The Eye Is The Lamp Of The Body

So this morning, we're going to be continuing in our study of the Sermon on the Mount, and we're going to be focusing on what it means for our eyes to be the lamp of our body. As Matthew records this passage, it can be kind of hard to know exactly what that means, that our eyes would be the lamps of our bodies. But the main point has to do with the relationship or the connection between what we see and perceive and how that affects our desires or the decisions that we make. If we see clearly, we'll walk without stumbling. If we don't see clearly, we'll stumble and fall. And so my hope is that God will help us to see ourselves, to see our lives and this world as He sees them. Not as we see them, and certainly not as the world sees them. Our text this morning is Matthew 6, verses 22 and 23. Would you please stand as we read the Word of the Lord? This is the Word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. The eye is the lamp of the body.

So then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now here's the difficulty of this passage, and it really is the difficulty of our lives. God made the seeing eye, and he made the blind eye. And yet we're not supposed to trust what we see. We're supposed to live by faith, not by sight. And so the tension we live in is that God's given us eyes to see and perceive and to inform us about what we would desire or want, what would be good, what would be bad. Our eyes play an integral role. And yet they come with a great danger that we would not make the right judgments or see things the right way.

Our sight, among all of our other senses, is the sense by which we take in and process all of life. Think of when you see somebody, or maybe when you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning. How do you evaluate? You evaluate by what you see. How are they dressed? How do they carry themselves? Is their hair well kept? Have they shaved? When we look at our clothing, the same is true. Is it new? Is it wrinkled? Is it tattered? Does it fit? Is it too big? Is it modest? The same is true of our food. You ever notice the difference between what marketing or, you know, for fast food, what they show you the burger looks like, and then when you open up the wrapper, what it actually looks like? That picture's not real, but that picture gets you to buy the actual sandwich. Some of you may have seen the way that they prepare that food, and it's not even real food, actually.

It's not real meat and it's not real cheese and it's not real bread. Why do they go to all that trouble? Because if they showed you what it looked like when it came out of the bag they gave it to you in, you wouldn't buy it. The same is true of our appearances, our beauty, the way we look. One of the things I tell my sons is, regularly as I talk to them about their appearance, and do you know what I say to my sons about their appearance? Stop worrying about it. Stop worrying about it. Now, You need to be well-groomed. You don't want to have your hair look like it is a mess. You need to bathe, though we can't see if you haven't bathed. Usually we can tell. But when they get concerned about how their clothes fit and whether they're cool, how well they match, how long it takes them to do their hair, what I'm dealing with with my sons and what I'm dealing with with myself and what I'm dealing with with you is...

This reality that we process the world by what we see. We evaluate what we see and we are evaluated by how we look. It's unavoidable. Some of us may not like it. We may say, well, it shouldn't be that way. And yet it is. The danger is that what we see forms the foundations of our thought. It's impossible for us to separate the substance of something from its appearance. I think if we were to use food as an example, I think about the only food that can that can get away with not looking nice is like Cajun food, like yats. If you go to yats, their food does not look good. It smells good, and it does taste good, but it is not attractive. And they serve it to you in a styrofoam thing. They don't try to make it look nice, and they give you a really cheap piece of silverware. But most places, if they want you to buy their food, they're going to work hard to make it look nice. And this is true, the nicer the food gets.

Presentation really matters. My wife and I just celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary yesterday. And on our wedding night, we came up to Indy, and we had dinner at Don Shula's Steakhouse. Now, most of you probably don't even know. It's not there anymore. But it was a steakhouse that you go to, and everything was a la carte. You got to pick your lobster or your steak or whatever you wanted to eat. And they didn't have a menu. They didn't give you anything to look at and to read. What they did was they pushed around a cart. And do you know what was on the cart? fresh cuts of meat, living lobsters, whole potatoes, big carrots, whatever it was you wanted. And you got to say, I want some of that, and I want one of those, and give me two of that. And that's how you got to pick what you wanted. Now, why did they push that around? Because it's very appetizing. It's very appealing. It makes you hungry. And it was important that they do that, because later in the night, they were going to hand me a bill. And it was not a, you know, this is not a...

a cheap place to eat. And so they had to go a long way to make their food look good. Very appealing. If we're going to spend the extra money, it has to look nice. And so this is the danger. We can be misled. Is a meal like that worth the money? Maybe, maybe not. It's certainly worth the experience. But we process our lives through what we see. We process people, we process food, we process homes, we process cars, we process value, all through our eyes and what we see. And so Jesus tells us that the eye is the lamp of our body, that what we see directs our path, it directs our whole body. Those who can't see or can't see well stumble a lot. They fall down. They get hurt. Now we might want to separate, as I mentioned earlier, this reality of appearance from substance.

But we can't. What we have to do instead is deal with the danger of being misled by what we see. When Samuel was looking for the next king of Israel to replace Saul, he goes around. The Lord sends him to the house of Jesse. And when he gets to the house of Jesse, Jesse has all of his sons pass before Samuel. And of course, they're making Samuel, a godly man, is making assessments about who he thinks could be the next king. And he does it based on what they look like. And so when one of Jesse's sons, Eliab, came by, Samuel said to himself, surely the Lord's anointed is before him. Meaning, surely Eliab's the one. Why? Because they had this description of Saul. What did Saul look like? Saul was a head taller than everybody else and he was handsome. And so Samuel's looking for a man who is kingly. And so Eliab passes by and he goes, kingly.

surely the Lord's anointed is before him. This is 1 Samuel 16, verses 6 and 7. But as soon as he said that to himself, the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature because I have rejected him. For God sees not as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Now, if you had to describe what sort of statement the Lord's making to Samuel, what would you call it? Is it an encouragement? No. Is it a reminder? No. Is it a full-blown rebuke? No, it's probably something just like a correction. Just like, hey, no, that's not how we do things here. It's like this. You have your way of doing things. It's not how I do things. That's not how we make these decisions. Don't be drawn aside. It's a warning, a correction. Don't be misled by the way things appear, by the way things look. And so that's the danger that we face.

That we'll make wrong assessments based on what we see or what we think we see. And that those assessments will determine our thoughts and our desires. I'll tell you, I was, a story that just happened yesterday to me. I was at Starbucks and I was working. And there was this father and this daughter. They came in. There really wasn't anyone else in there. And this father brings his daughter in and they go back. They order a drink to the restroom and then they come back out. And I see this dad being very particular about his daughter and where she had to stand. Like he was pointing to the tile on the floor and he's like, you have to stand on this tile. Like she was up close to the bar and he was making her move back like four feet. He's like, here. And she moved back like two feet and he says, no, right here. And so she walks back and she's almost like, I'm watching her and I'm like, man, dude, you're a jerk. I mean, this is what you're all thinking, right? You're like, what's wrong with this dad? And the girl almost cries.

Like he's not paying attention, but I'm watching her and I'm going to smile at her because he's being mean to her, right? So I'm going to smile at her and I'm going to tell her not everyone's mean with my smile. This is my plan. And she has a tear form and then she kind of shakes it away and she just stands there and does nothing while the drink's being made. And I just think, man, it must be miserable to be this man's daughter, as I'm sure you're all thinking. And so my impulse is to pray for him, to not be a jerk of a father.

Because he's being really, really mean to his daughter, I think. And I don't know why. I'm like, what did she do? Like, she's not being, I've seen kids way worse behaved at Starbucks. She wasn't fussing. She was probably five, young girl. And then I'm watching, and I'm praying, and I'm trying to catch her eye, and you just have these thoughts. I have these thoughts go on in my head. I'm seeing a dad treat his daughter poorly. And then I realized later when he went to get his drink, that his daughter had had an accident and that that's why they'd come into the bathroom. Because they'd gotten out of their car and he'd brought her in to clean her up, but he didn't have any change of clothes for her. So he was actually putting her in a discreet place where she wouldn't be embarrassed. And that's actually why she was crying. Because she was embarrassed because she had an accident. She was old enough, you could tell, like she was kind of, you know, because he didn't have clothes to change her. And so this father, you see how every, like that one little piece of knowledge?

completely changes what he's doing. All of a sudden, he's trying to keep her from being embarrassed. But I thought he was being a jerk because I was paying attention to what I saw. And I kept watching, and all of a sudden, I'm like, oh, wow, this one other little fact completely changes it. But if we miss that one other fact, we come away from that story thinking, what a jerk of a father. And maybe he is a bad dad. I don't know. But in that moment, I think he was loving his daughter and trying to be kind to her. But my eyes misled me. I was wrong about what I thought. And I didn't like him, right? When I was telling you the story, you didn't like him, did you? He's a bad guy. But he wasn't. And what misled me was my sight. And here's the other danger. You know what was right on the heels of me thinking that he was a bad father? You tell me, what was on my mind about my own fatherhood? I would never do things like that. I wouldn't be so miserable to my children. And so here comes my pride.

And my arrogance. And you realize I'm completely off of the reality that's going on here. And so you have to see that there's a danger in what you see. What you see will often feed your own pride. And that it is your pride and your own sinfulness that dictates what you see and what you don't see. And what you perceive. And what thoughts and impulses come. from that there's a real danger here and so if we're if we're if we are misled if we don't see things as they are then what Jesus says here will be true of us he says if the light that is in you is darkness right the thing you think is right is true is appropriate is actually wrong then how great is that darkness How much danger is there in thinking that you're right, in thinking that you understand, in thinking that you've grasped, only to find out later that you were wrong. And that you made decisions based on that. And that those decisions have consequences. This is the danger that Jesus is warning us against. In Romans 1, Paul warns of those who are hard-hearted and those who fall away, those who deny God. And this is how he describes them.

In verses 22 and 23, he says that they, professing to be wise, became fools. And they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image, sight, an image, in the form of corruptible man, and of birds and of four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Now, when we read this passage, we might look at that and say, I don't do that. He's describing, like, the unbeliever. He is describing those who have rejected him. Those who are... who know that they are casting him off. And that may be true. That there are those who are given over to those sins in such a way that they don't have any awareness that it's sin. That they have rejected and cast off God. My question to you is, is that not a temptation to you? To think that you're wise and to become a fool. Part of the thing that makes this passage in Romans so, you know, that's not me, is that they exchange the glory of God.

for an image in the form of a corruptible man, but we don't pay attention to that part. What we hear is, or of birds or four-footed animals or crawling creatures, and we say, yeah, they've traded out God for some crazy thing, but did you hear the first thing they traded it out for? An image in the form of corruptible man. Do you remember what I said earlier about our appearances and what they communicate? How we look and how beholden we are to what people think of how we present. Do you think there's any danger that we might be giving are giving up the glory of God for the image of the form of a corruptible man. Is there any danger in how we dress and present ourselves? Yes. Someone asked me recently about tattoos. What do you think about tattoos? Now, I think most of you know I have tattoos. And I got them before I was a Christian. If I could not have them, I would not have them. But I do have them. And so here we are.

And so a young man was asking me, what's the Bible say about tattoos and about piercings? Because everybody has them now, right? This is just the thing. What's the Bible say about it? And I said, well, piercings and earrings. He was asking about men specifically, about men getting earrings, because he knows that I think that it's inappropriate. But he said, why? And I said, well, in Scripture, having an earring was a sign of slavery. If you want to know what the Bible says about it, like chapter and verse, there are places you can look in the Old Testament where they would pierce the ear of their slave with an awl and put a mark on them. Sometimes they might brand them. Sometimes they might tattoo them. It was a way of demonstrating slavery, ownership, much like we have in cattle farming now where the animals would have been branded so that they know which farm they went to. But my son wasn't satisfied. It was my son who asked me. One of my sons.

He wasn't satisfied with the question, with my answer. And I said, honey, you know, there's this thing about life that governs a lot of what we do, actually, and it's called wisdom. That not everything that we have to do in life has a chapter and a verse that we can cite and say, this is why we do or don't do the things that we do or don't do. That oftentimes it takes wisdom. And wisdom that young people don't tend to possess. But wisdom that older people do tend to possess. And so I said, you know, I think it would be good for you to simply trust the wisdom of an older man because I'm telling you, as one who has tattoos, had probably more earrings than any one person in this room had, and a tongue ring, I can tell you why I did those things. And it's nothing commendable. So the one who asks, wondering about the unknown, Listen to the one who's been there and done it and can say to you, there's no good motivation for these things. They don't honor God. Are you going to get thrown out of the church if you do it? No, but you probably will reap some sort of disdain from the older people. I knew at some point about tattoos, even when I was getting them, that they were a no-no with older people. So I had a grandma who was in her 80s.

And I meant for her to die not knowing that I had a tattoo. That was not my mom's intention, though, because my mom didn't like it. Lo and behold, my mom had tattoos when she was young, too. And so she knew what kind of stupidity went into it. And so she told my grandma, Hey, ask your grandson. Let him show you his back. Mom, shut up. But here's the thing. What's going on there? There's some sort of shame going on. There's some sort of like, I know I'm disappointing those who are around, but I thought I was wise. And in thinking I was wise, I had become a fool. My eye was clouded. My eye was clouded. When people ask me about tattoos now, instead of going into a big, long discussion, all I say is, if you will just wait until you get married and have a couple of kids and get past, say, 30, 35, if you still want a tattoo, just go get one. If you'll just wait that long, just wait that long, I won't fight you.

Why would I say that? Because in the intervening time, their sight will clear up. And they'll go, oh, yeah, that was silly, stupid, foolish, whatever they think. And I know some of you have tattoos, and I hope I'm not stepping on your toes, but I think you'd agree with me. If you could go back and get rid of them, you probably would. The things that were going on in your head and in your life at the time, you were like, yeah, that was kind of dumb. It certainly was for me. My eye wasn't clear. And it led, the reason I'm, here, let me just say this about tattoos. This is not a sermon about tattoos. You aren't going to get brought up on charges by the elders if you go get a tattoo, okay? I'm bringing it up because it's permanent. And there are things you do when your eyes, when you don't see clearly, that are permanent. I can take all the piercings out, and I did many years ago, but the tattoos are still there.

And so when he says that the eye is the lamp of the body, and if your eye is clear, then your whole body will be full of light, he means that you're going to live and do wise things with your life as you walk through life. But if your eye is not clear, if it's full of darkness, if it's bad, then your whole body will be full of darkness. And some of those things that you fall into will be permanent. Just like tattoos. This is the point where the Lord would say, those who have ears, let them hear. This is not about tattoos. This is about you making decisions and thinking you know what's right and what's good and what you'll be pleased about 10, 20, 50 years from now. The risk of being wrong, in some cases, is very high. The danger, I should say, of being wrong is very high. So be careful by what you see and what you perceive and then what you want as a result. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 7, he says,

Not by sight. And so here we have the two themes show up again in a different passage with a different author. Sight and walking. Bodies, walking around. Living life, trying to serve God. This is the Christian mandate. We walk by faith, not by sight. That we don't live according to what we see and perceive in the world around us, but that we live according to what we see and read in Scripture. This is what it means to be a Christian and to live by faith. is to trust what we see in Scripture and not what we see in the world around us. How many times when you come to a young person and you say, do you understand the consequence of what you're doing? They can't grasp it. They can't see the danger. And if you could get them to see the danger, they might turn away from it. The things that go on in the world and the pressures that you and I face, the way we're supposed to behave or look or speak,

And the things we're supposed to value. If we could show the danger, you'd run away from it. But the world doesn't perceive the danger. The world doesn't perceive the judgment. The world does not perceive hell. But scripture warns us of these things. And so we ought to live by faith and walk by faith, not by sight. And so what that means is that as you get older, really I think the difference between the old and the young is that the old have learned. the older, have learned enough times not to trust what they see because they thought they undersaw and they thought they understood and they thought they knew, only to find out later they were wrong. And then they have to clean up the consequences or the mess of having been wrong. And so what they've developed is a growing sense of self-doubt. They don't trust what they see as much as they used to. And that's a kindness of God that he's given to those who are older.

And those of you who are young would do well simply to listen to those who are older. All of you in your house, if you've lived there for a year or more, could probably find your way through it in the dark, right? Without the lights on. You may not have counted how many steps is it from the bed to the doorway or to the restroom or to the stairs or where have you. But you know. You have your way of walking up the stairs. Maybe you haven't counted them, but you know, I always start with my left foot and then my right foot's always on the landing and you just know it stuff. You don't need your sight as much once you've developed a habit, once you've developed familiarity. But if you move into a new house, all of a sudden, you're walking into walls because you're half awake in the middle of the night and there's a doorway, a door where there used to be a drawer or what have you.

We really are dependent on our sight. And it really is important that our sight be informed by reality so that our eyes can be clear, so that we can see clearly through our lives what's important and what's not. I could multiply examples of my own life and of some of yours where I say, you know how important that thing was to you? Or that relationship was to you? Or that you thought everything revolved around this. This was just the thing that was going to shape your whole life, only to find out later, it doesn't matter. It's not even a part of your life anymore and you're no worse for it. Previously, your vision was clouded and you organized your life based on what you thought was true and you probably made a mess. So to be a Christian means to doubt the things that we see and to doubt our desires. I realize that's a strange thing to say, that we as Christians should doubt our desires, but all I mean to tell you is that you have a corrupt heart and you will one day, in glory, have a pure heart.

But when we ask God to create in us a pure heart, oh God, we're acknowledging that we need it because we don't have it. And that when we ask him to do that, what we're asking for is a lifetime of purification, not a give me a new one and fix all my desires. That's not how it works. That's not how life as a Christian in this world works. And so, we should doubt what we see. And we should doubt what we desire. Is that a good thing to desire is a question we should always be asking ourselves. Is God pleased by the thing I want? But too often I'm afraid what we do is think, because I'm a Christian and I want it, it must be good. And that is a very, very dangerous assumption to make. Because it leads to a place where Christians never have to say no to themselves. It leads to this implicit...

belief that we don't have corrupt desires and that we always see clearly. When if we read Scripture, we'll find out very quickly that's not true. And so if you want to avoid stumbling, and if you want to avoid making a mess of your life, and if you want to avoid walking away from, making shipwreck of your faith, then your work is simply to keep your eye clear, to inform it according to what God says. Because here's the thing. All of us are followers. Even the most leader-esque of us are still followers. And here's the reality of leadership and following or submission. You don't vet everything your leader tells you. You simply don't. You vet some of it. I mean, you may have your big, like, is that really, really bad? But at some point, you implicitly say, I trust this person to lead, to tell me.

how things are, and what I should pay attention to. And that's a vulnerable thing. We all say, well, no, no, no, I'm always paying attention and I'm always evaluating. And I say, don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to. If you've lived long enough, you've been led astray by people you trusted. And in God's mercy, they said, hey, I screwed up and I'm sorry and we need to go back the other way. But there is no perfect leader and there is certainly no all-knowing follower. And so as we trust people to inform our sight, That's why I'm talking about leaders, because the people we follow, they're the ones who inform us. They're the ones who take the binoculars and turn the dials and say, this is how to focus. This is what you need to pay attention to. Some things are up close, some things are far away. Pay attention to this part. We have to realize that this is difficult work, that being led is vulnerable, that our ability to serve God and to do right by him and to persevere is really difficult.

One of the things that Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for was being blind guides. Why does he call them blind guides? Well, because it's their job to lead people, to see for them, and to say, come this way, go this way. And he said they were blind guides. They misled the people. And the people didn't realize it. The people wanted to go along. And so if we're to keep our eyes clear, we're going to have to make sure that those that we follow, seem to have biblical sight, not worldly sight, not successful sight, meaning not sight that's always aimed at being successful or avoiding difficulty or hardship, but those who know the Word of God and who trust it and who live their lives, even when it's costly, according to it. This is how we keep our eyesight clear. This is how we keep from stumbling and falling. And this takes work.

It takes training. I'm sure you've had those people come to you. You've had people come to you from time to time. Perhaps it was your parents. Maybe it was a boss. Perhaps it was a pastor or elder. And you wanted something or thought something and they said, no, no. And you said, no, no, but I want it and it's good. They said, no, it's not. What's going on there? All that's going on there is your senses are being trained. And your senses need to be trained. In Hebrews, the author warns the Hebrews against this because they had not had their senses trained. He said, solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. To be able to look and say, that's true and that's a lie. Because most of the time, lies don't come to you parading the fact that they're a lie. And every good lie has a portion of truth in it. And we're very susceptible to...

making inferences that are harmful to us. I was just thinking of this reality last night as we're talking about what kind of floor to put in the kitchen here. We want to put some waterproof floor in there, right? So that means you don't want to put together like the cardboard floating floor. Well, they make vinyl flooring that's waterproof. But what does it mean that it's waterproof? Does waterproof mean that it will not be damaged by water? Or does waterproof mean that water can't get past it? Does it create a waterproof barrier? Or is it impervious to water? One of those is way more important than the other. Because I don't need, I don't care if I have a floor that doesn't absorb water if it allows water to get underneath it. Because if water gets underneath that floor, then what do you have? Mold. And a whole floor that needs to be torn out.

But if you go into the store and you look at the signs, the biggest word you'll find everywhere is waterproof. And is it true? Depends on what you mean by waterproof. Right, yeah. The material is waterproof. Its ability to keep water from getting underneath it, if you do it perfectly and you get to the water fairly quickly, you won't end up with water underneath it. So is that marketing a lie? Well, kind of. Kind of. Maybe. What it requires is for the purchaser to know what the dangers are and to know what the best solution is. That takes training. Many of us would walk in and say, oh, it's waterproof. That means no water will ever get underneath it. You'll throw it down on your floor only to find out later when your sink backs up or whatever and you walk on it and you can feel the floor squishing and you're like, oh no. But they said it was waterproof. And then you'll call them and say, you've ruined my whole house. And they'll say, no we didn't.

Read the fine print. It never said that water couldn't get through it. What we said is the floor won't be damaged. So pull the floor up, dry out and fix everything underneath it, and then you can put that exact same flooring right back down as long as you don't tear it up when you take it up. That's what we meant by waterproof. So we can be misled. It's quite easy. So how do you know whether you're seeing clearly? Here's a few things. We'll bring it in. How do you know if you're seeing clearly? First, Ask other people to look at the decision. Because in a multitude of counselors, plans succeed. If you're the type who likes to do everything on your own, and you're the type who thinks it's too insecure to have other people scrutinize your decisions, you will make huge mistakes in your life. Huge mistakes. With long-lasting consequences. So have other people look at it. And if the consensus is, yeah, that makes sense, then at least you're in good company if you're all wrong together.

But the second way, and I think probably a more important thing to keep in mind to ensure that you're seeing clearly, is to remember that trees are known by their fruit. Trees are known by their fruit. And everything you see is a tree in this analogy. Or it's a piece of fruit off of a tree, so to speak. And it's important that you learn to distinguish What kind of tree that fruit has come off of? Whether that is a person or an ideology or a doctrine or a political commitment, it's important that you know what kind of tree bore that fruit. Have you ever bitten into an apple that looked really nice only to find that it was rotten? What happened? You got misled. Wouldn't it have been nice to be able to look at the tree that it came off of and see if the tree was half dead?

or eaten up by disease, if you knew what that sort of thing looked like in a tree. Trees are known by their fruit. People are known by what they produce, not by what they say. The flooring company tells me that the flooring is waterproof. But I know from experience that water can get through those floors. And so I don't believe them when they say it's waterproof. Not in the way I need it to be waterproof. And so if you want to know, if you're seeing clearly, Look at the context in which the thing is said. Look in the place from where it comes. The pressures that you feel from the world to dress a certain way, look a certain way, live a certain way, think a certain way. You should sit back as a Christian and say, where does this come from and where does it go? What is the root of this thinking and what is it going to push me toward? And if it comes from godlessness, you can trust.

Very certainly that it's going to push you toward godlessness because trees are known by its fruit. Another thing is if anyone tells you that the thing you want is easy to get, they're lying to you. If they tell you that having a good marriage is easy, they're lying to you. If they're telling you that getting a side hustle and getting rich is easy, they're lying to you. If they're telling you how to raise your children or whether to have children and how it will be easy if you'll just do it their way, They're lying to you. If they tell you that if you'll follow my diet, you'll lose weight, you'll build muscle, or whatever it is you want to do, and they say in 30 days it's going to be awesome, they're lying to you. If they sell you a bottle that says, if you'll just take my whatever, it'll fix all your problems, they are lying to you. They are misleading you. So know a tree by its fruit, not by what it says.

Good trees produce good fruit and bad trees produce bad fruit. And so our job as Christians, in terms of keeping our eyes clear, is to examine the fruit. I think the place I've seen this discussion come up a couple of times recently was concerning, can we process the merits of an argument without processing the person making the argument? Meaning, if a wicked person says, here's a good thing, Can we just accept the good thing without acknowledging where it came from? And many people say, yes. But I would say, no. And you say, well, don't we evaluate arguments on the merits of the argument? And I say, yes, with a caveat. If they come from someone that's trustworthy. Because people who aren't trustworthy are likely to mislead you and to lie to you in the process, whether they do it intentionally or not. And so character really does matter.

Good trees bear good fruit, and so we need to pay attention and look for the good fruit. It's worth noting that good fruit is not perfect fruit. Even good trees in this fallen world will have some bad apples. And so the thing we should do there is judge with the standard that we would want to be judged by. None of us are perfect. If we're evaluating someone else and we're saying, well, good trees produce good fruit, we should be looking at their whole lives, at a long track record and saying, are they trustworthy or are they not? Not, is what this last thing that they've said or done trustworthy or right or does it scratch me where I itch? And so if you want to keep your eyes clear, if you want to avoid lots of trouble in life, and if you want to serve God well, then the thing to pay attention to is the fruit of the people that you're following. Don't decide you won't follow because you're a fool and I'm a fool. And if we decide to go at our own, we will get lost. Evaluate.

those that you follow, and see if their lives are what you want. If they serve God, then listen to them. If they don't serve God, then don't listen to them. Even if they're in your own family, even if they're your boss, even if there is a cost associated with it. You follow people who will lead you into the presence of God and who will tell you the truth even when it's difficult. Those are the ones who will help you see clearly. Who will push back when you say you really want something and they say, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. Those are the ones who will be helpful to you because they'll be the ones like the eye doctor who will take the cataracts off your eyes so that you can see clearly. We get blinded. Our hearts and our emotions confuse us. And we need other people to help clear the confusion away and point us in the right direction.

And so your life is dependent on seeing clearly what's important to God and having other people around you to lead you to serve him well. Let's pray.