Stop Trying to Force-Feed 8/18/24

As you turn to Matthew 7, I want us for a moment to imagine the difference between a shriveling shrub, like that, in the desert and a flourishing tree, like that, near a stream. This is the picture that Jeremiah 17 paints between the contrast of trusting in ourselves, making flesh our strength, and trusting in the Lord. Jeremiah goes on in verse 8,

“He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

This is one of the main goals we have in our church: by God’s grace, to produce drought-resistant Christians, followers of Jesus who can thrive in good times and in hard times. Jeremiah describes the difference is like a shrub in the desert and a flourishing tree. This is one of the goals of our next Lead Class.

On October 11 and 12, we’re going to have several of us, pastors and elders, who are going to walk through some of the key—not everything, obviously; on a Friday night and Saturday morning, we can’t cover everything—but some of the key parts to our beliefs, doctrinal statement.

We’re going to address three elements. One, summarize what do we believe. Two, what are some attacks and tension points currently in our culture between this truth and our culture or our individual deceptions? And then three, why does it matter? What does it matter? We hear so often today that doctrine is okay, but you need something else. Well, no. If our roots are not deep, when drought comes, we’re going to shrivel up.

I hope you can join us. It’s just a Friday night, Saturday morning. Great food, hopefully great teaching, and fellowship as well. I think it’s going to be really helpful. There will be lots of Q&A, so sign up for the Lead Class. There is a small fee, primarily for the food. We will look forward to that on October 11th and 12th.

Earlier this year, January 27th, in Chhattisgarh, India, 1,000 Christians were forcibly converted to Hinduism. According to Global Christian Relief, there are 3 to 4 attacks on Christians or churches, against Christians in India every day. Antonio Graceffo, writing for Providence Magazine, claims,

“Hundreds of Christians have faced the looting and destruction of their homes for refusing to convert to Hinduism. Social media platforms have been used to spread extensive misinformation, promote hate speech and inflammatory rhetoric, and incite violence against religious minority groups.”

All of this is happening despite the fact that India, on paper, has a constitutional guarantee of freedom of conscience. Christians have faced the threat of forced conversion for 2000 years, ever since the Roman authorities demanded that followers of Jesus swear allegiance to pagan deities or die.

In the seventh century, Arab armies swept through the Middle East and then North Africa. At times, not always, but at times giving conquered people the option of converting to Islam or meeting the sword.

In the eighth century, Charlemagne, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, fought against the pagan Saxons for around 30 years, eventually crushing their resistance and giving them the option between baptism or death. Charlemagne’s chief advisor, Bishop Alcuin of York, reacted very strongly to the forced conversions and eventually convinced Charlemagne to stop the practice, which he did in 797. Alcuin’s rationale for opposing forced conversions is quite compelling, and sounds quite modern. He wrote,

“Faith is a free act of the will, not a forced act. We must appeal to the conscience, not compel it by violence. You can force people to be baptized, but you cannot force them to believe.”

In other words, forced conversion is un-Christian and dehumanizing.

Nowhere was this more evident than in Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China, as literally tens of millions of so-called dissidents were forced to convert to atheism/communism or be purged. These rulers purged and forced at such a rate they make the Spanish Inquisition look like child’s play.

Why is freedom of conscience so highly valued wherever the gospel of Christ is truly preached?

One obvious reason is Jesus never used an army to convert anyone, to convince them of believing in the gospel. Not that he didn’t have an army. We’re going to see when we get to Matthew 26, with a word he could call 12 legions, that is, 72,000 angelic warriors who could instantly wipe out everyone or force everyone to convert. But he didn’t call them. What an unusual king. What an unusual kingdom.

Matthew 7 records the fourth major section in Jesus’ most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. In this section, Jesus is training his followers on what life looks like in his kingdom. And since his kingdom is penetrating into a very broken, fallen world, in this section Jesus specifically is training us in how to live within the kingdom of Christ in the midst of broken, fallen, hurting, unreasonable relationships and people and circumstances.

If you weren’t here last week, I would encourage you to try to listen to that message because we laid out the whole context and explained what Jesus is doing here. But we’re calling this a safety course in judging. Judging is a lot like owning a weapon. It can inflict great harm or it can be an extremely helpful tool. Judging can inflict great harm, or it can be used wisely and bring about great good. We’re seeing four key steps to judging safely.

Number one, start with yourself.  Start with yourself. Rather than trying to fix your brother or any other person by trying to get in his eyeball and get at that sawdust, slow down and start with yourself.

Have any of you seen the Ameriquest commercials? Some of them are not good. Watch this one.

Don’t judge too quickly. The way Jesus slows us down so we won’t judge too quickly is to start with yourself. Slow down. Look at the beam in your own eye before you judge your brother.

Secondly, Jesus moves from “start with yourself” to “stop trying to force-feed.” If we’re going to judge safely, we need to stop trying to force-feed (verse 6). This is the only verse we’re going to look at today. Enjoy. Because I think it may be one of the very few times in our journey through Matthew that we will cover just one verse.

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you” (Matthew 7:6).

Here we have one command, two reasons. The one command is expressed through two vivid images: (1) don’t give what is holy to dogs, (2) don’t give pearls to pigs.

When we’re talking about dogs, we are not talking about these cute little dogs like this. We’re talking about vicious wild dogs like this. We’re not talking about pigs like Wilbur, the friendly pig, but wild boars that can get quite aggressive. Both of these (dogs and pigs) were viewed by Jewish people as unclean.

We could summarize the command this way: don’t pressure people to embrace what they don’t currently value. Don’t pressure people to embrace what they can’t or don’t currently value. Vicious dogs aren’t going to respect what is holy. Giving pearls to wild pigs isn’t going to help them. They’re not going to value what is costly.

What does this look like in a practical sense, in ministry? There are so many examples in the ministry of Jesus and in the ministry of the apostles. Let me limit it to one in Acts 13 where Paul and Barnabas are in Antioch of Pisidia, which is different from the other Antioch, Antioch of Syria. And they spoke several times in the synagogue and got a remarkable response — many people following Jesus, or at least following them to learn more. The second time they spoke, most of the city came to hear them. Look at Acts 13:45,

“But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what was spoken by Paul, reviling him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, ‘It was necessary that the word of God be spoken first to you. Since you thrust it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.’”

These Jewish agitators were stirring up the leaders of the city to persecute Paul and Barnabas and to drive them out of the city. Verse 51,

“But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.”

That’s very interesting. Notice they weren’t bitter. They weren’t angry. They weren’t shouting insults back at them. They weren’t calling down judgment fire. They did shake the dust off their feet. What does that mean?

To shake the dust off the feet came from a scribal teaching (the Scribes). For Jews, when they left Israel and went to a pagan land, they gathered dust on their sandals and their cloaks. When they came back to Israel, they were to dust off that dirty, unclean dust when they reentered this holy land.

So when Jesus says to his followers, as we’re going to see in a few months in Matthew 10, “to cast the dust off their clothes,” their feet, what he’s clearly communicating in a Jewish area— all the Jews knew exactly what he was saying. These Jewish people, who should be the first to receive the Word of God, are acting like heathens and rejecting the word that is for them.

You’ll see this practice primarily in Jewish contexts because it communicates, “You who should see that we’re offering pearls of truth, you are trampling those.” The dusting off of themselves is communicating that symbolically. Don’t pressure people to embrace what they don’t currently value.

Jesus gives two reasons for this. Number one, the truth will be abused. Look at verse 6 again,

“lest they trample them underfoot.”

Predators don’t value praise songs. Pigs don’t eat pearls or wear them. It really doesn’t go with their outfit. Let me illustrate this in a controversial way.

There’s been some research done that has often been abused, regarding abuse. It’s very interesting if you break it apart more specifically. I’ve mentioned this in years past, but I think it’s relevant here. Husbands who are most prone to abuse their wives are Christian-ish husbands. Doesn’t mean they all do. It means statistically more do than, say, atheist husbands, agnostic husbands, or other religious categories in America. Christian-ish, that is, they know a little bit about the Bible. They go to church at times. They would call themselves Christians, but they don’t really consistently believe or live out what they say they believe or live out.

Guess who is the least likely? Christian husbands who attend church regularly, believe the Bible, actually practice what they believe — less likely to abuse their wives than atheists, agnostics, or any other religious category. Isn’t that interesting? Why might that be the case? Is it possible that Christian-ish husbands have just enough truth to abuse it? Know just enough about the Bible to misuse it. To weaponize it. To view truth as something to be leveraged for their own benefit.

A Christian-ish husband who comes to Ephesians 5, for example, and reads, whoa, husbands are the head. Yes. Wives are supposed to submit. That’s gold to the Christian-ish husband who wants to use truth for his own purpose. They take those pearls, which are true and beautiful. It is a stunningly beautiful thing to watch a husband lead through sacrificial love and a wife line up under her husband, and for them together to reflect the love of Jesus for his church. It’s beautiful. It’s pearls. Valuable.

If you give those pearls to someone who just wants to twist them and use them for their own purpose, they can inflict terrible damage. There are countless people who grew up around Christianity who no longer believe in Christianity because of examples like that. People who took truth, beautiful truth, but don’t have an idea what he’s talking about here in Ephesians 5, and twist it, and they end up abusing what is beautiful to the point where it’s no longer beautiful.

I think there’s only one time, maybe two, one I can specifically remember where I’ve looked at a man who fell into that category and pleaded with him to deny Jesus. I know that may sound strange. That’s not the normal tactic of a pastor. But when you’re dealing with someone who knows so much truth and claims to believe so much truth — not as weak and struggling, we’re not talking about that — but is intentionally living the opposite. I told that man, you are preparing your kids for hell by the way you’re living. You’re taking what is precious, that you say you believe, and then you’re living the opposite at home. It would be better for you, please call yourself an atheist. You would serve your kids, your spouse. What Jesus is saying is, when you give something that is precious to someone with a pig-like/dog-like mindset, they’re going to trample them underfoot and turn what is beautiful into what is horrible.

The second reason Jesus says is the messenger will be abused. Not only the message will be abused, but the messenger will be abused. End of verse 6, “and turn to attack you.”

People who use God’s Word rather than believe God’s Word to accomplish their own agenda eventually get frustrated because you learn pretty quickly that people don’t like to fulfill your agenda. So when you try to use a beautiful truth to accomplish your own end, and then people won’t cooperate, you’re going to turn on those people and you’re going to attack those people. That’s what he describes here. The messenger becomes the enemy.

This might be an example of what you’ve probably heard, the expression familiarity without commitment breeds contempt. Familiarity without commitment breeds contempt. I think something like that is going on here. When you have someone who is familiar with the things of God but has never really believed or embraced, ends up despising, holding in contempt, and even turning on. This is why some of the people today who are the most antagonistic against Christianity are people who, whether real or fake (whether it’s actually happened or whether they think it happened, it almost doesn’t matter), in their minds, they were forced to believe something they didn’t believe, and now they are attacking, antagonistic.

What do we do with this passage? Let’s talk about three applications. Number one, this doesn’t mean we permanently write people off as dogs or pigs to be ignored or mistreated. It doesn’t mean that. When Jesus says, don’t give dogs what is holy, don’t throw your pearls before swine, he is not giving his followers the authority to go around labeling people, “Rottweiler! Out with him.” “Wild boar! You’re gone. Done with you.” Like some kind of permanent tattoo that is emblazoned on them. No. Jesus just taught us, look at this in Matthew 5:44,

“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the [pigs and the non-pigs,] on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

We never force people to follow Jesus. But we also don’t categorize them as unreachable or unchangeable. Why? Think about people like the Apostle Paul. When Paul was murdering Christians, was he a tad boor-like? Yeah. If you had seen Paul arresting and orchestrating the execution of Christians in the early church, you would have said. “If ever there was a pig … If ever there was a dog-like individual …” Who would have imagined who Paul would have become by the grace of God? The gang member downtown, who is terrifying today, might one day be a pastor. The skeptic online who spends his day trying to de-convert Christians one day is going to become a believer and proclaim Christ.

Why might we believe this? Not only Paul and millions of other examples, but look in the mirror. Boar-like. Dog-like. Stubborn. Selfish. Blind. Look what Christ does. He didn’t write us off. The New Testament provides us with a simple strategy to think and speak well of others, even if they are antagonistic. Look at Titus describes this, Titus 3:2-5,

“… to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people [including dogs and pigs]. For we ourselves were once foolish—”

Do you see the rationale? How do you treat someone who seems so antagonistic, so malevolent, so evil, seeking your demise, rejecting anything and everything as a pig might trample on pearls? Well, remember who you were.

“…for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us —”

And the way he saved us cannot give us any basis for boasting.

“…he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”

We don’t write people off because Jesus didn’t write us off.

Secondly, this does mean we ask God for wisdom. There is a built-in tension here. Christian parents understand this. Look at Ephesians 6:4 for example,

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

So, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger. Don’t be coercive. But don’t be passive either. Bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Why not be passive? Because there are plenty of people online, and plenty of people in our culture who are currently discipling your children. So if you are passive, someone else is going to disciple them. But you see the tension between don’t be coercive. But don’t be passive.

How do we do that? The best way, I think, is to understand the season of life your kid might be in. That’s why a year ago we did a mini-series in Wisdomfest called The Seasons of Christian Parenting, because one of the biggest mistakes parents make is just not knowing what season their child is in. Some kids are ready for large amounts of truth, some are not. It’s a pitiful thing to watch a parent trying to reason with a two-year-old or a three-year-old who doesn’t have the capacity to reason the way they’re trying to be reasoned with. Like having a physics lesson with your two or three-year-old is a foolish thing. “Honey, do you want to know why we don’t play in the street? Did you know that bodies of a larger mass tend to stay in motion? That truck is the body of a larger mass, you’re a body of a smaller mass. You tend to become a speed bump if you play in the …”

It’s like you are casting your pearls. The two or three-year-old really only needs to know two things: we love you and you’re not the boss. If you can get across those two things early on. Now, if your kid is 18 and that’s all you’re doing, that’s the wrong season. You want to see some maturation and you’re interacting on a very different level. If you’re still in the “we love you and you’re not the boss” stage at 18, our work is cut out for us. But you feel that tension. “Okay, Lord, where is my child right now? I’m not going to be passive. I’m not just going to let them find their own way.” Because someone’s discipling your kid if you’re not.

The same thing is true for all of us. Look at Proverbs. There are a number of these. We’ll just look at one example, Proverbs 26:4,

“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”

Purposely, those two are set right next to each other in Proverbs so that we can feel the tension. There is a time when you answer a fool that you are simply becoming a fool. You’re proving your foolishness by arguing with a fool. But there are other times where by not correcting a fool, you’re letting them live on in his delusion, thinking he’s wise in his own eyes. So, “Lord, what do I do?” That’s the point. “Lord, you give me wisdom. When am I just hurling pearls to be trampled on and need to back off? And when do I need to speak wise, gospel-fueled words so that someone can hear?”

This tension is present right in the passage in Matthew 7. Last week we were warned in 7:1-5, don’t be too quick to judge, otherwise you become critical and cynical. This week we’re warned don’t be too slow to judge, otherwise you become uncritical and gullible. There’s a weird kind of naive, coerciveness that can come on that right side.

A few years ago, someone asked me what significant change in the way I minister has happened over the last 30-35 years. There are several things, but one of the things I think that’s significant is I feel like early on I was too slow. There were many times where I was investing in someone who wasn’t listening, didn’t care, and therefore I was ignoring others who wanted to hear, wanted to grow. And so finding that, “Lord, show me the wisdom where to invest, where to pour in pearls, and when to back off.” That takes spirit-fueled wisdom.

Finally, this does mean—so we’ve said it doesn’t mean this, does mean this—and it also means we need to guard our own hearts lest we become dog or pig-like. Guard our own hearts, lest we become dog or pig-like. Hebrews 3:12-13,

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

That word “hardened” is so interesting. It literally means to dry up and become inflexibly stubborn, to dry up and become inflexibly stubborn. One of the reasons we gather on Sundays and throughout the week as life groups, and we’re texting and praying for one another, exhorting one another daily while it is called today because whether you’ve been saved a week or 50 years, you can dry up. Followers of Jesus are encouraging one another so that we don’t become so inflexibly, stubborn, piggish, dog-like where we have valuable pearls entrusted to us, and we’re not doing anything with them. We’re trampling them in our own plans, in a way of living. Don’t really care.

Jesus, right after telling the parable of the seed and soils, said it this way, Mark 4:24,

“And he said to them, ‘Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.’”

That is sobering, is it not? To the one who can receive pearls of gospel truth and wisdom and trample them, ignore them— it’s a classic example of the spiritually rich get richer and the spiritually poor get poorer. What you have will be taken away if you don’t do something with what you have.

This morning in the first service, this whole section, several hundred young people were sitting here who had gone to Deeper Weekend. I don’t know how they do it. Started yesterday afternoon and I had the joy, along with numbers of others, to teach a workshop on really controversial stuff (LGBTQ and the Christian). I was stunned with how sharp our young people are. They get what’s going on in their culture. They really want to live out the gospel in ways that are both full of grace and full of truth. We had very candid conversations about lots of debatable issues. They are super wise. It was so encouraging.

I went down and addressed that group in the first service because I really wanted to challenge them with this principle: that as a young person, you’re being — and many obviously growing up in Christian homes — it’s easy to take for granted pearls that you’ve been entrusted with. Like, “Whatever. Heard that all my life.” I made the analogy between pearls of wisdom and gospel truth and money. If someone entrusts you with money, and you waste it, you end up with what? Less money. Ultimately, no money. But what if someone entrusts you with some money, and you invest it? Let me just give you a crazy example of this.

If a kid at 15 or so throws $1,000 into a mutual fund (just something like Fidelity or Vanguard) and doesn’t touch it. It’s going to go way up, it’s going to go way down. There could be a market crash and it disappears with our country, or Jesus could return. But don’t touch it. In good times, bad times, just leave it. Add $300 a month for, say, 50 years, and look what happens: you become a millionaire. That’s the miracle of compound interest.

If you look at the lower line, that’s what you invested. If you look at the upper line, that’s the return. That’s just mutual funds, 6%, which is very conservative. Isn’t that stunning? Over time, something that is relatively small becomes massively big. I believe Jesus is talking about that not with money, but with pearls of truth and wisdom.

For those of us who receive them and trample them under our feet, we end up going, “Life is so unfair. Where are my pearls?” But those of us who are entrusted with them—not that we understand everything we hear, not that we can do everything that we would like to do immediately—but we think long term. Jesus is saying, to the one who has, more will be given and to the one who doesn’t have will lose what they had.

There’s something going on there. When Jesus warns us, don’t cast your pearls before pigs, that should be sobering first. Not just how we respond to others, which is significant, but first, “Lord, may I not be that kind of hearer who can hear your Word and then trample it, walk away unchanged, and then wonder, why don’t you ever do anything in my life? Why don’t you speak to me?” He is. Proverbs 9:8-9,

“Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.”

The very person who already has learned ends up learning more. The very person who thinks they know everything, and so won’t listen, learns less. God help us not to be pig-like, dog-ish, but to have soft hearts ready to hear. Then may God give us wisdom as to how to share that with others. Let’s pray.

Lord, thank you that you do not manipulate, coerce, jam, violently make us follow you. You woo us. You change us. You do what we could never earn by your mercy. I pray, if there are some here this morning who don’t know you and they know right now your Spirit is speaking to them—that they have been acting quite pig-like, ignoring, trampling; your conviction has been faithfully given to them but they aren’t responding. May this be the day where they say, “Okay, Lord, enough. I receive what is valuable. I want to hear what is valuable. I want to cherish who you are, what is truly beautiful and valuable better than anything in this world. I believe your gospel, the precious truth that Jesus died and rose for me. The thoughts that I have in my own head, bopping around, that I think are ultimately valuable, Lord, they some are true and some are not. Let me run to your truth.” Please, Lord, draw us, change us, soften us. Father, we pray that you would give us, as a church, as you give us tender hearts, you’ve promised to give us wisdom so that we know when to press in and share, and when to back off and pray. Continue to teach us this. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Let’s stand and respond. We’re going to continue praying as we sing. This is a prayer. There are going to be some people up front who would love to pray with you. One of the things is “God resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble.” You say, “Why would I need to respond right now and pray?” Because when you humble yourself, God rushes in with grace. What is grace? His empowering favor. You need that. I need that. His energizing favor. Let’s respond as he speaks and continue to pray.