Righteous Judgment

Preached at Cornerstone Church in Cascade, IA on August 31, 2014.

Turn with me to Matthew 7:1-6. Today we are going to examine what I believe to be the most misunderstood, misused and abused sections in the Bible. This is a section that the world loves to throw around, especially in the face of Christians.

Now as we read this section we must remind ourselves that these are the words of Jesus Christ himself. Jesus is the leader of our Church, he is the Son of the Living God, everything he says is true and everything he says we must obey. So as with all scripture we desire this text to equip us so that we can accomplish the work of God in a way that pleases Him. So with that said, let us read our text, pray that God would guide us to His truth, and study God’s Word.

• Matthew 7:1-6 – “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 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? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. 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.”
  
  

As I said previously, this is the most abused sections in the Bible. It is most commonly used when people are addressing sin in someone’s life and the guilty party is attempting to undermine the accusations by blaming you for violating Matthew 7, “Don’t judge me.”

Now before I get into the Bible, I want to first make a logical argument. When someone who has just been confronted for their sin, throws Matthew 7 back in your face, they are effectively violating their own terms. They have become a hypocrite. For what they are doing is judging your judgment. Do you follow? By their attempts to avoid your accusation, by accusing you of sin by judgment, they have effectively created their own noose. They are now standing in judgment over you. So perhaps you should respond back to them, don’t judge me for judging you.

Now the question before us becomes, is this what Jesus intended? Is this what Jesus was trying to create, a perpetual, never-ending “don’t judge me” argument? Obviously not. So let’s first start by understanding what this section does not say.

When Jesus says, “Judge not, that you be not judged” he does not mean to avoid discussions about sin. Nor does he mean for us not to evaluate people and their sinfulness. This is obvious by Jesus’ own statements in this section.

• Matthew 7:5 – “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
  
  

Jesus doesn’t say avoid the speck in your brother’s eye. If your brother has sin, Jesus wants it addressed. He wants his children to have clear vision, sinless vision. He just wants it done I a proper way. Second, look at what Jesus says to end this section.

• Matthew 7:6 – “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.”
  
  

This begs the question, who are the dogs? Who are the pigs? If we are not to throw our pearls before them, don’t we need to know who they are? Don’t we need to make an evaluation, a judgment, about people to obey this command of Jesus. Likewise, look at Matthew 7:15, just a few verse down.

• Matthew 7:15 – “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits.” 
  
  

How are we to beware these people if we can’t be evaluators, or make judgments about the fruit in their life? If that was not enough, turn with me to Matthew 18:15.

• Matthew 18:15-17 – “"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
  
  

In Matthew 18, Jesus is implementing Church discipline. He is commanding sin to be addressed. He is commanding his people to do the opposite of ignoring sin. Jesus wants it addressed. He wants all specks removed from all eyes. Just in case you are still not convinced, here are some more text supporting the need to address sin in people’s lives.

• John 7:24 – “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.
  
  
• Philippians 3:2 – “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.”
  
  
• 1 Corinthians 5:1-3 – “And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. 3 For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.”
  
  

I have always found 1 Corinthians 5 interesting, for we are told that it is pure arrogance to allow sin to go unaddressed within the Church. Hopefully, all of these text prove to you that what Jesus is not saying is that we should ignore sin, or avoid the sin discussion. In fact, commands us to address sin I peoples lives. So what is Jesus saying in this text? In order to understand the problem that Jesus is addressing, we need to understand some context.

For those who have been with us since we began this journey, you have heard me say multiple times that Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount could also be titled the Sermon on the Heart. For every topic that Jesus addresses is an attempt to address the condition of our sinful hearts and our need for Jesus to perform heart surgery on us, so as to be able to fulfill these radical commands of Christ.

In doing this, throughout the sermon, Jesus continuously stacks his teachings up against the teaching and the behavior of the Scribes and the Pharisees. The Scribes and Pharisees were the religious leaders of that day. He does this in the beginning of the Sermon of the Mount by saying,

• Matthew 5:20 – “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”
  
  

And from that point he then goes on to tell them that the Pharisees have been misleading everyone as it relates to murder, adultery, marriage, oaths and relationships. Then in chapter 6 he condemns them for their hypocrisy in helping the poor, praying, fasting, and financial investments. Everything that the Pharisees proclaimed was a works based salvation, a self-righteousness. The scribes and Pharisees proclaimed man made religion, not God given grace. And this is what Jesus is preaching against.

So as we begin chapter 7, Jesus is not changing the back drop of his teaching. He is still stacking up his teachings of against the teachings of the Scribes and Pharisees. Therefore, when Jesus says, “Judge not, that you be not judged” he is speaking to how the religious leaders wrongly go about addressing sin. So the question is how was their judgment wrong?

It is wrong the same way they were wrong about everything else. They way they addressed sin in people’s lives was based, not on the righteousness of God, but on the righteousness of man. The scribes and the Pharisees were judging self-righteously. In our text, Jesus gives us an illustration to help us understand the wrong form of judgment.

• Matthew 7:3-4 – “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? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
  
  

The log in that was in the eye of the Scribes and Pharisees was their self-righteousness. They had created their own rules, they had created their own standards, and they believed if they followed these things they would earn God’s favor. And then they placed themselves on the throne of God and demanded the world follow their lead.

They did everything they could and more to give the appearance that they were holy. They worked hard to follow every rule and every tradition to a “T” and they believed that if they worked hard enough then God would bless them. They focused all their attention on cleaning up their lives on the outside. Listen to what Jesus says about them later in Matthew 23.

• Matthew 23:24-28 – “You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! 25 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. 27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.“
  
  

The scribes and Pharisees were blind, dead hypocrites. They didn’t understand the utter depravity of their condition. They did not understand the depth of their sin, that it is more than skin deep. Yet they stood before the nation of Israel and condemn them, so as to “help” them. But when you have a 2x4 sticking out of your eye, you have no hope to help, but only hurt. Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 23

• Matthew 23:15 - “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”
  
  

Therefore, the wrong way to address sin in people lives is to stand above them in self-righteousness. If in your heart you think you are better than they are, then you will do more harm than good. You are like a bull in a china shop. So if the Pharisees are a picture of wrong judgment, what is a picture of right judgment? Jesus tells us.

• Matthew 7:5 – “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.”
  
  

Step one for right judgment. Take out the log. Get rid of the log of self-righteousness. Step down from the throne and kneel at the cross. This is crucial. We must recognize that we are no better than anyone on this planet. The Bible explicitly tells us that all of our righteous deeds are like filthy rags to God. Likewise we are told nothing good dwells in our flesh. We are sinners.

The bottom line is that we are saved by grace and we stand in grace. When we recognize that we are not God, and we are saved by grace alone, we are transferred from darkness to light, and we have eyes to see. The log comes out. And only when this happens are we able to help our brothers and sisters with sin in their lives. Until we have confessed our sins and abide in the grace of Jesus Christ, we are utterly useless. If we stand in judgment as God over the sins of others we do more damage then good. But if we humbly walk as sinners saved by grace, healing can begin with our brothers and sisters, for we can given them what helped us, Jesus Christ.

I believe the Apostle Paul is a fantastic picture of this right judgment. For those who don’t know Paul was a Pharisee. He called himself a “Hebrew of Hebrews.” When Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites, he was speaking of Paul. Eventually Paul was captured by the grace of God. Listen to how Paul addresses the most sinful Church in the Bible, the Church in Corinth.

• 1 Corinthians 15:9-11 – “For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”
  
  

The book of Corinthians is full of rebuking, however, Paul recognized that he was no better than anyone else. Paul was a sinner just like them. The standing before God that he had was not because of anything he did. It was only by God’s grace. Therefore Paul was not Lording over the Corinthians but was a thirsty sinner pointing them to Jesus Christ.

When you confront someone about sin in their life, the driving force behind it must be loving, not Lording. This does not mean that we avoid the sin discussion. If you love them, you will confront them. It means that when we see something in their eye that is bringing them to tears, we should come up along side them and weep, and mourn for them, not as their god, but as their brother and sister.