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Now please take your Bible and
turn with me to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7 verses 1
through 6. And while you're turning there,
I want you to think about a virtue. What do you think about when
you think about the word virtue? A character trait that is considered
good and noble and upright. Well, the society in which we
live today values one virtue in particular almost above all
the others that they consider virtues. It praises this virtue
as an opportunity to be a peacemaker in the world, as an important
key to maintaining civility and enabling people to get along.
This character trait anyway, this highly valued virtue in
today's society is, can you guess what it is? You got it. Tolerance. D.A. Carson says that
tolerance is today as non-negotiable a virtue in the culture at large
as motherhood and apple pie were in America in the 1950s. Not
only has tolerance grown to a highly prized position among the virtues,
But this notion of tolerance has taken a turn from what it
was generally conceived to be in days gone by. It has undergone
a shift. It used to be that tolerance
represented a willingness to defend a person's right to believe
what they believed even if you disagreed, or to disagree with
each other agreeably. However, today's understanding
of tolerance is characterized by an unwillingness You are considered
tolerant if you are unwilling to say that someone else is wrong
in their viewpoint or in their moral conviction or in their
action. This is especially true in areas of morality and religion.
In these areas, one thing that is wrong, the one thing that
is wrong, is for a person to assert that another person is
wrong. To do so is to commit the socially
unpardonable sin of intolerance. To do so is to be told, you're
not supposed to judge. Well, what about that? Are you
supposed to judge? Well, generally people will quote
a Bible verse when they say that. They generally will quote Matthew
7.1. Judge not lest you be judged. Well, we're going to look at
that today and see how we should understand what Jesus said here,
what Jesus meant for us to understand here. So let's stand together
and read the Word of God, Matthew chapter 7, 1 through 8. We are continuing our study here
of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce,
you will be judged. and with the measure you use,
it will be measured to you. Why do you see this speck that
is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is
in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother,
let me take the speck out of your eye when there is a log
in your own eye? you hypocrite, first take the
log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly how
to take the speck out of your brother's eye. 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." Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we come
to you this morning, just mindful, first of all, of your greatness,
of your mercy, of your tenderness, of your faithfulness and of your
righteousness, Lord. To you, we come to praise you
because that you are spotless and flawless in every part of
your being and everything that is contrary to your flawlessness. to your perfection is evil and
wrong. And yet we come to this text
this morning desiring for you to teach us as to how we need
to live in a world where there's wrong everywhere, even in our
own hearts, that we need to admit and deal with properly. And so,
Lord, give us ears to hear, we pray. Give us understanding. Give us a heart to go from the
understanding to transformation in our lives, in our attitudes,
and the way that we involve ourselves in the lives of others. To you
be the glory for this passage of scripture, Lord. Help us to
break it forth as you meant it, as you mean it. And we pray it
in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. So let us
recall that in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is preaching
with His disciples around Him, the multitudes in the background,
and He is declaring to them the Kingdom of God. And He, from the very beginning,
opens up for them, the people that are in this Kingdom, that
there are certain people who make up this Kingdom. Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God. And Jesus characterizes then
the entrance into this kingdom and he goes on to characterize
the distinct nature of the people who are in this kingdom. They
are salt. They are light. And these people live in a certain
way. They live with a love of the
law of the Lord. They obey him. And they see that
obedience to God is more than a superficial outward thing.
It starts in the heart. It starts from the very root
and core of our being. And coming out from there we
obey Him and we serve Him in that way. And as we do, then
we live in this world. And in this world we are we are
involved in the things of this world, the property and the needs
that we have and Jesus addressed these in the two passages that
we just recently dealt with saying on the one hand we shouldn't
lay up for ourselves treasures of these things and on the other
hand we should not be anxious in living our lives in constant
pursuit of even the basic needs that we have on the earth but
seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all
these things He will take care of. Now this morning we come
to look at how the kingdom citizens are to relate to sin in the world
and in themselves. And particularly the sins of
the world and even the sins of their fellow kingdom citizens.
Are we to judge? Are we to discern? Are we to
act in accordance with what we observe? Well, this is what we're
going to look at this morning. And I first of all want to have
you think with me about this truth about Matthew 7, verse
1, that it is probably the most misunderstood verse in the Bible. I want to direct your attention
to the most misunderstood verse in the Bible. Judge not that
you be not judged. Now, I want us first of all to
just think, well, how is this verse misunderstood? That won't
be very hard because it's the way you hear people doing it
all the time. People regularly say things like the following,
you're not supposed to judge. It's not your place to tell me
what is right and what is wrong. It's wrong for you to make moral
judgments about people. You shouldn't be making judgments
about sexual behavior or marital fidelity. It is not your place
to say that homosexual marriage is wrong. Who are you to tell
me that I'm a male when I feel like a female? or a female when
I feel like a male. And it is not your place to tell
me anything that I want to do that it's wrong. You're not my
judge. That's judging. And the Bible
says, judge not lest you be judged. So from the outset this morning,
I want you to know that these remarks and others like them
represent a misunderstanding and a misapplication of what
Jesus teaches in Matthew 7 verse 1. I want to show you then why
this verse is misunderstood and in showing you why it's misunderstood
you'll come to a right understanding but we are going to get to clearly
articulate what the right understanding is. But let's just consider why
it is wrong We're going to make a judgment here. It is wrong
to quote Matthew 7.1 as a defense whenever anybody tells you that
something you're doing is wrong. How is it misunderstood? It's
misunderstood first because of a failure to look at the immediate
context. No verse in the Bible is a complete
island. They all come together. They
create for us a context in which to read every sentence and every
word. And everything in the immediate
surroundings feeds into a proper understanding of each word and
each sentence. But it also is true that the
whole of the Bible feeds into every single word and every single
verse and understanding it. properly. Every word must be
carefully considered in light of its scriptural surroundings
or we will be headed off the tracks of accuracy and understanding. And so let's first of all make
the point that The verse, the first verse of Matthew chapter
7 is misunderstood because there is a failure to understand the
immediate or apply the immediate context. The verse is right here
into properly understanding the first verse. So we look at verse
2 of Matthew chapter 7. And here we see a verse that
speaks volumes about what Jesus says in Matthew 7-1. Look at
verse 2. 4. With the judgment you pronounce,
you will be judged. And with the measure you use,
it will be measured to you. First of all, the word the In English, what do we know?
It is a definite article. It is declaring a one particular
kind of something, or this is a one thing. And the wording
here indicates that there are different, therefore, kinds of
judgment. And Jesus is talking about a
particular kind of judgment, the judgment that you use. That
is, there's a kind of judgment you can use that is different
from all the other kinds of judgment you could use. And so Jesus goes
immediately from saying, judge not lest you be judged, to pointing
out that there's different kinds of judgment. And he has a very
particular kind of judgment in mind when he says, judge not
lest you be judged. And then there's this little
word for, which connects verse two to verse one. For with the
judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. It is an indication that verse
two is like an underlying foundation for why he says what he does
in verse one. Because you will be judged with
the judgment that you use and you will be judged according
to the measure that you use. Therefore, do not judge. Do not
judge in the way that there's clearly a way that is being warned
about here. We learn that there are different
kinds and different measures of judgment and the ones that
God will apply to you are the ones that you use. It's kind
of like reaping what you sow. So when Jesus says, judge not,
he is speaking of a particular kind and a particular measure
of judging. He further explains his point
when he proceeds to verse three. Here he asks people, Why it is
that people see wrongs in others but miss huge sinful matters
in their own selves. He calls persons who judge like
this by a particular name and it's a rather judgmental name,
you hypocrites. So what is Jesus doing right
here at this point in the sermon? He judges. He declares a certain
kind of person to be a hypocrite and that is not a good thing.
And then he tells them that what they need to do is what? Stop judging. That's not what
he says. What they need to do is to take
the log out of their eyes so they can judge better. Take the
log out of your eyes so that you can help others. My brothers
and sisters, you cannot do what Jesus is saying that we must
do in these verses without some form of judging, discerning,
and declaring. Discerning right from wrong and
declaring right from wrong and working in a under an understanding of the
fact that there is right and wrong and we must behave in accordance
with that. People who say that Matthew 7
verse 1 means no judging period are shown to be mistaken because
they fail to pay attention to the context in which Jesus makes
the statement. The verse is further misunderstood
because of a failure to consider the whole of the Bible, the whole
biblical context. Let me give you just a couple
of examples which underscore the necessity of some kind of
judgment. We would see as one example John
the Baptist who was charging Herod with sin because he had
Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. John, when he was saying
this is sin, is judging, he's declaring what is wrong and he's
saying to Herod, you're guilty of it, it's sin. Then there's
John 7 verse 24 where Jesus says, do not judge by appearance but
judge with right judgment. You can't get much stronger than
this statement made by the Apostle Paul in Galatians. To the Galatians
in chapter 1, Paul is very concerned about a right gospel and a wrong
gospel and he judges those who declare a wrong gospel. He says,
but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a
gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed,
which the word is eternally condemned. Again, I say, as I've said before,
so now we say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel
contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. The Bible
is a book. of laws and commands and precepts
of the Lord with the implication that they are to be loved, cherished,
and obeyed. And there is judgments all over
the place for those who don't trust and obey. The breaking
of God's law incurs judgment. That is why His wrath is coming.
And God has put people together, in part, in churches now, to
remind one another of what God approves and of what God disapproves. And to exhort one another to
walk in His ways. And God has put the church in
the world, in part, to be a light which shines out in the darkness
saying, this darkness is sin and it is wrong. And there is
light that God has given to us, and His light is right, and we
must proclaim it, and we must stand with it, even when we stand
like what looks to be small lights in the midst of a great darkness
in the world. And when you even think what
the Bible says that preachers are supposed to do, preachers
and Bible teachers, what are we supposed to do? Well, listen
to what Paul the Apostle instructed to Timothy. He was giving him instruction
as to how he was to teach the Bible. And Paul tells Timothy
this, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season.
And he tells him this, reprove, rebuke, and exhort. You cannot, you cannot do what
Paul is telling Timothy to do without judging. without judging
right from wrong and declaring it so. Rebuke in itself means
to confront the wrong in another person. You can't rebuke then
without some form of judgment going on here. So to assert that
judging wrongly means to make no judgments at all is to miss
the context of Matthew and it is to miss the context of the
whole Bible. There's a third reason why I
think people misinterpret this verse. The first two were interpretational,
scriptural. This one is because of who people
are by nature. The text is misunderstood because
of our natural bent. None of us wants to be told that
what we are doing is wrong. Who has the first reaction in
your heart and mind when someone says, you're not wrong, you're
not right, you made a mistake? Any way to correct you, what
is the first and initial reaction that wells up deep within your
soul? Now be honest, because I know what it is in me. That's
called the flesh. I don't like it. You don't like
it. None of us like it. And the world
certainly doesn't like it. We would like that this verse
disallowed all judgment period because our flesh would be all
the more happier. Jesus declares in John 3.19 that
everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not
come to the light lest his works should be exposed. There is an
evil motivation in the flesh to escape judgment and so we
are prone to look for that way of escape. One of the things
that is really hostile to our heart and that we despise a lot
is when somebody else tells us we're wrong. And so we want to
escape it. And so if we can erect a wall
to protect ourselves from people saying that, we will. So let's
find a verse. Even if we don't have any respect
for the Bible, we'll go to, oh, judge not lest you be judged.
So we pull it up, it sounds good, and we can use it as a defense
to keep people from saying that we're wrong. And so you have
three reasons here why people misunderstand and misinterpret
this verse. It's because of the immediate
context, the greater context, and because It's what we would
want. We want to be protected from
people or even from the Bible pointing out our mistakes, our
wrongs, our sins, our transgressions. So individuals who care very
little for the Bible as a whole seize upon this verse to assert
that you're wrong for telling them they are wrong. And not
a few people who claim to believe the Bible do the same. But they
are all wrong. Jesus is not saying there must
be a suspension of moral judgment in his followers. Rather, it
is judging in a particular kind of way that he disallows. The most unloving thing that
we could do would be to keep silent about sin and let people
perish in it. And so let's look next this morning
at the judging that Jesus is disallowing. The judgment, the
judging that Jesus disallows. He is clearly not disallowing
all judgment, but what kind of judgment is Jesus instructing
his kingdom citizens to avoid or not to carry out and why? He is strong about avoiding this
kind of judgment because if you do it, you will be judged for
it. There's a warning that comes
with it. So first of all, we need to think, as we look at
this, that you be not judged, let's be clear as we talk about
what kind of judgment that Jesus is addressing here, that we realize
that it is an incredibly serious thing. It is out of character
for what Jesus has been setting forth in the lives of his kingdom
citizens to judge in the way that he's talking about. And
clearly it is hated by heaven if it is to be judged. And by
the way, this seems to be a fitting place for us all to be reminded
that there is a day of judgment looming on the horizon. where men will give account to
God and God will judge according to His holy law. And His judgments rendered will
reflect His absolute holiness and glory and unbending stance
of upholding and supporting His law in the world. The disdain
that human beings have for being told that we are doing wrong,
that we are sinning against God, would lead us to take refuge
in false ideas that there is not a coming day of judgment.
Such refuge is but a mirage. False ideas will not change the
fact that a day of judgment is coming, and it will be a fearful
day indeed. 2 Corinthians 5.10. For we must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive
what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or
evil. Romans 14.10. We shall all stand
before the judgment seat of God. The picture we get about God
on that day is not going to be that he's going to suddenly become
a wilted judge who doesn't care
about righteousness, but one whose law that he has upheld
and brought before the world since day one of creation will
be as indomitable as ever. And so believers will stand and
give account. Unbelievers will give account
as well. We are warned so that we might escape being judged
or judging wrongly. So what is this judging wrongly?
In this text right here, there are two marks or two characteristics
of judging, the kind of judging that Jesus is disallowing. So
it is judging with these two marks that we'd see that Jesus
has in mind when he says, judge not. These two marks actually
fit together, but they also fit together and they lead to one
another. And they are these. One mark is the absence of mercy,
merciless judging. Judging with no sense of pity.
And the other mark is the mark of self-righteousness. Judging
others as though you're wrong and there's nothing about me
that's wrong. The judgment that Jesus condemns
is judgment without mercy and without the admission and acceptance
of one's own sinfulness. In verse two, we see that the
judging that Jesus condemns is judging in a way that we would
not want to be judged ourselves. But what's the warning here?
For in the way that you judge, you will be judged that way.
You don't want to be judged in a way you wouldn't want to be
judged by. And so what is that way? The
warning is that we who judge wrongly will be judged in the
way that we're judging. And this warning, the fact that
it's a warning, is a bad sign. It's not a good sign. You will
want to avoid this kind of judgment before God with which many are
judging each other. And so what kind of judgment
is this? And in a word, it is unmerciful judgment. It is judgment
without pity. It is hard and insensitive. It
is almost happy to find in someone else and happier still to point
out the sin in someone else, almost to gloat over their sin
in order to point out how bad they are. This is the way the
Pharisees judged. They upheld the lesser parts
of the law, the ceremonial parts of the law, and even man's invention
parts of the law in order to excuse not keeping the greater
parts of the law of the moral law God gave. And usually the
result of their attention to the surface rather than the hard
issues was the hurt of other human beings. They were without
mercy. They were without care for anybody
but themselves. Take, for example, the day when
Jesus was walking with his disciples through the grain fields. And
it was the Sabbath. And you know, on the Sabbath,
six days you shall work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath
to the Lord, you don't work. And the Pharisees and the rabbis
through the years had added all these traditions to say what
was work and what wasn't work. And so here are the disciples
walking through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and the disciples
were hungry. And so they picked the heads
of the grain off of the stalks of the plants, and they were
harvesting on the Sabbath. They were hungry, so they picked
the heads of grain, and so they were eating the grain. And the
SS, Pharisees, aha, Jesus, did you see that? Your disciples,
they're doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath. Well, you know
what Jesus said? You Pharisees, have you read
your Bible? Did you read about the time when
David was hungry along with his men? Do you read about the time
when he went in and ate the bread of the presence? Because he and
his men had no food. And it was lawful. It was OK
that he did that because the implication is that hunger and
the need for food and the fact that David and his men were starving
to death meant there was a greater care for their physical well-being
than for the ceremonial laws that guarded the bread of the
presence in the tabernacle. And so Jesus is saying to the
Pharisees, you people are merciless. He says to them, he wished they
had known that God loved mercy. God desires mercy. And charged
them with not understanding God's desire for mercy. And then Jesus
went from there, on still the Sabbath, and here's a man with
a withered hand. And the Pharisees are still in
their SS mode. They're still gathering evidence
for prosecution. And so they asked Jesus, is it
lawful to heal a man on the Sabbath? And Jesus, and the reason for
them asking this was they wanted to accuse Jesus, and Jesus said,
Jesus healed the man. And he healed the man saying,
it is lawful to do good. on the Sabbath. It is lawful
to show mercy, and that is in complete and direct opposition
to what these Pharisees were all about. So what did the Pharisees
do when Jesus healed this man on the Sabbath and proclaimed
that it was lawful to do good? Oh, he is such a kind man. He
is such a merciful man. We need more men like this. No,
they went off and conspired how they were going to kill Jesus.
how they were going to destroy Him. That is judging without
mercy. It is judging to condemn and
not correct. It is judging to condemn and
not convert. It is judging to condemn and
not to help, not to redeem. It is judgment performed in order
to show themselves superior. This is what we could call judgmentalism. There is no compassion, no love. Their judgment will be without
mercy as well, according to what Jesus says in verse 2 here. In
the way that you judge, you will be judged. It reflects your heart. And kingdom citizens do not have
this kind of heart. They are poor in spirit. They
mourn. They are peacemakers. They hunger
and thirst for righteousness. It's not that they don't know
the difference between sin and righteousness. They do. Oh, they
do. And therefore, when they discern
between right and wrong, when they point out sin and righteousness,
it is not with hostility and hatred and self-promotion, but
with mercy and tenderness and concern for those involved. So one thing I do not want you
to take from today is to say, yeah, It's right to be intolerant
in the world that we live today because Jesus is saying you need
to judge, but you shouldn't have a judgmental spirit about it. That is one of the things that
makes it wicked. This is the kind of judgment
he is talking about that he is disallowing. Now, corresponding
to the absence of mercy, this judgmentalism which Jesus is
denouncing is marked also by an air of self-righteousness.
The idea, you know, I don't have any sin. The idea that I'm good,
I'm elite, and so my judging is looking down my nose at how
bad these other people are and seeing myself as completely separate
on a different level, on the elite level, while I look down
at them. This is what Jesus is disallowing. Refusal to own up
to sin itself. Having a haughtiness, an arrogance,
pride, and being blind to one's own sin. Look how Jesus illustrates
the point in verses 3 to 5. 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? Now let's think for just a moment,
a couple weeks back when we were talking about Jesus saying you
shouldn't lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven because
what happens is those treasures cloud what? Your eyesight. And
your eye is the lamp of the body. The way for light to get in your
body, it comes through your eye. And so if your eye is clouded,
Light can't get in and you're inwardly, he's not just, he's
not talking, he's going metaphorically from the eye to the spirit and
to perception of truth and the cloudiness that worldly goods
keep us, the cloudiness that worldly goods cause us to have
so that we don't see clearly and the darkness in our understanding
and in our heart is exceedingly dark because it's clouded out,
because the light is clouded out by all this stuff. And so
with that in mind, think about how Jesus now has got this, he's
still going here with the eye. And he says, see, you people. You shouldn't judge this way,
like a person with a log in your eye. Because what would happen?
If you have a speck in your eye, ever got anything in your eye?
Who hasn't? If I get a fuzz in my eye, I can't stand it. So I have contacts. I wear them
every day. And some days I just about want
to claw my eye out because a fuzz got in there. Because I go, what
is it? I take my contact out. I can't see anything. Clean it
off with the solution real good. Stick it back in. Ah, comfort. If a fuzz gets in your eye, it
distracts you. Think what it would be for a
splinter or a piece of wood to be in your eye. But Jesus says
about these who are judging this way that he despises and that
he disallows, you're judging with a log in your eye. And you
just think about, okay, if the eye is the lamp of the body,
you've got a log in your eye, you can't see a thing. You cannot
see a thing. And it's not just blindness physically.
He's talking about the spiritual blindness that comes with this
thing that is keeping you from seeing. Now the speck, that is the word
speck that's used here, probably the word itself is more than
just a piece of dust, more than just a tiny dot, but actually
probably a little more substantive, like a stalk, a stem, a stick,
or perhaps a splinter, but still much smaller than a log. Nevertheless,
it is sizable and is seen by Jesus to be a very serious issue. He's not talking about things
that don't matter when he talks about the speck. He's talking
about things, however, that are much less offensive and problematic
than the log. All sin is bad. All sin is rebellion
against the Holy One. All sin destroys fellowship with
God. All sin is terrible, but some
sin is extreme in its wickedness, and the log represents such sin. What is it that keeps someone's
attention on the lesser sins of others while seeming oblivious
to their own more serious sins? It is in itself the sin of self-righteousness. Here's the one who believes they're
better, who believes they're not a sinner or not that bad
of a sinner. Yes, the log in the eye is an
obstruction that clouds the light, and how great is the darkness
in the soul. We see this faulty judgment illustrated
in the little parable that Jesus told about the tax collector
and the Pharisee, both of whom went to pray. And as you remember,
hopefully you remember this parable, the two men want a tax collector.
And why is this so astonishing? Because tax collectors are considered
by Jewish society to be the lowest of the low. They're the outcasts.
They hang out with prostitutes and thieves. They're all bad,
bad, bad, bad people. And so here's a really rotten
person, and he draws near to pray to God. And on the other
hand, here is a Pharisee. And all of Jewish society knows
that the Pharisees are so zealous for the law of God, and they
make a big deal about it. They are the holy and the elite.
And so here are The elite on the one side, here's a representative,
the Pharisee, and here is a terrible old tax collector drawing near
to God. And in this parable, Jesus displays
the prayer of the tax collector. The tax collector is not even
willing to look up. He beats his breast. And he prays
simply, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And in contrast, the
Pharisee reflects the judgment, the judgmental self-righteousness,
even as he prays. Listen, fresh and new to what
he said, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners,
unjust adulterers, or even like that tax collector. I fast twice
a week. I give tithes of all that I get. Oh, if only the Pharisee were
like the tax collector. If he were more like the tax
collector, then he might have been able to help the tax collector. But no, he thinks he is better
than that. He is deadly oblivious to his
wickedness and his self-righteous, judgmental spirit is the thing
that Jesus condemns right here when he talks about the log.
The one with the log lacks a heart that has dealt with his own guilt. He has no mercy but is full of
self-righteousness. That is his log. And until he
comes to confess his own guilt, his own sin, his own pride and
haughtiness, he is no good to anyone but to stir up strife
and contention. People have splinters in their
eyes. They have obstructions. These
are our sins, and we need help. We need to help each other. And
such help requires judgment, but not this kind of blurred
and obstructed judgment. Kingdom citizens do not soft-pedal
sin. They are concerned about the
righteousness of God. They want to be holy in all their
conduct as He who called them to be holy. But they realize
that it cannot happen without their first ripping the log of
their own self-righteousness out of their eye. They must be
willing to see themselves for who they are before the holiness
of God. They are the sick. who need a doctor. They are the
wandering sheep who need the shepherd to come and get them
and take them home. There are no help to the other
sheep until they first get things squared away with the shepherd. They must repent of their hypocrisy. The great shepherd, by the way,
the great shepherd died on a cross made out of logs. made of wood, hung there for
our sins, hung there for the self-righteous who will repent.
He hung there for people with specks and splinters in their
eyes, for our sins, for us to pay the penalty due our sin against
God. Glory to Him He has provided
for our salvation if we will take this, take the log out. and meet him at the altar, which
is not this place. You know, we sang that song a
while ago, come to the altar. We're not coming. This is not
the altar. This is a podium from which we preach the word. And
the altar is the place of sacrifice. This call to the altar is a call
to come embrace the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for sinners. bow before Him in the great provision
that God Himself has made of sacrifice so that we can be reconciled
with Him. But you won't come there until
you first reckon with the fact that you are a sinner separated
by God even by your own belief that you're okay, that you're
not that bad, that everybody else is the filthy, rotten sinner
out there. That's the kind of judgment that Jesus is disallowing
in this text. And then finally, I want you
to see the judging that Jesus endorses. Because he's not saying,
do not judge. He's saying, don't judge this
way. But what he is saying indicates
that there must be a kind of judgment. And so this is how
I'm going to conclude this morning. The kind of the judging that
Jesus endorses. Now, let me just preface this. You know, we think about how
bad and rotten our society is. and the things that we must do
to raise the awareness of our society to the fact they're sinning
against God. So we have these big social issues
in our day where our society is just casting away the stuff
that God has clearly said is right. How do we come to them? And how do we come to another
brother or sister? It's very important that you
don't hear a preacher saying what I'm saying this morning
and say, yeah, I can go out and talk to people any way I want
to. I'm going to stand for truth and I'm going to put my finger
in their face. That is not what Jesus is approving here. That's
the very thing he's not approving. But he's not saying you shouldn't
say anything. So let's hear what he's saying.
And Jesus is not calling for his kingdom citizens to go soft
on sin. He certainly didn't go soft on
sin himself. I think how he called out the
scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. because of all the things you
do, all the appearances of righteousness that you have when you deny the
very heart of it. I would set before you, in fact,
that among the greatest offenders of this command, judge not that
you be not judged, are those who see it as a prohibition of
judging altogether and those who use it to say, don't judge
me. Because for them, the whole core is whether you judge or
not. And there's all kinds of sin in all of our life. And then
we tell others, don't tell me what's wrong with me. It's wrong
of you to tell you for you to tell me what's wrong with me.
Then that becomes itself a violation of what Jesus is teaching here.
So be careful against denouncing those who love you enough to
speak to you of righteousness. Now, what is Jesus calling us
to? Not to go soft on truth and righteousness,
but he is telling us to go about it in a certain way. What way
is that? Well, first of all, this. He
is calling us to humility. Jesus is calling us to humility. He is calling for sinners to
see themselves as fellow tax collectors and to beat our breasts,
beat our chest before God for our sin. This is what will enable
us then to get the pieces out of each other's eyes. As Paul
tells the Galatians, If anyone is caught in any transgression,
you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. So judge with mercy, judge gently
and humbly. Secondly, Jesus is calling for
clarity of vision. Getting the log out of your eye
is necessary to be able to see. He is calling for the clarity
of vision that comes when you're willing to admit your own sin.
daily be on your face confessing sin and humbling yourself before
God. And may that always be a major
part. May you go when you when you
must go to help a brother or a sister get a speck out of their
eye. May it be that you get up off of your knees. On your way. That you've been humbling yourself
before God. seeking clarity of vision and
to make sure that you're not going because secretly deep within
there is a motive to prove to this person you're better, you're
right, they're wrong. Thirdly, Jesus is calling for
caring confrontation. Now I say again, use the word
confrontation, don't use it lightly, I use it with some caution because
I have seen before in my life plenty of people who take the
need to do this kind of thing to the limit, and they become
the policemen for everybody else. And again, that is the very thing
it seems to me Jesus is proscribing in what he says here. It's not
our mission to go find everybody who's wrong and make sure everybody
knows about it. When we must, we must. And when
we do, we're motivated not by ourself, but by care for them. Verses three to five, three times. You see one word repeated three
times in verses three to five here, and it is the word brother. There is the emphasis here upon
a relationship between each other that is kind of a mutual thing
in the getting the specks out of the eyes. This is part of
what brothers and sisters are for spurring one another on to
love and good deeds. Iron sharpens iron. Brother helps
brother get the painful and obstructing specks out of each other's eyes.
Listen to Hebrews 10, 19-25. Therefore, brothers, since we
have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
Let us draw near, let us hold fast the confession of our hope
without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let
us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good
deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of
some, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the
day drawing near. Jesus is calling us to caring
confrontation. And finally, Jesus is calling
for discerning discipline. Look at verse 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. You simply cannot identify a
dog or a pig without some judgment. And you can't do what Jesus is
saying you ought to do here without some judgment. The dogs here
are not Labradors or Collies or Corgis, but half-wild scavengers. They
were dirty, dangerous and despised. Pigs. Well, we already know hopefully
they're unclean and Jews wouldn't have anything to do with pigs.
Probably the only pigs they were custom to were also wild pigs
who probably maybe would have accompanied the dogs to the trash
piles in search of something to eat. These two figures represent those
who have not the desire for the word. They got desire for garbage. They are consumed with the world.
In Philippians, Paul warns of those who mutilate the gospel
and trust in themselves, and he calls them dogs. They reject
the word. They reject the gospel. Jesus'
instruction about dogs and pigs is this, identify them. And when you identify them, don't
give them what is holy and don't put before them your pearls.
When you encounter people who reject the ministry of the word
and act in hostility to the truth, you're trying to give it to them
and they reject it and they hate it. They reject the true gospel.
Then let them go. Don't keep giving them what is
holy. Don't keep sharing with them the precious pearls of the
faith. Pull back. Go elsewhere. That is judgment. Kind of like when Jesus told
the disciples, when you go into a city and you're teaching them
there and they don't want to have anything to do with you,
shake the dust off your feet and go somewhere else. That's
what Jesus is saying here. Share holy and precious parts
of the gospel truth with those who are receptive. That doesn't
mean try to figure out in advance. You know, we all, I don't think,
I wonder if they'd like to hear that today. You only know a dog
or a pig by what you see them do. Jesus isn't trying to get
us to not talk to people. He's saying, when you talk, when
you're working with them, when you're sharing, and they are
hostile and hateful, you don't need to worry about continuing
with them. Go to somebody else. That requires judgment, both
to discern, detect, identify, and then to enact the behavior
that he says to enact. The dogs and pigs will not be
interested in what you have to say. They will just trample you
down because they hate it. So see, Jesus actually does call
us to judge. And he does actually call us
to act judiciously. Do not be silenced by the self-righteous
world in which we live that says it's wrong to speak up about
right and wrong. Just make sure that you do it
in the right way without self-righteousness and without evil and with merciful
intent. It is not a delight to have to
condemn sin, but it is a delight to see a sinner repent of the
sin. First, therefore, humble yourself
before God, take out the log, cast yourself on Jesus' mercy,
and then help the brethren in our quest to rid ourselves of
sin for the glory of God. Let's pray. Our Father, we just thank you
for the opportunity today to look squarely at a text that
is so misused and abused in our society and even many times in
the church. Help us to faithfully respond,
to respond with a determination to be steadfast and immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, but to be humble,
to be holy, to be conscious, intently conscious
about our own sinful selves as we deal with one another. Prayerfully,
Lord, in a way that is gentle and God-glorifying, but in a
way that sees specks being removed all the time and lives being
conformed to the image of Christ, who is the image of God, in whose
name we pray. Amen.
Instruction About Judging
Series Matthew:The Gospel of the King
| Sermon ID | 423181423324 |
| Duration | 52:52 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Matthew 7:1-6 |
| Language | English |
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