Untitled Sermon (3)

What do you think is the most well-known verse in the Bible? I don’t know the answer. Some might say John 3:16, thats a good guess. Although, one possible candidate for the most well-known verse in the Bible may be  Matthew 7:1 “judge not.”

There are a lot of people who don’t know or care very much about the Bible or the Christian faith; but they do know this vs. They know the Bible commands Christians not to judge. And typically when someone brings up this verse what is the point they’re?

“You can’t say that what I believe or how I behave is sinful because then you’d be judging me, and the Bible says you can’t judge me.”

So we’re gonna talk about that this morning, what does Jesus actually says about judging others?

Because although many people may know that Jesus says “judge not” they may not realize that Jesus then immediately begins explaining to his followers how we are to go about judging. 

So, we’ll move through our passage this morning in 3 steps:

1-2 - Measure for Measure

3-5 - Specks and Logs 

6 - Dogs and Pigs 

Look at me first at 1-2 where we see that we will be Judged with the judgment we pronounce. Measure for Measure.

1-2 - Measure for Measure

What does Jesus mean when he tells us to judge not? Well it cannot mean what it is commonly misinterpreted to mean. 

That we are not able or permitted to discriminate between good and evil. That we are not able to make judgments, draw conclusions about what is right and wrong, about sin and righteousness. 

If that were what Jesus meant, it would contradict everything that Jesus has been doing in the sermon on the mount.  Jesus in this sermon has been making just those kinds of judgments, hasn’t he? 

He’s judged the scribes and Pharisees, he’s called them hypocrites, and said that they relax God’s law, thus their righteousness falls short of what is pleasing to God. 

He’s going to warn us in chap 7 about false prophets who are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and then Jesus tells us that the way we’re supposed to recognize them is we’re to judge them by their fruit. 

When you see apples growing from the branches of a tree, it is not wrong to form a judgment about what kind of tree that is. Jesus says thats we’re supposed to do that with people, that is how we recognize false prophets who would lead us away from the truth.

§

So if thats not what Jesus’ words mean here, then what do they mean? Clearly Jesus is telling us not to do something. So we need to know what that is. 

Fortunately Jesus explains exactly what he means in the following verses. 

And the biggest clue shows up in vs 5, Jesus uses the word ‘hypocrite’ in describing the kind of judgment that we are not to do. 

That should remind us of chap 6 where Jesus described the wrong way to practice righteousness in giving to the needy, praying, and fasting.

In each case, Jesus said we are not to give, pray or fast, like the hypocrites. thats the wrong way to do it, but there is a right way, a non-hypocritical way to give to the needy, pray and fast. 

So here, Jesus is telling his followers that we are not to judge hypocritically. 

There is a wrong way to do it! We are not to be judgmental, we are not to be self-righteous, we are not to look down upon our brother as though we were superior.

Look at the reason that Jesus gives in vs 1. Why we are not to judge in this way? Because the way that we judge others will be the way that we are judged by God. 

If we judge our brother for his sin, without grace, without humility, without patience, as though we were righteous and sinless and flawless compared to him. Jesus says we will receive the same from God. 

He will judge us in his truly perfect righteousness and justice without grace mercy or patience. The measure that we use with others is the measure that God will use with us.

This should remind us of how Jesus taught us to view forgiveness in the Lords prayer. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. if we forgive others God will forgive us, if we condemn others God will condemn us.

God will use with us the same measure that we use with others. Either forgiveness, or condemnation.

We are not to be hypocritical in our judgment, but we can’t simple conclude that we are not to judge at all. Because Jesus tells us how we are to judge our brother.

look with me at vs 3-5 Specks and Logs.

3-5 Specks and Logs 

We might think, If God is going to judge us with the judgment we use, that the best thing to do is for everyone to keep your head down and mind your own business. 

Live and let live. If you don’t judge me and I don’t judge you, then no one’s judging anyone else, then God won’t judge us either, is that how it works?

Thats actually not how it works.

Jesus’ words here, clearly do not allow for that solution. Jesus gives us this famous illustration of the speck and the log.  

And Jesus does not even entertain the possibility that we would ignore the speck in our brothers eye. We are to judge our brother, we must address his sin. The question at issue is how we will do it.

Jesus’ point is that we are not to be hypocrites. We cannot address our brothers speck while ignoring the log in our own eye. But the reason we’re to address the log in our own eye is so that we can see clearly to address the speck in our brothers eye.

Jesus does not give to his followers the option of mutually agreeing not to say anything about what we see in each others eye. Rather Jesus says we must address our brothers sin, and we must not do so hypocritically and therefore we must address our own sin.

§

There are 2 ways we can get this wrong. On the one hand, we could say, “well I’m a sinner too, so who am I to talk to someone else about their sin?” 

That is half right, we are always only coming to one another as one sinner to another. There’s no way around that because we are all sinners. So your being a sinner can’t be a reason why you shouldn’t do this.

But because you’re also a sinner that should inform how you do it.

Because the other way we can get this process wrong is by being hypocritical in our judgment.

Hypocrisy means that we have not sufficiently taken our own sin into account in the manner in which we approach our brother about his sin.

We must not address someone else’s sin as though we were not also sinful.  Or as though our sin was far less significant than theirs.

Because it’s not difficult for Christians to acknowledge that we’re all sinful. But we are also prone to make comparisons aren’t we? 

We might look at other people’s sin and end up coming away feeling pretty good about ourselves? “Sure I’m a sinner, but not like that guy over there.”

We might acknowledge “yes we’re both sinful, but my sin is a mere speck, but get a load of the log sticking out of that guys eye!”

We will be tempted to see our sin as small, and the sin of others as great.

Jesus inverts our self-aggrandizing instincts, we ought to consider the sins of our brother as like a mere speck in comparison to our own sin.

§

Jesus wants us to exercise right judgment, and if we are to judge rightly, Jesus says we must “see clearly.” If we are blind to our own sin, if we diminish the seriousness of our own sin, we will not only be hypocritical, but we will also be of no use to our brother.

Thus before we address the sin of our brother, Jesus says we must ‘first’ address the log in our own eye. What does that mean?

First, it means that the sin that should trouble you the most, is your own sin. 

My sin is a log, everyone else has specks. if that is not honestly how we view the gravity of our sin, then we are out of step with where Jesus says we should be. 

If we are more troubled by someone else’s sin than by our own, we need to be very careful about Jesus’ warning here about hypocrisy. 

§

How do we grow in our being more troubled by our own sin? Isn’t that a funny question? We might think we’d want to grow in being less troubled by our sin. But not if we’re trying to avoid hypocrisy!

What’s it say on the sideview mirror of your car? “objects in mirror be closer than they appear.”  So also when we look at ourselves in the mirror our sin may be larger than it appears to us. Isn’t that what Jesus says in vs 5, that we do not “see clearly.”

If your sin appears small. One way we can grow in “seeing more clearly,” is to devote more time to self-examination, confession, and repentance. 

Conviction over specific sins will always weigh heavier upon you then a more abstract acknowledgement of being a sinner in general.  

You should be far more familiar with the specifics of your own sinful heart, than you are of the sins of anyone else. 

If we find that we are better able to list the specific sins of another person than we are the specifics of our own sin. We should beware of the danger of hypocrisy.

We must deal with the log in our own eye, in order to “see clearly,” and the first step is to see clearly enough to recognize that we have a log in our eye and not just a speck. 

§

The way to ensure that we are addressing the log in our eye ‘before’ we address the speck in our brother’s eye is to be regularly confessing our sin. 

We ought to have a daily awareness of the depth of our sin, and of a conscious turning away and repenting of it.

A regular habit of confessing and turning away from sin will have a humbling effect that will work directly against the sinful impulse to hypocrisy when it comes time to address sin in another persons life.

And humility is exactly what we will need, to be able to address the speck in our brother’s eye. 

§

How do we do that? well I want us to think about this from the perspective of the person who is being approached by someone else about a speck in our eye.

If someone was going to come to you and address some area of sin in your life. How would you want them to approach you? 

What would be the manner in which their approach would be most conducive to you being willing to listen, genuinely considering what they have to say, and responding with a soft and receptive heart?

And its not an option for Christians to say, “I just don’t ever want anyone to do that with me.” 

Because we don’t pretend like we don’t have sin; and we want to turn away from sin; 

and we know that Jesus has actually told us that we are supposed to help an receive help from each other.

So if someone comes to you to talk about your speck, I’m not saying it won’t be a difficult or painful conversation. But clearly there would be better or worse ways one could go about it, right? 

The manner in which a person approaches us, will effect how receptive we will be.

§

Our passage describes two characteristics that that person would need to have:

1) humility.

You probably aren’t going to be served well in your repentance by a person who comes across as though they don’t have personal experience of their own need to repent. If a person comes across as all high and mighty. 

If they come off as though they think they’ve got it all together, and they don’t struggle with sin, at least not in such bigs ways as you do. Wouldn’t that manner conflict with their goal? 

Whereas if someone comes to you in humility, as a fellow sinner who personally knows something of the deceptive and destructive ways of sin.

Thats going to help us not have our defenses up, we’re probably going to be more likely to consider what that person has to say.

§

The second characteristic that will make us more likely to be receptive to someone addressing the speck in our eye is for them to not be hypocritical. 

Which is to say, they need to practice what they preach.

As Jesus says here, first you remove the log in your eye before you help your brother with the speck in his eye.

This doesn’t mean that you’re sinless, or that you’ve arrived, it just means, how can you call on someone else to repent of sin if you aren’t doing it yourself?

How receptive would you be if someone told you that you should repent but that they didn’t need to?

Again, that manner of approach, would be in conflict with their goal.

§

We can imagine the kind of person and the kind of manner in which we would be most receptive to hearing hard words about our sin, cant we?  It’s going to be hard to hear no matter what, but it’s going to go better if we are approached in humility and without hypocrisy. 

Thats how we would want someone to deal with us in our sin, isn’t it? What does Jesus say in vs 2? The judgement you pronounce, will be the judgment you receive. The measure you use with other peoples sin, will be the measure applied to your sin.

The way that we want other people to approach us about our sin, is the way that we ought to approach our brother or sister about the speck in their eye.

Jesus doesn’t give us the option to do nothing. We must help our brother with the speck in his eye. And Jesus tells use how to do it: with humility and without hypocrisy.

Look with me now at vs 6: Dogs and Pigs.

Vs 6 - Dogs and Pigs

Jesus tells us to judge not. And then he explains what he means. We are not to be hypocritical in how we address sin in the life of a brother. But we are also not to fail to address it. 

It is our responsibility to take the speck out of our brothers eye. And if we’re going to do that we have to see clearly ourselves, we must not be hypocritical in our judgment of others.

We cannot address another person’s sin when we are unwilling to address our own sin.

In vs 6 Jesus adds another angle to this command. [read 7.6]

What does this mean?

What is holy and pearls both refer to the same thing. ‘Holy’ implies that we’re talking about something of God or from God. And ‘pearls' implies preciousness, value, treasure we might say. 

What is holy and precious is the gospel of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus has come to proclaim.

In ch 13 Jesus will compare the kingdom of heaven as being like a pearl of great price. 

The whole Sermon on the Mount has been a description of life in the Kingdom of heaven and how we can enter that kingdom. 

The kingdom of heaven is a precious treasure like a pearl and it is also a holy kingdom. Jesus told us that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and pharisees if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven. In fact, we must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.

The gospel’s invitation to enter the kingdom of heaven though faith in Jesus: his righteous life, his death for sin and his victorious resurrection, is our most holy and precious treasure.

§

So then who are the dogs and pigs? This is in a Jewish context, pigs were unclean animals, dogs were not fluffy household pets they were scavengers that were more than a nuisance, they were dangerous.

Dogs and pigs were ways of referring to people who are not only outside of God’s kingdom, but who have disdain for it. Who do not see the kingdom that Jesus is proclaiming as valuable or precious, but rather oppose it.

If you give a pearl to a pig, a pig is only interested in what it can eat. If it can’t eat the pearl, then the pearl is of no value to the pig. It’s just going to trample it into the ground because the pig doesn’t want it. Pigs don’t care about pearls. 

“What is holy” refers to the portion of meat that comes from the sacrifices that only the priests and their families were allowed to eat. Even, everyday Israelites weren’t allowed to eat it.

So of course you would not take that portion of meat, and just throw it to some scavenging band of dogs. That would be to defile what is meant to be hallowed. It’s like trampling a treasure. 

If you did give what is holy to the dogs, not only will they defile what ought to be hallowed, but their appetite will not be satisfied, and they will turn their attention on you, seeking to attack and devour.

§

These are the images that Jesus is giving us. But what is Jesus telling his followers to do?

He is calling us to have good judgment, to have discernment. We are to discriminate between specks and logs. 

So also we must be able to tell the difference between a brother with a speck in his eye, from an enemy opposed to God's kingdom and looking to devour God’s people.

Later in Matthews gospel, Jesus is going to send out his disciples to tell people about the kingdom and he tells them that if you come to a town that doesn’t want to listen and doesn’t accept what you’re saying, then you’re to move on, and as you go you are to shake the dust off your feet as a sign of judgment against that town.

Jesus is telling them not to cast their precious pearls to those who do not want them.

Not everyone is an enemy whose going to violently attack you for being a Christian. But aren’t there plenty of people who simply have no taste for the kingdom of God? Who don’t desire the things that Jesus describes in this sermon? They don’t see it as a precious treasure.

§

Jesus calls his followers to exercise discernment. And to understand that while all who desire and are willing to enter the kingdom may come, the sad truth is that many are not willing. 

Jesus will say that actually the way is narrow that leads to life, most people will take the broad path that leads to destruction.

§

In Matt 18, Jesus will describe the practice of church discipline that brings together all of Jesus’ teaching here on judgment.

Jesus will tells us that the first step of addressing sin in the church is that of individual church members addressing the speck in one another’s eye. 

And the normal result is just the removal of specks. Thats the plan. But if things don’t go according to plan, Jesus says then you bring 1-2 with you to help mediate.  

And that process can extend to the point where if someone is unwilling to repent of sin, to remove their speck, Jesus says that the church is to remove them. What Jesus says is, treat them like a gentile and a tax collector. 

Gentiles were unholy outsiders who have no interest in God or his ways, tax collectors were viewed as traitors of God’s people because they were Jews who worked for the Roman oppressors and often used their position to extort their fellow Jews using the threat of foreign Roman power. 

When Jesus says 'gentiles and tax collectors’, he’s using parallel language to what he says here about ‘dogs and pigs.’

Is this a rather judgmental way of speaking about people in this passage where Jesus tells us to judge not?!

Jesus says, we need to allow people to tell us who they are by how they respond to the gospel. Some will respond viciously like dogs, seeking to attack and devour, others will respond without the slightest bit of interest.

But others will hear Jesus’ invitation to enter his kingdom and will see that invitation as a precious treasure of more worth than anything in this world.

We don’t force anyone to believe something, and we aren’t going to force people to live like they believe something when they really don’t. 

But the church is going to be honest and clear about where we stand and thus the church must judge, we must distinguish between those who belong to the church from those who do not.

Because within the church, is where we will live as brothers and sisters, caring about one another enough to address the specks in each others eyes with humility and without hypocrisy.

Would you pray with me?

Father we thank you for the precious treasure of the gospel, and for your gracious invitation to sinners like us to enter into your kingdom and be formed as a new community of people who delight in your word and who walk in your ways.

Lord continue to teach us what it means for us to love one another as brothers and sisters in the church, to guard one another, and to encourage one another as the day of your sons return approaches.

Lord give us humility and boldness to be willing to have difficult conversations with one another. Give us hearts that are ready and receptive to hear loving words that call us away from sin and towards new obedience.

Lord be pleased to use us in one another’s lives as the means by which we as a church might grow up more and more into the image of Christ. 

In his name we pray, Amen