Put on Your Own Mask Before Helping Others

“Hypocrite! First take the beam of wood out of your eye and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.”

Matthew 7:5

I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to travel quite a bit in my life both out of obligation (for work, funerals, weddings, etc.) and for pleasure and mission trips. Whether the flight is an international flight or a domestic flight, short or long, they all begin in much the same way – with a safety demonstration. On every flight, passengers are told how to operate the seat belts, where the exits are, where to find a life vest in case of a water landing, and how the oxygen masks work. Passengers traveling with small children or the infirm are always told “put on your own mask before helping others.” Why is that? Because if you attempt to help others before putting on your own mask, you may not have adequate oxygen for your brain to function properly and you might lose consciousness before you complete the task of helping another person. If you put on your own mask first, you will have what you need to keep you going so that you will be equipped to help others.

What does this have to do with what Jesus taught?

This portion of the Sermon on the Mount was about judging others. He started this segment of the sermon by telling the crowd not to judge others.

“Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.”

Matthew 7:1

This is a favorite verse used by unbelievers and believers alike when they don’t want someone calling out their sin and if that was all Jesus had said, they would be right to say that Jesus was telling His followers that nobody should ever judge anybody. If that had been all He said on the matter. But it wasn’t. He had a lot more to say about judgement. He goes on to say

“For with the judgement you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Matthew 7:2

Hmmm…hang on. That puts the thing in a different light, doesn’t it. He’s telling them that if they are strict in their judgement of others’ sin, God will be strict in His judgement of their sin. Why is He saying that? Doesn’t God judge everybody the same? I believe He does. But this wasn’t Jesus saying “if you don’t judge others, God won’t judge you.” He was, I believe, making a larger point. Let’s see what else He said.

“Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’ and look, there’s a log in your eye?”

Matthew 7:4

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to see the sins of others? I can spot someone else’s sin from a mile away. But my own? Well, that’s a little harder. We all know that person who has a sinful habit that everyone else can see but the person himself (or herself) is obviously completely unaware of it. Perhaps they’re prone to bragging, gossip, selfishness, ingratitude, the inability to keep their word, harshness or some other sin. The specifics of the sin aren’t as important as their invisibility to the one doing them. Think about it. If someone is guilty of an ongoing sinful habit that they are not working to change, are you likely to listen to them when they point out your sins? That is what Jesus was teaching them. The invisible nature of sin to the sinner and the damage that does to his credibility with others.

“Hypocrite! First take the beam of wood out of your eye and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.”

Matthew 7:5

Sin is like spinach in your teeth, everyone else can see it but in order to see our own, we have to go find a mirror. We have to deliberately look for it. And that is what Jesus is telling them to do. Go look for your own sin and address that first. Why? Because then you will be better equipped to help others. None of us will ever be completely sinless, at least not on this side of Heaven. We’re all always going to have things we’re working on. So Jesus isn’t telling us you have to be perfect in order to help a brother or sister overcome their sins. But He is telling us we should be actively judging ourselves, seeking the spinach in our teeth, so that we are better positioned to help another person.

Those who are humbly seeking to overcome their own sin are much more likely to be effective at helping another sinner than the one who only looks for sin in others.