Christians Judging [B]

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Well, this morning we began our study of Matthew chapter 7 by talking about what the world sees when they look at that passage, by talking about what even a lot of believers see when they look at that passage, and how they are quite frankly wrong in their understanding of what they see when they look at that passage. It’s been used, as we talked about this morning, we didn’t use this exact terminology, but it’s been used essentially as a restraining order against Christians saying anything about the wickedness that we see around us in the world.

That any time a Christian dares to point out that there might be a problem, there might be just the slightest problem with violating God’s law, there might be just the slightest problem with, I don’t know, lying, there might be the slightest problem with gossip, there might be the slightest problem with adultery, with stealing, with drunkenness, with adultery, with any kind of sin, that there might be the slightest problem with it. Often the verse is thrown into our faces in Matthew 7, verse 1, Judge not that ye be not judged. And rarely, unless it’s a professing Christian who just knows very little about their Bible, just knows enough to be dangerous, unless it’s a professing Christian that quotes it, you don’t often hear it quoted that way with the full verse, Judge not that ye be not judged.

Usually it’s thrown in our face. Well, I thought Jesus said not to judge. And I’ve had that thrown in my face, as you may have as well.

I’ve had that thrown in my face so many times that I’ve wanted at times to tell a person, all right, if you can tell me where that’s found, or quote the verse after it, or tell me what that was a part of, what greater message that was a part of, then I’ll drop the whole thing. But just on the off chance that they actually could. I’ve never said that, never made that wager with anybody.

But usually it’s the one verse that anybody in the world knows of Scripture because it seems to justify their behavior or at least cut us off at the knees in our attempts to explain why there might be anything wrong with it. Well, you know the Bible says not to judge. Absolutely.

I believe Matthew 7, verse 1, just as I believe any other passage of the Bible. What I really want to ask of people is, do you believe 2 Timothy 3. 16 that says, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, correction, for instruction in righteousness.

If you don’t believe that, then why are you putting Scripture at me? I don’t want to hear your faulty interpretation of something you don’t even believe. We discussed about the fact that it’s used often as this restraining order, that any time we might suggest there’s the slightest problem with sin in anybody’s life, when we suggest that there might be a problem with it, that it might be dangerous, it might be harmful to them, to their families, to their eternal destiny, that it’s thrown out there as just sort of this statement that’s supposed to end all discussion.

It’s supposed to end all debate about the matter. When God intended it to be, nothing is further from what God intended it really to be. This idea that it was supposed to keep us from speaking out against sin.

We discussed that this morning. And the fact that we can go to numerous other passages in both the Old and New Testament and see where not only God speaks out against sin. I mean, He’s God.

That’s His nature. He speaks out against sin. but He sent His people on His behalf to speak out against sin.

Show me any of the Old Testament prophets who went to Israel and just said, God likes you so much. And folks, God did love Israel. God does love Israel.

But any of the prophets, their message also had judgment in it. Where God, through that person, said, this is wrong. Throughout the New Testament, Peter and Paul and John, and they all, all that wrote, dealt with sin.

Not only the world around them, but within the churches, sin was deadly serious. And we discussed this morning how this passage could not possibly mean that we are not to speak out against sin. It could not possibly be God’s gag order on us to keep quiet about sin, because it makes no sense that God would throughout the rest of the Scriptures say, you need to stand up for righteousness, you need to promote the principles of righteousness, you need to be godly examples, you need to point people toward me, but by the way, don’t you dare mention sin to do it.

when Jesus himself showed in his dealings with people that the best strategy in getting people to realize their need for a Savior is to show them what they need to be saved from. That’s why he spoke to the woman at the well and talked about her five husbands and the one she was with now was not her husband and dealt with her sin. Or the lady brought to him an adultery and he said, Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.

He dealt with the issue of sin in their lives and pointed them to the fact that they needed someone to forgive their sin. And folks, it would not make much sense at all if He said, Now, go tell the world about forgiveness of sin, but don’t mention sin ever. And so we know that Matthew chapter 7 could not possibly mean that we’re never to speak against sin.

As we discussed this morning, there are some, from the Scriptures, there are some limitations on how we’re supposed to do that. We’re to do that in the right timing once we’ve dealt with our sin and we’ve gotten our house in order. We’re to do it with the right standard, that it’s never we’re promoting our standards and our righteousness and our self-righteousness, but we’re promoting the fact that God has this perfect standard, which, by the way, you don’t live up to, and neither do we.

And it’s also got to be done with the right motive, that our motive is not to shame and to humiliate people, but our motive is to see men reconciled to God. As Paul said, he warned every man that he might present every man perfect to God. Now that we’ve talked about this morning and refreshed our memories again tonight, because I know after you go home and you have a nice meal and maybe a little nap.

It may not be the freshest thing in your mind what we talked about this morning. Now that we’ve gone back over it, I want to go back into Matthew chapter 7, the first five verses, and see what really did He mean. Now that we’ve talked about what He didn’t mean, let’s talk about what He did mean.

We’re going to read the passage again, Matthew chapter 7, starting in verse 1, says, Judge not that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured unto you again.

And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, and perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother, Suffer me to cast out the mote out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye. Hypocrite, first cast out that beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

Now, if you’ve read this passage at all on your own, if you’ve looked at the parts around it, you probably recognize that this was part of the Sermon on the Mount. Most of you, I’m sure, are familiar with the Sermon on the Mount. It starts out with, Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are the meek, what we call the Beatitudes.

He goes into talking about how we ought to pray, talks about not praying as the heathens do, talks about not vain repetition and their much speaking. He talks about, you’ve heard it said, an eye for an eye. He talks about all these things that were so radical for their time.

And the reason that they were radical was not that they went against God’s law. They were not that he was opposed to God’s law, that he was bringing in a new law. The reason it was radical is that man had so twisted and taken out of context God’s law to suit their own purposes.

Sounds much like what we’re talking about in this series of these passages that are so often taken out of context. And usually within the scope of his gun, so to speak, usually right within his sights were the Pharisees and their practices. And the reason that these things that Jesus preaches are so radical sounding to the Pharisees is not because Jesus was off base from God’s law, but because they were.

And throughout the Sermon on the Mount, the whole thing is a discourse, is a discussion of how we as Christians are to live. Not only living our faith, but how we’re to live in practical terms, how we’re to behave, how we’re to treat one another. It’s a discussion and really sets up, just like the Old Testament law does, sets up an unattainable standard that we cannot hope to perfectly complete.

and shows us again in the New Testament the fact that we fall short of God’s standards and that we need a Savior. And then later on, after having trusted Christ by the power of His Spirit, we’re able to do better at it than we would have otherwise on our own. But it’s given us this ideal picture of what we as Christians are supposed to live like, and so often that’s done by contrasting the way we are supposed to live with the way the Pharisees and the ultra-religious people did in that day.

It’s like He teaches us in black and white, and He shows us what one is like by showing us the other and saying, these things are not alike, and the difference here is what you need to see. In disciple way, the question keeps coming up, what comparisons and contrasts do you see in this passage? And there have been questions about what are they actually asking us?

And there’s also a question, do you see cause and effect relationships in the passage? And the reason those questions are in there is those are the most basic ways we learn, even as children. We learn by cause and effect.

And I gave the example to a bunch of different groups and said it hadn’t happened yet, but I can tell Benjamin all day long until I’m blue in the face, don’t touch the stove, it’s hot, and it means nothing to him. But that cause and effect, he learns real quick. He touches the stove, it’s hot, my hand hurts for three days, and I won’t do that again, or probably won’t.

Probably won’t. I hope not, because he did it last night. We finally got that cause and effect relationship.

As a matter of fact, he didn’t want to go near the stove again after that. We learn by cause and effect, and we learn by analogies, comparisons and contrasts. Even from the time we’re little kids, we learn about the world around us by seeing how things are the same and how they’re different.

I can tell there’s a difference between the color of a strawberry and the color of a grape. And we’re teaching Benjamin colors, and he still doesn’t. .

. I was teaching him. .

. He was taking a bath last night and looking at his toys, and he’s got a little toy green rabbit, and showing him the rabbit’s green. Well, he doesn’t.

. . Maybe I’m talking about the size of the ears.

Maybe that’s what green means. But when I show him, okay, this grass is green too. Finally, I can say that.

This grass is green too. He starts to say, oh, these things are the same. Green must be something.

And I know he’s not in all these words consciously going through this connection in his mind. But we all do this. We realize without necessarily walking through it step by step.

Ah, those things both look alike. That must be what green means. We learn also by seeing how things are different.

by much the same token. And so, so many times when Jesus wanted to demonstrate in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere too, wanted to demonstrate what we were supposed to be like, He did that by showing us the Pharisees and saying this is what you’re not supposed to be like. So that even the most simple among those listening to Him could go, oh, I’ve seen those.

Yeah, I don’t like those guys either. That’s what we’re not supposed to be like? Yeah.

And we learn by negative example. Folks, this is part of the Sermon on the Mount. And I think they would have very much in the back of their minds as they’re hearing Him what He’s already said about the Pharisees.

Everything about the Pharisees was self-righteousness. Everything about the Pharisees was their standard. Everything about the Pharisees was just judgment and you can’t possibly be as good as me.

The things that we talked about this morning, they didn’t have their own house in order. They were dealing with the sin in everybody else’s life all the while they’ve got big sin going on in their lives. And on top of that, on top of saying, well, you’re not following God’s law, and they were purposely not following God’s law either.

They were also saying, by the way, well, you don’t pray the way I do. You don’t dress the way I do. You don’t walk the way I do.

And they were trying to make the case that these people were not as righteous as they were. And so Jesus, on the heels of having talked about the Pharisees and their self-righteousness, comes to chapter 7 and says, and by the way, judge not that you be not judged. This to me cannot possibly be a promise about God’s judgment because as I mentioned this morning, it would be as though we’re saying, Jesus is promising that if you’ll ignore other people’s sin, God will ignore yours.

That’s not, we have no such promise that God will ignore our sin. What we have is the promise that our sin can be forgiven because the penalty was paid by Jesus Christ. But we have no promise that our sin will be ignored, especially just on the basis of ignoring other people’s. So I’m sure he’s talking about something far more practical, meaning the way we deal with other people.

And it’s very simple that the way you treat other people is the way a lot of times they’re going to treat you. Now, they’re going to be people who are mean to you, whether you’re ever nice to them or mean to them or what, just because that’s how they are. And even rarer are the people who are going to be nice to you no matter what you do.

But most of the time, if you treat people badly, if you come at them with harshness and judgment, that’s how they’re going to come back at you. Haven’t you found that to be the case? And some people will even be nice to you for a little while as you’re harsh with them, but eventually they just get fed up with it.

And so I imagine he cannot be talking about God overlooking judgment on sin. I believe this is a much more practical lesson along the lines of his golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That the same grace you extend to people around you or the same judgment that you extend to people around you is the same judgment or the same grace that they’re going to extend to you.

And by the way, that’s spelled right out in verse 2. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured unto you again.

And again, I question whether he’s talking about God’s judgment because God and His judgment, God and His standards do not change on the basis of our standards. If that was the case, we could throw this whole book out and say we’ll just make it up as we go along because God’s going to go along with it anyway. Now, he’s talking in practical terms about our relationship to other people.

And the very simple principle that if we as Christians walk around the way the Pharisees did and we’re harsh with everybody and we’re hateful to everybody and all we do is judge and criticize, then they’re going to do that right back to us. And we see that to be the case. The more we as Christians embrace, the more that churches embrace the idea that all we’re going to do is say the truth and we don’t care who it hurts, we don’t care how we do it, we’re just going to say the truth and there’s no love behind it, the more we see that they’re unwilling to give us a hearing.

They’re not willing to listen to us. And they’re more willing to judge us. So we come to the point where he’s not talking about ignoring sin.

And he’s not talking about a way to avoid getting your sins judged by God. He’s talking about the way we deal with other people. And he’s using the Pharisees as an example.

So he tells us, don’t be like them. Judge not that ye be not judged. And that word there, judge, refers to their self-righteousness.

Not speaking out against sin. As I told you this morning, When I say homosexuality is a sin, when I say abortion is a sin, when I say drunkenness is a sin, I’m not judging that. I’m not determining what is and is not a sin.

I’m going by what God has already judged, and I’m just repeating it. God’s the judge, not me. Folks, I wouldn’t want to be the judge.

I’m not judging anyone. See, the difference was the Pharisees had put themselves up as the standard. We determine what’s right and wrong.

We reinterpret God’s law to determine what should and should not be done. We determine who is in and who is out. And I’m afraid that sometimes the reason the world can’t make that distinguishment, the reason the world can’t see we’re not being the judge, we’re just repeating the verdict.

We’re just the ones publishing the verdict. The reason they can’t see that is sometimes maybe our tone of voice, maybe our attitude toward them. That maybe we come across sometimes as self-righteous the way the Pharisees did.

Folks, we’ve got to be on guard against any kind of self-righteousness. As I’ve told you before, if we want to talk to the world about anybody’s righteousness, It better not be our own. It’s got to be the righteousness of Christ. If we want to show the world how righteous anyone is, we need to point them to Jesus Christ. He’s the only one righteous.

Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured unto you again. So I read yesterday about things that the Pharisees did a lot of.

And if you’re familiar with the gospel accounts at all, you know how they acted. You know that they were, you know that Jesus said they devoured widows’ houses. You know that Jesus said that they made the law of God of no effect by their traditions.

And I’ve taught on that before and just talked about it a few minutes ago at Disciple Way. That what He means there is that God’s law said to honor your father and mother. And instead of taking care of their parents, they were trying to find loopholes where they could give to the temple.

Where they could look like they were righteous and generous and doing it on their parents’ behalf. And so they thought they were fulfilling God’s law when really all they were doing was trying to appear better and not have to do anything for their parents. We know that by and large, some of them might have been good men, but by and large their system they had set up was destructive, it was self-righteous, it hurt people, and they were known for the way that they held people to their own standard.

Not just the fact that they held them to their own standard, but they were known for the way they did it. They were known for the harshness of their judgment. I look at, I’ve seen video, you may have as well, in the aftermath of 9-11, of what was going on in Afghanistan when it was run by the Taliban from 1996 to 2001.

There was a big soccer stadium in the middle of Kabul that had been built with money from other countries. It had been donated as a goodwill thing because outside the U. S.

everybody loves soccer. And so they built this big stadium. When the Taliban took over, they began to use it as a coliseum to enact judgments.

And they’ve shown videos on Western television, they’ve got videos on YouTube, where they would bring women in in the backs of trucks for the slightest infraction, bring men in in the back of trucks for the slightest infraction, and the men they would be more merciful to, they would bring out in front of the big stadium of people, and they would just shoot them in the head. Or for the women, they were a little less merciful. If they committed adultery, the man would be shot, it’d be over like that, and the woman would be stoned to death.

As the Taliban people would shout, Folks, I think the more I read about the Pharisees, and I hate this because with the somewhat legalistic mindset that I used to hold, I can identify with the Pharisees a lot. But the more I read about them, I think of them as being like the Taliban. They were ready to stone people for the slightest infraction.

They brought the woman caught in adultery to Jesus just to see what He’d say. So hoping they could stone her and that He’d say it was okay, and they could both stone her and silence their message. It’s a win-win.

We go home. We’ve had a wonderful day. Folks, they were known for the harshness of their judgments.

And so when he tells us, Judge not that ye be not judged, for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured again to you. There’s a warning in there against the harsh judgments of the Pharisees.

It’s a warning against the harsh judgments of the Pharisees. So when we judge or when we discern what’s right and wrong, when we speak out against sin, it’s not a warning for us to be quiet, it’s a warning to avoid harsh judgments. And I’m guilty of this one myself.

Just in recent months when we were expecting Madeline, we knew already that she was going to be a girl. We were looking at various baby clothes, and it amazes me how grown-up little girls have started dressing in recent years. And there’s a certain article of clothing, I won’t tell you what it is, but that they sold for infants.

And you see teenage girls wearing these and grown-up women wearing them. And I told Christian, I said, my daughter will not wear that. And Christian knew that.

She was just messing with me. we were playing in the store, and I said, my daughter’s not going to wear that. And she asked me why.

Knowing full well why, it wasn’t modest, there was nothing proper about it, she just said, why not? And I said, because somebody wears that, and I just automatically assume they’re advertising that they’re a loose woman. And she said, that’s not the word I used either.

But I said, I just automatically assume they’re advertising that they’re a loose woman, and that’s the intent of wearing that. I can’t imagine what else somebody would wear that for. And she pointed out to me that I had a member, a close member of my family who wore that very similar article of clothing.

And she said, well, what about so-and-so? And I said, the statement stands for itself. If she’s going to wear that.

And then I thought, I know full well she’s not that way. And she has it, and she wears it at home. And shame on me for just making a pronouncement like that, especially about little girls.

Now, they shouldn’t wear what we were looking at. They shouldn’t wear it. It’s immodest. But to make an assumption like that, that basically you’re advertising yourself as a prostitute, and without knowing anybody that wears these things, just to say, well, that’s what.

. . Folks, that was wrong.

That was harsh. That was uncalled for. Especially for me, that somebody who, as part of my job, is supposed to share grace with people.

Again, I’m not telling you, and I won’t describe the article of clothing for you, but no, it wasn’t modest. They shouldn’t wear it. but to just completely write somebody off as worthless because of what they wore without knowing them at all. Folks, I was absolutely wrong in that.

I was harsh. It’s the way the Pharisees behaved toward people. And I got to thinking, my goodness, if somebody could determine my morality, if somebody could determine my spiritual standing just based on what I wore, that’s a scary thought.

That’s exactly what the Pharisees would do. That’s exactly what they would say. And so I, as a Christian and as a father, I won’t let my daughter wear that.

I wouldn’t let my wife go out in public in it either. And I’ll encourage people not to wear it. But at the same time, I shouldn’t write somebody off and say, well, you’re just a loose woman, when I don’t know that for a fact.

Because quite honestly, our young girls in our society haven’t been taught what modesty is or why it’s important. And so to say a little girl or even a teenager is something she’s not, just on the basis of what she’s wearing, when it’s we as adults who’ve fallen down on the job of not training our young people, shame on me. Shame on me.

And we’re warned here against those kinds of harsh judgments. And we all make them every day without realizing it, and we need to be on guard against it because He tells us, Jesus tells us, that with whatever judgment we use, we’ll be judged the same way. And whatever measure we meet, whatever standard we set up for other people, we’re going to be held to that too.

Again, I don’t necessarily believe that means by God, because God judges by His standard, not what we’ve used on other people. But the world will look at us and they’ll be just as harsh as we were. We’re also warned in the same way against hasty judgments.

I’ll think, why am I picking on y’all tonight? This morning we talked about the world and how they were wrong, now I’m picking on you. No, I’m not.

I’m picking on me. And if you happen to be in the crosshairs, that means you’re with me and you’re wrong too. So we all need to learn from it.

So please don’t think I’m picking on you. I’m picking on me. we should avoid judgments that are hasty as well.

Now that goes along with the harsh judgment. See, when I talked about saying, well, they’re just that. That was wrong because the judgment was harsh, and also to say that somebody is what I called them without getting to know them, without knowing anything about folks, just to jump to conclusions, basically, about the people we see around us.

I remember a story, and I may have told you this before, a story that was told at a missions conference just recently by one of our missions directors. He was talking about getting on a flight and sitting down next to a man who was covered in tattoos and had piercings. And he was a biker.

And Brother Barker, some of you all may know who he is. He talked about sitting down next to him on the plane and just starting up a conversation with him. And they chatted for a good little while.

And the man said, well, what is it you do for a living? And he said, well, I’m a Baptist preacher. And he said, well, I didn’t think that people like you were supposed to talk to people like me.

Isn’t that a shame? Isn’t that a shame? And I’m glad that he maybe changed that perception a little bit by treating that man the way he should have been treated.

But all too often we look at people and they dress a certain way and they carry themselves a certain way and we think, well, they must not be a Christian. They must not be a Christian. But I’ve met some of the roughest, toughest looking guys.

I say that knowing full well that I am not one of them. My wife says I do give off the preacher vibe and that may be why our neighbors go inside when we come outside. but they’re afraid I’m going to put them in a net and drag them to church probably.

But I’ve met some of the roughest and toughest looking guys that if we were going to look at them and be hasty in our judgment and say they couldn’t possibly be a Christian and see some of those men with the tattoos and the leather vests and say they couldn’t possibly be Christians. Folks, there’s an entire group of people called the Christian Motorcycle Association. I don’t know a lot about them, but we’ve had some good friends that are part of them.

And to look at them on the street, you’d think those are tough guys. Those might be hell’s angels. But some of the most tender-hearted, Christ-loving men.

Folks, they don’t just let you in on a whim. You have to memorize big parts of God’s Word. You have to listen to sermons.

You have to take a course on evangelism to be part of this biker club. And folks, we could easily look at somebody based on the clothes they wear, based on where they come from, based on the way they carry themselves, and say they couldn’t possibly be as good a Christian as me. Like I mentioned this morning, they don’t talk like us.

You didn’t wear a tie to church today. You couldn’t possibly be as good a Christian as me. That’s what the Pharisees were known for.

And without getting to know somebody, just assuming that we know their spiritual condition, assuming we know their standing before God, assuming we know their circumstances before we’ve taken the time to find them out, is what they were known for and with their judgments. If we do that as Christians, if we look at the world and say, based on the way you look and the way you sound, the way you smell, any of it, you couldn’t possibly be as good as us. It should come as no surprise to us when the Bible is found to be true and they mete out the same judgment that we’ve used.

And they look at the church and say, you’re all the same. All you care about is your little rituals and having your ticket punched to heaven and you don’t care about us, you’re all the same. Well, folks, we know that’s not true.

We know in the church that I have never met a group of people with a bigger heart than what come here. I have never met such kind and generous and loving and concerned people as I’ve met in this place. We know it’s not true that the body of Christ is uncaring and unfeeling.

But it shouldn’t be a bit of a surprise to us when we judge the world for the way they look, when we judge them for their associations, and they turn around and do the same thing for us. We say, y’all don’t care about me. You wouldn’t love me if I came through your door.

And we can say, no, that’s not true. How could you think that when I’m guilty of the same thing toward them? And we’re warned that the way we judge, if it’s hasty, if it’s harsh, the way the Pharisees judged, don’t be surprised.

Don’t be surprised. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured unto you again.

We move on to the third point tonight, just the next couple minutes. Christians should avoid judgments that are harsh. Christians should avoid judgments that are hasty.

And in the final three verses of the passage, Christians should avoid judgments that are hypocritical. Christians should avoid judgments that are hypocritical. He says in verse 3, And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, and perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother

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