Transcript
Luke 6, verse 37:
Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.
And He spoke a parable to them: Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. 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.
Not far from where we are meeting this morning, there is a section of the city called Little Asia. And somewhere in Little Asia lives a 16- or 17-year-old boy named Sarah Singh. Seraph Singh already has more bad memories to forget than most of us will have in an entire lifetime. You see, Sarah is a refugee from the Khmer Rouge, that brutal guerrilla army that took over his native land of Cambodia.
Singh can remember how things were like for him before the Khmer Rouge arrived. “I had everything,” says Singh. “We lived in a big house. My father was a captain in the army. My mother took care of me, and I just played around.” But in 1975 the Khmer Rouge came to his part of Cambodia, and they took everything. “They didn’t want people to live in the cities,” says Singh. “They would shoot someone that lived in a building because they thought he was rich. They would ask you if you spoke English. If you said yes, they would say, ‘You come here,’ and immediately they would shoot you.”
As if those memories were not bad enough, sometimes at night, when he is nervous and lonely, Singh remembers what happened to his mother. “My mother was working for the Khmer Rouge,” he says. “She found a pepper on the ground that had been stepped on by a cow. But at that time the Khmer Rouge cooked for everybody in a big pot. She picked up the pepper, intending to cook it for me, and the Khmer Rouge said that she was stealing.”
“The soldiers took her, and they tied her to a tree, and they beat her mercilessly,” says Singh, “until she was full of blood inside. She was broke inside.” Three weeks later, his mother died. And that’s a pretty heavy load for a young man to carry in his memory. But fortunately, Cyril Singh has some nicer memories that he can look back on now, and that’s because Singh met one of the very best teachers in the city of Dallas.
And no, I’m not talking about somebody that works for the Dallas Independent School District. The teacher that I am talking about is a cop. He’s a cop. A couple of years ago, at the urging of some other young Khmer Rouge refugees, Singh went to the police storefront station on North Peak Street. That’s where he met Corporal Ron Cowart, and he told him that he wanted to join the Police Explorers Post, which is for teenagers who are interested in a law-enforcement career.
Corporal Cowart still remembers what Singh was like in those days. He was barely four feet tall. He was a vulnerable, shy, and retiring young fellow. But Cowart knows something about Singh’s part of the world, because 20 years ago he did a tour of duty in Vietnam. So he befriended this young man. About a year ago, he gave Singh a canvas and encouraged him to paint what he remembered from his homeland.
Cowart says, “The first thing he did for me was this really violent painting with skulls and headless bodies. And he told me that was what he remembers. He didn’t have anyone to share his emotions with, and in his culture it is forbidden to cry.” This is Cowart: “I had to tell it was okay to cry.” Since then, Singh has completed about 60 or 70 paintings, and some of his most recent efforts are landscapes, scenes that recapture the beauty of the Cambodian countryside without the violence and horror of war.
Since meeting Cowart, Singh’s grades in school have gone up from F’s to mostly B’s. He’s thinking about going to art school, and even says that he might like to be a policeman someday, “to teach people how to be good to each other.” I don’t need to tell you, do I, what Cereth Singh thinks of Corporal Ron Cowart. He says, “He’s my best teacher. He’s my best teacher. He teaches me how to learn right, to do something good, not to make fun of people, not to drink and smoke and take drugs.”
And then Singh says this: “I feel a lot better than before. I’m getting happy living in America,” says Singh. I like that story a whole lot, don’t you? You’ve all seen the bumper stickers that say, “Back the blue.” Well, Corporal Ron Cowart happens to be one man in blue that I can easily back, because he’s not only a policeman, he is also a teacher. He not only knows how to lock people up in jail, he knows how to release a young Cambodian from the prison of his unhappy past.
And I really don’t care what your day-to-day occupation may be. It really isn’t important whether you’re a butcher or a baker or a candlestick maker. It really doesn’t matter whether you’re a clerk or a secretary or a machinist. If you are also a disciple of Jesus Christ, you ought to be somebody’s teacher. And I repeat that. If you are a serious disciple of the Son of God, you ought to be somebody’s teacher.
I’m not talking about standing up here on the platform and preaching. I’m not even talking about teaching children in Sunday school, as important as that is. What I mean is that there ought to be somebody out there in your everyday, workaday life who comes to you for guidance and advice. There ought to be somebody that you know whose life has been impacted and influenced by the wisdom that you have shared with them.
But, you know, even advisors sometimes need advice, and that’s what my sermon is about this morning. In fact, the title of my sermon this morning is “Good Advice for Christian Advisors.” Good advice for Christian advisors. Probably all of you know who Lucy is. She’s that sassy little girl that comes out in the *Peanuts* comic strip. And very often the cartoonist portrays her sitting behind a makeshift outdoor booth, and above the booth there is a little sign that reads, “The psychiatrist is in. 5¢.”
And naturally it’s good old Charlie Brown that usually comes to her for advice. And while he’s sitting there in front of the booth, pouring out his tale of woe, Lucy is usually sitting behind the booth looking bored to death. And when Charlie has finished, Lucy will usually give him some short and sweet advice which, more often than not, is a put-down. And then she will say, “Five cents, please.”
Now, before you chuckle, I need to remind you of something. There are lots of people in the world who are a lot like Lucy. You know, if you bring them your problems, they’ll listen to them, but they may look awfully bored while they’re doing it. But when you’re finished, they can’t resist giving you their five cents’ worth. And, more often than not, they are very anxious to tell you where you went wrong and what mistakes you’re making.
And let’s admit it, shall we, folks? It’s awfully easy to respond to people like that. And it’s awfully easy, when people bring us their problems, to say in the very first breath words of judgment and condemnation. “No wonder you’ve got a problem. If you hadn’t done this or that, if you hadn’t said this thing or the other thing, you wouldn’t be in the mess you is in.” Isn’t it easy to talk that way? My, my, my, how easy it is.
And I suspect that all of us need the advice that comes from the greatest advisor of men that has ever lived, from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Listen to this advice:
Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, shall be put into your bosom.
And, folks, here’s the bottom line, here’s the bottom line:
For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.
One of the most important pieces of advice that a potential advisor can ever get is this: you always get back what you give. You always get back what you give. During the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson, at one time President Johnson was carrying about 210 pounds on his six-foot-three frame. And his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, said this to him. She said, “You can’t run the country if you can’t run yourself.”
That’s pretty wifely advice, and President Johnson took it to heart. And do you know that he brought his weight down to about 187 pounds? But it’s true, isn’t it? You can’t guide somebody else if you can’t guide yourself. You can’t deal effectively with somebody else’s problems if you can’t deal effectively with your own. But if you try, there will always be somebody there to remind you of that.
A Kansas man once fell down a flight of stairs, and he broke his ankle. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He suffered a severe case of personal embarrassment. You know why? He had been a judge in a Cub Scout safety poster contest, and he had just announced the winning poster. And guess what the slogan was on the winning poster? It said, “Always watch your step when you’re walking on stairs.”
May we translate that to say, always watch your step when you’re giving advice, because, you see, if you give advice without being really able to incorporate that advice into your own life, you’re ripe for a fall down the stairs, and there’ll be people at the bottom to remind you of that. We all know who Ann Landers is, don’t we? One of the most famous advice columnists in America.
Literally millions of people had written to Ann Landers to ask her advice about troubles they were having in their marriage. And I suppose that Ann Landers has written thousands and thousands of words giving her advice to people like that. But in 1975, Ann Landers, who was at that time 57 years of age, was compelled to confess to her readers that she and her husband Jules were calling it quits.
This is how she expressed herself. She wrote, “The sad, unbelievable, incredible fact is that after 36 years of marriage, Jules and I are getting a divorce. As I write these words, it’s as if I am referring to a letter from a reader. It seems unreal that I am writing about my own marriage.” Stop and think for a moment. Over the years, is it possible that you have given some very harsh and judgmental advice to people, and you now find yourself in need of that advice yourself?
You know how to avoid that kind of a trap? It’s really very simple. It’s really very simple. This is how you do it. When you pass out criticism, as sometimes you must, pass it out gently, softly, and in small measures. Pass out criticism by the peck and by the pint. But when you forgive, forgive by the bushel. When you give, give by the gallon.
For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you again.
Don’t forget it. You always get back what you give. No wonder, then, no wonder, that the very next words of Jesus are a vivid and unforgettable parable. Jesus says,
Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A disciple, or pupil, is not above his teacher, but everyone who has been completely trained shall be as his teacher.
And, you see, if it is bad to give out advice that is harsh and judgmental, it is even worse to give out advice that is ignorant and uninformed. Or, to put it another way, if it is bad to give out advice that is blistering, it is worse to give out advice that is blind. And that leads me to my second piece of advice for Christian advisors, and here it is: you can’t lead the way if you don’t know the road. You can’t lead the way if you don’t know the road.
You see, if you don’t know where you’re going, the people who follow you will not know where you’re going. And you can never raise somebody above your own level. If the teacher is ignorant, the pupil will be ignorant. If the teacher is blind, the pupil will be blind. You can’t lead the way if you don’t know the road.
A blizzard was raging in an eastern section of the United States one time, and a passenger train that was facing into the wind was making progress very slowly. Inside the train there was a young woman with a child, and she was very nervous and anxious about getting off at the right station. There was a man sitting next to her, or nearby, that saw her anxiety, and he said to this young lady, he said, “Don’t worry. I know this road very well, and I’ll tell you when to get off.”
They came to the station that was immediately before the station that she wanted to get off at, and the man said to her, “The next station is your stop.” The train went on for a few minutes, and then it stopped. The man turned to the woman and he said, “This is your station. Get off quickly.” So she got up with her child, she thanked the man, and she got off. The train then proceeded for a few more minutes, and then the brakeman announced the station at which the woman had wished to get off.
The gentleman who had advised her cried out to the brakeman, “Why, you’ve already announced this station.” And the brakeman said, “No, sir. There was something wrong with the engine, and we stopped for a few minutes to repair it.” “Alas,” said the man, “I put that woman off in the storm in between stations.” Later on the woman was found clutching the child in her arms. Both of them were frozen to death.
Kind advice? Yes. Sympathetic, generous advice? Of course. But, tragically, the advice was wrong. The advice was utterly and disastrously wrong. And, yes, it’s important for us, it’s important for us, to give out advice that is gracious and nonjudgmental. But, listen, we better know what we’re talking about. We better know what we’re talking about, because the consequences of bad advice can be tragic. Make no mistake about it. You can’t lead the way if you don’t know the road.
But if the things that we are talking about make good sense, and they do, then you hear this. Where did you hear this? Listen to what Jesus says. He says,
Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, and you do not even observe the plank that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck from your eye,’ and you don’t even notice the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite, first remove the plank that is in your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
When I was a little boy, it seemed like I was always getting a speck of dirt or sand in my eye. And you know who I always went to? My mama. And I want you to know that my mother was the best speck remover, the best speck surgeon, in ten counties. And she could, if that I did so gently, and with her fingernail she could, almost without touching you, get rid of the offending speck. And I had a lot of confidence in her as a young kid.
But, you know, if she had ever sat down in front of me to remove a speck from my eye, and I noticed that she was rubbing her own eyes real hard, and that her own eyes were watering profusely, even as a kid that would have shaken my confidence in her. And I might have suspected that she might not be able to see clearly enough to get rid of that speck.
Folks, to understand the words of Jesus, you’ve got to have a sense of humor, okay? I mean, nobody can put a plank in their eye, right? Eyes are too small to put a plank in them, and you would need an elastic eye to get a plank inside of it. And if you could do it, your eye would stretch from here to here. Ridiculous idea, humorous idea, but that’s the point. You know, it’s very, very ridiculous for us to be preoccupied with the little faults and failings that we see in our brothers and sisters in Christ, and all the while we ourselves may have some big, huge, humongous failure that we don’t even notice, that we don’t even notice.
Ridiculous? Ah, but we do it all the time. And that leads me to my third piece of good advice for Christian advisors. First piece of advice: you always get back what you give. Second piece: you can’t lead the way if you don’t know the road. Third piece of advice: if you need major surgery, operate on yourself first. If you need major surgery, operate on yourself first.
You know, I’ll never forget the wintry Sunday night that I was coming back from the Lord’s Supper, when we were still over at Ninth Street. I was riding in my red Maverick. I lived in Oak Cliff in those days. The road was very icy. I lost control of the Maverick, and it jackknifed in the road and stalled, so that I was pointing north in the southbound lane. That’s when an oncoming station wagon hit me head-on.
The good news was that he turned me around, and I was pointed in the right direction again. The bad news was that my car was totaled, and I bumped my chin very hard against the steering column. When I got out of my car and I was standing by the side of the road, I have to admit to you that I felt pretty good under the circumstances. But there was a guy who had stopped to render assistance, and he looked at me, and my chin was bleeding, and he said, “You’re going to need to go to the hospital.”
And I said to him something like, “Oh, no, I won’t.” And in my mind I was thinking, this is only a little scratch. What would I need to go to the hospital for this for? But then someone said, “Look, there’s an office building over there that’s open, and there’s a bathroom right inside the door. I think you better go in and try to wipe your chin off.” So I did. I went in the office building and went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror, and, oh, wow, big old wound there, gushing blood that I couldn’t stop.
And I must admit that while I was looking in the mirror I got a little woozy. So I went out and stood by the side of the road, and when the paramedics came, I offered them no resistance, although I remember thinking, as they took me on board their medical van, that I had seen this on television a lot of times, and here it was happening to me. And I give all due credit to Baylor Hospital. They took a long time with me, but they sewed up my wound, and the doctor even told me that he performed some plastic surgery so that you can’t tell today that I had a wound like that on my chin.
I’m going to tell you something. That mirror changed the name of the game from what I thought was a little scratch to a wound that required extensive medical attention. And, my friends, you may be surprised what you can discover about yourself if you will look honestly into the spiritual mirror of God’s Word. You may discover that, whereas you are so concerned about the little scratches on your brother’s and sister’s life, that you yourself are suffering from a very gaping spiritual wound.
But be careful, be careful. This is not an invitation to forget about your brother. Your brother still needs your gracious and loving advice. But don’t be a hypocrite. Do it the way it is supposed to be done.
First, remove the plank that is in your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.
Or, to put it simply, if you need major surgery, operate on yourself first.
Ann Sullivan was born in poverty and affliction in Massachusetts. She was half blind when her mother died, and Sullivan went over the hill to a poorhouse. But later on, as the Perkins Institute for the Blind, a brilliant operation restored her sight, and from then on she devoted herself to the care of the blind. Meanwhile, down south, a baby had been born, a little girl who, after early childhood, was destined never to see or to hear or to speak. Her name was Helen Keller.
In due time, Ann Sullivan became Helen Keller’s teacher. In two weeks she taught Helen Keller 30 words by a simple system of touching Helen Keller’s hand. Under the guidance and tutelage of Ann Sullivan, Helen Keller learned to cope with her handicaps magnificently, and she rose to fame and to recognition throughout the country. For more than 45 years she and her teacher were inseparable.
Eventually Helen Keller stood by the deathbed of Ann Sullivan, and as Ann Sullivan’s spirit passed into eternity, this is what Helen Keller said, no doubt speaking by sign language. She said, “I pray for strength to endure the silent dark until she smiles on me again.” Lovely, lovely story about a relationship between a teacher and her pupil. And can the blind lead the blind? Not if the teacher remains blind. But if the teacher recovers sight, if the teacher captures a spiritual vision, then that teacher can lead and guide people who are themselves spiritually blind.
Out in the highways and byways of life, many are weary and sad. Carry the sunshine where darkness is rife, making the sorrowing glad. “Make me a blessing, make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray. Make me a blessing to someone today.” Christian man, Christian woman, be somebody’s teacher.
Shall we pray. Father, thank You for giving us in the Lord Jesus Christ the greatest Teacher of all time. But it is not for ourselves alone that He teaches us, but for others. May we learn His lessons. May we reach out to those around us who need them. And we ask this in Christ’s name.