The Hazards of Being Judgmental Matthew 7.1-6 February 3, 2013 Introduction: The great Greek philosopher Socrates once said, To know the good is to do the good. Apparently Socrates didn t know anyone who smokes. During my entire time growing up my mom would smoke cigarettes. While she thankfully quit smoking about fifteen years ago, she was basically a pack-a-day smoker most of her adult life. Now on every one of those packs of cigarettes she smoked was printed a small warning label. It said something to the effect of, Warning: Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health. Not that you really needed a label or the Surgeon General s warning to figure out that inhaling tobacco smoke into your lungs every day for years might cause some health problems! Even as a grade school kid I would read the warning label and go, Well, duh! Yet in spite of the warning label, not to mention countless medical studies and plain old common sense, millions of Americans still smoke cigarettes. It s not that they re unaware of the dangers; they just chose to ignore it. So sorry Socrates, you got this one wrong: to know the good is not necessarily to do the good. There are millions of smokers right now who know it s not good to smoke but still do it anyway. Now before you all think I m going to preach a whole sermon on the dangers of smoking this morning, let me switch gears and talk about a danger of a different sort. Our passage we re going to look at together today can be thought of as sort of a warning label much like the one we find on a pack of cigarettes, except this is a warning not about our physical health but rather our spiritual health. Jesus, the Great Physician, is going to warn us about a harmful practice that may have some serious adverse effects on our souls. It s something far worse than smoking cigarettes or chewing tobacco; it s a warning about the dangers of being judgmental. And even though we know we shouldn t judge others, just like with cigarettes, sometimes we don t always do the good we know we ought to do. So please turn open your Bibles with me to Matthew 7 and let s read the warning label that Jesus provides us. If you didn t bring your Bible with you, I d encourage you to use one of the Bibles in the pew in front of you. You should be able to find our passage on pg. 685. I ll be reading v. 1-6 of Matthew 7 from the English Standard Version. 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 the 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 the log in your own eye? 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. 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. 1
As we work though this section of Scripture together, we re going to see Jesus highlight some harmful effects that judging others can have. So in keeping with the warning label theme, I d like to sum up the main idea of what Jesus is saying to us like this: Main idea: Being judgmental is hazardous to your spiritual health. We re going to consider three aspects of the danger of being judgmental, and the first of these comes from what Jesus says in v. 1-2. So our first point this morning is that 1. Being judgmental affects how you are treated (v. 1-2) Look at v. 1-2 with me again. Jesus says, 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. This passage is arguably the second most popular passage in the Bible. Number one of course is John 3:16. But a very close number two is, Judge not, lest you be judged. Everybody seems to know this verse, even if you aren t a Christian. Spend any time in a conversation where you re confronting somebody about sin and sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, eventually that person will bust out with, Well, doesn t the Bible say we re not to judge which is of course meant to conclusively end the conversation. But what does this really mean exactly? Is Jesus saying we should never make moral or ethical judgments? Is he forbidding us from ever evaluating the words and actions of others? It seems our postmodern culture would like it if Jesus was saying that. These days the idea of tolerance has been taken to an extreme where it no longer means show respect to those who differ with you but rather never accuse someone of being wrong. In our culture, as soon as you label an action as wrong or immoral, you are automatically accused of being intolerant and judgmental. So it s no surprise that this verse is so often quoted by non-christians. But although it is often quoted, it s not always understood properly. Jesus isn t ruling out all moral judgments here. We know this from other passages of Scripture that clearly instruct us to judge others. For example, in his discussion on church discipline, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:12, What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. Expel the wicked man from among you. Scripture tells us that while it is not our place to judge unbelievers, we are to judge the actions of those in the church and if need be practice church discipline. In this particular case, there was sexual immorality in the church and it was appropriate for the church to judge it as such and remove the sinning individual from the church fellowship. Another type of judgment we re called to make is in terms of identifying false teaching. Scripture repeatedly calls for believers to be on watch against those who teach false doctrine, but this of course means we need to judge whether what s being taught is true or not. Furthermore, in v. 6 of our passage Jesus instructs us not to cast our pearls before pigs, which is impossible to obey unless you judge whether the person you re speaking to fits that description or not. So Jesus isn t making a categorical statement 2
against judging, as if we had to abandon all sense of moral discernment. There are appropriate times when we need to judge the rightness or wrongness of a person s words or actions. So then, what is Jesus warning us about in this passage? Jesus is warning us about the kind of judgmental attitude that is quick to condemn others rather than love and forgive them. Being judgmental means that you are highly critical of the faults in others. Instead of assuming the best, a judgmental person will assume the worst and waste little time in harshly condemning others for their actions. That s what Jesus is warning against here. He is not saying that we aren t to make moral judgments, but rather that our moral judgments should be made in a spirit of humility, marked with compassion and eager to offer forgiveness and grace to others. Have you ever been judgmental? I know I wrestle with that. It s easy for me to judge others for their sins. It s easy for me to ride on top of my self-righteous high horse and look down on all those wretched sinners with disdain. It makes me feel good to know that at least I m not like those people. Oh sure, I have some minor little sins and I make some small mistakes at times, but at least I m nothing like that fellow! Is that just me or do you guys feel that way too sometimes? It s easy to judge others because it doesn t require us to do the hard work of listening and trying to understand others; we can just assume we know better and that we are better and that s that! For example, once there was a woman who worked at a supermarket as a check-out girl who wrote to an advice-columnist to complain that she d seen people buy "luxury" food items like expensive birthday cakes and lobster with their food stamps. She went on to say that she thought all those people on welfare who treated themselves to such non-essential luxury items were "lazy and wasteful." Perhaps you ve thought the same thing when you ve seen someone buy an expensive item with food stamps. A few weeks later the advice-columnist devoted an entire column to people who had responded to what the check-out girl wrote. Here s one letter that was pretty typical of those that were sent in: I m the woman who bought the $17 cake and paid for it with food stamps. I thought the check-out woman in the store would burn a hole through me with her eyes. What she didn t know is the cake was for my little girl s birthday. It will be her last. She has bone cancer and will probably be gone within the next six to eight months. I imagine that woman at the check-out wasn t so quick to judge after those responses were published. We often don t have the full story as to why someone is doing what they do. God does, and he can be the perfect righteous judge as a result, but you and I can t. So we need to adopt a humble attitude of love, where we strive to offer other people forgiveness and understanding rather than judgment and condemnation. So then here s the first danger we face if we chose to be judgmental: we ll receive the same sort of treatment in return. In other words, what comes around goes around. If you harshly judge others, you should expect to receive harsh judgment in return. If you 3
are quick to condemn, be prepared to have others be quick to condemn you. But if you are gracious and forgiving, then you can expect others to forgive and show love to you. It s not rocket science to see how that works. For example, when your spouse patiently listens to you and really tries to understand your feelings, how do you respond? Usually the same way, right? You return kindness with kindness. But when he continuously interrupts you and criticizes you and puts you down, how do respond? You want to get them back! You figure, Hey, if he s going to judge me and be all critical, then I m going to give him a taste of his own medicine! That s why Jesus reminds us at the end of v. 2, with the measure you use it will be measured to you. If you re judgmental towards others, then you can expect others to be judgmental towards you. If you re generous in forgiving others, expect to find others responding in kind. But not only will people treat you the same way you treat them; this is also true with God. A few months back we studied the Lord s Prayer and in that Jesus taught us to pray this, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. If we forgive, we can expect God to be forgiving of us; but if we withhold forgiveness, then God will also withhold forgiveness from us. Do you see the grave spiritual danger here? If you re judgmental, then God will respond with judgment towards you. If you are quick to condemn others, then God will waste little time in condemning you. But if you forgive others and are gracious towards them, then God will be gracious and forgiving to you. But you might ask, Then does this mean our works save us? Do we earn forgiveness by how we treat others? Not at all. We re saved by faith alone. But our faith is shown by our good works. If your heart is characterized by unforgiveness and a judgmental attitude, then chances are your so-called faith isn t real. A heart transformed by the grace of God will offer that same grace to others. If it doesn t, then such a person has reason to be very concerned with the state of his or her soul. It s worthwhile for us to pause for a moment and reflect on our own hearts. Are you quick to sit in judgment on others, condemning them for their faults? When you speak, are your words frequently judgmental and critical of others? Jesus is warning you and I here that should be persist we will be treated the same way by others and, far more frighteningly, by God. Don t ignore this warning. A judgmental heart is a cancer to the soul like smoking is to our lungs. Left unchecked, this will result in spiritual death as God will judge us in the same way and with the same measure of harshness and lack of compassion that we have used to judged others. So that s the first hazard to our spiritual health: being judgmental affects how others, especially God, will treat us. You d think that would be plenty of warning for us! But Jesus has another hazard we need to be aware of. So second, we need to see that 2. Being judgmental distorts your vision (v. 3-5) Look back in your Bibles at v. 3-5 with me. 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? Or how can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when there is 4
the log in your own eye? 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 uses a bit of humor here to make his point. Jesus gives us a picture of one guy who has a bit of sawdust in his eye. We ll call him Mr. Speck. Now if you ve ever had some dirt or dust in your eye you know how irritating it is. It s not the worst thing in the world, but it certainly isn t a good thing either. Then Jesus adds to this image a second guy who is trying to help Mr. Speck. But there is a one small well, actually large problem. This second guy has a plank the size of a telephone pole coming out of his eye socket! So this second guy, we ll call Mr. Plank, isn t able to help Mr. Speck because every time Mr. Plank turns his head, Mr. Speck has to duck to avoid getting hit in the head like a ball with a baseball bat! So in light of his condition, there is no way that Mr. Plank is ever going to be able to help Mr. Speck until he first deals with the huge plank jutting out from his eye. It s a funny picture but the point Jesus is making is a very serious one. But the problem with judging others is that we get so preoccupied with their sin that we become blinded to our own. Jesus is saying we need to spend much less time worrying ourselves over the immorality and sinfulness of other people and much more time confronting the immorality that lurks in our own hearts. If you want to be judgmental, then you need go no further than your bathroom mirror to find a highly qualified candidate. See, being judgmental blinds us to our own problems. When we are always so focused on the faults and sins of others, we rapidly lose sight of our own sins. Charles Schulz, the cartoonist who drew the "Peanuts" comic strip, caught the spirit of this passage when Linus asked his sister Lucy, "Why are you always so anxious to criticize me?" Lucy answered, "I just think I have a knack for seeing other people s faults." "What about your own faults?" asked Linus, to which Lucy replied, "I have a knack for overlooking them." It s part of our sinful nature to overlook our own faults and instead focus on the faults of others. It happened in the Garden of Eden. Instead of looking at his own heart and owning up to his sin, Adam responded to God by saying, Well, the woman - who by the way you put here with me - she gave me the fruit. Adam would rather focus on Eve s faults (and even dare to accuse God of being at fault!), than to own up to his own sin. But we all do this. I find it hard to accept blame for my own actions. I would rather spend 20 minutes criticizing someone else than spend 20 seconds saying That s my fault. I sinned. I was wrong. It is difficult to swallow my pride and confess my sins and weaknesses to others. It is far easier for me to judge and criticize other people for their failures. We all would rather take the quick and easy road of judging and condemning others than give a hard and painful look at the sin in own our hearts. I ve done a fair amount of counseling over the years and it is not uncommon for people to focus entirely on the wrong others have done to them while being absolutely unwilling to deal with the sin they ve personally committed. People can become so obsessed with the speck in the other person s eye they refuse to see the log in their own. Tragically a 5
judgmental and unforgiving heart towards others blinds you to the only person you have any power to change - yourself. So how do we strive to work against this sinful tendency to be quick to judge the speck of sin in the eye of others while ignoring the plank of sin in our own? Let me give you a couple of things I try to cultivate in my own life that I think can help. First, assume the best of other people. I cannot emphasize this enough. When you re assuming the best it means you aren t assuming the worst, which is essentially what being judgmental is all about. A judgmental person is always looking for wrong in the other person, always pointing out their sin. It s a negative perspective. But when you assume the best, you re choosing to give people the benefit of the doubt. It means you are trying to look for the positives in others. By assuming the best you re being humble enough to say, There may be some information I don t know about so I better not be too quick to assume the worst about this person. Second, look at situations with people who sin against you as opportunities to grow. When people slander me or get angry at me, I try to see it as a chance for me to grow in godliness. I know how my sinful flesh wants to act - I want to tell the other person off and put him in his place! But instead I pause to examine my heart and honestly ask, Have I sinned in some way? What have I said or done that might have been a cause for this, be it intentionally or unintentionally on my part? I do that before I speak to the person so I make sure I m not talking with anyone while there is still a plank in my eye. Then I approach the phone call or meeting as an opportunity for me to love the other person like Christ would have me do. I try to listen carefully to them. I try to own up to any sin I have and confess it. I try to respond with gentle and kind words, even if those are not given to me in return. Those situations are little tests God gives us to help us grow in righteousness. So try to cultivate that in your life. Assume the best in others. Look at conflicts with others as an opportunity to grow in Christ-likeness as you love your enemies. Examine your own heart before you open your mouth to speak about the sins in others. These are things that if you practice them can help you avoid being judgmental and instead help you grow in greater Christ-likeness. But there s one more danger here in this passage that needs to be addressed and that is the danger of misunderstanding this passage so that you take it to mean abstaining from making any judgments at all. So our third and final point this morning is 3. Lacking judgment wastes your time (v. 6) Look back once again in your Bibles with me at v. 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. 6
Now at first glance this verse may seem out of place. Jesus went from warning against being judgmental to instructing us about not giving precious things to dogs and pigs. So what gives? How does this relate to what came before it? I think the connection is that of helping us not allow the pendulum to swing too far into the opposite direction. In light of the previous verse we might be prone to think, Well, maybe I shouldn t make any evaluative judgments of anyone whatsoever. After all, I need to deal with my sin first before I can ever confront anyone else. Best if I don t judge anyone at all. Do you see how it s possible to come to this conclusion? Certainly something like this seems to be implied by those who frequently trot out Jesus words every time someone tries to say that such and such a behavior is wrong. Who are you to judge, after all? they say. But as I said at the beginning of the message, Jesus isn t ruling out making moral, evaluative judgments. He s not demanding that we naively regard all things and people without any sense of thoughtful discernment. We re told in Scripture to test the spirits and to beware of false prophets so discerning judgment is absolutely required of us. So we ought not be judgmental in that self-righteous, condescending, arrogant, and ultimate hypocritical manner that our sinful flesh is so easily prone to. But we ought to judge in using our powers of reason, discernment, and wisdom mixed with humility to determine the right course of action in our dealings with others. Now I know we like to think of dogs as pets and man s best friend and all, but in Jesus day dogs were often wild animals that could be vicious and subsequently dangerous. And if you ve even been around pigs, especially large ones, you can imagine what a terrible thing it would be to be trampled or gored by one. Jesus is saying to us, You need to recognize that some people are like that. You aren t going to reason with them or win them over with kindness. They are like senseless animals that can t differentiate a valuable pearl from the slop in the feeding trough. In other words, you need to use judgment when it comes to the things of God. Jesus is obviously paining for us a parabolic picture. The holy and the pearls are images of the message of the good news of the kingdom of God. Some will see it as a treasure hidden in a field and sell all he has to obtain it; others will trample it and treat it as if it we nothing more than piece of trash. Those who can t recognize the pearl of the gospel for what it is are like wild dogs or witless swine. Jesus wants us to be discerning and judge when people are like this. We re being called here to judge when those whom we are presenting the gospel to are simply so hard, so calloused, so antagonistic that we simply should walk away and not waste any more time with them. If I might quote Kenny Rogers for a moment, You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, Know when to walk away, Know when to run. I want you all to be salt and light and strive to proclaim the gospel to unbelievers you know. By all means do that. But also recognize that some people just want to fight. They enjoy the sport of a good argument. They want to use you as an opportunity to mock your beliefs and win points with their friends by making witty comments and snide remarks. Some people are just deaf to anything but the sound of their own voice that tells them they are right and anyone who disagrees with them must be complete morons. Jesus is saying you need to recognize that and walk away. Stop wasting your breath. End the 7
conversation, stop posting on the Facebook thread, and let it go. Now I m not saying we shouldn t be persistent in prayer for those people: you should because only the light of God s sovereign saving power is ever going to break into the darkness of anyone s spiritual blindness. But you don t need to be persistent in trying to present to them the gospel when they ve made it clear that they have absolutely no interest in listening. You need to judge when people simply aren t willing to genuinely listen and recognize that they really are just using your witness as a means to attack and belittle you. Let it go. Walk away. Don t waste time with people who show no evidence of God s prior work of enlightening their minds and softening their hearts. Conclusion So let me wrap this up by quoting Socrates again, To know the good is to do the good. While we know this isn t true of our sinful human nature, it is what Christ expects of those who follow him. Jesus has warned us of the dangers of being judgmental and has also reminded us of our need to be discerning about those whom we proclaim the good news of the kingdom of heaven to. Now the question remains: will we do the good Christ asks of us? Will we be people who heed the warning about being judgmental or will we be like the smoker who knows what the warning label says but chooses to ignore it? That s the choice each of us must make. Here at Grace Brethren Church we want to be a church that s characterized by grace and mercy, not judgmental condemnation. We want to be a people who look like Jesus in all we do. We desire to be discerning about sin both when we see it in others but especially the sin in our own hearts. We want to lovingly confront those caught in sin and seek out forgiveness and reconciliation. We want to be a church where we don t tear each other down but rather we build each other up by assuming the best of our brothers and sisters. But in order to be that as a church, we need each one of you to be that as a Christian. So let s commit ourselves to the Lord right now and ask him to help us individually and us as a church corporately to heed this warning and answer his call to be discerning, but not judgmental; loving, but not endlessly permissive; forgiving, but willing to be accountable one to another; serious about addressing sin in our midst, but most serious about dealing with the sin that lurks within ourselves. Let s pray. This sermon was addressed originally to the people at Grace Brethren Church of Waterloo, IA by Pastor Rob Borkowitz. Copyright 2013. 8