Judging Others
1/15/06
Lighthouse A/G
Pastor Greg Tabor
Text: Matthew 7:1-5 NIV
What did Jesus mean when He said ‘Do not judge’(v.1a)?
First of all, this is not a statement condemning all judging. Look at Scripture.
· Paul clearly wanted a judgment call made concerning the character of those that would be Overseers and Deacons. Alexander Maclaren writes, “The power of seeing into character is to be coveted and cultivated, and the absence of it makes simpletons, not saints” (Expositions of Holy Scripture. Volume VI, p. 325). Look at 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. 1 Timothy 3:10 says of Deacons that “They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.” Sounds like some judging of character going on there doesn’t it?
· Verses 15 – 20 of Matthew 7 tells us that we’ll know false prophets by their ‘fruits.’ 1 John 4:1 tells us to “test the spirits.” We would be very foolish not to examine the teachings of folks claiming to be sent from God. Didn’t the Bereans judge what Paul said by their own examination of God’s Word? To not do so would set us up to be invaded by more false prophets than we could imagine. The absence of discernment is killing the spiritual life of many now as they are lied to by false preachers.
· Church discipline (Look at passages such as: Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5, Galatians 6, 2 Thessalonians 3, Titus 3:11) requires judgments to be made. For instance, Paul wrote:
“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”” 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 NIV
We cannot take Jesus’ statement to not judge as a command to wink at sin in the church. If that were the case, then the church would be corrupt because no accountability would exist because no one would confront anyone because they’d be afraid of being guilty of the sin of judging others! But clearly the above verses require us to make a stand against sin in the church.
If this statement doesn’t mean that all judging is wrong, then what does it mean?
The judging Jesus warns about here is being a person that finds faults in others while overlooking their own shortcomings. Subsequent verses will reveal this as we get to them. We’ll talk about this more in just a minute.
What happens to the person that sets himself up as a fault-finder?
The answer to this question is found in verses 1 and 2.
“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.”
The person that judges will be judged. Also, the manner and to the degree which he judges he will be judged. In other words, the same standards of his judging others will be applied to him. How? We can probably safely assume this includes both people and God judging us.
A Chinese Proverb says, “Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet.”
Obviously the person that is the recipient of this kind of ‘help’ suffers greatly. Moving that illustration into the realm of judging gives us the picture of how damaging our judgments of others can be. And the repercussions in our own lives can be even more damaging. Listen to this quote from Alexander Maclaren, in his Exposition of Holy Scripture:
“A cynical critic cannot expect his victims to be profoundly attached to him, or ready to be lenient to his failings. If he chooses to fight with a tomahawk, he will be scalped some day, and the bystanders will not lament profusely.” (Expositions of Holy Scripture. Volume VI, p. 326).
Your criticalness of others will bite you one day. Your fault-finding will find your faults one day. But we need not be near as concerned with man’s retaliation as we should be with God’s judgment. Alexander Maclaren continues by saying:
“But a more righteous tribunal than that of his victims condemns him. For in God’s eyes the man who covers not his neighbor’s faults with the mantle of charity has not his own blotted out by divine forgiveness.” (Ibid. p.326).
We need to realize that God is the Judge. Our laying into people and being condemning and harsh with them as if we know their motives and as if we are set so far above them is assuming the throne of judgment that only God can assume. We have no right to this. And our acting like this assumes that we are high and righteous ourselves above all others and worthy to make such harsh judgments on others’ lives. Watch out!
Jesus gives a good visual of the fault-finder and the type of judging He condemns.
““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?”(v.3,4)
The fault-finder is hypocritical and tends to overlook their own sins and own shortcomings and point out the unrighteousness in others. The Jews in Romans 2 were guilty of this. They lived in a state of self-righteousness thinking themselves superior to the Gentiles, when in fact they were guilty of the same sins. The Pharisees thought they were holy, but their external traditions could not hide their inward wickedness. Jesus saw right through their masquerade. He saw the murder and adultery in their hearts. Their outside grandeur blinded them so much that they thought they were better than everyone else. They could not help others because they needed greater help themselves. They were blind guides leading the blind right into a ditch. They were oblivious to their own sins all the while pointing out the sins in others. Jesus condemned this in them and in us.
Illus. This is illustrated in Luke 18:10-14 when Jesus spoke of a Pharisee and a tax collector going to the temple. The tax collector saw his sin and cried out for forgiveness while the Pharisee only thought of himself as superior to the tax collector. The tax collector was justified because he humbled himself before God. The Pharisee thought he was righteous but he was not.
Sometimes we are guilty of the very sins we see in others. In fact, those many times are the easy ones for us to spot being that we are so familiar with them. Jesus is telling us in these verses that it is impossible for us to deal with the sins of others rightly if we have sin in our lives as well.
Jesus gives us a visual of one who can make right judgments
“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.” (v.5)
In Galatians 6, the only people that are to help an erring brother or sister out of sin are those that are spiritually mature. These are those who live out the beattitudes. They do not see themselves as super spiritual, but rather come in true humility and love to the sinning brother or sister with the desire for their brother or sister’s restoration. They are people that have dealt with and are continually dealing with their own ‘planks.’ They do not come as ‘holier-than-thou’ people. They know that ‘but for the grace of God, there go I.’ Only these people can make right judgments. So the first thing that has to go is the sin in our lives. And we need to remember this includes a self-righteous attitude.
Illus. We have examples in David of the hypocritical judge and the man truly capable of righteously judging. He was a hypocrite when confronted by Nathan, but we find a different picture in Psalm 51. He came to a place where he understood that dealing with his own sins would then result in his teaching transgressors God’s ways. He had to deal with his ‘plank’ first. Then he could see clearly to deal with the sins of others.
Now, that you’ve dealt with your own self-righteousness and other sins in your life, do you understand that you are called to help get the speck out of your brother or sister’s eye? You can’t leave it there! But do you also understand that you are not capable of doing this until you recognize and deal with your own faults and then approach your brother or sister, not on a fault finding mission, but on a mission of seeing them restored? You see, the truly spiritual man’s judgments of others are not harsh criticisms meant to devour others, but rather the proper discernment of sin in their brothers and sisters and the subsequent confrontation in order to set them on the right path. Listen to what John and James wrote:
“If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life.” 1 John 5:16 NIV
“My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.” James 5:19-20 NIV
We can now look at the various passages describing discipline in the church with the right attitude. We understand that we shouldn’t want anyone to perish but everyone to be restored. But we must truly understand that only those who are ‘spiritual,’ those who’ve gotten the ‘beam’ out of their own eye are capable of this kind of proper judgment. Even the hard judgments that require exposing and then expelling someone from fellowship because of unrepentant sin should be made not in a self-righteous way but with much humility. Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying or writing, “He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.” I think that says it well and gets to the heart of what the Scripture here is saying.
Conclusion
Let’s recap.
· Jesus does not make a blanket statement that rules out all judging period. We know from the examples given that we need to judge character in order to rightly pick our overseers and deacons, we need to confront sin in members of the church that are professing Christianity yet living in direct contradiction to that, we must test the spirits and examine the fruit of teachers and teachings or we’ll be led astray by false teachers, and even the next verse, which we didn’t cover today, in Matthew 7, verse 6, calls us to make a judgment call. Therefore, all judging is not bad.
· We know today that we are forbidden to be harshly critical of others, pointing out their faults while overlooking our own. When we act this way, we forget that either we are guilty of the same or similar sins thus walking around as hypocrites with a ‘beam’ in our own eye, or the ‘beam’ of self-righteousness is sticking out of our eye, a sin itself. This type of judging doesn’t show love to an erring brother, this type of judging only wants to put others down so you look better. This type of person is incapable of judging rightly because they are unspiritual.
· But as we’ve seen, you and I are not called to just sit there and let that splinter sit in our neighbor’s eye. Rather, it is a good opportunity for us to examine our own life, see what faults are in it, repent, and be able to help our friend. God wants us to help our friends. God expects us to help our friends. Galatians 6 talks of the spiritual restoring the sinning brother. Problem is that too many of us are not equipped to help anyone because we have sin in our own lives. We need to deal with our sins so we can hold our brothers and sisters accountable.
This morning I ask you, are you guilty of the judging Jesus condemned? Do you delight in pointing the fingers at others’ faults while overlooking your own? Do you stink of self-righteousness? Do you point out the sin in others that, if you were honest, is the sin most familiar to you? Does the beam in your eye render you ineffective for helping to remove splinters from others’ eyes? Then this morning you need to repent and ask God to help you to quit being harshly critical. You need to ask God to examine your life and remove sin from it. You need to ask God to help you humbly and lovingly to be a spiritual person that helps restore those caught in the web of sin. We need folks to hold us accountable, we cannot and must not wink at sin. But we must not devour one another with a self-righteous critical spirit that delights in the faults of others while excusing or denying our own.
