Righteousness Gone Wrong
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Self-Righteous Judgement
Self-Righteous Judgement
We are starting tonight in Chapter 7 in Matthew. We’ve been walking through the sermon on the mount as Jesus lays out truth after truth of how our hearts really tend to work and his hope and expectation of his disciples to obey what he’s saying as he moves toward us in relationship.
We were reminded last week, that he is in control and will provide what we truly need and we can trust in him for our today and even our tomorrow!
Tonights passage has everything to do with not only the words that come out of our mouths when it comes to judgement but also what’s going on in our hearts. He wants to deal with our judgmental attitudes.
Judgemental Attitudes
Judgemental Attitudes
People, even believers, sometimes will use this verse out of its context, to try to communicate to you, “you better not come down on me and judge me if you don’t want to be judged as well.” they might even go so far as to say, you have no right to judge anyone.
That’s not what this verse is saying at all, but before we jump on the band wagon of “see I knew we could judge others” lets look at what’s really going on here.
Jesus has just finished explaining about how all of these things are sin but on a deeper heart level. Anger, lust, divorce, oaths, enemies, giving with the wrong motives, praying with the wrong motives, fasting with the wrong motives, pursuing earthly treasures in stead of heavenly treasures and fully trusting God for everything to the point that you are able to truly have peace and not be anxious in your faith relationship with God.
What can tend to happen when we start to mature, at least from a fleshly level is that we can tend to want to look down on others and scrutinize their lives. The things others do, say, post, or even promote. We tend to, in our flesh and self righteousness, look out at others and make a judgement on them.
1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.
To have a heart of self-righteous judgement is to have the heart of the Pharisees, which in Chapter 5:20 Jesus told the disciples that they were to have a righteousness that was greater than that of the scribes and pharisees. He’s saying that if we aren’t careful, as we grow in knowledge and even walking in obedience, if we do all of this with an attitude of “ look at me and what I’ve accomplished” we can end up in the same camp as the Pharisees. This isn’t just self-righteous judgment, it’s unjust judgment.
One thing that is controversial in our day and age is this idea from the world that we have no right to judge or condemn anyone’s life style or personal choices. The world wants to use this verse on judge not lest you be judged, as a way to almost force our approval of whatever they want to do or however they want to live. This command from the Lord Jesus is not ment to block us from examining the lives of others at all but to then look at scripture and realize what the truth of scripture says about what they are doing and whether it’s wrong or sin.
While Jesus does not prohibit examining the lives of others, it certainly prohibits doing it in the spirit it is often done. An example of unjust judgment was the disciples’ condemnation of the woman who came to anoint the feet of Jesus with oil (Matthew 26:6-13). They thought she was wasting something; Jesus said she had done a good work that would always be remembered. They had a rash, harsh, unjust judgment.
We break this command when we think the worst of others.
We break this command when we only speak to others of their faults.
We break this command when we judge an entire life only by its worst moments.
We break this command when we judge the hidden motives of others.
We break this command when we judge others without considering ourselves in their same circumstances.
We break this command when we judge others without being mindful that we ourselves will be judged.
Jesus is not prohibiting the judgment of others. He only requires that our judgment be completely fair, and that we only judge others by a standard we would also like to be judged by.
When our judgment in regard to others is wrong, it is often not because we judge according to a standard, but because we are hypocritical in the application of that standard — we ignore the standard in our own life. It is common to judge others by one standard and ourselves by another standard — being far more generous to ourselves than others.
With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you: This is the principle upon which Jesus built the command, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” God will measure unto us according to the same measure we use for others. This is a powerful motivation for us to be generous with love, forgiveness, and goodness to others. If we want more of those things from God, we should give more of them to others.
One of the things that keeps us from doing this is our self-blind criticism.
Self-blind Criticism
Self-blind Criticism
3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
The figures of a speck and a log are real figures, yet used humorously. Jesus shows how we are generally far more tolerant to our own sin than we are to the sin of others.
For Example: When the religious leaders brought the woman taken in adultery to Jesus. She had certainly sinned; but their sin was much worse and Jesus exposed it as such with the statement,
John 8:7b (ESV)
7 “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
It’s when we attempt to correct the fault that seems greater or more obvious in others and yet have the same if not greater sin in our own lives that we earn the rebuke of “hypocrite”!
Spurgeon says this, “Jesus is gentle, but he calls that man a ‘hypocrite’ who fusses about small things in others, and pays no attention to great matters at home in his own person.”
Here’s the ironic thing. Our hypocrisy in these matters is almost always more evident to others than to ourselves. We may find a way to ignore the plank in our own eye, but others notice it immediately. A good example of this kind of hypocrisy was David’s reaction to Nathan’s story about a man who unjustly stole and killed another man’s lamb. David quickly condemned the man, but was blind to his own sin, which was much greater (2 Samuel 12).
Jesus didn’t say that it was wrong for us to help our brother with the speck in his eye. It is a good thing to help your brother with his speck, but not before dealing with the plank in your own eye.
A word of Caution: Paul even gives those of us who might attempt to remove someone else’s speck a warning in Galatians 6:1-3
1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
Without Love: If we go about our relationship with others always looking for something wrong in them, we aren’t approaching that relationship in love.
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
If we would busy ourselves with the task of seeking God’s vision to help us remove our own planks we would probably spend less time looking for specks on the eye of others and be in a much better place to help come long side our brothers and sisters in Christ in love to help them with their specks.
Love and Discernment
Love and Discernment
The last thing that Jesus wants us to miss here, as we examine our motives in judging others, is to completely depart from using spiritual discernment.
6 “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.
As disciples, who are called to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, we should discern that there are some good, precious things that should not be given to those who will receive them with contempt.
Don’t be judgmental, but don’t throw out all discernment either.
The dogs and swine are those in our lives who are hostile to the Kingdom of God and the message of the Gospel. At the same time we heed the words of 1 Corinthians 16:14
14 Let all that you do be done in love.
we can not let it blind us to their hardened rejection of the good news of the kingdom of God.
There is a level to which continuing to present the gospel over and over and over to someone who is hostile towards it does more damage than good. It’s also an unwise use of your time. At some level, we have to trust that it is God who works in someone to eventually bring them to faith.
How many of us were hostile to the Gospel for ages before we came to faith in Jesus?
Our pearls of the precious gospel may only confuse those who do not believe, who are blinded to the truth by the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4) and may only “keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
Jesus said this to call us to discernment, and to encourage us to look for prepared hearts that are ready to receive. When we find such open hearts, we can trust that God has already been working upon them.
The take away for us tonight is to live in humility, love and respect as we live our lives towards others. We need to be humble before the Lord asking him to expose to us our own “logs” so we can work with Him to remove them. When we look back on our lives and realize just how many “logs” we’ve already asked God to help us remove, we will look with more compassion on those who need us to come along side of them to help with their specs.
If we will allow the truth of 1 Corinthians 16:14 transform our own motives I believe then others will be more likely to allow us to lovingly speak into their lives more freely with them being far more receptive of the truth of scripture.
If we will respect others and their own value and dignity as people that Jesus loves and died for it will change how we approach them.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
When we look on others as either those who have been saved from self condemnation or those who are self condemned, our hearts will be able to look on them with compassion love and respect and that will change our hearts to be FOR THEM!