JUDGING

JUDGING Matthew 7:1-6 With grateful acknowledgement of these sources of direction and inspiration: the Holy Spirit; the Word of God; Myron Augsburger, "The Disciple's Respect," Matthew; Donald Hagner, "On Not Judging Others," WBC, Matthew 1-13; Helmut Thielicke, Life Can Begin Again; Gene E. Veith "Judging the Judgment" World 8/14/04 August 29, 2004 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introductory Begin with cut from the movie, "Shrek" (starting at 45:50:00, measured from the beginning of the opening credit), ending with Shrek's comment about everybody judging one another. It's not only you and I and a socially abused mythical ogre who have problems with the way people judge one another. God is concerned about the issue, too. Two-thirds of the way through His most famous sermon, Jesus addresses the problem directly with these words from Matthew 7:1-6: 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. 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? 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. 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 then turn and tear you to pieces. This section of the Sermon on the Mount is a continuation of the central theme Jesus has been addressing: "My disciples are to be different." Citizens of the Kingdom of God are different from those who are only citizens of this world. Oswald Chambers summarized the point when we wrote, "The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations; it is a statement of the life we live when the Holy Spirit is getting His way with us." When God takes over a life, that life changes. Once we acknowledge Christ's Lordship over our lives, there are some things we won't do any longer. These behavioral differences distinguish followers of Jesus from others who have not yet committed their lives to God in Christ. One such discontinued behavior is judgmentalism. Judgmentalism is a pretty good word here, because Jesus is not talking about evaluating others or having discernment. He's talking about condemning, criticizing, or being judge and jury over someone else. Our text reveals a few reasons why judging others is not sanctioned Christian behavior. The first reason that judging others is wrong for the Christ-follower is based on the truth that God alone is the fair and righteous judge. 1. God Alone is the Fair and Righteous Judge (verses 1-2) The plain fact of the matter is that God loves each human being as much as He does every other human being. His desire is to make sure that every person has the opportunity to live for Him and serve Him faithfully. Some will, most won't. But when and if someone does not live up to God's standards, He has reserved for Himself the exclusive right to pass judgment on that person. He has not shared that responsibility privilege of assessing another's righteousness with anyone else. He alone is the judge. Why? Because He alone is fair. His standards represent perfect love and perfect righteousness. He knows the secret intent of a person's heart. 1 Corinthians 4:5 says, "Judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God." We sinful humans are not able to accurately assess each other's rightness or wrongness. But God knows. Jesus reminds us here that our self-styled standards of judging are unreliable. We are not fair people, always watching out for ourselves, being stingy with our compliments lest someone else look better than we, being too generous with our criticism thinking subtly that if we lower the other person by slander we will somehow look better by comparison, being too quick to gossip and too easily swayed by appearances, being too accomplished at sarcastic cut-downs of others, too quick to assume the worst about another, being too nitpicky, too suspicious, too uppity and too holier-than thou. That's why we don't make good judges. We don't have God's omniscience, His insight, His righteousness and holiness, His perspective . . . very simply, we're not God. So we will never be able to read another's heart, assess another's reasons or properly judge another. No wonder Jesus comes right at His followers with this command: Do not judge. It's clear, it's precise and uncomplicated. He leaves no wiggle room. It's just plain truth that we have no right playing the judge toward any other human being. He alone is the proper judge, because He alone is God. 2. In God's Economy, What Goes Around Comes Around (verses 1-2) Judging others is not only wrong, according to verses 1 and 2, it's also dumb! It is very clear here that when we judge others, we judge ourselves. Here's the way Peterson paraphrases it in The Message: "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults-unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging." There are two ways in which our judgment of others will "boomerang" onto us. First, others will treat you the way that you treat them. If you are critical, negative and suspicious, that's just how others are going to look at you. If you are habitually sarcastic and biting, be sure that others will turn that same viciousness onto you. The story goes that at a COMDEX computer expo, Microsoft's Bill Gates compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles per gallon." General Motors responded to Gates by releasing the statement, "Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?" "If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other." Galatians 5:15. Though it is popular in the world around us, talking negatively about another is anything but Christian behavior. Please hear this-gossip and slander are morally wrong always! Jesus has already taught earlier in this sermon that to speak of someone out of spite or any similar motive is tantamount to murder. Kingdom people, when they're at their best, keep quiet with their personal concerns about others. They pray for those whom they discern need salvation or deliverance from evil, but there conversation is only with the Lord, not with others who would only gain a negative impression of the person being discussed. In restricting their discussion of another's problems only to prayer to God, they protect themselves from sin, from charges of slander, and from the boomerang of retaliatory judgment of others on themselves. But there is a second way judgment can boomerang on you, and it is by far worse than having others treat you the way you treated them. Verse 2 also says that God turns our judgmental attitudes back on us! It's one thing to be under the threat of another human being's judgment of you, but being under God's judgment is quite another thing. He is the true and only true judge of all life. Do you remember the story about the servant who was forgiven a million dollar debt when he couldn't pay it back? The same guy then found another servant who owed him a couple of bucks and he started choking and threatening him and even threw him in jail until he would pay him back. The banker who had forgiven his debt heard about it, and guess what he did. That's right, he turned this unforgiving servant's judgmentalism and cruelty back on him by having him jailed and tortured until he paid off the million dollars. Now listen, there is something in us that says, "Yeah! Good! That ingrate deserves to be punished!" (There's our judgmentalism surfacing?) We love it when the scores are settled and some sort of justice happens, don't we? How about the men's gymnastics at the Olympics the other night! Did you see the fiasco? Four-time Olympic gold medalist, Alexei Nemov of Russia, turned in a stunning high bar routine. Flying like a circus acrobat, Nemov put together the riskiest, most daring performance of the 10 men on the high bar. He did six release moves - four in a row and two more in which he did full somersaults while flying over the bar. It looked perfect. But the judges have him a comparatively low 9.725. The crowd went nuts over the score. Everybody knew it was wrong. The booing, whistling and uproar from the crowd continued until the Malaysian judge, one of two who scored him especially low, shamed by the reaction, changed his score, bringing the judges' average up to 9.762. But even this unprecedented action didn't satisfy the justice-hungry crowd. They kept screaming and booing the judges until finally Nemov himself stepped up and asked them to stop, so American Paul Hamm could perform his routine. What happened there? Well, a number of things, including a demonstration of how bent out of shape human beings get when there is an obvious miscarriage of justice. But, if ever there were a good example of a group of human beings judging badly, those judges were it. And the thousands of spectators in the stands boomeranged judgment back onto the judges by humiliating them with their jeers. Be careful if you judge, because the level of critical attitude you use will in some way be brought back onto you, not only by the others you judge, but also by the only true judge--God. 3. Judging is Hypocrisy (verses 3-5) Judging others always carries the implication that the critic is free of similar faults. In a recent issue of The Christian Reader there was the story of a five-year old boy named Andrew who was showing his Kindergarten class pictures to a neighbor and he began describing each of his classmates as he pointed to their pictures: "This is Robert; he hits everyone. This is Stephen. He never listens to the teacher. This is Mark. He chases us and is very noisy." Pointing to his own picture, Andrew commented, "And this is me. I'm just sitting here minding my own business." Every Kindergarten teacher knows there's a little devilishness in every child. And every Christian knows just what verses 3-5 are talking about. We don't actually have a record of Jesus ever laughing, although I'm certain He did. But He certainly had a sense of humor as evidenced here. "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? 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." What a comical image! And it is hilarious on purpose. I'm not sure I'm able to conjure up a mind's-eye image of a man with a tree trunk sticking out of his eye socket. But here he is, Mr. plank-eye, Mr. arrogant better-than-you, Mr. 2X4 retina—laboring with this fence post in his own eye socket, and he lumbers over to a friend and starts doing splinter inspection. What a hypocrite! Here's the point—we could all use a good log-ectomy before we start playing ophthalmology with our friends. I remember many years ago tuning in to a fire-and-brimstone sermon by Jimmy Swaggart against sexual sin. The very next week the story broke about his regular trysts with an out-of-town prostitute. That strong, head-shaking sense of revulsion at hypocrisy is exactly what Jesus was getting at. But He wasn't talking about Jimmy Swaggart—he was talking about you and me. As a thinner man with a more active metabolism I used to think badly of heavier people. I confess I used to think anyone with a spare tire was lazy and/or had no self-control. In the past few years I've been heavier than ever in my life, and I have come to realize how hard losing weight really is. And I'm truly sorry for the things I thought (and probably said) when I was less sensitive and sinfully proud. As a younger man I used to secretly laugh at the way some of my neighbors doted over their lawns, kept their driveways swept and cleaned their garages obsessively. I was proud of how busy I was with more important things. I'm 53 now, and have become strangely enamored with my lawn. I don't sweep my driveway, but only because it's gravel. I have been sweeping the sidewalk, though. And my garage-well, it's not very clean, but I'm making progress. It was pride; it was arrogance; it was self-righteous log-in-my-eye judgmentalism that drove those ugly "better-than-them" thoughts back then. Now, every time I grab my weed-eater and realize, "Hey, I really like doing this," I have to eat crow and repent over my—that's right—hypocrisy. So now I shake my head, pull the cord and start up my Sears trimmer and go to work. And as I put motorized string to grass, sculpting the lawn edge to perfection, I smile to myself-because I know that somewhere, some young neighbor man is watching me, thinking, "What a knucklehead!" I do want to pause just long enough to make something clear. Jesus is not saying that it is wrong to have an opinion about the rightness or wrongness of things, including the behaviors of others. He just makes it clear that before we get critical of others we should first clear the lumber from our own vision. Here's how we do that: We stay in fellowship with God and His precious Holy Spirit, we repent instantly when we realize sin in our lives and we ask God to always, always help us to love others, really love others, just like Jesus did when He walked the streets of Palestine and spoke these words. Then, as we sincerely do the best we can, God might just lead us to another person and give us the terrifying responsibility of helping him or her remove a splinter that has blinded them and stymied their spiritual growth. Then, with healthy eyes, and a humble heart, I can be, and must be, a servant to that one in Jesus' name. Just before we close, I'd like to comment on that troublesome sixth verse. It's so difficult to understand, it seems. And since I took the time to study it again this week, I ought to share what I learned, before I forget it again. 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 then turn and tear you to pieces. Dogs were not pets in that time and place. They were simply wild animals that were dirty, disease-bearing nuisances. Similarly, pigs were usually wild and untended, especially among the Jews who considered them to be the most unclean animal of all. These two undomesticated critters were both indiscriminate diners. They'd pretty much eat anything that they stumbled across. And be careful that you don't end up between them and their intended meal! Jesus wasn't kidding when He mentioned they might turn and tear you to pieces. This leads us to the fourth reason for not judging others in a condemning way. Some will turn on you. What you say, coming from a moral standard of God's righteousness, what you say to another in a splinter-picking exercise, may backfire on you. But in this case, not because you were being hypocritical or hyper-critical, nor because you were trying to arrogantly take God's place—this time you find out you have offended your patient with spiritual truth! 4. Even Appropriate Judging Can Be Risky Business (verse 6) At first you're not sure why they are offended, but soon they're calling you every name they can think of, and reacting very badly to your spiritual advice. Why? Some people, because of their personal perversity or the depth of their rebellion against God, just hate being confronted with truth and righteousness. I'm sure you've encountered one or two people like this. How do you respond to them? In love, of course. You treat them as Jesus would treat them, make yourself wisely available to help with their needs, you pray for them (but not with them). In short, you treat them just as you would any other person God allowed you to be in contact with—with one notable exception. You don't share spiritual truth with them—not yet. They are not ready for it. They will misinterpret the message and likely mistreat the messenger. Love and serve them as best you can, but don't waste your valuable pearls on unappreciative people. There is only one thing to do in the case of such people. If you know they won't receive spiritual counsel from you, pray for them. That is always the right and loving thing to do. Conclusion 1. Examine your own heart before even considering examining anyone else 2. Walk in the Spirit habitually: no unconfessed sin and instant obedience 3. Understand the struggles of others—it often explains their attitudes 4. When you do bring appropriate, godly judgment, do it in love—your goal is a redemptive one—you are here to restore not rebuff. Prayer and Commitment: Turn my heart, oh Lord, like rivers of water. Turn my heart, oh Lord, by Your hand. Till my whole life flows in the river of Your Spirit, and my name brings glory to the Lamb! Lord, I surrender to Your work in me. I rest my life within Your loving hands. Turn my heart, oh Lord, like rivers of water. Turn my heart, oh Lord, by Your hand. Till my whole life flows in the river of Your Spirit, and my name brings glory to the Lamb! [Back to Top]