Here now the word of the Lord from Matthew chapter seven, verses one through six.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log 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 eye. Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you."

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

The Bible says that every one of us looks at the world through one of two lenses. All of us have one of two mindsets by which we judge ourselves and by which we judge others. Either we have a legal mindset or we have a gospel mindset. A legal mindset believes that my standing with God, my righteousness before God, is determined by me, by my personal righteousness. And so if that's the case, if if it's my righteousness that's going to determine my standing before God, you better believe that I am going to do all that I can to assemble the best righteousness I can.

Now that's going to mean two things usually. First of all, it is going to mean that I am going to document my righteousness as much as possible. You're going to know all about it. I'm going to do all my good works before you so that you see what a good person I am. Your God is going to see what kind of a good person I am. I want other people to see how righteous I am. But just as much as I document my righteousness, I also have to do something with my unrighteousness, with my sin. And here I'm not going to so much document it as rationalize it, explain it away. Uh, if you see something in me that you confront in my life, I'm going to tell you that no, you have it wrong. In fact, you don't understand the circumstances. You don't understand all of the factors involved. You don't understand that if you had been in my place, you would see that what I had done was really the best thing for everyone, or at least that I was doing my best. And maybe it fell a little bit short. But who can blame me in the situation like that? I'm going to document my righteousness. I'm going to downplay, minimize, rationalize my unrighteousness. And the thing I'm also going to do is I'm going to do all of this in relation to you.

It's not so much that I have to be perfectly righteous, but it's as long as I have a reasonable expectation that I'm a little bit better off than you, I can feel comfortable with myself. That's the legal mindset, and that's a very natural way, according to the ways of this world, to look at ourselves and to look at each other. I'm a good person compared to other people. If you understood everything. But the other mindset and really there's only two. Everything boils down to either the legal mindset or this other mindset. The other mindset is a gospel mindset. A gospel mindset recognizes that my standing before God, my righteousness before God is not about me. Now, certainly I can be condemned on the basis of my unrighteousness. But what I mean to say is that I can never, ever, ever be justified by my own righteousness. I can't really explain away all of my sin, and certainly this will involve turning a great amount of a blind eye to my sin. If I'm going to even try to do that route, I can't certainly do enough good things to cover over my sin. I need something else to forgive me of my sins and to give me righteousness. And the Bible offers this hope to us in Jesus Christ. The irony is that to truly be righteous, we can't sort of pursue the the legal route where we try to maintain our own righteousness no matter what someone brings against us.

What the Bible says is that the only way that we can be declared righteous before God will begin by a declaration of our great guilt before God. That's a great irony. If you want to be righteous before God, you have to start by declaring that you are guilty before God and then looking to Jesus Christ in faith to receive his righteousness as a gift that he gives by faith alone. But again, this this mindset of this legal mindset, this gospel mindset is not just about how I judge you. It's also going to directly affect how I or how I judge me. It's also going to affect the way that I judge you. And in this passage is Jesus deals with judging. He's telling us where we need to direct our attention, where we need to direct our focus, what we need to think about as we think about ourselves and as we think about other people. And so here's our big idea, and we're going to think about how this works within a gospel mindset. Judge your sin lest you be judged by God. Judge your sin, lest you be judged by God. So three parts to our sermon today.

1. Judge your sin
2. Judge your blindness
3. Judge your tolerance

And the way I'm framing this is judge your sin in verses one and two. This is the first point. He starts off by saying, judge not that you be not judged. Now, this is a very popular verse in modern culture. It's a very popular verse because it seems on first reading, like Jesus might be giving all of us a blank check here might be all of us just writing us a free pass. Just not as long as you don't judge other people, you yourself will be fine. You'll have levity. I'll have levity or some leniency. I'll have leniency and everyone will be just fine. But Jesus is not saying that at all. He's not just sort of doing away with any kinds of judgments. Remember what Jesus has said just a little bit earlier in the sermon on the Mount? Back in Matthew chapter five, Jesus made very clear judgments about sin. He said that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, and then you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. You can't look at that through a legal lens, and expect to have any kind of hope for yourself in this life or the next. But then Jesus went on, and he talked about a lot of different kinds of sins. He says, don't think that the bar is low. That is low. As long as you don't murder someone, you're innocent. That as long as you don't commit physical adultery, you're innocent.

That as long as you never unlawfully divorce your spouse, you're innocent. Jesus went on and on and on and said the standard is not so low. This requires all of you. You can't even get angry at your neighbor. You can't even look upon another person and lust. All of this is sin and falls short of the infinitely high as heaven's standard of God's righteousness. If you bring a legal mindset to this, beware Jesus judges sin. We cannot take Jesus's words here just a little bit later in the sermon as condoning the toleration of sin. We have to also recognize that tolerance was really a catchword. That was maybe true 20 years ago. In our culture, this is moved so much far beyond this in our culture. The demand now is not for mere tolerance. It is for absolute affirmation, particularly in sinful areas of human sexuality and the area of lust and fornication and unlawful divorce and sexual immorality. As regards the Lgbtqia+ agenda, especially in the area of abortion as well. Jesus is not saying don't judge these things as wrong. In fact, our culture would say that judge not isn't even enough. You must judge these things positively, or you will be judged ruthlessly and condemned in the eyes of the world. And in light of this, we have to be so clear. Jesus condemned all of these things. Just look back to Matthew chapter five. He condemns unlawful sexual immorality, including lust. He condemns unlawful divorce.

He condemns murder and therefore condemns abortion. He condemns all of these things. And Jesus demands that his church faithfully proclaim what God requires from the world. But Jesus also calls us. To love sinners. And here he tells us not to judge. How do we balance all of these things? We can't read one thing and say, well, that does away with the other, or read the other thing and say, well, that does away with this. We have to hear all of Jesus's words and take them at His word. He commands us to condemn sin and to be faithful in declaring God's Word of the law that condemns sin. And he tells us to refrain from judging. How do we do this? Well, this is where those legal and gospel ideas come into play. What Jesus is doing here is condemning overscrupulous censorious judgmentalism. Jesus says, do not pretend to sit in the place of God as judge over other people as though you were qualified to do this. And particularly what he's saying is don't evaluate people according to a legal mindset where you are scrupulously evaluating their lives as though you knew the whole story and making judgments and pronouncements about the entirety of their lives. Now, again, that's not to say that Jesus doesn't condemn sins. That's not to say that the church should not condemn certain sins from the Bible. Rather, what Jesus is condemning is a final writing off of people, a final judgment of people which which belongs to Christ alone at the final judgment.

In the meantime, Jesus says, you are not in the place of a judge. You are called to declare the law of God and the gospel of God until the final judgment of Jesus Christ. We must condemn sin. We must warn people of the final judgment, and we must hold out the hope of the gospel, that my righteousness doesn't come from doing my righteousness well enough. My righteousness comes from Christ alone by faith, and your righteousness will not come by being sufficiently righteous. It will come by Christ alone through faith, if it's going to come at all. And so in verse two, Jesus shows us the ruthless relentlessness of a legal mindset. Now this is totally easy to do for other people. Jesus says, for with the judgment that you pronounced, you will be judged. Now that's where it gets scary, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Again, it's very easy for me to take a legal eye to your life. I can see all that you're doing, most of it, at least some of it at least. And I'm going to judge you ruthlessly. I'm going to look at every jot and tittle and say, well, that's wrong, you're out. That's wrong, you're guilty. That's wrong, you're condemned. That's so easy. I'm I can easily do that for you. But again, what Jesus is saying is, if you do that, if you pursue that legal mindset, that will eventually fall on you, if you live by the law, you will die by the law, because the same standard can be applied to your life and your heart.

And if you live by the law, judging other people don't think that you can escape this judgment. You may think you can walk away your way out of your guilt and your judgment before God. But Jesus is very clear with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Now again, the problem with the legal mindset is I'm going to try to document my righteousness. I'm going to try to play down my unrighteousness. And especially I'm going to compare myself to you. But the gospel mindset frees us from all this. The announcement of the Gospel of Jesus Christ frees us from the legal trap of trying to justify me by a condemning comparison to you, because, again, ultimately, that's only going to expose my sin. That same standard can be applied to me, and I won't stand up to it. But the gospel frees me from proving my righteousness to you, or proving my righteousness in comparison with you. And instead, it frees me to do something that the legal mindset can never do. The gospel mindset frees me to freely confess my sins, to fully account for my sins, because my righteous standing does not depend on trying to provide a perfect righteousness of my own.

If I receive the perfect righteousness of Christ by faith, then I don't have to have it all together. I can look to Christ and receive as a gift what he provides to me by faith. Again, how do we take what Jesus is saying here? Judge not that you be not judged well, we must faithfully preach God's word. We must announce that God's Word condemns sin. We must, but we must also not presume to judge other people in a final sense that judgment belongs to Christ alone. But what Jesus is doing is putting our attention back on us. What's the judgment with which you will be judged? What's the measure by which you will be measured? And he continues this kind of questioning into our own lives. Uncomfortable, difficult questioning.

Judge your blindness

In the second section, when Jesus says not only to judge our sin, but to judge your blindness, judge your blindness in verses three through five. Now Jesus gives what starts out as a very ordinary example, an ordinary illustration. Verse three. He says, why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye? Probably everyone knows what it's like to have a little bit of dust in your eye. It's not comfortable. And certainly if you can relieve this little speck from someone else's eye, well, that'd be a nice thing. I don't know that people want you poking around in their eyes under any circumstances, but we understand what Jesus is talking about.

But then Jesus takes what starts very normal and brings it into the absurd. But you do not notice the log, the the branch, the timber that's in your own eye. Now, this is so interesting. You see, or you see the speck that's in your brother's eye, but you don't notice that the word for notice here is a very strong word. It means to to to give mindful attention to you. Don't give any mindful attention to the log that's in your own eye. You clearly see what's going on in your brother's eye, but you can't see what's going on in your own eye. Especially that you don't just have a mild irritant, you don't just have something that's like partially eclipsing your vision. You have something that's completely rendering you incapable of sight, completely blinding you. And so Jesus says in verse four, how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is a log 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 eye. Now the legal mindset again wants to do this again. If I if part of my righteousness is going to be established not only by again documenting my righteousness, by downplaying my unrighteousness, but in comparison with you. Then part of what this means is that I'm always going to be finding fault with you according to this mindset.

It's you may know the old statement if you're in the woods and you come across a bear, you really don't have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun whoever it is that you were with. As long as you cannot run that person, you will get to safety. Jesus is condemning the same kind of thinking morally. As long as I can outrun you in the judgment of God, I'm going to be safe. And so, oh, look, I'm just paying all kinds of attention to the dust in your eye, completely oblivious, paying no mind to the fact that I am completely blinded. Jesus is not so much talking about moral failings as he's talking about utter moral blindness, the inability to judge. Why? Because our sin blinds us. Our sin shapes us. Our sin shapes our desires. It it causes our thinking to jump into full gauge to to justify ourselves. Again, I'm going to try to downplay and rationalize all of my sin. Our sin warps the way that we see the world. It blinds us to our own sin while we see the sin of others. And Jesus says, you need to not only judge your sin, you not only need to see what kind of judgment is going to be brought against you, you need to judge your blindness. And so he says in verse five, take that look out of your eye. Take that log out of your eye, and then you'll be able to see clearly to take the speck out of your other's your brother's eye.

Now, this is so important. Jesus is again is not saying don't ever judge anything under any circumstances, ever. What he is saying is, be so careful about how you do this. If you do this according to a legal perspective, you will inevitably get it wrong and you will inevitably misjudge yourself. But Jesus is saying, you need to try to take this log out of your eye. You need to try to free yourself from this blindness. Of course you can't do it yourself again. You need this as a gift from God through faith in Jesus Christ. But it's only by learning to deal with our own blindness that we are able to help others. Jesus wants us to help others, but Jesus is saying, the only way you'll be able to do this is in a position to do this is if you are able to first deal with your own sin. You know, as a pastor. This is so true. I don't ever want to give the impression or the thought that I am pastoring again, out of this legal sense that I'm above everybody else and that I'm on this high horse and I'm just sort of judging the people below. I'm just saying it's not at all like that. Being a pastor means that, first of all, as a human being, as a person, as a sinner in the sight of God, I have to come to come to grips with my own moral blindness.

And I'm still coming to grips with this. I'm still coming to grips with the way that my sin blinds me on a daily basis. I'm still coming to grips with the fact that it's far easier for me to see the specks in your eyes than the log that is in my own eye. But to be a pastor means called to do the work all of us are called to. Of coming to grips with that of, again, not dealing with a legal mindset where I have to justify me over against you. But of coming to embrace the gospel. That the only righteousness I have, the only clarity of righteousness I have, comes through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it comes with receiving that personally and falling so much in love with that, that God has called me to proclaim this to other sinners who I've been in your position. I'm still in your position. And together we help each other to deal with the sin that remains in our own lives. And Jesus is saying is saying, judge not, lest ye be judged. But again, he's he's talking about that legal perspective. There's another perspective, this gospel perspective that Jesus wants us to be constantly thinking about, constantly judging our sins so that we are quick to confess it, constantly rejecting any righteousness that we have on our own so that we can be quick to receive the righteousness that comes from Christ, and constantly quick to see and notice the log that is in our eyes, our own moral and spiritual blindness, so that we are quick to turn to Christ by faith and quick to point others to the same Savior that saved us, who will save is willing and ready to save them.

Now, in the final verse in verse six, Jesus shifts his theme, but it's not disconnected to what he has been saying. He's still talking about the difference between this legal and this gospel mindset, these two lenses, these two ways of looking at the world. But now he's talking about a very different angle on that, another angle about when and how to bring God's word to others. And Jesus says, now that there are some limits that do require us to judge others, but only in a certain respect, still not according to a legal mindset, what we are going to see. So look at what Jesus says in verse six.

Judge your tolerance

Here's where the third point is. Judge your tolerance. Jesus says, do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you. Now that vivid imagery is very clear about what Jesus is saying. But there's a question of what does this mean? And very clearly, the holy things, the pearls refer to the gospel, refer to the Word of God, the precious things of God here.

That's what we're talking about. But when we're talking about dogs and pigs, what are we talking about? Well, dogs and pigs were unclean pigs, especially. So dogs, um, they're constantly portrayed in the Bible as, as unclean, um, as, uh, vicious scavengers don't don't think your, your, your pet that you have at home think of just sort of vicious scavengers running around. And these were symbols then of people who are Jesus is talking about who are unclean in some sense. And Jesus is saying, don't give what's holy, don't give the word of God. Don't give the gospel to these dogs, to these pigs, these unclean people, and for a very particular reason, lest they trample them underfoot and turn and attack you. So we have to say, well, so what's Jesus meaning here? And what's he not meaning? Well, it's very clear, in light of everything that Jesus says, in light of his actions, in light of the way that he spends his life and the people that he goes to be with, that Jesus isn't talking about a certain class of sinners or people who commit a certain class of sins. He's not saying, if you do this sort of a sin, you've gone too far beyond the grace of God, and I'm not interested in you. Understand. As long as you are hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is not too late. You have not gone too far. God's grace is super far abundantly above anything that anyone has done.

There was no one who has sinned too much for the grace of God in this life. What Jesus is talking about is not a certain class of sinners struggling with a particular class of sins. He's talking about those who persistently and with very hard hearts, continue in rejecting the gospel. Now we read everywhere that God is patient and that he is forbearing, that he bears with us in our stubbornness. None of us would be here if God gave up the first time that we heard the gospel, because we'd all walk away from it. But what Jesus is saying here is that there are people who become so hardened to the gospel, so calcified against the gospel, that they become violent against the gospel. And Jesus is saying the holy things of God should not be despised. Now, it's real hard to come to this passage and not want to ask questions like, well, who is this? And how many times do I share the gospel? And what's the rule and what's the percentage and what are the signs that I'm looking for? And Jesus doesn't give us any of that. And so what we're reading here is a very general principle that that Jesus stops short of sort of giving us the rubric of opportunities and chances and rejections before we can just move away from people. But Jesus does tell his disciples, if you go to a city and they don't receive you, shake the dust off your feet and move on to another city.

If and if and if they still don't listen, Jesus says it'll be worse on the day of judgment for that city than it was for some of the most wicked cities that were known in the Old Testament for Sodom and Gomorrah and Nineveh. So Jesus is saying, be faithful in holding out the gospel of people. But there does come a time when that has to end. So what's Jesus saying here? Well, again, this is where that legal and that gospel mindset, those two different ways of looking at the world and looking at people are so helpful. A legal mindset would stop and quit before we have even started. Again, I can see the specks in your eyes from a mile away. I bet you can see the specks in all the logs in my eyes from at least as far. We can think of countless reasons to stop sharing the gospel with people without even trying to do so. A legal mindset would disqualify people who haven't met a particular standard. But as Jesus has said, remember, if you judge them by that standard, that standard will be held against you, just as your sins will not be forgiven unless you forgive others. That's what Jesus said in the Lord's Prayer. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. For if you do not forgive those who trespass against you, your father in heaven will not forgive your trespasses.

In the same way Jesus says, if you are judgmental, censorious against other people, so the same legal, exacting, precise standards will be held up against you. But the gospel mindset is able to look at people in a couple of different ways. It understands. The first of all, we can look at people and recognize that the hardness of that person's heart is the hardness that my heart would be without the grace and gospel of Jesus Christ. There, but for the grace of God go I. And not just to say that, but to really believe that, to recognize that I am no better than this person in myself. I have no worthiness in myself over that person. That when I go to another sinner, I go not again. As someone on a high horse, whether you're a pastor or not, we can put ourselves on such a high horse. But to go to someone and realize I am a fellow sinner who needs the gospel of Jesus just as much as you do still today. After all of this time, I've done nothing to merit this. Even after Christ has saved me. I am a hungry beggar dying in my sins that Jesus Christ called to life. And I want to share with you the good news of the God who loved you enough to come into this world, to die for sinners, for all those who come to faith in him. The gospel mindset is hungry to share that gospel with other people, knowing that that's the source of my salvation.

But the gospel mindset also recognizes that because of that hardness of heart, there are people in particular situations who can no longer hear. They're so hardened that it will not help. It will only make the problem worse. I want you to imagine that you're somewhere with a friend, and maybe you're alone with this friend, and. And suddenly this friend has a terrible heart attack. And whether or not you're CPR certified, um, you jump into action, you try to do what you can to try to help your friend until the paramedics arrive. You call the paramedics and they're on their way. But imagine, imagine the paramedics arrived and you refused to give up the CPR. You kept going. You wouldn't let them do the the auto defibrillator, the the electronic defibrillator. You wouldn't let them give their advanced medical training. You wouldn't let them do what they what they could do to potentially save your friend's life. You just insisted that if this person is going to be saved, I'm going to be the one to do it. There comes a point where people are so hardened in their heart. But all you can do is pray for them. And even in the Bible. In First John chapter five, John warns that there are some that sin, the sin unto death. And John says, I don't say that you should pray for them. Again, we're not giving a clear rubric, a clear sort of set of factors that if you add them up, you get the answer of whether or not you should pray, whether or not you should continue to share the gospel.

But Jesus is saying that point does come. And I'm not judging a person, my legal mindset and explaining them away. I'm committing them to prayer, or I'm just handing them over to the Lord and saying, Lord, if if they come back up, if you do a work in their life, I'm ready. I'm here. I'm willing and ready to jump back in the work of of sharing the gospel with you. But until then, I'm just going to make things worse. If I continue to cast these pearls, these holy things, before someone who isn't ready to hear it. How do we apply this passage? This passage is so hard. Does not that you may not be judged. We do live in a world that rejects the objective morality laid down in Scripture. That's always been true, but there are perhaps some new innovations in our day and age. Doesn't mean that the world rejects morality as a whole. It means that the world has created its own morality and insists upon its affirmation. In this world, the church must faithfully proclaim God's law even when it is uncomfortable, even when it's painful, even when we will be judged by the world for the law of God that judges the world. But we must also so faithfully, so faithfully proclaim the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ who came to save sinners.

Sinners who are like you, who are like me, who need Jesus. And toward this end, the Christ is entrusted the church with what we're going to read about later what are called the keys to the Kingdom of God. In Matthew chapter 16 and chapter 18, Jesus talks about the keys to the kingdom, what binds and what looses. Jesus says, what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. What you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And in Matthew 16 we we read about the key of doctrine the proclamation of Jesus the Christ, the son of the living God, where Jesus is proclaimed, where his salvation is proclaimed. The church has the key to the kingdom that unlocks, opens the door to the kingdom of heaven for all those who will come, for all who will believe upon the name of Jesus Christ and be saved. And that's still true today. If you're hearing this, there is still time to believe the gospel of Jesus. But the church is also, as we read in Matthew 18, given the key of discipline that locks those doors not against people that we judge according to some legal mindset. But according to those who are hard of heart and impenitent to the gospel. Who refuse to repent. Who refuse to turn to Jesus. It's not a mindset of wanting to exclude people, even when people are excluded, even by excommunication.

Even when we are praying that God would restore these sinners and return them to faith, knowing again that there but for the grace of God, we would be right there with them. But Jesus Christ then calls us to reclaim this gospel until the day that he comes again for the final judgment of the world, for the final judgment, when the absolute perfect, infinitely high as heaven righteous standard of the law is brought to bear on all people. And on that day, if you have been living life according to a legal standard, if you think that your righteousness suffices, if you think that you are able to sufficiently explain away and minimize your sin. If you think that you are a little bit farther ahead of the next guy, and that's going to acquit you on the final day, that day will be a day of weeping and wailing and condemnation. You can't escape it. Oh, sinner, turn to Jesus this morning. The world seen from the gospel is a beautiful place. It is difficult. It is painful. It is dying a little bit more day by day. It is a word that hate, a world that hates the truth. A word that hates God. A word that will hate you if you follow God. But this is a world in which Jesus Christ is still the King, and this is a world in which Jesus Christ is still saving sinners, a world in which his blood is still sufficient to cleanse away every sin in which his righteousness is still enough to cover over your filthy rags.

Jesus stands ready and able to save. Will you come to him this morning? Will you turn from your sin? Will you embrace Jesus Christ by faith? The more of how I think about how to relate to this passage. I sometimes shared this with people. When I think about my own sin, when I think about this passage and some other passages, I think the right way to relate to our sin is a relationship of hatred, but not a relationship of fear. I hate my sin, but I have nothing to fear from my sin. First John 418 says that fear has to do with punishment. But in Romans eight verse one, we are told there is now no condemnation, no punishment for those who are in Christ Jesus. I don't have to fear my sins. Certainly I should fear that sin might be insidious and might infect me in certain ways and lead me to do certain things. I should be rightfully fearful of those and and rightfully humble in the face of those. But I need to hate that and turn from that and repent from that and turn again to Christ. But I don't fear it in the sense that I have to cover it or explain it away, or try to hold out a righteousness. Aren't I a good person? Don't you see this? Instead, the way to relate to sin is to come to it by confession.

We're saying.

I'm so confident in the gospel of Jesus Christ that I can freely and fully confess my sins. And so Jesus says. If that's the judgment by which you were judged. If you're already condemning your own sin and turning to Christ by faith. If that's the measure by which you are measured. Not that you think you have enough, but that Christ has enough, that's the measure by which you'll be measured. That's the judgment by which you will be judged. And so Jesus says, we need to have a ruthless desire to root out our sin by the grace of God, a ruthless desire to seek clarity of vision, not by a legal mindset, but to put my own flesh increasingly to death and to look increasingly to Christ for his righteousness. By what mindset do you live? There are really only two mindsets. By what lens are you looking at the world? Is it according to a legal standard or is it according to the gospel of Jesus Christ? There is no hope in the law. There is no hope in trying to establish your own righteousness before people. There is no hope in judging the next person that you might be able to stand on their shoulders and maybe make God's bar. You can't do it. Instead turn to Jesus Christ and be saved. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we pray that you would lead us to faith in Christ for our salvation. We are miserable, broken, wicked sinners, hard in our hearts until your spirit softens us, gives us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand. And I pray that you would do this. We can't do it because we are better than other people. It's just not the case. We are entirely dependent, entirely reliant upon you, and we pray for that grace. For our salvation, for our good, and for Christ's glory alone. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.