Sermon Series: Sermon on the Mount

Judging without being Judgmental

Matthew 7:1-6

PSBC  6/4/00

In a nutshell: We are not prohibited from judging when we use the truth of God's Word as our standard. However, we are prohibited from setting ourselves up as God and judging things only He is capable of judging.

I. Introduction

A.. Bill Gates and GM

At a COMDEX computer expo a while ago, 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."

Not liking this comparison, General Motors responded to Gates by releasing this statement, "Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?"

You have to be careful when you judge someone else. Usually when we judge someone else, we are doing it to elevate ourselves.

And that is exactly what was going on during the time when Jesus was preaching this Sermon on the Mount. The Pharisees had made up a religious system of rules and regulations that they strived to keep to the letter of that law. And they loved to condemn anyone who didn't practice this religion as they did.

B. MacArthur Quote

Dr. John MacArthur comments on this state of affairs in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. The words are on the fronts of your bulletins this morning.

"An inseparable corollary of justifying oneself is condemning others. When anyone elevates himself, everyone else is lowered accordingly. The Pharisees were doing all they could to lift themselves up in their own eyes, including acting as spiritual judges by condemning others."

So, with that background of understanding, let's get into the next section of the Sermon on the Mount, that begins at the start of chapter 7....

Matthew 7:1
1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.
II. The Meaning of Judging

A. Misunderstandings

I don't think there is another passage in scripture that is cited more by non-believers than Matthew 7:1...

I guess it's good that non-Christians know some words of scripture, but the problem few take the time to completely understand the message that Jesus is communicating in this verse.

When Jesus says that we are not to judge,
–many people have interpreted that to mean that we have no right to analyze or evaluate the actions of other people.
–people who take this verse out of context say that we have no right to conclude that a person's behavior, decisions or lifestyle is morally wrong.
–many people have used this command from Jesus to justify just about any evil practice, stupid decision or alternative lifestyle that suits them.
–and they use this as a "guilt club" to beat anyone up who would take a stand for righteousness or moral values.

Illustration: My dad always prided himself in his straight rows of corn. He told me how he achieved his straight rows, when I was a very young boy. He said when he planted the very first set of rows, he always aligned the front end of the tractor that was pulling the planter, with a fixed object straight ahead on the horizon. That stationary object guided him to plant a straight row. You see, while my dad's eyes were fixed on that landmark on the other side of the field, a disc-marker, that was attached to the planter, made an identical straight-line mark in the ground next to the planter. Then, that groove marked where the tractor wheel had to ride to make the next row just as straight as the first.

Unfortunately, in the culture we live in, we are increasingly removing the landmarks at the end of the field. There are fewer and fewer permanent markers to guide our culture and our leaders to make good decisions regarding tolerance and acceptance. Morals, values and the God who first gave them are being systematically eliminated from our society's decision making processes. So the moral markers that once guided our society are now constantly being moved at the whims and desires of a society without God.

So, without that landmark at the end of their fields, many people are planting some very crooked rows when they make decisions on what they'll tolerate or what they will accept into their lives. Let me give you just one example from a recent Forbes magazine article...

Around the country, public schools mainstream pregnant girls. Schools that try to express disapproval of teen motherhood run smack into the iron hand of the federal government. Few recognize it yet, but our bumper crop of children having children is in part the delayed harvest of a 1972 federal law that made it illegal for schools receiving federal funds to discipline students because of pregnancy or parenthood. At Eau Claire Memorial High School, the principal was forced to resign and three assistant principals were disciplined for attempting to prevent a pregnant girl from becoming homecoming queen. The government can't legislate good morals, but must it enforce bad ones? (Forbes, September 23, 1996.).

By removing the landmarks of good morals and Godly-values we wind up being so ultra-tolerant that we enforce the bad and throw out the good. Friends, that's not what Jesus means when He says, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged."

B. What is Jesus talking about?

So, if total acceptance and complete tolerance isn't what Jesus is talking about in verse one, what is He talking about?

Take a minute and consider with me some of the other things Jesus taught in this context...

1. Verse 6 of this chapter

If you go down to the sixth verse of this chapter, Jesus calls us to evaluate the kind of people with whom we are dealing, because he calls some of them dogs and others wild pigs. He says...

Matthew 7:6
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 then turn and tear you to pieces.

Now, that's a pretty clear indication that we are to evaluate, and based on that evaluation, judge the kind of people with whom we're dealing when it comes to our Christian faith.

2. Later in this same chapter

If you read along a little farther in this same chapter, and look at verses 15 and 16, you'll see that Jesus says,

Matthew 7:15-16
15 "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 thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?

So, obviously, we are being told to engage in a fruit inspection or character evaluation of a person, if we are going to determine if he or she is a true or false prophet. If that's not judging, than I don't know what is!

3. Discernment

Thinking now, of the whole of the New Testament writings, my mind immediately goes to the gifts of the Spirit. We've been studying these in my class during the Sunday School hour during the past 5 weeks.

One of the gifts that the Holy Spirit gives to some believers is the gift of Discernment. That gift is given to some leaders in the church to help them judge quickly and rightly between what is..
-right and wrong;
-between good and bad;
-between moral and immoral;
-between truth and falsehood; and
-between light and darkness.

In fact, the reason this gift is given to some is so they can make judgments about false teachers for the good, safety and protection of the entire church .

4. Church discipline

Yet another thing to consider in this area of judging is something we refer to as church discipline. One of the difficult things church leaders have to do sometimes, is judge the actions of people in the church, and administer church discipline according to the guidelines set down in the Bible.

Illustration: One of the hard issues we had to deal with when I was on the pastoral staff at another church, was the evidence that came to us that one of the lay-leaders in our Single Adult group was sleeping around with several of the women in the group. Obviously, that's in direct violation to what God says should be the conduct of one of His followers.

So, the pastor over that area followed the guidelines in Matthew 18, and confronted him individually and privately in a one on one situation. After he was confronted with the evidence, he refused to repent. Then this pastor and one of the elders of the church went to him and talked to him again. He still refused to repent, and saw nothing wrong with having sexual relations with whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Consequently he was asked to resign from leadership in the single adult group. But, he refused to give up his position. So, finally, the church leadership had to publicly remove him from the church. The good news is after several years, he did repent and was publicly restored to the fellowship by the church leadership.

You can call it what you want. But that's hard stuff for leadership to do. That's tough love. But understand also what it was. It was judging this man based on what the word of God says is right and wrong.

So, if some judging is O.K., and some judging is not O.K., how do we know the difference?

III. Example of the Pharisees

The Greek word for judging in this first verse of Matthew 7 literally means "acting as a judge." It was specifically used in cases that required someone to "to pass a verdict or pronounce sentence; or to declare that a person is guilty." So what Jesus is warning against is doing something that is the exclusive prerogative of God.

And this is what the Pharisees were doing in Jesus' day. Let me give you two quick examples:

A. Blind Man

One time they judged a blind man and threw him out of the synagogue, because after he was healed by Jesus, he dared to question their wisdom for not following Jesus...

John 9:34
34 To this (the Pharisees) replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.

B. Pharisee and Tax Collector

They also judged the common people and the non-Jews who didn't know the law like they did. Maybe you remember the story of the Pharisee and Tax Collector in Luke 18. The self- righteous Pharisee was so quick to judge and condemn:

Luke 18:11
11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: `God, I thank you that I am not like other men– robbers, evildoers, adulterers– or even like this tax collector.

That Pharisee put himself in the place of God and condemned the tax collector.

C. What's clear

So, you can see that what Jesus is telling us to do, is to be on our guards so we don't do something that is the exclusive prerogative of God. He's basically saying, "Don't be self-righteous–only God is capable of that!

Now, I'm going to assume something–this must be a big problem with most human beings.–that means most of us in this room, this morning. Because, if it isn't, then God really made a big mistake by devoting so much time to this problem in this Sermon on the Mount. So, if it is a common problem, then we all have to come to grips the problem, and learn how to handle it God's way.

So, how do we judge without being judgmental? Jesus gives us three ways to do this...

IV. Three things to keep in mind before you judge

A. You are not the final authority

Look at verse one again...

Matthew 7:1
1 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

Here's the first thing to bear in mind. You are not the final authority–only God is. If you pronounce judgment on someone else, with any other standard than an accurate application of God's Word, then you have taken on a responsibility that is exclusively reserved for God and God alone!

James 4:11-12
11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.
12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you– who are you to judge your neighbor?

Whenever we condemn someone because they don't do something the way we think it ought to be done or because we think their motives might be wrong..., we pass a judgment on that person which only God is qualified to make. An unknown poet long ago wrote...

Judge not the workings of his brain,
And of his heart thou cannot see.
What looks to thy dim eyes a stain,
In God's pure light may only be
A scar brought from some well-won field
Where thou wouldst only faint and yield.

We aren't called to stop being discerning, or to stop applying Scriptural principles to everyday living. But we are called to refrain completely, from playing God.

B. The same judgment will be given to you

A second thing to keep in mind is found in...

Matthew 7:2
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.

He's saying, people who are quick to condemn others, will be judged according to their own standards. In other words, the same way you deal with others, that's the way God will deal with you.

The psalmist talks of this:

Psalm 18:24-27
24 The LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
26 to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd.
27 You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.

Here it is in plain English... If you are quick to condemn someone for greed, you can rest assured that eventually God will expose the greed in your life. If you are quick to condemn the sexual sins of others, God will eventually put your sexual sins on display. (If you don't believe me, just look at what Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert were publicly condemning in other TV evangelists before their falls back in the late 80's.)

But if you have been slow to condemn and quick to forgive, then the Lord will be the same way with you.

C. The Plank principle

The third reason why we must be careful in our judging is what I call "the Plank principle"...

Matthew 7:3-5
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.

I think we all realize that Jesus is using an overstatement to get His point across. No one can have a plank of wood lodged in his eye. It's virtually impossible to walk around with a speck or splinter in your eye because it is so painful. A plank would be absurd.

The key to understanding the "plank principle" is the word "look" in verse 3. Jesus is talking about people who are looking to condemn others. People like this are looking for wrong in the lives of others. They seem to derive a malicious sort of pleasure from putting their finger on the weak spots in someone else's life. It's almost as if they enjoy spotting evil.

Illustration: I once had a man in a church I served, who told me he had the "gift of criticism." And he exercised that gift, to keep the pastors on their toes. Well, friends, if he really had that gift, it came from the devil, not from God! Because there is no Holy Spirit given gift of criticism.

Here's the "plank principle". Critical people are so absorbed with looking for evil in the lives of those around them that they become blind to their own faults.

Jesus reminds us that we can never judge another without first judging our self. That way we can
never consider our self above a brother or a sister who is struggling with a sin in his or her life.

Then, when times come when we do have to admonish a fellow believer, based on the Word of God, we do so as a co-sinner, or an equally fallen saint. In this way we treat each other as brothers and sisters and as equals in the Lord. None of us, in other words, can consider ourselves as being any better than anyone else.

I am reminded of what Jesus said when a woman caught in adultery was dragged before Him: "If
any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." That's a good thing to keep in mind. None of us are without sin. All of us are equally deserving of the wrath of God.

V. Conclusion

Now, we haven't even gotten to the dogs and the pigs, yet. That's going to have to come next week. But let me leave you with this story...

Illustration: John was driving home late one night when he picked up a hitchhiker. As they rode along, he began to be suspicious of his passenger. John checked to see if his wallet was safe in the pocket of his coat that was on the seat between them, but it wasn't there! So he slammed on the brakes, ordered the hitchhiker out, and said. "Hand over the wallet immediately!" The frightened hitchhiker handed over a billfold, and John drove off.

When he arrived home, he started to tell his wife about the experience, but she interrupted him, saying, "Before I forget, John, do you know that you left your wallet at home this morning?"

Friends, Jesus' words this morning, are good things for us to think about this week. I hope they slow down your tendency to critically judge a co-sinner. Don't be mistaken, it's something everyone of us has to come to grips with and get right if the Kingdom of God is going to advance through our efforts!

After all, those words Love and Accept in our purpose statement are more than platitudes. They are definitive behavior patterns that we need to follow is we ever hope to be a FORCE for Jesus Christ in this valley and the world.
Amen!