Games People Play: “Clue”
Matthew 7:1-5, 15-23
INTRODUCTION: Doug Lansky has been a travel writer and photographer for many years. In the course of his travels he has collected photos of odd signs from around the world. Some samples:
ß A white highway sign in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, says, "Entrance Only / Do Not Enter."
ß A yellow diamond-shaped sign from Mill Valley, California, says, "Not a Through Street." Right below it is a blue circle with a white arrow pointing straight ahead and the words, "Evacuation Route."
ß And finally, a blue sign with white letters reads: "Pakistan-Narcotics Control Board Investigating Unit." But the sign is obscured a bit by the marijuana growing up in front of it.
These signs seem paradoxical, even contradictory. How do we make sense of them? Likewise, Jesus in Matthew 7 said some very strong things that, at first glance, don’t seem to fit together very well. In the first part of chapter 7 he warned his followers not to judge, then later he tells us how we should judge! This is an extremely important teaching that Jesus was passionate about, but how do we solve the puzzle? We need a Clue as to what is true. Let’s investigate this together—does Jesus want us to judge others or not?
[READ 7:1-5, 15-23]
The board game "Clue" is one of my favorites. [Explain game concept]. Players are required to assess carefully, but a wrong judgment will cost you the game. To win the game one has to make a correct judgment, carefully. And here Jesus gives us a Clue about how to win by correctly understanding people.
I. A FORGIVEN PERSON IS A FORGIVING PERSON (1-5)
A. I suppose no sentence in the Bible is more familiar, more misunderstood, and more misapplied than “Stop judging so you will not be judged.” It is likely the most quoted verse of the Bible by people who don’t believe the Bible. Part of the problem here is deciding what do we mean by “judging”?
1. In both Greek and English the word has a multitude of meanings.
2. “Judge” can imply “to analyze or evaluate” as well as “to condemn or avenge.”
a. The former senses are clearly commanded of believers, but the latter are reserved for God.
b. Even on those occasions when we render a negative evaluation of others, our purposes should be constructive, not retributive.
B. What Jesus meant by "judging" is the opposite of "forgiving." To judge means to condemn people rather than to forgive them. We must not have a spirit of condemnation toward other people, or a spirit of harsh criticism, a spirit that puts other people down. That kind of judgment often characterizes people in our society and in our churches, and it comes out of self-righteousness.
1. Thomas a Kempis: “Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”
2. D.L. Moody: “I have more trouble with D.L. Moody than any other man I know.”
C. APPLICATION: The reason we criticize people, the reason it is great sport to point out other people’s faults, is that by pulling others down we think we can build ourselves up.
1. If we point out someone else’s sickness, we think we can highlight our health.
2. If we point out another’s failures, we think we showcase our successes.
3. Harsh and vitriolic criticism that condemns and judges is the mark of a self-righteous person trying to gain a righteous reputation by delighting in the faults and flaws of other people.
But once we recognize our own poverty of spirit, once we recognize our own desperate need, once we truly hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness, and once we cast ourselves with reckless abandon on God’s grace—then we will no longer condemn or judge. When Jesus says, “stop judging or you too will be judged,” he meant that a person who manifests a judgmental, condemning spirit is a person who doesn’t know God at all, but who still stands under God’s judgment. A forgiven person is a forgiving person.
D. Jesus pictured a person with a tiny speck of sawdust in his eye, which of course can hurt and irritate. Then along came an ophthalmologist to remove the speck, but a telephone pole sticks out of his eye! It’s an absurd scenario, almost comic. But in life itself it comes close to reality.
1. ILLUSTRATION: My 5 year old son Taylor often corrects the pronunciation of his younger brother Jamison. Taylor told me: “We need to help him learn how to talk. He says ’goded,’ instead of ’goed’ (went).”
2. APPLICATION: We need to let God show us our own blind spots, our logs
3. But v.5 makes clear that vv.3-4 do not absolve us of responsibility to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Rather, once we have dealt with our own sins, we are then in a position to gently and lovingly confront and try to restore others who have erred. Jesus did not contend that sin in other people’s lives was unimportant. He simply pointed out the absurdity of concerning ourselves with others’ specks without paying attention to our own logs.
4. ILLUSTRATION: In "Clue," players are allowed & encouraged to make "suggestions" as opposed to "accusations." You can make suggestions all game long, and so deduce the guilty party. But one false "accusation" and you’ve lost the game. We shouldn’t shy away when we feel prompted to make a suggestion to our brother or sister; we should avoid accusation.
E. ILLUSTRATION: John Wooden, former basketball coach at UCLA, was the antithesis of many of today’s coaches. He seldom left his seat on the Bruins bench during a UCLA game. "I tried to teach players that if they lose their temper or get out of control, they will get beat," he says. Pressed in an interview to be critical of former Indiana University coach Bobby Knight, Wooden would only say, "I think Bob Knight is an outstanding teacher of the game of basketball, but I don’t approve of his methods. But I’m not a judge, and I’m not judging Bob Knight. There is so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us, it hardly behooves me to talk about the rest of us." A forgiven person is a forgiving person.
>>In the game Clue, a wrong judgment will cost you the game. However, not to judge isn’t an option, because that too will cost you the game. Somebody in the room is a murderer! Won’t do to sit around and say “let’s just all get along & be tolerant.”
II. A DECEVING PERSON IS A DECEIVED PERSON (15-23)
A. ILLUSTRATION: After a relaxing, week-long summer vacation in Florida with their 10-year-old son, Robert and Angela Barry of Grove City, Ohio, left for the airport to return home to Ohio. Just before they left, a young girl staying at the Barrys’ hotel showed up at their room and gave their son a teddy bear as a gift. As they went through security at Orlando International Airport, the teddy bear went through the x-ray machine like the rest of their luggage, and the Barrys learned that appearances can fool you. A Transportation Security Administration worker noticed the outline of a gun inside the bear. Opening up the bear, airport security workers found a loaded .22 caliber handgun stuffed inside. The Miami Herald later reported that the gun had been reported stolen in 1996 in California. Robert Johnson, a TSA spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the incident "underscores the need to screen everyone and everything no matter how innocent the people or their belongings may appear."
B. According to Jesus, there are many ways NOT to judge a prophet.
1. We cannot identify true prophets by their appearance, religious vocabulary, or even the miracles they may perform.
2. Perhaps even more disturbing, we cannot identify false prophets by their sincerity. False prophets are not necessarily charlatans who intentionally use a religious message to line their own pockets. Quite often they are dedicated, sincere, and effective. And when they stand before God they will be shocked to discover that the God whom they thought they represented does not know them at all. A deceiving person is a deceived person.
3. ILLUSTRATION: Two Jehovah’s Witnesses visited our house yesterday—I had to explain to Taylor that they’re sincere, but wrong about Jesus.
>>So how can we distinguish the false prophets from the true prophets of God? Jesus answered that question twice. “By their fruit you will recognize them” he said in v. 16 and v. 20. As Batman realizes in the movie "Batman Begins": “It’s not what I feel inside, but what I do that defines me.”
C. We usually apply this passage to morality. But the false prophets Jesus singled out were the rulekeepers—Pharisees and others who had the highest morals of anyone. Many people in the world do good deeds and don’t even pretend to know Christ. So it can’t be the quality of their conduct that Jesus was referring to by “fruit.”
1. The fruit of an orange tree is an orange. The fruit of an apple tree is an apple. The fruit of a grapevine is a grape. And the fruit of a prophet is prophecy. The primary question about a prophet is whether or not their teaching is true to the Word of God. Does he speak for God accurately? Does she teach what Jesus taught?
2. The message of the Bible doesn’t have to do with self-image, self-help, success, making money, winning, or staying healthy. Its truth has to do with our sinfulness before God and being made right before Him, and that comes about because Jesus Christ, who preached this sermon, went out and died to make it happen. He paid the penalty for all our sin.
D. ILLUSTRATION: On Saturday, June 22, 2002, the scheduled game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field was cancelled because of an eerie discovery. The Card’s ace pitcher was found dead in a Chicago hotel room. Thirty-three-year-old Darryl Kile, who wore number 57, had been a major league pitching sensation for 12 years and had appeared in three All-Star games. At a recent team physical, the 6-foot 5-inch athlete seemed in excellent health. When the medical examiners conducted an autopsy later that day, they discovered that Kile had died from a massive heart attack. His main coronary artery was 90 percent blocked.
Darryl Kile appeared to be healthy, but his heart was diseased. Jesus reminded us that a person’s appearance and behavior can be misleading. The Pharisees looked impressive, but their hearts were far from God.
1. Ultimately there are only two kinds of religion in the world: the kind we have to carry and the kind that carries us.
a. Religion we have to carry—that depends on our strength, determination, and zeal—belongs to the false prophets.
b. The religion of Jesus carries us. It depends on what Christ has done to declare us righteous.
2. APP: Be tolerant of all people but intolerant of falsehood
3. APP: Beware of false prophets, Jesus cautioned. They are here today; they were here 2000 years ago. We can hear them on the radio or watch them on television or see them in front of a church. We cannot recognize them by their vocabulary, their ministry, or their sincerity—we can only measure them by their fruit.
CONCLUSION: Jesus gives us a Clue about what is true: a forgiven person is a forgiving person, while a deceiving person is a deceived person.
Francis Bacon: “It is not what [people] eat, but what they digest that makes them strong; not what we earn, but what we save that makes us rich; not what we read, but what we remember that makes us educated; not what we preach, but what we practice and believe that makes us Christians.”
