Christian Living

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Sawdust and Pearls:
Jesus’ Principles of Relationship

Larry L. Armstrong


Somebody once said, “You cannot cultivate a friend by digging up the dirt around him.”

Someone else observed, “When a person’s character is to be smeared, nobody will do the job as well as a relative.”

And another wise person suggested, “If you have a disagreeable neighbor, chances are he does, too.”

Getting along with friends, relatives and neighbors is difficult, and as Christians, you and I have principles to follow which other people don’t worry about. And that makes our task of relating to others a bit more difficult.

Let’s study some of these principles as the Lord Jesus explained them in the Sermon on the Mount.


The Relationship of Judgment

One principle Jesus talked about could be called the Relationship of Judgment. The principle is this: Your judgment of others determines how you are judged. The standards and procedures you use to form opinions about others are used to assess your character, too.

As Jesus declared, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Mt. 7:1-2, NIV).

God has two measuring instruments to take the dimensions of your heart and mine. He uses justice and mercy. God is fair and impartial as he studies your deeds and words. He weighs what your life produces and decides without prejudice the quality of your actions and statements. God’s other tool is mercy. He’s generous and kind as he examines your behavior and attitudes. He weighs what your life produces and adds faith in Jesus Christ, who died in your place; then God’s compassion and tender love for you motivate him to treat you better than your deeds or words deserve. Justice and mercy are the measures God uses on you.

Is it unreasonable that the Lord ask you to measure the characters and accomplishments of your friends, relatives and neighbors with tools as significant as his own? Can you please a just and merciful God by being judgmental and prejudiced, by being unkind and stingy in your assessment of the people around you?

A fine line exists between forming an opinion and making a judgment. A person makes a judgment against someone else, but he forms an opinion about the other human being. The difference lies in being interested in another’s welfare. You judge against someone because you don’t like him or what he did. You arrive at a good and reasonable conclusion about someone because you care about her or what she stands for. The fine line between forming an opinion and making a judgment involves you in humanity’s most profound moral dilemma. Will you love or hate another person?

“You may juggle human laws,” Orin Philip Gifford said. “You may fool with human courts, but there is a judgment to come, and from it there is no appeal.”

As just and merciful as God is, the Lord cannot allow sin and evil to continue forever. As you become like God in fairness and generosity, you cannot ignore the wrongs done by others. A time of judgment comes. You, like God, have to give up your patient wait for a bad person to become good. The person must be left behind. How painful the severing of your relationship is! But you have a judgment relationship with people around you, and the difficult judgment must be rendered. The person must be lost to you. Like God, patient with sin as you are, you’re also of purer eyes than to behold evil.


The Relationship of Ministry

Another difficult principle for relating to others which Jesus talked about could be called the Relationship of Ministry. The principle is this: Your ministry for others is determined by your ministry to yourself. Unless you take care of your own heart and mind, you’ll be useless to help others.

As Jesus asked, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” (Mt. 7:3-5, NIV).

You may not have realized it, but Jesus meant to be humorous here. Imagine the picture he presented. A person with a board blocking his vision tries to remove sawdust from a friend’s eye. It’s a ridiculous picture, and I think the people who heard Jesus chuckled until they caught the barb on the end of his joke. It’s hypocritical to take care of someone else’s heart and mind when your own are not right.

Now you can’t use this as an excuse. You can’t say, “Well, I’m so confused about my own living I can’t help anybody else.” No, Jesus’ command in the Sermon on the Mount was for you to straighten out your life so you can help your brother or sister who needs assistance. The confusion you feel about yourself is no excuse; rather, it’s a commission to get busy, become spiritually healthy, and be the doctor whom the sick people around you cry out for. You have a ministry relationship with people around you.

An important connection exists between loving your neighbor and loving yourself. The minister who doesn’t take care of personal spiritual growth won’t help others grow in spiritual matters. Whether you, a Christian, are a professional minister, a parent, an employer, a teacher, a housewife, you have to take care of your soul, or you’ll have no wisdom to give, no spiritual substance to share.

One reason so many of Jesus Christ’s followers are weak and unable to help friends, relatives and neighbors to grow in God’s grace is that they themselves refuse to grow in grace. They don’t read scripture every day, they pray only in emergencies, they skip communion, and they forsake assembling together with other Christians for fellowship and support. They’re too full of themselves and too empty of Christ.

In his book Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry wrote, “How alike are the groans of love to the groans of the dying.” After learning to love yourself, you must learn to die to yourself in order to love others. To take sawdust out of your brother’s eye, you must take the plank from your own, and that isn’t easy. Yet how necessary it is!


The Relationship of Teaching

A final hard principle of relating to others which Jesus talked about could be called the Relationship of Teaching. The principle is this: Your teachings given to others aren’t always determined to be good by them. You’re called by Jesus to learn wisdom and to share it with others, but they don’t always welcome your help.

As Jesus declared, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces” (Mt. 7:6, NIV).

Jesus wasn’t rude when he use the words “dog” and “pig.” He put no one down. He offered a startling picture to get his point across. Street dogs were considered unclean, and people gave nothing sacred to a dog. Neither should you give the sacred things you receive from God to people who don’t want them. You have to be thoughtful in what you do with the lessons you learn while living with God. You can’t toss bits of Christian philosophy to everybody you meet. Offer your help to people who seek the Lord, whose hearts are open to him.

You see, people misuse Christian teaching. They twist truth into excuses to live as they please. “My sins are forgiven? Wonderful! That means my behavior from now on doesn’t matter. Jesus died for me. I’ll make it to heaven regardless of how I live.” That’s not what the Bible says.

The pearls of wisdom you learn from Jesus Christ aren’t meant for everybody. They’re meant for people who want to be his people. If you teach good, holy truth to the wrong people, they’ll use it against you. They’ll squeeze the truth until it becomes a lie, then turn on you with it.

A definite tension exists between you, a Christian, and any non-Christians around you. The Lord’s people are not exactly like the world’s people. You live by more difficult standards--more difficult because they’re good and because they bring you into conflict with evil. But they’re also pearls, treasures to be shared, lessons to be taught to anyone interested in living by them. As a Christian, you have a teaching relationship with people around you.

“If I had a child who wanted to be a teacher,” James Hilton wrote, “I would bid him Godspeed as if he were going to war. For indeed the war against prejudice, greed and ignorance is eternal, and those who dedicate themselves to it give their lives no less because they may live to see some fraction of the battle won.”


Getting along with friends, relatives and neighbors is difficult, and as Christians, you and I have principles to follow which other people don’t worry about. That makes our task of relating to others a bit more difficult. Three principles the Lord Jesus asks you to follow are these:

Your judgment of others determines how you are judged.

Your ministry for others is determined by your ministry to yourself.

Your teachings given to others aren’t always determined by them to be good.

As you relate to others, deal with the sawdust and pearls. Your friend has a speck of sawdust in the eye, and you want to remove it. You aren’t judging the friend’s habits in the workshop. You simply want your friend to see clearly again. That’s commendable, but be sure you aren’t blinded by some plank in your vision. Remove the debris of prejudice or greed or ignorance from yourself; take care of your own heart. Then you can bring the pearls of wisdom which Christ teaches you to people around you. Give the pearls to anyone interested, and spread the mercy of Christ to your friends, relatives and neighbors. If you have a clearly Christlike character, they’ll accept what you say and do as the grace of God.

Your relationship with others must be guided by these principles of Jesus Christ.


Copyright (c) by Larry L. Armstrong
All Rights Reserved

Larry L. Armstrong is a Presbyterian pastor and author, as well as a speaker for FaithProbe Seminars. Among his books and ebooks are Patience: Harvesting the Spirit's Fruit and GraceTouch: Six Experiences of God's Grace. His writings may be puchased at www.FaithProbe.com.

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