Two young men walk into church. They both are the same age -22, same height, same weight, and same build. The first young man walks in with a crisply starched long-sleeved Polo shirt, freshly ironed slacks, clean-cut, fresh-shaven, and wearing shoes in the latest style. The second male walks in wearing a t-shirt, blue-jeans with more holes than pockets, flip-flops, tattoos on both arms, a nose-ring and orange hair. Immediately, if we are honest, most of us would look at the first male and think, “He needs to meet my daughter or my sister.” We look at the second male and think, “He needs to meet Jesus.” Here is what I didn’t tell you about these two men. The first man is an atheist, has a live-in girlfriend, and he is addicted to pornography. The second young man is passionately committed to Jesus Christ, lives a pure life-style and wants to be a missionary.
What I just described for you is what young people between the ages of 19 and 25 say are one of the top three reasons why they do not go to church.
David Kinnamon wrote a book called “Un-christian.” If you want to know why the church is failing to reach the next generation, because when they were asked to give their perception of Christianity the top three things they listed were: anti-homosexual, judgmental, and hypocritical.
There is a reason I used that example, because almost 60% of Americans between the ages of 18-25 have significantly altered their appearance at some point in their life using tattoos, dying their hair an untraditional color or piercing their body in a place other than an earlobe. [1]
We are in a series of messages we are calling “Lost Baggage.” Everybody carries some baggage with them. None of us grew up in a totally perfect environment. Whether it was because of an inattentive father, an overbearing mother, or being somewhat lacking either in athletic skill or academic ability, or because of a physical imperfection or being bullied, we all have baggage we need to lose. Jesus deals with one of the major causes of why we have baggage and why we try to dump our baggage on somebody else. We have all sat in both seats. We’ve sat in the seat of the judge and we’ve sat in the seat of the judged. Even though it is easier to judge than it is to be judged, the truth is nobody should be sitting in either seat.
If you left church because of an overbearing judgmentalist, I want to tell you I am sorry. I want to tell you that I am glad that you are here. You’ve come to the right place, because properly understood, we don’t want our church to be a place where people come to be judged. We want to be a place where people come to find grace.
With that said, we also need to understand what the Bible says and doesn’t say about being judgmental. We all know that God has ten commandments. There was a time when you could put those commandments up in courthouses and schools all over this country, but no more. We are living in age when America has added an 11th commandment. In fact, I believe it is our favorite commandment. Even though you can’t see it on walls it hangs in office buildings, college class rooms, schools and country clubs all over this country. Our favorite commandment has become, “You shall not judge.” As you know that comes right out of the passage we are going to study today. [Turn to Matthew 7].
We are going to look at, what I believe, is probably the most misunderstood, misused, and misapplied verse in the entire Bible. I call it the “world’s favorite scripture.” Even people who normally scoff at the Bible, reject its teachings, and ridicule its content, love to quote this verse of scripture, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1, ESV)
We know what Jesus said. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand what Jesus meant. Knowing that, He goes on to explain what He means and He has a message, both for those of us on the inside of the church and those on the outside. What He says may surprise you, because if you were to ask Jesus the question, “Should we judge or not?” His answer would be, “It all depends.” If you have some judgmental baggage you have been carrying around either because you are too judgmental or because you refuse to receive any judgment at all draw up a chair, throw your feet up on the stool, have a cup a coffee and listen up. There is a way we can judge without being judgmental.
I. Eliminate Improper Judgment
Let’s start with the foundational statement and the most famous one.
“Judge not, that you be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1, ESV)
The word for “judge” is a Greek word “krino” which means literally, “to discriminate” or “to make a difference.” As you are going to see to judge here means to offer a criticism that is either unfair or unjustified. Keep in mind this is found on The Sermon on the Mount. These words were directed to His disciples. Jesus was talking to His followers. What He was saying was, “You ought to be the least judgmental of people and yet you’ll battle being the most judgmental.” Why is that? Why does the church have to battle being judgmental and why is it the people on the outside of the church see it so often?
One of the biggest reasons is we take our perception of what we think good people do or even more to the point what we think God’s people should do and then impose those perceptions on people who don’t even believe in God. Then, we get more concerned about the outside of a person than we do on the inside of a person. If we don’t like tattoos we judge people who wear them. If we don’t drink we judge people who do. If we wear certain types of clothes to church we judge people who don’t.
I must make a needed correction here. You need to realize there is a difference between confronting a sin and condemning a sinner. We are going to learn in a few minutes that not all judgment is wrong. There is a way you can tell when you crossed over the line from condemning a sin to condemning the sinner. When your standard of calling anything wrong is anything other than God’s Word you are being judgmental. Here is another one. When you judge motives rather than methods you are being judgmental. You can judge actions – what people do. You cannot judge motives – why people do them.
When you judge other people based on your opinions, your feelings, your self-made standards, and you do it in a condemning way that is either unfair or unjustified, you are being judgmental. At the same time, you are not wrong to judge others when God’s Word says others are wrong. It is never wrong to call wrong a wrong when God calls it wrong.
You can use the right standard and still be judgmental if you judge someone with the wrong spirit. We are going to learn this next week, so I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. If you are a parent you can relate to this. Sometimes your children need to be corrected. They need to be disciplined, because they have done wrong. The purpose of that correction is to be constructive - not destructive. It is to be done in humility and love, not in anger and self-righteousness. Do you know what I have learned? You cannot judge a person by what others say about him, but you can judge a person by what he says about others.
That is what Jesus means in verse 2 when He says, “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:2, ESV)
All He is doing there is applying the Golden Rule of judgment. Before you judge someone else you ought to ask yourself the question, “Is that the way I would want someone else to judge me?” Let me put it this way. Would you rather people form an impression of you at your worst moments or at your best moments? That is why it has been well said, “Never mistake the moment for the man.” Don’t make snap judgments and don’t judge just by a first impression or just by appearance.
I read about the owner of a manufacturing plant who decided to make a surprise tour of the shop. He was walking through the warehouse and he noticed a young man standing outside the office with his hands in his pocket doing nothing. The boss walked up to him very angrily and said, “Son, how much are you paid a week?” The young man said, “About $800.” The boss pulled out his wallet, peeled off eight $100 bills, gave it to him and said, “Here is a week’s pay. Get out of here and don’t ever come back!”
Without a word the young man put the money in his pocket and took off. The warehouse manager was standing nearby staring in amazement. The boss walked over to him to said, “You are supposed to be running this warehouse. How long has that lazy guy been working for us and why have you been putting up with it?” The manager said, “He doesn’t work here. He had just delivered a package and was waiting on his receipt.”
That is what Jesus meant in verse 2. If you are hard on people then people will be hard on you. If you don’t show a lot of mercy to people then people won’t show a lot of mercy to you. You tend to be critical and negative around people then people will tend to be critical and negative about you. Generally speaking when people figure out how you think about them that is usually what they think about you.
I love the poem about a man who died and went to heaven. It went like this:
I dreamed death came the other night
And heaven’s gate swung wide.
With kindly grace an angel came
And ushered me inside.
An there to my astonishment stood
Folks I had known on earth.
Some I had judged and labeled
As unfit and of little worth.
Indignant words rose to my lips
But never were set free.
For every face showed stunned surprise
Not one expected me!
Judge not, that you be not judged. Eliminate improper judgment.
II. Participate In Self-Judgment
Jesus asks two questions— a “Why?” question and a “How?” question. When these questions are correctly answered, you then begin to understand how to judge without being judgmental.
“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?” (Matthew 6:3, ESV)
If you had been in the audience you would have been laughing your head off. The picture painted here is just hilarious. Here is a man staring down a splinter in one’s man eye while he has a 2x4 sticking out of his own. There is a real irony here you don’t want to miss. Do you know what a splinter is? It is just a piece of a log. What Jesus said we are really doing is criticizing a fault we have in our own life. Let me give you an example. Have you ever noticed how gossips talk about people who gossip? Many times, somebody else’s fault is just a chip off your block.
Let me give you a basic principle of human nature. We tend to see a splinter in someone else’s eye as a log while we see a log in our eye as just a splinter. I look at all of your faults with a microscope. I look at all of my faults with a telescope.
I know what you are probably asking, “How could somebody possibly see a splinter in somebody else’s eye, but not be able to see the log that is in their own eye?” The answer is easy. It is because they are not looking for logs. They are looking for splinters. They are not looking for the plank. They are looking for the speck.
I have never pastored a church that didn’t have what I call “speck inspectors.” Every church has splinter specialists. They are part of a secret organization called the “(FBI) – The Fundamentalist Bureau of Investigation”. Their spiritual gift is finding fault, giving criticism, and passing judgment. When it comes to your faults, your failures, or your problems, they’ve got 20/20 vision, but when it comes to theirs they are blind as a bat. That is why everybody else’s faults look so much bigger to us than ours do.
The point that Jesus is making is the next time we start to judge someone let’s talk with ourselves. If we judged ourselves more we would judge others less.
Let me put it another way. If you want to see what you look like you look in a mirror. If you want to see what someone else looks like you look out a window. What Jesus is saying is we need to spend more time looking in the mirror and less time looking out the window. Let me state it this way. The next time you see a splinter in someone else’s life look for the log that is in your own. Remember, the splinter is just a piece of the log. What you see in others is just a reflection of what you see in you.
I heard about a little girl that was watching her mother do the dishes one evening and she suddenly noticed that her mother had some white hair mixed in with her red hair. She looked at her mother and said, “Mother, why are some of your hairs turning white?” The mother, thinking this was a teachable moment said, “Honey, that’s because every time you do something wrong and make mother cry or unhappy one of her hairs turn white.” The little girl thought about that for a moment and then she said, “Momma, how come all of grandma’s hairs are white?” Never look out the window until you look in the mirror.
III. Validate Righteous Judgment
Verse 5 is the key to understanding this whole concept.
“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.” (Matthew 7:5, ESV)
You see the word “hypocrite?” You remember that hypocrisy was one of the three things young people thought about when they heard the word “Christian?” Do you understand now what Jesus means by that word? A hypocrite is someone who looks out the window, but never looks in the mirror. Notice what Jesus said. He did not say, “You are wrong to look out the window.” What He is saying is, “Always first look in the mirror.” The reason why most people misunderstood what Jesus said is because they try to make Jesus say something He didn’t say and they don’t hear Him saying something that He did say.
I am reminder of the lady who came up to Winston Churchill and said, “So Winston, I don’t like your politics and I don’t like your mustache.” Churchill replied, “Madame, I see no earthly reason why you should ever come into contact with either one.” If you aren’t careful you aren’t going to come into contact with either what Jesus didn’t say or what He did say.
There are two words I want you to circle in this verse. It is the word “first” and the word “then.” Those are the two key words in this verse. Everybody wants us to remember the “first” clause, but they want us to forget the “then” clause. What Jesus was saying was that as we deal with other people and as we see wrong doing and as we see someone in need of correction, first look for the log and then deal with the splinter. First look in the mirror and then look out the window. Jesus is not forbidding judgment that is done at the right time, in the right place, in the right way, with the right spirit. In fact, one of the marks of a spiritual person is someone who knows how to judge correctly. I Corinthians 2:15 says, “The spiritual person judges all things.” (1 Corinthians 2:15, ESV)
It is not wrong to confront a person if there is sin in that person’s life. In fact, it is wrong not to do it. Deep down we know this.
If we didn’t have judges who judged, judges who passed sentences, judges who incarcerated criminals we would have anarchy. What would happen to the rule of law in this country if everybody who sat on a jury decided when it came to rapists, child molesters, murderers, and terrorists, “Well who am I to judge? After all, ‘Judge not that you be not judged’. I am going to let them go free.” If we really believed that we would still have child labor, segregation and discrimination and we would have allowed Hitler to conquer the world.
No, we can’t shirk either responsibility. We must always be looking for the log in our eye, but once we’ve dealt with it we must be willing to deal with the splinter in someone else’s. Jesus, again, said it best in John 7:24, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” (John 7:24, ESV)
What does that mean? You never judge a tree by its leaves, but you should judge a tree by its fruit. You never judge a book by its cover, but you should judge a book by its contents. You never judge a person by the color of their skin, but you do judge a person by the content of their character. You never force a person to be what you think they ought to be, but you always try to lovingly lead a person to be what God wants them to be.
If you have made yourself miserable and unhappy because you have gone through life being hyper-critical, hypocritical, negative, self-righteous, holier than thou, then lose that baggage today. If you have allowed someone to keep you from God and His family and the church, because they tried to take God’s place as your judge, forget that, forgive them, and drop that baggage. In either case, if you are living outside of God’s will you are in rebellion against God. You have never received His grace and forgiveness that can only come through a relationship with His Son who died on the cross and was raised from the dead so that you could escape the ultimate judgment. You can drop that baggage today and come to the One who doesn’t want to be your judge, but wants to be your Lord and your Savior.
[1] David Kinnamon, UnChristian, pp. 182,187.