The 8th Sunday: Luke 6:39-45
God sees the heart and always will. We may put on a great show of words and actions, but it is what is at the root of these that is so visible to God. Focusing on the faults of others, no matter how true, take the focus off our own.
Looking out for number one is the main object and goal of most of the world. Christianity in general has condemned and criticized this “me-first” mentality. We are reminded that the Bible is about giving ourselves away, and looking out for the needs of others rather than our own. And all of that is true. I will not deny it for a second. But one overlooked emphasis in the Bible is that while we are putting others above ourselves, and being self-sacrificing rather than self-serving, there is still one area of our lives where we must first and foremost look out for number one. The Bible teaches that in one area of our lives, to be all that God wants us to be, we must first and foremost look out for number one.
What is this area? It is the area of personal holiness. Christians today are weak on holiness. We would rather point out a dozen sins in the life of someone else than take an honest look at the sin in our own life. We love to point the finger at others, but when someone points it at us, or when the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, we are quick to defend our actions and make excuses for our failures.
When it comes to sin, and developing a life of holiness, you must adopt a “Me-first” mentality. Take an honest look at your own life, before you try to point out sin in someone else. An honest Christian reserves his strictest criticism for himself. Paul writes in 1 Timothy 4:16 to watch your own life and doctrine closely, for in so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Look out for number one. Not for selfish reasons, but for sanctification reasons. Don’t think that you can go about and correct everybody else, when you have some glaring faults in your own life that must be dealt with. And if you think you don’t have any glaring faults, you better look again.
All of this is what Christ teaches in Luke 6:39-42. These verses begin the section in Christ’s Discipleship manual about our attitude toward ourselves. Luke 6:27-38 was about our attitude toward others, and we saw last week that we when we judge others, it must be a correct judgment. It must be a judgment of mercy and forgiveness. Luke 6:39-42 continues this idea of judgment, but shift from talking about correctly judging others to judging ourselves first. When you judge, judge yourself first.
