Rejecting Hypocrisy

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All right, well, it is good to be back with you. I have been in and out of various different positions in the church for the last month or two while Brent has been doing the tour of the Kingdom, the Sermon on the Mount series. And while Brent and Tanya are still in Colorado this week, I am filling in. And when Brent was going to be gone for the week and we were talking about where we were going to be at in the Tour of the Kingdom series, I was like, sure, I'll. I'll jump in with you.

I'm all about it, what we're gonna do. Then I realized that he was gonna wrap up chapter six last week, and we were gonna move into chapter seven this week. And so I started reading chapter seven. When I started working on the sermon, I was like, oh, I see why he took vacation now. Okay, so I get to come and bring the judge, not lest you be judged.

And how should you judge Verse. So you shouldn't expect anything different. That. I'm just gonna try to be as straightforward as I can, as practical as I can be today. Bren.

I believe it's tomorrow night, Monday. And then we've got about two more weeks that we're gonna be in this series, leading us into Pentecost, and then we're gonna continue on in Matthew chapter 8 through Matthew chapter 10 for as long as that takes. And so I have been doing a lot of study on Matthew chapter 8 through 10, and so far, I was talking with some people a couple weeks ago. It's amazing to me how many times you can read certain scriptures. Yet when you.

And you start looking specifically like, lord, what do you want to do at this point? Lord, how do you want to do this now? Things, connections, things come together for the first time, and you're just like, awesome, like, all right, let's do this. Where do you want to go? And so I have felt over the last couple of weeks kind of like a dog who sees squirrels all the time.

There's moments in scripture where I see things, and it's just like, okay, I'm locked in with what the Lord wants, and immediately something happens, and I'm like, squirrel. And then I'm like, okay, I need to focus on trying to take care of that. And then the squirrel. And every once in a while, there's two squirrels.

And then you're just like, squirrel, squirrel. And it's hard to lock in. So what happens in that atmosphere? Nothing gets accomplished. What happens when an eagle who is soaring, looking for its dinner, finds a rabbit and finds a bobcat and tries to keep its eyes on both.

What happens? The ego gets none. You cannot try to accomplish multiple things at one time and hope to accomplish both things. You'll get some progression. You know, I'm a multitasker.

You'll get some progression towards your task. But a lot of times it's a lot easier to just focus in. I need to do this. I need to walk to this green tape. There's actually green tape here.

I'm not making that up. And I walk to the green tape. Okay, I accomplished that. Now what do I need to do? I say you need to walk back to the other green tape because you're not in that camera shot.

So you walk to the other green tape and you solve your problems, and you learn as you walk in those areas of your life, whatever it might be. An eagle looking after two prey gets no prey. It's kind of like when a husband and wife decide, where are we going to eat tonight?

If you don't do what your wife wants, you're not eating. I don't care if you've had pizza over and over again. You're eating pizza again if that's what your wife wants. Otherwise, you get nothing. Why is this important, and why is this relevant to scripture?

Well, the eagle analogy in and of itself isn't important to scripture, but the analogy itself is, because we live in a day and age where there's been many kings and many queens of Israel. There's been many cultures. They've been in the promised land, they were in exile, they were in the promised land, they were in exile, they were brought back. There was this, there was this, there was David, there's Moses, there was Noah, there was Abram, there was Deborah, there was Esther. All these people.

And we live in a day and age where we have to determine by using the word of God as our basis, not our emotions, not our thoughts, whatever. We have to determine every day who is our king and what kingdom are we gonna serve.

In the Bible, there's a lot. You can choose Moses as my king. He's my leader. I'm gonna serve Moses, and I'm gonna follow Moses. So Moses is the king, the kingdom is Moses, and that's how we're gonna follow.

That's not what this church does. Jesus is our king, and Jesus gets to dictate what happens in his kingdom because he is king and I am not. This is important for us because the Sermon on the Mount, the tour of the kingdom series, as Brent, has been going through for weeks and weeks and Weeks has leaders. There is an empire that's. That Jesus is born into.

There's actually multiple, but that's not really relevant for today. But there's empires of leadership that Jesus is born into that the ministry of Jesus takes place in. There's a whole leadership.

That leadership had Sadducees, had the Essenes, who weren't necessarily in Israel proper. They were kind of out in the wilderness. They were preppers per se. You have the Zealots, you have the Pharisees, who were theoretically the leaders of the religious law. And that's where we're going to focus today.

That's where Brent has spent a lot of time is on the Pharisees. The Pharisees had a problem. They thought they were the religious leadership using the proper weights and measures of the scripture. Yet here comes Yeshua, who, by the way, is the king and in his kingdom, and he says, you've heard it said, you've heard it said. And he contrasts everything they know in that day and age.

You've heard it said, thou shall not murder, I tell you. See, Torah is a teaching. It's a teaching from God, divinely given to Moses for the people. Now we don't have God saying, hey, I'm going to speak through you, Tim, in this moment. God says, I'm going to come from the heavenly realms and I'm going to dwell in flesh amongst you.

And I'm not only going to speak, but I'm going to act.

I'm going to establish my kingdom on earth as it is in heaven with the teaching, the word and the actions. We're going to see that in the sermon, the kingdom in action in Matthew, chapter 8, 10. Right now, we're still in just the teaching. Why is this important? Because the leadership of that day, who was laying out the rules, the outline, how you should live, how you should interpret the scripture, what is the kingdom measure?

They had a couple of problems, and Jesus exposes this one. They operated out of selfishness. How many of you have ever worked for a boss that leads his entire company out of selfishness? Anybody? Any couple people, raise your hand.

All right, all right. It's not really fun, right? Because no matter how hard you work, a lot of times you're not gonna get what's due to you or you're not gonna get to reap the blessings, even though you're providing blessings for. Well, this is part of what the Pharisees led with. They led with selfishness.

How did their relationships benefit them? So they're looking at their relationships and they're saying, jace, because you and I are in a relationship, I am looking at our relationship and I'm judging our relationship based upon what you can do for me. There's no mutual thing here. It's not like, hey, you can do some things for me and I can also do things for you. It is no, what can you do for me?

Those types of relationships get really old really quick. Honestly, those relationships pretty much always end up turning into some sort of abusive relationship. It could be physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, sexually. It ends up in an abusive situation when somebody looks at somebody else and they say, well, the only reason why we're in relationship is what can you do for me?

2. There was a self centeredness. They did what they wanted and they didn't care who it hurt. Has anybody ever met anybody like that? They're going to do and say whatever they want.

They're never going to apologize and they don't care if it's hurt you. They don't care what damage it's caused to you. They were right, you were wrong. Move on. Those aren't people you want to be in relationship with and they're definitely not people that you want to sit under their leadership.

And so when the Pharisees are leading that way, they're saying that they represent the holy word of Hashem, Adonai, Yahweh, Lord God, all the titles, all the names. El Shaddai, El Elyon, El Gabor, all the names. But what they're representing is not the character or the nature of God. What they're representing is we're going to do what we want because we're the leaders, not good leadership. And these are all traits that lead to narcissism, which is a root of why these things happen.

It is an unhealthy love for self. It's an unhealthy self importance because I'm important.

You must do what I tell you to do. Man.

I used to think that this stuff was just some far off pipe dream until I ran international ministries. And one day I woke up and I realized, hey, guess what? I think more highly of myself than I actually am.

When people used to say, oh, you're one of the most popular messianic musicians. And then one day I actually looked at data and I realized that being the most popular, I wasn't even the most popular. But being the most popular messianic musician means that I am the most popular of 000-000-0001% of Christianity.

We're not talking about Judaism. We're not talking about pop rock, we're not talking about funk, we're not talking about all these things. We're talking about Christian music.

Kind of puts things into perspective, right? I am the greatest of two people. Great percentage. When you look at 3.8 billion, you look at 4.8 billion, you look at 2.1 million, it kind of puts it in perspective, man. Did you know?

Did you know that I am the world's greatest, according to my mom?

Changes the dynamic, doesn't it? A little bit. Why is that important? Because the Pharisees own narcissism had used unequal weights and measures. I am the world's greatest, according to my mom.

See, I changed the weights and the measures here. No duh. No duh, Misty. I'm more important to my mom than you are. No duh.

She hasn't even met you. Brilliant, Kris. But this is what they were doing. They were changing the weights and the measures to make themselves holier or cooler or brighter. I'm the number one man on the worship team.

Leadership team. Yeah. Until you find out that the worship leader is a woman, I should be, shouldn't I? Why? Because I skewed the weights and the measures in order to give myself a pat on the back.

This is what the Pharisees had done. They had skewed the measurement to lift themselves up into a level of holiness that wasn't necessarily true. And Yeshua is coming and he's dealing with that. And he's dealing with that with the people who they wouldn't talk to.

They wouldn't even talk to them. They wouldn't even dine with them. They got to the point where these very same people are walking down a road and there's two people that are here and there's a holy person here and there's a Gentile here and they got to the point where they were so self righteous that they would walk over here. I need to ask you a question. Because it's 2025, let's say we change the metric there.

We change the metric and we say, well, the religious leadership can walk on the other side of the road. On what criteria? Well, it's not Gentiles anymore. We don't even use that terminology anymore. So let's say what?

So if I'm walking down the road, I'm walking down 36th Avenue, I'm on my way to Beanstalk, I'm on my way to get a coffee and I see a Baptist, is that okay if I go over here? Thank you for Saying, no, y' all asleep today. And it was sunny out there. It wasn't when I woke up. Let's say it's a Pentecostal.

No. Okay, I agree with you on that. What does classify a woman? Can I walk on the other side of the room just because she's a woman? No.

Okay, what about race? I'm a walk. I'm a different race. I'm going to walk over. You don't do those things anymore.

What is the classification that we would justify that is acceptable for me to walk over here and away from somebody else?

I think maybe the only thing would not be based upon a difference of who we are as people would be based upon maybe like, they're walking down the street with a handgun. Okay. They're walking down the street with a pit bull that looks like it absolutely loves 6 foot 7 people with a man bun. Okay, maybe that's acceptable, but there has to be criteria by which that would be acceptable. But in this time, this is what the practice was.

This is who Jesus is going up against in his teaching. The Sermon on the Mount, The Torah of the Kingdom versus the Torah of the Pharisees and the Scribes. And I've said it over and over and over again, our culture today has a real issue with narcissists. But overt narcissists have never been the most dangerous narcissists that are out there. Everybody can see an overt narcissist.

You can see that person has way too much pride, way too much ego, way too much issues, all that type of stuff. You see that a mile away. We can see it on podcasts, YouTubes at work, all these things, man. That guy, he's only been working here for like, three months, and he thinks he's better than everybody else. You can see an overt narcissist.

They are not the most dangerous. It is the COVID narcissist that are the most dangerous. You say, well, that's fine, Pastor Chris, but what does that have anything to do with the chapter of Matthew? Well, why is a covert narcissist the most dangerous? Because they make you believe something that isn't true.

They make you believe that they have your best interest in mind. They make you believe they actually care about you. They make you believe that you are safe when you're truly not. Kind of that concept of like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Why would you even need to have that concept?

Because the wolf is putting on an appearance, something that they're not. Why would they do that in order to develop a closeness and intimacy of relationship.

And this is important because this is the leadership style the Pharisees were operating in. And I say all of that. Brent said it over and over again. This isn't a bash the Pharisees situation because the Pharisees did do some good things too. Not every Pharisee and not every decision that the Pharisees made was bad, but they operated in a different mentality and it absolutely was never more contrasted.

The moment that you have your religious leadership of the Pharisees meets the Son of God, never more contrast than the religious leadership of the day. The Jewish King Mashiach Yeshua Hamashiach face to face.

I love the Torah. I've always loved the Torah, since I've been studying the Torah. But I think you need to understand the God of the Old Testament, the one that we a lot of times says is very blunt and very judgmental. There is no more divisive, blunt words in the scripture than when Jesus speaks and says, I'm putting a line in the sand because he's the only one who can do it. He's the only one who was actually righteous.

He was the only one who actually did perfect Zedekah. He was the only one who didn't have impure motives.

He was blunt and he was straightforward and he did so with equal weights and measures. I can tell you this. I tried really, really hard this week, tried really, really hard this week to not pass judgment on individuals and situations.

I didn't even get my ged. That's how bad I failed. There was every situation you find yourself in, you're like, okay, don't, don't. They're having a bad day, they're having a bad day. It's like, but if I was having a bad day, I still can't justify acting like that.

And I'm having full fledged arguments with myself and think I'm more schizophrenic than I already am.

Trying to walk the walk that I'm getting ready to preach this week. It's hard. Jesus put a line in the sand and called us to a higher standard. And I love the Torah, I love the feast, I love the festivals. Obviously we're a Saturday church.

I'm a Saturday church pastor. But Jesus called us to a higher level. Why? Because Jesus will go to the deepest, darkest places of your heart. He will judge what is in those places that you think nobody knows.

He sees, he knows. And he can judge righteously. It's kind of like that. Well, if I just put it up in the attic. It doesn't exist.

Jesus has all access paths to your attic.

He doesn't want you to just say, I'm not going to talk about it. I'm not going to walk about it. He says, I don't even want you to hold on to it anymore. And by the way, I know if you're doing it now, this comes with a positive thing too. It comes with the fact that he says that I'll give you the advocate, I'll give you the helper to help you do it because you never were capable of doing it, which is amazing, but it involves us to do something.

The days of talking about this easy Christianity where I just believe and everything's gonna be hunky dory. How's that worked out for you? God requires us to do things. Why? Because you're part of the kingdom.

Part of the kingdom call is help bring what the kids just did it. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That's part of the kingdom. Prayer is that we will help him bring his kingdom, which is perfection, to this earth. He requires us to get active with him now, not for our salvation.

Before somebody turns that into a long email. Brentabraicfamily.com it's not for salvation, but he does require us to do things. Just like he says, I will forgive you for the things that happened in your past, but if you just willy nilly keep going through the every day it's like, oh God, thank you for forgiving me for stealing all this money. Tomorrow I'm going to steal money and I'm going to just ask for forgiveness again. You're cheapening the kingdom, you're cheapening the king, you're cheapening the gift of the kingdom and you'll have to deal with that.

So as we look at Matthew chapter 7 today, you have the same choice that we've had all along. Whose king determines who has the right to have the kingdom, which determines the right to say here's the rules of the kingdom. If you tell me that your king is King David but you want to live in Jesus kingdom, we got a problem. Because you're following a king who has a different set of rules and regulations in a different time frame than the person you're professing.

So today, in all days, when you wake up and you read this scripture and yes, I have a copy and pasted in here, I'm not saying my iPad is the scripture, but when you read the scripture, who's your king?

That determines the kingdom you're a part of, which determines the regulations, the rules and the opportunity you have. And that's how we should unpack everything. Why? Because the kingdom of God should tell us Jesus kingdom that we don't need to worry anymore. That we can help reveal his lordship, that we can help expose our own bondage, our own enslavements and pass from death chaos into life and order.

Holy Spirit is order. It is always order. We love the Holy Spirit here. The Holy Spirit is always order. From Genesis to Revelation, if the Holy Spirit is active, the Holy Spirit is taking chaos and taking it and putting it in order.

I don't care how much you run, you jump.

If there's not order, it's not the Holy Spirit. It's a different spirit. That's what the scripture says. So Jesus comes to a world that has chaos, that has impure leadership, who is enslaved to that, who honestly has some worry, there's some self preservation that's happening there. And he said, don't worry anymore.

And this is how we will live and move forward in a healthy way which reveals the kingdom measure. It's far more than a dog do not. It's how do we use the measurement of whose kingdom do we actually love? Whose kingdom are we actually preaching? Whose kingdom are we actually living?

It's more than a do and do not. That's kind of how we have approached Moses as a Hebrew loving congregation. We've approached Moses as a do and do not. If I do not step over this line, I am not in transgression of the commandment that he gave me. Jesus has already come and Brent has already taught over and over and over again.

It's not even about whether you stepped over this line or not. It's about, did you sit here and think, well, can I step over the line? Should I step over the line? I think I'm going to step over the line. That moment that you've done those things, you are already in violation of what the heart of the commandments were.

Which is the commandments give you life, they give you blessing. Why are you wrestling with that?

You cannot serve two kings.

Some of you that might be Moses. Some of you that might be David. Some of you that might be Esther. Some of you that might be every other person in the scripture. And some of you, it might be yourself.

You have to make the decision, is Jesus your king? And I'm not talking about whether you got saved when you were 13 or whether you got baptized. How do you live your life? Do you Live your life on a day in and day out basis that Jesus is the king of your life or not.

When you treat the waiter or the waitress that you're at the restaurant with, do you treat them as whether Jesus is your king or not? Do you treat your spouse whether Jesus is your king or not? Do you treat your children as whether Jesus is your king or not? Every part of your life is either promoting a different kingdom or it's promoting his. And we've been called to promote his.

Matthew, chapter 7, verse 1. It says, do not judge so that you will not be judged. All right, we can stop. We can post it on social media. You judge me, you're in violation of the scripture.

This happen all the time. I actually saw a couple this week. Judge not, lest you be judged. Until it says for. Oh, there's a qualifier there.

I could do all things through a verse taken out of context. Yeah. For in the way you judge, you will be judged. And by your standard of measure, the kingdom measure. It will be measured to you.

If you set up a standard for yourself and you place a higher standard on somebody else than yourself. Ooh, there's a judgment issue here. Judge not so that you will not be judged. For in the way that you judge another person, you will be judged. So.

And this is the extreme. Cause nobody's ever done this in this room. So when I go to the one mall that's, like, left in Norman, and I sit down at Chick Fil A, which used to be God's chicken before Popeyes took them over, and I judge those people who are walking through the room with a different weight and measurement than I hold myself to that standard. I'm in violation of the teachings of Jesus. And what does it say?

It comes with a promise. So if I say, man, those kids need to pull their pants up.

I'm in my 40s, you know, these types of things are things I think about now, you know, like, stay off my lawn. Those types of things. And then you pull up there, the hoodlums, and then I walk by and they're like, boomer. I ain't a boomer. I'm a millennial Boomer.

Don't you know. Don't you know that, like, the man bum was like, 20 years ago? Like, boomer, you change how you're going to measure somebody. You're supposed to be held the same standard. But we don't like that.

We don't like to do that. Why do you look at the speck that's in your brother's eye? But you do not notice the log that is in your own eye. How can you say, let me take the speck out of your eye, and behold, the log is in your own eye, you hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly.

To take the speck out of your brother's eyes sounds a little bit less passionate when you read it that way, right? Now, let me read it to you how I think probably Jesus was having this interaction.

Why do you look at the speck that's in your brother's eye but you don't notice the log that's in your own?

How can you say, let me take that speck out of your eye and behold, the log is in your own eye, you hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly enough to take the speck out of your brother's eye. I wish Jesus would just be. Tell us how you really feel.

I want you to think about this for a second. We entered into a very unique stage in our life as my wife and I have started to need glasses to be able to see more. As we've gotten older, our children have inherited that from us as well. Only they've gotten to the point where they're playing sports, so they want to use contact lenses. I used to have wear contacts all the time before I got Lasik, and now it's like I'm getting older and the same thing, like, stay off my lawn.

It's like, I don't think I could touch my eyeball anymore. It's amazing how weak you get in your 40s.

Talking about myself here. Talking about myself. Think about this for a second. What would happen if my daughter, who isn't comfortable in putting her own contact in before softball games, came to April or I and said, hey, dad, can you help me put my contact in before I go play? And I'm over here blind as a bat and I can't see, and I'm like, sure, babe.

Open your eye. This is gonna hurt a bit.

You wouldn't want that done. You sure as heck wouldn't call me and be like, hey, Pastor Chris, can you come help me put a contact in my eye? Why? Because I can't see clearly. There's more of a chance.

We've got some nurses, we've got some medical professionals in this room. There's a higher probability I'm going to jack up your eye or jack up their eye than anything else.

So why is it so common for us to immediately see a situation and want to go interject and help somebody else while we're still struggling with the same things in life. You know what you need to do to save your marriage? Meanwhile, we're literally on our way to divorce.

You know what you should do about your finances when you haven't even ever owned your own car, your own house, or you don't have any money, you don't even have. You're not even on Dave Ramsey Step two yet.

You know what you should do to lose weight? Meanwhile, you're grossly obese.

It's kind of the same concept. How are you so interested in helping somebody else when you yourself need help? And I understand that we should be about the service of others. That's my job. It's my position.

Most of the time I spent trying to help other people with other things. But what good am I to somebody else as a pastor if my own house is in disarray?

Yet I'm able to help you. I can tell you what is most likely going to happen, because we're watching it happen now more than ever. The news cycle is gonna come up and there's gonna be a story about something that happened with this megachurch pastor that happened 20 years ago. They defrauded their congregation. They stole money, by the way.

They were a secret alcoholic, or they were abusive to their wife, or they had extramarital affairs, or they had all these things. I can't believe it. I read that person's books. I watched their podcast. They love God.

They had so many great things. And what was happening in their actual life was complete and utter nonsense. And it was anti biblical. You hypocrite. Why not fix your marriage before you go try to fix somebody else's marriage?

You hypocrite. Why give financial advice to somebody when you're broke? You hypocrite.

You say, Chris, man, that's harsh. It is what it is. It's easier for us, especially in Western cultures, it's easier for us to focus on somebody else's issues than it is to deal with our own. Because when you have to deal with your own issues, there's a couple of things that happen. First off, you have to admit that you actually have an issue.

You know you have an issue, but you actually have to admit you have an issue. I know I have an issue in my marriage. Okay, good. That's the first step. What do you want?

Kudos. We all did, too. What do you want to do? I don't know. I'm Just going to keep doing the same thing over and over again and hopefully God will take care of it.

No, we're to attack. We're to attack the sin in our life.

We've come to a place where a lot of times we're just more interested in calling out the sin in somebody else's life. So I want to give you an analogy here. Maybe a visual. I'm a visual learner. My wife was asking me for some counsel.

Her father was in town the last couple of days, came in to surprise him. Man, do you know how hard that was to keep a secret? I literally get paid to keep secrets in counseling. But it was so hard to keep a secret that my father in law was coming into town to surprise my wife. Like, it was like utter.

What do you do once a week you go to wherever your trash cans are in your house, side yard, front yard, supposed to be in the side yard. Sometimes my kids get lazy. They're in kids class. I can tell you that this week. And you take out your trash can and you go to the curb and you set your trash can down at the curb.

Why do you do that? Because the city of Norman or the city of Edmond or the city of Oklahoma City or wherever you live has taught us and trained us and given us an opportunity to say that this trash can will be picked up and taken out. We will take it. We'll put it in a landfill. We'll make it leave your house.

What do you put in a trash can? Nine times out of ten, you put in a trash can something that has gone bad, something that you don't need, all the junk mail that you got sent all the time. And every once in a while, something that's really, really important that your kid threw away. But most of the time, what goes into this trash can is something that you did not want, something you did not need.

We do that every day, every week of our life. Let's take this from a spiritual standpoint.

I have this issue. I have a personal issue. Whatever it is. Anger.

I have anger. The Holy Spirit convicts me. The word of God convicts me that I need to remove anger from my life and that I need to get rid of it. And so I work really, really hard. I call Brent, I call Philip, I call Michael, I call Daniel.

All these people get counsel. Hey, by the way, I knew you were an angry guy. We need to take away your anger. Here's what I would recommend and I work very hard to take this out of me with the help of the Holy Spirit and Put it in my trash can, and I walk it down to the corner of my property.

All of that work. And then I can turn around and I can walk back to my house and I can start to try to do life without that anger. Now again, it's not gone. It's still on the corner of my property. Here.

I'm waiting for help, for somebody to come take this. But I'm over here and I'm sitting down. I'm doing my absolute best every single day to live my life without that thing I gave up.

Tim comes walking down the street.

I'm just saying this because I know you're a good guy. Don't call me afterwards.

Hey, Jacob. They work out together.

You never guess what I just found in the trash can at the Frankies house.

Hey, Stephen. You never guess what I just found at the trash can at the Frankie's house. Oh, no way. Are you serious? I know.

He's got such an anger issue. Oh, man, I could have told you that. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.

I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. And there's gossip and there's slander, and there's. There's gossip and there's slander, and there's gossip and there's slander and there's gossip and there's slander.

But some of it is true because it started in the fact that it's true that this person had an anger issue, or this person had a financial issue, or this person had a pride issue, or this person had an addiction issue. All of these things. The Bible is very crystal clear. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And yet we somehow live our life as if that's a shock.

Like, I don't even get shocked when people call me like, hey, Pastor, I need to confess something. I need help. You're not shocked? Yeah. The Bible says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

I guess the only shock is that you decided you were gonna call me today and tell me, today God says, stop going through other people's trash cans when you're hiding stuff in your own closet.

Stop going on your social media profiles. Stop going to your men's group, your women's group, to your workplace and talking nonsense about other people who are actively seeking to get closer to God, while you yourself are only interested in finding out the dirt about somebody else. This is the kingdom Measure how you will judge those people. I will judge you. And we should be scared.

Now I need to say this, unfortunately, because of the day and age we live in. This doesn't mean that you can go on sinning and you should not hold other people accountable. That's absolutely not what I'm saying, and that's not what the scripture is saying.

But the hypocrisy is that we're far more interested in this day and age and what somebody else's issue is than we are to tackle our own sin.

Well, it's okay. It's okay if I look at it on my screen, because 99.8% of men do so wrong.

It's okay if somebody else found a $10 bill in the parking lot and nobody was around, they would pick it up and they wouldn't turn it in either. Wrong. Jesus is saying, it's a higher standard. Cleanse out your storehouse first so that I can fill you with the power of the Holy Spirit so that you can be helpful to somebody else rather than trying to condemn somebody else.

Jesus didn't come that you could be condemned. He came so that you could be healed and set free.

But a lot of times we're looking through people's trash to try to get one up on them. After 2000 years, we still don't see it. We shouldn't be giving counsel to other people when we're struggling with the same thing. You can talk about it. Be transparent.

People come to counseling with April and I, and they'll say, hey, I really need counseling on this. It's like, I'm going to have to. I'm going to have to get you to somebody else. I'm not an expert. I can't give you counsel on that.

Why? Because I'm. I haven't done it. It's like, oh, how should we raise teenagers? I don't know.

You tell me. I don't have them yet. Well, you're not going to give me counsel. Yeah, and you shouldn't want mine because I haven't done it.

Jesus calls us to a kingdom measure. If you're going to judge another person, you better make sure that that judgment is equal. At least equal to yourself.

I tried to practice this this week.

It's hard because you can justify 10 million reasons why you have the right to be angry and aggressive while driving on the interstate. But there is no reason why that other person could do the same thing you just did.

Well, I woke up grumpy. I didn't have enough coffee. I got in a fight with my wife. That person had no reason to cut me off on the interstate. Well, sweetie, Maybe they had a bad day, too.

There's no reason for it. But you just said that there was all these reasons why you could do the same behavior. No, didn't say that. That's not how that worked.

Sometimes we just gotta admit we messed up. Shocker, we messed up. Shocker. 2,000 years, we all messed up. I'm still a man and needed Savior just as much as everybody in this room.

Just as much as everybody outside of this room. Why? Because there's only one Christ. There's only one Mashiach.

God is asking us in his kingdom, by his measure, to stop being as worried about somebody else's issues until you take care of your own.

Why? It's so much easier for me to get invited to the Perez household for dinner and be like, babe, did you realize they hadn't dusted in a week and a half?

Why do we do those types of things? Why? Because we need to build ourself up. And we think that by using the weights of this world and by using the thought process of this world, if we do it this way, that we will actually build ourself up. And what we do is we do not build ourself up.

We tear other people down. And by tearing other people down, we find ourselves in the same rat race of trying to make ourselves feel better and feel better and feel better and feel better.

This isn't the kingdom measure. This isn't the kingdom of Jesus. We see with the Zealots. The Zealots wanted to save the land, and anyone with a different passion was considered to be inferior. Think of that.

Well, I want to learn how to play soccer. Anybody with a different opinion on that is considered inferior. I don't care if you like softball, it's inferior. That's kind of the thing. The Zealots really love the land.

They love the land. I love the land of Israel. I love the promise of the land of God. And if you don't feel the same way as me, you're inferior.

Paul might take issue with that, with the offices of the Holy Spirit man. We need to go and preach the gospel to the lost on the street corner. Yes, we do. And we also need to preach and hold services for the community. And we also need teachers.

Well, all we need is tongues. No, you need your yes to be yes and your no to be no, too.

The Essenes considered everybody else morally inferior. We read about this, even with John. John is a different person than many in the scripture. He's the one who's called to prepare the way for The Lord, the Mashiach, the coming Messiah, Jesus, the Christ, Yeshua, he's called to set this up. And even the Essenes who are out there, John wasn't holy enough for them.

And so they considered everybody else, the Pharisees, Sadducees, zealots, everybody else to be spiritually impure in comparison to themselves. The priesthood of that time of the Sadducees considered themselves to be more important than the scribes and the teachers of the law. And the scribes and the Pharisees would literally walk on the other side of the road from Gentiles.

They would literally walk on the other side of the road from somebody who was not a member of their ethnic group.

Cultures breed narcissism and self centeredness.

Jesus culture is counter to that. He says that's not the kingdom measure. The kingdom measure is not thinking more highly of yourself than somebody else.

It's to think more highly of somebody else than you do yourself. It's a servant's heart. That lion of Judah, that tribal king that Jesus says he will be, calls us to let him be the lion of the tribe of Judah and for us to be the suffering servant that he modeled in his first coming. Silent narcissism is still narcissism and you're still committing murder against people that Jesus died to save.

So what do we do?

God has called us to restoration. God has called us to repentance.

God has called us to reconciliation. He's called us to be reconciled not only with him and his kingdom, but with his kingdom people and to put them first. Worship team, you can come back.

That kingdom and that kingdom teaching can only be accomplished through the power of Jesus Spirit. Otherwise we create the very same thing that we're preaching against today, which is self narcissism. I'm worthy. I'm awesome. I'm holy.

My dad used to tell me, you're always going to meet somebody better than you now. At the time, I just thought my dad didn't love me. Now I'm in my 40s and I realize my dad was right. I'm always going to meet somebody better than me at something and I should probably just always keep learning and always keep growing, always keep trying.

So as we continue to look at this series over the next couple of weeks, I want to ask you a couple of questions. We're almost to the end of the series. We're almost to the Sermon on the Mount. We're almost to the end of it.

You should have a pretty good gauge about where your heart is where your life is, how you think of God, how you think of His Word, and how you're applying that in your life. At this point, when I ask you a couple of questions, has your focus changed from yourself to kingdom service, from me into ministry?

You don't have to have the title pastor. You don't have to be employed by the church to be in ministry. We are all in ministry. We are all part of the kingdom. But how's your focus turned from me into ministry, from self into service?

Have you forgiven anyone that you've previously held in contempt?

When you hold that contempt for somebody else in your heart, it absolutely does dictate and bleed into other relationships, including new ones that will come.

Have you ever gone the extra mile for someone who you felt didn't deserve it? We can justify why that person did or did not deserve something, but have you gone the extra mile for somebody who you know didn't deserve it? That person wronged me. They hurt me. They did this.

Have you gone the extra mile for them to try to bring that restoration, that reconciliation?

Have you just let your yes be yes and your no be no? Some of the most simplistic things, your yes is yes and your no is no. Have you let that happen? I know my wife sometimes will say, babe, can you think over this? My yes is yes and my no is no.

I said no. She's almost always right, too. Don't you laugh at me.

Yes is yes. Your no is no. Have you adjusted the way you give and why you give? Have you adjusted from the Sermon on the Mount, the way you give to others? You give of your time, of your energy?

Husbands. Have you adjusted how you give to your wife? I'm not talking about increasing the spending limit on your credit card. That's not what I'm talking about. Have you adjusted how you approach giving to your wife of your time, of your emotional self, your mental self?

Wives, same thing. You don't get off scot free. Brent's coming for you next week.

Have you changed how you give to match a God who loved us so much that he gave his son? Have you adjusted how you approach God in prayer?

These are all elements of what Brent has been preaching about. Have you adjusted your prayer? Have you found yourself trusting God more or worrying more?

Have you chosen to use the King measurement on how you interact with yourself and with others? Or are you still looking at others in a way that makes yourself look better as well as that Snapchat filters or whatever that is? I don't have Snapchat Again, get off my lawn. I'm too old. But have you put a filter on for how you see yourself that you've removed for somebody else or vice versa?

The people who sat on that mountaintop didn't just hear the words of Jesus. Not only did they hear it, because they sat down and they listened, but they were invited into a time by which they would do something with that.

We read in the book of Revelation the revelation to John, which, by the way, we're going to be going to Patmos in April of next year on our Mediterranean tour. Hopefully in the next week or two, I'll have information on that. But we're going to go to the very place where the revelation to John was written. In the revelation to John, it talks about that, the heavenly realm, that they were weeping because there was these scrolls that were kept in the heavenly realm and nobody was found worthy to open those.

And then here comes Yeshua, here comes Jesus. He was the only one who could open those scrolls.

What kingdom and who is your king? I can tell you this. The book of Hebrews tells us Moses testified and was a foreshadow of Jesus. David testified and was a foreshadow of Jesus. They maybe didn't necessarily know how ins and outs of all that, what kingdom are you upholding and who is your king?

Because in the heavenly realm and in this realm, whether we like it or not, Jesus is king. Jesus will always be king. We really don't have any say so in that. What we do have a say so in is do we adjust our life, our heart, our walk, our way of thinking into his kingdom. Are we still trying to do what American cultures do?

We're trying to take Jesus and make Jesus fit into the box of the Chris Frankie household. There's nowhere in the scripture where it says Jesus has an obligation, should, will anything, that he should amend himself to fit into my household. He should amend himself to fit into my desire.

Jesus does not wait on me. He is not my waiter, he is not my servant. He is not any of those things. But we are all called. Every person who ever takes a breath of life is called to the opportunity to serve him.

But that means you have to do something.

That means you have to do something.

So this week, as we respond, you have an opportunity to look at how you judge and view other people.

I don't know what that looks like in your life, but I can tell you this. It was so important and was so prevalent when Yeshua came that he started off the chapter of Mark, chapter seven. They didn't exactly have the ESV at that point in time, but he started off this portion of the testimony Matthew does with this, which means it's important, which means it's a human heart issue, which means it's still prevalent for us today.

And ultimately we have to analyze our life and ask ourselves, are we looking at other people the way that Jesus does or the way that we want to put onto them? Stand with me and respond.