Series: Mythbusters
“Christians Shouldn’t Judge”
Matthew 7:1-6; 15-20
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Today is the last message in our series called Mythbusters. We have been focusing in on spiritual myths. These myths are based on false understandings of scripture and they always lead you down the wrong path. Today’s myth is: “”Christians Shouldn’t Judge.”
Do you want to hear a surefire way to get your non-Christian friends or coworkers all worked up and even have them quote the Bible to you? Here’s a method that will work almost every time: Use the “s” word. Call something a sin.
Calling something a sin can refer to a number of things. Speak out against a lifestyle the Bible speaks against. Critique the belief system of a cult or world religion. Criticize any behavior that isn’t universally condemned by our culture. Then just step back and wait. It won’t be long before someone who really doesn’t have much use for the Bible tries to quote Mt. 7:1 – “Don’t judge.” Ironically, the person who tries the quote will probably have no idea where to find the it in the Bible and has no idea that it’s quoted out of context.
You see, the idea that Jesus forbade his followers to judge is a myth. It’s another widely believed spiritual urban legend that can’t stand up to the actual words of Scripture. Jesus didn’t tell us that we should refuse to judge or fail to call sin, sin. Jesus made judgments on things and he asks us to do the same. There are costly spiritual consequences when we fail to do so, not only in the lives of those of us who refuse to judge, but also in the lives of those who never have their sins pointed out.
Take your Bibles and turn to Matthew 7. Once you get there, keep your Bibles open because we’ll refer back to this chapter several times during this morning’s message.
Let’s hear what Jesus has to say in Matt. 7:1-6 – “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 “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? 4 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? 5 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. 6 “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 turn and tear you to pieces.
Jesus didn’t say, “Do not judge,” followed by a period or an exclamation point. He said, “Do not judge,” followed by a clarification of what type of judgments to make, when to make them, and how to make them. This Matthew 7 passage, when read in context, is not a prohibition against judging. It’s a stern warning against judging improperly.
In fact, immediately after saying, “Judge not,” Jesus goes on to tell us not to give sacred things to dogs or to throw our pearls before swine. That’s hard to do without making a few judgments concerning who is a “dog” and who is a “swine.”
The same principle is used a few verses later in Matt. 7:15-20 – “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Here Jesus asks us to carefully inspect the spiritual fruit of anyone who claims to speak for God. He says that we need to evaluate what they say with how they live – rejecting those who bear bad fruit and listening to those who produce good fruit.
Tolerance and Truth
So, why do so many of us think that Jesus doesn’t want us to judge? There are a couple of reasons. One, as we’ve just seen, is a failure to understand Jesus’ words in context. The other is our natural tendency to interpret ancient words through the filter of our modern-day culture.
In our modern-day culture, one of the highest rated traits is something called tolerance. Tolerance has changed in definition over the years. Today, it has a three-part definition.
1. Allowing others to believe and live in ways that we don’t agree with. 2. Supporting their right to do so. 3. Refusing to judge their viewpoints and actions as being either right or wrong.
As a result, in most circles, criticizing someone else’s beliefs or moral choices is considered a major social blunder. It’s looked upon as a sure sign of arrogance or ignorance. And for those who know that Jesus said, “Do not judge,” that really seals the deal. To those who hold this modern-day definition of tolerance as the highest of ideals, it moves judging others from being merely politically incorrect to being flat-out wrong.
There is a major problem with their thinking in this matter. They have misquoted Jesus. Jesus not only told his followers to make judgments in certain matters, he gave us instructions concerning how to judge properly.
I’m not saying that an emphasis on tolerance is a bad thing. When rightly understood, it’s a great thing. It becomes a necessary part of living in any diverse society. It’s also a trait that every Christ follower should work toward developing. The problem is that tolerance no longer means what it used to mean.
It formerly meant granting others the freedom to be wrong. It did not preclude critique and criticism. It simply sought to offer evaluation in a spirit of grace and humility.
That’s a long way from today’s definition of tolerance as affirming that everyone is right, no matter what they believe or what they do. This new definition of tolerance has become so wide-spread that even many Christians believe that it’s inappropriate to critique or criticize the religious beliefs or moral standards of others.
One of the most difficult things to do is to get outside of the values and viewpoints of our day. We have sort of a herd instinct. If you doubt me, just look back at what you thought was cool or hip 15-20 years ago.
Check out any group of young people back over the years. You will find that each generation had their own distinctive ways to dress, had similar hair styles, and had things that made them part of their own group. Most of us still dress in ways so as not to stand out in our society (unless of course, you’re Amish).
This is the silent testimony to our herd instinct. If we follow the crowd on this spiritual myth, if we buy into the belief that we should never judge others, it can lead us down a trail with dire consequences. It will put us at odds with Jesus. We’ll be defying logic and we’ll be propagating sin.
This faulty thinking that we have no right to judge the beliefs and moral standards of others is based on another widely-held belief: the conviction that there are no universal spiritual truths and no universal moral standards. This conviction basically says that two diametrically opposing viewpoints or standards can both be true at the same time.
According to the rules of logic and reasoning, that cannot happen. In fact, it’s an idea that is accepted nowhere else. It’s only in the spiritual and moral realm that we buy such nonsense.
Imagine an engineer who argues that his calculations don’t matter as long as they work for him. Very few of us would drive over a bridge that he designs. Or imagine that your doctor gives you a handful of pills and tells you to take whichever ones “feel right.”
In every area of life where we can test outcomes, we know that some things works and some don’t. Some answers are correct and some aren’t. The belief that the spiritual and moral realms operate differently than any other is an unsupported leap in logic. It’s basically a dark journey into an Alice in Wonderland world, where fanciful and wishful thinking replaces reality and common sense.
The Necessity of Right Judgment
Jesus here in the Sermon on the Mount does not forbid us from making judgments. He goes so far as to give us a set of principles and lenses to use in making right judgment.
Think about it: if we were forbidden to make moral and spiritual judgments, we would have no objective way to distinguish between truth and error. But Jesus tells us how to judge precisely because some beliefs are true and some are false, because some actions are right and some are wrong.
I have heard people defend their wrong view of tolerance by pointing to the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery found in John 8. They point out that when the religious leaders brought the woman to Jesus, he stopped them in their tracks by insisting that the person without sin cast the first stone.
Then they come to the statement in vs. 11 they think proves they’re point. It says that after all her accusers had left; Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you.” And then these people say something like this: “I stand in the tradition of Jesus. I don’t judge people.”
One problem with this defense is that Jesus did judge people. In fact, not only did Jesus say to the woman in question, “Neither do I condemn you,” he also said, “Go and leave your life of sin.” That’s a judgment.
He didn’t ignore her adultery. He didn’t say, “I’m personally uncomfortable with it, but as long as it works for you, then it’s okay.” He called her behavior what it was – sin. Jesus confronted her with both grace and truth. He warned her that she needed to make some serious changes in her life and do it right away.
If we refuse to label the behaviors that Jesus called sin, sin, we’re disagreeing with Jesus, not following Jesus. The proper course of action is not to stop judging others; it’s to judge properly, in line with the standards and principles of judgment that Jesus taught.
Some of us need to be very careful. It’s no “breaking news story” that some of us who understand that it’s okay to judge go about it in ways that do more harm than good. So let’s look at what Jesus and the Bible actually say about this thing called judging and what it takes to get it right.
Principles of Right Judgment
The first principle of right judgment is to remember that the standard we use to judge others will be the standard God uses to judge us. We hear this principle in our primary scripture passage this morning. Let’s go back again to what Jesus says in Matt. 7:1-2 – “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
That doesn’t mean that if we overlook or ignore the sins of others we can sin with impunity. Sadly, that often seems to be an underlying assumption of those who don’t want to judge anyone or anything. What it does mean is that we need to judge with extreme caution and clarity.
The second principle of right judgment is to deal with your own stuff first. We have to deal with our own sins before we start worrying about everybody else’s. Listen again to
Matt. 7:3-5 – “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? 4 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? 5 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.”
This principle doesn’t mean that we have to be perfect. If that were the case, then the apostle Paul would have had to keep quiet. He says about himself in Rom. 7:19-20 – “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” Yet, Paul didn’t remain silent. He was bold in his confrontation of sinful behavior.
A third principle to right judgment is to make sure that our judgments match God’s judgments. The myth that God doesn’t want us to judge puts us in the awkward position of disagreeing with God when he calls something sin and we’re unwilling to do so.
Then there’s another mistake – in fact, it’s the opposite side of the coin. Don’t judge others over issues which God doesn’t consider to be a problem. Some of the harshest criticisms I’ve heard about people have come in areas where the Bible doesn’t really speak.
There are many areas where the Bible gives us general principles without spelling out all of the specific applications. Those general principles can leave us with some freedom and latitude in our behavior. However, it also leaves us some areas for potential disagreement.
We put ourselves in dangerous company when we judge others in an area where God has not spoken definitively. We become like the Pharisees who pontificated over things God really didn’t care about while missing out on the things he cares most about.
Anything left out of the bible was left out for a reason. God doesn’t make mistakes. When we add rules, regulations, standards, or anything else we wish he’d included, and then judge those who fail to follow our additions, it puts us at odds with God. Prov. 30:5-6 warns us –
“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. 6 Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.”
Add this to the bottom of your outline. Another principle for right judgment is to judge Christians and non-Christians by different standards. We cannot judge non-Christians by Christian standards. Usually, this happens in an attempt to take a stand for righteousness. But judging non-Christians by Christian standards puts the cart before the horse. Even if we convince non-Christians to live by Christian standards (or successfully legislate Christian standards into our society), if we don’t bring people into relationship with Christ, all we’ve done is populate hell with nicer and more moral people.
That doesn’t mean that we can’t call their sin, sin. It doesn’t mean that they get to disobey God with impunity. It just means that we’re supposed to leave their judgment to him and focus on ourselves and the family of God when it comes to enforcing God’s standards.
The next principle for right judgment that I want to share with you today is to remember that
we should never condemn. That’s God’s prerogative. Our goal is to evaluate and protect or to discern and restore, depending on the people involved.
When it comes to spiritual leaders, the purpose of our judging is to evaluate and protect. The goal is to keep wolves in sheep’s clothing from raiding the flock. So a leader’s message, actions, and spiritual fruit are fair game for judging. But even so, it must be done according to the principles of judgment we’ve already talked about.
In the case of our fellow Christian, the purpose is always to discern and restore. We have a responsibility to hold one another spiritually accountable but the purpose is always to root out the sin or error in order to restore the one caught in its web.
The final principle for right judgment is that we must always judge with grace. When our judgments lead us into personal attacks, bitterness, or raging anger, something has gone terribly wrong. The old cliché is right: Hate the sin and love the sinner.
Like me, you’ve probably wondered how it’s possible to hate one without hating the others. They seem tied together, don’t they? Here’s the way to do it. We do it every day in regards to ourselves.
We seldom have a problem hating our own sins but still loving ourselves. This concept of self-love is so natural and deeply ingrained that Jesus used it as the basis for how we are to love others. That includes our enemies and those who are advancing a sinful agenda. When it comes to judging them or anyone, God wants us to judge in the same way we both judge and love ourselves – boldly calling sin, sin, while responding with an abundance of grace and mercy.
It’s a myth that Christians shouldn’t judge. We can and we should. We just need to make sure we are judging the right things in the right way
If we refuse to judge, we miss out on truth. If we judge inappropriately, we pile extra judgment on ourselves. Judging can be rather dangerous on both ends!
It’s like the nuclear fuel at a power plant. It can bring great benefit if handled correctly, extract a high price if ignored, or hurt everyone if handled improperly.
Close
As we close today, I want to remind you again of Jesus’ words in Matt. 7:2 – “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Notice that Jesus’ teaching here reflects the same principle he taught concerning forgiveness. Jesus taught us to pray in Matt. 6:12 – “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
If you leave here this morning with something, let it be this: God judges us and he forgives us the way that we judge and forgive others. Remember that we will face his judgment someday. Let’s live our lives in a way that honors Christ. If we do so, we have no worries concerning the judgment we’ll face or the forgiveness we’ll receive. Because of the death of Christ on the cross, we can depend on both God’s righteous judgment and his merciful forgiveness.
