TO JUDGE OR NOT TO JUDGE; THAT IS THE QUESTION
INTRODUCTION: “Judge not, lest ye be judged!” This is one of the most widely misused verses quoted among non-Christians and Christians alike. It’s like our trump card. Whenever we hear someone addressing a sin in our life we want to throw Matt. 7:1 at them. “There; that’ll shut you up.” Passing judgment has a completely negative connotation to it. But there is such a big misunderstanding about this subject that it warrants taking a deeper look into it so we can correctly understand it.
1) How do we judge incorrectly? What kind of judging would Jesus look down on?
• Stereotypical judging. You’ve heard it before: ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’. Well, it’s true, yet we all do it. A schoolteacher decided to travel across America and see the sights she had taught about. Traveling alone in a truck with camper in tow, she launched out. One afternoon a water pump blew on her truck. She was tired, exasperated, scared, and alone. No one seemed interested in helping. Leaning up against the trailer, she prayed, “Please God, send me an angel, preferably one with mechanical experience.” Within four minutes, a huge Harley drove up, ridden by an enormous man sporting long, black hair, a beard and tattooed arms. He jumped off and went to work on the truck. Within another few minutes, he flagged down a larger truck, attached a tow chain to the frame of the disabled Chevy, and whisked the whole 56-foot rig off the freeway onto a side street, where he calmly continued to work on the water pump. The intimidated schoolteacher was too dumfounded to talk. As he finished the task, she finally got up the courage to say, “Thanks so much.” Noticing her surprise, he looked her straight in the eye and mumbled, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” With that, he smiled, closed the hood of the truck, and straddled his Harley. With a wave, he was gone as fast as he had appeared. We have to admit, we often make the mistake of judging by outward appearances. When God chose Samuel to pick a replacement for King Saul he sent him to Jesse’s house. When Samuel thought he saw the obvious choice God corrected his thinking. 1st Samuel 16:6-7. Whether it’s a situation or a person we assume certain things that are often not true. We judge a person by how they look, what they have or by what they do.
• Hypocritical judging. Rom. 2:1-4. Now it’s important to define the word "judge". "Judge" is a legal word that means "to judge a person to be guilty and liable to punishment". As Paul’s using this word here, he’s talking about setting ourselves up as a judge over another person. Paul’s talking about an arrogant, hypercritical attitude that makes ourselves out to be better than the person we’re judging. “Back in the mid 1980s when the TV evangelist Jim Bakker was exposed for sexual sin and fraud, Ted Koppel on Nightline interviewed fellow TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggert. Swaggert was asked to give his opinion about Jim Bakker and Swaggert came off as very judgmental. In fact, he called Bakker a cancer to the Christian community. Then just a short while later Swaggert was exposed as being guilty of some of the same kinds of sins.” There’s nothing wrong with calling sin a sin but when I’m hypocritically judging I’m forgetting my sin and highlighting yours. I’m attacking you and through my pride I am setting myself up as better than you. Sometimes our motive in judgment is to boost our esteem. If I can judge you then I can feel better about myself. I can highlight your imperfections for my personal gain. Bible teacher John Stott says, "Paul uncovers in these verses a strangely human foible, namely our tendency to be critical of everybody except ourselves. We are often as harsh in judgment of others as we are lenient toward ourselves…This device enables us simultaneously to retain our sins and our self-respect". Having a hypocritical spirit blinds us to our own faults. It allows us to justify our faults. Other people lose their temper but we have righteous indignation. Other people are jerks but we’re just having a bad day. Other people have a critical spirit, but we simply tell it like it is. Other people are pushy, but we’re goal oriented. We qualify and justify our own actions but we jump all over someone else’s. Hypocritical judging see’s the actions of others in a completely different light than our own. In hypocritical judging, we judge others by a different standard than what we set for ourselves. We fall into the trap of self-righteousness and judge accordingly. This is the make-up of hypocritical judging.
• Grey-area judging. Rom. 14:1-10. When we make judgments of other Christians because of a conviction we have we are in the wrong. Although you probably aren’t going to be faced with the conflict of discussing meat sacrificed to idols nowadays, you may get into disputes over things like celebrating certain holidays or being a vegetarian. It might be a dispute over drinking or smoking. Some want to call this sin, others do not and next thing you know, there’s judgmental attitudes being flung around the church. C.S. Lewis wrote about this in Mere Christianity. He said, "One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else to give it up. That is not the Christian way. An individual Christian may see fit to give up all sorts of things for special reasons—marriage, or meat, or beer, or the cinema; but the moment he starts looking down his nose at other people who do use them, he has taken the wrong turning." There are controversial topics. The topics could be questionable whether or not they are sins. And, perhaps to certain people they are. But, what’s a sin in my eyes may not be in yours. In some things we need to agree to disagree and leave it up to the individual and God. Paul said in Phil 3:15, “All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And on some point if you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.” We have to be careful not to judge when the bible is unclear.
• Condemning judging. Hate the sin, love the sinner. However, love doesn’t mean tolerance. We are called to love the person but not necessarily love their behavior. The problem is we don’t make a distinction between judging actions and judging people. We are called to judge actions but when that transcends into judging the person based on those actions that’s where we are in the wrong. That’s the kind of judgment Jesus, Paul and others speak out against. 1st Cor. 4:1-5. We shouldn’t make a judgment about a person and say things like, “That person is never going to amount to anything”, or, “that person is surely going to hell”. We erroneously make a judgment of the person based on their behavior. If we’re seeing things correctly we will judge the actions of the person, but not the person himself. We can make a rebuke but not a condemnation. It’s alright when we see sinful behavior to call it what it is but when we draw a conclusion about the person based on the behavior then we are wrong. Only God sees the heart of a person and only God knows the future. Therefore, only he can truly render a correct judgment of the person themselves.
2) How can we judge correctly?
• Let it be factual. John 7:24, “Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment.” We need to get the facts before we make a judgment. We need to not judge a situation by our initial observations. Too often we render judgment before we see the bigger picture. (Time I made accusation to talkers at Emmanuel). A grocery store check-out clerk once wrote to advice-columnist Ann Landers to complain that she had seen people buy "luxury" food items—like birthday cakes and bags of shrimp—with their food stamps. The writer went on to say that she thought all those people on welfare who treated themselves to such non-necessities were "lazy and wasteful." A few weeks later Lander’s column was devoted entirely to people who had responded to the grocery clerk. One woman wrote: ‘I didn’t buy a cake, but I did buy a big bag of shrimp with food stamps. So what? My husband had been working at a plant for fifteen years when it shut down. The shrimp casserole I made was for our wedding anniversary dinner and lasted three days. Perhaps the grocery clerk who criticized that woman would have a different view of life after walking a mile in my shoes’. Another woman wrote: ‘I’m the woman who bought the $17 cake and paid for it with food stamps. I thought the check-out woman in the store would burn a hole through me with her eyes. What she didn’t know is the cake was for my little girl’s birthday. It will be her last. She has bone cancer and will probably be gone within six to eight months’. The famous rabbi Hillel said, “Do not judge a man until you yourself have come into his circumstances or situation.” Too often, people take asking questions as accusations. The irony is they accuse us of judging them but they are the ones incorrectly judging our intentions or actions. I’m just trying to get the facts so I can make a proper judgment. That’s wisdom. We need to be discerning. Prov. 3:21-22, “My son, preserve sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight; they will be life for you, an ornament to grace your neck.” When I’m discerning I’m trying to get the facts so I can make a sound judgment. Instead of going by mere appearances we need to get the facts.
• Let it be humble. Matt. 7:1-5. We divide sin into two categories: mine and yours, and yours are always worse than mine. And I will always look at yours first and mine second, if at all. Paul was right when he said in 1st Cor. 11:31, “But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.” If we counter that prideful, hypocritical judging with humility, we will take our own faults into consideration when we address someone else’s. Vs. 5-notice that Jesus wasn’t condemning judging across the board. He said first take the log out then you will be able to take the speck out. Jesus wants me to understand that if I judge based on harshness and pride then expect the same type in return. Better yet, be wise and look at yourself first before trying to correctly judge your brother’s faults. If my judgment is based in humility then I’ll accept my own character defects before I address yours. Humble judgment must begin with us looking in the mirror. A man wanted to impress his friends w/ his eye for art so he took them to an art gallery. Unfortunately he had misplaced his glasses somewhere in the gallery and could hardly see his hand in front of his face. But since he had already done so much bragging, he figured he could wing it w/ any abstract comments and observations he wanted to make. He approached a frame and began criticizing: ‘why would anyone want to paint something so hideously ugly? I mean, it’s a true rendering of the object, but why waste time w/ painting such a disgusting subject?’ Everyone was laughing by this time as someone whispered into his ear, ‘John, it’s a mirror!’ Paul said in Rom. 12:3, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.” If I’m using the sober judgment Jesus is looking for then I will be able to judge correctly.
• Let it be righteous. 1st Cor. 5:1-13. If we take vs. 3 the wrong way we conclude Paul is in error. How is he not? Because his motive is purity and righteousness for God’s church. Paul is not being hypocritical, stereotypical or prideful-he is being loving and protective. His desire is for the sanctity of God’s holy church and he judges accordingly to keep it intact. Notice what his intentions are in vs. 5: ‘so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved’. Paul had this man’s soul in mind. When we are making a judgment call with the best interests of others at heart, we are judging correctly. But notice Paul’s words of distinction in vs. 12-13. We Christians have a problem. We expect non-Christians to act like Christians. We judge those who don’t know Christ as if they did and should know better. We hold them to the same standard of accountability as if they had the same power working through them as we have. But what did Paul say? We don’t judge those outside the church. We can judge those inside the church based on the fact that they have taken the same oath we have and can be held to the same standard. But those outside the church are completely different. When we are going to judge, let it be righteous.
CONCLUSION: We need to be serious about the cause of Christ enough to look at ourselves accurately before we can correctly judge the actions of our fellow brother or sister in Christ. When we judge ourselves and others correctly we will have a friendship and unity like no other. We will grow together and reach maturity. We will thrive.
