Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount part 16
The right way to Judge
Pm Service February 15th 2009
Matthew 7:1-6
Introduction
About twenty-four years ago, a congregation in Oklahoma disfellowshiped a woman for immorality. When she filed a lawsuit against the church, the story made all the national news media. One of the shows to give the lawsuit coverage was Phil Donahue and on that show, the attitude of Donahue and most of the audience could be summed up in the words: "Judge not that you be not judged!"
It bothers me to hear someone use Matthew 7:1 that way. But, you see, it’s nice to have a verse to prove what you already want to believe, and I think that’s how this verse has been used. It has been used to convey the idea, "You live your lifestyle and I’ll live mine. But don’t you tell me how to live, and certainly don’t you try to impose your standards of morality on me."
"Judge not that you be not judged" is spoken by a lot of people who have no earthly idea what Jesus meant by that. And I would say that the people who quote this verse the most are the ones who understand it the least. It just happens to fall into line with the spirit of our time.
A teenager is at odds with her parents because they’ve laid down the rules that she can’t go out with a certain boy because they don’t think it would be good for her spiritual development. So, she storms out of the room and screams, "Judge not that you be not judged!" Slam the door. And she feels she’s cleared her system of her responsibility to tell her parents off biblically.
Or some student gets drunk and has to be disciplined on a Christian college campus. Immediately, his friends rally around and suddenly become very biblical, saying, "Judge not that you be not judged."
Well, what was Jesus saying in Matthew 7? I think one of the key verses in understanding it is Matthew 5:20: "For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." We must have a different kind of righteousness from what the scribes and Pharisees had. They wore theirs on their sleeves; it was superficial.
Ours must grow out of a heart committed to Jesus. And Matthew 7 is part of that context. Jesus, here in the Sermon on the Mount, deals with two different extremes of the problem of human judgment. The first extreme is a harsh, critical spirit. The second extreme is permissiveness. Tonight, we want to take a look at both of these extremes, and learn the right way to judge.
Read Scriptures: Matthew 7:1-6
I. Don’t Judge
Vs. 1-2 "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you."
As Jesus looked at the religious situation of his day, he saw that judging others had become a great religious problem. The Pharisees and scribes sat in the place of the critic. They were quick to pass judgment on those who didn’t live up to their expectations.
When Jesus was in the house of Simon the Pharisee and the sinful woman anointed his feet, Simon said, "This man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner." (Luke 7:39). The Pharisees, in their self-righteous arrogance, had created a special class of people called "sinners," as if they themselves were not.
The Pharisees were used to judging others self-righteously. Jesus said there are problems with that kind of judging. It’s overly critical, always going around with a nit-picking attitude, digging and searching for faults, always suspecting the worst.
So Jesus says that we are not to judge. Now he’s not talking about the judgment in a courtroom. He’s not talking about judging open and obvious sin (we’ll get to that later). He’s not talking about judging false teachers. What he is talking about is a hasty, unloving, "holier than thou" type of attitude. It’s usually at the very heart of gossiping.
The danger in that type of judging is “you will receive the same kind of treatment that we dish out.” If we judge others harshly and jump to the worst conclusions about others, we can be certain that we’ll be treated in the same way, I believe by both others and God.
II. Searching For Specks
Vs. 3-5 "And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ’Let me remove the speck out of your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye."
There’s another problem with Pharisaical righteousness. Not only was it overly critical, but it was also hypocritical. It was two-faced. We will look past our own short comings, but throw someone else’s short comings in there face, and let them have it. That is what Jesus is condemning.
We’re not qualified to sit in judgment on others because it’s impossible to
be impartial -- we’re influenced by our own imperfections. Jesus here uses the graphic example of a plank of wood and a speck of dust.
The picture is ridiculous. Now, we’ve heard it so many times that it has lost its humorous twist, but the people in Jesus’ audience were probably laughing out loud. It sounds like a scene out of the Three Stooges. Here’s one guy with a little piece of sawdust in his eye. There’s somebody else with a two-by-four coming out of his forehead, and he’s trying to get that speck out. Every time he turns around, the other guy has to duck.
I think Jesus used the illustration of a plank and a speck because he was a carpenter; that was familiar to him and it was familiar to the people around him.
But you see, even though we are unqualified, we still judge. And we often do so for selfish reasons; it makes us feel better. If we have a problem with sin in our own lives, it takes a little pressure off to point the finger at others for a while. It makes our sin seem not so bad after all. But, Jesus warns us that we’ve got to clean up our own act before we tamper with the lives of others.
And I don’t think that the plank in our eyes is necessarily a worse sin. I think he’s talking about the sin of self-righteousness, appointing ourselves as the official speck inspectors others.
What’s the loving, Christian thing to do when someone comes to you and he’s got a speck in his eye? Turn and walk away? No! Do you say, "Oh, no. I could never take that speck out of your eye. I’ve had specks in my eye before"? Of course not! He’s got something in his eye and he needs it taken out.
Or suppose a child comes to you with a splinter in his finger. He’s crying, "Please take this splinter out!" What’s the Christian thing to do? Leave the splinter there? No! You take the splinter out. So Jesus was saying there is a place for some discernment in people’s lives. If you see brothers or sisters who have specks in their eyes, you need to help them take it out!
But first you take out the two-by-four of self-righteousness out of your own eye. Paul put it this way, ""Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness." (Galatians 6:1).
You who are spiritual -- not self-righteous, but spiritual -- those of you who have the evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in your life, you go restore him. Matthew 7 shouldn’t interfere with the responsibility we have to go to somebody in loving confrontation.
III. The Right Way to Judge
Vs. 6 "Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces."
The harsh, critical spirit is obviously wrong and some have tried to get so far away from it that they’ve gone to the opposite extreme, which is permissiveness. The holders of this position point to the first five verses of this chapter as their proof text; we are not to judge. They stress long and loud that we cannot judge. They interpret that as meaning we cannot judge in any case or in any setting, and especially don’t try to tell me I’m doing anything wrong.
The permissive person holds to a religion that serves the "the Great Mush God." Everything is all right with God. The motto of the permissive is "live and let live." He’ll never condemn a practice as sin or a doctrine as false because to do such is judging, and he believes in being "tolerant".
But, Jesus doesn’t end his discussion of judging with the command "judge not". He goes on to say, "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs." If you think verses 1-5 prohibit any kind of discerning in judgment, you’ve got a real problem here. Because you’ve got to use some kind of criteria to decide who those spiritual dogs and pigs are.
First Jesus says, "Don’t judge, don’t condemn." Then, in the same breath, he says, "Make certain judgments concerning people and behavior."
How can these two positions be reconciled? The two positions actually complement and limit each other perfectly. In the first statement, as we’ve already seen, Jesus condemns the critical, holier-than-thou, jumping to conclusions sort of judgment that the Pharisees were known for.
In this second statement, Jesus acknowledges the need for making decisions concerning people and behavior that is detrimental to our Christian lives. Verse 6 stands as a safeguard against an extreme interpretation of verses 1-5. It’s not the case that Jesus condemns all judging. In fact, he demands that we make some judgment.
In John 7:24, Jesus said, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." In I John 4:1, John tells us not to believe every preacher that comes along, but "test the spirits, whether they are of God." In I Corinthians 5:11, Paul tells us not to associate with a brother who is "a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner." That demands that we make a judgment of some sort.
The command not to judge others doesn’t mean that we can’t see the sinfulness of certain actions. Now, we’re never to look down in self-righteous judgment on another sinner, for we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. But we can recognize sin as sin, and we should never try to justify it.
In Matthew 10, Jesus sent some disciples out and he said, "Look. When you go into a town, and they don’t have the time of day for you, shake the dust off your sandals and get out of there."
Paul received some rough treatment in Corinth on his second missionary journey, and Luke reports, "But when [the Jews] opposed [Paul] and blasphemed, he shook his garments and said to them, ’Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’" (Acts 18:6). We’ve got to use that kind of discernment and not waste spiritual treasures on people who will just trample them.
Now this is the exception rather than the rule. We don’t jump on this idea and stop evangelizing. But there are some people who have no spiritual interest. They will trample the precious things we hold dear to our heart. And Jesus said to use some discernment, have the ability to make judgment in our minds.
Conclusion
So what is the message of Matthew 7:1-6? I think it’s a warning for us to avoid the extremes of judgment. We need to be careful not to become harshly judgmental, looking for faults, taking the opportunity to look down on others from our position of self-righteousness.
But neither are we to overlook sin. We need to be able to recognize sin for what it is. Any attempt to overlook or justify sin on any grounds is itself sinful.
We’ve seen the teachings of Jesus; as we close, let’s notice his example. In John 8, Jesus is confronted by a mob pushing before it a woman that was caught in the act of adultery. The mob tried to use her, as if she were a thing, in order to trap Jesus. The Jewish law said she must die. Roman law said that she couldn’t be killed without their permission. There was never any doubt about her guilt, nor was there any doubt as to the seriousness of her action.
So what did Jesus do when confronted by this sinner? First, he refused to look down on her. He wouldn’t allow the mob to treat her as a thing. Rather he forced the mob to consider their own sin. But, second, he didn’t justify her behavior. He wouldn’t refer to her action as anything other than sin. He forgave her and challenged her to stop sinning.
Jesus will do the same thing for you tonight If you come to him, he will also forgive your sin with the challenge to live a life of purity for him.
(Thanks sermoncentral contributor, Preacher’s outline and sermon bible)
