Every now and then, in our culture, in the midst of school shootings, mass incarceration, government corruption, the alarming increase in the deaths of unarmed African Americans by cops, systemic structures of injustice and what often feels like the hypocrisy and complicit silence of the church, there arises a song that captures the heart cry of the society. I happened to stumble across such a song a few years ago that gripped me and challenged me as a follower of Jesus. I found it while my heart was still aching from constantly seeing some of the very things I just mentioned, in our nation. The song is called, “Where Is the Love?,” by Black Eyed Peas. Now, I love the song, with just one exception. There’s a line that says, “Black lives, not now. Everybody matters to me.” This strangely seems to undermine the point of the song, because all lives don’t matter if black and brown lives don’t matter. With that said, the song is powerful and even has the ring of the prophetic to it. Check out some of these lines from the song. Let’s start with the chorus… 

Notice as they are seeing the suffering in the world, they have some questions for those of us who are preaching. Can you practice what you preach? Then as an example of Someone they expect us to be preaching about and more importantly practicing His teachings, they quote Jesus, who, from His sermon on the Mount, taught us to "turn the other cheek.” Now watch this prayer in the last line of the chorus…

Please, I beg you not to miss what their heart’s cry is to the Father, as they seek His guidance! As they look at the people around them in the world, and based on the previous line we just looked at, as they also look at those who profess to follow Christ, they’re beginning to question, “Where’s the love?”. Somewhere in their heart is the expectation from God that love should be breaking out among the people of the world, but they can’t seem to see it in people, so they’re starting to question. This get’s even clearer in verse 6, as it appears they’re addressing religious people in general, especially Christians…

Did you hear that? This is the most important line in the whole song! This secular rap group, whose video for this song is full of well-known celebrities, entertainers and stars, have just captured in this one line, the central core truth of the entire Bible and reality itself. For them, when truth is spoken it sounds like love. They understand that love is the revelation of the truth. And if anyone claims to know and speak truth, but don’t know love, then they don’t know God! Because “the truth” IS that God is love.

So their question to the religious who claim to know the truth, to the professed follower of Jesus, who Himself claimed to be the Truth, to you and to me is… “Where is the love?”

They’re not the only ones asking this heart penetrating question. The younger generations, both inside and outside the church, are asking this same question. You see, the world, and younger generations especially, have some expectations of us! No matter how much it seems like they dismiss God or outright disregard Him; the reality is, when life gets hard, they look at God and they look at us and they say… “Where is the love?” And as Jesus is about to conclude His sermon on the Mount, He doesn’t want them to have to ask this question of His followers. So let’s dive into Matthew chapter 7 and see if we can learn the ways of love in Christ’s Kingdom He calls us to live out now. Let’s begin in verse 1, where immediately, Jesus says…

Jesus is saying that one of the things that has the world and younger generations saying, “Where is the love?,” is when we treat them with…

A JUDGMENTAL SPIRIT

Can you hear the humor in Jesus’ voice as He pokes at the ridiculous religious hypocrisy of someone with a plank in their eye judging someone with a speck in their eye? The contrast is glaring. It’s like someone involved in sex trafficking young girls being upset and judging someone who struggles with looking at porn. Yet this is the same self-righteous attitude that many of us in the church give off to people when we don’t approve of what they’re doing! It’s as if we’ve forgotten that we’ve sinned and are just as much a need of grace as they are, if not more!

Now Jesus is not saying that we shouldn’t evaluate the fruit in someone’s life that gives evidence that they are a sincere, growing follower of Jesus, as we’ll soon see. Nor is He saying you can’t approach the person you’re concerned about. What Jesus is speaking against is that spirit you have with that person that is condemning, shaming and guilt inducing, as if you’ve never sinned a day in your life. He is also implying two other things by the speck/two by four contrast. 1) Often the thing that the self-righteous “Christian” is judging someone else about is something they struggle with. 2) Or just the very act of judging someone’s motives with a condemning spirit is a worse “two by four” sin than their “speck” sin! Either way, the one judging is revealing blatant hypocrisy and will be judged in the same condemning way in return.

Then Jesus says something, that on the surface, seems like a random break in His teaching on judging, but it’s actually continuing His thought. His statement in verse 6 compares His teaching, especially this one on judging, with something holy and precious pearls, and those who, either reject it or do not appreciate it, are compared with dogs and swine. Commenting on His own teaching He just gave on judging, He warns His disciples that will try to share His teaching, to be cautious, because not everyone will appreciate His precious teaching. And they shouldn’t be surprised by their negative reaction.

So how are we doing with this? Do you find yourself wanting to increasingly address the sin in other people’s lives? Do you see yourself as not as bad as other people and therefore get angry at their sins, their faults or their lifestyle? Maybe you’ve tried to approach someone about their stuff and wondered why they got so upset with you, even though they might know what they did is wrong. It may be because you have a judgmental spirit and they don’t feel safe around you to own, confess and turn from their sin, for fear that you’ll shame them. Instead, what we need is a humble spirit that recognizes our own brokenness and utter dependance on the grace of Christ. We need compassion that realizes that if we had the same set of circumstances, dysfunctional upbringing and weakness of character, we’d probably be doing the same thing. And even better, you need a relationship with that person where they know, feel, see and hear the love that you have for them, before ever talking with them about an issue. And for many of us, it would be better just to love them and pray!

As a matter of fact, Jesus knows just the kind of prayer you should be praying. And since we struggle with having a judgmental spirit, He now teaches how we can avoid this, in verse 7.