Reform Before Reforming

More than likely, I will be speaking at the Atlanta Prom. And by the way, it's not just—they're taking it over from Nashville, essentially for the near future. And so, it'll be teens through young adults. I'm sure I'll see some of you there. My daughter gave me—and you know, speaking to teens and young adults, it's one of the most difficult audiences there is to speak to. Because you've got to be funny, and then you've got to hit them at the heart, and then you've got to be funny again. My daughter challenged me recently, Kate. She said, You know, Dad, you could be a little bit more funnier in your sermons. Sometimes you're hitting us a little too much in the heart. You've got to break it up a little bit. And I appreciate that feedback. I appreciate those words. Well, the title of our sermon study today is Reform Before Reforming. Reform Before Reforming. That title is a little obscure, but it will make sense in a moment. And I invite you to open your Bibles, and let's turn together to Luke's Gospel, Luke 6. We're going to begin reading verses 39 through 41. Luke 6 verses 39 through 41, as we come to what is essentially three pictures this afternoon. Three pictures that will provide for us information and instruction as to endeavor to bow beneath. Three pictures that come in rapid succession. And while all three pictures are distinct and all three pictures are different, each provides one unified instruction we will see. And this instruction is for us to reform before reforming. You know, the Bible is clear. It's clear in its admonition that we are all to be beacons. Beacons of light to others, to teach God's Word verbally and also by example. Simply put, we are to participate in the Reformation of mankind. In other words, we are to reform or help change the world, bring men and women to God according to His calling. And therefore, we are to be something of a reformer. But what we're going to see today is that being prepared to take oneself first through the reforming process is in fact a prerequisite for any individual who is to become a reformer. Simply put, before you go on a crusade to reform, you better make sure you yourself are reformed. And again, we're going to see this instruction through these three pictures that Jesus beautifully paints here. So, Luke 6, verse 39, picture number 1, verse 39, And he, that's Jesus Christ, spoke a parable to them. Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? Verse 40, this is picture number 2. A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. Verse 41 and 42, this is picture number 3. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First, remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye. Let's stop there. Let me set the scene here for us. We're actually close to the end of a sermon, which Jesus had begun up there in verse 17. Verse 17, Jesus came down. He stood on a level place with the crowd of his disciples and of the great multitude of people. So he begins this sermon at this point, and he begins to speak clearly and forcibly. I've chosen this particular little section of the sermon of this passage because it's going to be very important for us as we move closer to the Passover season, which is going to be upon us in just a few months. Because it's impossible to read this little section in which we did without understanding in some measure that of an invitation for introspection.

Looking inward, the ability which is so important during the Passover season. We see that Christ here in this passage, these three pictures, is calling for us to look inside. That's what we're going to see today. Now, as I thought about this this week, there is in these pictures a sense that there is an order of operations in which Jesus proposes here.

How many of you remember the order of operations taught in math? Pym... what is it? Pym-dos? So when you approach a math equation, pym-dos, the first letter of each of these words, you start with the parentheses, then you go to the exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction. Pym-dos. That's the order of operations for mathematic equations. I just brought you back to some horrible memories, some of you.

Well, in the same way, Jesus gives us these three pictures, and in a sense, it's sort of an order of operations, an order of spiritual operations here, where the order is simple. It's always inward first. Inward, then outward. In other words, begin with the self before beginning with others. Reform yourself before looking to reform others. I tried to think of some acronym. I couldn't do it.

But I've got you thinking about grade school now. I was also reminded when I was thinking back, and I thought of pym-dos, and I thought, well, that reminds me of something else. Maybe some of you remember this in school. Whenever there's time for a quiz, whenever there was time for a quiz, the teacher came and he laid or she laid the quiz upside down on your desk, laid it all upside down.

Then at all one time, she would say, okay, everybody, let's go ahead and turn your quiz over and you can begin. Well, inevitably, I had this horrible habit. What I would do is I would turn it over, and I would read the first question, and I'd be so lost, and I would just then begin to look around and see which one of my other classmates are as lost as I am. Every time the teacher would say, never mind looking around, Jay, just concentrate on yourself. Just worry about yourself. That's exactly what Jesus is doing here, we will see, using these three colorful pictures here.

This section calls for us to not be preoccupied primarily or initially with the spiritual condition of others. Rather, be diligent in examining yourself first. We, as being called first in the plan of God, in the plan of his salvation, we are therefore leaders. We are teachers by word and by example. Jesus Christ is now going to tell us, I want to make sure that you turn the search light of my word squarely onto yourself and looking beneath the surface of your own circumstances.

Now, our first picture to consider here, verse 39. Jesus asks a question. A couple of questions. Picture number one here, verse 39. Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a ditch? If you think about that for a moment, there's sort of a sad humor to this. A blind man being guided by a blind guide. You know, that's what's here and it just has disaster written all over it, of course.

You may have, at some point in your life, perhaps, seen someone who's blind, obviously blind, and they're trying to cross the street. And so, you and your sightedness would be urged to then get over there and try to help the individual across the street, of course. But you can imagine this scenario. A blind man is trying to cross a four-lane heavy traffic street, and all of a sudden you see another blind man come and say, well, let me help you get across, you know. And so, you can imagine the one blind man now helps the other blind man try to avoid four lanes of traffic going in all different directions.

Disaster. Disaster written all over it. That's the broader point that Jesus Christ is making here. In addition, Jesus's listeners would have also been well aware of the rugged terrain of the day. Terrain, which would have had many potholes, perhaps, or pits. Presumably, the roads of Jerusalem were similar to the roads in Tennessee in that way. The Old and the New Testament had a lot to say about pits. So, this could be referring, of course, to a hole that you may have fell into because the authorities ignored it.

This could have been a hole that you found yourself in where you weren't fallen in, but you were thrown in, of course, by the authorities. Lots of examples of that in the Bible. But perhaps, back in the day, you wouldn't have to go very far without potentially falling in one of these potholes. You know, these potholes. So, he tells his listeners here, and they would have understood that the answer to the first question was clearly, no.

Can a blind man lead a blind man? No. The answer to the second question was clearly, yes. Will they both fall into a pit? Yes. So, through this metaphor, you see the futility, you see the folly in which is attached to a blind man acting as a guide. And in this context of this instruction, it's very much taking place in relation to the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day.

And he's telling them, as they come to an opportunity to guide someone, before engaging in that opportunity, you need to understand that often, in the eyes of a guide, there may be an assumption that the guide has eyes that are fully open, or fully aware, or fully sighted, so as to help someone who's blind. The guide may assume that, but it might not be the case. The phrase, can a blind man lead a blind man? That phrase spoke particularly to the Pharisees.

And this was a theme, a picture, that Jesus Christ painted over and over again. Just allow your eyes to look up to verse 7 here. Stay in chapter 6.

The Pharisees were all eyes, if you will. Chapter 6, verse 7. So the scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely, whether he would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against him. So the reference to sight here. They're looking. They're looking for a reason. They're fully sighted, of course. And Jesus is addressing this issue of blindness, and he's pointing to those issues who regarded themselves as having full sight, spiritually, you see. Where, point in fact, they were actually blind guides themselves. You guys are all looking around. You're all eyes. You're all watching. You're spiritually insightful. Eyes wide open, outward, looking to others, thinking that their vision was perfect in revealing the indiscretions of Jesus and his followers. And Jesus now says, I want to ask you a question.

Can a blind man lead a blind man?

Despite these individuals walking around with their eyes wide open, focused on to others, they were actually blind themselves. Jesus had already given instruction in the synagogue in Nazareth, and he actually read from a portion of Isaiah where it spoke about he coming to give sight to the blind. Not just physically, but more importantly, spiritual sight. If you keep your marker here, let's just turn back two chapters to Luke 4, verse 18 and 19. I want you to see this portion of Isaiah read, which was a prophecy of Jesus Christ. Luke 4, verse 18 and 19, Jesus came to give sight to the blind. Again, this was a reoccurring theme. Luke 4, verse 18, reading from Isaiah, Jesus says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and notice, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. So, Luke goes on to record that Jesus closes the book, gives it back, and He sits down. He says, today, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. So, this is the context in which Jesus finds themselves. The Pharisees prided themselves on being able to see all the spiritual problems so clearly in others, but they themselves were blind guides. In fact, one more example for this. Just one more. Matthew, let's turn to Matthew, Matthew's gospel. Matthew 15, in verse 14, here, one more example, we see that Jesus actually refers to the religious leaders of that day as blind leaders, blind spiritually. Matthew 15, verse 14, just one final reference here. Matthew 15, verse 14, Jesus says, let them alone. He says, they are blind leaders of the blind, and if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch. So, you see this reference over and over again. And why? Well, of course, it's because there's inherent disaster attached to the individual who looks to reform others before being reformed themselves, looks to teach others before being taught. Dreadfully dangerous. Someone who gets the order of operations out of order. It's very dangerous. And in painting this first picture and asking these questions, he is identifying these blind teachers who thought they could see. He wants to warn his listeners so that they don't become blind guides and so that they don't follow blind guides. So, here's the first picture, calling out to the leaders of his day, look inside first, lead yourself first to Reformation before endeavoring to lead others. Begin with the self.

Well, that brings us to the second picture. Let's turn back to Luke chapter 6. Luke chapter 6. We will come to the second picture today. It's a continuation of the first, really, in verse 40, but this is the picture of a teacher and a student or a teacher and a pupil or a teacher and a disciple.

Luke 6 verse 40. Here's the second picture.

He says, a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. So, this is the second picture. And there is, maybe not initially apparent, there is some very dangerous areas displayed here in this second picture because there is power that the guide wields. Whether it be a sighted guide, whether it be a blind guide, there is power that the guide wields over the student, over the disciple. This is a picture of he or she who's following a blind guide, coming off of that first picture, that they may themselves be blinded, and eventually they may fall into the pit with their blind guide. Verse 40 again, the disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who's perfectly trained will be like his teacher. So, in this second picture, it could be summed up this way. As the teacher goes, so goes the student. Whether perfectly trained or whether imperfectly trained, you see. As the teacher goes, so goes the student. Again, there's incredible responsibility placed on that of the guide of the teacher. In these days at this time when Jesus walked the earth, a little bit different scenario with the disciples, the students, they were totally dependent upon their teachers at this time. There was limited literature, so therefore the guide, the teacher, became the resource. So often the student or the disciple, they would walk with their teacher, they would eat with their teacher, they would even live with their teacher. So as in the walking, in the talking, they might clearly be a student, a disciple of the teacher. So just like a son, no matter how advanced they become in life, he's always the son to his father. In the same way a student, no matter how he may excel, no matter how she may excel, no matter how far he or she may go beyond the instruction and the academic qualifications of the initial teacher, that individual will find themselves always acknowledging their academic accolades by paying testimony to the teacher, the initial teacher often. You see this quite a bit. It may be a high school teacher, it may be a principal in an elementary, whatever it is, you will often find them saying, I accept this PhD and I want to acknowledge that I'm still a student of Mrs. X, you know, whoever it may be. They recognize their dependence upon that instruction, that foundation. Now, Jesus makes this point here, this second picture, and there's two inherent warnings with it. Namely, number one, number one, you better make sure you are not a blind guide, you yourself, as your student will not go beyond you. That's the first inherent warning. Number two, you better make sure you don't choose the wrong teacher, because again, the student won't get beyond the teacher in many ways. So as the teacher is blind, so will the student. If you choose blind guides as your teacher, you may end up in a pit. Therefore, it's imperative once you recognize that you have been behind a blind guide to get out immediately. You know, you don't want to continue following. You want to follow the perfect teacher, Jesus Christ, and you only follow a teacher as they are following Jesus Christ. You see?

And if you are a teacher, and I want to inform you again that being first in God's plan of salvation, you are a teacher, whether by word, by example, students are looking, are looking, and so those who are under your instruction, they will go as you go.

And so as teachers of ourselves, we must guard against the blindness which affected so many of the Pharisees. What was the main blindness that the Pharisees had? If you think about that, you look at all the examples of the Pharisees, if you could summarize one main blindness that marked the religious leaders of that day, I think the one word you would come up with is that they were self-deceived. They were self-deceived. I think that's one word. It might have a dash in between, I'm not sure. Might be two words. They were self-deceived. They thought they could see, but point in fact, they were blind. I wonder if you could ever find your self-deceived or myself self-deceived. And again, before you go to endeavor to guide others, Jesus is saying you better first guide yourself lest we too become blind leaders of the blind. It's a very sobering thought, but there's nothing worse than a man or a woman who thinks they see when in reality they're blind. And then even worse, in their delusion, they act as leaders and guides for others. You can think about that picture of going to the busy traffic intersection, one blind leading the other blind.

Now with that, we continue from our second picture. It's a continuation to our third picture here. In our third picture, Jesus employs here. We'll spend a little bit of time on this one. This is our final picture, which is found in verse 41 and 42. This now moves us into this third picture of a speck and a plank. Very familiar couple of verses here. Verse 41 and 42. Let's read this again and be thinking about what has led the two pictures that have led to this. Verse 41, and why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? So think of yourself as a teacher, as a guide, and how this relates. Verse 42, or how can you say to your brother, brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye, when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First, remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will clearly see to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye. Let's stop there. So let's see if the lesson in this picture is and see if we can state this clearly. In other words, in order to avoid being a blind teacher, we must first place ourselves under the divine searchlight. And this is what Jesus is driving home. So before you start in on someone else, make sure you put yourself under the x-ray first. Before you start carting around some kind of mobile CAT scan, you know, some kind of spiritual mobile CAT scan. Make sure you get in the tube first, you know. This is the picture, the picture of a guide who doesn't understand what they actually look like. It's a blind guide.

Every so often, in a very humorous way, we have the dreadful experience of being at a party, and you're mingling along, you're talking, and you're having a good time. And then, as you're moving around, someone comes into your view, and you notice, oh, they have a huge smudge on their face, you know. Or maybe they have something hanging out or stuck in, who knows, whatever it is. And you're trying to figure out a way to tell them, and you don't want to tell them, but you know you should tell them, you know. And you're trying to bring yourself to do it, and they're continuing to walk around and say, hey, how are you doing, you know, to everyone else. And you know that everyone can see, everyone can see what they can't.

Everyone can see what they can't see. And eventually, they go into the bathroom, and they notice it, and they burst into tears because they realize what they've looked like for hours, you know, in that way. But we could actually say, I think we can state it this way, in a sense, they were self-deceived. Aren't they? You know, they think they look great. They think they look fine, but there's a deception there.

And then you can imagine your shock. You've been trying to debate ways on how to tell them about what's hanging off their face. And then all of a sudden, you notice they begin to tell other people about smudges that they have on their face, you know, the shock of, oh, now he's telling the other person they have a smudge on their face at the party. And they're trying to reform someone else's face before reforming their own face. It doesn't work. The order of operations, it's out of order. Again, one must take themselves first to the mirror. That is the prerequisite for the individual who's going to become something of a reformer for God. You want to be a reformer for God. You want God to use you in that way to help others. What's the order? Well, take yourself to the mirror first. In fact, without self-examination or self-reformation, we will never be able to be proper guides to others. So as we look to fulfill our roles as reformers, we must first acknowledge the smudges, the sin of our own heart. Acknowledging. I'll give you an example. This may speak to the guys, you know, maybe some of the ladies. Acknowledging that maybe you're flammable, you know. Boy, I can get angry in a moment's notice. And I've been building it up all day at work, and I come home and boom! The slightest thing goes wrong. Explode. You know. It can erupt. Be a disaster in a moment. And with that smudge example, I must then go to God and ask God to shine the light and to hold His book, His law, His mirror up to my face, and reveal that smudge and reveal other smudges. And then give me the power to work on them and to overcome. I need to be a clean vessel. I need to have a clean face in order for God to use me to my greatest ability. I must look into that mirror and begin to deal with my life. That's where I start. Because if I haven't truly understood or believed that I have smudges in my own life, then when I go to deal with others, I will be going to deal with them as a blind guide, and I will be potentially leading that individual into a pit, and we'll go together, you know.

Rather, Jesus says, you're going to have to put yourself under the CAT scan of my word. You're going to have to realize you've got all kinds of things and bits and pieces hanging off your face, all kinds of nonsense that other people know, by the way, but you yourself are blind to. He says, I want you to fix this up before you start on anybody else. There's an amazing discipline, self-discipline in these pictures here. It's an amazing church discipline. We as the church, often we think of church discipline as the authority going and speaking to someone and possibly in, you know, more in the past days, considering disfellowship or whatever it may be. That's not church discipline. That's not church discipline. That's not the biblical church discipline. It's in there. It's in there as a last resort, but this is a different kind of discipline. Church discipline actually starts with me.

Real church discipline starts with the individual in their own heart. So it's not my brother. It's not my sister. It's me. I stand father before you and I'm standing in need. I am standing in need of your mercy. It's not my wife that needs to be fixed. It's me. It's not my kids that are a problem. It's me. It's not my spiritual brother or sister that's the problem. It's me first. Everything militates against that, though, because in my humanity, I would much rather come to someone to deal with their dreadful condition rather than my own.

Let me trivialize this for you. I'm taking the advice of my daughter. Paint more pictures, be funnier. So I thought about this. What does this look like? Well, one image is when you go to the zoo. Hang with me. Stay with me. You see those chimpanzees and you see those monkeys and you see the baboons. Creatures, I think, that God gave us for some kind of comical relief in many ways. You go to the zoo and what are they doing? Well, despite some of the other things, one of the things they're doing is they're picking, aren't they? And they're not picking themselves. They're picking each other. They're picking someone else. Pick and pick and pick and pick. And they're separating the hairs and picking and picking. And you think, what gives that chimpanzee the right to pick their brother or sister in that way? Might be a cousin or an aunt. Who knows? What gives them the right to be standing there and picking, picking, and showing it to someone else and picking some more? They do that. But as I thought about it, we don't only find that at the zoo. You see where I'm going with this.

I participated in that, in a sense, this last week. You know, picking on, picking on someone else. We pick on others. Sometimes we even show it to others, you know. Just doing it differently. Rooting around in other people's lives. Perhaps showing it to others again. Jesus says, let me tell you the order of operations again. For dealing with the specs, let me tell you what the process is. First, deal with this two-by-four that's sticking out of your eye, you know. Then deal with the spec. Don't get it out of order.

The words here, I don't often go to Greek words, but I just thought, what are these words? What's the specific meaning of this? For spec in these two verses, spec is karphos, the Greek word karphos, k-a-r-p-h-o-s. It literally means tiny, small, dry. It's like a, maybe a better translation, is like a piece of sawdust there. Plank is dokon. It sounds heavy. D-o-k-o-n. It's like a load-bearing beam. You know, if you've ever been in construction, you know what a load bearing beam looks like. It's usually the biggest beam in the house. It's huge. And all the other beams come off of it. You know, all the other structure come off of it. Massive piece. That's the picture. And it's another humorous picture here that he makes, Jesus makes. You can imagine, you know, you got this huge thing and you're there at the same party, you know, and you're trying to get it out of the way and you walk up to someone and say, you know, I'd like to tell you about that piece of sawdust. And in the meantime, you're knocking the glass, the drinks off the table, you know, and stuff. And the person's like, wait, what? You know, that piece of sawdust there, you know. I'd like to talk to you about that, you know. That's the point he's making. I'd like to talk about that speck in your eye. We've decided not to pay any attention to the plank in our own eye. And he says, think about that. That you think you can take to yourself the privilege of dealing with someone else's spiritual condition, while frankly refusing to deal with your own self. You feel the prerogative to call up, send notes, admonish. I'm sure the Pharisees would have admonished in the Lord, you know. I can just feel the elevation, you know, that. I'd like to talk to you about that speck in your eye, you know. And they're a walking contradiction. If you'd only take a moment to look in the mirror, you've got a huge thing out of your own face. So how is it that you can look to your brother or sister and wonder how you can help them take the speck out of their own eye? Jesus says one word, of course, sums it up. Hypocrite. Hypocrite.

And if you think about it, what's... if we were going to say what's one thing as to why brothers and sisters aren't here anymore, perhaps, or came... or someone new came to visit, and they might not return, maybe one of the most obvious reasons, or one of the most common reasons, is hypocrisy. And Jesus says, I don't want you to fall into this hypocrisy here.

That's what Jesus is saying. We must avoid this very thing. You're somehow operating as a guide for the blind, and you yourself are blind. You're leading them into oncoming traffic. Don't you know that a disciple is not above his teacher? You see the impact here. Don't you know where you go? They go, often.

We've all encountered blind guides, haven't we? I know I've been guilty of it. Perhaps you have been in certain times the guide who is self-deceived, walking around as a hypocrite. And what makes this so condemning and so unpleasant is that the blind guide, apparently, is a guide that is just inflating his own ego or her own ego. And when they come to you, feel like there's a sense of superiority attached to it. Again, the only reason I'm pointing out to this to you is because I care. Excuse me. Put that on the table.

Sometimes when you hear that, you're just like, okay, you know, get that out. Whatever. Just back up. You know, the fact is, though, I was thinking about this. Most of us, if not all of us, we actually want to know if there's a smudge on our face. We want to know if I'm walking around the party and I've got something hanging out or sticking out or whatever it is. I actually want to know. See, that's the irony here. The recipient could be helped and they actually want the help. We'd like to know. But we'd rather have someone come up to us without any disguise, rather than with a posture as a means of inflating their own ego. We want them to come with a posture that we can tell they've been in the mirror a long time. Their own mirror, you know. That's the posture. It's a very nuanced thing. You either feel it or you don't when someone approaches you. You either feel that this is an individual that hasn't been in the mirror at all or this is an individual who has been in the mirror and they're looking out for me and they're trying to guide me in this way. I appreciate that. But the hypocrisy is where the apparent reformer comes and you just get the distinct feeling they're exalting themselves by disparaging you. They're coming to you before dealing with themselves first. And in fact, they might be trying to deal with sin vicariously through you. By finding the sin in a brother or sister, they're seeking to condemn it there so they don't have to condemn it here.

In a sense, it gives the blind guide the sensation that they're dealing with sin without actually facing the personal pain of repentance. I'll deal with it in your life, you know, so that I can find your flaw and deal with you and bypass dealing with myself. And these three pictures, they're not... this is not reversing. This is not flipping Matthew 18. We won't turn there, but we know Matthew 18, the process by which to go to a brother or sister, to help them, the instruction to go deal with a brother before you come to worship. You know, he's not reversing. He's not overturning that. He's saying there's just a sequence here. Before you go on a crusade as a reformer, make sure you yourself are reformed. Before you go on a crusade to be a teacher, make sure you are taught. Before you go on a crusade to be an ophthalmologist, I had to look that up. Before you go on a crusade to be an eye doctor, make sure you have a clear sight line, and you won't have a clear sight line if you have something sticking out of your eye. In other words, deal with yourself first. Learn to be as critical of yourself as you are of others. Learn to be as generous with others as you are of yourself. That's the challenge.

Again, let's be generous of other people as we want to be generous to ourselves. And that kind of rigid self-examination will help us avoid any kind of wrong judgment. We are so vulnerable to wrong judgment. Jesus condemns wrong judgment. What he's condemning is an egocentric judgment. If you'll notice here in Luke 6, in verse 37, actually, this whole passage is really dealing with a lot of this topic. Luke 6, verse 37, Jesus condemns judgment. Wrong judgment. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. So it's really focusing on the self. Again, rigid self-examination will help you avoid egocentric judgment every time. If you start with the self, you'll have the proper sight to guide others. But I just want to point something out here to show you that Jesus isn't overturning the need to go to a brother or sister. Because in verse 42, you will notice there's two words, and then.

Middle of verse 42, you hypocrite, hypocrite. Middle of verse 42, first, remove the plank out of your own eye, and then, and I might even add in parentheses, and only then, or not until then, will you see clearly enough to remove the spec from your brother's eye. Only self-reformation, when it takes place, will it make it possible to see clearly other specs and other brothers and sisters. Because you'll notice there's still a spec there. God still expects us to edify, encourage, sharpen, a brother or sister with regards to a spec. He still wants us to do that. But see, we must start here so that we clearly see what is the actual issue here. How can I best help this spiritual brother or sister of mine? Well, I got to get this out of the way so I can clearly see to help them best. And what you'll find, though, is, I believe, with that order of operations, you'll spend so much time on yourself dealing with yourself. That won't give you a lot of time to deal with the brother or the sister. And you may find you're spending so much time on this that the, and then, may take care of itself. Because if that brother or that sister is exercising the church discipline that we're talking about, they themselves would have already identified the spec. And it actually may be a plank to them. And they've already started the self-reformation. So this is the beautiful church discipline, the beautiful self-discipline that the body of Jesus Christ is to exercise. When this kind of self-discipline takes place, it marks a strong church. You will see a strong church. Visitors, those watching us, they will see us as a people, as men and women, committed to self-reforming. And we're looking to Jesus Christ as the perfect teacher. And we'll be able to say the character, the conduct, the message, the motives, the influence. It's not perfect, but we're focusing on reforming ourselves through Jesus Christ so that we might be doing effective work and helping others. Well, let's conclude. Wonderful pictures, isn't it? And it's a wonderful focus here before we come and turn our focus to the Passover, which is going to be upon us in no time. Let's reflect on these pictures. Let's bring ourselves in an honest way before the mirror of Scripture. And let's pray and work on in the days ahead on being clear-sighted guides, clear-sighted teachers, followers of Jesus Christ. Let's remove those things that are in our own eyes so we can be true reformers, not only of ourselves, but of the world.