of merely being empathetic with other people, which I have been guilty of. So somebody comes to me and it's like, you know, I'm really struggling with my teenager. I'm just so worried. And what are the first words out of my mouth? Oh, I know, me too, right? And we try to empathize, we try to relate, but in our effort to relate, we both just devolve down into the problem. And so we need to help each other come up out of the problem and not just say, yeah, I know, I really struggle with that too. Do you remember I said, Elizabeth Elliot said, most of what we call struggling is really delayed obedience. Most of what we call struggling is really delayed obedience. These verses should also remind us to use the same standard of measure for others as we do for ourselves. This is particularly important for parents with middle schoolers or teens in the house. We cannot require more of them than what we're doing or we'll just exasperate them. And Paul said in Colossians three, fathers do not exasperate your children. And so this is a reminder to us to have an equal measure. So those first five verses train us about having discernment with our siblings in Christ, those who are in the body of Christ. And now we turn to those who are outside, those who Jesus would have called Gentiles in the Sermon on the Mount, but the word is actually dogs and pigs.

So literally, this sounds like Jesus is saying, don't go throw your jewelry into the pig pen. So now anyway, on to the next, we know there's more to it than that. But the literal result here that he said with these animals helps us understand a natural outcome. And so both dogs and pigs, like some people I know, tend to get hangry. I'm gonna talk more about pigs because that's what I know about. Did you know I raised pigs in high school? Very few people know this about me. But I actually did. That was my college fund. So I grew up on a farm. My dad was kind of finished with animals. He never appreciated the animals as much as the engines. And so he was off to the machinery and doing things and we had empty barns. My brother-in-law happened to be a fairly large hog farmer. And in those days, maybe still today, once you had all your, you farrowed your pigs, you had all these baby pigs, if there were several of them that were just runts, we still use the word today, they weren't worth the effort to raise. And so I'll let your imagination think what farmers would do with them, but my brother-in-law would load them up in a pickup and bring them to me. And so I got these free runts and my dad wanted to teach us a good work ethic. It's like, you do the work, I'll buy the feed. And so out I was doing, I hated every minute of it. It's probably why I'm not a big animal person today, but the pig pen is a scary place. It is disturbing. They are, when they're little, they're kind of cute and all that, and then they get to market weight and they're large and they're mean, and it is a scary place. And so I learned as I was taking the slop out, a lot of garden produce in that, I would learn you take a watermelon rind and you kind of toss it off like a Frisbee because they'll all run that way after it. They'll get away from you and then you can turn on the water and do whatever you want. But so what Jesus is saying here is if you throw them something common, like a watermelon rind or vegetable, they're gonna eat it. But if you throw them something uncommon, and in the Bible we have common and holy, so you throw them something holy, something precious, something valuable, they're gonna try and eat it. They can't eat it, they'll be mad and they're gonna come right back to you. And like I said, the hog barn is a scary place. So that is the natural response of animals. So now it's interpretation time. What is he talking about here, okay? So we need to find out, well, who are the dogs and the pigs that he is talking about? And there are other passages that help us. You probably guessed it already because I put a question in your study guide. But you know, in Matthew chapter 15, there's a story about a Canaanite woman. Canaanite, that means she's not of the nation of Israel. That means she's of the people that worship other gods which are demonic. She has a problem in her life. Her daughter is oppressed by a demon. And what does she do? She comes to Jesus, which shows that she has some level of understanding, some level of pressing in, some level of faith. And she comes to Jesus and she says, have mercy on me, son of David, for my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. And Jesus doesn't say a thing to her. And the disciples want to send her away. She's persistent. And she presses in and asks this of him. And finally, Jesus turned and answered her. And he said, I was sent to the lost sheep of Israel. So he's using a metaphor to the people of Israel. It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. So he's explaining that those outside, those are Gentiles. He's using two metaphors there. And she says to him, but Lord, Lord. She says, even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master's table. And Jesus looked at her and he goes, what faith you have. You have pressed in and you are absolutely right. And he says, and he healed her daughter. The point of that story is there's two things I love about that story. Number one is it helps us identify in scripture the metaphor, the sheep, the dogs, okay, those outside. We're talking about Gentiles, okay? But the other little side note about that story that I love is throughout scripture, we always see that when someone in the Old Testament is not of Israel, but they press in and want to be part, don't we see over and over, they become included. We went through the story of Rahab when we did Joshua, when we did the story of the Exodus. It said a great multitude, a mixed multitude went out. And so God's arms are always open for those who have faith, those who want to press in. But I took you there so that we would be able to discern who are dogs. So this sentence shows us a second area in our life that requires discernment. And that is how do we relate to the outsiders, those outside of Christ, those at this moment that Jesus would have called Gentiles. Because we have a command to spread the good news. We are supposed to tell people the good news of Jesus, right? But even Jesus at times was silent and didn't say anything. For example, before Pilate, he was silent. And look, before this woman, he was silent. He didn't answer her right away. Until he saw that she had the faith, and then he answered her. So we need discernment in our life, in dealing with outsiders, to know when someone is genuinely interested. in knowing God, to know when someone may or may not be ready to hear or to receive, or to know when someone is baiting us rather than ready to believe us. Okay, so now here's how the Apostle talked about that in Colossians, Colossians 5, 5 and 6. He said, walk in wisdom toward outsiders. Maybe we could say walk in discernment toward outsiders. This is what we are supposed to do as we walk in the way of Jesus. Make the best use of time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. So like I said, when we're walking the way of Jesus, we don't get to just do whatever we want, say whatever we want. We need to grow up and be mature and have discernment on how we relate to people. The first part of our lesson is people inside the body of Christ. Then he talked about people outside the body of Christ. And so now Jesus turns again to another relationship, the most important one, our relating to our Heavenly Father. That relationship, our genuine relationship. He turns to the topic of prayer.

Do you believe that God is in the business of giving good gifts to you? Do you believe that God loves to lavish gifts on his children? He is generous. And Jesus explained here that even normal parents, when their kids need something or ask for something, will have a desire to provide that for them. Okay? That is what normal parents do. Even normal grandparents, oh heavens, we're hopeless, aren't we? Of course we're going to do what they ask. So this week I had to watch my oldest daughter's kids for just a day. So there's teenagers, like they're from teenagers down to the three-year-old. They don't need to be babysat. But if they're going to get any schoolwork done, they need a babysitter for the three-year-old, right? Because that's how it goes. So I was helping for the day, be the playmate with the three-year-old so that the older ones could get their schoolwork done. And Rosie kept asking, Grandma, would you like to have a tea party? And I'm like, yes, dear, I would love to do that. So on and on we went, probably six iterations of a tea party up there, you know. And there's her little table and the little chairs that she sits in are like this. And I said, Honey, I think your dolly wants to sit on that chair. I'll just sit on the floor, you know. And I ate all kinds of imaginary coffee and plastic corn and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, when they ask, you do it. But then one of the teenagers, after a while, at the end of the day, she goes, Grandma, you can tell her no. And I looked at her and I thought, oh, how little you understand, my dear. I'll remember this. I'll bring this sentence back to you in 40 years. Anyway, the point is that if even we want to do good for our children or our grandchildren, God is better, okay? He wants to do better than that. Now, again, remember, to these people hearing this, this concept about their Heavenly Father in this kind of a relationship, this was new business to them. This is not how they thought of Yahweh at all. We do, because we have grown up in this understanding. But they did not. And so this was, so we should ask, what does it mean? What does it mean here? What did Jesus say when it means to ask and receive? Is this a promise? Is this a promise for us? We can ask anything and we're going to get it? Is this one of those verses that we can just lift out of the context? What is the context? Well, the immediate context was discernment, right? The immediate context was if you need discernment for these relationships inside the body of Christ and with Gentiles, ask and you will receive. If you need wisdom, ask and you will receive. If you need patience, ask and you will receive. If you need contentment in your life, ask and you will receive. There are some things, like the things that I mentioned, that we might call the fruits of the Holy Spirit, the character of God, that it is an absolute yes from God. He will give it. If we ask God for patience, he's not going to say no. Now, we might not feel like we've been filled up to the full measure of patience, okay, because it's only going to grow in us as we yield to the Lord and that sort of thing, but there are some things that his answer is always yes. There are some other things that his answer might be no or maybe, but these things that I've mentioned, things that are part of his character, it's always yes. If you need love for someone difficult, ask and you will receive. Believe that God will do that. If you need the power to forgive someone, see, these are topics we've talked about through this lesson, aren't they? If you need the power to forgive someone, ask, you will receive. God is not going to sit back and say, nope, you got to figure it out on your own. We can always ask for those things, seek those things. If you need strength to serve someone, ask and you will receive. God gives good gifts to his children. God gives to his children, and so that is a segue then for us into the very next verse, which is what we call the golden rule. Look at that, verse 12.

Once we have received from God, our life should be about making life better for other people. God makes my life better. I should turn around, be like him. My character should be similar that now I go and make life better for you, better for other people. There are lots of ways that we can make life better for other people, like some of the things I just mentioned that we might ask for. Having patience, extending forgiveness, loving other people, serving other people by helping them remove the specks. That requires I need to do it first so that I can be useful to you to help you do it as well. You know, when we talk about some speck like anxiety, I think that really helps me understand. It's like I want to be useful to help women who are worried about things. So I have to be introspective. I have to control the worry, the anxiety in my life, so that I can turn around and be useful. Do to someone else what I wish that they could do for me. And then there's the ever popular ways we can make life better, like banana bread and bringing somebody diapers or chicken noodle soup and all those things that we think of first. But really, it's some of these other things that that help us to make life better for others. You know, Paul's going to be teaching on Sunday that passage from First Timothy, chapter three, about people being in the last days, people will be lovers of self. And here's what a contrast the golden rule teaches us to be lovers of others, lovers of others. But yet in the last days that we live in, what's normal? Lovers of self. So we will be a definite contrast in the world. And that's what we're going to with our last verses for this week, our contrasts.

I love finding contrasts in scriptures, wide and narrow, easy and hard. Many and few leads to destruction, leads to life. We see over and over again that the way of Jesus is simple, but it's not easy and it's not always obvious. It requires seeking on our part. It requires seeking to identify which is the way that we should go. We might see a broad path that appears to be well traveled by many. Is that the way of Jesus? We might see the easy path. that appears to be enjoyed by many? Is that the way of Jesus? I want to just end by showing you a definition, again, from Webster's 1828 Dictionary of these words that we've been handling, seek and to discern. And in all these ways, seeing the path, the way of Jesus. So to seek means to go in search of, to look for, to endeavor, to find by any means. And it means to seek out, or it says seek out implies to look for a specific thing among a number of things. And I liked that so much because it reminds us of what we've said. We have lots of choices in life of the ways that we can go, but seeking out something among a number of choices. And then the word discern, it means to distinguish, to see the difference between two or more things. This is what we are called to as we grow and mature in Christ, the way of seeking, the way of discerning, to find the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus is not hidden to us, but it does sometimes require seeking. It requires for us to stop and to ask the Lord, what is the way that you would have me to go and to seek the path that he has for us? So let's pray about that, shall we? Father, I pray that you would help each one of us to grow in that concept of coming to you quickly when we are in a quandary over things. And when we need your wisdom, Lord, we need to make a choice over a number of different things. Lord, you have the way that we should go in terms of our salvation. And that is clear and that's the same path for each of us. But then, Lord, the way that we should go, the way that you direct us in our own lives, Lord, help us to be women who press in, who ask you so that we will receive, who seek the particular way you would have us to go so that we can travel on that, and who knock and are persistent, and you will open the door. Lord, we thank you for this lesson, so much for us to learn, so much for us to glean and be reminded of, and I pray, Lord God, that you would change our hearts. Pray this in Jesus' name, amen.