Grace Baptist Church, Nokomis, IL.

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One of my favorite teachers in high school was a funny Jewish man named Mr. Hack. I thought he was just hilarious. He had this really dry sense of humor, which probably helped to shape my sense of humor to be the outstanding thing that it is today.

One thing about my high school, though, which is probably true of most smaller high schools like mine, is that you didn’t get to pick your teachers. I mean, if you wanted to take a certain English class, you took it with Mr. Hack. And if you wanted a certain Literature class, you’d have Mr. Hack. And if you wanted to be in the school play, guess what? Mr. Hack. So I felt like I got lucky having a teacher I really enjoyed. But at the same time, I didn’t really choose him. He was chosen for me. He was the default English teacher.

And when it comes to life and faith, we have default teachers there as well. By default, our teachers are Satan and self. And we do a really good job following these teachers. From them, we learn to sin, and judge others, and die. And if we were to get a grade from our teacher, Satan, we’d all get an A+, because we’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And because we get an A+ in sin, we die. The wages of sin is death.

But thankfully, God allows us to pick another teacher. Jesus came to be our substitute. He died for our sin, so that when we place our faith in Him, He becomes our Savior and Substitute Teacher, so that we can sit at His feet, and grow in Him.

Read Luke 6:39-42

We tend to think of ourselves as pretty rational people. We have reasons for why we believe what we believe, and reasons for why we don’t believe what we don’t believe. We weigh the decisions that we need make, and we make the decision that we think is the best possible decision that we can make given the circumstances. And we all seem to think that we have the gift of discernment, able to get to the root of the matter, able to distinguish between good-spirited, and mean-spirited people, able to judge people when they do right or wrong.

But if we’re so rational, why do we often see the speck in our brother’s eye, but miss the log in our own eye? Well, maybe it’s because we like to pretend that we don’t have a log in our own eye. I mean, we know theologically that we’re sinners, but when it comes to day to day living, we think we’re perfect, don’t we? We think we have it right, and everyone else has it wrong. I mean, otherwise, why do we continue to believe and live the way we do? If we’re really as rational as we think we are, and we thought we were wrong about something, then we’d change! We’d spend our time differently. We’d spend our money differently. If we really thought we were wrong about something, we’d repent of that thing and embrace the right thing instead.

But when it comes down to it, we don’t think we’re wrong, we think we’re right, or at least right enough, even about those things that we’re wrong about. Maybe we’re not as rational as we think. It’s like we have this huge log in our eye, that we’re blind to.

Now, I don’t know how animated Jesus was when He preached, but I tend to think that He had a pretty good sense of humor. I don’t think he was as serious as so many of the movies portray Him. People loved being around Jesus! He showed them He loved them! He was invited to parties! He told stories and, I think, made people laugh! I imagine that He was like this funny Jewish man who crowds flocked to see and hear.

So I imagine that Jesus illustrated this parable something like this. This isn’t a log, and it’s not as big as a log, but imagine this foam noodle was a log. How ridiculous would it be if I had this log protruding from my eye, and I criticized someone else for having a speck in their eye?

Hey, Donald, it looks like you have a speck in your eye. I have these tweezers, let me help you get that speck out of your eye. Just sit real still. I can do this! I mean, that’s foolish! And yet we do it. It’s like we’re blind to the log in our eye.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at them, but my oldest two children are legally blind. It’s most apparent outside on sunny days, at which times they might truly be unable to see anything but a blinding white light. And yet, they’re also kids! So they love to run around. They love to charge forward with reckless abandon. My 7 year old boy, Cory, does this thing where he brings his fists up into the air, and then brings them down quickly with a swish, like he has jet blasters. Like this. I’ve cringed so many times when he’s done that on sunny days, because I’m afraid he’s going to run right into a tree, or trip over a crack, which kids do, but Cory does that just a little bit more, because on days like that, he’s close to blind!

And I mean no disrespect to the blind, but the simple truth is, they can’t see! That’s kind of what it means to be blind. Those who are blind should generally not charge forward with reckless abandon, because they’re likely to run into a tree, or trip over a crack, or fall into a pit. Thankfully, Cory has learned to slow down a bit on sunny days. Not a lot, mind you, but enough that he hasn’t given me a heart attack just yet.

But if a blind person were to attempt to lead a blind person, there’s a good chance that both of them would get injured! But this is only a problem if the first blind person pretends that he can see. If they both admit their blindness, then there’s no problem. They’ll be careful, they’ll help each other, and they’ll probably be just fine.

But there’s a huge problem when one of them says, “I can see!. I’ll lead you! Here, just take my arm! You’ll be safe!” And then he proceeds to lead the other blind man with careless abandon. That would be a problem! It’s the same with the illustration of trying to remove the speck in your brother’s eye, when you have a log in your own eye. You’re like the blind leading the blind. If, while pretending to try to help your brother, you ignore that you yourself need help, you’ll likely injure both of you in the process. Sometimes we look down on others and ignore the fact that we ourselves have so many problems of our own. Or, maybe it’s just that we think we can fool others into thinking we don’t have problems. That we don’t have this huge log in our eye. But think about that. If you had a log in your eye, could you hide it? No! Everyone would see it! And everyone would know that you’re a hypocrite if they see you trying to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye!

Here’s the thing: we do all have logs in our eyes. We’re blind to the things that we’re wrong about. So instead of being critical of others, be humble before God. Ask God to remove the log out of your eye. Ask God to forgive you of your sin.

I think the crux of this passage is verse 40. The question is, who are you following? Who is your teacher? Theologically, we would say Jesus, but in your day to day life, are you humbling yourself before Him, or are you going your own way? If you’re going your own way, not following God’s plan for your life, but your own plan, then perhaps Jesus is not your teacher, but you are your teacher. And if you’re blind to your sin, how can you possibly become more the person God wants you to be?

I mean, we love to say that Jesus is Lord, but is He really your Lord? Are you treating Him as your Lord? Are you humbling yourself before Him, seeking His will for your life through His Word, and seeking daily to become more like Him? If not, it doesn’t matter how much you say Jesus is your Lord, He’s not. You’re blind. You have this huge log in your eye, and you don’t even see it.

Jesus said in another place, “Not everyone who calls me ‘Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Is it your works that save you? No, but neither do your words, and in order to be saved, you must truly embrace Jesus as Savior and Lord, not just with your lips. And then, having Jesus as your Savior, your Lord, your teacher, you will become like Him.

And that’s going to look a little crazy to the world around you. I mean, Jesus looked pretty crazy to the world around Him. You see, it takes faith to believe in what’s rational, because prior to having faith, we’ve always accepted irrationality as rational. And when Jesus calls us to follow Him, He’s calling us to set aside our rationality, which is really irrationality, so that we might be conformed to what is truly rational.

The word translated “teacher” in this passage can also be translated “master.” Maybe these aren’t that different. If you look to someone as your teacher, you’re saying they have knowledge that you want, and that you want to be like them. So we might rephrase the popular saying, “Accept Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord,” to “Accept Jesus as your personal Savior and Teacher.” Because while calling Jesus “Lord” implies a finality in your decision, calling Him “Teacher” reminds you that you’re to continue growing, continue learning, and that you haven’t arrived yet in your faith journey.

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t call Jesus your “Lord.” You should. But when you say that, don’t just mean that Jesus is your impersonal master in the sky. Mean that He’s your personal teacher. And that you’re following Him, and that you want to be like Him. Part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus is that you desire to sit at His feet and learn. I like the phrase “Jesus is my Savior and Lord.” It’s right and biblical, and I’m not suggesting that we replace it. But part of having Jesus as your Lord means having Jesus as Teacher. You commit to being a life-long learner, with Jesus as your Teacher, and the Bible as your textbook. And it’s an awesome privilege to grow in Christ. To become more like Christ. And that’s exactly what happens when you have Jesus not only as your Savior, but as your Teacher.

But in order to have Jesus as your Teacher, first you need to admit that you don’t know it all. I don’t know it all. I’m still growing. Sometimes that means a deepening of what I know, a deepening of my theology, and sometimes that means discarding things that I thought to be true, even about the Bible and about God, because I learn that I’ve been clinging to those things because I wanted them to be true, or because I was afraid that they might be true, but I need to let them go when I find the real truth taught in Scripture. So it’s a scary thing to preach in some ways, because I know that I’m not perfect, and that my theology isn’t perfect, and yet I’m called to teach the perfect Word of God.

And we’re all called to read, and understand, and live the perfect Word of God, so we strive to do that in a way that glorifies God, but we can only do that when we first admit that we’re not perfect, and the only way we can be perfect is by clinging to the living Word of God, Jesus Christ, because His death and resurrection makes us perfect by His blood. We will be perfect, as our Father in Heaven is perfect. As Jesus is perfect. And we will be like Him.

And notice that it doesn’t just say that we we’ll be more like Him, but like Him (v. 40). We won’t be above Him, Jesus will still be above us, our Lord, our God, but we will be like Him. When our training is complete, when our Lord returns, when we go to be with Jesus in heaven, we will be like Jesus. That is, we’ll be perfected, without sin, no longer blind in any way. We will be rational. We will be able to judge with right judgment. And we’ll no longer even desire to do anything but glorify God forever and ever. But that will only happen when you truly have Jesus as your Savior, your teacher, your Lord.